Resurgent Shadows (Successive Harmony Book 1) (10 page)

“What does your religion have to do with me?”

Torsten appeared as if he’d expected the question. “You’re asking yourself if you’re going to live through this experience. You’re asking yourself if Olan would dare take a chance at trusting a human and leave you and your people here in this sheltered hollow alive and unmolested. Why should we let you live? You’re humans, and it is inevitable that you will all fall to the will of the Dragonhosts.”

“How dare you—” Eric said, moving to wrench Valundnir free from his belt, but Torsten held up a single hand and Eric’s anger dissipated almost immediately.

“It was rhetorical. I can tell you what it has to do with you and its resting there in your hand. Valundnir has chosen you. A human. It is an Elithalma made by one of our Ferreiros. It marks you as a warrior of Atelho, a pure and holy warrior. Only the Guerreiro to whom the weapon is bonded or a cleric can touch one once its Guerreiro has been chosen and named. When the clan chiefs arrive and see the hammer at your side, some will call it blasphemy and demand your death. There will be arguments and fighting amongst all of them. Olan might decide to kill you just to keep together the fragile alliance that he maintains between them all.”

“We won’t go down without a fight,” Eric said. He breathed in deeply, steeling himself. Valundnir coalesced from shadow and light, crackling in his hand with a brilliant white energy.

“If you stop acting like a fool and listen to me you won’t have to,” Torsten snapped. “You must act as any other dverger would or they will see it as a desecration and a mockery of something they hold sacred. You may have to fight one or two of them in Holmganga to prove yourself worthy of the hammer you bear. Do not shy away from this. There are some who are opposed to Olan’s rule over them that will try and use you to prove that he is not fit to be King. You will become a pawn in the not-so-subtle politics of dverger life if you do not make yourself something more than an enemy in this first meeting.”

There was wisdom in Torsten’s words, the rational part of Eric which would normally control his actions seemed to note, but anger still thundered in his ears.

“One thing I learned about chess, cleric,” Eric said, “is that it’s better to be a player than a piece in the game. I won’t be your pawn either.”

“I am Atelho’s servant. You are his holy warrior. Your preservation is one of my callings in this life. For now, the way to reach both our goals lies along the same path. Allow me to walk it with you.”

Eric grunted, but his anger and frustration dissipated. He was the arbiter of his own path, he’d always believed that. Nor did he give the slightest credence to the dverger belief in their deities—he had struggled enough with his own religion without adding another to it—but he would do what he must in order to ensure the survival of his little community.

“What do you suggest?”

“As I said, you must behave the way that they behave. If they are aggressive towards you, then you have to be aggressive back. If they are passive, then so are you. Respond in kind to what you receive, like a distant echo of sound coming back on its maker in a cavern. As a priest of Atelho I will stand behind you to show my support of Valundnir’s decision, but there is little else that I can do, even with the aid of our God. Atelho does not help dverger fight dverger.”

“And what of the other people here? Will they be safe if I play along with your charade?”

“They will be as long as you can prove to the clan chiefs that you have the heart of a dverger—that you are worthy of Valundnir. The truest nature of a dverger comes out in battle. It would be wise of you to insist on accompanying the army in the coming war against the Browns.”

Accompany?

“Leave everyone?”

Torsten nodded. “That or watch them die.”

“You’d really kill a hundred innocent people?” The judgment in his voice was plain.

“We protect our own. We will not risk a single dverger life by leaving anyone behind, especially not a group who has already killed two of our brethren. The best thing for you to do is to purposefully put yourself in danger, surround yourself by dvergers, embrace our ways. Fight alongside them as a brother until they come to accept you as one. They will not worry about a leaderless group of survivors when you are trapped within their ranks. Dverger honor already tells them that the deaths of their brethren are on your head.

“The Brown Dragonhosts are headed this direction as we speak—the kill squads are their scouts. By coming with us, you defend your own people as well.”

Eric didn’t like it. In fact he hated it. The whole idea was ludicrous. He vowed to make Roberts pay for his rashness. For a moment he considered telling Torsten about the man’s guilt, throwing him to the wolves, as it were. But then he sighed and bowed to the inevitability of the situation. There really was no way he could reconcile being an ally with the dvergers without readily taking up arms alongside them against a common enemy. He hated being forced into it though, and hated leaving the lives of those he’d fought for in the hands of someone else even more.

He wasn’t a warrior, he wasn’t even a very good leader, but these people were his family now, each and every one of them. Even Roberts after a fashion. He had shouldered the burden of their protection despite his own inexperience and found himself equal to the task. Every time he had chanced giving anyone else a slight amount of control over his life or the lives of those within the community, it had led to headaches and confusion later on. Now the safety and protection of his people would slip out of his control again and there was nothing that he could do about it. And what of Natalie and the baby?

“Fine then,” Eric said. “I’ll walk your path for now. Where are the clan chiefs meeting?”

“We noticed a large chamber on our way in, to the north of where the wyrms were slain. It was full of crates, boxes and machines. Olan will meet with the clan chiefs there.”

Eric took up the lead without a word. He knew the room Torsten had described quite well. It was a spacious chamber that had originally served to house some of the large pumps that pushed sewage through the pipes and tunnels. Most of it had been abandoned long before the Breaking, as the dvergers called it, removed for various other purposes and uses. The border patrols used it as a temporary billet and storage area these days. A couple of crates of rations and munitions served as a makeshift table for meals and meetings. It was as good a place as any for a war council.

Torsten hurried to catch up to him, sandals flapping against the stone. Eric hid an amused smile as the cleric dropped into step alongside him, taking two quick strides for every one that Eric made, despite his slight limp. Torsten was not what Eric had assumed a dverger cleric to be. He was quick to ire, which seemed typical for a dverger, but he kept his frustrations in check and his level of thinking was much deeper than Eric had expected. In fact, the dverger was more intelligent and cunning than most of Eric’s engineering professors. As odd as Torsten looked in his ornamental armor and sandals, Eric knew that he would be a formidable opponent if ever they became enemies.

