Resurgent Shadows (Successive Harmony Book 1) (19 page)

Torsten arched an eyebrow at Eric as Roberts passed and gave an almost imperceptible nod towards the men still huddled around the table. None of them had moved. Eric turned his back on them and followed Roberts out into the hall.

The ex-military man waited in a pool of light only a few steps from the doorway. Cockroaches scuttled to get away from the penetrating brightness, wings clicking. The creatures were ubiquitous these days.

“What do you want, Eric?” Roberts demanded. His face glowed with an oily sheen in the lantern light. It aged him and gave the ragged scar on his cheek a sinister cast.

“The dvergers are leaving. Their armies are marching south to take the fight to the Brown Dragonhosts. I am going with them.”

Roberts’s eyes gleamed in the darkness. The corners of his mouth twitched upwards, but fell back to an impassive line in an instant.

“You’re coming with me.”

Roberts’s mouth curled downward in a sneer and his eyes narrowed. “Why in the world would I do that?”

“Because I’m telling you to.”

“No.”

Eric fought down a sudden desire to punch the man. A sudden, fleeting wave of energy rose within him, pushing him to act, but he shoved it aside and instead folded his muscular arms across his chest and held Roberts’s gaze. One hand rested comfortably on Valundnir’s head.

“I’m not going, Eric. You’re leaving. It’s about time you stepped aside and let someone else run things around here. Someone older, wiser, and with more training than you.”

“I believe that young fiery-haired lass is the one who will be in charge,” Torsten said, appearing at Eric’s shoulder. “Isn’t that who you left in command? Her and that man named Dan?”

Eric gave a curt nod and Roberts growled deep in his throat.

“They’re no better than you, Eric. Natalie doesn’t have the strength to give order, and Dan is but your shadow. You’d have us follow them? Your younger brother is no older than a child. My men will not follow him. They follow me and me alone.”

A noise came from behind and Eric turned to look over his shoulder. The men who had been sitting around the table stood silhouetted in the archway of the room, the bright outlines leaving their bodies obscured in shadow except for where the light from Roberts’s lantern illuminated portions of their faces. Their guns were leveled at Eric’s heart.

“I believe that it is time for things to change around here,” Roberts said with a smile.

Eric felt a massive wave of energy burst from Valundnir and run up his arm. It washed over his body like a cold rain and the hammer materialized in his hands with a burst of crackling sparks and arcs of radiant energy.

Roberts shouted in surprise and alarm and brought his gun up to firing position, his finger on the trigger. A shot rang out from behind, the sound sharp and staccato in the enclosed passageway.

There was no echo.

It took an instant for Eric to look beyond the energy that raged within him and notice that both he and Torsten were surrounded in a nimbus of bronze light. Bullets exploded on the surface of the nimbus in bursts of light. Eric looked down at the dverger cleric. Torsten had his arms raised out opposite one another and parallel to the floor, palms up and facing the men that assaulted them. His eyes were closed and his lips moved, but Eric couldn’t hear the words. Slowly the shooting stopped. The last bullet vaporized in a shower of sparks against the sides of the magical shield.

Eric stood with his mouth hanging open slightly, Valundnir slack in his grip and the sea of energy within him calmed. Here was true power. Magic. Real and present.

Torsten brought his hands together in front of him, bent his arms at the elbows and kept his eyes closed. His white robes and the etchings and symbols on his armor glowed and grew bright. In one smooth motion, he flung his hands apart. The nimbus of energy shot outward and smashed into both Roberts and his men simultaneously. They flew backwards off their feet and slammed into the ground. The nimbus faded the as soon as it had passed over the men. The glow from Torsten’s robes and armor died with it.

Torsten opened his eyes. The glow from his robes was a solitary candle next to the wildfire that burned within his gaze.

“Your weapons will never work again,” he said in a voice that was soft, yet powerful, “so I suggest that you not try and use them. It would be most unpleasant if you were to do so.”

Some of the men groaned and Roberts struggled to his feet shakily. Eric made to move forward and confront the man, but Torsten held up a hand to forestall him.

“Let me tell you a story. A true story. The story,” Torsten said, his face hard even though his voice was dispassionate. “The story of Creation. In the beginning were Úndin and Sayrin, Brother-Gods and companions under the universe. Though mighty in power, the two Brother-Gods were as different from one another as was possible. Úndin, in his creations and world-making, had given rise to a lesser Son-God, Atelho, and given unto him one of the nine worlds as his own, to fashion and to care for according to his own desires. Atelho created a world of mountains and of minerals, land and harmony, with creatures that worked in the earth and soil, crafting the metals and the ores of the world in works of wonder in love and respect to their Father-God. The dvergers were born.”

