Theros Ironfield

Chapter 33

Theros moved silently out into the night. He skirted around the now-dark smithy and headed past his home built into the vallenwood tree. Crouching, he slid into the bushes, paused to listen.

Nothing. Theros moved deeper into the woods. He walked very slowly, placing the toe of his foot first, rolling gently onto the heel, making very little noise. He made his destination the trunk of an enormous vallenwood, black against the night.

He crept to the tree and halted. Putting his back to the trunk, he listened. He didn’t hear anything at first, then slowly, over a period of minutes, he became aware that he could hear very faint high-pitched voices.

Elves. It had to be.

He endeavored to locate the direction of the voices. Once he did so, he moved on, as quietly as before.

Ahead, several bushes clumped together to form a large mass of shadows in the darkness. Theros went down on his hands and knees and began to crawl slowly forward through the intertwined branches and twigs. Every few feet, he stopped to listen, fearful that even the small amount of noise he was making would scare off the object of his attention.

Apparently, they hadn’t heard. The talking continued. Theros spoke Qualinesti from his time with the elves, but through lack of use, he had forgotten much of it. He tried to make out the words.

It was definitely Qualinesti. Theros recognized specific words here and there. His time spent with the elves had taught him to listen for inflection more than word use.

He was slipping forward again, trying to get close enough to hear more, when a twig caught Theros full in the face, nearly poking out his eye. He caught his breath, bit his tongue to keep from cursing with the pain. Rubbing his watering eye, he kept silent and moved forward again.

He found himself in a small clearing, nestled in the foliage. The bushes had receded from around a once-proud vallenwood tree that had toppled many years earlier. The branches had been removed, used for everything from furniture to walking staves. Only the rotten trunk remained on the forest floor.

Theros stared ahead. The moons cast enough light through the high leaf cover to swathe the area with great shadows. He couldn’t quite make out any distinct shapes, and the sounds had ceased. He grabbed his axe, placed it across his lap, and kept still.

At length, Theros found them. First he saw one elf, sitting cross-legged, with a bow across his thighs. He was looking around, as if searching for something. Then three more elves came into view, seeming to materialize out of the darkness.

The elves resumed talking. He thought he recognized the voice of one of them. He was straining to hear, straining to understand what they were saying, when something moved right behind him.

Someone else was watching the elves, it seemed.

Theros slid from behind one small tree to the next, and waited. He was as curious about another watcher as he was about the elves themselves.

Out of the bushes crawled a large humanoid form. The light of Lunitari shone on it clearly. Theros recoiled from the ghastly sight. He’d never seen anything so hideous. It was the size of a minotaur, but it had the head of a lizard. It wore leather armor and carried a large sword in its hand.

Not just any sword. It carried one of the swords that Theros had delivered that very day. Theros shuddered with the shock. He had been making weapons for monsters! The beast reeked of the Abyss.

The elves did not hear or see the lizard man crawling through the underbrush. Theros rose quietly to his knees, then carefully and slowly moved to a standing position. He took two steps forward, raising his battle-axe over his head. He no longer worried about keeping silent. The monster heard him and turned. Theros brought the axe down hard into the lizard man’s back. The monster screeched in pain and fury.

The elves jumped to their feet, dropping their bows and drawing swords and daggers.

“Who goes there?” one elf shouted in Common.

Theros’s axe killed the monster with one swing. The axe head remained embedded in the lizard man’s back. Theros straightened and pulled on the axe to free it. To his surprise, his axe blade was stuck fast.

Alarmed, fearing more of the creatures might be around, he tugged and yanked on his axe. It wouldn’t budge. Frustrated, he kicked at the monster’s body lying on the forest floor. His foot hit solid rock.

The corpse had turned to stone!

“Damn!” he muttered. He looked up to find an elven blade pointed at his throat. For the moment, Theros didn’t care about that. Impatiently, he shoved the sword blade to one side. He wasn’t about to lose his battle-axe.

“I’m not your enemy,” he said in Qualinesti, the words coming back to him in a flood.

“Theros?” said the elf, staring at him in the moonlight. “Theros Ironfeld?”

“Gilthanas!” Theros was pleased to see his friend, but this wasn’t exactly the time for a reunion. “What the devil is going on here? What is this thing?”

