Child Of Storms (Volume 1) (42 page)

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Ironhelm watched the servant fill the small iron bowl in front of him, enjoying every nuance and detail of the ritual. The servant went around to all of the guests, pouring just enough of the clear spirits into each bowl to fill it halfway. Jorn sat next to Ironhelm and waited for the servant to finish pouring the liquid into his bowl. He reached for it, eager to sample the drink. Ironhelm elbowed him roughly.

             
“Not until Lord Hammeredshield drinks from his, laddie,” Ironhelm growled.

They’d been drinking tall mugs of thick ale for nearly an hour while feasting on a wide variety of foods. As a trio of dwarven minstrels played, the dinner began when a swarm of servants brought out plates of heavy black bread and cheese, followed a few minutes later by large cuts of pork and cured beef roasted over a blazing fire-pit set up on the far side of the hall.
Dwarves turned dozens of long spits of meat over the fire, the aroma filling up the cavernous hall. As each piece of meat was pronounced ready by the Roasting Master, the dwarves would remove it from the fire and bring it over to Lord Hammeredshield’s table.

There, the Carving Master would set the meat aside and cover it so it could “settle.”  Next, he’d use a long knife to expertly cut up the meat with rapid efficiency. He would then heap it high onto large metal platters which were passed around the table beginning with Lord Hammeredshield.

Lord Hammeredshield had the right to choose the first cut, but instead passed the platter to his wife and let her select the choicest slice. The gesture was not uncommon, Ironhelm explained to Jorn, a tradition started many centuries ago by the kings of Withenhaelr.

“It is to honor his wife and show his love of her,” Ironhelm said. “It says she matters more to him than all the privileges of rank and position.”

Däsa Hammeredshield was an impressive dwarf women, her hair braided into a pair of long grey locks reaching down to her feet. She had bright gray eyes and bore herself with a dignity appropriate to a mighty queen. Around her neck she wore a gleaming gold necklace embedded with sparkling sapphires and a gleaming diamond the size of an acorn. She said little, smiling gently and nodding politely at the conversation around her. When she did speak, Jorn noticed, those around her listened intently.

Lady Hammeredshield chose her cut and passed the platter onto her husband. He passed it on to Ironhelm, seated on his right, and he onto Jorn. To Lady Hammeredshield’s immediate left sat her son, followed by Sir Ailric, and Flatfoot. Willock and Ronias were to Jorn’s right.

“Even here, in the south, we heard of wha’ happened to The Westmark,” Lord Hammeredshield said to Jorn, raising his mug of ale. “Ach, we did indeed. It is my hope tha’ you will soon have the good for’une to gain back your lands, Thane Ravenbane.”

“Thank you, Lord Hammeredshield,” Jorn said, returning the salute and taking a deep drink.

“The accoun’s we heard of the Battle of Loc Goren were filled with wild tales of pain’ed berserker shamans and fire gian’s,” Hammeredshield said, laughing. “Gian’s! Can you imagine tha’?”

“Those were no wild tales,” Jorn said gravely. “I saw the giants myself across the field of battle. They stood nearly as tall as this hall and bore clubs longer than the length of this table.”

“Ach, but surely you jes’ with an old dwarf!” Hammeredshield protested.

“He jests not, old friend,” Ironhelm said. “I was there, too, and beheld them. Aye, tis true.”

“I cannot doub’ your word, Durm, however fanciful the story sounds,” Hammeredshield said. “I though’ the gian’s all gone, disappeared back into their cloudy heights. Aye, if they ever existed a’ all.”

“Wherever they were all these ages, they are back and in league with other evil creatures,” Ironhelm said. “They serve Kaas and Amundágor. Aye, tis true.”

“Tha’ is ill news, indeed,” Hammeredshield said, shaking his head.

Throughout the evening, servants continued with more roasted meat on skewers. They brought over large cuts of goat and mutton, followed by cured beef and some bowls of warm chopped liver topped with salt pork and mushrooms.

