“You tell that commander of yours I’m working on some more explosives,” Faldergash told them at one point, grinning from ear to ear. The pudgy gnome’s specialty was in devices using fire, including explosives, and creating new such inventions was his greatest joy. “And I think at some point very soon you’re going to be very pleasantly surprised.”
“Fal,” Danner said, “what are you up to?”
“Me?” the gnome asked innocently. “I’m not doing a blessed thing.”
And that’s all Danner’s friend would say on the matter. Faldergash stayed silent through their repeated attempts to cajole the information from him, until at last they gave up and returned their attention to the buggy.
Late that night, Alicia returned from a two-day stay with relatives in the city making sure they were getting by safely. She was still living with Faldergash, but now paid him rent for the room and the food she ate there. Danner stood to greet her and kissed her, genuinely pleased to see her despite the confusion that remained in his mind about how to handle their intimacy. She got as far as hanging her coat on a hook on the wall before Marc and the others burst into the room, returning from their night at Aunt Delia’s. Michael and Marc had foolish looks on their faces, and even the normally serious Garnet looked more relaxed and merry than usual. Flasch looked positively flushed with an air of someone who was recently the butt of extensive teasing.
“…what I mean,” Flasch was saying somewhat heatedly, obviously nettled. “It is, after all, part of the calling we’re all supposed to feel to some extent, and more specifically to my own reflection. Piety and faith aren’t all there is to being a Violet,” he said. “It’s also the evangelical Facet, and I tell you, I think I’m making progress with her.”
“With who?” Danner asked.
“Huh? Oh, hi, Alicia,” Flasch said, toning his voice down slightly as he saw her standing next to Danner.
“It’s her job to make you think she’s into you, Flasch,” Marc pointed out. “Obviously I know there are exceptions, I just feel it necessary to remind you.”
“Who are you talking about?” Alicia asked, repeating Danner’s question for him. Their hands were intertwined.
“A girl named Deeta who works at Aunt Delia’s,” Flasch replied. “Danner introduced us all the other night.” Flasch turned back toward the others. “Now, we were talking and…”
Danner lost the thread of the conversation as he saw Alicia stiffen and turn her head very slowly to glare at Danner. Her hand hardened and withdrew from his like she’d been stung. Her eyes were hurt.
“You went to that place to see Deeta?” she asked.
“What? No,” Danner said, stammering slightly in confusion. Why was she upset? “We all went there together last night, as a group, to relax after all the fighting before we came here. It’s Marc’s favorite place, you know. And she was working there.”
“And?” Alicia asked, her voice steely.
“And what?”
Alicia glowered at him, then abruptly spun and stalked off up the stairs toward her room. Danner stared after her a moment, trying to decide how he should react. The problem was, he didn’t even know what he’d done wrong. He didn’t know why she was upset, so it was hard to know what he should do. He did know, however, that doing nothing would only make things worse, so he resolved to go talk to her. Halfway up the stairs, he stopped and stooped to look down into the common room.
“Garnet, do me a favor and whack Flasch upside the head, please,” Danner said grumpily. When Garnet acquiesced, Flasch guarded his head with his hands to prevent a second slap and frowned up at Danner.
“What was that for?” he asked.
“I’ll tell you later,” Danner said and continued up the stairs.
“And you,” Flasch said, turning to Garnet. “Why’d you do that without knowing why? How do you know I deserved it?”
“I figured there has to be something you’ve done I haven’t smacked you for,” Garnet said blandly, “so I wasn’t hurting anything by following through.”
Upstairs, Danner knocked on Alicia’s door and called her name, but she didn’t respond. He tried the handle only to find it locked. Danner sighed. He pulled a pair of thin wires from a kit he always had with him, and three seconds later he’d picked the lock and opened the door.
“I didn’t say you could come in,” Alicia said as she turned to see him closing the door behind him. Her voice was hard and her eyes were red with tears.
“You didn’t say I couldn’t come in either,” Danner replied, deciding if he was going to be in trouble, he at least didn’t have to put up with her being moody unless absolutely necessary. If she was going to be mad at him, this time he’d know what he’d done.
“You didn’t say anything, in fact, so I took the liberty of granting myself permission,” Danner said.
“Well, leave,” she told him. “I don’t want to talk to you right now.”
“Right now’s all we’ve got for a while,” Danner said. “Maybe forever, for all I know. I’m in the middle of a war right now, and the last thing I want preying on my mind is why the woman I love isn’t talking to me.”
There. He’d said it out in the open, hoping that a clear statement of his feelings would soften her a little and make her talk to him. He was wrong, at least about the softening part.
“The woman you love?” Alicia said. “For now at least, as long as I’m right in front of you. But the minute I’m not here, you go running to that club and into the arms of some blonde strumpet. Did you tell her you loved her, too? Did you lay with her?”
“Alicia, what in the name of Sin, San, and Satan’s teeth are you talking about?”
“Deeta,” she said, all but spitting the name.
