The Soul Forge (17 page)

The smoke hadn’t cleared around the summit, but as Thomas approached he found he didn’t much care. Only when a stark need for oxygen presented itself by threatening to make him pass out did he finally stop running, but his anger hadn’t stopped.
Every moment he had to wait was another moment he was losing. The only advantage he had was that he was taking a path while the Necro-Caster was climbing the mountain.

Thomas started running again, ignoring the protest of his lungs.
His shoes were wearing away, revealing parts of his feet to the jagged stones he ran on. He ignored that too. He focused every ounce of his mental energy on climbing the mountain, drawing ever closer to the smoke that hid the Maker’s home.

Suddenly, he was there. Smoke surrounded him, making it impossible to see or even think.
The smoke was everywhere, pushing into his lungs and his eyes and his brain. He fell to the ground, hoping the smoke would float over him. This plan also met with failure as the smoke was there too.

Thomas punched the stone beneath him, ignoring the shout of pain and spurt of blood that greeted the action. He put his hands together and started
rubbing them, his hands moving back and forth so fast they appeared to grow by several inches. Fire appeared, but Thomas didn’t stop. He simply kept working up heat, moving faster and faster until he felt he was going to burn himself from the friction.

Then
he blew into his hands, and the fire became an inferno.

It shot out from his palms
and pushed away some of the smoke with pure momentum alone, momentarily revealing the path ahead. Before the smoke had a chance to settle, Thomas started running again, a hunger he had never felt before present in his eyes. He sprinted for the Maker’s forge, slipping on the stones and the blood he was leaving behind, but the pain wasn’t going to stop him. Nothing was.

He had promised that the Necro-Caster would die, and he was, if nothing else, a man of his word.

The smoke descended again, and this time Thomas didn’t have the strength to create a hole with fire. He pressed on, using the walls of the mountain as a guide, but after a few feet he found that the wall had disappeared. All that remained was snow, which cooled the burning in his blistered feet and somehow cooled his rage as the cold pushed into his skin.

He walked a few more feet and found he could breathe again.
He hunched over, hands on his knees, and tried to get his heart rate and his temper under control. It was harder than he could have imagined, and that scared him a little bit.

Then a blast of lightning missed his face by about two inches, and he found the control he was trying to exhibit
vanish.

He had been the Necro-Caster to the top, somehow, but only just. Now the defiler of the dead was here too, and he was clearly displeased to see Thomas.

Thomas couldn’t have cared less how the Necro-Caster felt. His temper boiling over, he sprinted towards the Necro-Caster, unknowingly leaving bloody footprints behind him. He drew his fist back, ready to sink it into the Necro-Caster’s face, when the Necro-Caster ducked away and Thomas’ punch went awry. The Necro-Caster took advantage, sinking a fist of his own into Thomas’ gut and momentarily winding him. He then tried to club Thomas on the back, but Thomas caught the taller man’s fist and responded with a straight shot to the Necro-Caster’s nose.

Both backed away, trying to gather themselves.
Thomas was first, and he let loose with three lightning fast punches that all connected with the Necro-Caster’s face. The counterattack was a punch fired into Thomas’ face that knocked Thomas to the ground, and he rolled in the snow as he attempted to recover his bearings.

The Necro-Caster didn’t give him the chance
, kicking him in the gut and sending him tumbling further down the slopes of the mountain. Before Thomas even knew it, he was lying at the edge of the summit, faced with a perilous drop down the slopes of the mountain. Ignoring the blistering pain in his abdomen, Thomas regained his feet and snarled. The Necro-Caster approached slowly, his eyes narrowed, wary of a trap.

Thomas put his hands behind his back, rubbing them together as fast as he could without breaking eye contact with his foe. Belatedly realizing what Thomas was up to, the Necro-Caster summoned his forks of lighting to
his hands. The lightning shot out at him at the same moment he dropped to his knees and blew flame like a fabled dragon in return.

The lightning missed him by only a foot. His fire blasted into the Necro-Caster, knocking him to the ground with a scream of pain.
Before the downed man could recover, Thomas sprinted forward and jumped on top of him, bringing his fists down one after another. He didn’t relent, didn’t stop, until he felt other hands grab ahold of him. He immediately started squirming, trying to throw off the intruders so he could continue beating the Necro-Caster’s face into mush, but there were too many other pairs of hands.

With a tremendous effort, they pulled him off and smothered him in the snow.
Thomas tried to resist, but their combined weight was too much for him.

Finally, he stopped resisting. It was only when he did that he recognized the scent of flowers that was Miranda and the ever-present smell of smoke that was Gilkor.
The presence of his friends did nothing to slake his anger.

“Buddy, calm down,” he heard Zach say.

