The Three Roads to Anvil - Part 3

I can’t help but find it tragic that Lord Long-night had been quite correct as he wrote that ‘stupid’ theory…

Perhaps if Lord Long-night hadn’t dismissed the notion of an intelligent Goblin leader so hastily maybe, just maybe, he could’ve prevented the tragedy at Anvil.

Based on the remaining few entries in Lord Long-night’s journal, it seems that he rarely entertained this notion from then on, and I feel that I can safely say that, from this night onwards, the Gold Crusade was well and truly doomed to fail.

Something feels off.

As I retired for the evening last night, I felt restless despite my exhaustion, like there was something wrong, or off, or that I just couldn’t let go of.

…I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I cannot help but feel uneasy reading Lord Long-night’s writings I transcribed last night.

He didn’t mention any of his angry outbursts, not the one where he slashed up a goblin and cursed Taigstun’s name, nor how he screamed in his tent every night in anger.

Is he hiding something else?

Something worse, perhaps?

If I were to ask Sir Euwan about the journal entry, I imagine that he wouldn’t tell me the truth and dishonour his lord’s memory, and neither would any of the remaining Long-night soldiers from the Gold Crusade.

I can only think of one person who would offer me a better and, potentially, more honest insight and that would be Taigstun’s surviving captain: Kethan, the one who had been there since Taigstun and Lord Long-night were friends and long after they became enemies.

I invited Captain Kethan to my private quarters here in the Archive, so that we could speak without prying eyes or ears interfering with our talks.

Once I had locked my door and placed my wooden chest against it, I invited him to sit and look through my previous writings to confirm or reject what Lord Long-night had written.

“Why did you ask me?” His face was stiff and his eyes were filled with distrust.

I explained my reasons to him, but he didn’t seem satisfied.

Captain Kethan raised an eyebrow. “You suspect what Lord Long-night has written in his personal, private journal? Surely, he wouldn’t lie in-”

“He would. He would.”

Captain Kethan was taken aback, but I explained to him the abnormalities I found in Lord Long-night’s other private journals.

The torn and burnt pages.

The thick scribbles colouring pages filled with childhood memories.

How I already had reason to doubt Lord Long-night based on what Lord Long-night has written in his account of the Gold Crusade.

After almost a minute of silence, Captain Kethan took a slow, deep breath, rubbed his brow and then sighed heavily.

“To think that even Lord Long-night would sink so low,” he muttered. “Which parts do you want me to look over?”

I sat down in the chair beside him and showed him the loose pages for him to look over and he scrutinized over each word more than I had.

Still, because of our victory, the low morale from the hard march is now all but gone, and I told the men that they could break open some of the best casks of ale to celebrate.

“Aye, we did have some of the better ale that night,” Captain Kethan said with a faint smile. “Ancestors, did we have our fill of our drink. The finest stuff was saved for the lords and the knights, of course, but it was a far cry better than what we’d usually get. Although.” His expression turned bitter. “It wasn’t out of the goodness of his heart that we had that.”

Not angry, nor concerned, but anxious.

Captain Kethan grunted as he read that.

With the goblins dead, we ordered the men to gather their corpses in the tunnel we had come from to be left to rot which didn’t take long. Then, I had our medics gather our wounded in some of the bigger Goblin tents for the time being and had other soldiers gather our dead brothers in the centre of town, so that their names could be recorded and that they were given the respect that they deserve.

“I’m pleased to say that that’s what really happened. Regardless of what else you might believe about Lord Long-night, please believe this. He never treated our brothers badly and made sure that the wounded were treated extremely well. He was even willing to lend them his tent before Sir Euwan told him that it wouldn’t look good for our commander to sleep in a shit filled tent.”

I crouched down to the ground and noticed that there were clearly defined wheel tracks leading from the storehouse and the tracks were heading down the tunnel towards Anvil.

“By the Ancestors, either Lord Long-night is delusional, or he intentionally lied here.”

[I’d wanted to ask what he meant right there and then, but I thought it best to save my questions till he was finished reading everything]

My guards covered their mouths and noses and recoiled in horror, but my mind was focused on something else.

“Ha! They covered their mouths and recoiled in horror alright, but it definitely wasn’t because of the goblins.”

I couldn’t hold back my curiosity any longer.

I had to ask.

“What do you mean?”

Captain Kethan looked at me. “Lord Long-night makes it seem like he was quite calm and thoughtful throughout the entire ‘investigation’ of the town, right? Well, he was far from it. Soon after he’d discovered the tracks from the storehouse, Lord Long-night was shouting out orders and mumbling to himself about what the tracks belonged to, where they were going and what it could mean.

“He definitely wasn’t calm; not even a bit.”

“Perhaps the adrenaline from the battle had rushed to his head?”

