by Eric Vall
“And I suppose he’s got eyes like that elf of yours?” he asked in a low voice.
Now, my gut clenched. “Yeah, actually. A little lighter … kind of a pale pink, and his hair’s silver instead. Why?”
“Had a run in with an elf about ten years ago,” Dorinick muttered as he tested the tip of a Halcyan glaive. “He came up on us at a mining operation we had in the east back then. Killed five of my men and stole all our silver. I got knocked out early on, but when I came around, my sword was gone as well. He had these blades on him. Pink eyes, silver hair.”
When Dorinick turned his glower my way, I managed to adjust my expression just in time, but I was struggling with a blaring realization that the dwarf had definitely been robbed by Dragir. It could have been anyone, of course, but I knew for a fact that there were two well-wrought dwarven swords back at Dragir’s house in the forest village, and he exclusively used silver for the hilts of his weapons.
So, I tried for a shrug and turned toward the worktable.
“Damn,” I muttered, “that’s pretty shitty. I’m not sure if it was the same guy, though. There are a lot of silver haired elves in Nalnora.”
Dorinick grunted, and he grumbled a low “fucking elves” as he came back toward the fountain, but I was relieved when he returned to our other discussion instead of pushing the topic.
“The Elders will be in an uproar over this one,” the dwarf sighed.
“Do you think you can keep them from acting on it?” I asked him. “They should be made aware of the threat, but until we know what we’re dealing with, it’s safest that they don’t interfere with anything the Master’s doing out there.”
“I’ll tell ‘em about the ogres,” he said with a smirk. “That’ll do it, but if the Master unleashes that army on Aurum, we won’t stand a chance at fending them off.”
“Let me worry about that,” I replied, “you just make sure the Master doesn’t realize the dwarves know he’s there. This is the closest we’ve ever come to cornering him, so we have to move carefully. I don’t even know if I like the idea of having Deya scout the region to be honest. I’ve killed a couple transmuters before, and if anyone gets suspicious, or something happens to her …” I trailed off, and I was suddenly tempted to go get Deya now and cancel the scouting mission, but I didn’t want to be too paranoid this early on in the game. We needed the information she was getting for us if we were going to do anything about the Master’s fortress, so I ground my jaw and forced myself to remain where I was. “Hopefully, she can get enough information right now that we won’t have to send her again, but it’d be good to keep an eye out in the long run and track his numbers a bit if we could.”
“I could do it,” Dorinick offered, and he shook his head before I could argue. “Got about five abandoned mines in the east and decades of experience hiding out in those mountains. I could set up a small surveillance troop without anyone bein’ the wiser, and that pretty elf of yours won’t have to use her dragons as often.”
I furrowed my brow. “That would be a decent solution, but I don’t like the idea of you guys being close enough for the Master to get ahold of you. He’s got some powerful mages out there, and you wouldn’t be able to fend of an attack if they decided to brand you.”
“Tell you what,” Dorinick chuckled. “You worry about how we’re gonna kill those bastards off and let me worry about stakin’ out the area. Deal?”
I crossed my arms and considered the offer, but then I caught the sound of heavy boots shuffling down the lane, and I gestured toward the door.
“Haragh’s on his way,” I muttered, “let’s see what he has to say about this.”
“How do you know that?” Dorinick asked in confusion.
“It’s a long story,” I admitted. I wasn’t too eager to return to any subjects having to do with Dragir, so I stood and headed for the door rather than get into the details of how I’d found someone to brand me with my runes.
When I let Haragh in, the half-ogre smelled like he’d been rolling in dirt ever since I left that morning, and his tunic was drenched through with sweat.
“Did you see Temin?” he asked anxiously as we returned to the atrium. “What’d he say? He told ye’ to fuck off, didn’t he?”
“He didn’t tell me to fuck off,” I said with a smirk. “I had a calm talk with him.”
“Oh, he more than talked to him,” Dorinick assured Haragh. “Never seen a man hand his own king his ass for him, but there he was, laying out the law like the crown was on the other foot.”
