BECMI Chapter 95 – The Hunt will begin Soon
“I have the names and faces of all those involved in this attack,” I went on, before the Abbot or any of the monks could say anything. “My hunt for these fools who dare think that feasting upon the souls of their enemies is appropriate will commence after I deliver my dwarven followers to Overstern.”
I held out my hand, and the dust that was all that remained of the altar swirled up and condensed, forming into my hand a simple dagger: straight, harsh, focused, without even a guard to it.
“And I have the name of the Soul Eater that dared eat your brothers. I will see them freed and that demon Fed to the Land.
“We depart now for Overstern, as I return the Baron to his bridge. Prepare your letters and spread word of what they did here, Your Grace.”
I pointed outside and glided that way immediately. “Board your Disks, we are not walking this time.”
Dwarves converged quickly, as did the somewhat startled Baron Torwell and his guards.
“Lady Edge, thank you for your time in this matter! Rest assured I will rouse all the faithful of the true gods against this demonic scourge!” the abbot called out to me, his eyes alight with zeal.
I could have mentioned there were no gods as members of the pantheon he served.
Instead, my Wings snapped out, black as the night and full of stars, and we began to move… with considerably more speed than the Baron was expecting. We’d be covering in minutes the new road which had taken an hour for me to walk at a measured pace.
And I’d still be making it to Overstern before nightfall.
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The Kristall Bergs were about thirty miles away on the southern horizon. I could easily cover that in an hour, and then the trip along the fairly well-maintained trade road, built with dwarven attention to detail, would take only a short amount of time more.
The Bergs themselves were largely under dwarven control, but the neighboring Nacht Tarnes were not, infested with tribes of beastmen raiders and monstrous creatures that had been bedeviling their neighbors for as long as the North had been a place. Hardly something to blame them for, as this territory nominally used to be all theirs, but they had the peaceful inclinations of a blade in the belly and lived to loot and slaughter, so I had very little reservations about cutting them down.
The anthroid tribes of every stripe coming to Terra-Luna and, well, acting like traditional orcs and goblins fueled everything, and of course all the tales told about them here didn’t help matters. Plus their reactions to me and to one another had not exactly been inspiring alternative viewpoints of oppressed species when I’d been exploring the Underdark.
Of the idea that good friends also make good neighbors, and raiders trying to kill and loot you did not, I did indeed side with everyone against the species of beast-men here. I might be sympathetic to them being beaten off their land, but it wasn’t going to stop me.
There was also the fact that this world had once had science for far longer than the FS Barhund had been here… potentially thousands of years more.
That had a very good chance of meaning that the races of beast-men, which would one day diverge into orcs, goblins, and other humanoids under the influence of magic, were examples of mutates brought into being by either science or radiation. Indeed, the Doom of Darkmoor might have been the catalyst to their further evolution in my home time.
Well, it didn’t matter. We were going to see the Regent of the Halls and arrange for the training of the dwarves in the ways of their ancestors. Once that was in place, I could start hunting for the mortals who dared to use Soul Eaters, with the permission of their gods or otherwise. That an Immortal of fire would stoop to using such things told me volumes about Gulguz and how I should treat His servants.
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The trade road in the mountains was buttressed by numerous mines, big and small, being tunneled into the looming giants by the dwarves. Old played-out mines naturally made good living areas for beast-men, yet another reason for them to come raiding here, if the trade traffic and iron goods of the dwarves weren’t reason enough on their own. The dwarves rarely bothered to fill back in what they had excavated, and inevitably creatures in a magical world moved into the well-made tunnels and caves, taking them for their own and all too happy to defend them against dwarves who didn’t like it when they came out and decided preying on the dwarves was the way to get a quick meal.
Well, it was what made it an adventurer’s world. Clawing back from some other fate, mastering what magic they could, slow and sure, and being ripped back and forth by the actions of Immortals… yeah, not a fun place.
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Well, hopefully there wouldn’t be any issue with the Regent, his strange silence aside.
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Floating around them were forty black skulls with thorned Barbs sticking out of their mouths and Burning roses in multiple hues in their eye sockets. All of them were pointing at different dwarves, it was very plain to said dwarves which skull was staring at them, and despite any resolve they might have, they were all paling as they faced us down.
Prince Ukker watched the show with his arms crossed, scowling at the rather slender, earth-toned and white-haired elder dwarf in front of them all.
“Cousin!” the dwarf exclaimed nervously, looking to the rather light-skinned foreign dwarf he didn’t know was a prince. “Call off your elf! The Regent is not seeing anyone right now, and not all your threats can change that!”
Well, he was making a play for a brave stand at the very least.
