A War of Stones: Book One of the Traveler Knight

by Howard Norfolk

  The trolls had just argued with him against using the ram for fire wood, and Kulith had reluctantly agreed. It would be disassembled, and the timbers from it repurposed for the construction of a new outer gate, and the waste wood, and the mock stairway broken down and fed into the pyres, as well as several thousand thring piles held in reserve that no longer had any practical purpose. They were being conservative, now that the deed was done, and they all wanted to be away from here as soon as they could do it and get back to their own warrens and castles, where revolt and disorder of one kind or another was constantly reported to be taking place.

  “This is my castle,” Kulith told Little Toad. “I claimed it at Sarik’s mansion on North Stone, and everyone else said it later, several times, during the campaign. I now need to know what is inside of it, and if anything is missing.”

  “Do you really think you will be allowed to keep it, any of it at all?” she asked him pointedly.

  “No,” he replied, as a truthful matter of fact. “I am merely the trustee of what passes now from the thrings over to the buggers. I am here to see that it is not wasted, or makes trouble for them.” He turned to face her, as they stopped in the court yard between the outer wall and the wall of the square, inner citadel, this place full of half burned buildings from the arrow barrage he had ordered.

  “The storming of the Stone Pile was anticlimactic, once I knew how to turn the key and get inside its walls. The thrings spent their energy in a series of battles, when one well planned big one might have shattered us. I have learned here a way of mining the wall of a castle that could be used elsewhere, say against Krolo, down in the West Lands.”

  “You will not find it so easy there,” she snapped back.

  “Good. I hope not,’ he said. “I need you to pay attention now, and I will show you a great magic that I have just now learned.”

  Kabi by that time had returned from where she had gone with some of the White Knife warriors and a couple of the trolls. Long Ridge sauntered up to them, a bandage on one arm, and a bigger one wrapped around his waist, where some blood could be seen beneath his leather shirt. Kulith himself had several bruises and a bandage around his left shoulder, where the arrow had been taken out. The thyr wore a large gold chain that Kulith had last seen around the neck of the Basher, but he pointedly ignored its presence. He looked at Kabi, and saw that she was disturbed by what she had found out.

  “The ledger of all the things stored in the vault was destroyed,” she told them all, very loudly. He nodded in agreement, as he had seen earlier the windows of the chamber where it was stored in the citadel gushing out smoke. Who had done it was not known yet, and might never be known, but he could only guess the worst.

  “Did you locate the other copy of it?” he asked her, loudly back. She thrust it now forward, a very large book covered over with a white piece of protective linen, and he took it from her and passed it on to Little Toad to carry, and to read from.

  Several of the other chieftains were now coming over to them, standing there and waiting for what they expected to happen. Finally Narus the Nail, Big Agrok and Ovodag, who was nursing a broken arm and other injuries from his fall off the stair joined them. The three saw each other as apparent rivals, and did not trust each other since the business with the pigs and the sap.

  “I have been informed that one of the greater thrings, a vampire named Morose retreated during the battle and has taken refuge down below in the dungeon,” Kulith told the others.

  “How did she get there?” Ovodag asked him.

  “I will show you,” Kulith replied, “but first you must see this.”

  A half dozen White Knife warriors now brought over a hanging with something inside of it, and they let go of it to drop. Kulith uncovered the body of Vous Vox inside for them to all see. A few more lances had been speared through him, but he was all there, including the parts of the skull that Kulith had cut off.

  “There he is, the last Mancan, and he will soon go up in flames to join the others in their hell,” Kulith said to them.

  “Killed by you?” Agrok asked.

  “He was killed by a troll and a goblin warrior, the both of us fighting him together,” he stated. Kroson had been standing there quietly, having retired somewhat from leadership after being wounded in the battle on the Meadow. But now he grunted in approval of that fact.

  “Together, no one could stand in their way,” he said. “I bet a thyr was there too, to offer them aid, if it was needed.”