“Really?” Haragh asked as a grin came to his big green face.
“I didn’t hand his ass to him,” I sighed. “I was direct and to the point is all, and I happened to make a hell of a lot of sense. It’s hard to argue with rock solid logic.”
Haragh made it over to me in two giant strides, and he crushed me into a bear hug as he lifted me right off my feet. I wheezed and attempted to keep from passing out as my lungs refused to refill themselves, but eventually the half-ogre roughly set me down and settled for shaking me by the shoulders instead.
“You’re a hell of a friend,” he croaked as he manfully blinked away a few tears. “What are we doin’ then? What’s the plan?”
“We’re under direct orders from the king to travel west to Jagruel,” I told the half-ogre. “Once we figure out how many ogres have been taken, I need to meet with their leader, mend whatever rift there is between our races from the emancipation, and gain an alliance in arms.”
Haragh’s face fell, and he abruptly released his hold on me. “What?”
“What?” I asked as I furrowed my brow.
“That’s the plan?” he clarified.
“Yeah, what’s wrong with it? I thought you’d be happy.”
“Do you know anything about Jagruel?” he asked angrily. “They’ll tear your arms out of their sockets and use your bones for toothpicks!”
I couldn’t help chuckling. “That’s funny, the king said they’d tear my head off and use my guts for jam on their toast.”
“Aye, that too,” Haragh assured me, and my smile slowly faded as I realized he wasn’t joking.
“Well … that’s the plan, man, I don’t know what else to tell you,” I said. “It’s our only option at this point, unless you want to just hope for the best. Otherwise, we’re arming all of Illaria to take on hundreds of possessed ogres with those mages on their side as well.”
“Godsdamnit,” Haragh growled as he propped his big green fists on his hips. “Jagruel it is, then. It’s a death wish, in my own opinion, but if the elves didn’t kill ye’, you might stand a chance with the ogres.”
“That’s the spirit,” I mumbled. “Besides, you can help us get around out there, can’t you?”
“I haven’t been out west since I was a boy,” Haragh admitted, “so I don’t know anything about the new order of things. I do know who was elected ruler, though, and I would suggest you wear some sort of armor before goin’ in to talk with him. He’s got a short temper and is about two feet bigger than me in all directions.”
Dorinick raised his bushy brows at me. “It was nice knowin’ ye’. Don’t worry, I’ll look after the women for ye’ once you’ve passed on.”
“Like hell you will,” I shot back with a grin. “I’ll be back in a week, and when I gain that alliance, you owe me some of those sapphires you’ve been bragging about.”
“Shit, you can have ‘em before that,” Dorinick said, and he dug into his pocket to pull out a fistful of polished and expertly cut gems. They were almost the exact same shade of Deya’s pink hair, and they glittered like nothing I’d ever seen.
“Damn,” I mused as I stooped closer. “You just carry these in your pockets? No wonder you get robbed.”
“Eh, got thousands more just like it up in Orebane,” Dorinick said with a shrug. “I forgot to empty my pockets before I hopped the train and headed south, is all.”
“Gotta love the dwarves,” I chuckled. “How much do you want for
them?”
“Take ‘em,” Dorinick said as he caught my wrist and dumped the whole glittering hoard into my hand. “A man with as many women as you needs all the gems he can get, I’d reckon.”
I rolled my eyes. “My women aren’t remotely like that, alright? They’d probably be happier if I gave them all new weapons and--”
Shoshanne’s gasp from the doorway had us all turning around, and she quickly came over as her brown eyes went wide.
“What are those?” the healer asked breathlessly. “They’re beautiful!”
Dorinick waggled his brows at me. “Aren’t they?”
I grinned as Shoshanne took my hand and began gingerly picking through the pile of pink sapphires, and her plush lips were puckered with awe while she admired the way they glittered in the light. Then Cayla came in from the kitchen, and she was on the verge of greeting Dorinick when she suddenly cocked a brow and strolled over to Shoshanne’s side.
“Like a magnet,” Dorinick muttered to himself.
