Whetstones of the Will Read online

  Ivant opened his mouth to reply but bit the words back. A scream in the distance broke the tension and drew the attention of each of the three experienced warriors.

  Part II

  “That was the cry of an elf,” Truthorne whispered.

  “Aye,” Vech responded, nodding. “Brought a few of yer royal scouts with me, and they were to watch the entrance to these tunnels. That scream was too close, though. They must have been…”

  Vech didn’t finish, but he didn’t need to finish. All three knew what the only reasonable conclusion must be. The elves had been pushed into the tunnel by assaults from something, or someone from outside.

  Truthorne drew his holy shrou-sheld and his mercshyeld dagger and moved to the left. Vech drew his black leiness axe, which to the dwarven kings and peoples also served as scepter and orb and record of their history, and shouldered his shield fashioned of the scapula of a firedrake. King Ivant took a moment to gather the healer’s pack, extra waterskins, and other items of use slung them over his shoulder. He smiled at how his friends had instinctively moved, one to the right, the other to the left.

  Ivant removed his storied helm, made of mercshyeld and possessing a magical gem of lexxmar in the forehead, from his pack and strapped it on. It was rare that he wore the helm, for he preferred his enemies see his face, his eyes, during combat. However, the helm provided faultless vision through the gloom of the underground caverns and protection against any mental attacks. Ivant picked up his Shrou-Hayn, Swift Blood, a greatsword six feet in length and stepped between them to lead in the vanguard position. The tunnels would make for close work, so Ivant took a specially mailed gauntlet from his pack. Then, holding the mid-haft of Swift Blood in one hand, he took the top third of the blade in the gauntleted hand and held the sword more like a staff than a sword.

  The three moved through the soft blue glow of the tunnel light silently and swiftly. Occasional screams and scrapes of metal against stone could be heard from up ahead of them. They passed a few side chambers where some of the wealth of the local churches was secreted and noted that each of those passages was warded against entry. They also noted the dust drifting down from whatever tumult was taking place on the streets above them.

  They rounded a corner as one in time to see something terrible. If they had been a bit slower, if the templar had been a bit more merciful, if the elf had died of his initial wounds… If and if and if. Yet, none of those things happened, and thus the fate of future generations, of peoples and nations, was sealed.

  Each of the three warriors watched, helpless and speechless, as a templar wearing the Hourglass of Time upon his tunic slowly pressed the point of his longsword into the eye of an elven scout, an elven scout bearing the sigil and crest of the Kingdom of Great Men. The execution was enough to make inevitable the templar’s fate, but the smirk he bore as he extinguished the life of that faithful servant set the temper of King Ivant ablaze. Truthorne caught a sigh that was more a whimper in his throat, for he perhaps better than the others understood the weight of what had just transpired.

  Ivant roared a battle cry that Vech had only heard once before, a battle cry that the god of war, Bolvii, on high heard clearly. This would be the first time the King shed the blood of a servant of the churches. It would not be the last.

  Vech, shocked by the callousness of the templar’s executing blade and the rage of Ivant’s battle cry, was startled into action by Truthorne’s cry.

  “My King, no!” Truthorne pleaded.

  Truthorne’s cry, not to mention Ivant’s roar, drew the attention of more than just the templars of Time standing over the elven scouts. Vech sprinted, for dwarves are natural sprinters, in hopes of catching up to his friend. Vech saw there were too many templars in those tight quarters for even the mighty Ivant to manage on his own.

  Ivant charged forward with fire burning in his veins and his eyes. Truthorne, much quicker and more agile than his good friend, still struggled to keep pace with the maddened King Ivant. Vech, huffing and puffing, followed close behind. Ivant thrust Swift Blood forward before Truthorne could catch up. The magical speed of the storied blade sent it piercing the air almost as a lightning bolt.

  The templar of Time smiled, thinking he now had an opportunity to remove King Ivant as an obstacle once and for all. Truthorne saw the templar lifting his longsword to parry Swift Blood, following the blade with a dagger concealed in his off-hand. The templar clearly intended to knock Swift Blood out of line and then drive the dagger forward, hiding the attack beneath the other crossed blades. Truthorne whispered a quick prayer for the soul of the templar, a brother he did not know.

