Deepforge (17 page)

“Walk with me, Sire.”

Grognor looked around, and then right at Teelena.

“She needs to come too,” Bruno said.

Grognor motioned her over, and the three of them walked to a secluded spot in the cave.

“Speak softly, sounds travel easily in a cave,” Grognor said.

Bruno got very close to the both of them. “This is bigger than we thought, and Sire, you’re really not going to like what I have to say next. Please control yourself.”

Grognor looked at him, apprehensive. He gathered his wits about him and nodded, ready for whatever Bruno had to say.

Bruno continued, “Sire, your sister is a traitor.” He leaned back against the cave wall and waited to see the Emperor’s reaction.

Grognor’s face grew uncontrollably red, nearly as red as his hair and beard. Teelena held onto his arm, eyes wide with shock.

“It’s not true, I refuse to accept it,” Grognor said.

Bruno stepped forward and held Grognor’s shoulder, looking squarely into his eyes. “I found Daemon’s notes from her in his pack. I assure you, it’s true.” He then reached into the bag and pulled out several small scrolls, handing them to the Emperor.

Grognor took them and unrolled the first one. It told of the unsuccessful siege attempts, praised ‘She’, and signed with her own name. He couldn’t believe it, but he was forced to. It was true. His own sister was a traitor. As he fumed, Teelena noticed something else.

“Bruno, what’s wrong with your hand?”

Bruno looked down at his hand, to see a small wound. He then looked up at the wall to see a small, sharp root sticking out with blood on it. “Blood!” He was incredulous.

“Bruno, how can you be bleeding?  I thought you were invulnerable?” Teelena asked.

Grognor saw the blood and grabbed Bruno’s hand. Bruno cringed in pain as he did so.

“Oh,
shit!
” Bruno said with a rare look on his face, the look of fear and pain.

Chapter 15

T
he blizzard continued all through the night. After the initial ‘thaw’, the fires were put out, and all the remaining coals were gathered for one long-term fire. They tended it, putting just enough of the available wood to keep it going. It ran out a couple of hours before morning. The entire army huddled together, trying their best to stay warm. The dwarves and gnomes were accustomed to extremes of hot and cold. The Stone Children were totally invulnerable to cold. The humans and halflings, however, were the most at risk. The dwarves gave them their thick coats and extra blankets to keep them from dying.

Bruno did very little of anything. Mostly, he sat and cradled his now bandaged hand. Teelena and Grognor tried to talk to him, but he withdrew into himself. Cray and the other Stone Children stayed close to him, also trying to get him to talk, but he didn’t say a word since Teelena bandaged his very small wound.

“What’s wrong with him?” Teelena asked.

Cray tried his best to examine him, lifting his eyelids and looking deep into his eyes, testing his muscle tone, etc. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen him like this. He’s… I just don’t understand how this is possible.” He looked at Bruno’s bandaged hand.

“I’m mortal,” Bruno said, rocking back and forth in anguish.

The shock they all experienced was a combination of him finally breaking his silence, as well as his proclamation.

“Mortal?” Cray asked, looking closely at him.

“This has happened before, a very long time ago. I don’t know how it’s here, but it is. I’m mortal,” Bruno said, tears flowing down his face.

“What? What’s here?” Grognor asked.

“It’s…my Kryptonite,” Bruno said, laughing half-heartedly. He still rocked and cradled his hand, frightened out of his mind.

“Your…what?”

Bruno shook his head ‘no’. “A reference from a story…from another world…never mind. It’s a coin with divine properties, created by the gods as a gift for me. It was designed eons ago, before I met my wife to allow me to become mortal. It doesn’t work exactly right, and, technically I’m still immortal, after a fashion. I regenerate very slowly… kind of like my wife did at the beginning. But, I could be totally incinerated. If enough damage was done to me at one time…I could die.”