“Lady Edge is a Dwarf-friend, cousin,” Prince Ukker replied grimly. “But you, it seems, are not a dwarf worth being friend to.” He held up the letter in his hand. “By King Antius the Black’s words, this letter is to be delivered into the hand of the dwarf who named HIM Dwarf-friend, and no other. For you to interfere with this honor and trust means you are honoring neither your lord the Regent, nor the human whose blood is mixed with his and whose council he sits upon for the benefit of all dwarf-clans in the north.” His scornful eyes drifted over the uneasy and actually quite frightened dwarves facing down an archmage who was fully capable of killing them all… and they knew it.
“That you so dishonor the Regent can only mean you have risen in rebellion against your lawful and elected liege, with violence and treachery.” His voice was heavy, his loathing extreme. “No longer dwarves, but honorless traitors seeking to hide their treachery behind lies.” His own Axe was coming up, starting to glow with the idea of cleaving through faithless shams of dwarfdom, his anger building in a volcano ready to erupt. “Lady Edge, you may eliminate these traitors at your whim! We will rescue the Regent from their craven hands!”
“Regent Himmelstern IS NOT HERE!” the Steward of the Halls announced, his voice wrenching, yet somehow relieved as the truth was torn free of him in the face of looming demise.
Lady Edge’s liquid ruby eyes narrowed ever-so-slightly.
“More lies and misdirection!” Prince Ukker roared back, taking a step forward. “Do we look like dogs, to be sent chasing all over the mountains to some Hall the Regent is visiting, only to just miss him every time?” he sneered at the Steward with contempt. Even the guards were wincing as he spat the rebuff at them. “Worthless worm! We will take your heads and learn the truth from your writhing spirits, before they are sent screaming into the empty void where all faithless traitors go!” he bellowed at them.
“THE BEAST-MEN HAVE HIM!” the Steward shouted out, and collapsed in place at the words, as if all the fighting had gone out of him.
More remarkable was that all of the dwarves lowered their eyes and their weapons at the same time, all of their defensive aggression going out of them at once.
Prince Ukker halted, raising his fist to stop his dwarves from acting, but it was Lady Edge who spoke.
“As we came into the mountains, we passed fifteen different battle-sites between dwarves and beast-men.” Her rich words were in fluent Denthek, her accent exotic, musical, riveting in a rough language not made for women nor elves to truly speak. “We were under the impression that a rare peace had been negotiated with the tribes of the Nacht Tarnes, giving the dwarves an uncommon breather at a stressful time from their raids and looting.
“The peace has obviously been broken.” The accent on her words was damning, and Prince Ukker felt his beard bristling, suddenly reading the shame in the stance and bearing of the dwarves. “Tell me, oh Steward of the Halls, who first broke the peace you negotiated so hard to earn?”
The older dwarf seemed to crumple even further as the crimson eyes speared him, seemed to look right through him with an insight Ukker was all too aware of, one that did not tolerate liars or fools well at all. “It was… the Regent went off on a casual raider-hunt to enjoy himself, a frequent habit of his, as if he had forgotten all about the truce. He ventured into the territory of the beast-men, and he was captured.”
There was growing silence. Her eyes bored into him, into all of the Overstern dwarves, and she did not say anything, waiting as the pressure in the room increased to unbearable levels.
“The beast-men came demanding reparations for his attack, and for breaking the peace!” the Steward of the Halls finally gasped out, unable to bear the pressure. “We, we would not negotiate with them until their hostages were returned, and the beast-men answered with open war once again, refusing to return our captured kin!”
Prince Ukker just stared at the dwarves in mute disbelief and disgust. “You broke a peacebond. Instead of paying the price and penalty for your dishonor, you shattered it further and drove the beast-men to righteous fury (and I say that with all due disgust for the creatures) for your lack of honor!
“What. Were. You. Thinking,” Revered Cruxin growled, stepping forward, a glow about him that drove the dwarves there to their knees. “You were in the wrong, you could have made amends for your Regent’s foolish actions, demonstrating wisdom and conduct proper of dwarves. Instead, you magnified your dishonor, and spent the lives of your fellow dwarves in pursuit of a broken oath…” His voice dripping contempt, the dwarf-priest turned around, unwilling to look at such shameful things that called themselves dwarves. “Lady Edge, we came to seek the knowledge of the ancestors from honorable dwarves and worthy teachers. There are no such things here. They have nothing to teach us!” he declared with an iron voice.
“I concur.” The skulls drifting all around them seemed to laugh in faint echoes of mockery and condemnation at dwarves who could not keep their feet or raise their eyes. “We leave this place at once. If they will ignore a formal peace bond, what is guest-right to such things as this? To so quickly and willingly leap after a fool in dishonor and to compound an oath-breaking… they are not the dwarves that were spoken of so glowingly by King Antius and his Council.
“I am sorry I brought you here, Prince Ukker.” The dwarves of Overstern trembled as the title was given, that before them was royalty, and a royal that was every bit the proper dwarf! A few even managed to look up at this lighter-skinned foreign dwarf in shock.
“This stone is not worthy of the feet of honorable dwarves. If if pleases the Lady,” the noble dwarven prince replied without batting an eye at the reveal.