Roland's Path

by R J Hanson

At the supper gathering King Vigorr called a silence to the hall.

  “Listen my clan, and new friends alike,” Vigorr began. “No dwarf has ever received such a gift as we have received from these Great Men. And no dwarf has ever been honored with a gift that he did not return a gift in kind. We cannot match the majesty of the axe Roland and Eldryn have returned to us, however, we offer them these humble presents as a symbol of our appreciation. First a ring for each signifying their friendship with all dwarves so that they might be known to all as a trusted friend among the great smiths and miners of the world.”

  Roland and Eldryn were each presented with a Roarke’s Ore ring with the dwarven symbol of hammer and anvil engraved on its rich surface. Roland was given an extra ring to be given to Ashcliff and Eldryn an extra for Lucas.

  “Then to you, Eldryn son of Ellidik of the One Eye. I am told that you are a cavalier in the ways of the Shyeld, and would practice the honorable ways of that ancient battalion and the old Code. To you we give four horse shoes crafted by our finest smiths. These shoes will make your steed faster and more sure footed than any other.”

  A dwarf, clad in a dingy leather apron, approached Eldryn and presented him with four black mercshyeld horse shoes with runes carved into each. Mercshyeld used for horse shoes!

  “Then to you, Roland son of Velryk the Just from the Line of Ivant the Eld,” Vigorr continued. “It is a warrior’s heart that you possess and a warrior’s armament that you wear. Our humble gift does not deserve to go adorn with such fine craftsmanship of old. However, it is our hope that you will find use in these boots of boiled leather sole and hard steel toe and heel. These boots will allow you to stand in combat without concern of your feet being cut from beneath you. These boots will allow no blade to pass through them. No injury will come to you where these boots cover you.”

  The same dwarf in the leather apron walked toward Roland bearing a pair of beautifully made knee-high, dark-gray leather boots.

  “To the dwarven people you will be known as Roland Tall Walker the Oath Keeper, and Eldryn Stone Rider. These gifts we offer in humble appreciation for what you have done for our people. The axe of the legendary King Vech has been returned to us, and with it the story of our line, our fore bearers. It has told, and will continue to tell, a bit more of our story to our following generations. If there is anything else that you would request from me or my people you have but to ask it.”

  Roland burned with questions about what the king had said. Those words, ‘son of Velryk the Just from the Line of Ivant the Eld,’ rang in his ears. He knew this was not the place or time. He was shamed to know so little of his own family history when surrounded by such a display of dwarven ancestry. Very well, if he was indeed as the king had called him, he would act worthy of the name and title. It was not lost on him that Oath Keeper was also the name of Bolvii’s sword. He reined in his own curiosity, which he knew, deep down, was vanity.

  “King Vigorr, and all Stonebeards, hear me,” Roland said. “You have honored us with your hospitality and kingly gifts. I am equally honored to call the Stonebeards allies and friends.”

  Eldryn, knowing Roland perhaps better than anyone, was always amazed at how he seemed to know the right thing to say at the right time. It wasn’t conversation. Roland was terrible at that. It was…diplomacy. Any other man speaking as he did might have been killed when they first met Ungar in that tavern weeks before. Any other man might now struggle for what to say in the face of such kingly gifts. But not his friend, Roland. The words he needed seemed to always be there waiting for him.

  A great cheer went up through the dwarven mass and another celebration seemed to be beginning. Roland talked briefly with Eldryn and then approached the King’s table.

  “King Vigorr, I and my friend, Eldryn, have been honored by your reception and hospitality. However, I regret that we must move on. We have an appointment in Modins that we must keep and therefore we must continue our journey.”

  “I understand that a young warrior has much to do. In your travels, should you ever need the clan of the Stonebeards you have but to call upon us. You have my leave, Tall Walker the Oath Keeper.”

  King Vigorr assigned one of his personal guards to escort Roland and Eldryn through the maze of caverns.

  “I thank you, Your Majesty,” Roland said with a bow.

  Roland turned to Eldryn and they sought out Ungar who was being cheered and toasted at a table nearby.

