Theros Ironfield

Chapter 13

Crowds of minotaurs gathered on the docks to glimpse the returning colonists. All wanted to know the same thing. Had the Third Army truly been wiped out? Had it really been destroyed by an elven army? They shouted questions and jammed forward.

The port authorities tried to keep the calm, but to no avail. Disaster had struck the colony on the Silvanesti coast. The people wanted to know the details.

The city guard was called out. Once the crowd was shoved back, the passengers began to disembark from the first ship and other ships that sailed into the harbor.

Theros and Huluk were on board the first ship. The settlers who had bravely gone off to the new land walked down the gangplank with their heads and horns held high. They had nothing to be ashamed of, nothing had cost them any honor. It was the soldiers who had failed.

When the settlers left, Theros helped Huluk off the ship. Those in the crowd jeered at the officer.

“Where is your army now, warrior?”

“You saved your skin. What happened to the others of the brave Third Army? Where are they to tell their tale?”

“Why did you not die like the brave soldiers of the Third Army?”

Huluk held his head up high, hobbling as he walked down the pier. Soon enough they would know his story. He had been ordered to go directly to the Assembly of the Supreme Circle and make his report.

Theros helped the officer to the steps of the massive building in the center of the city. It was a monument to minotaur freedom and a holy shrine to the Cataclysm, when Sargas had thrown off the shackles of the foul King-priest of Istar, releasing the minotaurs to be free once again.

Theros wished Huluk well and turned to leave.

“Wait, Theros! In this city you will be treated as a slave unless you can prove otherwise. Take this coin.” Huluk handed him a coin with the emperor’s face on one side and the family symbol of Huluk’s clan on the other. “It is a clan coin. You are now a member of my clan.” He growled in mock ferocity. “Do us honor or you will not live to regret it.” Then, the minotaur smiled. “In truth, I have no fears for you, Theros. Keep that coin as a symbol of your freedom, and good luck.”

Huluk walked up the steps. Theros remained behind. Only a command or invitation by the Emperor himself would allow Theros to enter the great building, or the adjoining Imperial Fortress, where the Emperor resided.

Theros went back to the docks. At one end stood the harbor offices. Theros entered and waited at the counter for someone to help him. He waited a long time. Every minotaur who entered was given assistance before Theros. Finally, when the offices were empty, a minotaur cast a bored glance at Theros.

“What do you want, slave? Do you have an errand for your master? Speak up. Can’t you see that we’re busy?”

Theros remained polite. “I would like to know if Captain Olifac and his ship are in harbor.”

The minotaur grunted. “Who wants to know?”

Theros pulled the coin from his pocket and placed it on the counter with the clan emblem facing up. “I do,” he replied.

The minotaur came up to the counter and examined the coin. “So, you’re a member of the Hrolk clan. My clan and theirs are very close.” He eyed Theros suspiciously. “I never heard of their taking in a human. Perhaps you stole this.”

Theros stood his ground. “I am Theros, and I have been granted my freedom by Huluk, Group Commander of the Third Army.”

The minotaur looked at him with new respect. “So, you are the slave who helped old Huluk escape the elves. The tale of your valor has spread. You proved your honor. I can respect that. Olifac has just left for a raiding tour. He will be gone for several months, maybe longer. We will not hear from him until he returns.”

Disappointed, Theros thanked the minotaur and went back outside. What was he going to do now? The thought occurred to him that even if Olifac had been in the harbor, he might not be able to work for his passage from Mithas to the continent. Theros had no money, no treasure of any kind. He had to earn a living.

He headed off to the lower markets.

The street vendors and shops had all manner of goods for sale. One shop sold freshly cooked strips of meat. Another sold stoneware for serving food. Finally Theros found what he was looking for. One shop had an assortment of weapons. He checked the quality and inquired within.

“Excuse me, sir. I was wondering if you could tell me the name of the smith who made the weapons that you have on display.”

The shopkeeper was gruff. “You would be looking for Hrall, slave. He charges too much for the damned things.

Still, with this new elven war and all, I may make some money on them yet.”

Theros thanked the minotaur and headed for the area of the city where smiths, leatherworkers, cobblers and coopers lived and worked. He stopped at the first smith.

“What is it you want, slave?” the minotaur smith asked.

Theros looked around the shop. It was clean but small. The metalwork being done was for all manner of implements and tools except weapons.

“I was looking for a smith named Hrall. He is a weapons-smith.”

“You are right, human. He is at the end of this street. His forge is a good one.”

Theros bowed slightly to show his respect and left the shop. He found the smithy and entered.