Torsten’s voice took on a lilting, almost musical quality as he spoke. Eric could almost see the mountains and the dvergers toiling on their works of craftsmanship. Roberts and his men stood frozen as Torsten continued.

“Sayrin, jealous of his Brother-God, sought to create his own lesser Son-God, his own creations that would worship him though his children. He took from the clay and soil of one of the other nine worlds and fashioned children of his own. His skill was not as great as that of his Brother-God, and instead of a lesser God, he fashioned mortal, twisted, evil creatures that preyed upon the animals of its world and turned upon one another in reckless abandon and bloodlust.

“For millennia Sayrin crafted and toiled, but he only created more twisted spawn. Trulgo, golgent, and creatures far worse are their descendants.

“Úndin, watching from afar, took pity on his Brother-God and, unbeknownst to Sayrin, stretched forth his Will and touched one of the unfinished creations and gave it life, smoothing out some of the flaws that Sayrin had left behind. He created Helman, a lesser Son-God, and gave unto him a world that both He and Sayrin shared. There Helman created a world that contained both light and dark, fair and foul, tributes to his two Father-Gods, and shaped creatures like unto himself, prone to follow two masters or none. These became your forefathers.”

Eric glanced at Roberts out of the corner of his eye. The man was rooted to the spot, staring at Torsten, eyes narrowed and eyebrows furrowed. There was a note of both understanding and guilt in that look.

“You are children of both Gods. Prone to do good or to do evil. You have that ability to choose. Why do you choose wrongly? Why do you think to become those mindless, soulless creatures that followed the Dragonlords? I do not think that you are all so far gone as that. There is hope for you yet.”

Roberts’s men lowered their weapons. A few lowered their heads and looked at the ground. One shuffled his feet for a moment, then turned and walked back into the room they had just vacated. The other men followed one by one, eyes downcast, without saying a word.

Roberts dropped his gun. It fell to the ground with a staccato clatter.

“I—I’ll go with you, Eric,” he said in a shaky voice.

Torsten rounded on the man before Eric could respond. The cleric’s eyes burned with an intensity and power that rivaled the nimbus of energy that had surrounded them earlier.

Roberts quailed under the gaze, crouching back into the shadows as if to disappear into them.

“You’ll stay here, man, because I will not have you along. Never forget that I know who is responsible for the berserker’s deaths. You will do what I say, when I say it, or I will let the other dvergers know who killed their Guerreiro. You’re only still alive because Eric wishes it.”

Roberts swallowed and managed a slight inclination of his head to show that he understood.

Eric stepped up and pulled the man to his feet.

“And Roberts,” Eric said, only mildly surprised by the disparate strength he was using in holding Roberts on his toes. “Don’t think that once we’re gone you can go back to being disloyal and disobedient. If I return and anything has happened to Natalie, or if you’ve even once seemed to be fighting their leadership, you’re a dead man.”

Roberts shot a pointed look at Torsten, but Eric shifted in front of the man’s gaze.

“I’ll kill you,” Eric whispered. “The dvergers won’t even have a chance.”

Roberts nodded and scurried away without looking back. Eric had no doubt that Roberts wouldn’t stop until he’d reached the armory and locked himself in. As soon as the man had disappeared in the shadows, Eric turned to regard Torsten.

The cleric looked back at him with a wide, innocent smile.

“What was that?” Eric asked. He was careful to keep his voice level, though inside he reveled in finally being able to tell Roberts what he thought of him.

“What do you mean?”

“You intentionally provoked them. You could have gotten us both killed.”

“But I didn’t. I protected us and, on top of that, I helped out your lovely wife. It’s not likely any of those men will cause her problems now.”

“You could have given me some sort of warning. Other dvergers may be used to your magic, or whatever it was, but those sorts of things are new to us humans.”

“I’ll try and remember that next time. But you should realize that what I do, I do for your own good.”

Torsten said it as if it were obvious, but Eric arched an eyebrow at him and Torsten winked at him.

“You and I already talked about me being your pawn,” Eric said with a sigh. “How am I supposed to trust you?”

Torsten took a step towards him and suddenly, even though Eric was almost two feet taller than the dverger, Torsten seemed to loom over him.

“I don’t see that you have much choice.”

