Elvenborn

15

Rena had been working hard most of yesterday, changing grasses and leaves with her elven magic into sweet treats with which the Iron People could lure in the young bulls for their first lessons in being accustomed to saddles and being ridden. Horses could be broken to saddle—it was not the best way to teach them, but it was successful—but bulls, never. Their stubborn natures and the great courage bred into their line made it impossible to break their spirit, so the only way to train them for their duties as war-bulls was to begin by tempting them, gently, into captivity, and rewarding them for every sign of cooperation with the one thing they always responded to food. More specifically, a treat, a taste they couldn't find on their own. Like people, cattle had a sweet tooth, and now that Rena was acting as an envoy to these people, she was determined to do everything that she could to bring the weight of debt over to the wizards' side of the scales. If that meant that she spent half a day changing grass into the goodies with which the bull-trainers could reward their animals, so be it.

The magic that elven ladies were traditionally trained in was a gentle art of transformation, which they usually used to tailor garments seamlessly to fit like silken skins, to sculpt flowers into gossamer and fantastic shapes, or to make other cosmetic changes. Rena had learned to use it to turn the relatively inedible into edible and tasty—and, at need, to stop a beating heart. It had lately occurred to her that she could also use it to start a heart that had stopped, or perhaps to cure disease or mend a wound, but she had not yet had the opportunity (or the courage) to try.

The normal noise of the camp woke her just after dawn; the sounds of voices and cooking, the far-off lowing of the cattle herds. She lived with the Iron Priest, Diric, and his wife Kala. The great friend of the Elvenbane Lashana, halfblooded Mero, who was openly courting Rena, also lived with them, but Kala watched over both of them with as stern an eye to propriety as if Rena was their own child. Diric and Kala had given them separate sleeping-chambers on opposite sides of the family tent. Rena found that reassuring; raised as a sheltered elven maiden, isolated, for the most part, from all males but her brother and father, she enjoyed Mero's attentions but she was also uncomfortably shy about being courted. Not that she wanted him to stop! By no means. But she was not yet prepared to go any further than a hesitant kiss or two.

Still, waking up in the cool of the dawn, with the bustle of the camp around her and a breath of breeze carrying the scents of grass and the smoke from dung-fires wafting under the skirts of the tent, she felt just a little lonely in her solitary bed.

Lorryn isn 't so shy—but then, Lorryn isn 't a girl. She sighed. I wish I was like Shana. Shana is always so strong, so brave, and she never worries about what people will think. She wondered if Shana and Lorryn shared a bed; she wondered, in the freedom of thought that being only half-awake lent to her, just what went on when one did share a bed. Mero's careful kisses and caresses sent strange sensations through her; pleasant, oh my yes, but strange. Surely it wasn't—well—like the cattle, or the birds of her garden....

Her thoughts drifted; she listened to the cheerful voices of women preparing the morning meal outside. She liked the sound of their voices; they were deeper than those of the women she was used to, even the human slaves. Lovely! Instead of that annoying bird-like twitter, this was a melodious murmur.

Then, of course, the mood was broken as a child did something wrong, its mother raised her voice in a scold, and another child began to cry in sympathy. Rena woke entirely at that, and laughed at herself and her notions; how typical of an elven girl to try and cast a specious glamorie over something rich and satisfying in and of itself, if less than perfect and not at all tranquil.

She stretched, yawned, and wriggled out of her blankets, giving herself a quick wash in the leather bucket of water that stood just inside the flap that connected her portion of the tent with that of Diric's wife. The Iron People wore loose and comfortable clothing perfectly suited to their nomadic way of life. Kala had fitted Rena out with the outgrown clothing of her eldest daughter—well suited to the slim build of an elven female. Women of these people either wore a similar outfit to the men—loose trousers with a drawstring waist and a sleeveless, v-necked shirt—or long, embroidered gowns fitted to the waist with a pair of ties in the back. In either case, the colors were earthy and bold. Rena could not imagine anything less like the gowns she had once worn in the bower, with their trailing hems and sleeves, tightly-laced waists, and pastel colors, all in the most delicate silks and satins.

Today she slipped into one of the dresses, a warm brown linen that would have made her look like a bleached-out little wax doll if she still looked like the pallid, timid girl who had escaped from her father's manor. But although she still had the pale silver-gilt hair of that girl, her skin was a warm ivory, sunkissed and glowing with health, and there was nothing that was bleached about her anymore.

