Another dwarf, older with grey streaks in his long beard, came up to their group just as they spilled out into the city. He held up a hand and with a booming voice addressed the dwarves, “You bring strangers?”
“No, not strangers, friends!” Gwuinar winked then gestured over his shoulder. “Most of em, anyway.” With a laugh, he slapped the man’s shoulder, leaning against him and pointing to the gash in his leg. He told him about how he’d nearly taken out the last of the sick mountain goats when Frederick showed up to lend them a hand.
“Not sick,” Bard interrupted, his arms crossed.
“Of course. What’d the wee elf say? Corrupted?” Gwuinar sounded exhausted by even the mention of the word. “An audience with the dagen should clear this all up.”
The older dwarf nodded. “The council has been awaiting your return but are not assembled: Mairah’s bairn is arriving.”
“Huzzah!” Gwuinar threw his hands in the air joyfully, and Lorky followed suit, but Bard grit his teeth and swore quietly.
“I don’t know what any of those words meant,” Rosalind whispered into Elayne’s ear.
“Neither do I.”
The elder dwarf led them through the pathways in the basin, and many dwarves stopped to stare up at them, some of the children even pointing. Parents grabbed their hands and hid them away. Elayne wanted to loosen her braid entirely to cover the points of her ears, but Neoma had brushed her own hair back and walked with her chin pointing northward, though she did squeeze Gramps’s container tightly and rattle it whenever he tried to say anything.
They came to the largest of the buildings in the center of the basin. The space had many arched entrances lining its rounded front and an open hall under a great dome. Inside, the noise of the city was muffled, but still lingered, unforgotten. The back wall of the building was lined with high-backed chairs atop a dais, though when they marched up the center of the room, it felt paltry, and Elayne barely had to raise her chin to see those sitting at the top.
There were three chairs, but only two held a dwarf: a woman in a turquoise gown with fiery hair sat to the left, and in the center the one who Elayne knew would be the dagen—an ornamented fellow with light-colored, but bushy fur and a scar across his right cheek that looked as angry as the day he’d gotten it years ago.
“Council of the Three Clans.” Gwuinar released his cohorts of their support and stood on his bad leg as he addressed them. “Father, Dagen of the council, slayer of the Firestone Roc, liberator of Mount Killnar, and bearer of Greybeard’s axe, the horned sickness has been wiped out!”
“Huzzah!” the two called out to them and an extra voice from behind the chairs echoed just after, a third head finally showing itself as the dwarf pulled up into a chair.
“Thank you for joining us, Scrog the Tanked,” the woman sniffed, then blinked back at them. “And you’ve brought?”
“Aye!” Gwuinar stepped to the side. “Just when we had thought we would forfeit our lives to eradicate the last of the herd, we were spared death by this young Yavarindi knight.” The dwarf paused, squinting at him. “What was your name again?”
He half-grinned. “Frederick.”
“Fred, the Mad Goat Slayer!”
“Huzzah!” They shouted in unison once again, and Elayne bit her cheek to keep from laughing at the knight’s new title.
“Fred, the Mad Goat Slayer, this is my father, Gundar Kegborn, Dagen of the Council of the Three Clans.”
The dagen nodded but did not look entirely pleased. “That explains one of them. And the rest?”
When Gwuinar only looked at Frederick, the knight cleared his throat. “Uh, Dagen, council, these are my companions.” He took a breath, but when the dagen said nothing, went on, “Lady Rosalind of Yavarid, the Tall and Strong.” Rosalind’s face gave off a rare pinkish hue. “Bix, the Spectacled and Wise.” The kobold pushed his glasses up his snout and grinned. Frederick nodded at himself as he continued, surer. “Neoma of Kaspar, the Bearer of the Pipe and Merciful Healer. And Duchess Elayne.” He gave her a long look then turned back to the dwarves. “The Breaker of Curses.”
