074 – Rebels

***

“I wonder what Yurk’s doing right now?” Hwilla said dreamily. She hugged her new rag doll of Yurk. It had child like proportions, with stubby limbs and a giant head.

“Probably sleeping, eating, or goofing off, ” I answered.

“You don’t think he’s flirting with girls do you?” Her grip on the doll tightened.

“No. Never. Of course not.” My answer calmed her down for a moment. “Yurk doesn’t need to flirt with girls. He can just stand there and draw them in with no effort. The real question is: how many girls are flirting with him?”

“Gah! Don’t say that. Now I’ll be up all night worrying. You’re supposed to reassure me that everything will be fine, you devil.”

“I apologize for my stubborn truthfulness.” I looked up from my work. “Say? Why did you make such a misshapen doll of me while your version of Yurk looks so much better?”

“Because my model was so much handsomer. And also Zvidsi helped me with the sewing this time,” she said. “But a doll is no replacement for the real thing. I’m going to die of loneliness and anxiety if he doesn’t come back soon.”

Hwilla’s love mania was not mellowed in the slightest by Yurk’s absence. He and Zambulon traveled through Sandgrave. The pair of freshly minted officers now had the independence to pursue their own goals. The spymaster provided intelligence but did not directly assign their missions. Officers were expected to act on their own initiative and devise their own nefarious plots. Yurk and Zambulon wanted to spread the cult’s influence to gain the esteem of their peers and the approval of Lord Hrolzek.

Without her boyfriend to dote on, Hwilla went a little crazy. She spent a lot of time struggling against the new exercise arrays to improve her mana reserves. She also hung around my working ship messing with things and acting restless.

“What are you making now?” she asked.

I gestured to my new equipment. “I’m forging a new sword.”

“That doesn’t look like a sword.”

“Because I need a proper forge to do the forging. This is a preliminary step. Pounding on hot metal for hours on end is not my style, so I’ve built a machine to pound for me. Behold.”

I demonstrated the workshop’s newest device: a power hammer. A frame held a cylinder of wrought iron inside a tube. A circular array, similar to a lev rod, lifted this weight up and then let it drop straight down onto an anvil. It was effectively like the trip hammers used in the lower levels but fueled by mana. I could insert a workpiece between the hammer and anvil to beat it into shape.

I had also rigged up mana powered furnaces. Arrays that produced heat were among the simplest to make; the biggest difficulty was ensuring they wouldn’t melt in the process. With my new machines, forging would not require hauling coal up to the shop or pumping bellows or using raw muscle to swing a hammer. These sources of heat and sparks had to be placed on the far side of the workshop, away from the containers of chemicals and drugs.

Hwilla didn’t look impressed with my power tools. “Boring. What are these other things?” She pointed to a set of large ceramic pots sprouting metal tubes from the top.

“Crystal growth pods. Synthesizing gemstones through purely chemical methods requires too much heat and pressure for the current lab to handle. So I’ve resorted to this slower method using aetherics. The little daemons inside can grow crystals as long as they have a seed and enough mana. In fact, that’s why large parts of the citadel’s lower levels are crusted over with quartz.”

“You can make your own gems?” she said in disbelief. “It’s a miracle. You’ll be rich!”

“Well, I can’t grow them on an industrial scale. And it takes a lot of mana. I have to pump it in two or three times a day to keep the pods running. It’s even more exhausting than using the exercise equipment upstairs.”

“I’d thought you’d crippled your brain, Strythe, but at this rate you really are going to become a wizard. Runes and gems and spirit steel. You’ll make a sword for me too, right?”

“Maybe. But only if it buys your silence about all my secret projects. If the others find out what I’m up to, they’ll never leave me alone. I was far too careless by making those manacles for Famigrist on our trip to the highlands. Now Korkso has gotten wind of it. He’s asked me to make other restraining devices for the Goadsmen.”

Crafting items didn’t bother me. That was my original profession. My concern was that by making myself useful the cult would take greater pains to find me when I disappeared. A novice swordsman could be replaced, but an aetherics technician was a unique treasure. So I had to be helpful to the others, but not too helpful.