  “We must be on our way, friend,” Roland said.

  “I and my clan are forever in your debt,” Ungar said to Roland and Eldryn.

  “Perhaps we will meet on the road again someday,” Eldryn said. “Until then keep yourself well.”

  With that Roland and Eldryn, led by their escort, began the winding walk that would eventually deliver them to the face of the mountainside.

  A dwarven smith that had been minding the animals in the stone stables offered to shoe Eldryn’s horse for him.

  “I would be very grateful,” Eldryn replied.

  The smith shod Lance Chaser and the two friends were on their road to Modins once again. It was late afternoon when they rode out of the stable and past dark by the time, they made their way off of the mountain and down to the forests surrounding the range.

  “I have to say this, Roland,” Eldryn began. “How did you get so lucky with the dwarves? I was sure that Ungar would kill you that night in Dolloth. Then the way you spoke to the King in front of all of his people. I thought for certain that we would be killed.”

  “You remember what father taught us about dwarves,” Roland replied. “He said that they shared a lot of characteristics with mules. They are stubborn, blunt, and tough. They would set themselves on fire just to spite you, and they will bite you whenever they get the chance, unless you let them know that you will not tolerate being bitten. It is just a matter of responding to them in a manner that they are accustom to. They feel that if a man puts up with being insulted then he deserves the insult.”

  “You could have let me in on some of your insight.”

  “I don’t think that would have worked as well. They wouldn’t have noticed your shocked expressions, and would have thought that my words were hollow.”

  Eldryn gave Roland a curious look.

  “Very well,” Roland conceded. “Most of it was due to my temper. However, I did remember the lessons father taught us about dwarves. And everything worked out in the end.”

  They set up camp and Eldryn picketed the horses while Roland began the fire and maneuvered stones to bank the heat. Roland slept in his helmet again. The rest was never so wonderful.

  chapter X

  Friends?

  THEY TRAVELED WEST ALONG THE mountain range for days without incident. Traveling in the forest with the mountains to block the southern winds was much more comfortable. The two friends enjoyed the break from the brutal weather and the new, pleasant scenery. Eldryn hunted and both young men ate well.

  On a morning ten days after leaving the dwarven stronghold they saw smoke on the horizon more to their north than west. A lot of smoke. They turned their horses in that direction. A short ride brought them upon a boy running through the forest. Roland guessed him to be no more than nine or ten years old.

  “What is the matter, boy?” Roland asked. He noticed that the boy’s face was tear streaked, and new tears welled in his blue eyes. His clothes were torn and stained with soot. His short cut blonde hair was a nest of ash.

  “Our village,” the young boy said through barely controlled sobs. “A horrible wizard is burning it.”

  Roland took the boy up and put him behind him in the saddle.

  “What is your name, boy?” Roland asked.

  “Petie.”

  “Take this,” Roland said as he handed Petie one of his daggers. “Petie, every man was once a boy and was scared at one time or another. What makes them men is that they stood when they were scared, and they fought against what they feared.”

  Petie took the
dagger from Roland and looked directly at him. Petie choked his tears back and stiffened his quivering lip. Roland nodded and he and Eldryn started their mounts on a gallop toward the burning village.

  They rode into a clearing at the outskirts of a small community on the edge of the forest backed up against the mountains. Roland and Eldryn saw an elf with long blond hair wielding a broadsword and screaming as he took deliberate steps north up one of the three trails that passed through the small town. This elf, clad in finely crafted chainmail of some exotic alloy, continued to scream hauntingly as he marched north. They felt fairly confident until they watched the elf summon a green ball of energy to his left hand and then release it toward a small hut. The hut burst apart in green and blue flames.

  Roland watched as the remaining inhabitants of the small village fled north out of town. Roland began walking his horse forward.

  “What are you doing?” Eldryn asked.

  “We cannot allow this,” Roland replied.

  “How do you plan to stop him? There is no way we can take him.”

  “We have to try.”