Nobody understood what he had just said, but listened as he continued. “If it’s on the same world I am, it restricts me to whatever form I’m in at the time it appears. It strips me of all mental talents, allows me to be harmed and…killed. I would eventually regenerate and come back if the damage isn’t totally destructive. I can no longer shift. I am now, in all ways, a Stone Child. I will age, be hurt, and for pretty much every way that’s important, am mortal.”

“We’re back at the beginning, then,” Grognor said. He backed away and looked around at the huddling army. The light was beginning to radiate from the suns as twilight came. At the same time, the blizzard was reducing in intensity. “Bruno, we’re back where we were before you revealed yourself to us. But, we are
still
a fierce army. Get yourself together, and assume your new identity. I’ll not allow you, or anyone else to wallow in fear and sorrow. You are a Stone Child, and are of the toughest species of humanoid this world has ever known. Get up, and let’s get going. We have a war to win, and I have a mystery to solve…a sister and an elf to deal with. Which reminds me, where is Daemon?”

Bruno pulled himself together and stood up. Teelena and Cray helped him, but he needed no help. He wiped away his tears of self pity and looked at Grognor. “I took him to another world. He’s not going anywhere. If I can ever get to where I can teleport again, I can retrieve him for you to deal with.”

“Maybe you can ‘send and image’ to the dragons, and they can do it,” Grognor said.

“Yea…yea, maybe. What are you going to do about your sister?”

“She will die a traitor’s death, by my hand,” Grognor said, reluctantly.

Bruno nodded and looked over at Cray. “Let’s do this, Brother.”

Cray smiled.

As the day came and the storm waned, the army edged their way closer to the mouth of the cave to look out at the winter scene. What they saw shocked them. Just a few feet away from the mouth of the cave, no more than a few inches from where the Stone Children had guided them in, was a shear drop-off, going at least one thousand feet down into a massive canyon.

“By the gods!” was heard several times as they saw this, now realizing just how close they all were to certain death.

“How the hell are we going to get out of here?” Teelena asked.

“Same way we got in,” Cray said. “Only difference is, now you know what’s over there.” He pointed to the abyss of a canyon.              

Several people gulped in fear.

“Come on; let’s get the camp picked up. Grain the horses, eat some breakfast, and let’s go. We’ve got no time to waste,” Grognor said.

“Vella! Come on!” Selena urged.

“We can’t let it just…happen! We have to fight!” Vella argued.

“No! I know of a way out, through a cooled lava tube. It’s tight, but I think we can make it!”

“I won’t abandon them. I can teleport, remember? Screw this! I’ll transform, fight as much as I can, and then teleport as many as I can out before the horde completely overtakes us. You go ahead.”

Selena looked around at the chaos. Drakmids invaded through the Great Door, which had finally collapsed. Dragons circled around the outside preventing any dwarf from escaping.  The dwarven army fought with everything they could to fend off the invaders, but the strange humanoids were just too powerful. Vella fought as an elf until she made it to the Great Hall, then she quickly transformed into her true self, a silver dragon. “That bitch is crazy, plain and simple,” Selena said out loud.

The mountains were spectacular. The storm had passed, and the high snow glistened in the suns. The army was assembled, fed, and mounted. They looked out at the landscape and at the sheer cliff next to where they would have to ride. Beyond, the high peaks of the mountains assaulted the sky, rising up quickly in sharp points. As deadly as this terrain was, there was no denying how beautiful it was.

“I’ve never been this deep into the northern mountains,” Delvin said, gazing at the natural wonder.

Most of the others agreed. This was a whole new world.

“How the hell are we going to get around this?” Grognor said, looking at the canyon.

“Come on, Sire. You’re a dwarf. Certainly you’ve been in this sort of situation before. You’re an experienced mountain explorer,” Bruno said.

“Oh, I’m not worried about us, or our horses. They’re bread for this sort of thing. I’m worried about the humans and halflings.”

