Preview of Unseen Wrath

Prologue

Two miles beneath the surface, deep in the Kaskev Mountains

Junction cavern near the Aedon Dwarven City of Adyrnaarn

By the Dwarven Calendar, 122nd day of the 10484th Year

By the Human Calendar, Twosday, 1st week of Darri, 794

The columns of dwarves marched forth from the mouth of the road tunnel and into the cavern, passing Gudreka, as the strength of Drenia’s legions coiled into it.

            “Gudreka!” Gudreka internally shuddered. He knew that voice. He knew exactly who it was coming from. He knew exactly what that person wanted. And he knew exactly the conversation he was about to have. And yet, he was duty bound. He moved back the broad mouth of the tunnel road towards the voice that would not wait.

            “Yes, Lord Therog, my general,” Gudreka saw his commander.

            “There you are, mud vein. Have the pioneers mark the encampment,” General Therog commanded.

            He already had the pioneers make the markings, post sentries, scout further ahead, start the cook fires, and a litany of other tasks necessary to move an army.

            “Yes, my general,” Gudreka bowed.

            “And post sentries! Even a mud-vein like you should have thought of that! Why do I have to tell you everything?” Therog walked past.

            “Yes, my general,” Gudreka remained bowed until he passed from Therog’s immediate presence before trotting off to the side under the pretense to accomplish tasks that were already done. I have a bad feeling about all o’ this, he grumbled darkly. He looked about the large cavern. Its ceiling soared overhead, slashed with striations of hard rock. The walls were dry and there were no spikes from the ceiling for floor where water dripped and built up minerals. The road tunnel entered the cavern near the floor, but there was a road built up to the entrance of a higher road tunnel entered the cavern. That would be the road to Ashgar-Isriol. Gudreka closed his eyes. He could hear Therog’s voice in his head demanding that his legions be the ones smashing the gates of Ashgar-Isriol, nevermind that the King wants Adyrnaarn as a way to Ezkaarn and Zol. The king wanted to cripple the scheming Aedons for invading Drenia while Drenia was fighting to regain what the Medrians had stolen from Drenia a hundred floods ago.

            Therog wanted to impress the king so much that the king would shower praises, titles, and lavish rewards upon him, which was not particularly strange for any of the generals in King Nerim’s grand army. The problem with Therog was his method, which was to achieve things that were not asked of him. Gudreka supposed that it might make sense to Therog in his own head, if Therog assumed that he would also accomplish what was asked of him, namely the conquest of Adyrnaarn, Ezkaarn, and Zol and to prepare for other legions to march through and conquer a weakened Aedon.

            How did I find myself with this idiot? Gudreka asked himself as he moved about the growing camp and supervised the dwarf captains settle their companies in the places marked for them by the pioneers. But he knew that answer. He knew it well. No one could say when this all started a bit more than two flood seasons ago. King Nerim sent a bundle of decrees about. He reminded us all of what we had lost. What was taken. What was owed. Gudreka remembered some of those times, himself. While not old for a dwarf, Gudreka was not young, either. Having a hundred and twenty three flood seasons in his time, he remembered the sprawling mines and furnaces of Mezar Rin and Rael Dol-Buen. He remembers when Drenia lost them to flood and those thieving Medrians came with false kindness to buy the value of gold with handfuls of copper. Soon after, the Medrians built Ren-Gol and the other new border towns.

            Gudreka remembers well before the orcs took Ikria. The throne did nothing, the high born did nothing and Drenia was left to soak in its shame as even orcs spat on Drenia. Gudreka nearly cried when the levies came. Finally, he remembered the joy he felt as the forges were called to stop to hear the king’s decree. The quotas were filled entirely by volunteers and the recruiters had to turn many back. ‘Someone had to run the forges and farm the mushrooms and the hogs,’ the highborn said.

            Well before the next flood, Drenia marched into Ren-Gol only to be surprised. It was not only the Medrians that cheated. They had conspired with Aedon and Dranomar. As Drenia reached to take back its rightful possession, the thieves of Aedon and Dranomar pressed on Kerolus and Grednir, itself.

            ‘Better to take on all the thieves at once,’ the highborn had said, but Gudreka knew what this really was. This was just like a knife fight behind a drink hall, when three come at you the only way to win is to fight harder, cut deeper, show no mercy, and make no mistakes. The king raised more legions and Gudreka marched back out of Medria and into Aedon. It was not until they broke the gates of Kandaneria and several of Gudreka’s superiors had died to taken serious injury that he was promoted directly under General Therog. He had written back to his wife in Goroboln. She was overjoyed, herself. She had written back about how she bragged that her husband was a major captain under a general and what a chance it would be for them.

            What a chance, he chuckled bitterly. What chance?

            “Major Captain?”

Gudreka roused himself from his bleak reverie to see one of his scouts, his senior scout, in fact. A younger dwarf with a beard that strained to reach below his neck. He wore lighter armor of boiled hog and orc hides and boots of the same. His steel-spined crossbow creaked on its leather sling over his shoulder.

            “Ah, Rangli. Report.”

            “Thank you, Major Captain. It is as you said. No water here,” said Rangli.

            “Eh, that’s fine, it is, what about the banners on the gate?” asked Gudreka.

            “Ahm,” Rangli shifted uneasily, “there were a few, but there was one with a downward axe on it.”

            Gudreka’s eyebrows crept up his forehead, “the King of Aedon, is it?”

Rangli nodded. Gudreka blew out through his mustache. What a chance…

            “Is the banner on both gates?” Gudreka asked. He had to be sure.

            “That it is, major captain,” Rangli said.

            “Right. Go on, then. Fetch me the quartermaster and the master engineer. We’ll have to fix the water problem ‘afore setting into the siege,” Gudreka unconsciously cast his gaze to the far end of the cavern, toward the ramps for the tunnels to the upper and lower gates of Adyrnaarn.

            “Yes, major captain,” Rangli moved off to find the two officials while Gudreka walked towards the gate tunnels. The scouts had already cleared out the sentries from the Adyrnaarn guard, but there was no real hope of surprise in any case. They would have known about the legions’ approach for a few days by now. Without water, the siege camp would have to catch water at the last stream, two days’ march to the rear and move it up… I wonder if we could be puttin’ them in the same problem. Hm. Gudreka looked over the rock striations on the ceiling.

            Gudreka was roused from contemplation again as the quartermaster and the engineer found him. He gave them instructions to the quartermaster begin shuttling the water. For the engineer, he was to come up with plans for digging to the Adyrnaarn water source and for constructing a rude kind of aqueduct to the stream to determine which would be more efficient. Gudreka had formed the basis of a plan to break the gates of Adyrnaarn, but it required time.

            Time to get the ugly business on, he thought after he dismissed the other two dwarves. He looked about and found General Therog’s banner, marking his location, a red banner hanging downward with the embroidery in the middle of three gold medallions arranged into a triangle. He moved towards the banner, neither rushing nor dragging his feet. Gudreka knew the next conversation would be important. And difficult. The general’s guards and Gudreka nodded to each other as he passed. He found his general lounging on a metal chair that folded on hinges for travel, a silver goblet of mushroom brandy dangled between his fingers as he was being dotted upon by the prostitutes he hired as servants. Therog was the only soldier of Drenia here with women. All the other dwarves had to leave their wives, wenches, and strumpets behind when they volunteered.

            “Ah, there y’are Mud-Vein. Took you a bit, eh?” Therog laughed.

            “My General,” Gudreka bowed.

            “Out with it, Mud-Vein! Where are those scouts?”

            “They’ve returned. They ran off the sentries. Adyrnaarn knows we’re here, my general,” Gudreka said, dropping to one knee and planting his fist on the ground.

            “Well and maybe if ye’d been artful on it, we’d have those sentries in hand and them none the wiser,” Therog scolded.

            Until Adyrnaarn changed out the sentries in a day or two, Gudreka though. But there was no point in arguing. Gudreka knew his general knew that. It was about–

            “What’s the hold up on the siege?” Therog asked, swirling his brandy. “And get up.”

            “Water, my general. I’ve tasked the quartermaster with setting up a relay for water from the last stream and the engineer to give a choice on how to get water closer,” Gudreka rose as he answered.

            “Hm,” Therog found something interesting in the depths of his goblet and eyed it. “What banners did the scouts see? What’s the senior one?”

            “The King’s banner, my general,” Gudreka said as his eyes drifted up the skirts of Therog’s serving women.

            “The King’s!?” Therog lurched forward in his chair, the goblet clanged to the ground in his surprise, “with the axe? What’re we waiting for? I want those rams up now and assembled!”

This was what Gudreka had feared in this conversation.

            “My general, going at the gates right on outs the boys in a bad way. We can get the city in a better way if we tunnel–”

            “–Tunnel!? That’ll take until the next flood! No! Rams up now, Mud-Vein! Get those rams up before the water!” Therog bolted to his feet and leaned towards Gudreka as he bellowed.

            “My general,” another voice approached. It was Therog’s war wizard, Aemzon. Aemzon was an older dwarf with a fine lizard-hide coat inlaid with silver in blocky patterns. He was bald and his beard stretched down to his belt. The very bottom of the beard had a faint color of brown. “Listen to Gudreka, eh?” he walked with a limp as the guards admitted him. “Think on the tunnel, eh? It’ll save a lot o’ the boys.”

            “Save the boys? What’re we supposed to be doin’ here? The Aedon king’s right there! King Naurom’s right on the other side o’ that gate! You want us to dig a tunnel?” Therog demanded.

            “The king won’t leave his people, my general,” Gudreka said.

            “Nor will they be leavin’ him! Bust the gate, we fight the city, their king, and the king’s chosen. Dig the tunnel an’ we fight that an’ whatever legions show up, too. Dig a tunnel an’ we give time to the Aedons to raise more legions and move ‘em,” Therog challenged.

            Dig a tunnel and save lives while Kurelig gets to Ezkaarn first, eh? That’s what this is about, ain’t it, ya turd skid? Gudreka glowered as he drew a deep breath, “very well, my general. We will bring down the high gate and flush them out.”

            “And the low gate, Mud-Vein,” Therog poked Gudreka in the chest with a thick finger.

            “… We’ll be losin’ a lot of boys goin’ through two kill boxes, my general,” Gudreka said levelly.

            “An’ what’re we supposed to be doin’, Mud-Vein? You’re bein’ so kind to the boys, maybe you want to be their woman and serve them brandy and other things, eh?” Therog spoke into Gudreka’s face.

            “Eh, my general, maybe I could be makin’ a stone creature with a scroll. That’ll help the boys get through the kill box and crack the gate. I could maybe make two of ‘em?” Aemzon suggested.

            Therog’s body and head reeled over toward Aemzon, “I say ‘no tunnel, it takes too long’ and you say ‘how’s about something else that takes a long time?’ What do you two not understand?” Therog demanded incredulously. “How’s about you,” pointing at Aemzon, “go figure out what you can do to help the rams crack the gates? And you,” Therog stabbed a finger back at Gudreka, “how’s about you get those rams up, eh?”           Therog looked between the two of them as they both looked away from his gaze.

            “Right, then GET OUT!” He yelled at them. Aemzon scurried with his limp. Gudreka left at an even pace.

            “Girl! Come here an’ sit,” he heard Therog’s voice recede behind him.

Typical, eh? Gudreka glowered and then sighed.

            “Rangli?” Gudreka called, the fatigue was pouring into him suddenly. “Rangli?” he called again.

            “Uh, yes, major captain?” Rangli answered after a bit of searching in the camp.

            “Go and fetch me the quartermaster and the engineer again. New plan. Need the rams up soonest,” Gudreka said.

            “Uh, yes, major captain, but what about the water?” Rangli asked, his feet shifting uncertainly.

            “Rangli. Just go and get them, eh?” Gudreka said.

***

At the entrance to the kill box cavern outside the High Gate of the Dwarven City of Adyrnaarn

By the Dwarven Calendar, 130th day of the 10484th Year

By the Human Calendar, Restday, 1st week of Darri, 794

            Another loud clang echoed in the tunnel, another inward dimple showing on the broad thick shield hanging from the front of the ram frame.

            “Push boys!” Gudreka bellowed over his shoulder and looked through the narrow slit in the shield. “Almost there, boys! They can’t stop us now!”

            CLANG

That one hit the shield right by Gudreka’s head. His ears rang after the echo subsided.

            “Push!” his ears still rang. He could barely hear the grind of the wheels of the ram frame on the stone floor of the tunnel. Faintly through the metal-on-stone grinding, the sweep of the oil brush on the bottom of the front of the frame made scuffing sounds with each push on the frame. He could not hear the grating and jingle of the chains as the body of the ram bounced in the frame. The ram was made from a huge, hollow bronze tube, filled with lead and capped with steel, suspended from chains inside the frame of steel and mounted on spoked bronze wheels. These dwarves had been pushing this ram up the slope of the tunnel road for three days under the bombardment from the great siege crossbows guarding the gates, hurling their long bolts of steel, but the worst was about to come.

            They were about to push the ram into the cavern by the High Gate. Like any city, the approach to the gate would be covered from many different places where the defenders would shoot their crossbows at the ram crew from the sides. The crewed siege crossbow would continue to bombard them all the way up to the gate. The shield on the ram was barely enough for the attacks from the front, but the sides were unarmored to keep the ram frame lighter over the great distance to push it. More armor on the sides now was not a possible solution the way it might have been for the other crews going on a downward slope to advance on the lower gate.

