Lorace returned Prince Wralka’s bow, “Your maul struck true and hard. Call me Lorace, please, my Lord. It is my greatest honor, and that of my companions, to have been able to thwart the designs of these foul creatures. They would never have struck here if it were not for me.”
“We have taken your fallen companion the traveler’s hall where he can rest and recover,” Prince Wralka said, ignoring Lorace’s self-abasement. “If it is your will, we shall escort you there as well.”
“We would aid in the healing of your injured, first,” Oen said, stepping forward.
The dwarven priest turned to Oen and likewise bowed. “Your rituals turned the tide this day. Your healing would be most welcome. I am Yarkin. The attack of the demons left many of us injured where their blows did not kill outright.”
“One of the demons must have been gifted with a method of guiding their steps toward the Ritual Forge,” Prince Wralka said while leading them back the way they had come, seeking out the injured. “We attempted to divert their course at every turn, but they maintained the surest path. If they had not been stopped, they would soon have pushed us back to its great chamber.”
“Thryk believes they worked to prevent the destiny of my godstone, and of myself,” Lorace said while he watched Oen silently pray healing light into the dreadful ripping wounds of one of the shield bearers. “A demon akin to them, but even more insidiously vile, if that is possible, slew my parents and protectors when I was but a child in an effort to destroy me.”
They continued retracing their steps through the halls, pausing along the way to heal the surviving fallen. Lorace knelt before one dwarf whose arm had been shredded and called out to Jorune, his link to the mysterious Lord Aran.
Aran blessed him with the memory of a happy time in the practice yard outside the home of his family. It was here that the knights and his father, Veladis, would train and teach their young wards, informing them of the world beyond their sanctuary.
He was alone with Jorune, and he wielded his wooden sword, his secret sword, in mock combat with his older brother who was likewise armed. It was after Bartalus had departed their family and Jorune approached his own twelfth birthday. His parent’s distant sadness again filled their home, as it had before and after Bartalus’ twelfth birthday.
“You are leaving soon as well, aren’t you?” asked the child Lorace as their swords clacked together in theatrical parries and thrusts, mimicking the swordplay of their knight protectors. They played out a great battle, as was their want when they could both sneak away from their studies and chores. Jorune fought in the role of a white knight and Lorace in that of a black knight.
“Yes, it is my time,” Jorune said, parrying and circling. “Mother has told me not to be worried.”
“Where is it you will go? To be with Bartalus?” asked Lorace, hoping for some insight, however slight, to the mystery that surrounded his family. He pressed his attack forward in aggressive thrusts.
“Yes, I will be with Bartalus in part, but I cannot share with you yet what my full destination will be, for I do not know myself. And that which I do know, I am not permitted to share, not until you get older.”
Lorace knew his brother was not being obscure just to be mean. Jorune was never mean, but still, it was frustrating not to be part of such important mysteries. His attacks became more reckless as his emotions flared up. In response, Jorune maneuvered him around until the sun was glaring into his eyes with its golden brilliance, before he rapped him gently on the arm with his wooden blade and disengaged.
Lorace blinked his eyes clear of the light and saw the dwarf he knelt beside once more, the golden light still coursing into the knitting wounds of his arm.
chapter 14
the gifted
Twenty-Sixth day of the Moon of the Thief
-in Vlaske K’Brak
Yarkin put a heavy hand on Lorace’s shoulder. “We are done. There are no injured remaining. Ninety-seven dwarves have fallen this day and we will honor them tomorrow after the Ritual of the Forge has been performed.”
“I am sorry,” Lorace said with anguish in his voice, and in his mind was the thought that these brave people had died because of him; died because of his destiny. The raging, fearful portion of him wished that he had died from Tezzirax’s attack—that his parents may have lived if he had been first to meet the demon when it invaded his home. Countless people of the street in Zed would still be alive if his body had not housed a demon’s bloodthirsty spirit. Ninety-seven dwarves would still be alive if the demons had had no reason to invade their home. It was for all these deaths that Lorace apologized.
Yarkin appraised him with a steady gaze, and frowned deeply at the despair that played across his face.
“These warriors died heroes,” the dwarven priest growled. “You dare take that away from them? This is the death we should all wish for: dying in defense of one’s home, one’s family, and one’s very heritage. Few deaths are this noble. I listened to your tale of possession, of your family’s death. They died to save you. Each one of their heroic deaths had a purpose, and they would do it again a thousand times over as any parent of light would to save their child. Do not apologize. You did not fail here, and neither did the fallen fail here. Do you know why the demons want you dead? Why they want the forge stone destroyed?”
Lorace weathered the storm of the priest’s words, feeling well chastised. He nodded acceptance before replying, “Because I am a threat, and once my godstone is forged I will be an even greater threat. There is no other reason why they would work together. They put aside their hungers long enough to push through your stronghold with a minimum of killing.”
Yarkin grunted. “Well spoken. I saw you kill them. Do you remember how many demons you killed?”
“I killed two with my gift,” Lorace replied.
“You killed them all.”
Lorace looked at Yarkin dubiously, trying to uncover the priest’s meaning. Yarkin’s features, deeply chiseled with wisdom and time, were inscrutable. Lorace checked himself from asking, and awaited the dwarf’s explanation.
