The Darkness of Old; The Ancient Crown; The Winged One

by Hans Bezdek

  “What brings ya to me humble abode?” asked King Soeren.

  “Your reports about the Dar’Ka were correct,” said Kiera. “The black and reds are currently taking over Gorland, and it’s just a matter of time before they strike Jiezvall. We’ve come to provide assistance.”

  King Soeren’s face brightened up. “Such great news! Me men have been more than confident, but with the help of our own dragons, this’ll be a proper fight!”

  I’d never understand the dwarven desire to always fight. If I was the ruler of some town, I’d surely want to avoid any threat of war if at all possible.

  “Who be these others with ya?” asked King Soeren, looking around at all of us. “Don’t seem like they all be dragons.”

  “They’re not,” nodded Kiera. “Have you heard the prophecy of the Winged One?”

  The king thought for a moment then nodded. “Aye, sounds familiar.”

  Kiera walked over and placed a hand on my shoulder. “This is Reimar. We believe he is the one the prophecy speaks of.”

  “That be so?” asked King Soeren, invading my personal space and squinting at me.

  I gave an awkward smile and took a step back. I was more than okay with Kiera being so close to me, but a dwarf who smelled like he hadn’t showered in a few weeks? Not so much.

  “These three are his friends,” explained Kiera, introducing Dhot, Cassandra, and Braun. “They are also spoken of in the prophecy. I’ve worked with them before and they are very good at getting positive results.”

  “Glad to hear it,” grunted King Soeren. “What about the rest?”

  Kiera looked at me. I took that as my cue to jump in.

  “Er, everyone else are fighters from Durnskeep,” I explained.

  “Durnskeep!” exclaimed King Soeren, taking a half step back. “I’ve never set foot in the place! Why would they send their people out to fight fer me people?”

  “It’s sort of a long story,” I said. “Basically, we were able to convince them that the black and reds were coming, and this would be a major battle in the Second Dragon War. They volunteered some troops to the cause.”

  “That is too kind of em,” said the dwarf. “Ya seem to know a thing or two about what’s goin on. I’d love to hear more about what ya have to say, but it’s late fer us and I need me sleep.”

  “Completely understand,” I nodded. “I’m happy to talk more whenever you’re ready.”

  “We shall have a grand breakfast tomorrow and have a nice chat,” smiled King Soeren, before turning to a nearby black bearded dwarf. “Eluf! Show these people to some fine bedchambers!”

  “Aye, me King,” nodded the dwarf, turning and walking away.

  I took that as the dwarven way of asking us to politely follow him, and obliged.

  Eluf and a handful of other armed guards made for the eastern wall, nodding at a few more dwarven guards that were loitering about. Glancing back, I saw that the whole army was following after us. I had assumed with so many people we would have had to camp out somewhere, but King Soeren had mentioned a room.

  As we got closer to the eastern wall, I realized we weren’t going to any of the small buildings nearby, but the wall itself. I was worried that the dwarves had lost their mind as we approached the wall that had no gate or door, but uncharacteristically decided to keep my mouth shut. That turned out to be the right decision. Eluf knocked twice on a stone, and a narrow passage opened inside the wall.

  “Keep yer heads low,” said the dwarf, turning back to address everyone. “These were built fer dwarves, not ye taller races.”

  “Maybe I should stay out here,” I heard Fulco mumble to himself.

  I crossed my fingers at the prospect of not having the giant troll assassin sleeping near me.

  “Nonsense!” cried out Braun. “Ya’ll miss out on all the fun!”

  Fulco tossed the idea over in his head and then nodded. “Guess you could be right.”

  I uncrossed my fingers. Stupid Braun.

  One of the longest single file lines I had ever seen formed and we followed Eluf into the wall. I had to duck slightly as I entered, but once we were inside the wall, I could stand up straight again without worrying about hitting my head. There was a thin hallway with a set of stairs at the end of it. We followed Eluf down, quickly figuring out the stairs were deeper than I originally imagined.

  “I feel like a mole,” mumbled Dhot.

