Chapter 14 - Part 7

Orphan finished the basic maintenance tasks on the weapons and supplies. It was now about an hour after Thomas had gone to sleep. Interesting the stormstalk did not go to sleep at the same time as its host, staying awake another twenty to thirty minutes to eye the warforged suspiciously. Eventually it too fell asleep.

Orphan put the weapons and tools away. The warforged had sat up at night when his brothers in the Balanced Palm were sleeping, polishing steel, checking buckles, and generally making himself useful. He had even learned how to sew. He continued those habits with his two new traveling companions as best he could, but there were some things he could not do. Thomas would not let his greataxe leave his hand, although he was apologetic about it. Delegado raised one eyebrow when Orphan made the offer, and the warforged backed off. Eventually the half-orc allowed Orphan to do maintenance on his daggers, but not his bow or sword.

Delegado was checking the sword now, sitting cross-legged on the ground while eyeing its edge.

“Hey,” Orphan said, walking up. He didn’t want to spook the half-orc again. Delegado’s hearing was almost as sharp as the monk’s, but there was no reason to chance upsetting the man.

“That’s adamantine, isn’t it?” Orphan asked, sitting down next to the half-orc.

“Yep,” Delegado said, taking out a brush and rubbing the blade and hilt. “But you knew that.”

“You need to sharpen it?” Orphan asked, curious.

“Sharpen no, clean yes,” Delegado said. “Adamantine doesn’t lose its edge, but it can pit if it stays wet or filthy long enough. It takes a lot longer to rust or pit than steel does, but it can happen.” He frowned. “It might take, I don’t know, a year or more.”

“But you clean it every night,” Orphan noted.

Delegado made a small smile, and held the weapon up close for the warforged to examine in the moonlight. “Can you make out what’s on the hilt?”

“A creature that looks like a cross between a lion and a dragon,” Orphan said. “The symbol of your house. I have seen that before.”

“Look at the cross-piece,” the half-orc said.

Orphan did, peering carefully in the dim light. Finally it hit him. “It’s all one piece. The hilt and the blade are all adamantine.”

“Yep,” Delegado said, taking it back to his lap and wiping it again.

“But then my question returns,” Orphan insisted.

“It ‘returns’?” Delegado asked, incredulous. “Which philosophy books have you been reading?”

“All that I have been able to get my hands on,” Orphan said.

Delegado smiled. “Okay, I’m not one to knock book-talk I guess.”

“You seem very knowledgeable about the outdoors,” Orphan asserted. “I assume you are well-read.”

“More accurate to say well-taught about the outdoors,” Delegado said. “And underground. I’ve studied the wild even as I’ve lived in it.”

“Have you seen rusted adamantine in your travels?” Orphan asked.

Delegado laughed. “You’re like a gnome, seriously. You get a question in your head and you go nuts to answer it.”

“Pienna told me that when she met me,” Orphan said.

“Heh,” Delegado said. “That’s a story I’d like to hear all the details of someday.”

“A story for a story then,” Orphan said. “It will pass the time, after all.” He paused and tipped his head. “Unless you do not want to. You have been very reticent to talk much about yourself to Thomas or myself.”

“For one thing,” Delegado said. “I don’t know Thomas. And when I talk to him, I wonder if that damned thing on his neck is transmitting my words to his father. I don’t think it is, but I’m not willing to take chances.”

“From the little I have heard about the daelkyr, I can understand that,” Orphan said. “But he is asleep now, as is his symbiont. What’s your other reason?”

Delegado shook his head. “A gnome with a bone between his teeth,” he chuckled. “That’s what you are.” He finished his polishing and cleaning and put the cloths away. “The other thing is that this business of guys on some sort of adventure together sharing their life stories while sitting around a campfire is the most cliched thing that a bard ever chanted.”

“I assume that bards always had the companions of the quest talk around the campfire at night because it is too difficult to do while riding a horse,” Orphan said.

“Companions of the quest?” Delegado asked.

“Yes,” Orphan said. “We are on a mystic quest, are we not?”

“You’re like a little kid, do you know that?” Delegado asked.

“I am less than a year old,” Orphan said.

Delegado blinked, and then barked out a laugh. “Alright, point taken.” He ran a thumb over the stamped sigil of House Tharashk on the sword’s hilt. “About one hundred and three years ago my great-grandfather was leading a group of Tharashk prospectors in the Marches when he saw a meteor streak across the sky. He saw it go over the horizon, and they all felt the earth shake when it hit. He wanted to go pursue it immediately, but he was human, and could not see well at night, and the orcs and half-orcs with the company wanted to do the job they were sent for before they went chasing meteors.”

“What was that?” Orphan asked.

“Dragonshards,” Delegado said. “My House spends most of our resources finding dragonshards. The biggest known Eberron dragonshard fields are in the Marches and in Droaam. One is our soil, and the other we have treaties with. Bounty hunting, finding lost things, all of the other stuff is a drop of water in a bucket. Tharashk gets most of its wealth from finding dragonshards. Before the great war we were probably the wealthiest House, but that may just be boasting.

“Anyway, my great-grandfather chafed at the bit, but he agreed. The next day he used his mark – he had a least dragonmark – to find some shard deposits. It was another day after before they left the field. It was two days before they found the crater, which was by then full of water. The meteor had wiped out a small village when it hit. It turned out that the village was home to the most vicious group of Dragon Below worshippers in that part of the Marches, so the Tharashk people began to regard the meteor strike as a good omen. With my great-grandfather’s dragonmark they found what was left of the meteor. They put in on a cart, and hauled it back to the Tharashk outpost.

