by Sean Oswald
Emily sat down next to Dave and put her hand on his forearm. “I see you, sweetie. I see you for the noble man that you are. I am so happy that you aren’t doubting yourself like before, but there has to be balance. Nothing noble can be built upon arrogance. Nothing lasting can be built on a temporary show of strength. Today, we have taken great strides forward. We have forged a unity between humans and elves that these people have never known. What I need, what the children need, what Eris’ Rise needs is the man who gave that impassioned speech to them about unity and opportunity, not the man who was so anxious to prove himself that he rushed into battle alone.”
Dave felt the struggle within him. He almost felt like a character in the cartoons with an angel upon one shoulder urging him to listen to his wife, to follow the path that she described, and to be the man that she envisioned. On his other shoulder perched the imaginary devil that urged on his selfish nature. It whispered that the only way to truly be the man that she needed was to assert himself. He even shook his head visibly as he scoffed internally. This was no cartoon. There were no devils or angels upon his shoulders. He was responsible for his life, and he would seize this opportunity even if Emily didn’t understand. He just needed to be careful about it.
“Maybe you are right honey. Maybe I have just been under too much stress and am letting things get to me. After all, we have so much to do. We have three to four months until the goblin army arrives. Seimion likely won’t take kindly to my refusal. The ace up our sleeves is the dungeon. Even three months using the time dilation for training, research, and development will be the equivalent of over four years,” Dave said.
“That is the man I know. The one who can see a path forward for all of us together. Like you always say, nothing can keep a Nelson down,” Emily’s smile lit up his life. Dave almost felt bad for holding back, but it was his responsibility, not hers, and if she couldn’t see the need, well, he would make sure she never had to pay the price. Whether she liked it or not, Dave was not going to just wait for the goblins to come. No, he was going to take the fight to them. It was time for Eris’ Rise to go on the offensive.
Epilogue
Winter was hard in the Halcon mountains, but the Ironclaw Orcs were a hardy people. They had been shaped by adversity. Now when weaker races stayed inside their mountain fortresses or huddled around fires for comfort, swapping tales and eating the provisions set aside, this clan continued to hunt and train to seize their destiny in the spring. Still, there was one fire which was important. More than one forge ran during the winter, but only one forge was shaping their destiny.
Three weapons and a shield bound to change fate. That was what Aden had pledged to make for his captors turned hosts. Three weapons to be used against orcs, elves, humans, and any of the other races, but never against dwarvenkind. That had been secured in a magical oath before he had swung his first hammer stroke for them. Aden took a perverse pleasure in knowing that the weapons he made would be used by orcish hands to take orcish lives.
More than that though, Aden was the consummate craftsman. He sought to fulfill his life’s purpose in achieving that singular work without which no smith can ever truly be complete. He lamented that his people might never know of the greatness of his work, but he trusted that the great god in the sky, the one whose forge put off the sparks that light the night, would look down upon him and be pleased. The Ane Above Aw would see his dedication. With just a bit of luck to add to his skill and effort, perhaps his weapons would become true soul-forged items.
Four chances he had. The king’s ransom worth of adamantium which the Ironclaw clan had stolen from the holds of his people would be just enough. Enough to forge an axe and shield for their champion, a sword for their leader, and a dagger for the soft-spoken one they called the Third. So, over the months of winter, Aden worked. He shaped and beat and used all of the lore he knew to properly soften and then shape the adamantium. He would accept nothing less than perfection.
The smith knew that Naraan grew impatient with him, but he told the man again and again that perfection could not be rushed. That and his pledge that the weapons would be ready by the time that the thaw reached this far north was enough to hold the First at bay. Little by little the projects began to take shape, but he didn’t finish any of them. Instead, he worked each one further towards its desired end. He did more than simply shape the metal. He crafted in the runes of foundation into them. Those runes which had been given by the one above all to the dwarven people. His people might be but a remnant of what legend said they had once been, but that did not stop him from pouring himself into his work.
So, as the weapons took shape, they took into themselves a bit of the dwarf who forged them. Little by little, he became less as the weapons became more. He had feared this outcome even as he had hoped for it. His life force was being drawn into his life’s work, and so he had wisely worked to finish each item together. His sly and crafty mind was forged into the dagger, while his iron will and dedication were forged into the sword. The strength of his old weathered body, tough as old leather and as unmoving as the mountain itself was forged into the shield even as the very strength of his limbs was forged into the axe.
The last hammer stroke brought an end to four masterpiece items just as much as it brought an end to the life of one given to his craft. He had insisted on finishing it under the light of the Aaa’s sparks in the sky, a sight dwarves see all too rarely in their underground homes. So as his spirit left his body and his life essence merged into the items, Aden Doonholt achieved something that no dwarf had achieved during their entire exile to Talos. He created not just one soul-forged item, but four, and in a way, he would live on forever in his work. In the last moment of life, he thought he saw the stars twinkling in approval, and the last breath which left his body formed into a laugh which reverberated into the weapons.
