Whetstones of the Will

by R J Hanson

  Whetstones of the Will

  Part III: Lords of Order and Chaos Series

  By: R.J. Hanson

  Prologue

  The Death of a City, the Birth of a Curse

  Part I

  One brother carried another, his own wounds seeping and dripping blood onto white marble that would one day be a street of the great trade city of Moras. King Ivant, never one to lead from behind, now labored under the pain of his injuries and the weight of a noble brother in arms. Their long black hair, identical in its respective obsidian waves, mingled together in loose tangles as the crimson flow of blood tinted their dark locks and stained their white and red tunics.

  Now he ran from the coast and ruined docks farther inland, hoping to escape the reach of the dreadful beast. Ivant, more than seven feet tall, had a great stride that lent to his speed. However, burdened with Truthorne’s weight and dodging hatchlings and collapsing buildings made for slow progress.

  “I can make another stand,” Truthorne grunted as Ivant’s shoulder pounded into his gut while he jogged along. “Put me down and let me stand!”

  Ivant had hastily thrown Truthorne over his shoulder before running for the protection of the vast stone citadel of Ivory Rose.

  “I can see the bone sticking out of your leg,” King Ivant barked, perhaps harsher than he intended. “It’s in its death-throws now, I’m sure. I have to get you back to a priest or a healer.”

  As he spoke, a black tentacle struck a chunk of stone the size of a five-masted ship from the top of a nearby temple. The ground beneath Ivant’s feet trembled with the force as the mountain-size steeple loomed over them, blocking out the sun.

  Ivant frantically scanned their surroundings and the doom that toppled above them. Seeing what he hoped would be a route of escape, Ivant charged up the steps of the magnificent cathedral from which the stone was being dislodged. He hit the gilded door with his shoulder, and both warriors were knocked to the ground when the door gave not a bit.

  Ivant scrambled to his knees and pulled his Shrou-Hayn, Swift Blood, from his side. As he moved to the bottom edge of the cathedral’s door, Truthorne called out.

  “No,” he cried. “You’ll break her!”

  “Not her crosspiece, I won’t,” Ivant said, not looking up. “Her crosspiece is dragon-forged Roarke’s Ore.”

  Using his considerable, and in fact, legendary, strength Ivant wedged the crosspiece more than four inches under the door and heaved. Truthorne’s surprise was complete when the sectot wood cried out along its hinges, and the door rose. With great effort, Ivant pried the door up and off its hinges. As the door tilted in, Ivant was already dragging his sword and his friend through the archway and into the holy place.

  Ivant then rolled violently to the side with his cargo bringing a scream of pain from Truthorne’s throat. Just as they reached the sanctuary of thick timber and crafted stone, the steeple struck the street outside. Debris shot past them with vicious indifference to the sanctity of the holy building.

  “Death-throws?” Truthorne managed after easing his leg to one side.

  “Well…” Ivant began but couldn’t finish.

  In spite of their dire situation, both men began laughing. That laugh was cut short when the huge steel church bell crashed through the ceiling, destroying the beautiful murals, and slammed violently into the marble floor. Both rolled to the cover of Truthorne’s upraised shield, but the terrible collision of the bell only filled the air with choking dust and a ring that would deafen both warriors for several minutes.

  Ivant rose and hauled Truthorne up once again, this time much more careful of his tender wound. Ivant started for the opposite door and into a courtyard rapidly filling with hatchlings. The creatures were tiny when compared to the size of the leviathan. However, they were still more than thirty-six feet tall at the shoulder, covered in an almost impenetrable exoskeleton, and each possessed eight of those powerful black tentacles with a reach of more than sixty feet. A single tentacle of one of the hatchlings had easily crushed Truthorne’s leg already.

  “No,” Truthorne huffed between painful breaths. “The passage through the priests’ nook; that’s the path we should take. It should lead us safely in-land.”

  “I’m not wearing the right cloth for that,” King Ivant said, also trying to regain his breath but still managing a bit of sarcasm. “They won’t forgive anyone that’s not part of the clergy passing through their nook.”

