Chapter Ten

Fury

The War College Halls, just as the sun was beginning to rise. With the hand cannon tucked and hidden away in my cloak and my eyes still flickering with an unnatural glow, I searched the dormitory for my prey.

Delmar’s bed was empty, save for a single Smiling Buttercup. It was a flower that would often grow around the fields of Avengard, right below the Black Forest. Maren and Ceecee must have gone off looking for one. They handled their grief with grace. I, with vengeance.

I searched on. Kazador’s bed - but it was naught but that. Empty as well. The bed was made. He had gone off. So early. I would have to find him elsewhere on campus.

There were three possibilities for Delmar’s whereabouts this early in the morning. The Kreuzhainer, after all, like many dwarves and even more so for engineers and masons, was a creature of habit, and rarely diverged from his set routine. He could be at the Dining Hall, or at the Duar Workshop, or at the Stacks. I would find him there.

Before I left the dormitory, I had the presence of mind to grab a satchel from my own bed. I wasn’t quite sure of how long it would be until I could enjoy the comfort of my own bed again, once I’ve found Kazador and fed my hand cannon its first quarry.

I made my exit from the dormitory. The halls and corridors of the campus were still sparse, but still, there were watching eyes that I had to stay aware of. Other students, and masons and professors that might try and stop me from finding Kazador, from invoking justice for Delmar. Subtly, I felt for the infernal machine that I had forged and crafted and hidden behind my cloak. If I had held it in the open, would the others have even understood the weight of what it was that I carried? The lethality of the iron I had bent to my will?

I reached the Dining Hall now. Only few benches had any students sat on them. Most were empty, the soft orange glow of the still rising sun resting its rays on waiting seats and clean silverware. I scanned the hall.

One bench with a small group of Kreuzhainers, mostly human. Two dwarves, neither of them Kazador. Then on the opposite side of the hall, another small group, but this one consisting of journeymen, novices, just like Delmar had been. Some from Halle, and some from Dewdrop. For a second, I wondered what language they must have been conversing in, but then my focus quickly and wholly set itself back on finding Kazador. Finally, a last table with some diners. Just three of them - all of them from Helstendam, those who had made the journey across the Mittelsea to contribute to the cause with a hammer instead of a spear. No Kazador there either.

So he was somewhere else. The Workshop, then, or the Stacks.

I started making my way to the Duar Workshop. It was, as with many things in dwarvish culture, extremely hierarchical and segregated in that only Duar - dwarves - were allowed to use it. They reasoned that it was to protect tradition, and the secrets that their tools and methods preserved within their culture. I viewed it as hypocrisy. Kazador had argued that weak masons would lead to greater losses on the field. Why, then, would they keep such knowledge away from us?

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I pulled at the handle. Locked.

I pulled out the hand cannon. I appreciated its weight, the heft of the iron in my hand, before I set the barrel on the lockset and flicked the Flintstrike Gloves at the powder pot. Inside my creation, the small flame reacted with a compound of blackpowder, saltpeter, and sulphur, and exploded the shot straight at the door, blasting a small hole clean through the lock.

The door swung open.

“What in the blazes?” a dwarf with a dark grey beard swore as I entered the workshop, checking each corner. No Kazador.

“What in the devil’s call was that?” another dwarf asked. I didn’t answer. I was on the hunt, and there was only one other spot where my quarry might be.

The Stacks. He must be somewhere in the Library, either reading some obscure book in dwarvish, or by the Pile, where messengers would drop off letters and packages. He always had correspondence flowing in; now I knew that it must have been orders for plagiarized inventions and stolen creations. Acts of ingenuity and engineering excellence that he usurped in his name.

I made my way to the Library, and with every step, I could feel my hunger for vengeance build and simmer, like the spark that lights a cannon’s powder pot. I thought of how much I had lost over the past years. With Sevisk waging war, I fled my home in Dalintaya. I lost my father, and my mother as well. I was forced to leave my sister behind in Avengard. And I thought of how during those years, Kazador enjoyed his life behind firm, sturdy walls, with his belly full and tutors at his beck and call.

It was an injustice. If there are just and fair gods above us all, then why would they allow such to happen to mortal men? For what reason would any god had ascended, if this was the world that we were left with?

I entered the Stacks. There were some students there already, seated in place, reading and studying different tomes, books, and scrolls. A small line had formed by the Pile, holding small pieces of parchment to be sent off. But no Kazador there.

I scanned the rows of bookshelves and tables and tome-carts that were littered around the Stacks but found no one. It was extremely frustrating. Where could this damned dwarf even be?

Finally, I approached one of the dwarves handing off some parchment to be sent to Kreuzhain to the Pile and asked if he knew where Kazador was.

“Still have a grudge with him, ja? He’s an upstanding dwarf. I’m sure you don’t know what you’re talking about,” he answered.

I resisted the urge to draw the hand cannon then and there. “I just want to know where is so we can talk,” I insisted.

“He’s in Kreuzhain, making his vacation. He took leave since two days ago, the one he earned from the Professor’s modeling project.”

Damn this all to seven hells.

Another voice spoke to me then, one that wasn’t a dwarf. It was a woman, a littling, one of Ceecee’s few friends from the War College. She spoke up and asked me, “Excuse me, are you Scipio…Kalataunus, from Avengard? I have a letter for you. It’s been here a while, but you never seem to check in with the Pile.”

I straightened myself out, trying to cast out thoughts of chasing after Kazador and deserting the College for a moment. I answered, “I don’t exactly have the coin to send letters. And I don’t know anyone who has any coin to send me parchments, either.”

“This one has your name on it. From Avengard, someone named…Isidora?”

I furrowed my brow. How did she earn the coin for this? And even if she did have the coin, why would she spend it on a letter, instead of bread or a jug of pure water?

“That’s my sister,” I stammered, taking the letter from her. I used the letter opener from the counter to rip out the seal on the roll of parchment and unfurled it. Inside, were but a few words.

Avengard is preparing for an attack. Sevisk is attacking, but the Laurel’s keeping the men to defend Kreuzhain’s walls. We’re alone, Scip.