Dragonhammer: Volume II (5 page)

With a single twist, the orc wrenches the sword from the soldier, and then slams it up to the hilt in the table.  The soldier, now sporting an expression of dumbfounded fear, stares wide-eyed at the orc’s hardened, unmoving face.  Then the orc says one word, breaking the silence.

“Leave.”

The soldier stands, frozen in shock.  Then he darts out the door.

Ullrog sits and, oblivious to the crowd of staring soldiers, continues to eat.

“Whoa,” James breathes.

“Glad he’s on our side,” Nathaniel agrees.

The rest of the day we train a little, but mostly laze around.  I let Jarl Hralfar make all of the arrangements for the meeting at Balgr’s Monument, and instead I am able to find a chessboard.

“What have you got?” Aela asks as I enter the room.

I hold it up.  “Want to have a go?”

She eyes the board for a second.  “Yes,” she says.  “Let’s.”

Ullrog approaches as we begin the first match.  He observes for a few moves, and then says, “I watch?”

“Of course,” I reply.

He sits at the table and watches silently.  At first it’s a little awkward, but we warm up to his presence.

The first game goes quietly and I win, if only just.  As we reset our pieces, she asks, “Where did you come from?”

“I thought you knew that.”

“I mean… what was your childhood like?”

I sigh and take a moment to think.  “I wouldn’t ask for a different one,” I finally reply.  Ullrog studies me perceptively.

“Why not?”

“Because I had parents that cared about me,” I reply.  “Everything I needed was provided, but I was taught the value of work.”

“And you spent your life in Terrace?” she asks.

“Virfith,” I clarify, moving a pawn.

She nods.  “That’s close to Terrace?”

“Yes.”

She thinks about her next move carefully and ends up moving one of her bishops across the board deliberately.

“What about your childhood?” I ask.

“Nothing much to say,” she answers.  “I was raised in an orphanage.  In fact I had only just left when I made that trip to Terrace.”

“How old are you?”

She hesitates.  “I don’t know,” she says quietly.  “Eighteen probably.”

“You don’t know?” I ask.  Though I know she is telling me the truth, I cannot help but feel that there is something that is going unsaid, perhaps that she is keeping from me.

“No,” she says, moving her bishop again.  “Your move.”

We sit in silence for a few moments.  Then Ullrog speaks.  “Arthensgulf.”

I give him a funny look.  “I from Arthensgulf,” he clarifies.  “Tribe Grokh’naht. 
Felverar Yrgrothim
.”

Aela shoots me a look that asks what he’s talking about.  I shoot the same look at Ullrog.

“Fellhammer Stronghold,” he explains.  “
Felverar Yrgrothim
my native tongue.  Southeast corner of region Arthensgulf.”

“That’s no small distance,” I mutter.

“Long travel,” he says.  “Worth it to fight.”

“Why do you want to fight?” Aela asks.

He pauses for several seconds.  Then he says, “My reasons.”  He waits another moment and then rises from his chair and clomps away.

We exchange looks and our game resumes.

Percival doesn’t return until just before dinner, but nobody says anything to him about where he’s been.  It’s no mystery.

The next day goes much the same way.  We want to be well rested and ready for the march that is ahead of us.  Clouds start to move in and the sky turns grey, but there is no rain.

Once again, Percival returns just before we eat. 

“Oh good, you’re here,” I say.  “We’re leaving tomorrow.  You know that, right?”

He nods gravely.

“Good.  I’m just making sure you’re not so obsessed that you’ve forgotten.”

He doesn’t respond.

We pack that night, but he does so with incredible swiftness and then speeds back into the city, I assume to say farewell to his dearly beloved.  When we get to bed, all is packed and ready.  We will leave for Balgr’s Monument in the morning.

March for Balgr’s Monument

A
s I predicted, the clouds begin to leak on us as we march through the city.  It’s only a slight drizzle, but every soldier pulls out their travelling cloak anyway.  The city is quiet, but for the constant pattering of the rain, and we leave without much of a ceremony.

I march at the front with Jarl Hralfar and Commander Magnus.  Nathaniel, Jericho, James, Aela, and Percival march just behind me.  Percival’s limp has gone and he walks well; he has recovered quickly.

Ullrog marches on the far left column next to Nathaniel.  The soldiers have been warned concerning him, and so most of them simply ignore his presence.  There are others that are not so kind.

His sword is strapped to his back and his pack sits on top of that.  He does not wear his armor, but instead wears the same fur trousers.  I still am unable to see his armor, which lies strapped to his pack, because it is shielded from the rain by a cloth blanket of some kind.

I strap my captain helmet to my belt because the constant dinging of the rain quickly became maddening.  Instead I wear my brown travel cloak with the hood up.

After we trek across the gargantuan bridge, we turn southward and follow the curvature of the river around the city to a much smaller bridge that will lead us back into the province of Greendale.  Immediately after we file across the small bridge, we follow the road south towards the Ha’avjah Desert.

