Chapter 2: Home Truths

Clive was nervous. It had been eleven weeks since the family returned from their wonderfully relaxing Caribbean holiday together. But in all that time he was without a single interview for a job, despite sending dozens of applications every week for jobs he felt amply suited for and hundreds more that he felt that he would accept a contract for, if only out of desperation, eager to be active in work again.

Now his tan was starting to fade, the summer was at an end and there was the first heavy ground frost this morning. The kids were back at school after the half-term break, his wife Carole was back teaching and Clive was still out of work.

He was spending at least four hours a day writing off for jobs, updating his LinkedIn profile and networking friends from college and the engineering industry he had worked all his adult life in, but he was drawing nothing at all but blanks.

Over a week ago he received the last of the three months’ notice cheques from the court-appointed receivers of the company he had worked fifteen years for and was now in total collapse, with no one but metal salvagers willing to pay more than the price of a cup of tea for.

That long period of service to a single company had in itself caused him a problem. During all that time he had networked mostly with middle management workers at his same level, while if he had had, say, six different jobs in that same time period, he would have had more interaction with director-level management in those six companies and others that he had interviewed with in recent years and his interviewing technique and confidence would have been boosted by those interviewing exercises. But he was out there as a relatively unknown quantity and, since MetalTurners PLC went to the wall, his upper management colleagues were competing in the same job hunting grounds as his and prepared to drop down into his level. By the same token he was becoming increasingly resigned to drop to the equivalent of an industry starting salary, prepared to consider any salary at all.

Still, no point in whingeing, Clive straightened his back and resolve against what he had to face, he had to get in there and win this particular job he was currently being interviewed for.

Two hours later, he reflected on how the interview went on the train home. It did not look good. They as much as told him indirectly that they had interviewed him on a quota basis, so they could tick off his age band, 40-55, off their age diversity range. At 42, he felt it was unfair to group him with job seekers in their mid-fifties. It seemed all too arbitrary. The company were really looking for a much younger man in his late twenties, early thirties, and to develop that recruit in their own mould into departmental management in five to ten years’ time. Clive already had that experience of running several departments over an eighteen-year period in his last two companies and the salary offered would not take that experience into account. They were simply not looking to recruit off-the-shelf middle management but wanted to grow their own talent from scratch. His experience in quality control of high tolerance high value engineered products was instantly dismissed as the company had long stopped physically producing anything in the UK, it was all engineered and QC’d in The Philippines, Indonesia and now a new factory just opening in Cambodia, which is why they were now advertising for new sales and administrative staff to cope with the expected output capacity. Clive’s sales experience was fifteen years out of date, the company were heavily committed to telephone and online sales and treated every sale as a one-off rather than spend time and money building long-term customer relationships, which they told him was old school and old hat.

Clive despaired of being able to fit into the modern world as it now stood. He closed his eyes and imagined a completely different and magical world that his vivid imagination could conjure up at will.

“Tell me of your home and your past in the isthmus and your military service in the king’s army?” Zyndyr asked, as Korwyn woke up enveloped in her long slim arms and received a sweet moist kiss on his dry lips.

“Let me scrape my teeth and rinse out my mouth, Zyn, my dearest Elf-angel, for I fear my mouth smells as foul as the dungeon cellar in the arse end of this dwarf castle.”

“Nay, my love, your breath is fresh as Mountain Dew, for I have blown upon your lips to waken you. Now kiss me before I lose all patience and steal my kisses while you still doze half in sleep.”

“I am awake and to kiss you at any time is the best time I could possibly spend.”

“Then sit up my dear and talk to me, tell me of your homeland.”

