Kingdom of Bones

by Philip C. Quaintrell

  Garrett remained in his seat, eyes down.

  Captain Flint gave Vighon a hard look, but he knew when he had been beaten. Without another word, he strode out of the tavern with his men in tow.

  The northman nodded his head in appreciation and the company fell back into their merriment.

  “Skids?” Galanör questioned.

  “It’s a name that doesn’t seem to be going away,” he replied exasperated.

  A commotion suddenly broke out, heard through the window beside their booth. All three companions peered out to see people running up and down the slope, pointing at the sky.

  Vighon didn’t know whether he was to panic or be elated. If something was coming from the sky, it could be friend or foe in these dark days.

  “Look alive, fellas!” Vighon held out his hand and Ruban threw his sheathed sword to him.

  Along with others, the Skids ran out into the main street and searched the sky for threat or ally. It was Galanör’s eyes that spotted the dragon first.

  “It’s Ilargo!” he yelled in relief.

  Vighon narrowed his eyes and watched the green dragon approach the city from the south-east. His eyes couldn’t make out the green of Ilargo’s scales yet, but he didn’t doubt the elf’s sight. Obviously, the dragon would be accompanied by Gideon Thorn, but Vighon thought about someone else.

  “Alijah…” he whispered with hope.

  It wasn’t long before Ilargo flew over their heads, his majesty clear for all to see.

  “He’s heading for the keep!” someone shouted.

  Vighon faced his company. “This one’s an ally, boys. Get back to your drinks and sleep well. Tomorrow we start the real work.” The northman turned to Russell Maybury and discreetly said, “Keep an eye on them for me. Make sure they don’t drink the tavern dry. I need them all on their feet in the morning…” The werewolf nodded his head obligingly.

  Struggling with armour over his shoulder and under his arms, Ruban trudged through the snow and ash with Ness’s reins in his free hand.

  “Keep the armour,” Vighon said. “Give me the horse.”

  “But, Captain,” Ruban protested, “if you’re going to The Dragon Keep you have to be in full dress.”

  Vighon blinked slowly, eager to catch up with Galanör, who had already started his trek up the slope. “Give me the cloak then. I don’t have time for the armour, it takes bloody ages getting it all on.”

  Vighon wasted no more time and charged up the slope, coming alongside Galanör. The elf practically floated up onto the back of Ness and fell into place behind the northman.

  By the time they reached The Dragon Keep, there was no sign of Ilargo, having already relieved himself of any who accompanied him. Vighon hoped that both Gideon and Alijah were waiting inside the keep for him.

  Entering The Dragon Keep, however, was somewhat harder than normal. A lot of refugees had taken to the gates in an effort to plead for better housing and protection. Vighon heard many cry out about people becoming sick in the ash-filled air. Others complained that the enormous cathedrals dedicated to the gods were only allowing a few people to stay inside.

  The tide was held back by an Ironsworn thug and a line of Gold Cloaks. Spotting Vighon, or at least his cloak, they pushed out and made a path for Ness to ride through. The mob took advantage of the opening gates and swelled forward, overwhelming the guards until the inner courtyard became overrun.

  Vighon and Galanör hopped down from the horse as more guards made their way down from the ramparts and inside the keep. It was chaos, with mothers carrying their children and fathers grabbing the Gold Cloaks, pleading for somewhere warm to put their families.

  One particular man, elderly by his crown of white hair, stepped in front of Vighon. He had no one in tow and carried a set of books under one arm and a satchel over his shoulder. Whoever the learned man was, Vighon didn’t have time for him right now.

  “Clear them out!” bellowed one of The Ironsworn. The guards began immediately to push the individuals back, forcing them through the gate.

  The old man in front of Vighon had a lost and worried look about him. “Excuse me,” he said, putting a hand out to halt Vighon.

  The northman didn’t agree with the severe manhandling everyone was receiving, but he didn’t have time to deal with any of it. “I’m sorry, sir, I have to—”

  “I don’t mean to trouble you,” the old man croaked. “It’s been quite the journey getting here and the message we received appears to have been delivered late…”

  Vighon had no idea what the man was babbling about. “I’m very sorry, but I—”

  “I’m here to see the queen,” the old man persisted, looking to The Dragon Keep.

