Whill of Agora Trilogy: Book 01 - Whill of Agora (44 page)

Tarren managed a half-smile. “Yes, sir.”

Tarren had gone to his first day of training, a brutal and dangerous affair within the Eldalon Army, Whill knew. But he was glad of it nonetheless.

“I have informed the king that I wish Tarren to be schooled intensively throughout his years in the academy. His thirst for knowledge will go beyond the sword, I do not doubt, as will his compulsion to right the wrongs of this world.”

“Hmph. I wish him good luck in that endeavor.” Abram lit his pipe and looked out onto the sunset upon the horizon. “I wonder, Whill, did your own words spark any familiarity within you this day?”

“What words?”

“Your words to Tarren.”

Whill sat upon a heavily cushioned chair. “Ah, that. Well, Abram, my father’s killer remains at large at the moment and being that he is the one who must be slain to ensure victory, it seems that I am left with a most monumental situation. For that which my sense of vengeance deems necessary is that which the cause requires also.”

Abram chuckled at Whill’s cleverness. “Yes, my friend.” Smoke from his pipe encircled his body, causing a strange effect of light in the sunset. “You know well the difference between the compulsion of emotions and of duty. I beg you forget them not in this matter, and, I must say, in that of Avriel.”

“I shall not soon forget, sir,” Whill said.

Roakore burst into his soldiers’ training room, sweat dripping from his brow, a wild look in his eye. At his entrance the shout went out: “The king returns! Roakore has returned!”

The proclamation echoed throughout the hall of over two thousand fighting soldiers and all came to a sudden halt. Roakore gasped and put his hand upon the nearest dwarf for support as he caught his breath. Only a moment passed before he spoke.

“Me friends, me sons, me brothers, me great warriors, the time has come. I come from Eldalon with the word o’ King Mathus. We and the humans, and even the elves, shall fall upon the shores o’ Isladon. There we shall liberate the people and fight the Draggard scourge. We’ll be takin back the mountains o’ our fathers. We shall finally be knowin redemption!”

The hall erupted into a frenzy of cheers that seemed to test the very structural integrity of the mountain itself. Roakore raised his arms for silence.

“Yer training is done. Go home, love yer wives, spend time with yer children, do what ye will. Fer the next time ye raise yer weapons in combat, it’ll be against the hell-born Draggard bastards. We leave for battle within the week!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

The Drums of War

T
he time had come. Word had arrived from Ky’Dren: the dwarf armies of both Ky’Dren and Helgar would be poised to strike at sunrise two days hence. The elven army of Elladrindellia had set sail a week prior and were already among those ships that waited within the Eldalon harbor.

As promised, Freston and his sons were at the docks at sunrise with Whill’s ship. He greeted Whill and gestured to the vessel with pride. “It is my pleasure to give to you
Celestra
,” he said.

Whill was in awe, as had been many men who had looked upon the ship that morning. She was beautiful. Abram patted Whill on the shoulder and simply laughed, at a loss for words.

The day was mild, the sun shone through thin clouds, and on the air floated the Eldalon farewell song. The elves had arrived, as had Rhunis. It was time to depart.

With goodbyes said, and Whill’s great ship turning from the harbor to face the endless ocean, he finally got a look at the full scope of the fleet that would carry the army to foreign shores. Though the sight of his allied ships should have given him solace, there had been a foreboding in his heart since his vision of the coming battle. So vivid had it been that he could still remember the smell of burnt earth and flesh. He knew logic dictated that he should have no part of such a war, so important was he to the grand scheme. But another part of his mind urged him to go. Why, he could not explain; it was like a name in smoke, a face in the blowing leaves.

He looked at Avriel. The sight of her, with the sunlight upon her beautiful face, for a moment made his stomach fall like the first time he had ever sailed. Then Avriel came into his mind. He had noticed the difference; the feelings he got when Avriel and Zerafin had spoken in his mind had been different. His stomach fell again as he seemed to fly like smoke through an open window into her mind. For a brief moment he could access every memory, explore every feeling and fantasy, hear every thought, and the thoughts behind every thought. He felt the feelings attached to the memories and thought. He could have plumbed the depths forever but did not have time to, so brief was the experience, for as soon as his mind had gone to hers, it became scared, and in its fear it thought urgently of itself. So when Whill’s mind entered Avriel’s, he thought of himself through her mind, and the thought of himself through her mind was not a thought at all but a feeling. He felt love, as deep and intense as the sea upon which they floated.

