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 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.