The accused High General broke into a stammer.
“Your lordship, please, I…I don’t know what went wrong. It should have arrived here days ago.”
Lord Rictor’s right hand shot up from under his cloak. It grasped the High General’s neck and locked it in a crushing grip.
Sometimes, Koltar briefly forgot why Lord Rictor was named the Stone King. It was not an official title. There was no royal heritage or bloodline, but rather, it was a name given by the people out of fear.
His lordship’s right arm was not that of a normal human; in fact, Koltar doubted if there was anything in the form of human flesh below Lord Rictor’s right elbow. What was there, in place of normal flesh and bone, was an arm and fist made completely of black mountain stone. The stone was rough, unpolished but as black as the mountain that the dark palace was built against. The stone part of the arm almost looked like normal but was slightly bigger than one would expect. Cracks showed over the full length, including the back and front of the hand and all the fingers.
Koltar never figured out how, but the stone arm moved as if it was a living part of his lord’s body. However, the strength was many times that of a normal arm. Koltar had seen his lordship smash off corners of marbled tables in a rage.
This inhuman hand was now firmly set around High General Corza’s neck, squeezing tightly. Corza grasped the stone arm with both his hands, wheezing in breath through his squeezed windpipe.
“Milord, I swear. The attack went precisely as planned. We made good time, moving through the White North, losing an acceptable amount of soldiers to the cold. The bulk of the force moved south, attacking one of the more inhabited areas, drawing the attention of the Empire’s forces. The northern monastery fell within an instant, no match for the sheer power of our specialized troops.”
His voice sounded hoarse; the closed stone fist around his neck made it difficult to talk.
The Stone King closed his fist only a fraction more. Corza fell on his knees, gasping for air. Koltar smiled, seeing this man, who was more like a weasel, squeal like one by the hand of his lordship. He kept the smile to a minimum, as he had no intention of drawing the Stone King’s bad temper toward himself.
“Go on,” commanded Lord Rictor, releasing his grip slightly.
“We found it, milord! The item that you sent us out to get, it was there! We loaded it up and started the special care, as you instructed, right away. We burned the monastery as we pulled out, marching back double time in haste and getting as much distance between us and the Empire before our true intentions were discovered.”
Lord Rictor dragged Corza to his feet again and pushed him against the balcony’s handrail. He slowly pushed forward, until the High General was leaning dangerously backward, over the abyss.
“Cut to it, I am losing my patience. So, tell me, where is it now? Why has it not arrived at the palace yet?”
“I don’t know, milord!” squealed Corza, as he squirmed in the unmovable stone grip.
“I sent out an advance party as soon as we were on familiar territory. I knew how eager milord was to get the item in his possession, so I wanted to get the item safely within city borders as soon possible. We had no indication we were being followed by the enemy, so I sent out a group of our most rested fighters. We had no reason to believe that anything happened to the advance party, we even had scouting parties traveling between the main force and the advance party, for most days. I only learned that the advance party had not arrived at the city when we were greeted by a fresh supply convoy, seeking us out on the road. They had left the city and had not seen the advance party anywhere on the way.”
Lord Rictor paused, not releasing his grip. This all was not new news. The Stone King had already received this update from his loyal subjects. He always made sure there were plenty of people providing him information—all independently and all unknowningly to the other informants.
In the meantime, Corza’s mind raced like a madman; the silence was way worse than the angry questions. He had to come up with something, or else he would find himself in need of flying lessons, in a matter of moments.
“Milord, I swear I don’t know what happened. It’s High General Wayler’s duty to keep our territory safe. The unit consisted of the healthiest fighters we had on the march. They were good fighters and should not have been an easy prey for attack. They even had a ghol’m and a clean scroll with them, just in case they ran into problems. We should have seen signs of fighting, if anything happened.”