***
Dwarves were fun—perhaps too much fun, Elayne thought as she took another draught of something so sweet she knew it was covering up something far more devious. The dagen had declared that night there would be a feast in honor of the return of his and the other council members’ sons. The center square of the dwarven city had been turned into a festival ground in no time—they seemed to be well practiced in rolling off their carts, pulling every available table and chair out from the shops, and somehow producing endless plates of smoked meats and buttery root veg mashes. Only Bard looked displeased when the dagen had dismissed his attempt to discuss the origin of the madness in the goats and what Neoma had told them, but Elayne was a little relieved that no one had asked from where she came and what curses she’d broken—Frederick hadn’t mentioned Heulux, and she knew that was strategic.
Bard, however, was either more insightful than the others, or the only one willing to acknowledge what was going on, and had assured Elayne and Frederick that this was just how dwarves did things. He would get them a private audience with the dagen the next night, if they were so willing. Celebrations simply took priority.
Rosalind held her drinks better than the rest, clapping and dancing with the dwarves, insisting they teach her their raunchiest songs. Lorky gladly obliged, and his ginger-bearded cousins helped her to pronounce the guttural, rolling r’s, and thick, throaty sounds of their language which quickly devolved into slurring laughter.
Neoma smartly refused any mead, stiffly sitting in a corner until one of the dwarven children who had been staring at her finally worked up the nerve to ask if he could touch her hair. When she hesitantly said yes, she opened the flood gates and ended up swarmed by little, round-faced children who took turns climbing into her lap, marveling at her hair, her ears, and most importantly her talking pipe. They asked for stories from beyond the caves, and Gramps was quick to pipe up, finally relieving Neoma from plying him with excessive burning herb to keep his complaints to a minimum.
After half a cup of the lightest colored mead, Bix had promptly passed out right into his mashed potatoes. Elayne listened closely for his gentle snoring, moved the plate out from under his snout, and slipped off his glasses. He barely flinched even amidst the cacophony around him, and she chuckled.
With everyone else gone from her table—even Bard who had told them he had business to attend to—she turned around on the bench to look out at the party. Gwuinar had pulled Frederick over to another table filled with honey-haired dwarven women and insisted he help tell the story of slaying the worst of the goats. He was grinning stupidly, and though she couldn’t hear him, knew he was embellishing. She rolled her eyes and took another drink—he was an idiot after all, what more could she expect?
The music changed to an even more lively and loud tune, and some of the dwarves tried to pull the knight to his feet. Elayne lifted her tankard and threw her head back, draining the rest of the thick, spicy liquid. When she took her last swallow and dipped her head back down, she was shocked to see Frederick standing just in front of her. Then she was shocked even more so when she released a hot and sour belch right in his face.
He sputtered, and she covered her mouth, but then he broke into a fit of laughter and offered his hand.
“What are you doing?” she asked, muffled behind her hand.
“Asking you to dance.”
She scrunched up her face. “Why?”
“I just thought it’d be nice?” He glanced around the festival space. There were many others doing the same in pairs or groups, some even up on tables. “Come on, Elly, don’t leave me hanging here; it’s a little embarrassing.”
Elly. It had been more than ten years, and now she’d heard him say it twice.
Her empty tankard was pulled from her hands. Neoma appeared next to her smiling wickedly with one of the littlest dwarves settled onto her hip.
“Go on!” she giggled, plopping down next to Bix. “We can take care of him.”
Frederick grabbed her now empty hands and pulled her away from the table. She felt lighter on her feet than she expected, the drink clearly working, and he swept her around the floor expertly, even after imbibing quite a bit himself. Frederick had, of course, always been an excellent dancer, she’d seen him on plenty of occasions from the darker corners of the great hall. He had always been excellent at everything.
His hand fell into the small of her back, and she caught herself chuckling, half tickled, half nervous, as he pulled her a bit closer. Dwarven couples were all over, their stature not lending itself to being particularly visible. “Watch it, beanstalk,” one rotund dwarf had remarked when they bounced off of him a few more times than it ought to have happened, but they fell into laughter each time.