  “It is strange to go below ground, isn’t it?” asked Kiera, her arms crossed and not looking the most comfortable. “I wasn’t looking forward to this part.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “We full dragons don’t like being underground,” she said.

  “No, I get that. I meant not looking forward to this. You knew we’d be going into the wall and down here?”

  “Of course,” she nodded. “The dwarves here live under the town.”

  The stairs came to an end and my group gasped as we looked ahead. When Kiera said the dwarves lived down here, I imagined the dwarves living in a few uncomfortable rooms or holes. That couldn’t have been further from the truth. The dwarves of Jiezvall had managed to cut out a giant space, easily the size of the courtyard we landed in. Stone buildings were constructed down here, many more in number than above and also decorated with gemstones. Several shops nearby were open nearby, a handful of dwarves wandering the finely cut streets.

  “Impressive,” said Braun. “It’s no Feldarkr, but it wouldn’t be so bad livin down here.”

  “Keep up!” called out Eluf, noticing that we had fallen behind.

  We jogged to catch up to him, still taking in our surroundings as we went.

  “It must be so strange to live in the ground,” said Cassandra. “I can’t imagine not seeing the sky all day.”

  “Must be pretty safe, though,” I acknowledged. “I bet most people don’t know this is down here.”

  “That’s the idea,” nodded Kiera. “I knew about this because I visited a while, but most would just assume the population lives in the courtyard in the middle. If enemies were to attack, they’d not damage most of the important buildings since they are all down here.”

  “Maha! Smart idea!” laughed Dhot.

  “I can’t believe they built their whole way of life around something that happened hundreds of years ago,” I said. They were so scared of the black and reds coming back that they resorted to living down here. It must’ve been horrible when they lost the city during the First Dragon War. Were we taking the Dar’Ka too lightly this time around?

  “There are other benefits,” shrugged Kiera. “They don’t have to worry about extreme weather, and this region is known for getting hit with blizzards from time to time. The community also seems very tight knit.”

  After a couple of minutes, Eluf stopped next to a row of buildings that looked identical to one another. They were two stories, painted light orange, and weren’t decorated with any gemstones. “These be our guest living quarters. There be eight beds to a room, though there will be more than enough fer ye.“

  “Thank you for your help,” smiled Cassandra.

  Eluf grunted then turned to walk away. “We’ll collect you in the morning to have breakfast with King Soeren.”

  “He seems friendly,” I mumbled.

  “I was thinking the same thing,” grinned Cassandra.

  “First dibs on a room!” cheered Dhot, running down the row of buildings and glancing in their windows.

  “Kiera,” came a voice behind us. I glanced back to see Darius, along with several other fur wearing men and women. “We should take a room on the main floor in case trouble breaks out over night.”

  “Good to see you, Darius,” I smiled at the blue dragon.

  “Likewise,” nodded Darius. “Not to be rude, but we need to save small talk for another time. We’ve traveled far today, and we need to see to it Kiera gets some rest.”

  “We understand,” said Cassandra.

  “Dibs on this one!” shouted Dhot ab
out twenty buildings away. The goblin pointed at the building a few times then ran in. Braun, Gerard, and Fulco walked down to join him.

  “Aw man,” I groaned. “Fulco’s sleeping in the same room as us?”

  “Looks that way,” nodded Cassandra.

  “Oh, I thought you’d be staying with us, Reimar,” said Kiera, leaning against a building.

  “I... uh, I-er,” I stammered, unsure how to respond.

  “Darius is right,” said Cassandra to Kiera. “You’ve done a lot of work today and should get some sleep. Reimar’s snoring will keep you up if he stays in the same room.”

  “I don’t snore!” I shouted.

  “You don’t know one way or the other!” said Cassandra, rolling her eyes. “You’re asleep while it happens!”

  “Perhaps another night, then,” said Kiera, winking at me as she passed by.

  The blue dragons followed after her, Darius picking a room a few doors down from the one Dhot chose for us.

  “I don’t snore!” I repeated to the elf.