  That stumped Vighon. “The queen?” he echoed.

  “Yes, Queen Yelifer sent for me.”

  This was all starting to sound a bit ridiculous now. “Queen Yelifer sent for you?” he asked, doubting the man in a sea of refugees.

  “Some time ago, it seems. I’m from The All-Tower, in Palios. I’m something of a specialist you see.”

  “Is that right?” Vighon was searching for a way around the man.

  “Dwarves are my interest!” the scholar declared. “Oh, forgive me, my name is Petur Devron.”

  Vighon groaned under his breath. “Well met, Petur Devron. But, I’m afraid the queen is no longer in need of scholars from The All-Tower.” The Namdhorian captain gripped the man by the shoulders and moved past him. “If you can swing a sword, however, come and find me again!”

  Petur Devron stumbled over his reply, though his words were lost in the din when a Gold Cloak ushered him back to the gate, his journey, apparently, for naught…

  31

  Moonblades

  Doran could feel Reyna’s sceptical gaze scrutinising him and the wall of glyphs. The dwarf couldn’t blame her; he could barely believe what he had said himself.

  “Moonblades?” the elf repeated with no lack of disbelief in her tone.

  “Aye… Moonblades.”

  Nathaniel and Petur came over to see what the fuss was about. The old knight looked from Doran to the wall of glyphs before settling his eyes on his wife.

  “You’ve found something?” he asked.

  Petur squinted at the dwarven script. “What’s this then?”

  Doran licked his lips and pointed at the title word. “Moonblades,” he repeated simply, still in shock.

  “Moonblades?” Nathaniel looked at Reyna for an explanation.

  “Aye,” Doran said with a little chortle, “Moonblades…”

  “Alright,” Nathaniel held up his hands, “someone is going to have to stop saying Moonblades and actually explain what this is.”

  Reyna shook her head. “You’re talking about legends, myths even. I heard about them in bedtime stories as a child.”

  “Ye an’ me both,” Doran admitted, still confident.

  He turned away from the wall and took in the entire workshop, breathing in the stale air as if it was somehow enlightening. He pulled out the scroll he had been hiding and examined the drawing of the fine scimitar in the middle of the parchment.

  “We’re standin’ in history,” the son of Dorain began, his arms held out. “This ain’ jus’ a workshop or a mine where me kin built weapons o’ war. This is where they made the weapons o’ the Dragorn, the elven Dragorn!”

  Nathaniel was somewhere between awe and confusion. “This is where they forged Vi’tari blades?”

  “Eventually,” Doran explained with a shrug. “Vi’tari weapons were second generation—”

  “And made by the elves,” Reyna interjected.

  Doran bobbed his head. “Aye, work o’ the elves they were. But they were first conceived in this very chamber!”

  Petur eyed the dwarven engravings. “If Vi’tari blades originated here, what are Moonblades?”

  Doran recalled his great grandfather’s tales, as well as a few pieces of actual recorded history. “When The Great War between the alliance an’ t
he orcs broke out, it was widely accepted, if irritatingly so, that the Dragorn were the alliance’s greatest assets. To ensure victory, before those foul beasts took over the whole damn world, it was decided that they should also wield the greatest of weapons.”

  “And they do,” Reyna added. “Elandril, the first elven Dragorn, was gifted Mournblade.”

  “Gideon’s sword?” Nathaniel checked.

  “The very same,” Reyna replied.

  “Aye,” Doran agreed, “but the Vi’tari blades were made because the alliance had forbidden the forgin’ o’ Moonblades. Don’ get me wrong,” the dwarf held his hands up, “there ain’ no greater weapon out there than a Vi’tari, but they pale in comparison to Moonblades.”

  Petur ran his fingers over the lowest row of dwarven glyphs. “Why would they forbid the forging of any weapon in a time of war?”

  The son of Dorain looked from Reyna to the scholar. “Because o’ the nature o’ Moonblades, lad. The key difference between any other weapon an’ a Moonblade is magic.”