Hearing such a direct attempt to put the blame on him, Koltar bit his tongue in rage. But the Stone King ignored the remark and inched forward, while Corza frantically clawed at the balcony’s handrail with his hands, trying to find something to hold onto.
“Let me fix this, milord! I…I know!” he stammered, “It must have been the commander. He must have betrayed us. Y-yes! I thought he was acting suspicious lately. I’m sure of it! Please, milord, I won’t rest until I find out what happened. I’ll track them down and bring it back! They can’t have gone far with the wagon needed to move the item.”
Lord Rictor stopped, for a second, while glancing over his shoulder toward Koltar, who had no intention of speaking his preference on the current situation. He did not care what happened to this backstabbing weasel.
After a pause, which seemed like an eternity while dangling above the abyss, the Stone King pulled back his arm. Twisting around in force, he threw Corza against the balcony’s wall, where he slumped to the ground, gasping for air, his face wet from cold sweat, his nails bleeding from scratching the stone handrail, bruises already forming on his neck. Rubbing his sore neck with his hand, he looked up to Lord Rictor with widespread eyes.
The Stone King paid him no attention and directed himself toward Koltar.
“I want the northern ocean path closed off, at once. Nothing leaves our lands without my permission. You will lead a search party. Find out what happened, and keep an eye on this disappointment,” he said, while pointing to Corza. “Send out ravens, right away, to warn the outposts of the situation, so they can send out scouting units. Then prepare a small force of experienced men, so you can travel fast and find out where the item has disappeared to. Two of the Darkened will join your group and make sure High General Corza stays true to his word.”
“If I may ask, milord, what will we be looking for?”
“A weapon that will ensure our victory,” Lord Rictor replied briskly.
Striding off, he paused and looked down at Corza.
“As for you…if it was not so much trouble to replace you during this phase of my plan, you would be at the bottom of that drop. Do not fail me again.”
Corza rubbed his neck. Swallowing was painful, but at least breathing was getting a little easier again. He walked the dark halls of the palace. It was already turning night. Koltar ordered the provisions to be collected, which would take a bit of time, so they would actually leave at first light.
His mind still raced over the details and all the missing pieces. He slammed open a door which led to a small, dark staircase.
It wasn’t supposed to go like this.
That idiot commander Sven screwed things up. He was supposed to be waiting at the agreed warehouse with the chest. They were supposed to have taken a couple of slaves and dressed them up as soldiers, making it look like an attack. The item was supposed to have been ‘lost’, taken by bandits; while in reality, it was supposed to be safely stored for Corza to use.
He came up with the idea as soon as he saw the egg in the temple. With all the decorations, it was safe to say what was supposed to be in the egg, and he wanted it for himself.
Lord Rictor would never have known, until it was too late, that he was in control of the dragon. Sure, he expected the loss of temper, although this encounter had cut it quite close. For a moment, he thought he would end up at the bottom of the palace cliff. It must have been a bad day for his lordship.
Corza ground his teeth. When he arrived at
the city and rushed to the agreed location, Sven wasn’t there—no commander, no chest and no dragon’s egg. Corza was furious. Sven would not dare betray him; besides, he did not have the brains to pull it off. This meant something really had gone wrong. If the party was indeed missing without a trace, the egg could be anywhere.
Curses!
He had to find out what happened to that dragon’s egg and to retrieve it as soon as possible. According to his lordship’s instructions, the egg should be close to hatching, perhaps within the month.
Walking down the narrow stairs, Corza turned a number of corners and left the palace grounds through a small tunnel that went straight under the high palace walls into the mountain. The tunnel exited into a natural cave system that had been further dug out for the resources needed to build the palace.
Standing on top of a large stone staircase, Corza saw all the workers, running around like ants. They moved slabs of rock out of the many different tunnels. The network of tunnels were constantly expanding as they searched for high quality rock formations that could be excavated. The sound of dozens of sculptors’ hammers and chisels echoed through the different galleries.