A huge minotaur had his back to the door. He was pounding the blade of a long sword into shape. As he pounded, sparks of steel and fire leaped from the weapon. The smell of the fire, mixed with that of oiled leather and wood smoke, was a whiff of nostalgia for Theros. He missed working in a smithy and, especially, he missed his friend Hran.

The minotaur put his tongs and hammer down and turned around. Theros nearly jumped out of his skin.

In front of him stood Hran! It was as if Theros had conjured him up. He had just been thinking about Hran, and there his old friend stood, right in front of him.

The big minotaur cleaned his hands on his apron. “What is the matter, slave? You look as if you had seen a death knight!”

Theros bowed. “I am sorry, sir. I thought that you looked like another minotaur that I once knew. He was also a smith and a very fine one.”

“You must have met my brother, Hran. I am told that he is dead now. It is left to me to carry on the family name. Where did you know Hran?”

“I was an apprentice to Hran in the Third Army. I was there when he died. I buried him.” Theros said quietly.

“You were there? You buried him? Tell me, did he die like a warrior? Did he die with his axe in his hand?”

“Yes, sir! He died fighting the elven cavalry that raided our camp. They finally overran us, but he killed eight elite warriors, the ones with the plate armor and barded horses. They fell surrounding him. He died with his axe in his hand, a true warrior. You should be proud of him! He fought well!”

Hrall grunted. “Do not think I am surprised. I am not. He was truly a great warrior, and a great smith, too. We did not get along well, my brother and I. He decided to take the path of military service. I decided to make weapons as a commercial venture. My fighting is done in the Circus. He decided to do battle as a soldier. But he still wanted to be a smith. He achieved his goals, I achieved mine. We didn’t see each other much. I am sorry now that we did not. Truly sorry.”

Theros had no idea what to say to the minotaur, who was obviously deeply affected by his brother’s death.

“You were a slave in my brother’s shop, were you?”

Theros nodded.

“Fine. You will work here. I will buy out whoever owns you now.”

Theros produced the coin that Huluk had given him. “Sir, I am a free man. I am owned by no one. I am now a member of the Hrolk Clan. And I was not Hran’s slave. He made me his apprentice.”

Hrall was surprised. “I had no idea that they were still freeing slaves these days. This makes things different. I would have to pay you, and I cannot do that. I do good work, but I do not make enough money to hire someone else.”

“Sir, if you could hire me, I would work for just food and board, at first. Hran taught me well. I will bring in enough work to make you more money. When your business grows, then you can pay me.”

Hrall peered shrewdly at the young man. “You say you were my brother’s apprentice. Are you any good? Can you do leatherwork?”

“I am not new to smithing, sir, but I am not a master smith, either. I can do the small jobs that require doing, so that you can concentrate on the bigger and more demanding pieces. And I can sew leather.”

Hrall had heard enough. “You are hired. You can live in the back shed behind the shop. You’ll have to clean it out yourself. I have never been able to work leather like my brother could. If you can work leather, I will teach you the trade where my brother left off.”

The minotaur and the human shook hands.

* * * * *

Theros returned to the Supreme Circle chambers to find Huluk, tell him that he had a job. Theros waited for Huluk for hours. Nobody bothered or even noticed him. He was human, and might have been a bug as far as the minotaurs were concerned.

Suddenly, near nightfall, the bells in the tower crowning the Supreme Circle building pealed out.

From all directions, minotaurs came rushing up the street. They crowded in front of Theros, shoving him out of the way. Their attention was fixed on the large wooden doors at the top of the stone stairs. More and more minotaurs poured into the streets.

“What are they all here for?” Theros wondered uneasily if this had anything to do with Huluk.

Nearly a hundred minotaurs were waiting when the doors finally opened. Two guards in ceremonial garb came out first, followed by the eight minotaurs of the Supreme Circle. Lastly, several other military officers, including Huluk, walked out. Huluk was easy to spot because of his limp.

The crowd grew silent out of respect for the Supreme Circle. One of the eight took two paces forward.

“Minotaurs of the Empire! We of the Supreme Circle have found Klaf, now-dead commander of the now-dead Third Army of Minotaurs, to be guilty of grievous errors in judgment. He put the entire colony in Silvanesti, as well as the lives and honor of warriors of the highest order, in jeopardy. His clan will be stripped of its honor, and must regain their honor in the Circus. The clan shall be known as Nar-Klaf, until it has proven itself worthy.”

The crowd roared its approval. One minotaur, standing near Theros, shook his head from side to side. Someone, spotting him, pointed and shouted. “Bastard Nar-Klaf!” This minotaur turned and ran, perhaps to warn his family. A few minotaurs tossed rocks at him, but most turned again to listen to the speaker.

