Swordmage

FIVE

13 Ches, the Year of the Ageless One

The day after the encounter at Erstenwold’s, Geran rose early and spent half an hour practicing his weapon-forms in a little-used court on the castle’s south face. When he finished, he returned to his chambers, splashed himself with cold water for a teeth-chattering bath, and dressed. Then, before leaving his rooms, he took a large book written in Elvish from his baggage. Geran spent an hour studying the words and symbols from the spellbook, pressing into his mind the arcane phrasings and signs he would need to unlock his magic quickly and surely should he need it. Given what he’d seen of the state of affairs in Hulburg so far, it seemed wise to be ready for anything.

With the swordmagic spells fixed in his mind, Geran took a few moments to renew the protective charms he usually maintained from day to day. He quickly rewove wardings of keen perception and deflection, defenses that just might save him from a dagger in the back or see him through an unexpected skirmish. His battle-shields were much more powerful, of course, but he couldn’t maintain them for long; the wardings he could wear all day, like an invisible shirt of light mail. He returned his spellbook to the trunk at the foot of his bed and whispered a locking spell out of habit.

“All right,” he said aloud. “Now for some breakfast.”

He trotted down the stairs leading from his old bedchamber to the great room in the Harmach’s Tower, where the family normally took their meals. Hamil was ahead of him, already finished with his own breakfast. The halfling was engaged in a game of dragon’s-teeth with Geran’s young cousin Kirr, who chortled with delight every time he found an opportunity to put one of his own markers on top of Hamil’s. Somehow the halfling never failed to provide the young lad plenty of opportunities to take his pieces.

Hamil looked up at Geran with a doleful frown. “It seems I’ve fallen into the hands of a master strategist,” he said. “I don’t doubt that this young fellow will grow up to be the greatest general since Azoun of Cormyr. Neighboring lands should sue for peace now, while his terms remain generous.”

“That’s right!” Kirr declared. “Ha! You missed another one, Hamil!” He plunked a red tile down on top of one of Hamil’s white ones.

“What-but how? You fiend! You have captured my last white!” the halfling spluttered in feigned outrage. The young boy cackled in reply, almost helpless with delight at his own cunning. His older sister, Natali, studied Hamil suspiciously while she arranged her own pieces for the next match, clearly aware that the halfling was throwing the game but wise enough not to say so right before she got a chance to play him.

Geran shook his head. In a hundred years he never would have guessed that Hamil had a weakness for children. He helped himself to a broad plate of honeycakes, bacon, and eggs from the breakfast service and sat down near the game to watch as he ate. “A word of advice, Kirr,” he said between mouthfuls. “If Hamil loses again but suggests that maybe you should play for coin next time, say no.”

The halfling snorted. “Even I am not that underhanded, Geran!”

“Do they play dragon’s-teeth in Tantras, Geran?” Natali asked. She was quieter than her younger brother, but in two brief evenings Geran had already learned that she had a quick and lively sense of curiosity and never forgot a word she heard. Where Kirr was constantly in motion, fidgeting and standing and sitting and pushing tiles together when it wasn’t his turn, Natali held herself as still as a falcon watching a mouse.

Geran nodded. “Yes, indeed. And people play dragon’s-teeth in most other places I’ve visited too. In the Moonsea it’s regarded as a children’s game, but if you go down to Turmish or Airspur you’ll see grown men playing all afternoon. They take tremendous pride in playing well, and sometimes they gamble bags of gold on games. The marks on the tiles are different, but the game’s pretty much the same everywhere you go.”

“Where do the marks on the tiles come from?”

He smiled at that, wondering why in the world she thought he might know. “I’ve heard that long ago they were runes in Dwarvish, but they’ve changed over the years. Dragon’s-teeth is an old dwarven game. It’s said that once upon a time dwarf merchants used the runes and tiles to strike bargains and keep accounts with each other.”

The young girl studied the ivory tiles intently, her brow furrowed. “How could you make trades by playing dragon’s-teeth?”

“I don’t know, Natali. Maybe a dwarf could tell you.”

He heard a light, quick step approaching and looked up to see a blonde woman in a mail shirt trotting up the steps. Geran swung his legs over the bench and stood. “Kara! It’s good to see you!”