Far north even from Mt Terriyan, many other dwarven forges were working. None forged weapons of adamantium, and none forged weapons imbued with the very life of their crafters. Still though, spear tips were refined, hammers were balanced, and axes were sharpened to razor edges. Dents were removed from armor, and shoes were made for mountain ponies. All the while throughout their halls, the songs of the forge, the songs they claimed came from creation itself echoed from chamber to chamber and fell off the tongue of young and old alike.
Fire i the forge
fire i the nicht
life bricht melts stone
shapes the world
the word o Aaa
fills the mind
strengthens the arm
unforgivin unmournit
The people of the mountain as they knew themselves were preparing for war. This would be a war unlike any the dwarves alive remembered. It would be a war to wipe out the treacherous orcs. For too long had they been allowed this blight to lay at their doorstep. Now by order of Thane Harlan Du’Darden, king of the dwarven people, there would be war. The dwarves would claim all the mountain realm for themselves, down into the foothills. It was their birthright, so the tales went.
Still, it would be a long endeavor. The dwarves would not be ready in a single season. Theirs was a slow burn. A steady but 691mplacable drive to perfection. Yet, once they moved, it would be like the song of the forge. They would be unforgiving in vengeance, and their foes would fall unmourned for there would be none left before the sweep of the axe called the dwarven nation.
Baron Steffen Eikhorn saw his son back to school. He gave advice to both Tabor and Jackson. Then once he had left the boys behind him, he went to the palace but once again was unable to get an audience with the king. He did notice though that the atmosphere was far more tense. Steffen quickly tired of being ignored and within a couple of days was back in the saddle with his two guards riding hard for his home in Breslau.
The ride back took over a week even with buying new horses along the way, but it was worth it to get back and see his wife and daughters waiting for him. It was a joy for him, and they w
ere all eager to hear the stories of his journey. They marveled when he told them about the elves he had met and how he had befriended an actual Chosen. He got the sense from time to time that his wife would have been inclined to disbelieve some of his tale if not for the fact that she knew he was always coldly logical in his accounting and never embellished.
After three weeks with his family, winter had firmly settled its mantle upon the western border of Albia. Steffen’s joy was made complete when he finally was reunited with Captain Raddick. He was sad to hear about the loss of the other scouts, but this man had become something of a son to him, and while he had not doubted Dave’s report about Martin he knew that there was still a long trip between the moon elf lands and Breslau. Raddick’s report was encouraging though because it showed that the goblin activity all seemed to be limited to the Chenhou forest north of the Murkwood. At least that was the condition when the scout captain had left.
General and Captain compared notes on General Nelson and found that they had made many of the same observations. They both agreed that he was a man who could get things done and that their overall impression was positive but also that he had some strange ideas and was a bit unstable in the way that he pursued his own personal power.
Another month into winter and Steffen was becoming anxious. He felt that he needed to be doing something. Normally even when the goblins were not actively attacking, patrols would still regularly run into groups of the disgusting creatures. As a nobleman he was grateful for the break, not only for himself and his family but also for his people. They could grow strong and enjoy an unprecedented break in the need for constant vigilance.
The general in him, though, felt that he was missing something. When the enemy did not do what you expected them to do, it only made that enemy more dangerous. He had the sense that his barony’s strength and experience were going to be needed, but he couldn’t determine if the greater threat was going to be in the north with the goblin army coming or in the capital with nobles who were threatening to overthrow their king.
The few missives he had received from Konig showed that the scene was getting worse rather than improving, and there was little hope in him for a peaceful resolution. Still, the king continued the oddest of behaviours. Harold had ordered more of the royal army deployed to the southern border rather than shoring up his own defenses in the capital or sending them to deal with the invaders to the north. Perhaps the king had lost it, or perhaps he knew something that Steffen wasn’t privy to.
King Harold Bornstein was little more than a prisoner in his own castle. If he went outside the walls, he was greeted with the disdain of his people, who had loved him just a few months before. It was a sign of the fickleness of the peasants or so he told himself. They didn’t like that that shiny gloss had come off of their king. He was a man with clay feet. His vices now on public display.
The military still answered to him, but he had lost the people, and unless he did something to change that, he would either become a tyrant or lose his crown and likely his head with it. The nobles had been convening to try and formulate an appropriate trial. They didn’t know how well informed he still was, but even with his hands tied, he still had resources. Oh, it wasn’t all the nobles. The western nobles seemed to take their oaths more seriously, but they weren’t exactly leaping to his defense either. Even many of the direct vassals were scheming against him, each hoping to end up on the right side of whoever owned the crown after the dust settled.
