Chapter One: To The Mines

Raibeart held his right hand high over his forehead to see where he had just arrived.

The walls of the Confederation were long enough to match the longest river he had ever seen, back in Tamberlim. He could not see the point of building such a massive line of stones around a land so huge, but again, he was only a dwarf of simple choices.

Stepping down from the hill, he soon discovered a route that led straight to one of the wall’s many gates. It twirled and swiveled lightly around the rifts, plundering straight to the meadows that preceded the entrance to small people country.

And there he went, just to find the huge iron gates rusted by the wind and utterly unguarded. A mount of dry leaves were trapped along the metal hinges, hinting of the time that had passed after its abandonment.

As he reached for the walls, he saw that they were cracked in many points, and that the moss proliferated freely in between the tiles. “Damn peaceful bastards” thought the dwarf. “Either peaceful or buried, I bet.”

And so he entered into the Confederation for the first time in his life.

Not far from there, Lordani followed a clear path that led to another gate, this one wide open and actually free of iron bars. A few marks on the floor led her to believe that it was still used by some people, but nothing else. She felt her armor weighting heavily upon her shoulders, and even the repetitive flap of her battered cape was driving her mad.

Over the last few years she had offered a pilgrimage of altruism to the Lady Serene, distributing goodness and care to communities far in the hinterlands and to all those along the way who needed it. She became surprisingly used to being somewhat revered by the common peoples.

She wished so hard to hear voices other than her own, but since the Zealot Superior had sent her that message relieving her temporarily of her duties, she decided that she would go down to the Confederation to escape from the growing waves of winter and get some shelter, at least for the season.

Touching her pointy horns with her fingers without noticing, she realized that she might not be well received in civilized territory. She knew tieflings were not well regarded and could draw unwanted contempt. However, that would not keep her from reaching her destination, wherever that might be.

Holding the cane of her halberd like a staff, she crossed the gates and felt a chilling touch on her red skin like a ghostly breath. That probably was not a good sign, though she tried to waive that away, uncertain. And then she thought of the Zealot Superior and of her words about the extraordinary gathering of the High Council of the Lady Serene, of how it would convene and of its consequences to her order. What kind of urgent matters were going to be decided she did not know, though she held deep in her heart somehow that things were set in motion in the world that could not be stopped.

On that night, she was ready to settle in a place to rest when she thought she saw flickering lights over a few rocks. Coming closer, she saw a battle.

A redheaded dwarf held a knife in his hand, bloodied to the beard, trying to stop a coming blade with his own and a toothed jaw with the other hand. A few of the assailants were already scattered on the ground, pierced by many arrows, but two still remained and were about to take the last out of the defender with pale brutality.

Why were white orcs roaming so far from their Northern lairs?

Without even flinching, Lordani put her resolve together along with her halberd and dashed into the conflict, beheading one of the attackers and allowing the dwarf to grasp his breath and use the effect of the unexpected arrival on his enemy to plant his blade right into the eye of the remaining orc.

Raibeart looked at the lady warrior with skeptical eyes.

“And you are?”

“Still breathing, thank you” said Lordani, a bit hurt by the apparent ungratefulness of the dwarf.

He laughed. “I wos abut to take them down, milady demon! Ha! But I owe you all rite. Name yor price.”

This time Lordani laughed, relieved. “Come with me, master dwarf! Let’s find some solace in the civilization for the winter.”

“Nah, too fancy, too silly. But food, all rite. Food is good.”

“Food is good, right so”, agreed Lordani, noticing the other was a person of few words and big action. And so they set camp and waited the sun to rise, not minding sleeping in a bed of dead bodies.

Meanwhile, Faye Highleaf had just made the biggest mistake of her life.

“Go Faye, go into the Mayor’s bedroom, will you? Yes, and while you’re at it, go get his wife’s jewels, ok? Oh, and don’t mind the FREAKIN’ HYSTERICAL DOG SLEEPING ON THE BED” she thought, grimly. Behind her, six Republican guards were at her heels, wielding spears and demanding her to halt.

A few moments ago, in the middle of the Mayor’s birthday party (“Yes, I’m that stupid”, Faye kept thinking), Faye Highleaf decided that her life had reached the peak of boredom and went for the big adventure: to break into the Mayor’s bedroom. She had not thought how it would be done, but only that it had to. She wanted to feel alive, to feel the thrill of the thievery! Not that she needed it. Her family was more than rich, hailing from a long lineage of noble merchants and even having a very seat in the Small Senate of the Northern Steadfast Republic, the small country of the smallest people in the Confederation: the Small Men.

All the worse for her. If she were caught she would have to handle a very nervous matriarch, who had the coincidence of also being her very mother.

Without further speculation, she trod faster than she could handle with her tiny feet and, after a sharp turn to the left, she clashed hopelessly against a passer-by.

A huge passer-by.

Lordani felt a tingling at her chain mail and when she looked down, there it was a small person who had just fell on the ground, many jewels scrambled all around her. Faye could only catch a glimpse of the towering tiefling before being swiftly cuffed by the chasing guards.

“You two!” said the chief guard. “You’re accomplices. You must come with us as well!”

