Richard Knaak - The Black Talon

What had occurred had been Ulgrod’s reward for showing that his loyalty was to Dauroth, not to the half-breed pretender.

The apprentices waited only long enough to make certain Ulgrod could stand on his own then retreated into the shadows again. The new Titan eyed Dauroth, awaiting his command.

But Dauroth did not speak yet. Instead, he pointed at Ulgrod, and suddenly from the darkened recesses of the chamber, cloth and metal converged on the former subchieftain. In the space of a single breath, garments akin to those worn by the others had materialized to clothe the naked form.

Ulgrod stared in wonder at himself then looked again to Dauroth. Ulgrod’s expression twisted awkwardly as he clearly tried to form words that were as yet beyond him.

“We shall speak in Common for the duration of this joyous occasion,” Dauroth declared to the transformed ogre. “The barbaric tongue you were once used to is fit only for commanding the unblessed.” He put a welcoming hand on Ulgrod’s shoulder. “By the morning, the glorious language of our forebears will be known to you as if you had spoken it from your first birth on.”

“My head-” Ulgrod murmured, his eyes darting around from one sorcerer to the next in the surrounding circle. “So much fills it! My thoughts are sharper than they’ve ever been.”

“It is only the beginning, my brother … only the beginning.”

Staring at his right hand-taloned-Ulgrod summoned a ball of fire the size of an apple. Dauroth watched with stoicism, well used to such activity by new converts. The first day was always one of adjustment and amazement; a freshly reborn Titan was like a child given a new toy. They had to test the limits of what they had become, learn what they could do.

“Such power!” the former subchieftain gasped. He stared at the flames at his fingertips; the fiery ball had swollen in size yet did not in the least singe his skin. “I can do anything!”

Dauroth frowned, shaking his head. “No, not yet. That will come with time, as I have indicated, my friend.”

As if not quite believing this, Ulgrod glared at the fiery ball, furrowing his brow. That time, though, nothing happened.

Ulgrod dismissed the flames. An evil grin spread across his handsome features. There was still enough in those features to enable anyone to recognize his former identity. All of the Titans retained faint glimmers of their old visages.

“Power enough,” the new Titan proclaimed lustily. “Enough to drag that half-breed from the throne he covets and feed him kicking and screaming to the meredrakes!”

“No!” Dauroth’s vehemence made Ulgrod step back in surprise and fear. The other Titans wisely kept silent, although among them there were one or two nods of agreement with the newcomer’s impulsive sentiment.

“No,” the lead Titan repeated more calmly and yet also more threateningly. “Golgren is not to be touched.”

“Great Dauroth! I meant no disrespect-”

Dauroth cut him off. The elder giant smiled, his sharp teeth very much in evidence suddenly. “You are new and, therefore, Ulgrod, you are forgiven.”

Underlying the sympathetic statement was the threat-quite evident to all who listened-that any further suggestion from Ulgrod of removing the grand lord would not be allowed to pass. Ulgrod swallowed and immediately bowed his head.

“Hundjal. Our brother Ulgrod will need to orient himself to his ascension. Guide him to the meditation room, where he may understand and learn better what he has become.”

The apprentice took the new Titan by the arm and led him out of the room. As the pair vanished, Dauroth turned to face the rest of his followers, who knelt before his glory. He acknowledged their gesture then silently strode from the chamber.

Safrag followed at his heels. Not as athletic in build or fair in face as Hundjal, Safrag was still typical of the Titans in his dark beauty. Yet where his counterpart usually walked at Dauroth’s side, Safrag always kept a respectable step behind.

The apprentice did not dare speak until they were far away from the ears of others. When Safrag finally gave voice to his thoughts, the Titan did so in the Common that his master had used in addressing Ulgrod. Safrag did not feel that his concerns were worthy of the wondrous high language Dauroth had introduced to him and the others, which they used in the ceremony.

“They do not suspect how risky that was this evening, my master.”

“But you do, of course,” returned Dauroth without looking back at his apprentice. “You understand very well, Safrag.”

“The mongrel must either give us more fresh subjects or stand out of our way while we take them!” The Titan grew more strident as he walked and talked. “And he must be taught that he is less than the dirt beneath your glorious feet! The way that he spoke to you earlier, at the very site of battle, a battle that would have proven far more costly to him and his side had you not agreed to lend our talents to his dubious cause!”

Still neither breaking stride nor glancing at his lackey, Dauroth calmly said, “In his own manner, Golgren serves the ultimate cause, Safrag. He does not realize that yet, but he will eventually. We shall reclaim the Golden Age of our ancestors-nay! We shall surpass it, and then there will be no more need of the grand lord. Until then, he serves his purpose, and until then, he is to be tolerated in all things.”

Although his master could not see Safrag, the apprentice bowed his head in acknowledgment of Dauroth’s wise words.

However, before Safrag could complete that bow, the grand figure striding ahead of him added in an equally calm voice, “And remember, any who seek to touch so much as a hair of the grand lord’s before I grant that right will suffer the fate of Falstoch.”

Safrag let loose with a hiss at mention of the despised name. Falstoch was a lesson learned to all the Titans; he suffered worse in his punishment than one who had no more elixir with which to rejuvenate himself. The latter would suffer only the horrors of degenerating slowly, becoming less than they had been before becoming the powerful, blue-skinned sorcerers.

Even that was better than to become like Falstoch. Even degeneration was better than becoming one of the Abominations.

The knights were not supposed to be there. Their presence was a clear act of war. However, Stefan did not care. He and the seven men with him had come on a scouting mission based on a report passed onto their superior by a free elf. Stefan himself would have discounted any word given by one of the ancients-for their kind had always had a history of looking down on humans-but the mere mention of the Grand Lord Golgren had been enough to set Stefan riding off into that dread ogre land.

The elf’s directions had been clear, his warning more so. A vast force of ogres with a military precision worthy of the Knighthood-the elf’s comparison, the young Knight of the Sword thought with a snort of derision-had been heading toward that region, possibly to meet with a large contingent of local warriors. If they were joining together, then it stood to reason that the grand lord might be preparing to cross the vaguely defined border of Kern into the western lands-an incursion that the Knights of Solamnia could not tolerate.

“We must be on the right track,” Willum, a broad-shouldered knight to his right, exclaimed, pointing ahead. “That ridge over there, the one with the two horns, he called it Kinthalas’s Helmet or something like that. Anyway, it’s in the missive.”

“Who’s ‘Kinthalas’?” asked another rider. Like Willum, he sported one of the thick, long mustaches for which members of the Knighthood were known. Only Stefan and Hector did not wear such traditional mustaches-Hector because he seemed not to be able to grow any facial hair yet and Stefan because he preferred the close-cut beard his father-bravely slain in battle ten years earlier-had worn. Stefan’s beard ran along his jaw on both sides and up to the ears. The area above and around the upper lip was as clean. It was a style worn more by one of the seafaring nations and some thought that suggested that Stefan’s father acknowledged ancestry other than Solamnic.