Kara Hulmaster smiled broadly when she caught sight of him and quickly crossed the room to throw her arms around him in a rib-cracking hug. “Geran! You’re here!” she laughed. She was not much more than about five-and-a-half feet in height, but she had wide, strong shoulders and an acrobat’s compact build, and when she squeezed, Geran had a hard time taking a good breath. “It’s been years!”

“Too long, I know,” he admitted. He returned her embrace and then stepped back to look at her. Her hair was paler than he remembered, bleached by long months spent outside beneath the sun every year, and laugh lines gathered at the corners of her eyes. Kara had the squarish face and fine, narrow nose of the Hulmasters, but her strikingly luminous eyes glowed an eerie azure with the spellscar she had inherited from her father. The serpentlike blue mark entwined her lower left arm and covered the back of her left hand, beautiful and sinister at the same time. Two or three generations past, someone in her father’s line had come in contact with the virulent, unchecked Spellplague and had been changed by it. As far as Geran knew, Kara’s father had never even known it himself-the Spellplague was capricious that way. Certainly Harmach Grigor never would have permitted his sister Terena to marry a man known to carry the defect of a spellscar. But no one had known the danger until Kara’s spellscar had manifested early in her thirteenth year.

“I heard about Jarad,” he told her. “I’ve come to pay my respects and look after anything that needs looking after.”

“I should’ve known you’d come home,” Kara said with a sigh. “I’m sorry, Geran. I wish you were here for a happier reason.” She glanced over to the table and noticed Hamil with Kirr and Natali. “Who’s your friend?”

“My apologies. Kara, this is Hamil Alderheart. Hamil, this is my cousin, Kara Hulmaster.”

Hamil slid off the bench, took Kara’s hand, and kissed it lightly. “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Lady Kara,” he said. If he was startled by her spellscar, he was careful not to show it. “Geran has told me a lot about you, but his reports simply don’t do you justice. I am your servant.”

Kara raised an eyebrow. “Why thank you, Master Alderheart.”

Geran rolled his eyes. Hamil had never met a handsome woman he didn’t try to charm, regardless of race or station. It was simply Hamil’s nature. Geran had even known Hamil to court human women before, although the halfling preferred ladies not much more than five feet or so in height; Kara was really a little too tall for him. The swordmage cleared his throat and said, “Kara, I heard you were checking up on the border posts when we arrived. Is everything well?”

Kara shrugged. “It’s been surprisingly quiet. I spent three days prowling around the watchtowers, and I didn’t see or hear anything. Usually the tribes send out their scouts and hunters as soon as the snows melt. In any event, until the harmach names a new captain for the Shieldsworn, I’m standing in, so I wanted to take a good look for myself.”

“I’ve been doing some of that too over the last couple days. The town isn’t what I remember.”

“A lot’s changed in the last few years.” Kara started to say more but thought better of it. Instead, she asked, “So what are you doing today?”

“I’m going to drive out to Keldon Head and visit Jarad’s grave. I should’ve done it yesterday.”

Kara gave him a small nod. “I’ll ride with you, if you like. I can show you where it is.”

“I’ll be glad for your company,” Geran told her. He quickly finished his breakfast and said his goodbyes to Natali and Kirr. Then he, Hamil, and Kara threw on cloaks and headed down to the stable.

They harnessed a pair of horses to an old two-wheeled buggy they found in the musty carriage house. Hamil scrambled onto the quarter-bench behind Geran and Kara, since it would have been a tight fit with all three of them in the single full seat. Kara took the reins and drove out under Griffonwatch’s gates into the bright morning. It was another cold and cloudless day, with a brisk westerly breeze raising whitecaps on the Moonsea. The clip-clop of hooves on stone and jingle of the harness preceded them as they rode down the causeway winding around Griffonwatch’s crag.

Geran watched the town clatter past as Kara followed the same route he’d taken the previous day. The town seemed just as full as before. “What are all these people doing here?” he wondered aloud. “Is there a gold strike I haven’t heard about? A war somewhere that people are fleeing from? It must be something.”

Kara glanced sharply at him. “Mostly it’s the timber concessions,” she said. “My stepbrother’s idea. A few years ago he urged Harmach Grigor to rent logging rights in the Hulmaster forestland to foreign merchants. All the Moonsea cities are desperate for wood, especially since Myth Drannor put the woods of the Elven Court under its protection.”

