Songs Of The Silver Wizard

COMPENDIUM

“Blood and bone and heartstring blended, power ushered forth inexorable, unbended. Nay, beware! Beware! The blood magic’s madness may never be mended.”

It was muttered in the darkened corners in the deepest depths of the goblin mines that five thousand of their brethren perished in the Castle Vorterik’s construction.

Orthinix smirked, bracing himself against the rim of his throne room’s oculus overlooking the Valley of Shadow deep in the Camelan range. Five thousand. It was a sum he often thought on, looking down over his vaunted fortress. Almost certainly five thousand goblins did not die in this fortress's construction. Deaths yes–after all, they were thousands of feet above the valley floor below, greatness comes with inherent risks–but not five thousand. Goblin builders were too valuable and he would have too much need for them in the coming wars to sacrifice such numbers on vanity. If he was going to sacrifice even a hundred goblin engineers, it would be for something impenetrable, not just vaunted.

But even if the said five thousand goblins perished, what would it matter? It was said, and he was told, that millions of goblins lived throughout the range. At least fifty thousand of their brethren made up the core of his army assembled in the tunnels below, waiting to be unleashed. Tens of thousands more lay in reserve. He could, almost certainly, replace five thousand with minimal impact to his strategies.

He stroked his black beard, rubbing the pain from a gaunt jaw. So why was it that this five thousand held such a steadfast place in his ever growing lore?

“Bowlorn’s keep burns and we bloodied the defenders. Alas, the forest warden overcame our raid, my great and powerful liege… their army grows. Unleash us again, let us avenge–”

“Quit groveling.” Orthinix did not scream. He did not even raise his voice.

The order was followed to its fullest effect. Poor generals screamed their orders. His black robe scraped against the stone as he turned to face the twins who lay prostrate before his dais. “Did Thaddeus draw his own blood?”

A moment of silence. “No–”

Orthinix suffered a moment of relief. Their ruin had not yet come yet, it seemed. He rubbed his temple.

“Your most, great, excellent–”

With a snap of his fingers, the twins collapsed. Orthinix’s heavy black steel boots rattled against the chamber’s onyx floor.

“Failure in this great crusade will mean the destruction of us all. I cannot tolerate failure,” he said, hunched over the trembling bodies.

They weren’t dead, not yet at least, though that would have been a mercy. He hated wasting such power, and executing his lieutenants by his own hand would breed other issues. The twins gasped, mouths ajar and struggling like fish out of water, their lungs shrunk to the smallest size possible to sustain them. They would survive, but they would be unable to summon their fiery avatars.

From the darkened corner amongst the columns, black and billowing robe obscuring the beaked mask he always wore outside his quarters, stepped Orthinix’s greatest lieutenant. He cursed himself for not unleashing Silus sooner and relying on these token mages. A mistake he would soon rectify.

“Silus, ensure their failures are not in vain.”

“It will be done my lord,” his Necromancer bowed in astute reverence. He lifted his arms and four skeletons clawed their way through the onyx floor. With a rattle of bone on bone, they lifted the twins–strength to resist gone–and carried them into the depths of Castle Vorterik. What his Necromancer planned for them, Orthinix did not know, nor truthfully care, but he knew that they would not be wasted by Silus’s machinations.

Yes, it was foolish to waste lives, but failure, like a festering wound, needed to be cut away.

What were two more against the five thousand?

And time was of the essence. A world full of magic demanded order, especially with Thaddeus about.

That failure, that fool, was a powder keg with a lighted wick attached to him, and if he did not stop him soon, they would all pay the price. His time had come.

The bells toll for you now, brother. Are you ready for what comes when they silence?

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A/N:

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