by Joel Babbitt
Lord Krall said nothing further. He was done with this conversation. The message Lady Karaba had given him wasn’t very clear. She’d said something about a great ant queen, and a coming storm. She’d also mentioned something else about a dragon and the orcs. The message had been too vague, too whispered, however, and it left Lord Krall wondering much instead of knowing much.
He’d always trusted his own judgment more than that off his younger lifemate anyway, whether the Krall Stone was guiding her or not. After all, the wisdom that the Krall Stone gave her never seemed to be actionable or wasn’t how he’d preferred to do things. He usually disregarded it, like he always had, even in his youth when it had first begun reaching out to him.
A sudden realization came over him, and Lord Krall almost stopped as he smiled to himself at having solved the mystery: The Krall Stone had chosen his lifemate instead of him because he’d refused to listen to its meddling suggestions for his life. Well, he thought stubbornly, I’m not about to start bowing to it now, not with more than six decades of life behind me.
He’d always relied on his own judgment, and even now deep down in his bones he could feel that there was more to this chain of events than what was plain for him to see. As he rode along pondering on mysteries, the unknown of it all left him with a deep sense of foreboding.
He thought no more about the Krall Stone or the conversation about it with his son, and soon it didn’t bother him in the slightest.
Chapter 13 – Destruction of the Deep Gen
“What is the meaning of this, son of exiles?” Lord Sennak was in a foul mood already after the impertinent comments of the Kale Gen intruders, and now, not many hours after he had thrown them in prison, some impertinent exile had shown up at his court.
The guard who had brought Kale was shifting nervously from foot to foot. If he’d known his lord would react this way, he wouldn’t have brought him. The guard’s warrior leader, Mirrik, stood with the rest of the half dozen warrior leaders that were the supreme leaders of the Deep Gen, under their revered lord, of course. Standing foremost among them was Lord Sennak’s son, Sennak the Younger. They had been in meeting when he had brought Kale to his lord.
Like the guard, Mirrik also felt uncomfortable, for this was the second time his warrior group had caused his lord’s temper to flare in one day.
“My Lord Sennak the Just, Lord of my brothers of the Deep Gen,” Kale said as he bowed low. “I do not come on my own will, rather I come at the behest of another.”
Lord Sennak was sure that this kobold, who called himself Kale after his ancestor gen’s former rulers, was most likely here on behalf of the Kale Gen’s leaders. It had only been hours since he had thrown their paltry party of warriors in prison. He was surprised. He had been confident that the Kale Gen didn’t even know of his gen’s existence, preferring instead to ignore all who lived in the underdark below them, calling them outcasts and not willing themselves to see more than that.
“Very well,” Lord Sennak said with a sneer, “I’ll play your little game. Who is it that sent you?”
Kale answered with absolute confidence and the assurance of several previous successes among the outcasts. “Not many generations ago the Kale Stone, the very stone of power given to Kale directly by The Sorcerer himself…”
Lord Sennak cut Kale off. “Who is it that sent you, exile?”
Kale’s confidence began to shake. He had expected a better reception.
“Lord Sennak, I come in the name of Kamuril, the Kale Stone. The stone of our ancestors has commanded me to gather the descendants of Kale back to the ancestral home of the Kale Gen.”
There was silence for several moments as Lord Sennak’s warrior group leaders shifted from side to side uncomfortably along with the poor guard who had long ago accepted the obvious reality that he would be consigned to shoveling dung for many moons after this.
Finally, a low chuckle came from Lord Sennak. It grew to a laugh, until the old kobold was guffawing with all his might, pointing his finger at Kale and slapping the arm rests of his great throne. Though it took several moments, eventually the ancient kobold on the throne stopped laughing. When he did, his eyes were cold and hard as he looked directly at Kale.
“You are confederate with the warriors that the Kale Gen sent. I must admit, I did not expect my enemies to combine against me, but now I see your not-so-subtle plans. My warrior leaders,” he said as he indicated the six warriors standing off to one side that represented the entire top leadership of the Deep Gen. “Watch as I lay this plot bare.” He turned his attention back to Kale. “Let me guess, next you’re going to warn me about some ant invasion?” Lord Sennak chuckled to himself.
