Vulred rubbed his chin and smiled –
“Perhaps that is why the dwarves were so readily accepting of Praghock. They are used to being told what to do.” He laughed, which did not sit well with Fogrolir, though he remained calm.
“The elven people have a council, and we do everything through the council. If an elf does not like what he or she has been commanded to do, it will be brought before the circle of leaders to decide the correct course of action.”
Now it was Fogrolir’s turn to jest –
“Perhaps that is why dwarves see you more as a figurehead – and less than a king.”
Both men laughed as they walked in stride. They were becoming allies already, and both were happy to be so. As they circled the central statue in the city square, they came upon Skalmaena as she joked with a few of the dwarves about setting them on fire and using them as flying boulders of disaster.
“Come now, Skalmaena” Fogrolir interrupted the laughter, “we all know the only disaster would be setting this lot of men on fire! The stench of their beards afire would scare off every beast within a hundred miles!”
All the men laughed as they sat with their firebrew in hand, taking sips, or gulps in some cases, to calm their nerves.
“Skalmaena, we need to have a chat if you have a moment.”
Skalmaena rose to her feet as a chorus of ‘Oh’s’ and ‘Ah’s’ rang out from the dwarves, feigning her being in trouble.
As the trio walked off, they noticed it had become darker than it was just moments beforehand – the sun was blotted out from the sky by a flurry of dark clouds. Nighttime was coming, and with it, the cold fall winds.
“Skalmaena, though we agreed to this approach and it is a good one, I shall still require your help with something else. Can you spare a couple of men to go to Gornfurum and collect as many spring-loaded gadgets as you can possibly carry?”
Skalmaena was curious about this particular inquiry, and it showed as she stopped and looked at the Storm Rider.
“I suppose that can be done, but may I ask why I am doing so?”
“Absolutely. I am going to send men on the backsides of dragons to Megh Borim to collect as much iron as they can. Meanwhile, we are going to start cutting down trees here in our forests. These beasts, they will try and flee to the ocean to get away. Instead of placing our dragons in harm’s way, we plan on shaping arrows from the iron and wood, and dipping them into vats of oil. We will need the spring like gadgets from Gornfurum to help propel the arrows. We will launch said arrows from the backsides of the dragons, and the dragons will light them aflame as they fall to the earth. This should help keep us out of the reach of the cyclopses. Honestly, you do not want to see what a cyclops can do to a dragon. It will make you happy to fight a giant.”
Skalmaena laughed – she always knew that there was more to Fogrolir than he let on. She knew his mind was sharp, but she had never figured him for a planner of wars; rather, just a practitioner among them.
“I will do what I must to assist you, Fogrolir. However, I think you are still keeping something from me, my dear.” She teased as she waved her finger in front of his face, all the while smiling.
“Aye – that I am, but you will find out what it is when the time is right.”
Skalmaena nodded and excused herself. She made her way back to the dwarves that sat in the street, drinking their firebrew. She would stay the night in Thirndor and head back to Hegh Thurim at first light.
“Fogrolir, I too gathered that there is more to your proposal than you revealed; care to tell me what you did not tell Skalmaena?”
“Vulred, my friend, you will find that I am a man that does not always reveal the path that I see. Sometimes that is good, as it prevents anyone from stacking logs along the road. Other times, however, it is not so good – especially if there is a log in the way of my plan that I fail to see.”
“Is that your way of kindly telling me that you do not wish to reveal your plans now?”
“Not at all. Indeed, not only am I going to tell you my plan – I need your help in executing it. I am about to make a decision that will likely cause an uproar amongst both Dragon Rider’s and the royal army. You see,” he paused as he raised his finger into the air as though he was giving a lecture, “two brothers live on the opposite side of the mountains from Thirndor. They are both excellent warriors. However, they are not exactly” he held his hand up and tipped it from one side to another as if it were a scale, “sane. They are a bit on the loony side, but their skills will be needed.”