“Do they eat like this all the time?” Jorn whispered to Willock.

“This is the traditional lordly feast of the dwarves,” the woodsman said, savoring a juicy morsel of goat meat. It had been slowly braised in a pot placed atop the coals until the rough cut was tender and delicate. “It is all kept very simple, just roasted or braised meats. And they use no seasoning except for a bit of salt. It’s their way. If course, in the woodlands of Llangellan we rub the meat with ground herbs and pepper.”

“In Linlund we smoke our meat or cure it in brine,” Jorn said, his mind pondering the cooking of his homeland. It been years since he had enjoyed a nice plate of smoked eel atop slices of the dense, dark rye bread baked in every hearth in Linlund.

“Ach! The gods gave meat a flavor,” Ironhelm said, biting into a large bite of dripping-red beef. He shook his head in annoyance. “And tha’s how it should be left, I say. Rubbing meat with herbs! Smoking away the flavor! Ach! It fringes on blasphemy, it does!”

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              Dinner began to wind down, Jorn and Willock leaning back in their chairs with looks of contented fullness on their faces. Lord Hammeredshield nodded in the direction of the dwarven bards in the corner of the Hall. They bowed deeply towards the old dwarf and stepped away from the
hammarharpas
they’d been playing all evening. A silence fell across the feasters. They began to sing a dour hymn that was both somber and haunting, filling the hall with a sudden sadness as the lyrics rang out against the cold stone walls.

Jorn knew the song well. He’d labored many hours on the Dwarven tongues during his time on Glaenavon, and he and Fearach would often speak nothing else but Dwarven to one another for days at a time to help Jorn pick it up quicker.

It was slow and it was sung with deep, booming dwarven voices thick with a profound sadness. It had a haunting, melancholy beauty which lost much of its magic when translated into the tongues of men.

              Oh, Withenhaelr, Withenhaelr!

             
Holy Hall of Our Fathers

             
Our Mountain Most Beloved

             
When shall our eyes fall upon you again?

             
              We are lost in the wilderness

             
Strangers in a strange land

             
Out in the weather under the open sky

             
We look sadly North to you

              As the warrior misses his bride’s embrace,

             
Our hearts are heavy, our backs bent with care

             
The tombs of our kings go untended

             
And the forges are quiet in the endless dark

              Oh, Withenhaelr, Withenhaelr!

             
Lose not faith in your loyal sons

             
Yet shall we return to your halls

             
And turn them red with the blood of your enemies.

              Jorn knew well the story behind the song, too. Withenhaelr, the “White Mountain”, was once the mightiest of all the great dwarf kingdoms. Now it was reduced to a frozen ruin far in the northeast corner of Linlund. The dwarves of The White Mountain, secure behind the doors of their great mountain realm, did not think they could ever be defeated. But they fell along with mighty old Withowan, their gates battered down and their people slaughtered.

A few of the survivors settled elsewhere in Linlund, still others along the Slave Coast and amidst the foothills of Shalfur. In all these places they still dwelt. The vast number of them, however, cast their lots with the refugees of Withowan and made their way south in search of a new homeland.  The dwarf lords helped the men of Withowan clear Llangellan of gruks and other monsters, carving out domains of their own along the edge of the Great Barrier Mountains to the west of the new kingdom. Vögen Hammeredshield was one such dwarf lord.

The dwarf lords did not simply turn their backs on their fellow refugees, either. They pledged unending friendship to Llangellan “unto the ending of the world or the return to The White Mountain.” The former dwarves of The White Mountain thus became the denizens of the Dwarven Freeholds. They’d since prospered, multiplied, and grown strong in their new land, but they never ceased mourning their lost Withenhaelr and probably never would. Every dwarf alive in the Freeholds had been born in the south and had never known any other homeland. Yet they all considered themselves, like Jorn, exiles.

