by P D Dennison
“I fixed you a nice plate, guvna’,” the boy exclaimed with his hand out and a large grin on his face.
Rostioff left him with a few more coins and cleared everyone out of the room for the evening. Exhaustion over took him and he’d been more than a little bit disturbed by the dream. He said good night to the children and went to sleep himself. He fell asleep within minutes of his head hitting the pillow.
The next morning, he awoke to the laughter of the children as they played some sort of hand clapping game in the corner of the room by the fireplace. The fire had all but gone out in the night and the air carried on it a modest chill. He watched them for a moment as they played. One clapped the others’ hand, then they clapped their own, and then the others’. They sang a little chant as they went. It brought to mind the chanting of the Barbarian witchdoctor from his dream in the tub the night before. In past years the clan sent messages to the council via Dream Speak. They, better than anyone, had mastered it and were able to send messages across great distances, but the ability had not been used in decades. Was it a curse on the Tower Magi or a warning to the people of the south? he wondered. Maybe it was just a bad dream brought on by the stress of Graxxen, the dragon eggs, and the attack on Summervale. Rostioff felt the pressure mounting the last few days. It could just have been a nightmare as his overworked brain tried to make sense of all the terrible things happening in the Land of Shaarn. There was also talk that the Barbarians were considering going to war with the south to push their borders full across the Mystpeaks once and for all. They hadn’t been a warring conquering people since the First Age. Since then, they’d kept to themselves on the north side of the Mystpeak Mountains. The killings only occurred when some brash Southerner dared to cross the Peaks and steal from the horde. There were few foolish or desperate enough to try something that stupid in this day and Age. Everyone knew of and revered the battle prowess of the Winter Wolf in particular, who guarded the entrance to the North and knew very little of the even more reclusive and secretive White Bear Clan further to the northeast. Aside from them, were many other clans who were not so hospitable to Southerners coming into their lands uninvited and often met outside intrusion with open attack. He supposed he would find out soon enough, as he was sure he would encounter some of the horde up in the mountains as he searched for Manya and Turynn.
Rostioff took the children downstairs and had Bigsby find them some breakfast. He opened the fat bartender’s hand and placed within it seven gold coins.
“Bigsby, this is most of what I have on me. I need you to find these children a decent orphanage to live in. I want you to take them to a tailor first and buy them new clothes and shoes with this money. Buy them coats and each a small trunk to keep their belongings in. Buy them some sheets of paper and some ink and quills that they may go to school as well. Please also find them some dry provisions and put that into the trunks for them so they have a little something for their own purposes. I want them to have a good start in life after such a tragic end to their family life back in Summervale.” He closed the man’s hand over the coins. “And whatever is left, you may keep for your troubles and we won’t say a word about any of this to young Masters Turynn and Manya when they return, will we?” He smiled coyly at the bartender. Bigsby was a good and decent man with a big heart. Rostioff knew he was leaving the pups in good hands and that they would be given the best chance possible if the man helped them out.
He turned back to the table and sat with the kids a moment. “Children, I must be off. I’m a wizard and as such, I have important business to attend to in the mountains with the owners of this fine establishment.”
They both looked up at him in wonder when he mentioned the word wizard. They’d seen him perform the healing magick back in Summervale, but had not suspected him to be a wizard. Wizards of the Tower were held in very high regard by all the citizens of the Kingdoms of Castille and Sunover.
“When will you come back for us, Master Rostioff?” the boy inquired.
“Well, child, I won’t. Do you see that man over there? He pointed to Bigsby at the bar and he waved to the children with a big smile on his face.
“He’s Bigsby and he’s going to help you find a nice place to live and go to school, then take you out shopping for new clothes later. I gave him some money so you could get all you need to get a good start here in Hilltop. I’ll be back this way soon enough, as I often am. I’ll find you and come say my hellos and ensure you are being well cared for. Until then, you listen to whatever Mr. Bigsby over there tells you and you’ll be just fine, alright?”