“I argue that we would not have succeeded without your intervention. The time was upon us to lay down our arms and begin sacrificing ourselves to their wholesale slaughter, and even that may have failed if they had the willpower just to push us aside. I could not cast any rituals at all, and our wall could not part for Prince Wralka without the distraction of your attack from a second front.”
Yarkin pointed to the side passages off the main hall, “We circled behind them several times in their advance, but each time we failed. When they first entered our hold there were fourteen of them, five of them at their rear had killed every one of us that outflanked them. Three of them we defeated only by forcing them back to Nefryt with our very losses. The first of them was a small one, not much bigger than one of us, it showered lightning upon its victims, but at least it killed quickly, unlike the others.”
The priest reached out and took Lorace’s hand—an extremely intimate gesture for a dwarf. “Without your arrival, we would have failed—there is not one of us that would deny it. You turned the tide for us.”
Lorace bowed, “I honor the fallen for their courage and their victory in giving me and my companions the time we needed to reach the battle before it was too late.”
Yarkin smiled, revealing malleability to his face that belied its stone-like crags. “Thank you. There is no room for doubt or fear with what awaits you tomorrow. You must embrace the part of you that is strongest, and ignore all else for it will have no place in the Ritual.”
As they talked, the dwarves had led them to the traveler’s hall. The common room was a high ceilinged chamber, built to the scale of humans; the tables and chairs within were tall enough, and the beds in its cozy chambers were long enough, and soft enough, for them. They looked in on Tornin, where he was sleeping comfortably in his own chamber, his sword sheathed and laid beside him.
They returned to the common room where Pr
ince Wralka was awaiting them, now out of his armor and devoid of his massive weapon. “Do you wish to eat before you rest?” he asked.
Oen looked at Lorace and sagged in relief. “We are exhausted and starving. I would eat before sleeping what is left of the night away.”
Lorace brightened in agreement with Oen’s plan.
“The new day has already dawned,” Yarkin said as he summoned a dwarven server to bring them food and drink. “When you have rested we will prepare for the Ritual of the Forge.”
Prince Wralka turned to an attendant dwarven maiden, one of the dwarves who fought at his side, to instruct her to prepare the burial vaults to honor their dead the following morning, and to pass the word to all that the Ritual of the Forge would take place that very night.
As she departed the hall, Ralli and Petor entered.
“What has become of Thryk?” Oen asked of the two.
“Thryk is already preparing for his role as Forgemaster,” Prince Wralka answered for them.
Lorace stared in surprise, “Was there already a vranka?”
He frowned in disappointment at having missed the contest.
“There is only a vranka to choose a Forgemaster when the position is in contention,” Wralka explained. “Today all forty-seven smiths with enough rank and skill were in agreement that the honor should go to Thryk. It was his hammer blows that awakened Vorallon to your presence when you entered Halversome.”
Lorace remembered the feeling those hammer blows induced in him, the compulsion and the desire awakened within him. The air around him now, sang with that same heart pounding vibration. It had neither ceased nor lessened since it first washed over his senses. The eyes of all the dwarves sparkled with Vorallon’s excitement. It invigorated them.
“I am honored to have Thryk as Forgemaster for the ritual,” Lorace said, as food and drink were set before them.
His mouth watered at a thick slab of what looked like seared meat, but turned out to be a portion of an enormous mushroom. It was moist and textured like a fine cut of beef, but had a taste all its own, rich and subtle on his palate. He forgot his childhood loathing of mushrooms as he chewed a savory bite. The dwarven mead they served was thick as broth and very satisfying.
Yarkin examined Lorace with a critical eye while he ate. “Tell me of your gift Lorace, I am intrigued by the holes it opened up in the demons, and the force with which it tossed people aside.”
“Ah, here he goes!” Prince Wralka exclaimed. “You’ll not get any rest until you’ve satisfied our priest. He has a keen interest in the gifted.”
“It is air,” Lorace replied after he had swallowed his current mouthful of mushroom steak. He turned to Oen and said, “My gift gives me a mastery over air. Now that I am aware of it, I can feel the air in this room, its flow and weight. It has a vital presence.”
“You have discovered the secret of your second gift, Lorace,” Oen said, toasting him with his raised mug. “It definitely aided in victory this day.”
“Second gift?” Prince Wralka said with raised eyebrows. “I would not have believed it possible.”
“Do not think that because you have yet to see something with your own eyes, it cannot exist!” Yarkin frowned at the stalwart Wralka.
Prince Wralka raised his hands to yield to the dwarven priest.
“I am also gifted with what I refer to as my sight,” Lorace interrupted the two dwarves. “It allows me to move my awareness beyond the bounds of my own body, with it I can see and hear and even smell across great distances.”
Lorace’s eyes lost their focus as his awareness traveled outward, “I can see that right now the Zuxrans before Halversome have got their siege tower half built, and their leader, a General Moyan, is particularly infuriated by one of his own lieutenants for killing another man over a perceived slight to his character.”