  “Then let their forgiveness be cursed,” Truthorne said through gritted teeth.

  Another loud burst of titan against stone stole all other sounds from the air for several long moments.

  “I’ll take this oath,” Truthorne said, his lips red with blood from his lungs. “I’ll never raise a hand against you or your kin, and, if the church demands otherwise, then let them be cursed!”

  Ivant took another look at the courtyard and had to admit to himself that, in truth, there was no other option. Only certain death at the hands, or tentacles and pincers, of the hatchlings awaiting them out there. Several were already trying to bash their way through the arched doorways and windows of the cathedral. The last thing his kingdom needed was more trouble with the churches, but this was unavoidable. Thus, he turned them both toward the altar and ran. They were within a stride of the altar when another loud burst shuddered the very stone beneath their feet, causing them both to sprawl to the floor. Ivant heard the sickening sound of Truthorne’s exposed bone scrap against the gold and silver gilding of the marble floor.

  Ivant turned and saw the last bout of pain was more than the valiant Truthorne could bear. He lay a few feet away, unconscious. Ivant grabbed the black and white tunic bearing the Hourglass of Father Time Truthorne worn and began dragging him toward the altar. As he pulled him along, Ivant saw the black onyx ring bearing Truthorne’s family crest; a two-headed dragon backed by crossed spears, fall from the necklace he wore concealed under his tunic. Knowing how much his crest meant to him, for his family and lands had been lost to them all, Ivant carefully tucked it back into place.

  Ivant struggled to crawl under the altar of marble and gold just before another loud crash signaled the collapse of more ceiling. He grabbed Truthorne and pulled him under the protection of the altar as well. Choking on blood and dust, Ivant grabbed the challis of holy water from beneath the altar and drank deeply. Then, with a prayer to Bolvii, he used the remainder of the water to wash dust and blood from Truthorne’s mouth.

  After what seemed like an eternity of searching, Ivant found the hidden catch that opened the concealed door beneath. Churches had been building these escape hatches for priests since the old days of the wars between the crown and the faiths. Now this one might save the King. Ivant smiled at the irony of it.

  Ivant began down the gentle slide, pulling Truthorne with him slowly, not wanting to make a bad wound worse. The passage was free of cobwebs, and there was no smell of rot or decay, which Ivant took to be a good sign.

  Once within the tunnels beneath the cathedral of Time, much of the sounds of destruction from above were muted. Ivant hadn’t realized just how loud that had been until he moved into the quiet dark of the underground network.

  He fumbled at the sidewall of the tunnel until his fingers found the raised edges of the ward that would trigger the magical lights. He traced his thumb over the lines, and a soft blue glow, one that seemed to come from all around them, lit the small room. As the glow grew, it traveled along the two tunnels leading away from them, one toward the nearby docks and the other toward the mountains inland.

  Ivant, who was always a soldier first, scanned the room for threats, then supplies. He smiled when he found the healer’s bag hanging from a peg on the wall alongside several waterskins
and a sack of dried fruits and cheese. Ivant rummaged in the healer’s bag for only a few moments when he found the herbs he needed. He put two roots in his mouth and began to chew. It wasn’t the approved method of making a paste with them, but his time was short. While he chewed, he set three leaves out on a shaving basin, and then took hold of Truthorne’s twisted and broken leg.

  With a quick and violent jerk, Ivant pulled Truthorne’s leg back into place, which started the blood flowing again. He spit the root paste into his hands and smeared it on the wound. Then he laid the leaves over the gash and wrapped it with the hem of a priest’s robes he found hanging on another peg.

  Now, with Truthorne’s wounds treated, Ivant took up a silver platter from the small table next to them. The dish had been polished to a high shine and made for an excellent mirror. Ivant removed his heavily enchanted armor and tunic and examined the puncture wound on the of his left leg and the slash on his lower left abdomen running from just below his chest muscle down to his belt line using the mirror. They needed stitches. He checked the cut above his right eye and noticed the blue glow of the light made his light blue eyes appear almost white. He looked to the herbs again but decided it would be best to save them for emergency use.