“With pleasure, my love. I know you will love it there. It is a dramatic rocky place around the coast and, at the far end of the isthmus, is a range of mountains which drop sheer into the sea, as if some giants wanted to protect the fields from the worst of the winter storms. It is a beautiful landscape, one of which I could never tire. A few villagers regularly scale the cliffs for eggs in season, while shellfish and crabs are gathered in the broken rocks below. My manor is almost an island, with only the one road going in and out across a narrow causeway strip that my mother’s forebears protected from erosion with huge rocks they cut out and dragged from the mountains. The village is strung out along that central road. We own a small part of the headland, too, where there are woods and fields where long ago our forebears carved out orchards and gardens for fruit and nuts. We have one water mill on the headland fed by a mill stream dammed just above the highest tide. The three mills on the isthmus are all wind driven. The land within the isthmus is quite fertile and we are able to grow cereals in the form of oats and barley, along with peas and beans alongside hayfields for cutting winter feed. We have many small fields surrounded by dry-stone walls in which we once kept sheep, goats and cows but they are now more often left empty for want of good husbandmen. We have become impoverished through the lack of menfolk of middle age to work the fields, shear the sheep and help with the management of our crops and pastures. Many of our young men were killed as members of our Militia, which was utterly destroyed by the first fiery attack of the Black Dragon at Hawkshart. In the last ten years many of our youngsters, as they have fresh matured, have moved to the towns and cities away from our quiet corner of Man’s Realm, in search of better work than labouring in the fields. So we have no men of marriageable age to ensure we have new babies to renew our stock of future farmers. We are left with our older men, those who were too old for fighting in the Militia ten years ago, and have now retired as too old to work the fields or have died off through lack of hope for a future.”

“That is a shame, a community needs the full range of old and wise through to young, strong and eager, to make for a happy place.”

“You’re so right, my dear Zyn, it needs more than the two generations at the extreme ends, it needs growing families at the heart of the community.”

“Well, we will have a daughter, to start us off. I want us to be a family, Wyn, with a houseful of babies that have the best of our qualities. Do we have any chance of being a proper family together?”

“I suppose you mean a mortal family?”

“Yes, like you must’ve had at home on your island farm when you were growing up. When did your father leave his father’s court for a farmer’s life?”

“Just after I was born, though we visited the palace regularly through the seasons. My mother was very ill through my birth, she almost died and was told by the physicians that she would never be able to carry another child. Thus I have no brothers or sisters. My grandfather, King Eldryndre The Wise, was very supportive of my father Hadryn’s wishes for a quiet life for his new young family, overseeing the tenants working his land. My uncle, Crown Prince Fyrdrik, took on more of the royal duties, including serving in the Imperial Guard of the Army, freeing up my father to pursue a much quieter life. Ocean air was good for my mother, Lady Galadriella, to recuperate her strength. She had inherited a modest cottage in the isthmus from her grandfather and my parents had oft had holidays there, her illness prompted a permanent move. To be ‘prince and princess’ in such a small place seemed to impinge on their private, quiet life, so my grandfather gave them new titles, Lord Hadryn and Lady Galadriella of their manor, it suited them both.”

“And you became Lord Korwyn instead of Prince Korwyn?”

“Aye, the title of Lord was assumed only on my father’s death. My grandfather, uncle and father all perished at Hawkshart Plain, leaving my only surviving uncle to be crowned king. Tell me of your life and parents?”

“I am not of your world, Korwyn, I was born on my people’s homeworld and I was a thousand earth years old before I even came here.” She paused letting that sink in.

“And your people came here five thousand years ago?”

“Aye, we did, those that survived the poisonous place my home world had become. Both my parents were poisoned by their own world. We had to leave and come here, to wait for the day of our return.”

“Which makes you six thousand years old?”

“Aye, my love. I am an immortal, I could almost live forever, my body absorbs energy from nature so my body can repair and renew itself constantly without apparent ageing. I can be killed, or so badly wounded that I die before I can repair myself, but I can never simply die of old age. Imagine, Wyn, being in love with a mortal, who will grow old and die in front of me in the twinkling of an immortal’s eye, and give birth to a mortal child who is bound to die of old age before I even wear a single wrinkle. Imagine the heartache.”

“I understand Zyn, really I do, but we face so many dangers I would hate to make you mortal and you and our unborn daughter then fall victims to the next stray arrow.”

“And I understand your stance, my dearest mortal man, really I do, but I am determined in my aim to become just as mortal as the man and child I love, so I can truly share your lives with mine own.”

