Right, so this chapter sets the tone for the next few books really. Let me know what you think.
Bram's fist was still pressed to his breastbone, and his other hand came up and caught a fistful of Harold's sleeve, the heart's light gone down to a slow pulse in the crook of his arm.
"Lad. Lad." The laugh and the weeping were both still in his voice, fighting it out. "Whatever that was — that notification — I never knew it, on Brokkun's hammer I swear it to ye. No crown was ever spoken of to me; we were too busy trying not to die, I never once—"
Harold's hand came up flat between them, and his eyes had already left Bram's face.
Humanity's boon awaits. Select one.
Time remaining: 5:00.
The countdown started under the words and kept going, and below it the list opened — and went on opening, perks scrolling past faster than a man could read them, thousands of them, more than anyone could weigh in an hour, let alone five minutes.
"Harold?" Josh had one hand on the doorframe and the other half-raised toward him.
Harold caught maybe half of it. He had heard of this screen before when one other Lord had earned humanity a boon, and he had described this part. What was the perk he picked, though?
The last time that perk had come too late. This time, it could change humanity far more than most of these perks.
Steady Hands — crafting yields rise across every trade.
Second Wind — health and stamina return faster out of combat.
Iron Stomach — more drawn from every meal and potion.
Calloused — a flat sliver off all physical damage taken.
Thick Blood — greater resistance to poison and sickness.
Long March — less fatigue from travel and hard labor.
Forager's Eye — ore, herb, and game easier to spot.
Quick Study — skills set faster through practice.
Even Footing — smaller penalties on broken ground.
Salvager — more usable material off every kill.
Wellspring — raises the tier a human mana body can reach.
Last Stand — survive one blow that would have killed you.
Mender — flesh wounds knit cleaner, and scars fade.
Hearthbound — humans recover faster when sleeping under their own roof.
Truthsense — humans more readily feel a deliberate lie spoken to their face.
Apprentice's Tongue — a skill taught by one human takes root quicker in another.
Lineage — a portion of a parent's mana-body density is carried to their children at birth.
Bright Spark — every human newly awakened to the System starts a step higher than they would have.
Soulbond — a human may once in their life swear an unbreakable oath to another, the breaking of which is mortal.
Echo of the Fallen — once per human, on the death of one they loved, take a measure of what that one was into yourself.
Many Hands — perks taken by a human's Lords' sworn vassals reach the lord at reduced strength.
A couple of evenings since, he had gone to reading every scrap of old human myth he could put his hands on, because the System liked to incorporate humanities histories into itself. Case in point, the Honor the Ancestors Perk he had. The one that allowed his soldiers to learn how to fight as long as they were fighting in the old human styles. It was part of why he picked the Roman theme.
He stopped as he found it, and his blood surged in excitement. This would change everything.
The Grail Quest — issue one Quest to every human lord beneath the System. Its rank is drawn from the stele that raised their seat. Reward rises with rank.
Last time this had been picked, humanity had been reduced to fewer than 10 regions controlled. The number of Lords that could do this was reduced. But now…with millions of Lords out there, the rewards would be far more. The rewards for accomplishing the quest were varied. Unique buildings, paths, and system item caches, even relics and bloodlines. Now, there were enough lords that this would change humanity dramatically.
He selected it with the counter sitting at 3:41 and let the rest of the time run out on its own.
Would you like to be recognized as the one who called the Grail Quest? — Yes / No.
He grunted as he read the words. There was no way he could remain a secret. Not when there was a clan of dwarves outside his keep. The secret would escape; it would be better to increase his standing and prestige with the rest of humanity. And it was time to stop being timid and to stop hiding in the shadows.
The words came down across the world then, in front of every set of human eyes that drew breath beneath the System.
The Grail Quest begins!
The beacons burn from mountain to sea, and every Lord beneath the System is called. Take up the Grail Quest for a reward. The road is yours. The Grail at its end is not promised. Fight! Claim your reward.
The Grail Quest was called by Count Harold Calder, Lord of the Landing. The Potion Lord. Master of the Basin.
