Chapter 15
Blackscales stared at his surroundings with an intense feeling of shock. He was used to seeing one or two people in a tavern at one time, which happened pretty often at his hometown, but the tavern was stuffed with people. All of the tables were completely occupied, and every chair had someone on top of it except for a few at the bar.
“Keep close to me,” Omen told him. “It appears that we’ll have to talk to the bartender to see if there’s an inn somewhere near or if this is it.”
Blackscales silently agreed and pressed close to him as they walked towards two empty stools, making him feel like a little child hiding behind his mother. He was relieved when they reached the seats, and three people on either side of them stood up to leave, giving them plenty of space. They began waiting for the bartender, but she seemed to play both bartender and waitress alone, making her very busy. Blackscales quickly grew impatient.
He huddled closer to Omen when he saw a dirty old man hobbling around to various people with a big bottle of alcohol in his left hand. He would occasionally pass by someone and put his arms around them before he started a big conversation with them, and slipped away when they were in mid-sentence. The rider turned away, but to his great displeasure, the man slowly mad his way over to them and did the same.
Blackscales felt a scraggly arm wrap around his waist, and the other dropped his bottle on the counter before repeating the action with Omen. He didn’t have to look at the man to know that he probably hadn’t bathed in weeks; a heavy scent of liquor, old meat, and rotting cheese hung around him as well as a thick stench of mud and various animals. The rider forced himself not to vomit all over the bar when he started to taste the nastiness.
“Name’s Bragg Randy, I was wonderin’ if yah would like ta tell me what yah got planned for yer visit in this here town, whatever it called,” the man said as he took his hand away from Omen, picked up his bottle, and took another swig.
He suddenly flung it across the bar, shattering against a table where a tough-looking man stood. Bragg Randy didn’t seem to care, just throwing his arm around Omen.
“Hey, can yah pass Randy a brandy?” He said to Omen.
The blacksmith glared at him and replied, “If you’re implying that I should buy you something to drink, I believe you’ve had quite enough.”
Bragg gave him a stern glare back when he slipped his hand away from him, and completely surrounded Blackscales. He repeated the question to him, but got a similar answer. With a big huff of despair, he left them alone again, making both of them sigh heavily in relief and admire the air that was beginning to grow breathable again.
“Some character,” Omen laughed.
Blackscales nodded and inhaled deeply, making the blacksmith laugh again. They both beamed with severe delight when the bartender walked up to them with a smile, though she appeared to be incredibly overwhelmed. Blackscales felt a little badly about disturbing her, but quickly decided that they desperately needed somewhere safe to stay and she was the only one that could help.
“What can I get for you boys?” She asked in the most pleasant tone she could muster, but her hair was jumping out of what probably used to be a neat little bun.
“Actually,” Omen began, “We really need a place to stay. We were hoping you could put us up, or at least knew someone who could. We also have six horses that need a bit of care for the night.”
She smiled a bit wider as she replied, “I’d be more than happy to help you out. How many rooms do you need? And as long as you get a room, your horses get to stay free.”
“Good deal, how much is a room?” Blackscales asked.
“About 50 silver for one bed, 75 for two,” she replied.
Blackscales leaned over and asked Omen, “How many beds do we need? I’m sure Aval would be fine sleeping on the floor, and so would I. We might be able to talk Autumn into it.”
“You’re the one with all of the money; you make the decision. Keep in mind that while I’m older than all of you, I’m still pretty young and would be more than happy to sleep on the floor in your place.”
“We’ll take one bed,” Blackscales told the woman, and she disappeared as she ducked to grab them a key.
“Can I see your money?” She asked politely, yet very slightly suspiciously as she popped back up.
Blackscales smiled and reached into his left pocket to find the 50 silver that he had in that pocket. He knit his brows together in confusion before thinking I must have put it in my right pocket with the other three gold I have on me. But as he reached into his right pocket, he found that one empty as well. He slammed his fist on the counter in fury before twisting in his seat and searching the tavern for his thief.
“Where’s Bragg Randy!?” He shouted, instantly realizing that that was the only possible conclusion to the loss of his money.
“I dunno what yer talkin’ ‘bout,” Bragg said from a shadowed doorway not far off as he mockingly flipped a coin that glimmered gold in the pale tavern light.
