Son of Thunder

by Murray Leeder

  “How did you hear this story?” demanded Ardeth.

  “From a logger here in Newfort, but he claimed he heard it from a barbarian named Garstak, a former Thunderbeast who left the tribe not long after this. Sungar and the others refused to discuss what had happened, but word got out anyway, and it led to some internal strife. This Garstak—according to the logger, anyway—refused to say much more, but said that he thought his tribe was too debased and was doomed to weakness and ruin. He said he was going to go up north to try to join the Black Lion tribe, for he thought they had the nobility he founded lacking in his own people. And that’s all I know.”

  “Do you know where I might get more information?” asked Ardeth.

  “Oh, I don’t know … you might ask the Thunderbeasts themselves.”

  “I just might,” said Ardeth, letting out an odd giggle. “I thank you for your help, and Geildarr thanks you.”

  “I hope he does. Here’s his dagger back.” He tossed it, and the weapon landed on the floor at Ardeth’s feet with an unceremonious clunk.

  “No,” she said. “It belongs to you.” She picked it up and hurled it at his face. Tyrrell dodged too slowly and it struck him in the neck. He instinctively grasped at his throat as blood flowed down his chest. Ardeth stood watching as he attempted a few steps toward her, but he collapsed from the pain and blood loss before he could reach her. She smiled like a naughty child as his bloodstained hand reached in her direction and grasped only air.

  “Thanks for the help,” she said as she leaped over Tyrrell. Within heartbeats, she was through his door and gone.

  Through the haze of death, and the blood dripping in his eyes, Tyrrell saw a new face. Was it real, or was he dreaming it? he wondered. The image spun—a huge red nose on a shrunken face.

  The face spoke. “She’s very good, isn’t she?”

  Without moving to help him, the gnome waited until Tyrrell rattled with death. Then he reached over to extract the bone dagger from Tyrrell’s neck, freeing a tide of blood that swelled the puddle on the floor.

  What am I doing here? thought Kellin. Children lurked outside her tent to try to get a glimpse of her, so exotic a creature was she in these northern lands. They regarded her little differently than they might a dark-skinned visitor from Zakhara—any place outside the North was the same to them, and any visitor who looked different was an object of curiosity and fear.

  Kellin liked and respected Sungar, and Thluna seemed like a man far beyond his years, yet with boyish wonder and enthusiasm. But they were the only Thunderbeasts she’d spoken to in the days since she’d arrived. She’d taken her meals with the tribe, but they seemed scared of her, especially when she spoke to them in their own language. The women particularly looked at her with disdain, as if she were there to steal their men—as laughable a notion as that was.

  Kellin could hear the voices of those who had tried to dissuade her from coming here.

  “I can understand it perfectly,” one of the Candlekeep lorekeepers told her. “Your whole childhood was spent safely locked away here, while your father wandered the world in search of adventures. But such a venture is foolhardy and dangerous.” Kellin’s denials hardly even convinced herself.

  She heard footsteps approaching outside her tent and instinctively reached for the hilt of her father’s sword.

  “May I speak with you?” came a deep voice, speaking uncertain Common.

  Kellin stood and opened the tent flap. She instantly knew who the man was by his brown eyes, but from the stories she’d heard, she hadn’t expected him to look quite so gentle and innocent.

  “Vell the Blessed,” she said, using the Uthgardt tongue. “I’ve heard a lot about you. I am honored that you’ve come to see me.”

  “The honor is mine,” Vell said, staring deeply at her face. He stared so long, in fact, that he pulled away in embarrassment. “I’m sorry.”

  “No,” she laughed. “It’s fine. I’ve gotten the same reaction from most of your people.”

  “Your parents … where did they come from?” asked Vell.

  She admired his directness. “My mother was of Tethyrian blood. I’ve inherited something of her skin tone, and hopefully some of her good sense as well.” She smiled. “My father was born in the Moonsea region, in a place called Melvaunt.”

  “I see,” said Vell, though Kellin suspected she’d named a few places he’d never heard of. “Our chieftain tells me the Thunderbeast sent you here.”