Then a new notification popped up just for him.
Legendary Quest — Recover the shards of Tyrfing and reforge it. (Altered)
Reward: ???
"Goddammit!" he exclaimed. "Now I know we are being messed with." Harold went still, because he knew the name — the cursed blade from the Norse, the one that has to draw blood every time it's bared and takes its toll out of the bloodline of whoever's fool enough to hold it. It brought great victories but also calamity. His mind wandered as he remembered what it caused, and who it had killed, and he almost collapsed, and his heart hammered in his throat as he remembered. He could never use this weapon for fear of what it would cause.
There was nothing under it. No terms, no description, no hint of where the pieces lay; just the name.
"Shit.Margaret."
She was already facing him, her ledger shut and held flat against her chest. "My lord."
"The forum. All of it — every board, every region, every soul with the wit to be afraid of us by morning. I need to know what's being said on it." His eyes stayed on the window. "And put a line up under our banner. Lord Calder will give a full account tomorrow, with proof. Nothing past that. Let them argue with each other until then."
Margaret's gaze dropped to something only she could see, and her eyes went wide as her own boards lit, the thread count climbing in front of her faster than she could chase it. "It is already—" She caught it, and the prim folded back over the top. "I need to get to my people." She was through the doorway before the sentence finished, around Josh and gone down the hall to join her.
Harold turned back to Bram.
The dwarf was square on his own feet now, swaying less, the heart cradled to his ribs and the last of its light gone out, and he was watching Harold with both eyes red and steady. Harold looked at him, "Royalty," Harold said. "Start there."
Thessa hadn't moved from the wall since the heart went home. Her palm was flat against the stone, her eyes half-shut, her free hand rising and lowering over the granite in small settling motions, and from her face she was reaching farther down into it than ever before. A ridge of color had come back into her cheeks. Her lips parted through her beard on a half-breath she didn't seem to know she was taking.
Hargen, on his fourth pass over the breastplate, ran his thumb along a seam Harold hadn't yet learned to see and clicked his tongue once. He stepped back, looked at it a moment longer, and grunted.
"Need a forge."
He turned and walked out, his boots loud on the boards. Down the hall, a guard's voice started a question and stopped halfway when it received no answer.
Harold watched him go, and he smiled at their antics. He couldn’t imagine what it felt like to feel real passion for the first time.
He turned to Bram.
"You put a target on both our backs."
Bram's mouth opened. Harold shook his head once, and Bram closed it again.
"I'm not done. I didn't know what bringing your clan here would do. I knew it was a relic. I knew it was yours. I did not know it was the throne of dwarvenkind, and we both know the rest of the clans are not going to take this lying down. They'll call the clans to war. Against me. Against you. Against my people and every soul in it."
His eyes drilled down into Bram, and his aura was leaking before he noted it. Bram was already nodding in agreement.
"My legion can't stand against a dwarven army yet. Not on a field. Dwarven gunpowder and slayers will descend on us. The dwarven lords guard their knowledge and mountains zealously, and they've done it against worse than me for centuries. The notification the world just read put us into permanent war with dwarvenkind."
Bram's chest filled and emptied once, the air going out of him on a long sound between a laugh and a sigh. He set the heart down on the desk with both hands, slow and careful, and straightened up.
"Aye, lad. I've cocked it for ye, haven't I?" He rubbed a palm over his beard, the wet of his eyes catching the lamplight. "I came in here a beggar at a king's table, and I'm leaving a king at yer hearth. I've nothing to say to that. Ye're owed an apology, and I'll give ye one when the day allows, but the day isn't going to allow, so I'll give ye something better."
His shoulders came up by inches. His hand fell open at his side and closed again, the gem-light long gone from his palm, but his body shimmered as his mana moved.
"I'll swear this oath to ye. I'll swear meself to ye as vassal." His voice had dropped, and behind him, Thessa's hand came away from the wall, and her eyes opened. "But I'll not claim kingship over the Dawi. Not the throne. Not the holds. Not one stone of what was taken from us."