            “Put the stop on, boys! Fresh crew! Double crew! We need to push fast. Hear? Ready with the shield bearers,” Gudreka called. That was the answer. Push the ram through as fast as they could and take the losses. Ranks of shield bearers followed the ram and would chase the ram crew, trying to protect them from flank shots. Gudreka wiped away the sweat from his eyes as the crew of exhausted dwarves let two crews take the load of the ram. Gudreka looked over them. Most of them were young with short beards. Most of them were barely over forty floods old, he guessed.

            “Right, boys. This is it! We’re gonna push this ram and make it rumble like the deep stones. We’re gonna break this here gate! And we’re gonna bring honor upon ourselves, eh?” Gudreka called to them. They panted from the exertion of taking over the ram. They were rested, but by no means were they fresh. They had been on the same grueling push over the last three days and that was after the march here from fighting in Kandaneria. But he could see the light in their eyes. The fervor. They would return Drenia to glory. They had the will to fight. They were young and the young were always the most eager to fight.

            “Ready, boys? Ready,” Gudreka watched their faces harden as they steeled themselves. “GO!”

The dwarves gritted and braced their bodies and pushed with their might. Gudreka pushed against the frame as well. The ram frame slowly lurched into a faster motion. They were still pushing the ram up the slope. The air cleared a bit as the frame pushed past the mouth of the gate cavern. The kill box. A fresh breath was all they got before the air was thick with buzzing and pinging and clanging of the crossbow bolts and the acrid smell of oil on the ground. The defenders were shooting them from the sides and the ram crew took them. Gudreka felt the air sear past him from one and jerked to the side, stumbling, as another glanced off the edge of his plate pauldron. Some of the ram crew were lucky like Gudreka, others not so lucky.

            Yelps of surprise and howls of pain sounded behind him. The hurried shuffle of feet of replacement dwarves blended in with the steady clop of the remaining crew. The shield bearers squeezed between the ram frame and the tunnel wall, out into the kill box cavern. Their broad, tall steel shields dragged and skipped on the ground as they rushed to their task. The shield bearers on the left moved faster than those on the right. The crossbows of the high gate of Adyrnaarn claimed some of the shield bearers on the left as they rushed into position and the defenders on the right shot at the crew, some bolts missing the crew and finding the backs of the shield bearers on the left.

            The wounded and dead lay on the ground as the rest of the crew pushed the frame past them, stepping over their fellows who feebly reached for help. The crew and shield bearers that rolled on the ground, crying out in pain were soon silenced by the defenders, sprouting a bolt or two from each of their bellies as if they were dirt mounds spawning metal mushrooms.

            “PUSH, BOYS!” Gudreka’s legs burned in the push as the frame creaked forward. More shield bearers moved up and the crew was mostly protected. The bolts from the defenders sounded against the tall shields much like the sharp fragments of rocks bursting from heat. They pushed and strained as they creaked across the cavern floor towards the doors to upper Adyrnaarn. Maybe it was for a few minutes. Maybe it was for a few hours. Gudreka could not tell how long, but it seemed an eternity, where his boys sweated and died while that buffoon Therog sits in safety and runs his greasy hands over his whores.

TANG.

Gudreka’s world flashed white and spun as he slammed to the ground. His ears rang. He could not hear anything at first. His vision was blurry as he crawled to his hands and knees. He could hear the blurt of voices. It was not the first time the Gudreka had taken a hit to the helmet, but it was always a hard hit when a bolt slams into one’s own helmet. Gudreka was glad the helmet was still there. The pain in his head warred with his concentration and he knew his neck would be dreadfully sore in a bit. If I can manage to live through this.

            “RIGHT BOYS! PUSH,” Gudreka felt the vibrations in his throat more than he could actually hear himself over the ring or distinguish any particular sound over the muffled, distorted cacophony of dwarves’ shouting voices and metal striking metal. He squinted through the small aperture in the front shield plate of the ram frame. They were almost to the gate, now. He chanced a glance over his shoulders. Only a couple dwarves of the crew that started the big push were still on the ram frame. The rest were replacements and he could see the unmoving silhouettes of bodies in the trail behind the ram frame.

            “PUSH, BOYS! A LITTLE MORE!” Gudreka called. Light caught in the corner of his eye. His sight darted over to it. The cavern was lit by flaming braziers, but this was a new light. A light in the stone slits that the defending crossbows shot from. Gudreka closed his eyes as more lights appeared in other slits. This is when they bring the fire. They must’ve wanted to beat us before this. Or maybe, they this is where they push back the hardest.

            “BURN ‘EM DOWN!” Gudreka heard one of the defenders shout. It was a woman’s voice. Before the war, Gudreka had heard that the Medrians and the Aedons gave weapons to their women, but he had not believed it until the first battles in Medria. Gudreka felt bad at first, axing down women, but they fought, so they died.

            The tiny flames leapt down to the ground in the cavern or pinged off of the ram frame. The bolts landed and the ground steamed and smoked for a few breaths before flames leapt up and raced around. It was as if the ground came alive. The flames spread all around the cavern. The smoke choked the air. The ram slowed a bit as the crew struggled for breath, but they were almost there.

            Gudreka was thankful for the brush on the bottom of the front of the ram frame. The brush head scraped against the floor and was shaped like a wedge, pushing the oil off to the sides. Gudreka and the engineer had started insisting on this right before their march on Kandaneria because the Medrians did the same thing and they had lost a lot of good boys from being burnt to death. The thin slick of oil that remained smoked, but their feet stamped out the flames as they pushed on. No good for the shield bearers, though. Their boots were soaked in the oil and readily lit when they fire came to greet them.

            Their tall shields slopped into the flaming oil as they clamored around and screamed as they burned. One by one, they would slip or stumble and fall into the burning oil, rolling and writhing as the fire ate them alive. The only, only blessing was the fire made it too bright for the crossbows to aim accurately. The ram frame had made it, finally, to the last few paces before the doors of the high gate of Adyrnaarn.

            “STAND CLEAR!” his throat vibrated. He was not sure if they could hear him, but they looked. He snatched a hammer from one of the crew behind him, as another one of the forward crew members drew one from his belt loop. They hammered at the retaining pegs for the forward shield. They were close enough to the gate that defenders’ great siege crossbows could mark them and the other crossbows from the side slots had shots on them from the flanks, not the front. The first pair of pegs came out and they feverishly hammered at the last two before casting the hammers aside, lost in the inferno surrounding them, and pushed on the plate. The plate, free of its retaining pegs, rested only on two small shelves on each of the front legs of the frame. Once it began to tip, it carried itself, splatting down into the burning oil slick. Burning globules sprayed in the air, coating Gudreka and the other crew member. The other dwarf hollered, clawing at his face, stumbling blindly into the fire screen. Gudreka grimaced and tried to ignore him and all the other torment around him as his kicked the oil brush off the frame before throwing his shoulder against one of the legs of the ram frame.

            “LAST BITS, BOYS!” he hollered as the frame once against skidded into motion. They strained and grunted as the brightness of the flames and acrid smoke concealed them from the defenders. Gudreka and the remaining crew strained and pushed until the ram frame thudded against the door.

            “MORE CREW!” he shouted back at the cavern opening. He had enough to move the ram, but he knew that they would not last. They were exhausted and some would still be taken by the crossbows. Gudreka wanted fresh men right there for when the gate cracked.

            “ALRIGHT, BOYS, GRAB IT. ONE. TWO. THREE. PULL!” Gudreka and the rest of the crew grabbed the handles or the chain shackles on the massive bronze ram body and collectively pulled it back on Gudreka’s sounding of ‘three.’

            “PUSH!” Gudreka shouted and the group pushed on the ram. Most of its power was in its weight, though. Its weight swung on the chains and slammed into the doors for the gate. It was the first sound that Gudreka was sure he actually heard since taking the bolt in the helmet, though he felt it too. The stone underfoot shook with the vibration and dust puffed off of the door.

            “GRAB IT. ONE. TWO. THREE. PULL!” the crew repeated the drill and pushed the ram on Gudreka’s command. Again and again, they pulled the ram back and pushed it, offering a tiny addition to the mighty weight of it. They heaved with exertion. The metal of the high gate strained and screeched like a dying beast of the deep. Sweat mixed with the soot from the burning oil to make a greasy, ashen mud caked to their faces and slide down their bodies.

            “PUSH!” Gudreka bellowed. A thunderous twang echoed as the warping metal snapped and gave way. They had slain the spirit of the high gate. Or rather, half of it. One of the doors slammed against the interior wall of the gate house and fell off of its hinges, shaking the ground with another loud clang. Beyond it was the interior gate house and another gate. Overhead wer murder holes for the defenders to rain all kinds of unpleasantness upon them. Gudreka braced himself for more death to stare at.

            “PUSH, BOYS! ONE MORE GATE AND YOU TAKE THEIR WOMEN!” the men cheered behind Gudreka as they pushed the ram frame into the gate house. The frame had a roof of steel sheets, but it was thin. Large rocks panged off of the roof and crossbow bolts pinged off, making divots or poked through. A few penetrated the roof and clanged off of helmets or pierced the mail on the necks and shoulders of his men.

            “PUSH!” they repeated the drill, pulling the ram back and pushing it forward. The inner gate screeched in agony as Gudreka heard the thick patter of liquid hitting the roof of the ram and pouring off of the sides or dripping through the holes made by the bolts.

            “MORE OIL! PUSH BOYS! THEY’RE GONNA TRY AND BURN US AGAIN! PUSH IF YA WANT THOSE TASTY TREATS ON THE OTHER SIDE!” they pushed again, but light flared around them before they could pull the ram body back again. Hollers and screams of men burning alive sounded behind him as the ram lost the strength of so many men at once. It weakly nudged the gate, slightly torn ajar.

            Curses! Gudreka looked back. There were more men rushing into the gate house, but he needed their strength to fight on the other side of the gate, not to spend it on the ram. The men whose strength should have been spent on the ram was being eaten by the hungry fire. Gudreka coughed and choked on the smoke before blowing it out through his mustaches.

            “LET’S GO, BOYS!” he shouted. This was the best way because it was the only way. Hustling past the capped head of the ram and pulling his fighting axe free of its belt loop, he squeezed through the gap between the doors where they had started to give. Two more hits and the gate would be done, he lamented, but this was the only way. Spears immediately demanded his lifeblood as they coursed for his neck and face. Sweeping them aside with a reflexive whirl of his axe, he pushed the spear shafts up can kicked one of the defenders while fresh men squeezed through the gap behind him. The first two gave their lifeblood to the indignant spears of Adyrnaarn, but more came. Gudreka fought for his life for a few moments, barely keeping speartips and axe blades off of him, sometimes slapping them aside with a gauntlet. But as more men entered through the gates, they took the fight from him.

            Gudreka stepped back and bent over, heaving for breath. The air inside the upper gate garrison cavern was much clearer since there was no open fire trying to claim anyone in there. He was vaguely aware of more dwarves rushing through the gap in the gate and some of them prying the rest of the gate open. The light of the fire from the gate house and the kill box cavern washed over him and danced in the shadows of more men flooding into the high gate. Soon the twang of defending crossbows silenced as Gudreka’s men silenced those who had been feasting on Gudreka’s flanks for so long.

            He pushed himself off of his knees and stood up “FORWARD, MEN!” He walked more casually now. The worst was over. There was a great deal to do, but they were inside the high gate, his main force was flooding into the high gate garrison, and the defenders would not be able to tell that the push on the lower gate was a ruse.

            He stopped in his tracks as he saw a pair of his men pulling one of the defenders down and stripping their armor off. He already knew the situation before he came upon them. One soldier was holding the defender down while the other one was working on his trouser belt. Gudreka kicked the man over that was working on his belt.

            “OI!” the belted man angrily yelled before realizing it was Gudreka. “Oh, Major Captain, eh?”

            “FUN LATER. FIGHT NOW,” Gudreka shouted firmly.

            “Eh, boss, it’s just a snack to keep us going,” the other one protested while the defender soldier, a woman, writhed and screamed curses at them in the Aedon tongue. Gudreka drove that spike on the butt end of his axe shaft through the ribs under her collarbone. The light in her eyes died with surprise.

            “OI!” the other man leapt back from holding her down. Gudreka held the axe threateningly at the belted man and then slew it over to brush near the other man’s face.

            “Fight now. Fun later,” he said again. He did not shout this time, but he was firmer. The two men gulped. “Aye, major captain,” they said.

***

Upper levels of New Adyrnaarn

            Hrene grabbed a young dwarf newly draped in the livery Adyrnaarn, “you! Go report to the major captain that the garrison is lost to the Drenians.”

            He stared at her wide-eyed, “but-but-” he stuttered.

            “Captain,” she supplied.

            “Captain-cap-c-” he stuttered more.

            “Captain Hrene,” she helped more, gripping him more, starring into his eyes meaningfully, and spoke loudly and slowly, “I need you to tell Major Captain Havrali that Captain Hrene says that the Drenians are inside the city. We have lost the upper garrison completely and they are coming into the city. Do you understand?”

            The young dwarf starred at her for a breath and she was about to shake him again when he nodded and scampered off towards the closest stairway.