“We deal in timber sometimes down in the Vast,” Hamil observed. “It doesn’t hurt that Sembia’s demand is driving up the prices everywhere.” Geran looked back to Hamil, and the halfling shrugged. “While you were strolling around the town, I spent my day talking to the clerks and superintendents of the merchant yards. I was curious about whether the Red Sails ought to do some business up this way. Sembia is ten times as big as the whole Moonsea together and just as hungry for wood-shades or no shades. We should think about it.”

“Which costers are here now?” Geran asked Kara.

“House Verunas of Mulmaster, the Double Moon Coster, House Jannarsk of Phlan, and a few others moved into town to handle the trade in timber,” said Kara. “They shipped in poor laborers from the larger cities to cut timber, drive wagons, work in the yards and on the docks. And of course those laborers bring others with them, tailors and grocers, smiths and wainwrights, brewers and cooks… In the last year or two the harmach’s let out some mining concessions too, and the big merchant houses and costers are taking advantage of those as fast as they can.”

“They seem to be doing well,” Hamil observed. “The harmach must be making a fortune on his rents.”

Kara shook her head. “Not as much as you might think. To pay off old debts the harmach borrowed heavily from the merchant guilds, and he had to rent out the concessions for a pittance by way of payment. The foreign merchants are keeping the better part of what they’re cutting down in our forests and digging out of our ground. Except, of course, for the so-called ‘licensing fees’ Sergen and his Merchant Council capture from the whole business.”

They came to the Burned Bridge and drove over the rickety wooden decking. It was covered by a dilapidated roof, and the hoofbeats echoed in the shadows of the bridge. Geran scratched at his jaw, thinking. He didn’t like the idea of using Hulmaster land in such a way, especially if the harmach saw little return on the rights he rented out, but it wasn’t really his place to say if it was a good idea or not. “What’s Sergen’s connection to the Merchant Council?”

“He’s the keeper of duties-the harmach’s representative on the council. Uncle Grigor put him in charge of releasing concessions, negotiating their prices, and administering the resulting trade.”

So your cousin decides which properties will be up for bidding, who can purchase a concession, how much they’ll pay the harmach, and how much they’ll pay the council he presides over? Hamil observed silently. If he were a corrupt man, that would be an awful temptation. I’m sure that isn’t the case, though.

Geran glanced back at his friend but didn’t reply. He was not at all sure that Sergen wasn’t corruptible. A younger, more vigorous harmach might have been vigilant enough to check any ignoble impulses someone in Sergen’s position could fall prey to… but Grigor was not a young man anymore, and it seemed he relied on Sergen to look after his interests for him.

They drove on in silence for a time and began to climb again. The road wound through the mournful Spires on the town’s western side, then followed the flanks of Keldon Head, the windswept promontory that sheltered Hulburg and its bay. The town’s cemetery was atop the long, bare hill. A long time ago the ruins surrounding Hulburg had been plagued by undead, and so the townsfolk chose to bury their dead in the safe ground of the hilltop, well outside any lingering influences from the days before the town’s refounding a hundred years ago. The cheerless stone markers and weathered mausoleums of the cemetery rose into view as the carriage neared the hilltop.

“Kara,” Geran said quietly, “what can you tell me about Jarad’s death? The harmach said that he was found alone in the Highfells, but that’s all I know.”

Kara briefly met his eyes, then sighed and returned her gaze to the road. “A shepherd found him by the door of a barrow mound up in the east Highfells, perhaps five or six miles from town. We’ve had a rash of crypt-breaking in the last few months-someone’s been opening barrows and tombs, looking for funereal treasure, I suppose. You know how dangerous that can be in Hulburg, so Jarad began to search for those responsible. We think he finally managed to catch the tomb robbers in the act, but he was overpowered and killed.”

“He took no one with him?” Hamil asked.

“No, he was alone. I don’t know if he just chanced upon the tomb robbers, decided to set watch on a barrow he thought they might visit, or heard some rumor that led him to that spot.”

The halfling nodded, thinking. Kara drove the carriage up to the cemetery gates and halted the team. She set the brake and hopped down; Geran and Hamil followed. “This way,” she said.