She sighed, though, as she pulled the dress on over her head and tied the straps behind her back. Her first duty, today as ever, was to see if she could do anything with the captive Elvenlord, Haldor.

As if there was anything lord-like about him now!

Neither Haldor, nor his fellow-captive Kelyan, were entirely sane anymore, but Haldor was worse. When she and Mero had come back to the camp of the Iron People, one of the first things that Diric had requested of her was to see if anything could be done about the two captives, who had been taken by the great-grandsires of the current Iron People and pressed into service as entertainers, using their magic to create illusions. They clearly couldn't release either of the Elves, for even if they weren't mentally competent anymore, they still knew too much—and they couldn't give them over to the Wizards either, at least not in Rena's opinion. In the time they'd been gone, Haldor had lapsed into a stupor or torpor and could scarcely be roused enough to eat. It had fallen upon his fellow captive Kelyan to take care of him, but at least they were no longer forced to entertain the Iron People, and thanks to Rena's transformative magics their diet was something other than curds, milk, and meat.

She hated going near them, to tell the truth. She wasn't afraid of them, but there wasn't anything she could really do for them either. She had the rather sick feeling that they were both too far gone to help. If only there was some way to wipe their minds clean of everything that had happened to them since they'd been captured! Then they could be put to sleep and set down by a dragon somewhere—perhaps where one of the El-venlords' trading-caravans crossed—

She paused, one hand on the tent-flap. That's no bad idea, she thought, struck by the notion. And maybe Mero is the one who could do just that! Mero, like all the halfbloods, had both the magics of his human mother, and those of his Elven father. The human magics included the ability to understand the thoughts of others—could Mero change them as well?

She lifted the partition-flap, intending to ask him as soon as she saw him, but to her disappointment, he was nowhere to be found. Neither was Diric, for that matter; only Kala was in the part of the tent that served as a common area for eating and social functions. The Iron Priest's ample wife was bent over her breakfast-preparations, and looked up at Rena's entrance, her teeth shining in a startlingly white smile against her dark brown skin.

The Iron People were unlike any humans that Rena had ever seen; their skins were a black-bronze (nearer to black than to bronze) and their ebony hair curled more tightly than sheep's fleece. Nomads, though not by nature, they descended from a long line of cattle-, goat-, and grel-breeders whose religion and lives centered around their forges. In the long-ago when the El-venlords first came to this world, they had a close alliance with another human race of farmers, now vanished, called the Corn People. The Iron People provided the "meaty" side of the dietary equation, the Corn People the grains and vegetables. The Iron People worked in leather and metal, the Corn People in pottery and fabric. Then the Elvenlords had descended, and drove the more-mobile Iron People into the south, presumably adding the Corn People to their long list of slave-nations.

"There is another group of Corn People come," Kala said cheerfully. "Diric and Mero have gone to speak with them. I expect them back before too long; they went off without any food, and I have never yet seen a man who can do without his morning meal without becoming cross."

Rena laughed, and went outside to their little fire to help Kala with her meal-preparations.

Ever since the Iron People had arrived in what now appeared to be their ancient pasturage, this plain below the mountains where the Wizards and Traderkin lived, small groups of people with flax-colored hair had been drifting into their camp, claiming the right of ancient alliance. They resembled the descriptions that Lorryn had read in the old histories, and they certainly spoke a language similar to that of the Iron People, so there was every reason to think that they were the remnants of the Corn People.

Certainly Diric's folk believed it and welcomed them as long-lost kin. Mero was perfectly pleased to see them coming to the Iron Folk; if the old alliance could be re-established, with the Corn People farming part of the plains for grain, the fiber-crops of hemp and flax, and vegetables as they once had, the Iron People would have one more reason to settle. There was plenty of good grazing here; all they needed to be perfectly happy was a steady supply of iron ore.

If we can induce them to settle—if we could just work out a way to find them enough iron! she thought, helping Kala by spreading the thin batter for morning cakes on the hot stone that served her as an oven. All of the families had such a stone, flat and black, polished smooth, which served as a cooking surface or to keep foods or liquids warm, and they were cherished as the important objects they were. The thin, tough pancakes that they used for bread were cooked on these stones, eggs could be fried atop them, pots of tea or soup kept warm on them. They were buried in coals to heat them for cooking, the coals and ashes brushed to one side when the surface was needed.

