Elfhome

by Wen Spencer

  Elfhome-ARC

  Wen Spencer

  Advance Reader Copy

  Unproofed

  Baen

  Baen Books by Wen Spencer

  THE ELFHOME SERIES

  Tinker

  Wolf Who Rules

  Elfhome

  Endless Blue

  Elfhome

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2012 by Wen Spencer

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  A Baen Books Original

  Baen Publishing Enterprises

  P.O. Box 1403

  Riverdale, NY 10471

  www.baen.com

  ISBN: 978-1-4516-3783-0

  Cover art by Clyde Caldwell

  First printing, July 2012

  Distributed by Simon & Schuster

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  t/k

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Printed in the United States of America

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to the many people that made this book possible: Ann Cecil, Nancy Janda, Laurel Jamieson, Susan Petroulas, Hope Erica Ring M.D., June Drexler Robertson

  Special thanks to Lisa Janice Cohen for “Stone Clan Lullaby,” “Forge,” and “We are Pittsburgh.”

  In Loving Memory of Ann Cecil

  1: Tunnel to Nowhere

  Life was so much simpler when Tinker didn’t have a horde of heavily armed elves following her everywhere; all ready to kill anyone that triggered their paranoia. It didn’t help that she was still recovering from hairline fractures to her right ulna and radius. Her shiny-new status as a domana-caste elf princess meant she was expected to cast spells triggered by complex finger positions and vocal commands. So, yes, breaking her arm was a very bad thing. It didn’t mean she was helpless. With an I.Q. over one-eighty and only five foot tall, she always considered her wits to be her greatest weapon.

  Her Hand (the military unit of five sekasha-caste bodyguards, not the appendage attached to her arm) had spent the week acting like there were evil ninjas hiding in every shadow. With her Hand in protective overdrive, the last thing Tinker needed was a pushy stranger trying to talk to her. Not that Chloe Polanski technically was a stranger; the woman was one of Pittsburgh’s most popular television reporters. Elves, though, don’t watch TV. The tall sekasha towered between Tinker and Chloe like trees. Dangerous trees with magically sharp wooden swords that could cut through solid steel.

  “Good morning, Vicereine.” Chloe greeted Tinker from the other side of the forest of warriors. “You’re looking—well protected. How are you today?”

  “Oh just peachy.” Tinker sighed at the scale armored back blocking her view of the reporter. Tinker loved her sekasha, especially her First, Pony, but in the last few days, she just wanted to whack them all with a big stick. She suspected if she asked they’d find her a suitable club. They’d might even stand still and let her smack them. She would feel guilty, however, since she nearly gotten them killed the week before last. Cloudwalker and Little Egret still sported an impressive set of bruises and Rainlily had a slight wheeze from smoke inhalation.

  “Elves have these nifty spells that focuses magic into their—our natural regenerative abilities.” Tinker put a hand on the center of Pony’s armored back and pushed him out of the way. Or at least, she tried; it was like trying to push a tree out of the way. “It sends our healing into overdrive. Compressing eight weeks of healing into one, though, hurts like—shit!” She made the mistake of using both hands and pushing harder. She hissed as pain flashed through her right arm.

  “Domi!” Pony’s hand went to his sword as Tinker curled into a ball around her arm. “Are you hurt?”

  “No, I’m fine.” Tinker growled as she straightened up, forcing herself to ignore the pain. She’d learned the hard way that any sign of weakness on her part made her bodyguards extremely antsy. Nervous sekasha were deadly sekasha. She didn’t want them mowing down Chloe just because Tinker had been stupid.

  “Are you sure, domi?” Pony looked down at her, his dark eyes full of concern.

  “My arm is still bruised.” Tinker gave a few more futile pushes against his armor, careful to only use her left hand. “Can you give me space? I’m trying to have a conversation here.”

  Pony gave her a worried look but shifted aside.

