Deepforge (6 page)

Then, four creatures appeared in-between the army and the attackers. Everyone stopped fighting.

The two dragons Deccon and Vella stood there, but were joined by two other creatures. One was a young man with strange clothes and feathery white wings. The other was a young woman with dark hair and red eyes. She had leathery black wings and sharp, sinister teeth.  Everyone felt their godly power and backed away.

“This must end now,” Deccon said.

“There are other foes to battle. You will need all the help you can get,” Vella said.

“Humans from the forest. Show yourselves,” the winged human male said.

The elves couldn’t understand what they were seeing, and gathered around.

“Bōddy, who are they?” Deamon asked.

“Well, we know the dragons, but these others…I don’t know. If I were to guess, I would say…gods.”

The humans emerged from the forest, prostrate. They hadn’t the power to fight anymore, their hatred waned. Even the dwarves’ warhorses seemed to calm down, no longer eager to tear the humans apart.

Grognor stepped forward. “Excuse me, but…who are you?”

“We are Entropy and Harmony,” the winged human male said, “I am Entropy, this is my sister Harmony. We have come to stop this senseless fighting, at the request of the Chosen Ones.” He motioned to Vella and Deccon.

“Chosen Ones, you mean the dragons?” Teelena asked.

Ignoring her question, Harmony continued, “We’re sending two other factions to help, as you’ll have many battles ahead. You will make peace with the humans on this continent, once and for all. Together with all the races of this continent, you will build the foundation of the future.”

An instant before the sentence was finished, the two strangers were gone. The temporal trick confused everyone.

Deccon spoke, “History will not remember your deeds from this time. However, what you accomplish now will make it possible for the ancient prophesy to come true. You must not fail.”

Deccon and Vella then vanished.

Somehow without realizing it, night had fully melted away to mid morning. As everyone recovered from the supernatural occurrence, they realized the rouge human army stood before them. Everyone suddenly stood ready to fight.

Bōddy and Grognor looked at each other and realized it was up to them. Grognor stepped up to the leader of the human army and put out his hand.

“No more war between us,” he said, nearly unable to believe the words were coming out of his mouth.             

The human leader sheathed his sword and took Grognor’s hand. “No more war between us…Emperor. Please forgive us.”

Chapter 7

T
he combined army composed themselves and began to head out toward the east.

Grognor and Teelena rode up front, with the elves on foot ahead of the mounted army. The humans rode their warhorses just ahead of them, all but their leader who rode with Grognor.  His name was Brendon Marcus, and had been a Sergeant in the Queen’s army before he and his followers broke away to hunt dwarves.

“We’ll be executed upon arrival, Emperor. We’ve gone directly against our Queen, and that’s punishable by death. I really don’t know why we don’t leave,” Brendon said.

“Because, you know that’s not going to happen. I’ll not allow it. We’re in a new world, now. Humans and dwarves working together, not as adversaries. You and I are used to being enemies, now we have to live as allies. There cannot ever be war between our peoples, as much as it sticks in our craws,” Grognor said.

“I don’t know how to live without hating you, Emperor.”

“Nor I. We’ve lost too many loves ones at each other’s hands. How we continue on like this is beyond me.”

“We continue on because we have to. The gods said so,” Teelena said.

The others nodded, knowing it was true.

“So, what was that bit about Deccon and Vella being ‘the Chosen Ones’?” Grognor asked, rhetorically.

“So, that’s what gods look like? What were their names again?” Teelena asked.

Grognor and Brendon sat for a moment, thinking. They all glanced at each other, hoping for a hint.

“I can’t remember!” Grognor said.

“Neither can I, they were…wait, were they humans or elves, or what?” Brendon asked.

“Who knows?” Teelena said.

They travelled along trying their best to make small talk and describe the unknown, vague image of the gods who had come and changed their lives forever. Their memories of them were fading like a dream. They began to doubt that it actually happened.

The engineers continued to inspect the electrical infrastructure until they finally began to put away their notepads, all hope lost.

“We’ll never be able to rebuild it. This was a lifetime of work, and it’s gone, destroyed in seconds,” Delvin said, frustrated and saddened. His fellow engineers tried to comfort him, but as they would arrive at a village, the damage was all too obvious. The substations were all destroyed, and several homes had burned. The army would do their best to help out, rebuilding and cleaning up, but the electrical technology was a complete loss.