Rena spread the batter atop the stone with circular motions of a horn spoon; Kala performed the trickier task of judging when the thin cakes were done enough to peel off and flip, and she did it with fingers toughened by many years of working at her own jewelry-forge. Rena wouldn't have dared to try; she'd have come up with blisters on the tips of every finger.

The finished cakes, paper-thin and tasty, were tossed into a basket to wait. Breakfast was always cakes, milk, a little cheese or meat, and whatever fruit could be found. There were brambles out here, and the berries were just coming ripe. Rena herself had gathered some yesterday, after cheating a bit by softening the thorns with her magic so that they wouldn't stick her while she gathered the fruit.

Just as they finished the last of the batter, they heard the voices of the two men: Diric's a low, cheerful rumble like the wheels of a heavy cart on a bumpy road, Mero's a clear tenor.

"—I haven't any idea where this 'Lord Kyrtian' came from," Mero was saying as they came around the side of the round tent. "There certainly wasn't any Elvenlord commander by that name when I had any regular contact with the Elvenlords."

By that Rena realized that Mero had been catching the Iron Priest up on what he'd been told last night when Shana had finally been able to reach him with her thoughts.

"But this can mean very little to us," Diric objected, then paused to bend and give his wife a morning-kiss by way of a greeting. He was a tall, round-faced human, heavily muscled— not surprising, given that he was the chief Priest of a religion that centered around the forge. Rena was no good at judging the ages of humans, but Mero said he guessed that both Diric and Kala were probably in their fifties. "Kala, my rock-dove, the young one tells me that the Demons have a new War-Captain in their battle with their own rebellious youth. This one seems to have rather more sense than the last, and is making progress in his campaign to bring them to heel. Mero is concerned that this could mean trouble for us."

"This can have very little to do with us," Kala agreed complacently. "Except, perhaps, good. Let them concentrate on each other and forget that we are here."

"But that's just what won't happen if this Kyrtian is successful, don't you see?" Mero objected, as Rena nodded vigorously.

But the gray-haired Iron Priest only shook his head. "Time enough to be concerned if it happens," he responded with a shrug. "My people will be more fretful that their forges are dark than that some war among Demons has possibly taken another turn."

Mero bit his lip and looked to Rena for help, but she couldn't offer him any. Diric was right; the Iron People hadn't had to engage the Elvenlords in combat for generations, and legends were unlikely to arouse any anxiety in their hearts at this point. But the lack of iron for their forges was a problem, and a current, even urgent one.

It was a concern for the Wizards, as well—the Young Lords' Rebellion had been grounded on the foundation of the iron jewelry that the Iron People had made and the Wizards had distributed. Wearing this jewelry, the rebels—not just younger sons, but the abused and reviled Lesser Lords with very little magic, who often were treated as badly as any human slave—were protected from the Great Lords' magic. For the first time, they were able to act without fear of levin-bolt and paralyzing pain, and act they had.

But that had used up the scant store of raw iron, and the Iron People were grumbling about the lack of material to work with and wondering if their sacrifice to help save the Wizards by giving the Great Lords a new threat to worry about had been worth it. So far, the only bits of iron that the dragons had been able to find had been coaxed out of the ground and dropped as raw lumps between the territory claimed by the Wizards and the strongholds of the Elves. They formed a barrier of protection, difficult to find and disruptive far out of proportion to their small size, and the Wizards were very reluctant to remove them, however badly the Iron People wanted them.

The plain fact was that the Iron People were not going to make any more of their jewelry for the Wizards unless and until the Wizards came up with more iron. And the supply of jewelry to sneak in among the rebels had long ago run out. How much more disruption could be accomplished if simple iron torques could be sent in among the human slaves? Those iron bands could negate the magic that controlled the slaves through their collars—with them, escapes could be successful, and even the takeover of an entire estate. Without them—nothing would change. If this Lord Kyrtian managed to conquer the Young Lords by power of arms alone, the Wizards would desperately need another diversion to keep the Elvenlords occupied, and the human slaves could only look forward to more abuse, more repression.

Diric ate his breakfast with a placid face, oblivious to the concerns of his guests. "The Trader-people are to come, also, at last," he offered, between bites. "One of the new Corn People told me that they were following no more than a few days behind, with burdens of trade-goods. I am eager to see them, and I think the rest will be also."

