The Brotherhood of Dwarves: Book 01 - The Brotherhood of Dwarves (14 page)

“Then why are you friends with him?”

“I don’t know. We’re not friends, really.”

“Really?”

“For my part, I am still your ally.”

With that, he went back to the wagon and organized their equipment. During the shakes, Red had made a mess in the bed, and it took Roskin more than an hour to organize, clean, and repack everything. By the time he was finished, the shadows were growing long as the sun dipped in the west. He shouldered his backpack and carried the other inside. Kwarck, who was cooking supper, showed him to a bedroom.

Other than the fresh meat at Red’s trial, Roskin hadn’t had a decent meal since leaving the logging town, and to his hunger, the food that Kwarck prepared was as good a feast as any back home. There were fresh chicken, cured ham, nuts, cheese, and bread. After the meal, he served them peppermint tea from leaves he had grown and dried the previous year and preserved fruits from the orchard. Roskin wished that Red had been able to join them, but the old man was sleeping soundly in his room.

After supper, Kwarck told them stories of travelers who had stayed with him before. There were the last of the Koorleine Elves, the civilized cousins to the Loorish, who wandered from nation to nation as entertainers. They had set up their tents and performed songs and plays just for him as tribute for a place to rest for a few weeks. There were also the human nomads who stayed with him each winter as they migrated in their circular pattern. The nomads refused allegiance to the Great Empire and labored in different regions each season. They were the ones who had helped him dig the underground section of his home that served as both storage for foods and protection from storms.

When his stories were finished, Kwarck excused himself and prepared for bed. Vishghu didn’t seem interested in sitting alone with the dwarf and went underground to the room Kwarck had prepared for her. Since she was nearly as tall as the ceiling, none of the upper level rooms were large enough for her to be comfortable. Not feeling tired, Roskin went to Red’s room and sat beside the old man who slept soundly. His breathing was smooth and even, without the wheezing or snoring, and the dwarf’s heart warmed at seeing Red comfortable after the arduous battle with the shakes. Near midnight, Roskin retired to his room and fell into his own sound sleep.

The next day, he woke long after sunrise to the drone of voices in Red’s room. Kwarck and the recovering man were speaking intently with each other, but the dwarf couldn’t make out what they were saying. He rose and looked for his clothes but found strange ones in their place. He dressed quickly, impressed by how well and comfortably the clothing fit, and went to the kitchen to find breakfast. As Roskin fried a couple of eggs on the barely warm enough stove, Kwarck entered the kitchen and greeted him. The dwarf thanked him for the clothes, and the hermit explained that he had washed and hung out the others.

“How’s Red. I heard you talking.”

“He hurts,” Kwarck said, taking an apple from a basket.

“Will he be okay?”

“Much too early to tell,” the man returned, slicing the apple with a pocket knife.

“When I’m sure he’ll be fine, I guess I’ll be leaving,” Roskin said, flipping his eggs.

“Fortune and glory beckon. That’s a dangerous path to travel.”

“I’m not afraid.” The dwarf’s temper rose slightly, but he fought against it.

The hermit chuckled and crunched a slice.

“Maybe I get a little scared.”

The hermit didn’t respond.

“Okay,” Roskin said, taking his eggs from the skillet. “I get this strange fear. It overcomes me just before something happens.”

“The elves are said to have intuition.”

“Actually, it’s always with me.”

“Always?”

“It’s like a shadow in the corner of my eye that I can’t quite see.” Roskin sat beside his confidant.

“Listen closely and maybe you’ll hear its warning.”

“Sometimes I get images of my attackers.”

“That’s your mother in you.” The hermit slid the last two slices of his apple to the dwarf.

“How do you know?”

“We are both part Loorish, young friend. I have felt you in my heart for some time. There are few of us left. Someday, I’ll tell you that story, but for now, we have work to do. Finish up.”

