Sons of Ironstorm - Book 4: Griffon's Stand

Kingfisher

The man smiled thinly.

"Seamus Tod of Clan Tod," Dagon replied, his voice barely louder than a hoarse whisper. "I'm afraid I must disappoint. The Shadow left a handful of us alive in the wake of their assault on Septus. Including her most unworthy king." He inclined his head slightly, the gesture and the wry words enough to elicited a snort from the dubious Mamran monarch.

"At least we both agree about yer unworthiness," Seamus growled.

Dagon smiled at that, a thin thing that barely moved his lips, leaving the rest of his face carved stone. Then he was making a dismissive motion with his hand.

"I didn't come here to bandy words and trade insults, Tod," the solid Septan monarch said. "I am here to speak with you as a fellow leader of humanity about our greater enemy." He held up gauntleted hands; hands that were quite empty.

"May I approach?"

Seamus's thoughts tumbled erratically as he stared at the Septan king. To say their two nations had a history of conflict would be making the grossest of understatement. Septus and Mamra were in an almost constant state of war, the two Hammer kingdoms sharing the southern MaKalech mountains and lay claim to the same chunks of the western Sea of Hydrai. They had fought on land, they had fought at sea. They had even fought over colonies established on foreign soil. It was said that there were three things that never changed in the Hammer: Ri'im rising in the East, Rimnor in the West, and war between Mamra and Septus.

Never had the monarch of one kingdom approached the other in a gesture of peace. Yet here was Protem Dagon, an enemy of Mamra and Clan Tod for as long as Seamus could remember, doing just that by asking to approach in peace, no weapons in sight.

"The Return is an enemy to all Life," Finigan pointed out in a low voice as if sensing Seamus's hesitation. "The holy texts say all of Humanity was created to fight the Shadow. Not just Mamra and Talemon."

"So I just ignore decades of war and atrocity heaped upon our heads at the behest of this man?" he growled in reply.

"Aye. Just as he's ignorin' what Mamra has done to him and his," the venerable druid retorted. "So we can all fight the Return!"

Oddly enough that brought Seamus's mind back to the fateful night he had sent young Lawrence, Lord William, General Stylles, and his own Captain Duncan through a twisting portal through space to parts unknown in the hopes of locating an ancient and very lost Weapon of Power. If the heir to Ironstorm and the throne of Talemon was willing to risk everything like that on the merest whisper of hope, could he do any less by at least giving Dagon the chance to speak?

"Approach in peace, Septus," he called out through the cold air, his tone suddenly far more formal than he thought it would be. "So that we may speak, one leader to another."

Dagon slowly nodded, an unmistakable look of relief appearing on the tattooed face. Keeping his hands up and out in front of him, he then began to quickly walk towards where Seamus now stood arms folded over his armored chest. As he did so, the Mamran monarch took the opportunity to study the dark grey plate armor the Septan was wearing in place of the usual chainmail and boiled leather the Fisherfolk favored, protection that made more sense on the heaving decks of a ship at sea than it did in the mountains.

Unfortunately that study did nothing to answer why the Septans were suddenly wearing it. Nor did it tell him anything about the armor's strength or what those glowing symbols were supposed to do. If Morgan were here, he could at least determine how strong the armor was, Galentalers expert in every kind of armor, their armorsmiths sought by every nation in the Hammer.