Setting up camp isn’t very fun that night.  Right when we start to put the tents up, the clouds decide it’s time to break the dam.  By the time we actually take cover inside our hastily erected structures, we are soaked through.  Some take to building small fires inside their tents on the wet grass, and we decide to follow suit.  The wood is wet, however, and doesn’t burn well.  Dinner is cold, and the rain continues throughout the night.

A deafening clap of thunder wakes me.  I start and find myself standing, holding a knife in my right hand and my hammer in the other.  Others around me have woken as well, but James continues to snore almost as loudly as the thunder.  Percival sits upright, as does Aela.  Jericho is frozen in his bedroll, as if the thunder scared him into a coma.  Nathaniel shakes his head and rolls over.

I take a few deep breaths and sit back down.  I don’t bother laying my head back on the pillow, not only because I know sleep will evade me, but because I do not need it.  Instead I stay up and think.

Mostly I wonder how my mother is faring by herself in Terrace.  Lord Archeantus agreed to help her financially, so that isn’t what I’m worried about; I’m concerned with her emotional welfare.

A gaping hole lies in my heart.  It is the void caused by the death of my father, and it refuses to be filled.  Every day I think on him and his sacrifice, and every day I feel the anguish of his death.  If I feel such things, I can only imagine what my mother feels.

As of late I have accepted his death, but I have still not come to terms with it.  Lucius Swordbreaker is dead, but he was only a pawn of the game.  The king of the board is Ollgorath, and it is he that I must kill to find revenge.

At the same time I wonder at the children of those I have slaughtered.  Do they feel the same thing?  Am I not to them what Lucius was to me?

My nose wrinkles and I shake my head.  I cannot afford such thoughts.

I feel a pair of eyes on me and look up.  Ullrog sits cross-legged in the corner of the tent, watching me.  When he sees my gaze, he closes his eyes and bows his head slightly.  I lie back down.

Dawn comes quickly and the rain dies to a slow drizzle.  We seize the opportunity and break camp quickly, forging southward for Balgr’s Monument.

The sun teases us a little before midday.  After only a couple of hours, it hides behind the clouds once again and the air chills.  Then the sprinkling begins again.

The dirt road is muddy.  The harsh ground, unused to this amount of precipitation, refuses to absorb all of the water, resulting in puddles and soaked… everything, really.

We are walking in the small stretch of plains between the Ha’avjah Desert and the foothills of the Wolfpack Mountains, where the terrain is rocky and green, with lots of shrubs and grass.  The road splits from the river, which turns to head southwest.  We follow the road south.

Lightning strikes a mile or two away from us as we begin to set up camp.  It puts me on edge, but I show no sign.

We are able to get fires going that night and dinner is hot.  Ullrog sits to my left.  We have known each other for such little time, but a bond has started to grow between us almost akin to brotherhood.

Aela sits quietly on my right, eating her little bowl of stew.  The others sit around the campfire on rocks.

Then a soldier enters our ring.  I recognize him as the same soldier who had harassed Ullrog a few days earlier, and I prepare myself for a similar encounter.  Though Ullrog has been patient thus far, I do not want to see what happens when he gets angry.

The soldier glares at Ullrog as he walks forward, but then his eyes rest on Aela.  Something flashes behind his eyes and then he takes another step forward.  “Such a treasure,” he says.  “What brings you here to the battlefield?”

Aela ignores him.

“Such beauty should not go unnoticed,” he continues, leaning forward.  His hand reaches out for her shoulder.  “I could provide-”

By the time I’m halfway there, somebody has already beaten me to it.  Ullrog grasps the forearm of the soldier firmly.

The soldier looks at Ullrog with an eyebrow raised.  “You dare to touch me?” he rages.  “To get in the way of-”

Ullrog stands, towering over the soldier.  “You not touch her,” he growls.

“You do not tell me what I can and cannot do, you scum!” the soldier roars.  “You and your kind are filth, a scourge that needs to be cleansed from the land!”

Ullrog growls deep in his throat and I fear that the soldier has no idea what he is getting himself into.  I do not act, only out of sadistic curiosity.

“You don’t even have words for me!” the soldier continues.  “I wish you to the darkest parts of the afterlife!  Now leave me to my business!”  He turns back to Aela as if nothing had happened.

Ullrog seizes the soldier’s arm and stops him dead.  Then, impossibly, he seems to grow even taller and more menacing as he growls, “You no touch her.”  The soldier’s face wrinkles in anger and his hand flies up, presumably to hit the orc over the head, but Ullrog reacts faster and simply throws him over the fire.

The soldier tumbles to a stop before hitting a tent, and then rises to his feet slowly.  “You want to fight me?” he says.  “Do you?”

“Enough,” says a voice.  All eyes center on Jarl Hralfar, who is standing just on the edge of the firelight.  He waits a moment and then says simply, “Remember who the real enemy is.”  Then he walks away.

The soldier makes as if to run at Ullrog, but one of his friends snags his shoulder and holds him back, saying, “Come off it, Druam.  It’s not worth it.”

Druam, the soldier, leers at Ullrog and says softly, “This is not over.”

“It isn’t,” Ullrog rumbles as the soldier turns his back and walks away.