  Swift Blood thrust in as the templar’s longsword rose, but the parrying blade rose far too slowly. Swift Blood darted like the tongue of a viper slicing through the templar’s chainmail shirt and then into heart, lung, and spine. The templar of Time dropped to the stone, dead before his corpse could feel the coolness of the marble beneath him.

  Ivant whipped his greatsword back as quickly as it had struck and caught the top third of the blade in his off-hand as he spun toward the next templar of Time. Truthorne had seen this move a number of times and knew exactly how the King would execute it. Truthorne arrived barely in time to knock Ivant’s powerful slash upward, forcing Swift Blood’s edge just above the helm of the next servant of Father Time and Supreme Pontiff Lynneare. Ivant, undeterred, continued the move and spin and came around to strike the templar hard in the face with the pommel of his greatsword, knocking the templar to the stone floor too stunned to speak.

  Another templar thrust at Ivant’s side and Truthorne forced that attack low and wide with his own longsword as he rebounded from Ivant’s momentum. Another spear came from the darkness to the left, bound for King Ivant’s unprotected thigh.

  Just as the spear came in, so did the powerful Vech. The dwarven king caught the haft of the spear in the crook of his axe and pulled it down hard against his upraised forearm, snapping the head off and leaving the ambushing templar holding only a broken stick.

  Ivant kicked the seated and stunned templar in the head for good measure as he moved past him and on toward the rest of his number gathered in a chamber only a few feet away. Truthorne dove and stretched out his considerable frame, launching himself not unlike an arrow past Ivant and into the gathering templars.

  Many of them raised a sword or mace but paused upon seeing the holy Hourglass symbol emblazed on Truthorne’s armor, tunic, and weapons. Without pause, Truthorne hoped from the ground, spun, and faced Ivant to knock the next attack from Swift Blood wide.

  “Please!” Truthorne pleaded.

  Ivant hesitated a moment, but only a moment, for a templar to the side threw a spear at the King of the Great Men aimed for his neck. Ivant spun on a tilted axis that brought his greatsword up to slap the spear high of its mark. Ivant, maintaining his momentum, continued the spin, reversed his grip on his sword, and slid toward the templar on one knee. Holding the pommel in his right hand, he drove the top third of the blade up with his left slicing through mail, then guts, then ribs. Ivant, continuing the motion without pause or hesitation, pulled Swift Blood free, locked his leading foot into place, and pushed himself up into the stance of the Raven Wing, which secured his right arm close to his ribs while his left remained high and out to the side.

  The templar staggered back, grasping with both hands to put back what had not been disturbed since Father Time put it there. The templar slumped to the ground, his hands full of his own entrails. His eyes locked with Truthorne’s for a moment, and then saw nothing more.

  “This treachery by the crown will not stand!” one of the templar’s cried as he charged toward Ivant but was cut short by Vech’s axe swipe. “You have violated a holy place!”

  “You’ve killed kingsmen,” Vech replied as he pushed the templar’s longsword wide and punched into his abdomen with the head of his axe knocking the wind from the man. “How’d ya’ think that will go over?”

  Vech and Truth
orne managed to force themselves between Ivant and the remainder of the templars. Ivant circled as a hungry lion might trying to get around his friends to those that had, in his opinion, abandoned their rightful duties to kill his scouts instead. Dust drifted down into the chamber, a result of the terrible battle raging above in the streets of Ivory Rose.

  “Wait!” Truthorne pleaded again. “Please, hold! This doesn’t have to get worse…”

  “You took an oath not a few hours ago to never stand against me and mine,” Ivant reminded Truthorne, his voice taking on a dangerously cold tone. “Do templars forget their oaths so easily?”

  “Now you hold too, Tall Walker,” Vech cautioned, hoping the dwarven nickname given Ivant would jar his mind enough to make reasoning with him possible.

  It was not lost on Truthorne how desperate times had become that a dwarf was the voice of reason among them.

  “There be a time and place for hashin’ this out, but this ain’t either,” Vech said, hoping his words were finding purchase in the hearts of the men around him. “You maybe ain’t hearin’ them o’er the sound o’ the blood in yer ears, but there’s women and kiddos screaming an’ cryin’ above us. They be needin’ us, every one o’ us.”