Lowering his sword, the elf looked down at the immobile form. “It is called a draconian. Its appearance here augurs impending doom. Careful!” Gilthanas was on guard, glancing around warily. “Where there is one, there are probably more.”

“Great! Just great!” Theros grunted, frantically trying to pry his weapon free from the stone corpse. “Draconian? I’ve never heard of such a beast and I’ve done a fair share of traveling. And what are Qualinesti doing in Solace?”

“Look out!” one of elves yelled.

Another huge draconian leapt out of the shadows, cutting down the elf with a huge, jagged sword that was also of Theros’s making. Two more loomed out of the night, and Theros could hear another crashing through the bushes.

He gave up trying to free his axe. Reaching down, he grabbed the large sword that lay next to the dead draconian. Another one of the elves was dead. Theros prepared to defend himself. Gilthanas stood at his back, slender elven sword raised to attack.

The other remaining elf spirited away into the bushes, sidestepping a draconian’s savage blow. The draconian, having lost its prey, stood and gazed about. Reptile eyes glistened red in the moonlight. The lizard man was not more than ten feet to Theros’s right. The other three were circling around him, trying to surround him and Gilthanas.

Theros lunged for the draconian on his right. The beast easily parried the blow, but that had just been a feint. Theros’s arm muscles bulged with the effort of turning the draconian’s enormous blade-a good blade, as Theros had cause to know.

As Theros struggled with the draconian, he saw, out of the corner of his eye, another leap out of the bushes. Theros shouted a warning, but it was too late. The draconian struck Gilthanas over the head with the flat of his sword. The elf crumpled like a sack of coal. Helpless to assist his friend, Theros watched in frustration as the draconian slung the elf’s comatose body over its shoulder and made off.

Theros’s sword slid up from the draconian’s lower right side, catching the monster in the right hip. The wound bit deep into the scaled hide, but it didn’t kill. Theros tried to see what was happening behind him, even as he kept close watch on his opponent, who was shouting at its comrades in a strange, guttural language.

Two of the draconians to Theros’s rear dashed off, probably pursuing the elf who had managed to escape. That left the wounded draconian to his front and one more behind him. Theros skirted around the large beast in front of him, trying to position himself before both of the draconians. They saw what was happening, and the wounded draconian backed up to try to keep Theros between them.

To Theros’s astonishment, the draconian spoke to him, in decent-sounding Common. “Surrender now, human, and you will be treated well as a prisoner of the Dark Queen.”

“To the Abyss with you and your Queen,” Theros said. He lunged at the wounded draconian, and at the same time, ducked his head low.

Sure enough, the draconian behind him had swung. The blade whistled past inches away from Theros’s ears.

Theros’s attack missed, but the draconian, in trying to avoid it, stumbled backward and fell. Theros spun around to face his other opponent. The draconian sidestepped Theros’s attack. It swung its sword ineffectively.

Theros could sympathize. They were both using new swords, and neither was accustomed to the feel of them yet. But Theros was at the disadvantage. He was not used to fighting with a sword, had not fought anyone in a long time. The huge blade was not suited to his style, nor fit to his size.

The draconian kept pressing its advantage and pushed Theros back into the underbrush. Theros heard movement, remembered the other draconian, and turned too late. The swing came from his left. Theros ducked, diving into the bushes. The blade scraped his left arm, not a serious injury. He rolled to his side, then got up and ran.

He had never run from a fight before. He could almost see Hran and Huluk-not to mention Sargas-glaring at him in disapproval. Theros didn’t care. This was a time for human common sense, not minotaur notions of honor. Theros was outnumbered by foes twice his size. He had no decent weapon and was wounded. He had to escape, or he would die.

He sprinted through the trees, tripping several times, but clamoring to his feet in a hurry. He had the feeling that the draconians would not want to show themselves in Solace. Otherwise, they would have been in the town, not skulking about in the woods outside it.

Theros was right. As soon as the lights of Solace came into view, he heard the draconians that pursued him halt. Theros made it back into town and immediately climbed the first stairs he came to, and groped his way down the walkway to the center of town. Turning toward home, he descended the staircase to the ground level.

He kept looking behind him, but the draconians had not followed. Unlocking the door, he hurried inside. His hands shaking, he managed to light a candle and examine his wound. The blood flow had stopped, but it hurt like hell. Clumsily, he washed the wound out and bound it.