  “You seemed like you could use some help,” she shrugged.

  “I… I was doing just fine,” I lied.

  “If you say so,” she laughed. “Besides, we don’t have all night. We have to divide everyone up and assign them rooms.”

  I turned back to see a long line of fighters behind us. They were staring at us, waiting patiently and quietly.

  “We have to do what?!” I cried, realizing how long this would take.

  “You’re the one who has been organizing all of this,” she pointed out. “This is part of that.”

  I tried to put up a fight, but knew it was useless. I sighed and waved at the line to approach us.

  “Let’s get this over with…”

  Chapter 11

  I woke up the next morning more tired than when I went to sleep. It took over an hour to get all of the fighters organized into different rooms to sleep in, and there always seemed to be something wrong with one person or another. Some refused to sleep in rooms with other races, others tried to get rooms completely to themselves by paying us off. I was tempted to take them up on their offer, but Cassandra quickly shut that down.

  By the time light came through the window and woke me up, I had only gotten four or five hours of sleep.

  “Wait…” I mumbled to myself, wiping the sleep from my eyes. “There’s no sun down here…”

  Several of the others were moving about now. Dhot walked over and peered out of the window, trying to see where the light was coming from.

  “Looks like they have some sort of artificial lights set up on the ceiling,” said the goblin. “Not a bad idea, really.”

  “Be smarter if they just kept the place dark,” said Fulco, laying on his bed with his arms behind his head. “Makes it harder on attackers that might make it down here.”

  “Dragons can see fairly well in the dark,” I mentioned.

  “Dragons ain’t the only thing to be afraid of,” said the troll.

  I shared a nervous look with Dhot.

  The rest of our group got up and we all grabbed our things. We walked out to see some of the blue dragons waiting outside, Kiera included. A handful of humans from Durnskeep were standing around, keeping some distance from the blues. It looked like hardly any of the Durnskeep rooms had woken up yet.

  It wasn’t a good look.

  “I’m glad you brought an army,” Kiera said to me, “but they aren’t the most… regimented, are they?”

  “Not exactly,” I agreed, glancing over to see one of the humans picking his nose while another looked like they were about to take another nap.

  “They don’t have a proper fear of you,” said Darius. “They would be awake and at attention if you had more control. Leaders should be feared.”

  “What do you want me to do?” I laughed. “Beat one of them up to show the others that I mean business?”

  Darius and Kiera nodded.

  “These blue dragons are hardcore,” mumbled Dhot.

  “I’m not going to attack one of them!” I insisted.

  Darius shrugged. “Whatever you think is best. They’re not my men.”

  Before I could say anything more, Eluf and a few other dwarven guards approached us.

  “Is this all the people that be comin to breakfast?” he asked, looking us over. “Others ain’t hungry?”

  If I was going to go through each of the rooms and get everyone up, it was going to take forever. Then we’d be waiting even longer for them to pile out of their rooms and to make sure we had everyone. With my luck, half of them would fall back asleep. Breakfast would be over by the time we all made it there, and that would risk our friendship with King Soeren.

  “This is everyone that’s coming,” I said to Eluf, deciding the people from Durnskeep could figure out how to feed themselves once they woke up. “If you don’t get up in time, you don’t get fed.”

  Eluf grunted indifferently and started back the way he came.

  “Now that’s a leader’s move!” said Darius, showing me a rare smile as our group followed after the dwarf.

  “It… it is?” I asked. I cleared my throat and nodded. “I mean, yeah it is!”

  “Letting the army get some more rest was a good call,” agreed Cassandra. “They’ll be more awake if the Dar’Ka arrive today.”

  Not exactly what I had been going for, but I was glad everyone here was happy with my decision making.

  Eluf led us down the main road, then hooked a right and brought us to a large dining hall towards the middle of the underground city. Two of the other guards opened the doors for us and we entered. The building was made up of one giant room in the middle, with a few doors off to the side that I assumed led to a kitchen. There were twenty or so very long stone tables through the room, with a shorter one at the back of the room that was raised up on a platform. A large golden chair was in the middle of this table, and King Soeren was already sitting in it.