The sunshine was bright on top of the hill, and the wind rustled and hissed through the long grasses. They followed Kara through rows of plain stone markers, some crumbling beneath decades of moss and weathering, others bright and new. She stopped by a raised stone bier surmounted by a heavy sepulcher of new white stone, its lid inscribed with Amaunator’s sunburst emblem. Lettering chiseled carefully at the foot of the tomb read simply:

Jarad Erstenwold, Captain of the Shieldsworn. His valor, compassion, and faithfulnessshall not be forgotten.

“Uncle Grigor paid for the monument,” Kara said quietly. “He thought the world of Jarad. It’s been hard for him.”

Geran stood silent for a long moment. He reached out and rested his hand on the cold stone. It simply didn’t seem possible that Jarad truly rested under that heavy slab. Behind him, Kara and Hamil exchanged looks and retreated a short distance, leaving him alone with his old friend. “Jarad,” he whispered. He felt as if he should say something more, maybe give in to tears or try to find some shadow of a smile in a good memory, but there was nothing in his heart except a dull, cold ache. He let his fingers brush over the sun symbol atop the tomb, following the design aimlessly. I never knew he thought of himself as a follower of Amaunator, Geran reflected. Jarad was not a particularly religious man. Was it something the harmach had picked out for him? Or Mirya? Or the Tresterfins? He was engaged when he was killed, after all.

I wonder if I would have come home for his wedding, Geran thought dully. He hoped he would have. But ever since the terrible day when he’d left Myth Drannor, he’d avoided things that reminded him of who he used to be. Maybe he wouldn’t have shown up after all.

“I’m sorry for that, Jarad,” Geran said to the cold stone. “You deserved better from me. Everyone here did, I think.” He heard the steady rhythm of hooves on stone and looked up. Someone else was driving up to the cemetery in a simple wagon. He put it out of his mind and let his hand fall from the stone.

“Ten years ago I would’ve followed the men who killed you to the ends of the world,” he murmured softly. “I think you’d want me to look after things before I set out again. I’ll see what I can do. And if I happen to run across the men you met out in the Highfells while I’m at it, well, so much the better.”

Footsteps swished through the long grass. Geran looked up again. Mirya Erstenwold stood watching him, a small bunch of wildflowers in her hands. She dropped her gaze to the ground and said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”

“It’s nothing.” Geran noticed a small stone vase at the foot of the tomb, near where he stood. A small spray of wildflowers rested there, faded with the weather. He retreated a few steps and made room for her. “I’ll leave.”

“There’s no need for that.” She knelt by the foot of the tomb and began to remove the old flowers from the vase. “I met your friend Hamil. He seems a good man.”

“You don’t know him very well yet, then.”

Mirya gave him a bleak smile. She replaced the old bouquet with the fresh one and took a moment to arrange the flowers. “I’ve come up here once a month since my mother passed,” she said without looking at him. “It’s a fair spot in the summertime. Sometimes I’ll bring Selsha for a picnic.”

“Did she know Jarad well?” Geran asked.

Mirya closed her eyes and nodded. “Aye. He supped with us once or twice a tenday and was always stopping by the warehouse. She cried for days when I told her that he was gone.”

Geran’s stern resolve cracked at the idea of a heartbroken little girl who’d never see someone she loved again and couldn’t understand why he wasn’t coming home. It ached like a cold knife in the center of his chest. He was a grown man, and he’d seen his share of death and misfortune, but the grief of a child was a damned hard thing to dwell on. He sank down against an old moss-covered tomb next to Jarad’s with his hand over his eyes.

“Ah, Mirya, I’m so sorry,” he breathed. “If I’d been here…”

Mirya watched him in silence, and her stern expression softened. “Geran, what happened to Jarad was no fault of yours. Aye, things might’ve been different if you’d been here in Hulburg. But if you hadn’t gone off to find your fortune in the south, who’s to say that someone else wouldn’t have died because you weren’t there to stand by their side? Who in turn might have died because those people didn’t live? And even if you’d come home to Hulburg before now, well, fate might have called you and Jarad to some ill end years ago. Why, if I hadn’t-” Mirya stopped herself abruptly and sighed. She rose and brushed her hands against her skirts. “Anyway, there’s no point to wishing on might-have-beens.”

He looked down between his boots at the wiry grass, growing by a weathered stone marker so old that its inscription was only a set of illegible dimples in its surface. He knew that Mirya was right, and that there was no telling how things could have turned out if he’d made different choices… the duel against Rhovann in the glades of Myth Drannor, for example. He knew that he had no real cause to blame himself for failing Jarad. But it was the simplest and straightest course for his grief.

