by Ben Wolf
Kent frowned. “I see.”
“But before he perished, LaBorn passed the dagger on to Chimadon, who passed it along to me before he died, some ten years ago,” Grandfather said. “He sought me out and made sure it came to me, rather than be lost. And when he did, he revealed to me what LaBorn had told him about the dagger.
“Chimadon said that LaBorn had used it like a magnet, but in reverse. Through his magic, he could somehow sense the presence of other ice-forged weapons, and so he used it to find our path out of the temple. The weaker the sensation, the closer we were to a viable exit.
“It was just a theory, and I can’t fathom how it worked, but I stand here today as living proof that it did.” Grandfather looked at Kent. “Does that make sense, given your understanding of magic?”
Kent nodded. “At the very least, it gives me a starting point.”
“So we just need to carry that toothpick north along the merchant road, and it’ll give Kent some sort of signal when we’re close to the other weapons?” Garrick asked. “Sounds too easy.”
“Easy would be a welcome change for you all, I imagine,” Grandfather said.
Garrick didn’t have a retort for that. They all could use a break, and Garrick knew it.
“Remember, I learned this from a dying man, who learned it from another dying man,” Grandfather said. “By that same process of conveying truth, nations have risen and fallen. Kings and queens have been crowned—or lost their thrones—based on less. So I must request that you not hold it against me if I am wrong.”
Grandfather extended the dagger toward Kent, pommel-first, holding it just under its ornate hand-guard made of swirled, silver metal, as bright as the steel in the dragon sword Kent had been forced to leave back at Valdis Keep.
Kent took the dagger in his hand, and it immediately pulled at his magic, harder than the dragon sword, harder than Garrick’s snow steel weapons, and harder than the flail Lord Valdis had given him.
But even while the pull felt stronger, it also felt different. It felt smoother, more natural, somehow, as if it didn’t crave his magic like the other weapons had.
Instead, the dagger… expected it.
For the time being, Kent didn’t grant the weapon any magic. Without knowing what it might do, he didn’t want to risk activating it. If a god really had forged it—perhaps even Fjorst himself—the possibilities were endless.
“Thank you.” Kent gave Mehta’s grandfather a slight bow. “You have, perhaps, enabled us to prevent a horrific future for this world.”
“Yes, thank you,” Aeron followed up.
“Having lost my son and daughter-in-law to that man’s cruelty, and then having lost Mehta, only to have him return to me many years later, I understand why this is so important to you,” Grandfather said. “To all of you. I pray that the gods bless you with justice just as they blessed me with a second chance so many years ago.”
“We will,” Garrick said. “He’ll get what he deserves. Falna, too.”
Grandfather extended the walking stick toward Kent next. “You will need this as well. Better to conceal the weapon while traveling, just in case.”
“Again, thank you.” Kent accepted it and carefully inserted the dagger into the walking stick again. It was impeccably designed and ingenious, the way the walking stick concealed the dagger’s presence. Whoever had crafted it had done so with considerable care and attention.
“If we’re going to do this,” Aeron asked, “what do I do with Kallie? I don’t want to leave her here alone, but I need to come with you guys.”
“Bring her along,” Garrick said.
Aeron blinked at him. “Are you… I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”
“I’m serious,” Garrick said. “Bring her along. She won’t be safer anywhere else.”
“Taking my sister, who has no combat experience whatsoever, into the temple of a god that’s riddled with traps and snares and occupied by… whatever was killing those men… is not my idea of ‘safe.’”
“If she’s with us, we can keep track of her. You can’t leave her here. You can’t take her down to your parents; they can’t keep her safe,” Garrick said. “You can’t hire someone to take care of her—Lord Valdis can buy out anyone’s loyalty if he wants to. So what other options do you have?”
“Garrick is right,” Kent said. “She will be safest with us.”
Aeron scoffed. “I can’t believe this.”
“Got a better idea? If so, let’s hear it,” Garrick said.
Aeron’s mouth clamped shut for a long moment. Then he finally said, “I guess I’ll think about it.”
“Grandfather?” Palomi’s voice came from the doorway.
Everyone turned to face her.
“There are men outside our front door,” she said. “They look angry.”
Chapter Ten
Neither Garrick nor the men standing outside Mehta’s family home got what they were expecting when he opened the front door. He’d expected a handful of men, perhaps some of them armed, ready to try to force Garrick and the others out of the village.
Wouldn’t have been the first time people wanted to run him out of town.
Instead, he found dozens of brown faces. Men, women, and even some children had gathered outside of Mehta’s family home—far more than Garrick could’ve counted. Perhaps the whole village had shown up.
But when he opened the door and emerged from it instead of Mehta, Palomi, or their grandfather, the villagers gawked at him. It was yet another moment where being nearly seven feet tall, well-muscled, over four hundred pounds, and having slightly green skin and bluish hair served him well.
“What?” he barked at them.
A group of men standing in the front of the group glanced at each other.
Then one of them, a tall, strong-looking fellow with a thick black beard, stepped forward. He shared the brown skin and dark-brown eyes of his fellow villagers, and he balanced a lumberjack’s axe over his left shoulder with his left hand.
