by Charles Dean
She snuck another glance in his direction where he was sitting with a group of friends as she wiped down one of the tables. His hair had always been shaggy and a bit ragged, but he had taken to shaving it off when he had taken the apprenticeship with Tamos. Several of the other young men had tried to learn the trade from some of the other smiths in town, but they had made the mistake of refusing to cut their hair back. Needless to say, they had ended up singed and burned more often than not because of it. She had shared more than a few giggles with the other girls when they first saw his pale head, but something about it made him look more handsome now. It was a sign that he had a profession and that he was taking it seriously.
If things ever slowed down in the town, which looked like it was going to be a while if things kept on going the way that they had been lately, then she might be able to find some time to drop a few suggestive hints. There might even come a time one day when she would be lucky enough to have him ask her if she felt the same way about him. She kind of had a feeling that he did--she’d caught him stealing glances in her own direction a few times and various snippets of conversations he had with his friends at the bar--but nothing was ever certain. Men were just so frustrating that way at times. They would chat a woman up and make them think that they were interested, and the next time they saw you they’d feign ignorance and pretend not to even know who you were.
But what did she even have to offer someone like him? Her family wasn’t anything special. Her mother worked treating fabrics for one of the tailors, Lim, and picked up extra jobs doing laundry for some of the busier merchants just so the family could have a little extra income. More often than not, she would come home late at night smelling of chemicals and with her hands and clothes stained from working with dyes all day. Her father had worked with one of the woodcutting parties until he had been pressed into service with the local militia a few years back during one of the Black-Wing incursions. He had always been kind, gentle and patient with her while she was growing up. He’d come in after a long day’s work and always spend extra time with her after supper telling her stories and teaching her to read and write. He had been an honest man, and a hard worker if what everyone said was to be believed, but he would never attain the same status for his family that a professional smith would.
Eliza sighed and cast another wistful glance in his direction before turning back to finishing up her work. After dropping off her load of dirty dishes in the kitchens for one of the other girls to wash, she made her way outside to deposit her bar towels in the linens basket. She didn’t normally carry more than one around with her at a time, but after the long night, she had gone through more than just a few cleaning up everything.
She stepped outside into the cold, early-morning air and drew in a deep breath. Goosebumps instantly sprang to life on her bare arms as soon she left the heated tavern’s kitchen, but the early morning air was refreshing after being cooped up and run ragged for so many hours. In truth, the cold was more of a comfort than an annoyance at the moment. Eliza tilted her head back and sucked in a lungful of the crisp air, exhaling slowly. It billowed out in a smoky cloud that hung in the air for just a moment before disappearing upward. A dog started barking somewhere nearby. Its cries echoed between the buildings for a moment, but it quickly quieted down again, and silence overtook the village once more.
She stayed that way for a long moment, inhaling and exhaling and watching her breath disappear, lost in her thoughts. If only things would remain this peaceful during the day. Those newcomers really need to learn to settle down and--
Her thoughts were interrupted as a thunderous boom shook through the ground and rocked the world around her. She could feel the force of it slam into her chest, threatening to drive the air from her lungs. All around her, the wooden buildings groaned in protest as the wallboards shook and the glass window panes rattled as the violent gust rushed by. She teetered on her feet and blindly grasped for the side of the building to stop herself from falling over.
As soon as she was certain she had her balance, she jerked her head around wildly in every direction trying to find the source of the blast. Never in her life had she experienced anything like that. She had heard stories of earthquakes from travelers passing through and some of the older folks living in the village, but everyone always assured her that they were far too high up into the mountains to ever experience one in Valcrest. Then, towards the center of town, she spotted something that captured her attention and took her breath away for a second time.
A massive pillar of fire rocketed up above the rooftops somewhere towards the central square. Its flames seared away the darkness of the night sky and left everything below for several blocks bathed in a devilish and unholy light, promising a fiery death and certain destruction for anything that happened to be caught in its hellish blaze. The tower of flames twisted and roiled as it rose into the air and appeared to take on a life of its own, turning over and over upon itself until it assumed the form of a massive winged serpent.
Eliza stood frozen as she watched on with a mixture of horror and awe at the fiery dragon that turned upon itself for the final time and began plummeting back to the ground with a frightening speed. The dragon crashed to the ground somewhere below the line of rooftops, leaving behind only the afterimage of a nightmare seared into her vision. Patches of fire sprang to life on the nearby thatched roofs, and she was certain that she could already see a cloud of ash hanging in the air.
Shouts of terror and panic could be heard coming from all over town as denizens of Valcrest awake to the chaos, but Eliza could only stare on dumbly. She just couldn’t process what she had seen, couldn’t make sense of what it meant. She stood rooted to the ground, staring at the scene as she tried to explain what she had just witnessed, and it wasn’t until she heard loud voices coming closer from inside the tavern that she began to snap out of it. She turned around numbly and took a hesitant step back towards the door, unsure of what she should be doing or how to act.