Vulred mulled over this new revelation as they circled around the central square once more and headed toward the tavern.
“Does anyone know what has caused their lapse of apparent sanity?”
Fogrolir sighed: “There are countless theories, but the only one that makes sense is that they are merely hallucinating. See, they lived in a time when magic was commonplace in our society, and they used magic all the time. Then came the years of Kulok Greybrew, in which magic was banned from the kingdom after everyone saw what the elven goddess did to the elven people. Mangeleth and Bartheleth, however, never stopped practicing their magical connotations.”
“So, you fear that the magic itself is what caused their insanity, Fogrolir?”
“No. As I was going to say – magic was so commonplace that dwarves found lots of ways to reinvent magic, so to speak. One of the ways was through the smoke. There is a particular type of magic that is infused with the tobacco that dwarves love to smoke. The magic causes various colors of smoke to come out of whatever it is placed in, and in doing so, the person wielding the magic sees different images. The magic only needs a bit of heat from the breath of a dwarf to take effect. You’ll see some dwarves playing instruments and the like, with smoke coming out of the instruments. Well, Mangeleth and Bartheleth somehow came to believe that what they saw in the smoke wasn’t a hallucination, but rather a different world. The world is very much like our own – but it is inhabited by nothing but humans and their animals. There are no dwarves, giants, dragons, or anything else. They claim that the world is just called Earth,”
“Wait, you mean like the ground we walk upon right now?”
“Yes, like the ground we currently walk upon. In this world, through whatever visions they have had, they started speaking and acting out the hallucinations they have seen, and this causes quite the uproar when they are around other dwarves. Mange and Barth, as they prefer to be called, honestly think that they have seen another world and that everything the brothers do is because of a place that only they can view. They tell jokes that only they understand. They make references to something they refer to as ‘pop culture,’ to which no one has the slightest idea about. They use words that do not exist in our language, and they expect everyone to understand it.”
Vulred laughed; it was involuntary, but he could not help himself. The sheer absurdity of such claims is what baffled him the most. Elves used magic daily and though they would often try to see the future – it was only a guess as to whether they ever saw anything of substance.
“The crazy thing, however,” Fogrolir said as they continued to walk around the square, “are the gadgets they invent. These two brothers have made crude, but very useful devices. They claim that all the things they make are just renditions of what they saw in their visions. One never knows what to make of their devices, but despite their lunacy, they are skilled warriors. In fact, they love to fight! Give them a target and release the two of them together and it as if a mighty hound of hell has been set free to do its worst. It really is something to behold, which is why I want to ask them to join us in this endeavor. If those cyclopses somehow manage to climb the mountainside and make it through the fires – well, we will need every ounce of help that we can gather. There was one incident in Thirndor, some fifty years or so ago when the two brothers came to town to purchase a load of iron rods. They got into the city center and stopped just outside the main square and started thrashing their arms a
bout, as though they were playing some large stringed instrument. The entire time, they both were yelling ‘Mange’ World! Mange’ World! Party Time! Excellent!’ and it annoyed a few of the local drunks to such a point that some fifteen men challenged the two brothers to a fight!”
“Oh wow – did they accept the challenge?”
“Yes, yes of course they did. The Taberlim brothers are not known for backing down from any confrontation. So, we all watched – ready to intervene, mind you – as the men split into two separate groups on each side of the road, intent on surrounding the brothers for a real thrashing. As the people lined up alongside the street, one of them called out to the brothers and said ‘It is not too late to just quit and go home!’ To which Barth replied ‘We are too legit to quit!’ and Mange burst into laughter. To this day, no one has any idea what in the blazes they meant! What exactly is ‘too legit to quit?’ Anyhow, as the men started into the street to surround the brothers, Barth yells ‘Party on Mange!’ at the top of his lungs, to which his brother yells back ‘And party on Barth!’ the two men then ran headlong into the crowd of dwarves, brawling like lunatics!”
