Winds of War

by Rhett C. Bruno

  “You hired us to protect you. The way I see it, knife-ears on the road are nothing but trouble.”

  One of the twins placed a knee against the small of her back to hold her down. She heard the other’s belt clasp come undone. The trader protested but neither listened. A familiar tingle ran through her spirit as she felt a hand against her thigh. The area around the cut went simultaneously cold and hot. The rest of her was disembodied. Numb. She felt fire crackling on the tips of her fingertips when the cart shook and down stepped a stocky, little, red-haired dwarf. He held a mug in one hand, ale dripping down his scraggly beard.

  “What in Meungor’s Axe is goin on out here?” He looked at Sora, his eyes each looking in different directions, then at the mercenaries. “Pull yer pants up, animal.”

  He shoved the mercenary in the chest, and even though the man towered over the dwarf, he backed down. As Sora rolled over, she noticed a strange sort of a hat topping the dwarf’s shaggy hair. When he got closer, she realized it wasn’t a hat, but a half-broken circlet made of blown glass.

  “I was not going to allow it, Grint.” The voice came from beside Sora. She hadn’t even noticed the soft-spoken Shesaitju standing beside her with his scimitar drawn in defense of her. She instantly felt sorry for wanting to torch him.

  “By the look of it, ye were outnumbered.”

  The twin mercenaries had their hands hovering over the grips of their weapons. Grint and the Shesaitju stepped in front of her.

  “Fellows, I do believe it’s time we moved along,” the trader said.

  “Just leave her be an’ get yer horny hinds back aboard,” Grint growled. “Ain’t helpin her, nor hurtin her. Just move along.”

  “We’re tired of listening to you, dwarf,” one of the mercenaries said, his belt still undone.

  “Too bad. I made better men shut their traps than ye, Dorblo.” He spat the name like it was an insult. “And I be in charge of keeping this here caravan safe.”

  Grint grabbed Sora by her ripped tunic and shoved her aside without even an attempt to be careful. So much for her savior.

  “Get inside!” he barked.

  “You’re not paying me,” Dorblo said. “He is.”

  The old trader stammered over a response.

  “Plenty more gold to go round if we lose the two of ye.” Grint stroked the battle axe hanging from his belt.

  “I dare you,” Dorblo said.

  “What ye be, is needin to get in the wagon.” They stood face to face, the dwarf up on the balls of his feet. To his credit, he made himself nearly as tall as the man, but Sora hadn’t seen a battle of testosterone like this in her entire life.

  “You ain’t worth my time,” Dorblo huffed, finally backing down. He nudged his twin, and they stormed off together toward the ledge and away from the dwarf. The old trader dripped with sweat, eyes darting back and forth between them. By the looks of his carefully manicured fingers, he’d never been in a scrap in his life.

  Sora went from wanting to burn them all, to feeling like she was watching a play performed by the school children in Troborough.

  Whitney where the yig are you?

  “She needs help, Grint,” the Shesaitju said, his sword still drawn.

  “We ain’t a charity,” Grint said.

  “We aren’t monsters either.”

  “We got no room for another. ’Specially not her kind.”

  “You know it’s not safe here after dark. That’s why we were hired.”

  “I said, there ain’t room. Ye be wantin to walk all the way to Winde Port?” The dwarf gave the gray man a shove.

  “Do not strike me,” the Shesaitju man said.

  “Don’t make me, then.”

  The dwarf shoved him again, and the Shesaitju retaliated.

  Sora crawled back slowly and was about to run when she heard someone whisper her name.

  The horses snorted, and the wagon creaked as it lurched forward, causing Sora, and all five men to stop bickering to look over. Whitney Blisslayer sat at the reins of the wagon. The armored twins and the trader were far enough to be of no concern, but the dwarf, nose now bloody and probably broken, and the Shesaitju, in far worse shape, were both close enough to be trouble.

  Sora scrambled to her feet. Whitney grabbed hold of her hand and yanked her up beside him.

  “Took you long enough,” Sora bristled.

  “Take the reins!”