“To take Klaf’s place, we appoint Huluk, surviving officer of the Third Army, to be its new commander. He will raise and train a new Third Army from veterans and recruits. We will not be going back to the land of the elves, at least not in the short term. We will, Sargas be praised, have our vengeance on them, but now is not the time.

“This concludes the announcement of the Supreme Circle. Let all know that its words are law, by the grace of the Emperor.”

The minotaurs stepped back, and it was Huluk’s turn. “Warriors of the Minotaur Empire, I call upon you to join the new Third Army! For those of you whose clan members participated in Nar-Klaf’s slaughter, hear this! All clans, save the Nar-Klaf clan, are hereby absolved of the defeat in Silvanesti. I personally witnessed the honor and courage of the combatants, and how they sacrificed themselves.”

Nods and praises to Sargas were whispered through the crowd. Every clan in the capital had a member in the Third Army.

“The warriors held prisoner by the elves will be released and transported back to Mithas in one month’s time. That is all.”

Huluk stepped back. The members of the Supreme Circle turned and re-entered the great hall. The officers followed, then the bodyguards, who closed the doors.

The bells pealed out one last time, then fell silent, not to be heard on Mithas until ten years later, the year the armies began to marshal for the War of the Lance.

* * * * *

Theros waited two more hours. Huluk still had not emerged. It had been night for some time now.

Theros decided to return to the smithy. The streets were dark in the administrative part of the city. A glow came from the outer part of the city, where there were inns and drinking and eating establishments. Many minotaurs went straight to these places after a day of work. Theros wished he could join them.

He had no trouble finding his way around the city. The roads in Lacynes were well laid out. It had been a planned city dating back several centuries, and had suffered little from the Cataclysm, even though it was not far from Istar. This was Sargas’s way of repaying the minotaurs for their suffering at the hands of the clerics and holy men of Istar.

Theros opened the door of the smithy, entered and sat down by the hearth. There was no one around. He was hungry. His stomach’s rumbling probably could be heard for a block. He thought about begging Hrall for a meal, but pride and good sense counseled against such a degrading act. Hrall would lose all respect for him.

Theros slept in the smithy that night. Despite his hunger, he smiled as he breathed in the smell of the leather, the wood smoke, the sweat. The heat from the hearth kept him warm.

Theros was up at the first crack of sunlight. Hrall came to the shop about an hour after sunrise. Theros was already busy investigating all of the tools and the half-made weapons.

The booming voice from the door caught him off guard. “What in the Abyss are you doing with that?” the minotaur yelled.

Theros was holding a half-finished axe in a battle stance, as if he were ready to fight the elven cavalry by himself. He jumped at the voice and dropped the axe. Guiltily, Theros turned around to see his new employer, scowling and clearly not happy about the unaccustomed disarray in his shop.

Hrall picked up the axe. “Play with the toys in this shop and I will spit you and cook you over my hearth.”

The threat did not worry Theros. The hint of food only made his mouth water and his stomach growl.

“So, you haven’t eaten, eh? I can see the wolf in your eyes, lad.” Hrall sounded exactly like Hran-gruff on the outside, a friend beneath.

“Come on, then. I guess we should get some food in you.”

They went behind the shop, past the storage shed that was to be Theros’s new home. A path led to the next street. They turned right and entered the first building. It was Hrall’s house. Hrall’s mate brought out meat and fruit cider, along with some hard black bread. Theros thanked her and ate quickly, keeping his eyes on the food, for it would never do for a human to gaze directly at a female minotaur. After the meal, he belched loudly to indicate to his hostess that the food had been good.

After eating, he and Hrall returned to the smithy.

Hrall started with the rules of the shop. He emphasized that what he said was what Theros did. No questions asked.

Theros listened and smiled. It was the exact speech that Hran had given him.

Theros felt right at home.

* * * * *

Theros stayed two years with Hrall, learning the techniques and tricks of a master smith. When he had learned all that Hrall could teach him, he decided it was time to move on. In fact, in many areas, such as leatherwork, he was far more skilled than his master. He could have been the master of his own smithy, but he would never accomplish that goal in Mithas or Kothas. The minotaurs themselves would never allow a human to be the master over other minotaurs.

After that day at the Supreme Circle chambers, Theros never saw Huluk, except at a distance. Huluk was a hero now, leading a new Third Army in parades and military exercises. He was constantly challenged in the ring of the Circus, but never defeated.

One day, Theros bid Hrall farewell. The master smith was sorry to part with him. He gave him good advice and, as a gift, the axe Theros had been using for practice when Hrall first walked in on him.

Leaving the smithy, Theros headed down to the port. He had a ship to catch-the Jelez Klarr. Its captain was a minotaur by the name of Olifac.

Now, Theros would pay for his passage.