It was Guy Fawkes Night at Carole’s school and she insisted that Clive be the designated driver for the night. She told him from the outset that she was determined that this year she would hit the mulled wine punch hard, especially as she was helping the School’s PTA out by doing a stint on the refreshments’ stand.

He dropped her off there early and took the kids Michael, Katie and Chloë down to the front of the roped off area before it was too crowded, where the juniors and infants had a better view of the bonfire and fireworks display. The children gravitated towards their friends and Michael told his father that Mum normally just leaves them to chat with their friends, so she could go off and chat to her friends. So Clive left them to it to have a wander round by himself.

In previous years Clive had been roped in to help on the BBQ, grilling burgers, sausages, and heating up hot dogs. He always acted as though he was being put upon, with Carole volunteering him, but in truth he actually enjoyed the grilling and usually volunteered to do the whole three hours from set up through to clear up. It meant he missed seeing much of the fireworks, but he was not that fussed about that element of the event really.

This year, having discharged the kids from his care, he headed towards the BBQ stand to get a hot dog that he knew would taste better cooked by anyone else.

Unfortunately the guy serving Clive was the only regular volunteer that he personally couldn’t get on with, one of the gym and sports teachers, Brock something or other. The surname began with a ‘B’, like Broker or Bowman, maybe it should be Badger to go with Brock but Clive knew for sure it wasn’t that. He was a brash, boastful man, aged about ten or twelve years older than Clive, but was a good six inches taller, with broad shoulders and a narrow waist. Clive wasn’t jealous of him, he simply disliked him because he was so deprecating and disrespectful about the women and girls who were customers or walking past, acting and sounding like a right letch. And every time Clive spoke with him, he wondered how he got past all the checks to be able to teach or even be able to be allowed around children and continually survive Ofsted scrutiny.

“Hey, Clivo, how’s the job front coming on?” Brock said when he noticed Clive further down the line queuing to be served.

Clive was not happy with Brock knowing his business.

His immediate thoughts were, ‘Odd, that Brock knows I am out of work, of all the thirty or so staff in the lower school, the gym teacher is probably the furthest away from the mathematics department where Carole works, yet he knows I’m out of work for the first time in 15 years and that this time I am having trouble finding another position as quickly as I had hoped.’

“Oh, hi, Brock,” Clive managed to bite his tongue and reply, “thanks for asking. I had a job interview this week and am still waiting to hear back.”

‘I know I’m not actually expecting a call back,’ Clive reminded himself, ‘but he doesn’t know that, Carole doesn’t even know that. Anyway, how does anyone go about calling themselves a non-name like “Brock”?’

When it was Clive’s turn to be served, he asked for a hot dog with onions.

“Sorry, Clive, no hot dogs,” Brock turned and said it pointedly so Joy Simpson could hear him. She was the one who was sweating over the hot coals, instead of being in charge of cutting up the baps and rolls and filling them to order as she had in previous years. Brock continued with his stage whisper, “Someone, who shall remain nameless, like ‘Simps’, forgot to connect the hot dog boiler to the extension lead when we started.”

He hated that Joy was still being called ‘Simps’, because that was what pupils called her when she first showed up in School while Clive was still a pupil in the sixth form. Then she was a freshly qualified teacher probably only five or six years older than Clive and the other students. She was shy and unbloodied in the classroom at first and the worst of the kids took advantage of her. Clive left at the end of that year and by then the kids were calling her ‘Simple Simps’.

Five years ago, when Carole started teaching at the school, Joy was also roped into serving on the PTA, and therefore as a spouse Clive was ‘volunteered’ to help on the BBQ. He was shocked that not only was Joy Simpson still teaching at the school, although by now she was Head of Literature in the Lower School, she was still single and still being addressed by Brock as ‘Simps’. Thereafter Clive always made it a point to call her Joy, as she deserved to be called, because he had to admit she was such a joy to work with. He had wondered if she had once married and then divorced, reverting to her maiden name or if she had never married. She was reasonably attractive, even though she must be in her mid- to late-forties, and must have a partner. Perhaps, Clive thought, she was gay, not that that would have mattered to him.