None of them knew of the threat from the south, and only Eikhorn seemed to know of the threat from the north. It was his plan to wait till a trial was demanded, likely sometime after the spring festival. For now, the winter snows lay heavy upon Konig, and even the schemes of his nobles were made sluggish by the weather. Once they thought they had him, he would reveal the pending threats, and then his forethought would be praised, and his leadership would be necessary. No one deposes the king while an outside enemy is attacking.
The one variable that confused Harold was what Duke Holstein was up to. By now, it was clear that Melani was Edwin’s plant. Harold didn’t know if she was really Edwin’s bastard daughter, but it didn’t matter. The people had bought the rumor which had artfully crept its way into town. Harold didn’t think that even Eleazor with all of his talents and connections could have more skillfully sown a tale. Now though, the King of Albia could only watch and wait for an opening and pray that his enemies had not planted a blade he had not already seen.
The Watcher looked on at the project they had initiated. It had been a little experiment, one forged of jealousy and confusion. He wanted to tell himself that he had been deceived, but is the one who closes his eyes to all doubts actually deceived or a willing participant?
He could see that from one perspective the point his condemned brother wanted to prove seemed valid. One of the test subjects had in fact done exactly as predicted, and the fate of another couple was still to be determined. Yet, what did it matter. Was that the answer he had sought? Had it been worth all the chaos they had wrought? Then again, was the chaos just part of a larger system that even he didn’t understand?
His original question had been about choice. A being such as he who always only ever did as he was ordered, playing his part in a grand scheme beyond even his understanding was a stranger to choice. Now having made a choice of his own for the second time in his very long existence, he couldn’t help but wonder if it mattered.
Had he really made a choice, or had he only done that which was already predetermined? It made him feel sympathy for the mortals scurrying about on a million different worlds. The scale of the multiverse was more than he could take in. Compared to the ant-like mortals, he was an eagle soaring high above. His sight was unparalleled amongst the creatures that moved. Yet, for all that, he saw more than the ant’s limited perspective. He still only saw what was before his eyes.
He had made himself a Watcher, had chosen to behold the horrors and mysteries untold as they unfolded before him. His assigned duties were trivial and could be performed in his sleep, if he ever actually slept. So there had to be more to this. More to his existence.
In that instant, he moved. The Condemned must have sensed his intent for he cried out, but the Watcher paid him no heed. This pocket in reality was a prison, but it was not a prison for the Watcher. It had one occupant, and he remained stuck as the Watcher penetrated the veil and left the pocket of oblivion.
Once more a citizen of the multiverse, no longer only viewing it through the might of his aura, he could feel the connectivity of all things. There it was, the presence that ran through what mortals called the emptiness of space every bit as much as it ran through the heart of the densest of stars. The Watcher gave a proverbial sigh, not of anguish but of peace as the sense of it all rushed over him. A second sigh did follow through; this time of a deep and abiding sorrow. He could no longer sense his condemned brother, but he could just imagine the anguish that one felt, once again alone, forever.
Then the Watcher turned his mind from feeling the universe around him and instead looked inward. He had thought he knew his place in everything, and then he had been unsure. He would like to say that all doubt was gone. More than anything, he wished to be able to act free of question. The truth now, though, was that his question had been for himself, and it had seared a mark into his very being. The test he had thought to conduct on other subjects had been for himself. Sure, others were caught up in it, some who benefited and some who suffered, but that was as much about their choices as it was about his.
He wondered if perhaps the most profound truth of fate is that it matters little how the individual perceives it. The night does not disappear more quickly for the brave than the fearful. The sea responds no more to one who supposes himself to be a pawn than the one who thinks he is master of his own course. In the face of an unchanging universe, a being whether mortal or immortal is the one who is changed. Now all that remained to be judged was if the change within him was for b
etter or for worse.
ALSO IN THE SERIES
WATCHER’S TEST
WATCHER’S QUESTION
WATCHER’S FATE
WATCHER’S REPOSE
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Thank you for reading Watcher’s Fate, book three of Life In Exile.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SEAN OSWALD was born on Krypton, Zenn-La, or Planet Vegeta, depending on which one of his kids is asking and what mood he is in. He served in the USMC straight out of high school before going on to obtain a highly useful degree in ancient languages.
Then, onto the mission field to work at an orphanage in India with his wife and 2.5 kids before returning to the US and surrendering to the dark side. Some say Sith, but his business card reads attorney.
Now, he lives with his wife and nine (yes, 9) children in central Illinois. Although to be fair, some of the kids are moved out and now he has version 2.0 called grandkids--which are even more fun, despite still having a 4 year old of his own.