            She climbed up some steps to the one of the halls on this level, so she could see out over the heads of her soldiers as they clamored into positions near the mouth of the tunnel to the high gate. Stone walkways hugged the perimeter of the cylindrical cavern that was the largest space of Adyrnaarn. Water fell from a hole in the ceiling of the cavern and fell the length of the cavern to supply the reservoir at the base of the city. More water trickled in from a smaller stream a few levels beneath them, creating a gentler waterfall over the lord’s halls section of the city. The lights of the city glistened off of the falling water, making it sparkle.

            The soldiers formed ranks across the entirety of these walkways on either side of the large opening of the tunnel. In the upper floors and balconies of this level and further parts of the walkways, she had positioned her crossbows, so as to strike the invaders from all sides as soon as they tried their way into the city proper. How could we have given them the upper garrison so easily? She berated herself internally.

            “Alright, you broad axes and bright spears!” her voice carried over their heads and echoed off of the ceiling of the cavern. Some of their heads turned toward her, but most remained fixed on where the enemy would emerge.

            “This scum’s the worst of all dwarvenkind. They take children as slaves, turn proud women to whores, and throw the men to the mines alongside their goblin slaves an’ work them to death! YOU’re the bulwark. YOU’re what keeps their base kind at bay. YOU’re the king’s shield! No matter how many o’ that filth come through that tunnel, you give ‘em a chop in the throat or a poke in the eye an’ let the ranks behind them see what we’ve got for ‘em. When there’s too many o’ them dead on the ground, give ‘em a toss over the side.”

            There were no cheers. They all had a grimness about them. They knew that many of them were about to die.

            “They have no golems wit’ ‘em,” Hrene continued. “They puttin’ nothing but flesh forward here. Give ‘em enough pain an’ they’ll fold.”

            A loud, metallic clunk echoed from up the tunnel. That sounds like, Hrene was thinking just before a blur of motion smashed into the ranks at the tunnel mouth, sending the bodies of six dwarves spinning over the side of the walkway, plummeting into the depths of the city. Some of them screamed as they fell, but one of them had a large steel bolt impaling its body as it sunk to the depths with no sound.

            They’re using our own siege crossbows from the gate, it registered with Hrene. “CLEAR THE TUNNEL PASSAGE” she tried to contend with all of the noise and panic as the soldiers already were already scrambling away from the entrance to the city, pushing back against the ranks that had formed behind them. The Drenian soldiers came after that and fought a bloody stalemate for a long time. The wounded and dead from both sides piled on the walkways or fell over the railings. The upper levels had already been evacuated and everyone pressed into arms that could bear axe or spear, but the Drenians kept coming. Adyrnaarn was not a big city and it seemed the Drenians had brought enough to pay in blood for all of them.

            And they’ve got a wizard, Hrene remembered from one of the briefings from the days before the Drenians broke the upper gate. One of the king’s spies had gotten a message through before the Drenians arrived. They had a wizard and it was only a question of when the Drenians would put him forward. What kind o’ person is that? She wondered. Spies were widely considered a dishonest and dishonorable profession, yet Hrene was thankful for every bit of information that they had provided before the Drenians closed off the upper and lower gates. An’ that’s another thing. The Drenians were still pressing on the lower gate and they could put all of the king’s legion against the high gate in case they broke the lower gate.

            Hrene had come with the king’s own legion to reinforce the homeguard of Adyrnaarn and, the king had hoped, throw the Drenians back at the gate, break their momentum and drive them back through Kandaneria. But there’re so many o’ them for all o’ the spies the king had big beats small. ‘Specially when they haven’t shown their wizard yet.

            Bit by bit, the defenders of Adyrnaarn, homeguard and king’s legion alike, had to give ground and the Drenians controlled the upper levels of the main city, enough so that they wheeled down the siege crossbows from the upper gate and began bombarding the defenders, forcing them to give more ground.

            Their defense concentrated around the great stair, a spiral of stairs, smooth ramps, and a central shaft for a cargo hoist that connected most of the levels to together. There were other stairs and ramps around the periphery of Adyrnaarn, but they were small and could be help by a smaller number of defenders. They were losing another level of the great stair, suffering losses at every level where the entrance to the great stair could be scene and angled by the siege crossbows on the higher levels, when the young dwarf from hours before, his scant beard struggling to break through the skin of his face ran up, stumbling to a stop and panting for breath.

            “What?” Hrene demanded irritably. The boy-dwarf held up a rolled scroll for Hrene, leaning on a knee with his other hand. Hrene took the scroll and unrolled it. Finally, she grumbled. She shoved the scroll back at him, “you tell them not to wait. We’ll be getting’ out o’ the way when they come.”

            The boy-dwarf ran off, squeezing his way through the defenders and down the great stair to deliver Hrene’s reply. They were too many levels below the top for the stolen siege crossbows to bombard them, so they could openly fight on the great stair. But because Aedon fought openly on the great stair, so did Drenia, and right then, the line was buckling at the left flank. Two, three ranks were folding, dead and dying laying at the feet of the Drenians as they started to press the king’s soldiers on two sides.

            “C’mon!” Hrene strapped her shield to her arm and snatched her battle axe out of the loop as she ran, shield in her other hand. She always had a few soldiers out of the line for just this kind of thing. Tried and tested veterans. Their feet pounded on the paving stones, plates clanging against the rustling jingle of the mail, felt more than heard over the din of fighting. Hrene’s first overhand strike took a Drenian soldier by surprise. He was mid-thrust with his spear and working his weapon over the shoulder of another Drenian. Her axeblade came down on the gap between his pauldron and his helmet. The blade did not break the mail, but it jolted him to the ground. She raised her shield in time as a Drenian axe blade skittered off of it. Her soldiers behind her crashed into the other Drenians as she stepped on the weapon arm of the one she had lain prone and drove the top spike into his open-faced helmet.

            He feebly clutched at the axehead as she pressed it in. He shuddered and twitched as she pulled the spike out. The soldier fell limp, but she had already moved on in the space of two breaths, driving the butt spike of the axe between the plates of the Drenian axeman who had been protecting the spearbearer she just killed. The spike passed between the plates and parting some of the rings of his mail. The spike did not drive deep, but the axebearer still fell and her own soldiers finished him off. Holding her shield high, her shoulder tensed and she felt a pop in the joint as the axe squarely rang on her shield. Sweeping widely with the hook-end of her axe blade, it passed until she hit the ankle of another Drenian soldier. Pulling hard, she brought him down and used the momentum of the pull to swing the hook end around and bury it in the Drenian’s chest. The outrage of being killed by a woman showed on his face as he lost the strength to hold up his head.

            Hrene and her soldiers beat back the Drenians for a few moments and were restoring the right flank when someone called to her.

            “Captain! The golems!”

            “Finally,” she called back. Then to her soldiers, “Make a hole! Golems! Make a hole!”

            The rear ranks looked back and saw what she was seeing. Massive bodies, four of them, like a dwarf but three times the size, made of stone and clay, climbed the stairs in great, lumbering strides. Two robed dwarves trailed them, shouting at the earthen creatures and waiving their arms as they scurried. These would be the king’s wizard and the wizard of Adyrnaarn. Hrene had never met Adyrnaarn’s wizard and never gotten to know the king’s wizard. There had been no need.

            I’ll buy them both drinks everyday for the next three floods if they can pull this out of the fire, Hrene thought hopefully as she shouted for the soldiers to get out of the way. The Drenian’s pace of fighting paused as the golems came into their view. The front ranks of Aedon soldiers had not parted yet when the first golem reached over their heads with a huge hand of living stone and grabbed one of the Drenian soldiers. Its enormous hand easily wrapped around the soldier, armored and thick in belly and all, raised the feebly flailing dwarf over its head before smashing him to the ground in his closed fist. Blood and bile squirted from the lump of flesh hanging in the golem’s hand before it through the heap of gore into the ranks of the Drenians. The ranks parted and the other three golems joined the first, crushing, smashing, picking up Drenians and using them as weapons against the other Drenians or throwing them off of the walkway to plummet to the bottom of the city cavern. The Aedon soldiers followed and mopped up the flanks, eliminating the pockets of Drenians that the golems swept past and finishing off the wounded Drenians.

            As quickly as they had lost them, the king’s legion was taking back the levels lost to the Drenians. After retaking a fourth level, the siege crossbows the Drenians had taken from the high gate could manage the angle and began bombarding the golems and the Aedon soldiers with them. One of the golems took several direct hits, with one long steel bolts from the first hit lodged in its torso and the other two hits taking one of its arms. Despite this, the soldiers of Aedon, the two wizards and their golems were able to fight past the entrances to the great stair on each level and managed to lose only a few soldiers to the siege crossbows each floor.

            The golems mauled and crushed the enemy in their march up the great stair. The two wizards drove the golems and Hrene’s soldiers hurried to keep pace, protecting the wizards from the few bypassed Drenians. Hrene looked down at the remains of a Drenian as she kept order behind her soldiers. The ruin of a Drenian oozed on the stairs. One of the golems had stepped on him. The legs and one arm were the only pieces easily recognizable. His other arm, head, and body were mashed together with bits of crushed metal and his clothing in a wet pulp that someone would have to clean off later.

            Hrene grimaced. They were almost up to where they had been hours earlier: three levels below the top of the cavern. The golems were making great progress, but it was only a dent in the Drenians’ numbers. What was actually important was luring out the Drenian wizard. Ruin enough of their gains to force him to commit. Once they can flush him into the open, the two Aedon wizards can crush him and then commence grinding up the rest of the Drenians.

            Flying rock fragments pelted against the wall, sprinkling Hrene and the soldiers with dust and sharp stones. Shielding her eyes, Hrene peered back towards the great stair. The two wizards were arguing. Three of the golems were continuing up past this level’s entrance to the great stair, but the fourth golem, had broken into pieces from the siege crossbows on the high levels. A pair of tenuously attached legs stumbled around, trying to find footing to continue the march upstairs. Hrene could not hear what the wizards were arguing about over the sound of the fighting and shouting of hundreds of dwarves and the rampaging golems, but one of them seemed like he had made up his mind about something.

            No, no, nono, “No! NononoNONONO!” Hrene tried to make him hear over the noise once she realized what he was doing. She watched him produce a wand from the folds of his robe. Energy crackled around the tip, forming into a fiery bead. The bead grew into a ball and shot upward, growing in size and brightness. The flaming ball shot past the siege crossbows, impacting explosively on the wall behind them. Mangled wrecks of the siege crossbows, mangled bodies of the Drenians, and bits of shattered masonry quietly fell from the great height to the echoing sound of the boom.

            “Now ya’ve gone and done it!” Hrene shouted at him, but she was drowned out by the answering impact. Dust, shouting, and blood were everywhere. Hrene could not see clearly.

            “Fight on! Keep ‘em on the run and throw ‘em out of the gate!” Hrene shouted and took the line herself amid the confusion. This was the opposite of what was supposed to happen. The golems were supposed to make the enemy wizard show himself, so our wizards could crush him. The smoke and dust cleared a bit as she fought alongside her soldiers, hacking at silhouettes in the dusty haze that shouted with different accents. Sure enough, she saw the corpse of one of the wizards, half of his face charred away. Two of the golems stood dumbly with no one to drive them. The other wizard sheltered in the arch of the great stair, peering around. Hrene fought on with her soldiers and the other two golems. The were moving up around the broad spiral, when a light flashed behind her and she heard a thunderous crack behind her.

            Looking over her shoulder, she saw one of the golems still standing dumbly. The other one was a smoldering pile of stone and baked clay. As she was turning back, a searing light burned a line in the edge of her vision as the Drenian wizard destroyed the other idle golem. The Aedon wizard, close behind Hrene, cursed at the enemy but his voice was drowned out by the din. This was Adyrnaarn’s wizard. She knew because she did not recognize him.

            They reached the entrance to the next level from the great stair. The golems, oblivious of any danger, continued to smash and drive the Drenian soldiers. They were breaking from a withdrawl into a rout, even with only two of them. Invincible titans to their puny axes and spears. They ran, but the golems easy kept pace with them, crushing and maiming or hurling them to fall the screaming height of the cavern. Until, they crested the archway of the entrance.

            The golems moved ahead of the soldiers and definitely ahead of the Aedon wizard. Another bright, searing light and one of the golems exploded into a rain of rocks, pebbles, and burning clay. Hrene only heard a ringing. The rest of the world was muffled and so it barely registered a sound when another bolt of energy destroyed the last golem. The soldiers of Aedon paused, as did the Drenians. The tide could go either way.

            “Fight on!” Hrene cried. She could not hear herself over the ringing in her ears, but she pressed on and the soldiers followed her. They pressed the Drenians past the archway and continued to drive their rout up the stairs. The Aedon wizard clung to the edge of the covering archway. Hrene was barely aware of him. She could not spare anything for him. She had to lead her soldiers with her own axe.

            Scorching air and concussion knocked her forward onto the stairs. The helmet took much of the impact, but she could feel hot blood trickling down the side of her face. Pushing herself to her feet, she spared a glance behind her. The wizard and a dozen soldiers lay smoking and unmoving.