“You disrupted our village and our way of life,” he said. “And you killed the soldiers of the three-horned ram. There will be a price to pay for these actions.”
Garrick stared at the man. He had a point; the four mercs hadn’t done much to clean up after themselves, despite the mess they’d made.
They’d left the bodies of the dead soldiers in the streets, and the villagers had swarmed them, eager to salvage what they could, whether it was the soldiers’ armor or weapons or anything else they had on them. In a place so isolated and burdened with poverty, every little bit helped.
As for the damage, it could’ve been far worse. Aeron, Kent, and Mehta had managed to contain it relatively well, despite Falna’s wild, fiery behavior.
Had Garrick not switched sides midway through the battle, it would’ve gone down far differently. Regardless of what this guy was saying, the village on the whole hadn’t sustained much damage.
Then Garrick considered the father and daughter who’d lost a wife and mother. That family had lost literally everything. They would need more than just a few pieces of armor and weapons to rebuild their life, and even then, it would never be the same again.
Garrick cursed Falna, he cursed the Crimson Flame, and most of all, he cursed Lord Valdis. In all the time Garrick had known and worked for him, Lord Valdis had always done what was necessary to gain more power. Now the thought of it sickened Garrick.
Soon enough, you’ll get what you deserve, Garrick mused.
“I said there will be a price to pay,” the bearded man repeated.
Garrick refocused on him. “What’s your point?”
“We…” The bearded man hesitated. “…expect you to pay it.”
A compulsory sigh escaped Garrick’s lips. He was preparing to go on a dangerous quest in search of weapons capable of slaying not only the most powerful dark lord on the continent but also his pet dragon…
…and this guy was worried about being compensated for damages.
<
br /> “Look, kid,” Garrick started. The man wasn’t really a kid, but given Garrick’s advanced age, he used the term liberally. “I’ve got bigger problems than a handful of singed trees and houses. So beat it.”
“The men you and your friends killed,” the bearded man said, “there is a cost to their deaths as well. The last time we resisted, these men came back with a small army and annihilated those who had opposed them. Now that several of their men are dead, it will be worse.”
Mehta, Kent, and Aeron had come out of the front door and now stood by Garrick in front of the house.
Garrick turned to Mehta. “They’re your people. Want to handle this?”
Mehta swallowed. “I can try.”
Mehta wasn’t the ideal choice for talking to anyone, but Garrick was counting on the familiarity of his skin tone to play better with these locals.
“You don’t need to fear retribution,” he told them.
Mehta followed that statement up with an unnaturally long pause, and at first Garrick wondered if he thought that singular statement would be enough.
But then he added, “We’re going to take care of it. We’ll make sure these men never come back here, one way or another.”
The villagers murmured among themselves until the bearded man finally spoke again.
“That is all well and good,” he said, “but how do we deal with the damages and the losses already inflicted upon our village? Who will pay to restore our property back to the way it was?”
“The same way we always do,” an old voice sounded from behind Garrick. Grandfather stood in the doorway, leaning on its frame instead of on his walking stick, which was now in Kent’s possession. “Through hard work and the love and support of our entire community. We can and will rebuild, and we will aid each other in every way.”
“That’s not good enough,” the bearded man said. “A burning tree fell on my roof. We barely managed to put out the flames before they spread to my house. But the weight of the tree still caved in a section of my roof.”
Garrick huffed. Must’ve been one of the trees Falna hit with her fire magic.
“You think this is funny?” the bearded man stared up at Garrick with fresh rage in his eyes.
Where was that gusto when Lord Valdis’s soldiers were invading your village?
Garrick frowned at him. “What’s funny is that you have no idea who you’re dealing with. The lord who sent those soldiers couldn’t care less about this elk-pie of a town. He’d just as soon bury it in a landslide as send men here to rob the place. You’re nothing but blades of grass blowing in someone else’s wind.
“He’s got far bigger plans—continent-sprawling plans,” Garrick continued, “and we’re the only ones who can stop him. So if you wanna keep arguing about roofs and returning soldiers, go for it. But we have actual work to do.”
With that, Garrick turned and went back inside the house. The others could handle the rest. The only thing that mattered to Garrick now was taking down Lord Valdis once and for all.
Maybe then, Garrick would be truly free as well.
“What’s this about?” Garrick asked Kent. Puffs of vapor accented his every word, and the frigid air prickled at his face. “It’s too cold to be out here for long.”
His body ached all over from the pummeling he’d taken from Kent’s rocks earlier that day—now far more painful than when he’d held the phantom steel weapons, which must’ve numbed him to pain to some extent. He was paying for it now, though, with bruises and tender muscles aplenty. The cold wasn’t helping anything, either.
That night, Garrick had joined the others behind the house yet again. Kent had lit a fire, and the four of them stood around it, absorbing its warmth. Kallie, Ferne, Palomi, and Grandfather stayed inside.
The mercs had opted to stay one more night to rest up from the battle that morning, even though it meant cramming into every spare corner of the small house to do so. They would leave tomorrow at sunrise on what Garrick still considered to be a fool’s errand, but they didn’t have any other good ideas.
So he was in it until the end, however it turned out.
