After a while the celebratory noises died down and the Elders drew back wordlessly from the newly named dwarf. He beamed with such self-satisfaction that Uldini at his best looked like a shy Godsday pupil in comparison.
Trogadon turned to Falk and gave a broad grin.
‘It’s a wrap. Let’s get our things and clear off’.
Chapter 20
23 days to the winter solstice
As the tumult died down, Trogadon turned to the group with a conspiratorial look.
‘Wait a moment’, he whispered and before one of his companions had the chance to congratulate him, he disappeared into one of the Clan Halls, which had a symbol of an anvil and a stylised mountain beside it. As he left he was surrounded by jubilant dwarves who slapped him on the shoulders and back, bowed before him or simply stared at him reverentially.
‘What’s he up to?’ whispered Uldini mistrustfully, but Falk simply shrugged his shoulders helplessly.
‘At least they’re not wasting any time’, said Jelninolan snippily and pointed out a troop of over fifty dwarf workers, decked out in brand new outfits and marching through the entrance to the mines, doubtless with the intention of restarting work in the northern mines.
The elf had been in a foul mood ever since the worm had plunged into the lava. She had hoped to the very end that they would find a non-fatal solution even though she had gone along with the suggestions of the group. But now the deed had been done and Ore Worms were gone from the face of Jorath. The elf knew that their battle with the worm had been necessary, but that didn’t alleviate her feelings. Ahren felt the same way, even if he saw things in a more pragmatic manner. The fact that the worm had almost eaten him up twice, helped him to keep his guilty feelings in check.
While they were waiting, Ahren remembered that this was the perfect opportunity to repay an old debt. He craned his neck so he could examine the Clan Elders above the throng of dwarves and he asked Falk quietly, ‘which of them is responsible for trade with Three Rivers?’
‘Hmm, good question’. Falk scratched his beard thoughtfully. ‘Why are you asking?’
‘The weapon mistress Falagarda, who gave me Windblade, asked in return that I should present her wish to the dwarves that she might purchase more wares from them, and not just jewels’, said the apprentice, and he remembered the enormous, friendly woman whose gift and brief lessons had saved his life several times already. He wanted to return the favour, and now that the dwarves were well-disposed to them, it seemed to him to be the perfect time.
‘She can only have meant Dwarf Steel’, said Falk in admiration. ‘if she manages to strike a deal with the dwarves, she’ll be the only blacksmith north of Thousand Halls making weapons from that material. They’ll be breaking down the doors to buy things off her.’
He pointed over to a dwarf with particularly bulky plate armour.
‘That’s Balanukurotom, chief of the Smeltore Clan. Give your request to him, then Falagarda will have the best chance with her proposition.’
Ahren nodded nervously and pushed his way through the boisterous crowd towards the dwarf, then hesitated and looked back. His master had stayed put and was giving him an amused grin while his eyes remained deeply serious.
‘Just go. You’re in Falagarda’s debt, and so you should pay it.’
Ahren nodded and continued on his way, all the while formulating what he had to say in his head. When he arrived before the Elder, whose reddish-grey hair billowed out from under his steel helmet, he stopped, bowed deeply and then looked fixedly into the steel-grey eyes of the dwarf. Then Ahren spoke.
‘I am Ahren, Aspirant to the title of Paladin, Chosen One of the THREE, Squire to the Paladin Dorian Falkenstein and Fellow to Trogadon. I drew up the plan to bring about the Ore Worm’s downfall and put my life at stake in this venture.’
The figure of the old dwarf in his thick plate armour was impressive, he was at least twice as broad as Ahren, yet the young man made every effort not to be cowed, at least outwardly, by the dwarf opposite him.
Balanukurotom looked him up and down for a moment, then planted his heavy paw-like hand, weighed down by a massive armoured glove, heavily on Ahren’s shoulder, and his bushy beard opened up in a smile. Ahren was sure that he heard something crack in his maltreated shoulder, but he kept a straight face and listened to every word the dwarf spoke.