“I know you’re right,” he said. “I know it. But somehow I can’t help but feel that this didn’t have to happen.” He kicked idly at the grass, pushed himself upright, and rubbed his hand across his eyes. “I’ll be on my way.”

She met his eyes briefly and found a small smile for him. “Take care of yourself, Geran Hulmaster.”

Geran took a deep breath, turned, and made his way to the carriage where Kara and Hamil waited. They watched him pull himself up into the seat, adjusting his cloak to keep his sword arm free. “I’m ready to go,” he said to Kara.

Kara nodded and said, “We can come back any time you want.” She took the reins in hand.

“Geran, wait!” Mirya hurried up to the carriage, holding her skirts. She stopped and studied him, evidently considering what she wanted to say. Finally she spoke. “Listen, likely there’s nothing at all to what I aim to tell you, but I thought you ought to know.”

“What is it?” he asked.

“Several days past, I thought I saw something… Jarad had an elf-made dagger that he often wore. It was a handsome thing with a hilt of silver wire and a pommel in the shape of a sprig of holly. I think he got it from you.”

Geran leaned forward in the seat. “Yes, he did. I sent him that blade shortly after I arrived in Myth Drannor. It was nothing, really, just an ordinary dagger of a coronal’s guardsman, but I wanted to send him something elf-made, something to show that I’d visited the city of the elves. When we were boys we always talked about going there someday.”

“It was nought to you, perhaps, but Jarad treasured it. He wore it at his belt always.” Mirya’s voice grew flat. “I think I saw that dagger on the hip of a hired sword by the name of Anfel Urdinger. He’s in the pay of House Veruna. He and a few other Verunas were keeping watch on Erstenwold’s from across the street. Like as not they were keeping count of my business to work out the Merchant Council’s cut.”

Hamil looked at Geran. “If it’s a common design as you say, it may not be the same dagger. Or even if it is, it’s possible that this man Urdinger simply got it from someone else-won it throwing dice, traded for it, stole it, who knows?”

“Aye, your friend may have the right of it,” Mirya acknowledged. “But this I do know: Jarad wasn’t afraid to interfere with Merchant Council business when he had a mind to, and interfering with Merchant Council business means interfering with Veruna business. If you mean to start asking questions, then you might start with asking whether House Veruna is interested in tomb-breaking out in the Highfells.”

“Mirya, you should’ve told me about this,” Kara said with a frown. “If there’s any reason to suspect Urdinger, I need to know. Do you realize what you’re suggesting? If you’re right, House Veruna’s armsmen ambushed and killed the captain of the Shieldsworn. That’s a direct attack on the harmach.”

“You were away up at the northern posts, Kara,” Mirya replied. “Besides, what I saw’s no proof of anything. Even if I’ve got the right of it, well, as Hamil said, Urdinger could claim that he came by that dagger in any number of ways. All I’ve got are my suspicions.”

Geran met Mirya’s eyes. “I take your suspicions seriously, Mirya. I’ll remember what you’ve told me. And I’ll keep my eyes open for this fellow Urdinger. He’s got some questions to answer.”

Kara shifted in her seat to look at both Geran and Mirya. Her armor rasped and jingled. “Geran, you’ve got to move with care,” she said. “You can’t just challenge this man in the street, regardless of Mirya’s suspicions. The harmach’s law applies to you as well as everyone in Hulburg-especially to you, since we can’t afford to have anyone say the Hulmasters are above the law in this city. Besides, you might be playing into House Veruna’s hands. Someone arranged for Isolmar to meet a professional duelist four years ago. Whoever arranged that for Harmach Grigor’s own son wouldn’t hesitate to arrange something similar for you.”

“I hear you, Kara. I’ll choose my steps carefully, never you fear.” Geran leaned back in his seat and motioned at the road leading back down to the town below. “Now, before I go looking for this Veruna man, I want to take a look at the place where Jarad was found. Could you take me to the barrow?”

Kara nodded once and flicked the reins. The horses whickered and leaned into the traces, trotting on the mossy old cobblestones. As they turned out of the cemetery gate and began to descend, Geran glanced back up the hill at the lonely stone markers amid the long grass. Mirya stood there with the dead, faded wildflowers in her hands, watching him drive away until a bend in the road hid her from his view.