  They were on the bridge that led into the Squirrel Hill Tunnels. It was the beginning of September but heat blasted off the sun-baked concrete, scented with ancient gas fumes. They had been out of the air conditioning of the gray Rolls Royce for all of three minutes but there was already sweat trickling down Tinker’s back. The only good thing about Tinker’s dress of jewel-green fairy silk was the breeze she could generate by flapping the skirt.

  Despite the heat, Chloe Polanski wore her beauty like an impenetrable shield. Every hair of her pale blonde bob was in place. Her makeup was so flawless that only the black eyeliner around her pale blue eyes and the glint of lipstick on her full lips betrayed the fact that she was wearing any. Her tortoise blouse and black slacks managed to be elf flamboyant and yet human formal at the same time. Chloe seemed completely at ease; only her perfectly manicured fingertips, nervously fidgeting with her amber necklace, betrayed her awareness of how dangerous the sekasha could be.

  “What are you doing here?” Tinker really didn’t want to do an interview. It had been a weird summer, even by Tinker’s standards. So far she had accidentally changed her species, unknowingly gotten married, ripped a hole in the fabric of reality, fell off the planet, crashed a spaceship into Turtle Creek and fought a dragon. If that wasn’t enough to set some kind of record for weirdness, there were twenty days left of summer to go. Trying to explain everything would take half the afternoon, a large white board, and a great deal of advance physics.

  “I have a couple of questions that I wanted to ask you.” The corners of Chloe’s mouth tightened as she kept a predatory smile in check. Chloe didn’t cover the hoverbike circuit, so Tinker had been spared Chloe’s cat and mouse tactics. “You’re a bigger prize now that you’re Vicereine.”

  Tinker fought the temptation to stick her tongue out at Chloe. The reporter was wearing her signature face-to-face camera eyepiece, allowing her to film both herself and her interview subject without a cameraman. In a fabled remote and secure place, often sought out by those she interviewed but never found, everything Chloe saw was recorded. Only part of Chloe’s success was based on her eyepiece. None of the other Pittsburgh reporters had the eyepiece since much of Pittsburgh’s technology was stuck in the last century. The rest of her success was due to her vindictiveness—if someone tried to play hardball with her, she took a hatchet to their reputation. She had the “impossible to look away” quality of a train wreck.

  It would behoove Tinker to play nice for her first official interview as the elf princess, even if the experience was akin to water boarding. “So, what do you want to know?”

  Chloe’s mouth curled up into her cat smile. “Everything.” She purred.

  Tinker scoffed. “Here? Now? You do realize we’re in a war zone?”

  “As I stated before, you’re now very well-protected. You’re a very difficult woman—I mean female, since ‘woman’ doesn’t apply to you anymore—to nail.”

  Judging by Stormsong’s soft growl, Tinker wasn’t the only one feeling like that statement had been loaded with subtle insults.

  “This isn’t a safe place nor time for an interview.” Tinker started to walk in hopes of scraping Chloe off somehow—pe
rhaps against a wall or something. How had Chloe gotten to the stretch of abandoned highway in front of Squirrel Hill Tunnels? Had she walked? “Call Director Maynard of the Earth Interdimensional Agency and he’ll set up an interview for some other time. I’ve got tons of shit to do.” For her own subtle insult, she added. “Mind boggling complex shit.”

  Chloe began walking backwards, keeping just a few feet in front of Tinker. “This is Chloe Polanski. I’m here with our own little Cinderella, Princess Tinker.”

  “Do I need to use smaller words for you to understand me?” Tinker held up her fingers to indicate tiny words. “Call Maynard.”

  Displaying what years of practice could achieve, Chloe sidestepped a pothole without glancing down. “Princess, please, the people of Pittsburgh could do with some reassurance in this time of uncertainty.”

  Annoying, Chloe was right. Tinker stopped with a sight. “Prince True Flame and Windwolf and Director Maynard are working closely together to protect everyone in the city from the oni.”

  “You don’t add yourself to that triumvirate of power? Or is this a male-only club?”

