CORRECTION Chapter 20 + Chapter 21: Hands of Fate
Hi All, I’ve made a silly mistake and published a chapter from Book 3 instead of Chapter 20. Thank you Peter Tutehanga Carr for pointing it out.
Please find the updated chapter 20 at this link plus Chapter 21 below:
Finn’s face was partially obscured by a plume of pipe smoke as he sat on a wind-scoured outcrop, scanning the northern horizon. Gregan puffed contentedly great rings of smoke beside him, occasionally cursing when the wind threatened to extinguish his pipe. Masillius, still a little pale, shared a pipe with them as his eyes swept the barren landscape. Xylia-Kai restlessly stalked the perimeter of their hidden defile, her webbed hands gripping the obsidian hilt of her dagger, as if to defend herself from the arid landscape.
“Movement,” Finn murmured. “Three of them. Fast. Low to the ground. Goblin scouts. Two leagues out, maybe less. Heading this way.”
Gregan cursed, knocking the ash from his pipe. “Thought they’d been bloodied enough to stay away for a bit.”
“They’re persistent,” Masillius observed grimly. “Like midges in a wet summer. Once they bite, they come back for your blood.” Xylia-Kai melted into the shadows of the defile.
Inside the cavernous workshop Ruthiel sat cross-legged before the shaman’s mount, eyes closed, their slender hands hovering just above the beast’s head. Myanaa knelt beside them, a bowl of fragrant, shimmering liquid in her hands, murmuring soothing words at the whimpering creature.
The Elf had spent the last day delving into the intricate layers of corruption that still clung to the wolf’s spirit, remnants of the shaman’s controlling magic and the pervasive influence of An-Athame. A delicate, dangerous dance, untangling threads of subjugated will without snapping the essence of the creature. “The binding is deep,” Ruthiel said, “but it is not perfect. There are still echoes of its spirit resisting. Fighting.” They gestured, and Myanaa gently dabbed a silver-green liquid behind the wolf’s ears. The wolf whined and shuddered, a long, drawn-out tremor ran through its frame. The sickly off-white glow in its eyes flickered, then, with a final struggle, vanished, replaced by the golden gaze of a wild beast. The wolf let out a deep, rasping cough, then hesitantly pushed itself up onto its forelegs, its injured leg still trembling.
Across the workshop, Valdarr moved between glowing forges and vast workbenches, shaping and melding metal, his brow furrowed in concentration. He was crafting something, a large, intricate object of dark metal and polished stone. He muttered constantly to himself, leaving in his wake a grumbling stream of complaints about shoddy materials, imprecise measurements, and the sheer incompetence of all the known races.
Beside him, Sabine sat hunched, her head aching, a tiny automaton cupped in her hands. Artholan hovered over her. “No, no, Sabine! You are merely perceiving the current, not defining it!” Artholan insisted, tapping his stylus on a diagram sketched onto a slate. “You must conceptualize the volitional impetus! It is not about brute force; it is about the precise manipulation of resonant frequencies! The pathways of the Earth-Song are a complex, interlocking network of sub-harmonic pulses. Now, visualize the torque distribution across the articulation joint. Feel the kinetic transfer!”
Sabine groaned, burying her face in her hands, utterly exhausted by this grinding and painfully finicky side of magic. She had managed a few more clumsy steps from the toy automaton earlier that day, but the effort, the agonizing precision Artholan demanded, was soul-crushing. She was one for broad strokes, intuitive surges, physical action. This meticulous intellectual dissection of magic grated. Her body ached, and her mind screamed, overwhelmed by minutiae that Artholan reveled in.
She would rather endure the petty jabs of Velia, the flower seller’s daughter in Millford. At least she could just remind her of the time Teris asked Sabine, and not her, to accompany him to the summer fete. The mage, however, still looked at her as if she would magically know what he was blabbering about.
She bolted up from the bench. “Just… just tell me what to do!” Sabine pleaded looking down at him, hands joined in an exaggerated, supplicant gesture, her eyes wide with frustration. “I can’t feel the sub-harmonic pulses! My head is going to explode! Aah!”
Artholan flinched back and sighed with an air of long-suffering superiority. “Such an unsophisticated approach, Mistress Sabine. One must transcend the reliance on mere ‘feeling’ and embrace the rigorous elegance of objective conceptualization. Now, let us revisit the principles of spatial harmonics and… “
A sharp whistle from Finn, carrying clearly even inside the cavern, cut Artholan’s lecture short. “Scouts!” Finn called out, his voice sharp with urgency. “Goblin scouts! Headed straight here!”
Valdarr cursed under his breath and abandoned his forge, grabbing a large iron staff.
“Three of them,” Finn reported, his enhanced sight piercing the gathering twilight. “Moving through the broken ground to the northeast. Good cover. But they’re coming fast. Trying to be quiet. They’ll be on us in minutes.”
Ronigren snapped back to the cold clarity of tactical command. “Xylia-Kai, with me. Gregan, keep an eye on the entrance. Finn, you’re our eyes. Tell us where they are.”
They melted into the fractured landscape outside the cavern mouth under long, deceptive shadows cast by a bruised sun. “First one,” Finn whispered, his disembodied voice bouncing unnaturally on the landscape. “On your left, Knight. Behind the cluster of grey boulders. He’s going for the main path.”
