Deadly Intentions (Blood Feud - Volume 2)

by David Temrick

  “I knew ye large folk aren’t given to talkin’ bout anythin’ worth listenin’ to for any great length of time, but ye could start with an ‘ello there laddie.” He grunted.

  “Sorry, I was lost there for a moment.” Tristan admitted sheepishly.

  The dwarf grunted in reply, taking a deep breath and sticking his chest out. “I be Neran.” He introduced himself.

  “Tristan.” The Prince answered uncertainly.

  “What ye be doin’ wanderin’ around our lands there boy?” Neran asked with narrowed eyes.

  “Actually, I’ve been looking for your kin.” Tristan answered.

  “You tall folk never bothered much with us before. Been many a year since I seen your kind in our mountains. Last time wasn’t much for ye was it now laddie?” He shot.

  “Last time?” Tristan asked.

  “Oh aye. Last time you lot stuck yer arm into the honey pot, ye drew back a bloody stump, didn’ ya?” He replied hotly, spitting on the floor between them.

  “When was that exactly?” Tristan said, trying to keep the conversation light. The dwarf seemed to be hostile towards humans to say the least. Knowing the former ruler of Terum, Tristan could understand why.

  The dwarf walked over to a large stone nearby and sat down. He pulled out a pipe and a small leather satchel. He opened it and pulled out a large pinch of dry moss and leaves and stuffed it into the pipe. Satisfied with his work, he stowed the bag and pulled out a small metal canister. He flipped the lid open and turned a small metal wheel with his thumb, creating sparks, eventually one of them caught on what appeared to be a leather taper. Raising the flame to the pipe he drew in a few long breaths until the contents began to smolder. He snapped the lid shut on the canister and stowed it back in his pocket.

  “Always like ta have me pipe when I gonna spin a yarn.” He commented as he puffed on his pipe. “I was just a wee lad mind ye. Must be…maybe eighty years ago or so.” He replied finally.

  “Yes well, things have changed ever so slightly in that span of time.” Tristan answered smugly.

  “Oh, aye. That they have laddie. Dragon’s on the run now, ain’t they? War just ended, ‘nother one’s a brewing. You tall folk sure love yer bloodshed don’t cha?” He said with a sideways grin. “New world, same ol’ problems. Ye mark me laddie, we dwarves keep ta ourselves fer a reason.” Neran said, pointing his pipe in Tristan’s direction.

  “You can continue to do so. I only come seeking a tome Draconis thinks may be in dwarven hands.” He explained.

  “Ye come all this way fer a book lad?” The dwarf asked skeptically.

  “Yes.” Tristan answered hotly.

  “Care ta tell me its name?” He asked.

  “Why? You carry a library in your belt do you?” The Prince shot.

  What’s going on? I can feel your fuming anger up here. Bethia chuckled.

  Dwarven hospitality. Tristan replied sarcastically.

  Are you injured? She asked, not bothering to hide her concern.

  I’m fine, he’s just an irritating little man is all. He answered with a laugh.

  “I might at that, and yer smart mouth is gonna get ye in trouble laddie.” The dwarf warned.

  Tristan leaned against the wall again, rolling his eyes and trying mightily to contain his temper.

  “Now, who be ye, and how ye be knowin,’ Draconis?” He asked as he hiked a thumb into his wide belt and exhaled a cloud of smoke.

  Until now, Tristan had assumed that everyone knew of his parentage, since it had been such a source of contention and activity for the last few years. Here now was a being that knew nothing of the politics at play outside of his mountains. He wasn’t sure if that was good news or bad, as the dwarf would likely have a negative image of half-breeds considering how orcs came to be.

  “Dwarves are known fer their patience laddie, but mines wearin’ out.” Neran commented between puffs.

  The Prince’s attention was drawn to the entrance of the cave as a woman dressed in a red gown lowered herself. He chuckled as she’d obviously felt more secure hovering down the path rather than relying on her human feet to keep her upright. Tristan marveled at her appearance, she’d tidied up her look, affecting a robe much like his grandfather wore though he seriously doubted his grandfather would have chosen something so revealing.