“Draconians!” he muttered to himself. “Where did such monsters spring from? And the elves-Gilthanas. What was Gilthanas doing in Solace?”

Questions flooded Theros’s mind. He had no answers. He wondered if he shouldn’t warn someone about the monsters lurking in the forest, and then he realized that there was no one to warn. The High Theocrat had sold Theros’s swords to these monsters. He was in league with them, as were his Seeker guards and the hobgoblins.

Suddenly, a gust of wind blew in from the window, dousing Theros’s candle. The wind was hot and unnatural and it raised the hair on his neck and arms. With the wind came darkness, such darkness as Theros had never before known. It was as if the moons and the stars had all been swept from the sky. A terrible rumbling began outside, to the north of the town. The rumbling shook the ground. If it was thunder, then this was going to be a storm like none Theros had ever witnessed.

He went to the window. An enormous fireball exploded, right before his eyes. A huge vallenwood tree in front of him burst into flame. He could hear the people in the houses in the tree’s branches begin to scream in terror. What in the name of Sargas was going on?

He heard another explosion, and another.

Theros ran outside. In the north section of town, many buildings were on fire. People, panic-stricken, were leaping from the burning walkways. He could see them silhouetted against the flames, falling-sometimes to their deaths-below.

It was then that he first felt the fear. Terror like none he had known before washed over him, filling his veins with ice water. He began to shake. A roaring sound came from overhead. Barely able to move from fright, he lifted his head and looked up. Monstrous beasts flew through the night sky, belching fire and smoke from their gaping maws.

Dragons! He had heard the tales, even as far back as his childhood in the fishing village in Nordmaar. But these were not creatures of imagination. The dragons were here, and they were real.

Fires now burned everywhere. Through the flames, Theros saw an army entering the town, marching on the ground, moving in column formation. He stared in horror, recognizing the soldiers. The attacking forces were draconians. Hundreds of them were swarming into town, accompanied by humans dressed in maroon uniforms.

Draconians marched with the troops of Baron Dargon Moorgoth. It seemed that fate had caught up with Theros at last.

The fear known as dragon awe nearly drove Theros mad. With no clear idea of what he was doing or where he was going, he ran through the smoke and flames. Instinct, apparently, led him back to his forge. He was relieved to find that it was still standing. And then he saw the reason why. A squad of draconians and hobgoblins stood around it, guarding it. Of course! To the armies, the forge was the most valuable building in Solace.

Theros turned to escape, but it was too late. They’d seen him.

“That’s him!” Glor screeched. “That’s the smith!”

The draconians dashed out to capture him. Exhausted, his lungs burning from the smoke that clouded the air, he was an easy capture.

The attack on Solace ended as quickly as it had started. Most of the town was ablaze. Theros’s smithy was left unscathed, but his home, not twenty yards away, burned like a torch in the night. Squads of draconians began going door to door, rounding up survivors and herding people off the streets and into the town square.

Theros remained inside his forge, a prisoner of the draconians, a blade of his own making held at his throat. A human officer marched in. He was wearing black leather armor adorned by a black helm and a black metal cuirass with a dragon insignia. Theros was thankful to see the uniform wasn’t maroon.

“Put that dagger down,” the officer ordered the draconian. He faced Theros. “You are the smith, Ironfeld?”

Theros nodded. “I am.”

The officer appeared pleased. “Good! I am glad you survived the fire. You have been supplying quality blades to my soldiers. Fewmaster Toede, the new commander of the Solace Military District, wants you to continue. In return, your smithy has been spared destruction. Cooperate with us and you will be handsomely rewarded. Resist and you will be killed. Any questions?”

Theros couldn’t think of any questions after that. Not with five draconians standing in his forge.

“I’ll make weapons for you, but on one condition. Forget your money. People are wounded out there. I’ve some skill at healing from my days in the army. Let me aid those in need, and then I’ll serve you.”

The human officer grunted. “A foolish bargain, human. You could have made your fortune, grown wealthy enough to own this miserable town. Still, we’re getting the best of it. Lord Toede is always pleased to save money. Go along with him,” the officer ordered the draconians. “See to it that he doesn’t try to escape.”

Theros went out into the night to do what he could to aid the victims of the attack.