The black stone from this mountain was one of the toughest and hardest in the world. Excavating it required a constant supply of fresh tools, as they dulled quickly while carving out the large pieces. Working on large, single-cut blocks, sculptors went through multiple chisels a day; although, the newly improved gem-crafted chisels seemed to hold up a little better.
Descending the stairs, Corza looked over the hundreds of statues, standing row by row, ready to be transported. Thousands of ghol’ms had already been transported, on regular transports, for dozens of seasons now.
These fierce stone warriors had been quite the discovery, their existence made possible by the sacrificial scrolls that his lordship brought forward a decade ago. No one knew how the Stone King acquired the knowledge to make these scrolls, and no one dared ask; but they have been storing the scrolls for all this time, ending up with a vast amount of them.
Halfway down the stairs, Corza passed a dark passage. At the end, the soft light of candles lit a small chamber. He heard the cry of an infant echo out of the small tunnel. Most likely, it was the one he passed in the hallway on his way to the auditorium, but frankly it could be any of the daily arrivals from the city. Corza made sure to steer clear of the Silent Shadows in the hall. He had enough troubles. As he passed, he saw a priest holding the small bundle in his hands. As he continued, the cry slowly faded away, until only the sound of chisels hitting stone was left.
For safety reasons, the scrolls and ghol’ms were kept completely separate, now, and always under heavy guard. These precautions were a necessity learned from a slave uprising six years ago, when a number of slaves had learned too much, being so close to the complete process. They had obtained a scroll, killing a guard for it. They used the ghol’m to free themselves from their chains.
In the chaos that followed, they had managed to activate two other ghol’ms and sent them on a rampage. In the end, seventy guards were killed, another four dozen wounded, and at least a hundred and fifty slaves had escaped into the wilderness with two remaining ghol’ms. Tracking parties had attempted to catch the runners but had only moderate success. The two ghol’ms had provided them adequate cover. Eventually, the group of slaves vanished into the remote parts of the wilderness and search parties stopped looking for them.
Lord Rictor had been furious, executing half a dozen guards and changing the way things worked, to prevent similar uprisings from happening again. Now the scrolls were shipped out immediately, in batches, under heavy guard. They were divided up over a number of locations, so they could be made ready for transport as part of the Stone King’s strategy. The stone ghol’ms were transported over different roads, no more than three at a time. Guards transporting the ghol’ms never transported any scrolls, and vice versa, to keep knowledge of the whereabouts of each to a minimum. Corza was pleased that, so far, they had not experienced any more problems.
Today, however, Corza did not come to check on the manufacturing of the standard ghol’ms; although, he was pleased to see fine progress had been made.
When he finally arrived at the bottom of the stairs, an elderly man hurried up to him. The small posture of the man was enhanced by the arching of his back. He was balding—he only had hair on the sides and the back of his head—and his skin was completely white due to the lack of sunlight. His eyes squinted from looking in the half light of the torches his whole life. His nose was large and made the man look like a burrowing troll from all the old stories. On his hip were some tools, like a hammer and chisels, but also a whip. One look at his scarred hands told any men he was probably well experienced in using it all.
“High General Setra, so good to see you again, sir! Please come, follow me, we can look at all the progress that has been made. I am sure you will be most pleased.”
“Foreman Wertel, I have no time, nor am I in the mood, for pleasantries. I trust you had no complications in the months I was away?”
Rubbing his hands together, the small man quickly answered.
“No, sir, none at all. Sure we’ve got the occasional disobedient slave that refuses to work, but the whip quickly deals with that situation. Those minor details are not worth your trouble, sir.”
“Good, we can skip the normal tour. I see things are well on their way. Do you have any problems with the transports?” Corza asked, while they walked past the first rows of ghol’ms. The rows of stone warriors looked impressive and haunting so close up.