Teelena looked over at him. “I never thought I’d hear you say you were ‘worried’ about humans and halflings.”

Grognor looked at her, and then to the obviously scared humans. “Something fundamental has changed in me…”

She smiled and rubbed his arm. “I think that sentiment is spreading. Look.”

Several of the dwarf army helped the humans and halflings get prepared, and gave them words of instruction on how to travel in the high mountains. It was something never before seen. They hadn’t been asked or ordered to do so; they did so out of genuine concern.

“Hating them was a part of life, Teelena. I don’t understand why I no longer have those feelings,” Grognor said, caressing the hilt of Victoria’s sword strapped on his belt.

Teelena put her hand on his, on Victoria’s sword. She gazed into her husband’s eyes. “Her death changed us. All of us. It’s truly a new world.”

“It’s not just her. This whole thing, from when the dragons prevented us from fighting with them, Brendon and Daemon’s deception, the games, that whole thing with Bruno, and…my own sister. I can’t believe what’s happened. These past weeks have been crazy.”

“What are you going to do about her?”

Grognor looked out at the snow covered mountains. “What, indeed.”

Bruno stepped back to them. “Mount up, Sire, Lady. We need to get started before the suns begin melting the snow.”

Grognor looked at Bruno, and nodded. “You’re in the lead, Bruno.” He looked over at Teelena, and they both mounted.               Everyone who wasn’t mounted, except for the Stone Children, mounted up. The Stone Children lead them out only inches away from the cliff. They instructed everyone to not look down, but at them instead. Slowly, meticulously, the horses stepped hoof after hoof along the narrow edge. One side was the sheer cliff down; the other was the mountain side. They barely had enough room for the horses themselves.

“How far until we get back where we were?” Grognor asked.

“We can’t go back that way.” Bruno pointed. “It’s now blocked by a mountain of snow. We’ll have to go the other way.” He pointed on ahead, the opposite direction of where they came in.

Grognor finally saw that they had left going further into the foreboding territory, not out of it. “How long does this trail go?”

“Around twenty miles, only. Then, there’s a bridge we’ll have to cross…across the canyon.”

“Ah, hell,” Teelena said, glancing back at the humans.

Roughly ¾ of the way there, the narrow trail narrowed even more.  The suns had melted the ice on the narrow ledge which made it a bit easier for the horses to get a hoof-hold, but it also created even slicker conditions as the ledge began to turn to mud.

“Everyone just take it easy! Don’t push the horses, they can handle it!”Cray said.

Several humans about a third of the way down decided it would be better to get off and lead their horses.

“No! Stay mounted!” Bruno yelled.

They didn’t listen. They slid off their horses, trying to get in front of them by pivoting around their necks. As they began to do so, several more saw this as a good idea and began to follow their lead.

“No!” Cray yelled.

It was too late. The horses struggled to deal with the suddenly shifted weight as the humans slid down in front. They lost footing and slipped right off the ledge, with their riders half on, half off. Thirty seven people went right off the edge into the abyss, screaming for their lives.

“Shit! Stay mounted!” Bruno screamed.

Everyone understood and watched as the lost fell into the mist, beyond visual range into the deep canyon.  A few of the horses on the ledge began to get spooked, but a few words of comfort went a long way.

“Easy, now. We have nowhere else to go, we’ll get there if you just stay calm and let the horses do what they instinctually know how,” Bruno explained.

The single file army moved along slowly and carefully for a few more miles. Nobody else made any stupid moves, electing to do exactly what the Stone Children instructed. Then, they saw it. The narrow ledge came to a dead stop with a massive suspension bridge at its termination. The bridge was easily three times the width of the ledge, and stretched out across the abyss, dipping down into the low clouds that obscured the bottom of the wide canyon.

“Jesus,” Delvin said at the sight of it.

“Do you even know who that is?” Bruno asked.

Delvin shook his head ‘no’. “I heard you say it back at the fight… I guess I just picked it up.”