  “All I know is that when I touched that piece of bone, I heard a message of some kind, and it led me here.”

  “Will you be coming into the forest with us?” asked Vell.

  “I don’t know,” Kellin confessed. “Sungar says he hasn’t decided, and I haven’t decided if I should.”

  “I hope you do. We can protect you.”

  “I can fight,” said Kellin, half-smiling. “So can the women of your tribe—they’ve proven it many times in your history. But I’m not sure if my place is on this expedition. I don’t really belong.”

  Vell reached over with a clumsy hand to comfort her in her uncertainty.

  “Do I belong?” Vell asked. “I’d never have dreamed to be invited on such an expedition as this. Sometimes I wonder why the spirit chose me. The entire tribe was assembled at Morgur’s Mound. Why didn’t the beast choose Sungar as its vessel, or Keirkrad the Shaman? Did it pick me at random out of all the Uthgardt there? Even an outsider responds to the beast’s summons better than I.”

  “Gods, don’t think that,” said Kellin. “It hasn’t been easy for me. That moment on Highharvestide, I felt a nagging dread wash over my body and settle in my stomach. I haven’t been able to get rid of it. That’s just a taste of what you must have experienced.” Vell nodded. She was the first person to try to excuse his weakness. It felt good, but he instinctively mistrusted it for coming from an outsider. “But what’s interesting is, it’s starting to fade now that I’m here. It’s crazy that I’m here, but somehow it feels right, too. Am I making sense?”

  “Yes,” Vell said. “And I’m glad you’re here.” Then Keirkrad appeared behind him, seemingly popping out of nowhere.

  “I, too, would like to greet our new arrival,” the shaman said.

  “Oh,” said Vell. To Kellin, he whispered, “We shall talk again,” before walking out of the tent.

  Keirkrad stared at Kellin. She found his eyes unnerving—they were blue as the sky, and so piercing and unwavering. His body appeared frail and crumpled, and he was hunched over like some gargoyle. A brisk wind disturbed the flaps of the tent, and Keirkrad looked almost as if he’d blow away with it.

  “I trust you are shaman Seventoes,” Kellin said. “Sungar has told me of you.”

  “He has told me about you,” Keirkrad said. He stood very close to her, and she could see a brown film coating his yellowed teeth. “No matter how much you’ve heard about our tribe’s penchant for hospitality at Grunwald, you should know that those times are passed. We no longer consort with outsiders. You are not welcome here.”

  “I’m here because your totem spirit guided me here,” Kellin retorted. “I should think that I would be treated with the greatest courtesy.”

  Keirkrad sniffed. “Southern humor translates poorly to our tongue. You may think the Thunderbeast sent you here, but I shall be the judge of that. I remember your father well. For a month he lived as we lived in Grunwald. We tolerated him because we thought him an amusing diversion—an outsider who wanted to know our ways. We did not realize he had made himself our chronicler as well, that he put us in books. What death befell Zale Lyme?”

  “He died in his sickbed,” said Kellin.

  “A suitable death,” Keirkrad said. “Unheroic.”

  “Your King Gundar died the same way, as I understand.”

  Keirkrad ignored her comment. “I just got back from retrieving Vell, who thought to abandon his people in their time of need. I hope his moment of weakness is over. Sungar says you will come with us into the w
ood. He is my chief and I will not question his wisdom. But I will not let you taint the mind of Vell or any other Thunderbeast with your ways.”

  “I’ve spent my life studying the Uthgardt, as my father did,” Kellin told him. “The last thing I’d want to do is to change you.”

  “Have you brought books with you?” asked Keirkrad.

  “Yes,” she said. “Various reference works that might help me understand what’s happening to your tribe.”

  “Let me see one of these books,” said Keirkrad.

  Warily, Kellin went to the corner of her tent and picked up a thick volume from her collection. Keirkrad snatched it and flipped through it, idly running his fingers over the lines of dense text. There were occasional illustrations—line drawings of costumes and tribal emblems. He found one sketch of King Gundar himself. At that he snapped the book shut.

