Stormblade

4

The citizens of Long Ridge did not become seriously interested in questions of theology until the red dragon struck. The town supported the religion of the new gods, the religion of the ancient gods, and the more common religion of indifference. In Long Ridge, the High Seekers were not zealots, and the believers in the old gods, whom some called the true gods, were quiet enough about their creed. In some towns, the faithful of each party broke the heads of unbelievers. In Long Ridge, life had been too steady, too assured, too sweet for religious arguments. Fed from the produce of the rich farms along the river valley and the game abounding in field and wood, Long Ridge proved the old dictum that a hungry man will fight, while a well fed man will smile contentedly and look toward his next meal. When Solace to the north of them was destroyed, the citizens of Long Ridge should have looked to the skies. They did not.

When he came, red-armored Verminaard, fresh from his easy victory over Solace, took Long Ridge in a day. He needed no flight of dragons, only one, his crimson Ember. He barely needed his troops of soldiers, still stinking of burned vallenwoods and death.

While his army poured into the town, Verminaard and the red dragon Ember fired the farms in the valley, dealing destruction and death with an iron-fisted hand. By the time the farms were reduced to burning wastelands, his troops had surrounded Long Ridge, moved in, and strangled the town like a torturer’s band of soaked leather, drying and tightening around a helpless victim’s throat.

The Highlord permitted his soldiers enough license to blunt the edge of their bloodlust. Then, with half the town destroyed and a good portion of the populace dead or marked for slavery in the mines at Pax Tharkas, Verminaard called a halt to the looting, raping, and killing. He set Carvath in command of the occupation with orders to squeeze out of the town and its citizens whatever wealth remained. A dark eyed, thin young human captain, Carvath reminded all who saw him of a wolverine, though some might have thought the comparison unfair to that foul-tempered, vicious animal.

Hideous draconians, drunken human soldiers, and even goblins owned the streets of Long Ridge now. They were brutal and savage victors who took what they wanted when they wanted it and did not hesitate to kill any who offered protest. They were like wolves feeding in a shepherdless fold. While the elves cast the blame at the door of the humans, the dwarves, in their mountain fastness of Thorbardin, filled with bitter and ancient disdain, held both races accountable for sins of the past and the present. They would happily have blamed them for sins of the future as well. In Long Ridge, people tried to survive the occupation of Highlord Verminaard’s brutal army day by day. When the slaves in the mines of Pax Tharkas rebelled and fled the mountains, Verminaard turned his attention away from insignificant Long Ridge and left the town wholly in Carvath’s hands.

In the dark cold nights of late autumn, the people of Long Ridge wondered if they should have taken their gods more seriously. The tavern was called simply Tenny’s and it was, in as much as it could be, a “free” tavern. That meant it was only occasionally visited by the draconian officers of the occupation and, by Carvath’s orders, forbidden to the common soldiers. It was an open secret that Carvath’s spies frequented the place, though their business most often had to do with things well outside the ken and concern of the town’s citizens. It was for the sake of these that Carvath had granted the tavern free status.

Tyorl watched Hauk over the rim of his tankard of ale. Hauk was just the type of man Finn liked best for his rangers, for his Nightmare Company—young and bold, with a grudge against the dragonarmy in general, and with Verminaard specifically. Every man or elf in the company had lost friends or kin to Verminaard’s draconians. Hauk’s village had been wiped out by the savage warriors; his old father, his only kin, had been killed by them. Tyorl, though his own kin were safely fled to Qualinesti, had lost friends and a homeland. The two were typical of Finn’s rangers.

Finn’s men prowled the eastern borderlands between Qualinesti and the Kharolis Mountains for the pleasure of wreaking that vengeance on isolated draconian patrols. Finn saw no reason not to take advantage of Tenny’s status and had sent Hauk and Tyorl to find out what they could about Carvath’s plans for patrol movements in the area.