The two of them nodded in unison, but neither looked impressed that he was deserting them.
“Alright then. I bid you farewell, young lady and young sir.” He bowed deeply before them to coax out a laugh and accomplished his goal before he left, striding out into the street and cutting right toward the stables to retrieve Stoneshanks.1
1 “And so the legend tells that Skulga was thrust into the depths of the Abyss, cast out of Asgaard by the creator. Her ambitions too great and her complete disregard for life and love far too wicked for her to be granted the title of the queen of the gods as promised. Instead, that title went to Heyaa, who would now take her place at the right hand of Avgud in the throne room of Asgaard.
For eons, Skulga cursed the union of Avgud and Heyaa and poxed her own immortal soul that she would one day have her vengeance on both of them for taking what was rightfully hers. The legend says, that so resolute was her desire for vengeance, one half of her soul turned black as pitch with emptiness, a void that could no longer be filled by love and the source of all envy and loneliness in Midgaard. The other half turned white hot with rage and jealousy, which was the source of all anger, wrath, and vengeance on Midgaard.
And so it was and is to this day until Skulga finally realizes her wicked plans to overthrow Avgud, kill Heyaa, and take their throne from them. We pray that day never comes to pass.”
- A.M. Corsaan The Valiant, Warrior Priest Warden of the High Tower of Sorcery, Scriptures For Reflection & Worship, 1345A.1.
Chapter 11
Dragons and Gods
After having explained his vision from the Tempus Distortion to Manya and Turynn, Ravak let them know how eager he felt to head off to Dragon’s Maw Keep. His childhood came rushing back at him in a flood of memories of the stories he’d been told of the Dragon Rider Clan and the power they possessed. He’d always envisioned himself on the back of a dragon flying through the air with the wind in his face. The stories had all taken place in the First Age. Most of the information passed down from generation to generation exaggerated and distorted; the story through time and others through the need to instill a sense of the fantastic in the modern peoples of the Second Age. Ravak, like the rest of his clan, came to accept the stories told to each young generation as the history of their people. The time of dragons long gone by and that he would never see one. As he grew into an adult, his father had convinced him dragons and the mythical castle were just that; mere myth and nothing a man should concern himself with.
He thought back on his journey and all the challenges set before him on his path thus far. He’d never felt so alive in his whole life. He’d gone from yearning for adventure and exploration of the wyrld outside his village to living it. He’d been caught up in the midst of a very fine adventure with uncertain chances for success. There was magick, intrigue, and southern folk. He felt quite happy and smiled broadly as he drank his morning tea and ate a breakfast of dried meats and some berries he’d picked from the bramble up in the pass near the falls. Manya and Turynn squabbled about something over the map, but Ravak scarcely paid attention. He sipped at his tea and stared down the road toward the keep with all the anxiousness and anticipation of a child going to his first carnival.
The morning came with a slightly cooler breeze than the last and the air smelled faintly of rain. Ravak took one last swallow of his Rowenleaf tea and dumped the remainder into the fire as he stood up, ea
ger to leave.
“Let’s get moving,” he demanded as he rose and stretched out his limbs. “We want to be in and out of the keep as quickly as possible, and it won’t be but a day or two more before those goblins clear that pass and find their way down here.”
Just as he finished speaking, he bent down to grab his pack and an arrow flew over his head, sticking itself into a tree with a ‘twing’ near where Sleipner rested. The young ram reared up and let out a cry. Ravak untied him and slapped his ass, sending him off running in the direction of the keep. Another arrow came whizzing past Turynn and stuck into the ground behind him. Another came right at Ravak, but he had no time to react. This one found its way home, striking Ravak in the back of the shoulder. He cried out at the searing pain of the arrow finding its way into his muscle and rolled to the ground. It was goblins firing from up in the pass. Manya and Turynn rolled away behind a couple of large Rowenwoods. The next volley came.
