Chapter XXV

North-Men

The following evening, after the group had come up and each sworn their oaths in front of Fierhand and the entire throne room as a whole. After which Vernon found himself sitting next to the king as they ate that evening.

“My son tells me you lost one of your members on the road between here and Bergskort.” Fierhand said looking up at the butler who tensed slightly before relaxing himself and answering.

“Yes. About a day’s ride from here.” Vernon replied, deciding in that moment to just tell the king the truth, whether he wanted to hear it or not. “We were attacked on the road, and by the time the battle was over we could not find him.” The butler finished, the look on Fierhand’s face said it all, whilst he had been told about the kidnapping, no mention of an attack had reached his ears.

“What battle?!” Fierhand asked angrily, wondering why he had not heard about this, as well as starting to think about what else his advisors were hiding from him.

“We were attacked on the road, almost four days ago now, my younger brother was told to hide in the woods, but when the battle was over, we lost him.” Nick added, the lad had accepted the kings request to sit next to him, turning to the boy, his amber eyes glowing with anger at this news. He nodded and then answered.

“We’ll get the bastards, don’t worry about that.” Fierhand said, and whilst Nick wasn’t entirely convinced on that fact, he tried to not let it show. The king decided that it would be a good idea to change the subject, as to keep his guests’ thoughts away from their recent traumatic events. “Another for my young imperial friend!” Fierhand shouted at nobody in particular, as Nick finished downing his fourth tankard. As a fresh mug appears, which Nick happily took, despite the looks on both Vernon and Codsworth faces. After a few seconds of gulping the nine-year-old slammed the mug back down on the table to the delight of Fierhand and the dwarves.

“Done.” Nick said simply as he looked for another cup.

“We’ll make a dwarf out of you yet lad.” Fierhand said, looking pleased and slightly shocked at how much the kid could down, without seeming to get any of the side effects.

As the evening wore on into the small hours of the morning, Fierhand looked around and called forward Fikraek, a red-haired dwarf and commander of his garrison here in the mountain, forward to talk to him in relative privacy.

“Tomorrow you are to take four squads out and head for Derwell and pick up where my son and this group left of there search. I want these kidnappers found and brought to me on their knees.” Fierhand said, with some of his old ferocity coming out inadvertently, Fikraek nodded and headed out of the room. As he did so, Fierhand returned to celebration and began thinking about what he was going to do with these people who had kidnapped several of his subjects.

That night whilst the group lay asleep Dmitri was wide awake, an empty bottle in his hand. He had brought it back from the celebration and had finished it here. Despite his exhaustion, he couldn’t sleep, the right side of his body was burning, which is why he had taken the bottle and excused himself in the first place.

As he lay down in his bed and tried to doze off, it took him a while to notice the dark figure watching him from the corner, he thought it was just a hallucination brought on by the drink, that was at least until it spoke to him.

“Dmitri.” The figure said and the captain shot up with a start, looking around for the cause of the sound. He then spotted it, a dark shape in the corner of his room, but before he could raise his voice in answer, the figure faded away. Leaving him to wonder whether he had dreamed it or not. Whilst promising himself, not to mention it to the rest of the group, as they already had big things to worry about, and didn’t need the question of him losing his mind adding to it.

Two days had gone by since the group had arrived at the mountain, and they were already starting to settle in, it wasn’t easy to say the least as the dwarves had their own schedule that they worked to and didn’t like anyone disrupting it. That became apparent when Codsworth had almost fallen out with a guard at the main gate, as he prepared to go out on the hunt for Martin and the guard had tried to deny him, at least until the king’s men had done their own search. The conversation had certainly escalated quickly, and the tempers were only cooled when Doraghek managed to intervene.

Despite this way of life however, they were benefiting from the dwarves massively, and in no one was that more apparent, than in Dmitri. The day after their arrival, the former captain had been asked to come down to the medical wing. Initially confused, he had been told that they would be making him a prosthetic leg, so that he could be off more use to both the mountain, and more importantly the group. As he found himself volunteering to ride out with the group of riders bound for the sight of the kidnapping.

As he walked into what he was quick to call the holding area, he found Codsworth and Vernon at each other’s throats once more. He immediately knew what the two were arguing about and chose to place himself between the pair.

“Listen, we all want the same thing here.” Dmitri said as soon as he was able to get a word in edge way. That at least seemed to calm Codsworth down, Vernon however, he knew would take some more effort. “Vernon, what happened out on the road was nobody’s fault, and this group tearing itself apart is not going to help get Martin back, understand.” Dmitri finished; he only got a curt nod as the butler walked off.

“You riding out?” Codsworth said as he observed Dmitri walk towards his horse.

“Got to road test this leg sooner or later.” Dmitri said, not turning around until he had got onto the much happier horse. It felt so good to feel useful again.

“Well good hunting sir.” Codsworth said as he turned away to return to the quarters, he would get a full debrief from Doraghek when they got back, but he didn’t need to if he was being honest with himself. The odds of this search party finding anything was even less than the several that had gone before it, which in hindsight, was not the best thing to have say to the old butler.

As Dmitri rode out through the steel gates, for the first time not being made to feel like a waste of space and resources. It took longer than he had expected to get used to the new leg, as he rode, he found it hard not to inadvertently kick the horse in the side making the beast slow down or speed up in response. But eventually he got the hang of it, whilst silently wondering to himself how Alan had managed to live with a prosthetic for all that time. There was one thing that had concerned him however, so far, the blackened skin had been confined to his leg, and part of his hip. But things had changed, or rather advanced. The whole right side of his torso, had turned black, reaching to his right-hand wrist. He had almost thrown up when he had looked down and seen it. Which is why he wore the thick but more importantly, long sleaved clothes, despite the warmth of the early summer’s day.

