Wednesday is my last day of class! Woot woot! That meant that last week I had a big project, so I didn't write as much of the Dragonsteel summary as I wanted to. But here's what I added so far:
Chapter 22
The king announces the engagement of Martis to his daughter. Jerick packs his bags and goes to the stables to get a horse to leave for the Eternal War. A betrothal lasts two years and he hopes to earn glory and be back by then. Ryalla, Topaz, and Frost all try to stop him, saying the Eternal War is not eh place to gain glory. He leaves anyway, and Topaz curses the fact that the bet, which would have been completed in less than a week, is now ruined. He also bemoans that the only other human that is like him has run off. Frost corrects Topaz, mentioning that while Topaz has the power of life, Jerick has the power of destruction. Frost agrees to go after Jerick and watch out for him.
Interlude Two
Hsor prays in his room and is visited in person by Oreon, the White One. Hsor explains to the God how Prince Yoharn was captured in the confusion with the assassin. Oreon tells Hsor to stay in the confidence of the king, then leaves, leaving Hsor drained from his experience.
End of Part Two
Chapter 23
Four days after leaving the palace, Jerick’s chariot is stolen, and he’s left to scrounge for himself. He sympathizes with the poor working class and remembers what that was like a long time ago for him. He enters a tavern one night to warm himself by the fire before finding an alley to sleep in later, as he has no money. A traveling storyteller gets up and begins to tell a story to lighten everyone’s mood, but he’s terrible at telling stories and just makes the occupants angry with him. Jerick saves the day by taking over for the storyteller, telling it in a ryhtmic way as he learned in his studies.
After the story is done the innkeeper gives him some free food and Jerick considers storytelling as a way to make it down to the Eternal War, but knows it probably wouldn’t work. An illiterate man comes up to him and asks him to write a letter for him, which Jerick does for the payment of a silver crin. Frost then reveals himself and that he’s been following Jerick, waiting for him to give up and go back. Jerick admits that he was about to, but the fact that he can be paid for being literate, in a society where those people are rare, changes everything. Jerick gets himself and Frost a room to stay in.
Chapter 24
In Jarg, Topaz and Bat’Chor go into an inn for food. The roasted pig in there makes Topaz physically sick, and Bat’Chor asks him if he misses being able to eat meat, to which Topaz responds that it’s been so long he can’t remember. Bat’Chor then takes offense at something someone says, and gets into a brawl, which is typical of Ke’Chan people. Topaz, unable to fight, wanders outside and ponders how Jerick can do microkinesis too but is able to eat meat and fight. Bat’Chor exits a little later, victorious. They find another inn to stay at.
Topaz writes out a Ke’Chan prophecy for Bat’Chor, and then explains other stories from different cultures that all share the similar thread of a peasant becoming a great leader and unifying the people to defeat an evil threat. Topaz admits that he had been hoping to use Jerick as someone that people would think matches the prophecies to unify the people against what is coming. He then explains how while these stories all have different origins and he doesn’t really believe them, the stories about an evil force all stem from the same source. He makes a chart showing how through history the different versions of the stories all lead back to the same origin. That is what they are fighting: the fifth god.
Topaz doesn’t believe these stories, and admits that he had been hoping to use Jerick as someone that people would think fulfills the stories and prophecies in order to unify mankind to prepare for what’s coming. The stories of the evil force he does believe, and Topaz draws a chart demonstrating how all of these stories have stemmed from one single ancient story.
Chapter 25
Three months after leaving the palace, Jerick and Frost arrive on the Shattered Plains. Frost explains that the Dragonsteel seeping up through the ground fortified the earth surrounding the wells, while erosion eroded in between, leaving plateaus with chasms between them.
They go to General Demetris’s camp. Demetris is unsavory and an envious person. He cares only about Jerick’s castemark and thus Jerick gets assigned to the bridgecrews while Frost is ordered to be Demetris’s scribe. Jerick, bewildered, gets assigned to be on Bridge Four, with a Ke’Chan man named Gaz as their leader. A horn alarm sounds and they rush to their bridges to go on a plateau run.
The bridge crews carry portable bridges to lay across the chasms so that the army can pass from plateau to plateau. For about an hour Jerick is forced to run with the bridge, lay it down, wait for everyone to cross, then pick it back up and run some more.
