Several days passed without any incident. The rebels out in the caves were quiet. The dwarves defending the city waited for another attack. They now numbered enough to hold the gates without problem. It was then that Seeroth discovered and caught a dwarf slipping in and out of the city. The dwarf revealed that he had told the rebels everything, most importantly that the Dragon Lord boy was no longer in Underheim.
“Spineless spider brained fools! They have gone to take the other cities.” Seeroth calmed a little and stopped swinging his mace around dangerously.
“Do we hold Underheim or give them chase?” Kirlk questioned when Seeroth stopped speaking.
“By the deep, we give them chase or they will be back with every miserable recruit they can press into service. Those rebels think they have the right of the histories and will drive us to extinction if they have their way about it. Those stone headed fools will march the dwarves out and declare war on all the other races if they get their slime rotten fingers into it. I have seen what the Dragon Lord is capable of. We wouldn’t stand half a chance if he gets stronger, that and the fact that the rest of the races wouldn’t sit back while the Purifiers in their spider leaving smeared white robes tell them what to do.” Seeroth broke into another unintelligible storm of insults aimed at the rebels.
“What about Underheim?” Roild asked when the mutterings from Seeroth had subsided.
“There are a number of dwarfs that don’t want to march against the rebels, but they will still oppose them. Should be more than enough to hold the city.”
“When do we move out?” Taric seemed timid as he asked. It was out of his character enough that Seeroth broke into laughter.
“One last sweep of the city. Make sure that all the gates are locked and manned by trusted men. Kirlk, if you will remain here to oversee the guard. Roild, Taric and I with half the men willing to march will go south to Kalsrod. Fraic, you take the rest and go to Muendtem. They are the largest settlements and most likely to be targeted by the rebels. The rest are small enough that we can retake them when we have the time.” The men jumped into action without further hesitation and soon left Seeroth alone with Roild and Taric. Fraic seemed like she wanted to ask something, but she changed her mind and left with the rest.
“More than you had bargained on by coming here?” Seeroth chuckled as Taric rolled his eyes.
“Is there a reason for separating Fraic and I?” Taric uneasily fingered one of his hammer’s handles.
“The Dragon Lord was able to channel through you and her. I think it is related to proximity. It doesn’t help us find him if you and her are both in the same place.”
“So you still want to find him?” Roild wasn’t sure if he should like or dislike the idea. The Dragon Lord was on the surface, a world in which he had difficulty picturing a dwarf.
“You are the one that lost him. I would have thought that you would be the one most interested in finding him.” Roild flinched under Seeroth’s emotionless stare.
“I had no way of knowing that door led to the surface.”
“I suppose you didn’t. If it had been a closet, he might have been in the rebel’s hands right now.” Seeroth tugged at his beard thoughtfully.
“What is done is done. We need to keep our people safe before we start worrying about the overworld.” Roild recalled the last time he had seen Esteris before shaking his head. Now was not the time to become distracted. He would see her soon enough and hopefully in time to prevent battle flooding the streets of his home.
***
“Insignor, what do you see?” Essdra pulled her cloak tighter around her. The beginnings of the Vaulwar Heights were far different than the climate in the Elder Forest. They were traversing the mountain side and hiding from the dragon patrols. Their set of snow white cloaks allowed them to hide and provided more warmth than the standard brown cloaks, yet despite the summer, there was still a bite to the wind.
“Life and death. Pain and trials.” Insignor was as cryptic as ever. Essdra had long ago given up trying to make sense of him when he was in this mood.
“Or don’t tell me. Have you found where we are going?”
“I have a grandson, but there is sadness. My daughter is dead.” Essdra refrained from commenting. She was unsure if he was speaking cryptically again.
“Do you know where we are going?”
“They took him to the towers. He is strong with the core, although that is not enough. Touched by madness yet resilient. There is something else that sustains him.” Insignor seemed perplexed, uncertain even.
“Your grandson or the Dragon Lord?” Essdra kept an eye on the skyline expecting another of the dragons to appear. Insignor had revealed themselves to a gray one, but he was adamant that they must hide from the rest. It took all their skill to disguise their scent and a watchful eye for the regular patrols. The dragons were not likely to molest them even if they were found, but it was easiest to avoid any difficult confrontations.
“Both.”
“They are both touched by madness?” Essdra took the fact that Insignor had a grandson in stride. There was still the fact that he could have been speaking rhetorically.
“Yes… My grandson more so. It was all I could do to keep him from it, but he has embraced the core now and will be all right… I think. The Dragons Lords are different. I feel four eyes when watch them. Each is two. No, one is still two, but one at the same time.” Essdra frowned. He had outright mentioned a grandson, but in the next breath had started into what seemed gibberish.
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I.” This simple admittance from Insignor was the most perplexing yet.
“Are we are going to the towers?”
“No.” Insignor shifted his distant gaze towards the east. “The humans are moving.”
“They are moving on the Elder Forest?” Essdra instinctively gripped her sword pommel.
“No… East. The Badlands… and the Sand Sea.”
“So where then are we going?” Essdra realized in frustration that she had asked virtually the same question four times now.