“These look incredible, Mason,” the princess mused. “Did you find them in Serin?”
“No, miss,” Dorinick answered for me, “you won’t find gems so fine as this anywhere in the south. Not ever in fact, if Temin doesn’t get his head out of his ass real quick.”
Cayla smirked. “It’s good to see you again, Dorinick.”
“Always a pleasure, Your Highness,” the dwarf chuckled. “I was just tellin’ Mason he’s shockingly low on his gem supply considering how many women he’s been collecting.”
“I agree,” Cayla replied as she sent me a wink, and she picked up a few gems to admire their glint. “These would look beautiful on Deya, you know. Can you use Terra powers to fuse them into one stone?”
“Oh, that would be beautiful,” Shoshanne sighed. “Worn at the neck, maybe on a silver band?”
“No, better line it with diamonds,” Cayla decided, and she glanced down at Dorinick. “I don’t suppose you have any with you? I could always send for my own down in Cedis.”
Dorinick held up a finger as he dug in his back pocket, and then he rifled through his boiled leather vest as well before producing several tiny shards of diamonds.
“Knew I had ‘em somewhere,” the dwarf muttered as he handed them over, and I let out a sigh as I shook my head.
“I should have been born a dwarf,” I decided. “Pockets full of diamonds seems like the way to live.”
“I thought you preferred chucking them at your enemies,” Dorinick laughed, and I couldn’t help laughing as well.
“Yeah, that was a hell of a battle,” I sighed as I recalled the sight of diamonds shattering against the heads of ice giants and cascading down in a fine, glittering dust all over the snow. “Remind me about those catapults when it comes time to storm the Master’s fortress. That’d just round out the whole attack.”
Then Haragh’s big green head suddenly blocked my view of the dwarf as he shifted to get a closer look at the pink sapphires.
“What do you think?” I asked. “You know more about gems than me. Could I fuse them into one?”
“Sapphires are touchy,” Haragh mumbled as he picked around in the pile a bit, “but you might be able to manage it if you broke ‘em down first. Lemme see. Bring them to the table.”
So, we all ended up gathering around the workshop table, and while Haragh picked through the stash of gems to get a feel for the stock, Dorinick slid my sketches of the automatons over with a curious crease between his brows.
He chuckled to himself several times as he worked through the many designs I hadn’t even built yet, and I smirked at his grunts of approval while I tried to focus on what Haragh was doing.
I could feel the half-ogre’s Terra powers had sparked, but it seemed like he was using them to study the makeup of the gems at the moment. For a huge guy, he was incredibly adept at handling the tiny sapphires, and once he had them all carefully arranged in a series of concentric hexagons, he took a breath and held his palms toward them.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
“You don’t have to talk so quiet,” the half-ogre whispered back. “The gems aren’t afraid of you.”
“Sorry,” I chuckled. “I just didn’t want to throw you off, but what are you doing with the hexagons?”
“You want to mimic the molecular crystal systems of the gem if you plan to rebuild them later,” he explained. “That’s where everyone goes wrong with gems. Sapphires are tricky because their molecular structure is hexagonal. That’s why you can’t just fuse the pieces together as they are. Watch what happens if I try.”
Haragh sparked his magic to pull all the gems out of their places and into one pile, and I could feel the energy in the air increase as they slowly began to fuse together. They didn’t lose their initial cuts, though, and when he broke his connection, he picked up the clump of melded gems without any of them breaking loose.
“There, ye’ see? All you get is a big lump of pink shit,” he grunted, and Shoshanne giggled from behind my shoulder. “If I break these down into dust based on their crystal system, though, I can reform them into one solid stone. You just have to focus on mirroring the hexagonal design.”
With that, the half-ogre sparked his magic again, and the lump of pink shit split into the exact group of gems he’d started with. Then he reorganized them into concentric hexagons once more and raised his palms a few inches above the table. With a surge of magic, the gems all burst into pink dust like miniature fireworks before Haragh closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
As I watched, the dust slowly sifted itself into a single, glittering hexagon, and then it suddenly locked together in a clump. It seemed to melt in the half-ogre’s magical hold, a lot like my steel did, and as he shifted his hands above it like he was molding clay, the molten clump gradually gained in clarity while the cut of the gem began to settle into a solid shape.