He blinked and was himself again—the sea breeze on his face, the sun at the bow, and everyone staring at him.

“What’d you do this time, Whill?” asked Abram with a smirk.

“It seems Whill has just had his first attempt at mind-sharing,” said Avriel.

“It was an accident, I wasn’t trying to. It just happened…”

“We find that these things first happen when one is not trying,” Zerafin said. “Which is why much of the training can have disastrous results.”

Avriel chuckled. “You mean like when you were first training, brother, and you were first learning to move things with your mind?”

Zerafin looked to the heavens with a laugh. “Not that story.”

Rhunis egged her on. “Ha! Tell it me, lady, what did he do?”

“When Zerafin was first learning to move objects with his mind, he couldn’t get the image of tomatoes pelting monks out of his head. No monk within my brother’s sight was safe for a month. One would come walking through the village pondering the song of the birds and splat, out of the nearest home or garden would come a tomato.”

The men bent over with laughter. “I had to have a trainer near me at all times for a month to counter my skills,” Zerafin admitted.

Whill was relieved that the subject had been diverted. Even as he laughed with the others, he enjoyed a private happiness, for he had seen what he could never otherwise have known for certain or fully. He knew how Avriel really felt about him.

Roakore couldn’t help but smile. Before him, many miles away, lay his mountain home, awaiting his return, and, he also knew, his father’s spirit. Behind him walked two thousand of the finest dwarf soldiers this land had ever seen, their sole purpose for living for the last twenty years having been preparation for this moment. And their sole purpose in dying would be victory. Each and every one was a master of his weapon. Muscles bulged from years of mining, hands were strong on their hilts from years of training, minds were bent and eyes set on one thing.

And behind them marched the forces of the Ky’Dren and Helgar mountains, thousands of loyal dwarves, every one honored by the chance to avenge such a travesty, willing to die fighting for the greatest good. In dwarf society one could only hope to die such a death, for the wine and ale would overflow mugs in the Mountain of the Kings the day the mountain was retaken. Not a dwarf lived who would turn down such a chance at glory as this, Roakore knew.

“We will stay with the fleet until we are near the coast of Isladon, then we head south,” Whill confirmed to Abram.

“Yes. We should have no troubles. No ship can outrun this one, I would bank on it.”

The fleet had been sailing all morning and into the afternoon. They would reach the beaches of Isladon by the next morning, after the dwarves had closed the great doors of the Ebony Mountains. From there Whill and Abram, Avriel and Zerafin, and even Rhunis (who had taken it upon himself to stay with Whill; being a general of the Eldalon navy, he felt it his duty to protect its greatest chance in this war), would separate from the fleet, and start their journey to Elladrindellia.

Roakore grunted low in his throat, and those immediately behind him did the same, and those behind them and so on, until every dwarf had stopped. It was a few hours past midnight; they were right on time. Roakore crouched at the foot of a small hill and crawled to the top with two of his generals. By the faint light of the moon he could make out every detail of the world around him—a few minutes in the dark and a dwarf could see as well as any cat. Before him was the northern entrance to the Ebony Mountains. He turned and signaled behind him. At once two dwarves broke rank and went about infiltrating the entrance. They had seen no scouts, but if they were any good at what they did, Roakore counted on not seeing them. No word had come from the dozens of dwarf scouts.

Within minutes the two dwarves returned. They had seen no sentries on duty; the entrance remained closed. Roakore silently selected six stout dwarves, brought his fist into the air, and proceeded to the entrance with the ones he had chosen. Slow and quiet they crept. Roakore was alert to every movement of the world around him. The light wind carried only the scent of spring foliage and earth and a faint scent of deer urine. There was no sound but the wind in the grass.

Once Roakore was confident that no one was on guard, he settled on the door. Like many others of dwarven make, it was mostly concealed to look like its surroundings. It was not adorned with writing or runes or any of the like. It was simply a slab of rock, ten by ten, made to appear no more conspicuous than the rest of the mountainside. Roakore did not like the idea that they had not seen any Draggard about, no sentries on duty. But they had a schedule to keep, and he had thousands of dwarves at his back. The time was now.