“I see five of them. Up there! By the bridge,” exclaimed Ravak as he reached out for his bow and tumbled into a roll to grab his arrows, landing behind the tree Manya hid behind.
The terrible pain of the wound bit deep, ripping through his back and arm as he loosed the arrow. He tried to shrug it off as he had no time to concern himself with that now. He gritted his teeth together so hard his jaw hurt as he fought through constant throbbing pain which only intensified as he drew back on his bow. A goblin let out a blood-curdling cry as Ravak’s arrow found its mark and the little monster went down. He still had the arrow protruding from his back and Manya took it upon herself to help him with this predicament.
“Hold still!” she exclaimed as she put her back into pushing the arrow through the front of Ravak’s shoulder where she broke it off from the back. Ravak let out a howl and began to curse at her in a language she didn’t understand. “We’ll tend to that later, but it’ll have to do for now,” she added.
Turynn laughed at Ravak’s predicament as he fired off his first volley. Another volley came down from the goblins of the thicket. This time there were only three arrows instead of the four Ravak would have expected.
“They’ve sent a scout back for reinforcements. We’re done for if we don’t move clear of this pass and quickly!” said Ravak.
“But where to? They are blocking our path back out,” inquired Manya. Lines of worry marked her face. Sweat rolled down her face from dodging arrows and pushing the arrow through the huge Barbarian’s thick shoulder muscle.
“We’ll have to make for the keep. Maybe we can hold up in there for a time. Maybe there’s actually another pass out of the mountains behind it. The road runs completely around it after all. They wouldn’t have built that road if it led to nowhere.”
He fired another arrow up into the pass and hit home again. A goblin came tumbling out of the thicket and down the steep moss covered road, rolling into the valley before them in a crumpled, misshapen, tiny heap.
“When I give the signal we’ll start retreating back down the road toward the pass. Move from tree to tree and they will not be able to take aim on us. They wield short bows and their range is already running long as they can’t hit but one in three shots.” He rose to his feet as did Turynn and both fired a double volley up into the thicket again, but struck only air and bark. All three backed on toward the next trees closest to them down the road and continued on for several minutes until the goblin’s arrows began to fall short. They turned and broke into a run down the road. Ravak looked back to see the two remaining goblins come down out of the pass to check on their fallen comrades and then took up the chase themselves.
“Those two must know help is on its way soon or they wouldn’t risk exposing themselves thusly on the open road before a superior force,” Turynn pointed out. “They’re stupid, but they’re not that stupid.”
Ravak turned and knelt quickly, nocking another arrow and taking careful aim. He drew in a deep, slow breathe as he drew the bowstring back and let the arrow fly. It found home right into the goblin’s heart and knocked him backward off his feet with great force, killing him almost instantly. The other little monster quickly tucked and rolled behind a Rowenwood tree and fell out of sight. Ravak turned and broke back into a run toward the keep.
“Move,” Ravak ordered his two companions as he strode past them, picking up speed into his full Barbarian stride and leaving them well behind. His intended to make his way ahead and assess if there were any goblins laying in wait. Something had occurred to him in the last moments as he fired off that arrow. He’d seen a vision of the keep in its early seasons. What if the scene in the vision didn’t measure up to what they’d find when they actually came upon the keep in the here and now? It could be over run for all they knew.
Ravak pressed on running hard. He overtook Sleipner after a couple of moments. The road ahead seemed clear as far as he could tell. He turned back to Turynn and Manya and reported back, panting from his hard fast run.
“The keep is a half a day’s travel from here yet. If we press on hard, we could make it just after dark. The road ahead is clear of goblins from what I can see, but I don’t imagine those little monsters will leave us be.”
They all agreed it would be best to put as much distance between them and the goblins as possible and travelled on into the evening.
They’d not seen a single goblin all morning. The forest seemed quiet and serene. Almost without warning, the great stone wall of the keep rose up out of the dark forest floor ahead of them. Something seemed different to Ravak, but it was hard to make it out. They moved ahead slowly making their way around the wall to the west face where the gate loomed.
