The Queen of Death

5

Esprë had never been in a dwarf inn before. Ibrido had led her through the abandoned halls under Mount Darumkrak, but that didn’t count. The only dwarves she’d seen there had been Duro and his compatriots, the warriors charged with the defense of the dragon’s lair. Hospitality had been the least of their concerns.

She looked around, eyes wide, as she strode into the place at Kandler’s side. For a moment, she had an urge to hold his hand, but she suppressed it. She’d been through too much lately to think of herself as a child anymore, no matter how much she might yearn for the comforts of childhood.

The floor of the inn commanded Esprë’s attention first. The dock outside the inn had been fashioned from wood, as had the roof, face, and every other part of the building that jutted out from the front of the canyon’s sheer face. Inside, though, the entire floor seemed to be made from a single, large flat stone cut to a perfectly flat surface.

Esprë couldn’t guess at what kind of dwarf architecture had been employed to keep the floor from toppling into the abyss. Perhaps it had been a natural shelf on the cliff face, or maybe the dwarves of Clan Nroth had carted up piece after piece and fitted them together so tight that no eye could find a seam.

The walls of the rear part of the inn’s main hall were made of the same stone, and every surface bore some sort of carving, either runes or artistic depictions of the history of the clan or perhaps just Krangel’s direct line. A dozen wooden tables squatted about the place, each of them made for customers with the dimension of dwarves. While Esprë could sit at one of these comfortably enough, she had to stifle a giggle at the thought of how Kandler, Burch, or especially Sallah would look perched atop the tiny, sturdy chairs sitting around the tables.

“Come in!” Krangel said. “It’s not often we get outsiders around here.” The snow-haired dwarf cocked a finger at a young dwarf behind the low, marble-topped bar. “Raumeese! Bring out the big folk’s table!”

The dwarf, who’d been staring at the newcomers in stunned silence, leaped to his feet and scurried out of the room. The other patrons in the room—perhaps a dozen dwarves—snorted at Raumeese as he left. A few of them nodded a greeting to Esprë and the others if they happened to catch their eyes, but the others returned to their food and drink.

The smell of food made Esprë’s mouth water. She’d not had a proper meal since her last night at Fort Bones, and that seemed like a lifetime ago. It had been far longer since she’d been in an inn of any kind. There never had been one in Mardakine.

“You don’t get other airships through here?” Kandler asked. Esprë heard the suspicion in his voice.

Burch scanned the place pointedly. “Awful lot of effort to build a dock like that and not use it.” He spied a nervous dwarf woman staring at him and flashed her a toothy grin.

She flinched and looked away.

“We get some,” Krangel said, “just not as many as we’d like. Still, lots of clansfolk come up here for the view. When a trader airship comes through, you should see this place. People crushed in here from wall to wall, tighter than a collapsing mineshaft. Now, though”—he waved his hand around—“nothing but room to sprawl.”

The door through which Raumeese had disappeared swung open again, and a round tabletop rolled out through it on its edge. Raumeese followed close after it, guiding it to an open spot in the floor near to where Krangel stood.

When the young dwarf pulled the tabletop to a stop, Esprë wondered if Krangel meant for his new guests to sit on the floor. With a slap of Raumeese’s hand, four legs sprang from the bottom of the table, and he tipped it up onto them. It stood at a level comfortable for humans, and the young dwarf trotted off again.

He returned a moment later with a stack of wood in his arms. With one hand, he drew a bundle of wood from the top of the stack and snapped his wrist. The wood unfolded into a finely crafted chair made of thin dowels crisscrossed against each other to fashion a sturdy seat. He snapped out five chairs in all, then gave the newcomers a sharp, short bow and dashed back behind the bar.

“Thanks for your trouble,” Kandler said. He didn’t appear impressed at all, just worried. “We can’t stay long, though. We just need some supplies: food, water.”

