The Contention (11 page)

Next Seth enchanted Sara’s small armored boots. To these he affixed the symbols of ‘absorb’, ‘contain’, ‘command’ and ‘release’, exactly as he had done with his breastplate earlier in the day at one point. He applied the word ‘jump’ to the magic, creating a command Sara could easily recall. Next, Sara’s breastplate was infused with the symbols of ‘contain’, ‘command’ and ‘shadows’. The command added to her breastplate was ‘hide’, another easy-to-remember command. This piece of armor would not be able to sustain itself, and as such Seth poured a great amount of power into the symbols; enough he imagined, to keep the enchantment alive for many lifetimes of use.

Her armor completed, Seth looked to Sara’s secondary, oddly designed set of blades, still undecided as to how he would enchant them. He wanted to increase Sara’s magical arsenal, but only if it seemed to build upon the skills and abilities she already had. Thinking for long minutes, Seth finally came to a decision. These were blades designed for use in two situations; either a confined space, where long traditional swords were useless, or when you were overcome and your enemy was close enough for hand to hand combat. That discovered, Seth’s choice of enchantment seemed both perfect and brutal. To each of these blades Seth affixed the symbols for ‘absorb’, ‘physical realm’ and ‘release’. The weapons would be devastating should an enemy get near enough to be struck by one. Basic logic told Seth that with this combination, any living being that was cut with these blades would have a portion of their life siphoned off, just as with the other blades. But this time, instead of that power being given into the bearer, it was then released in a torrent of pure power in all directions from the blade. Essentially, if you were stabbed with one of these blades, it would drain a portion of your life and simultaneously explode forth with the power it siphoned off, like a small bomb going off within your wound. Messy, but lethally effective.

His work completed, Seth explained how each piece of newly enchanted steel worked and warned Sara not to try the boots until she was outside where no ceiling would cause her to break her neck!

“So if I kick someone with my toe, or my heel for that matter, and pierce their skin, my boots will recharge their energy?” Sara asked.

“Exactly,” Seth said, nodding his approval of Sara’s understanding.

“So only my armor needs commands, and the weapons work on their own,” Sara stated more than asked, simply reassuring herself.

After a few more minutes, Sara was suited up in her armor, as well prepared as Seth could manage for her first lesson in weapons training. Just in time too, for evening was upon Valdadore, and within the hour darkness would fall. It would be the appointed time that she was to meet her instructor at the knights’ sparring field within the castle complex. Kissing her amazingly talented husband goodbye, Sara strode from the room, where her bodyguard, Jonas, fell into step beside her.

“You seem excited to train, Princess Sara.” Jonas stated the obvious.

“The training is just a means to an end, Jonas,” Sara replied. “During the last battle I was a liability, and useless at best. For this battle, mark my words, I will be ferocious and, I assure you, I will make a difference,” Sara said both defiantly, and matter-of-factly.

“It shall define the future of the kingdom for sure,” Jonas responded in reference to the impending battle. “You will indeed make a big difference in helping Valdadore rise from the ashes, ferocious or not. Prince Seth will be proud of your actions. Keep your mind about you while you train and while you fight, though it is just as important that you trust your instincts and let them guide you,” Jonas added, both happy to be giving battle advice and leery of what kind of killer he might be giving it to.

*****

Linaya and Zorbin had ridden hard all day, only stopping once to rest their mounts and fill their bellies. The task they were burdened with was vastly important but most likely a fool’s errand. Unfortunately for both of them, it was a necessity for them to at least try, though their chances for success were slim by the most optimistic reckoning. They had talked very little throughout the day, their only real conversation being when Zorbin first went to collect the lady. Immediately she had informed him of their orders in their entirety, and with little more than an added introduction, the pair gathered their horses, mounted, and began riding east towards the Rancor Mountains. Though the mountains were only a week’s ride from Valdadore, it was where they had to go to enter the mountains that was the problem. Boulder Gate was the only dwarven city that the other races of man knew about. It was a massive subterranean structure that encompassed an entire city beneath the mountains. There were nine entrances to the stronghold, one for each of the ruling clans of the dwarves throughout history. Though there were nine ways into the dwarves’ domain, only one was open at a time, and was chosen at random. Each entrance was no less than a day’s travel from the next entrance, and even if someone knew the locations of all nine, like Zorbin did, they could spend weeks traveling from one to another, never being at the right entrance on the right day that it was opened. And given the random nature of the way the entrance location was chosen, it occurred from time to time that one entrance might not be chosen to open at all for several weeks on end. So simply selecting an entrance and waiting was not particularly a grand option either.