            Oh, no… she stared at them wide-eyed for a moment. She shook herself and turned back to the only problem she could do anything about, but the tide was already turning. With no golems to crush them, the Drenians were realizing that they still had more soldiers than all of Adyrnaarn and began to press them back downwards. Time always passed surreally in long fights. Hrene had no idea how long she fought, but she knew that the Drenians pushed her soldiers all the way back down. She distantly puzzled as to why the Drenian wizard did not lay into them, having killed both of the wizards on her side. But, she and her soldiers were allowed to live, at least by him. The other Drenians, however, were eager to pay back the pain dealt to them by the golems. They took no prisoners, except for the women. Of the soldiers that got separated from the main line, they threw the men over the side. The soldier women, they stripped them bare and carried them into one of the evacuated halls.   Hrene bit back bitter tears as she fought and commanded her soldiers, their numbers now ever so precious, as she did her best to withdraw them to the lower levels.

            They fought down to another level on the great stair when Drenians poured in from that level and began rolling up the flanks of Hrene’s soldiers. They must have finally gotten down one of the other stairs. Hrene’s force split. Most continued fighting a withdrawal down the great stair, but without their leader. Hrene and a hundred or so of her soldiers were pressed onto the walkway on this level. The Drenians pressed them from two sides, one coming down the great stair and through the archway. The other Drenians pressed her soldiers from one direction along the walkway. So, they continued fighting a withdrawal. Hrene had hoped to get to another smaller stairway, but they were blocked from the other side and forced onto one of the many bridges that spanned the cavern. The bridge had made a quicker route across the cavern for merchants and officials that would have normally worked on this level. But for Hrene, it was certain death in front of her as the Drenians pressed her backward across the bridge, certain death from the fall on either side, and a glimmer of hope at possibly finding a stairway on the other side of the bridge before the Drenians came the long way around the cavern behind them.

            The bridge was narrow and it gave some of her soldiers the chance to rest on their feet after fighting for hours. Hrene kept at the front. Her hearing was better now, but the ringing was still there. They were almost across the bridge and it looked like the Drenians were not going to cut them off at the rear. Just have to deal with the ones in front then, she grumbled. Her soldiers were getting onto the main walkway on the perimeter of the other side of the cavern when the bridge shook with a blurred motion from below. Another blur and the bridge shook again. Hrene staggered, as did her soldiers and the Drenians.

            “They’re bombardin’ the bridge from below! Keep ‘em on the bridge!” she hollered. Hrene’s soldiers fought backwards to the mouth of the bridge, which kept shaking from the bolts of the siege crossbows from below, still controlled by Aedon crews. The Drenians sneers turned into desperate snarls, ferociously trying to fight their way onto the perimeter avenue and save themselves. A bolt thumped the bottom of the bridge. A chunk of masonry broke off. That was all it took. The bridge needed its integrity to bear its own weight. A chunk of that size, half of the width of walkway, and it crumbled. Large sections broke off and plunged. The Drenians scurried. Enough of them had scampered back to the side they started on, but not all of them. Scores of Drenians hurtled to the depths as the bridge gave way. Chunks and sections collapsed. The ground gave way under Hrene, as the mouth of the bridge collapsed. Two soldiers fell with her. Her own fighters grasped to save them, catching Hrene and one of the soldiers. She met the eyes of the soldier that fell. He looked back at her as he descended. His face was grim, but without regret. She wanted to reach for him, but he was already too far and her soldiers hoisted her up. She had lost her axe and shield, but was handed a readily available replacement axe from one of their fallen.

            She heaved a heavy sigh, “let’s find us another stair.”

***

Maybe an hour later

Two levels below the Middle Gate of Adyrnaarn

Hrene and two other soldiers burst out of the entrance to the minor stairs, alert and with weapons ready. Echoes of the fighting sounded above.

            “Why here, Captain?” one of the soldiers asked.

            “Dreadful close to whining, there!” she scolded, “but here’s the rally area that was in the major captain’s instructions. Now get the rest of them down here.” Her knees and shoulders ached, but she stood upright and proud. The will of the soldiers wore thin and would wear thinner before the end. That be where it’s headed. The end. She thought bleakly. Those buffoons, the two wizards, bumbled their last chance to through the Drenians out of the city.

            The rest of Hrene’s soldiers piled out of the stairway. About a hundred of them. Most of her soldiers would still be fighting in the great stair, but they were separated. Hrene’s best hope was to reunite with them at the rally area or fight for their relief. But to what end? She stood immediately by the arch to the minor stair. Each of the soldiers seeing her strength, no matter how much she had to prop it up on the inside, they saw her standing straight and straightened themselves passing by her. She waited for them to file out completely.

            “Last one,” said a dwarf woman from behind a closed helmet with a dent in the visor.

            “Good. Form a column,” Hrene commanded. “We’ll not be walkin’ back a mess. Show ‘em we’re still gonna fight, eh?”

            The soldiers meandered, but a bark from one of Hrene’s few remaining sergeants but some spunk into their step.

            “Fine, then,” Hrene said and moved off over the bridge across the cavern on this level. It was wider than the bridge they had fought off of on the higher levels. The column should be able to march across five shoulder-to-shoulder. She heard the sound of the column marched behind her, tired footsteps. Soldiers on the march would sing often, but they could not muster the hope to sing just then.

            “Sing To The King’s End,” she called over her shoulder.

            There was an exhausted silence behind her, only the clopping boots on the cobbling of the bridge.

            “You heard the captain! Eh? You filthy worms better make ‘er proud!” yelled the sergeant.

            “What. Does. The king. Say?” The sergeant punctuated the words with each step, timing them so the other soldiers could mark their step off of his.

            “The king. Says. The orcs. Came. Today,” sounded the soldiers. Echoes of the fighting sounded from above. Now and then, falling bodies of warriors plummeted past them, having fallen from the high levels. Some of the bodies struck the bridge and bounced off, leaving bloody splats on the masonry.

            “And. What. Does. The king. Do?”

            “The king. Fights. He kills. With axe. And spear. He fights. With. His own.”

            “What. Does. The king. Need?”

            “The brave. “And. The strong. By. His side.”

            “And where. Were you?”

            “We were. There!” The soldiers cheered.

            “Where?” The sergeant screamed at them. Hrene always liked this song, but found it sadly ironic now.

            “We were. There! Atop. A pile. Of broken. Bodies. Green. Skins. With. Dead Eyes. And. More. To come!”

            Hrene could hear them cheer on more, their spirit somewhat restored, but she stopped listening. More bodies were falling, but they were not the bodies of soldiers and warriors laden in armor. They were children, elders, new mothers and young father clutching their babes as they careened past. Hrene’s eyes went wide at the rain of her people. She marshalled her face to calmness. That’s the way o’ it. She thought bleakly. Mass suicide of civilians was for when the savages broke the gates, when they were overrun by orcs, hobgoblins, goblins, ogres, trolls, and the like. Death was a better fate then the life of slavery that awaited them. Death was better, guarding the secrets of the craft, rather than let the beasts cut them out of you or worse, force you to perform the miracles of dwarven craft for their own butchers. It was long recorded in the histories that dwarves taken prisoner suffered the worst of fates, being tortured to work, but those that had it worst were not tortured themselves. Dwarven families taken prisoner would have work for the savages or bear watching their children be tortured and killed.

            Better this way, but it was normally reserved for the filth. Not… not for other dwarves. But Hrene had already seen what the Drenians would do. Any other Aedon did not trust a Drenian for their word and everyone knew they kept slaves, but Hrene had seen with her own eyes stripping the women soldiers they captured and carrying them off.

            Shaking the recent memory from her head, Hrene focused on the work in front of her: get these soldiers to the rally area and get them back in the fight. A short time later, Hrene’s column marched into the marketplace on this level, cleared of the carts and stands. The marketplace was bustling with soldiers and messengers running here and there. The taverns hummed with activity as the king’s legion had taken over its kitchens to feed the soldiers that were not fighting.

            “Rest them here,” Hrene called to her sergeant and hurried off to find anyone that knew what was going on. Forcing her way through the crowd, she found the headquarters of Major Captain Turiotli and several of his clerks.

            “Major captain!” she called as she forced her way through the crowd.

            Turiotli looked up from a scroll her was reading as another messenger was talking to him urgently. He held up hand to silence the messenger. Sweat and nervousness painted the messenger’s face.

            “Hrene! You live!” a smile split his face of worn stone and bent his beard of wires.

            “Major captain! I was separated from my main unit in the great stair. I–”

            Turiotli held up his hand again, this time to pause Hrene. “I know. I had a report on it.”

            “I have a hundred axes with me. We’re ready to rejoin the fight, captain,” Hrene said.

            “You and yours need to be eatin’ before you’re goin’ anywhere,” Turiotli said.

            “But, captain–” she protested.

            “–No. Look,” he pointed. Hrene followed his direction and saw tired soldiers in clumps around the marketplace, sitting on barrels or merchant carts or on the ground. The ate soup from bowls or tore meat with their hands and teeth.

            “Need to eat to fight. Who wants to die hungry anyways?” he chuckled. “Go and get them fed and come see me.”

            Sour-faced, Hrene left the command post, found her sergeant, and pointed him at the nearest tavern with the direction to feed the troops. She watched as the sergeant goaded the soldiers to their feet and marched them. She was almost back to Turiotli’s command post when her sergeant’s hand pulled on her shoulder through the crowd. She half-turned and looked in annoyance only to have dried meat and bread stuffed at her.

            “You need to eat, too, captain. Can’t have ya fallin’ over in the middle of it,” he scolded her.

            Hrene took it sourly and turned back toward Turiotli’s command post.

            “Ah, good. You ate, too,” he said. He glanced up anxiously at the higher levels.

            “Where can we fight, captain? Is my main unit still up there?” Hrene asked urgently.

            “Chew your food, captain. Finish eating before you rush off to die again,” Turiotli said, wiping the sweat from his brow. His surcoat of the king’s legion was smeared with ash, mud, and ink where Hrene’s own surcoat was mainly colored with blood now. Hrene scowled as she bit off the end of bread that her sergeant had pressed up on her.

            “It will be different for ya. King’s orders. You’re to take some soldiers and get the wounded and the gnomes out o’ here,” Turiotli’s head leaned forward to look her pointedly in the eye.

            Hrene could not believe her ears, “and run from the fight?”

            “King’s orders,” Turiotli tried to quiet her a bit.

            “And is the king leaving this city!?” Hrene’s voice rose with outrage. “Where be the king?”

            “The king fights in the great stair, captain,” Turiotli said.

            “Then I will go an’ fight there, too. Beside the king,” Hrene said and started to move off, but Turiotli yanked her back by the shoulder.

            “You will not,” he pointed a low finger at her chin.

            “But, you said the rest o’ mine are down here. I take ‘em back up and give it to the Drennies,” Hrene said.

            “No, you don’ have anything besides those hundred over there,” Turiotli said, “ya’ve been relieved o’ them.”

            “Relieved!?” the words slapped Hrene. How? What did I…?

            “King’s orders,” Turiotli said.

            “What… what… have I angered the king?” Hrene looked around the floor.

            “No. Th’ opposite,” Turiotli said solemnly.

            “THEN WHY!” Hrene shrieked in anger. Blinking back tears, “why does the king shame me? Spurnin’ me at the last?”

            Turiotli took a breath, “the king trusts you to do the job. He needs the wounded out of here. He needs the gnomes out of here. An’ the siege crossbows on the Middle Gate do no good here anymore. Ezkaarn and Zol are next in Drenia’s path, so take the crossbows there, tell them how the Drenians came at us, and fight with them.”

            There argued a bit more, but the king’s orders determined the outcome. Numbly, she shuffled her feet through the crowd back to her soldiers.

            “Sergeant Marchag,” she mumbled, her voice lost in the bleak energy of her surroundings. She lifted her voice and called again as she came nearer. “Sergeant Marchag.”

            “Captain? Have we orders?” her sergeant bounded to his feet.

            “That we do, sergeant. Get them ready. I’ve bad news to bear,” Hrene said.

            Sergeant Marchag guffawed, “bad news, eh? Worse than this?”

            Hrene nodded solemnly, “worse it is. These orders, I mean.”

***

Upper levels of the Korlaeith section of Adyrnaarn

Two days later

Gudreka watched another slew of families jump to their deaths, plunging from the middle levels of Korlaeith to their death in the reservoir. These Aedons were strange to him. In Drenia, suicide to avoid capture was only when defense from the savages, orcs, goblins, that kind, was failing, mainly to prevent them from torturing secret knowledge from the prisoners. Gudreka was surprised when the first families jumped and was more surprised that it did not stop. Aedon had a nagging feeling that Drenia had underestimated the fighting spirit of Aedon. But today! Today the day is won, he shrugged to himself.

            “Rangli!” Gudreka called, raising his voice to boom over the sounds of lingering fighting.

            “Major captain! On the way!” Rangli’s answer faintly sounded. Moments later, Rangli trotted up. Spatters of blood flecked all over him, matching Gudreka. “Yes, captain.”

            “Tell the minor captains they’re on their own authority to finish up here an’ bring me the trophy. After that, you can help yourself to the prisoners,” Gudreka instructed.

            “Yes, major captain,” Rangli trotted back off to carry out his orders.

Gudreka had been putting this off, ironically taking refuge in the fighting rather than face the task ahead. He knew Therog was furious at Aemzon’s intervention, but it was very clear to Gudreka that Therog would have denied Aemzon’s intervention if he had been asked. Ah, well. It ain’t wine. It ain’t gonna taste better with age.