Krangel’s face dropped. “We can help you with that, sure, but please impose upon our hospitality.” He looked them up and down. “I can’t remember the last time I saw a lot as needful of a break as you.”

Sallah reached out and took Kandler’s hand. Esprë felt a bit strange about seeing that. Since her mother’s death, Kandler hadn’t shown any interest in women. He’d thrown himself into helping build Mardakine and into taking care of her the best he could.

Esprë had heard some of the girls and the ladies in Mardakine whisper about Kandler. She knew that he could have taken up with many of them. She had to admit she’d been relieved that he hadn’t. Now, though, as she watched Kandler pull his hand from Sallah’s, she felt a pang of regret for him.

Esprina had been dead for years now, and their marriage vow had always been “until death.” Of course, at the time of the wedding everyone had expected Esprina to outlive Kandler by hundreds of years. No one had thought that she wouldn’t find love again after his death—not even Kandler, and especially not Esprë.

Sallah’s lips drew tight across her face, but she bit back whatever might have been on her tongue. Regret tinged Kandler’s eyes when he glanced back at her, but he pushed it aside and addressed Krangel instead.

“We don’t have a lot of time,” he said, “and we have a long way ahead of us.”

Duro arched an eyebrow at the justicar. “It’s never a good idea to refuse a dwarf’s kindness,” he said. “It’s not likely to come around again.”

Esprë reached for Kandler’s other hand before he could reply. Instead of pulling away from her, he grasped her hand tight, her fingers nearly disappearing in his grip. He looked down at her, a question on his lips.

“It seems like such a nice place,” she said, flashing Krangel a smile, “and it’s been years since we’ve dined at an inn. Can’t we?”

Kandler tried to summon up some resistance to the girl’s request, but he gave up almost instantly. He reached out and tousled her golden hair instead. “We’ll stay for a bite.”

The justicar looked to Burch. The shifter gave him a half grin. “On it, boss.” He turned to the dwarf and put a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s you and me talk business while they eat.”

“Aren’t you, er, hungry?” Krangel said, staring wide-eyed at the furry hand on his shoulder.

“Dwarf cooking don’t do a thing for me,” Burch said as he led the innkeeper off to a low table in the room’s back corner.

Raumeese bustled up to the table with a tray of bowls and slapped one of them down in front of Kandler, Sallah, Duro, and Esprë. The young elf leaned over the bowl and sniffed a lungful of the steaming scent. It smelled delicious. She grabbed for her spoon and dug in.

The others set to their food straight away too. Duro inhaled the food as if it might be the last he’d ever see. Given the direction the Phoenix was headed, Esprë realized it might well be the last bit of dwarf cooking he’d have for a good, long time.

The girl put down her spoon for a moment. “Shouldn’t we invite the others in to join us?” she asked.

Duro’s mouth bulged with so much food that Esprë wondered if he might get stuck that way. Sallah, who’d barely touched her soup, started to speak, but Kandler interrupted her.

“Xalt doesn’t eat. You can call Monja in if you like.”

Esprë smiled and got up from the table. She walked to the open door and the wooden dock that stretched out over the Goradra Gap. Monja and Xalt stood staring over the opposite railing, taking in the majesty of canyon as daylight plumbed farther into its depths. The halfling sat atop the warforged’s shoulders and leaned far over the open hole.

Someone screamed from high overhead. At first, Esprë thought it might be a raptor diving down from the skies, trying to flush nervous prey before it, but the scream sounded like it had words.

“Run!” it said. “Run!”

Esprë froze, unsure of which way she was supposed to run—or even if she should. She saw Monja and Xalt turn back to look for the source of the scream. As they did, a handful of arrows zipped through the air over Esprë’s head.

One of them caught Xalt in the shoulder. As he slumped to the deck, another shaft went straight through Monja’s side and knocked her off Xalt’s shoulders.

As she watched the halfling tumble over the side of the Phoenix’s rail and into the open air above the Goradra Gap, Esprë heard someone screaming again.

It was her.