That sentence, that simple command, killed Thomas’ temper as if it had never even existed. Never before in all of his life had he ever been told to calm down. Not once. Instantly, shame filled him as he lay in the snow. He felt every bit of pain that was racking his body now, from his torn knuckles to his bleeding feet.

But nothing hurt worse than the shame.
He had been willing to beat a man to death with his bare hands. No, not just willing, he had tried! He was going to!

They finally released him, and Thomas shifted to a sitting position as he stared at his hands. They were covered in blood, both his and not his.
What was happening to him? It felt… it felt like someone had put a slow acting poison into his bloodstream, just waiting for it to activate and kill him.

What would Ms. Anna say? Probably nothing, she was so young. She didn’t understand. She still needed to call him when she spilled milk. Gods, how long ago had that been? One week?
Two? Was that really it? He felt like months, years had elapsed since he had seen his surrogate family. Thomas wondered if they were okay, if they had survived the Inanis invasion. If they hadn’t, if they had fallen to the dark…

He put his head in his hands as tears started to roll down his cheeks. Unbidden, unwanted but unstoppable, he just sat there in the snow and cried, surprised that the snow didn’t freeze them on his face.

“It’s going to be okay, Tom” he heard Zach say. Zach, who had already done so much for him in the short time they had known each other. Who had come through when it mattered most time and time again. Thomas had been a poor friend to him.

“Where’s Cynthia, Thomas?”
Gilkor asked. Instantly, Thomas felt he had taken another kick to the gut. How much pain was he supposed to handle today?

“The rockslide…” he eventually forced out.
“We were trying to clear it when it shifted. A rock, it hit her leg…” He couldn’t describe it, he couldn’t even think about it. “The dwarves took ‘er to see Morando, they said he’d be the only one who could… that would… save the leg.”

“Gods…” Zach murmured
, his face screwed up in sympathy.

“She’ll be alright,” Gilkor smiled, “she’s a tough girl. Now come, we’ve made it to the Maker’s forge! Though how you made it up through the smoke is impressive.”

“And you all,” Thomas replied, “climbing the side of a mountain.”

“Truth
be told,” Gilkor said a bit quieter, as if anyone could be listening in, “our way was probably the less dangerous. The smoke doesn’t sit on the cliffs the way it does in the path.”

Thomas stood up, drying his face on his dirty sleeve.
Miranda was smiling at him, he dress cut in several places but otherwise she looked fine. Zach was covered in dust, as if he had been clutching the rocks very tightly. Gilkor alone looked like the trip had been nothing out of the ordinary, and he simply stood there smiling.

Thomas’ gaze turned from his friends to his foe at just the moment to see the Necro-Caster was propped up on one arm
with his other arm directed not at him but at Miranda. Zach had put an arm around her without noticing the Necro-Caster, and now both of them were in the line of fire.

Please, let me do this right.

He vaulted in front of them, taking the full blast of lightning to the stomach. Instantly, he felt all of his senses whited out as if someone had placed a heavy cloth over his brain. He flew back, disappearing from sight.

It was the strangest feeling, flight. Not bound by
gravity for a moment that never seemed to end, he was sure he was literally flying. The whole open sky stretched out in front of him, untarnished, unmitigated. He smiled, or at least he thought he smiled. He never used half of the words in his vocabulary, as normally his conversational partners were a nine year old girl or the people in town who didn’t read much. But he knew a lot of complex words, he really did.

None of that mattered right now. All that mattered was that
he was flying, he was free. He didn’t have to worry about anything ever again.

But wait… what about the nine year old girl? Something about her was sticking out in his memory, something he couldn’t place but he knew it was important.
As he stared at the sky, he pondered why the clouds never stayed in the same shape. Did they change often? Were they just unsatisfied to stay in the same shape?

Wait, the little girl. He shook his head, or he thought he shook his head, and tried to refocus. What about that little girl was so important?

Oh,
he thought,
that’s what.

Ms. Anna.
Little Ms. Anna, the badly behaved little girl with the unresponsive mother and the father with so much on his plate. Ever since the accident… ever since that day…

Ever since they had all burned.

Thomas’ parents were over the Kimpchik’s doing whatever
grownups did together while Thomas tried to find a book and a quiet place to read. Ms. Anna was just four at the time, so very little. So very young. Too young.

Too young to watch her
big brother die.

She almost did, if Thomas had decided to read in the barn and not under the tree like he had originally planned. But the tree was closer
, and it was such a nice day. The Kimpchik’s had gone for a walk, leaving the Finn’s and… and… what was his name?

Benjamin. Benjamin Kimpchik.
Thomas always used to joke that his name was a mouthful. Always took so long to say.

He had never said the name again after the fire.

