Reunion

That evening found the members of Wefpub halfway up the ridge that circled around Crystal Lake, and pulling into the small village of Highpoint. Well before they could make out the details of the city, the wall of mountain that formed the backdrop for this rustic city overshadowed them. Ace squinted his tired eyes against the dimming of the setting sun. "What's wrong with the trees on that there mountain?" he asked in his gruff voice.

  "Have you forgotten the blue spruces of Highpoint, Ace?" Gerrod asked.

  He nodded in sudden recollection.

  One of the more unusual scenic highlights of the King's Highway was this blanket of brilliant blue spruce trees that draped a curtain behind the tall walls of Highpoint. Normally an evergreen, the blue spruce trees of this mountainside turned an unusual, vibrant blue color in the fall, as all the other trees turned their familiar golds and reds. The setting sun caught the outermost tips of the branches, illuminating the needles. They exploded into a marvelous display of bright blue. This awesome sight inspired Gerrod into a prayer to Mya, thanking her for the amazing beauty of nature and the world around him. While it had been quite some time for either Ace or him to make it this far north, it was a sight Gerrod remembered well, and had always looked forward to.

  Those tall walls kept the city of Highpoint from tumbling over the edge of the mountain as much as the creatures of the wild out. Behind those walls, they met their first bit of civilization since leaving Oswegonia, over a week before. Highpoint was best known for its iron smelting facility, which dominated the entire eastern half of the large village. In a single, mammoth building, longer than a dozen giants lying head to toe, tons of iron ore were transformed into ingots of strong metal. This steel was crafted into tools and wares of all sorts. Traders from Oswegonia hauled the ore in on huge wagons. These same traders to cities all over Carrona, then shipped the new ingots of very pure, high-quality steel.

  Besides this excellent steel, Highpoint was also well renowned for its fine inns and other hospitalities. It took the humans who worked the smelters a week to completely process the large shipments of the rich ore. During that time, the wealthy merchants were invited to spend their great profits on entertainment and high living. Much to Ace's pleasure, Highpoint was a gambling town.

  Gerrod informed Star that they would be staying in the city. They would probably be leaving by the northern gate; it was the only other gate in the massive city walls. The army would have to continue on the King's Highway in that direction. He always hated to leave his friend alone, but knew that Star would be much more comfortable out roaming the woods than on the city streets. Actually, if it wasn't to guard Corinna better, Gerrod would have stayed out with Star under the friendly clear sky and twinkling stars.

  While the ranger hated the city too, he had to keep an eye on his friends. Ace wouldn't be much help guarding anyone, especially after he reached the gaming tables. So with a warm, heartfelt hug and a scratch behind the ear, Gerrod bid farewell to Star outside the gates. He watched longingly as the wolf bounded off into the woods, to spend the night chasing rabbits and dreaming of warm summer days. After a few moments of staring into the new-fallen darkness, Gerrod joined his friends. They walked through the tall stockade fence walls, and into the village of Highpoint.

  Despite the large number of King's Guard, whose bright gold and red crescent helmets could be seen everywhere, they managed to find two rooms in a cozy but huge inn. As typical, Ace studied the establishment. He not only got a bearing on the layout and defensibility of the place, but also judged the way the business was run. He was always on the look out for new ideas for Wefpub. However, they no sooner got checked into their rooms, than Ace dropped everything and headed for the gambling tables.

  "Aren't you going to clean up or at least eat first?" Gerrod asked the anxious old dwarf. Ace was more excited than Gerrod had seen him in a long time.

  "Wish I could," he said with a grin that stretched from ear to ear, "but there's tables waitin' for me. Cards to be dealt, chips to be laid, and hands to be played. I'm afraid I'll be up half the night."

  "Don't forget to get your rest. I doubt if the Guard is going to sit in this town for too long."

  "Don't you be worrying 'bout me. I've been in need of a vacation, and this is as good of one I can think of. I'll be cleaning up the tables, taking this place for more than one free meal, and be fully rested in the morning before you get out of bed."

  "Well have fun, Ace. I'll be seeing you in the morn. Good luck!"