By the time that Doraghek caught up with Dmitri, the captain having rode up to the head of the group, in attempt to avoid the questions of the dwarf. He assumed that Doraghek would want him to recall his knowledge. He was after all, a valuable source of information on the matter that they were hopelessly equipped to carry out. He wondered why these people didn’t get why he wasn’t speaking about it. Why he had been so vague in his answers so far. But inevitably Doraghek caught up with him and began his questions.

“What is going to happen to these kids, if your experience has taught you anything about these events? What can we expect when and if we find them?” Doraghek asked looking up at Dmitri, whose face drained of colour as the dwarf was speaking, giving him the answer that he needed.

It had been a long time since Dmitri had thought back to the days of his ruined childhood, not since his believed victory over his past. Only he hadn’t won and had tried his hardest to put those thoughts away, as to accept them back. but it seemed the best time now that they were out looking for a similar, if not the same group of bastards.

“Doraghek I wasn’t freed by an outside force. I had to escape, which I did, but in a way I never did.” Dmitri started as he forced himself to face his dark past. “When I got out, I found every relative I had was dead, or incapable of raising me. I had nobody, only the pain and the suffering. So, I tried to take my own life, the first of many failed attempts. Compared to what happened to me before my escape, my numerous failed attempts to kill myself seem like a blissful dream.” He continued as he turned to Doraghek. “You don’t want to know what they will most likely be doing to these kids, it will cause you not to be able to sleep for months.” Dmitri finished as they crest a nearby rise in the terrain.

“The truth always does my southern friend. But I need to hear it.” Doraghek said as the two continued to ride on towards the forest. For a moment he thinks that Dmitri would refuse to answer his question, and in truth he wouldn’t blame him for that. Until the captain begins to speak again.

“They will be trained. Trained to serve, trained to become the next generation of the organisation. But not before they have every prior thought of their family, their friends and homes before; burnt, drowned and beaten out of them.” Dmitri said, a gritty tone rising as he spoke towards the end. Doraghek only sat in the saddle in silence listening to this man relive his past. But he wasn’t done, not by a long shot. “Let me put it to you this way. If we don’t find them before they have been used up. I can only hope that they get a quick death, because living with what these kinds of people do to you, well. Is far worse.” Dmitri said hollowly.

This was the moment when the dwarf finally realised what he was asking about, and mercifully decided to back off the subject, Dmitri was grateful for that at least. He had no intention to spend even a second more thinking about his past, not that he had many of those left either. He mopped the sweat of his brow and, as he did so, the sleave rolled down his arm, showing the blackened crusty skin that was starting to show on his arm. He quickly rolled up the sleave and looked around, but nobody happened to have been facing him at the time. He had only been partly right on that one, as one had noticed it.

Doraghek did not say anything, but he had seen. Although he doubted that anybody else had, which he thought was very much fortunate. He pushed the thought and the sight of the arm to the back of his mind however, as they rode into the sight of the kidnapping.

“How was Dmitri out there?” Codsworth asked, wanting to know how his friend had gotten on out in the wilderness for the first time, he had also overheard the former captain briefly speaking with the king on his first night here, but they had had little time to get into much detail, as Dmitri had retired earlier on. Plus, he wanted to hear it from someone neutral, and the prince was the only one that he trusted to give him straight answers.

“He talked a great deal about his recovery. Lots of mentions of "bouncing back".” Doraghek said looking up at the commander, as he knew a false statement whenever he saw one. It wasn’t as if he was being lied to. He chose not however to discuss Dmitri’s past, either commander knew, or he didn’t. But Dmitri certainly didn’t tell him the whole truth. “Which always makes one fear the worst.” Doraghek continued as he took a bite of his meal. “Not to mention the clothing. I know it’s cold up here, but only a madman would completely cover up in this weather.” Doraghek said as he sat down

“Poor sod.” Codsworth replied, the weather had been getting steadily warmer, even he had noticed it. Not that it concerned him, but there was talk that this warm summer would mean an even colder winter than before.

“It's Lupusvenenum. A bloody strong case of it as well. Isn’t it?” Doraghek said, it wasn’t a question, it was a statement, the dwarf had been able to spot it when Dmitri had gone to mop the sweat of his brow and had shown, just for a second, the blackened skin on his wrist

“What?” Codsworth said, he had hoped that they would be able to keep this news in house for as long as possible. “Who else knows?” Codsworth said, whilst the disease that Dmitri carried was not transmissible through anything other than biting the victim, that didn’t stop the commander from worrying about how the people of the mountain would react to one of their group being a plague bearer.

“No one. Least of all my father.” Doraghek replied, that was for the best, whilst he doubted that the king would do anything about it. It would certainly give his cowardly advisors all the excuse that they needed to turn the mountain’s population against them.

“So, you know he's dying?” Codsworth asked, as he took another bite of his meal, wondering what else the dwarf knew about the group just from observing them.

“We're all dying Codsworth. That's what defines the condition of living.” Doraghek replied calmly as he took a gulp of ale and continued. “Will he die tomorrow? No.” The dwarf continued on. “But the day after tomorrow? And the day after that?” Doraghek asked and shrugged before returning to main business as hand, he knew that whilst the commander and the old man were the arguing, that Dmitri was a force of stability in the group, or at least that is what both Dave and Nick had told him during the celebrations and what he had observed this morning. “Your group needs to be led by someone strong.” Doraghek finished as Codsworth looked up indignantly.

“Well, I'm strong!” Codsworth said as he put down his food.

“You are also tired, my friend. I see it in your eyes. And a situation like that would require enormous amount of energy.” Doraghek said, gesturing for the commander to continue eating. He seemed to have touched a nerve there and wanted to avoid any kind of powerlines.