Tonight, Tyorl had heard something to confirm the rumor of a troop movement into the foothills of the Kharolis Mountains. The Highlord would be moving not only troops, but a supply base as well. Verminaard, still furious over the loss of his eight hundred slaves and looking for a way to salve his wounded pride, wanted to take his war south and east. He wanted Thorbardin, and he wanted to take the dwarven kingdoms before winter.

The rangerlord would snarl when he learned of Verminaard’s plans and most of the snarling would be in the direction of Thorbardin. Finn railed constantly against the dwarves who would happily let ranger companies scour the borders of Thorbardin but still held back from entering the war. Still, it would not stop him from doing his best to torment the Highlord’s warriors.

But first things first. Hauk laid his sword on the table beside his horn-handled dagger. Firelight from the deep, broad hearth slid along the sword’s golden hilt, with its silver chasing and five sapphires. The light warmed the coldly perfect facets of the jewels and illuminated the thin crimson streak which seemed to live in the heart of the steel blade. The four men drinking and playing at daggers at the next table had fallen silent.

Aye, the elf thought, trouble. He hoped he could get the both of them back to Finn in one piece. Tyorl crooked what he hoped was a diverting smile.

“That’s a fine sword,” the largest of the men drawled. He rubbed his fist along his jaw, scrubby with a week’s growth of beard, and lifted his tankard in salute to the blade. Ale slopped over the tankard’s rim, running down his fist and arm.

Recognizing the local, Hauk eyed the sword, his head cocked as though it had only now occurred to him that the blade was, indeed, a fine one. He nodded, his smile easy and open. “Aye. Fine enough to stand at wager, Kiv?”

Kiv glanced around the table. His three companions nodded, noses deep in their tankards, eyes tight with the look of men who wished to betray no interest in a matter for which they had, in fact, a great deal of interest. Those sapphires were worth a fortune! Kiv looked last at the elf, Tyorl.

The elf only shrugged. “It’s his sword. I suppose that means he can wager it where he will.”

Kiv grinned and wiped his hand, wet with ale, along the leg of leather breeches stiff with old grease. “So it is.” He turned to Hauk. “Well then, pup, the target will be of my choosing. Miss or refuse it, and the sword is mine.”

Hauk rested his hands lightly on the wide-planked table, still smiling with disarming innocence. None but the elf saw the chill in Hauk’s eyes. With a sigh, Tyorl lifted his tankard and settled against the wall. He’d known Hauk for three years. Those three years had taught him that he could depend on Hauk to watch his back in battle, to put himself between Tyorl and a sword blade if he had to; they’d also taught him not to interfere in any matter when Hauk’s eyes looked like ice. He and Hauk had been playing at daggers the whole night for dinner and ale, and as yet they had not had to pay for a crumb or a round. It was a good thing, too. The last of their money had gone for lodging, and neither had so much as a bent steel coin. Hauk liked to boast that he could feed them by wit and dagger alone. He usually made good his boast, but Tyorl sensed they were playing another game now.

No one was offering food or drink as a wager. Kiv’s belt pouch had jingled with steel coins at the night’s start. Though considerably more drunk than he had been an hour ago, the big man still had enough sense to know that it was time to start recouping the night’s losses if he wanted to eat tomorrow.

“The sword,” Kiv rumbled, “against what?”

“You tell me.”

Kiv leaned back in his chair. The wood creaked softly. He folded his hands comfortably over his belly and stared at the tavern’s low, black-beamed ceiling. “Everything in my friends’ pouches.”

The three shifted uncomfortably. One made as though to protest. Kiv, his eyes still on the smoky beams, only gestured absently at the sword as though to call the man’s attention to the gold and silver, the gems. The man subsided, a greedy light in his small dark eyes.

Hauk snorted. “How do I know there’s anything left in those pouches?”

Kiv snapped his fingers, and the three dropped their pouches on the table. Neither Hauk nor Tyorl missed the full, heavy sound of coin ringing against coin.

The elf, his eyes sleepy and hooded, smiled again. The coins weren’t worth a hundredth of the sword, but Hauk would not miss the target. On the far wall someone had painted a gray, vaguely man-like shape. A wine stain was its heart. All but five of the two dozen strikes at the target’s heart were Hauk’s.