  “Of course a thyr was there also!” Long Ridge said. “I ordered him to be there.” Then the White Knife brought out Vous Vox’s black wooden coffin, covered over with a thick panel-work of beaten gold.

  “The taint is not very strong,” one of the trolls remarked over to Kulith.

  “Tear this gold off, and also the gold from his throne,” Kulith said. “Burn him sitting in his chair, with the wood from the casket used for the kindling. Do this in a separate pyre, and carefully collect what remains after. Take the gold and divide it into ten equal amounts, one bag for each of the chiefs who is standing here.” There was a murmur of appreciation from the trolls, thyrs and goblins around him. It was looking pretty good, if the first thing Kulith had done was to give each one of them several pounds of gold, and they had not even seen the dead penny yet.

  “Now, each of you take a drink of root tea, for I’ve rumor that Morose is turning everyone she touches white, and we will take lances and torches and hunt this fiend down while we look at the trove that the thrings have salted away.”

  They did this, none wanting to be left out, even if they threw most of the black tea back up only moments later. Kulith had made them do it for a very practical reason: because he didn’t know what to expect, and so he wanted them to all be as resistant as they could to the smell of the black magic now seeping up out of the bowels of the Stone Pile.

  They took up lances and torches, and then went ahead to a metal bound door in a wall near the tump factoria, located at one corner of the citadel. It was jammed shut from the inside, and they had to insist by breaking it open by striking it repeatedly with their axes.

  When it was opened, a rampway was revealed, made so that barrels could be rolled up and down, with narrow a stair cut in the middle letting the buggers pass, and move the barrels by using their arms and levers. They went downward, and the pitch of the passage soon revealed that it was going on into the solid rock they all knew to be under the Stone Pile.

  Little Toad had opened up the book he had given her and was now reading parts of it, and she looked over and waited until Kulith looked back at her, and them she gave him an angry sneer. She would of course be the most able to interpret the ledger they had found, and he had also allowed her to come as he had Long Ridge, because she would marvel at it, and she could not help but repeat to the rest of the humans later what she seen, and what had happened.

  The passage was cut now down through the gray rock, and it opened ahead into a chamber that was very old. Kulith was aware at one point that they had left the newer construction, and continued down into a level that was mostly of Mancan work, with white columns now spaced along the walls, that continued once they reached the landing. In two places there were large carved rounds of white quartz, cut with many flutes like corn stalks standing ther as in a bushel, revealed only half way from the stones. Between the columns there were old frescos and partial carved friezes in white and black marble, with even some tarnished, ornamental bronze work remaining. The floor was of old gray stone, covered with a layer of dust so thick in places that it was more like a layer of dirt, with lichen, mushrooms and pale grass growing from it.

  Their torches cast light on the space ahead and around, and showed that the room and those beyond were taken up by hundreds of casks and barrels, stacked three high in places under the heavy vaulting of the ceiling. There were also chests, some of black wood and rusty red iron, but more were obviously newer, and some were made of nothing but carved stone. The buggers
went around nervously, sniffing the air and poking at what they had found.

  Sunnil came close to Kulith and opened the book under the light of his lantern, and showed him one of the pages. It was a list of something, put down there, but it was not the listing of a treasure.

  “This is a cook book,” Sunnil whispered to him angrily. Kulith looked across at her, lifted his chin up, and he smiled.

  “What are you doing?” Big Agrok asked them.

  “We are checking the numbers now,” Kulith explained. “The whole treasure: the dead penny is listed in amounts, in this book.”

  Narus the Nail was more practical. He went forward and struck one of the casks with his crutch and broke the top free, and put his hand down inside of it and picked up a handful of silver coins. He held them up and let them drip back down, out between his clawed fingers.