They reach the last plateau before the one where the Dragonsteel well is, where Sho Del are already set up. The Sho Del can jump across chasms and thus do not need bridges. The Sho Del fire arrows into the bridge crews, but Bridge Four manages to get their bridge across. Jerick sees terrible giant beasts, but he is informed that those are just Sho Del illusions. The Sho Del and Demetris’s soldiers fight, and the humans end up getting the Dragonsteel from the well at the center of the plateau. Jerick realizes he now has to carry the bridge back, this time with only two-thirds the number of men as before.
Chapter 26
Immediately following Prince Yoharn’s kidnapping the palace was in an uproar, but after about four months things quieted down. Ryalla is struck by how quickly Jerick has been forgotten in the chaos. The school teachers prepare to head back to Trexandos, and Vendavious reveals to Ryalla that he knew it was her doing Courteth’s homework the entire time.
Ryalla is still Courteth’s slave, but Courteth has less power over her and can’t make her punish herself. With school over, Ryalla wonders how she can still learn, and turns to Torell. She makes a deal with him that she’ll help him to lose his peasant accent if he’ll continue to teach her secretly.
Chapter 27
On a boat, Bat’Chor and Topaz talk. Bat’Chor’s father recently died, and there’s a two-year mourning period before Bat’Chor will take over his house. Bat’Chor asks Topaz why Topaz chose him, and Topaz replies that Bat’Chor is a great learner and open-minded. Topaz says it’s hard for him to have faith anymore, and he needed someone with strong faith.
When they reach shore, Topaz says they need to split up to find the fifth god’s name. Bat’Chor knows everything that Topaz does now, and they have two continents to cover. Bat’Chor will search Tzendor and look into a Dragonsteel necklace he’s heard about, and Topaz will try to infiltrate the Horwatcher’s fortress.
Chapter 28
Jerick has nightmares about the Sho Del and their illusions. He is awakened for a bridge run, and because of how many bridgemen die, Jerick is one of the most experienced members of the bridge crew after only a few months. He talks to a Keeg, a fellow bridgemen, and they start their run.
On the Dragonsteel plateau, a dragon is spotted flying above them in the sky. A bridgemen named Tenne comments that it’s Drephrast, king of the dragons and lord of the Sho Del, but hasn’t been seen in a decade. The dragon leaves and Tenne mentions that Jerick is wasted as a bridgeman; he’s too poised, confident, and clever.
General Ki Tzern, a fellow general and someone Demetris considers his arch-rival, comes up to Demetris and offers compliments on how well he did on the Dragonsteel run. He also offers Demetris plans for a new bridge mechanism he designed that could save bridgemen lives. Demetris, believing everyone thinks the same way he does, believes Ki Tzern is being sarcastic and trying to put Demetris down. Demetris declines, to Ki Tzern’s confusion.
Chapter 29
Ryalla’s lessons with Torell are going well, and her next assignment is to read the essay about Axi. Ryalla goes to Kalord Strafen’s manor. She sees Kalord, but she wills herself not to be seen and he looks right past her without noticing her. She goes into Martis’s room to give him a letter from Courteth, and Raylla notices he’s holding a scroll with a purple seal on it.
Ryalla goes to the stables to see her brother, Hert, who is a slave there. She finds him having a secret meeting with some ominous characters in one of the empty stalls, and he warns her that it’s dangerous there and that she should go. She gives him some fruit and then leaves.
Chapter 30
Jerick and Bridge Four are on chasm duty: they walk the bottom of the chasms and scavenge any usable weapons to bring back up. Jerick finds a Sho Del body and wonders why they’re so rare down there when about the same number of them and humans fall into the chasms. Gaz calls them back up to be ready for a plateau run.
On the run, the Sho Del are already at the well. Jerick and Bridge Four perform a move they’ve been practicing: they put the bridge on its side as they approach to block the incoming arrows. It works, and not a single bridgeman dies, but Jerick realizes that his idea ruined the timing of the entire assault, and the army is defeated. For a month afterwards Jerick is treated with complete distain and contempt by everyone in the camp, but it eventually blows over.
On another run, Jerick and a fellow bridgeman named Ham talk.
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