Oen ducked his head at Prince Wralka’s heavy frown, “Halversome is beset by a small army of Zuxrans. That is why I have accompanied Lorace to your hold so that I may bring word of this to you in person. I must call upon the Guardian’s Pact in our time of need.”
“You shall have my warriors,” Prince Wralka said with no hesitation. “We will depart immediately after our dead have been placed within the crypt of our heroes.”
Lorace finished his meal while Prince Wralka pressed every bit of information about this attack and siege from Oen. There was no surprise at Lorace’s role in thwarting the treachery of Hurn, but it served to bring Yarkin back to the subject of Lorace’s gift over air.
Yarkin placed an empty mug on the table before him and gestured toward it, “Lorace, would you indulge me in a study of your mastery over air? Do you have the strength for it?”
“I think I have recovered enough strength to try, what would you have me do with your mug?”
“Focus your attention. Tell me of the air around it.”
Lorace focused his senses as directed for a moment before replying, “The air presses upon it as it does all of us sitting here, no more, no less.”
“So you can make the air press more on one side of it, yes? To move the mug?” Yarkin’s beard twitched and his eyebrows wriggled.
Lorace coaxed the air to press harder on one side of the mug and a slight draft shifted through room. The candle at the table guttered and the mug tipped and jerked toward the edge of the table, then stopped and slowly, smoothly slid back to near its original position. Lorace grinned and let loose the breath he was holding.
“Very nice, I could feel a slight movement to the air of the room when you did that, why?” Yarkin asked while he stroked his braided white beard with one gnarled hand.
“When I push with the air, it compresses it, and more air flows into that position from the surrounding area.” Lorace explained. “I can feel it adjust to maintain a constant consistency throughout the room, which is its natural desire.”
“You work it against its nature, yet it obeys your will?” Yarkin asked.
“It seems eager to go where I will it. It immediately fulfills its natural desire as well, just as water wishes to pour downhill, ever seeking the lowest points.”
“And what happens to the air once you have finished pushing with it?”
“When I release my will from it, it too moves to restore the equilibrium throughout the room, spreading out and dissipating. Just as the air that you exhale does, mixing with the surrounding air.”
Yarkin’s eyes scrutinized him from beneath lowered brows. “When miners are sometimes trapped they tell of a thinning of the air over time which kills those who are not freed quickly enough. Where does the air go, since they breathe it in and out, what takes it away?”
Lorace studied the air as people around him were breathing in and out for a moment. “The air you breathe out is changed from the air you breathe in. It is constantly being replaced with fresh air that flows through the halls. You must have fresh air coming into Vlaske K’Brak from many sources.”
“Indeed we do,” Yarkin said with a smile. “Not many outside of dwarves have ever needed to discover the secret of air. We have a great many vents opening onto the mountainside to supply us with fresh air, and deep down in our mines we have bellows that draw in additional air. Many dwarves studied this problem for years that you solved in only a moment of understanding with your gift.”
Yarkin picked up a wooden platter and held it upright in front of the mug, blocking it from Lorace’s view. “Try to move it now.”
The mug remained motionless for a moment before it slid smoothly out from behind the platter.
“I could not move it until I used my sight to view it,” Lorace explained. “Evidently I must be able to see the air to manipulate it.”
Yarkin’s brows lowered. “I want you to turn your back on the table for a moment, Lorace, and do not use your sight.”
Lorace stood from the table and turned away to wink at the dwarven innkeeper who was standing at his bar, his rapt attention on at their table.
“Now turn b
ack and move the mug again,” Yarkin said. “You can use your sight to do so if you wish.”
Lorace did not turn back. While facing away, he sent his awareness beyond the shielding platter and grinned to find that the mug was no longer there. He focused on the mug itself, just as he commanded it to seek out the Zuxran commander, though he was never sure where in the enemy camp he would be. His sight snapped to where they hid the mug behind Petor’s beard. Lorace carefully parted the dwarf’s beard and slid the mug back out to the center of the table. This garnered him a round of applause from everyone in the room.
Lorace turned back to the table and gave a slight bow, “My sight will take my awareness directly to whatever I wish, if it is something I have seen before.”
Wralka leaned forward. “Can you see where my hammer is? The one I fought with tonight?”
Lorace concentrated on the exquisite maul that the dwarven leader had wielded. “It is in a small chamber with a single bed, and a desk with a chair, all of a rich dark wood. The hammer rests upon an iron rack in a place of honor between a heavy steel helm and the statue of a crowned dwarf.”
“That is my chamber, you can leave the hammer where it stands,” Prince Wralka said with a chuckle. “We must leave you to rest now, I am sure any of Yarkin’s remaining curiosity can wait for another day. Tomorrow we reveal the destiny of the godstone you bear, you must be ready.”
Prince Wralka stood to leave and commanded the other dwarves to do likewise so that their guests could relax and sleep.
Ralli clasped Lorace in another crushing hug for a moment, “You will be the greatest of godstone heroes! This I know.”
“I ask only to be worthy of your praise,” Lorace said in dwarven, enunciating with care the inflections he had learned from Taggi—respect for one’s honored father. With a final bracing pat, Ralli withdrew with the other dwarves.
Gifts of Vorallon: 01 - The Final Warden Page 15