***

Therog’s command post, Lord’s Halls of Adyrnaarn

            “That wasn’t your place, either!” Therog shouted, spilling wine from his cup.

            “And what was your place, general? Eh? During all the fighting? With your men doing men work or laying under a whore all the while the boys of Drenia be bleedin’ dry and getting’ smushed by Aedon’s golems,” Aemzon shouted back.

            “An’ what was the purpose, do ya suppose the king had when he sent me with ya?” Aemzon continued, “do ya think the king’s like, ‘ah, that boy-o there, Therog, needs someone to paint his whore’s nails. Better send him a wizard!’ Certainly not to save the blood of Drenia, eh?”

            “Oh, inpretin’ the king’s will is one o’ your skills, now, is it?” Therog retorted.

            “High captain Gudreka,” the guard announced. Stone-faced Gudreka entered. He was painted in mostly dried blood and bore a bag over his shoulder.

            “Oh, just in time, Gudreka! Maybe you’ve got an eye for the king’s will, too, eh?” Therog baited.

            “The fight’s about done, general. Korlaeith’s done,” Gudreka said. Aemzon could tell he was spending a lot of effort to keep his voice even and his face calm. Aemzon knew that Gudreka hated Therog, just as he did himself.

            “That’s good an’ all, but how do ya answer for this?” Therog jabbed a finger towards Aemzon.

            “How do ya mean, general?” Gudreka asked evenly.

            “Oh, don’ play stupid. Aemzon interfered with the fightin’ and took the glory away from the boys!” Therog rounded on Gudreka.

            “As he did, the Aedons were goin’ to push us all the way back to the high gate, if he didn’t,” Gudreka said.

            “Ah, so ya asked him ta–” Therog hissed.

            “The good captain did nothin’ o’ the sort. I took it upon myself to fight. An’ they had two wizards that woulda burned the boys to ashes, too,” Aemzon talked over Therog.

            “Ah, so good thing, that I only be needin’ to throw one o’ ya in shackles for disobedience. I get the relief of the other bein’ thrown in chains for incompetence at not bein’ able to crush the Aedons an’ their small garrison. How about–” Therog spat at Aemzon, but cut off as a large object thunked on the floor wetly and rolled at the edge of Aemzon’s vision.

            They both jumped. A bloody head rolled on the floor and came to a stop between them. It’s eyes stared up at Therog.

            “King Naurom of Aedon,” Gudreka said.

            Therog stared at the head for a moment before shaking himself, “if ya think this changes things, you’d be makin’ a mistake. You’re on thin tolerances, major captain!”

            “Ya’ve orders, general?” Gudreka asked in a neutral tone, not having moved from where he stood.

            Therog glared at Gudreka before he spoke the next words, “you’re to get the boys ready for Ashgar Isriol and be sendin’ scouts to Ezkaarn. An’ no mistakes at Ashgar Isriol,” Therog warned, “we’re to make good time and break the gates of Ezkaarn before Kurelig is done with Zol. Understand?”

            “I understand your orders, general,” Gudreka said.

            “An’ you!” Therog stabbed a finger back at Aemzon, “since you’re so understandin’ o’ the king’s will an’ takin’ care o’ things, you’re goin’ to… fix the plumbin’… yea, here in the lord’s hall first,” Therog smirked at the end.

            “The plumbin’, general?” Aemzon said dumbly.

            “Yea, the plumbin’. Work your magicks, master wizard. Begone,” he waived them away. Turning and sloshing his wine a bit more he walked towards he back of the hall. Aemzon knew he was going to the bedchamber of this hall to lay with his whores some more. Aemzon shook his head in disapproval. Never had he seen a general so unwilling to fill his station. His face scrunched in a glower such that he jumped in surprise when Gudreka nudged him.

            “We should be goin’, Master Aemzon,” Gudreka said. Aemzon nodded and they both left, quietly passing the guard. The guard nodded ever so slightly to both of them.

            “The plumbin’,” Aemzon blustered in outrage when they were at the great stair.

            Gudreka heaved a sigh and looked over at Aemzon, “whether you agree with the general’s priority or not, the plumbin’ does not to be addressed to bring this place back into use. I can’t say anything for your decision to fight, but I know ya killed two wizards and I know the boys are mighty grateful. They might give ya some o’ the women if you went by the taverns at the middle gate,” Gudreka suggested. Aemzon stopped walking and Gudreka took a few more steps before stopping and turning back.

            “You’re a good man, Gudreka,” Aemzon said. The two parted company without a further word. Aemzon found his way back to his own hastily furbished dwelling. The soldiers in the headquarters detachment had carried in Aemzon’s trunks of books into another one of the lord’s halls.

            “Leave me. Take your meals and find your women,” he waived off the staff. The young soldiers smiled and thanked him as they left, but Aemzon was only listening for the receding sounds of their footsteps.

            Aemzon pulled a chair up to a table next to his trunk of books, “Ryn. It’s safe.”

            A pinprick appeared in the air in front of him and slid, forming a line before the line split and made a whole in the air. A tiny red face peered through before tiny red, clawed hands wrapped around the edges of the hole in space and spread it further. A tiny, slender woman of red skin with wings and horns crept through and stood on the table in front of him. Aemzon gave her a tired smile and affectionately stroked her body with his finger, which was about the same size as her body. She smiled and hugged his finger.

            “I dunno if I can keep servin’ the king’s will under this idiot, Ryn,” Aemzon said glumly.

            “I see how hard you work, master. I see your brilliance and your cunning,” she kissed his finger.

            “I love ya, Ryn. I’m glad we made that contract all those years ago,” Aemzon said.

Chapter 28

A small hamlet, south-west of Serna; west of Keppa

Twosday (2nd day of the week), 1st week of Darri (5th month of the year), 794

Mid-Summer

Overcast and humid

            “We have enough problems without your like coming here,” said the headman.

            Julian took a long, deep breath, “I understand this is hard, Headman Oris, but the Lord Serna needs your support–”

            “–Look here, young man! We’ve already had conscription patrols from Keppa, from Garber, and Yvel, itself! And now, you’re coming here for more!? None of those patrols, AND DEFINITELY NOT YOU, even bothered to keep those scoundrel bandits away when they came through last week!”

            “Bandits?” Julian muttered to himself curiously.

“Master Headman, we’re not here for conscription,” Liri began in a conciliatory tone, “we’re looking for–”

            “I DON’T CARE! Get off with you! Out!” the headman insisted.

            “–volunteers,” Liri finished.

            “You don’t understand? Get out. Get. Out. There’s no one left to conscript. Volunteer. Whatever you want to call it. Look around,” the headman gestured to the small hamlet. Liri and Julian stood in what would pass for the hamlet green with six houses around it. The houses were made of clay and straw around frames of wooden planks and sticks with larger timbers to bear most of the weight. The roofs were thatched except for one, probably the headman’s house, had a tile roof. Proof to the headman’s point, Julian could only see very young children and oldsters minding the work and keeping the village running. He could see three farm houses in the distance around the hamlet, but only one field showed signs of activity. This is going to be a very rough winter, he thought bleakly.

            “You’ve made your point,” Julian said, turning to mount Pine, his roan mare.

            Liri was mounting her own horse when the headman called, “this your own fault for bringing the war here in the first place, Serna!” Julian’s head hung, starring at the ground as he absently guided Pine out of the nameless hamlet.

            Liri caught up to him a moment later, “you ready to go back?”

            “Yea,” he said plainly. They rode on in silence for a few miles. No sound but the wind rustling the leaves occasionally and the clop of the horse hooves on the hard-packed dirt road. The air was brisk and smelled clean.

            “Are you going to take Sir Merik’s offer?” Liri said abruptly. Julian was quiet. More than a minute passed in silence. “Julian?” she asked again.

            “Nah,” he said, wiping sweat from his brow.

            They rode further in silence for a while until Liri spoke again, “so you’re staying?” Again, Julian was silent. “Julian!”

            “Huh? Yea. Staying,” he said.

            “So? What is it?” she asked.

            “What’s what?” he said.

            “Listen. I don’t have time–none of us have time–for your mopey scat. We’ve a job to do,” she scolded.

            “Right, tenleader,” he said dejectedly, “whatever’s needed.” They plodded along to the northeast, towards Serna and Keppa, for a few hours in silence until the next tiny village came into view. It was quiet. Julian sat up in the saddle, suddenly alert. Very quiet. He and Liri came to a halt, surveying the area. The nearest house was four hundred or so paces away, but they would have still been able to see movement or maybe hear something. Nothing. Julian looked to Liri and she motioned for him to circle left, to the north around the village. Julian walked Pine on, skirting the village, quietly plodding through the fields. And he saw them. Three, at first. People dead in the fields. Slashed or bludgeoned. A few with arrows in them. He cautiously continued, seeing them, mostly in groups of two, three, or four, the closer he came to the village. He counted twenty-seven, in all. He met up with a grim-faced Liri on the far side of the village. She nodded to him and they walked their horses through the center, seeing more bodies. They exchanged a glance before turning their horses out of town. “They didn’t burn anything down this time,” she commented.

            They were most of the way out until Julian noticed Liri starring at something. He followed her gaze. He had to squint for a moment, but he saw it too. Movement in one of the buildings. He looked at her and she nodded. He dismounted and drew his hand axe from a loop on his belt and crept towards the house. It was a small cottage with mud and timber walls and a thatched roof, like most other modest houses in rural Yvel. He crept into the cottage. A few bolts of fabric lying scattered and unrolled around the floor, a few torn or unfinished garments, and an overturned cabinet of thread spools marked this a tailor’s or seamstress’ house. He looked around. He was sure that he had seen something. And then he did. A pair of eyes. Two pairs of eyes. Three pairs of eyes. Fearfully starring at him. They did not look like orc eyes. They were hidden in the piles of fabric with a broken chair on top.

            “It’s fine. I’m not here to hurt you,” Julian said. He slowly put the axe back in the loop and held his hands open and in front of him. One of them shuffled. Then another. All three of them stood slowly with two more coming out of hiding from under the straw-mattress bed.

            There were two children, both boys, and three adults, two women and a man. “Who are you?” one of them spoke in Eklendan, an adult male with red hair and an Eklendan jaw.

            Julian’s Eklendan was not so good, “My name is Julian. I am from Serna.” Julian brought them out to Liri, who was holding an arrow she had collected. “What’s that?” Julian asked.

            “I don’t recognize it. Maybe someone else does,” she said, stuffing it into one of the leather saddlebags. They walked and rode back to Serna. Julian and Liri spent most of the time walking with the villagers.

            “Greenskins, right?” Liri asked.

            “What?” one of the women said, “oh. We didn’t see them. They came at dusk and it was too fast.” They were silent for a while, “do they really have green skin?”

            “Yea,” said Julian, “but some have blue,” he added. It took three days to walk back to Serna with them. They would have made it in less than three or four days if they had more horses or a cart and mule and supplies for five adults and two children, but they did not, so they had to forage, hunt, and lay snares overnight. All of those were starting to get scarce with the start of winter. A pair of rabbits and some wild chives and henbit fed them for the trip. The adults, Jana, Sontrin, and Molok, were tailors, but the children had been from other families. Julian and Liri had been out recruiting for the Serna regiment with little luck. Maybe some of them would join, but at least one would have to care for these children that were not even theirs. Lodging would be difficult, but they could be put to work, either in the regiment or with their craft to supply the regiment.

            At the end of the third day, the increasingly foreign sight of their home came into view. New buildings had sprouted up where the old burnt down. They were all four-floor buildings, the fifth and last one nearing completion. The ground floor was for craftsmen and shops, but the upper floors were apartments and barracks. The palisade, completed late in the summer was now having a layer of stone laid with the much-appreciated help of engineers and shipments of stone sent by Prince Arnold. Liri took the villagers into the quartermaster’s office while Julian waited outside with their horses. Liri came out a moment later and walked with Julian over to the training field.

            The training field was at the base of the hill by the Covendran manor. It had several archery targets set up, sparring dummies, and quintain. The young Serna militia company had reformed into the even younger first company of the Serna regiment, which was drilling on the practice field. They were walking towards the Lady Judane, who was practicing with her polehammer under the instruction of one of the elves. Bierien, he thought. That probably meant that Lord Dareum was also out recruiting. But there Julian peeled off without Liri noticing, dropping Pine’s reins. Julian strode aggressively to put a stop to something as soon as he saw it.

            “Just what do you think you’re doing?” Julian demanded. A squad of soldiers stopped drilling.

            The tenman, Baryn Kevr’ail, starred in surprise, “what?” Julian roughly reached in, seizing the shortest soldier, ripping off the helmet with the leather veil and casting the soldier on the ground.

            “What the scat, Julian!” Ziek angrily yelled from the ground.

            “You watch your mouth! You’re too young for this and you know it! Twelve years and a soldier!?”

            “I’ll be thirteen in two months,” Ziek he muttered as he got up.

            “Julian,” Baryn stepped in calmly, but assertively, “it’s not up to you. The lad made his mark on the papers and it’s his choice. You know the greenskins don’t care how old they are.”

            Julian looked past Baryn at Ziek’s sheepish eyes looking away. “A mark on the papers, Ziek? Or did you not mention that?” Julian called.

            Baryn slowly turned and looked at Ziek expectantly, “well?” Ziek said nothing and turned further away.

