“While that’s true,” Dormael said, “it’s also generally true that the more complicated your explanation for any given thing becomes, the less likely it is to be the right explanation.”
Saul glared at him.
“Don’t start using that Conclave rhetoric on me, boy. Platitudes are nice, but they don’t always explain reality—that’s something you have to remember, too. Sometimes the most unlikely thing is as common as you please, and political games are as common as pigshit.”
Dormael laughed. “Too true, old man, too true.”
Dormael went back to drinking, and shrugged off his father’s further attempts to discuss politics. D’Jenn, though, had a considering scowl painted over his face—of course, there was nothing new about that. D’Jenn had three expressions—asleep, scowl, and a deeper scowl.
As the night wore on, the party blurred around the edges. Dormael shared another three pipe-fulls of the Shaman’s Leaf with his father, and uncountable flagons of ale with everyone else. He sang with people, arms locked around shoulders, and danced until he was sweating in the cold night air. Dormael had been dreading this part of the trip, but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember why.
He spotted Bethany curled up by a fire, and lifted her sleeping body from the ground. He carried her into the house, and put her into one of the upstairs bedrooms. After he removed her boots and tucked her under a blanket, he left to head back outside.
In the hallway, Dormael came face to face with Shawna.
“You’re not a bad dancer, you know,” she said.
“I’ve got many skills,” Dormael smiled, “but dancing isn’t one of them. I’m not bad at flailing around like an idiot, though.”
“Were you putting Bethany down?” Shawna asked. “I was just coming to check on her.”
“She’s fine,” Dormael nodded. “Sleeping like a rock.”
“She had a good time today,” Shawna laughed, wiping an errant tear from the corner of her eye. “I don’t think I’ve heard her laugh like that. Why would you do that? Just…decide to take the girl in that way?”
Dormael took a deep breath, unable to to summon the words.
“It’s not that I wanted to adopt her, exactly,” he shrugged. “I just couldn’t imagine it any other way. I know you all probably think I’m an idiot, but I don’t care what you think.”
“I don’t think you’re an idiot,” she said, smiling at him.
“No?” he asked. “I expected you and D’Jenn both to crawl up my arse over this, but neither of you have said anything. You don’t object?”
Shawna let out a short laugh, and kissed him.
Dormael was so surprised that it took him a moment to realize what was happening. She smelled intoxicating, and her lips tasted vaguely of firewine. She reached up to wrap her arms around his neck, and he felt chills crawl up his spine. Before he could stop himself, he wrapped his own arms around the girl’s waist, and picked her up off the floor.
She giggled into his mouth as they kissed, pawing at each other’s clothing. They danced an awkward spin down the hallway, Dormael pulling her toward his old room. Shawna kissed him with enthusiasm, giggling through the spaces between their lips. He had never seen her like this before, but Dormael certainly wasn’t going to object.
He kicked open his door and dragged her into the room, laughing with her as they kicked off their boots. Shawna clung to him when they embraced, and made soft noises against him as he explored her body with his hands. Her skin was smooth, pale, and felt supple beneath his touch. Shawna was intoxicating to him, and Dormael felt a pounding excitement start up in his chest.
“Nobody’s going to find us?” she asked, breathing against his mouth.
“No chance,” Dormael said. “Magic, remember?”
He turned and whipped a hand at his door, and it slammed shut. Shawna laughed and pulled him back into a kiss, and he obliged her. Dormael walked her backwards until her thighs touched the bed, and then pushed her onto it. She closed her eyes and fell into a fit of laughter as she fell back, and continued to do so when he climbed on top of her.
“Come here,” she breathed, and she yanked on his beard until their lips were locked together. Dormael descended into a storm of drunken kisses, Shawna’s hands pulling at his face, his hair, and running over his back. She kissed him like she needed him, and that set Dormael on fire.
He pulled her shirt out of her pants and started kissing over her stomach, and teasing her with the laces of her pants. He dove under her shirt, and laughed as he tasted the skin beneath. She made low, pleased sounds in her throat as his hands roamed over her, and he chased them with his lips.
