Dross (Sphereworld: Joined at the Hilt Book 2) Read online

  Joined at the Hilt II: Dross

  A Sphereworld Novel

  by

  Caleb Wachter

  Copyright © 2017 by Caleb Wachter

  All rights reserved.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. All resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental. Respect my electronic rights because the money you save today will be the book I can't afford to write for you tomorrow.

  Other Books by Caleb Wachter

  As of 01-09-2017

  SPINEWARD SECTORS: MIDDLETON’S PRIDE

  No Middle Ground

  Up The Middle

  Against The Middle

  McKnight’s Mission (A House Divided)

  Middleton’s Prejudice

  Lynch’s Legacy

  The Middle Road

  SPHEREWORLD NOVEL SERIES

  Joined at the Hilt: Union

  Joined at the Hilt 2: Dross

  SPHEREWORLD NOVELLAS

  Between White and Grey

  SPINEWARD SECTORS: A TRACTO TALE

  The Forge of Men

  SEEDS OF HUMANITY: THE COBALT HERESY SERIES

  Revelation

  Reunion

  IMPERIUM CICERNUS SERIES

  Ure Infectus

  Sic Semper Tyrannis

  Books by my Brother: Luke Sky Wachter

  SPINEWARD SECTORS NOVEL SERIES

  Admiral Who?

  Admiral’s Gambit

  Admiral’s Tribulation

  Admiral’s Trial

  Admiral’s Revenge

  Admiral’s Spine

  Admiral Invincible

  Admiral's Challenge

  Admiral’s War - Part One

  Admiral’s War - Part Two

  RISE OF THE WITCH GUARD NOVEL SERIES

  The Blooding

  The Painting

  The Channeling

  RISE OF THE WITCH GUARD NOVELLAS

  The Boar Knife

  COLLABORATIVE WORKS BY LUKE SKY WACHTER & CALEB WACHTER

  SPINEWARD SECTORS NOVELLAS

  Admiral’s Lady: Eyes of Ice, Heart of Fire

  Admiral’s Lady: Ashes for Ashes, Blood for Blood

  Join www.PacificCrestPublishing.com for future beta reading opportunities.

  Be sure to stop by the blog at blog.PacificCrestPublishing.com for updates.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue: Woods’ Wrath

  Chapter I: A New Partnership

  Chapter II: The Glu-Trap

  Chapter III: Refugees

  Chapter IV: The Long Road

  Chapter V: A Duel in Darkness

  Chapter VI: Dreams and Knights

  Chapter VII: Upriver

  Chapter VIII: False No More

  Chapter IX: Return to Greystone

  Chapter X: Rage

  Chapter XI: Investiture

  Chapter XII: Cover of Night

  Chapter XIII: Magos McConnell’s Mystic Market

  Chapter XIV: The Last Withdrawal

  Chapter XV: The Sea of Tears

  Chapter XVI: Fall from Grace

  Chapter XVII: To Murkwater—and Beyond!

  Chapter XVIII: The Keeper’s Inn

  Chapter XIX: A Sea of Tears and Rivers of Blood

  Chapter XX: A Bump in the Night

  Chapter XXI: Curious Returns

  Chapter XXII: Unwanted Guests

  Chapter XXIII: Principle vs. Patronage

  Chapter XXIV: Disarmament

  Chapter XXV: Gain from Loss

  Chapter XXVI: Cold, Grey Stone

  Chapter XXVII: Not Our Fight

  Chapter XXVIII: The Crossing Guard

  Epilogue: Its Body Wrapped in Chain & Lock…

  Prologue: Woods’ Wrath

  The chant was so beautiful to Lazerindojatzingos’ Ghaevlian ears that, for an eternally precious moment, his consciousness was totally lost within its haunting melody.

  The wind rustling through the Forests’ leaves seemed in perfect harmony with the sound of the Ghaevlian chanters, whose ancient song of soothing had not been sung for a thousand years or more. Many of the chanters had learned the chant directly from their parents, and those who took up the sacred knowledge of the chants knew every syllable, every note, and every beat as though it was a part of their own minds.

  Lazero, as he was called by the three people who could lay genuine claim to his friendship, was broken from his moment of harmonious reverie by a discordant note in the song of nature which had suffused his very being until that moment. It was not a mistake by the chanters, but something else—something which they had heard just a few short days earlier.

  He lent his own voice to the chant, having memorized this particular portion in recent months, and for a moment he thought that they could quell the restless spirit which so many of their plans rested upon.

  The voices of the chanters reached a crescendo and, for a brief instant, he was confident they had avoided disaster. Then the moment passed—and the Forest That Walks awoke yet again.

  The chant ceased instantly as the now-familiar creaking, snapping sound of branches thicker than Lazero’s torso twisted and bent. What a few moments earlier had seemed to be a tree-covered hill began to stir, and with each passing second it rose higher and higher above the ground.

  “No…” Lazero pleaded, “please, Spirit…not yet!”

  But his words went unheeded as the Forest That Walks arose to its full, towering height which measured nearly twenty times that of Lazero’s own frame. Its frame was ape-like and headless, with broad shoulders and long, powerful arms which combined with its short, thick legs to propel the towering Elder Spirit’s physical form as any other asymmetrical quadruped.