He had somehow gotten another bottle of booze, and evaded the man that he had chucked his previous bottle at. He chugged his entire bottle before smashing it against the door and instantly creating a pretty decent defensive weapon. Despite his prepared foe, Blackscales leapt up from his seat, the same as Omen.
The woman, he noticed, had her elbows on the counter and her face in her hands in a defeated-looking position. Blackscales ignored her and ran up to him, but was stopped in his tracks in surprise as he saw the crook throw his only weapon. Both the rider and blacksmith watched it go flying through the air, only to shatter against the back of someone’s head. They sighed in relief when they saw that the man turned around and was perfectly alright.
Their relief turned into immense fear when the man growled at them in anger and rubbed the back of his head. Blackscales turned around, only to see that Bragg Randy had disappeared, probably right out the door after he threw the bottle and all eyes were taken from him. the rider didn’t have much more time to think about it before the giant man came barreling towards them. And in just a few seconds, every occupant of the bar was attacking another.
Omen and Blackscales barely dodged the man that was charging them, only to get straight in the way of a flying glass that was still filled with wine. It seemed that they couldn’t even try to escape trouble, since they were both quickly tackled by someone almost as big as the first man. Blackscales roared furiously as he pushed his legs up into the man’s stomach and sent him flying forward to hit knock someone over about six feet away. He couldn’t focus on how amazed he was at his new strength; another man came hurtling towards them.
Blackscales dodged and flung a huge punch at the man as he whizzed by, feeling one of his ribs crack from the blow. This time, he looked down at his hand and wiggled his fingers in surprise. Two more men lunged at him, this time both grasped a weapon-bottle like Bragg Randy had, but he easily shattered the first with a firm smack from his hand. A small shard of glass penetrated the back of his hand, but he pulled it out and shattered the other bottle.
He ignored the minor pain as he protected Omen from so many opponents, he was beginning to truly see how much he had changed since he met Inferno. Not only could he easily tear weak cloth in half, he felt that he could tear all of these men in half! His strength was so stunning, he felt practically invincible and even immortal.
It wasn’t long before the attention was gone from them, and even the first man they faced had run off to join other fights. Omen stood up with the help of Blackscales and forced him through the door that Bragg Randy had gone through. The rider instantly grew both sad and confused and pulled them to a stop.
“Where are we going?”
“We have to find that Randy guy and get your money back,” Omen replied before turning around and continuing to walk around at a brisk pace.
Blackscales could hardly suppress a laugh when he realized that he could pretty much smell the pickpocket relatively nearby. He may have been a pretty cunning thief when it came to escaping from the average human, but he was a foolish idiot when it came to outsmarting a dragon rider. The old man jumped in surprise when Omen came around the corner with the rider right behind.
Bragg jumped in surprise when he saw them, knocking a wooden barrel near him over. He made an attempt to escape and hared away, but Blackscales went after him and tackled the thief only a few feet away. The dragon rider grabbed his shoulders and easily pulled him up to press him against a wall, pinning him easily.
“You got me boy,” Bragg Randy said in defeat. “Now what do yah plan ta do with me?”
Blackscales thought for a moment when he suddenly got a good idea, “I intend to get my money back, and some information. Can you do that for me?”
The old man glared at him for a short time before grinning and replying, “What do yah want ta know?”
“How long have you been here?” Blackscales asked.
Bragg rolled his eyes, “Must have been about a month, I been lookin’ fer a man ta take me to another town, if yah would have me?”
“Maybe, we’ll get to that later,” Blackscales said as he tightened his grip on his shoulders. “Do you only from town to town with someone with you?”
Bragg nodded and added, “I’m keen for adventurers; they see ol’ Randy through safe ‘n’ sound before the day is done.”
“Who were you travelling to this town with?” Blackscales asked, beginning to grow wary of the man’s openness.
“Oh I was hangin’ about a tavern in the northern dwarf town of Torik, them dwarves got the best ale yah know, when I heard this fellow speakin’ real hush of…Morgran be the name of this town, ain’t it? Anyway, so I heard him say he was comin’ here to meet up with a “rider”. I then followed him here and we arrived about a month before now.”
