“Purb is mistaken. If we happen to travel the same way from time to time, I can’t help that.”
Purb, a stout fellow who wore a corporal’s rank on his chest, stepped forward, squatted and slammed his exceedingly large fist into Andover’s groin. “Don’t you never call me a liar, boy!”
Andover would have curled into fetal position had his arms and legs been free. Instead he merely coughed and gasped and tried to think of anything other than the waves of pain and nausea fighting for his attention.
“I warned you twice before.” The offended fiancé shook his head and picked up the hammer he’d brought with him. “I told you if I saw you so much as looking at Tega, I’d take from you.” Andover shook his head, his eyes wide and round as he looked at the hammer’s head. It was a well-worn piece, a smith’s hammer, to be sure. He knew them well enough, having worked the last two months as an apprentice to Burk, the very smith who supplied the City Guard with their weapons. He had, in fact, probably held that very hammer on more than one occasion while contemplating the living he would make when he was done apprenticing. There were different hammers, of course, some for the finer work and some for pounding the hot metal into a shape that was vaguely like what it should eventually become. The heavier hammers did rough work. The smaller, lighter hammers shaped and perfected. The thing being shown to him was for rough work.
There was a part of his mind that knew this had to be a jest. Surely the men who kept the peace and protected the citizens wouldn’t consider striking a man in his privates, breaking him for life with such ease. Just the same, Andover’s breaths hitched in his chest and his throat constricted.
“Please. Please, no.” he wanted to scream, but past experiences had told him that would merely annoy the guards.
“Wreck his hopes of fathering runts, Menock.” Purb’s voice grated and he grinned as he looked at the very area he had recently done his best to shatter with his fist. Andover tried in vain to pull his legs together and protect himself. He was desperate enough that the man holding his ankles had to fight to keep him still.
He looked at Menock, saw the dark look in the man’s eyes, and began to doubt that there was anything of the jesting nature in the City Guard at all. Oh, how he wished he could think it was all just a joke, or another warning.
“I’d never do that to a man. Not unless he’d done more than look at my woman.” Menock shook his head as he spoke. Andover almost sobbed with relief. Almost. He still didn’t quite trust the way this was happening. He was wise that way. Women could make him foolish, but men merely made him cautious.
Menock hefted the hammer high above his head and looked at Andover’s face, an ugly sneer making him seem nearly an animal. There was something in his eyes, something not quite right, but Andover didn’t have time to consider that. He was too busy realizing that the man had just lied to him. The hammer was going to come down, and there was nothing he could do about it save fight to get free. He bucked, he strained, but the guards were simply too strong. Menock shifted as he held the weapon and then he brought the hammer down with a roar, swinging at the hips and causing the guard holding Andover’s hands to scream in shock.
Andover’s scream was not from shock. It was from the pain of having the bones in both of his hands shattered under the hammer blow. The guards holding him let go, screaming out themselves.
“Have you lost your damned brains, Menock? It was supposed to be for a scare!” Purb’s voice broke as he talked, his eyes looking down at Andover then looking away from the wreckage of his hands. Andover could see that the man was stunned. He could not clearly acknowledge that shock, however, as the pain of the first hammer blow overtook him.
He screamed again, his throat hot from the sound, and tried to raise his hands, but Menock was not done with him. The man’s booted foot came down on his wrist and held his right arm down again as the hammer came down and pulped the pinned limb for a second time. After that the world went gray and then black. He heard the other guards fighting back against their friend, stopping him from bringing the hammer down a third time. After that he heard nothing for quite a long time.
For a while the only sensation he knew was pain, intermingled with the fever dreams brought on by the infection that set into his hands. Eventually, however, Andover woke to find himself not in the street but in a bed with sheets that were clean. His hands flared with pain to remind him of what he’d gone through. Foolishly, he raised his hands to look at them and immediately wished that he had not.
The left hand was ruined, that was all there was to it. The fingers were misshapen and swollen and the skin was mottled a dozen shades of blue and black, where it was actually intact. He could feel the pain move through each finger along with the pulse of his heartbeat.
His right hand was worse. It was gone. Missing. Replaced by a bundle of tightly wound wrappings that were surrounding a white-hot pain strong enough to steal his breath away.
Andover closed his eyes again and prayed for the pain to go away. Instead the darkness claimed him and muted the pain to almost tolerable levels. There were voices then, but they were distant, inconsequential things that made no sense to him. He thought he heard Tega’s voice and that was enough to make him force his eyes open.
And lo, there she was, Tega, looking away from him, but he’d know that hair anywhere. What a delicious explosion of curls. “He never did anything to me, that one. He only ever spoke to me politely and then when our paths crossed.” Her voice was weak, strained. The man she was talking to listened intently. He was dressed in the uniform of a City Guard, but not the worn, frayed things he was used to seeing. This man was capable of keeping himself clean, at least. Unlike the swine near Andover’s home.
Andover felt himself blink at that. He’d never thought of any man as a swine before. His hands throbbed as he moved a bit on the bed, and that was enough to brush aside the curiosity of the names he chose to call anyone in the privacy of his own head. They were little more than animals that would ruin his hands the way they had.
