They wiled away the afternoon, walking along the road down the mountain.  Occasional patrols or wagons passed, and at one point, a detachment of nearly a hundred soldiers went marching up the mountain past them.

Eriel continued to teach the basics of magic theory to Aegan, sometimes using illusions to illustrate things.  Passersby gave them wide berth whenever she was casting illusions, and Aegan kept a steady eye on them, as though expecting them to accuse them all of violating Prophecy and needing to be put to death.

Rakoran history was different than Vridaran history.  In Rakore, the mages said that they were the allies of the Chosen of the Sun God, and it was they who had worked to stop and block and destroy the necromancer.  He had not been one of theirs, and had they not acted, the necromancer would have won.

A dwarf by the name of Nodrom Fistforger was one of the main leaders in the war against the necromancer.  While the War of the Undead was spreading across the planet, it was Nodrom Fistforger and his friends that figured out what was going on, and led the Chosen of the Sun God to where the Dark God was being raised.  The dwarf and his allies were also responsible for finding the Godslayer -- an ancient sword named for its ability to slay gods -- and getting the Godslayer to the Chosen of the Sun God.

Aegan and Eriel were moving along the road on the mountain towards Lok Giran -- where Nodrom Fistforger lived.  The dwarf had been promoted to a Baron within the ranks of the kingdom, and he also was a Bishop for the Church of Galgiran in Rakore.  Known as the Baron-and-the-Bishop because of his unique station, and nicknamed 'Dwarfendale' by his people, Eriel built Nodrom Fistforger into the image of a towering hero, a figure with a beard turned white by the touch of Galgiran himself.  Lok Giran itself was a dwarven term, meaning, "The Fortress of the Soul."

The smith began to feel completely unprepared for the role of Prophecy.  While he felt the dwarves that lived at Lok Giran with the Baron-and-the-Bishop would know what 'cargdin mithral' was, he began to fear that he was being unhinged from reality.  In some ways, he longed for the safety and obscurity of Gimore.  It had been a good, safe little town, completely disconnected from the world of magic and mayhem.

With a grimace, he realized he had put away his memories of ten years before.  The Season of Death had touched everyone.  Even Gimore had been affected, for six freshly interred bodies of townsmen had gotten up out of their graves.  Two of them had cut down members of the guard that were summoned by the high-pitched screams of women and children.  As the wave of death rode over the city, the two dead guardsmen also got right back up, answering the unspoken summons of the necromancer.

After that, other undead things had come out of the forests, now and again.  Few actually attacked Gimore, and the small temple to Yatindar had been more than adequate to protect the people.  Aegan sighed.  He rarely brought those memories out -- as he suspected many of his people did.  It was easier to remember the good, when reminiscing.

The large shadow was all the warning he had, as a roc flew over.  The roc was a hawk whose wings spread for nearly one hundred feet tip to tip.  Its coloration was a rich brown, speckled with a dun to ochre smattering of feathers, and its head was large enough to support a beak that could snap a man in half, or eviscerate an ox with equal ease.  Upon the roc's was a strange saddle that let an orc control the beast, and behind it sat six other orcs, three down each side of the great hawk's spine.  Even as the wings beat to stall the creature, the six orcs behind the rider were leaping down to the ground or throwing out ropes.

Aegan glanced back over his shoulder, seeing two more rocs landing nearby.  The smith drew his sword, knowing that he would have to somehow defeat the rocs, and the orcs they carried.

Eriel gasped at the drawn sword, and growled out the words to a spell, even as her hands fluidly, frantically moved through the motions of a spell.  A moment later, a bubble of energy popped into being around the two of them -- and then they both disappeared.

Aegan looked down at where he knew his hands and the sword had to be, but it was nowhere to be seen.  He could feel its weight, and knew it was there, but could not see anything.

Eriel laid a hand on his arm, and growled, "This way.  Don't do anything but move with me."

Aegan said, "We have to attack!  If we don't, they'll cut off the road to Lok Magius!"

Even though he couldn't see her, he knew where she was from her voice.  She used one hand to blindly grope the front of his tunic, and then pulled herself up to his face to growl.  "You cannot defeat them yourself.  You are one man, with a sword.  I can keep them from seeing us, but if you attack, they will see you, and they will kill you!"

An arrow fired from a shortbow crossed right between them, the fletching brushing Aegan's chin.  He started, and moved in the direction Eriel led.  He made sure the invisible sword wouldn't strike her by accident, keeping it close by his side and away from her as she led him by the hand off the road, and further up the mountain.