“How is it I’m in trouble for seeing someone who happens to know me at the club?” Danner asked. “Your brother goes there, and you don’t mind. You know I’ve been there. I didn’t try to hide it. But I also told you I haven’t explored the primary, um, attractions there.”
“And you expect me to believe that? When they just said you’d been with her?” Alicia said, her voice nearly a yell.
Danner sighed.
“Yes, I guess I really do expect you to believe me,” he said sadly. “I thought you trusted me, just as I trust you. I’ve never lied to you, and I don’t believe you’ve ever lied to me. A relationship can only be built on trust, and if you no longer trust me, I’m kind of afraid of where that leaves us.”
Maybe it was the tone of his voice, or the slump in his shoulders, but Alicia suddenly dropped her antagonism and crossed the room to sit on the edge of the bed nearest him. She motioned and he sat nearby, about an arm’s length from her.
“You really haven’t done anything?” she asked softly.
“I swear on my oath as a paladin,” he said earnestly. “We went to the club to relax, and while Trebor, Flasch, and I were talking, Deeta suddenly showed up and threw herself in my lap.” Alicia’s eyes hardened, so Danner hurried on. “She asked about Moreen, then about you, and I told her you and I were together. Then she got up, and she and Flasch went off to a corner somewhere. I didn’t even see her again after that. Now Flasch and she have apparently been spending time together the last nights, but I don’t know what’s going on between them.”
Danner fell silent. Alicia reached a hand out and placed it on his own.
“I’m sorry, Danner,” she said. “It’s just, we haven’t talked since we… since that night, and I didn’t know where you were or what you were doing, or what you thought afterward. And I guess I’m still haunted by Deeta’s overwhelming success with men and her advances toward you in Demar, and… Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “I guess I was just hurt and not thinking very clearly.”
“Alicia,” he said, and she looked up into his eyes. “Alicia, I love you. I love you as surely as anything I’ve ever known, and more than anything I’ve ever experienced or felt before. You’re the most wonderful, amazing thing in my life, and someti
mes I feel like I barely know anything about you, because we never get the chance to talk to each other anymore. I don’t know what you’re thinking or feeling, and God knows I can’t read your mind like Trebor can. Please don’t ever shut me out again,” he said.
“I need to know what you’re thinking and feeling, too. You’re a part of me now, and even if I could change that, I wouldn’t,” Danner said. “I love you, and I want to go on loving you, and I want you to love me.”
“I do love you, Danner,” Alicia said fervently. “I’m sorry. I’ve just been all twisted up thinking about us, and about… us,” she said with emphasis, and Danner knew she was once more referring to their intimacy. “Everything I feel tells me we haven’t done anything wrong, but somewhere in there I still doubt, and…”
Danner nodded.
“I know, I have the same questions,” he assured her. “I wasn’t sure how to talk to you about it, so I avoided it a couple days when I should have come to find you and let you know how I was feeling. I could claim the war as a distraction,” he said wryly, and she laughed, “but honestly, I was scared I wouldn’t know how to handle things if they started to heat up again between us before I had a chance to talk to you.”
“It’s not my fault you’re irresistible,” she said coyly.
“Me?” he snorted. “It’s all I can do not to strip you down right now and have my way with you,” he said, only half-joking. Then he reached up a tender hand and touched her cheek softly.
“But seriously. I love you, Alicia, I just think we need to spend some time with each other figuring things out,” Danner said. “I don’t want to rush right back into things where there might not be a way back without one or both of us getting hurt.”
Alicia looked down.
“And if we run out of time?” she asked, her voice barely more than a whisper. “What happens if I lose you?”
Danner was silent.
“I’ll try not to let that happen,” he said. “I want to be with you too much to let myself get killed.”
“Promise me you’ll live and come back to me,” she said suddenly. “When this war is over, promise me you’ll come back and be with me. I don’t want to spend my life staring into a fire, waiting. Promise you’ll come back and love me.”
“I promise.”
Chapter 29
When the dwarves embarked on their genocidal “Cleansing War” against the Dale gnomes, the other races of the world did little or nothing to halt the unwarranted massacres. Dwarven hands may have held the blade, but blood stains the hands of all peoples for their inaction.
- Orange Paladin Gelt Rockhand,
“A History of Dwarven Warfare” (901 AM)
- 1 -
Malith paced the ground before the Merging with even, unhurried steps. He was thoughtful, but not anxious. Thinking, but not worried.
The denarae unit. They were a nuisance. Not only had they destroyed one of Malith’s most potent tools, but in killing the last of The Three they had also turned the Merishank army into a valuable resource, rather than the crippling liability they were intended to have been. Since spearheading the defense of the Barrier, the denarae held where all others would have been crushed and apparently were responsible for obliterating thousands of Malith’s troops in a fiery holocaust the likes of which he’d never seen. Malith had resorted to using threats and making painful examples of the damned to get the mutated souls to pit themselves against the ash-colored unit. Already some of the demons had begun whispering amongst themselves that perhaps Malith’s leadership was not as potent as they’d been led to believe, and perhaps new leadership might be in order. Mephistopheles sometimes allowed such forceful usurpations of power, and the demon king’s continued favoritism toward Malith was the only thing preventing a forceful change of authority.
