The Sorcerer's Path Box Set: Book 1-4

by Brock Deskins

  “Something the matter?” Duncan glanced up and asked.

  “Where do you get your meat? You can’t raise much livestock underground can you?”

  Duncan roared with laughter. “Did Togar say something to you? No, we don’t raise animals in the caves. We have a few hidden little valleys between the peaks of the mountains where we grow grass, grains, vegetables, and raise our livestock. The only thing on that plate is goat, beef, and pork.”

  Azerick grinned, shook his head at his groundless fears, and gratefully dug into his breakfast. He was surprised to find that despite the dwarf’s compact size, Duncan ate as much as a large human, even going as far as to finish Azerick’s plate when he could eat no more. The pair sat back and sipped at their beer, letting their meals settle as they talked.

  “That’s quite a book you brought. I can see why you were so determined to retrieve it,” Duncan told the young sorcerer. “How exactly did you come about obtaining it?”

  “What happened to dwarves not being a curious bunch?”

  “I’m a bit different from most dwarves.”

  Azerick nodded. “I was on a ship to North Haven by way of a roundabout course when a very large and unnatural storm hit us. That was just a few days after two pirate ships tried to plunder us. When the storm broke, a ship full of minotaurs and a creature called a psyling appeared. They took us captive and sold us into slavery. I was forced to fight in an arena for about two years—I think. It was hard to keep track of time there. One day, the psyling’s control over me wavered. It did not end well for him.”

  “From what you said about that dragon, I imagine not.”

  “I grabbed the book, and we fled through a magical portal that deposited us in some very deep caves. It took at least a couple weeks for us to find the surface. When we did, we wintered in Riverdale. That is when the dragon took my things.”

  The dwarf shook his head in amazement at the young human’s experiences. “Psylings, cavern gnomes, and killed a dragon. Well, I won’t try to keep you here against your will. It just doesn’t seem healthy! I am glad you decided to stay a spell and let me study that book of yours. It’s going to be winter soon, and even though we can take you under most of the passes to where ever you have a mind to go, it’s still no fun traveling in the bitter cold. Like I said, the snows have been coming earlier and earlier these last couple of years and dropping more snow than usual.”

  “Do you think I can learn some of your rune magic?”

  “I can try to teach you, but I can’t guarantee you can learn more than the theory of it.”

  Azerick was in no particular hurry to go anywhere at the moment, and staying with the dwarves would give him a chance to learn something few would ever have a chance to know. Even if he was unable to learn to use rune magic, he could learn of it and of the secretive dwarves as well.

  He thought about Zeb and how he might be concerned with Azerick’s whereabouts, but he would just have to deal with that himself. Right now, being ensconced under millions of tons of rock and away from the rest of the world sounded like a good place to stay and plan his future.

  Duncan queried Azerick about his discoveries of the book’s contents, and Azerick in turn inquired more into what was required to create magical runes. Azerick sipped at his mug of beer while Duncan downed far more than Azerick thought appropriate given the early hour, but he left it to dwarven customs. After a tour of the forges, smithies, potters, weavers, and other various shops filling many of the caves, the pair returned to Duncan’s home and shop where they each sat and exchanged knowledge.

  The first week of Azerick’s stay consisted mostly of learning the history of the dwarves and their rune carving art. Duncan explained how all runes were comprised of representations of a natural element, and how these elements were often combined to create the desired effect. Other than that, there were few rules to rune carving. Azerick saw that it was very similar to his sorcery in that the rune carver’s imagination and interpretation decided the shape of the runes and were not fixed in any set form. There existed a multitude of runic combinations that would cause the same effect, the shape of which was left strictly to the carver.

  At the start of the second week, Duncan gave Azerick some shallow glass discs filled with a hard wax, several small chisels, and a list of runes. The dwarf had Azerick practice carving various runes in the wax until he mastered the form. Each time he carved a rune in each of the wax vessels, Duncan would inspect them before holding each one over a candle and melting the wax smooth again so Azerick could start all over. Azerick found he had deft hands, possibly a side effect of his spellcasting experience and requirements.