  Roland rode his horse to the center of the small trail directly in the elf’s path. When the elf looked up Roland thought he saw something that he recognized in the mage warrior’s eyes that was painfully familiar. A doubt of sanity. It was clear that this elf was plagued with some kind of mind disease. Roland calculated his odds of taking this dangerous fellow by force. Those odds did not seem to favor him, especially when he had a child to protect. Then an idea came to him.

  “Friend I cannot let you continue with this,” Roland said.

  “Why do you think you can call me friend?” The elf spat. “All of my friends are dead, save one. ALL OF THEM! DEAD! Pay me tribute or die.”

  “I call you friend because we share a common enemy and that makes us allies, as is in ‘Thoughts on War,’” Roland said. “I can offer you rest from that enemy.”

  “You, a simple-minded mortal, would attempt to trick me, the Almighty Gallis Argenti?”

  “Surely a wise elf could tell that there is no lie in what I say.”

  “So, you hope to ply me with flattery?” Gallis Argenti asked. “A tribute or I’ll leave your death to be the last so that you can watch what I do to your friend and the child there. Let’s start with that magnificent helmet you wear. Pass it over.”

  Roland removed his helm and handed it out to Gallis. There was a moment of hesitation. What would he become if this mage warrior destroyed the helmet? This helmet was his only bastion against inevitable insanity. The moment of greed, and no small amount of fear, passed.

  He thought to himself how lucky, or blessed by Bolvii himself, he was that Gallis Argenti had asked for the helmet first. He had decided to give him whatever he asked, hoping that he would put the helmet on. However, Roland didn’t know if he would have the strength to give up his sword to meet that end.

  Gallis took the helmet and eyed Roland dangerously. He said a few arcane words and moved his hand over the helm.

  “You may begin unclasping that great sword now as well,” Gallis Argenti said. “I think I’ll take that and any Rorkor you have. Perhaps I’ll kill you anyway. I hate spies!”

  Gallis Argenti placed the helmet on his head and the tight lines around his mouth and eyes relaxed immediately. He slumped to the ground in a sigh of relief. The people from the village continued to flee the small town.

  Roland dismounted and handed his reins to Petie who still sat in the saddle. Roland approached Gallis Argenti and then knelt beside him.

  “Rest easy,” Roland said. “You have no enemies here and I will see that you are not harmed.”

  “How can you say that?” Eldryn asked. “You have heard of Gallis Argenti. We saw his posters in Dolloth. He is dangerous, and a wanted criminal. There would not be such a high price on his head for no reason. We should shackle him now while we have the chance.”

  “This warrior fights the same enemy I fought for only a few weeks. If my battle had continued there might have been a high price on my head. Would you still have offered me help no matter what I might have done in that state?”

  “You are a good man, Roland. I don’t think…”

  “You can not know!” Roland shouted. “Until the inner demons chase you in your sleep, you can not know.”

  “I am alright KyrNyn,” Gallis Argenti called out in a sleepy voice. “They mean us no harm and I have found a reprieve.”

  Roland and Eldryn were both surprised when a tightly muscled common man appeared from almost non-existent cover behind them. He walked over and stood over Gallis Argenti.

  “He is my friend,” KyrNyn said. “I have stuck by him even though the inner demons haunt him. You will both die if you attempt to capture or harm him.”

  Roland looked at KyrNyn, fixing him with his faded blue eyes. He wondered how this man planned to kill them while wearing no armor and toting no weapon. Hopefully, it would not come to that.

  “I understand your friend’s pain,” Roland said. “He will not come to any harm or capture at my hand this day.”

  “The towns people may have other ideas,” Eldryn said. “Perhaps we should move him to a safer location.”

  “You have a good point,” Roland said. “Petie, perhaps you should try to find your father.”

  “My folks are dead. They were killed by an ogre raid several months ago. I have been a worker for the town ever since. I have nothing here but work. I work for everyone and some of them feed me. I don’t want to stay here. Could I leave with you? I’m strong. I don’t eat much. I’m good at catching rabbits.”

