Warriors [4] Theros Ironfield (5 page)

The gigantic bird would tear Theros apart. He couldn’t move, not because he was courageous, but because he was frozen with terror. The crow hurtled toward the very spot where the minotaur had stood, then, at the last instant, changed back to the minotaur. Sargas stood before Theros,
and smiled.

Theros could not believe, could not comprehend what he had just seen. He rubbed his eyes, pinched himself (to ensure that he was awake). Still the minotaur stood there before him.

Sargas bent at the waist, stared straight into the boy’s eyes.
Two days ago, Theros, you stood on the beach, a boy in a village whose destiny it was to be a fisherman. You had sense enough to detest such a life. You threw your lot in with the minotaur warriors. That pleased me a great deal and I began to keep my eye on you
.

Yesterday, you revealed yourself to be a champion of honor. You could have let the human warrior plunge his knife into the back of the minotaur, who was—after all—your enemy. Instead, you saw the cowardly act for what it was, and warned the captain in time. Again, you pleased me
.

You are a human whose life is promising. I am here now, revealing myself to you, in order to guide you on the correct path
.

Theros looked up into the pools of darkness that were Sargas’s eyes. His mind fell into the pools, diving into the center, seeing everything and nothing.

Theros believed. “What am I to do, Lord Sargas?”

Sargas straightened.
You must at all times remember honor. Bring honor to me by bringing honor to yourself, and recognize honor for the true virtue that it is. Learn the art and skills of warfare, and be aware that you are a human of destiny. Do not cast away your life, but take it and use it, and bend it to your will, as you did on the beach two days ago, and as you did yesterday on this ship
.

I will come to you three times in your life, Theros, this being the first. You will have no warning of these visits, but they will come at moments of crisis, so that I can help you learn the path I wish you to take
.

Without warning, the minotaur once again turned into the black crow, whose wings seemed to be made of fire. It flew into the air. Theros followed the glowing bird as it rose higher and higher into the night sky, until it became just a speck, replacing one of the stars.

Theros made his way back to his berth below the deck. He intended to stay awake and go over the events of the
past day in his head, to make some sense and order of it all. Instead, he slid into a deep, deep sleep.

When he awoke, he found the minotaur crew marveling over a black crow’s feather they’d discovered on the deck. They were too far from land, they said, for crows to be flying over the ship.

Chapter 5

“A good morning to you, Master Smith.”

“Bah! Why is it that you humans must always try to grow flowers out of crap? It is a horrible day. The rain does not cease, and the mud does not cease, so why do you say the morning is good, Theros?”

The minotaur glared at the young man, who was tall and sturdy for his eighteen years. His arms were well developed, his hands large and capable. He kept his curly hair short, his face clean-shaven, as was the custom for humans in minotaur servitude.

“It is a good morning because it is a day of battle, Master Smith,” Theros said.

The smith shook his horned head and snorted. “I doubt
that the elves will attack today. It does not seem to be weather to their liking. I’d wager on battle tomorrow. That means we have an immense amount of work to do. I will work on the arrowheads. You work on the spearheads. We can never have too many. Warriors use them as if they were rocks lying at their feet. They never seem to notice how long it takes to make them!”

Theros grimaced. “You spoil me, Hran. You know I hate to do arrowheads. They require such detailed work! But you have a harder time with them than I do. Your hands are far too big. Let me do the arrowheads. You do the spears.”

“You see, you are learning. Knowing who is good for what job is how you get the work done. Now stop talking and start working. You humans are always talking.…”

Theros turned to stoke the fire. The battlefield forge had been set up the day before, but this was the first day they could use it. The fire took almost a day to build up enough heat to be useful.

The minotaur Hran was the master weapons-smith and armorer to the Third Minotaur Army. The army had campaigned most of the summer months, waging war against the elves in the forests of Silvanesti. A year ago, a group of minotaurs had decided that the coastal area would be ideal for minotaur settlements. Led by a sea pirate named Klaf, these minotaurs had built a walled village on the coast.

It was the first minotaur settlement on the continent since the Cataclysm had removed the land links between the minotaur homeland and the rest of Ansalon. The plan was to have the village grow into a town and later into a coastal fortress. Once entrenched, the minotaurs would be impossible to uproot, and home territory advantage would be granted to the minotaurs in any defense. The elves would have to strike while the minotaurs were still establishing their new colony on Ansalon.

The elves had done just that. Acknowledging that the minotaurs were masters of the sea, the elves were building up their strength, preparing for an all-out attempt to retake the coastal area using inland armies. The minotaurs would have to fight for this ground.