  “It isn’t male-only. Jewel Tear on Stone is currently the head of the Stone Clan. She and Forest Moss on Stone are also working with the Prince and the Viceroy. They’re all out right not looking for oni.”

  “And you aren’t?”

  “I’m still recovering from a broken arm.” Tinker pulled up her sleeve to show off the impressive bruising. It made for an easy excuse.

  “Surely there were things you could have done while you were recovering.”

  “No.” Because that felt too rude, Tinker added. “The healing spells forced me to sleep through most of last week. Today is the first day I’ve felt awake enough to leave the enclave. I’m certainly not up to running all over Pittsburgh to fight oni.”

  Not that it had even occurred to her to join in the combat. It wasn’t the best use of her abilities.

  Chloe changed tactics. “Each Stone Clan domana was given a hundred thousand sen of land as remuneration for their help in fighting the oni. Earth Son was killed by his own people within a week of arriving. What happens to his share? With the Wind Clan still be giving up that land? Is it true that they will also receive part of the city?”

  “I haven’t been paying strict attention to what’s going on” would be a truthful answer but would also made Tinker look stupid. She’d spent the last month or so either held captive or unconscious or busy trying to save the world or not even on the planet. She settled for “Jewel Tear has sent word of Earth Son’s death to the head of her clan in the Easternlands. Until the Stone Clan responds, all negotiations have been put on hold.”

  “Are you really going to let your husband give away part of Pittsburgh for a one week’s worth of work?”

  It was tempting and terrifying at the same time to know that the sekasha could stop this interview cold. Tempting because Tinker really didn’t want to talk about all the mistakes she’d made that summer. Terrifying because one slip on her part, and all of Pittsburgh could experience a digital recording of Chloe’s beheading. It would be one more mistake that Tinker wouldn’t want to have to explain.

  “My husband and I only care for the safety of our people,” Tinker said carefully. “We will do whatever it takes to guard them.”

  “The hundred thousand sen of land is to be all virgin forest beyond the Rim.” Stormsong was the only one of Tinker’s Hand that was fluent in English. The female sekasha had spent decades living in Pittsburgh, reveling in the human culture. Stormsong probably recognized Chloe, but judging by the look on her face, she also knew of the reporter’s venomous reputation.

  Chloe’s hand went nervously to her necklace. Her perfect white-tipped fingernails tapped the dark honey stones. The pendant had an insect trapped within the fossilized resin. Did it represent her interview subjects, trapped for Chloe’s inspection?

  “I see.” Chloe retreated on the subject and looked for a safer battlefield. She scanned the sekasha. Those working as Blades had spread out to secure the area while Pony and Stormsong continued to flank Tinker, working as Shields. “You’ve taken two full Hands now?”

  Good, a subject Tinker didn’t mind talking about. “I only have five Beholden.” Tinker gave Pony and Stormsong’s Elvish names as her First and Second and then added Cloudwalker, Rainlily and Little Egret as the rest of her Hand. She wasn’t sure if the warriors continued counting out their positions; if they did that would be her Third, Fourth and Fifth. They’d become officially hers after she nearly killed them the third or fourth time. “The other five with me actually belong to Windwolf.”

  “And Blue Sky Montana?” Chloe had spotted the boy among the adult sekasha. Blue Sky was just one of the many bastard half-elves in Pittsburgh, most of who were born to human women with a sexual obsession with elves. Blue, though, was the only one with a sekasha father: Lightning Strike. Blue Sky drifted among the adult sekasha, dressed in miniature version of the wyvern scale armor. The little half-elf lacked the spell tattoos that scrolled down the arms of the adults and the magically sharp wooden ejae sword, but had a bow and quiver of spell arrows slung across his back. At a distance, the only noticeably human thing about him was his short hair, gelled into spikes.

  Chloe’s predator smile flashed. “Who does Blue Sky belong to?”

  Stormsong’s hand went to her hilt. Tinker caught Stormsong’s wrist before she could draw her sword. The sekasha were a close-knit group and they were all fiercely protective of the boy for his father’s sake.