  While the sorcerer was busy carving his wax runes, Duncan identified several areas of interesting text that he marked by sliding a slip of velum between the pages. Once the rune carver identified the passages of interest, he began studying them in earnest.

  Duncan began to think that the tome itself was magical in that it seemingly contained more knowledge than even its numerous pages should allow. There were entire treatises on dwarven history and lore that had been lost ages ago and was no longer found in the libraries or even the memories of the short statured but long-lived race.

  Glancing up from the tome, Duncan looked at the human meticulously carving the small wax disc. He was impressed at the young man’s diligence and attention. His focus was quite remarkable for one of such an impatient and impetuous race. It made the rune carver realize it was about time he took on an apprentice and passed on his knowledge to ensure that the next generation kept his craft alive.

  Azerick raised his head, examined his work against the drawing, and found it nearly identical in detail. He looked over and saw Duncan watching him. With a mix of pride and trepidation, he handed the wax carving over to the rune master. The dwarf studied the width, depth, and quality of lines making up the rune for fire.

  “Not bad for a clumsy-handed human,” Duncan’s prickly reply came. “I think you are ready to move onto stone.”

  Azerick smiled at the dwarf’s approximation of a compliment. Duncan passed him three soapstone discs and a finer set of chisels wrapped in a soft square of leather. Taking up one of the chisels and a small wooden mallet, Azerick began inscribing a rune upon the soft, mottled stone chit. He quickly discovered that carving into the steatite disc was significantly more difficult and less forgiving than the wax had been.

  It took over two weeks for the young sorcerer to graduate from the soapstone to harder types of stone. The hard, grey rock before him frustrated Azerick to no end, as it seemed determined to fight his every attempt to create smooth, sharp lines with his chisels. It was thus that Azerick found himself hunched over the workbench, blowing away the tiny flecks of stone from his most recent attempt at carving the resilient rock, when a dwarf burst excitedly into the room.

  Duncan looked up from the tome when the dwarf entered the room and began shouting. “Master Runecarver, a group of miners have been attacked by a huge beast in one of the caverns and has them trapped!”

  Duncan hopped down from his stool, grabbed a wide belt adorned with several pouches, and belted it around his thick waist. “C’mon, lad, I might need your help.”

  Azerick jumped up and followed the two dwarves down the series of slide poles. Despite their short legs, Azerick had a hard time keeping up with the dwarves as they sprinted through the streets and out to the mining tunnels beyond. Several more dwarves fell in behind the running rune carver and his human guest wielding axes, hammers, and shields. Most had found the time to slip a chain or heavy leather hauberk over their shoulders before rushing out to join the rescue party.

  Azerick was the only one breathing hard by the time they arrived at a tunnel where several empty ore carts sat lined up on steel rails. Azerick followed closely behind Duncan as he vaulted over the side and into the mining cart. Several of the dwarves pushed the carts together and connected their couplers with steel pins before cramming themselves into the four-cart train.<
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  Duncan reached into one of the pouches on his belt and pulled out a palm-sized stone disc with the runes of air and iron engraved on its surface. He closed his eyes in concentration for a brief moment and uttered the words in the rough dwarven language that would release the runes energy.

  Azerick gripped the sides of the cart tightly when it lurched forward, propelled by an unseen force. Duncan leaned forward with his head just above the front wall of the cart, his beard flapping in the wind. Azerick’s eyes widened and his grip tightened on the sides of the cart as it continued to pick up speed.

  Within moments, the train of carts was hurtling down the steel tracks with a velocity that would make a racing charger appear about as swift as a plow mule. Azerick’s stomach lurched and his eyes widened so far the whites showed all around as the carts rounded a sharp bend in the tracks.

  Azerick let out a scream despite himself as the invisible centripetal forces shoved him against the outside wall of the cart. He was certain the dwarf-laden cars would be hurled off the narrow tracks and its living cargo thrown to their deaths.

  The dwarves leaned into the curve, and Azerick felt the inside wheels regain contact with the iron rail before continuing its terrifying dash down the dark tunnel. Azerick saw that Duncan had the rune-carved stone in his hand once again and was calling forth its power. The cart began slowing nearly as fast as it had taken off, and it soon came to a halt just short of a stout wooden barrier at the end of the tracks.