An attempt to sit up in his bed ended with a deep moan and little else accomplished, but Tega and the City Guard both looked in his direction. Tega’s eyes grew wide in her face as she saw that he was awake, and she approached him carefully, like he was a wounded beast that might bite at her.
“Andover? I didn’t think you’d ever wake.” She moved closer still and he let himself drown in her for a moment, deep and lost, beyond the pain of his ruined hands as he looked at her. How was it possible for anyone to be so spectacular?
He tried to speak, but nothing came out of his parched throat save a grunt. The City Guard moved past Tega, gently sliding her aside, and poured water into a simple cup. The sound of water running was enough to make him realize how desperately thirsty he was. A moment later the guard’s hand held the cup to his lips and let him drink a maddeningly small dose of the sweetest thing he had ever tasted. The water was cool and soothing and then it was gone.
When he gasped again, his voice was present again.
“Where am I?” He looked from the guard to Tega and the words came out on their own. “I didn’t even know you knew my name.”
The City Guard spoke gently. “I’ll give you a few minutes. Then I need to talk to the lad, yes?”
Tega nodded her thanks and then watched as the man walked away. Then she looked back to Andover and shook her head. “I’m told that Menock did this to you. That he…” She looked to his hand and the bandages that surrounded whatever was left of his other hand.
“He did. While his friends in the City Guard held me in place.” He looked at her without realizing he was looking, lost in the past, in the memory of what it felt like to have his hands destroyed.
“Oh. Oh, Andover, I’m so very sorry.” She looked away from him, face painted with shame as she sought anything at all that could distract her from staring at his hands.
“You didn’t do this.” His eyes stung. Pain came back and chewed on his wrists, gnawed at th
e bones and muscles, even the ones he could clearly see weren’t there any longer. “You didn’t take from me. He did. Menock.” He was shocked at the venom in his voice, a tone so unfamiliar as to sound like it came from another person’s mouth entirely.
Tega shook her head again and rose from her seat. Before he could ask her what was wrong, she was gone, fleeing, no doubt, from being around the ruin that he’d become.
And he was a ruin. He knew that. He wasn’t a fool. His apprenticeship to Burk was gone, to be sure. All he could do was pump the bellows, and then, only with one hand that felt and looked as if it would never be able to close into a workable grip again.
The City Guard came back a moment later, his face set like stone, his thick mustache well-groomed and as gray as the hair he wore short to his scalp. He was older, to be sure. And likely at least a sergeant. Of course, that bastard Purb had been a corporal…
“I am Libari Welliso. I am the commander of the City Guard where you were attacked.”
Andover nodded his head, unwilling to risk saying anything that would cause the man to strike him. He was furious, yes, and in pain to be sure, but he was also absolutely terrified. Most of that was simply that Welliso had an aura around him that spoke of combat-readiness and strength.
Welliso looked him over from head to toe with an unreadable expression. “I understand that it was members of the guard who did this to you, is that correct?”
Questions had to be answered, especially if you were dealing with someone like Welliso, so he nodded. “Yes.”
“Do you know their names?”
“Only two.” He paused for a moment, nauseated, as the pain grew worse in his hands, his arms. “Menock and Purb.”
Welliso nodded again. “I’d heard as much, but I wanted to be sure.”
His eyes narrowed. “I didn’t deserve this.” Despite the agony, he raised his hands above him, showed them to the man. “I didn’t steal anything, I never touched anyone. I didn’t deserve this.” Anger only went so far. The pain came back and he settled his arms as gently as he could on his chest again.
Pity. The man looked at him and his features softened, and he knew the look, even if he didn’t know the man well enough to be sure. He knew pity from what he felt when he saw the beggars on the street, or the forgotten who were too old to tend to themselves and had no one to aid them.
He hated it.
Pity.
Sometimes it’s all you have.
“I know, son. One of the others reported them. They’ve been locked away.”
“What will happen to them?”
Welliso looked at him for a long moment. “At the very least, they’ll stay locked away.”
“What will happen to me?” He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Without hands, he was little more than a beggar waiting to happen.
“Well. That’s the rough one, isn’t it? But there might be someone who can help you.”
He grunted. No one could fix hands. It wasn’t possible. “Who?”
“Your friend, the girl, has connections you would not believe.” He shook his head. Tega barely knew him. Owed him nothing. “She should have sent my runner to assist in trying to find a way to help you.”
Andover closed his eyes and drifted again. There was nothing else to be done.
In the darkness of his troubled, fitful half-sleep, his mind wandered, sorted through the memories of his pain and the damage done to him. In his heart he had long known a wistful, fanciful love for Tega, a girl who had a lovely smile and seemed incapable of bad thoughts, regardless of his lowly station. That childish love comforted him, but it also hid a small seed of hatred, a troublesome spot of rage for the bastards who had ruined his hands. The gods taught that anger was a chance for happiness wasted and mostly Andover agreed with that belief.
But deep within him that small seed burned and seethed and festered, hidden by the pain in his ruined hands and the affection he had for a pretty stranger.
