Warriors [4] Theros Ironfield (40 page)

It was then that he first felt the fear. Terror like none he had known before washed over him, filling his veins with ice water. He began to shake. A roaring sound came from overhead. Barely able to move from fright, he lifted his head and looked up. Monstrous beasts flew through the night sky, belching fire and smoke from their gaping maws.

Dragons! He had heard the tales, even as far back as his childhood in the fishing village in Nordmaar. But these were not creatures of imagination. The dragons were here, and they were real.

Fires now burned everywhere. Through the flames, Theros saw an army entering the town, marching on the ground, moving in column formation. He stared in horror, recognizing the soldiers. The attacking forces were draconians. Hundreds of them were swarming into town, accompanied by humans dressed in maroon uniforms.

Draconians marched with the troops of Baron Dargon Moorgoth. It seemed that fate had caught up with Theros at last.

The fear known as dragon awe nearly drove Theros mad. With no clear idea of what he was doing or where he was going, he ran through the smoke and flames. Instinct, apparently, led him back to his forge. He was relieved to find that it was still standing. And then he saw the reason why. A squad of draconians and hobgoblins stood around it, guarding it. Of course! To the armies, the forge was the most valuable building in Solace.

Theros turned to escape, but it was too late. They’d seen him.

“That’s him!” Glor screeched. “That’s the smith!”

The draconians dashed out to capture him. Exhausted, his lungs burning from the smoke that clouded the air, he was an easy capture.

The attack on Solace ended as quickly as it had started. Most of the town was ablaze. Theros’s smithy was left unscathed, but his home, not twenty yards away, burned like a torch in the night. Squads of draconians began going door to door, rounding up survivors and herding people off the streets and into the town square.

Theros remained inside his forge, a prisoner of the draconians, a blade of his own making held at his throat. A human officer marched in. He was wearing black leather armor adorned by a black helm and a black metal cuirass with a dragon insignia. Theros was thankful to see the uniform wasn’t maroon.

“Put that dagger down,” the officer ordered the draconian. He faced Theros. “You are the smith, Ironfeld?”

Theros nodded. “I am.”

The officer appeared pleased. “Good! I am glad you survived the fire. You have been supplying quality blades to my soldiers. Fewmaster Toede, the new commander of the Solace Military District, wants you to continue. In return, your smithy has been spared destruction. Cooperate with us and you will be handsomely rewarded. Resist and you will be killed. Any questions?”

Theros couldn’t think of any questions after that. Not with five draconians standing in his forge.

“I’ll make weapons for you, but on one condition. Forget your money. People are wounded out there. I’ve some skill at healing from my days in the army. Let me aid those in need, and then I’ll serve you.”

The human officer grunted. “A foolish bargain, human. You could have made your fortune, grown wealthy enough to own this miserable town. Still, we’re getting the best of it. Lord Toede is always pleased to save money. Go along with him,” the officer ordered the draconians. “See to it that he doesn’t try to escape.”

Theros went out into the night to do what he could to aid the victims of the attack.

Chapter 34

Theros went out into a night be would never forget, a night of horror
and terror, a night of pain and suffering. There were so many homeless, so many injured, so many dying, that he felt helpless to know where to begin. He stood in the bright light of the burning fires and stared, anger flaring in his heart hotter than the fiercest forge fire.

A soldier knows his duty before going into battle. A soldier knows the risks and makes his peace with them. Here were defenseless children, burned and bleeding. Here were new mothers, clutching dead babies to their breasts. Here were old men, driven from their dwellings. Here were shopkeepers, with lifetimes invested in their small holdings, whose fortunes had vanished in a whoosh of flame.
These people had done nothing and they were the victims. What kind of monster made war upon the innocent?

A Seeker guard—looking dazed and bewildered—told Theros that a command center, of sorts, had been established at the Inn of the Last Home. The inn had been lifted from its perch in the tree by the claws of a dragon and deposited on the ground. Men were busy shoring up sagging timbers, doing what they could to make the building stable, for it was the only place large enough to shelter the wounded. Theros went to find out who was in charge, to offer his help. The first person he saw was Hederick, the High Theocrat.

“Your Holiness!” Theros shouted. “We need guidance! Tell us what to do.”

But Hederick, shocked at the treachery of those he had considered allies, sat mumbling to himself, tears streaming down his soot-stained face. Theros shook his head and was on his way to assist with the carpentry work, when the barmaid, Tika, grabbed hold of him.

She was frightened, but managing to remain calm in the midst of the turmoil around her. She was carrying a basin of bloodstained water, in which floated used bandages.

“They need men to fight the fires,” she told Theros.

He wasted no words, but left immediately.

Many of the single dwellings in the mighty vallenwoods were burning. The people feared that the fires, unless contained, would consume the entire forest, and with it, all of Solace. Men and women formed bucket brigades, drawing water from the well near the Inn of the Last Home. Under Theros’s direction, teams were formed to drive wagons to Crystalmir lake and bring water back in large barrels. Working through the long, exhausting, dreadful night, they at last brought the blazes under control.

The draconian soldiers, along with those wearing maroon coats and those in black armor, stood around and watched and laughed. It was all Theros could do to keep from wringing their necks.

