The Cor Chronicles: Volume 02 - Fire and Steel (2 page)

In his caves, Feghul lamented and screamed his fury, pounding his clawed fists against stone. He was furious and confused that she did not realize who he was and even more furious that he had dropped the one thing by which he had to remember her. For a moment during his raging and mourning, the Grek became nearly human, having experienced two very powerful emotions. Feghul never again ventured outside of the caves, except to occasionally eat a hapless human who was unfortunate enough to be on the mountainside.

The Grek have a relatively instinctual existence, but Feghul always seemed slightly different than others of his species. He actually had thoughts, inclinations that went beyond the mere instinct of self preservation, food and mating. One thing that always stayed in his consciousness was the use of weapons by the warriors in the village below. He even had one, a curved sword that he had taken off of a man who became his meal. The weapon intrigued him, but he found that his own claws and fists were far more dangerous. The sword did have one advantage though, and that was adding length to his attacks.

Feghul spent the next three hundred years of his life attempting to make similar weapons. His volcanic home had no shortage of raw materials with which he could experiment, and he found that the raw heat of the magma pools nearby could heat metals to make them malleable. He learned how to shape them once heated and how to make them sharp. Feghul determined that iron was harder to heat and work than metals like copper, but was substantially stronger and could be made to be much sharper. Unfortunately, none of these metals could make a weapon that proved to be more effective than his claws.

Perhaps it was pure chance, or perhaps Hykan or some other god of which we have no knowledge guided him, but Feghul one day stumbled upon an underground lake when exploring one of the higher sets of caves. Daylight poured through a huge opening in the mountain well over a thousand feet overhead and reflected off the surface of the lake’s calm waters. Deep in the water at one end of the lake, a green gleam unlike anything he had ever seen caught Feghul’s eye. He sat on his haunches next to the lake’s edge staring at the green light that shined from below.

Simply put, the Grek do not swim. In fact, they do not even need water to survive, unlike most creatures; as I said, their biology is completely foreign to us. Immensely strong, the Grek are extremely dense of bone and muscle, and to enter water means that they simply sink to the bottom. Feghul’s first attempt at entering the lake did not go well; as he walked into its depths, his weight keeping him firmly on the lake’s bottom, the foul wetness of it poured into his open mouth and made him choke. He clambered up onto the lakeshore, coughing and hacking up the lake water

After several more attempts, Feghul learned to close his mouth and hold his breath as he simply walked on the bottom of the lake. As he approached the source of the reflecting green light, he could make out the shape of a small boulder. Upon closer inspection, Feghul realized it was made of stone, but had a vein of a bizarre greenish metal running through it. It was heavy and well settled into the lake’s bottom, but after returning to the surface several times for breath, Feghul eventually hefted the object out of the lake’s depths and onto the shore.

Most of the Grek are pure wanderers, but Feghul had a favorite haunt near a large lava pool. The Grek are not impervious to such things, but they do find a brief wallow in lava quite relaxing. He carried the find back to his lair to spend several days inspecting it at great length. He used his primitive tools and brute strength to break away the excess stone and rock until he was left with only the green metal, and it was stronger than any metal he had yet seen in the mountain depths, even iron.

To be certain, Feghul was an extraordinary example of the race of Grek, certainly more intelligent, with some ability of rational thought; he even showed signs of emotion at points of his life. But what force or intelligence guided his clawed hands through the next steps will forever be a mystery. Using the hellish heat of the magma pools, Feghul softened the alien metal to workability. It would not melt, but became very soft so that he could shape it into a blade. Feghul had once loved a curved sword, a bronze scimitar that he had taken off of a human warrior, but he had accidentally broken it on the hide of another Grek. He worked the green metal into a similar shape and even fitted the new blade with the same guard, an irregularly shaped hexagon. The metal still glowing, Feghul sharpened the sword’s outer edge to a razor that he somehow knew would cut nearly anything with little effort and retain its vorpal edge forever.