She wished she could see him, to better understand Aegan.  He had gone from far wiser than most humans she had met, to a simple child, in the space of a few heartbeats.  Off the road the mountainside was rather steep, and they were still above the tree line, though it was only five hundred or so feet below them.  The near-cliffs provided them a bit of protection as she pulled them around a corner.  From the slight crevasse, they could only see one of the rocs, its crew already at work loosening the stone with special tools.  A harness was being unfurled, and carefully attached to the roc.

Aegan guessed that they would use the huge rocs to pull aside slabs of the roadway, where they would plummet down the side of the mountain.  He glanced at the sun, and figured that it would only take a half mark, or less, to dislodge the first slab of stone.

Eriel blindly reached for his tunic, and found the front of it.  She drew the collar closer to her lips, whispering at him.  "Don't make a sound.  Those rocs have good hearing, and they might hear us."

She felt him move a bit, and realized he was foolishly nodding while invisible.  He caught himself, and whispered, "Aye."

Other than the whisper of the wind, it was eerily silent -- save for the clack of the roc's immense talons on the stone, the grunting of the orcs as they swung their tools, and the sound of sledge hammers hitting pitons being driven into the slabs of rock, some fifty feet away.  Two orcs looked curiously about for the invisible pair, but they stayed close by the rocs.

Eriel whispered, "What were you thinking?  Do you even know how to use that sword?"

Aegan was silent for a moment, and then carefully said, "Nowhere near well enough to make a difference.  I might could have taken three.  Maybe four."  There was an odd sound, and she realized it was his sword sliding into its scabbard, muffled by his hand around the scabbard's mouth.

"Then what were you thinking?" she repeated, whispering fiercely.  "Why throw your life away like that?  Did you forget the Prophecy?!"

He gently grabbed her fist, clenched around his collar, and disengaged it.  He whispered fiercely, "The orcs know that this road is the only way to supply food and supplies to the academy.  If it is cut off, then the academy will starve.  They vill be forced to move, or veakened, so that these rocs can attack en masse.  You told me the numbers of the orcs are... almost beyond numbering.  If they take the academy, or veaken it, they strengthen their side."

She was silent for a moment, breathing hard, and thinking.  "You're right.  But...  Rushing to your death wouldn't stop them!  Are you suicidal?"

He was silent for an uncomfortably long time, and she reached out blindly to assure herself that he was still there.  She found his arm, and he tensed slightly when she did so.  His skin was warm to the touch, and that frightened her more than the rocs.  It meant that he was completely unafraid of the huge hawks, and the orcs.  Aegan was either more foolish that she could have imagined, or was somehow keeping his fear in check.

The smith said, "Ve have to distract that crew -- the vone ve can see -- long enough for the dwarven artillery crew to get into position."

Eriel blinked madly at him.  He had lost his mind.  "What artillery crew?  There was no crew out here!"  Her fierce whispering was almost a shout, and the roc they could see turned its head so that one of its great eyes looked in their direction.

Again, he disengaged her hand.  Aegan gave an odd grunting sound, and then suddenly appeared about ten feet away.  His sword was still sheathed, and he had a large rock held to his chest in his huge, muscular arms.  He caught the orcs completely by surprised, and the suddenly hurled rock smashed into one with a strange crunching sound, completely crushing the orc's rib cage.  Aegan swept up the sledge hammer the crushed orc had been wielding, and spun around, sweeping a second orc's head off its shoulders.  His sword was suddenly out, drawn by his left hand, upside-down, and it sliced open a third orc's throat as the smith continued his mad spin.

The remaining orcs finally realized the danger they were in, and began to toss away their tools, and draw sheathed weapons.

Eriel wanted to scream.  If she used any other kind of magic from within her bubble of invisibility, then the bubble would collapse, and she would be vulnerable.  Instead, she had to spend a moment casting a stronger spell that would shrink the bubble down to her size, and reinforce it against further magics.  The spell cost her valuable time, and she had to concentrate on casting it -- hoping that Aegan would stay alive long enough for her next spell to be of any use.

When she opened her eyes, two more orcs were dead, and Aegan's left arm hung down uselessly at his side, blood covering the forearm and splashing onto the ground with every hop, swipe, or parry.  He stubbornly held onto the sword in that hand, while his good arm wielded the sledge with deceptive ease.

The two remaining orcs that had come from that roc were squaring off against Aegan with small shields and a spear and a short sword.  The one wielding the short sword was blindly reaching behind him for the reins to the roc, dangling not far away from his fingers.  The immense hawk, for its part, was feasting on the remains of one of the orcs, pulling great gobbets of entrails from its carcass.