The door flew open just as she was about to reach it, and a wave of hot air slammed against her before escaping out into the night. Light from inside washed over her, and she had to squint against the sudden loss of her vision as her eyes adjusted. Dimly, she was able to make out a mass of forms huddled on the other side of the doorway, all eyes riveted to her.
“Eliza,” one of them said urgently. “Are you alright?”
“What happened?” asked another.
“Did you see what that was?”
“I thought the entire building was going to collapse.”
“Are you alright?”
“Eliza?”
“Eliza?”
“Liz?”
The voices all came at once, urgent and questioning, and she didn’t know where to start even if she had been able to answer.
“Quiet!” a stern voice finally ordered, silencing all the others.
One of the forms stepped out into the night and Eliza felt a pair of strong hands grasp her around the arms before pulling her inside. They guided her to one of the cook’s stools and sat her down. She saw the room pass around her, and she felt that she was moving, but she couldn’t understand how. As far as she remembered, she hadn’t ordered her feet to take even a single step, much less the several that were required to complete the simple task.
“Eliza,” a deep voice said calmly but firmly. “What happened, Eliza? You have to snap out of it.”
She could hear the voice, but she just couldn’t figure out how to answer it. She understood that it wanted something from her, but she didn’t know what it was. What did it matter anyway? Everything was burning; the town was burning. She knew it in her heart. She understood it. But she had no idea how to put it into words. Why was this person even bothering her? They should all just—
The distinct sound of wood splintering resounded out from the main hall, and all heads in the kitchen jerked toward the source of the sound. There was a collective intake of breath and the pregnant silence
of it being held.
A short moment passed and the same voice spoke again. “Wait here.” And then it was gone.
The image of the person in front of her disappeared, and Eliza was vaguely aware of a dark bald scalp disappearing from her vision.
-----
Until only recently, the caverns had been the home of a silver ore mine and the primary source of income for the region. Indeed, it was the primary reason the town had been settled originally and the only reason the Human Kingdom was interested in protecting the small town of Valcrest. Vast deposits of ore were mined from the region and funneled to the capital where they were put to use as the King saw fit. Even during her short lifetime, Eliza had lived through more than her own fair share of attacks from the White-Horns and Black-Wings as they sought to take control of the mine. Fortunately, because it was situated so high up in the mountain range, they had always been provided ample warning before any sizeable force managed to capture the mine.
That was, until only recently. No one knew when it happened, exactly, but a renegade band of Turtle-Wolves had taken control of the mine at some point. The workers finished their work one night and went home to the families, and nothing was out of the ordinary. Early the next morning when they showed up before dawn to begin the mining process again, the Turtle-Wolves had moved in. There were no signs of an attack, and no evidence of damage to the mine, but it was only lightly defended during the night by a few of the town’s guards. Since they had always been warned of an impending attack from the other races well in advance, no one saw the need to keep a heavy contingent stationed at the mine during all hours of the day. That also meant that no one had been on the lookout for an organized band of monsters.
The timing couldn’t have been worse for the village. Most of the men had been called up to the legion in order to stop a massive assault from the White-Horns and Black-Wings that was pressing in from the north, and there were only a handful of experienced fighters left in town. Most of the men were either too old, too young or untrained in hand-to-hand combat. Still, they had banded together and fortified their ranks with a number of the town’s guard and tried to retake the mine. Turtle-Wolves weren’t known for being organized at all, usually choosing to either live alone in the mountains or in very small groups. As far as anyone knew, there had never been any type of hierarchy among their ranks. Indeed, it was hardly believable that they had even managed to take the mine in the first place, and everyone figured that even such a small force would be able to quickly retake the mine and root out the invaders.
Everyone had been wrong. The group was decimated, and not a single survivor returned from that excursion.
There were cries of outrage, and people demanded that Captain Elmont send another force into the ore mine, but he flatly refused. Due to the arrival of such large numbers of newcomers, he was already hard pressed to maintain order within Valcrest, and he said that he couldn’t spare even a single guard. Instead of pressing the attack again, he had opted to wait until more men, more experienced fighters, returned from the legion. Then Valcrest received word the next day that the legion had been entirely wiped out, and all hope of retaking control of the mine was lost.
And, so it remained--until the stranger appeared. This newcomer wearing nothing but a soft, fuzzy robe had somehow single-handedly killed all the Turtle-Wolves. Eliza had seen him his first day in Valcrest, before his daring exploit, and he had stood out even then, not because of his odd apparel--newcomers certainly sprang up in more embarrassing stages of undress--but because he was unlike any other of his kind.
