Author's Notes:
The Wood Knot Warrior Part 2 is my contribution to the second Tales of Leinyere Story Event.
Continuing the story of Dell du Krane, Eryllis Harrowane, and Kharza.
All characters engaging in sexual relationships or activities are 18 years old or older.
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Tales of Leinyere - The Wood Knot Warrior Part 2
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Chapter 1
The Wood Knot Inn had undergone significant renovations in the five years since Eryllis and Kharza moved in with Dell and his father, Karter.
Business was booming for the restaurant and the increased revenue paid for a grand double-size dining hall in a new wing they added to the main building. The kitchen expanded to absorb some of the space the old dining room once used, and the bar/main meeting hall took the rest.
This also meant they saved their precious porch seating area for relaxing late spring/summer/early fall evenings.
A second story on the new wing contained a few extra guest rooms and storage.
To support the increased business the restaurant was receiving, Karter extended the basement under the main building into the foundation of the new wing. This allowed them to greatly expand the enchanted cold cellar under the main structure. Storage for non-perishable items moved into the new basement area.
Dell was thrilled by how much more room he had for preserving the ingredients he could prepare for larger dinner events.
The final and most important change they made to the inn (in Eryllis and Kharza's opinions) was adding a third story above the main building for bedrooms and a large playroom for their children.
Eryllis and Dell now had three: their son Johon, who just turned four, their first daughter Jahara, who was three, and their second daughter Jessa, who was eighteen months.
Kharza and Dell's son, Ket, was almost two.
They'd been blessed with well-behaved, happy children who got along and seemed to enjoy each other's company.
This was good, as the Inn was a bit of a distance away from the nearest city, Grennesh, where their closest neighbors lived.
A week before they broke ground for the new wing, Karter received a visitor bearing sad news.
Nearly forty years earlier, when Karter was a much younger man, he and his new bride had come to the inn, fleeing the scorn and persecution of her people and his. They were welcomed by the owner at the time, a dwarf named Krommin Grobrir, who sympathized with their plight.
He'd fallen in love with Maevria Stormguard, a female from a rival family, and left the mines of his family estate to be with her.
They built the inn and established it as a neutral territory for settling disputes. The leaders of Grennesh and the Mistveil Wood Elves immediately approved of the establishment and made good use of it for many years. Seeing the love between Karter and Sharlyn, the gentle dwarf offered them a place to live and work. Karter showed skill in management and immediately became Krommin's assistant.
Barely two years later, Krommin's father and brother died in a mining accident, and he was called back to head up the family mining operation. He signed over ownership of the inn to Karter with a single stipulation. Maevria would always be welcome at the inn if anything happened to him.
Krommin's recent peaceful passing in his sleep signaled Maevria's welcome at the Grobrir mines was at an end, so she packed her goods and set out from the estate deep in the central region of the Dragon's Spine mountains and headed north toward Grennesh. It was a long journey, but she found she was welcome in a new home on her arrival.
While she marveled at their plans and was flattered by the offer of a room in the new addition, she admitted she preferred the solidity of rock around her. As the Inn's property stretched a good distance back from the road, it included a natural outcropping of the Dragon's Spine just inside the forest. She chose to build her own home by carving one out of the solid rock. She had her own tools and convinced a Dwarf crew of excavators from Grennesh to assist her with the initial stage of digging out the entrance foyer, the airshafts, and the main chamber. While she would spend her nights there, it was just a two-minute walk to the inn, so she would take her meals with them.
Eryllis and Kharza asked if she might be interested in nanny duties on the occasions when they were on the road. She'd left her own daughter at the mine as she had a future there, so she was very touched by their trust in her. She accepted.
Once the construction was finally completed and the dust settled, their lives returned to their comfortable patterns, albeit with more hustle and bustle at the inn.
-=-
"I'm just suggesting it might be an excellent time to have another beef pot pie dinner event," Karter said in his most reasonable tone as he watched his son's face.
Dell sent him a frown as he was busy experimenting with another dish he was considering. It was a blending of his beloved chicken stew and a new ingredient, a wheat-based product called noodles. He'd purchased them from a traveling merchant he met at the market in Grennesh. He'd bought the recipe and the equipment for producing his own. Topped with buttery breadcrumbs and melted cheese, then baked, he thought it certainly looked and smelled appetizing. He also knew he could make serving-sized portions of the casserole in mass quantities, but he wasn't sure if it would be popular enough to warrant the effort.