‘it’s true that you only have measly fluff on your chin, but you have proven yourself more than many a young beard. I recognise you as a friend of the dwarves.’
There was a roar of approval from the surrounding dwarves and Ahren almost burst with pride. Full of confidence he addressed the Elder again.
‘The blacksmith and Mistress of Weapons Falagarda Regelsten from Three Rivers wishes to enter a trading relationship with you in order to purchase your steel. She is already known to your jewellery traders and in my estimation, she is a person of the highest honour’. Ahren was really pushing the boat out at this point, but she had been so generous and sensitive towards him that time that he believed that she would behave in a similar way to her future business partner.
Balanukurotom gave a friendly nod and straightened his beard.
‘I shall make enquiries of the Silver Cliff traders. If I hear she is a person of loyal character as described, then one of our Clan shall approach her.’
Then he folded his arms and the conversation was over. It had gone better than he had hoped and so he bowed again, gave his thanks, and withdrew quickly. The Elder gave another friendly nod before turning to his fellow Clan Elders, who were having a lively discussion.
Falk was waiting for him with a quizzical look and Ahren smiled triumphantly. Falk slapped him on the shoulder and Ahren flinched. There was no doubt that he would have an enormous bruise on his shoulder-blade the following day.
‘I’m very proud of you, boy. This is the second time you have done a favour for another without thinking of yourself. First with the elves, when it came to the question of my banishment, and now this. That was worthy of a true Paladin’, said Falk quietly.
Ahren swallowed hard and felt a lump in his throat. For a moment he thought of embracing his master, but Trogadon was already returning to the Grand Junction. He was wearing bluish chainmail, carried a strange looking hammer on his shoulder, and in his other hand he had a shield that was far too big for him. A wave of indignation and outrage spread before him.
Falk turned away from Ahren, looked at what was happening and gave a big sigh.
‘I knew he was too tame during the ceremony’, he said in a tired voice. ‘Get ready. We’ll have to make ourselves scarce in double quick time.’
The Elders looked at Trogadon with disbelief. Some of them looked as if their eyes were going to pop out of their heads, while others gasped in astonishment. Half of them looked threateningly red-faced and the other half deadly pale.
Trogadon marched past the Elders, grinning with self-satisfaction and he didn’t even bother to look at them, which in turn led to a threatening silence in the hall.
‘Are we ready?’ he asked, all innocence, and walked contentedly on.
Falk was about to say something, thought better of it, and joined him.
‘I don’t know what you think, but in my opinion the sooner we’re in Kelkor having it out with giants and hydras, the sooner we’ll be in safety’, prophesied Uldini.
The Arch Wizard’s dry toned voice carried clearly through the silence of the hall in the Grand Junction, and when Ahren looked into the stony faces of the dwarves, he couldn’t but agree.
They stepped out through the entrance and left the Grand Junction behind them. Ahren felt as if he had a hundred daggers in his back as the hostile eyes of the Silver Cliff watched them leaving.
‘But they only just welcomed us like heroes’, he stammered. The sudden change in mood had been too much for the young man and he felt hurt and deceived. Over the previous few days his imaginings of their triumphant entrance into the Hall of the Dwarves had helped
him work through his encounter with the Ore Worm. He had just been proclaimed a friend of the dwarves, but the bearded figures he had just looked at seemed anything but friendly.
‘Have we been banished now? What happened?’ Ahren tried to make his voice not sound too accusatory but he failed dismally .The thought that his request on Falagarda’s behalf would fail on account of the dwarves’ attitude was too much to bear.
‘Our glorious hero was over the top, and not for the first time’, grumbled Falk. ‘That will have no effect on us because we’re not under his command, but with the mood the way it was in there, it’s good that we’re going.’
Ahren breathed a sigh of relief, happy that he hadn’t done the blacksmith a disservice, while the eyes of his master were fixed on the heavily armoured dwarf. Falk’s scowl, however, seemed to have absolutely no effect on the dwarf, who was humming away contentedly, oblivious to the Forest Guardian’s anger, just as he had been to that of the two hundred dwarves he had walked blithely past.