The music quieted then and slowed. The rhythm was hypnotic, a big barrel of a drum reverberating out into the mountain hollow, and they fell in time with it. Frederick’s hands were already on her waist, and hers on his shoulders, and they collapsed in toward each other naturally.
“Um, hey,” Elayne heard herself saying, though her own voice sounded quite far away. He leaned into her, dipping his ear down near her mouth. “I’m very thankful…for you,” she managed. “For agreeing to this.”
“Oh, sure.” He was looking down so that she couldn’t make out his face.
“Really,” she sighed. “You saved my life before. I know I got a little,”—she hiccuped—“cranky or whatever, but I think I’d be dead now if it hadn’t been for you. We all might be.”
Frederick’s eyes flicked over hers then just as quickly looked away. “Don’t mention it.”
“Fred—”
“Honestly.” He grinned. “It’s my job, right? I’m supposed to swing this sword and defeat trolls and save beautiful girls in danger.”
Elayne found his eyes again, green and sparkling, though that may have just been the mead. She wanted to smile at him, but a fluttering in her stomach only allowed her to stare. How many times had she thought of this moment? When he would see her—really see her—again.
“And you don’t really even need me,” he said suddenly, shaking his head. “You could just, like,”—he waved a hand in the air between them then quickly wrapped it around her again—“woosh the danger away!”
Elayne felt her brow furrow, then saw his face change.
“Sorry, sorry, I know you don’t want to talk about it. I didn’t mean to bring it up—”
“No, it’s okay. It’s just—” She exhaled slowly, her stomach turning at the thought of what she was about to say. “I’m afraid of it.”
He cocked his head. “Why? I don’t know if you realize this, but what you did was very cool.”
“Well, you’re not wrong about that,” she mumbled, feeling the icy chill in her veins all over again. “But doesn’t it seem a little bit…evil?”
“Evil?” He laughed loudly, startling her and making her heart flutter. “You? Evil? You’re so, just, not evil, I don’t even know how you could think that.”
She bit her lip. “Even though all I’ve done is yell at you this whole time?”
“That’s not, uh, evil.” He slurred a bit and cleared his throat. “It’s probably deserved.”
She raised her brows but didn’t want to push it. “Well, it’s still scary.”
“Don’t be scared. You’ve got them.” He gestured with his head to the others, then his smile softened, and he swallowed. “And me.”
His face was coming closer, or perhaps she was leaning into him, she couldn’t be sure, she only knew her own head was spinning. Her stomach flipped again. “Uh oh.”
He read the panic on her face and jerked back. “El, are you okay?”
She squeezed her mouth shut and shook her head. That last jostle had done it. Elayne pulled away and ran back past the tables to a dark corner, finding an opportune bucket, and she completely spilled her guts.
CHAPTER 21
She didn’t know what time it was when she woke the next morning, or perhaps afternoon, the cave saw to that, but it hardly mattered: all Elayne wanted was to lay back down for the rest of however long there was left in the day and then maybe also for the rest of her life.
“Missus?” A chubby dwarven woman was bustling about the quarters Elayne shared with Rosalind and Neoma, doling out their cleaned, folded garments. “Your meeting with the council is in just a few short hours, and Righmac Bard is asking after ya.”
Elayne held her head to keep it from rolling off her shoulders. Across the room, Rosalind was splayed out with her legs hanging off the end of her too-short bed, and an arm dangling all the way to the floor. Nothing would wake her. Neoma was curled into a ball on her side, fitting herself just barely onto the other cot, her light eyes blinking open. Elayne pulled herself to a sitting position with quite a bit of effort. “Righmac?”
“It’s like a duke,” Neoma groaned, rubbing her face.
“Oh, yeah.” The dwarves had sort of explained their political system over dinner the night before, but it was all a mash of throaty new words she could only half remember in her hungover state. Elayne tried to stand and promptly fell back down.
The dwarf snickered and brought her a cup. “Your kind are a bit sensitive, ain’t ya?”
Elayne took a drink without looking, then immediately spat it back out. “Oh, gods, not more mead.”