“We missed you this year. Carole forget to tell us you were on childcare duties this year and thus releasing Carole to a more leisurely role,” Joy said, “We were so used to you keeping a good supply of everything going, that we find we are all over the place this year.”

“That’s all right,” Clive said, I’ll just have a sausage in a roll, then, please.”

“No sausages, Clivo,” Brock said with a grin, “because Simps forgot to cook the frankfurters, we had to use up all the sausages instead of the hot dogs. We’ve only got burgers left.”

‘Oh no,’ thought Clive, ‘the cheap burgers bought in bulk from the cash and carry were virtually inedible.’ Clive wouldn’t eat them, even at the end of the evening when the leftovers were being given away, there were always burgers left over.

“That’s all right, Brock, I’ll give my waistline a rest and give it a miss.”

“Hey, if you’re at a loose end, jump in, my hour’s almost up, Simps could cover me and you could take over from Simps and get us back up to pace.”

“No, sorry, gotta go keep an eye on the kids, besides, the judging of the guy competition is coming up next and that’s always supposed to be good for a laugh.”

“Sorry to see you go, Clive,” Joy said, “Don’t be a stranger ... we’d love to have you help out next year, wouldn’t we Brock?”

“Yeah, not the same without you.” Brock conceded, “Best of luck with your job hunting, mate.”

“You looking for a new job, Clive?” Joy asked. “Last I heard you thought you had some sort of book and game deal going.”

“Yeah, I thought I had this deal with a book publisher, based in the US with a small London office. Took the contract with me to study on holiday this summer and signed it, but by the time we got back the publishers had already gone belly up. And I got made redundant from my own job just over three months ago, so l’m looking for anything in the engineering and manufacturing or machinery servicing area, admin basically, as my shop floor engineering skills are a bit rusty nowadays.”

“I’ll keep an eye out for anything I come across, Clive, as I’m responsible for giving employment advice to our students and maintaining contacts with local firms.”

“Hey, thanks Joy, I really appreciate that.” Clive replied before disappearing. He thought, ‘So Brock, in PhysEd knows I’m job-seeking but Joy the Head of one of the two core subjects, English, hasn’t heard that the Maths Head’s husband has been unemployed for several months. Very strange that.’

Clive checked out the children but they ignored him as they usually did, happier to be with their friends than with boring ol’ Dad. They were in the perfect place to observe the lighting of the bonfire in half an hour and the firework display starting a quarter of an hour after that. The announcer said the Best Guy Competition, for which there was a prize from one of the sponsors, and the winning guy would be carried to the top of the bonfire.

So Clive realised he had a good half hour to kill. There was nothing to eat that appealed to him and he was the designated driver, but he thought maybe one drink of watered down mulled wine wouldn’t do any harm, he just needed to check if Carole was still serving, otherwise she would give him a roasting that he didn’t need right now if she knew he had even the one drink.

He observed the drinks stand, lit under a borrowed pink-roofed gazebo. There was no sign of Carole, just three parents serving and only a couple in the queue waiting to be served. He thought he’d chance it.

“One large mulled wine, please, Tom,” Clive asked of Jenny Weston’s Dad, one of his daughter Chloë’s best friends.

“We only have one size ... Oh, hi Clive, taking a break from burgers?” Tom asked.

“No, I’m looking after the kids this year, while Carole was serving drinks here, and she wanted to look at the other stalls. Has she finished her stint here?”

“Yeah, ‘bout five mins ago. She’s just out the back though, having a private drink, doesn’t do to let the parents see a couple of teachers knocking back a double measure, does it?”

“Thought you only did the one size?”

“Ahh, yes. We only SELL one size to fit the cups we serve them in but, if you’ve brought your own insulated coffee mug for example, we can give you two measures ... that’ll be one pound fifty for a single, Clive.”

“Thanks, Tom, here you go, right money.”

‘Bugger,’ Clive thought as he sipped the sweet concoction, almost burning his upper lip and the roof of his mouth, ‘I could’ve brought a mug. I wonder who her drinking companion is?’