Once it became clear that Trogadon was not going to react to Falk’s criticism, the old man clenched his fists and gritted his teeth. Then he spoke.
‘My old friend has taken not only Trogadon’s shield, as was agreed. But he’s also taken his armour and his forging hammer’, he said, gnashing his teeth. ‘Did you really clear out the whole of the Silver Cliff artefact chamber?’ he asked, facing Trogadon. The old Forest Guardian’s voice suddenly sounded terribly weary.
Trogadon laughed loudly and looked back over his shoulder.
‘Of course not. They still have the anvil. Much too heavy and impractical. And at least they can use that whenever they want. Nobody has used these things in hundreds of years. What a waste.’
‘You could at least have left the shield there!’ shouted Falk, exploding in anger. A vein in his face was pulsating angrily. ‘You said yourself it was far too impractical, and as far as I know, the hammer is more than enough for Ahren’s Naming.’
The group stopped as Trogadon turned around. The dwarf was still smiling but there was determination in his eyes.
‘The shield isn’t for me’, he simply said.
Then he stuck the handle of his hammer into the metal handles of the shield and pulled forcefully a few times at the smith’s tool while he worked on the shield. The handles creaked and crunched loudly as the dwarf flexed his muscles and mauled the millennia old artefact.
The group looked on in horror and Ahren was only too glad that they were standing in a deserted tunnel with no members of the little folk in the vicinity to avenge this atrocity. Even Ahren, with his limited knowledge of their culture was certain that there would have been trouble on the instant.
Trogadon lifted the shield up and looked at the considerably warped handles with satisfaction, then stretched it out to Falk.
‘For your aid I give you this shield as an Ancestral gift. May it protect you until the next Trogadon demands it be returned to him.’
Falk stared at the dwarf in disbelief before putting his hands behind his back in a gesture of refusal.
‘Have you completely lost the plot?’ he hissed. ‘The Elders would never allow it.’
Trogadon opened out his fingers and the shield clattered to the ground.
‘I have hereby given it into your custody. Leave it there if you will. It’s far too big for a dwarf, and I’ve been staring at it for the last few decades and have always thought that it would suit a human very well. If you ask me, the first Trogadon wanted it to be used for settling a debt’, and he waggled his bushy eyebrows meaningfully.
Ahren and Jelninolan snorted with laughter and Khara and Uldini grinned broadly, while Falk looked at the shield as if it were a poisonous Dark One. Trogadon smiled good-naturedly and then walked on cheerfully, leaving the Paladin standing there.
‘Courage, old man!’, chortled Uldini. ‘It’s unmannerly to turn down a present. And you’ve been complaining about not having a shield ever since you lost it to the Great Wyrm of the Threespiked Mountains.’
Falk continued to look down uncertainly at the large rectangular object lying at his feet.
‘At least try it’, said Uldini, urging him on in a surprisingly gentle voice.
Gingerly, as if it were a precious jewel, Ahren’s master raised the shield and ran his hand along its surface.
‘It’s so light’, he whispered in surprise and he looked at it in wonder.
Trogadon turned around again and clapped his hands once in satisfaction.
‘It looks good on you, old friend. According to legend, the first Trogadon worked gases into the shield that are lighter than air. I think that’s a load of codswallop but there’s no doubt he was a damn good blacksmith and the thing is lighter than it should be.’
The dwarf looked wistful for a moment.
‘Someday I’ll outstrip him.’
Then he spun around and strode onwards.
The others followed him with Ahren walking beside his master. ‘Are you going to get into trouble with the dwarves now?’ he asked in a concerned voice.
Falk slowly shook his head. ‘Not as long as Trogadon is with us and can attest that it’s an Ancestry gift. Which means it belongs to me until his successor in name claims it back. When the last Trogadon was dying, he left it to the Mountain-Smith Clan. And they brought it here together with the other artefacts. Now our Trogadon has claimed it for himself.’