  He pulled the leather satchel from his weapons’ belt and found his curved needle and thread. Then he took a waterskin, specially marked with three black ‘x’s, from his pack. It contained a clear spirit the Great Men of Elgellund, the frozen plains in the far south, made from honey. Not to be confused with their meads, this stuff was at least ten times more potent. This was not Ivant’s first field dressing.

  He uncorked the waterskin, poured a mouthful down his throat, and then sprayed the burning liquid into the wounds on his side and his leg. The pain stole his breath, but it was a pain he well expected. He took a few moments to get his breathing back to normal, and then took up the polished platter and his needle and thread. It took several long minutes, but he finally managed to close both wounds. He tore more lengths of cloth from the priest’s robes and wrapped his torso, his leg, and his head.

  He needed to get back to his men but couldn’t leave Truthorne behind. After all, his plan to attack the leviathan was to be a one-way trip. It likely would have been had it not been for Truthorne disobeying his paladin and coming to his King’s aid.

  Ivant decided that he must trust in his generals and get the rest he needed. The leviathan was down, but the battle to secure the city was far from over. Ivant took another drink of the burning spirits those in Elgellund were so proud of, and then let sleep take him.

  “Well, come on then,” a gruff voice he knew well startled Ivant from sleep. “Will ya’ be napping all the day long?”

  “Vech, King Vech of the dwarves, is that you?” Ivant mumbled and squinted his eyes. “The great beast’s venom, my eyesight…”

  Vech ran to his friend, Ivant, and dropped to the floor next to where he lay. He leaned over the Great Man King, examining his eyes and digging through his own herb pouch at the same time, all while beginning a feverish prayer to Roarke, the god of all dwarves.

  Ivant slipped a hand up and grabbed a handful of Vech’s coarse, wiry dwarven beard and gave it a jerk. Vech, so surprised by the sudden move, and the immediate pain, jerked backward and fell to his rump.

  Ivant burst into laughter, much to the complaint of the stitches in his side, and was so loud that he woke Truthorne sleeping only a few yards away.

  “If it’d been any other than yourself doin’ that sort o’ thing to the King o’ the Stonebeards, you be sure they’d be tastin’ me knuckles!” Vech roared.

  “What are you doing sitting in the hall?” Truthorne asked, trying to hide the beginnings of a smile taking shape at the edges of his mouth.

  That sally sent Ivant, always one to enjoy a good joke, into another gale of laughter. Vech huffed and scowled at Ivant as he struggled to get up from the floor. Finally, with a kick of his leg for momentum, Vech managed to roll over and get to his feet.

  While Vech continued to scowl at them, Truthorne tested his leg by bending it and then, after rising, slowly putting weight on it. Ivant checked his bandages and saw the bleeding had stopped and hadn’t entirely soaked through the cloth. He deemed that a good sign.

  “How did you find us?” Truthorne asked as he began gathering his gear and taking from the stores left in the small alcove by the church.

  “I’m a dwarf, ain’t I?” Vech grumbled. “You’re under the stone, ain’t ya’? Who’s knowin’ the stone and what she hides better than a dwarf?”

  “How fares General Willock and our troops?” Ivant asked. “Casualties?”

  He had enjoyed his gibe at Vech, but now it was time to get back to the business of saving Ivory Rose. He had also carried a lot of worry in his heart for his good friend and advisor, General Willock.

  “It was lookin’ pretty bad, morale wise, and there was some rough words between some of the clerics and your General Willock,” Vech said as he brushed dirt from the floor out of his beard. “But that stunt of yer’s, we’ll be talkin’ about that by the way, but that stunt of yer’s shut them all up.”

  “I meant the work to secure the city,” Ivant clarified. “I meant how many men have we lost.”