“Eventually my great-grandfather took the meteor to the city on stilts. The process of getting there was arduous. Dragon Below cultists flocked to his area to try and kill him. Apparently some swamp prophet had said that if he forged something from it then it would be a terrible blow.”

“You are at war with the Dragon Below cults?” Orphan asked.

“Not really,” Delegado said. “Those cults aren’t united in any way, they’re all just using the same name.” He paused for a moment. “Some say there’s Dragon Below worshippers within Tharashk, truth be told, but that’s just – it’s wrong. Even the Aashta clan just has a few customs that hearken back to the day.” Orphan got the impression that Delegado was forcing himself to believe what he was saying. “Tharashk is a great house, and the swamp cults are crazies. They get in the way, but we aren’t at war with them like the Gatekeepers are, although we help the Gatekeepers. It’s complicated, but the thing to remember is that Dragonmarked Houses don’t wage wars, it’s bad for business.”

“Except for Phialarn and Thuranni,” Orphan noted.

“You want to hear this or not?”

“Sorry.”

“Yeah, don’t bring up the elves, they had a good thing and they threw it away,” Delegado said. “Anyway, long story short, there was a legendary orc smith then, a woman who eventually became my great-grandfather’s second wife. She took the ore in the meteor and smelted it. There was all sorts of interesting stuff, but the most valuable was the adamantine. She cast the best of it as one piece, this longsword, with the Tharashk sigil on it. And then she refused to give it to him until he married her.”

“She was your great-grandmother?” Orphan asked.

“Nope, that was his first wife. But her brother ended up being a great-great-grandfather of mine. My mother was an orc, my father a human. Anyway, the sword got passed to my grandfather, and then my father, and then my father gave it to me. Not everyone was happy about that.”

“Why?” Orphan asked. “You are a skilled member of your House, and a famous bounty hunter. I have seen you walk through a briar patch without scratching your boots.”

“Yeah, and I can follow an old trail while running, too,” Delegado said. “Not many are that good. But when I got that sword I was a scrawny kid. My father married three times – not simultaneously like his grandfather, but he did. He left behind twenty-one children when he died. Some of my half-brothers and half-sisters are old enough to be my parent. And I’ve been on this world for twenty-seven years come this spring.”

“You were the youngest child of his old age,” Orphan said, finally understanding. “Older men sometimes favor the child born into their old age.” He paused. “Or so I’ve read.”

“You’ve read right, but I’m the second-youngest,” Delegado said. “I have a little sister who went to Breland to go to a fancy school. My dad spent a lot of time teaching and guiding me because I was his youngest son. By the time he died nine years ago I had manifested a dragonmark, found three rich dragonshard fields, and brought six expensive bounties back. He was proud of me, and my siblings and cousins acknowledged that I had the right to this sword.”

“And you clean it every night out of respect,” Orphan said, suddenly understanding.

“You got it,” Delegado said. “Look, not meaning to rub it in your face, but family is the center of my life. This sword represents a larger ideal to me. I am Tharashk. I find things. I support my family. I support my House. If the Tharashk mark is on it, I respect it.”

Orphan considered that. “I felt that way about the Balanced Palm,” he said. “I still do, but I am the only one left.”

“Why don’t you teach it, then?” Delegado asked.

“I don’t know that I can be a sensei,” Orphan said. “I can’t teach. I barely understand myself, let alone others.”

“You talked down a hundred desperate warforged from fighting to the death, if I recall,” Delegado said.

Orphan thought about that, then shook his head. “But I’m still not recognized as a person by the laws of Khorvaire,” Orphan said. “I cannot enter contracts for facilities.”

The half-orc barked out another laugh. “Orphan, there’s a bunch of places on this continent, including the Reaches, where no one gives a flying galig about that!”

Orphan considered that. “I suppose the only thing I need is some money then.”

“I wasn’t kidding about hiring you,” Delegado said. “That wasn’t just something I said to make the mob back off.”

“Hiring me to do what? I do not think I am good at finding things.”

Delegado grinned. “You’re good at a lot. And I’m high up enough in the House to get a contract with you. The accountants and paymasters will set your wages, not me, but it’s not like you need to spend it on food. And I’m seen you fix yourself by concentrating, that’s a neat trick by the way, so you’re not needing for maintenance money, either.”

“It is something that requires a great deal of mental training,” Orphan said.

“Yeah, I saw Visha heal herself in Valenar, remember?” Delegado reminded him. “Still sounds like you can be a sensei.”

Orphan found himself beginning to believe. “I could try. Would orcs want to learn the ways of the Balanced Palm?”

Delegado shrugged. “Well, we can find out. After this trip to find the ‘prisoner’ is over, I plan to go home and see my family. You can come.”

“What about Thomas?” Orphan asked.

Delegado raised an eyebrow. “What about him?”

“I do not feel comfortable abandoning him,” Orphan said. “We are all he has.”

The half-orc frowned. “I don’t know him, Orphan.”

“But if you get to know him?” the warforged pressed.

Delegado sighed. “No promises,” he said. “I’ll think about it, okay?”

Orphan nodded, and Delegado put his sword away. For a while they merely listened to the night.