  Nathaniel folded his arms. “Vi’tari blades are enchanted, Doran. That’s why they’re so powerful.”

  “Exactly!” Doran held up a finger. “They’re enchanted. That’s all ye can do with a piece o’ steel or any weapon for that matter. A Moonblade is made o’ magic!”

  Reyna was shaking her head before the dwarf finished. “They are nothing but tales of caution, Doran. It was a time when every weapon you could imagine was being made. They were thinking ahead, to a time of peace. Moonblades,” the elf said, gesturing to the wall, “are our ancestors’ way of saying be careful; the weapons you make in war will still be there when the war is over.”

  Doran scoffed. “Ye think that’s what that says?” he asked, pointing at the glyphs.

  “Where better to put a warning than a weapon smith’s workshop?” Reyna countered. “Can you translate it and tell me they say otherwise?”

  Doran opened his mouth and closed it again. Then he opened it again and closed it. The son of Dorain looked hard at the glyphs but he could only decipher a handful of the ancient runes. Those that he could translate, however, sounded to him like instructions rather than any cautionary tale.

  Before he could respond to that fact, Nathaniel posed, “Let’s just say, for now, that they’re not mythical or some kind of warning. Why would the alliance forbid the forging of a weapon because it was made of magic?”

  “’Ave ye ever seen pure magic, lad?” Doran shot back. “I’m talkin’ abou’ raw magic that ye can touch and hold.”

  Nathaniel glanced at his wife. “I’ve seen magic be used - powerful magic,” he emphasised.

  “Not like this,” Doran continued. “Moonblades are forged from the magic o’ an elf an’ the masterworks o’ a dwarf. The blade is magic through an’ through. Nothin’ could stand against it, not even other magic!”

  Nathaniel wasn’t satisfied. “That sounds like a weapon worth making. So, why would the alliance forbid it?” he asked again.

  Doran didn’t answer straight away and an eerie quiet settled over the chamber. He knew the reason, after all, it just wasn’t a pleasant one.

  “Because,” Reyna said, “the elf always dies…”

  Nathaniel’s eyebrows ran up into his head. “They die? Making a sword?”

  “They’re just stories,” Reyna reiterated.

  Doran was having none of it. “Me great grandfather said that only a handful o’ blades were ever attempted, on account o’ the deaths,” he added. “No single sword was ever forged before the elf was… Well, I suppose they were drained o’ their magic.”

  The old knight gestured to the dwarven tools. “I take it Moonblades can’t be made without elves?”

  “Afraid not,” Doran replied. “It’s their magic, ye see. No bein’ in all o’ Verda is more in tune with that world than an elf. An’ no bein’ in all o’ Verda can forge like a dwarf. Both were needed.”

  “They’re stories.” Reyna was beginning to sound bored of the topic.

  “Haven’t we seen enough to believe anything can be true?” Nathaniel asked his wife.

  Reyna clearly wanted to argue that fact, but her husband wasn’t wrong. “True enough,” she conceded. “But, considering the circumstances, I would rather they remain myths. The Namdhorians wouldn’t know what they possessed, but the dwarves would. They would march on Illian for it.”

  Now, there was something Doran could agree with. “Aye, that they would. King Uthrad would kill everyone that came between ’im an’ even a sliver o’ that weaponry.”

  “Moonblade…” Petur rolled the word around in his mouth. “They don’t sound very powerful.”

  Doran thumbed at Reyna. “Blame the elves for that. They named ’em.”

  Nathaniel stepped away from the wall of glyphs and wandered around the various pieces of equipment. “Real or not, there’s nothing on these walls that isn’t made of rusted steel. Neither kingdom, man nor dwarf, could make any use out of it. I would call this a win!”

  Reyna inspected the glyphs again. “When you put it like that…”

  Doran knew as well as any dwarf that they had a nature for hiding things, especially treasure. “We should probably give this place a proper lookin’ over before we go suin’ for peace between the two. If the legends are true, they still forged part o’ a sword, a part that King Uthrad would still kill for.”