He was a quiet man who had kept to himself for most of the evening, and he was actually rather polite when Eliza had spoken to him. She had mistakenly taken his meal to the wrong table in all the confusion, and rather than scream at her and belittle her as she had expected, he had just smiled patiently and offered a few comforting words. He had asked a few of the same questions she had come to expect from all the newcomers, but didn’t press in the same insistent fashion that most of them did. If anything, he seemed to be genuinely concerned and curious about what life was like in the town. Thankfully, he had never partaken in the same raucous behavior as everyone else. Thankfully, he just kept to himself and would occasionally scribble a few notes on a small scrap of paper he carried with him.
He had seemed entirely earnest and unassuming. He had sat in the tavern nearly that whole night, lost in his own thoughts. Eliza never could have guessed then the place this stranger would come to have in the lives of the people of Valcrest, but Captain Elmont had apparently either trusted him or wanted to test him, and he had assigned this rare man the task of clearing out the mine. As far as Eliza knew, it wasn’t a job that he had entrusted to anyone else after the lost band.
Now, the stranger, Darwin, stood on a raised platform in the middle of a room buried somewhere deep inside that same mountain. The chamber was at least three stories high, and it was filled with circular tables that had chairs lined around them. The remaining citizens of Valcrest who had managed to escape that horrible night of destruction had been using it as a makeshift dining hall. There was a pair of large double-doors in the back of the chamber that led to a decent-sized kitchen, and both men and women were at work preparing meals for the survivors. Meals, ironically, that consisted of the Turtle-Wolves that kept appearing at random throughout the ore mine.
The townsfolk had fled here at the direction of the stranger after that horrible night. It wasn’t a paradise, or an ideal situation all around, but it was what they had. They were bruised and burned. They were desperate, and they were homeless--but they were alive.
Some of us are. . . Eliza fought back the flood of tears and emotions that threatened to overwhelm her every time she thought about everyone that she had lost. Her mother never made it out of town. The night had been chaos, and Eliza had only been interested in escaping. The thought of trying to find her or help her escape as well had never even crossed the young girl’s mind. Her only thoughts that night had been of Lucas, lying dead in a pool of blood in the bar. The town was decimated, lives had been destroyed, and all she could think about was herself.
Eliza pulled her braid over her shoulder and gripped it tightly before forcing herself to let go. It was an old habit, but one that usually worked to calm her down. Slowly and absentmindedly, she stroked her long braid until she was able to force down the feelings and regain her composure.
She glanced around the chamber and suddenly realized that it was almost completely filled. It wasn’t designed for this, but it was the largest single cavern in the ore mine and the best place they had to use as an auditorium. Several hundred refugees were now pressed together to hear the words of this stranger that had saved them, this strange newcomer that everyone gossiped about in hushed whispers.
Some people said that he was Human. Some said that he was a devil. He had appeared to them on the morning of the attack leading an entourage of Ogres that he claimed were his slaves. He said that he possessed their souls, and that he had bent them to his will. And then someone else had made the connection to another rumor that had been spreading throughout the town. This was the same devil who had killed an entire army of White-Horns using only a spoon. This was the Hero of the Spoon. This was the vaunted savior that King Qasin had sent to save them, deliver them from the threat of the imposing armies from the north. This was the Spoon King.
The man stepped forward on the platform and raised his hand to gather everyone’s attention. He looked a bit paler than Eliza remembered, but that was to be expected after everything that had gone on. He had assumed the mantle of responsibility for this band of exiles, and Eliza could only imagine what a horrible burden that must have placed on him. No one had ever seen him sleep, and it was said that he never stopped working. Despite whatever fatigue or stress he might feel, he moved with a poise and purpose that was evident to even the casual observer, and it inspired confidence in the townsfolk.
“Valcrest, I came to you a stranger,
” he began. “I came to you as a man in exile from my own lands: a man without a home, a people and bereft of any belongings that weren’t strapped on my back. But you people told me not worry. You gave me food, shelter, a place to rest my head and a job. You gave purpose back to my life when I was lost. Most importantly, above all of those gifts though, you gave me your trust.
“Don’t think I didn’t notice. It couldn’t have been easy--accepting a stranger into your lives--but you did it. You chose to follow me when almost every one of you is already a capable leader, strong enough in spirit and determination to stand against any challenge; yet you chose instead to honor Elmont and follow a stranger you barely knew. You gave me your trust when I asked you to leave your homes behind--where you had spent generations building families, memories and friendships--to follow me into a dark and musty cave barely fit for life, yet you did so in an instant and without complaint.”
The crowd became more and more responsive as he spoke. Eliza felt an energy building within her, and she could tell that it resonated through everyone else as well. She looked around throughout the crowd and realized that they had all switched from passively listening to actively nodding and mouthing their agreement as he spoke There were small pockets of people that had been murmuring or talking amongst themselves when he first started speaking, but now they had fallen silent. Everyone was fixated on the figure speaking to them, hanging on his every word.