by Ronald Long
"With her sobbing like that we're bound to attract every raider left hanging around. We've got to get somewhere safe," he said with a sad look on his face. The rage was still buried behind it, but right. Is Ealrin could tell that Holve's heart was with this girl even though he meant for her to be quiet.
"Dece! Dece!"
The light had gone from the boys eye. Ealrin bent down and shut them with his fingers. He then turned to the girl.
"I'm sorry, but we have to leave this place if we are to stay safe. You have to get somewhere safe. Do you have family nearby?"
The girl shook her head. With that she either meant her closest family was far away, or that her family was now gone, like the boy she clung so desperately to.
"Come with us. There's no safety in being out in the street. You have to come with us. We mean you no harm as those other men did.”
Ealrin wasn't sure his words were even registering to her. Her eyes were still full of tears, yet her sobs had abated slightly. She was biting into her knuckles fiercely.
Finally, she nodded her head and stood over the boy. Ealrin took her hand.
Holve needed no further comment. He lead the way down a side street, to another and then to another. At every corner he checked to see if anyone was close by or watching. They moved as quietly and as quickly as they could. Soon they found themselves at a door that was blackened and burnt. Holve forced it open, motioned for them to go inside, and then closed the door behind them.
As soon as they were inside, Holve went straight to work. It seemed that the occupants of the house were no longer living or had run for it. He managed to find several things that raiders and looters wouldn’t have found immediately satisfying: food, herbs, and other things useful for traveling. Apparently Holve knew this house well, for he scoured through cabinets and chests in the wrecked and already run through common area that would have gone unseen by someone unfamiliar with the house. It seemed that someone had come in through a back entrance, for the door was hanging by it’s hinges in an odd fashion, suggesting that it too had been forced open and then left hanging. Holve went over to it and corrected it as best as he could, hiding them from view.
Ealrin turned his attention to the girl. She was shivering and still standing, looking blankly off through a window. He moved her over to a chair and sat her down, then found a blanket and wrapped her in it. Shock must now be taking it’s toll on her. Ealrin tried to get her to talk in order to bring her back to her senses.
“What’s your name?” he asked gently.
For a moment she just continued to stare off out the window. A single tear fell from her cheek. After what seemed to be a long time, she answered softly:
“Blume. Blume Dearcrest."
Ealrin repeated the name out loud. It was a beautiful name. In fact this girl did indeed look like she would blossom into a beautiful young woman. Her hair was long and blonde. Her face was still childlike, but those features were giving way to adulthood. The sadness that she bore now was the only thing keeping her green eyes from shining like Ealrin believed they could.
"Can you tell us what happened here?” He knew she had to keep talking. Something in him told him that she had to talk to stay in reality with Holve and himself. Holve was still busying himself around the house. It appeared that he had procured a pack of some sort and was filling it with the supplies he had laid out on the table beside Ealrin and Blume.
“They came before the suns had risen carrying torches and weapons. My brother and I were out in streets early getting ready to open the shop our parents own. There were hundreds of them. They kept shouting that we were unclean and that the city had to be cleansed. They set fire to anything that would burn. They killed any who resisted them, but especially the non humans. One of my friends, a girl elf, tried to run but…”
She paused. Whatever had happened to the girl elf would apparently haunt her for a long time. Tears began to flow again from her eyes, but she pressed on.
“My brother and I hid under a cart that was overturned. We heard screams. The smoke was awful, but we laid as low as we could to try to avoid breathing it in. We had hoped to wait until night to sneak away, to find mom and dad. But then those men came and…”
Again she paused.
Her brother, Ealrin thought.
How horrible to see your own brother be killed right before your very eyes.
“As they lifted me into the air I saw mom and dad’s shop. It was burned terribly. I don’t know if they were inside or if they made it or…”
Now she began to sob again. Ealrin didn’t know what else he could do for her. He got up and searched for a cup. Finding one, he filled it with water from a barrel that have not been overturned and had good water in it. He gave to her and she drank, though her hiccuping made it difficult for her to swallow.
Holve spoke.
“We haven’t seen anyone in this city save for you and the raiders. We didn’t pass anyone on our way here and I haven’t seen anyone moving about in the time that we’ve spent here either. I doubt you’ll be safe if you stayed here, but I can’t guarantee your safety should you travel either.”
“We can’t leave her here, Holve,” Ealrin said, standing up to face his friend. "This is no place for a child.”
“Nor is the open road, where we’ll be vulnerable to attack,” Holve replied.
Ealrin looked back at the girl. She couldn’t be more than twelve or thirteen. There was no way to ensure that her parents were alive, only to check the ruins of their shop to see if their bodies remained.
“We have to take her somewhere safe, Holve. We have to.” Ealrin knew that his voice was pleading. He also knew that he now felt responsible for her, even though he hardly knew who she was. A child on any journey would indeed be difficult, not to mention perilous for her. But the ruins of a city was no place for her either.