He had a polite yet authoritative tone. Lordani and Raibeart thought better to comply, since they did not seek trouble and thought best not to antagonize the people who might be of help in the coming winter.

At the precinct, the sorry bunch awaited in a side bench in the backyard of the place, since Lordani could not even fit under the roof of the Republican Guard building. Hours and hours have they spent there, and little by little they listened the story of a very stubborn and sullen little young woman trying to make sense of her foolishness. Raibeart listened much appalled by the easy life of nobility, concluding that those people would not survive three hours in the wild. Lordani listened more than she talked, gladly overflowed by the richness of information transmitted by Faye, much of it without her even noticing.

Soon it was already dawn, and an old lady wearing many furs entered the precinct with a scandalous look on her big eyes.

“Oh, Faye! Why you do this to me? To your family?”

Feffa Highleaf was theatrical to the point of satire. Faye looked at her and rolled her eyes, tired of her drama. She was always like that, even over tiniest mishaps.

“Oh, mother! Stop it! I would do it again if I could!” said Faye, doubting her own words but trying to hold on to a last bit of dignity.

Feffa sighed heavily. “I wish it had not come to this, my daughter. Come, let’s speak in private.”

Waving at the chief guard, she dragged Faye aside and talked to her for quite a while. Lordani could not do much more than sit politely at the bench, waiting for the whole ordeal to be over. She started to feel the tiredness of her voyage and needed to feel the comfort of a decent bed and a welcoming roof over her head.

Raibeart would just grunt and shuffle, disgusting every bit of civilization that was there. He already missed the unkempt mess of the wilderness, the silence, the smells of the land.

After a while, Feffa came over and noticed them for the first time.

“Oooh, so you are the friends of my darling! How very pleased am I, oh dears! I am absolutely mesmerized by your fashion choices, young lady! What an elegant pair of horns, if I might say!” Feffa touched the hand of a very surprised Lordani and shook it vigorously, looking at her horns with a true sense of wonder on her face.

“And you, my dear, what a glamorous red beard! Well, you could have a shower once in a while, couldn’t you? Hohoho! Here, take this comb of mine! Your shaggy facial hair deserves better care, doesn’t it?”

Raibeart was shocked. How in the world would that absurdly empty-headed over-confident half-person woman had the guts to say ANYTHING about his beard he could not even start to grasp, but in absolute confusion he just took the comb and kept looking at it in complete disbelief.

Lordani smiled a bit, actually starting to few nervous over the possible reaction of her partner, and decided to change the course of the conversation. “So, is everything settled, then, milady?”

“Oh, yes! Everything so. You just need to go along with my darling to the Lowlo Mines so she can learn how it feels to be a hard worker once in a lifetime” said Feffa, very matter-of-factly.

Faye spit on the floor. “I’ll run away! You’ll never hear from me again!”

“Oh, my dear” said Feffa, staring at Faye with the slightest glint of condescendence. “I know and you know that that is not an option.”

The lonesome trio had just left the outskirts of the city when a cold wind started to blow. Raibeart had tried to acquire the only donkey around, but had not succeeded, especially after the intervention of Lordani and Faye. The owner of the animal just seemed to be very respectful towards a suddenly angry wife once the beautiful tiefling came into the conversation.

Lordani could not even start to object to the pleading of Faye’s mother. She was not on duty, and could do some good by helping this family to put some sense into their vapid child. Raibeart thought only of the delicious food he would be able to get once he did his bid, yet still had no kinder thoughts over the comb and all the conversation that ensued from it.

Faye, most of all, was very discontent and walked sullenly without even looking back. She was a few steps ahead from her party and tried to think of all the times her family had held her back with this sort of trickery. Obviously, she had never been at the mines, but inside her head it was the last place she would like to visit in the whole Republic.

“So dirty, ew” she said. “And cold, I bet.”

In fact, they were starting to feel the coldness rising sharply. They had already walked for three hours and had to find a place to rest.

“Wait”, warned Raibeart.

They stopped. The wind blew, and with it they heard the long and whistled sound that chilled them to the bones.

“WOLFES!”, yelled Faye. Soon after, two white shadows came slowly over the piling snow, and then a third one joined right behind. They seemed famished but fierce, and ran and jumped straight to the arriving necks.

Raibeart rapidly drew his longbow and tried to pierce some of them, with no success. Lordani had her halberd ready in her hands and slashed in two pieces the hungriest wolf, which had had no chance of escaping amid air. She then looked distraught to Faye, who of them was the only one who had never faced the dangers of the road, the perils of the battle.

However, there she was, right behind her, the tiny little girl standing close to her right leg. With her, two daggers held in a good stance, she realized, and then she knew the little brat was not so hopeless after all.

The parlay with the wolves was brief but bloodied. They had all been injured, their legs bitten by fang and ice. Raibeart had an ugly perforation in his belly but was holding still, waiting for the others to recollect. Lordani had slashed and cut as she could, but at the end tiredness crept in and made her lower her guard and be bitten, while Faye panted, her hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath.

“You’ve done all right, Miss Highleaf”, said Lordani, grimacing.

“Yeah, I know”, replied the little woman. Somewhere around, they just heard a muffled grunt and knew that Raibeart had just acknowledged the same, in his own way.