“East.” Insignor said it like it was the obvious answer.
“You really have a grandson?”
“Is that not what I said?”
“And he was at Firgrest?”
“Yes.”
“You tricked a dragon into rescuing your grandson?” Essdra caught a brief glimpse of the plot that Insignor was deftly weaving.
“No, I did not trick them. The dragon’s interests aligned with mine momentarily. It matters not if my motives for telling them were different than they thought. They have their Dragon Lords and my grandson is no longer held by humans. Freeing him from the dragons will have to wait. It may yet resolve itself, I can’t see clearly.”
“There are more than one? You said Dragon Lords.” Essdra faltered in a step as she followed Insignor down the slope as he headed in a due east direction.
“There are two.”
“Do they have Skeln’den’hal?”
“The Asgare still carries the blade. I see now why he was able to take it up.”
“Why?” Essdra tried to keep the bitterness from her voice and knew she had failed when Insignor looked over his shoulder with that half smile that made her feel like she was only a century old again.
“They are awakening.” Before Essdra was able ask who, Insignor continued. “The soul forgings carry the shadows of the Dragon Lords that carried them. There are three now.”
“Three?” Essdra missed a step and nearly slid across the piece of rotten ice.
“Night Soul was the first to waken. He chose the Asgare as his host. Storm Queen was the next to stir. Stone Walker’s time is nearing.” Insignor paused and waited for Essdra to catch up.
“But, you have the Storm Queen’s coronet.”
“I have sensed her before, but… we recently came to an agreement. I agreed to be her host if she would save Spirion.”
“Why?” Essdra could onl
y think of the one question. A thousand others refused to be reduced to mere words.
“Spirion is the last of my blood. There are other reasons. I sense that there are things afoot that are beyond my understanding. I am not her mindless vassal. She hasn’t interfered or forced my hand… yet. She is just watching… and waiting. I am not sure for what; however, I know that they all are.”
“All of them?” Essdra got the sense that he was speaking of more than the three.
“All thirteen. No… Fourteen… or fifteen, it is unclear.” Insignor frowned to the north.
“Fourteen? I thought that there was only twelve soul forgings.”
“There are. The thirteenth shard has been forged and the first is present in what remains, the only one remaining yet not the last. The last is veiled from me. The first has become the thirteenth and the thirteenth shard has become the fourteenth. The fourteenth was before the thirteenth and yet was also after, more so after. The last and the fourteenth are one as many times as they are not. The same, but different. The fourteenth gave the last something. I am not sure what. I can only see a part. It makes little sense and there is no logic. It is all very confusing.” Essdra shook her head. If what Insignor was seeing confused him, there was no way that she could make any better sense of it.
***
Incrin squinted at the scroll in front of him. The candle was burning low and was going to gutter soon, but for all of its threatening flickers, he paid it no heed. His attention was fastened on the document before him. An original telling of the last battles of the Millennium war. It was a parchment left stored in a cylinder of the purest stone oil when not being read. Few other than himself were able to touch the jars they were sealed in, let alone handle them for reading. Another piece of parchment was stretched out at his other hand and held down by a jar of blotting sand, an inkwell, and several cylinders of sealing wax to hold the corners. Clusters of notes and lines copied from the manuscript haphazardly scrawled in all manner of orientations and hands like one would expect if they never looked as they were writing. A couple lines ran over other entries. Most were translations from the older manuscript. It was an ancient version of the common tongue, altered in script and verbiage, but he was as much at home with it as the tongue he had spoken since birth. He hardly notice when Tarth entered the chamber.
“Have you found any clues of Stone Walker’s mace?” Tarth’s presence elicited an annoyed shooing motion from Incrin.
“Careful, this is an old document. If I knew anything worth telling you, you would be the first to know.” Few were able to take that tone with the chosen presiding over this shelter, the largest on Den’dra. The underground in The Forks held the primary collection of the original histories. Incrin tried not to think of the ways that these documents had come into the Order’s hands. Murder, intrigue and theft were the usual stories.
“Just be sure to tell me when you do find anything. Alban is an impatient man.” The unnecessary admonition was lost on Incrin as he was already deep in the words again. Tarth shook his head before leaving. Incrin got special treatment and everyone knew it. The older man had spent a large part of his life down here among the dusty scrolls. There was little that he didn’t know or couldn’t with enough time.
Tarth wasn’t the kind of person that you would expect to be in charge of a shelter, especially not the largest shelter. Usually quiet and not given to the constant internal power struggle, it came as a surprise when he had suddenly filled the vacancy left at the death of his predecessor. All the other candidates were so busy fighting amongst themselves that they only realized Tarth’s move when it was too late to do anything about it. He had never demanded the title, but had filled the place so adequately that everyone called him Lord Tarth regardless.
However quiet he was, his grip on control was like iron. All knew the price for opposing him. The intrigues had all but disappeared, hidden from his sight at least. Despite his position and title, he had misgivings about the course that the Order followed. The days of dark elf leadership were gone in his opinion. What mattered now was keeping Gifted safe from Reigns. He would have chosen an ordinary life if he had a choice. Being an empath prevented that ordinary life. Much like it had for Incrin. Alban was another issue that annoyed the man. Alban had filled a power vacuum sometime in the past and had assumed a position of authority over the entire order rather than just his shelter. Most submitted to avoid confrontation and Tarth wasn’t one to make waves when it was unnecessary. Tarth feared that a time would come when Alban’s interests drifted far enough afield that he would have to refuse the man’s demands.
