The girls and boys took various blubbery bits and stood aghast in various positions, dripping and oozing.
The gnomes slipped and slid amongst splatterings of bile.
“And so ends the terror of the War Chief and his ogres...” Verboden said, wiping off gooey ooey fleshy things.
The remaining ogres had had enough. They screamed and gagged and wailed as they pushed and flailed, running off into the fields and forests in their usual crazed blood-lust ogre way. The men of the Westfold, the children and the gnomes stared out from ruined walls, impressed by the ogres' speed.
In the spring, when the snows melted, the farmers would discover the mounds of dead ogres, rotting away and producing the foulest of bugs. At least these same bugs fattened the best turkeys and pheasants.
Back in the rubble-strewn Grotham Keep, Alfred stood in a dripping hot wet mess. Loranna stood next to him, quite clean and ungooed. Alfred hugged her, and all was fair and gooey in love and war.
Chapter Sixty-Two: The Long Way Home
Alfred stared at the giant vulture that was lit brightly by the full moon. Behind him stood three silver-shining fully-armoured knights with the most brilliant of swords. Their armour was certainly not silver, but the steel was so polished and radiant in its luster and strength that it reflected like a silver lake on a clear blue winter day.
The Dark Servant hovered his vulture deftly in the night sky. Campfires lit up many areas of Grotham Keep's ruined landscape. Amongst work wagons, many craftsmen and gnomes were sitting about, resting after another productive day of clearing rubble and repairing what was salvageable. This night, all stood with weapons in hand, ready to strike if the vulture came down.
King Alfred just looked up at it. The Dark Servant peered about, realizing that there were no ogres and no bugbears in sight – only free people eating, drinking, and making merry with song and dance, readying for another restful evening.
The Dark Servant turned its great bird around and flew away.
Everyone cheered and jeered or laughed and hollered as the dark shadow left. A great roar of courage and joy spread quickly across the land. Farmers went back to their farms, and cobblers and carpenters and masons, like Stanba and her husband, went back to the Keep. It was a dreadful mess, almost impossible to repair. At first, the people were so distraught about it that they wanted to abandon Grotham Keep.
But it was Gib, King Gup, and Pep who taught them something. “You just pick up one stone at a time. And look, we have a clean spot.”
“That's right m'friends, just a stone at time!”
Some gnomes began to clear the stones into piles outside. Others chiseled the pieces into smooth rocks.
“What's that for?” Abedeyan asked, being the first to follow the gnomes’ example, dropping a few small stones.
“We're going to make a cobble road, from here to wherever you like,” Pep said. “And even the shavings, we'll mix into mortar and clays! Everything can be used! Don't waste the waste!”
It didn't take long for all to join in, and soon enough they could see that Grotham Keep's courtyard was still there. Though the walls were in ruins, the towers in shambles and the Great Hall a complete disaster, they saw the possibility of renewal and rebuilding.
Alfred remembered the door that led into the Great Hall, the one with the carvings that told the tales of his first adventures. When the wood carvers heard that the King was sitting there trying to find whatever pieces of it he could in the rubble, tears came into their eyes. The carvers told King Alfred they were going to build him a bigger and better door, with new carvings of his victory against the ogres and the freeing of the slaves – because the Khanifians were now brothers and sisters amongst them doing the work and ready to defend.
“And don't forget the ants!” Nubio added.
“And we gnomes, you know!” said Gib.
As the days grew warmer and the snow turned to icy cold springs, brooks and streams, Grotham Keep became a cleaned-out shell. A few scaffolds were placed, but the construction would take some time. After all, discussion and heated debates between the gnomes, stonemasons, and even the knights, kept the Keep in a skeletal shape. It sat there like swept-clean stone outcroppings with various tents and wagons and folks coming to and fro. Within a somewhat suitable covered area in the Great Hall was the large table with a spread of parchment drawings and designs, presenting newer and better towers and walls, layers of defenses and a great new hall.
“Is that twice the size of the Keep?” Alfred asked.
Dunther and the gnomes nodded with big greedy eyes.
“How much will it cost and how long?” Alfred asked.
“Too much and too long,” Dunther replied.
“Everyone will pitch in,” said King Gup. “And we'll create a trade system – our steel and stone for your delicious cooked food!”
The gnomes all nodded and high-fived each other. “Oh what a rip off! Suckers!”
“We've got to get planting!” Abedeyan reminded. “And we'll need to import cattle and sheep, which will cost us. We have no funds.”
“Our steel is priceless!”