The human villages lost the most, including lives. Homes burned with entire families inside, and larger assembly type structures were destroyed. The only thing hopeful was the sight of the different races working together. Dwarf and humans combined their strengths to move large mounds of rubble, cleaned and helped out any way they could. Grognor and Brendon were the strongest, so it was the two of them who did most of the heavy lifting. Although their deep hatred for each other ran deep, they worked together toward a common goal.

“I have to admit, Brendon. I never imagined myself in this position,” Grognor said as he grabbed a hold of a large timber. Brendon grabbed the other end, and lifted with Grognor.

“Nor I, Emperor. I dreamed of defeating you on the field of battle, humiliating you just before your pathetic death.”

Grognor laughed. “And I dreamed of crushing your worthless human form in my bare hands as you pleaded for your life.”

Teelena heard this and added her own wisdom, “So, now with our combined passions and power, we will crush these new enemies, whoever they are.”

“I like the way the Empress things!” Brendon said.

Grognor stopped and looked at Teelena. “Wow, I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Crushing our enemies?” Teelena asked.

“No, the fact that you’re an Empress!”

The three of them laughed.

After a few more days travel they finally reached Lake Valley. What greeted them was shocking. Most of the lake was gone, drained down to its pre-reservoir level. The Villages were seriously damaged by the EM burst, as several homes had burned to the ground from electrical fires and other complications associated with the event.

“What the hell happened to the lake?” Grognor asked.

“Look at the destruction!” Teelena said.

The group stopped at the last hill overlooking the valley, amazed and horrified at the damage. Several small villages had completely burnt. People moved to and fro desperately trying to clean up.

Lake Valley was a large natural depression within the River Valley, a place where the river slowed and widened into a shallow lake before continuing on, cascading over a natural rock dam at the easternmost end of the valley. The natural depression was roughly twenty miles by forty miles long, the length running parallel to the northern mountains. To the north of the lake were the rolling foothills, then the mountains themselves. They gradually built higher and higher, until the perpetually snowcapped high peaks. Alpine glaciers covered the high peaks, slowly advancing and retreating with the seasons. This provided fresh water that rushed down the tributaries into the River Valley and kept the Great Lake at a consistent level. Many years prior, the humans teamed up with the halfling engineers and build an enormous dam using the natural rock as a foundation. This resulted in increasing the size of the lake by three times, and allowed for better irrigation to the south. The dam itself had been converted into a hydroelectric plant. The villages encircled the lake. This made for a beautiful, nearly utopic scene with modern villages, high technology, and manicured gardens. Although the area was advanced, it was tastefully planned. The combination of villages was called Lakeshore. They were all interconnected with roads and foot paths. Now, the water had receded to its natural level leaving the barren lakebed beneath. The villages had suffered total electrical and communications infrastructure failure. The generators within the dam had exploded with the EM pulse, destroying the dam.

The combined army descended to the first village and immediately began helping with the cleanup. The village humans were surprised to see the dwarves helping, instead of sitting atop their warhorses and looking down in disdain, as usual. The strangest sight of all was the humans, gnomes and dwarves arriving together, dismounting and working together in the relief effort. The citizens of Lakeshore couldn’t hardly believe what they were seeing. Word spread quickly of the arrival, and before long there were more spectators than relief workers.

“After all this time fighting, I never expected to see this; dwarves and humans workings side by side, except at the power plant. But, even there it was an uneasy truce,” the Mayor of one of the villages, Edward Jameson said as he watched the spectacle.

Grognor saw the Mayor and looked over at Brendon. The two of them stopped working to greet Edward.

“Mayor Edward, we’re here to help. Just let us know if you need anything,” Grognor said, with his hand out in greeting.

The Mayor took his hand and looked at the pair of warriors, mortal enemies, standing side by side. “Thank you, Emperor… and…Brendon? I don’t understand. There’s a warrant on you, for…warring against the dwarves?”

“Mayor, we have reached a—” Brendon began, as an entourage of people entered with Queen Kathryn’s wagon.

They came into the village quickly and the Queen didn’t let the wagon stop before she stepped out. “Arrest this man!” She pointed to Brendon. “Take these outlaws into custody at once!” As she said so, she realized something wasn’t right.              

Ambassador Taylen Riehl stepped down from his horse and walked up to Grognor. “Sire, how are you?”

As the guards quickly filed around the group, Grognor stepped up to the Queen. “Your Majesty, we are at peace. You will cancel the warrant at once.”             

She looked at Grognor with anger. “Never! Brendon and his men violated the treaty and warred against you! They are traitors, and will be tried as such!”

