Chapter 40: Aftermath

I awake in a cold sweat. I turn my head, and see sunlight streaming in through the window. It must be a fair way through the day to be this bright.

Out of habit, I almost try to reach out my arm and get up, but a slight twinge of pain stops me.

Right. My arm.

Good news is that it’s not too serious. The fracture seems to be a pretty simple one. So long as my arm is kept straight and still, it should heal up without much difficulty.

Bad news is the doctor was out of practically all his basic medical supplies. He didn’t have the materials to make a cast or a plaster. All he was able to do was wrap the area in some boiled rags and apply a simple splint.

Until people return from the neighbouring town with supplies, I’ve been told not to move from here. Either way, I’m going to be out of action for a while. According to the doctor, even after the bone has healed it’s best to take it easy for another couple weeks, or it could break again.

Well… Even without me, the others should be fine. Jakin shouldn’t have any problems leading them, for now. After the assault, there shouldn’t be many of the dwarves left, and with any luck only a single crossbow between them. Doubt they’ll dare to attack again after that debacle.

So, I guess I’m fine with this. Maybe it’s the world’s way of telling me to take a break. A holiday. Yeah, a holiday, that’s what this is going to be. I’ll just kick back, and take it easy. Yeah…

As I lay on the table, breathing steadily, my mind wanders back to the previous night. It had been painful, dreadfully so. Fingers, small but strong, probing around the break, feeling for the edges of the fracture. Every bit of pressure felt like the strike of a hammer, beating down into the core of my arm and spreading waves of aching pain.

But despite that, I was alright. I watched the entire time, and listened as he slowly explained what he was doing in an exhausted voice. I coped. But how? I’ve heard stories of injuries like this. Sometimes people go into shock, or faint from the pain. Can’t move because of it.

But me, the guy who’s never had so much as a broken bone, just grimaces and shrugs it off? It doesn’t make sense. Wonder if this makes me a masochist. Probably. Hell, I think I’ve noticed people wince just watching me train sometimes, back in the kingdoms. It’s not normal. I wonder if part of the summoning process was that it picked people with greater mental and emotional tolerance for pain?

Then again, the more I learn about magic - though I’m not learning much - the more I’m convinced that the kingdom didn’t have much of a clue about what they were doing with the summoning. It’s so removed from every other application of magic I’ve witnessed that it almost feels like something else entirely. But if not magic, what else? God? But if it was God, then why the complex formation in the first place… A snap of the fingers would have done it, a blink, even a thought.

Well, thinking about it isn’t going to get me anywhere. I best catch up on my sleep. Lot of sleepless nights, lately.

(POV Jakin)

We all try and get some sleep - me, Boaz and Xiltroth in Ren’s house, and Heather in a tent outside that someone was nice enough to set up.

It’s difficult. I’m more used to sleeping in a mine than I am while the sun still shines, but I am… Was, a soldier. I manage to slip under, sleep for a few hours.

I dream of the dwarves that we fought last night. Their eyes, that’s all I could see. Did I know them? Might’ve. Maybe we even fought side by side once. Damn if I don’t hate fighting people when I can’t even see their face.

What they did was wrong, no two ways about it. But killing my kinsmen always puts a foul taste in my mouth.

We’ll have to do it again later. In the afternoon, I think. Clear out the ones that are left. Shouldn’t be too many of them, so they won’t be able to post much of a guard. Even if they do, we can just wait. They can’t all guard the place forever. And if there are only a few guards, we can take them.

The doc says Aaron should be fine, just needs some time to heal. Hope he’s not too stubborn to stay put. Seen too many soldiers get up while they’re still injured and try to return to duty. Only ever makes it worse in the end. Sometimes leaves them injured for the rest of their lives.

He shouldn’t even have that broken arm. Should’ve known that that magus wasn’t going to target Aaron again, don’t know what I was thinking. Should’ve looked where he was aiming before I tried to block the shot.