That night, just as I am about to fall asleep, a great white flash threatens to blind me.  A crash of thunder follows immediately, so booming it even wakes James.

I leap to my feet, but drop my dagger.  Steel will do little good against this foe.

Another flash lights the sky farther away, followed by another a few seconds later.  Thunder roars behind them respectively.

An orange glow flickers from the eastern side of the camp.

I throw on my cloak and leap out into the rain, towards the light and the yells.  Despite the heavy rain, a tent has caught fire and it burns quickly.  The center pole, which is likely where the lightning struck, has disintegrated.  The tent’s occupants have fled the structure, grabbing what possessions they can before the elements consume them, be it water or fire.

Within a minute the downpour has quenched the fire, but the tent is destroyed.  Those who had been inside are stunned, staring at the ground where they had been sleeping moments before.  The Jarl, in his armor and wool cloak, strides to the scene and inspects it.

“You will have to split up,” he says, shouting to be heard over the rain.  “Find another tent to squeeze into.  Is anyone hurt?”

Everyone looks around, but nobody seems any more than shocked.

“Then get some rest.  There is yet some time until morning.”

As I turn to head back towards my tent, I hear one of the soldiers mutter, “Khaoth is angry.”

“Or we’re in the middle of a lightning storm,” the other responds.

It is difficult to find sleep.

The entire army is tired and wet the next morning as we march.  The rain is relentless and I thank the gods for my wool cloak, though I am still getting water everywhere.

By noon, the clouds finally seem to have rained themselves out.  A light drizzle struggles to keep the rain alive for a few moments longer, but then the sun peaks out from the clouds.  It’s a welcome sight and many of the soldiers give a cry of relief.  Throughout the afternoon the clouds begin to disperse, but the sky remains mostly overcast.

The road leads us around a particularly large ridge, and as we emerge on the other side, our destination becomes visible.

Balgr’s Monument is an obelisk: a high pointed pillar of stone atop a pedestal inside a ring of tall rocks.  Though we are still about a half-mile away, I can see it clearly because it stands upon a large rounded hill.

The opposing army sits on its other side, waiting for us.

We set up camp halfway between the ridge and the monument.  Within the hour of our arrival a messenger astride a white horse rides to our camp; Jarl Hralfar, Commander Magnus, and I step forward to meet him.

“Titus sends his regards,” says the messenger.  “He did not think you would come.”

My eyes narrow.  The next part he directs at me.

“Nonetheless, Dragonhammer, he is thankful for your arrival.  On the morrow you will meet Titus at the foot of the monument at dawn.  He does not care what happens afterward.  Only that you die.”

“You arrogant little-” begins Genevieve, making towards the horse.

I grab her shoulder and hold her back.

“I’m merely a messenger,” he says.  “Lord Swordbreaker’s words are his own.  He does not require anything from you, and he expects that nothing will be required of him, but to fight tomorrow.  No negotiations.”

Then the messenger turns and rides to their camp.

“Keep a heavy watch tonight,” the Jarl commands.  “Sleep on your swords.”

Genevieve gets about setting a watch, with instructions to make sure that everyone keeps their sword and armor on hand.  Rest with both, if you can.

“Are you frightened?” Aela asks in the dark of the tent.  The light of a fire flickers just outside, casting a sliver of orange light onto her face.  She sits up on her bedroll with her legs crossed.  Her bedroll lies on the opposite side of the tent, against the canvas, and she has made sure that everyone’s packs guard her other side.  She has made a little haven for herself away from all the men.

“Of course not,” James says from the other side of her barrier.  “Kadmus is never scared.  Sorry.  Captain Armstrong.”

I shake my head.  “Kadmus is fine, James.”

“I was asking
him
,” Aela argues coolly.  Then she repeats her question, “Are you frightened?”

“No,” I respond.

“Why?”

“I have nothing to fear.”

“Even death?”

“I do not see death as an option.  I do not see loss as an option.  I will live.  I have nothing to fear.”

“You have a lot of confidence,” she says.  “Be careful.  It’s a bad thing to overestimate yourself.”

“I’m well aware,” I respond quietly.  “But I know what I can do.  I know what must be done.  And I know how to do it.”

She looks down and the firelight glints across her eyes.  Then she lies down.

I think for a while before falling to sleep.  Genevieve refused to let me have a watch because I’m the one fighting tomorrow, and apparently I need my rest.  I didn’t find it worth arguing with her, and so I let her win.  And here I think.

Eventually I am able to think myself to sleep.

I start awake at the tiniest noise.  It’s simply a rustle, but it is no natural sound.  I worm my hand under my cloak and then with a grunt jump to my feet, swinging the dagger.

Aela inhales sharply with wide eyes, her own hand on the pommel of one of her swords.  My dagger had only just missed her nose.

“What are you doing?” I whisper, lowering my weapon.  She relaxes slightly and says, “Couldn’t sleep.”

“So you’re going out for a walk while we’re in enemy territory?”

She shrugs.

I shake my head and sit down.  She sits down on her bedroll.  Now, instead of firelight, a slit of moonlight illuminates a sliver of her face.