Klaf, the minotaur in command, petitioned the Supreme Circle for an army to conquer the elves. If the elves could be defeated, then the coast and sea were the minotaurs’ for the taking. From there, the minotaurs could conveniently raid most of Ansalon.

The Emperor, through the Supreme Circle, awarded Klaf the command of the minotaur army and ordered him to remove the threat of elves from the site of the colony. It was stressed that the honor of Klaf’s entire clan rested on the success of this campaign. There was only one small problem. No combat-ready minotaur army could be spared. The Third Army was a ceremonial and parade ground army, normally housed at the capital in Lacynes. The Third Army had never seen battle. It would take a monumental effort for Klaf to turn the Third Army into battle-ready warriors.

During the last year, Klaf had done just that. For seven months now, the force had campaigned against the elf units in the area, slowly and inexorably pushing them back inland. Klaf had seen victory in the offing and then, two weeks ago, his spies brought him word that a new force had arrived—an elven army of eight thousand that threatened to challenge the minotaurs in open battle. Although weaker in infantry than the minotaurs, the elves possessed excellent archers and their light cavalry could wreak havoc among the slow-moving minotaurs.

Klaf was firm in the belief that only amateur soldiers plotted strategy and tactics. Professionals studied logistics. He knew that archers were his army’s weakness. The booty taken from the first few battles enabled Klaf to hire mercenaries—human archers—to round out his force.

By keeping his supply lines from the sea open, he had ensured that his army was well fed and well equipped. Hundreds of artisans, cooks, skilled woodworkers and taskmasters had been taken from the ships in the minotaur fleets, and put to work in the coastal village. One of these had been Theros, who had served on board a minotaur ship for the past eight years, since the age of ten.

The job of sharpening weapons, which Theros had picked up almost by accident, had proven to be one in
which he was highly skilled. Theros had been so successful at his work of repairing leather and maintaining the ship’s complement of weapons that his reputation spread far beyond the war barge on which he served.

The warriors of the
Blatvos Kemas
had done well in battle. They credited themselves, to be sure, but the captain had also done Theros the rare honor of including him in the reports. The captain claimed that the quality of armor and weapons was such that a warrior could rely on them to enable him to rise to his true potential. Unfortunately for the captain, this praise of Theros caught the eye of a wealthy Supreme Circle member. The captain lost Theros in a wager on a sea battle with the council member, much to the regret of the crew and warriors.

Theros was not the only valuable object won by the Supreme Circle member. Several ships, with their complement of slaves, crew, warriors and supplies, went to the high-ranking minotaur. He sent most of his winnings to the revitalized army of Klaf, as a show of support.

Theros was assigned to the chief armorer of Klaf’s forces. Hran was wise, powerful, with legendary skills when it came to bladed weapons. His axes were much prized and widely sought after. At first, Hran had been skeptical of working with a human. He assigned the young man the job of making arrows and spears. These were not the weapons of any fabled warrior, yet they were the daily tools of an army. They could be made in abundance, and an army would run short of them in two days of fighting. When Theros proved skilled in this task, Hran began to think that the human might make a fairly decent smith.

Hran took care never to tell Theros that, however.

The new elven army posed a great threat to the minotaur army. The elves had to be defeated or there could be no consolidation of the coastline. The place of battle was not a hospitable one, and the clouds had not stopped raining for the past week. The ground was soaked through, and wherever the large wagons of the baggage train moved, mud churned in their wake. The ground around the smithy was the only dry ground for a league in any direction. A huge tent had been set up, with the center post being the chimney
for the forge. The heat of the fire under the tent baked the ground to a hard clay.

The fire was finally hot enough to melt metal after a day of feeding the flames. Theros took blocks of steel and bronze and melted them in a large cauldron. Under the watchful eye of Hran, he tossed in small amounts of different powders to add special properties to the metal soup. White powder ensured that the metal would not crack when cooled. Gray powder helped the two different metals mix together to form a stronger alloy.

The cauldron bubbled and boiled. Using a small knife, Theros cleaned the mold for the arrowheads. Very carefully, he peeled away any remnants of previous castings. When he was satisfied, he arranged the wooden plates around the fire. With a huge pair of tongs, he lifted the cauldron and poured molten metal into the first mold. The metal flowed into the arrow-shaped crevices carved into the wooden block and began to congeal. The wood burst into flame from the intense heat. Theros moved on to the second mold, and repeated the pouring. He did the same again and again until all of the ten molds were filled, all were on fire.

Theros placed the cauldron back into the forge flame, and dropped the tongs. He ran to the water barrel, filled a bucket, and ran back to his burning molds. One by one, he doused the molds in water, putting out the fire and curing the metal. The steam rose, mixing with the smoke from the forge, curling from the top of the tent.