“Where is he now?”
Bragg Randy shrugged before answering, “We parted ways at the entrance. I think he mighta gone over ta a trinket shop not far off if yer dat interested.”
Blackscales threw him on the ground before emptying his pockets onto the street. He masked the surprise he felt when more than 50 gold poured out, half of it in small change. While he didn’t want to take it all and feel like thief himself, he certainly wasn’t going to let Bragg Randy have it all. He quickly made up his mind and decided that it would be best to just take it all; he had a lot of travelling to do anyway.
He suddenly paid attention to Omen for the first time, who was utterly confused about everything that was going on. Blackscales stuffed every coin into his pockets, grabbed omen’s arm, and ran away at an excruciatingly slow pace so he could keep up.
When they were back at the tavern door, Blackscales handed him two gold and said, “You go back inside and get us two rooms with two beds each, make sure Avalsmokes and Autumn know that I’ll be back soon but you shouldn’t wait for me.”
“What happened to just one bed, and where are you going?”
“Icksazro said that there would be someone sent by Argos and his rider in every town, and it’s clear that this dwarf was sent here to meet us, so I should find him to help us,” Blackscales said, suddenly realizing that they discovered the last race of allies; dwarves.
The story that Faltanar had told him, Aval, and Autumn suddenly went through his head and he began to wonder how the dwarves and elves could possibly be allied, but he couldn’t dwell on it much longer; he wanted to find the dwarf as fast as he possibly could. He thought that if he could reach him quickly, he would have time to learn more about the alliance. With the quickest pace he could manage, Blackscales ran around that part of the city in search of the trinket shop that Bragg Randy had mentioned.
He was relieved when he found the shop at the end of a dark alleyway near the entrance gate. While he was nervous about the setting of the shop, Blackscales approached it, and looked through a small circular window. Inside there were numerous items that were clearly more than trinkets; necklaces with intricate designs in a strange grey gold, scrolls evidently ancient in appearance, even some strange-looking weapons.
A man, dressed in poor-looking clothing that Blackscales had quickly realized was the main apparel in the town, walked into the room from a side door carrying a small box. He tenderly pulled two little lockets out of the box just before Blackscales swung around to the main door and let himself in.
“Ah, welcome to my shop young traveler! Please, take a look at my curios and see if there is anything you desire!” The man said with a hearty laugh.
Blackscales quickly took in his bulky figure quickly before partially lying, “Thank you very much sir. I was wondering, actually, if you knew about a dwarf who came here about a month ago. He’s a friend of my father’s and I was supposed to meet him in this city. I just got caught up and couldn’t manage to get here any sooner.”
The man looked curious but said, “That would be Geragror! I hired him about a month ago; he said that he had to get a job for a while and might leave without notice at some point. I assume that he meant that he might have to leave as soon as he saw you here.”
“Could you point me in his direction, perhaps?” Blackscales asked hopefully.
The man sat down in a wooden rocking chair before saying, “I would be happy to; you seem like a decent man. The only problem is that this is a rough town so people like me have learned to be pretty careful about revealing information like that, plus, Geragror never mentioned you…what’s your name?”
“Blackscales. Please sir, I really need to see him as soon as I can before I have to leave again, with or without him.”
The main leaned back in the chair, debating what he should do, before he gave in, “He’s supposed to stop by in about ten minutes actually; he seems to enjoy taking the night shift from me. If you want to wait around here for a bit, he’ll be around soon.”
“Thank you!” Blackscales said, running up to the man and shaking his hand. “These are some interesting trinkets here, if you don’t mind me looking around while I wait?”
The man’s smile quickly returned and he said with a laugh, “Why of course! You’re welcome to browse my wares for anything that catches your eye.”
With that, the man stood up and walked out the side door again, trustingly and amazingly leaving Blackscales alone in the room for a short time. Using his time wisely, the rider walked around and looked at the many items. He looked along the bookshelves, among glass cases, and around several tables overflowing with both priceless and worthless objects.
He smiled when he found the lockets that the shop owner had brought in when he was just watching from outside. Blackscales picked both of them up and looked at them closely. They were both obviously supposed to hang around someone’s neck, like most lockets, but they were two different colors. The one that he held in his right hand was black, while the other was white. He studied them more closely, and on each one there was a dragon etched into it with golden ink in the lines.