  “Two tall folk in one day?” Neran said in shock.

  “Neran, this is Beth.” The Prince introduced.

  ~

  Mina sat in her apartment as the sun set, Jonathan was asleep in his own room beside hers. The door was open and she could hear his soft breathing as he dreamed his youthful fantasies. She stood up from her bed, the same one he’d been conceived in, and walked over to the archway looking out over her favorite pond and fountain. The inter-spaced streams of water issued from the dozen large ornately carved fish that ran along the outside of the circular pond. The water from their mouths flew in a high arc into a raised circular pond; the water flowed over the smoothly carved lip creating a lovely sounding waterfall that echoed into her room at all hours.

  The effect on her troubled mood was instantaneous, but even its calming effect could do little to ease her mind. For the last month or more she had been wrestling with a conversation she’d had with Drake and Euri. It had been most troubling to learn that their new magical councilor was under suspicion. The situation was made direr as it was her son’s father that had been the one to identify the robe of the Deus sorcerer as the same robe he remembered his attacker wearing.

  The attack happened long before she had first met Tristan, but its effects still haunted him. She could recall hundreds of talks with him over the months they’d been together about his experiences under the heel of this Nightmare Spell. While the witchcraft that had created their lust for one another had been dreadful, once she’d had the time to clearly think over the events that had come to pass, she had to admit that she found his company enjoyable. No longer was their time together thought of as a painful memory, but a time when she had been free to talk about everything on her mind without fear that someone would use the knowledge to their advantage. She could see the shadow of Tristan’s features in her son and that small boon kept her happy when times were hardest.

  She could recall with startling clarity the conversation with Eurydice, the sister of her heart, and Drake, who reminded her of a kindly uncle figure, about Tristan’s fears. The father of her child worried that the prophecy would put a target on their son that neither of them wanted. The child was exceptional, but he needed time to grow and learn before he would be able to defend himself. Until then, according to what she was told, the very hope of the people of their world depended on her strength and protection.

  Now, as she felt during that conversation, she was uncertain her own ability to protect her boy. Mina was visited by wicked nightmares that drove her to insomnia, and as she did tonight she often lost herself staring off into the night looking for peace of mind. She knew she wasn’t alone; her grandmother, Lesa, spent days with them at a time-sharing the burden. Mina expected that her son could communicate through some other means since the pair of them, Lesa and Jonathan, would sit and stare at one another for hours on end.

  “How are you?” Lesa’s voice called quietly from behind her.

  Mina spun around in surprise. “Grandmother?”

  Lesa took Mina’s arm and guided her down into the courtyard. They slowly strolled around the pond as the water from the stonefish lightly sprayed them with a cooling mist. Together the pair of them walked down a side path into a maze of lavender and rose bushes. Finally they sat upon a finely carved stone bench. Lesa was silent for a time, making Mina slightly uncomfortable as she never really knew what she should or could discuss with her draconic grandmother.

  “What’s bothering you child?” Lesa asked sympathetically.

  Mina was ready to answer that nothing was bothering her, but before she knew it she was spilling forth with her greatest fears. She felt her protection was insuf
ficient, she worried that Tristan resented her, that his new bride would contrive to keep him from visiting their son, and that his parents thought poorly of her. Mina went on at length, rattling off her shortcomings and fears until she was spent. Tears flowed down her cheeks as she looked down, pulling the ever-present scrap of fabric from her sleeve and dapping away the tears as she tried to regain her composure.

  When she had finished, she looked up to find Lesa smiling warmly at her. Her grandmother drew Mina into a comforting embrace, stroking the back of her granddaughter’s hair. Tears again came to Mina’s eyes as she let the last of her stubborn defenses crumble and she sobbed into her grandmothers’ shoulder for a time.