Around them the rise and fall of a dozen conversations seemed to find a level and settle. At another table, four townsmen collected fresh tankards from the barmaid and hitched their chairs around for a better view. Other men shifted in their seats, picking up the scent of a grand wager. Across the long common room, two dark-clothed dwarves leaned a little forward. Not enough to seem very interested, Tyorl noted. That in itself was interesting when he considered that the two had no attention to spare for anything but their own conversation until now.

The barmaid, her wooden tray now empty, left the table beside Tyorl. Weaving through the tables with a sure grace, straight-backed and slim, she deftly avoided the laughing snatches of the tavern’s patrons. Her hair, the color of a sunset and catching the firelight like polished copper, hung in two thick braids over her shoulders. Pretty creature, Tyorl thought absently.

Kiv, glancing over his shoulder, settled deeper into his chair, made it groan, and closed his eyes. “The target’s the girl,” he said softly. Hauk feigned a look of bemusement and scratched his beard. “He means her tray, doesn’t he, Tyorl?”

For a moment, Tyorl did not think Kiv meant the tray at all. He took a long, slow drink, and set the tankard down on the table. As though considering Hauk’s question, he looked from the girl, halfway to the bar now, and back to Hauk’s dagger on the table. Spilled ale gleamed on the blade.

“Of course he means the tray,” Tyorl slipped his own dagger from its sheath. “Don’t you, Kiv?”

Kiv never opened his eyes. He grinned, a cat’s lazy, dangerous grin.

“Of course. Her tray. Dead center or it’s no hit.”

The man who had objected to the wagering of his purse laughed nervously. “No points for hitting the wench?”

Firelight danced down the edge of Tyorl’s dagger. Kiv opened his eyes, saw the blade, and shrugged. “None at all,” he said pointedly. The room was silent now but for the light sound of the girl’s footfalls as she returned to the bar. None stirred or seemed to breathe, and she, knowing suddenly that she was the focus of attention, turned slowly, the wooden tray in her hand.

Hauk, his eyes hard as his sword’s blue sapphires, closed his fingers over his dagger’s grip. Tyorl almost heard him thinking: bad wager! But he wasn’t going to back out of it.

Tyorl cursed silently. His own dagger still in his right hand, he snatched up a tankard with his left and flung it hard.

“Girl! Duck!”

Green eyes wide, the barmaid dropped and, as she did, she raised the tray over her head to deflect the tankard. Hauk’s dagger cut the smoke-thick air, a flash of silver too swift for the eye to follow.

The girl screamed, someone raised a staggering, drunken cheer, and then the only sounds heard were the low thud of steel in wood and the barmaid’s sobbing gasp. That gasp hung for a long moment in the air, then vanished under a rising wave of voices and the clatter of a chair falling to the floor as one of the townsmen at the next table ran to the girl. She had fainted.

The serving tray also lay on the floor, Hauk’s dagger quivering in its exact center.

One of the dwarves at the far end of the tavern, one-eyed and narrow-faced, rose and left the common room. Cool, fresh air swept into the tavern; the blue haze of hearth smoke danced, then fell still as the door closed behind him.

Tyorl noticed the movement. His friend, face white above his short black beard, pushed himself to his feet and sheathed his sword. “Dead center, Kiv.”

Kiv closed his eyes again, not turning to see. A slow flush mottled his face.

Tyorl swept the three money pouches from the table. “Go apologize to the girl, Hauk. Our friends will be leaving now.”

Kiv shook his head. “I’ve got no place to go just yet.”

“Find someplace.” Tyorl ran his thumb along the hilt of his dagger.

“You’re done drinking and wagering for tonight, your pouches are empty.”

Kiv looked from Tyorl’s dagger to Hauk’s hand where it lay on the hilt of his scabbarded sword. The decision was taken from him as his companions rose.

“Come on,” one said sourly. “You’ve lost us our coin, Kiv. Leave us our heads in one piece, eh?”

Kiv licked his lips and drew a careful breath. “I think we’ve been cheated. You interfered, elf.”