“I thought you said I was terrible,” he laughed, plucking at the laces of her pants.
She made a noncommittal noise, and squeezed his hand.
“I knew you were just pretending not to like me,” he said. “You’ve been thinking about this since the day we met.”
Another noncommittal noise, this time with no corresponding squeeze. Dormael froze. He’d expected her to come back with something witty, perhaps to try and wrestle him off. He realized that she was lying still, and he felt heat rise to his cheeks.
“Shawna?”
No answer.
He pulled his head out from under her shirt and looked to her face. She lay with her eyes closed, the shadow of a contented smile tickling the edges of her lips. He gave her a moment, but she didn’t move.
“Shawna.” He nudged her arm.
“What?” she mumbled, swatting in his general direction.
“Nothing,” he laughed. “I hate you. I want you to know that.”
Dormael thought she mumbled something in response, but it could have been a sigh.
He put his boots back on, and tucked Shawna under a blanket in much the same way he’d done for Bethany. Dormael tried to think back to a time when he’d seen Shawna get drunk, and nothing came to mind. Clearly, she’d partaken a bit more than she’d meant to. This had been nothing more than the result of the wine and the Leaf.
Will she remember cavorting with me? He suspected that even if she did, she would pretend that she didn’t. There was no way in the Six Hells he was telling D’Jenn about this, either. He would never hear the end of it.
He had a feeling that no matter what happened, things would be awkward in the morning.
Earning the Knife
Dormael awoke to the sounds of a homestead in bustling motion.
Feet shuffled by in each direction, voices called out, pots clanged against counters and boxes banged against the floor. The sugary smell of Sweetpenny tea floated to his nose, blended with the mouth-watering scent of sweet rolls. The shifting aromas from the kitchen drew him from his blankets, and the corner of the common room floor in which he’d slept. Dormael had let Shawna have his old bed, and had said nothing about their encounter. Part of him hoped that the girl would forget that it ever happened.
He wanted another chance at a first impression.
He looked for his mother in the kitchen but she wasn’t there. He nabbed a piping-hot roll or two, and dipped out a cup of the Sweetpenny tea. D’Jenn was nowhere to be found—he’d either risen and started his day before Dormael, or he had drunk himself to death in the night. Dormael gobbled down the sweet roll and the tea, then dipped out another cup. He felt like he was covered in grime, and he smelled like a drunk who had fallen in a campfire. It was time to clean up.
Harlun homestead was built in the old fashion of his people, and there was a community bathhouse attached to it. It was a high-ceilinged building with a large community bath, and separate pools for when people were sick, or wished for privacy. The floor was tiled with stone, and the entire pool was fed by a nearby stream, tapped with copper pipes. The pipes brought the water into the complex, and emptied it back into the stream. Though many homesteads in the Sevenlands had bathhouses, there weren’t many quite as luxurious as the one his mother had insisted upon building. At the time, his father had grumbled tha
t the woman had gone mad. Once the building had gone up, though, no one had found reason to complain. Dormael suspected, in fact, that relatives often came to visit only for the privilege of soaking in its water.
The only downside of the bathhouse was that the water was seasonally temperate. A brick furnace burned in the center of the room, but it only helped to take the sting out of the cold in the wintertime, and only worked when one stayed in the water close to it. That setback was nothing to someone with Dormael’s advantages, though.
He entered bathhouse and found his brother soaping up in the cold water, trembling with the frigid temperature.
“A little cold, is it?” Dormael asked, disrobing and setting his clothing aside.
“You want to help with that?” Allen sputtered through chattering teeth. Dormael opened his Kai and fed heat into the water, until steam filled the room like morning mist over a river. He stepped foot into the warm water, his muscles shivering in response to the sensation.
“Is that better?” Dormael asked.
“Aye,” Allen breathed. “I swear to the gods, Dormael, it must be nice being a wizard. Warm baths wherever you go—at least, that’s the way it would be if I was Blessed.”