  Roland looked the boy over. Petie was standing there, tears gone, holding the dagger Roland had given him as if prepared to use it on Gallis Argenti. Roland saw intelligence in the boy’s eyes, and something else. Roland saw a strong will.

  “Very well,” Roland said. “You may travel with us for the time being, but you will do as I say just as though I were your father. Agreed?”

  “Yes sire,” Petie said.

  Roland picked Gallis Argenti up and laid him over his saddle. KyrNyn collected his horse from the edge of town and followed Roland and Eldryn south out of the small village.

  “Where is Gallis Argenti’s mount?” Eldryn asked.

  “His mount can take care of himself,” KyrNyn replied. “He would be better handled by Gallis himself. His mount can be very dangerous.”

  They traveled until dark and then began to set up camp. Roland and Eldryn went through their usual routine. Petie began to gather firewood and then helped Eldryn with the horses. KyrNyn checked Gallis again and found that he was sound asleep.

  “We went into the town to have a drink of whatever they might brew there and have a hot meal,” KyrNyn said. “One of the village men recognized Gallis and got greedy. Several of them organized and attempted to kill us while we ate. Gallis, as he is prone to do, got a little out of hand, and after the group that ambushed us was dead, he began tearing apart the town.”

  “What happened to him?” Roland asked.

  “His story is his own to tell,” KyrNyn said. “He does, however, suffer from the haunts that you seem to understand.”

  “The helmet will not cure the problem,” Roland said. “The rest it gives, however, is like breath to a drowning man.”

  “Good gods!” Eldryn exclaimed drawing his magnificent Shrou-Sheld. “What is that?”

  Eldryn pointed to a large shadow in the woods near the camp. He kept his sword handy and began stringing his sectot bow that he retrieved from the caverns of Nolcavanor.

  “Rest easy,” KyrNyn said. “That is Gallis’s mount.”

  “It looks like some kind of cat. A huge cat!”

  “It is,” KyrNyn replied simply. “Some of the greatest of the warriors from Janis ride them into combat. We can all sleep without concern tonight. Quick Claw will watch for us.”

  Roland gave Petie his extra shirt to wear, which covered the boy completely. He also gave him a blanket and a rope
belt with a scabbard for the steel dagger. The companions all stretched out for a peaceful rest.

  KyrNyn cracked his eyes open and found the rest of the group resting. He made his way around the camp on silent feet and began to go through Eldryn and Roland’s packs. He found the letter written by Lucas and examined it closely for several minutes. He heard Roland stir and replaced the letter quickly.

  Roland awoke to find everything around him bathed in oppressive darkness. He felt his bedroll slithering all around him and the air was thick with the smell of decaying flesh. He leapt from his bed. As he jumped, he slammed into a large fang. Roland struck the ceiling of something and then realized as terror seized his heart that he was in the mouth of some huge creature. Roland pushed up on the roof of the creature’s mouth only to find that it gave way in his hands as the rotting flesh pulled from the bone. Roland grabbed one of the fangs and heaved up with all his strength, forcing the mouth open.

  He saw that he was over thirty feet up in the air, but Roland jumped from its mouth just the same. He landed on the run. When he looked over his shoulder his knees felt weak with fear. He looked on one of the old mounts of the gods. A dragon. Not just any dragon, but one that had defied death and now walked in unlife.

  Roland had never imagined something so purely evil. Nor could he imagine anything deadlier. Roland looked upon an undead mount of the champions. A great dragon that was bone and rotting flesh. There was nothing but death in its puss colored eyes.

  Roland charged into the curtain of night, fleeing blindly in panic. He rounded a tree and could hear the beast behind him. Roland struck something in the dark that was solid as stone. Roland looked up to find his father, Velryk, towering several feet above him.

  “My son, the mighty warrior! Ha,” Velryk scoffed. “You are a coward and you run from battle like the scared child you are!”

  Velryk took up his axe.

  “I’ll not allow my son to be a coward and make our name no more than another insult for cowardice, another mark for a yellow fighter.”

  Velryk swung the axe and Roland could only stare in a mixture of shame and terror.