            “All right, boy, if you didn’t mark the papers than you’re not in the militia or regiment. Doff all that right there and be on,” Baryn said patiently.

            “Don’t see why everyone else gets to fight,” Ziek grumbled as he removed the thigh-length leather coat that reached to his calves and gambeson and stormed off.

            Julian watched him go and then stepped to leave, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him. It was Baryn. Tenman Baryn. “Don’t do that again, Julian. You have a problem, you bring it to me.”

            “Right, tenleader,” Julian looked at the ground, feeling ashamed at his rudeness. He could not look Baryn in the eye. After all, the man had lost his own wife right in front of his eyes. Julian had no idea how he could still go on. Julian walked away only a few paces before he noticed that Liri was standing not far off, maybe thirty paces, with the Lady Judane and Bierien the elf, holding the reins of her horse. They were both looking at him and Liri had her ‘you made a mess’ face with her hands on her hips. Great.

            Liri walked towards him, leaving the other two to resume their training. “Save all of the Gersh, yet?” Liri asked sardonically, “or just the town?”

            “The boy’s too young to soldier,” Julian muttered.

            “Fine, but next time tell me and I’ll talk to the tenleader. I have to go apologize to Baryn now because, apparently, I’ve got a hot-tempered soldier of my own.”

            “Sorry, tenleader,” Julian said.

            They walked in silence for a bit before Liri spoke again, “are you going to your family’s farm?”

            “No,” he said flatly. Why would they want that? Need another reminder of how Ervan’s dead?

            Liri glared at him from the corner of her eye, but they walked in silence. Julian was not sure where they were going, so he just kept walking with Liri and their horses. They passed through the busy town green, turned supply dump, bustling with evening activity. They passed the tall, new buildings. One of them featured a soup kitchen with a small counter that customers sit at. It was run by an oldster, too old to fight, but not so old they he could not offer to soldiers and workers some meat and vegetables in warm broth to ward off the cold gusts of wind and the coming season. They passed Mkaela’s closed up bakery and another row of houses.

            “Where are you going?” Liri asked.

            “I was following you,” he said, confused.

            She made a vexed sound, “get your business together,” she huffed, “c’mon. Let’s get some soup.” They turned around and walked back. They tied the horses to a post and sat down at the soup counter. The old man nodded to both of them and started cutting thin slivers of meat from a rump on a cutting board next to a large pot of broth.

            Julian laid head in his hands, covering his face while he waited. He could feel Liri’s irritated glare.

            “Smell anything good in there?” came another voice. Julian looked to his other side.

            “Garven!” Julian exclaimed. Garven and his elf friend, Arynn, were seated at the counter. “What are you doing here? I thought you both went up to Borly.”

            “We’re done at Borly. We came back,” Arynn said. “We hear there’s a regiment forming,” she grinned.

            “Anyone else come back?” Julian asked.

            “Korane caught up with us on our way into town. She picked up some supplies. I don’t know what. She’s here for only a night and leaving tomorrow,” Garven said.

            “Korane!? Where’s she going? Was she with you in Borly?” Julian asked.

            “No, I don’t know where she was. I didn’t think to ask too much. She didn’t seem to want to talk much about it. She did have a prisoner, though.” Garven said.

            “Yea? What kind? She’d get the meanest ones and grind them up,” Julian said.

            “Actually, she had a little goblin,” Arynn said, “she hates the poor thing, too.”

            “Poor thing!?” Julian said incredulously.

            Arynn made a skeptical face, which was very expressive for any of the elves, “you did not see how she treated it.”

            “What do you make of this?” Liri broke in, handing the arrow she took from the village over Julian and Garven to Arynn.

            “Why do you ask?” she said.

            “I showed it to Bierien and she told me what she thought, but said that I should ask another elf, or someone else well experienced, for another opinion,” Liri answered.

            “That sounds like Bierien,” Arynn agreed, “Let me see.” She turned it over, checked the fletching and glue briefly, checked the length of the shaft, but spent most of the time scrutinizing the shape of the arrowhead with its single blade on one side, the other side of the arrowhead being flush with the shaft. “Goblin,” she said slowly, “Northern Goblin, would be my best say. But, Irduin would be the best to ask, and she stayed at Borly.”

            “Hm. Thanks,” Liri said, “were there goblins at Borly?”

            “Oh, yes, quite a few,” Arynn said, “never seen so many at once.” Arynn paused thoughtfully, “although, that is not unique to goblins. This journey has had a lot of first times.”

            “Hm. Goblins all the way down here. Wonder where Korane’s going. We sure could use her,” Liri said.

            “That’s from around here? Where?” asked Garven.

            “A village about twenty five miles from here. Most of the villagers were dead. A found a few live ones and brought them here. They said that the raiders came at night and they couldn’t really see them,” Liri explained.

            “We heard of things like that when we passed through Yvel,” Arynn said, “except that it is mostly merchant and supply caravans being raided.”

            “Hm.” Liri said.

***

Ziek heard everything he needed. He slunk back in the shadows in the alley next to the soup counter and quietly backed down the alley until he emerged on the next street. He scuttled behind a cart and crossed the bustling, muddy street.

            “Have finished getting the eggs out of the coop, Ziek?” said a voice. A voice that Ziek really did not want to hear. He did not want the speaker to be there where she could see him. It was Imick Rollodran. Since the early summer, when Ziek’s family died, he, and a few other children in his situation, had been staying with other families around town. Space inside the palisade was scarce with more and more of the farming families trying to move inside the wall, but they earned their keep with chores and work. Any there was plenty of work to be done. It was simply that Ziek was not meant for chores and work. Ziek was meant for fighting and glory and he knew where he was going to get it.

            “Uh, yea. I did,” he lied. She looked at him skeptically. “Uh, well,” he stammered, “I might’ve dropped a couple of them,” he falsely admitted.

            “Ah, I knew it,” she said, sure that she had caught him trying to pass off the mistake, “you’re sure to be cleaning that up,” she stated to him.

            “Yes, mistress,” he said with well-feigned sullenness. She watched him go as he meandered in the direction of the house that had Imick’s portion of the Rollodrans. Conveniently, the chicken coop was on the far side of the house and he was able to walk past the coop, all eggs safely where they had been laid, and out of the town. Ziek walked through the field of stumps. The forest line had been cleared back by the town after the first raid and used the timber for the palisade. It was a barren field for over two hundred paces. He crossed it in the best way to avoid questioning, as if he was meant to.

            “What are you doing out here?” called another voice. Almost.

            Ziek turned to see Sedra Torin’ail, “uh, Auntie Imick sent me out here to gather chives,” he lied.

            “Oh,” she said. She had a basket of berries in hand, freshly picked. “There’s a patch I saw yesterday fifty paces in the trees that way,” she pointed. “Don’t stay out too late or the Bog Knight’ll get you.”

            “Thanks!” Ziek said excitedly and ran off. The excitement was genuine, though not for the purpose Sedra would think. Ziek skipped into the woodline, passed the patch of chives fifty paces in and hooked to the left, toward the direction he had been heading. He steadily climbed up hill through the trees. The needle trees pricked at him and the broadleaves, having lost most of their leaves by now, scratched at him, but he brushed them aside, stopping occasionally to flail a spider off of his sleeve or out of his hair. He reached his destination just under a mile later. Sure enough, smoke billowed from the chimney of Korane’s cabin. The solitary house was built mostly from timbers with clay filling the gaps. It had windows with closed wooden shudders. He heard indistinct voices inside. He crept closer and could make out two different voices. One was probably Korane’s, but he could not recognize the words. They were neither Marin or Eklendan. Nothing like either language. The other voice was timid, hoarse, and a little muffled. He crept closer to peer between the cracks of one of the shudders. He moved around a bit to see around the room. He could see a small figure, maybe his own size, tied to a chair with a bag over its head, but no one else. No Korane.

            And then Korane’s hand was on his shoulder, spinning around and thrusting him against the side of the house. She always had been a little scary, but it was worse now. There was something in that unwavering gaze of hers that forced his eyes to the ground. Her hair black like a hidden moon and tumbling like the waters of a river. She had a scar on her cheek that he did not remember. Ziek had a bit of an infatuation for the huntress and would sometimes daydream about her, even if she was older than the age that most women married. But, there was something different now. She had lost her husband and her son months ago when the orcs came. Now, she was leaner, but not gaunt, but like unneeded things had been burned away or left behind. It felt like she did not blink. She starred at him, boring into him, neither saying a word.

            At last, she spoke, “no. Go back.”

            “But, I–”

            “–No,” she said interrupted, “You do not want any part of this. You will need to trust me.”

            “I just wanna–” he tried.

            “–No.”

He chanced a look up. If iron could be carved, that would be her face. He looked down again. Slowly, he started to move back towards town. He really did not want to deal with those stupid chickens and their scatty eggs.

***

Korane watched Ziek go. She watched him for a long time. She felt bad for him with no one left to turn to and wanting to fight, but being too young to do anything but get in the way. Well, she thought, there’s plenty someone his age can do to help. Just none of it’s fighting. She waited for him to be gone before heading back inside, wincing from a sudden pain in her leg where that hobgoblin had slashed her months ago.

            She took the bag off of her captive’s ugly little head and sat down at her small table and went back to slicing the meat from the carcasses of a tree rat and a fox that she had shot with her bow on the way back.

            She spoke in Marin, “tell me how to say what just happened in your language.” Korane hated the little scatbag, but he was useful, at least for now. He was a lying coward. He had pretended to not know the Marin tongue. He finally had admitted it after several days of her screaming at him for the crimes his kind had committed. She hated him for what he was and what he brought with him. But he was an oddity. He already knew Marin pretty well. This came out when he started begging for mercy from beatings in Marin. He made up some story that he used to be in a group of goblins that traded with Markians. Probably raided Markian villages and took prisoners for slaves. But, he never tried to resist and promised to help in every way, not that his promises were worth anything. At first, she had taken to beating him daily, but she grew tired of it and it made for slower travel. She realized that she was taking her other angers out on him and decided that it was a waste of effort past establishing dominance. He was much like a wild dog that had been tamed. The whole time since she had picked him up two weeks ago, she prodded him, when she was not beating him, for how to speak his filthy language. In the evenings, she learned their letters. She chuckled to herself bitterly. She never had a use for learning letters and only knew enough numbers and coins to sell meat and pelts. That she learned goblin letters before those of her own kind rankled.

            “Do you want that instead of letters?” he asked.

            “No. We do them both,” she answered.

            “That will take most of the night,” he said.

            “That’s fine,” she said.

            “So, we are staying here?” he asked hopefully. The hope was very obvious in his voice. He was clearly tired.

            “No. We still move at first light,” she said, plopping the meat into the stew pot along with some chives from a nearby patch and some roots and mushrooms. He groaned. This was the first roof over their heads for a couple of weeks and he was very clearly exhausted from the pace that she set, just from the difference in stride. He was only little more than half her height.

            She slammed her fist down on the table and he jumped in fright. She gestured at him with the hunting knife, “no whining or you get less food.” He was silent and waited patiently. She scooped the stew into a bowl for herself and a mug for the little wretch, putting it down in front of him. She untied one of his hands so he could eat. They ate in silence.

            Curiosity struck her at odd times and this was one of them, “how did you learn your letters, anyways?”

            “I needed them for my function,” he said, greedily slurping the stew.

            “What function?” she prodded.

            “I was a mining engineer where I am from,” he said, “then Fndeyet answered the call and formed a fist of engineers.”

            “Who’s Fndeyet?” she asked.

            “Fndeyet? Fndeyet the Great is the eldest of the Talz clans of Berkasliryig,” he said.

            “What’s Berkasliriyig?” she asked through a mouthful of the stew. The stew was the best meal they had had in the two weeks, too. She had not had rat before, but it had a tangy, gamey taste like most animals that find their own food. The fox meat, strangely, tasted a bit like mutton. The roots and mushrooms gave it an earthy taste and the chives gave another tang to pair with the rat meat.

            “It is a city,” he said.

            “A city? On the other side of the mountains?” she asked.

            “No, on this side,” he said, “under it, really.”

            “Under it? Further north? I’ve never heard of it.”

            “It is in the mountains,” he said.

            “In the mountains? I didn’t know there were humans that lived in the mountains,”

            “No, it is a city of goblins, mostly,”

            “What!?” she was genuinely surprised. A whole city of these little scats?

            “Mostly goblins. Plenty of others for trade. Sometimes that is where some of the humans come to trade,” he explained.

            “… Is it far?” she asked.

            “It is further than Kogylar, but we could probably see it before the end of the moon after this moon,” he sounded like he was starting to regret his answers.

            “Then we’ll go to Kogylar and see how far deep under the mountains we can go,” she said. He groaned again.

***

Deep under the mountains, on the road to Ikria

By the goblin calendar, sometime in the 8th Moon Cycle, 3114

By the human calendar, late Darri (5th month of the year), 794

Oygariyet missed riding his wolf. At this moment in particular, he missed riding the wolf by the ache in his knees. Oygariyet and his company meandered their way along the road to the Place-called-Ikria. To call this a road was the most convenient term. Really, it was a winding labyrinth of caverns, tunnels, and dug passageways that had supported trade between the Place-called-Ikria, the Stone of Rykooth, and other places.