  “Leave Blue Sky out of this.” Tinker fought to keep her voice level. She’d never met Lightning Strike but she had grown up with Blue Sky. He was one of her best friends.

  “It was reported,” Chloe pressed on. “That the Wyverns forcibly removed Blue Sky from his brother’s home in McKee’s Rocks. Their neighbors are afraid that the Wyverns had executed Blue Sky.”

  Chloe was obviously in full reporter mode. Tinker was surprised that she didn’t manage to work in the fact that Blue Sky rode for the Team Big Sky which was Team Tinker’s main competition in the hoverbike races. It reminded Tinker, though, that thousands of humans were going to witness the conversation. Things were rocky enough in Pittsburgh without Chloe stirring up resentment against the royal forces.

  “Blue Sky was not forcibly removed.” Technically, he wasn’t, since that implied that he been dragged physically out of his home. John Montana, though, had been given little choice in giving up his baby brother. “Blue Sky is half-elf; he inherited his father’s lifespan.”

  Blue actually inherited the entire sekasha’s package down to temperament: he liked to fight. He was a good, sweet kid but in a race, he was pure steel. According to Tinker’s Hand, as Blue got older, his urge to fight would spill out to day to day life. Despite being tiny for his age, he was also very good at fighting. Tinker didn’t want all of Pittsburgh thinking that Blue Sky was going to turn homicidal.

  “Blue Sky will be a child for another eighty years,” Tinker said instead. “John Montana is already in his thirties and they have no other family in Pittsburgh. John asked me as a close personal friend to take Blue Sky into my household and see that he learns everything he needs to know to live among elves for the next ten thousand years.”

  All true and innocuous, although not the complete truth. It left out the fact that Blue Sky didn’t like elves very much and was still very resistant to Tinker “adopting” him. The fight training, though, was slowly winning him over.

  Chloe considered the partial truth with narrowed eyes, obviously looking for holes in Tinker’s version of the events. “It is my understanding that only sekasha-caste can wear the armor made of wyvern’s scales. Does this mean that Blue Sky’s father is one of your sekasha?”

  “He was one of Windwolf’s Beholden.”

  “Was?”

  “He was killed by a saurus.” Tinker had witnessed his death. Since the Montana brothers had kept the identity of Blue Sky’s father secret e
ven to Tinker, she had seen him die without realizing who he was.

  “Oh, so his father was Lightning Strike?” Chloe said.

  Tinker nodded; surprised that Chloe could put a name to a male that been dead for five years. Then again, elves were immortal; the traitorous Sparrow was the only other elf that Tinker had ever heard of being killed.

  Blue Sky drifted across the pavement to stop beside Tinker. He didn’t bump shoulders with her as he normally did. Blue was seventeen to her eighteen; he considered himself as almost adult despite all physical proof that he wasn’t. Tinker had hit five foot tall—and then stopped growing—at thirteen. Blue Sky continued to be child-short; only recently had he’d caught up to her height-wise. Of course, one day he’d be as tall as the other Wind Clan sekasha and tower over her, but that was decades into the future. It a point of pride with him that he was tall enough now to be shoulder-to-shoulder with her and he usually took every opportunity to prove it.

  Tinker glanced at Blue to see why he’d restrained himself. Apparently there been some unspoken sekasha consensus that Chloe was dangerous. Blue Sky had picked up the adult’s hard look and was trying to edge himself between Tinker and the reporter. Tinker bumped shoulders with him to get his attention and then scowled hard at him. Last thing she wanted was Blue throwing himself between her and the type of danger that came looking for her. She’d promised John to keep his baby brother safe, not use him as a shield.

  Blue Sky gave her a look that started as a seventeen-year olds rebellion but ended as a ten-year old pouting hurt.

  Chloe watched the interaction with interest. “Rumor has it that the hoverbike races will be starting back up now that martial law is being lifted. Will the two of you be riding against each other once that happens?”