Thessa moved then. Her palm went back to the wall flat, and she struck it once. The stone shook from the blow and transmitted through the keep and out to the Landing as a whole. He knew the words spoken here would be heard by everyone.
"They stood by while we withered, lad." Bram's voice climbed by a step. "The Stonefist. The Mithrilmind. The Ironlegs. The Steelback."
Another strike. Louder. The wall above the desk hummed with it, just under the threshold of sound.
"The Goldbeard with all their oath-keeping and their grand councils — silent. The Bronzeshoulder, who carry every other clan's freight and let ours go into the ground unburied. The Copperthroat, who sing of every great clan on the mountain and forgot the words to ours inside a generation. The Silvertongue, who'd not lend one of their many fine voices to ask after us in any market they ever stood in."
Strike. Strike. Thessa's rhythm was on now, a smith's tempo on a hot piece, and at every blow the office stone carried it down through the floor, into the courtyard cobbles, into the bedrock under the hill.
"The Obsidianjaw, who hunt every old debt but ours. The Flinttooth, who never sent a scout to see if any of us were left living. The Slate-eye, who claim to see everything and saw nothing. The Marblebone, who claim kinship with all!"
Out in the hall, boots — Carter's, coming up the stairs at a clip. Half a beat behind them, Jack Churchill. They hit the doorway and stopped. Carter's hand was on his sword and didn't come off. Jack's eyes went past Bram to Thessa at the wall, and stayed there.
Thessa never broke rhythm.
"Every clan that calls itself dwarven and were silent while we withered!" Bram had turned full to the window now, and his voice was open, a soldier's voice on the rise. "Over three hundred years! Years of small funerals and quiet mothers, and we asked once, and once was enough! We begged!"
He drew in a breath that lifted his whole chest, and Thessa raised her hand high and smacked the stone.
"I Call GRUDMOOT against the Dawi!"
The strike came down on the word.
The office didn't hold it. The stone absorbed the call, and the strike under it, and gave them to the next stone over, and the next — the keep ringing it floor by floor, the wall picking it up and passing it on, the cobbles in the yard and the bedrock under the hill alive with it. Harold felt it leave the office through the soles of his boots and keep going. Everyone in the Landing heard it.
"By the gods!" Bram's hands came up, and his voice was a full roar now, and every word of it went down through the stone the moment it left his mouth. "By Brokkun who struck the first blow! By Hethra of the bearded hearth! By Vesgrim of the lucky vein and Karth whose bones our holds are built on! By Vargrim, who keeps the long ledger and forgets nothing! By Hrok of the red edge!"
A strike of Thessa's palm rode out under every name.
"I Call Grudmoot against me own family!" Bram's voice cracked and he kept going through it. "The Gemheart is returned, and I will not allow us to be put back into the earth a second time! By granite and marble! By axe and hammer!"
He swung his head to Harold. His eyes were lit.
"I swear this oath in yer names, my Gods! Give me your support, and I'll give ye yer son back whole!"
The last strike Thessa landed on the wall was the biggest, and the landing reverberated with Bram's words.
Then, from out past the wall, far on the hillside: a thousand dwarven throats opening at once. A sound older than dwarvenkind — fury and oath tied together into shouts of support for Brams' oath.
Carter had his sword half-drawn, and his eyes were wide in shock. Jack was still looking at the wall. Thessa was on one knee, and her palm stayed against the stone, and her eyes were alight in fiery passion.
Carter had his sword half-drawn and wasn't aware of it. Jack was still looking at the wall. Thessa was on one knee, and her palm stayed against the stone, and her eyes were closed now, listening to the dark she'd just sent the call into.
Harold felt his own passion rising to match Bram’s. His aura was released, and as far down into the Landing, the effects could be felt. His deeds were laid bare to all without the negative effects. Though how he did it, he could never explain.
Bram had just called a Grudmoot against his entire race. A debt to be repaid. A people. A throne. A returned bloodline. A king's binding sworn on the back of a clan three hundred years buried, on six gods, on every stone in the keep and the bedrock under it — laid at the feet of a man whose hold had not stood for a year. And he swore it to him and his gods. To everyone who breathed.
