Chapter Seven

A Very Noble Act It Is, Then

Kazador built the strongest model for the Professor’s challenge, and it wasn’t even close. His model was sturdy, accurate, and may as well have been enchanted by a whole team of dwarven runecrafters. It withstood the mighty assault of an apple, then a rock, then the Professor himself giving it a solid whack with a chisel. Even if I had a hundred days to attempt to achieve that level of success with a model, I don’t believe I would have succeeded.

And I’d like to think that I have plenty of belief in myself, in general.

I tried my best to calm my emotions as his model withstood assault after assault, after my own had barely managed to scrape by with just the apple. I really, really did. Still, an ugly mixture of envy, of insecurity, of injustice bubbled up to my head like a hag from its bog.

After all, Kazador’s friends and family seemed to have no trouble making the trip themselves from Kreuzhain to the War College to visit him. Over the last week alone, he had already met with some ginger dwarves with similar golden baubles as he at least twice. His clan, in all likelihood, owned a whole stable of horses, ponies, and riding goats, same as any other proud dwarvish clan. What use would he have with the prize of a week’s leave to Kreuzhain and a borrowed horse?

And who in the world could conscientiously argue that this prize would be better off to Kazador, the spoiled son of a rich and greedy noble, more than I? I, who has not seen Isidora nor Javis in six months? Who has not even received word nor letter about them while pouring myself into sleepless nights and toilful days to a war effort I was meant to run away from?

Kazador had stolen that piece of the world from me.

And worse off, he threatened to take more from Delmar.

Delmar’s model was, in all meanings of the phrase, an absolute travesty. There was no denying it. It had crumbled and broke apart before the model was even placed on the platform by the front of the class hall, and so once it had arrived to the Professor, it looked little different than a small pile of rocks that a child or toddler might play with in the dirt. The Professor spared no shame in pointing out this comparison, which was then emphasized by Kazador himself with his own snide, arrogant remarks. Instead of testing the model’s structural integrity with an apple, he had simple exhaled lightly on a teetering pebble that may have once been an arch’s capstone, and it had fallen to the floor.

It was a humiliation. Delmar must have been a stronger man than me, because if I were in his place, I would have run away from the college and deserted the war effort, even if it meant being Marked for Death as a traitor to the Union of Free Cities. And that’s a bold statement; deserters who have been Marked do not normally die by any ordinary means.

The Professor, however, had given the class as well as Delmar a possibility for redemption. It was another challenge. He didn’t mention any week’s leave nor borrowed horse, but this time, I simply wanted to create something strong and sturdy and useful to the world just to show everyone, Kazador included, that I could.

It was no towering cathedral. No spires nor pensive statues of brass and marble. But it was all that I could offer to the world, and so it was an opportunity that I had to seize.

This challenge, the Professor explained, would be an open-ended one. A test of both ingenuity and of precision. Creativity and calculation. It could be anything under the different disciplines of the War College of Engineering. The only rule, he stressed, was that he wanted to see something special. As to what ‘special’ encompassed, however, he did not elaborate. I asked Ceecee what she thought the Professor may have meant, but she answered, “W-well, if we have to ask, I guess that means we probably don’t qualify. So just do your b-best and hope that it’s special, I guess.”

“Do you have anything in mind, then, for what ‘special’ thing you can craft and build for the Professor?” I asked her.

“N-not yet,” she admitted shakily. “Maybe something with projectiles. I know they need more i-intricate work, and I’ve been pretty good with that sort of thing so far.”

“Projectiles, huh?” I echoed her, considering the idea. “Like cannons? Those are pretty dangerous, could lose you some fingers.”

“I’ve carved out men and women from m-marble before, so I think I can handle blackpowder just fine.”

“Or maybe you can make a smaller version,” I ventured. “For littlings to use.”

Ceecee paused, considering the thought. I did as well. I had meant it in jest, but under second inspection, it didn’t seem like so terrible an idea. A smaller cannon with a similar payload of blackpower and cast-iron shot could have its own uses on the field. Perhaps artillery teams wouldn’t need five different mean to handle, aim, and load a full-sized cannon.

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She then said, “That’s an interesting idea, Scip, but the b-blackpowder wouldn’t be able to handle working in a smaller barrel. It’s an idea that might b-blow up in your face,” she pointed out, smirking, very obviously content with the obvious pun that she had committed to.

“You have a point, Ceecee. You have a point. But if it were easy, it wouldn’t be special…” my voice trailed off.

As the class began breaking apart to head out of the hallway, I caught Delmar by the shoulder. He had just had a conversation with Kazador that I assumed was not all that pleasant, judging by how the Avengardian wore a heavy, pained expression on his face, as if the weight of the world were pressing down on his soul.

“What do you want, Scip?” he asked me accusingly before I even had the chance to speak a word.

