Ingeniero

Chapter One: Brynhome

“It’s been raging, like that, since yester eve, Lord Dragonheart,” stated a particularly nervous, young dwarf, pointing eastward. “It’s like a thunderstorm on the ground.”
After climbing the winding steps which led from the mountain pass below to the guard post known as East Watch, Raud Dragonheart, Battle Lord of Brynhome Mountain, crouched to one knee andsurveyed the landscape to the east. East Watch was little more than a stone ridge beneath a rock bluff, high on the escarpment of Dragonhide’s easternmost peak. From this height, Raud could see far across the plains of Green Sea, so named for its tall grasses and sparse trees, stretching from the Dragonhide Mountains to the peaks of The Wyrming Range, three hundred leagues to the east.
Barelyvisible near the horizon, visible flashes of light pulsed occasionally on the floor of the Green Sea far below as night was giving way to dawn. The final “Wizards War,” as the Dwarves spoke of it, was being waged on those grassy plains. No matter what the outcome, thought Raud, it didn’t bode well for the dwarves of Brynhome or anywhere else in Aerolynd.
“These Wizards been feudin’ since beforemy grandar grew his beard,” Raud reassured the young soldier, though Raud, himself wasn’t reassured by his own words. He wondered what his grandfather would have thought about the events unfolding on the Green Sea this day. It was one thing for a few hundred humans to master Eldritcan, the language of magic, eight hundred or so years before, and begin quarreling with one another over who wouldhave dominion over this or that part of Aerolynd. It was quite a different matter when all of those wizards were brought under the control of the two most powerful among them, who now contested each other for dominion over all the lands of the humans. When the battle was decided, Raud wondered if the victor would be content to rule over his own kind, or if he would turn his eye to the elves anddwarves, as well.
What soured the thought even more was that a few of those wizards, including the two Grand Wizards now in contention were among the original wizards to delve into Eldritcan lore. Their mastery of Eldritch Craft was so complete that they had conquered the effects of time, ceasing to age, and counted themselves immortal.
A breeze began to swirl around the ridge, blowingRaud’s hair forward and sending a chill up the back of his neck.
“How long do ye reckon they can keep it up?” the soldier asked, scratching his yellow beard, which barely reached the neckline of his chain shirt.
Raud didn’t reply right away, but instead, chewed his lip and stroked his own long, dark beard. He’d been having uneasy feelings for some time about today, which is why he hadtraveled half the night to reach East Watch by morning. To Raud, this day, the 7th day of Spring Rise, bore great significance, though no other dwarf in Brynhome knew why.
Dwarves, like the other races of Aerolynd, counted their age in years. Raud was a little more than one hundred ninety-four years old, about middle age for a dwarf, and there was nothing significant at all about that. But afortnight before, and for no apparent reason, Raud had begun tracing his age, not in years, but in seasons. That’s when it occurred to him, that a fortnight hence, on the 7th day of Spring Rise, he would be seven hundred seventy-seven seasons and seventy-seven days old. At first, it seemed nothing more than an amusing coincidence.
On the first day of Spring Rise, when his scouts reported thatthe Grand Wizard, Magnon, was marching his army of twenty thousand Skratch eastward to the Green Sea, passing within three leagues of Brynhome, a seed of foreboding had been planted in the pit of Raud’s gut that he couldn’t shake, and that seed had grown a little every day since. It was clear that Magnon was marching his army of half-dwarves to meet the Oroqai forces of the Grand Wizard,...