  “You are not alone sweetheart.” Lesa soothed. “Tristan also shares your fears, but thankfully he is always off on some mission or quest of his own and has little time to brood on such things. Your only charge is your son, so you are free to fret and worry about him, as all mothers worry for their children.”

  “One of us is always at hand, so you will never truly be alone, but I will instruct the others to stop in and visit more often. Would that make things easier?” Lesa asked kindly.

  Mina could only nod in agreement, which caused Lesa to chuckle warmly. She rose, helping Mina back to her room and laying her down on her bed. It had never felt so soft and comfortable and she could have sworn she could hear her grandmother mutter a few strange words, placing her hand on Mina’s forehead. Then, she fell into a blissful, dreamless slumber.

  When she awoke the next morning she could hear Jonathan giggling from outside. She shot up and rushed to the window to see Otis juggling playing blocks back and forth with her son. Their arms were behind their backs and each of them had an intense look on their faces, until one of them missed one of the blocks as Otis kept adding them from their pile beside him, then they would laugh and begin again with six of the colorful cubes.

  Mina allowed herself to smile and laugh at their little game before heading back into her room. She closed the door to her bathing room, removed her dress and sat down in the porcelain tub, moving the pumps to begin the flow of hot and cool water. Mina added some soap to the water and before too long the tub was filled with steaming, bubbly water. She sighed theatrically as she leaned back and took joy in the warmth and comfort of a hot bath.

  The water had begun to turn cold when she finally rose out of the water and wrapped a towel around her body and then her hair. She opened the small chest she kept in the room, which contained all of her makeup, a habit she hadn’t employed since Jonathan’s birth. As she labored to apply a thin layer of makeup to her face, cheeks, eyes and lips she hummed happily to herself. When she was satisfied, she let the towel down and pinned her hair back with a comb that had been painstakingly carved to resemble a large orchid. She went to the wardrobe in her main room and pulled out a simple dress of light blue silk. She slipped into it.

  She walked slowly out into the courtyard where Otis and Jonathan were still playing their juggling game. Her mother, Peria, watched on in open awe as her grandson juggled the cubes without touching them. Mina smiled warmly towards her mother as she came and sat next to her.

  “Mama!” Jonathan called.

  His distraction caused one of the blocks to hit him painfully in the head. Mina was out of her spot and rushing towards him when Otis motioned her back sharply.

  “Wait!” He ordered.

  Jonathan’s face contorted in shock as his eyes welled up with tears, he held back from crying though instead he closed his eyes briefly and healed the small cut where the sharp point of the block hit him. He lifted the block with his mind and spun it, looking at it from all angles before letting it drop. Jonathan then lifted six blocks and fired them at Otis who chuckled as he juggled them in front of his face and then fired them back one after the other. The game was afoot again as though nothing had happened. Sighing in relief, she returned to her seat next to her mother.

  “Your son is quite remarkable my child.” Her mother complimented.

  “As is his father.” She returned with a wry grin.

  Peria turned to look at her daughter, smiling, as she put her arm around her as the two of them enjoyed the joyous game between Jonathan and Otis.

  Chapter 9

  “Duck!” Tristan warned Beth over his shoulder.

  He rubbed his head where it had made contact with a low spot in the tunnel. It had taken some convincing to get the dwarf guard to take them into the mountain to meet the king. In the end, Beth had fluttered her eyes and kissed the little man on the cheek before he consented to take them before the dwarven King.

  The Prince muttered to himself, continuing to message the spot on his forehead he’d been foolish enough to drive it into the ceiling of the tunnel. Beth chuckled as she placed her hand on his forehead and mumbled a few indistinct words. Her hand was quite soft, almost silk-like in its texture, and as were her scales when she was in draconic form, her skin was quite warm to the touch.

  The dwarf grunted; his shoulders shaking slightly as he stood watching Tristan. The Prince assumed this is what passed for dwarven laughter. His eyes narrowed as the pain subsided and Beth moved away from him, winking as she went. He was forced to chuckle to himself as he tried to picture how he looked, stooped over and rubbing his forehead, because he’d straightened up at the wrong moment.