Malith knew he could send wave after wave of damned souls after the denarae and eventually grind them into dust, but he was unwilling to waste that many of his troops. The damned would have their uses, and Malith was unwilling to fall into the trap of needlessly throwing away resources like chasing a bad hand in Dividha. He needed more information about them.
The black-cloaked human spun and singled out a demon adept at mental communication. The small creature barely came up to Malith’s waist, and it trembled slightly as it approached him. Malith had obliterated the last such demon he used; it had given him the unfortunate news that the last of The Three had been destroyed.
“Get me the dybbuk,” Malith ordered. A few moments later, the demon timidly stretched out a claw and signaled it had reached the spirit.
“What does the general command?” the demon said, speaking in the sibilant voice of the dybbuk.
“The unit of denarae,” Malith said. “The ones you wanted dead. I should have asked for more details before. Tell me about them now.”
“They are Shadow Company,” the dybbuk’s voice said. “They are made up of a group of several hundred volunteer denarae who arrived months ago in response to an unknown summons. The Council authorized…”
“I don’t want to know their personal lives,” Malith said acidly. “I want to know how they operate. What is their current strength? How have they deployed? What are their capabilities, aside from their accursed ability to sneak into my camp, incinerate thousands of troops, and disappear without a trace? Who commands them? Tell me battlefield specifics, creature, not a biography.”
The dybbuk hissed in agitation, obviously trying to sort through everything Malith had demanded and answer where it could. Malith was quite capable, though not willing unless it proved necessary, of having the dybbuk killed in an instant, even at such a distance. It was a necessary precaution, for dybbuks were inherently cowardly. Their rare and almost parasitic nature resulted in strong instincts for self-preservation and hiding, and if discovered and cornered, they would say or do anything to protect their existence.
“They are led by a group of paladins, mostly young ones fresh out of training, and their only experience until now has been against the Merishank army when it was still under the demon Ran,” the dybbuk said at last. Malith frowned, and the dybbuk hurried on as though sensing the delicacy of that subject. “There is little I can tell you that you do not already know, mighty general. Their superb fighting skills and unparalleled abilities at infiltration were their main strengths against Merishank, combined with the tactics of their commander, a Red paladin named Gerard…”
“Morningham,” Malith said suddenly, finishing for the dybbuk. “Gerard Morningham is the commander of this Shadow Company?”
“Yes, general.”
Malith fell silent, wrapping his thoughts around him like a second cloak. The dybbuk waited in silence, unwilling to interrupt, lest it anger Malith. Finally Malith turned back to the demon who served as the telepathic conduit for their conversation.
“Tell me about the other officers,” he said firmly. “These new recruits. Gerard trained them, yes? Are they the only other paladins with the unit?”
“Yes, general,” the dybbuk replied. “They were the last batch to graduate as paladins before the assault began, an accelerated training program to be sure. This group was the most promising of that lot, and includes a denarae who entered the training disguised as a human. I recognized the danger of their strength as a group and had that one removed to try and fragment them, but the rest of the Council insisted on forming the company of denarae, and they stayed together. Gerard’s defense of the boy angered many, and he was placed in charge of the denarae as a mark of shame.”
“Which he turned into a work of brilliance, of course,” Malith murmured. Only Gerard could have crafted a unit of such strength. It made so much sense, Malith wondered that it hadn’t occurred to him before.
“Continue.”
“The Red boy shows immense skill and promise, and the Yellow and Violet are capable leaders, if nowhere near as potent,” the dybbuk said. “The Orange is all but useless on the battlefield, but he is dangerous because of knowledg
e.”
“I am only concerned about the war right now,” Malith said sternly. “Let knowledge come when we remake history as Mephistopheles sees fit.”
“Yes, general. The denarae is typical of his kind, but the other danger is the Blue paladin, Danner de’Valderat. He is the nephew of the Gray paladin who returned from across the Merging, and something about him portends great power.”
“de’Valderat? Birch de’Valderat is the paladin who escaped?” Malith said in irate amazement. Why had he never been told the name of the escapee? “It seems my oldest comrades have now become my most bitter enemies. To have had Birch in my grasp for so long and not know it…” Malith clenched his fist in irritation. “Now more than ever I wish I had been placed in charge of his manhunt. And you say this nephew of his is troublesome, as well?
“Very well,” Malith said, not waiting for an answer. “I will deal with them both in due time. If this nephew is as dangerous as you imply, begin working on a ploy to keep him out of the way so I can trap and slay his uncle. In the meantime, I will deal with Gerard Morningham personally.”
“If I may ask, mighty general,” the dybbuk hissed submissively, “what is the progress of the drolkuls? I must coordinate the Council on my end when the time is right.”
The Devil's Deuce (The Barrier War) Page 40