Zorbin feared this seemingly simple task might well prove more difficult than the small woman was prepared for. Hers was a life pampered by servants and palaces, not sleeping in the outdoors and taking care of oneself. The dwarf was accustomed to surviving in the wilds. Though he had been trained in the ways of being a dwarf, learning to mine, build and smith, he was an oddity among his race as he had chosen to follow Gorandor’s path and not the path of Ximlin, the patron god of the dwarves. His choice to follow a different path made him a bit of an outcast as an adolescent, and so Zorbin had spent much time traveling the surface of his people’s mountain kingdom. He had memorized every mountain and every pass. He knew the wildlife and had befriended Zanth, his giant wolf, becoming as close to being a brother to the beast as was possible. None of this made his standing better among his own kind, yet here he was, on his way to his ancestral home to plead the case of a human kingdom, whose survival or demise meant little to the unworldly dwarven nation.

Such were Zorbin’s thoughts as darkness began to descend upon Linaya and himself. Though he and Zanth could see well enough in the dark to continue, Linaya and her horse would find night-time travel less favorable, and as such, Zorbin brought them to a halt for the second time that day. Dismounting, he began to set camp without a word. Linaya, taking the unspoken meaning, followed his lead.

Chapter 6

Meet the Neighbors

Darkness had fallen upon the kingdom of Valdadore and, with the loss of sunlight, the night was quick to turn chilly. Garret had led his knights to their destination, west and north of Valdadore to the shore of Hollow Lake. By any standards the lake was not a large one, but was dark and deep, and remained cold all year round. Some believed the depths of the lake reached down into the center of Thurr, and that perhaps the lake itself was part of the world’s soul. It was said that any who drowned here never washed ashore, but instead rose again in the underworld, a place in the heart of the world, where most believed it was hollow. Thus the deep lake had been named Hollow Lake, and those who believed in fairy tales told stories that this place was an open portal to a world of living dead.

Garret had heard such tales of the lake as a child, though he had never seen the place until now. As far as he could tell it was nothing special. Tonight, as the sun sank in the sky and its last rays splayed across the surface of the dark water, Garret found the vision calming, if not a bit boring for a place that had been described as an evil portal. Watching the sunset, Garret and his knights tethered their mounts to a small tree at the lake’s edge, though most of the grass here had been washed away with erosion. Garret saw no help for it however, and figured they would let the horses graze free during the daylight hours when predators were less active. Knowing it would be several hours before Horace would catch up with the rest of them, Garret explained his plan to the men.

“I am sure you have been wondering about the shovels, but I did not want to speak of my plans before now lest prying ears hear it,” Garret said to his knights. “Hollow Lake is not only a vast amount of water, but it is also fed by the Glorian River. What makes it most useful is its higher elevation than that of the rolling hills between Westgate and Valdadore.” Garret added, watching realization dawn on the faces of his men. “We are going to dig a new river from here to the beginning of the first hills, though we will be leaving enough soil in place to act as a dam and contain the water until Sigrant’s army is in the water’s path,” Garret said smiling. “One of you will remain here until I send word to destroy the dam, and at that time, once the water is flowing, you will return to the rest of the army.”

“Sounds like a great plan to me, brother,” said Noah Brightblade, a knight only a few years senior to the new king. “It makes sense to let the army train and prepare while we dig. In our blessed forms the five of us can move as much soil as a few hundred men and probably in less time.” Everyone else nodded their agreement.

