Book 6: Chapter 35 - A Clash of Cultures (RAW)

One should not drink poison to quench thirst.

- Unknown.

The warrior-woman Cordelia came to me as I finished a breakfast of oat pancakes with a rare finger of honey shining on the top. My servants had also managed a pan of stewed apples. Steam curled from my cup; Estaza had brewed a strong, bitter tea that smelled faintly of smoke. I ate slowly, savoring what passed for luxury in a marching camp. The sweetness lingered on the tongue, a reminder that life still held small mercies.

“Good morning, Lord Gilgamesh. I hope this day finds you well,” she greeted me, hands together as she half-bowed.

Quiet Estaza mirrored the bow and moved to offer Cordelia some of the morning’s tea. Cordelia smiled and declined with a small wave. Estaza, hair hastily pinned and sleeves rolled, hovered near my shoulder until I set the empty plate aside.

I rose and gestured to the two sisters. Saranae and Marimae stepped in with the easy choreography. I spread my arms and let them entomb me in a suit of invincible metal.

First came my under-armor, made from the exotic substances from this world’s ancient past, tugged straight and tied at the points with deft, pale fingers. I had tested it, and it made for good protection in its own right, the “fabric” hardening at points of impact.

Saranae, the elder and more exacting of the two, set a black gorget to my throat. Marimae worked quicker, buckling the cuisses at my thighs and the greaves to my shins, her tied hair swinging like a white-silver rope when she leaned. They spoke little, the soft clink of buckles, the sigh of leather, the dull ring as pauldrons seated on the pins of the breast louder than their words. The Adamantine plate, black as ebon, and trimmed with gold, came together piece by piece: breast and back, fauld and tassets, couters and vambraces, sabatons that swallowed my boots. Its weight settled about me, and I could not help but feel a certain sense of completion. 

“A good morning to you, Cordelia,” I said as the sisters each cinched another strap. “What brings you here? We are to meet with the Dwarves of Bronzegate Hold shortly.”

“Just so… I wished to share some words with you. Lord Herald, know that not all of the men share Lord de Savant’s lack of faith in the Goddess. Many of them, seeing your example, have been drawn closer to faith’s light,” Cordelia told me, her voice filled with the truth of it.

I turned my head to her. “What do you mean by this?”

“I am saying that you should do what you must, and need not fear being held back by worldly concerns. Your actions have been ordained. All of them.”

“And were I to slaughter innocent women and children by the score? Would Avaria allow it?” I snorted.

“There has been worse—yes, and for less,” she said. “Those were sins without purpose. What you name slaughter is judgment, the knife that pares rot from the fruit. The Goddess’s will, no more and no less. Perhaps she has seen the offense they would one day commit, or the stain that waits in their children’s children. We are small things, blind to the designs of the Divine. You are her hand, Lord Herald; the right of it is yours.” Her eyes were winter-hard, blue as glacier ice. “You cannot do wrong.”

So this was where the road of religion ended: a faith deep enough to wash any sin clean. It forgave anything. It would suffer anything. The perfect zealot—blind, and glad of it. In Cordelia’s eyes, I held a blank warrant, sealed by her Goddess; whatever I willed, I might do.

Yet in this world, unlike the one I left, faith had weight you could feel. For those who truly believed, it paid well. I had only to study Cordelia’s face—oval, faultless, untouched by sun or years—to know it. Her Goddess held her fast, preserved and unmarred, unweathered and unwithering.

Still, I would have preferred a world without their corruptive influence.

“I will keep this in mind,” I said, flexing my fingers in the gauntlets while Saranae checked the strap under my arm and Marimae tugged the fauld so it sat right on my hips.

Cordelia waited, patient as the stone in the river. Estaza made a show of tidying—lifting the same brush, refolding the same cloth—circling about the tent like a nervous moth. It was almost endearing. What we had was no longer purely transactional—well, a little less so, or so I chose to believe for the moment. I suspected she reported to Damien; so long as she kept my nights from the cold, I found I did not much care.

When the last strap was set, I stood in the full panoply of war. I thanked the sisters and stepped out with Cordelia. The sun was bright, obnoxiously so, over the camp; I raised an armored hand to shade my eyes.

The Dwarven delegation had come—seven of them, stout as anvils and twice as finished. Beards long and oiled, braided through bronze rings graven with mountain-runes. They wore a Lord’s wealth: mail mantles under close-fitted plates; scale hauberks lacquered soot-black and ember-red; faulds laced with exotic hide. Unknown heraldry—hammer and gate, pick and sunburst—was emblazoned onto the metal and gleamed. Their hobnailed boots bit into the red earth, and at their belts hung bearded axes with wedge-broad blades and fine grips, square-faced hammers with cruel rear picks. A few bore compact and ornate arbalests slung at the shoulder.

Their leader was broad even for his kind, a squat tower with a heavy helm cradled in his hands—high-domed, wide-rimmed, crowned in bronze spikes. I judged that he would barely come up to my shoulder, and I am not a tall man. His heavy gauntlets had ridged knuckle-plates fit for breaking teeth. The leader’s faceplate was raised, and he had, as expected, a fearsome expression. Hard and craggy, like the mountains around us.

They were already at it, exchanging words with Damien. Their helm-crests bobbed, fingers jabbing the air to reckon some tally no one spoke aloud.

I went to them, unhurried, deliberate. Sure in myself.

“I assure Earl Horothric, this was an unfortunate misunderstanding,” Damien said, his voice smooth and reassuring. “My men were attacked in the middle of the night and only defended themselves. What reason have we to pursue aggression and violence against you? And it is we who were invited here by your Elders.”

