Bladeborn

by Clayton Schonberger

  Rodon and Lomazi knew their friend was severely hurt. But they knew him well enough to leave the topic as Bladeborn had asked them for the time being.

  As the three of them silently left the staging area, the Queen’s squire approached Bladeborn again, “General Bladeborn, I made some inquiries for you—about Jonax.”

  Although shaken by what he had heard the Queen and Lord Esket say, Bladeborn yet needed to find out where the valuables taken from the sack of Onager went. “Have you located him?”

  “Not…exactly,” Queen’s squire said. “His wagons were—diverted—to the Sixth Realm.”

  “That can’t be,” Bladeborn said, exasperated. “He had specific orders to come here and deliver the contents of the wagons to my home for storage. Did he never arrive in the Dreadsta home? How was he diverted?”

  “I believe the order came from the Queen’s betrothed himself. He was to meet with a ‘Lord Kaken’ of the ‘Silver Legion,’ Lord Kaken is a hero of the Sixth Realm and a very wealthy man in his own right. It has been through Lord Kaken and Lord Esket that the war has continued. Both men have kept the economies of the Six Realms working of late.”

  “We are warriors, squire,” Sir Drak Lomazi said proudly. “Why would the doings of these two financiers be of interest to us?”

  “Wait, Uncle Lomazi,” Sir Rodon said. “Let the squire talk.”

  The squire repeated, “Jonax has gone to the Sixth Realm to speak with Lord Kaken...I know little else, in all honesty. Lord Esket’s accountant said that Lord Kaken will know more about your squire, Jonax. By default, Kaken has handled much of the funding and supplies that helped to defeat the Rhinolon.”

  “Who is this accountant?” Bladeborn asked. “Where can I find him?”

  The Queen’s squire answered, “Oddly enough, Esket’s accountant, a man named Elman Furn, is in the process of moving to the Second Realm, since his master and Queen Deocarla are to marry. If you hurry, you can find him today, at his home and office near the library.”

  Sir Lomazi said thoughtfully, “Yes…I know the place, and distantly know the man, Elman Furn. He is a disgraced nobleman, exiled from the Third Realm by young King Lauren’s Father.”

  “I have told you all I know…” the squire claimed. “Now, I truly must get back to work.”

  “It only figures that Esket can be tied to this Elman Furn…” Rodon said. “I too, know of this accountant. My Squire, Sera Ayaba, said he would deal with any merchant other than him during supply runs last year. I know both men actually… Esket was my bitter rival in my early days at court. His ignominious company is one of the main reasons I…”

  Rodon’s voice trailed off suddenly as though he thought better of what he was about to say.

  “What else do you know, Rodon?” Bladeborn asked.

  “I have to hold my tongue until I am certain.” Rodon said seriously. “Forgive me, I spoke out of turn.”

  Bladeborn, Rodon, and Lomazi went to Elman Furn’s home and found that the door was half-open. They entered and saw Elman was busy packing up scrolls and books. Some other aged men helped him in a rushed manner that looked highly disorganized.

  “Sorry, we are closed—for good,” Elman said, looking up from his task.

  “What?” Bladeborn said, surprised by the man’s reaction. “I just want to ask you some questions.”

  “I am too busy to answer,” Elman said in a snide tone.

  Sir Lomazi shot back, “Do you know who this man is? The is General Bladeborn, Savoir of the Six Realms! Show some respect!”

  “Ahhh… you are the ‘great’ General Bladeborn, The ‘Invincible.’” Elman scoffed. “Well, I have no time for your questions…Take it up with Lord Kaken or Lord Esket. They are the ones who profited most from all my hard work. Some people think an army only runs on its soldiers and commanders—well it doesn’t! It was my job to pull off the wondrous bookkeeping miracle resulting in the sack of Onager.”

  “What does that mean?” Bladeborn asked again, with a polite tone. “Please, this is very important.”

  “If only you knew how hard it was to balance Lord Esket’s financial affairs before the treasure of the northern Rhinolon Empire started coming in. And I am, once again, the scapegoat for it all. Well, I am getting out before my neck is on a chopping block. Knowing Lord Esket, and the Queen’s temper, I don’t want to wait until that happens.”