Feghul, a member of a savage and unintelligent race of creatures, had crafted a sword that even the greatest masters from Tigol would envy and covet. He doted on the blade, showing it great affection, and in return the sword sang to him whenever he wished. It was more than a prideful trophy however; he used it in combat with the occasional Grek or human he encountered, extending his reach to a truly vicious distance. Feghul exulted in the death he caused with his blade.

It was one day deep in his cave that he scented something sweet that he had not smelled in perhaps a century. The lovely smell of supple human flesh wafted through the air currents into his lair, and he was amazed that he had not noticed it sooner, for it was fairly close. He puzzled over this as no human had ever entered the caves this deeply; they could not seem to survive the heat, and the air was toxic to them. As it came closer, it became quite apparent to him that the smell was that of a female, reminding him of the girl child turned to woman long ago.

Whoever she was, she tried very hard to approach as quietly as possible, but Feghul’s ears were keen to pick up any sound not natural to the caves. She was most definitely heading toward his lair, and she could not be far away. The fact the human was willing to just walk so deeply into the caves made Feghul cautious, and taking his scimitar, he lowered himself into the lava pool. The cave floor sloped gently into the magma, which allowed him to keep his head and the scimitar out of the molten rock. Someone approaching from the far side of his cave would only see his eyes and the top of his head, if they were able to distinguish him from the cave itself at all.

Feghul did not have to wait long before the woman came down the cave tunnel leading to his lair. She was beautiful with the bronze skin and golden hair of the nobility of Dulkur, but this fact was completely lost on the Grek. She wore clothes, as Feghul had seen other humans do, and was clad in a shimmering black material that clung tightly to her form. Her feet were protected from the hot stone floor of the cave by soft soled sandals held to her feet by silk laces that wrapped around her calves and shins. She strode into his cave with a swagger that a human would have recognized as confidence, if not arrogance. When she entered his abode, she came to a halt and surveyed the interior intently, her eyes washing over Feghul briefly. The woman smiled slightly as she moved toward and fondled the implements Feghul used to make his weapon. She then turned and looked directly at the Grek in his hiding place.

That she saw him was plain enough, and Feghul jumped to his feet, his rough hide steaming in the slightly cooler air from the extreme heat of the lava pool. He held his scimitar in one clawed hand, and the woman’s eyes rested on the beautiful weapon. Her smile widened as her eyes narrowed, and Feghul knew suddenly that she had come to take his possession from him.

He roared in anger and charged the human. A mere twenty feet separated the two figures, and knowing her life was in immediate danger, the woman extended her left hand in front of her. Blue flame shot from her fingertips and washed over the Grek, who stopped suddenly in the unexpected attack. The fire was extremely hot, but no worse than the heat of the lava, which he enjoyed to bathe in from time to time. Realizing that she could not harm him, he began to approach her slowly, relishing with every step the violence he was about to inflict upon this trespasser. He laughed, the sound a horrible mimicry of the little girl’s from long ago.

Feghul was an oddity for his race to be certain; in addition to creating his scimitar, he was capable of some emotion and thought beyond basic survival instincts. But even this Grek could not have been prepared for what happened next. He could not have known that while Hykan was this sorceress’ patron god, she had some ability to call on power from the other three elemental gods, nor would such knowledge have helped him.

The woman backed toward the mouth of the tunnel that opened into Feghul’s cave and crossed her arms violently in front of her as if they would protect her from his impending attack, and she muttered some words that he could neither hear, nor understand if he had. He stopped his approach, hearing a sound build from behind her in the tunnel. It was a low rumble that built slowly to a roar, and the cave began to vibrate with some oncoming force.

Having so little experience with it, Feghul did not recognize the sound of rushing water. The woman dove to one side, covering her head with her arms, as gigantic plume of water exploded from the tunnel and impacted the Grek with impressive force. Though he did not fall to the cave floor, it did force him back a step or two. It was appallingly cold and under its roar could be heard the sound of hissing as it sizzled away upon striking the cave, Feghul’s hide and the lava pool beyond. As the frigid water impacted his body, the opposing elemental forces of extreme heat born of fire and lava and unnaturally cold water cancelled each other out violently. Intensely hot steam filled the cave, but it was not this that ended the Grek; his hide, his protection from all things that would harm him, grew stiff and rigid. As the flow of water ended, he realized that he could not move, and a sound little different from the cracking of glass could be heard in the now quiet cave. Feghul looked with instinctual horror as his now tight hide pulled itself in opposing directions, cracks forming all along its surface arrayed like a spider’s web. He had one last thought, that to get back to the safety and comfort of the lava pool, and it was that final effort he placed on his muscles that wrought his end. What little control he had caused a great twitch in his legs; though they did not move from where he stood, it caused his entire torso to wheel and fall off balance to the ground. As Feghul’s body impacted, there was a great shatter, and he came apart in every direction as if his body had always been made of brittle stone.