Kale knew this meeting was going badly, but he had faith that, if Lord Sennak would just listen to him, the Kale Stone would change his heart and help him see that his words were true.
“My lord, I do not know what danger is coming, but I have been sent to give you a warning. Kamuril told me to gather the outcasts. I have done so. He told me to gather your gen as well. He told me that a great danger was coming, and that we had to flee the underdark. He sent me as a warning and a savior to you.”
Lord Sennak’s jaw dropped. “Oh yes! That’s really good! Some ancient stone that’s been lost for generations sent you to warn us about some unknown danger, calling you a savior!”
By this time, the warrior group leaders were chuckling along with their lord. His antics at Kale’s expense were grand and theatrical, made only more hilarious by his very advanced age. He had had enough of this impetuous imposter, however. He had not grown old on his throne by listening to raving lunatics.
“Guards,” he turned calmly to his personal entourage of guards that stood several paces apart down the length of his throne room. “Take this presumptuous whelp to the prison. He shall die tomorrow with his Kale Gen confederates.”
Kale stood forth with both feet planted squarely and his face directly toward Lord Sennak. His countenance began to glow with some power that made it hard for Lord Sennak and his warrior leaders and guards to look at him. The confidence in his face did not waiver, and the look on his face was calm, serene, much more peaceful than the circumstances should have allowed. He opened his mouth to speak. Lord Sennak was silenced by the power that had entered the room and the guards did not dare move forward to lay hands on Kale.
“Sennak, descendant of Kale,” Kale said in a deeper, stronger tone than his normal voice, “You were allowed to lead a part of our people in the underdark that you might grow their strength for the day they were to be called upon to fulfill their duty to the rightful heir of the Kale Gen. I am that heir, and that day has come. Your day of power has ended. Give up your throne and gather my people to our ancestral home.”
Lord Sennak growled at the apparition before him. Grabbing a spear from a stunned guard, he threw it at Kale. It sailed harmlessly past him as if turned away by an unseen hand.
With a look of noble disappointment, Kale spoke with a voice of finality. “So be it, then. You have made your choice, Sennak. When next I hear of you, your days will have met their end.” With that, Kale turned to the warrior leaders. “When the overflowing scourge comes upon you, remember that I command you to flee to our ancestral home. I will wait for you at Sheerface, the entrance to the caverns of our ancestors.”
With that, Kale turned and left the great pillared hall, the seat of power of Lord Sennak the Just and the Deep Gen. When he’d left, Lord Sennak dismissed his six sub-leaders and sat brooding for some time in silence, a foul look on his face. None of his guards dared look at him, and none of them made a sound until their lord eventually stalked out of the hall to his personal chambers.
Kale wondered at the words that had been given him, and at how the power he’d felt come upon him had cowed the court of Lord Sennak. As the power had passed, however, he had left the wondering for another time and gotten himself out of the home of the Deep Gen very quickly. Constantly, he thought he heard footsteps behind h
im, as he was sure Lord Sennak had sent guards after him to kill him.
None ever appeared, however.
Weighing much more heavily on his thoughts as he crawled through yet another flue on the pathway to his home was the fact that there were thousands of kobolds in the Deep Gen, and if… that is when this calamity arrived, they would be destroyed if Lord Sennak did not reconsider. He knew he had done everything he had been asked to do and that there was nothing more he could do for them, and though he sorrowed for his fellow kobolds of the Deep Gen, he felt reassured by the manifestation of power Kamuril had given them.
Eventually, Kale made it back to the caverns where his family resided. The familiarity of the passageways leading to his home began to lift his spirits, so that by the time he reached the entrance cavern his steps were light and he almost ran down the passageway to the amphitheater.
