THE STONE KING -- book two of The Chronicles of the First Age

Chapter Seven

"Try it!"

Garanth sipped it, noticing she didn't seem to be too choosy with her food. He liked the spicy flavor the roots gave it though he eyed the chewy mushrooms with suspicion.

Time became strangely suspended in that shadowy subterranean banquet hall. Though the dwerka had ways of telling time without the sun, Garanth kept wondering about the lateness of the hour. He started nodding over his plate before the last course was taken up and the hosts bade everyone a goodnight.

The next day, they inspected the training grounds and watched the maccari train with the new weapon. Torkin came to collect Garanth for the training but Garanth made a point of catching Corha before he left. "I need a favor," he said.

"Certainly. What do you need?"

"I need you to come get me if Karux tries to sneak off to visit the seat of power."

Corha stared thoughtfully across the grounds at Karux who was talking to the instructors. "Do you think he'd do that? Sneak off?"

"Yes. He doesn't want anyone to know about the seat of power. He may well sneak off and tell no one, not even his students. So keep an eye on him and let me know if he does."

"I will, if I possibly can."

Garanth spent the rest of the day training with the maccari using the sword and shield. The dwerka preferred spears, but the angorym would often send the drwg, giant wolf-like creatures, into the tunnels to hunt them down and break up any organized resistance. To fight them, the dwerka had developed a fighting technique very similar to the sword and shield technique they were teaching the men, though obviously their weapons were scaled to their size. The dwerka had found the shorter weapons more useful in tighter spaces than spears, especially when it came to close in fighting.

Standing shoulder to shoulder with his fellow trainees, the maccari were taught to form a wall of shields. When the formations were broken up, they were taught to pivot and regroup, coalescing to form hard knots of resistance. And even in that divided state, the dwerka insisted they continue to work together, each unit supporting the others like the left and right hands of a boxer.

After a day of grueling training, Garanth didn't much care if Karux decided to seek the seat of power or not. He was convinced that the dwerka had taken advantage of the lack of sun to work them longer than a normal day. Fortunately the dwerka fed them well, real food to help them recover their strength and not the strange stuff the dwerka ate. Garanth collapsed on his sleeping pallet and fell into an immediate and dreamless sleep only to be awakened for more brutal training the next day.

He managed to catch Harkin on the way out and learned that Karux planned to visit the smithies that day and see how the weapons production was doing. Assuming it wasn't a ruse, Garanth threw himself into the training and promptly forgot about the seat of power. The dwerkan trainers took an interest in him and soon he, and a handful of others who had shown leadership potential, were directing groups of maccari back and forth, responding to numerous simulated emergencies and enemies. Again, at the end of the "day" he fell onto his pallet and into a dreamless sleep.

Awakened far too early to account for a full night's sleep, Garanth staggered to his feet and stumbled to the common area. He ate a quick morning breakfast of sausage, bread, cheese and had a hot bowl of chaia. His body ached all over and he was so exhausted from lack of sleep that he failed to notice that Corha had entered the room until she called his name.

"Garanth?"

He looked up from his bowl and focused on Corha. "Yes?"

With a quick glance over her shoulder, she spoke in a near whisper. "Karux has asked us to meet together this morning outside the transport master's office and to come prepared to travel."