Incrin had been a sewer rat in The Forks until he had been old enough to hire out to one of the boats that traveled up and down the midlands. His Gift wasn’t immediately apparent. It manifested as clear skies and a wind that seemed to favor the river boat until one day, Incrin had gotten into a fight. A dense fog had appeared and strange winds blew from all directions before a blow had fallen him. The crew and captain had thrown him overboard where he narrowly avoided drowning. A member of the Order had pulled him from the water and nursed him back to health in the shelter. It was there, as some said, that he found his true Gift. His ability to absorb knowledge was unmatched. Soon he had taken over the archives and now considered them his own kingdom.
“Stone Walker faced the faceless dark hordes with his mighty mace, Giansar’thrack. Earth iron. It seemed a light tap, except the ground shook at the mace’s impact. A tear appeared and swallowed hundreds of the twisted creatures. The tide of the battle between human and wrathy spawn was turned by Stone Walker. After barring the advance of the hideous halflings, Stone Walker sought out and attacked the Wraith controlling the horde. We were forced to retreat and watch from afar as Stone Walker battle the cursed being. The earth heaved and tore the tear even wider. We feared the mountains would crumble with the ferocity of the battle. The Vaulwar mountain side was pummeled into sand before the battle was finished. The Wraith escaped with his life, but so did the majority of the human and dwarven host. Stone Walker departed after the Wraith leaving us to finish the broken halfling army. To this day, that crack still remains carved down the mountain. A testament to the power of the Dragon Lords.” Incrin hardly realized he was reading aloud.
Most would have denounced the retelling a blaspheme, written by the deceived, but Incrin had long ago decided that the Wraith were not the heroes that they were made out to be. Every tale told by the “deceived” matched while the tales written by the “enlightened” among the order were often conflicting and written years after the actual events. Written by people whose only sources of information had been nothing but what they felt must be right because the Dragon Lords could not have been heroes. It disgusted Incrin that such people called themselves scholars. This was the second to the last time that the weapon entitled Earth Iron had been mentioned. The next time was at a recounting of Stone Walker’s tomb and burial.
“Stone Walker was the first of the Dragon Lords to die, scarcely three years after the beginning of the curse. He spent almost every moment of his life after the war ended by carving tunnels through the length and breadth of the Vaulwar. We found him lying in a tunnel and carved his tomb out of the stone he had died within. The humans desired his final resting place to be above the ground so his tomb was carved into the side of Mount Kivalin. At his side, the (a splatter of ink obscured the next words) laid Giansar’thrack that he might have a familiar shape at his side for the next life.” Incrin mused with a frown. This was the copy of the scroll that Reigns had used to find the forged mace in the first place. No one had known it existed until Reigns had set a scribe to translating it. Incrin scowled bitterly that he hadn’t the original. The scribe had told him that the original was damaged in that line also, but there was no excuse for spilling ink on it.
“A familiar shape. Interesting wording… I wonder…” Incrin hastily lit a new candle from the stump of the one dying before rifling through the racks of scrolls. Finding the o
ne he sought after several minutes, he returned to the table. This one would have been consigned to a fire pile with great ceremony by many in the order if they knew who the author was. An actual Dragon Lord. Written in the ancient tongue as it was, few could read it. Of the few that prided themselves in their knowledge of the ancient tongue, few knew the ancient dialect of the tongue that the Dragon Lords used. It was almost different enough to be called an ancient tongue in its own right.
“The curse affected all the races differently. The dark elves were hardly affected while the light elves, dragons and Dragon Lords were affected the heaviest. Humans were struck down by three out of four in the hardest hit areas to one out of five in the lightest hit regions. The dwarves became ill on the surface. The halfling hordes were struck the hardest, but only as their masters were affected and withdrew. The dragons were only safe within their shells. My brother, Night Soul, tended the unhatched while I attempted to save what was left of the light elves. We would have died as fast as the dragons if we hadn’t our soul forgings at our sides, indeed those of us that had lost that part of ourselves, they died within a couple short years. I took my Light Bow and joined the Storm Queen in building a ward around the Elder Forest. It held the curse at bay, but we are consumed in the effort. Our doom is sealed, but the light elves will survive.” Incrin laughed out loud. Tarth must have been loitering near the record vault because he appeared a moment later.
“Did you find something?” Tarth glanced around and found that scrolls and tomes filled every chair except for the one that Incrin sat.
“They won’t like it.”
“I'm the one that has to tell them.” Tarth carefully set the tomes piled in one chair on the floor under Incrin’s disapproving eye. He knew that the eccentric had a problem with any document on the floor even though he could see little difference between the floor and being carelessly heaped on every flat surface in the room.
“You should probably leave out that I found it in the forbidden writings.”
Chronicles of Den'dra: A land on Fire Page 40