  “I’ll make this easy then,” Bladeborn said. “Do you know what happened to my squire, Jonax?”

  “No,” Elman replied. “Now, let me pack.”

  Sir Lomazi said, “Can’t you answer our questions?”

  “I have nothing to say,” Elman claimed. “Sort it all out yourselves. Now, if you’ll excuse us…”

  Elman and the other men, clutching boxes of scrolls and books, left the office and headed down the hallway. They would answer no further questions.

  In the afternoon Bladeborn gave Rodon and Lomazi time to meet with their families and recover from their long ride to the First Realm. Meanwhile, Bladeborn tried to get back into the palace to ask Lord Esket about his accountant and the whereabouts of Jonax. But Bladeborn came up empty handed. Lord Esket’s pikemen had insisted that Bladeborn withdraw.

  That afternoon, Bladeborn grabbed a bottle of mushroom wine from the cellars of the Dreadsta household, then started off to visit the tomb of Brother Kregert. The elderly Master of Graves said it was in a priest’s section of the Tombs, and he took Bladeborn there.

  “Not many come down here,” the Master of Tombs said. “Sayyy… You’re General Bladeborn, right? My nephews are in the Army of the Sun! They think pretty highly of you, General…”

  “Thank you, Grave Master,” Bladeborn said to the man.

  “Here we are, Number 57, Brother Kregert. I remember this funeral was a big to-do… Well, I’ll leave you to it, General.”

  When he was alone, with nothing but the cold stone all about him, Bladeborn laid a gauntleted hand on Kregert’s memorial.

  “You will be missed, my friend.” he said simply. Leaving the bottle of wine at Kregert’s tomb, he said a prayer to Saint Morth, and turned to go.

  After dinner that night, Bladeborn, Rodon, and Lomazi met in Bladeborn’s spare-looking residence around the hearth in the former Dreadsta home. Dying embers in the fire reflected Bladeborn’s sadness.

  “The trail leads to the palace wing and we can’t get in there to question Lord Esket?” Sir Rodon confirmed.

  “There is one stone we have yet to turn over, and that is this man, ‘Lord Kaken,’” Bladeborn explained. “Perhaps he can be reasonable.”

  There was a pause, as the weight of their troubles sapped the words from their mouths. Bladeborn was still thinking about how coldly he had been treated by Deocarla, and how hard it had been for him to go back to the palace earlier that day to ask for an audience with Lord Esket. Then Bladeborn said, “There is another reason I wish to go to the Sixth Realm. It is much more personal, and if you two don’t wish to join me, I’ll understand. I would like to talk with King Rosen about Deocarla and her choice to marry Lord Esket. Perhaps the King could lend some insight into Deocarla’s behavior. I know at one time, she often wrote him personal letters almost weekly.”

  “Of course, we’ll go with you, Bladeborn!” Rodon said. “We are not men of ice!”

  They sat another moment, then Sir Lomazi broke the silence, “Bladeborn, surely you could decorate this place some? I mean, with war trophies—or furniture? Sitting about on these empty crates is all well and good, but where do you even sleep? In those moth-eaten blankets on the floor over there?”

  “I didn’t want to take food away from the troops, so I never decorated.”

  “But I see that you had started to…The remnants of wall fixtures here must be new, am I correct?”

  “Jonax was doing some decorating last winter, but I insisted that he stop,” Bladeborn said.

  At the mention of Jonax their troubles came to the fore again. Bladeborn was brooding about D
eocarla, Nightslayer said, ~~You have work yet to do, Bladeborn! You can’t allow this woman to corrupt your spirit. Did I not WARN you?~~

  “Nightslayer… Be quiet,” Bladeborn thought solemnly.

  Sir Rodon got up and kicked the box he had been sitting on into the fire. Bladeborn and Sir Lomazi looked at him, startled.

  “Well, we need not take this lying flat on our backsides!” “Let us go to the Sixth Realm and meet this ‘Lord Kaken!’”

  Moments later, Sir Lomazi stood up and kicked his box in the fireplace, also. “You are right, Nephew! Tomorrow we will start out on the Grande Tunnel to the Sixth Realm! Jonax and the caravan doubtless took the overland route, since he has wagons. If we go through the underground, even walking we’ll arrive in the King Rosen’s Realms first!”