An arrow thunked into Aegan's back, lodging into his shoulder blade.  Another thunked into his calf, and went half-way through, fletching sticking out on one side, and a bloody arrow head sticking out on the other.  Aegan skipped back from the spear-wielding orc, snapping off the head of the arrow as he scissored his legs.  The orc with the short sword turned to grasp the reins, and gave them a mighty yank -- garnering the attention of the roc hawk.

Eriel furiously spilled the words and gestures that she needed, cursing the need for every syllable and every movement of her graceful hands, because the spell was simply not fast enough no matter how she wanted it to be faster.  The spell circuit finally completed, and the pattern unleashed itself in a blaze of blue and purple bolts of magic that tore into the orc holding the reins.  The orc staggered from each bolt, blackened and burnt skin sloughing off from the impact areas of each strike.  The orc collapsed under the fury of the bolt storm, the hand holding both a short sword and the reins half-severed, with bits of blackened bone jutting out.

The roc jumped back from the display of magic, dragging the dead orc along with the reins.  The remaining orc threw itself onto Aegan, landing heavily on the smith, and beating him with the edge of his shield.

The illusionist screamed, "No!" and rushed towards Aegan.

Aegan clumsily swung the sledge-hammer with one hand, but the procine humanoid blocked the strike with its short spear, continuing to hammer the smith's head between the edge of the shield and the rock underneath.  Aegan dropped the hammer, and grabbed the orc's throat with one hand.  The creature grinned, a runnel of drool falling from its lips, pulled back from porcine tusks.  The runnel of drool froze solid.

The roc exploded in a flurry of feathers.

Eight, nine -- Eriel had no idea how many orcs -- rushed in towards Aegan, and froze in shock as the roc fell back off the mountain with two arrows of impossible size buried to the wooden fletching in its body.

She looked to the side, seeing the other two rocs and their riders.  More orcs were coming, some with bows ready, and others with axes or swords suddenly dropping in their lax hands.

To her other side, crashing down the side of the mountain, came three of the two-legged dwarven mounts known as hippotauns.  The hippotaun cavalry carried dwarves with crossbows at the ready -- and behind them, two large creatures that moved on four legs, with armored shells and clubbed tails.  Mounted on the armored shells of the two beasts were ballistae and their crews, which were already fast at work recranking the huge crossbows, and loading two more gigantic arrows.

In the bare second it had taken her to turn her head from side to side and assess the situation, Aegan had managed to freeze his enemy solid.  The orc shattered into a thousand pieces as his fist clenched about the orc's throat.  Red, pink, and green ice shards fell everywhere around the smith, as he wearily rolled over, and struggled to his knees.

Behind him, the hippotauns roared on the run, surging forward in a burst of speed.  The orc advance ground to a halt, and they all brought up their shields to form a powerful defensive line, weapons just jutting out from the shield wall.

The dwarves fired crossbows even as the hippotauns charged forward.  Most of the bolts from the crossbows stuck into the shields of the orcs, but a few went into soft flesh.  The orcs stood their grounds, bolts and all, as the hippotauns crashed into their line.

Eriel had had to dodge one of the beasts on its way back, and its mighty tail had knocked her into the struggling Aegan.  The two of them rolled over a few times, before he got an arm out, and stopped them -- right before the edge of the road.  His blood coated her invisible form, making it easier for him to push her back away from him.

She gasped at the raw, searing pain of the touch, falling back from the pain.

He gasped, "Stay back!"

His breath fogged in the mountain air, turning into snow that drifted away on the wind.  Sheets of sweat had coated his body from the pain of his wounds, but they were frozen solid -- as was the blood frozen onto his left arm and his face.  The tips of his fingers were clawed in icicles, one hand in the clear ice of sweat, and the other in the red ice of blood.  Incredibly, the flow of blood had stopped entirely as it froze solid.

Worst of all were his eyes.  Eriel's pain was forgotten as she stared into his eyes that were an intense shade of bluish-green -- the kind found only in ancient and deep glaciers.

The rest of the battle continued on, with the dwarves slowly winning by sheer ferocity against the disciplined orcs.

Eriel whispered, "Gahle liSear!"  Her lips trembled, and unbidden, the words tumbled from her.  "You are the Gahle liSear!"

He stared at her from eyes that were limitlessly deep for a moment, his shoulders heaving in great gulps of air.  Then his eyes rolled back into his head, and he fell forward like a giant of a tree falling in the forest.

She elf-maid was nearly crushed as she moved to try and catch the smith.  She had never quite realized how much he had to weigh, and she did little more than slow his fall and bang herself up in the process.  She turned to call for help from the dwarves, and found one of the four-legged beasts with a ballistae on its back not five feet away.