  Azerick tried to follow the dwarves as they leapt out of the cart, but when his feet touched the ground his legs felt as though someone had removed the bones. Duncan grabbed him by the elbow and forced him to hobble along as the rescue party ran down a side tunnel.

  Azerick soon heard the crashing of stone, the shouting of dwarves, and the hissing of some large beast coming from up ahead. Several of the dwarves’ glowing orbs lit up a large cavern at the end of the tunnel with their pale blue light.

  Near the back wall of the chamber, a massive creature, looking a great deal like a forty-foot long centipede, was hurling itself at a narrow cleft in the wall and furiously trying to burrow through the stone.

  Curses streamed out from inside the fissure in dwarven, followed by a hurled pickaxe that struck the cave crawler in the middle of its eyeless head. The cave crawler hissed in anger and pain, trying to dislodge the pickaxe as it lunged forward once more, tearing a large chunk of stone out of the wall with its massive, diamond-hard mandibles.

  Azerick conjured forth a palisade of stone spikes between the fearsome beast and the dwarves trapped in the crevice. Several of the sharp stone tips burst up from the ground and struck the cave crawler in its softer underbelly, wounding the beast and forcing it to back away from its trapped prey. The multi-legged creature swung its huge head toward the dwarves running at it and shouting a loud battle cry that rang off the cavern walls.

  Azerick let loose a barrage of arcane darts that flared brightly in the gloomy cave and struck the beast in its head. Duncan retrieved another rune stone from his pouch-laden belt. The earth and air runes engraved upon the stone glowed as he chanted under his breath. Several rocks the size of a large man’s fist rose from the cavern floor then flew across the open space as if hurled from a ballista. The projectiles hit with such force that the impact echoed throughout the chamber and cracked the beast’s hard chitinous shell.

  The cave crawler turned its glare away from the charging dwarves and locked its eyeless gaze on the magic-wielding human and the few dwarves remaining near it.

  Azerick saw the thick, caustic liquid dripping from its mouth as it drew back its head. The sorcerer had a gut feeling of what was about to happen and raised a ward just as the creature whipped its head forward like a striking viper. A stream of venomous acid sprayed from the creature’s mouth, easily covering the tens of yards between them. Azerick bent his concentration into his ward and was just able to deflect the stream away from him and the dwarves. Where it struck, the stone hissed and bubbled like the mud around a hot spring.

  The attacking dwarves reached the cave crawler and scurried about like ants attacking an intruder, hacking at its many legs and softer underbelly. One of the dwarves went flying across the cavern when the segmented creature whipped its hind end around and struck the dwarf solidly in his back.

  The cave crawler snapped up a second unfortunate dwarf in its powerful mandibles and lifted him high above the ground. Even as the sharp pincers pierced the dwarf’s armor, the valiant warrior raised his hammer high over his head and brought it down onto the monster’s forehead between the space where its eyes should have been. The powerful blow cracked the hard carapace near the area where the pickaxe was still lodged. A stream of gore flew out from the wound when the cave crawler whipped its head to the side and tossed the dead dwarf away to lie lifelessly in a heap against the cavern wall.

  “Azerick, keep that thing from charging us as soon as my dwarves fall back,” Duncan ordered.

  Azerick nodded and the rune carver yelled for the harassing dwarves to fall back to him quickly. The attacking dwarves retreated to the cavern entrance with military precision. As soon as they gained a few feet of space between themselves and the colossal creature, Azerick brought forth another field of stone spikes. The cave crawler tore at the spikes, tearing the sharp tips off with its mandibles and shattering others with its huge body.

  Duncan raised a rune of water and earth, and the stone beneath the numerous feet of the cave crawler turned soft. Its own incredible weight forced it down into several feet of mud. When Duncan turned over the stone disc, Azerick noticed the runes of earth and fire engraved upon it. The runes glowed as Duncan fed power into them and caused the mud to return to its solid form once again. The cave crawler shrieked its rage at finding most of its legs trapped in solid stone. It thrashed about and began tearing at the rock with its powerful jaws.