  “The King wishes to have Kiera and Reimar sitting before him,” said Eluf, holding an arm out for us to move forward. “Everyone else may sit where they please.”

  “You two mingle with the others,” I heard Cassandra say to Dhot and Braun. “I’ll sit with Reimar and Kiera.”

  “Let’s sit next to Fulco!” cheered Braun.

  Dhot glanced up at the troll. “Um… I think I’ll try making some new friends.”

  “I’ll join you!” said Gerard, quickly following the goblin.

  Kiera, Cassandra, and I approached the main table where King Soeren sat, flanked by several well armed guards. The King smiled and waved at us as we approached.

  “So good of ye to join me!” he laughed. “Was worried I’d have to eat without ya!”

  “Sorry to keep you waiting,” smiled Kiera, taking a seat across from the King. “There was a bit of a hold up with some of the men and women from Durnskeep.”

  “Oh?” asked King Soeren, glancing past us and looking for them.

  “They, uh, weren’t able to make it this early,” I said, sitting down next to Kiera. Cassandra sat down on my other side. I glanced back to see Dhot and Gerard sitting at one of the long tables behind us, while Fulco and Braun sat a bit further down from us at the King’s table.

  “Their loss,” shrugged King Soeren, clapping twice.

  The doors to the sides opened, and out came dozens of dwarves dressed in white carrying large platters of food. Biscuits, bacon, and a kind of gravy were placed down on all of the tables. Exciting chatter came from the blue dragons and our group, and everyone dug in at once.

  “So,” began King Soeren, tearing into a large plate of bacon. “Tell me what ye know about this Second Dragon War.”

  Kiera and Cassandra both elbowed me at the same time. I guessed that meant I was going to be doing the talking.

  “Their leader is a half black dragon named Ulrich,” I explained. “He’s got Ludek’s crown and has convinced the black and reds to follow him.”

  “A half dragon, eh?”
said King Soeren, raising an eyebrow. “Always wondered if those things existed.”

  I felt my face flush and the eyes of Kiera and Cassandra on me.

  “Mmhmm,” I said, opting instead to shove some food into my mouth.

  “Do ya know what Ulrich wants?” asked King Soeren. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to fight em. Just curious if there be another way.”

  “You won’t want the alternative,” I said, shaking my head. “He wants to subjugate all of Yaerna to his will. He and the rest of the Dar’Ka believe that the other races should bow down to the black and reds.”

  “That ain’t happenin,” chuckled the dwarf. “Sounds like ye know quite a bit. I take it ye’ve had some encounters with his kind?”

  “More than we’d like,” said Cassandra.

  “One of their encounters is actually how we met,” explained Kiera. “The Dar’Ka were trying to turn the dwarves of Feldarkr against my people. If it weren’t for Reimar and his friends’ bravery, we would’ve taken heavy casualties.”

  “Oh?” asked King Soeren.

  “It’s kind of a long story,” I nodded. “Basically, a human ambassador to King Julfr turned out to be a spy for Ulrich.”

  “A spy?” gasped the dwarf. “How’d ya figure that one out?”

  “We spotted Ulrich’s tattoo on him,” I explained.

  “Tattoo?” asked Fulco, leaning over the table to hear better from several seats down. The humans on either sides of him looked severely put out. “The Dar’Ka have a special one?”

  “Not all, but some of them do,” I nodded. “Don’t really get why they don’t all have one.”

  “What’s it look like?” asked King Soeren.

  “It seems pretty simple,” I shrugged, using my hands to draw it in the air. “It’s a half circle on the top with two triangles pointing down below it. One of the triangles is colored in.”

  Fulco nodded and leaned back, letting the humans get back to their food.

  “So you found that design on the human ambassador?” asked King Soeren.

  “We did,” nodded Cassandra. “Connecting it with all the other weird things that had been going on, we realized that Erskine must’ve been working for Ulrich. We had to flee Feldarkr shortly after, narrowly escaping him.”