Maggie entered the kitchen with Hildy and Beverly at her elbows, listening intently to the latest news from Grennesh's upper society.
"First, he's pushed down some stairs, and when that didn't kill him, they tried poison!" Maggie exclaimed.
Karter was distracted from his campaign and looked over to the woman. "Are you talking about Devlin Warrick?"
Maggie nodded with an excited look in her eye. "My neighbor works in the mansion and overheard two family members saying one of the night nurses was caught substituting his pain medication with poison. The old man had already been given a partial dose, but he's clinging to life. It didn't kill him, but he must be on his deathbed now."
Dell snorted scornfully. "The high families of Grennesh act like rats trapped in a cage."
His father looked over at him with a raised eyebrow, so Dell explained. "I don't understand how they can call themselves a family and live together in those enormous mansions yet hate each other so much!"
Karter nodded. "What do the high families have in common?"
Dell frowned. "Uh, wealth? Those enormous homes? Too much idle time on their hands?"
"Servants!" Hildy offered, getting a grin but a headshake from Karter.
He looked back at Dell. "What else?"
Dell knew he was close as he could see it in his father's eyes. Then it came to him.
"Power."
That gave Karter a satisfied expression. "Exactly, but only the patriarch of the family, or matriarch in rare instances, gets to wield it. This makes the younger generations hunger for it." He turned his gaze back to Maggie. "I wouldn't be so quick to write the old man off. Seven years ago in Portoa, the Thaneblood patriarch also suffered a series of unfortunate accidents. His were not-so-blatant attempts on his life. He miraculously recovered and rules his family and the city council with an iron fist to this day. Devlin Warrick is a miserable old man who lives for his influence over the city and his family. He won't go easy."
"I still don't understand how these families remain together if they all hate each other," Dell insisted.
Karter smiled. "It's generational. Each generation has peers amongst the other families, contemporaries they can plot against or with. The older ones don't trust the new ones and the new generation sees the failures of the one before and believes they can do better. They stick around as they want their turn." He shared a look with Maggie. "Sometimes they take steps to speed that transition along."
Dell turned back to his casserole and scooped out a spoonful. He offered it to Hildy, who was closest, and she smiled in delight. She blew gently on the spoon before accepting it. The other ladies watched her expression as she chewed and then cheered when she began to nod vigorously with wide eyes.
"That's so good!" she gushed after swallowing.
Dell looked at his father. "You don't have to worry about me ever attempting to take over the inn... as long as you leave the culinary decisions to me."
Karter raised his hands in surrender as he watched his son nodding to himself, working out the logistics of mass-producing this delicious new dish. Maggie, Cecily, and Beverly also gushed happily after they sampled it.
It looked like the inn would get another dinner event after all.
A win is a win, the du Krane patriarch mused to himself with a satisfied smile as he returned to his office to make his own preparations.
Chapter 2
Rohann Blest, chief of security for Devlin Warrick, sat stewing in the outer sitting room of his master's private bed chamber. Inside the next room was the old man and the representative Magus Thaneblood of Portoa sent to deliver a message. Rohann's ears still burned with the humiliation of his master's bitter scolding, sending him from the chamber so he wouldn't overhear the private conversation.
Thaneblood's man was an assassin! The cranky bastard trusted an assassin over his own chief of security?
While he was not a young man, Rohann ensured he kept in peak condition with vigilant training. But compared to Harris Kess, the Master Assassin, he was a doughy mess. Thaneblood's killer was a lean but muscular man with unhealthily pale skin, cold grey eyes, and a rictus smile. There couldn't have been any fat on the man's body at all, and he was completely hairless. It sent shivers down Rohann's back to look at him, which he supposed was part of the man's arsenal.
They'd been talking for over an hour in there, and Rohann was growing nervous. He didn't seriously believe Kess was here to kill the old man, but this mysterious message sent his imagination to dark places.
Devlin had been tripped down a flight of stairs and poisoned on Rohann's watch, but in both cases, the old man's refusal to listen to his security chief's advice led to the opportunities.
He knew Devlin's oldest son, Lucien, was ambitious and impatient. He also had a far more extensive spy network than his father, who was too cheap to build an effective one of his own. Lucien had almost reached his fortieth year, and every year, he grew hungrier for his father's power.