He crossed the room.
The boards took his weight without sound. Thessa's palm was still on the wall, and the keep was still listening, and the stones knew there was one more thing to take.
He took Bram's forearm in his.
His voice didn’t climb, but the stone would carry his passion just the same.
"Bram Ironhold. I accept the oath."
Bram's eyes were wet again, and he did not blink.
"By my name — Harold Calder, Count of the Landing, the Potion Lord, Master of the Basin." Harold's eyes did not leave Bram's. "By my banner. By every stone in this hold and every soul who stands beneath it. By the blood in my veins and the lands of Gravesend."
He felt the office stone take the words and give them on, the way it had taken Bram's. Out and out. Down through the hill.
"The Gemheart are my house. Your clan is my clan. Your dead are mine to answer for. Your enemies are mine to put into the ground. I will not see one of you go back into the dark while I draw breath, and I will spend whatever it costs to see your hold stand again on its own stone."
He drew the next one out, because it was the line that answered Bram's last one.
"And your God's son becomes home whole, Bram Ironhold. I swear it."
Outside the curtain wall, the thousands answered him. His own people joining in. Dwarvenkind and humanity united in purpose that hadn’t been seen in an age.
And under it, threaded through it, the deeper note of a thousand dwarven palms striking stone in answer to Thessa's, every one of them taking the oath into the hillside and giving it back.
Bram's other hand came up and closed over the back of Harold's, both his hands on Harold's. His head bent forward, and his brow came to rest against Harold's knuckles, and stayed there.
"Aye, lad." It was almost gone, the voice. "Aye."
Suddenly, six dwarves were standing in a half-ring around Harold and Bram, plain as travelers. But the quality of their armor and clothing was evident. His own aura quailed before them and shrank from their presence. His soul shook in the presence.
The smith with the hammer at his belt and his sleeves rolled to the elbow. The broad woman, gray-bearded to her sternum, hands folded at her waist. The lean one with a gem turning between his fingers easy as a man flipping a coin. The oldest of them, low and heavy and the color of old stone, his eyes half-closed. The thin one with hands stained dark as old ink, who watched Bram and only Bram. The axe-bearer, red of beard, with a scar from his eye to his jaw.
Carter's sword came clear of its sheath.
The axe-bearer's head turned. Hrok looked at Carter with a professional nod and smirked approvingly.
"Bah."
He waved his free hand once. Carter came up off the boards and across the office without his feet touching them, sword still up, untouched — and set down standing against the side wall, eyes blown wide. Hrok looked away as if he had never looked.
Vargrim the Long Ledger spoke.
"Oath accepted." His voice was quiet, dry, and rang cold through every stone the keep had been carrying. "Do not fail us."
Bram dropped to one knee on the boards. The Gemheart on the desk picked up its light.
It came on like a fire taking, soft at first and then full, and then past full into a star, a small white sun in the middle of the office, and the shadows of six gods stretched out long along the walls, and Harold could not look at the gem directly and could not look away.
The heart left the desk.
It crossed the space between the desk and Bram in the single beat of the heart, and when it struck him in the chest, the sound was deep and final, and Bram's whole body lit from the inside.
The light coming off him was not white. It was every color a gem could be, all of them at once, threaded together and turning — his mana, multihued, the Gemheart line woken in full inside the Dwarf. His hands tightened on Harold's.
The gods were gone before the light went out of him.
Bram knelt at Harold's feet with both his hands still on Harold's hands, and the last color of the Gemheart faded into his chest beneath his ribs and settled there, low and warm.
A voice came in across Harold then.
Support my son, human lord. We will be indebted.
Harold looked down at Bram, who was still on one knee, and bent, and got his hands under the dwarf's arms. He brought him to his feet. Even multihued and god-touched, Bram was heavy; it took both hands and a moment, and the breath went out of Harold in a small grunt before Bram came up the rest of the way.
Bram looked at him with eyes that were not the eyes of an hour ago.
"Right," Harold said. "Let's not keep our people waiting."