“Manling, who knows the way of your kind,” rumbled Horothric. His voice was taut, trembling where anger pressed at it. “I have seen worse and stranger in my youth when I fought in your lands. And as for your appeal to Guest Right—we have broken no bread with you, nor offered you the shelter of our Hearth.”

“Damien speaks the truth. I was there when the Dwarves attacked,” I said, letting the words fall like a hammer onto an anvil.

Cordelia moved up beside me and bowed with a dancer’s poise despite the weight of her plates. “I am bearer of one of the Blades of the Goddess,” she said, drawing her sword. Pale light skimmed the naked edge. The Dwarves leaned closer despite themselves, eyes catching the glimmer as if a long-lost child had stirred and called their names. “And I can speak only the truth. For truth is the bedrock upon which Justice stands. Gilgamesh speaks true.”

They came nearer in that rolling, deliberate gait of theirs, ill-proportioned legs churning. Greed pricked the corners of their eyes at the revelation that was the blade.

“Aye,” admitted a red-bearded Dwarf, giving a reluctant shake of the head. “This be an Old Weapon.”

Horothric’s face did not soften.

“I believe compensation is in order for the attack on my men,” Damien slid in, voice like honey. Poisoned like Timekeeper Knot.

“Gah—Manling, perhaps we own the fault o’ the strike,” growled a Dwarf with a scar bisecting one eye, his fists bunched at his sides. “But what o’ the desecration of our dead? We seek redress and coin for that.”

“Peace, Thatim Brook,” Horothric cut across him. “By the laws of this land, we must settle it.”

“The Dwarven laws lay no claim to the surface,” Cordelia replied, cool as glacier’s meltwater. “Only to the bones of Mother Earth.”

“Pretty Blade-Bearer, you would quibble so?” Horothric’s disdain came off him like heat from a forge. “If that be your respect, then leave these lands. Your contract with us is annulled.”

“You would dare the ire of the Guild, Earl Horothric?” Damien’s eyes flashed with the firelight. “I will carry this to them, and a Flight of Dragons will be on your Hold.”

“Dragons?” Horothric snorted. “Bring true Dragons and I’ll be afeared. But ten thousand men won’t threaten my Hold. We have broken your armies before, and we can break them again. A good bit of fighting will toughen up the younger Dwarves. We called you for that which inconveniences us,” he added, laughter scraped thin and bitter. “For work beneath an honest Dwarf.”

Manling this. Manling that. And they spoke over me as if I were nothing. It rankled.

“Then I submit to your pathetic laws. I slew them all and they died like mewling children,” I said softly. The wind took the smoke; the words stayed. They all went still. “But I will make my own defense. And know this, your dead care nothing for their remains once they have crossed the Shallow River.”

“So you admit fault to this? Then the price for such a crime is beyond you, Manling,” Horothric said, glowering. 

“I have wealth enough in Mithril to buy your beard,” I answered, letting the scorn ride my tongue. “But I choose not to. I will defend myself with a weapon drawn.”

“Wait a moment, Gilgamesh!” Damien lifted a hand. “Their Trial by—”

“You heard the lad!” Horothric barked, sudden mirth breaking through. “He’s for the blood price. Those conditions will settle the honor of the Earth. And should you lose, Manling, I’ll have your ‘Scale’—or whatever you call it—share in your fate.”

The others wore the bright, mean gleam of boys who’ve found a smaller child to trip in the dust.

I sneered down at them. “The Goddess is with me. Justice is my ally. I will follow your laws by choice, and by choice I will teach you righteousness. I will prove my innocence in blood in the blood of whoever you think is worthy to face me as I tear them apart limb from limb.”

Something eased in Damien then, the grim arithmetic in his eyes changing its sums. I had taken the blame solely onto my shoulders. To many, it would have looked like a heroic sacrifice.

In truth, I only wished to taste more dwarven death.

“Manling,” said the red-beard, “you’re a fool. You don’t even ken how Trial of Combat is fought. No one’s ever proved innocent. It’s a quicker end for the condemned, that’s all—an end with a scrap of honor.”

“Then it is not justice,” I spat. “And I spit on it. By the glory of my deeds, I will show you what you and your ways, your whole society, are less than nothing.” I removed my helm and let the mountain wind rake my hair. I laughed. “Primitive barbarians.”

They blinked at that, confused and stung. On the other hand, Cordelia looked on at me with a pride that trembled with devotion.

“You’re young for a Manling,” Horothric said at last. His mailed fist tightened on the haft of his weapon. “There’s a sickness in you, plain to see. Were I a Rune Arbiter, I’d strike you down now. Moon-mad.”

“Then come,” I invited, taking a step into the space between us, a cruel smile on my lips. “All of you. Take your satisfaction here and now, and I will do to you what I did to those others. Only slower, for the insult and the time you have wasted. For the air that you breathe.” 

They quivered, containing themselves by inches. Barely. It was a shame. 

“I will play by your little laws only because they grant me a cleaner field on which to prove the superiority of my race,” I went on, twisting the knife. “To rip away that mask of yours and show you what you are. Insignificant and lesser.”

When you had slain monsters, little men from a fairy tale held little sport.

I slammed the helm back onto my head and pointed up toward Bronzegate. “Now lead me. Bring whatever champion you like, however many you like. Let us end this farce.”

New Quest: Prove your Innocence in a Trial by Blood Iron.

Then I laughed. Deep, from the pit of me it came, and every face turned. I was Moon-mad with joy.