Eric looked away from the man and dropped a hand to Valundnir’s head. The weapon thrummed under his touch and he felt a sudden surge of strength and anger.

“I still won’t be your pawn. Now let’s get going.”

Torsten chuckled but seemed to diminish back to his normal size. He gestured for Eric to lead the way.

“I finally managed to find a squad for you, Eric,” Torsten said as they walked. “Who would have known there were dvergers crazy enough to fight alongside a human?”

Eric glanced sidelong at the dverger to see if he was trying to be funny, but couldn’t make out Torsten’s expression in the gloom of the sewage tunnels.

“Did you now?” he replied levelly.

“Yes, and I had a rough time of it too. We dvergers are a stubborn and pragmatic lot and we don’t like it when something comes along that challenges our preconceptions. I found a few that I trust enough not to try and kill you out of spite and they brought along a few others.”

Eric rolled his eyes and sighed in feigned weariness. Having to deal with Roberts earlier had been bad enough. He wasn’t even remotely worried about winning the impending conflict with distrusting dvergers that was sure to come, but it was sure to be a tedious battle that would grow tiresome before its end.

They walked in silence until they came to the tunnel exit. The hidden gate and rubble had been thrown aside and a handful of Dan’s men stood guard, M16s and assault rifles held loosely in their hands. They got to their feet quickly when Eric and Torsten came into view. They snapped hasty salutes as the pair walked by. Neither returned the salute, though Eric nodded and managed a grin.

They scrambled up a pile of rubble onto the street level and into the early morning gloom. Eric realized somewhat absently that night had come and gone without him even noticing.

Almost instantly they were surrounded by a dozen dvergers.

Valundnir appeared in Eric’s hands in a coalescence of shadow and light that crackled with bronze sparks. He spun it once in his hands. The metal head left a trail of silver in the air. It was a tribute to dverger stoicism that the dvergers surrounding them didn’t even flinch.

“Guerreiro,” one of them said with a slight inclination of his bare head. Eric regarded the coal black eyes that studied him beneath bushy, brown eyebrows. The dverger had a weathered, craggy face and his massive beard was shot with gray. Unlike his companions, the dverger wore only a simple leather tunic studded with metal disks and loose leggings that ended at mid-calf. His feet were bare.

“Well, now that the pleasantries are out of the way,” Torsten said with an earthy laugh, “meet your squad, Eric. You’ll learn their names over time. Pedryn here is the senior warrior. He’s aware of the army’s movements and will make sure that you remain within range of them. Well, I’ll help with that too.”

“Well, let’s get going then.” Eric said, shouldering Valundnir and taking comfort in the increasingly familiar weight.

“You didn’t say anything about having to follow
orders
from this one, Torsten,” a younger-looking dverger said. The dverger fingered the blade of his axe and his narrowed eyes never left Eric’s face.

Eric recognized the challenge for what it was. He didn’t think the dverger who had spoken understood the full import of his irate protest, but, at least subconsciously, the squad would always see the cleric as outranking him if he let Torsten respond to the complaint. All their eyes were upon him, glittering in the hazy light like polished stones.

“I didn’t realize that a Guerreiro needed permission from a cleric for his orders to be obeyed,” Eric said softly.

There was complete silence and then Pedryn turned and cuffed the protester through his helmet, causing it to ring like a bell.

“Shut your gob, Waelin!” Pedryn growled, “If the Guerreiro says it, then it happens. Now form up into two groups over yonder.”

The dverger followed Pedryn’s orders without hesitation, immediately turning and splitting into two smaller groups. Several good naturedly ribbed and shot jibes at the dverger who had been smacked.

Torsten stood off to one side, a grin splashed across his face. Eric found the smile irritating.

Pedryn turned to Eric. “We’re to swing a loop southwest and around the edge of the city and meet up with the army south of here tomorrow or the next day. I’ll take Waelin’s group if you and Torsten will stay with the other.”

“Where will I meet you?” Eric asked.

“The groups will stay within sight of one another,” Waelin interjected, stepping forward despite Pedryn’s previous orders. “You’ll not get lost, Guerreiro.”

Before Eric had time to respond, Pedryn turned and punched the offending dverger in the throat. Waelin coughed and spluttered, grasping at his neck with shaking hands while the other dvergers laughed.

Pedryn rolled his eyes in disgust and inclined his head towards Eric with a conspiratorial sigh. “These young dvergers never learn,” the dverger said with a hint of weariness in his voice, “though he is right. We’ll stay within sight of one another.”