Didn’t turn out too bad, but it could’ve. Don’t know Heather that well - haven’t even talked to her, I don’t think - but she’s under our protection. And we almost failed at that.

Glad Aaron had his head firmly on his shoulders. Looks like I need to increase the training. Can’t have something like that happen again.

There’s no smoke coming from outside the cave entrance. There was a fire there last night, but not now. Is it just too early? Military protocol is to keep it burning at all times. Even if they defected, that should be habitual.

Heather decided to stay behind this time. She didn’t have many arrows left, and wanted to focus on making more. It’s just me, my brother, and Xiltroth.

We creep up the path, watching and listening for any hint of ambush, but there’s nothing. Silence.

We get to the top, almost holding our breaths from the tension the entire way - expecting there to be some trap, or something waiting for us. Nothing.

There’s nobody guarding the entrance. It makes no sense. You have to have a guard. Otherwise, monsters or your enemies can walk right in.

There might be some times when you don’t want a guard, when you want to draw an enemy into a trap… But if they were going to build a trap, the path up to the cave would have been the place. Knock us off, and we’d be done for.

Besides, half a day is hardly enough to build a lethal trap, even if they had their whole group left.

Once again, we advance cautiously into the cave. Nothing is waiting for us, apart from five corpses around the first corner. Don’t even seem like they’ve been touched.

We search down that path. Find the rest of the bodies, also untouched. We continue down the tunnel, don’t find much. A few rooms look like they had been used as residence.

Then we get to the end of the tunnel, and we figure out why there weren’t as many of them as we expected. A cave-in. Must’ve been that rumbling we felt, back when we were coming in the other end.

It takes a while, but eventually we search every tunnel. Not a soul, save some bats - not those boom bats, thank the earth - and we come out the other side none the worse for wear.

There’s a fire here… The remnants of one. There are only a few embers glowing dully in it now, but that’s still much more than could be said of the fire at the other entrance. That one was cold, and that must’ve been at least an hour ago. This one was left to die out, but it must’ve been left more recently. Around midday, maybe? Doesn’t really matter when exactly. It was after the one at the other entrance, and the dwarves were never reinforced from this direction when we were fighting last night.

That means there was at least one dwarf that was left. Probably fled on seeing all the bodies inside. Doubt they’ll survive, even if there’s a few of them.

“Looks like that’s the last we’ll hear of them. Let’s head back.” I say. “I need sleep. And beer.”

(POV Aaron)

“So they’re all gone? Dead or fled?” I ask, my head turned awkwardly towards Jakin from where I still lay on the table.

“Looks that way.” Jakin agrees.

“Thank goodness.” Len sighs, his shoulders slumping as the tension suddenly bleeds out of him. “That is such a relief. Everyone will finally be able to breathe easy again.”

“I suppose that just leaves the cleanup. I’m suddenly glad I broke my arm.” I joke.

“Hmph” Jakin grunts. “Job for tomorrow. It’s cool up in that cave, shouldn’t decay too much by then.”

“Yes, well…” Len interjects. “Pardon me, but I’ll be heading off now. I need to spread the word.”

Jakin starts to say something, but then the doctor bustles in. “Alright, that’s enough, visitation’s over! I have enough people to attend to without others crowding up the place.”

Everyone is quickly herded out, and relative quiet returns to the room.

“Do you reckon I’ll get any back problems from lying like this?” I ask.

The doctor eyes me. “I’ll see if I can find a blanket for you to lie on.”

“Thanks.”

When the doctor leaves, the only sounds are the occasional groans coming from other rooms. No matter where you are, it seems even silence isn’t silent.

The twins and Xiltroth will have to search the bodies of the dwarves for anything useful, pull them out of the tunnels and dig them a mass grave. At least, I’m guessing that’s what they’ll do.

Can’t exactly leave them there to fester and foul up the air, not to mention attract all sorts of critters and monsters.

And they’ll have to clean up all the blood, urine and faeces that has been expelled from the bowels of the deceased dwarves.

No, I don’t envy their job. I don’t envy it at all.

