Into the Wastelands: Book Four of the Restoration Series (14 page)

“Then what is the matter?” Aaron persisted.

“Do you actually intend to enter the Wastes?” Clem asked. There was a worried tone in the man’s voice.

“I do not,” Aaron lied. “I intend to travel north and stop just south of the river.” He motioned at
Eugene
, “
A
s you already said, perhaps Lord Montgomery will appreciate being the first human to travel there in millennia.”

“If he does decide to cross the river,” Clem said slowly, “don’t be foolish enough to go with him.”

Chapter
12

Flare awoke but did not move. It felt like his head had split right down the middle and the pain was constantly throbbing and made him want to sick up. Keeping his eyes closed, he swallowed several times and resisted the urge to gag. He continued to lie there for several moments and the only thing he could think about was his aching head.

“Bout t
ime you woke,” said a man
. It was a deep and gruff voice, definitely not
someone
that Flare had heard before.

Flare’s eyes popped open and the light nearly blinded him. It felt like two knives digging into his eyes even though it was just the flickering of several
faint
torches.
He blinked and slowly the pain began to ease.

He was in a dark room. The torches were the only source of light so he assumed that it was night.

Groaning, Flare pushed up on his elbows. Now that his eyes were adjusting to the light, he realized the room was small, no more than eight feet or so square. He was lying on a bed that was rather too short for him and the rest of the room was in shadows. He was relieved that no medallions hung around his neck.

“Where,” he started to say but nearly choked on the words. His mouth felt like it was full of cotton.

There was a sigh from the darkness and then a man moved into view. It took Flare a moment to realize that it wasn’t in fact a man but rather a dwarf.
He was short but heavily muscled. His black hair was a disheveled mess, wild and unrul
y. His beard wasn’t much better
and hung down nearly to his belt.
He wore a simple leather tunic
that would have fit him more like a dress, if not for his belt. He carried a cup in his hands and leaned in close, holding the cup for Flare to drink.
He looked to be all eyebrows and nose.

Pulling back, Flare tried to look inside the cup to see what he was being offered. He wasn’t used to accepting drinks from strangers.

The dwarf sighed again. “It’s just water. You haven’t
drunk
much over the last several days.”

The last several days?
Flare thought, repeating the words in his head. The dwarf held the cup to Flare’s lips, but he still would have resisted, but strangely he didn’t have the energy.

The cool water that flowed from the cup was simply the best thing that he had ever tasted. He hadn’t even realized how badly his throat felt until the water poured out. The dwarf started lowering the cup well before Flare was ready, and
he
reached out to pull the cup back closer.

The dwarf chuckled. “Not so fast,” he said, but it was a friendly tone. “If you drink too much, then you’ll just vomit it back up.”

Flare cleared his throat and studied the room again. Anxiety erupted within him when he realized his b
elongings were not in the room; t
hat included Ossendar. “Where am I?” he asked.

The dwarf retreated from Flare’s bedside and
,
for a moment
,
he suspected the dwarf would not answer him.
The dwarf pulled a rickety wooden chair over next to Flare’s bed. He sat down and regarded Flare.
“You are in the city of
Az’ha’rill
’hadell,”
he
said solemnly.

Flare’s eyes widened and his mouth dropped open slightly. He slumped back into the bed. He knew of the dwarven kingdom at the southern end of the Az’ha’
rill
Mountains
, but the dwarves had locked themselves away thousands of years ago. No one was allowed inside the city. “Why am I here?” he finally managed to ask. It probably was not the best question or even the best way of asking the question, but it was all he could manage.

“My name is Belgil
and I’ve been asked to watch you.” He paused for a moment before he continued, “I was assigned to watch you because it was my soldiers that found you.”

Thinking back, Flare tried hard to remember what had happened. It was very disjointed. He remembered killing
Jordan
and then running from the other sorcerers, but not much else. After a moment, he remembered the old tree and the rive
r. He looked up at the dwarf, “W
as I floating in the river?”

Nodding, Belgil
leaned closer. “You were wedged onto an old tree, between a grouping of
small branches.” He grinned, “I
f not for those branches, I’m sure you would have fallen off and drowned.”

“How long have I been here?”

“We found you five days ago and you have been within the city for the last three.” He paused again before
continuing in a calmer tone, “W
e didn’t expect you to survive, but the healers did what they could.”

“My thanks to them,” Flare said, and he meant it.
“Why was I brought here? I thought the dwarves would just as soon let a human or an elf die as to bring them within one of their cities.”

Belgil
nodded, “
T
hat’s true, but it’s not every day that we find a half-elf carrying one of the Divine Blades.”

Ignoring the anxiety that threatened to well up within him, Flare sighed deeply. So they knew about the sword. He wondered what else they knew
about.

Grinning, Belgil leaned in close and nudged Flare’s shoulder with his hand. “You didn’t think we would miss something like that did you?”

Flare shrugged. “Probably aren’t too many alive today who could recognize that sword.”

“True, but the dwarves are special. We have an affinity with weapons and such.” Belgil leaned back in his chair and watched Flare with a half smile.

Flare waited for several moments, but the dwarf didn’t volunteer anything else. “So what’s to be done with me?” he finally asked.

The smile slipped from Belgil’s face. “I’m not sure. This isn’t something we could ever have planned for.
Your fate lies in the hands of King Vognar.
”

That sounded ominous. “Well, I woul
d say that you have two options,” Flare said after a moment of silence, “l
et me go or hold me against my will.”

Belgil nodded, “
T
hose are two options, but there are others
.”