  Keirkrad looked at the leather-bound cover.

  “What does this say?” asked Keirkrad, tracing the embossed title.

  “It says, Customs of the Northern Barbarians.” She hesitated before adding, “By Zale Lyme.”

  “Oh.” Keirkrad looked up at her. “Your father wrote this?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  Keirkrad tore the book to shreds. The binding snapped under his bony hands, and he ripped the pages free, tossing them to be caught by the breeze and scattered all over the camp.

  “You may come with us if you want,” Keirkrad concluded with a bitter sneer. “But leave your so-called civilization behind. The Thunderbeast doesn’t want it.”

  That evening, before a roaring fire at the clan hearth, the skald Hazred sang a song of Uthgar. It went on for a long time, like most longer epics, but Hazred’s voice never faltered and his memory never failed. When he concluded, Kellin stepped forward to take the skald’s place before the assembled warriors, their grim faces lit by the orange flicker of the fire.

  “I, too, have a story to tell,” she said. “I know it is a tradition of your people for newcomers to tell a story. It does not have a song, but I would never try to usurp the place of your magnificent skald. I’m not practiced in your language, but I shall do my best.

  “I’m rarely called upon as a storyteller,” she said, smiling. She scanned the crowd and her eyes connected with Sungar, Thluna, Vell, and finally Keirkrad, who stared at her impassively from across the fire. Kellin had first wondered if she might tell them a story from their own history, about the figure known variously as Berun, Beorunna, and the Bey of Runlatha. But Kellin had thought of something that she hoped would work better.

  “Let me tell you a story from my own life,” she began. “Many of you met my father, Zale Lyme, when he visited Grunwald many years ago. He studied all the Uthgardt tribes, largely from afar, but yours was the only one that welcomed him.

  “I didn’t realize until after his death how little I truly knew my father. The bulk of his life was spent away on one expedition or another, and when he came back to me and my mother, he spent most of his time preparing for his next journey. But he enthralled me with stories of faraway places and all the things he learned, all the people he met. And before he died, I told him all this. With his blood and his stories inside me, what choice did I have but to follow in his footsteps?” Kellin paused a few heartbeats, gauging the interest of her listeners. Around the campfire, all was still.

  “A few years ago, I went on my first expedition, to the island of Ruathym far away in the Trackless Sea. My father was there many years before, and I went to verify his findings. I was looking for information on Uther Gardolfsson, as Uthgar was called before he came to these lands. He was Thane of that distant isle before he came to the North all those centuries ago. And as I walked the place where Uthgar was born, where he was educated, I realized something. I was not only walking in Uthgar’s steps, I was walking in my father’s as well. And that helped me understand why he admired your people so much.

  “I was born and raised amid stone walls, a world of books and learning. I’m anathema to your way of life, but I realize that makes me respect it all the more. Many civilizations rose in the North and later fell, till only scholars like myself remember their names. But through all that there were the Uthgardt, living more or less as you do today. You are the finest of survivors. Even when the Silver Marches are dead and gone, just another name on a roll of dead kingdoms, the Uthgardt will live on, living the same as you do today.”

  A roar of applause came up from the tribe. Sungar walked forward and stood with Kellin—a silent gesture of her acceptance by the tribe at large. She caught Keirkrad still wearing the same blank expression as before, but she discovered Vell smiling widely.

  Wings beat in the night, so softly that no one below heard them. The riders on the hippogriff’s back heard a dull roar of excitement rise as they made quiet circles above the barbarian encampment, lit by the flickering red and orange of its bonfire.

  “I wonder what’s going on down there,” said the skymage Valkin Balducius, his forehead furrowing beneath his jet black bangs. He was smiling wickedly at having spent so much time with Ardeth over the last few days, even if most of it was just ferrying her around. Now to engage in this strange endeavor alongside her … it would make for a good story, if nothing else.

  “They’re barbarians,” said Ardeth. “They’re probably celebrating a new record for most spines snapped or something.”

  “Which one do you suppose is chief?” Valkin asked her.

