Steelforged Legacy 2 - Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Magnus, in his interminable style, made friends immediately with the drengr of the Oak Horde. Once Arvid got over the start of having something so big creep up on him, he immediately began to rummage in his pouch for some dried fruit to offer the big animal. When Magnus accepted the fruit with aplomb and grace, the others all crowded around to have a look.

The headlong flight through the night had shaken most of the red-brown dust out of the Gladewalker Elk’s fur, leaving behind the mottled green and brown that let the animal blend in so well with his surroundings normally. It had also disordered the thick brown mane enough that the little tendrils of roots were obvious amongst the fur, something that was commented on by the still-nameless blonde that had been eye-fucking Casey earlier.

I hope he is sure of himself, as these people definitely recognize what he is, Casey sent to Maude while watching the elk’s antics.

He does. These people have an honest feel about them. Besides, our Magnus is old enough that he has no fears of being caught as long as he is near enough to dense greenery. Remember, Gladewalker Elk have far more to defend themselves with than just foul flatulence. The amusement in Maude’s mental tone put more of Casey’s worries to rest as the blonde woman began combing her fingers through Magnus’ mane gently, getting a happy grunt from the animal.

“I am… surprised to see one of the forest monarchs traveling with you, let alone that it has accepted a saddle,” muttered Arvid, sidling around to stand nearer to Casey while not taking his eyes off the elk.

“Magnus does what he wants to. I happened to help him a bit back when he was injured, and he’s followed me around ever since,” Casey explained before glancing over his shoulder. He couldn’t see through the dense branches of the hazel bush, but he could tell the airship still hovered menacingly on the other side of the river. “Shall we get going then? I don’t know about you, but being this close to the border still makes me nervous. I’m glad to be done with the Bronze Fist and hope to not have to deal with them again, and if I have to do so, then I hope it won’t be for quite some time.”

Arvid shot him a long look before nodding and raising his voice slightly to get the other’s attention. Both the women were now giving Magnus scratches while another of the drengr had a stalk of what looked like a leek in his hand that he was holding out to the animal to munch on.

“All right. Let’s get moving. I want to get both of these newcomers to town. Bodil, you and your team stay behind to keep a watch on those idiots.” Arvid hooked a thumb over his shoulder at the distant airship as he spoke.

The blonde groaned and shot him a disappointed look, pouting cutely for a long moment before letting it fall away when she realized it wasn’t working.

“Fine, Arvid. But you better not leave us out here alone for too long.”

“I will take exactly as long as we need to,” Arvid said with a sniff before turning his gaze back to Casey. “Will Magnus do as you direct him to?”

“I don’t know,” Casey answered honestly. “Magnus, are you going to behave? We need to go to the town these folks are from to prove we aren’t going to cause problems.”

The elk huffed and shot him a dirty look that was so genuine that it got a bout of surprised laughter from the two female drengr who still stood close.

“Look, I know you like to think that you always behave, but you don’t. Really.”

A rather odoriferous result was Magnus’ response to the implied concept that he was anything other than perfectly behaved, which honestly went far to confirm Casey’s point.

“Freya’s tits, what have you been feeding him?” gagged Bodil, who had been closest to the ‘blast zone’ when Magnus let out his flatulent counter.

The blonde stumbled backwards with a betrayed look on her face, waving one hand back and forth to try and banish the smell, as if that would help the smell.

“Mostly just people who annoy me,” Casey replied with a shrug. “But he likes asparagus and garlic quite a bit.” He was lying, of course, but the horrified look on the woman’s face was too priceless not to harass her some. The other female drengr, the solid one with the mace, laughed uproariously at this.

“That would do the trick, wouldn’t it, Bodil? Best to keep upwind of this one, or at least on his good side, so he doesn’t dust you for annoying him.”

“And on that note, we are leaving,” Arvid declared and gestured back towards the road. The maul-wielder and another of the men who had remained silent nodded and turned to head in that direction. “Come along, Casey. Magnus, you can walk at the back. While I understand wanting to express your displeasure, that was just… disturbing. And if it got that kind of reaction out of Bodil, I don’t want to experience it.

Magnus made a grunt of disappointment as they walked past him, falling in behind the group with a downcast expression that got a chuckle out of those staying behind.

Until the smell finished spreading in the clearing and they were treated to exactly why Bodil was still gagging.

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“So you don’t really know why they decided to attack you?” Casey asked as they walked along the road.