Rena smiled, despite her concerns. "I have no doubt," she replied, thinking of the excitement that each new boatload of Traders caused among the Wizards.

"They are good people," Mero offered. "You won't be sorry that you decided to open full trade with them."

"So you said in council, though there are still those of my folk who think we should simply take them as slaves and have them and their goods." The gleam in Diric's eye reminded Rena that the Iron People were quite used to the idea of having other humans as slaves. There weren't many slaves among the tents, mostly ton People who had been sold by their parents or who had sold themselves to repay debts, but they did exist. Mero had been rather taken aback when he discovered their existence.

"And I pointed out then, as I will repeat, that it will be far more profitable to trade honorably. If you take them and their goods," Mero reminded the Iron Priest shrewdly, "you will only have a few slaves and the goods they carried. No more will come to you. But if you trade—more will pour into your camp, and you will likely be able to barter what is common to you for what is worth a great deal to you."

"Eh, now, did I say that I did not feel the same way?" Diric asked, ingenuously, pretending that he had never even entertained the notion, although both Rena and Mero knew how hard they had argued to sway him to their way of thinking. This would be one more hold on the Iron People, one more reason for them to stay here instead of looking for another spot to settle. Right now, with a growing number of voices calling for another move to some place that might have more to offer than just water and grazing, the Traders could provide what Mero and Rena needed until somehow, somewhere, they could come up with a source for the all-important iron.

The Traders arrived riding on—of all improbable things— pack-grels. These incredibly ugly animals, long-legged, long-necked, with bulging eyes and blubbery lips, served the trading-caravans into the desert commanded by the Elvenlords, but Mero had hardly expected that the Trader-clans would have any. Up until this point, he had thought that they traveled exclusively afoot or on water.

The Iron People were just as surprised, and even more excited to see a half-dozen of the creatures they themselves had once depended on. In the oldest chronicles, the Iron People had even been referred to as the "grel-riders." It was only when they had been driven south that they had lost the grels, which had not survived the arduous journey and the new pests that the cattle had shrugged off.

The grels were less enthused to see these new dark-skinned humans—they had no long tradition of association, and they shied and bellowed at the unfamiliar dark faces, much to the Iron People's disappointment.

"I'm sorry, but they aren't very bright, and they think anything they don't recognize is going to eat them," the grel-handler kept saying, over and over, stumbling a little over the unfamiliar syllables of the Iron Peoples' tongue. Eventually, when the beasts refused to cooperate, the curious got over their disappointment and settled down to serious trading.

Each side laid out the goods that they had brought. The Iron People offered hides, dried meat, baskets, ornamental bead-work, skilled leather work, horn bows, and weaving. They had linen—flax grew abundantly on the plains, and outriders made sure that the cattle didn't devour it before the women had a chance to gather it. They did not have sheep, although they did have goats and were skilled at spinning and weaving goat-hair. The Traders had raw wool, glass, stone, and pottery objects, flour and salt, some very specific wood products—like longbows of yew, which the warriors were very impressed with— and arrowheads, which were always in short supply. They also had some copper trinkets, copper pots, and a few ingots of copper. But most of all, of course, the Iron People really wanted iron more than anything else, and at the initial trading session it was clear to Rena that they were disappointed not to see any.

Still, they covered their disappointment well, and trading on the first day proceeded briskly. At the end of the day, Halkan, the spokesman and leader of this particular group, invited the important members of the tribe to dinner in his tent, and included Mero and Rena in on the invitation more out of politeness than anything else. The Trader clans had a set of firm agreements with the Wizards, and it wasn't as if he could have expected anything new out of two envoys to these odd, ebony-skinned folk.

Mero had never seen an actual camp of the Trader clans before, and looked around with lively interest as they accompanied Diric and Kala to the modest feast. The Iron People lived in round tents constructed of hides and felt; the Traders had square and rectangular pavilions of sturdy heavily-waxed cloth. Beneath the wax, random patterns of blotches of green and brown had been painted on the canvas, and he thought that it would be difficult to spot such tents in the middle of a forest. Out here, of course, they looked a bit odd.