  “Stay back, ya thick-headed louts!” Duncan shouted as his dwarves, along with the miners hiding in the crevice, started to charge the restricted cave crawler.

  Duncan retrieved another rune carving of earth and spirit from his belt. The floor trembled slightly as the magical runes worked its power upon the surrounding stone. Sharp snapping noises were all the warning the cave crawler got before several large, sharply pointed stalactites lost their hold on the tall ceiling overhead. The heavy stone spears, hurled down by the force of gravity, struck the creature along its hard carapace, cracking and piercing it in several places.

  Dwarves rushed forward swinging their axes, hammers, and pickaxes at the restrained and severely wounded behemoth. Though severely hindered, the cave crawler was far from helpless. When the rescuers and miners charged the beast, it whipped its head around, snapping angrily at any dwarf drawing near it. One dwarf was barely able to dodge the lethal mandibles, but he still got himself butted by the creature’s enormous head, sending the hapless attacker rolling halfway across the cavern floor.

  The cave crawler reared back to launch another stream of caustic acid, but Azerick distracted it with a salvo of magical bolts straight at its head. The dwarves drove their hammers and axes into the rents caused by the fallen stalactites, hacking and prying large chunks of the chitinous armor from its body and chopping at the soft tissues beneath.

  Azerick poured lightning into the cave crawler and was heartened to see the creature shudder under the assault. A second blast brought the creature down, and dwarves scurried up its hard back and drove their weapons into the creature’s skull.

  Duncan ran and attended to the injured using rune stones marked with the glyphs of flesh and spirit. Azerick saw that one of the dwarves trapped in the cleft was Togar. He watched the dwarf walk over to the front of the cave crawler’s head, grabbed the handle of the pickaxe lodged there, and pried it loose before striding over to where Azerick stood watching the dwarves tend to their wounded and recovering the one unfortunate dwarf who had perished.

  “Looks like I owe my life to ye again, wizard!” Togar
yelled as he approached.

  “You have Duncan and the courage of the other dwarves to thank just as much,” Azerick replied, grasping forearms with the dwarf.

  “Aye, that be for sure, but there’d be a lot more injuries, and no less than a few more deaths, without your help and I’ll thank ye for that.”

  “I’m glad I was able to help.”

  Togar walked back to the other dwarves and clasped wrists with Duncan after the rune caster finished tending to the injured. His ministrations finished, Duncan returned to where Azerick was standing out of the way. The unwounded dwarves were helping those who had sustained injuries that made walking difficult or impossible. Four other dwarves carried the warrior who had given his life in defense of his comrades using a blanket as a makeshift litter.

  “It’s been a long time since a human has fought beside dwarves inside their own warren. I want to tell you that we all appreciate your help. You likely saved a lot of lives today,” Duncan said.

  “I was glad to help, as any guest should be. I’m sorry one of your people fell to that beast.”

  “He died a warrior’s death, and many tankards will be lifted in his name tonight. Living under the earth is a hard life, and it has made us a hard folk. We’ll mourn his death and cheer his life and his return to the great forge where he will be made anew. So, you ready go now?”

  “Depends, can we take the mine cart?” Azerick asked with a grin.

  CHAPTER 11

  The young page ran through the marble-floored halls of Castle North haven in search of Duchess Mellina. The young boy in russet velvet page’s livery came to a halt in front of the large wooden doors just outside of Her Grace’s sitting room. The page paused to catch his breath and straighten his velvet doublet before rapping sharply on the door exactly three times. He immediately opened and passed through the large, ornately carved hardwood door as soon as the Lady beckoned him to enter.

  Sitting in one of a pair of padded, high-backed chairs was Duchess Mellina embroidering a cloth. Lady Mellina was the Duchess of North Haven and its ruler since the death of her husband nearly ten years ago. At forty-six years of age, she was still a startlingly beautiful woman with only a hint of crow’s feet at the corners of her dark blue eyes to hint at her age. Her face and hands still maintained the smoothness of youth, and many considered her one of the most beautiful noblewomen in the kingdom. About the only thing preventing her from being mistaken for her daughter’s older sister was her constant stern expression.