            His company consisted of his honor guard of twenty strong and accomplished hobgoblin warriors of his Zirn, the small orc named Grotis, his Fourth from his own staff, a motley collection of orcs and goblins, both warriors and slaves, including the sword dancer given to him by the Donbat-Karang, a few from his harem, and some humans for a special purpose. The slaves and some of the warriors took turns pulling some baggage wagons that had most of their supplies, tools, and spare weapons on them. The humans were the biggest source of difficulty. Despite the condition of the road with collapsed bridges over bottomless chasms, the narrowness, the disintegration of the road in more open caverns such that it was difficult to determine which outlet was the true route to the Place-called-Ikria, the recurring dilemma of food and drink, despite all of that the humans and their inability to see in anything short of blistering light of the coward in the sky proved to be the largest obstacle. They had to keep torches lit, which created problems of fodder and oil to burn and choking on the smoke in smaller passageways.

            Curse them, but this had better be worth it! Oygariyet grumbled.

            “We should rest for the day, Great One,” Grotis said to him.

            “How much further do you think?” he asked Grotis. Oygariyet noticed his Fourth’s ears perk up. He knew that she did not like the travel without a clear sense of the passing of nights. She kept a tally, but it was based on when they slept with no clear sign like the rise and fall of the moon.

            “Another two moons, Great One,” Grotis said.

            Oygariyet sighed, “very well. Next large cavern will be our place for the rest. Water, if you can find it.”

            Oygariyet was not sure if it took a few moments or an entire winter to reach the next large cavern, but he knew his feet ached. Some of the slaves fell to the laborious task of foraging the bizarre, whorled trees that grew beneath the surface. They were all knots and bulbous growths that had to be cut into something resembling logs for burning. Sometime even later, the had a fire going. Slaves roasted some lizards over the fire while others boiled pots of water.

            With the work done, the honor guard posted sentries while the rest cleaned their weapons and armor, ate, took sport, or slept. The slaves continued to work busily, but some of them rotated for eating and sleeping.

            “May I take sport with you, Great One?” his Fourth said. It was against normal convention, since Great Ones took sport with their own harem, but he knew that his Fourth was in an awkward position. She was not part of his honor guard and, though more skilled than common warriors in any host, she was not skilled enough to match the honor guard–and that mattered to them. Similarly, she was not a great one, herself, and had no harem.

            Two of Oygariyet’s own slaves curled around him in relative privacy, what could be afforded in these circumstances.

            He gave her a friendly smile, “you may. My harem is open to you, Fourth.” She smiled in return and began to unbuckle her belt.

            As his Fourth joined and partook, the orc woman sword dancer approached them. Oygariyet looked up from what occupied him. “Speak,” he said in orcish.

            “I would like to provide entertainment,” she spoke in accented, but clear goblin of his own dialect from the liberator side of the mountains. “I would like to dance for you and your harem, Great One.”

            Oygariyet smiled. Such a treasure. The Donbat-Karang can provide one that truly understands the honor of being slave to a Great One. Even an orc can do this, yet somehow Arkiban’s red-skin and that human woman, exotic as they may be, cannot seem to understand it.

            “Begin,” he said.

She pulled her swords out of their back scabbards and left. He would later find out that she went to coat them with fat from the lizards and then dipped the blades into the cookfire to set them alight. She returned with both blades hissing in low flames. She walked in front of them and stood fifty or so hand-widths away. She assumed a pose, half bent at the waist, most of her weight on one leg under her, the other bent out and touching the ground with her toes for stability. The flaming swords held low by her knees and high overhead. She began to dance and twirl. Oygariyet, his Fourth and the harem watched the dance for a few moments, awing at the sword dancer’s strength and grace before returning to the sport leisurely.

            Some nights were like this. Twelve nights later, the road broke. It was another bridge that had collapsed with disuse, shifting in the rock over time, and whatever else happened down here where no one could see or hear it.

            When it was intact, the bridge would have been two spans, using a middle column based on stalagmites unified through masonry that Oygariyet recognized as dwarven. Each span was as long as the height of three or four hobgoblins. The further span had collapsed. They spent hours that seemed like days establishing a bridge by an intricate and very gradually built mutually reinforcing ropes looped over the bridge moorings.

            During the process, Oygariyet ordered a handful of slaves and some warriors to return to the Stone of Rykooth with orders to send some Talz and workers to repair the road. Oygariyet was sick of it. It was a huge chore to get to the Place-called-Ikria and it would be a mightier task to bring their hordes back with him to the surface.

            Crossing was still dangerous. One orc and one human slipped and fell into the chasm. The supply wagons could not be carried over the tenuous rope bridge, so most of the supplies and tools were now carried. Relieved that the gap was behind them, they continued on.

            Nights later, by his Fourth’s count, they had stopped to rest to take what they guessed would be their midnight meal of dried lizard meat and fungus. They had stopped in a large cavern, somewhat larger than the courtyard at the Stone of Rykooth. Grotis said he needed time to determine which exit passage was the correct one. They had been marking their way the whole time with ash from torches and arranging piles of rocks, to find their way back, but this particular cavern had many entry and exit passageways.

            The ground rumbled and Grotis seemed nervous as he made off. Oygariyet shrugged. Something did feel off, but, aside from rumblings in the ground, there was no clear threat. Oygariyet knew that if the ground here was unstable, there was no outrunning it. They would not have stopped here if they knew the true path forward, but they did not. They would move on as soon as they knew the proper exit passage. Though there was a stream, it was strangely humid in this cavern, too. Quite very humid.

            Oygariyet finished his meal, as had most of the rest of the company. Grotis approached.

            “Great One, I believe I have the way forward. We should leave as soon as we can,” he said. He seemed more nervous than before.

            “Very well,” Oygariyet called to the rest of the company, “prepare to march.”

            “Great One! Look at this. A purple rock. I dare that it might contain gemstones,” Oygariyet and many of the company looked over. Some of the slaves had found an outcropping of what seemed to be purple-looking rock with a deeper purple mottling.

            “That is–No! Do not–!” Grotis called just as one of the slaves touched the rock.

            The slave pulled his hand away from the purple rock, threads of slimy secretion trailed from his hand back to the purple surface. The slave’s face curled in perplexed disgust.

            The ground rumbled again.

            “Oh, no,” Grotis moaned as he pulled an arrow from his quiver.

            “What is this?” Oygariyet asked.

            The purple surface rumbled and began to move. Expanded, like heaving a breath, and rolled, crushing the slave that had touched it. Then it curled and reared up. A great worm, long as a wolf could run in ten breaths and big enough to swallow one whole. The end of the great worm turned down to look at them. A maw of three intersecting, jaw-like fleshy bits parted to reveal rows upon rows of jagged teeth. It roared and a foul smell of acids in its gut filled the air. Oygariyet chocked on the fumes as it roared and plunged into the company. Grotis loosed his arrow, but he was one of the few calm ones. The arrow stuck into the great worm’s skin, but it was like throwing sand at a rock.

The rest of the company scattered like ants. The great worm crushed some warriors and consumed, swallowing up slave whole. They hollered and shrieked in fear until the trifold jaw closed around them. The worm lunged towards Oygariyet, but he dodged out of the way. One of the humans, mostly blind in this whole terrifying encounter fell into the worms jaws. The sword dancer leaped to snatch the human out, but misjudged the worm’s momentum as it swallowed both of them whole.

“Curse it!” Oygariyet hacked at the worm’s body as it went by, but to no avail. They continued to scatter about, some running for the supposed safety of the many exit tunnels, not realizing what Oygariyet had instantly realized. The many tunnels were from the worm’s tunneling and they were no safer in the tunnel. Oygariyet managed to get its attention by smashing its tail with his mace. It let out a kind of small shriek. Small for its size. The shriek was still very loud and ear-piercing. It turned to look at him and lunged at him, maw open. Again, Oygariyet dodged aside and took the chance to smash the worm again, this time in one of the trifolds of the jaw. Curse it! Oygariyet realized that he could hurt the great beast of the deep rock, but only to annoy it. It reared up and looked for him again. Oygariyet could tell that it found him and was looking right at him when it abruptly arched its body and collapsed. It writhed on the ground shrieking and emitting piercing screams, if Oygariyet could call the high-pitched noises coming from the great worm as ‘screams.’

It continued to writhe, but the motion slowed and then stopped. Oygariyet and some of the other warriors approached cautiously. There was a thudding tap coming from the side of the worm. Oygariyet got closer and found the rough area where the tap was. He slid the flat of his sword along the worm’s side to try and find the exact location when the skin of the beast began to part. A bit of steel sparkled in the faint firelight as it poked through the worms thick hide. The steel rocked, levered, and withdrew only to emerge again. Oygariyet understood. The motionless worm was much easier to work on than a tense one on the move to feed upon them. Oygariyet hacked at the worm’s hide at the same place where the steel poked out. He worked it into a hole and then widened it with the assistance of what was within the worm.

A short moment later, the sword dancer of the Donbat-Karang, one human, two goblins, and one orc emerged from the hole with smiles of relief, though the smell of the inside of the worm caused many to vomit.

“Quick! Into the stream and wash off,” said Grotis, “the stomach juices from that thing are still strong enough to kill!” They washed in the stream in the cavern. It took a whole to gather up everything that had been scattered about. In all, two orc warriors, three human slaves, and four goblins died. As they prepared to move, Oygariyet went to the maw of the worm and smashed out two of its teeth. He washed them in the stream himself and approached the Sword Dancer.

“You have done yourself and us a great honor and service this night. Take these as trophies to your glory and that you may have them shaped later to your liking,” he offered.

She swept back her wet black hair behind her head and accepted the cleaned teeth. “Thank you, Great One. You, too, do me great honor, just by your words.”

He looked at her more closely. She was older, or at least seemed so. The lines of exertion and care etched her face from training in her art and the strength needed for it.

“I am given as property, Great One. Serving here with you is different and better than serving with the other orc tribes. I only wish to serve here.”

They rested for the night soon after they left the worm’s cavern. The following rest, the Sword Dancer again offered to entertain with her art while others took sport. Instead, she was invited to join.

Chapter 2

Somewhere near Krogen

Laborday (7th day of the week), 1st week of Berenk (6th month of the year), 794

Late Summer

Oddly cool and humid from recent rain and winds

Evening

            Jak checked that his arrow was firmly nocked in the bowstring. He sat on a convenient stump in the fading sunlight, concealed in the mud and tall grass, thirty or so paces from the road. He looked around and saw a few of his crew. Most were doing what they were supposed to be doing. Most. He would have to talk to Jawn again getting sleepy while waiting. But for the time being, they would wait. The talk with Jawn would have to come later. But the wait drew Jak’s mind to the oddity of the last six or so moons compared to his previous years. Jak did not know his parents. He never had. He was unwanted and abandoned. His earliest memories were on the streets of a town. He did not think it was Yvel, but it might have been. He was taken in by an orphanage for a while, but the other children gave him a hard time. A hard time until he broke one of their legs. Jak had no illusions that it was his own fault for breaking the other boy’s leg, but the other boy earned it by being such a scat burglar.

            But his days at the orphanage were done soon after that and he was out on the streets. Most of that time, he was surrounded by ridicule and hostility and Jak learned quickly that no one took care of you better than you yourself. Jak lived that way, by then he was sure it was the streets of Keppa. Not that Keppa was where the orphanage was or where his other memories were. Keppa was the first place that he remembered with specific identity. Jak found himself on the wrong side of the law more often than not. Sometimes because of what he had done in the heat of the moment. Coarse words quickly led to blows and broken furniture. Jak rarely started the incidents, but he became more proficient with finishing them and leaving before the constabulary arrived, often preferring to do most of his living at night and sleeping during the day. Increasingly Jak found–

            –Is that it?…. No.

            –found that Jak was accused or blamed for things that he had nothing to do with and the cause for it was obvious at the start. Jak’s skin was green. He did not know what that meant or why for a long time, but there was no amount of washing, cutting, beating, or burning that got the green out. So that was that. He was just green and everyone else was not. He also remembered being told that his large teeth were only for eating babies and that other people were watching him for the time when he surely fell to his secret cravings for infant flesh. For a long time, Jak did not know why he was green. He was sent to prison, accused of murdering a man he knew in Keppa. Jak knew the situation. That man’s wife wanted to be with another man and conspired with the other man to kill her husband so she could be with the other man while keeping her dead husband’s money and avoiding the shame of… whatever the word was. Jak went to prison because some woman wanted to jump on another man and because Jak was green.

            Still, it was strange to Jak, to send a man to prison for being green. It was not until Jak was out of prison that it became clearer. It was strange that people hated him for his skin until Jak saw what was called an ‘orc’ after he was out. It was a dead orc, but it was a lot greener than he was. Taller, too, and with larger teeth. Jak had looked around at the other men and women he was with and figured that he was halfway between an orc and a regular person, however that worked out. It did not make anything easier. The reasons for them being pulled from prison were also strange to him, but those became clear quickly. There were still hard times in his group of about thirty people, all from the prisons. All of the people that were in the wagon coming out of prison with Jak were in his group, but there were other wagons of people. Jak remembered on that strange morning he was pulled out of prison being able to pick out the sound of at least two other wagons as they left the trail they were on for another destination.

            First, they had been checked–

            –Hear something….. No.