“No,” Tyorl said simply.

Sapphires gleamed between Hauk’s fingers like cold blue eyes. Kiv moved forward but his companion’s hand dropped hard on his shoulder and held him.

“Come on, Kiv. Give it up.”

Tyorl smiled.

The big man shoved himself hard to his feet, kicked his chair out from behind him and left. Hauk loosened his grip on his sword and went across the room to retrieve his dagger.

The talking in the common room wavered and then rose. Tyorl settled back again against the wall. He couldn’t wait to get out of Long Ridge. The flat odor of spilled ale mingled with the sour reek of unwashed bar rags. Slumped behind the bar, Kelida clamped her back teeth hard and swallowed tightly. She closed her eyes and again saw the firelight streaming on the dagger’s blade.

She heard a moan and knew the voice for hers. He’d nearly killed her!

Outside in the common room, the hum of conversation had returned to normal. Tenny, the barman, snapped an order to the scrub boy. Ale splashed into a tankard from the keg by the door.

She’d worked at the tavern for only two weeks, but the first thing she’d learned was to keep out of a dagger’s path. Tenny admired the sport and did not mind that his wall served as a target. Nor did he seem to mind that, a moment ago, his barmaid had been the target.

Consciousness was returning. Someone had sat her up, splashed her face with water. Now, footsteps sounded behind her. She turned. It was the dagger-throwing young man.

The blade was sheathed again. His hand was nowhere near it. His face gray beneath its weathered tan, he dropped to a crouch beside her, and Kelida saw that he was perspiring heavily.

“I’m sorry,” he said. His voice was deep, and when he tried to pitch it softly it broke a little.

“You gambled with my life,” she accused.

He nodded, “I know.”

When he held out his hand, big and rough with callouses, Kelida shrank back. He was like a bear, stocky, broad-chested, and black-bearded. Unlike a bear’s, his eyes were blue. She kept her eyes on his, aware suddenly that he was between her and the door to the common room. He read anger in her face and sprang to his feet. When he stepped to one side, the path to the door was clear.

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

Kelida stood, edging toward the door. “Just leave me alone!”

“It’s over,” he said. He smiled then, a self-deprecating twitch of his lips. “I was sorry the moment the dagger flew.”

Before she thought, Kelida turned on him sharply, her hands fisted.

“Would you be sorrier if I was dead?”

He didn’t move. “But I did not intend to miss—”

“You gambled with my life!” Suddenly she blazed with outrage and fury. She flew at him, scratching and kicking. She raked his face with her nails. Before he captured both her wrists in one of his big hands, she saw blood spring from the scratches above his beard. He held her hands high and away from his face. She spat in his eye.

He wiped his face with the back of his free hand and drew his sword. In that moment, Kelida saw his blue eyes very clearly. He stopped and freed her hands at once.

“I’m sorry. I did gamble with your life.” He balanced the sword across his two open hands and held it out as though making an offering. The sapphires on its grip captured what light there was in the dim storeroom and made the jewels look like twilight. As though it were the soul of the blade, or a blood stain, a slim crimson streak marked the blue-edged steel. Kelida backed away, not understanding the gesture.

“Take it.”

“I—no. No. I don’t want it.”

“It’s mine to give.” He smiled encouragingly. “It’s what I wagered tonight. It’s yours; rightly won when your life was gambled.”

“You’re drunk.”

He cocked his head. “Drunk? Aye, a little, probably. But, drunk or sober, I’m giving you the sword.”

When she made no move to accept the weapon he laid it on the floor at her feet. He unbuckled the plain leather scabbard at his hip and laid that beside the sword. Saying nothing more, he turned and left. For a long time Kelida stared at the wealth of jewels, gold, and steel. Then, very carefully and as though it were a snake and not cold steel, she stepped around the sword and into the ale and smoke reek of the common room.

The young man was just walking out the door. The elf, his companion, leaned comfortably against the wall. He looked up from his tankard, gave her a long and considering look, and raised his drink in salute. Kelida avoided his eyes.