The wind had picked up, blowing in from the west with force. It had been clear sailing all day, but now, with the sun down, the clouds came, masking the stars in their heavenly lair. Whill thought of Eadon and the Dark elves and looked at Zerafin, who was studying the sky.

The elf turned and read the concern on his face. “I doubt this is the work of the Dark elves. They would not expend so much energy on weather. No, they would save it for the battlefield.”

Whill was about to visit Abram at the wheel when Zerafin spoke again. “But we do have visitors.”

Whill looked to the sky. Nothing. He listened. Nothing. Zerafin’s voice came to him.
Use your mind-sight, Whill, and ready your blade.

Whill’s hand found the hilt as he relaxed to achieve the meditative state to enter mind-sight. At first he could not, due to his inexperience and the suddenness of the command. But within a minute he was there, and he gasped at the sight of the ocean. The ship, which was to his mind’s eye faint due to its lifelessness, seemed to float on a cloud of greenish blue light. It pulsed and throbbed, colors and life-energy patterns teeming and swirling in a strange and hypnotic dance. When he finally looked away and to the deck, he saw for the first time the life-energy pattern of Abram and Rhunis. He could not see the elves’, however. They were, he assumed, hiding it somehow.

With that thought, he snapped out of his amazement and remembered Zerafin’s warning. He looked at the sky. Though it was overcast, he could now clearly see the stars, and in his mind-sight they were more brilliant than ever they had been. Again came Zerafin’s voice.
Just below the Star of the Kings.

Whill looked, and there he could make out faintly the life energy of something. At first it appeared to be a bird, but then he saw it for what is was. Glowing like hot lava, hardly noticeable among the stars but moving like none of them, was a dragon.

With the power bestowed upon his bloodline by the gods, Roakore moved the two-ton slab of rock from its place in the mountain. Those dwarves with him could have helped by pulling on the ropes disguised as tree roots along the seam, but they were in awe of their king’s great power. It taxed Roakore more than he showed, but he hardly cared. He had twenty years of strength built up, and vengeance fueling his muscles. Once the door was opened fully, he again threw his fist in the air, and with his comrades he entered his home mountain for the first time in too many years.

They carefully stalked the tunnel, alert to any noise. They lit no torches; they did not have to this close to the entrance. The tunnel had been used in his father’s day mostly for trade, and therefore the floor was flat, and wide enough to accommodate two wagons abreast. Its ceiling was twenty feet, its stone walls embedded with millions of shining minerals.

On they walked until Roakore signaled to one of the dwarves, who nodded at the commands and turned back down the tunnel to get the others. On they walked for five minutes, and again Roakore sent a soldier back to tell the rest to follow this far. They now neared what Roakore knew was the first big chamber. It had been used as a loading place for dwarf traders. More than twenty tunnels led to this chamber, so this was where they would have to be careful of an ambush. Roakore signaled a third dwarf to go back and return with forty men. He intended on having them search the many tunnels quickly, two dwarves to a tunnel.

Just as the dwarf was heading on his way, the draft in the tunnel shifted. It had been traveling down the tunnel, due to the inhalation of the mountain, when Roakore had opened the door. But now it changed course and blew faintly on his beard. On the faint draft, he realized, traveled the scent of a dragon.

An hour had passed and Whill had long ago become weary using mind-sight. He looked again every few minutes but nothing had changed. The dragon still flew directly above them, thousands of feet in the air. Abram and the others, learning of the dragon’s presence, had discussed the implications and relayed the information to the other ships. At least this would not be a surprise attack if the dragon flew ahead. But it seemed there was no way of stopping it. The Elves were powerful but even an arrow shot with perfection and elven power behind it would not be able to take down the beast.

Roakore’s blood began to boil. The thought of a dragon slumbering within the mountain of his people, the mountain of his father, was too much to bear. His breathing became heavy, and his axe was in his hand without his remembering that he’d gone for it. He was no longer aware of the three dwarves remaining with him. He knew only that he was running, running into the chamber of the dragon.