The Flames of Rage - an Enchantica story (novel) by Peter Van Mol

Chapter Five

Travelling mostly on the ground - much to Tabrah's displeasure - Cray'd had ample opportunity to get to know his two dwarf-companions, and had even discovered that the three of them had quite a long list of things in common. As it turned out, they all hated the same things, and all liked to get up before sunrise to get an early start. On this particular day, however, Cray had awoken even sooner than the others and had relieved his griffin from standing guard before proceeding to the wide river they'd camped by.

Kneeling down, the young warrior bent over to sprinkle some water on his face, and suddenly stared at his own reflection. Over the past few days, he'd forgotten to shave more than once - which seemed to earn him some good points with the heavily bearded dwarves - and he definitely looked unkempt to say the least. What shocked him, however, was the fact that none of this would've bothered him a couple of weeks ago ... whereas it most assuredly annoyed him now. Remembering the way he'd felt upon leaving Silde again at Fforl, he immediately understood what motivated his changed attitude towards his own appearance, and grinned the way only a man in love could.

Footsteps from somewhere behind him forced Cray to put further thoughts of the young princess out of his mind for now, as he turned and watched Virr approach the river bank. At first, the young man failed to understand what brought the dwarf to come so near to something he passionately hated - dwarves very seldom bathe, and never when others can see them do so - but then he caught sight of the leather flask Virr held in his right hand.

The green-clad dwarf confirmed his dislike of water by handing Cray the flask and asking him to fill it from the river, but still came closer to the edge than his new companion had expected. Holding the small bottle in the water, the former dragon-rider looked Virr in the eye and finally asked the question he'd been dying to ask for days. >BR>"I hope you don't think I'm being to indiscrete," he started, "but I never heard of a dwarven wizard before, and I was wondering what inspired you to follow that path."
Both the silence that followed his question and the strange gleam in the dwarf's eyes convinced Cray that he'd intruded into what probably was a very private matter for the other man. A few seconds later, the dwarf sighed and sat down beside the younger man to tell his story.
"According to dwarven lore," he started, "the eldest sons have to follow in their father's footsteps and do what he has done all his life. The younger children, third or fourth sons, daughters as well, can usually do just about everything they want - as long as it is a respected occupation."
Scooping a handfull of small pebbles into his left hand, Virr rolled them against eachother and waited as if the rocks could tell him what he should've done all those years ago.
"Magic and wizardry are definitely not an honored or even accepted way of life for dwarves." he suddenly continued, throwing one of the pebbles across the water,
"And even less well thought of as the choice of a chieftan's son, youngest or not. When I told my father what I'd decided to do with my life, he just turned his back and never talked to me again."

Following the dwarf wizard's example, Cray picked up some pebbles as well and sent them arcing over the water one after the other. "He must've changed his mind later on," the warrior hypothesized, "or they wouldn't have sent Greiss to you." Both men turned to watch the second dwarf, whose snoring could easily be heard where they were sitting by the river. Cray knew from experience that appearances could be very deceiving, but he doubted that the grumpy Greiss could fake such a rumbling sound well enough to fool him.

Smiling at his nephew's ability to relax in even the most dangerous situations, Virr scratched at something in his beard and continued his story. "I doubt my father even knows Greiss is here." he grunted, "My brother probably didn't tell him - although he doesn't agree with the old man very often either. Greiss' father is the only one of my family who speaks to me these days, but he's carefull to make sure nobody else knows about it. As long as there's even the slightest possibility that he could take our father's place as chieftan, he'll make sure to present himself as the most loyal of sons you could imagine. Greiss had shamed him a couple of times in the past, so sending him away to mature a bit was the logical thing to do. Unlike me, my nephew will be allowed to return to our mountain in a few decades."

Surprised that a dwarf, any dwarf, had agreed to tell a human as much about himself as Virr had just done, Cray wondered if he dared to push his companion even further. Rubbing his hands together to rid them of the dust from the pebbles, he bet on the assumption that Virr's estimate of the dangers ahead had convinced him to trust the human.
"Why magic ?" he finally whispered, unsure whether the other had heard him or not.
"Hard to say." the dwarf shrugged, which actually made his short upper body look quite funny. "I remember accompanying my father on an inspection through the mines, and how it felt when I held a power crystal for the very first time. When I talked to my brothers about it later, none of them had felt anything like it, which convinced me that I was special. As the years passed, however, I became drawn to the crystals more and more often. In my heart, there was no doubt that the magic was calling to me, and that I would have to follow its call."
"Seems you were right in doing so." Cray concluded, "The wizards took you in as an apprentice, and clearly believed in you enough to teach you all they knew." The look in Virr's eyes as he turned his head towards the warrior, made it clear he didn't know if Cray was mocking him or not. The young human quickly understood what a mistake he'd just made, and answered his friend with a very convincing look of surprise and guilt - disarming the potentially hazardous moment in the nick of time.
"Polite they were," the dwarf hissed, but apparantly more at the men he was thinking about than at Cray, "but I always got the feeling they saw me as some sort of grand experiment. Judging by their reactions when I got something right, they never expected me to amount to anything, and probably only agreed to have me in order to prove dwarves aren't fit to be wizards."
"Which is why you left ?" Cray assumed. Behind him, the warrior heard the other dwarf rise from his bedroll, or at least guessed that was the essence of all the grunting and cursing. Tabrah would warn him if anything else happened, he knew, and thus chose to keep his attention focussed on Virr.
"It is." the green-clad sorcerer nodded, "Maybe not everything they did or said was meant as a sign of their disapproval, but that was how it felt to me. I was starting to see or hear an accusation in every word, and even retaliated a couple of times too - which must've convinced my teachers they'd been right about me all along. After I'd left, I never expected to hear from any of them ever again. That is, untill the Lord Orolan contacted me and asked to help you."

Both men kept silent for a few minutes, reflecting on the things Virr'd just said. To the East, the sun was slowly rising over the Burrief Mountains, and added to the red glow that already coloured the sky to the West. Eyes wide, both companions immediately looked at eachother and saw that they'd come to the same sudden realisation. Cray got to his feet first and stormed back to the camp, Virr struggling to keep up with him.
"What's going on ?" the other dwarf yelled, nearly getting knocked over by the human on his way across their camp. "That scarlet glow in the sky ..." Virr puffed when he finally reached his nephew, "it's not the sun rising. Something's burning on the other side of the mountains. Something big, and it feels like bad magic."

Drawing his huge, two-handed sword from its scabbard, Cray urged his griffin to kneel down and turned to the two dwarves. "Like it or not," he said to his mount, "but it seems you'll have to carry all three of us this time." Virr, at the same time, was pushing a less than enthousiastic Greiss forward, and picked up his own dagger on the way. Neither of them liked the idea of being crowded together as a single target, but it seemed the only way to get them to the action in time to do something - if they could.

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