“Well, they can’t keep up with production. More and more statues pile up here, in the main cavern. Sooner or later, we will run out of room. I can barely turn around at my desk as it is,” complained the foreman, “I have sent a request multiple times, asking if the amount of statues per transport could be increased, but it was rejected, every time.”
“Well, let me see what I can do. If the number can’t be increased because of security, I will make sure we get more manpower to increase the number of transports. Now that the main force is back from the march, this should not be a problem. Besides, most of it should be heading south soon anyway.”
“Thank you, sir, it’s much appreciated,” groveled Wertel.
They passed a miner slave as he rested his head on the side of a mine cart, for a moment. Still furious about this morning, Corza grabbed the whip from Wertel’s belt and let the whip crack across the slave’s back, without warning. The man screamed out in agony caused by the unexpected pain, as another four slashes came across his back.
“There,” said Corza, as he gave back the whip, “I feel better already.”
As they walked on, Wertel looked over his shoulder, seeing some guard drag the slave away.
“If the High General is not here on inspection, can I assume you would like to know about your special project?” he asked, with a hushed voice.
“That is precisely why I am here, and I’ve got little time. Some complications have come up, and I need to know if the project is ready to be used out there. So, stop wasting my time and fill me in on the progress you’ve made.”
Wertel quickly took the lead and led them through a number of smaller tunnels to a small wooden door. Taking out a ring of keys that could rival the set of any dungeon keeper’s, he effortlessly located the key and unlocked the door with a loud clank. The door opened with a loud squeak. Taking the torch that hung next to the door, he stepped into the dark room.
Corza followed him in, having to duck slightly to get through the door. The room was larger than he expected. As they entered the room, Corza noticed a large wooden desk to the side with some candles, papers and tools scattered across it. In the middle of the room were two large objects, covered by some dirty cloth. Behind the objects was a double door, used to bring anything of such size in. As he walked around the objects in the center, Wertel walked up to the desk and lit the candles to provide a little bit more light. As th
e darkness was pulled back by the candlelight, steel bars emerged from the edge of the shadows. Corza slowly approached the cages, noticing the two shimmering lights in each cage turning toward him. Stopping one step short of the bars, he turned his head to Wertel.
“Are the specimens still in good health? They seem a little—”
Before the High General finished his sentence, one pair of eyes made a strong leap forward. Slamming into the steel bars, a timber wolf snapped its jaws through the crack between two bars, barely missing Corza’s finger, which was closest. As the first snapped his jaws together a couple of times, trying to rip Corza to pieces, the other wolf let out a loud growl.
Wertel grabbed a steel pipe from the desk and scurried over to the cages, hitting the steel bars and the nose of the wolf, to get it to back off.
“I’d say they’re in perfect health, sir.”
“Well, be careful not to wound them, I need them as healthy as possible. How have the statues come along? And were you able to run a test successfully?”
Wertel hobbled over to the two objects in the middle of the room and pulled off the sheets.
“Please, see for yourself, sir. I believe it is one of my better works.” He even dared to sound a bit proud.
As the sheets slipped toward the ground, two large statues in the shape of timber wolves were revealed. Both statues were identical, in resting posture, lying on their bellies, front paws straight forward and tail looped back along the hind legs. Their stone heads were held high. The differences were clearly seen in the details. It was to be expected when carving something by hand. It had taken thirty days per wolf to carve them out of stone. The details were much more exquisite in comparison to the human ghol’ms.
Corza had determined during original animal testing that the transfer of the life force was easier if the statue resembled the source energy more closely. This had led to an evolution of how the ghol’ms looked, getting more detailed the later they were made. However, Corza had made sure the sculptors always left a certain general look with enough spare stone on the statues, so the ghol’m could form its own body in the final stages of the life force transfer. He just had to accept that a small bit of life force was lost during the transformation process. However, for this special project, he had hoped that by making a more detailed statue of the wolves, the wolves would be easier to control in their ghol’m form.
Windcatcher: Book I of the Stone War Chronicles Page 10