---

The Story So
Far: href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week1">Part
1 | href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week2">Part
2 | href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week3">Part
3 | href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week4">Part
4 | href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week5">Part
5 | href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week6">Part
6 | href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week7">Part
7 | href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week8">Part
8

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By Padraic





Greetings, once again, people of Telara.
It is I, Padraic, your trusty scribe. You may recall that last time
Bran and I had decided to venture into style="font-weight: bold;">Ardenburgh to speak
to Borrin Gamult.
(And, somewhat more importantly, to find some food). Bran now leads the
way through the broken and devastated town, the colorful skirt he now
wears as a cloak acting as a lurid beacon for me to follow. (Plus - and
please forgive me if this sounds a bit cold - serving as a target to
draw any unwanted attention away from my good self.)



As we traverse the streets, avoiding the style="font-weight: bold;">Deathbound Thralls
and Ardenburgh Horrors,
I thought it might be helpful to talk about the dwarven king we were
going to interview, one of the heroes of the style="font-weight: bold;">Shade War.

Borrin Gammult
is the King of the Dwarves. A great and respected leader by all
accounts, one who puts the needs of his people before his own wants. (A
rare trait to find in someone who wields power.) style="font-weight: bold;">Borrin ruled his
people from Lord’s Hall,
the military seat of the dwarven race. Here, craftsmen designed and
created the finest weapons and armor you will find in the world.



Borrin has always hated the Ethians
and their tampering with magi-tech. He thought it unholy, an affront to
nature. Combining machinery with the power of sourcestone was something
that should not be done. It was manipulating the gifts of the gods and
molding it into what it should never be. So when he heard that style="font-weight: bold;">Prince Aedraxis had
lifted the ban on Ethian
machinery, he was appalled. He gathered up a delegation, preparing to
march to the Prince and inform him just how stupid he thought style="font-weight: bold;">Aedraxis was being.
(Hopefully, he would have taken an ambassador or advisor with him.
Someone to tell him that calling the Prince an idiot might not be
entirely beneficial to his cause.)



But Borrin
hadn’t even left Lord’s Hall before he heard that style="font-weight: bold;">Aedraxis was using
the Ethian technology to
tamper with the Ward that protected Telara.
Borrin was
horrified, and quickly turned his delegation into a war party, moving
the main strength of his army out of style="font-weight: bold;">Lord’s Hall and
marching to Thedeors
Field. He was warned not to. Dwarven clerics had received
visions of his death, but this did not deter the King. He knew his duty.



Borrin
arrived just as Prince
Aedraxis’s forces clashed with the forces of good. style="font-weight: bold;">Borrin fought
alongside Prince Zareph
and Cyril Kalmar
in that final battle for Telara.
He was filled with righteous fury at what style="font-weight: bold;">Aedraxis was doing,
and was determined to reach the traitor prince before he could go
through with his plan to release Regulos
from his prison.



He fought through Aedraxis’s
dragon knights, felling them with his mighty axe. A mist of blood hung
over him as he slashed and hacked his way toward the traitor. But
Aedraxis was out of reach, riding his mighty, fleshcrafted steed. style="font-weight: bold;">Borrin used his
hammer and staved the creature’s skull in. Aedraxis fell to the ground,
but just as Borrin
lifted his hammer to end the prince’s life, he unleashed his holy power
and breached the Ward. A rift tore open on the battlefield and style="font-weight: bold;">Regulos unleashed
his death energies. Borrin
was hit with the full force of this power. In an instant, a black
corrupting wind buffeted past him. It ripped his skin from his face,
tore muscles and tendons from his bones, plucked his very eyes from his
skull. Only his skeleton was left, one arm reaching out as if to grasp
hold of Aedraxis.

But such heroism was not to go unrewarded. The gods of the style="font-weight: bold;">Vigil ascended style="font-weight: bold;">Borrin, and he has
since vowed to rid the world of Regulos’s
corruption.



Bran and I find Borrin
at Thoric’s Fountain
in Ardenburgh.
I am alarmed at his look of exhaustion on his face as he crafts weapons
from steel brought to him by the many adventurers who have rallied to
the cause.



I explain my task to him and he grunts non-committedly.



“Not much good to anyone, is it?” he asks.



“On the contrary,” I say. “I think it’s important that people know the
stories of Telara.”



“Steel is what’s important now. Warriors, soldiers. Scribes are a waste
of my time.”



I hold my temper. I have a feeling I will be encountering attitudes
such as this quite often on my travels. Instead, I ask him why he has
not returned to Lord’s
Hall.



“Nothing there now,” he snaps. “I took most of my army to fight style="font-weight: bold;">Aedraxis. Those who
were left behind couldn’t defend the Hall. It was overrun. Had to lock
it down, seal it up. At night you can still hear the cries of those
inside.”



“That can’t be,” I say.

 

He shrugs. “Believe what you want. I’m a King without a people, and all
I can do is help defeat the evil that has caused all this.” He lifts
his hammer into the air. The sun glints on the blood-stained metal.
“Those who stand with Regulos
will come to fear this hammer, because it is the last
thing they will see before they die. By the style="font-weight: bold;">Gods of the Vigil,
so I swear it!”



“Um,” says Bran, raising an apologetic finger into the air. “Sorry, but
how will they come to fear it if it’s the last thing they see before
they die?” He looks confused. “I mean, they’ll be dead. So they can’t
really come to fear it, can they? Unless you just sort of, bash some of
them about a bit, and let them live? Then they can go away and say ‘Oh,
I fear that hammer, look what it did to me. Have you ever seen a bruise
this big? It really hurts when I move. We should all really fear style="font-weight: bold;">Borrin’s hammer.’
That way, they can spread the word around.”



Bran beams at us, as if he has just given the answer to a knotty
philosophical dilemma. I look at Borrin.
He has a pained expression on his face, and his fingers are curling and
uncurling around the shaft of the hammer, like he really, really wants
to use it on something. I hastily thank style="font-weight: bold;">Borrin and guide
Bran gently away.

---

The Story So
Far: href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week1">Part
1 | href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week2">Part
2 | href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week3">Part
3 | href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week4">Part
4 | href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week5">Part
5 | href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week6">Part
6 | href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week7">Part
7 | href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week8">Part
8