The pace that the Oak Horde drengr had set was a quick but sustainable one. Once they’d made it a ways up the road and deeper into the thick forest, the talk began slowly. Casey had wanted to learn more about the Oak Horde, what their clan was like and how they acted, hoping to learn if this area might be one he could settle into for a while. Maude remained silent in his mind, but he could feel her studying the three drengr with him, remaining wary and watchful.

“No. Well, nothing that we can confirm with any certainty.” Arvid shrugged as they followed the road deeper into the forest. The trees had long since closed in over top of them, leaving the road drenched with shade and dappled with sunlight where it leaked through the knitted branches in spots. “Honestly, they don’t need much of a reason. The Bronze Fist has always been militant, and it’s been long enough since their last major offensive to try and take land that they likely have forgotten why we hold this forest on their border.”

“Tell me more about the Oak Horde? I’m from much further south, so I don’t know a whole lot about the area or the people here. The reason that I’m heading for the Roaring Mountain is because Einar recommended I head that way.”

“The Oak Horde clan is known for our woodworking, and the work we do with the Skywolf clan to design and build the flying ships. If you have flown in one of those ships in the last hundred years, the odds are good that our clan’s artisans made the hull and keel,” Arvid said proudly. “It’s one of the reasons that the Bronze Fist likes to test us so often. They are jealous of the resources of the forests that we carefully husband. The Float Oak that we nurture makes the best keels, while the Rising Pine that is used in the construction of the wings and masts is second to none.”

Casey made a mental note of the names that Arvid mentioned, figuring them to be some of the qi infused trees that Maude had mentioned.

If they are being cultivated in this forest, then it’s likely there are others. I’d have to avoid the ones being cultivated, but I might be able to find wild ones. Wonder if Maude can make use of some of their material in her cultivation? I know that she needs metal for the alloying for her Legacy of Steel, but you don’t make handles and shafts with steel. Casey turned that thought over in his mind before Arvid asked him a question that broke him out of his thoughts with a start.

“Tell me, Casey. You came up from the south, right? That is the only road that I know of which leads through the Bronze Fist lands to the Silver Hammer.”

“That is correct,” Casey answered without hesitation.

“I was curious about that storm that passed through a few days back…”

Casey couldn’t help the snort of amusement at the leading inquiry, which got him a questioning look from Arvid that sent the man’s bushy eyebrows climbing his forehead in curious arches.

“Sorry. I just… it feels like every person I run into has questions about that storm. It’s been the only thing people will talk about at any of the taverns I stopped at,” Casey explained, which brought a smile back to Arvid’s face.

“With good reason. Its epicenter was far to the south, but it still dumped enough rain on the land that we got an unseasonable storm out this way as well. Any of the drengr in the area could feel the power of the spirit beasts fighting. I was wondering if you knew which ones had gotten into the scrap?”

“I honestly couldn’t tell you. When it all went down, I was caught out on the road and had to take shelter in a little cave just to not get blown into the river and washed away.” Casey’s answer clearly disappointed the other man.

“Damn. I’d been hoping for more, but that is life. What I wouldn’t give to have seen the aftermath of something like that. I just hope that neither of the beasts were too badly harmed in the fight. The last thing we need is the Bronze Fist hunting them down to claim their cores and resources. Bounty like that would give them unreasonable confidence. Well, more unreasonable confidence, at least.”

“You seem awful trusting of me considering you are insisting I speak to a truthsayer, Arvid.” Casey’s blunt statement made the other man pause in his concerned mumbling before meeting Casey’s eyes with a thoughtful expression.

“I am asking you to speak to the truthsayer to allay other’s concerns. The presence of your Magnus with you is all I need to be convinced that you are not a plant from the Bronze Fist. There is no way they would let one of the forest monarchs leave their lands, let alone live longer than necessary to harvest it.”

Magnus grunted in annoyance behind them, clearly upset with the implications. But after being banished to the rear of their group for his earlier foul wind incident, he kept his protests to the verbal only.

“Fair,” Casey said to cut off any further protests from Magnus. “I had the same feeling to be honest, which is one reason why I’m willing to extend a hand of trust to you and your drengr. With Magnus trusting enough to show himself to you earlier, I count that as his vote of confidence.”

“And it is pleasant to have such confidence. There are some of his kind that dwell deep in our forests, but this is the first I’ve seen of one. Honestly,” the other man paused for a moment to glance over his shoulder at the saddled elk thoughtfully. “With him outfitted so, it is obvious that he is not a wild member of his people, which should hopefully protect him from the arrows of a hunter should you wander across one.”