  By the time he wished him good luck, Ace was out the door and half way to the closest casino.

  Gerrod knew there would be no stopping him, and he was right -- he did deserve a good vacation. Ace would certainly be living up to his name that night.

  Ace and Gerrod checked into one room, while Corinna was alone in the room next to them. Though there was little need to worry, they made sure there was an adjoining door, just in case.

  Their room was comfortable. It was modestly furnished with two soft beds dressed in fine linen sheets, a washstand with a marble basin built in, and a pump for fresh indoor water. There was even a separate room with a toilet basin. There was a small fireplace built into the wall, and the curtains on the windows matched the fine bed covers. Under the bed covers were thick downy pillows and warm quilts and blankets, ready to accept Gerrod's road-weary body.

  The wafting of sweet aromas reminded Gerrod of the pangs in his empty stomach. Gerrod envisioned before him a feast fit for a king. There was only so much of the dried and salt-cured meats, hard cheeses, and stale, unleavened biscuits that had served as their road rations these past many days, that a man could take. He pictured thick, juicy venison steaks and potatoes, fresh vegetables, soft, butter-swamped bread, and flagons of good ale. To top it all off, he would have hot apple pudding cake, served with a rich and creamy honey-based sauce. His mouth watered in anticipation. His stomach gurgled in agreement.

  Gerrod knocked at the door between the two rooms. After a bit, Corinna opened it, but only wide enough to stick her head through.

  "I was wondering if you'd like to join me for the evening meal. My stomach is about to leave me if it doesn't get a venison steak right now."

  Corinna seemed a bit pre-occupied. She kept looking back into her room, and trying to close the door behind her as if she was hiding something there she didn't want him to see. "Uh," she stammered. Corinna, her life so dedicated to the casting of spells, rarely stammered her words. "I'll have to join you in a while. I was planning on taking a bath first," she explained.

  Casually, Gerrod drew in a deep breath through his nose, and the familiar scent of her bath oils confirmed her story. "Oh. Okay, then," he answered, deliberately sounding as disappointed as he was.

  "Well," she gave in to his pitiful display, "you go ahead, though," she quickly urged so as not to hurt his feelings. "I'll meet you in the dining room. I know the way you eat, Gerrod. You'll be on your fourth steak by the time I get there."

  "I'll save you a piece, then," he smiled.

  She returned with a nervous smile of her own and nothing more. She slipped into her room, again being careful not to open the door too wide. She shut the door firmly behind her. He heard the sliding of the dead bolt sealing it tight.

  Gerrod pondered this unusual secretiveness for about as long as it took him to reach the large common room of the inn, just off the front lobby. Corinna, in the mystery of her arts, was always doing weird things. After a while he'd just gotten used to it, he remembered. It had been a long time since he had traveled with her. Either he'd chosen to forget some of her unusual quirks, he decided, or else he'd been so engrossed in his love that he'd never noticed them before. Either way, there was a waitress leading him to a table, and venison steaks to be eaten. Corinna's business was not his concern any more, he reminded himself sadly.

  Gerrod slowed down between his third and fourth steaks, but Corinna never showed up. After his fifth and last serv
ing, he was concerned. Despite his arguing stomach, he forewent dessert, and returned to her room.

  He knocked on her locked door several times longer than he should have, and probably harder too, but there was no answer. With intentions of trying the adjoining room door, Gerrod returned to his own room. There was a note pinned on the door: "Sorry I couldn't join you at dinner. See you in the morning, Corinna."

  The night still young, and the room empty, Gerrod set out to find Ace. Even though he hadn't seen him in several hours, he had a very good idea where his friend was. After checking out only a couple of different casinos, he found him at the gaming tables. A large crowd gathered around him, and he knew Ace was winning.

  "Gerrod, my boy!" Ace greeted him loudly. Besides winning too much, he had been drinking too much. Ace was only that friendly when he was drunk. Piled in front of him was a heap of coins, mostly gold and platinum, and emptied steins, which he refused to have cleared from the cluttered table. "They bring me luck," he explained in a wavering voice.