All that was left of Feghul was his forearm and clawed hand still wrapped around the hilt of his scimitar. The woman stood from her position on the floor, brushing imaginary dirt off of her black silk clothing. She casually strode to the severed claw holding the sword, the only part of Feghul that was spared, and picked it up by the creature’s forearm. She carefully took hold of the sword by its odd guard and uncurled the claws from around its hilt to let the hand and forearm fall to the cave floor. She held the scimitar by its hilt with her right arm, her sword arm, and marveled that a creature such as Feghul could make such a beautiful and lethal weapon. She could feel its strength adding to her own, and she knew it would amplify her sorcery as well as be deadly in its own right. The golden haired woman of Dulkur whispered a prayer of thanks to Hykan, Elemental God of Fire, before turning and leaving the cave behind.

1.

Cor stared incredulously as Thyss related how she came by her blade. Hykan, god of fire and her patron god, had imparted a vision unto her of the scimitar and where it might be found. The sword itself had shown her the history of Feghul and how he came to construct the weapon. Cor had of course seen visions of and through his own apparently enchanted weapons and armor, and it was becoming quite clear to him that these items had their own intelligence and will. It seemed that these artifacts always found their way to someone who could make the best use of their power, one way or the other.

Cor rode his brilliant, golden palomino named Kelli, and he rode ready for battle excluding his helm, which stayed conveniently clipped to his saddle should he need to don it quickly. The helm, round and large with no apparent visor, would have covered the entirety of his head and neck, hiding the long and unkempt near black hair of a Westerner and the gray skin of a Dahken. His face appeared strong and angular, as if a solid jaw, strong chin and cheekbones were chiseled from stone by an artisan of the greatest skill. Cor wore the hauberk and legguards he had retrieved from Noth’s catacombs; the match pieces to his helm, they too were apparently made of gleaming black steel. The hauberk was actually two solid pieces of plate armor, a front and a back that buckled together under the arms. They were wrought in the form of a heavily muscled torso, and the torso they protected was not quite as developed but no less strong. The legguards were made of several pieces of black plate held together by chain, and a pair of plate sabatons and chain gauntlets, both of which he had taken from Taraq’nok’s armory, rounded out his ensemble. This left most of his upper and fore arms unprotected, the deathly pallor of his kind for all to see.

Soulmourn and Ebonwing hung ever present at his sides. Soulmourn, the single edged longsword he had taken from Lord Dahken Rena’s tomb, reflected purple in sunlight, and Cor was still uncertain as to what kind of metal from which it was made. He had never sharpened it once, and he was certain that neither had Rena. Yet the blade always remained undamaged, unscratched and free from rust, even as it punched through steel armor. The crosspiece was unadorned and led to a hilt that was leather wrapped for the top hand and plain steel for the bottom. A pommel, wrought of steel in the form of a miniature, fantastic skull completed the hilt.

Cor always held Ebonwing in his left hand while in battle, and he always thought that the fetish had some power of which he was unaware. He felt it course through him every time he fought. Ebonwing had been a symbol for kings and queens of some ancient world long past, and Cor was certain they had left part of themselves within it so as to make sure the talisman never left the sword for long. The thing was evil looking at nearly a foot long with a leather wrapped handle made of ebony. A bleached white skull, perfectly human in appearance if one overlooked that it was the size of a cat’s skull, adorned its head, and two tiny black batwings attached to its neck right below the skull. However, Cor never had any reason to suspect an evil nature about the thing, despite its truly wicked appearance.