It was just an accident. Everyone was having too much fun being in each other’s company that no one noticed the fire in the fireplace jump its confines and catch the letters on the mantelpiece on fire. That burned the curtains, the rug, the books… everything was soon burning.

Thomas had heard the commotion, heard it from under his tree, and had come to the house, curious, scared.
So scared. There were screams. Other people were scared. So very, very scared. Thomas saw the fire, he saw his parents, trapped behind the flame. Benjamin was there too, waving at something. Screaming at them to run. Run away.

He was trying to save Ms. Anna.

Thomas didn’t know what else to do. He saw Benjamin wave, he heard his parents shout at him to take the girl and run. That’s what he did. He grabbed her and pulled her from the fire, saving her as everyone and everything burned.

He reflected that he had lost two homes that way.
No wonder all he could use fire for was destruction. The Kimpchiks had taken him in, but he was not there son and they were not his parents, and they all knew it. They didn’t pretend otherwise. He was a good worker, their stable boy. And that was how it would stay.

Poor Mrs. Lucinda.
She couldn’t handle it, losing her oldest boy. Losing Benjamin. She retreated inside herself, lost to the world. Lost to Master Kimpchik. Lost to Ms. Anna. She had been such a nice woman too, always laughing and joking while she made clothes for everyone. That was her contribution to the farm, selling those clothes. They were so well made, as she put so much care into each and every stitch.

His gaze cleared, finding the clouds. Could he just do that? Could he just lay there and watch the clouds pass by, ignorant of the dire straits the world was in?

Wait, what? Now what was he on about?

Friends.

Of course.
He had almost forgot about them, almost forgot about the people who had sacrificed so much fighting for freedom. He had forgotten about Zacharias and his matching drawl. He had forgotten Miranda and her risqué – yes, he knew that word too – character and her burning red hair. He had forgotten Gilkor and his constant smile, Moranda and his constant battle with himself, the Keeper… well, he wasn’t totally sure they were friends.

He had forgotten Miranda.

The clouds moved a little faster as he thought about her. He wasn’t even sure why. He just liked her. And honestly, he didn’t need to justify it, not even to himself.

He had to get back to his friends. The clouds would have to wait for another day.

Suddenly, Thomas was well aware that he wasn’t flying, he was falling. He was still airborne, and a cavernous drop opened up underneath him. If he didn’t react quickly, he was going to fall down the mountain and smash into a million pieces at the bottom.

His mind had noticed something he hadn’t, and
his hands shot out on instinct alone. They caught hold of the last edge of the cliff, just jutting out from the rest, and he held on as if he was glued. The rock jutted out like a spear’s edge, allowing Thomas to wrap his hands around each other. The effort taxed his muscles to the extreme, and the sudden shift in momentum and direction made his head feel like it was about to explode, but it could have been worse. At least he was alive.

When his head finally cleared, he realized there was someone standing above him.
The Necro-Caster, his face bleeding from multiple cuts and his nose going in two different directions, glared down at him with savage pleasure.

The Necro-Caster raised his hands, his mouth twisted in a perverse smile.

“Really?”

It was the first thing Thomas could think of.
His friends were alive, Thomas knew it, all he had to do was stall until they could recover. And to do that, he needed to keep the Necro-Caster’s attention fixed on him.

All this passed through his mind in the space it took him to breathe and speak again.

“I chased you up a mountain. We fought down there, we fought up here. And now you’re just going to sneak up on me and finish me off like this?”

“Stop speaking.”

“Of course,” Thomas replied, “because you know I’m right. You know what I’m saying is true. And you know that you are nothin’ more than a big ol’ coward.”

The Necro-Caster’s fists clenched so tightly Thomas could hear the
knuckles crack.

“You will not stop me. It took me five hears to arrange that rockslide. Five years of tunneling to finally create enough to shift the rocks and break open my cage. What I’ve had to do, what I’ve been forced to do…”

“That was yer own fault,” Thomas said without forgiveness, “we’re all responsible for the choices we make. You chose to defile the dead, now yer paying for it.”

“I was onto something so much greater than your tiny little mind can imagine! I was making strides in magic that no one dared challenge before! I was – I AM – going to change history!”

“Y’know,” Thomas grunted, the strain in his arms starting to be more than he could handle, “I’ve always wondered about that phrase. History is history. It already happened. How can you change what happened?”

This jab was one too many, and Thomas knew it. He had known it when the words left his mouth. But his arms weren’t going to hold him any longer, and before he died he was going to get one last joke in.

“I’ve had enough of this. Enough of you. Goodbye, insignificant child.”

The Necro-Caster raised his arms, channeling the magic within him to smite Thomas. His hair stood on end as the lightning built, and he closed his eyes, his grip on the rock loosening in preparation.