“We aren't selling the steel!” King Alfred said. “We aren't exporting our military advantage, our might!”
King Gup and Lord Dunther agreed.
Nubio and his Khanifians then appeared at the meeting. They had many shovels and pickaxes. Hedor was with them, his face and hands full of dirt. His eyes were wide open as he nodded slowly and affirmatively, looking at Alfred.
“King Alfred, we just have enough food till we rebuild the farms,” Lord Dunther said. “We have no coinage to speak of but the copper system you created at the mines. All this to say, we are in debt to the farmers and gnomes. It appears us knights will have to begin selling our services.”
“Nubio, would you like to tell them what you told me!” King Alfred said.
“Ah, about... “ Nubio motioned to the wagon.
“Yeah, about that!” Alfred affirmed.
Nubio came into the circle. He was quite dirty and set his shovel down.
“King Alfred, Nubio is not our slave! He is a free man,” Lord Dunther said.
“Shhh...” King Alfred said. “Nubio has something to say.”
Nubio smiled politely but was very nervous though he seemed to have tremendously good news. “The ogres always travel around with great chests of treasure,” he finally said.
“We found no such thing amongst their horrifying belongings,” Lord Dunther said.
“Lots of inferior iron and eaten carcasses,” Gib added.
Alfred waved for them to be quiet and nodded to Nubio.
“Before they ever enter or attack a place, they have their slaves dig and bury their treasure somewhere far off and safe.”
The silence in the makeshift hall was deafening. Even the hammers of stonemasons and the chisels of wood carvers suddenly stopped. Dunther looked about. Everyone looked at everyone else. Dunther looked at Hedor, who nodded in a crazed way.
Dunther blinked and looked at Alfred, who smiled with a big grin and stepped aside as Ruig slowly brought through a wagon led by a tired oxen. Sitting atop it were Khanifians with shovels. And they were sitting on top of several large soil-ridden and bulging chests of ogre treasures.
When they opened the chests, they only saw gold and silver and jewelry. If they really really looked, they would have seen hundreds of years of history and archaeology. The chests were filled with lost treasures of forgotten tribes and kingdoms, coins of forgotten kings and plates of royal families, heirlooms of powerful merchants and jewelry of royal queens and princesses.
With them came the tragic tales of many hundreds of tribes and kingdoms, enslaved and forgotten. Now these souls could finally rest, knowing that their tortured and lost lives were given justice here in the Kingdom of the Westfold under King Alfred.
It was Verboden who saw the spirits of girls, boys, mothers and fathers, victims of the ogres' slavery, finally reunited, as they floated up
into the sky. He saw them dancing and waving in the spring breeze.
“What you lookin’ at?” Gib asked.
“Oh... nothing... just justice... and love...” Verboden wasn't sure what to say as he choked on something deep within.
And the work was on.
To say that many came from far and wide to find much needed work that paid well is an understatement. And the farmers, turning in their copper coins, found they had made a great investment in King Alfred's kingdom. They bought fields of sheep, goats, chickens, cattle and horses.
All were welcome except the Merchants of Telehistine, who were turned away. They weren't just turned away by three magnificent knights on incredible steeds. They were turned away by a slew of dangerous archers, spearboys and scary small fully armored gnomes carrying spring-loaded javelin shooters.
Not even the armoured units of the Silver Coast mercenaries, a group nearly a hundred strong, dared to advance on the three knights. They had never seen such armour or such incredible horses.
“Where did they get them?” the merchants hissed as they begrudgingly and angrily turned back south.
Stories claim that the gallant horses merely showed up one day: a white steed for Dunther, a grey steed for Murith and a black steed for Gorham. All three had extraordinary saddles and tack, crafted from leather and plant fiber, woven with beauty and strength.
Dunther went to his white steed immediately as the horses showed up right outside the Keep one beautiful summer morning. Alfred and Loranna sat in the field and watched the incredible spectacle. To see three beautiful horses fully reined simply gallop up to the knights was just stunning.
Loranna couldn't help but giggle a joyous laugh. Alfred stared, chewing on a very milky stalk of grass.
Dunther rode his past Verboden, Gib and Pep. “They are from her!”
“I thought he said she put a curse on him?!” Pep muttered.
“Oh, she did alright,” Gib said.
Chapter Sixty-Three: A Mother's Hope
When Alfred returned to his mother, a few weeks had passed. She was upset and frazzled. He missed a lot of school, and they were sending warning letters. She had amassed his undone homework. She told them that he was sick and would get to the work as soon as possible. They believed her for the first week but became concerned the second. In the third, she got letters saying a social worker was going to visit. She had run out of excuses and was running out of time.