  Ace always had a knack for poker. He guessed the cards in the deck as well as the hand of the dealer by the look on his face. If the dealer had two pair, Ace would find a three-of-a-kind. If the dealer had a straight, Ace would deal into a full house. If the dealer ever tried to bluff, Ace would call him on it every time, adding to the pot until he forced the dealer to fold.

  Everyone needs to find a niche in life. And in poker, Ace had found his. It was this talent, among others, that helped this street orphan out of the slums and into respected company. Ace never knew who his parents were, and though Gerrod knew it bothered him to no end, he held a good face about it.

  It was customary, when two dwarves meet, to ask, "Be ye stone or be ye metal?" for there was an endless feud between these two divisions. The wrong answer could start a battle to the death. Not knowing for sure, though he often shared a hope for the more traditional stone clans, Ace developed the diplomatic answer of, "I be a friend to you, that's for sure!" This simple response protected the honor of the one asking, and hadn't ever gotten Ace into trouble in the two hundred some odd years he had used it. When hard pressed, Ace would look into their eye and somehow pull out the right answer. It was just like knowing when the dealer was bluffing.

  Through his years, Ace had found the desire to work the stone, and he developed into a natural stone carver. He started his craft when he was but a young lad, orphaned and alone on the streets of Oswegonia's slums, where he was forced to steal what he needed.

  One day, he managed to come across one of the intricate carvings of the stone dwarves. Right then and there he felt the passion. Without any money, he stole a set of the fine, sharp tools used for the delicate work. He was chased around the entire Market Square. He eventually ducked into hiding, until the guards gave up their search.

  He picked up a stone from the streets, and began to carve. While his first pieces didn't particularly look like much, he practiced and practiced. By teaching himself and not learning by way of any of the traditional, established stone dwarven schools, Ace's style was as unique as he was. His materials, once he had the tools, were free, and he had more than enough time on his hands. His hours and days of carving, nestled safely in a corner to himself, kept him out of trouble and the hands of the guard.

  Eventually, Ace developed quite a large collection of remarkable pieces. He put an eye towards selling his new wares. However, selling anything in the Market Square, as with anything else in Oswegonia, required official papers. Children of the slums were not allowed papers of any kind. That was when Ace met a friend who knew of secret passages in and out of the city walls. This access let Ace travel outside the city whenever he wanted.

  Ace started to take his stone carvings outside the city, and sold them to the merchants as they neared the city gates. Since the Guard didn't allow selling outside the city like that either, he had to be careful. He even ran from the Guard several times.

  Eventually, Ace saved enough money to buy himself some papers. In Oswegonia, you needed papers for everything, and this tended to create a large underground market for official documents. In fact, if the Guard caught a person without the proper papers to identify themselves, they threw them into either the slums or the king's dungeon. If they ever wanted to get out of the slums, people had to buy their papers. These papers, especially on the black market, cost so much that few people in the slums would ever be able to afford them.

  Papers allowed people to leave the slums and enter the Market Square and the lower middle-income class section of Essex. This place was much nicer than the slums, and a lot safer too. The King's Guard patrolled the walls around the area, and through the streets. These guards weren't very effective, as they tried not to do anything more than they had to. Still, they enjoyed saving people under attack in the streets, if they could kill whomever it is attacking them. They did this more for fun and sport than for any sense of justice.

  Here, Ace started saving money all over again. Ace had seen the rich merchants with their fine clothes and eating their sumptuous meals. He had an eye toward living that rich life. He continued to carve and sell, until he could move up even another notch in the Oswegonian society, and into Tren.

  Ace had seen a lot over his many years, but once he reached the top, he never forgot where he came from. He made annual donations to help feed the poor in the slums. Since he never knew whether he was "of stone or metal," he thanked Moradin, god of all dwarves, for his talents that had gotten him out of the slums. Moradin smiled on him in return.

  So there was Ace, elbows deep in gold coins, and up to his eyeballs in empty steins. Gerrod stayed with him a while. Even though his card playing didn't falter, Ace became so drunk he barely knew Gerrod was there. They eventually closed down the table, under the direction of the casino bosses, and stumbled back to their room.