  “There by the fire,” said Ardeth, pointing to a dimly lit figure beneath them. “With the beard. Only chiefs are allowed to wear black wolf pelts like that.”

  Valkin looked back at her. “Just how do you know that?”

  She smiled coyly. “I know a lot of things,” she said. “Now speaking of wolves, are your pets in position?”

  “Ready on your word,” Valkin said. “May I say, Ardeth, this mission has proved a lot more interesting than guarding caravans across Anauroch has ever been. Maybe afterward, you’ll tell me the real reason we’re doing this. Abducting barbarian chiefs … not standard Zhentarim activity.”

  “Geildarr wants him,” Ardeth replied. “That’s all you need to know for now.”

  “Hmm,” Valkin said. “I spent all morning flying over the Nether Mountains finding dire wolves for this little project, and you still haven’t thanked me.”

  She turned back to him and smiled a transfixing smile.

  “Perhaps I’ll thank you later,” she said.

  He cursed himself for being so damned malleable, all the while admitting that he couldn’t do a thing about it.

  Wolf howls suddenly filled the night, ringing like a knell through Sungar’s Camp. The festivities ceased instantly. Mugs filled with mead spilled on the ground as warriors hurried to draw weapons. No war cry and no chief’s orders could call the Thunderbeasts to arms faster. These were not the cries of normal wolves, but of the great dire wolves that wandered the wilderness.

  “She has brought wolves upon us!” cried Keirkrad, pointing a finger in Kellin’s direction, but he was scarcely heard among the uproar. Families were roused from their tents and ushered to the camp’s center, and horses were pulled from their corral to the center of camp as well. Mothers armed themselves with bows and formed a tight circle around the children. More howls came from the west, the north, then all sides. Torches were lit, armor donned, and weapons readied.

  Kellin searched for Vell, dodging huge barbarians as they rushed back and forth, trying desperately to form a perimeter around the camp before the onslaught began. But as she navigated the confusion, she felt a strong hand on her shoulder and was spun backward, directly into Vell’s face.

  “This is no random attack,” he demanded. “Some mind guides it. If you have anything to do with this …”

  She shouted at him in fury. “You and Keirkrad both?” Vell shrank back at the force of her reaction. “Why would I have wolves attack your camp while I’m in it? I can help you fight,” she said, reaching for the blade she
wore at her side. The howls grew closer.

  “Save your mettle for another time,” Vell said. “Stay with the children.” And he turned toward the edge of camp.

  At that moment a dire wolf bounded into the lines, very close to Kellin and Vell. Kellin was startled by the suddenness of the attack, but Vell dashed between her and the wolf. Thunderbeast axes and swords quickly brought the creature down, but not before it had bitten a warrior in two with a single snap of its huge jaws. Another wolf came, then another, all charging into camp with suicidal fervor, their huge eyes glowing and drool glistening on their white teeth. The weapons of the Uthgardt dug into fur and flesh, stopping the wolves only at the cost of brave lives. The howling in the distance did not cease.

  “Some wizardry is at work on their minds,” said Kellin. But when she looked at Vell, she gasped at the transformation that was overtaking him. Scales sprouted from his skin as he vanished into a rage, and Kellin watched reptilian slits grow in the place of his soft, brown eyes. She extended a hand to feel his scaled skin, but he pulled away.

  “No,” she heard Vell croak. He fell to his knees, gripping at his face with both scaly hands. “Not this time.”

  “What if the chieftain should die in the attack?” asked Valkin, projecting his voice over the noise of the battle below.

  “I suppose I’d leap down there and save him,” said Ardeth. Valkin didn’t doubt that she would.

  It was quite a spectacle. Wolf after wolf tried to ram its way through the barbarian line and was slaughtered in the process. Valkin’s magic willed the creatures toward the center of the camp—the beasts had nothing in their heads except a desire to get there and to kill anything in their way. Ardeth kept her eyes locked on the bearded chief who seemed well prepared to stay alive himself, hacking away at fur and claws.

  The dire wolves were not so powerful that the tribe was in danger of destruction, but they served their true purpose well. They had been summoned only as a distraction.