            –checked to make sure they could work. Then, they were taught how to fight. How to fight with swords, spears, and axes. How to shoot bows. How to hide and wait, like right then. How to find out information. Plenty of other things. Then they were sent out with instructions. Jak found it strange that he was sent to prison because someone else killed only to leave prison after, maybe, three years, to go kill people. It was very strange.

            Tansher waived from her lookout place to the east. This would be it. Jak waited. He could hear them. Then he could see them. One. Two. Four. Six. Nine. Nine wagons. Are there more? No. This is it, then. Jak pulled his bowstring and loosed. It was an awkward shot, but he hit his mark. One of the two horses on the first wagon, right in the neck. The horse screamed and scrambled in a panic, startling the other horse and the driver. The wounded horse stumbled and fell. The others in his band were loosing their arrows on the drivers of the other wagons. Tansher and a few others killed the drivers of the rear wagon. The fallen horse on the lead wagon flailed wildly as the other horse tried to pull the wagon in the other direction, away from Jak and most of his band. Really, the horse was pulling against the harness directly away from Jak. The wagon started to lean, came up on one side of wheels, and tipped. Most of the other wagon crews fared no better, either being killed or wounded by arrows, trampled by panicking horses or crushed by overturning wagons. Jak noticed a few of the wagon drivers managed to get off on the other side and ran, but he knew that the five he left on the far side would get them.

            Suddenly it was over. A small amount of motion remained in the few survivors trying to crawl away or rolling on the ground in pain. Jak got up, adjusted his belt, and grabbed his spear, clutching it in one hand and his strung bow in the other. Arrows rattled in his quiver as he walked, but the others in his group ran up. Wails of wounded cried before being cut short. Horses shrieked and fell silent. Jak strode up to one wagon driver, chest heaving with the labor of breathing. He held up a hand, “plea–” but Jak thrust him in the chest with his spear. They made quick work. Killed and eviscerated everyone. It was ghastly work, but it was needed. Apparently. Jak reflected again on the oddity of him being taken out of prison to do far worse things than what he was sent to prison about–which he did not even do.

            By now, the group was looting needed supplies and a few extra treats and prizes. Wait. “What are you doing?” Jak called. It was Jawn. Again, with Jawn, he thought irritably.

            “What boss? I’m just takin’ somethin’ for later. Just a little snack,” Jawn grinned. He had a whimpering woman, bleeding from the arm. He was forcing her to walk along with him with a strong grip on the other arm. Jak casually nocked an arrow, drew the string, and shot the woman. She yelped once and hit the ground dead. Jawn jumped in startlement. “HEY, WHAT THE SCAT!?”

            “You don’t take any of these,” Jak motioned to the wagon crews, “not for any reason. You wanna have fun, try your luck with someone in the group. Pay up with a whore next time we’re in town. Go stick it in a tree, or curl it around to your own scat hole, I don’t care. But no prisoners.”

            “Eh? What’s it to you? Ya scatty greenskin!” Jawn challenged. For all of the oddness, Jak had appreciated the last few months. He especially appreciated the efficiency of the knife techniques he had been instructed on as the belt knife glided out of its sheath at his belt, beneath the folds of his tunic and, with a flick of the wrist, raced towards Jawn’s mouth. The blade was a hand long, from palm heel to fingertip, and it broke Jawn’s front teeth before entering his head at the roof of his mouth. Jawn’s head arched back with the shock and force of the stab, gurgling briefly before falling off of Jak’s knife. Jak looked around at most of the rest of the group that gathered to watch. Each of them carrying a small box or sack of what they had picked from the caravan. There were no other challengers.

            “What should we do with Jawn, boss?” asked one of the others.

            “Leave ‘im. Whoever finds this will think he was one of the caravan crew,” Jak said. He bent down to pick up Jak’s forward-curving sword. Jak was told that this was an orc style sword. He cast it into the midst of the wreckage so it did not seem like it was Jawn’s sword, but that an attacker had dropped it elsewhere. The last five of Jak’s group appeared from the other side of the road. “You get the runners?” he asked.

            “Sure did, boss,” Bisin replied.

            “Good. Take your share and let’s go,” he said. He motioned to a few others, “go hack off some horse legs. That’ll be food for a few days.”

The five went for their pick while some others butchered the horse meat. Jak thought about the meat roasted over an open fire later in the evening. The fire would be good. The wind brings the cold autumn sooner than normal. Tansher caught Jak’s eye and gave him a playful look for what was to come later. That’ll keep the cold away, too. Life was good, for a change. A big change. Jak did not particularly like the work, but why should he really care. No one else in the world ever really cared about him or was ever kind to him, except for maybe one or two people in the orphanage. He went to prison for something that he did not do. So why should he care about these people he was supposed to kill? He had to kill people and make sure it looked like orcs and goblins did it. But he was free. These other normal humans did what he said. Most were afraid of him, but a few even respected him. He generally got his pick of the women in the group. Sirid was eager to be his girl, but so was Tansher and he particularly liked Tansher. Tansher was the only one with freckles. And the freckles were everywhere.

***

Meanwhile

At a farm, west of Yvel, Crown Sorcerers’ Proving Grounds

Tyrnimar stuffed the notebook into the saddlebag in the dark of the morning before sunrise. He fixed his right foot in the stirrup and hoisted himself up. Gripping the scabbard with his right hand, he held the saddle with his left as he swung his left leg over and seated himself with his other foot fumbling for the stirrup. He sighed, his breath frosting in the humid air. The humans would call this moon ‘Berenk,’ the sixth month of the year, though they used to call it Soppi before Beren the Great had it changed. But to elves, the year was just beginning, since they counted the new year with the beginning of summer. Tyrnimar lost himself in a daydream for a moment of a place far off in a high tower with a warm fire, lamps for light to read by, and two cups of freshly brewed tea–

            “~~oohoo~~” called a voice. How galling and loathsome! The voice grated on Tyrnimar as he shuddered in vexation. He twisted in his saddle to see Zaya, already mounted with a leather bag slung over her shoulder, walking her horse up to his. He had risen very early. Very. Early. Specifically, to avoid exactly this encounter. She smiled coyly at him, which he returned with a tired glare.

            “Can you be helped?” Tyrnimar said flatly.

            “Well,” she began melodically, “I knew you were going into the city and I wanted to come along and see my uncle.” She lied. He knew she lied. But he had no basis on which to accuse and nothing to gain in the accusation. She tried to draw closer and seize his arm from her own saddle, but he urged his mount to sidestep, thanking Eevarel once again for her rigorous and unforgiving tutelage. All that ruthlessness and she still had smiled at him… Task at hand. Silently, he turned his horse and urged it to walk down the road to the city.

            “You wouldn’t want me to wander about in the dark would you?” she called playfully as she cantered after him to catch up. Then for the light wait, he grumbled. “I could get lost,” she teased, threaten me not with a blessing, he grated internally.

            They spent the morning like that, mostly. Zaya harassing him against his unconcealed eye rolls and huffs of irritation. He knew full well what was going on and could only do so much to stop it without specific orders from Holbrin. She chattered at him endlessly and he returned her gestures with silence. For hours. The sun rose and dispelled some of the frost in the air. They entered the gates and made their way up the main avenue to the Prince’s palace. He dismounted, grabbed some items from the saddlebags, he handed the reins to one of the stablehands and thanking her.

            He made his way into the palace antechamber. He looked around and Zaya latched onto his arm. He shook her off irritably, her leather bag flopping aside, and she grinned at him. He stalked down the corridor with sidelong, baleful glances at her. “Is there not somewhere to be that is needed by you?” he asked. So irritably focused was he that he bumped into somebody. He looked. Eevarel! Zaya took the opportunity of his surprise and pounced on his arm, very uncomfortably holding it close to her. Tyrnimar felt the flushing of embarrassment. Of all the things! In front of her! His shoulders slumped in humiliation.

            Eevarel looked surprised for the barest instant before smiling at the both of them and placing her hands on her hips. She leaned close on Zaya’s side away from Tyrnimar and whispered. Tyrnimar was not sure if he was supposed to hear or not, but Eevarel said, “get your own toys.” They smiled at each other in a peculiar way for a moment before Zaya detached herself and cheerfully begged off to see her uncle. Eevarel, hands still on her hips, leaned to one side, and said in Elven, “I am going to kill her.”

            “Gah,” breath escaped Tyrnimar, “as much of a relief as that would be to me, and incredibly helpful also not to be mentioned by me, that approval would be granted by Holbrin would not be thought likely by me,” he answered in Elven. “Not to be mentioned, against the Ways.”

            “Hm? Well, I’ve been missing my tea. You brought me some?” she asked.

            “Oh,” he fumbled, “yes. Um…”

            “Not here,” she scolded as he was producing the first tin cup. They proceeded to the apartments that the elves shared, though most were out of Yvel now.

            As they walked, Tyrnimar asked, “what was that about toys?”

            “Tsk, nevermind that,” she airily dismissed as they entered the apartments. He was glad to see Trinien.

            “Ah, Tyrnimar! Here with my weekly delivery?” he laughed in a friendly greeting.

            “By the Way,” Tyrnimar said, producing the notebook he had packed. Trinien tossed it into the fire and handed Tyrnimar a blank notebook.

            Confused by the exchange, Eevarel asked, “what are you doing!?”

            Tyrnimar tossed the fresh notebook on the table before producing the gourd bottle and the two tin cups and poured Eevarel’s cup first. He nudged it to her before answering while pouring his own, “Zaya of House Yand’ail was the lady in the hall. Observations of the sorcerers and myself have been made by her. My notes and, perhaps, one of my books has been copied by her. Now, decoy notes are made by me. That she does not know Elven is certain to me, so the ruse can be continued for some time.”

            “How do you know she does not read Elvish?” Eevarel asked.

            Tyrnimar blushed and looked away as Trinien grinned and answered, “because Tyrnimar writes all kinds of nonsense in there. Everything from roast chicken recipes to how to diagnose health problems in lizards from the color of their dung,” he chuckled.

            “That some of that was fabricated by me must be admitted by me,” Tyrnimar mumbled into his tea, “still, this is serious. A serious attempt at espionage and that she has copied at least part of one book is to be certain. Which one, I am not sure.”

            “Well, Holbrin will not be too pleased,” Trinien said.

            “He does not know yet?” Eevarel was surprised.

            “No,” Tyrnimar said glumly, “not yet. This letter will be sent by me,” Tyrnimar held up a rolled and wax sealed letter.

            “I will take it, then,” Eevarel said, “Holbrin sent me off to check on something and needs my report.”

            “Oh, you will?” Tyrnimar asked.

            “Wonderful,” Trinien said at the same time, “Holbrin has me on task here advising the Prince’s merchant and guild council. Greedy, short-sighted lot there. I was getting worried about making time to bring all this other stuff down to him in Serna.”

            “What other stuff?” Eevarel asked tentatively.

            Trinien gestured to four wooden travel chests, “Tyrnimar’s traveling library. He had to evacuate them away from the espionage risk and they’re not much safer here.”

            “Wonderful,” Eevarel deflated, clearly not happy about transporting four large trunks of books. “Did you not only have three saddlebags of books when we came here?”

            “Oh, yes,” Tyrnimar said, suddenly giddy, “those two are notebooks full from the sorcery observations.” He waived the fresh notebook, “this one will be filled in by memory and go with the rest. Also, more books have been bought by me and two more have been written by me about the various herbs, roots, and flowers on the western side of the Kaskevs.” Tyrnimar chattered on, but Eevarel stopped listening.

            In another section of the palace, Zaya pushed open two large doors into the palace library. She stepped in cautiously. The creak of the doors echoed, as did the dull thud of them closing behind her. She made her way to the fourth table in the main reading area, piled high with open and closed books. This was her appointed drop spot. She reached into her leather bag and began to lay out the ledgers she had copied from Tyrnimar’s room and the portions of one of his books that she had been able to page through. She jumped in surprise when she noticed a man sitting three tables away, peering at her over the edge of a book he was reading.

            “Oh! I’m sorry, I didn’t notice you there,” she began.

            “It’s quite alright, my fair lady. Please,” he said, “be comfortable. I do not get many visitors.”

            “Erm, I’m sorry. I’m really just returning these for a friend,” Zaya said.

            “It’s quite alright. Please, my name is Nicholas. I’m the chief librarian here. Really,” he chortled, “that doesn’t say much when I’m the only librarian here.”

            “Um, right, uh, master librarian,” she said, “look, sorry, but I have a pressing appointment with my sister. I’m really just dropping these for a friend.”

            “Oh,” chief librarian Nicholas said, “well, of course. Please do come see me some time,” he smiled at her. Zaya did not hold his gaze long and begged off while leaving the library.

            Nicholas watched her go. It was a shame. He was sure she could be quite charming, even if it was false charm, but needed more experience at managing surprise. She was too accustomed to controlling the situation and knowing everything about it that she had trouble dealing with the unexpected. Still, her reports were promising, both for her skill at observation and surveillance, but also for what the reports contained themselves. He would make a note in her dossier and talk to one of his handlers, he did not remember which one. There were three layers between Nicholas and someone in Zaya’s position. She had no idea that she actually worked for him or that he was involved at all.

            Now, he thought, let’s see what the good master Tyrnimar has to say. He picked up the few transcribed pages and scanned over them, I should’ve expected they’d be written in his own tongue. Hm. Who could translate… Ah… Hm… Well, maybe Turin can talk him into it.