Hwilla sat down near Zvidsi’s workstation and started sewing some buttons onto her doll.

“Why are you hanging around in here all the time?” I asked. “Don’t you have more important things to do?”

“I’m taking refuge from those terrible disciples. Their impudence had boiled over into open rebellion. We’ve been at war for days. I’ve battled them with naked blades in the corridors and on the ramparts.”

“And you didn’t win?”

“They out number me. I could easily trounce any one of them, but not all three at once. As soon as the balance of the fight tips in my favor, Groskip’s two minions jump in to assist him. I’ve given them some good licks, but have yet to defeat them.” She pointed at me accusingly. “This is your fault, senior junior. You should be helping me in this civil war against the junior juniors.”

“We’d still be outnumbered three to two.”

“Ugh. I can’t go back to the Hall of Discipline. They’ve planted their flag on that part of the citadel. So I’m going to live right here until order is restored.”

“I’ll set up another hammock.”

“Don’t be so glib, Strythe. We don’t have much time before our next examination. If we fail at subduing those three, the fightmaster is sure to punish us in some unthinkable way.”

She was right. Putrizio favored unorthodox teaching methods. He wanted students to learn from direct experience and think for themselves. To him, this battle between students was a perfect school lesson – and a perfect excuse not to do any teaching himself. He would leave this problem for us to solve. But simply avoiding a fight would cause us to fail this test. The old fightmaster favored unorthodox punishments too. Should we give up, he might declare Groskip to be the senior disciple by right of conquest.

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“All right then. Let’s think about this. We can overcome a few newly enkindled swordsmen. It can’t be that hard. We just need a plan of action. Let’s catch them alone so we out number them. Divide and conquer.”

“That’s the problem. They do everything together, day and night. They’re never alone.”

“Hmm.” I needed more intelligence on these pompous young noblemen.

***

Magi aged slowly. They could potentially live up to two hundred and fifty years. Those who married normal people were almost sure to outlive their spouses. Therefor swordsmen, especially males, often went through a series of partners and had children over a span of many decades. A swordsman might have a child on the same day as their great-great-great-great-grandchild’s birth. Magi often produced large and complex families during this extended period of fertility and reigned over their descendants as the family matriarch or patriarch.

It was tradition for a swordsman to provide for their offspring by granting them titles to baronies or towns. Failing that, a child could at least expect to receive a private plantation or merchant ship to make their own fortunes. Beyond providing material wealth and income, a swordsman also had to arrange the marriages of their many descendants, ensuring good matches of appropriate rank. Being the head of a family wasn’t an easy job or a cheap one.

In such an extensive family tree, there was a good chance for one of them to catch a spark or even enkindle a fire. A swordsman usually trained their own lucky relatives. So it was with Grotrok the Reaver and his great-grandson, Groskip of Vrinellia.

Hwilla and I perched in the shadows high above the citadel’s central hall. The workers had done an admirable job renovating the former silo for the mana transmitter and the place of worship for the trolls. On the ground floor, they had cleaned out the broken idol, painted the walls, and tiled the floors with elaborate designs. Small footbridges crisscrossed the upper sections. This hall became the citadel’s busiest crossroad, a hub of constant foot traffic. Everyone passed through here eventually.

“So who is this ‘the Reaver’ anyway?” I whispered. We gazed down from a narrow catwalk at the spiraling geometrical patterns on the ground floor, a dizzying mosaic of color.

“He’s one of the loyal nobles from Olzban. When King Hrolzek was overthrown, Count Grotrok followed him into exile at the Isle of Forgotten Skulls. He helped found the Void Cult. Since then, he’s served as the general for our armies.”

From what I’d gathered, the Void Cult formed around sixty years ago. It started as a small group of conspirators plotting to take back the throne, and then it slowly transformed into a religious cult centered on Lord Hrolzek. The necromancer became a dark saint for misfit swordsmen rejected by other sects. For all those years, Grotok the Reaver served as second in command.

Nimblesto slipped from the shadows to deliver his report. “Knight walk tunnel. Humans follow knight.”

“Thank you, Nimbly.”