  “What?”

  “Just take the reins!” Whitney said as he gave them a vigorous snap and the horses shot forward. He let go, and Sora fumbled to grab them. Heavy flakes of snow stung at her cheeks and arms as the carriage was pulled along.

  Whitney rose and leaned over the side of the carriage. The dwarf took a swing at him with his battle axe but, dizzy from his fight, missed. Whitney reached out, plucked the half-crown from the dwarf’s head and pulled himself back up.

  “All right, on the horse and we’ll cut the carriage free,” Whitney said. Sora glanced back at the men chasing after them and remembered how they’d treated her—a lost soul on the road in need of help. Even if her state was a ruse, she couldn’t believe strangers would treat a person in such a way.

  She said nothing, only snapped the reins and propelled the entire carriage around a sharp turn on the cliff-side trail. It tilted onto one wheel and drifted on the icy, slick path. Sora closed her eyes, fearing they would suffer the fate of her own lie, sliding off the edge and into the canyon below, but the horse whipped around the corner and yanked the carriage down so hard Whitney almost lost his Glass Crown.

  “Thanks for the carriage!” Whitney shouted. “And Grint, Whitney Blisslayer thanks you for the crown!”

  Sora tightened her grip on the reins as if somehow she knew he’d take his attention off the road to offer his usual bow and flourish. One hard bump or sharp turn would have sent him flying off the cliffside. And after leaving her with those rotten men, a part of her wanted to pull back on the reins.

  “I thought you just wanted to take a horse?” Whitney said as he climbed back to sit beside her. She squeezed the reins so hard her knuckles went white as a corpse. “What? I’m not complaining.”

  “You’re a bloody pile of shog, you know that?” Sora snapped. “How long were you going to wait? Those men were about to...” She couldn’t even get the word out.

  Whitney, on the other hand, grinned ear to ear. He had the broken circlet in his hands and marveled at it. Now that the dwarf’s messy hair didn’t cover it, she realized it was much more than a circlet. It was a crown—half of one—with flawlessly cut gems set into every point. The glass was so pure it caught the high sun and painted an area of his leg with a prism.

  “Are you even listening?” Sora said.

  “Of course, I am,” Whitney replied. “I knew you had nothing to worry about.”

  “No, you had nothing to worry about, watching me get tossed around from five hundred paces away.” Now that enough distance had been put between them, Sora allowed herself to take her heated glare off the bumpy road and back on Whitney.

  “I watched you single-handedly stop one of the most powerful warlocks in the known world. You know what that makes you?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “The most powerful blood mage in the whole world. Huh, how about that? ‘The World’s Greatest Thief’ and the ‘World’s Most Powerful Blood Mage’ riding together into the sunset.”

  “It’s noon, you fool.”

  “It’s a figure of speech.” Whitney placed the half-crown over his head and leaned in front of her. He bobbed back and forth, trying to get her to say something.

  “You should be grateful you know,” he said.

  “Are you serious?” she asked, incredulous. “For what exactly? You using me as bait? Forcing me to play along with the stupid games of a child looking to prove himself greater than a father long past? What? Tell me.”

  “Wow, that hurt,” Whitney said, but his smile told a different story. “Look, we just scored something big
. Really big. And what’s best about it is who we stole it from.”

  “They were just a couple of… of… there’s not a harsh enough word for them.”

  “Except the Black Sandsman, he looked like he had a little crush on you. First, they destroy your town, now you’re falling in love with one.” Whitney shook his head in mock disappointment.

  Sora’s cheeks went hot. She wished Whitney wouldn’t have noticed even though she could tell he did. It wasn’t that she found the ash-skinned man attractive. She just felt terrible for grouping him in with others who looked like him, like all the sorry men who’d cursed her simply for being a knife-ear since she left home.

  “At least he was willing to stand up for me,” she said.

  “Like he stood up for Troborough?”

  “What?”

  “That sorry lot. They were there in Troborough the day it was burned down.”