Without needing any more orders, the knights began their task. Each man stripped off his armor and gathered from his mount the pair of shovels he had been provided with earlier in the day. These were large shovels and well made in the fashion of Valdadorian farm implements, each of them having a wide, sharp blade and a solid oak handle. Garret watched as Noah prayed briefly and exploded in size with his shovel in hand. Noah was the largest of his size shifters. Though the knight and Garret himself were the same size in their normal forms, Noah was blessed with even more size and strength than the king, growing to five times his usual size in his blessed form. The man became a monstrous thirty feet tall, and now held a shovel with a blade wider than the average bull. Garret could not help but wonder how, with men such as these at his side, Valdadore could possibly fall to the likes of King Sigrant. Within seconds four more men exploded in size, including the king himself. Each of them was a giant mass of bulging muscles as they moved immense amounts of dirt, working methodically into the night. The comrades spoke sparingly as they worked, deciding instead to focus on the task at hand. All of them knew the dire position the kingdom was in, and each understood exactly how precious time was in their current situation.

*****

Seth had bid Sara farewell only moments after completing her new armor and weapons as she left immediately to be trained in the art of combat. Seth was both happy for her and worried, though he knew she would be more than an apt student. With her sharp mind and newfound physical prowess, Sara was the perfect candidate for such training. As much as Seth wanted to go watch the session himself, his duties were piled so high there was no end in sight, and he needed to get back to work. However, unable to send the woman he loved to a fight on her own, Seth had dispatched Jonas along with her to, if nothing else, witness the training so he could tell Seth about it in the days to come.

Sara and Jonas were only a few yards down the corridor when two of Seth’s soldiers walked into the room, each holding jumbled armloads of armor. Seth quickly made the alterations needed for each soldier. Sending them on their way, he began again with the next pair as soon as they entered. Though Seth did manage to perfect the process, and complete each alteration in a more than reasonable amount of time, it was a long, arduous night filled with naught but repetition and more repetition.

*****

Borrik, relieved of his duties for the night, had no idea what to do with his time. Seth had suggested he spend it with the men, but Borrik already shared every waking moment with them through his telepathic link to each and every one of them. What he really wanted more than anything was a little time to himself, not only to rest, but also to unwind his weary mind. So much had happened in the previous weeks that Borrik had not had the time to properly digest it all. Once a priest, he was now a fierce killer, and the second-in-command to the most powerful mage on Thurr. Where he once was a human, now he was labeled a werewolf: a hybrid creature of man and beast. Where once he was a solitary man, who spoke to few and shared with none, now his consciousness belonged to a group, and thoughts were shared with him that he would rather not witness at all. Though Borrik knew that fate was the arm that guided him, he could not be sure that this was what he was destined to be.

With these thoughts plaguing his mind, Borrik wandered the temple to Ishanya seemingly aimlessly. Lost to the material world, his worries and fears clouding his mind, Borrik walked by instinct through the building and before he even realized where it was he was going, he stood outside a small wooden door. The door had once been the entrance to his own personal chamber. However, with so many changes and updates to the temple, Borrik was sure the room would have been repurposed. He would not be surprised if the small chamber was now used as a broom closet, as it had been nowhere near as grand as all the newly discovered rooms. Sure as he was that he would find the room altered, Borrik could still not help himself but to shove the door open and peek inside. What he found was nearly unconceivable to him.

The small room that had once been his personal chamber sparkled and shone. Nothing had been removed and, for but one object, everything inside the room was just as he left it. The room had been cleaned, restored, repainted and the stone surfaces polished, but it was still his chamber none the less. Borrik stepped into the room, leaving the door open. He turned in a circle and admired the newly restored condition of the chamber. Everything was precisely as he remembered, only better. The only item in the room that was out of place was a statue of Ishanya, that had previously stood in the adjacent chamber. It had been at the foot of this very statue where Borrik had met Seth and Sara  at the beginning of many events that would mold all of their destinies. Seth had said that first day, having just met Borrik, that having touched the statue, the goddess Ishanya had spoken to him. Borrik’s mind was so laden with questions, he could not help but to hope that he too could be so lucky. Deciding that he deserved the answers his soul was seeking, Borrik turned and closed the door, leaving himself alone in the absolute dark with the statue of Ishanya.