  Many of the chiefs had not believed the stories, and now confronted with the reality that the treasure, of the immense fortune that seemed to be there in front of them, they became incensed at the greatness of what the thrings had done. They shouted and beat around, looking for the vampire, seeing if she was there to take their anger out on. They went around and looked into the other rooms, then opened the doors to all the adjoining chambers, only to find more casks, barrels, coffers and chest. Some of the chiefs and their bugger warriors attacked them, like they were a physical foe they could kill, and there were soon several broken barrels, and a pile of silver coins spilled out across the floor in a bright, glittering drift.

  “Stop!” Kulith yelled out. “You are destroying our ability to keep track of the treasure. If it is all opened up and flung about, anything could be taken!” Kroson looked angry. Urubo’s replacement and some of the others gripped their weapons more tightly. The chief who had done the destruction got control of his warriors, and moved them back away from the casks.

  “If anything is gone,” he said in defense, “anyone could have taken it.”

  “Then anyone should now put it back,” Long Ridge responded.

  “Why are you here?” he snarled at the thyr.

  “As one without a stake in it, I am here to make sure the rest of you hold to your promises. And this is interesting,” he added. Some of the chiefs had gone down the length of the vaults, to see where Vous Vox’s entrance to it was from above, and now they came back from there to report.

  “We can hear the guards above, and they hear us. We cannot find the vampire, but we have found another passageway down.” The chiefs looked at each other and several emotions passed over their features, some of it being anger, some curiosity, and perhaps also the wide-eyed, lustful stare of greed.

  “You should not go down those stairs,” Kulith warned them all.

  “Is it another vault?” Kroson asked him. “Are you aware of it?”

  “Yes,” Kulith admitted, but it was a partial lie. He had only supposed that there would be some kind of separation to the horde, and until they could find and retrieve the real copy of the ledger in the fortress, he was going to be cautions.

  “There were other sources of treasure that you have all forgotten about,” he said. “The thrings share of loot from the West Lands, from the Golok March, and from other places now lost to time was of course taken and collected here. But there is even treasure once from Galfan, robbed before the final war with the Black Eagle, and moved here for its safekeeping.”

  They all stood there for a moment, stunned by his admission.

  “There even seems to be treasure here from the Mancan times.”

  “Now I would like to see that!” Long Ridge said.

  “And so you shall, but there is great danger in it.” Kulith looked around at the others.

  “Take two hundred barrels from near the entrance and have all the trolls line up. Give them each a shingle, and have them wait at the scales to receive their share of the silver. Then they will go back to guarding. Next we will pay the regulars in the same way, but they will also get the gold that I promised them at the same time. Then the wounded will be paid, and finally the trolls will each get their gold. Then the chiefs will sit and eat and decide how much each of them should get, depending on what they have done, and they we will figure out and pay what debts that we owe.”

  Long Ridge frowned, seeing as how this meant that the thyrs would have to wait until last, to see what they might get beside their pay. He held his tongue though, as it seemed there was more than enough loot to go around. Kulith nodded to him, to reassure him, but then he said something more.

  “The four of us will now go down and see what is on the next level.” Long Ridge grinned, showing his fangs.

  “No,” Big Agrok said.

  “He made you all free, and this is how you repay him?” Little Toad said, accusing them. They shifted around, self conscious, perhaps considering their chances against the White Knife warriors who were there in greater numbers.

  “You may be attacked,” Agrok explained.

  Kulith considered it. He lifted up the Tuvier Blade, which glowed faintly now in this place. “That is the chance that a leader takes.” They went to the landing, then down the dark stair beyond it. Kulith sighed as he went down, holding his lantern high. Half way to the bottom he stopped, smelling something he didn’t like below. Then he continued on, and came out into a long corridor chamber, much like the one they had just left.

  There were more casks, but they were all rotten and dry, and it seemed like chests of different types had been mostly used and piled up only to eventually break under their combined weight, spilling their contents. At the rear were pieces of statues and large rectangular objects that turned out to be carved marbles taken from buildings, perhaps saved when all the Mancan ruins were cleared off the Stones. There were also more pictures on the walls, different and older than the ones they had seen above.