“Maybe, or maybe his hatred for Taigstun drove him to prove that he was right about the Gold Crusade and that Taigstun was dead wrong. Whichever it was, Lord Long-night was definitely in a bad mood.”

“He mentioned that he hadn’t gotten much sleep for a few days prior to this. Did he seem sleep deprived?”

Captain Kethan paused and rubbed his chin, staring off to the side in deep thought. After a few moments, the captain shook his head slightly and said, “Not really. If anything, he seemed to light up when he was talking with the other lords and during the battles. The rest of the time, he just seemed to be his usual self.”

The captain was about to turn back to reading when he suddenly stopped and shot a glance back at me.

“What is it?”

“Lord Long-night often spent the evenings in his tent venting his frustrations and anger,” Captain Kethan told me. “Before he’d settle down for the night, either to write or sleep, he’d be heard yelling and cursing to the Ancestors about everything, it seemed.”

“About Taigstun and the High King?”

“Hmm, for a good portion, yes. However, he also yelled and cried about his family, how he missed them and that he didn’t know if he’d see them by the year’s end.” Captain Kethan smiled sadly and turned back to the pages and whispered softly, “Why did you come with us, Lord Long-night?”

[I didn’t say a word but, at the time, I couldn’t help but wonder what specifically he meant by that]

I smiled and patted him on the back. “I’m glad to hear that my eyes weren’t deceiving me. Did you find tracks at the other storehouses as well?”

Even from behind, I could tell that the captain’s mood had gotten much, much worse.

“Lord Long-night didn’t stand there calmly by the dead vermin and speak softly of his theories. He and Sir Euwan had returned to the centre of town where Lord Ahkvan and the others were and he immediately, and excitedly, began yelling about his discoveries, what they could mean and that the goblins we’d fought were much, much weaker than what he was used to.

“Lord Ahkvan and Eurian agreed, of course, hardly a surprise, but Sir Euwan and Lord Quillus reminded them to speak softer and not to say such things where the men could hear. Lord Long-night took that to mean that they didn’t believe him, but Sir Euwan quickly grovelled and apologised for his actions.

“Lord Quillus did not. He told Lord Long-night that he was thinking far too much of the goblins and that he was overthinking every detail. ‘If the goblins were that smart, Strangúld would’ve fallen more than a hundred times’ he said, giving Lord Long-night a cold stare.

“Sir Euwan begged his lord not to cause a scene in front of the men and Lord Long-night left, clearly quite angry and upset. Lord Eurian and Quillus then announced that as a reward for the battle, we’d drink our fill of the finest ales once camp had been made. That motivated the men to finish quickly.”

“You once told me that Lord Long-night vented his frustrations out on a goblin corpse, right? Did this happen after this meeting?” I asked.

Captain Kethan nodded and then turned back to the remaining few pages.

[I had asked him why he’d managed to see it and the captain informed me that he had been in charge of the teams sweeping for surviving goblins and dwarves which is when he saw Lord Long-night]

I turned around and saw that the men near us, both my personal guards and soldiers from the main force, were looking our way, their expressions were dark and filled with worry.

The captain smiled sadly. “Hardly a surprise, after what you did, my lord.”

After reading through everything and answering my remaining questions (A good number of which I already had the answer to; after all, it never hurts to reaffirm all of your information) and then he bid me a good day and left my quarters.

This time I didn’t pause my writing because of what Lord Long-night had told me; rather, I doubted the trustworthiness of what Captain Kethan had told me.

Strange, to think that I would doubt everything the people who were part of the Crusade tell me so much.

Perhaps my distrust for Lord Long-night’s writings have clouded my judgement and made me suspect everything I hear from everyone.

After all, I cannot fully trust Captain Kethan for one simple reason; he is a former member of the Star-forged military, and a loyal soldier to Taigstun and to Taigstun alone.

Of course, he would be willing to lie and deceive others if it meant improving his own lord’s standing.

It wasn’t a matter of Captain Kethan’s honour or anything; it was just the reality of the political games that the lords and ladies partake in, a world I never, ever want to be a part of.

So, I cannot fully trust what Lord Long-night’s journal entries tell me, nor can I trust the eyewitness accounts that I’ve received and that I’m going to need as I continue to write.

Perhaps…

Perhaps we were never meant to know the truth about the Gold Crusade.

Perhaps our Ancestors were trying to make it impossible for any dwarf aside from those who came back from the forsaken Crusade to know what really happened.

Even with all the eyewitness reports and this journal, I doubt I’d even be able to gather an accurate understanding of even a quarter of the events that occurred in the Gold Crusade.

Maybe that is the way it is meant to be.

Even then, I feel it is my duty to see this through to the end and, by the Ancestors, I will.

The last portion of the Gold Crusade, the Battle…Massacre at Anvil.

I have no written records of it.

Despite that, I will try to uncover the truth behind it all.

I will discover how the Gold Crusade came to its abrupt and devastating end.