  Ace managed to last halfway up the stairs before passing out. Gerrod picked the thick dwarf up and carried him the rest of the way, plopping his wide body down on his bed. As Gerrod lay there in his own bed, listening to Ace's intoxicated snoring, he wondered about Star and how he was fairing this night. Knowing somehow that he was thinking of him, or maybe just by coincidence, he heard the faint but familiar howl of the wolf. Star was doing just fine. Gerrod fell asleep with a smile on his face.

  In the morning, a disturbance in the street awakened Gerrod. Above Ace's incessant snoring, he heard voices shouting below. He went to the window to see what was going on. Two familiar faces were in trouble on the street below. Five of the King's Guard surrounded his friends, and were giving them a hard time. Even though it had been a while, there was no mistaking Amanda and her bright blue robes, her holy vestments. A tall, female fighter accompanied her, whom he could only guess to be Allison. The guards encircled the pair, and it looked like there was going to be trouble. His immediate reaction of surprise and gladness to see the pair was quickly replaced by the urgency of the situation.

  Gerrod gave a yell and a shake to Ace. He was up on his feet and checking his gear with a start. He heard the commotion, and without asking questions, knew that his friends needed him. Gerrod pounded on the door to the adjoining room. After a pause, and not hearing anything from the other side, he pounded again, harder this time. Still no response from Corinna.

  "Leave it, boy!" Ace called out. "That's the girls down there. I'd recognize those hollers anywhere. Allison's 'bout ready to start a fight, and they'll be needing us."

  Gerrod tried the door one last time, but Corinna locked it on the other side. He grabbed Flicker from the bedpost, and strapped the weapon on as he went out of the room. Ace was all ready and holding the door. He had that alert, battle lust in his eyes, completely unaffected by his wild night on the town.

  When they hit the cobblestones, they could hear Allison and Amanda's prayers to Corellon Larethian being yelled out, despite the many jeers and jabs from the Guard. The five guards' bronze helms a
nd red crescents shone brightly in the early morning mist. They slowly began to spin their circle, a common, teasing maneuver they used when they clearly had the advantage in a fight. They used this spinning circle to confuse less experienced fighters, but Allison and Amanda were no novices.

  Their faith in their god so complete, neither Allison nor Amanda had drawn a weapon. Instead, they clutched their holy symbols in their hands. With eyes closed, their faces turned toward the sky. They stood back to back, as their only defensive maneuver. Their voices rang out loud and clear, rising above the mocking jeers, shattering the silence that was the early morning. Their prayers complete, Amanda opened her eyes to see Ace and Gerrod charging in. "Sister! Our prayers have been answered!" she cried, pulling out her mighty mace. In a blinding flash of movement, Allison drew out not one, but two long swords, and they were ready for battle.

  Caught unaware by the attack from outside their protective circle, one guard barely noticed the short Ace out of the corner of his eye. He suddenly found Ace's axe buried deep behind his right knee. He tried desperately to spin around, but without a knee to support him, he spun himself to the ground. The momentum of the great blade didn't slow. Ace brought it around quickly for the killing blow between the bright helmet and the shoulder. The force of the blow lopped his nearly decapitated head off to the side.

  Gerrod took on the guard next to Ace's. The guard had noticed the sudden fate of the man on his left. He swung around and was ready for Gerrod by the time he reached him. With the skilled training of the Guard, this man fought better than the unorganized orcs who had no understanding of tact in combat. His blade was up and ready to block the initial, anticipated attack. After a couple of other successful parries, he came back with a powerful swing. Even though Gerrod easily matched it with Flicker, the blow was so great that it forced Gerrod to catch himself, throwing his balance off.

  Gerrod moved away from the others, pulling his target off to the side when he came after him. He came in with another great swipe, and Gerrod blocked it again, leaning into the blow to stand against its strength. Flicker quivered in his tight grip.

  The forceful strike had kept the guard's advancing defenses open. Normally, his strong blow would have kept anyone from being able to strike before he could regain himself, but Gerrod had managed to withstand the blow better than most.