  The four split up and began their search, checking and double-checking every nook and cranny of the smith’s workshop. Doran advised them to feel under every flat surface for any hidden switches or levers.

  “Pull on some o’ the tools that are hangin’ on the walls too,” he added. The dwarf had seen more than one hidden room in Grimwhal, all belonging to his father.

  “When we discover the absence of Moonblades,” Reyna addressed from across the chamber, “we will have to find a way of proving the mine’s worth, or lack thereof, to the Namdhorians. Queen Yelifer or Lord Draqaro - or whoever it is making decisions in that city - will have to pull the army back.”

  Nathaniel’s voice sounded strained as he doubled over to check under a table. “Well, it’s either pull them back or go to war against a superior army over nothing but rusty weapons.”

  Doran picked up the curved blade of an axe without any handle. “Aye, I’m sure there’d be a lot o’ mothers an’ wives not too happy to know their sons an’ husbands were dyin’ for the likes o’ this.”

  After further searching, Doran and Reyna met beside the circular forge in the centre of the room.

  “Doran…” the elf began delicately. “Was your great grandfather as old as he sounds?”

  The son of Dorain let his mouth fall open. “Are ye suggestion’ that me father’s father’s father was without his mind?” Doran kept the truth of that question to himself.

  Reyna shrugged as if to soften her words. “I’m only suggesting that we both heard the same legends, yet you appear to have heard them as facts while I heard them as stories. I’m certain that neither of the people who told us about Moonblades were actually alive during The Great War.”

  “Bah! For a race with such long memories ye aren’ half daft!” Seeing some offence on the elf’s face, Doran mimicked her shrug. “I’m jus’ sayin’, ye great elders didn’ even know that Atilan were a human instead o’ a god. I don’ think we can go along with any more elven stories without doin’ a bit o’ fact checkin’ first…”

  Reyna simply looked down at the dwarf with her hands on her hips.

  Doran licked the whiskers of his moustache. “Too soon?”

  The elven ambassador straightened up. “Is it too soon to bring up that the god my people worshipped for thousands of years turned out to be the most evil human being that ever lived? Or is it too soon to bring up the fact that he created us, a failed experiment, in his ambition to achieve immortality?”

  Doran could see that he had hit a nerve and was well aware that whatever he said next would be typically dwarven and typically unhelpful.
<
br />   Thankfully, Nathaniel appeared between the two. “I think we’re all a little tired and hungry,” he said softly, his hand slipping around Reyna’s arm. “Why don’t we finish—”

  “It’s been thirty years,” Doran said over him, “since we all learned the truth o’ the gods. Well, yer gods that is.”

  Reyna stiffened up, held her tongue, and turned on the spot to walk away.

  Doran looked at Nathaniel’s defeated demeanour. “What did I say wrong?”

  The old knight kept his tone quiet. “It’s not so much what you said; it’s the fact that you’re using it against her.”

  Doran made an O with his mouth. “I see…” The dwarf regretted his choice of argument now. He loved the elf dearly and would never want to see her hurt, especially by himself.

  The son of Dorain nodded at Nathaniel and walked past him to follow after Reyna. The elf was busy pulling off tools that hung on the wall, apparently oblivious to Doran.

  He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, me Lady. I meant no offence. I realise that Atilan an’ his lot are somethin’ o’ a sensitive subject for yer people. We dwarves can be blunt an’ short-sighted lumps o’ rock, ye know. An’ ye’re probably right abou’ the Moonblades. I jus’ got excited is all…”

  Reyna ceased her removal of tools and turned to face the dwarf. “No, some of the fault lies with me. You are right; three decades have gone by since we learned the truth. I have come to terms with the lie, as well as the unbelievable truth of our origins. Nathaniel wasn’t wrong, we are tired and hungry. I can honestly say that elves were not made for mountain life.”

  Doran smiled. “Even I have become accustomed to life under the stars, me Lady. I must admit, I am lookin’ forward to gettin’ back to Illian an’ out from under the rock.”

  Reyna mirrored his smile before it faltered. “Where is Petur?” she asked, her eyes scanning the chamber.