Suddenly, both doors to the shop opened at once. The shop owner came through the side door, and a short man with a foot-long white beard hobbled through the main doorway. While the dwarf looked Blackscales up and down, the shop owner set the box down on a table and clasped his employee on the shoulder.
“Welcome back Geragror!” the shop owner yowled pleasantly.
The dwarf put a hand on his shoulder without taking his eyes off of Blackscales’s much taller figure before asking, “And who is this?”
The shop owner looked down at him confusedly, almost making Blackscales laugh since the dwarf didn’t even reach his chest, and then he said, “Well Blackscales here said that you were a friend of his father’s, and that you were supposed to meet him in Morgran.”
Geragror looked at Blackscales, both eyes half closed as he eyed him suspiciously, before he ran up to him saying, “Aye! It’s the lad! I haven’t seen you in an age!”
The rider sighed in relief and awkwardly hugged him. The shop owner smiled and shook his head for some reason.
“I guess I’ll go now, have fun you two,” he said before disappearing out the main door.
Geragror sighed and sat down in the rocking chair before saying, “Nice alibi, Devon is pretty overcautious about things, even for someone living in this here town. So I’m assuming Icksazro gave you a good description of the basics?”
Blackscales nodded and said, “And we came across the Wargals that told us about themselves.”
“All you need to hear about now is the dwarves, I assume?” he said as he slowly began rocking.
Blackscales nodded, “Yes sir. I was also wondering how your race and the elves got over your…differences.”
Geragror’s face became very stern before he replied, “I will of course tell you about my race, but it is not my place to explain it to you. Argos’s rider wants to reveal that to you himself.”
Blackscales suddenly realized, “So…the rider is a dwarf?”
He thought very suddenly that it all made sense. He knew that facial hair was a very big trait among the dwarf race, if stories were as accurate as they had been so far, but he hadn’t seen it on Argos’s rider in his dreams. It was possible that Argos’s rider, like him, had adopted traits of other races, and beards were somewhat uncommon among humans and even more so among the elves. Not to mention, being a dwarf did explain the elder rider’s smaller size.
Geragror pulled him out of his thoughts by saying, “Aye, he is indeed one of my race. He was the very first of my race to be a rider of any kind, and who he was created perhaps the biggest divide between races. After much arguing and…diplomatic debates, we united. Everyone decided that while elves and dwarves were very different and would never be able to be directly friendly towards one another, we had the same foes, and that’s reason enough to unite as an alliance.”
Blackscales nodded. Geragror pointed to a chair nearby and the rider sat in it, making himself comfortable for the long story ahead. He assumed that there would be many long and stressful stories before he heard everything he needed to and became a successful and powerful rider, so he decided to welcome them openly, even if it was from nameless person that he would assume had no importance in such matters. He could tell that there might be someone who might have overheard something useful, and in the future it could serve him well to listen to everything he could.
After giving him time to think for a bit, Geragror began his actual Dwarf story, “I’m sure you’ve heard that we are a race that is overly ready for battle; something we take pride in actually. Anyway, we are a race different from any other; the wolves have a divine ruler that they obey completely, the elves have a divine virtue or set of virtues that they think are pure laws, while the humans have both, as well as strong personal values. The dwarves, however, have a divine group of 12 leaders, each the leader of a separate clan of dwarves.
“Each of the 12 clans has different views and beliefs, and the clans are often torn when making decisions. There are two or three clans that the rest of us dwarves sort of look down upon. The most hated of them all, is the clan called the Don Dwarves, where most have names beginning with ‘Don’. They are known for being the most vicious and war-like, bringing great dishonor to us all. Throughout history, several of them have turned against the dwarves and they are basically a band of rogues that refuses to join the alliance with us. Most of ‘em won’t even participate in either side.
Unfortunately, there is one vicious dwarf that joined our foe. Dongoithu the Rat. He is beastly to look at, but worst of all is his personality and history. He betrayed us to our current foe, partially on accident, and we banished his entire family because of it. They and the proof of their existence in our world has been burnt to ashes, but Dongoithu lives on, serving our enemy. Now I’m afraid that concludes my information; everything I know, you already know of from Icksazro or Midnight Stalker, or I can’t tell you anyway.”