  "Sh-zot!" Gerrod called upon the command word. Not suspecting a magical sword, the guard's eyes grew wide at the glowing of the blade. His eyes stayed that way when, stunned, Flicker slipped through under his chest plate, and lit up his innards. With the horrified look frozen on his face, the guard dropped to the ground. Gerrod spoke the command word again, and the blade dimmed as he withdrew it from the body.

  Meanwhile, mace met steel as Amanda bellowed a cry to her god. It was an enormous voice coming from such a small body. The mace swung around from its parry, and smashed squarely into the side of the guard's head. There was a sickening thud as it smashed in, sloshing the guard's brain around the inside of his skull. If it wasn't for the quality of the red-crescent helm, his skull would have crushed right in.

  Surprisingly, more out of instinct than will, the guard still stood. He made a weak stab at Amanda, and even recovered enough to block another swing from the mace. Amanda feigned a strike high, drawing the guard's defenses up. With a strong-armed maneuver, she stopped the momentum of the heavy weapon, and reversed the direction of her swing, bringing it up low. Caught unaware, the man couldn't deflect the mace in time, and it pounded soundly into his groin. Doubled over in pain, the man bent down just in time to catch a second upward swing of the mace, full in the face. The studs on the heavy weapon left deep depressions molded into the human's face, an unrecognizable, bloody mass -- all bony structure shattered. With the force of the first blow knocking his brain in one direction, the jolting of this second shot was more than it could absorb, and he rolled over, dead.

  Perhaps the biggest surprise of this encounter was Allison. Since they had last seen her, she had obviously matured; not only in body, but also as a fighter. With two guards left, they both charged the dual-weaponed fighter. She wove the large, normally awkward blades in a lively pattern that left the two guards stumped. She easily blasted off their strikes, her defenses perfect. She had such rhythm and slick styling with the two blades, that it resembled a carefully choreographed dance. It was clear, just by watching her, that she had well mastered the art of fighting.

  She circled around her two opponents, keeping them from flanking her, all the while keeping them on the defensive. While her jabs and attacks were deadly, the guards easily deflected them. She clearly showed her control over her opponents by playing with them as they had proposed doing with her and her sister. While the pair of women certainly would not have faired well against five guards, Allison proved that it would take more than two of them to defeat her.

  Allison had a nasty grin on her face; she was enjoying this. She easily directed the two guards' every move. Every shift of their weight was a result of a purposeful move by her. They had no choice but to be her puppets, her twin blades being the strings that tugged them to her every whim.

  She alternated striking high and then low, first with the left and then the right one. Predictably, they bowed and straightened to match her every move, acting out a silly dance, keeping careful time with her swords.

  Finally, she moved the blades up and out in a crossed pattern, forcing her opponents' blades both high and to the outside. In a daring maneuver, she took advantage of their inability to regain control, and stepped between them. When she cleared to the other side of the men, she spun around and tapped them on the shoulder. Her grin widened as they turned to meet her, her blades being the quicker. With a flash in the early morning sun, her blades struck out, catching the startled men under their shining chest plates. The long straight blades pushed out the center of their backs. She withdrew the thin blades back out the way they came before the men hit the ground, dead.

  With the clamor of the fight attracting attention in front of the busy inn, it didn't leave much time to cite admiration. "I hope everyone has everything they want," Ace said. "I suggest we make our leave of this town, before their friends catch word of this."

  "What about Corinna?" Gerrod protested.

  "No time, boy," came Ace's reply, a bit harsher than usual. There was a marked irritation in his voice. It softened slightly, as if he reconsidered his abruptness. "She'll catch up to us. We'll just wait for these tin-heads outside the northern gate. I'm sure she'll meet up with us there."

  "Agreed. Let's get out of here," Allison and Amanda voted, looking about nervously.

  They made sure they got what they needed, and tried to walk away as quietly and innocently as possible. They left the carnage that was their short battle lying in the middle of the street. There was no sign of anyone else coming out the doors or on the streets. They hoped there would be no witnesses to identify them to the rest of the troops. It was only a matter of time before the rest of the King's Guard would find their dead comrades.

 

  Chapter 12

  Together Again