  “I know what ya’ meant,” Vech said, patting the air with his thick, hairy hands. “They’re doin’ good work up there and got a bunch o’ those hatchlings pushed out. My count is… well, it looks like about one hundred and twenty dead, another thirty or forty to be joining them before morning, and another three hundred that won’t be getting home without being carried.”

  Ivant nodded as the pall shadow of a grim look drifted over his face. Vech shuffled from one foot to the next, looked away, and began fiddling with one of the many gemstones braided into his beard.

  “What else?” Truthorne asked.

  “It’s yer own brethren,” Vech said in a low tone. “They… they wouldn’t let the Kingsmen get the orphans out. Said it was church property and wouldn’t let anyone sworn to serve the crown inside.”

  “A bit foolish to turn down the help, but I don’t see why…” Truthorne began, unconsciously wiping the dirt and grime from his templar’s tunic.

  “Turns out the priests didn’t get them out either,” Vech said with a heavy sigh. “Thought the whole thing was a ploy of the crown to make them abandon their riches. We haven’t taken back that part o’ the city yet, but none have been seen to have made it out.”

  “If they let those children die because they were more worried about their gold and their silver…” Ivant began but couldn’t finish.

  The trouble with the churches had been building for some decades now. First it was just the Cathedral of Time led by Most High Cleric and Supreme Pontiff Lynneare, but now there were more and more priests succumbing to the temptations of corruption.

  Ivant had to admit to himself that he shared part of the blame. When the whole issue began, he should have handled it more diplomatically. When the church started forcing tithing on the congregation, and many who weren’t even members of the church, Ivant responded by arresting the templars and paladins who were going door to door to ‘collect’ for the ‘welfare’ of others.

  As those things tend to do, what should have been a simple arrest escalated. The templars and paladins had no authority to act anywhere other than church grounds, or within the confines of the King’s Law, so the arrests were binding and just. However, that meant nothing compared to a young templar pulling his sword on a King’s knight and paying the price with his life.

  Of course, the problem had been building for decades. Slights against authority, over-reach by a priest or a reeve, taxes versus tithing; they had all contributed to the crossroads Ivant’s kingdom now faced. But he knew the real problem. The real problem was vanity.

  Life had been easy for the peoples of Stratvs for generations, and an easy life makes easy people. Ivant, a close friend to the famous philosopher and general Arto, had discussed the topic with the gr
eat thinker on many occasions. It seemed that kingdoms were not immune to the cycles that nature imposes. Hard times made hard men and women who grew strong enough to stand up to those trials and learned to appreciate what they had. Their struggles made life more comfortable for their children, which, in turn, caused people to be less appreciative and more demanding. When their consumption outweighed their production, people starved and began to murder for food and basic shelter.

  It was only natural for a man or woman to want their children to live better lives than they had led. However, none are immune from the harsh realities of the world. There will always be men willing to kill to take what is not theirs. There will always be those who are hungry and cannot feed themselves. Thus, there must always be those that will stand for the weak and feed those who are hungry. As Arto had put it, ‘the villain does not create the hero, but he does reveal him.’

  “Be careful what you say next, my King,” Truthorne, in an uncharacteristic tone of seriousness, warned. “I know you are angry. I, too, am angry. Do not let the fiery nature of our blood cause you to make an oath you should not make, much less fulfill.”

  Ivant shot Truthorne a hard look, and the templar replied by only holding his hands out wide. Neither noticed, but King Vech placed his hand on his trusty leiness hand axe and watched Truthorne for any false move.

  Vech had no dog in the hunt, as the saying went, when it came to the troubles between the crown of men and the churches in their cities. Nothing beyond supporting his good friend who happened to be the King of the Great Men and maintaining a flow of trade between their peoples. However, his support for his friend was absolute, and he would even readily strike down a templar, or surrender his own life, for Ivant should a situation call for either.

  “We worked for centuries together to unify many peoples into a kingdom,” Truthorne continued, hoping he was planting seeds of reason that would choke out Ivant’s temper. “Let not all that bloodshed be destroyed by a few years of discord and a few hastily spoke words.”