  And every last fiber of it was made of living wood.

  Small, snaking branches and vines were interwoven to create the equivalent of muscle fibers, and others were braided to form ligaments. Trees as thick as Lazeros’ legs formed the Forest’s armored skin, and all of the larger trunks had fused to form the Elder Spirit’s skeleton.

  Even as Lazeros watched, a thousand green leaves popped out across a nearby patch of the Spirit’s skin. His eyes remained transfixed on a portion of the Spirit’s leg which unexpectedly began to grow over with a robust layer of bark.

  “It is begun,” he heard the nearest chanter whisper, and Lazero tore his gaze from the Elder Spirit’s metamorphosis to see that the chanter who had spoken was bleeding from the nose, eyes, and ears. She was old, even for a Ghaevlian, and the toll of soothing the Forest That Walks’ spirit finally claimed the last measure of her life force as she collapsed to the ground.

  Lazeros knew that without her steadying voice, they would never again calm the Elder Spirit’s vengeful soul, and so he watched with a mixture of resignation and jubilation as the Forest That Walks turned its still-forming body toward its ultimate goal which lay several miles to the north, buried between two nearly vertical peaks of the northern mountain range.

  Even at night, his Ghaevlian eyesight had little difficulty making out the details of the narrow gap toward which the Forest That Walks took its first, ground-shaking step. The gap had, even as recently as five hundred years earlier, seen pure, life-giving water cascade down into the wide riverbed which stretched to the south. But that riverbed was now completely dry, having been closed with an abomination of uniquely human design: a thousand foot tall dam made of that accursed fakestone which the humans took such great pride in having conjured up from the bowels of the underworld.

  Fakestone was far from a mystery to the Ghaevlian people. Some of the Ghaevlian’s cousins had even adopted it for limited use as mortar in their all-stone constru
ctions deep within the mountains. As mortar, fakestone was a valuable piece of any engineering puzzle. It was easy to mix, easy to set, and it was nowhere near as strong as the stone stacked upon it. This made it ideal for ensuring that weight distribution from stone block to stone block was as even as possible, which resulted in longer-lasting structures and fewer cracks on the stone.

  But the humans, as the short-sighted and wantonly self-destructive creatures they were, had eschewed this more traditional application of fakestone as a mortar, and had begun to craft entire edifices—such as the towering dam toward which the Forest That Walks now trudged—out of the accursed stuff.

  “Tear it down…” Lazeros seethed under his breath, feeling the nails of his hands bite into his palms. He forcibly unclenched his fists and felt a rare moment of pure, abject terror when the Forest halted in its tracks and slowly—but with obvious intent—turned its headless shoulders toward him.

  Where one might have imagined the Elder Spirit’s head sitting, a pair of long, narrow slits began to glow with a malevolent, yellow light from beneath its still-forming skin of bark. Only a fool would not have recognized a pair of eyes when they were looking at him, and Lazeros felt his entire body go cold as those yellow-lit eyes flashed.

  In spite of his fear—and without anything approaching permission from his conscious mind—he heard himself shout, “Tear it down!”

  The Forest That Walks stooped its shoulders fractionally, approximating what could have only been a headless nod, and turned to resume its course toward the abomination known to the Federation humans as ‘the Forge.’

  The Forest trudged through the thinly-populated woods in which they had camped for two days. Each step it took with its four, ape-like limbs saw it add another tree or two to its ever-growing form. Those trees were methodically, but surprisingly quickly, absorbed into the Elder Spirit’s new body as it made its way toward the target of its eternal wrath.

  “What have you done?” one of the chanters asked in a tone that was both rebuking and reverent.

  “What needed to be done,” Lazeros replied grimly. “We can no longer slow it, so we must instead lend it our aid.”

  “That is not in accordance with the Tower’s will,” the chanter said with markedly more resolve.

  “I have the Tower’s will,” Lazeros said, turning to nip this particular challenge in the bud. “Your chants can do no more good here. Return to Greystone and tell my sister,” he cast a pointed look in the Forest’s direction, “that by the time you arrive, the river will once again flow—and the Forest’s smoldering anger may finally be quenched in its waters.”

  The chanter was too old and too wise to argue. He turned and gathered his handful of surviving colleagues and did as bidden, disappearing into the thinly-populated woods through which the Forest That Walks had traveled en route to this, its final place of restful sleep.

  “Come,” Lazeros beckoned to his team of nine elite hunters, “we must conceal the Forest’s approach from the humans…by whatever means necessary.”

  With a measure of camaraderie and mutual respect known only to men and women who have waged war at each other’s sides, the team set off with a unified purpose as they gladly went to play their parts in this war—a war which would see their people once again live free and in harmony with the land which had birthed them.

  “Tear it down,” he whispered, feeling a newfound resolve stretch its roots deep within his being. Then, unbidden by his conscious mind, he heard himself say, “We’ll soon be reunited, Tavleros.”