After a while, the doctor comes back in bearing a thin blanket. “Not much to go around, I’m afraid.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m an adventurer, even a bit of padding makes a luxurious bed to me.” I say, getting down from the table temporarily.

Even with the splint holding my arm relatively still, I try to jostle it as little as possible. The pain doesn’t seem to bother me, but the concept of causing permanent damage to my dominant arm does. I mean, I am ambidextrous, but most things are designed right-handed, so I use it more often.

Besides, two arms are better than one.

“So, how’s Dex doing, doctor?” I ask.

“Not critical anymore, thankfully.” He replies, spreading the blanket atop the table. “He’ll take a long while to heal, and there will likely be some permanent damage. It’s hard to tell precisely until he wakes up.”

“He hasn’t woken up?” I ask, alarmed. “In almost two days?”

“He has,” The doctor reassures me, “but only for very brief periods, not long enough to do tests.”

“That’s a relief…” I sigh. “Well, thanks doctor. I should be fine for a while, you’ve got people in more pressing condition than mine, right?”

“A seemingly endless supply.” The doctor groans, walking out of the room.

I turn my head idly to the side, where my eyes awkwardly meet the eyes of a gnome lying on the couch nearby.

“Hey.” He says weakly.

“Hey.” I reply, turning my head back to stare at the ceiling.

New supplies arrive from the neighbouring town the next day. We’ve never had a reason to visit it, but Den - the gnome on the couch nearby - tells me that it’s not unlike this one.

The doctor gives me some herbs to chew. At first, my tongue feels vaguely itchy, before the sensation is replaced with a general numbness. A short while later, the numbness spreads to the rest of my limbs, alleviating some of my aches and pains.

All in all, it’s a rather interesting experience.

I spend most of my time staring at the ceiling, thinking, or chatting to Den about the town. Only so much sleeping one man can do, even an injured one, and I’d done more than enough of it yesterday.

We get food every now and again, of course. Mostly porridge, made in large batches. It’s not bad. Could go for some brown sugar or berries to go with it, though.

As the doctor makes his rounds again, a question occurs to me that I take the opportunity to pose to him. “Doctor, would it be helpful if I used mana reinforcement?”

He pauses. “Sorry?”

“You know, circulate mana around my body.” I say. “Would it speed up my recovery?”

He blinks. “I… Well, yes, I suppose it would. Mana reinforcement. Yes, you should do that.”

“Could have mentioned that earlier.” I sigh, starting to channel a steady stream of mana into circulation.

The doctor raises an eyebrow. “You probably haven’t realised that we gnomes are not just physically weak, but also magically weak. Even the most talented among us have mana capacity that pales in comparison to magi of other races. Most of us have so little that mana reinforcement has negligible effect, so it doesn’t generally come to mind.”

“Pardon me.” I apologise. “I didn’t know.”

He shrugs. “It is what it is. Besides, our alchemical, historical and medical knowledge is far beyond that of other races, if I do say so myself.” He glances towards me. “The five kingdoms haven’t made sudden advances in those areas in the past two hundred and sixty-five years, have they?”

This time it’s my turn to shrug. “I wouldn’t know, to tell the truth. But as far as I know, alchemists are quite rare back in the kingdoms.”

He nods with just the slightest hint of satisfaction and, point made, bustles out to tend to the other patients.

I leave the doctor’s for the first time in a couple of days. The doctor had finally had the time and resources available to create a cast for my arm, so I am free to go, so long as I come back regularly to get checked up.

Wearing just plain clothes with not a piece of armour or weapon on my person, I haven’t felt so unprotected in quite a long while. Still, even down an arm and weaponless I can take people or monsters down. Granted, I’ll have to use magic, but that’s beside the point.

Making my way through town, I realise that despite the passage of time, the dwarves being defeated and life here slowly returning back to normal, there is still one thing missing. There are still no sporadic explosions, no colourful - and potentially toxic, now that I think about it - smoke drifting over the town. Ren isn’t experimenting. And with Ren, that means something is wrong.