Clive sneaked between the Tombola and the local radio shack, where it was pitch black ndark between the closed tent flaps. He stepped very carefully to avoid any guide ropes. He peered around the corner. There was Carole and a big bloke with his back to Clive, who he didn’t recognise at first in the dim light. Carole was giggling and halfway through a sentence after draining her double.

“ ... and he thought he had this deal with a publisher but the clueless buggers went belly up. They were saved from publishing something really embarrassing. Really crappy writing, all about fairies and dragons, I had to put it down after reading half a page of total shit. No wonder the company went bust if that fantasy stuff’s what they try and market to readers. Then my dumb hubby gets made redundant from work, a backward backstreet engineering place where he’d drifted along for years with no prospects for advancement, the lazy bastard. Says he’s waiting to hear from the only interview he’s had in three months, but he stands no chance, the content of the ad was clearly for a junior position, a young person starting out. What a total loser!”

Her friend laughed with her, then pulled her to him hugged and kissed her passionately on the lips. There was not only no resistance to the move, Carole also put her arms comfortably and familiarly around what looked like her lover.

“Yeah, you’re better off without him, darlin’,” her friend broke off the kiss and turned as he spoke, leading his way back into the back of the drinks gazebo.

It was Brock whatever-his-bloody-surname-was.

Clive was frozen to the spot.

His released breath became a white cloud in the still, late winter air as Korwyn urged his mount into climbing up loose scree from the spoil excavated from the many old and abandoned mining pits which pockmarked this area of Western Dharibia that the Dwarf Army had marched towards for five days now.

They were still within the Seven Kingdoms, this army of more than a thousand dwarves, plus a dozen or so Men, exiles from Mankind who were passing through Dharibia seeking work or reward for military services offered. They had joined the Army with the prospect of returning to the Land of Man with opportunities of finding a better place in society associated with the rewards of victory, while others sought retribution for their exile for various reasons. Korwyn welcomed the human volunteers and formed them into a small mounted unit, for scouting purposes, as only a few Dwarves were comfortable on horseback or knew their way around outside the borders of their own extensive lands. They did have an excellent pony troop of Dwarf Skirmishers who included scouting duties with harrowing the edges of opposing forces and targeting officers and non-commissioned officers.

The Army had marched for nearly a week, mostly through small Dwarf villages and gentle fertile hills and occasional mine workings, mostly easy marching on level or lightly undulating ground with grassy verges or firm stone paths. During the march they swelled the ranks of the Army as they passed through, recruiting mostly older veterans who had tired of civilian life and were excited by visions of one final memorable adventure. That this was no campaign for the inexperienced and untried and tested, appealed even more to veterans who felt they still had something to contribute to their old comrades and the pride of the Dwarf nation. These were easily absorbed into their old or similar units.

Camp sites had been comfortable to this point, with soft ground to lie on and ready supplies of fresh water and woodland for collecting firewood or gathering any uncut furze. Fresh meat and root vegetables and herbs were readily bought from or even donated by the farms they passed, bread readily available from bakeries along the way, so meals were nutritious and interesting.

Now they were into the foothills of the mountains, the border lands between the Dwarves and the Goblin tribal holdings, where the roads were poorly maintained as little trade came this way between the two traditional enemies. There were few farms on the rocky soil and the cooks had to dip into the barrels of salted and dried meats they brought with them, and use some of the large cords of firewood that had been gathered in surplus over the last few nights. Here at least there was still plenty of fresh spring water to be had readily available. Soon, Korwyn knew, that the decision to start filling the empty water barrels they carried in the carts would have to be made to keep them watered when they reached the desert on the far side of the mountains.

Prior to the commencement of their journey, Korwyn and Zyndyr had sat down with the more extensively travelled Men and Dwarves in the Army to work out their best route to the Kingdom of Man. They had devised not quite the most direct route, but one that would minimise conflict with their neighbours and avoid deep river crossings and the highest mountain passes where they possibly could.