By the time Fogrolir finished telling Vulred the story, Vulred was in near hysterics. He stopped walking to catch his breath – the laughter hurt his lungs but forced Fogrolir to laugh as well.
“I dare say the two of them got a thrashing for their antics, no?” Vulred said.
“Oh, quite the contrary! They each pulled a bit of fine linen from their pockets and wrapped the cloth around their head. One was a dark blue, the other a vibrant orange. As they ran into the crowd, they were heard yelling ‘Ninja! Vanish!’ and right afterward a large plume of white vaporous smoke appeared. In the thick of the smoke, the two brothers beat the ever-loving hell out of everything in their path. They left a bunch of bloodied drunks strewn all about our streets, before paying for the iron bars they came into town to get. They loaded the metal and wandered off down the street, yelling ‘Go, ninja, go, ninja, go!’ as they made their way right back into the mountains. We have not seen them since then!”
The look on Vulred’s face said it all: the emotions ranged from skepticism and cynicism to real intrigue. A bit of him worried about what two men – such as those described by Fogrolir, would do in battle. Another part of him, however, was dying to see the twin brothers in action.
“Vulred, I have to go talk to the Taberlim brothers, and while I am gone, I would very much appreciate it if you would keep watch over Thirndor. I am not asking you to give orders to my men or any sort of thing as that; rather, I want you to keep the peace between the concerned citizens and the Storm Riders who will inevitably grow tired of being bombarded by questions.”
“Fogrolir, you speak as though you are going to be gone for days. If the brothers live just on the other side of the mountains, you will be there and back in no time at all. At most, a couple of hours, right?”
Fogrolir smirked and smacked his lips together, “I will be gone at least four days, Vulred.”
“Four days?” he cried out. “Why would it take so long? A dragon can make the journey around the entirety of these mountains in a couple of hours!”
“I am not going by way of a dragon’s back, Vulred. If I were to do so, there would be the very real likelihood of a small war breaking out. Mange and Barth are not fond of dragons, and if they fail to notice that my beast has a rider on her backside, they will, undoubtedly, attack the dragon. As I said before, their gadgets, though odd and grotesque in many ways, are advanced and operable. I cannot take the chance of having my dragon injured by those two. The only option I have is to go by foot. I will have Mersoth accompany me to the top of the mountainside, and from there I will make the two-day journey downhill. Hopefully, I am not attacked by those two buffoons as I venture their way.”
The two men continued to talk for a few more hours as the night grew darker and the cold air became colder still.
15
In the wee hours of the night when the stars shone their brightest and the fog mingled with the first touch of falling snowflakes in the city, Fogrolir stepped outside his front door and into the streets of Thirndor. The lanterns adorned the city streets and played host to the enchanting dance of the snow – the flames behind the glass walls of the lamps bounced about as though they were trapped and begging to be set free.
Fogrolir took a few steps and grinned; his mouth was all but hidden in the maze that was his beard. He loved the winter, and though it appeared that the snow would grace their city a bit earlier than normal this year, he was happy. He had no clue what the future may hold, and he dared not entertain rogue thoughts on the matter. If this winter were to be the last that his eyes would look upon, then he would die a happy dwarf.
Though the spirits of his men were high, Fogrolir knew the overall outlook was bleak – at least in his eyes. The Skinder were a problem, though they could possibly be quailed by setting fire to the island cliffs. The cyclopses would follow the Skinder, so that would be an advantage. It was the giants and ogres that worried Fogrolir. Their sheer numbers made it a battle that he did not care to fight. It was for this reason that he would visit the Taberlim brothers.
The snow began to fall like a thick blanket from the sky; its flakes left Fogrolir in a shroud of brilliantly colored white, which contrasted with his black cloak as he trudged along through the snow. He made it to the dragon stables, and moments afterward he lifted silently into the nighttime sky on the backside of Mersoth. Her hot breath mixed with the cold air, dispersing a thick white cloud as she pulled the two higher into the air.