Then the sound of bone breaking reached his ears, and his eyes snapped open and a second wind gave him the strength to hold on for a moment longer.

“Don’t call my friend insignificant.”

Thomas smiled, relief flooding through his system even as a slight sense of revulsion joined it. A sword was jutting from the Necro-Caster’s chest, dripping in blood. The sword was then pulled free, and the Necro-Caster tumbled forward and off of the cliff. Thomas watched him fall, turning his head to see the body fall into the smoke below.

A hand wrapped around his,
lifting him from certain death and pulling him to a solid surface.

“You alright, lad?”
Gilkor said. His smile was hurt, but still there. Miranda was on all fours, heaving in air as if in fear of it being taken from her. Zach leaned on Thomas, who was able to support him only by borrowing Gilkor’s shoulder. Miranda eventually stood and joined them, and for a long moment the four of them simply stood without moving and enjoyed being alive.

Eventually, the moment passed and the Maker’s forge was only feet away. It looked like a giant house, or maybe a house built for giants.
Black stone stretched out, with gray marble making up the stairs and the doors. Feeling miniscule in comparison to the doors alone, Thomas moved forward and gently knocked on the door, his companions behind him.

The door opened almost immediately.

“Why, if isn’t Gilkor! And a band of humans! Why this is a merry bunch!”

Thomas didn’t immediately recognize where the voice was coming from
until he looked down and saw an even shorter dwarf than usual. He looked quite jolly, though, and his smile was rather infectious. The dwarf offered a hand, and Thomas took it and they shook. The dwarf was wrinkled and white haired, dressed in a pair of brown trousers and a green shirt with a blacksmith’s apron. For a single moment, Thomas wondered if every dwarf simply walked around wearing an apron.

“So, what brings you to the Maker’s forge, Gilkor and friends?
And through all the smoke no less. I am Bellon, at your service.”

Thomas did his best not to laugh.

“We wouldn’t have come if it wasn’t a matter of utmost importance,” Gilkor replied, stepping forward into the forge. The three humans followed him, confused but for the first time in a long while, not wrong-footed. They entered into a grand hall that was certainly spacious, but mostly bare. There were only a few tables and chairs with mugs every few feet, either on the table of the floor.

“What’s the matter?”

“The Dark Priest is back.”

Gilkor’s words wiped the smile from
Bellon’s face so fast it actually made Thomas sad.

“But… he was defeated.”

“Aye,” Gilkor replied, “but he had a pupil, it looks like. He calls himself the Priest now too, and he has an army of Inanis. He’s taken over Ludicra, Verdonti, even Andomer has burned… He’s taking over our world.”

“Hm…”
Bellon said, “then you need to claim soul-ore from the Silent Mountains. His method of defeat before can be used again. Bring us the soul-ore, and the Makers can forge you a weapon the same as they did for General Chromwell.”

“But…” Thomas spoke up, moving forward, “we already have the General’s sword, sir.”

He lifted the sheath, noting with a small smile that all of the pieces were actually still intact.

“The only problem,” he continued, “was that it was smashed in a rockslide. It’s pieces now.”

“What?” Zach whispered. Thomas shrugged in what he hoped constituted an apology. Not like there was a bunch of time to tell them.

“That is unfortunate. With the sword, you could have
defeated the Inanis in a day.”

“I’m sorry?
How?”

“The blade was blessed with the iron will of General Chromwell. We had no idea what would happen, but the power of the blade could purify evil from a heart. A simple cut could have removed the infection from the people. I assume they are using that tactic again?”

Again?

“I um… yes sir.”

“Much smaller scale last time. The Dark Priest simply used his own followers and turned them into something they were not. But now, with the whole of the three nations at his disposal… I’m not sure what there is to do.”

“If we get more soul-ore, can you re-forge the blade?” Zach asked.

“We can re-forge it right now, but it will not be the same. It will simply be a sword, though a blade made by the Makers is a good blade indeed.”

“Most of its power was used up anyway by the General,”
Thomas said, “so without more soul-ore we couldn’t have done anything. We can’t do anything.”

Thomas found a chair and sat down, feeling his last hope deflate. They couldn’t go to the Silent Mountains and make it back with the soul-ore. The General had an army against a smaller force.
Now Thomas had a smaller force against an army. There was nothing they could do. They had lost. Failed.

It was over.

“There is… one way,” Bellon said, but he looked ill at ease to say what it was.

“What?” Thomas said immediately, “what is it?”

“We could… make soul-ore.”

“Make?” Thomas repeated, “how?”

“With the advent of magic, there are ways of doing certain things, things that would appear impossible. People cast fire, create lightning, imbue their weapons with power. But magic is young, and the limit of what magic can do is not yet… defined. Normally, we dwarves don’t bother with it. But desperate times call for… insane ideas.”