The masons had completed the outer wall Ravak had seen them working on in his vision of the First Age and it now stood a full twenty feet high in front of him with a moat surrounding it. The drawbridge, in its upright position, locked them out and the moat kept them from reaching it. He ran around the keep to see if he could find another entrance, but there was nothing; only one way in or out. The road did lead south toward another pass out of the valley as he’d suspected.
The walls of the keep were sheer and built smoothly to resist entrance by scaling. Battlements jutted out from the top some five feet to further inhibit scalars and siege engines. It would also allow defenders armed with bows to send deathly arrows and flaming oil down on any would be underminers. The bridge appeared to be the only way he could find in or out of the keep and it was shut. When he came back around to the west face, he could see Manya and Turynn standing at the gate talking.
“.....Thought this place would be in ruins,” exclaimed Manya. “How in the name of Bragi will we get inside there?” she pondered quizzically.
“You leave that to me. Ravak, have you got any rope left?” He pulled out an arrow and waited for the big Barbarian to rummage through his pack. Ravak produced a length of rope measuring some thirty feet. Turynn quickly tied it to the shaft of the arrow and fired it up through one of the windows of the gatehouse. With not a moment’s thought, he tested the rope for strength and security, fixed and firm it was ready to climb. He first ran out the full length of the rope then began to run to the side around the wall. He left the ground in a dextrous swing that led him first up and slightly around the wall, then back down and around gently so as not to slam face first into the brick work as he came back down. All the while he deftly shimmied up the still swinging rope agilely shifting his weight to ensure it continued to swing in the appropriate direction. Ravak and Manya were both amazed at his climbing skill, which seemed almost mystical as he quickly scaled the heights of the great walls with no more effort than it would take for squirrel to climb a tree. The bottom tip of the rope dropped into the murk of the moat and began to hiss and sizzle as it touched the reddish sludge.
In only seconds it was gone, dissolved in the acidic sludge of the ancient moat. It took only a couple of moments and Turynn had the drawbridge slowly lowering down over the rusty red ooze. He pulled the rope back up as the bridge came down for h
is companions and examined the still bubbling end, devoured by the moat.
As soon as the bridge hit the ground on the side closest to them, both ran across. Peeking out the window and seeing them cross, Turynn began to raise it once more. A moment later, the giant bridge clanked and squeaked with age as it locked into its upright position.
They employed the same tactic a second time and were within the great tunnel that led under the inner wall. Black as pitch in the night within the tunnel, Ravak decided to light a torch from the wall. They kicked up dust as they walked. The torch must have been old. It snapped and popped as centuries worth of dust sizzled and fizzled in the dry oil that fueled it. Rats and insects scurried away at the sight of the torchlight.
In no time they were in the open-air courtyard. The three companions looked around in wonder at the intricately detailed stonework towering up above them.
“My word!” Manya choked out between coughs as she whirled around, almost dizzy looking up at the crumbling sculptures and carvings on the walls above.
“This is amazing!” Ravak stood in awe, looking up at the walls, circling, his mouth open wide as he examined the massive stone mosaics depicting the ancient battles of his ancestors from the First Age. Stories were immortalized in fine dwarven craftsmanship, stories of conquest and power. He could see where they rode the dragons into battle using the great beasts’ various breath weapons to lay waste to their foes. He saw how there’d been various kings throughout the Ages, each king depicted atop his dragon mount adorned in heavy, expertly tailored furs and dragon armour. Now in the Second Age, the horde no longer named kings, preferring the guidance of the many clan councils versus leaving the vital decision-making on the shoulders of just one man. Many of the kings depicted carried dragon scale shields into battle or held high great totems jewelled with Dragon Orbs. He had thought the orbs simply myth along with the rest of the tales, but here it was, all laid out before him in a vivid history brought to life by the very gifted dwarven masons of the First Age.