Though she moved quietly, the treetops swayed from side-to-side as her wings forced the wintery air downward, which caused a familiar rustling sound as the beast continued her upward climb. The sound caused a few elves to stir, though the dwarves of Thirndor continued to sleep soundly as they were accustomed to the noises since dragons were part of their everyday lives.
“Mersoth, when we reach the peak of the northern mountain, circle around and keep a watchful eye on the terrain. I do not want any surprises as I make my way to the Taberlim brothers home.”
“Absolutely, sir. Is there something in particular that I am looking for?”
“No, Mersoth. I just want to ensure that there aren’t any Lyconian’s in the region. Though winter is not quite here yet, those wolf-like brutes may have already started their migration toward the mountains, and I do not wish to come across one if I can avoid doing so. As you know, they are not fond of negotiations. They prefer to hunt and kill – and I prefer not to be their prey.”
Mersoth kept her eyes in motion as she flew around the mountainside; she looked about with fervor, ready to pounce on anything that moved in the mountains below. She saw nothing, and after what she felt was more than ample scouting, she began her descent to land atop the tallest peak.
“Grumbane,” she said as she found a clearing and landed with her back feet first before settling her front legs down into the snow, “I think it would be safer for you to stay here tonight with me and begin your journey down the mountainside in the morning.”
“I appreciate your caring nature, Mersoth. I really do – however, even in the brightest hours of the day, it will still be quite dark in these parts. The clouds have blanketed the sky, and the snow will stop the rays of the sun from penetrating this mess. It may be beautiful and sunny in the town, but it will be like this from now until the storm ceases. I should go tonight. Just keep a watch on me and if you see anything out of the ordinary – come to my aid quickly.”
Mersoth nodded to Fogrolir before lowering her body to the ground so he could slide out of the saddle and onto the snow-packed slope. His shoes, made from thick leather with wool wrapped around the top just above his ankles, all but disappeared in the vast amount of snow as it continued to pour down upon them.
He pulled his hood down as far as it would go and without a glance in Mersoth’s direction, he began his descent down the steep, uncharted path. As he moved d
own the mountain, he tried his best to balance his movements between hiding within the tree-line and staying visible for Mersoth to keep him within her sight.
The stars in the sky were becoming a distant memory as Fogrolir kept walking down the slope. The blanket of snow as so thickening as it fell that it kept Fogrolir from seeing more than a few feet in front of him. He never saw the man-made ditch in front of him. He took a step, and instead of firm ground, his foot fell upon the air, pitching him forward and into the ditch. He let out a loud cry of surprise as his face slammed into the snow.
He began to rise to his feet but found it hard to stand; his leg throbbed in pain. He knew immediately that something in his foot was either broken or severely sprained.
“Damn!” he yelled. His voice echoed throughout the forest. No longer sure if Mersoth could see him – Fogrolir decided his best course of action would be to simply stay put until dawn. He reached into his bag and pulled out a small trowel. He shimmied over in the ditch until he was beneath some fallen tree limbs. Once there, he used the trowel to dig into the side of the ditch until he had a hole big enough to inch his body under the surface so the snow would not fall directly on him. He pulled his hood down over his face and brought his arms inside his tunic. His journey would not continue this night – he would sleep here and hope no wild animals would catch his scent.
“I am telling you, Barth, this is not how you make bubblegum!”
Mange and Barth were in the middle of an argument – which was common for the brothers. Every time they saw the ‘Earth World,’ as they called it, the two wound up arguing over how to make something or another they spotted in their visions.
“Oh, how would you know if this is how bubblegum is made? Have you ever made it before?” Barth shot back at his brother as he continued to stir the thick, white, gooey substance in the cauldron.
Demoweir's Rise (Great War Chronicles Book 2) Page 12