             
There was silence in the hall when the song ended. A pair of servants entered, the first carrying small bowls and the second bearing a tall earthen jug painted in the clan colors of dark blue and gray. The first servant placed a bowl in front of everyone at the table and the second began to pour out a small portion of a clear liquid into each of the bowls.

             
“This is called
akavla
, laddie,” Ironhelm leaned over and explained quietly to Jorn after admonishing him for reaching out to sample the drink. “Aye, it’s a sacred beverage among my people, it is, distilled from mountain-grown grains and carefully cleansed of all impurities again and again, week after week, until the
akavlamestr
declares it ready. It is only brought out when the dinner is over and the Song of Withenhaelr has been heard. Aye, now the rounds of toasting are ready to begin. When Lord Hammeredshield raises his bowl and gives a toast, we drink. No one drinks until then. Not ever, laddie. It is a rare honor you’re being given, to share of the
akavla.
”

             
When the bowls were all filled, Lord Hammeredshield stood and raised his bowl up in front of him. The assembled diners rose in unison.

Hammeredshield turned towards Ironhelm.

“An old friend too long absen’ from this hall arrived jus’ in time to spare an old dwarf from losing his las’ son,” he said, raising the bowl in front of him.

“Durm Ironhelm,” he said solemnly, drinking the
akavla
down.

“
Durm Ironhelm!”
the assembled feasters repeated in unison.

             
Jorn raised the bowl along with all the others and drank down the
akavla
in one gulp. It was a fiery drink, strong but flavorless. He emptied the bowl and put it back down on the table.

             
“I well remember our first meeting, Durm,” Lord Hammeredshield said, sitting back down. The others all followed him, taking their seats. “Aye, I do. Has he shared the tale? No? Well, he should have. Ach. I’ was during the early, darkest days of wha’ we call the Grea’ Moun’ain War. The enemy, the vile devil Cul’ of Amundágor, had fallen upon the Freeholds in overwhelming force before we could so much as reac’. The poor Grani’ebeard Clan was swallowed up whole in those firs’ terrible weeks, they were. There were many good dwarves among them, but they were cu’ off by the armies of the enemy. A few merchants traveling abroad survived, scattered remnan’s of a once-great people.” Hammeredshield paused, lost in thought for a moment. “We almost me’ the same fa’e, we did. All along the fron’ier they poured through the high moun’ain passes. Ach. Through the Widowing Gap they brough’ the bulk of their forces. But I’ is a narrow pass hardly fifty paces wide a’ its narrowest, so there we made our stand. For three days and nigh’s we held the gap, dwarves of Thunderforge hurrying south to figh’ alongside us. Somehow we held on, despi’e all the enemy could do. I must have escaped death a thousand times during those dark days, one time only because a young cap’ain of Thunderforge named Durm Ironhelm was at my side. I was wounded la’er in the battle, though, and it looked as if we were near breaking when Braemorgan finally showed up with five hundred Knigh’s of Havenwood behind him! We pushed the enemy back through the gap and then sealed it up, and it remains so sealed today. Aye.”

             
“It is sealed?” Jorn said. “Can it not be passed through?”

“We set to building an impenetrable wall across it, laddie, but there is a ga’e through which we send scou’ing par’ies now and again. We’ve been safe from attack for more than a century now, we have, thanks to tha’ gap wall. All tha’ the damned gruks and trolls have been able to do is stage their raids, but even those pinpricks can wound deeply. Aye, tha’ they can.”

              Servants made their way around the table, filling up the bowls of
akavla
again as the old dwarf lord spoke. 

             
“Of course,” he went on. “Tha’ was only the beginning of the war. We’d stopped one of the arms of the invasion at the gap, but the forces of Amundágor were pouring across the moun’ains elsewhere. Aye, I had no time even for my wound to fully heal before we were off once more. More of the Knigh’s arrived to aid us in our fight, two thousand of ‘em strong. Aye, but you laddies shoulda seen ‘em! When they rode into battle the hooves of their horses sounded like thunder upon the high moun’ain tops.”