A cry drew Theros’s attention. A woman, standing in front of a burning dwelling perched high among the branches, was holding a baby in her arms. Citizens below
had spread out a blanket like a safety net and were urging her to drop the baby and then to jump to escape the fire.

At that moment, a soldier in a maroon coat walked up, and with his sword, slit the blanket up the middle.

“Now jump, lady!” he called, laughing. He held his sword like a spit. “Or, better yet, throw me the baby!”

The soldier was Uwel, Moorgoth’s whipcracker.

Theros experienced then what the minotaurs call battle-rage, the madness that overtakes warriors and leads them to fling themselves into danger without a thought for their own safety. Theros saw Uwel torturing the knights; he saw him now tormenting this poor mother. The other citizens were fearful, holding back, muttering to themselves. Unarmed, they could do nothing. The woman was weeping and pleading.

Theros stalked over. Grabbing Uwel by the shoulder, Theros doubled up his fist and slammed it into the man’s head. In that blow, Theros expended all his pent-up fury and frustration, his anger like a mailed glove over his hand.

If Uwel Lors had a chance to think anything at all, in those last few moments of his life, it must have been that he was struck by a thunderbolt from the heavens. Theros felled the man in a single blow. His only regret was that Uwel didn’t suffer as he had made others suffer. Theros hoped that some god saw to that matter in what the smith devoutly wished was a long and tormented afterlife.

Uwel was dead before he hit the ground. Theros stood, breathing heavily, looking down at the body.

“Quick!” someone said. “Before anyone finds him.”

With great presence of mind, they flung the torn blanket over the body, and two men dragged it off into the woods. Others climbed the tree, rescued the mother and her child. Theros shook the pain from his hand and went back to work, a little glow of satisfaction replacing the searing anger.

No one ever found Uwel’s body. The maroon-coated troops searched and searched, and at last concluded that he must have deserted. Baron Moorgoth, who was running his army from the safety of Pax Tharkas, was said to have
publicly cursed Uwel’s name and was offering a large reward for the man, either dead or alive.

As the sun came up, the last few fires were allowed to burn out. Everyone was weary almost past endurance. People slumped down on the ground, slept where they fell. After a few hours of sleep, they’d be awakened to form burial parties.

Only the inn, Theros’s smithy, and a few other sites—those the attacking army thought might be useful—were spared from destruction.

His work finished, Theros returned to his smithy and collapsed upon a cot in the back room. His wound pained him, but it was nothing compared to the pain in his soul. He lay on the cot, too tired for sleep to come readily to his aching body, and tried to make sense of what had transpired.

Why had the dragons attacked the town? An army that large could have simply marched in and taken over. Why the need to commit such terrible slaughter? To wreak such havoc? Where was the honor in murdering children?

There was none. There could be no excuse. This was done for the delight of evil, nothing else.

That settled, he wondered what had happened to Gilthanas. Why were the elves in Solace? Was he being held prisoner or was he dead?

Still seeing the light of flames against his closed eyelids, Theros drifted off into a fitful sleep.

* * * * *

Three days later, most of the army had moved on, leaving behind those who would exert Verminaard’s authority. Solace was starting, painfully, to rebuild. The wondrous trees were useless now, mostly burned-out husks. The walkways had all been destroyed, which didn’t matter—there were few homes or businesses left. Soot and ash lay thick in the streets. The stench was terrible—it seemed to permeate everyone’s clothes—and the food and drinking water tasted of smoke.

Using his last block of steel, Theros forged hundreds and hundreds of nails, hinges and tools. He gave these away,
receiving some satisfaction from the fact that Hederick’s stolen steel was now going to a good use. He kept a few swords lying about, which he grabbed whenever any of Verminaard’s troops were near so he could pretend to be working on weapons. He guessed this wouldn’t fool anyone for long. He was right.

The new “ruler” of Solace, a fat hobgoblin who was known by the grandiose title of Fewmaster Toede, came storming into Theros’s smithy late one afternoon. Theros had been expecting this visit. He gazed with no friendly aspect on the hobgoblin, who was nowhere near as tall as Glor, but twice as wide. His self-importance was about three times wider than he was.

“Smith,” said Toede, glancing balefully about the shop with little red, piggy eyes. “What are you doing, wasting your time on worthless stuff like this?” He held up a handful of half-made nails. “You were ordered to make and mend weapons for my troops. I realize that you’re making a fine profit—”

“I am,” Theros said coolly, with barely a glance at the little beast. “But not in money. I am sorry to disappoint you, Fewmaster, but the needs of the people in this town you just destroyed come first. Give me a week, then I’ll get back to the business of making weapons and armor.”

Armor that would mysteriously fall apart, swords that would shatter at the first blow. A smith knows how to do these things.

Toede snorted. “A week! You will start work now, this minute. You see”—he interrupted Theros’s protest—“I know a little secret about you, Master Theros Ironfeld. I am told that you are an elf-lover. That you helped build the ships that took those slimy, pointy-eared demons out of the reach of our justice.”

Toede puffed up, tapped himself on the chest. “I am, so far, the only person who knows about this crime. Make my weapons and I’ll see to it that Lord Verminaard doesn’t hear about it. If he does, you see, I’m afraid that not even the fact that you’re a skilled weapons-maker would be enough to induce him to spare your miserable, elf-loving life.”