Blackscales sighed, “Thank you for your help Geragror. Since I just learned that dwarves are part of the alliance, I don’t have many questions for you. I don’t know much about dwarves either.”
“Nearly all dwarves are pretty knowledgeable about weapons, and I’m personally pretty good with antiques, which is one of the reasons why I chose this job while I waited for you.”
Blackscales thought for a moment before asking, “Could you maybe tell me more about those two lockets?”
He saw that the dwarf hadn’t seen them before, but a gleam of recognition shone in his eyes. He slowly got up from his rocking chair and walked over to the table where the lockets sat. Geragror handed him the black one, and held the white one in his own hands. He weighed it in his right hand carefully, opened it up and read something that was written on the inside before Blackscales did the same with his own locket, or at least tried to since the writing was in a strange language, and he was focused on the picture on the inside.
Blackscales lost his focus on Geragror as he looked at the picture on the inside of the locket. It was of a young woman with long brunette hair with very slight curls as well as pretty green eyes.
“I would love to tell you about these,” Geragror said as he switched lockets with him. “The one you now hold belonged to a human dragon rider when the riders were first born. He was in love with a woman that also had a dragon, and they gave each other these lockets. At the time, they were the only riders in existence. You seem pretty keen, since these are indeed more than they appear to be.”
Blackscales looked at him for an explanation, and quickly got one, “The writing under the pictures is an ancient form of human language that has been forgotten by your race, and it says ‘To the lovers, to the guardians’. I’m sure you were told that the riders have a menial job, and it is to guard something that you are unaware of right now. These two people had the entire world on their shoulders, and they were straining under the pressures. It may sound sort of cheesy, but their love saved Semiones so to speak.
“There are basically six know elements of magic you will learn about later, and each of these lockets holds little bits of three of them. When people are married, it is said that there souls merge together to form one superior being, and the lockets did the same thing when these two were married. Amazingly, they both actually became much stronger and their dragons could instantly protect each other in battle against the most terrible foes. They had an indestructible battle tactic and destroyed several thousand enemies in a single, bloody battle, when their combined wolf rider forces totaled to a bit less than 100.”
Blackscales looked at them more closely, and instantly began thinking of Autumn. While she wasn’t a dragon rider, she was in his company as he traveled. He also began to realize that he really didn’t like her more than a friend; she was his first crush when he was ten years old, but that feeling was gone now. Nevertheless, he was interested in the magical energy that the lockets possessed.
“How much would it cost me to buy them?” He asked the dwarf.
Geragror looked at him with interest before replying, “I would love to give them to you for free, but my boss, Devon, wouldn’t forgive me. He has them at two gold a piece, so I don’t expect you to buy them; they could be completely worthless for all we know.”
“I’ve got money to spare, I’ll gladly take them and test them out to see,” Blackscales said.
The dwarf shook his head and gave him a disbelieving smile as they exchanged the last locket for four gold coins and Geragror said, “Well Devon will love you, that’s for sure. You should be heading off to bed; if you are with some sort of guard in your race, you had better sleep soon if you want to wake up before them or at the same time. I’d say it’s almost two in the morning!”
Blackscales nodded as he put both of the lockets in his right pocket, shaking the dwarf’s hand with his left hand. He dipped his head respectfully before leaving the shop and walking in what he assumed was the direction of the inn. He was pleased with his memory when he soon located it and stepped inside as he grew sluggish with weariness. He talked to a woman at the bar, the same one as before, and she amazingly recognized him and Omen. She gave him a room key, told him the room number, and he went up a short staircase to the upstairs hallway. He walked into the room, took off his jacket and boots, and collapsed on one of the beds.
“Have any luck?” Omen asked, probably just trying to annoy him.
Blackscales faced the opposite direction and pulled the sheets over his head before making a muffled reply, “If I can manage to get some sleep tonight, we will discuss it in the morning…after I get sleep!”
Omen laughed, but Blackscales hardly heard it before he fell asleep.
(Next update will be on 12-29-13)