He led them through a set of passages that skirted the Commons, where repairs were still underway. His right hand tapped the hammer’s head absently as he walked, feeling a curious surge of adrenaline as they passed.

He pulled the weapon from his belt and studied it, turning it over in his hands. It was a mixture of two metals, the haft a dark pure silver and the head a shining metallic white. There was intricate scrollwork around the head, which was equally balanced on both sides of the handle. Dverger characters were carved into the haft just below the head, most likely the hammer’s name, Valundnir. The rest of the runes glittered faintly in the light as if tiny flecks of some silicate material had been melted into the grooves. The haft itself extended up through the head and out the other side for a few inches, where it had been flattened out slightly and formed a point. Generally speaking, it was notably impractical to use a hammer for thrusting purposes, but Valundnir was so light in his hands that Eric figured he could use the spoke quite effectively if the need arose.

“Leave Valundnir out here, Eric,” Torsten said as they rounded a corner and found themselves only a few steps away from the entrance to the chamber where they were to meet Olan.

Eric had been so engrossed in studying Valundnir that he had not noticed they’d arrived. Silently he berated himself. The noise the dvergers were making would have been echoing down the halls for the last hundred yards and he should have noticed it minutes earlier.

“It will come when it is needed. Let me go in and announce you and then you can follow. Summon Valundnir to you as you enter.”

Eric leaned the hammer against the passage wall as the cleric entered the chamber. He let go of the haft and sighed as his weary body protested the movement of straightening back up. There were no guards at the entrance to the chamber, which he found odd. So many leaders in the same place with no one to protect them?

Torsten’s voice rang out, cutting over the din of voices and echoes from the nearby chamber.

“Hail Eric of the Deepgarth Clan of warriors, Guerreiro and wielder of the Elithalma, Valundnir, chosen this day o’er the grave of a fallen brother!”

Eric took a deep breath and stepped into the room. He mentally willed Valundnir to appear in his outstretched hands. The weapon crackled into existence within his grasp, coalescing from shadows and light.

Olan and three other dvergers were grouped together at one end of the makeshift table upon which had been strewn a number of rough, paper maps, held down on either end by a pair of simple oil lanterns.

A pair of dvergers sat at the middle of the makeshift table, an odd pair whose garb was different than their companions. One wore a thick, black leather cloak, though the other bore a large bright red shield that was made out of a single massive, red dragon scale.

The other four clan chiefs were scattered around the edges of the table, some frozen in the middle of moving small metal figurines upon the maps. They stared at him, unmoving, their eyes like hardened onyx in the gloom. Eric absorbed the scene in the first pregnant breath after Valundnir’s appearance. The unnatural silence was shattered before the next breath was born by a cacophony of angry bellows and stunned shouts of alarm and incredulity.

“What be this blasphemy?” one of the dvergers bellowed. He wore polished armor over a shirt of mail that stuck out at the bottom of the breastplate. A helm sat on his head, crammed down over the shock of dark brown hair that covered his head and hid his chin. A deep maroon cloak hung from his shoulders.

The dverger tore an axe from his belt and leapt to his feet. Around the table, several others drew weapons and leapt to their feet, armor and weaponry glittering in the unsteady lantern light. They backed away from the table so that they would have a clear space in which to fight. Eric glanced over at Olan to see if he would intervene. It was a fleeting hope, but he felt an uncharacteristic rush of adrenaline and excitement when the dverger king gave the slightest shake of his head to show that he was not going to interfere.

With a roar, Eric let go of Valundnir with his right hand, leaving his left hand gripping the hammer just beneath the head and swung it around in a heavy punch that connected with the nearest dverger’s head with a burst of bronze sparks.

The force of the unexpected blow knocked the unsuspecting clan chief off his feet and sent both him and his dented helm flying over the top of the crates. The dverger turned a complete flip in the air and came crashing down against the wall on the other side. The dverger staggered to his feet with a stubborn roar, axe still firm in his grip, though he stumbled on his first step forwards. Eric marveled at his tenacity.

A dverger barreled towards him from the right, weaponless but with arms outstretched to engulf him and bear him to the ground. Another bore down on him from the left, a short, slightly curved sword held low for a thrust at his kidneys. Eric spun instinctively, leaping into the air and sweeping out with his left leg and, at the same time, carrying his left hand, the one holding Valundnir, down into the spin. The hammer burned within his grip, and Eric marveled at the strength and speed it lent him as his leg spun through the air and caught the dverger on the right in the side of the neck. Valundnir connected with the other dverger’s shoulder with a shower of sparks and both dvergers fell to the ground within moments of each other.

Eric landed on his right foot and completed the spin, stopping to face the dverger who still remained at the table. He took a step forward, ignoring the dverger on the ground behind him to focus on the first dverger who he had knocked to the ground.

“Valundnir chose me, dverger,” he said, tossing the hammer onto the table with a loud wooden clunk. “I am a chosen of Atelho. I answer to him and no other.”

He didn’t know why he said it, but the words seemed appropriate for the situation. He looked around the room, staring at each of the dvergers in turn and returning their flinty gazes as the strength and energy that had coursed through him during the battle faded. His confidence slipped a little at the sight of the dvergers before him, but he took a seat in one of the vacated spots at the table before anyone could take note of his suddenly shaking hands.

Eric glanced down at Valundnir, aware of the fact that he wasn’t anywhere
near
that good a fighter. What sort of magic ran through that weapon to give him such strength and ability without training? No, that wasn’t possible, was it?