By this time, the goblin tribe had integrated into the citadel. The monsters set up a tiny market on the ground level to sell their wares. They scurried underfoot and loitered in the abandoned passageways. The residents had grown to tolerate goblins as a minor nuisance, like rats or mice. No one paid much attention to them skulking through the shadows, watching and listening.

We gazed down to the base of the silo. A man in black armor strode across the tesselated floors followed by three others: Groskip and his two minions. From this distance, it was difficult to keep a sense of scale, but either Groskip had shrunk to the size of a child or the man in armor was a giant. He must have stood well over two meters tall. Although not as large as Famigrist, he was almost monstrously large, right at the limit of what could still be considered human.

Grotrok the Reaver carried a round helm under his arm, leaving his bald pate exposed. I had never seen a swordsman without hair. Their augmentation usually wiped away imperfections such as baldness or wrinkles or moles. This man must have been incredibly old, at the end of his magically extended lifespan.

“Grandfather. I believe I’m ready to learn the Black Bone Girding technique. Please teach me,” Groskip pleaded.

“Fool. You are like a sapling tree that tries to touch the clouds.”

“But I sprout from the mountain top.”

“You wish to fly before you’ve learned to walk.”

“Birds have no need to walk once they flap their wings.”

“You want to dwell in a castle without first laying a foundation.”

“Ships have castles supported by naught but the churning seas.”

“Enough of your quippery, grandson. The answer is no. Augmentation does not benefit from cleverness. It’s a method of flesh, not of the mind. Our techniques require muscle and bone and breath and vital fluids. You are yet too weak. Attempting to master advanced techniques would shatter your frail body.”

“I will take that risk.”

“You will not, for will is nothing. Determination is no substitute for substance. Youth makes you mad with impatience. You want to acquire in a single day what you have your whole life to learn. These things take time.”

“Yes. But my time as your student is limited. I wish to learn all I can while I can. My aim is to preserve our family’s knowledge for future generations.”

Grotrok stopped walking. “Your begging tires me, grandson. Go do your lessons and bother me no more,” he growled.

“Yes, grandfather. I apologize.” Young Groskip bowed his head. He remained in the central hall as his great-grandfather departed. The three rebel disciples left a short time later. Skip would receive no instruction today.

Next to me, Hwilla exhaled. She had held her breath while focusing on the conversation below. Our improved senses allowed us to see and hear things at a great distance, but it took effort to sort out a particular voice from the noisy hall.

“It seems the general is too busy with the Warcreeps to spare much time for his apprentice,” I whispered.

“That’s why those brats are always lounging around the Hall of Discipline or roaming the citadel like they own the place. A bunch of unsupervised delinquents.”

“The same could be said of us.”

“The same could be said of you. I’m the good student. I actually follow the rules and respect my teachers.”

“Right. Well, it seems that Skippy takes private lessons from the old man, during which time he parts ways from his friends. Obviously we can’t intrude on the Reaver’s classes or he’d squish us like bugs, but we can meet the other two sword to sword. We take down the henchmen first.”

“An ambush then. But we don’t know their schedule. Your goblins will have to keep watch on their movements until an opportunity appears.”

“Hey. They aren’t my goblins. I don’t want that responsibility. It’s just that I know how to bribe them with food and shiny beads.”

“Oh? Some of the workers call you the Goblin King,” Hwilla said.

“Slander.”

I had no dominion over the little imps. My advantage was that Nimblesto provided me a channel of communication. He translated my requests to the tribe. As long as I asked the goblins to do things in line with their natural instincts: stealing, sneaking, murdering, or in this case, spying on the trio of rebels.

We would track their movements across the citadel until the right moment to strike. This minature war between the disciples was another unwanted distraction. My work kept multiplying. I had to practice my skills, perfect my first technique, craft a sword, upgrade my runes, study alchemy, gather materials, and research advanced daemonics. There was no time for sleep. Now Skip and his henchmen laid another task at my feet. It would have been better for all of us if they had the humility to bow their heads as junior disciples. Their pride brought on this conflict, because in this era, justice belonged to the mighty and order was maintained through violence.

We would force them to kneel and obey.