Alfred realized that in his victory and peace, and in enjoying the fruits of it all and seeing the land rebuilt, much time had passed. When he decided he needed to come back, he felt some time should have passed between both worlds, not moments or a few seconds. He affected, by his own comfort, the passage of time between the worlds
“I'm sorry mother. Let me go to school right now!” he kissed her many times as she tried to yell some more at him. He hurried to school.
There the vice principal saw him and was very upset. Alfred spoke in such a respectful and conciliatory manner that it kind of threw her off. He told her he was severely sick but today, finally, he felt better.
He promised he would catch up on all the homework, working weekends and nights! After all, he was an A student, and the teachers sure did miss his “medieval” style homework projects. He promised them all he would catch up in no time!
When he returned home, his mother was in a state of shock.
“I called for you Alfred, so many times! I thought for sure that this was it, that you had been lost!”
“Mom, I saw a Dark Servant.”
“How? No one sees a Dark Servant and lives.”
“Yeah, well, this one fled.”
“Fled?”
“Yeah, after we defeated, let's see... ogre slavers, a bugbear army from the North, oh yeah…that brought a hormig army! You know, giant ants. Yeah, we beat them too.”
“Beat them? All?”
“Yes mom, all!”
“At once?”
“Uhh... no, not all at once, duhhh... in, ah... order... sequentially...”
“Oh well, that's fine too...”
“And we made an alliance with the gnomes.”
“Gnomes?”
“Yeah... you know, picts! We freed them from the evil lies of the Merchants and got them to come up to the upper world. Because they believed they were cursed by us to never be able to go out into the sun cuz they thought they'd get sunburned, of the stone turning type, but nOOOOhhh... they didn't. It was all a lie. And Tirnalth helped. And so the gnomes helped us beat those slave evil ogres, and we freed Khanifians and Nubio. He's my friend, and he's going to stay for awhile and train with us. Cuz he wants to go back to his people and free them. But he wants to learn all our stuff, which I think is great cuz someone needs to go down there and free them! And yeah... phew... what's there to eat?!”
Ethralia sat and stared at him.
“Any uh... food... stew? Roast? Leftovers?”
She got up and hugged him.
Alfred lay in bed and thought of the Westfold, of the land and people. He could help not but smile and tear up at the same time. He felt a sense of sudden peace and exhaustion. He hurrahed silently, lifting a fist in the dark of night, in the peacefulness of his bedroom, a fist of victory.
He made the sound of a roaring crowd and giggled. Knowing they were free, the gnomes and farmers and children. He thought of the knights in their shining armour, bowing as his vision passed them. He saw Dunther arguing with gnomes as great stones were carved for the walls. He saw Abedeyan suddenly walk by and yell orders while pointing to and fro, with his new cane. Lady Nihan passed, pushing Hedor and his men along, they were trudging haphazardly with sacks of grain and flour.
He saw Broggia and Boggin in the Sanctuary, at the Dragon's Maw, working away with a team of gnome smiths. All of them joyous in their smeltering and hammering. He couldn't quite hear in his dream but he could see them singing a joyful methodical tune, paced to their hammering.
He saw Nubio practicing with Cory, Wilden and the spearboys. They were in the field, marching about, then forming up lines and working on flank moves and furious charges. He saw Loranna in the grove with the girls, firing away with a flurry of arrows. He then saw her stop and look at him. He felt a sudden connection and warmth in that. She winked and hurried off to her training.
“Mom, why are we here?”
Alfred's mom carefully walked into Wooly's shop, leading Alfred in front of her. Wooly sat in the back, in the dark.
“Hi Wooly,” Alfred said.
Ethralia stood behind Alfred in the dusty shop. She looked at him for awhile and said nothing. Alfred looked around at the mess of computers Wooly was working on.
Alfred noticed the long silence. He shrugged and smiled, looking at Wooly, then back at his mom, then back at Wooly. He waited for one of them to say something.
He shrugged and pouted. “Uh, yeah, I said hi. Do we need something fixed? I thought we dealt with the mouse issue?”
“Alfred?”
“Yeah, mom?”
“Bedenwulf, my Lord, Knight of the fallen House of Utharian, Knights of the Order of Light.” Wooly stood up. “Alfred, meet your father.”
Next Up:
Alfred
And the
Quest Knights
Volume Three
Alfred 2: And The Underworld (Alfred the Boy King) Page 39