  Kulith and Little Toad then realized just how very different and remarkable they were, because of their content and depiction. They were of gray-skinned nobles and kings, perhaps acting as magicians, controlling a white bodied group of subjects, in rites, in sacrifice, and in other things Kulith thought unnatural. There were even a few buggers pictured here and there in them, doing more normal things.

  “What is happening in these?” Long Ridge said, putting his torch closer to one. “I do not understand.” Little Toad turned around from them and threw up on the floor, and the lame archer bent down and offered her his support. Kulith shook his head and grimaced as he looked again, at this strange secret knowledge, now hidden by time and stone, and he tried to understand what it meant.

  Humans had done these things: bad things. He considered why Vous Vox had preserved it, but then the creature had been the keeper for so much. Perhaps it was just to have it preserved, so that someone else might also someday see it and know. He had perhaps not even cared who that was.

  “Crazy magic,” Kulith replied. “I think that we should not be looking at them. I don’t think anyone should ever see these again.” They had not found the monster that they had set out looking for, but they had found something just as terrible.

  Kulith sat with Long Ridge later, near the lines going up to the scales and weights. They took turns watching the distribution of the dead penny, and the cremation of the bodies made from the battle. They were drinking a very light tump, mixed with edge berry juice, and it had made them both sick. Buggers were coming up now and then who had been caught carrying something away that was too big and expensive to conceal, and Kulith had offered to arbitrate and compensate them, in return for their plunder.

  “I had just thought,” Kulith said to Long Ridge, “that the thyrs are best poised to occupy and use the city by the Meadow, and the Stone Pile.”

  “Give them to me, and you will live to see the folly of that choice,” Long Ridge replied. “Besides, Ovodag will never voluntarily leave the Stone Pile, now that he occupies it.”

  “Why would it be such a bad thing for the thyrs to have them?” Kulith asked him.

  �
�A weak center is as bad as one that is too strong. One side or the other, either the trolls or the goblins, would eventually take them away from the thyrs.” He wagged his clawed fingers over at Kulith, showing off a large gold ring set with a ruby that he had acquired somewhere. “We are not that civilized yet.”

  Kulith sighed out and drank down some more of the weakened tump. The secret they both now kept had made them closer comrades, ones who could talk about things together that they could not talk to anyone else about. They had stayed below in the lower vault just long enough to use torches and tools to obliterate the worst parts of the murals.

  In the tent nearby Little Toad and Kabi were now pouring over the copy of the horde inventory they had finally located, sending him notes at times about some particular piece of treasure, to either be seized immediately for use, or to be found and gotten rid of because of its danger to the buggers. Behind them, the lame archer looked on and listened, and saw to their needs.

  A goblin approached with two trolls. At their waists were now great bags of silver and gold coins, but they dropped something else down before him in a sack to look at. He stared over at the offending bugger.

  “Do you understand who this is?” he said after a moment, to the trolls: a pair of braves who had fought with Ovodag’s group since the Long Bone, where Kulith had admonished them for allying with the goblins. “This is the warrior who drove his lance through Vous Vox!”

  “You should still take a look in his bag,” one of the trolls said. Kulith emptied it out, finding a pair of candlesticks made of gold, and a looking glass in a gold frame that he remembered seeing in one of the rooms. He immediately dropped the mirror, then handled it more carefully, and checked it over for magic and thring taint. “Going to take all this away, to found a dynasty on some island?” he asked the bugger. He looked back over at Long Ridge, and the thyr shook his head.

  “These things will get you killed, when you try and sell them,” Kulith said. “Then the killers will try to sell them, and they will get killed as well. No one can afford to buy these: they are too expensive, even for the king of the march. I’ll give you half their weight in gold coins, and if you are killed for them, eventually those will be dispersed out and not cause any more harm.” The goblin thought about it for a moment, and then nodded. Kulith worked the scales he had set up, and in a few moments handed the bugger back another sack, swollen with coins that clinked together quite pleasantly.