The townsmen at a table next to the elf rose to leave. Fresh air gusted into the tavern again as they left. The table did not remain empty long. A black-bearded dwarf claimed it. He tossed his pack down on the floor, unslung an old leather scabbard from his back and laid it near to hand. He signaled for a drink, and Kelida went back to work.

The one-eyed dwarf lurking outside the tavern had no rank and, worse, had no clan. The Theiwar were, above all, dwarves of Thorbardin, and so viewed a clan-reft dwarf as nothing less than a living ghost. He was a creature to be ignored, to be looked past as though he did not exist. No unnecessary word was ever spoken to him by Realgar’s guards. In the normal course of social interaction, such a one did not exist. None knew what the clanless guard had done to deserve his fate, though many speculated.

Some said his mortal offense had been committed at the thane’s behest. Some said he had acted on his own for the sake of the thane. Whatever the reason for his crime, Realgar kept him close.

The blood of mages ran in his veins and, though he was not a fully trained mage himself, he was competent enough in the minor workings of magic to cast small spells and to act as Realgar’s eyes and voice. Through his eye the thane saw; with his voice the thane spoke.

His name was Agus. Among the Theiwar he was known as the Gray Herald. It had been whispered that the Gray Herald could slit a man’s throat and smile into his eyes while doing it.

In the dark shadows of the alley between the tavern and the stable, Agus now waited for Hauk. The opposite end of the garbage-strewn alley opened on the stable’s paddocks and smithy. The Gray Herald’s companion, Rhuel, waited there.

Across the street two dragonarmy soldiers, humans both, walked unsteadily in the direction of their barracks. Drunk, the Gray Herald thought, and no problem to me.

From the stable came the quick impatient thud of a horse kicking back against its stall. The dwarf felt the wood at his back shiver with the impact. A stableman cursed, and the horse whinnied high.

The tavern’s door opened. Noise and light spilled into the street, then faded as the door closed. The Gray Herald stood away from the stable wall, his dagger in hand. Footsteps, hollow and slow, approached. Down the alley, Rhuel stepped from the shadows.

The Gray Herald drew a short breath and peered out into the street. Hauk, head down and thinking, walked away from the tavern in the direction that would bring him past the alley. The Gray Herald smiled and moved his right hand in a swift gesture. Magic sighed in the shadow of the alley.

Hauk stopped at the alley’s mouth and cocked his head as though he’d heard his name called. He looked back the way he’d come and saw no one. The street was empty. All he heard now was the muffled sounds of laughter and conversation from the tavern. The Herald moved his hand again, the gesture more complicated now.

Though he believed he was continuing down the street, Hauk stepped into the alley and a sleep spell. The one-eyed dwarf doubted Hauk would even remember the long, slow fall before he hit the ground. Kelida turned up the last chair and dropped the floor mop into a wooden bucket of dirt-scummed water. The tavern was quiet now but for the banging of pots in the kitchen and Tenny’s grunts and curses as he hauled empty ale kegs out to the alley. With the back of her hand she brushed at the hair escaping in wisps from her braids. Her feet sore, her arms aching from carrying trays loaded with tankards, she was more tired tonight than she’d ever been. Not even during harvest time, with field after field of corn, wheat and hay to cut, stack and haul, had she ever felt as tired as this.

Her throat tightened. Unbidden, sharp tears pricked behind her eyes. There would be no harvest this year. None next year. Someone, in bitter humor, had said that the farms were plague-struck. A plague of dragons. No, Kelida thought now, just one dragon. One had been enough. She would have nightmares about the day the red dragon struck for a long, long time.

She turned around at the sound of the front door opening. Some late-returning lodger, she thought, and looked to see who had entered. The elf, whose friend had wagered with her life at daggers, closed the door quietly behind him. Kelida bent to lift the bucket, and the elf crossed the room with three long strides and took it from her hand.

“Let me,” he said. “Where does it go?”