Upon reaching his house, I knock on the door, only for it to be answered by Jakin.

“The doctor finally let you off the leash, eh?” He cracks a smile, seeing me at the door.

I gesture to the cast. “Not before making sure I couldn’t get away. How did the cleanup go?”

Jakin grimaces. “Took a while. Could’ve used an extra hand, not that yeh had one to spare. Borrowed a cart from town to bring some of the stuff back. Lots of stolen food, some tools that weren’t of dwarven make… We returned what we could find owners for.”

“And the rest?” I ask.

“More than we knew what to do with.” He frowns. “Found some bolts, coins, other bits and pieces, those’ll be useful. But the halberds? The armour? There’s only so many spares we can keep before it gets stupid. No point. And even if we wanted to sell them to the gnomes, who would use them? Left them in a room back in the cave.”

“Fair enough.” I nod. “How’s Ren?”

“I was going to say something ‘bout that.” He strokes his beard in a mixture of confusion and agitation. “He’s just sitting at the table, staring at one of those books of his. Not even reading it, far as I can tell. Just… Staring. Can’t get much out of him.”

I nod worriedly. “Did you happen to find the books the dwarves stole?”

He shrugs. “Not so much as a page. Must’ve been buried under the rubble.”

“Alright. I’ll see if I can do anything.” I reply.

Jakin nods, letting me through the doorway and into the house. As he’d said, Ren is sitting at the dining room table with a book open in front of him, looking at it intently. But the pages aren’t turning. Maybe the gears aren’t either. I nod to Jakin and Xiltroth in greeting, also standing uncomfortably nearby.

“Ren.” I say, but he doesn’t react. I try again a bit louder. “Ren!”

Nothing.

I try shaking his shoulder, but all I get from that is a creasing of the brows and a slight shake of the head, as if he were trying to shoo a fly with a particular attraction to his nose.

“We tried that.” Jakin says.

Next, I try taking away his book, but as soon as I start moving it he grasps it in a white-knuckled grip. I let it be, wary of damaging the book, or worse, his arms.

“Tried that, too.” Xiltroth notes. “Maybe we should just leave him. He can’t stay like that forever. He’ll have to sleep, and eat.”

“Or he could ignore the hunger pains and starve himself to death.” I sigh. “It could work. But if it doesn’t, we’re back at square one.”

Sitting in the chair opposite him, I stare into his eyes, unblinkingly. Discomfort could work. But after a few seconds, I shake my head. He’s looking forward, but he’s not seeing.

“Almost looks to me like he’s deep in thought.” I muse. “Done something similar once before. Got so deep in thought that I completely tuned out my surroundings. Still, he must be in even deeper than I was. I came out once someone pushed my arm, but he doesn’t seem to want to come out at all.”

“Can we just whack him?” Jakin shakes his head in annoyance. “That’ll wake him up.”

“Actually, that sounds like a good idea.” I reply after a moment of thought.

He might not want to think about the real world right now, for whatever reason, but it’s not like he can control his subconscious. Cause some pain, it’ll kick him right out of whatever he’s thinking about to deal with the situation. Fight or flight response. Simple.

So I slap him. Lightly. Ish.

He jumps about half a meter out of his seat - impressive for someone of his size - and holds his cheek, blinking several times. I can see his eyes refocusing on his surroundings. Jakin. The book. Me.

“Did you just slap me?” Ren spurts, more in disbelief and shock than anger.

“Yeah.” I admit. “You were just staring at your book for… How long was he doing that?”

“Found him like that in the morning.” Boaz replies.

“You were out of it for quite a while.” I continue. “You alright?”

“I am most certainly not alright.” Ren retorts. “As we speak, a considerable portion of my life’s work could be in the hands of bandits and thieves, leading to who knows what untold havoc?”

“They’re dead, Ren.” I say gently. “We couldn’t recover your notes, but the dwarves that attacked the town are dead.”