What greeted his eyes there was not what he had expected to see. Though there was much evidence of recent occupation and the scents of hundreds hung in the air, there was only one kobold and a goat left there. His oldest son Kale sat next to the entrance surrounded by baggage while his goat Sable sat contentedly munching on a piece of mushroom.
“Son, where has everyone gone?” Kale asked. Fears of the outcasts disbanding and returning to their homes had seized his heart. He deeply hoped there was a better explanation.
“Father, they began to get restless, and uncle offered to lead them to Sheerface. He left me behind to tell you, and to ensure you got this,” he said, pointing to a rather heavy backpack and pair of sacks among the baggage that was obviously what Kale’s lifemate had left for him to carry.
Kale smiled and rubbed his young son’s hornless head before strapping the packsaddle on Sable, loading it, then shouldering his own backpack and tying a sack to each end of his spear, laying its weight across his shoulders. Kale’s son had already shouldered his own pack and had an armful of wooden swords, sticks for a game of lots, and the wooden dragon his father had carved for him for his last celebration of birth.
Together, father and son began the journey to the home of their ancient inheritance.
Mirrik, one of the six warrior leaders of the Deep Gen, was sweating in the cool of his warrior group’s main cavern. He’d felt it. He was almost certain the other warrior group leaders had felt it. There was no denying that there was a greater power at work here than what their lord would accept. First, the Kale Gen warriors with their prophecy of ants, then that exile Kale with his demands that Lord Sennak give up his right to rule to him. Both statements had been backed up by the same almost overwhelming feeling of power. Such power Mirrik had never felt before. In fact, he’d felt guilty for not immediately gathering his warrior group and leaving the Deep Gen when the Kale warriors came, and he’d felt guilty again for not immediately swearing allegiance to the exile Kale when he’d come as well.
Mirrik had always considered himself absolutely loyal to his lord, but he was having a hard time reconciling his feelings with the actions of his lord. Should he be worried? Was he the only one that had felt this power?
As he sat there in the cool of his mud-brick house, a cool cup of mushroom brew prepared by his lifemate sitting untouched on the table, his mind was reeling. His heart and mind were torn. His heart told him that he should be gathering his warrior group and fleeing to their ancestral home. His mind, on the other hand, reminded him firmly of what the penalty would be if he did so and these new revelations were not true; Lord Sennak would have him killed, slowly, then give his warrior group to another.
He thought about his lifemate, who was a granddaughter of Lord Sennak and very loyal to him, and of their seven whelps, all of whom were playing elsewhere in the caves. He certainly didn’t want to leave her a widow and them as orphans. Then again, if what the Kale Gen warrior said was true… He didn’t want to see his family destroyed either.
As he sat there pondering, a soft knock came at his door. Answering it, he was surprised to see his life-long friend and fellow warrior group leader. By the look on his face, he too was struggling with what they had recently witnessed.
“Hemmet, come and sit, my friend,” he said as he motioned toward a chair. “What is it that brings you to my door today?”
Hemmet, as big and bulky as Mirrik was, shouldered through the door and sat at the table, taking the lone cup of brew in both hands and gulping it down before placing the empty cup back on the table. Mirrik barely noticed.
“Mirrik, don’t tell me you didn’t see what happened today,” Hemmet said as he wiped the froth from his snout. “That exile had some power with him, didn’t he? And whatever it was that was stiffening his backbone… well, he was fearless in front of the old kobold,” he said, referring to Lord Sennak.
“Aye, Hemmet. I saw it,” Mirrik replied. “I felt the power he brought with him, too. Funny thing is, ever since that meeting, I’ve been feeling guilty about not up and joining that Kale fellow on his trip to the Kale Gen’s caverns.”
Hemmet looked surprised. “You too, then? Well, and I thought it was just me!” He paused for a moment in thought. “Well, then, what shall we do about it?”
Mirrik looked suddenly afraid and unsure, as if he were standing on the edge of a cliff looking out into darkness. “I don’t know, my friend. You know the old kobold would have our heads if we did follow after him.”