When Haragh was finished, there was a perfectly polished pink sapphire on the table as big as the last flip phone I ever bought, and Shoshanne let out a moan of approval.
“It’s perfect, Haragh!” Cayla admired. “I’ve never seen its equal.”
“Of course you haven’t,” Dorinick muttered smugly. “You won’t find any gems so fine as that--”
“This far south,” I finished for him as I shook my head. “We know.”
“Just makin’ sure you remember it,” the dwarf replied. “Pass it along to that king of yours.”
We were all crouched around the table admiring Haragh’s handiwork when Deya returned from her transmuting, and she had Aurora close behind her with a stack of parchment in her hands.
“I’ve finished scouting the area for you,” Deya announced, “and I had Aurora sketch up a few designs based on what I could tell her since I’m having trouble making any sense of the--oh it’s beautiful! Where did you get that?”
I didn’t bother acknowledging the look Dorinick was sending me since his smugness was already radiating from him, but I picked up the gem and held it out to Deya.
“It’s for you,” Cayla informed the beautiful elf. “Mason is making it into a necklace with a diamond band.”
Deya gasped and looked at me, and I was surprised when her violet eyes were suddenly brimming with tears.
“You really are too good for this world, Mason,” Deya said as she smiled sweetly. “This is the most beautiful gift anyone has ever given me. How did I ever get so lucky?”
“I think we’ve established it was Nemris, yes?” Cayla casually muttered, and Deya blushed all over again before she giggled and hopped into my arms.
I sent the princess a pointed look as Deya started tucking kisses all over my neck again, but Cayla just raised her brows innocently and shrugged.
I couldn’t help wondering how long my women were going to be toying with the beautiful elf like this, but I didn’t much mind the results. Deya and I had always been crazy about each other, and if she wanted to take it a step further, I wasn’t about to argue. It was kind of
weird that she kept looking at me like I was a god, though, but I could probably get used to that, too.
“Should we leave you two alone,” Aurora chuckled, “or are we going to discuss this fortress?”
“Fortress,” Deya mumbled against my neck, and Haragh rolled his eyes as he nudged Dorinick.
“Remind me to stop helpin’ him out with this lot,” the half-ogre grumbled.
“It’s the gems,” Dorinick assured him proudly. “Like a damn magnet.”
Chapter 5
“Alright, so … this is fucking huge,” I finally decided after I’d stared at Aurora’s sketch for several minutes, and Dorinick grunted his agreement. “You didn’t mention how big it was.”
“That’s why she asked me to draw it out,” the half-elf explained. “It’s quite extensive and complex.”
“Yeah, but the drawing makes no sense. Where’s the entrance? What are those giant walls that lead to nowhere? Is that jagged thing part of the structure or the mountain? And what the hell is that massive pile made of? Is it garbage?”
Deya and Aurora both sighed, and the beautiful elf came over.
“I couldn’t find an entrance,” Deya said as she pointed to the structure. “This is almost exactly what I saw. The larger building at the front with the strange walls, the few spires, what looks like a bridge I couldn’t see the inside of, and the large pile. The fortress seems to be built into the mountainside, which is what that jagged portion in the center is, but given the placement of the bridge and the structures it leads to, I would assume he might have built into that peak as well.”
“Then it’s physically impossible there wasn’t an entrance,” I replied. “Was there a shadowy alcove or archway around the back side? Maybe a trap door or anything suspicious looking?”
“The whole structure looks suspicious,” Deya sighed. “This is what I saw, Mason, I don’t know how to describe it better. The pile is all covered in snow now, but I think this is what the ogres were working on when I last flew over the place, so it must be the boulders they were moving.”
“He branded a bunch of ogres to stack rocks into a pile?” Dorinick asked flatly.