Korwyn had travelled to the Seven Kingdoms from a different route to the most direct one, mostly along the coast, so he was familiar with only half of the road they finally agreed on. Zyndyr was familiar with two thirds of the road as much of the woodland and forest along the way had once been part of the Elvish Realm, but owned up that since this land had been ceded to the Goblins and Trolls that much may have changed since she last passed that way.

The various versions of maps the Army made were probably the first ones ever drawn up to cover this route and there were much crossings out and revisions made as some sort of consensus emerged. They had even expanded the map sideways to provide diversions and alternatives should there be any difficulties along the way.

Montoule, a tall thin man with a black beard that revealed a bare scar from his chin to his right ear, showed he’d had experience in and survived at least one battle. On the training ground he displayed much prowess with both sword and lance. He declared to Korwyn and Zyndyr that he had travelled as a merk through much of this land and that he had deeper knowledge than most, he boasted, of the road and its inns and his experience was much more recent than Zyndyr’s.

Zyndyr took an instant dislike to the man and avoided him, saying as much in private to Korwyn. Her lover was largely in agreement with her, he got the impression that Montoule was untrustworthy and probably an ambushing robber, smuggler or worse, but his knowledge of the lie of the land, particularly where parts of it could be verified by others, appeared sound, so Korwyn alone did consult him about what he thought might lay ahead of the Army.

Korwyn reached the top of the escarpment and could survey all the lands ahead of them up to the distant grey mountains, which were shrouded in mist to the west.

“There is a wide river at the bottom of this valley, swift and wide but fairly shallow, my Lord,” Montoule stated, pointing with a finger on his outstretched hand, “one that the Dwarfs can easily ford, even with their short legs, especially if we string a rope across for safety.”

Behind him, the Dwarf Captain, mounted on his sturdy pony, snorted and cleared his throat but clearly did not want to open his mouth to betray his evident disgust born from more than this single demonstration of this Man’s general disrespect for the Dwarf race.

Montoule ignored him and carried on, “We should reach the river by nightfall today, but by then it may be too dark to cross safely until the morrow. The terrain is rocky but we can camp there for the night. On the other side is the land of the Goblins but they rarely venture this side of those mountains. Recently, the Goblins have been at peace with the Dwarfs but seeing this many Dwarfs approach might frightened ‘em or they might take offence and attack us without warning, thinking we be an invasion force.”

“Queen Myr has sent a delegation to the Goblin King and several Goblin warlords strung out along this road, entreating them to let us pass through unmolested, Montoule, so you do not have to worry on that score.”

“Very well my Lord, I will scout ahead as far as the river and await ye there.” Montoule kicked his mount and rode off over the crest and followed the road as it wound like a drunkard down the hill to the bottom of the river valley.

“I cannot stand that man, Montoule, Sire,” Dwarf Captain Difaniel of the Skirmisher Scouts said, as he let the breath he had been holding out in a cloud of steam in the cold air.

“I know,” Korwyn agreed with a nod, but lightly, with a laugh, “even though we are both of the Race of Man, I cannot warm to him. I cannot bring myself to trust him, but on matters of the lie of the land, his knowledge has been useful.”

“Unless he betrays us, my Lord,” the Dwarf Captain insisted quietly.

“Aye, and we will have to be alert in future as we leave the Seven Kingdoms.”

“Aye, my Lord, I am sure that we’ll find danger at every turn, but that is why we’s come on this adventure with ye. Glory comes at a price. But I’ll be just behind that rogue most o’ the time and I’ll keep one eye on him and a hand on my sword.”

“And have one of your dwarves keep one eye on your back, Captain ... I cannot see into the future like your old Queen Grand Mother, but I can’t help this feeling I have in my gut about that Man.”

“Aye, Sire, I gets the same feelin’ in my pits and, further, I’ll speak with my Sergeant directly.”

With that, Captain Difaniel wheeled his neat pony around, and sure-footedly they picked their way down through the scree to the ancient road to join his troop, before they rode off to find two other ways down to the river, one either side of the road, so his Skirmishers could check out for ambushes.