  “I have ever been true to my oaths,” Truthorne said. “I will forever honor my oath to you, good King Ivant, but I must also honor my oath to Father Time. Please listen to the wisdom of the dwarven king.”

  Ivant, much to the surprise of his friends Truthorne and Vech, nodded his head in agreement. Ivant lowered his head, closed his eyes, and gave a great sigh.

  “Remove yourselves from our path so we may be about the duties of the strong administering to the needs of the weak,” Ivant said in a low tone to the small gathering of templars. “I pray thee.”

  The remaining nine templars moved to the sides of the chamber out of the path of the King, and Ivant started forward. Truthorne and Vech saw the doom of them but with no time to react or intervene. A spear, thrown from amidst the ranks of the templars of Time, flew through the air bound for King Ivant’s exposed side. Ivant also saw the hurled spear, but not even the enchanted speed given him by Swift Blood enabled him to move out of its path. Ivant had only enough time to wonder at Truthorne’s culpability in his assassination.

  As the three friends watched the head of the spear knife through the air with deadly accuracy, they also instinctively crouched as the stone above them gave way. They realized that the sounds of the grating stone had been in their ears for several moments, yet none of them registered the significance until now. The ceiling of the chamber collapsed as the street above fell in upon them; the debris swallowed the hurled spear.

  King Vech shoved a large piece of what he presumed was once a wagon off his sturdy chest and then began to cast about in the dust, dark, and screams. He saw Swift Blood’s pommel and knew Ivant’s hand would not be far from it. He crawled through the rubble, comprised of the remains of this chamber, the street, and what must have been at least two buildings above them, to the sword of his friend.

  Vech pushed aside stone and dirt to find the gloved hand of King Ivant. Vech moved around, paying no attention whatsoever to the blood coursing from his own brow, and latched both of his thick hands around the wrist of his friend. The first pull brought the helm of Ivant within sight, and Vech took great relief in seeing the puffs of dust from under the helm, indicating that his companion still drew breath. The next pull brought Ivant’s top half out from under the pile, leaving only his legs still buried. Vech took a moment to catch his breath, and then leaned into the third pull, straining with all the considerable power of his shoulders and arms.

  As Ivant’s leg came free from the rubble, another spear flew in, striking Ivant’s side and sinking in deep. Vech looked up, thinking to haul his axe out and give it a throw at whoever struck his good friend. Instead, he watched, a bit horrified, as one of the hatchlings wrapped a tentacle around a smiling and unsuspecting templar. The templar’s smile transformed to a scream of terror during a single heartbeat as the hatchling ripped away one of his legs and stuffed it into the maw situated between its great pincers.

  Vech pulled Ivant farther from the feasting hatchling and along a side tunnel. Two more templars were pulled from the rubble by another hungry beast that dropped into what was a subterranean chamber. There was no sign of Truthorne or the other templars. Vech thought it likely, given the size and quantity of the stones that fell in on them, the templars and Truthorne crushed to death and buried in one swift stroke by the gods.

  Vech decided that it might be best for Truthorne, a way to die with his honor and his soul secure. Vech liked the Master Templar but had known for years that one day he would face a choice between his friendship with King Ivant and his blind loyalty to an over-reaching church. Vech knew, should that day come, it would likely end with catastrophic results.

  Vech was no priest but had spent decades if not centuries in one battle or another, and he knew wounds. Now he checked Ivant’s and determined he was likely only knocked out and perhaps had a few broken ribs from the falling stone. Vech thought to himself that Ivant’s remarkable smoke-colored breastplate had saved him again, for the stone that cracked those ribs would have crushed an angry bear. It was Ivant’s other injuries that worried him. There were deep cuts that had been bandaged and stitched but were now seeping blood once again.

  Vech ran for several hundred yards through the now darkened tunnels underneath the great coastal city. The magic of the light Ivant had activated had been shattered when the chamber collapsed, but Vech’s dwarven eyes, eyes that were no stranger to the dark places of the world, showed him his path clearly. After many twists, turns, stairs, and ladders, King Vech smelled the salt air of the sea near at hand.