All around the outskirts of the camp were wicker cages on poles; they weren't torches or lamps, and Mero couldn't even guess what function they were supposed to serve. As they all took their places beneath an ornamental pavilion to enjoy their hosts' hospitality, he found that the Traders had elected to place their guests on flat cushions around a central serving area, with Traders alternating with their guests. That put one of the Traders (a nervous, thin fellow) between him and Rena, which was a little annoying. He was worried that she might be uncomfortable with the seating arrangements, but he hadn't reckoned with her early training—if she was uncomfortable between two strangers, she didn't show it.

Mero mostly stuck to small-talk with his two neighbors, allowing Diric and his fellow chiefs to monopolize the conversation. But just as they were served a dessert of honey-drenched fruits (from the Traders' stores) and beaten cream (supplied by the Iron People), something reminded him of those curious wicker cages and he asked about them.

Out of courtesy, so that the Iron People could understand everything that was said around the circle, they both spoke in the Iron Peoples' tongue. "Ah! Those are to protect us from the Demons and their magic," said the young Trader whose name Mero hadn't caught. "We put fool's gold in them, and it works as the iron jewelry does."

Heads snapped in their direction from all around the circle the moment that the word "iron" was spoken. "What is this?" Diric demanded.

The Clan-chief explained, and tried to describe the contents of the ward-baskets in such a way that the Iron People would understand, but Diric was baffled. "Wait—" he said, finally, and sent one of the younger Traders to fetch one of the baskets-.

In front of Diric's interested gaze, he opened the top of the basket and poured out about three fistfulls worth of glittering, gold-colored stones with rough surfaces. "Fool's gold," the Trader-chief said dismissively. "Fools think it is real gold; it is good only for keeping the—"

He stopped, his face a study in bewilderment, as Diric uttered a cry of triumph and scooped up two handfuls of the stones, brandishing them over his head.

"Tell him!" the red-haired Trader-chief said, whirling and addressing Mero frantically. "Tell him it is not gold! Tell him that it is worthless!"

But what Diric and the others were shouting was not gold— nor would they have been half so excited over a basketful of true gold nuggets.

"Iron!" Diric bellowed with joy, "Iron!"

And he and the others ran out of the camp, leaving Mero and Rena to try to explain.

"We call these things 'iron pyrites,' and there are things we can do with them that we cannot with other iron," Kala said to Rena, as she bent, gloating, over her precious pile of rocks. Once the Traders realized how much their "fool's gold" was valued by the Iron People, it didn't take long for them to trade away all they had, trusting to their own skills and a promised escort of bull-riders to make it back to the cover of forested lands safely. They didn't have much, but at least they knew where there was more, and the Iron People were no longer threatening to take their herds and the Corn People and go elsewhere.

"It is the women who will most value these," Kala continued. "The men would only wish to melt them down. There are better things to be done with these stones."

Rena watched in fascination as Kala made good her words, her plump, stubby fingers moving with great skill and surprising delicacy, as she cut and faceted tiny "gemstones" from the iron pyrites, little things that glittered like black diamonds. It took unbelievable patience.

"What are you going to do with these?" Rena asked, stirring a finished one in the palm of her hand with one finger.

"Oh, I shall melt down the waste and cast it into a setting for it," Kala responded absently. "It will be a different style than you have seen heretofore, but I think you will like it. We have agreed to exchange it for the raw pyrites, so that the Traders need no longer waste these precious things in baskets on poles in order to protect themselves. One weight of jewelry to ten weights of pyrites."

There was no doubt in Rena's mind that Kala thought she was getting the better part of the bargain. Rena continued to watch her for a while, but Kala became so involved in her work that it seemed an intrusion to stay, and she got up and went to look for Mero.

"We have a problem," she said to him, worriedly, as soon as she caught sight of him hurrying towards her through the tents.

"I know; Diric told me the trade-agreement," he replied, just as worried. "I mean, it's a good thing that they've got some iron, but this cuts us right out of everything. They can get most of what they need from either the Corn People or the Traders—"

"—so what use are the Wizards to them?" Rena concluded for him. "If the Elvenlords do manage to defeat the Young Lords and come after us, why should the Iron People bother to help now? There's nothing in the alliance for them!"

Mero nodded. "They're nothing if not practical." He set his chin. "Right. First of all, we need to get in touch with Shana and let her know what's happened. Maybe she'll have some ideas."

"And next?" Rena asked, hopefully. Mero was resourceful— surely he could think of something they could do!

"I can't think of a 'next,'" he replied, dashing her hopes. "I only wish I could...."