The driver gazed down calmly at her, even as the loader and the gunner were pulling out bandages, splints, and other medical implements from a pack just behind the rider.

The two dwarves in chain mail with plates of steel riveted to the suits, leapt down from the armored beast.  They paused hesitantly, apparently wary of the blood-covered invisible form.

Eriel concentrated, forcing the spell pattern to go into a cascade failure, and her invisibility fell away like mist.  She said in a struggling voice, "Help me," as the heavy weight of Aegan slowly crushed her.

Both dwarves, one with a strawberry-blonde beard down to his belt, and the other with a rich brown beard half-way to his belt, knelt to ease the injured man off of her.

Eriel looked around at the rest of the dwarves, and realized that the battle was over.  One roc had taken flight, though it flew in obvious pain, a huge ballista bolt sticking out of its gut.  All of the orcs were slain, and several of the dwarves sported injuries.  The remaining dwarves were slowly rolling out a canvas tarp, and covering two of their own, fallen in combat against their ancient enemy.

The dwarf with the strawberry-blonde beard tucked both of his hands under his arm pits to warm them.  The one with the brown beard was looking at his hands in distaste.  As he slowly clenched his fists, chunks of his skin bunched and shattered.

Eriel slowly realized that her cheek and one hand were very stiff, and she was having trouble catching her breath.

Several dwarves walked up to join them, and examined the dwarf with the brown beard's hands.  They spoke in the harsh language of the dwarves with one another, using terse sentences and short words.  They wasted little time on speeches or ramblings, and were well to the point.

One of the dwarves, with bright blue eyes and an auburn beard done in one massive braid mid-way to his knees, said, "I'm Brother Kurkin.  Who be you?"

Eriel said, "Eriel Enelidalithan, Illusionist for Lok Magius."

Brother Kurkin, also in chain, but possessed of plates that had strange ridges of sharpened metal, nodded seriously.  "Well met."  He began to speak a sonorous chant, with his hands clasped in prayer, and a pendant on a chain about his wrist dangling beneath his hands.  The ritualized chant completed, and a blast wave of warm air swept out, throwing hair and clothing about in a wind that originated from the pendant.

The elf maid realized with relief that the dwarf was a priest, and that Aegan was probably in good hands.  Kurkin knelt down, and grasped Aegan without apparent discomfort or pain.  He tapped with his knuckles at the sheets of ice and blood that covered the human, examining the extent of the wounds.

Brother Kurkin yanked on the chain about his wrist in a fluid motion, and the pendant was suddenly in his clenched fist.  He spoke another sonorous chant, with his other hand held palm-down to Aegan's chest.  When the chant completed, there was another blast of warm air, as though from a furnace, and a glowing red-orange glow slowly grew from beneath the dwarf's hand.

The ice that covered Aegan began to melt, slowly at first, and then more rapidly, as the glow continued to shine from beneath the dwarf's hand.  Sheets of frozen sweat and blood began to crack off of the human's skin, and blood began to flow freely from his wounds.

The priest said, "Baelin, it's safe to bind his wounds, now.  Colbut, fish out the rest of that arrow."  The other two dwarves moved to do as the priest had commanded, even as the glow from beneath the priest's hand faded.

Eriel asked fiercely, "Will he be all right?"

The priestly dwarf said, "He's taken some mighty blows to his head, lass.  I dinnae have the power to fully heal him.  We'll have to take him back to Lok Giran."  He raised his brows to emphasize his next words.  "He may not make it.  Stay with him, if ye be any friend of his, and talk to him.  Mebbe yuir voice will keep him from going over to the other side."

The elf maid swallowed back tears, and quickly grabbed Aegan's bloodied hand.  "Aegan, listen to me.  I'm...  I'm going to finish your lessons," she said, desperately casting about for something to talk to the human about.  "We left off at necromancy, and how it's different from the other magics."

She continued to talk to him, even as four other dwarves easily lifted the big man, and handed him up to two dwarves already astride one of the big hippotauns.  The driver waited only long enough for Eriel to lightly leap up onto the beast's back, before snapping his reins at the hippotaun.  It let out a deep gronk, and then began to slowly pad down the mountain road.

Eriel was afraid that the swaying motion would dump Aegan off to one side of the beast, but the two dwarves that were belted onto the beast's long saddle easily held the heavy human in place.  As they passed a shattered wagon loaded with sacks of grain, the driver clucked at the hippotaun, and it lurched into a faster, smooth-gaited canter.