Ronigren moved. A silent, swift rush. The goblin, a wiry grey-skinned scout, was creeping forward, his eyes fixed on the cave mouth. He never saw the Argrenian knight on his left. Ronigren’s sword cut a clean arc, a silver flash in the dim light that jammed on his spinal cord as he turned at the last moment, after tearing through flesh and ribs. The goblin’s life ended with a choked gasp, his body crumpling to the stony ground without a sound.
“Second,” Finn’s voice was instantly there again, “right flank. Moving fast, using the gorse bushes. He’s got a messenger-whistle.”
“Not on my watch, little guy,” Gregan growled, a hulking shadow moving through the uneven terrain. The goblin turned just as the great axe arced upwards from the low-lying scrub. A single, brutal swing. The sound of splintering bone was loud in the eerie silence. A bone whistle fell from the goblin’s lifeless fingers.
“Third,” Finn’s voice was taut, “straight on. He’s seen his brothers fall. He’s going to scram.” Xylia-Kai shot out from behind a jagged rock, moving in a silent blur. The terrified goblin opened his mouth to unleash a warning shriek. The amphibian warrior was upon him. Her webbed hand clamped over his mouth, stifling the cry. The obsidian dagger, black as night, flashed once. A gurgling choke, a convulsion, and the last scout fell silent.
Inside the cavern, the two prisoners had heard the muffled sounds of struggle. The warrior bound to the pillar strained against his ropes. The shaman had managed to push himself onto his elbow, his masked face turning towards the entrance. When the sounds outside ceased, the shaman’s rage swelled in a low, frustrated growl.
Snik took a deep breath. He looked at his kin, at the Bone-Singer stripped of his power and his mask. A conflict welled within him, the deep-seated fear of his former masters warred with the loyalty for Sabine and her companions. But an urgency pulsed through him. He had to make them understand.
He stepped forward, and his usually timid voice rang loud.
“You fools! You blind, chained fools!” Snik shrieked, “do you not see?! Do you not feel?! The Deep-Whisper… it is not strength. It is a sickness! A parasite! It promised you order, unity. It promised you glory, a shared purpose. But it lies! It binds you. It leeches your will. It drains your very souls until you are nothing but hollowed vessels. Empty shells!”
He pointed at the shaman’s face, pale and strained beneath the Elven ropes. “Look at him. Your mighty Bone-Singer. He is a puppet. His mind is a prison. His will is not his own! He fights for a master who offers nothing but absorption, oblivion!”
The goblin warrior met Snik’s gaze with hatred, but a shadow crossed his features. The shaman snarled and thrashed, but the Elven ropes held firm.
Ronigren stepped back into the cavern, the scent of goblin blood clinging to his gear. The swift, brutal skirmish had left him with a lingering tremor.
Snik was huddled in a corner. In the back, Valdarr worked again like a man possessed, sparks flying from the arcane tools clutched in his huge hands, hunched over his new mysterious creation, oblivious to everything but his craft.
Haakon was already packing. His massive satchel of cured hides and a spare woolen cloak lay folded by his feet as he methodically re-coiled a length of rope.
Ronigren met Haakon’s gaze. An unspoken truth passed between them.
The knight looked across the room, searching his companions’ eyes.
“Whatever the next step,” Ronigren continued, “it cannot be here, we are too vulnerable. Too exposed. We have only days, perhaps hours, before they find us.”
Valdarr slammed a heavy iron hammer onto his anvil with a resounding CLANG! that made everyone jump.
“Nonsense!” Valdarr boomed, straightening up to his full height. He held up a pair of objects, their dark metal gleaming in the forge-light. They were gauntlets, colossal in scale, forged in an elegant Jotunai style. One bore the raised image of a stylized hammer, the other an anvil. They hummed, and the hair on Ronigren’s arms prickled.
“To leave now would be to squander a precious opportunity.” Valdarr declared, his voice a rumbling avalanche. “The Chain the girl wears, the Key the old woman carries… they are the final pieces of a puzzle I have spent decades trying to solve. And I have found a path!”
He gestured to the gauntlets. “These! I forged them since your cursed arrival!” He stomped towards Ronigren, heavy steps shaking the cavern floor. “You,” he said, holding out the gauntlets. “You will be their bearer.”
Bewildered, Ronigren stared at the objects, then at Valdarr.
“You remind me of someone long gone,” Valdarr muttered, a fleeting sadness darkening his features. He quickly shook it off, returning to his gruff, urgent tone. “These gauntlets, Knight. They are my counter to the Enemy’s tools. I believe, with the right attunement, they can work to break chains; to unravel their bindings and shatter the command of the Deep-Whisper.”
He held them out. “I have studied the essence of the Chain. I’ve observed your elven friend’s unbinding spells, the resonance of the Key… there are patterns. Reversals. But they are subtle. And they will need power. More power than I alone can pour into them. That is where you two come in,” he gestured at Artholan and Ruthiel, “we must imbue these gauntlets with spells that can mirror the bindings, then reverse them. A complex weaving. It will drain you, but it is our only chance to turn the enemy’s weapon against them. You will work through the night. All of you.
“And you, child!” He turned to Sabine, “you will not rest. You are our new hammer. Your connection to the Earth-Song, your ability to move the automatons… it is still amateurish. But you will push through. You will learn more. Because come morning,” he declared, his voice echoing in the cavern, “we will not be riding horses. You will be moving my automatons.”
He thrust the gauntlets into Ronigren’s hands. They were heavy, cold, pulsing with a contained energy that thrummed through his bones. “So, no going anywhere tonight,” Valdarr concluded. “You will all work. You will all learn. And come morning… we will move a mountain.”