  Chapter I: A New Partnership

  Early Evening, 1-1-6-659 (Early Evening on the 1st Day of the 1st Wanderer’s Passage, under the 6th Judgment during the 659th Illumination)

  The road leading out of Greystone stretched before them as the sun began to dim above. As the mighty Storm Chaser’s hooves clomped away on the hard-pack road beneath them, Randall looked overhead and saw the sun was already half-darkened.

  What is troubling you? Dan’Moread wordlessly asked as Randall stared off into the distance.

  Randall looked down at her white, dragon tooth hilt and re-built pommel, remembering the long night of work at the Dragon’s Tooth which had been required to repair her badly damaged hilt.

  “I was just remembering our run-in with the Fleshmongers,” Randall explained as he looked off to the left, imagining that the battle which had poisoned his leg took place somewhere nearby. The truth was that he could not remember exactly where that fight had taken place, but he remembered all too well that Dan’Moread had saved his life in the aftermath.

  It was a difficult battle, she agreed. One made even more so due to your poor physical conditioning.

  “What?!” Randall blurted in surprise. “I’ve been working out nonstop since we were…erm…joined,” he stammered uncomfortably, unable to sustain his incredulity as he unexpectedly stumbled over his own words.

  It is nothing for which you should be ashamed, she said, and even though she had no voice he could still hear the tone of her nonexistent voice. He had become reasonably comfortable with her voice being in his head, but the fact that he now knew that she was a ‘she’ had been something of a setback in that regard. If it is of any comfort, I doubt you are the most physically inept wielder to which I have been joined.

  “What do you mean you ‘doubt’ it?” he asked, his curiosity overpowering his irritation at her repeated insults of his physical prowess. “Surely you can remember all of your wielders?”

  I already told you, she said tersely, I cannot remember much of my time prior to the joining with Kanjin. I have what you might call fragments of memories from before then but, not only are they incomplete, it is as though they are…unordered. It is difficult to glean any meaning from them.

  “Tell me about them,” Randall invited as Storm Chaser’s mighty hooves continued to clomp down the road.

  I would prefer not to, she said stiffly. The only thing which binds them is sorrow.

  “You must have had a difficult life,” he nodded, thinking back to his own life in Three Rivers. His thoughts quickly turned to Ellie, Yordan, and even Lorie. He had been haunted by what might have happened to Ellie and Yordan following his flight from Three Rivers—a flight preceded by his discovery of Dan’Moread, who had saved Ellie and Yordan from a belligerent team of Federation soldiers. He only hoped that his friends had survived and escaped retribution for the fateful events in the alley that night…

  It would seem to have been no more difficult than your own, she said sympathetically. What are your intentions, Randall?

  “My intentions?” he repeated in confusion. “What do you mean by that?”

  Your grandmother tasked you with—

  “She’s not my grandmother,” Randall interrupted acidly. “She may have given birth to my mother, but that doesn’t make her my grandmother. You have to earn that role, and she only ever lifted a finger to help me after I’d proven I could help her.”

  I did not mean to give offense, she apologized, and he realized that the clarity of her ‘tone’ was so very different from the monotonous, inflectionless version of her ‘voice’ that he had come to know that he almost thought of her as a different person—or sword…or whatever—than the one he had come to know on the trail which had led them to Greystone. But Phinjo did task us with retrieving some articles from a distant locale. Do you intend to perform that task?

  “Honestly, I’m not sure,” he replied. “It seems like if we do that then we’re going to be stuck in her little web of intrigue. I’m not sure that’s where either of us wants to be just now.”

  You can be certain that I do not wish to be there, Dan’Moread said frostily. But you are my wielder; the decision is ultimately yours to make.

  “That’s not how it should be,” Randall shook his head firmly. “You’re a person just like I am, and since we’ve only got one set of legs between us we’ve got to walk the same path. Whatever decisions we make need to be discussed and agreed upon.”

/>   You are my wielder, she repeated matter-of-factly. A weapon does not have the luxury of choosing which enemies she smites.

  Randall snorted in disbelief, “That’s rich, coming from you. As if I have any control over what happens once we’re in a battle. I’m just a passenger whenever you take over.”

  Precisely, she agreed, there are certain situations where I must be in control and there are other situations where you must be in control. I am content to advise you when you seek my counsel, but I have no desire to make—or even participate in—every decision you make during our time together.

  “That seems…odd,” he admitted.

  Why should it? she asked in what sounded like genuine confusion. In battle, we both know that I am best able to guide our actions. In fact, in every fight we have joined you have expressed—often vociferously—that you would prefer I take control.

  “But…why would you think I’m better able to guide us outside of combat than you are?”

  That is a good question… she said with what sounded like mock contemplation.

  “Oh come on,” Randall sniped irritably. “I did manage to get us out of Three Rivers—and I did manage to get us up to Greystone without either of us getting killed.”

  Mere survival is a low bar to clear, she quipped.

  “Maybe,” he huffed, “but it’s also the most important one.”

  True, she allowed before an awkward silence hung between them for several minutes.

  “Well…” he said uneasily, “what do you think?”

  About performing Phinjo’s task?

  “Yes,” he rolled his eyes, “about performing her task. Should we do it or should we take a turn off this road somewhere?”