The elk in question gave another disgruntled huff, as if to say: ‘I doubt they’d even get close,’ which made Casey smile at the animal’s confidence.

“Your even reaction to him does give me hope that the Oak Horde’s lands will be more welcoming than those we just left.”

“I can imagine. It would only take one of the idiotic young masters finding out about him before they’d all flock to try and take Magnus away from you. The fact you don’t have a clan’s protection only makes that sort of thing easier for them.”

Casey grimaced at Arvid’s statement, his memory immediately dropping back to Mikhail’s idiocy and the other man’s attempts to kill Casey for simply standing up to him. Thankfully, Arvid was continuing his diatribe about the foolishness of the Bronze Fist and didn’t notice.

“We see them every so often with the raiders, the little twits intent on making a name for themselves in a fight they aren’t ready for. Usually surrounded by guards to handle anyone who is an actual threat. Though, amusingly, it seems that they managed to misplace a few of them.” The laugh that came next from Arvid had a mixture of amusement and resignation to it as he let the sentence trail off.

“Oh? What makes you think that? I would assume the clan would keep close track of its heirs…” Casey was rather proud of how nonchalant he made that question sound.

“Normally, yes. And they normally wouldn’t advertise it either, but one of the fools that took part in the raid kept demanding to know where his nephew was, and what we’d done with him. Apparently, he blamed us for them misplacing the little idiot.” Arvid blew out a great sigh of annoyance before shaking his head again. “I can’t say too much, as our clan has a fair share of the entitled lordlings, but seriously? What likely happened was the little fool got himself eaten by spirit beasts while trying to bag game far above him, having believed the lies told to him by his fellows. And now we are going to get blamed for it, at least if that one has his way.”

Casey did his best to conceal a wince. While he wasn’t sure that the young master in question was the one he’d been forced to fight and kill to protect Magnus, his gut told him that it was.

No such thing as coincidences, he thought wryly. A spiritual hug settling around him from behind was Maude’s response to his concerns, and he could feel she agreed with him on this.

“It is good to strive, but I agree that it is likely they bit off more than they could chew. Since coming to these lands, I’ve fought Fomori twice, great beasts several times, and dealt with attacks from what could only be described as bandits. I’ve been in this area for less than a month,” Casey said with a sigh, his words rewarded with an amused chuckle from Maude as she could see he was mentally assigning the fight with Mikhail to the ‘bandit’ category.

It is true. The man came upon you in the field and attacked without true provocation. I’m proud of you for standing your ground there too, Casey, Maude said sweetly into his mind, and he swore for a moment that the scent of her skin combined with leather and weapon oil tickled his nostrils before it vanished with the wind.

“Strive, yes. Risk yourself like a fool? That is entirely different. We who walk the Drengr’s Road seek to grow and join the gods, but a warrior needs to know when he’s over-matched. There is no shame in falling back from a fight one cannot win,” Arvid grumbled, turning his gaze forward once more with his brows knitting in thought.

“There are still causes that one can sacrifice oneself for that are just and good.” The words escaped Casey before he could give them thought. The last statement from Arvid had dug at his heart, reminding him of his own death for some reason.

Though it wasn’t the same thing. I was betrayed, not over-matched, Casey thought. A moment later, another thought drifted up to him, but not in his own internal voice. It had the same distorted inflection he remembered from talking with the Orange-Suited Man before the monster wearing a man’s skin had thrown him into the Empyrean in a fit of rage.

You still chose the foolish route. If you’d taken time to bandage yourself before you got those girls free, you might have survived.

Casey growled deep in his throat and shook his head furiously. But the voice continued to bubble up from the depths of his subconscious.

There was no reason not to bandage yourself. Those girls would have been safe for another minute or two. But you had to race to get them free, even while bleeding out on the floor like an idiot.

Casey… Casey… CASEY! Maude’s voice echoed in his mind, slowly gaining in volume until it broke through the fugue of his memories and brought him crashing back to reality. Casey, are you there? You went silent for a moment. I stopped being able to hear your thoughts.

I’m fine, Maude. Just… lost myself a moment there, Casey sent back before stealing a glance at Arvid, but the man was looking the other direction, off to their left towards the river, apparently not having noticed Casey’s moment of distraction.

Grimacing, he glanced back at Magnus. The wide brown eyes of the elk watching him told Casey that, while the human had missed it, the Gladewalker Elk had not.

Where the hell did that come from? Casey asked himself, turning his attention back to the road. But the rough soil he walked upon had no answers for him.