And far away in the valley between the Seven Forges, the fertile soil for that particular seed was tilled and prepared.
Four
They travelled through the valley for three days, moving at a steady pace, but one that held less of the urgency that had seen them tearing across the frozen wastes of the Blasted Lands on their way.
Much as he knew he should have a stronger sense of urgency – he was to meet with a king very soon and the most he’d ever managed before that was guarding the house of a rather impoverished duke – Merros couldn’t help but enjoy the scenery. After months of traveling in the perpetual twilight he was enjoying the valley’s lush terrain and warmth to a level he’d have thought almost impossible before the trip started. Not that there weren’t a few sour notes, to be sure. Kallir Lundt, who was still hanging on to his life despite the grave wounds dealt him by the Pra-Moresh, was fading. There was nothing that Merros or any of his team could do about that, and it bothered him deeply.
Wollis rode next to him, and ahead of them rode the men taking them to meet the king of the valley. They were in the light now, and the air was clear of debris and shadows. That meant it was ridiculously easy to see exactly how large each of the strangers was.
Wollis shook his head. “Do you really think this is wise, Captain?”
“Which part? Going to see a king who we’ve never heard of in a land we didn’t know existed? Or traveling with a band of warriors who seem perfectly willing to ignore us now that they have taken us where we needed to go in the first place?”
Wollis stared at him darkly.
“No, Wollis. I don’t think any of this is wise, but it is necessary.”
The road ahead of them was well-tended, but the side of the mountain hid a great deal of what lay ahead until they took one more turn. As they were moving around that curve, Merros continued his argument. “We have an opportunity, with luck mind you, to get an accurate and detailed map of the area we were paid to explore. We are also, whether or not we like it, the first emissaries of the Fellein Empire to meet the people who live here. Depending on who you ask it’s been several hundred to over a thousand years since contact was made with anyone in this area, because no one was supposed to be able to live up this way. And yet, here we are.”
Wollis would normally have argued with him by that point. He’d come to anticipate the man’s responses after the years they’d been together. So when he got no response, he looked toward his second-in-command and frowned when he saw the look of growing surprise on the man’s face.
Wollis said, “Here we are, indeed.”
The sound of the horns drew Merros’ attention to the road ahead, to where Wollis was already looking, and he found himself staring at the vast structure that now stood revealed.
Merros Dulver had spent a good amount of his adult life traveling to different parts of the Empire. He had been to Canhoon, Trecharch and a dozen other cities, and more towns than he could remember. As a rule, the towns were old, the streets long since worn down by time and by thousands of people treading on their cobblestones over the years. The fortress ahead of him spoke of a greater age than any place he had ever been to, but still stood unbowed by the centuries he could sense within the great bricks. The structure was built directly into the side of the mountain, carved, it seemed, from the black stone of the volcanic barrier. The walls were easily eighty or more feet in height, and even though they obscured a great deal, he could see the towering buildings behind those walls, all of them black and gray marble, adorned with almost no colors save whatever natural striations were offered by the stone. Unlike in the pass they had used to reach the valley, there was no glow from the great furnace of the volcano itself. The wall was almost smooth, save where the great doors stood sealed against any possible attack. Though they were still a distance away, the guards spotted them and either heralded their arrival or blew out warning notes. Either way, Merros felt his heart beat faster. They were here.
One of the men in front of him pulled a heavy iron horn from his saddl
e and blew out a harsh note that echoed and merged with the sounds coming from the great walled structure. A moment later the heavy doors opened, sliding smoothly into the sides of the walls rather than opening outward.
Drask turned in his saddle and looked back toward them. “It is time now.” He pointed a gauntleted hand toward Merros. “Prepare yourself.”
Like there was any possible doubt.
They rode forward again, the long caravan moving in fits and jerks. Merros did not have that luxury. The riders moved faster and a moment later he waved for Wollis to stay behind with their charges.
Apparently he was to meet the King in Iron without the benefit of any retinue. That was just as well. He was only a retired captain at any rate. At least that was what he kept telling himself, as the people who claimed the gods had sent them out into a frozen hell to find him led him to meet their ruler.
They rode hard, moving past the massive gates protecting the city – though for the life of him, Merros had no idea what they might need protection from in a valley that no one in the entire Empire knew existed – and along streets that were paved with more volcanic stones. There was little by way of decoration to be found anywhere, and the people they passed seldom bothered to look up or take any note of them, not that there was time for anyone to notice much beyond the escorts heading for the castle at the center of the walled city.
The path they took led directly to the main structure, a castle within another courtyard, a last bastion of defense against any possible attacks. Several blasts of horns heralded their approach and when the entourage finally stopped, Merros stared at the vast structure ahead of him and did his best to take the entire place in.
The outer wall of the city had been easily eighty feet in height, and the walls of the castle were almost as tall. Hewn again of the black and gray stone, the building was both grandiose and intimidating, with patterns carved directly into the walls that were too large to easily absorb. No less than a hundred men stood along the walls looking down on the courtyard. A small army stood at the one building. How many soldiers did they have here? Merros wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
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