  Neran nodded once, and then set off down the tunnel again. Hundreds of shafts and stairways ran off to the left and right of them as they walked deeper into the mountain. So far they had remained in the main tunnel, which functioned much like a boulevard in a large city. Finally the tunnel opened up into another rather large cave, stairways ran up and down walls in all directions. Far to the right there was a large hole with a winch and boom crane running out into the middle of. The dwarves took it in turns to turn the handle on the winch, which raised a thick rope, which creaked in protest at the weight of whatever it was they were hauling up from below.

  Their dwarven guide led them off to the left where a large painstaking carved stairway and banister led up to a pair of impressive metal doors. It looked as though then entire entrance was carved right into the rock face, when he mentioned this to Neran, he was told that it had taken twenty years to carve out the entrance to the throne room. Entire cities were built in that time; surely the dwarf exaggerated the boast Tristan assumed.

  The doors themselves must have been at least twenty feet tall and weighed an incredible amount, but as they approached them, they opened easily and without a sound. Tristan looked around the doorway as they walked past to see a single dwarf using a chain to close the doors. He tried to see how this was possible, but the tops of the doors were obscured in darkness. Regardless, it was an impressive sight.

  The throne room was crowded with hundreds of dwarves; some of them wore sashes over their right shoulders with medals affixed to them while others wore large helms with jewels mounted in patterns. The majority of them had hammers and axes in their belt sheaths, but scattered here and there were dwarves with large impressive swords strapped to their backs. The majority of them had long beards, the younger ones sported shorter facial hair, and yet others chose to keep their chins clean-shaven. By their appearance Tristan judged their race to be quite like humans, only of shorter stature and wider in stance. They all had heavily muscled shoulders and legs and moved as lightly and effortlessly as their guard did.

  The King sat on a large metal throne. Polished metal and gems were used as accents, and expensive looking jewels had been placed into notched out holes in a pattern Tristan could not discern. The King wore the leather armor of an archer, his right arm was bare and his left was covered from the shoulder down to his wrist. The construction of his armor interested the Prince because it looked so similar to his own, though made of different material.

  Strips of leather had been tanned, dyed and hardened to a deep shine, then assembled in an overlapping pattern that mimicked dragon’s scales. He wore no crown, but carried a scepter made entirely of
highly polished silver, gold and bronze. The end of the scepter was a large green emerald that glowed and refracted the light of the candles lit behind him.

  “Who be yer friends son o’ mine?” The King asked.

  Tristan looked over at Neran in surprise as their guard spoke up. “The bonny lass be Beth by name. She not be havin' a proper family name bein’ as she’s a dragon an’ all.” He pronounced.

  Beth returned Tristan’s startled look with a sardonic half-smile as their guard spoke again. “The lad be of Draconis’ bloodlines, an’ tha new King o’ Terum.”

  Neither the Prince nor Beth had revealed themselves to Neran, so his conclusions shocked Tristan deeply. He had known the whole while and still not revealed his own parentage. Clearly dwarves loved their secrets, which only made Tristan’s quest that much more challenging. Immortality be damned, he didn’t envy trying to fight his way back out of this hornets’ nest. For good or for ill, he was now subject to dwarven whim. This, he mused darkly, could mean anything at this point.

  Their time in the dwarven city had passed well enough. After being introduced, the King had taken it upon himself to give them a tour of the finer points of his city. Beth and Tristan communicated amongst themselves while the King droned on about this and that, having learned all that they could from the brief description of each landmark and not needing the entire history of it. The dragon kept Tristan from making scathing comments, and Tristan made sure that kept her comments to herself when the King went on at length on how the dragons had failed their race.

  Eventually, after what felt like hours, they finally made their way to the library. It seemed to be the last thing the dwarves where proud of. The King explained that the last librarian died in a cave in fifty years ago, and no one had shown aptitude enough to be granted the post. As they walked in, it was clearly evident that no one had set foot in the room for at least a dozen years or more.