Grognor watched as the guards grabbed Brendon, he not resisting. “Kathryn, please don’t make me pull rank. We are at peace. Cancel the warrant at once. We must talk in private, we have much to discuss. Brendon will meet with us, as he is a leader and a witness.”

The Queen struggled to understand what was happening. The dwarven leader was actually…defending a mortal enemy? She realized something big was happening. She looked around at the combined relief effort and the destroyed electrical infrastructure. She reasoned that it was all related, somehow. She put up her hand at the guards. “Stand down. At the…request of the Emperor, the warrant is cancelled…for now. Come, Emperor. We can meet at the civic center. It’s still mostly intact.” She glanced at Brendon and back to Grognor as she stepped toward the wagon. The Ambassador helped her up.

At the civic center, they all sat down at a meeting table.

“Ok, we’re in private. You want to tell me what’s going on?” The Queen asked.

“Your Majesty,” Grognor began, “we were visited by gods, just as we were about to battle. They, along with the dragons Deccon and Vella stopped us and told us to make lasting peace.”

Kathryn was shocked. “gods? There are no gods. Everyone knows that.”

“Yes, my Queen, they were gods. Their powers were…beyond possibility, and were greater even than the dragons’,” Brendon said, prostrate.

“You, Brendon, are an outlaw regardless of Grognor says or what you allege happened with so-called gods. You and your men disobeyed a direct order for cease-fire, and that makes you a traitor.”

“Your Majesty,” Brendon began with remorse in his voice, “I know you’re right. Even now it’s hard for me to let go of the hatred I’ve known most of my life. The dwarves killed a lot of good men at our encounter in Deepforge Valley, and all we wanted was revenge. But, we were prevented, in the most literal way from fighting. Our bullets fell in mid flight, stopped by these gods. There is no denying what happened, we’re not ever to fight with the dwarves again. Believe me, I spit the words out in disgust, but this is the way it must be.” He looked over at Grognor, who obviously shared his sentiment.

“What gods? What were their names, what did they look like?” Kathryn asked.

Grognor and Brendon looked at each other.

“That’s one of the strange things, Kathryn,” Grognor began, “we can’t remember. I can remember they were quite vivid at the time, but it’s like they’ve actively purged our memories of who they were. But, it happened. You can ask the dragons themselves.”

“Orogo the Just will be here soon, we can ask if he has any knowledge of this. Either way, I’ll honor your request, Grognor. We’ll not take the traitors into custody. Now, the next question. What has this to do with the infrastructure disaster that has taken so many lives and set technology back two centuries?” Kathryn asked.

“As far as we can tell, nothing whatsoever,” Grognor said. “The dragons told us it was unrelated. We saw the origin, though. Our head engineers said it originated from another world through some sort of portal. It opened up in Deepforge Valley the morning we departed to come here.”

“How widespread is the damage? We’ve lost all communications, and are relying on runners for news,” Kathryn said. “We don’t even have artificial light. We’re relying on our natural red sight and oil lamps. All the motors are burned up, anything electrical is dead. Even the artificial heaters have been rendered useless. Thank goodness the warmer weather is coming. Some of the nights have still been cool; in the palace we lit a fire last night for the first time in years.”

“Your Majesty, it’s everywhere. From Deepforge to here, everyone has been affected by this disaster,” Grognor said. “Our engineers have ascertained that it was a complete loss. The Little Table substation is completely destroyed, and Hawkflight is a disaster area. The only thing that’s intact there is the majority of the residences around the trade square. In fact, Hawkson couldn’t handle the finality of it and went off to The Glade.”

“What’s ‘The Glade’?”

“It’s the place where the elder elves come from.”

“Oh. Well, I can imagine him running away. All of this was because of his original invention two centuries ago. This must have devastated him. What have the elves said about all of this?”

“Chieftain Bōddy seemed unconcerned about the loss of technology, but that’s to be expected from them. They’re advocates of peace, and have given us a view of the future that lines up with what the dragons told us.”

“We haven’t seen elves in a very long time, and usually it’s only one or two at a time. Seeing so many here at once, well that in itself is a sign. What is this view you speak of?”

“Queen Kathryn, It all starts with the Spring Games. I had initially decided to use it as a twofold tool, to help with peace between our peoples, and also to enlist the most hardy of your warriors for an exploratory mission to the far ends of the world. For riches and glory. After what we’ve been told, we have a far greater mission. You see, we, meaning all of us, have enemies we don’t even know about. They have become strong and are heading this way to murder and conquer this land. In order to defend our River Valley, we must be united.”