Kelida gestured behind the long trestle that served as the bar. “Thank you.” She stepped behind the trestle to finish wiping it down. The elf left the bucket near the kitchen door and returned to the common room. He leaned his elbows on the bar and, saying nothing, watched Kelida work.

“The bar is closed,” she told him, not taking her eyes from her wiping.

“I know. I’m not looking for a drink. I’m looking for Hauk.”

“Who?”

“Hauk.” Tyorl smiled a little and mimed throwing a dagger. “You met him earlier. Have you seen him?”

“No.” Kelida scrubbed hard at a sticky wine stain.

“By the look of you, you don’t care if you ever see him again.”

She glanced up at him then. His eyes, long and blue, danced with amusement. Where his friend had been stocky and muscular, this elf was tall and lean. Hauk had moved with the solid step of a bear. This one had a deer’s grace. Kelida did not know how to judge his age. He might be young or old. One could not often tell with an elf.

“Tyorl,” he said, as though she had asked his name.

Kelida nodded. “I haven’t seen your friend since—since he left the tavern earlier tonight.”

“He hasn’t been back to claim the sword?”

“He gave it to me.”

Tyorl shrugged. “Oh, yes. Hauk’s apologies, when he’s had too much to drink are always extravagant.”

Kelida glanced at him quickly. She thought suddenly that the sword which she’d thought so fine and expensive, might more appropriately have come from an elflord’s coffers.

“Was it yours? He said it was his to wager. But—”

“Oh, it’s his, all right. He’s the swordsman, lady, I’m the bowman. If I need anything else, I’ve my dagger.” Tyorl smiled. “I taught him to play daggers and can still beat him. It’s enough for me.”

In spite of herself, Kelida smiled. “That sword would buy half the town.”

“It would buy the town and two more like it. He hasn’t been back at all?”

“No. I—I have the sword.” She’d left it in the storeroom, but wrapped in old flour sacking and well hidden behind two tuns of old wine. The wine was Tenny’s best, and no one dared draw from the barrels but he. He hadn’t had reason to draw from them tonight. She’d thought about the sword and the riches represented by the gold and sapphires all night. Perhaps she could sell it and find a way out of Long Ridge, though she had no idea of where to go.

“Shall I get it for you?”

He frowned. “You’d just give it to me?”

“What will I do with it?”

“Sell it.”

Kelida shook her head. “And then what?”

“I don’t know. Get out of here.”

“There’s no place to go. My family—my family is dead. No one travels the roads alone. I certainly wouldn’t if I had something worth stealing.”

She looked at him closely. “Besides, that’s your friend’s sword. Why do you want me to sell it?”

“I don’t want you to sell it. I’m just surprised that you don’t want to sell it. Just as well. Sooner or later he’ll be back for it.”

Kelida returned to her wiping. “I said he gave it to me.”

Tyorl nodded. “Well, you deserve a certain amount of revenge upon our friend Hauk.” He smiled and pushed away from the bar. “Don’t give it over quite so easily, lady. Make him sweat a little for it, eh?”

Kelida said nothing, but watched as Tyorl left the common room and mounted the steps for the rooms above. She retrieved the sword, an awkward bundle in the old brown sacking, and took it to her cold, drafty attic room at the top of the tavern.

The room smelled of the stableyard which it overlooked and the sour, smoky reek from the tavern, to which she had almost become accustomed. The lodging was fully two thirds of her pay. Meals and a few coins were the other third.

Kelida sank down on the pile of straw and rough woolen blankets that served her as a bed. She unwrapped the sword, slid it a little way from the simple, undecorated scabbard, and watched gold and silver, sapphires and steel catch the faint light of the stars.

Hauk had wagered all this wealth on the skill of his hand! Was he mad or had he simply been drunk? His clothes, hunting leathers and tall boots, made her think of a ranger.

His voice, she decided, was better used to shouting the triumph of a hunting kill or roaring a challenge. It hadn’t dropped to soft apology easily. Suddenly, she found herself looking forward to morning and Hauk’s return for the sword.

Then she remembered that she was angry with him. A little revenge, the elf had said. Kelida smiled. She supposed she did deserve a little revenge.