“The question of trust arose in our conversation earlier today, particularly with how we might learn to trust one another once again,” Kent began. “I have been considering how to reestablish that trust all day, and I believe I have come to a solution—or at least a good starting point.”
Garrick and the others exchanged glances. They’d traded apologies, but that didn’t change the fact that they’d all betrayed each other. Kent was absolutely right that Valdis Keep had shattered any real trust between them along with that first dragon egg.
“What do you have in mind?” Aeron finally asked.
“An oath,” Kent said. “But not a normal oath. Ours will be unique. This is not a vow of fealty or a promise of partnership; this will be a solemn covenant between the four of us, joining us in a brotherhood from this day until our task is completed.”
“Words mean nothing,” Mehta said. “We need more. A blood oath. Blood is tangible. Bold. A sacrifice.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Kent said.
“A blood oath?” Garrick scoffed. “What are we, teenagers?”
He’d heard of such pacts before, but he’d never sworn one. Loyalty, for him, was an inherent trait. He didn’t betray those whom he trusted, and he expected the same treatment in return.
Even so, several of his recent professional relationships had developed a habit of souring. The proposal of a blood oath had sounded silly at first, but maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
“Teenagers, no,” Kent replied. “If we take this seriously, it will be a galvanizing moment for us as individuals and as a team—though I confess I have never sworn such an oath myself.”
“I have,” Mehta said.
That confession didn’t surprise Garrick at all.
“It’s part of the Xyonate initiation. Once a trainee passes his final tests, he swears a blood oath to his Xyonate brethren and to Xyon to serve them both for the remainder of his days.”
“Yours must not’ve stuck, eh?” Garrick quipped.
“I considered the pact broken when they tried to sift me,” Mehta said, unfazed by Garrick’s jab. “Otherwise, I would still be bound to it.”
“So this isn’t some magical thing?” Aeron said. “It’s not like I’ll get killed if I break it? Not that I would, of course. I’m just confused. I swore an oath to Govalia and the emperor when I joined the army, but this sounds… deeper.”
“It is not bound by magic,” Kent replied. “I do not know how to create such a pact. But consider it a holy rite nonetheless, a union of our wills and destinies to achieve our common goal: to defeat Lord Valdis for good. And we will allow nothing short of death to stop us.”
“Then I’m in.” Aeron started pulling off one of his gauntlets. “Am I supposed to cut myself, or how does this work?”
Mehta produced one of his knives and extended it toward Aeron, who took it.
Part of Garrick couldn’t believe they were really about to go through with this. If he agreed to it, he’d be tethering himself to these three men indefinitely. They’d become his brothers in arms, his closest friends.
But the oath would keep them from separating for their own ambitions going forward, and most importantly, it would bind them together until they eliminated Lord Valdis once and for all. With that as the reasoning behind this decision, he was absolutely behind it.
“Those blades won’t pierce my skin,” Garrick said to Mehta. He considered removing his mage steel knife from his belt, but instead, he turned to Kent. “Let’s make this real. Use magic. That kind of scar doesn’t fade as easily. We’ll remember this mark forever.”
Kent hesitated at first, but when Garrick held up his right fist and exposed the outside of his forearm from under his cloak, Kent obliged. He took hold of Garrick’s wrist and traced his blue, glowing finger down Garrick’s forearm for about three inches, right in the meatie
st part of his flesh.
It hurt worse than Garrick had expected, but it got the job done. He lowered his arm and let his dark blood ooze down to his hand and fingers. It felt warm, but in the cold air, it wouldn’t stay warm for long.
“Who is next?” Kent asked.
Aeron volunteered, and Kent repeated the process with him and then Mehta. Kent’s raw magic wouldn’t harm his own person, so Mehta cut Kent’s forearm with his knife instead.
Garrick’s wound had already begun to seal up, but he’d collected enough blood in his hand to make for a juicy blood pact. Then again, they were just making this up as they went along, so who was to say if they were doing it right or not?
He extended his hand, palm up, over the fire. Kent placed his hand on Garrick’s palm, and then Mehta and Aeron pressed their bloody palms against Kent’s hand as well. Their blood mingled together and dripped into the flames, sizzling on the burning logs.
“Garrick, you united us. Will you do the honors?” Kent asked.
Technically, Lord Valdis had united them, or maybe the prospect of earning a lot of gold had, or kicking the Crimson Flame in their collective teeth, but it was too cold to argue the point.
“Alright. Uh… we’re making this oath today, in the sight of the gods and goddesses, if they’re watching,” Garrick said. “And if they’re not, we’re watching, so it still counts.”
He’d never been much for fancy words and long speeches, and that had never been truer than right then, but he continued anyway.
“The important thing is, we’re joining our fates and our lives under one purpose, to achieve a common goal. We will not betray each other, and we won’t relent until we’ve finished the job we’re setting out to do today,” he said. “And if any of us decides otherwise, he’s opening himself up to a world of punishment.”
The three others nodded.
“So… we have a blood oath now.” Garrick pulled his hand away, reached toward a drift, and scooped up a handful of snow to clean off his hand and forearm. “That means you can’t go back on your word. We’re linked. We’re brothers.”