  Her brow furrowed and for an instant, curiosity replaced her anger, then a sharp turn in the road drew her attention back to the horses. The way grew so narrow that there wasn’t half a meter alongside the carriage separating them from certain doom. And on the other side was a sheer cliff, the rock as red as blood. She was grateful the horses seemed to know the way.

  “That’s how the dwarf had what’s left of the King’s crown I stole.” Whitney pointed to his head. “They all fled the place when the Shesaitju attacked, including your would-be-savior. I think I remember seeing him kick a helpless woman begging for a ride so they could speed away.”

  “And you knew about this?”

  “Came up with the plan the moment I spotted their wagon across the gorge. I never forget a group that deserves to be robbed.”

  She took her hands off the reins to slap him on the arm with the back of her bandaged hand. “This partnership isn’t going to work if you don’t trust me.”

  A thousand different answers flickered across his face, all of them probably warranting another slap. Sora was glad he took his time. “You’re right,” he said, finally. “I’m sorry. I thought it would be better if you thought it was just another mark. I didn’t want you to go all, you know, explody because these men might have been responsible for…”

  His words trailed off. She knew what he was about to say. He’d been good about not bringing up Troborough too much. The wound was still too fresh for her. A mercenary group like that one might have been able to save dozens of townsfolk if they hadn’t run. They might have been able to keep Wetzel from being...

  “I wouldn’t have killed them all,” she mumbled. She wasn’t sure if she believed those words, which frightened her. She could feel that tingle of energy on her arm and hand again, pulsing in her blood. Even the Shesaitju who came to her defense. She wasn’t sure what she would have done.

  “I’ll believe that when you tell me how you beat Redstar,” Whitney said.

  She had no response. Torsten thought what happened when she released enough energy to stop the Arch Warlock was the work of Iam. She thought maybe she’d drawn on Bliss' godly blood. But the spider’s corpse had been meters away from her, and neither she nor Wetzel had ever been able to draw on any blood but their own before.

  “Exactly,” Whitney said.

  “Did you know?”

  “Know what?”

  “That they were the kind of men who’d do... that... to me.”

  Whitney swallowed the lump in his throat. “All I knew was that they were thieves and cowards,” he said.

  A smirk played at the corners of her lips. “You’re a thief, and if I remember the woods correctly, you yelp like a coward.”

  “But I do it with style! That bastard dwarf challenged me to steal the crown, then swiped it during the attack and fled. I am many things Sora, but you should have seen me fighting off Black Sandsmen until the Glass soldiers arrived to save the day.”

  “Didn’t they arrest you?”

  “Which time?”

  They shared a laugh, and Sora felt the itch of tension fading. It was the same every time he did something wrong. She’d scold him, and then a few wisecracks later and he’d have her smiling and forgetting why exactly she’d been so angry. Not this time.

  She leveled her gaze at him until he had no choice but to make eye contact. “If you ever lay me out like fresh meat again, Whitney Fierstown—”

  “Blisslayer,” he corrected. Her scowl stole the color from his cheeks.

  “If you ever do that again, I’ll burn your hands so deep you’d never steal another thing. Do you hear me?”

  “I hear you.”

  “I’m serious.”

  Whitney circled his eye with one finger. “I swear to Iam and all the fallen gods. Never again.” She kept her lips straight and continued staring until finally, he frowned. “I didn’t think it would go that far. I promise.”

  Sora exhaled through her teeth. “It’s okay. We’ll consider using my assets one of your more forgettable lessons.”

  “You just have to keep working at it.”

  “Forget it.”

  He smirked, then leaned back and made himself comfortable. “Oh, Sora, we’ll make a thief out of you yet.”

  “Yeah…”

  She stared off into the distance where a watchtower rose over an outcrop of rock, and the road twisted back around toward a colossal stone bridge crossing the gorge. The columns and arches supporting it sank into the shadow of the rift. Others sprung out from anchors in the snow-covered rock. It made the old wooden bridge crossing Troborough’s portion of the Shellnak River seem like a plaything. She didn’t even know man could build such a wonder, yet here she was, growing further and further from the home she knew with every second.