“Such as?”

“
We could let you go, but
claim ownership
of Ossendar.”

It took a moment for the words to register and then Flare pushed himself up to a sitting position.
His face was an angry scowl as he spoke.
“Not a chance! I’ll pull this mountain down around your ears before I let that happen.”

Surprise flitted across the dwarf’s
face;
it was quickly followed by amusement
. “
Would you now
? And how would you do that?” The grin had returned to his face.

For just a moment, Flare considered using sorcery. At the very least he could wipe that silly smile off of Belgil’s face.
He thought better of it though. His body was still in pretty bad shape. There might be a time when it would be required, but that time had not yet arrived. In a dead
ly serious voice, Flare said, “W
ithhold Ossendar from me and I will show you.”

Belgil nodded but without any real conviction. “Doesn’t matter what you say to me. I have no
power
in what happens to you. That will be up to King Vognar.” He stood, pushing the chair farther away from the side of the bed. “Let me see about getting you something to eat. You need the food to restore your health.”

The dwarf was gone for a long time and Flare studied his room. Now that his eyes had adjusted, he could see that the walls were hewn from solid rock. When he had first
awoke
, he had assumed the darkness was due to it being night. He now realized that it was the fact that he was in a dwarven city. A city that existed under an unknown number of tons of solid rock.

Throwing his feet over the side of the bed, Flare pushed himself to a sitting position. He tried not to groan, but failed miserably.
His body was sore and everything ached.

After a while sitting on the edge of the bed, his bladder began to hurt more than everything else. Looking around, he noticed a small chamber pot off in the corner. He took a deep breath and steeled himself. Another moment or two of hesitation and then he pushed himself to his feet.

The room spun for several moments, due both to his poor physical shape and to the fact that he rapped his head against the low ceiling. He let out a low curse and then walked, stooping, to the corner where he had noticed the chamber pot. He found it necessary to lean against the wall as he did what nature required of him.

He was still leaning against the wall and considering the long wall back to the bed, when the door opened and in stepped Belgil. This time, the dwarf was not alone.

Belgil entered the
room first and his face was set in a scowl.

Belgil moved to the side and he
was followed by a thinner younger dwarf, whom Flare assumed was a servant of some kind. Unlike Belgil, the servant wore a tunic of a coarse white material. This new dwarf carried a tray, upon which sat a small bowl of
steaming
soup and a hunk of bread. The new arrival set the tray down next to the bed and turned and hurriedly left the room.

The new dwarf kept his, or her,
head down and did not make eye contact and Flare couldn’t even tell if it was a male or female. Dwarven women tended to resemble the men a great deal. He
didn’t dwell on this much though,
as three more dwarves entered after the servant.

The first two were thick muscular dwarves wearing armor. They each carried a two handed axe. Helmets covered their faces and their beards spilled out from under the edge of the helmet. Both dwarves had coarse black hair. They had the look of guards and they both too up position in the middle of the room. Their eyes never left Flare.

A third dwarf entered the room. He was older than any of the others. His hair may have been black once, but now it was pure white. His skin hung loose on his face and he had the look of a person who had just lost a lot of weight. His cheeks and forehead were covered in age spots, but his eyes bore an intensity of a much younger man.

The old dwarf stopped just inside the door and regarded Flare. “So, you are the one who has brought us Ossendar?” His tone was oily and slightly slurred.

Flare immediately found himself disliking this old dwarf, but he had to proceed carefully. “My name is Flaranthlas,” he said with a slight dip of his head. “And you would be?”

The old dwarf’s mouth tightened and he raised his chin slightly. “I am Councilor Emlin. I am the King’s most trusted advisor.” There was a tone of pride in the words and something about this Emlin reminded Flare of Duke Angaria.
There was some good news, though. Flare had been afraid that this was the King and that had been an unpleasant thought.

Flare forced a smile. He had learned to smile at people he despised when he had been in the Telurian court and it came easy to him now. “It is a pleasure. May I ask when I will be allowed to meet the King?”

Emlin tilted his
head;
a slight smile turned the corners of his lips upwards. “And why would you meet the King?”

“Why I need to thank him for saving
my life,” Flare said in a calm tone that he did not feel. This old bastard was going to be trouble. Having just retaken the sword, he damn sure did not mean to lose it
again
so quickly. Worry was beginning to grow in his stomach, but strangely it was not as bad as he might have thought. Perhaps all the trials he had been through were conditioning him to better handle the stress. “A
nd I have to retrieve my sword.”

Emlin smile broadened. “Well as to that, I have advised King Vognar that Ossendar is too valuable an heirloom to let just anyone carry. I’m personally urging him to keep the sword here,” he paused and made a show of searching for the right word, “for safekeeping.”

“Oh, I see,” Flare said. Resignation settled down upon him. He wasn’t ready for a confronta
tion, but regardless, it had arrived. “I did not know that the dwarves were thieves as well as cowards.”

Several things happened at once. Belgil’s eyes opened wide in surprise, the smile on Emlin’s face turned into a snarl, and the guard on Flare’s right stepped closer.

Regardless of how he felt, Flare quickly prepared himself and tried to direct his spirit to shove the guard away. Nothing happened except his head throbbed a bit.

The guard took another step closer and raised his arm to strike. The blow never landed.

Belgil stepped in close and grabbed the man’s arm. “Stop!” he shouted. He shoved the guard backwards and the dwarf looked to Emlin for guidance.

“So,” Emlin said slowly, his earlier snarl was gone and he now smiled a bit, “you would take the elf’s side against your own?”