The old man was probably unaware of it, but his right hand was continuously stroking the surface of the shield.
Now that Ahren was able to examine it up close, he noted the details of the masterpiece. The shield was rectangular in shape and looked big and cumbersome, but Falk seemed well able to handle it. It was polished smooth, without decorations or a crest, only four lines which indicated a smaller and a larger mountain peak. The surface glimmered in the same blue tone of Trogadon’s chainmail. Or the chainmail of the old Trogadon. The dwarves’ rules for names made things unnecessarily complicated, thought Ahren in irritation.
‘Where does this blue colour come from?’ he asked curiously.
His master was lost in old memories and it was always at moments like these when he would freely share his knowledge.
‘The first Trogadon discovered Deep Steel that time. These are his first works. It was later on that he perfected the anti-dirt alloy which is where the whiter colour came from’, he answered absently.
Falk was now deep in thought and Ahren didn’t want to push it. And so he strode forward and joined his new travelling companion.
Trogadon gave him a good-natured smile and glanced mischievously over his shoulder at Falk.
‘It was obvious he was going to put up a fight, but you can see clearly how much he was missing a shield’.
Ahren could hear a real fondness for his master in the dwarf’s voice and his liking for the little man increased.
‘You really are a good friend, Trogadon’, said Ahren sincerely, ‘and congratulations on your Ancestry Name’.
The broad-shouldered dwarf grinned.
‘it sounds good, hearing this name and to know that it’s me you mean. And thanks for the compliment, but I can’t claim that for myself. We dwarves just are like that, loyal friends and ferocious enemies.’ There was something wistful in the sound of the warrior’s voice, and Ahren couldn’t stop himself from commenting on it.
‘You seem different to the other dwarves somehow. Less…rigid.’
‘I’m a Kulkumharan’thur. Do you know what that means?’ The wistfulness in his voice was even more prominent now.
Ahren shook his head. ‘Not really. You’re more resistant and stronger than the other dwarves and you live longer. That much I understand’. He didn’t want to say too much in case he offended the dwarf.
‘It’s more than that. What you’re describing is what you see on the outside. HE, WHO IS gave me an overdose of life. It’s as if every moment I experience is new and full of wonder. My joy at living bubbles over with every breath and a belief that it
could be such a fantastic life.’
He stopped himself and took a deep breath.
‘But we dwarves lead a very ordered life. Everything has its place and there is a place for everything. Since birth I have been a member of the Hammer Clan, the smiths of our folk. When it became clear what I was, the rules were unambiguous. I went to the Mountainshields, although I had a burning enthusiasm for the art of the blacksmith. Other dwarves find me uncontrollable and volatile. It’s impossible for me to stand in torpidity for more than two days at a time without waking up. And then I find myself in a clan whose job is to do nothing more than guard tunnels, corridors and passageways for years at a time. Trouble was inevitable.’
Trogadon glanced over at Falk again.
‘And so I was hired out to a troop of human mercenaries for an obscene amount of money – and I was delighted. I could see and experience other things, even if they were dangerous. Your master and I quickly became friends. We were both running away from lives we didn’t want to lead, and I’m quite willing to admit we saved each other’s skin on more than one occasion. He destroyed many a shield in those days, because he simply couldn’t get used to them, as they broke far more quickly than this Deep Steel shield. He was always complaining that their cost was being taken out of his wages. His nickname was ‘Paladin’, but the others thought it was just a joke. It even took me years before I realised that he really was one.’
His voice lowered to a whisper.
‘He was in a very poor spiritual state in those days. You need to know that.’
Ahren thought back to the withdrawn, grumpy Forest Guardian of Deepstone that he had got to know then. That was how his master was after he had found peace with the elves. He shuddered to think how the ageless Paladin had been in earlier times.
‘Our ways parted eventually, and we swore that we would meet again sometime. We stayed in contact through a few letters every summer, but by the gods, it’s great to see the old warhorse again with my own eyes. Even if he’s drinking considerably less than he did, it seems.’
The Naming Page 33