  “Is that you, good dwarf?” came from an elven voice in the distance. “Although I don’t see you yet, your distinct smell is unmistakable.”

  “Julian, get ya’ in here and bring ya’ back o’ magic plants!” Vech roared at the always joking elven scout. “Yer king’s hurt!”

  Vech heard Julian’s signal horn call for aid. He heard it clearly and had no doubt so did General Willock and the remainder of King Ivant’s armies. Vech did not often envy anything crafted by another race, but Vech envied Julian’s signal horn. Helldjern it was called.

  Julian, a tall and rather thin elf with long black hair and eyes that tinted from brown to gold, sprinted down the tunnels toward them, toward his King. As he ran, he dropped his sectot bow from his shoulder and nocked an arrow. Vech, stunned and confused, could only throw himself over Ivant’s prostrate form as Julian ran at them, drawing his bowstring.

  Julian’s bowstring sung, and Vech instinctively twitched in anticipation of the pain that would soon follow. However, much to his surprise, he heard the arrow strike armor, or bone, above and behind him. Vech turned in time to see one of the hatchlings; he had no idea they could have ever been so stealthy, less than ten yards behind him and crumpling. The giant beast collapsed in a heap, dead instantly from Julian’s expert marksmanship, and his Roarke’s Ore tipped arrow.

  “Glad you could finally catch up,” Vech huffed, trying to maintain his composure. “Thought I was gonna have to kill another o’ those cursed things.”

  Julian began to smile but stopped when he saw the blood on Vech and his King, Ivant. In one swift and fluid motion, the tall elf dropped to one knee, slung his healer’s pouch to hang before his lean stomach, and worked with both hands independently to select herbs. With his left hand, he passed two different types of leaves and a moss to Vech, who only just then noticed the blood coming from beneath his breastplate. With his right, Julian pressed another moss on Ivant’s forehead and then worked to unstrap his smoke-colored armor.

  Julian found a few older wounds poorly treated and a host of new injuries when he examined Ivant. His efforts and every action were efficient and quick. The elven scout expertly cut the cloth strips from Ivant with a slim dagger in one hand while applying an enchanted leaf
and fresh bandage with the other. In the time Vech had removed his own armor, stopped the bleeding from a stab wound he was unable to recall, wrapped a bandage around it and his head wound, and get his armor back on Julian had finished healing King Ivant and he was coming around.

  “Truthorne?” Ivant asked in a groggy voice.

  “Buried in the rubble… I think,” Vech said. “There was only a few what stirred once the roof, meaning also the street, came down upon us. Those few got et by one of them wee krakens.”

  “Julian,” Ivant said and needed say no more.

  “My King,” Julian responded. “Before I go, I signaled for General Willock. He should be near the end of the tunnels just there,” the elf scouted pointed toward the soft glow of early evening light, “within half an hour or so. We have the city, the damage has yet to be assessed, but it is secure.”

  With that, Julian hopped to his feet and sprinted down the tunnel toward the last known location of Master Templar Truthorne.

  A short time later, Vech and Ivant sat on a low stone bench just outside the tunnel’s concealed entrance and were sharing what little remained of Ivant’s strong drink from Elellund. The sounds of General Willock and his vanguard’s armor and horses could be heard for several minutes before they actually arrived. King Ivant climbed to the top of an up-tilted foundation stone and waved to them in hopes of slowing them. He wasn’t confident what their next move would be, but he was sure they would want horses as refreshed as possible.

  “My King!” Willock called as they approached. “My King, your injuries?”

  Willock’s relief to see his King alive and in the company of his friend, King Vech of the Stonebeards, was splashed across his worn and scarred face. Willock swung down from his horse, pulled his waterskin from his saddle, and offered it to his King.

  General Willock, also of the Great Man race, was a bit more than six and a half feet tall with black, short cut hair in the style of the Silver Helms, and hazel eyes. He was clad in well maintained and highly polished white alloy steel armor engraved and inlaid with powerful magical runes and wards. Few knew it, but Willock’s armor made him all but immune to any wizard’s bolts of fire or lightning or any changes the climate might have to offer. He also carried a beautiful white alloy shield of matching design and craftsmanship. He wore a black bladed shrou-sheld at his side that was also heavily enchanted.