“Only to offer you some help, Delmar, nothing more,” I answered with my hands up and palms facing him, hoping to offer him some consolation or assurance after the humiliation that he had just been subjected to. “I saw you talking to Kazador just now. That can’t have been good.”

“You speak truth,” he confirmed plainly. “But perhaps Kazador did as well. After all, he seems to know what he’s doing. I certainly don’t.”

I sighed. We talked as we walked to the college’s feasting hall. The gravel-reinforced walls of sandstone did not do much to keep the cold out, and as we walked, I could have sworn that I felt the chill of the world grow colder and colder. “You know, Kazador…I understand that he was a dwarvish noble of Kreuzhain, with lineage probably arcing all the way back to some mountain king in Duar D’aldin, or Duar Four Forges, or Duar-Who-Gives-a-Rat’s-Damn. I understand, as he has been so kind to enlighten us, that he had been taught and drilled by tutors and master masons ever since he grew the first damned strand of hair on his burning bush of a chin. He may as well have been born on a master mason’s worktable. But still, that does not explain to me how he could have built, with his own very hands, that indomitable masterpiece of a miniature fortress he called a model earlier. Don’t you agree?”

Delmar gave me a weird look. We arrived at the feasting hall. “I didn’t realize that I had been friends with such a passionate fan of that arrogant Kreuzhainer, Scipio. My mother would be ashamed. She told me to pick those I spend my time with wisely.”

“You misunderstand me, Messr Delmar,” I protested with faux formality. “What I am attempting to point out is that perhaps it might benefit us to…take a peek at some of Kazador’s notes. His journals, his prints. As rich as he is, he is still but a Lance of the War College, same as us, humble as we are. And do you know what that means?”

Delmar raised an eyebrow. We both grabbed our wooden plates. “What?”

“That means that same as us, all of his belongings are crammed into the same wooden chest. The same wooden chest with the same copper lock.”

Delmar was beginning to catch on to my meaning. “In Avengard, some of the wealthy from the District of Geldenheim had warned us that refugees were thieves, Scipio, but I had never believed them.” He was smiling, obviously hoping to get a rise out of me.

“Delmar, have you not been told that a weak master mason leads to dead dwarves out their in the field? And even worse, perhaps even Kreuzhainer dwarves!” I jabbed back at him, echoing the words Kazador had so graciously spat out at us many times in the past. “This isn’t an act of thievery, my dear Delmar, it is an act of justice. To save the noble dwarves and Kreuzhainers who’ll be so nobly taking their noble watches on our stone battlements and assaulting the dragonwalls of Sevisk on our siege towers.”

“A very noble act it is, then,” Delmar quipped. “But how are you going to break into our favorite dwarf’s chest?”

“I’ll need to spend some time at the workshop with Ceecee, I suppose,” I mused, gently rubbing my chin as Delmar took a piece of bread and a few strips of salted meat from the Feasthall Master. “I could outright ask Ceecee herself, I suppose, but the less in the know of our little heist, the better. I’m not quite sure if Maren or Ceecee have the stomach for such…noble acts.”

“If only you could turn in a copper key to the Professor as your ‘special’ act of masonry,” Delmar pondered as we both took our seats on one of the wooden dining benches.

The War College Feasting Hall looked as if it had been worked on by perhaps a dozen master masons, with a dozen different visions and ideas for what the hall might look like. Some portions of it seemed to exude an air of pragmatism, of practicality and efficiency. Serving tables were built of sturdy and smooth slate stone, and built as part of the hall itself, never having been replaced since construction, nor having needed replacement. Other portions were obviously worked on by more eccentric masons with a passion for flair and show, such as the stained glass portraits that doubled as skylights on the ceiling above. This was a daring and dangerous technique, using delicate, intricate stained glass in an area of the hall that needed loadbearing support the most, but the masons had compensated with a deft touch of supporting buttresses and augmenter pillars where needed. If they hadn’t, Delmar and myself wouldn’t have been enjoying our midday meal under the vibrant depiction of man and dwarf coming together to establish this college of specialized masons all those centuries ago.

“Speaking of ‘special’ acts, have you decided on what you’ll be crafting for the Professor?” I asked Delmar. Apart from genuine curiosity, I also asked out of concern. I did not want Delmar to be presenting a simple pile of pebbles to the class again.

“A watch tower,” Delmar answered quickly, as if he had made up his mind ages ago.

“Oh?”

“Yes, a watch tower,” he repeated himself, resolute. “If we had more back home, back in Avengard, perhaps Ignisclaw might have been spotted. Perhaps more people could have been saved, could have fled the city walls.”

“Do you have some design or quirk in mind that would have it specialize in spotting dragons from afar?” I asked Delmar.

“No,” he admitted. “I wish I could build or design something of the sort, but nothing comes to mind.”

“So what makes this watch tower of your special?”

“If it’s built by me and standing, I suppose one would call it special,” Delmar answered, and we both laughed as we finished our helping of bread and salted meats.