Hemmet nodded in slow agreement. “Yes, and how could we convince our people to follow us? After all, we were there to feel the power, but none of them were.”
“Aye,” Mirrik solemnly agreed. “And I’ll not leave my people to whatever horror it is that’s coming our way, be it ants or something else. I’d rather die with them then leave them.”
Hemmet nodded. “But what if we could convince them to go anyway?”
Mirrik’s mood perked up a bit. “And how could we do that, do you think?”
Mirrik and Hemmet sat there thinking for a while, but neither of them had any good ideas. All of a sudden, however, Mirrik had a flash of inspiration and he knew where the answer to their quandary could be found. His mind told him he shouldn’t, not after beating them that is, but his heart told him it was the right thing to do.
“Psst!” The sound came from the other side of the prison door.
“Psst! Hey!” The hoarse whisper sounded again. “Are you the Kale Gen warriors?”
Most of Durik’s party stood, their chains clanking as they stirred.
“Yes, we are warriors of the Kale Gen,” Gorgon answered firmly.
Quietly a key was placed in the lock and it opened with a click. As soon as the door was opened just far enough, two rather broad shouldered kobolds, obviously warriors by the look of them, slipped through the door, closing it silently behind them.
“You’re the leader of the warriors who took us prisoner!” Manebrow observed. “What could you possibly want with us?” he asked Mirrik.
Mirrik and Hemmet looked at each other, the doubt showing on their faces. Mirrik held up his hands to calm the quickly angering group. “Look, my friends, I was doing what my lord expected of me. Would you have done any less if you were in my position?” he asked, shrugging his shoulders.
Durik rubbed the bruise on his face from when he’d been thrown at Lord Sennak’s feet, but didn’t answer the argument. Instead, he held up his hand to cut off the many comments his warriors were beginning to say.
“What is it you want of us, Deep Gen leader?” he asked.
Mirrik looked at Durik guiltily. “I… I’ve come to ask you a question.”
Durik folded his arms. “What is it, then?”
Mirrik paused. He’d never been one to talk much about feelings, and asking a complete stranger about such things was far out of his comfort zone. Hemmet put a hand on his shoulder, and Mirrik felt the strength to go on.
“Kale Gen leader, when you came before Lord Sennak the Just, you mentioned something about an ant invasion.” Mirrik paused, not sure exactly how to proceed. “You said many things about
these ants, but there was a power there when you spoke. It was a feeling, a powerful feeling that both of us felt.”
Durik’s stern look began to soften as he saw that someone in the court had believed him.
“Later, just a short time ago, in the courts of Lord Sennak the Just, an outcast from our gen, one by the name of Kale, came and told us all that we had to leave the underdark and travel to your gen’s home. He also said that Lord Sennak the Just was to join our gen to the Kale Gen, and that he, this exile named Kale, was the rightful ruler of the entire Kale Gen.
“Can you tell me, what is this power, and what is it that we are supposed to do?”
Mirrik had said more than he had intended to say, but when he finished he was glad it had all come out.
Durik, on the other hand, felt the fire of confirmation in his heart telling him that what Mirrik had spoken was true. He thought for a moment before answering. All around him the rest of the Kale Gen warriors stood in confusion.
“The power that you felt when I spoke is the power of a being known as Morgra,” Durik explained. “Though I know little about her – I know she is pure and that she has chosen me to be a paladin for her, to restore the Kale Stone to its rightful holder.
“I cannot speak to the power that this Kale had with him, but if he is indeed the rightful heir and ruler of the Kale Gen, then it is likely the power of the Kale Stone,” Durik finished.
Mirrik and Hemmet stood in wonder.
Finally, Hemmet spoke. “But I thought the Kale Stone was lost several generations ago. Is this not so?” he asked.
Durik nodded. “Yes, it was. But it was also found.”
“Where is this stone, paladin?” Mirrik asked.
“If you let us out of this prison and give us back our things, I will show you where it is now,” Durik answered him. Around Durik, the rest of his party seemed to be in anxious agreement with him.