Eric felt a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips, but suppressed it with a feigned cough. Torsten roared with laughter. Pedryn grinned and hurried off to join his group.

“Give me a moment please,” Eric said once Torsten’s laughter had subsided. Though he had directed the request to Torsten, his voice carried enough that the two groups of dvergers looked over at him, curiosity evident in their posture if not on their bearded faces.

Torsten shrugged, laughter still dancing in his gaze.

Eric turned away from the dvergers and knelt down in front of the entrance to the underground compound. His knees sunk a few inches into the ash and debris. He looked down the dark opening and then bowed his head and folded his arms, one over the other. Valundnir rested across the lower forearm. He turned his thoughts towards Natalie and those he was leaving behind and said a quick prayer for their protection and safety.

“Ok,” he said, getting to his feet. “Let’s get going then.”

*              *              *              *

The morning passed uneventfully. They crossed through the wreckage of the once proud city as carefully as they could. It didn’t take long for Eric to come to the conclusion that stealth on the part of a dverger scouting party was something unheard of. The noise that reverberated against the abandoned buildings from their armor and the shouts between the two groups was enough to bring any marauder in the city down on them to investigate. Given dverger nature, Eric thought it was safe to assume that the dvergers acted with that goal in mind. There was no illusion of secrecy because they felt no need to fear anything they may attract.

“Are you praying to your meal?” one of the dvergers asked around midday. They had just sat down to a hasty meal of some sort of dried meat and stale bread.

“What do you expect it to do, bite you?” Waelin asked around a mouthful of meat.

The other dverger laughed.

Eric ignored them.

“Really though,” Pedryn asked, sounding genuinely curious rather than mocking. “We’ve not seen many of your kind, much less ones who pray. Who do you pray to?”

Eric ran his fingers through his hair and stared off into the distance, back through the haze and smog to where Provo lay, hidden amongst the gloom and ash.

“My Creator.”

“Why do you pray?” another of the dvergers asked. “Your world is broken, your race destroyed. If you had a creator, wouldn’t you think he would have prevented your suffering?”

Eric turned to face the dverger, conscious of Torsten paying close attention to his words. The dverger appeared to be younger than many of his companions, though Eric wasn’t entirely sure. His beard and hair were a deep, rich brown devoid of any gray, so Eric assumed it was a good indication of youth.

“Well, I don’t know what this food is. I assumed it could use some good blessing.”

Some of the dvergers laughed.

The original speaker glowered at him. “That’s not what I meant.”

The question was one Eric had asked himself many times. It always came back to the same answer.

“People need something to believe in. They need a reason to hope. With all the death, destruction, and evil around us, more and more I believe that people need to have faith. It is a shield against despair. It is the only thing that can balance out the evil around us.”

“You didn’t answer the question, Eric. Why do you pray?” Torsten asked.

“I pray because I need hope that someday I’ll be forgiven for the deaths of the men I’ve been responsible for.” He looked Torsten in the eye and held his gaze. “I pray because I need hope that I’ll be forgiven for those I could not save. I pray to keep my sanity and to ask for the strength to get up every day and keep on fighting. That’s why I pray.”

“So really it’s a futile gesture, then.” Torsten’s voice was distant, thoughtful. He gazed off into the smog and ashen sky, his eyes unfocused though directed upwards, towards the heavens. “Something you do to find comfort. A habit from your past that you haven’t yet learned how to kick. You don’t really believe.”

Eric fought down a sudden flash of temper at the words with an audible sigh. He rubbed a thumb absently across the inscriptions along Valundnir’s head, feeling the small bumps and grooves in the silicate material embedded in the etchings. He wasn’t normally so confrontational, but it felt oddly good to argue, like a warm-up to a larger battle.

“I believe in a Creator that allows his children to suffer at times in order for them to learn. I can’t say that I’ve never doubted because that would be a lie, but there are some things I know and have never questioned. I know that everything happens for a reason. There is no such thing as chance, or luck, or happenstance. We all have the ability to choose our own path—fate or destiny or some higher being may lay out a path for us, but we control where our feet are placed. We choose to follow the path or not. I choose to pray so that I can stay on the right path.”

“If your decisions determine your destiny, why does it matter if you pray or not? You already know what you want to do with your life, so just make the choice and do it.”

“Sometimes you need something to believe in other than yourself.”