With that, the hermit rose and went outside. Roskin finished his eggs and apple slices and then hurried outside to find his host, who was at one of the fields, tending a fence that had been damaged during the winter. He told Roskin to use a sledgehammer and wedge to split new rails, and the dwarf obeyed without question. Back home, outside of military drills, only his father gave him direct orders, and if even one of his masters at school had not asked him courteously to do a task, he would have gotten offended. But with the old hermit, it seemed natural, not a breech of etiquette, so Roskin gathered the tools and went to work.

He split new rails until noon and was tired from the work, but the lunch of nuts and cheese reenergized him for the afternoon of carrying the new rails to spots where Kwarck had pulled apart the damaged ones. By evening, the dwarf’s new clothes were drenched with sweat, and his arms and legs were heavy from the labor, but there was a feeling of contentment he had seldom known. Most of his life had been spent preparing his mind for leadership, and only rarely was he asked to do manual labor. When Kwarck commended the work, Roskin was surprised by the pride he felt in his heart, a feeling like when he had watched the guard open the heavy doors of the Kireghegon Halls.

For the next week, he and Vishghu helped the hermit plow and sow his fields. The man showed them both how to drive a mule and plow, and they worked from sunup to sundown each day to get all of that year’s crops planted. While they worked, Red slowly recovered in the house. He slept most of each day and barely ate, but the shakes and hallucinations were all but gone. Kwarck’s herbs kept them away, and the old man became more and more lucid each day. By the time the fields were planted, he was able to get out of bed.

Vishghu avoided Red completely, and if they did happen into the same room, she would leave, but the ogre had warmed to Roskin enough that she would sit with him in the evenings. They shared stories of their homelands with the hermit, who soaked up their tales with the glee of a child. Kwarck never seemed to tire of hearing any story, regardless of how mundane or banal. Roskin also enjoyed listening to her. He already knew much about ogre culture, but since he had felt a taste of the cold, he had a new appreciation for the stories of shoveling snowdrifts or hunting moose.

Once the fields were planted, Kwarck turned his attention to weeding the forest. Roskin and Vishghu were shown which grasses and flowers not to touch, and the ogre was given a large sickle to clear the tall grasses. Roskin was left with clearing weeds from the bases of trees, and much of that work required him to kneel at the trunk and pull by hand the unwanted plants from the ground. It was backbreaking labor for both, but while they did that, the hermit mixed and used a special fertilizer that would not only help the trees grow but also protect them from diseases and pests.

When he wasn’t fertilizing the trees, Kwarck stayed busy cooking and cleaning for the four of them and helping Red break his addiction. The old man was capable of staying awake much of the day, and he could take short walks in the morning, but he still craved a taste and would lie in his room for hours and cry out for help. For a few days, Roskin feared that Red would either die from or give in to the pain, but by the time the forest was finished, the worst of Red’s cravings passed, and to Roskin, he seemed a different person.

Once the fatigue and chills had passed, Red cleaned and groomed himself every morning. His tangled, filthy hair was cut shorter, and his beard was shaved, revealing a myriad of scars. He helped Kwarck cut and sew new clothes for him, and he kept them clean and neat, almost to the point of obsessive. While the others weeded and watered the fields in the daytime, he helped prepare food or cared for Roskin’s horse. He offered to do the same for the buffalo, but Vishghu refused. In the evenings, he would practice swordplay with Roskin, drilling the dwarf on proper technique and footwork.

Once his strength was enough to allow it, he went to the fields with them and proved to be an excellent farmer. When Roskin asked where he had learned such skills, Red was at first peevish, snapping that the dwarf should mind his own labor, but Kwarck took the old man aside and spoke with him in private for nearly an hour. When they returned, Red apologized and explained that he had grown up a slave on an orc’s sugar plantation. He had worked in the fields from an hour before sunrise until several after sunset every day for many years, and the penalty for not being there on time was a beating from the overseer, a powerfully built orc who relished every opportunity to use his lash. Red had learned to farm from the other slaves, who were mostly Tredjards, Elves, and humans, because – in addition to the sugarcane for export – they had to grow all the food for the plantation. As the old man told his story, his scarred cheeks became streaked with tears, and he hung his head in shame. Roskin put an arm around Red’s waist.