“We’ll check her home for a sign that her parents are alive. If we can’t find them then we’ll take her as far as the next city, but we can’t risk taking her further than that. Breyland is two days journey from here. That’ll be all we can do.”
Ealrin was satisfied with that. But then he knew that there was one more thing to do.
“I’m sorry for the loss of your brother,” he said as he knelt down to be level with Blume’s eyes. He took one hand of hers into his. It was freezing cold and shaking. “Will you come with us? You don’t know who we are, but know that while you are with us, no harm will come to you if it is within our power to prevent it.”
For the first time, Blume looked Ealrin directly in the eye. Hurt. Pain. Anger. Sorrow. They were all there in her eyes. But hiding behind all of these was something Ealrin could see quite clearly. A beautiful determination.
She nodded yes once again, and the pair became a trio.
***
The search for her house took only a few moments. She knew the town very well. Blume showed them the house and Holve checked inside. He returned outside with a grim look on his face and shook his head.
He had found her parents.
She begged him to return inside and retrieve something from the floor underneath her parents bed: a small chest. While the rest of the house had been sacked, the chest she spoke of was still intact and hidden. It was no larger than Ealrin’s two hands. When Holve again emerged from the house, he handed her the chest. She clung to it as if her very life depended on it.
Ealrin offered to go inside to fetch some of her things, but she protested.
“I’ve nothing of value really. Our shop only sold enough to provide us our needs. My mother was to make me a new dress for the summer but…”
Ealrin understood. Her possessions she wore on her back.
Holve came over to her and looked at her properly. He then handed her a small knife in a sheath.
“Was this your father’s knife?” he asked her quietly.
Taking it in one hand, while still clutching the chest with the other, she nodded.
“Take it. Wear it
at all times. Whatever you do, don’t take it off.”
Holve rose and looked off to the east.
"We’ll need to get going if we’re to make it to Breyland. Nightfall will happen before we are to far down the road, but I don’t believe staying here will give us any advantages.”
And with that, the three of them struck out from the ruins of Weyfield, and onto the road to Breyland.
After they had climbed a hill, the full destruction of the city came into view as they glanced back at it. Blume looked back at what was once her home and stood silently for a moment. She then bowed her head and began to cry. Holve and Ealrin looked at each other. Ealrin bent down to one knee while Holve scanned the country around them.
The flat lands and plains were beginning to fade and give way to the foothills of a mountain range that rose up from the north and north east: the northern border of the Souther Republic was just beyond those mountains and past the next city they intended to leave Blume at. Ealrin had seen this on one of the maps Holve had showed him.
Ealrin took the girl by her shoulders and attempted to look into her eyes that were filled with tears and downcast.
“I can’t imagine what this is must be like for you, but you have to understand something: you have nothing left behind you. All that you have is ahead. You could spend every day of the rest of your life looking back and regretting. Or, you could choose to walk forward and live on. Would your parents or your brother wish for you to give up and stand on this hill forever, or continuing living? I don’t know what lies ahead for you Blume. But I do know that there is nothing back there for you either. There was great evil done today. You could choose to let that evil win by giving in to sadness and despair, or you could choose to fight against it by rising above it and showing the world what one good foot placed in front of the other can accomplish. Okay?”
Ealrin couldn’t know whether these were the words she needed to hear or not. It was all he knew to say though. He knew that some of those words spoke to him as well. Would he bemoan having lost his life before the crash of his ship into Good Harbor and his friend to the vile actions of goblins, or keep living day by day in the face of great sadness and look for the one small thing that could sustain him: hope.
Slowly, Blume’s tears stopped and she looked up at Ealrin. She whispered something into his ear that was barely audible.
Without hesitating, he complied with her request.
He lifted her off the ground, cradled her against his chest as if carrying his own child, and continued down the path with Holve at his side.
From this moment on, Ealrin would feel that his first and most pressing need was to ensure the safety and care for the little girl from Weyfield who no longer had a family.
Chapter 18:
Dwarven Stubbornness
Frerin and Khali stood on the ancient docks of the city of River Head. The stones on which they stood and that would receive ships sailing from good harbor and even further locations would anchor next to these rocks pulled from the base of the surrounding mountains.
Frerin was fascinated with the architecture and design of the docs, even if they were man-made.
"I'm telling you Khali," he said as they stood staring off into the horizon. "There’s a thing or two a dork could learn from the stonework of a man."
"Bah," Khali huffed.
It was plain to Frerin that Khali was not as taken with the design and flow of the ancient harbor.
Yes, dwarves build things that are sturdy and can stand the test of time it's true, thought move. But as he looked at the intricate designs woven into the top of the surface of the dock, he was more than a little interested and the handiwork that had been done many ages ago by man.
It was certainly a strange tendency of Frerin to think so highly of anything constructed by a man. Most dwarves held such pride in their work that they saw anything made by the other races as subpar at best. That's more than halls of the South and the glorious capital of the drawers to the west certainly outshined the city of River Head and almost every aspect.