“Even in the most impenetrable darkness, a single solitary flame can banish the night,” Torsten said in a whisper. The other dvergers nodded and muttered amongst themselves. They shot Eric appreciative looks. Several gave him slight nods of respect, though Waelin scowled.

“Some sort of dverger proverb?” Eric asked.

“A tenet of Atelho.” Torsten said, “and a good one. Another tenet deals with making sure you honor your duty, which means that although this has been an interesting conversation, it must end now so that we can do ours.”

Eric nodded his agreement, silently thanking the cleric for ending the conversation before it delved any deeper into murky waters.

*              *              *              *

The dvergers stopped to rest for the night amid the crumbled ruin of an old farmhouse. It had once been a large building, but fire had consumed it and left only the foundation and part of one broken brick wall. Heat had blackened the bricks and cracks ran though most of them, but the wall held when pushed. One of the dvergers quickly had a fire going and a pot over the flames. Eric would have rather foregone the fire and the beacon it sent out into the night, but, as he had discovered earlier that day, the dvergers were not much for subtlety. They soon had made and eaten a hearty stew, though Eric wondered where they had gotten the meat for such a meal. He hadn’t eaten anything that hadn’t been freeze dried or come out of a can in a long, long time.

After the watch had been set, Eric leaned back against the broken wall and pulled Valundnir close. The firelight glinted off the polished metal surface, highlighting the glittering specks lodged in the etchings and runes engraved into its head and shaft. The light flickered and pulsed in strange imitation of the throbbing that sometimes came from the weapon itself. He breathed in sharply with the memory of the strength and power it gave him. With Valundnir at his side, he could do anything. He could lead the remnants of mankind in a revolt against the Dragonhosts. He could rally the world to rid itself of the chains of hell that imprisoned it.

Eric blinked and shook his head. He didn’t want to lead anyone against the Dragonhosts, especially not the broken vestiges of humanity. There weren’t enough men left. If he was honest with himself, he didn’t think the dverger army he was about to join would be enough to do much more than delay the inevitable.

“Your thoughts are leagues away, Eric,” Torsten said, walking over to him and taking a seat against the wall.

“Here and away, Torsten, here and away.”

“Thinking of the ones you left behind?”

“Them and Valundnir.” Eric slid the hammer behind him as he spoke.

“It is a fine weapon, meant to be wielded by a leader and warrior. It is a fine tool to aide us against the enemy.”

“It is an amazing weapon,” Eric said. “I find myself loathe to even put it down at times.”

“You’ve only had it for a single day, Eric. Be wary. The power it grants is intoxicating. It hungers for vengeance, thirsts for blood, cries out from the heavens with the souls of all the warriors who have gone before. Don’t let it consume the man you are.”

“You make it sound like it’s alive.”

“Well it is, in a way,” Torsten said. “When an Elithalma is created, the Ferreiro who crafts it calls upon ancient magic, as old as the worlds and as powerful as the universe. They don’t call it magic, but that is what it is. It is older than Atelho, though he was the one who first taught them to harness it. The Ferreiros call it unleashing that essence of the metal, but what it really is, is taking a part of their souls, distilling their emotions and desires, and then locking them within the weapon. They grant it life, in a primal sense. It gains emotions, feelings, and desires, along with power and strength from the ancient magic. It feeds those emotions into its wielder and it gives him strength.”

Eric glanced toward the other dvergers seated around the fire, but they were not there. Oddly, Eric didn’t feel that their absence was anything out of the ordinary.

“The Ferreiro that crafted Valundnir,” Torsten continued, “was the older brother to the King, but gave up his chance to be King to marry a dverger woman of Clan Glitra. He went with her to form an Enclave, a dverger colony, far from the capital of Tealcenrir. He learned how to become a smith there and, from all I heard at the time, was happy. In the years that lead up to the Breaking, his wife was killed in a trulgo raid. He descended into depression and rage and set out in a crusade to destroy the trulgo race. He would be gone for years at a time, returning more primal and bestial each time, desiring only vengeance and death. When he created Valundnir, it gained the anger and the rage that burned within him, the thirst for blood and violence, for power. It is a powerful tool, yes, but it is also much like grasping a rose. You can’t smell the sweet fragrance without getting pricked by the thorns.”

Eric summoned Valundnir. It coalesced in his hands from shadows and light with a shower of crackling sparks. Eric would have jumped from surprise at the shooting sparks, but the surge of energy and strength the weapon gave him kept him seated. He fell into the energy and turned the gleaming weapon over in his hands. When he didn’t get up, the strength and energy faded away.