“It’s okay,” Roskin said. “You’re okay.”

“That is what drove me.” He turned to Vishghu, who pretended to ignore him. “The more I killed the more I hated.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t…” Roskin began.

“Let him speak,” Kwarck interrupted the dwarf.

“I can’t change it. I can’t make it right, I know.”

Vishghu didn’t look up from the row she was hoeing.

“When I saw myself that day with death upon me, I thought that stopping would make me better, but the orcs stayed in my head, and the ogres haunted my heart. I thought that saying Crushaw was dead and calling myself another name would make me better, but the memories wouldn’t go as easily as the lies would come.”

“What do you want from me?” Vishghu bellowed, standing erect and drawing back her hoe like a weapon.

Roskin started to jump between them, but Kwarck grabbed his tunic.

“Kill me if you need to,” Red said, holding her gaze.

“You aren’t worth the energy,” she returned and then spat at his feet. She tossed down the hoe and stormed away towards the open lands beyond the fields. Red turned and slunk towards the house, his shoulders bent and his chin against his chest. Roskin wanted to follow and console him, but Kwarck placed a hand on his shoulder and told him to let them both have privacy. Words would only add fuel, he said. Just as rain was the best police, time and silence were the best conciliation. Roskin nodded and went back to his row.

For the next few weeks, Red stayed to himself, eating his meals in his room, tending a separate field, and not drilling with the swords. Roskin, who burned for the Brotherhood, wanted to ask him about Black Rock, but any time the dwarf tried to approach him, he was stopped by a gentle reprimand from Kwarck. The hermit insisted that Red remain alone until he wanted to return to the others. While Roskin neither understood nor agreed, he obeyed out of respect, but with each day, his need for the statuary grew and tortured him more.

***

Spring blended into summer, and on the plains, the heat would reach nearly a hundred every day. Roskin had never spent a summer day in the lowlands, and the heat was as foreign to him as the forests and meadows had been. Most days he had to work early in the morning and late in the evening, but between the heat and pests, the fields required constant attention, and the dwarf had grown tired of watering, weeding, and picking bugs. He had enjoyed the labor at first because it was different from sitting through lectures or reading, but as each day passed, the work became more and more tedious. Despite the adoration he felt for the hermit, he began to resent the work.

One night, as he sat outside to enjoy the cool air and to sharpen his sword, he was joined by Red for the first time in over two months. They sat in the noises of night for a long time without speaking. Roskin’s mind searched for a way to bring up Black Rock or the Brotherhood, but he remembered the old man’s reaction at Molgheon’s tavern, so every idea seemed ridiculous. Finally, Red’s voice, which had grown stronger and clearer since being at Kwarck’s, resounded in the darkness:

“I owe you my life, for the bridge and the ogres and getting me here, getting me out of my nightmare.”

“I’m glad you’re getting better.”

“I will never be better, but each day I feel stronger, more alive.”

“That’s good.”

“Why did you? Why were you looking for the general…for me?”

“Curiosity, I guess.”

Red didn’t say anything, but Roskin felt stupid for the lie. Now was the best time, maybe the only time, when he could ask about the fortress, but he simply couldn’t get the words to start.

“In Murkdolm,” Red said. “The dwarves took me in when my own left me to die. You dwarves have good hearts.”

“We were once bound together, the three races of dwarves, but time has weakened it.”

“I know little history. All I know is military history, battles and tactics.”

“Have you heard of a relic called the Brotherhood of Dwarves?” Roskin asked, bracing for the answer.

“No.”

“It was a platinum statue,” the dwarf continued, holding up his hands to show the size. His courage grew. “It symbolized the unity of our nations.”