Ren shakes his head vehemently. “Some of them escaped. They could have had some of my notes. The explosion collapsed a section of cave… Imagine what it could do to houses… To people…”

“Look, Ren…” I turn in my chair. “It might make it a bit easier if we could talk alone.”

Xiltroth, at the first hint of an opportunity to escape from the situation, has already headed for the door. Jakin shrugs and heads in the same direction, with Boaz not far behind, sending a concerned glance our way.

Once the door is closed, I start talking again. “Look, Ren, even if some of them did escape, and they did have some of your notes - and that’s a big ‘if’ - they won’t make it far, and they can’t go back to their homeland. They’re deserters, and there’s a war going on. Nothing will happen.”

“This town and the five kingdoms aren’t the only places in the world, Aaron.” Ren rolls his eyes scathingly. The bags around his eyes suddenly make me wonder how much longer he’d been staring before someone found him. “The wandering centaurs, the orc tribes to the south-east, even the mystical forest to the north-east… My notes are so concise and detailed that even a deranged pixie addicted to mushrooms could figure out a way to blow something up.”

I rub my forehead. He was really making this difficult for me. “It’s not exactly like the materials you’re using are common, right? Most people probably wouldn’t even recognise them, let alone find some.”

“Perhaps, if not for my detailed sketches of the plants. Besides, you only need one big, toxic conflagration to put a black spot on the map.”

I feel like I’m starting to get a headache. “Even if, somehow, someone manages to blow themselves up… There are monsters out there that can do much worse. It’s not worth worrying about.”

“You don’t understand.” Ren argues. “In the wrong hands, this could collapse entire buildings with ease.”

“And I’ve seen monsters burn down a city!” I finally explode. “Slaughter the guards, adventurers, heroes and anyone else stupid enough to stand in their way! One of them, just a single one, tossed the twins around like sacks of potatoes, snapped my sword like it was a twig into a million tiny little pieces, left me permanently defaced,” I point to my scars, “then continued on its merry way as if nothing had ever happened! And that wasn’t even the strongest one there!”

Ren shrinks into his chair under the force of my outburst. “...You just don’t understand what sort of impact this could have.”

“I don’t understand?” I freeze, and the frustration bleeds away, replaced by an irrational, smouldering anger. “Fine. Fine, get out a quill.”

Startled, slightly afraid and perhaps a tad curious, Ren fetches one.

“Saltpeter - write this down.” I state, waiting until his pen is poised over an empty page before continuing. “Saltpeter, seventy-five parts. Charcoal, fifteen parts. Sulfur, ten parts. And some water to help mix. Prepared properly, these produce a substance known as black powder. It’s fast burning, can produce quite a bit of force, and at least two of the main ingredients can be easily obtained in mass quantities.”

“What?” Ren’s quill pauses. “How? How do you know this?”

“Doesn’t matter.” I wave the question aside. “What does matter is that if this formula gets into the hands of a competent military, every single known weapon and military tactic will become obsolete. They would be able to create weapons that could penetrate and collapse castle walls. And what use does chainmail have against weapons like that? Even magic - how can a gout of fire or an earthen missile compare to a weapon that anyone can use to twice the effect? This formula could start and end a dozen wars, each larger and more terrifying than the last.”

“I…” Ren’s eyes are wide with shock. “If what you’re saying is true, then-” Ren decisively tears out the page, wincing as he does so. “I need to burn this.”

He strides towards his lab, then stops dead in his tracks. “Oh.” He whispers. “Oh, dear god, that’s it, isn’t it? That’s what I have to do.”

After a brief moment of incomprehension, I catch on to what he’s thinking. “It’s your choice. Whatever you do, I won’t judge you - it’s your life’s work. I doubt anyone else will think twice if you continue as you are. Either way, you’ll feel the consequences of your decision for a long time.”

“I… I think I need to think on this for a while.” He says, walking towards the master bedroom as if in a daze.

“That’s probably for the best.” I agree.

The door clicks shut softly, leaving me alone at the table.