Still, Frerin appreciated the work of others not his own race when many dwarves would simply turn up their noses at the notion that someone could create something beautiful out of stone better than they.
Looking behind him he could see the city of River Head, nestled in between two mountains and admired stonework of the city there as well. Like many of the cities in the ram this one was made of predominantly stones and rock. Most of the rooms where constructive wooden planks to be sure, but everyone knew how long the stones would last. If they were well tended to, Oregon printed with Dorvin rooms thought boo, Nice houses that have stood for 100 years could last on hundred more.
Frerin turned his attention back to the sea, scanning for the ship they had been waiting on for the last two weeks. Hold was meant to have arrived during the first full moon of summer. Move looked up to the sky and saw the sinking twin sons on one horizon and the rising half-moon on the other.
For the first time since Frenin had known General Holve all those years ago, he was late.
"What do you suppose has kept him?" Frerin asked but for at least the third time today. And butts reply was the same as it has been for the last two weeks.
"Bah. Don't worry about it, Frerin. We will find out when he gets here."
Khali spat into the ocean.
It was a common thing for him to do and Frenin had made it a habit of standing far enough away from his older traveling and fighting companion to never be hit by stray spittle.
The two dwarves had traveled together for over three decades. It had been thirty years ago today that they had met when the goblins in the West had sailed to the southern republic. Their raids had caused several dwarves to emerge from their mountain homes and defend their country. It'd been the first real test of the unity between the races of the Southern Republic sense their founding 100 years ago. Frenin and Kahli fought side-by-side against the goblin hordes that threatened their mountain home.
Unfortunately that same home would eventually fall to the goblins and be crushed underneath the weight of countless thousands of the grey skinned beasts. To overcome with grief due to the loss of their ancient home, the pair had traveled north into the mountains of the ram. It was there that they had met a very young king Thoran whom they saved from bandits that had attacked him on one of his early hunting expeditions. After witnessing their fighting prowess he begged them to join his elite group of fighters as soldiers who could train other dwarves to fight for Thoran. Having no other place to call home, the pair accepted and have been in his service ever since as part of "The King's Swords."
Though technically neither of them wielded a sword.
Being dwarves, they preferred the weapons of their race: Frenin a battle hammer, Khali a double-handed long axe, or halberd as they were called. The two would often get into a heated argument about which was the better weapon.
"Since my halberd’s foraging it's slain 400 goblins, and I claim at least a third of those," Khali would argue.
"Ah, but my hammer has crush the walls of several goblin settlements and not to mention a fair few of their schools as well. It's obviously the better weapon for ridding the world of that scum," Frenin would counter.
Today, however, there was no talk about which was the better weapon. There was no reminiscing about their old mountain home. The two didn't even swap stories of who had drunk the most ale, or climbed one of the continents many mountains.
Today the pair only looked out to sea.
"As far as I'm concerned," Frenin said, "something has happened and we ought to go looking for him."
"Oh sure," Khali replied with a large dose of sarcasm and annoyance. "Let's both jump in the harbor and start swimming. We'll find him in no time."
Frenin knew that part of the reason for his friend’s hostility was the absence of the general. He paid it no mind.
"And as far as I'm concerned, the both of you are old worrywarts," came a voice from behin
d them. The elf who had spoken was walking on the dock and her usual light footed manner. They say that an elf could walk right behind you in a forest and unless they wanted you to, you would never know you were being trailed. Lote was a fair looking health with brown hair that flowed down to her waist. Most of the time it was tied up with a ribbon or piece of cloth. Some mistook this for a needless accessory.
Lote wore it in order to keep the hair from her eyes when shooting her bow. Even amongst her own kin, she was a deadly shot.
As she came up right behind the doors she crossed her arms and look down at them. She was tall even for an elf, and had a long way to look.
"Both of you are worried sick about old and there's no denying it."
Khali made to protest and began to point his short finger up at the elf but she cut across him.
"If you weren't so concerned about him, you wouldn't be standing on this dock along with Frenin, Khali Son of Karven."
Frenin chuckled as he looked at his friend. He knew that Khali despised being addressed as his father's son. There was some bad blood there that when brought up in conversation could always get a rise out of Khali.
But then he noticed that the elf also looked out to see with a hint of worry in her eyes.
"He'll show up," she said.
Frenin. Guessed that it was more to reassure herself than to stop the worry of her two dwarven companions.
"At any rate," she said returning her glare back down to the pair of dwarves. "We have been summoned back to the castle. We had better make haste."
With that she turned around and began to walk back toward the city of River Head.
Frenin watched her go for a moment, and then looked back out the horizon. He closed his fist and stuck his hand straight out to sea: a Common sailor salute.
"May the wind be at your back general Holve, and may the bounty of the sea ahead."
"Bah. Old crusty sailor hogwash," said Khali.
But as they turned back to the city to collect their belongings from the end they had been staying at for the last two weeks waiting for their general, Frenin couldn't help but notice that Khali turned back for a moment and mimicked the sailors salute out to the scene before quickly trying to catch up with him.