“A little bristle of the boar what speared ya!” She chuckled again, her round, red cheeks blotting out dark eyes. “Trust me, sweetling, I’ve treated worse. Your little goblin friend might need some’at a bit stronger though.”
“He’s a kobold,” Elayne grumbled, managing to get to her feet again, pinching her nose, and downing the thick, spiced liquid. If nothing else, the sickly sweetness replaced the taste of vomit in her mouth. “Oh, for the love of Va’ye,” she swore, suddenly remembering that she threw up the night before and how it had almost been all over Frederick.
“Come on now, a nice, hot scrub will fix you up!”
The dwarf had been right, or at least half right, as Elayne felt half herself after washing off the grime of the forest and caves, dressing in the garments the dwarves had so graciously cleaned and sewed patches onto where needed, and even allowing Neoma, after much insistence, to brush out a week’s worth of travel from her hair. “This is how it’s meant to be,” she told her as she twisted intricate braids in the now smooth, silvery hair along each side of her face and pulled them to tie at the back of her head, giving her no cover for the length of her ears. “You’re sitting down with the council, after all.”
Elayne couldn’t remember exactly what that meant.
But first, there was Bard Blackiron. The dwarven woman led Elayne and Neoma through one of the halls built into the mountain and then down a number of winding stairs that she had to take two at a time. The ceiling in the stairwell was shorter, and she was glad she let Rosalind remain asleep: she would have thwacked her head at least twice. Similarly, she was glad Gramps’s pipe was left on Neoma’s bed, snoring tinnily instead of criticizing dwarven architecture for being a bit too stone-centric.
They came out into a grander corridor lined with troughs of water and submerged, green seeing stones so that the light danced off the polished ceiling and floor. Elayne held her stomach as they went, her regret for refusing breakfast gone.
Bard was pacing. He looked up the moment they entered the low-ceilinged chamber, eyes widening, and came right up to her. “Duchess.”
Elayne eyed the maid who was leaving, closing the door in her wake. She looked down at Bard. “Righmac,” she said, giving him a nod.
“You’re headed to Heulux,” he said with the conviction of someone with whom one couldn’t argue.
She didn’t bother playing at coyness. “How did you know?”
“You’re not quite as much elven as her, and you’re a Yavarindi duchess traveling west. I’ve done my research.” Bard crossed th
e length of the chamber, a room filled with books and a set of desks stacked with parchment. “Well, me and a few others. Me mam, has been particularly helpful, but bairns don’t schedule their arrival around politics.”
Elayne watched him shuffle through the pages on one of the desks. “What else has your research told you?”
Bard grunted, flipping through the parchment. “The first one was a bird. Fell out of the sky one day, just dead right out of the air. I don’t know what it was in life, but in death it was an omen. I knew it weren’t right.”
“You mean like the goat?” Elayne cast a weary glance at Neoma who had her hands folded in front of her, her eyes set hard on Bard.
The dwarf nodded. “The darkness over your Heulux, the human empire just giving it up—that ain’t normal. I been reading, asking around, and then you lot show up, Yavarindi, but elven too,”—he flicked at his own ear—“And the things this one said about the nexus. It all added up.”
Elayne took a breath. “Yet you seem to be…alone in your conviction.”
“A feeling you may know well?” He looked at her sidelong, and she swallowed. “My uncle don’t believe none of it, and he’s sitting in on the council for now, the Forgebristles change their minds every other day, and the dagen don’t want to believe none of it. But we’ve had three whole herds gone now in the last year alone.”
Elayne gasped as Neoma’s hand grabbed onto her shoulder. The elf came up beside her. “You mean there were that many corrupted creatures all the way out here?” When Bard nodded with a grunt, Neoma squeezed Elayne tighter.
“You are returning,” Bard said as if he’d been told. “What will you do?”
Elayne looked down at her own hands and turned them over. She didn’t have an answer for him. “I want to stop it,” she said quietly.
She's All Thaumaturgy Page 17