  “So, that’s the bridge to Panping?”

  “Yeah. Older than the Glass Kingdom itself. Dwarves built it… I think.”

  “And why aren’t we crossing it?”

  “It’s a long way to Yaolin City and the roads are filled with things worse than Grint Strongiron. Like I’ve said, it’ll be a quick ride down to Winde Port. We’ll sell the silks and whatever else is back there, buy passage on the first ship to Yaolin City, and be there in half the time.”

  “What about the crown? I bet we could purchase our own ship with that.”

  He looked at her, appalled. The last time she’d seen him appear so concerned about anything was right before he delved into Bliss' lair, which meant this wasn’t just one of his games.

  “So, that really did belong to the late king?” she said.

  “Plucked it off his holy head.”

  “Then you might want to consider hiding it.” She gestured to the watchtower standing proudly on their side of the bridge where the road bent south. Another waited on the other side, blue and white banners of the Glass Kingdom draped from the tops. Archers waited on the walls, and more soldiers stood at the base. They searched another wagon waiting to pass.

  Whitney sprung upright. He yanked the crown from his head, looked at her, then back at it.

  “You’re right,” he said. “If they recognize this we’re dead.”

  “Recognize what? I’ve never seen it before in my life.”

  “Very funny. Slow down.” Whitney crawled into the wagon and dug through a pile of fine silk blankets, wrapping the half-crown in one.

  “You better hurry up!”

  Sora snapped on the reins, and the jolt sent him tumbling into the back of the carriage.

  “Sora!” he yelped. He lost the crown in the pile of sheets and scrambled to find it. She couldn’t help but chuckle as she noticed the great Whitney Blisslayer beginning to sweat. It was the least he deserved for almost getting her killed just to get the relic back, after all. And if she was stuck with him on this journey to see the world and the home of her ancestors for the very first time, she was done doing everything on his terms.

  III

  THE KNIGHT

  It was no easy task, repairing the Royal Crypt after an earthquake split the ceiling, leaving a zigzagging gash down the base of Mount
Lister. Canvas and wooden scaffolding covered it, but snow flurries still found their way in where pilgrims and worshippers tried to peak in at the site of Iam’s latest miracle.

  The entire wall, which once housed the caskets of Liam Nothhelm and his son, Pi, had ruptured. And so, Liam’s corpse was placed off to the side, coin-covered eyes staring up through the lid of his glass sarcophagus. The casket beside his was empty, fractured by the quake before Pi stumbled out that fateful night.

  “Lord Wearer?” the dwarven foreman said.

  Dwarven artisans were summoned to perform the repairs, for they alone possessed the skills to undertake such a task quickly. The tunnels were older than the castle, older even than the Glass itself having been dug thousands of Dawnings before humans migrated south from the Drav Cra tundra.

  Torsten’s focus was so lost between the remains of his great king and the site of Pi’s rebirth, he barely registered the dwarf’s words. As a Hand of Iam, he was not one to question the one true God, but he couldn’t stifle the questions echoing around in his head over the last weeks.

  Why not Liam? Why not both of them? Why him? Only him?

  He knew how horrid it was to think. No father should be forced to live in a world where his son had already passed, but the Glass Kingdom needed a leader—a true leader—now more than ever. The wolves were waiting to pounce, and once the wonder of Pi’s triumphant return to the realm of the living and subsequent coronation wore off, Torsten knew they would.

  The dwarf shook Torsten’s arm. “Me Lord.”

  “What?” Torsten snapped, too late to adjust his tone. He breathed deeply. “Apologies.”

  “Ain’t no matter, me Lord.” The dwarf pointed toward the heaviest bit of construction. The burly little dwarf’s beard drooped down to his belt, and his biceps were as wide as Torsten’s, even though he was a third his height. “Just lettin ye know we’re gonna need a bit of extra support in that sector. Struts be makin things uneven—”

  “Do what you must,” Torsten interrupted. “I just want this place closed in so nobody can disturb them.”

  “Aye. Bad luck disturbing the buried and the dead.”