  “Come Bladeborn!” Rodon demanded of his friend, “Stay by OUR hearth tonight! Our accommodations are a bit more…suitable…”

  They all agreed to set out after breakfast the following day. Bladeborn’s mood brightened a bit, and he slept in a comfortable bed in the household of Lomazi and Rodon.

  Bladeborn, Sir Rodon, and Sir Lomazi knew that the treasure carried by Jonax was enormous, and without it, the war would have very little funding in the following years. After further inquiries, they were finally assured that the caravan of Jonax was taking an above ground route. It seemed Jonax had arrived at the First Realm, moving on toward the Second Realm right afterward.

  Without further pause, they set out for the Second Realm to inquire about Jonax. They also planned to meet Lord Kaken—and King Rosen, leader of all the Realms.

  Chapter 18: The Six Valleys

  Leaving their mounts in the vast underground stables of the First Realm, Bladeborn, Rodon, and Lomazi began walking eastward. They were travelling the Grande Tunnel, the long road beneath the Spiral Mountains linking the other Valleys. It would take weeks for them to reach the Sixth Valley, but they would do so before Jonax and the horsemen guarding the wagons of treasure did so.

  “I can’t think of the reason Jonax sent no word,” Bladeborn said to his friends.

  “Perhaps we missed a courier in transit?” Sir Lomazi suggested.

  “If that is the case then there is little else we can do but follow along behind him,” Bladeborn said. “I am a fool not to have rode with him!”

  “Don’t berate yourself so, my friend!” Sir Rodon said. “The above ground route winds sharply in some places along the passes. There is also the weather that would slow him. We can ask about Mountain storms in each of the Realms. Like my Uncle just said, this is a miscommunication. We have all season to sort things out.”

  Bladeborn sent word to the Army of the Sun, Moon, and Dawn that for now that for now, Knight-Commanders and warlords would be in charge. He entrusted them to break camp and move to the high ground in the Mountains of the Second Realm, which were easy to defend. A group of scouts from the Army of the Moon were to keep watch on the front between the ruins of Onager and the First Realm while he was away.

  Bladeborn attempted to hold inside the worries of Deocarla’s treatment of him, still shaken by his loss of her affection.

  Rodon Thell volunteered some advice to Bladeborn. “I wish you would be more forthcoming about what she said during your meeting with her, my friend. I know this: Queen Deocarla has suffered much over the many years she has reigned. She is very protective of the First Realm, and a proud woman. She never found a man to be worthy of her faith. It is not her nature to admit anything that would cause her to lose the respect of her court or the other rulers of the Realms. From what I have heard of your affair with her three years ago, public opinion did not favor it.”

  “You think that swayed her and she had a change of heart?” Bladeborn asked.

  “I cannot guess,” Sir Rodon answered. “It is my belief that her pride caused her harsh treatment of you. Yet, she still wears the Heartring as a token of her favor.”

  Bladeborn sighed heavily, “So much of this goes all the way back to the night Sir Dreadsta made the attempt on my life. I challenged some of her decisions in public, when I had no place to.”

  Sir Lomazi said, “No one but Deocarla knew you at that time, Bladeborn.”

  “Even Deocarla hardly believed my origin,” Bladeborn said. “Many of our best moments were her history lessons after I first arrived. She would talk of her family… I would listen. Yet I don’t remember her fully understanding how I escaped from Fortress City.”

  “I don’t doubt your story of that time in your life, my friend. In the past three years I have learned to have faith in your prowess.”

  Several minutes passed as they walked the Grande Tunnel in silence, Sir Lomazi following behind. Then Bladeborn asked, “You said Deocarla never found a man who she could put her full faith in?”

  “I believe her pride kept her from marrying earlier in her life,” Rodon said. “I don’t fully understand her behavior. I wish I had better answers for you, but I don’t.”

  The word spread quickly through the Realms that the heroic General was coming. All the way from the First Valley, the Grande Tunnel was lined with those who wished to see General Bladeborn, “The Invincible.”

  When Bladeborn and his two friends neared the enormous set of thick iron doors that linked the First Realm with the Second, people lined the way, throwing flowers at their feet. Often, General Bladeborn, Sir Rodon Thell, and Sir Drak Lomazi would be approached by those who were looking for loved ones who were lost to them or in the Army of the Sun and Moon. They would answer as best they could.

  Passing through the Grande Tunnel, Bladeborn discovered how extensive the Six Realms were, and how all the Realms had recently experienced prosperity. For the past four years, the common folk had come to feel safe and free enough to go to the surface valleys to gather blossoms and fruits and allow their cavern cattle to fatten on the sunlit grasses above. Although there had recently been a particularly harsh winter, signs of prosperity were everywhere in the Realms. In homes beneath the Six Valleys, many women were with child.

  The people often greeted Bladeborn with gongs and horns. Songsmiths had written of his exploits, especially the sack of Onager and the defeat of Durg the Despicable.

  Each Realm welcomed them, but Bladeborn and the two Knights would not stay long, anxious to press on to the Sixth Valley.

  Bladeborn was not sure if King Rosen would be welcoming or cold to him. He wondered if Queen Deocarla still wrote letters to her brother from the palace in the First Realm, and if there had been any signs of her changing heart in her correspondence.

  “The war is not over,” Bladeborn said at a feast in the Second Realm, that of King Dale. “Our army, soon to be camped at the farthest southern point in the Second Realm, will keep a steady watch, under the command of some of our best Knight-Commanders. The Rhinolon are desperate now, facing a season with little food. Soon we will attack them again so they can’t rebuild their destroyed ports and make the river navigable for their large ships. The majority of their servants have been liberated, so they have no work force to rebuild.”

  King Dale, who had personally welcomed Bladeborn and the two Knights, asked them, “So it was your plan all along to starve the Northern Rhinolon Legion with your attack?”

  “We wished first to lift the curse of infertility, good King Dale,” Bladeborn answered. “But that was part of our strategy.”

  Sir Rodon Thell explained, “With the destruction of Onager’s irrigation system, their fields were washed away and covered by silt. We had little idea we would be able to do that; Onager’s servants were helpful in the tactic. Our initial idea was to sew their most productive fields with salt; but that was far too cumbersome.”

  “King Dale said, “I heard there was a narrow escape into the mountains…”

  Bladeborn answered, “Yes, good King Dale, but the spell hiding the Realms from Rhinolon helped to camouflage us.”

  King Dale asked, “You estimate the Rhinolon will be unable to rebuild Onager or resup
ply it this year?”

  “Unless they get help from the land of the Ogres or help directly from divine intervention!” Sir Rodon Thell joked. “Any food we didn’t loot, we destroyed: their granaries; their herds; their markets; and the hapless Drommu they used to feed on are taken away from them. We captured all the spoils we could at Onager and took it for our own use. We will soon have the upper hand, at least in the north.”

  King Dale said, “I truly hope so.”

  Rodon Thell went on: “We can hope the Rhinolon Empire south of Onager continues in its self-indulgent way. With luck, the Emperor of the Rhinolon in his seat of power in the Necropolis will not focus on us. But there can be no doubt that unless we continue the war, their numbers will return. They fight a war on three fronts now: in the Land of the Ogres; in the Land of the Lizardmen; and here.”

  Bladeborn and Rodon delivered a similar speech at the Third Realm. Not long after their arrival there, King Lauren of the Third Valley, who was sixteen years old, read carefully prepared words to Bladeborn and his Knights: “General Bladeborn, I thank you for visiting my Realm. We have experienced great prosperity in the previous year due to your success in the war. When your army ransacked Onager, you released some of my family members, inheritors of the Royal lineage in the Third Realm. My father and mother died at the hands of the brutes, I have been told. But my older sisters and aunt lived through it, and they were among those you freed. We had given up hope of ever seeing any of them alive, for the Rhinolon would accept no ransom we could afford. I’d like to introduce you to them now.”

  The three women came into the feast hall and sat at the table across from Bladeborn. They looked in awe at him for most of the meal. Toward the end of the dinner, the one who had been introduced as King Lauren’s aunt said, “You are the answer to so many nights of prayer, General. Surely you have been sent by Saint Morth here to the Realms. We owe you our freedom and our lives.”