“Everyone says that.” He shook his head, remembering the conversation he’d had with Shawna on this very subject. He almost opened his mouth to explain, but thought better of it. Instead, he decided to broach another subject. “I’ve been wanting to ask you something.”
“Let me guess,” Allen sighed, leaning back in the water. “You’d like to know how it is that I’m so talented and good looking. Really, it’s just an accident of birth, Dormael. I think the gods just smiled on me when I was in the womb.”
Dormael laughed. “You know you were born with webbed feet, right? Took pop three years to cut away your toes.”
“Damn, I wish he’d have just left them. Then I could add ‘amazingly fast swimmer’ to my long list of talents and achievements. Anyway, what did you want?”
“I’d like you to come along with us.”
“To Ishamael, you mean?”
“Even so.”
Allen blew out a long breath and let himself float in the water.
“You know I love you, brother,” he said, “and Ishamael is nice. There’s nothing for a warrior to do there, though—not a real warrior, anyway. I don’t want to spend my time lounging around the Conclave with a bunch of wizards. You’re all strange, and you talk on and on about mysterious, ancient, boring shit.”
“You won’t be sitting around the Conclave,” Dormael laughed. “I don’t need you to be my gods-damned bodyguard, you know.”
“Then why do you want me to come along?” Allen asked, raising his head from the water. “Do you have a real job? Something interesting?”
“Definitely interesting,” Dormael nodded. “I can count on your discretion, I assume?”
“Do you want a punch in the nose for questioning my honor? Looks like someone gave you one already.” He gestured at Dormael’s black eyes with a wide grin.
“Listen, brother—Shawna isn’t just some woman we hired as a mercenary, and Bethany isn’t just my adopted daughter,” he said. Dormael started at the beginning, and told his brother the entire story. He told Allen about the armlet, the Red Swords, and the mystery surrounding them. Allen listened through the whole tale, asking a few questions, and nodding at the answers. By the time Dormael had finished, the water was growing tepid.
“So…if I come with you,” Allen said, “I’d get a chance to do some actual fighting?”
“I’d say so,” Dormael said. “Or haven’t you been listening?”
“There’d better be,” Allen said. “I was planning on heading down to serve at the Southern Bastion for a year. Learn to fight in a unit, kill a few raiders. I’d be giving that up.”
“Giving up the chance to chew on soldier’s rations in a fortress on the edge of the Golden Waste, and all for a soldier’s pay?” Dormael said. “Don’t let me get in the way of your little holiday.”
“Are you going to pay me anything?”
Dormael nodded. “Of course. The Conclave keeps money around for hiring your sort of help. More than a soldier makes, believe me.”
“Well, I suppose I could take time out of my busy schedule.”
“Busy,” Dormael scoffed. “You’re not busy. You won enough gold to last ten years. Bored is what you are.”
Allen rose up and gave him a serious look.
“Now that is the truth,” he said. “Alright, I’ll go. On one condition.”
“What condition?”
“Take the spear with you. I can’t be seen with you in public if you’re going to be lobbing that stick around,” Allen said. “Besides, it would make the old man happy. Time for the both of you to stop acting like idiots.”
“Fine,” Dormael sighed. “I’ll take the damned spear. I was planning on taking it in the first place.”
“My puckered arse, you were planning on taking it,” Allen said. “You’re a horrible liar. Now—you want to get my back? My muscles are too big to get the middle.”
“Get away from me,” Dormael laughed, retreating to the far side of the pool.
***
A few hours later, Dormael found himself held in a tight embrace by his mother, who was sobbing into his chest. He gave everyone else a helpless look, and patted her on the back. His mother cried every time she saw them coming or going, during both greetings and goodbyes. As embarrassing as it was, Dormael endured it, and hugged her fiercely in return.
Saul wrapped both of his sons in rough embraces, and grasped forearms with D’Jenn. There wasn’t much of a reaction from his father upon seeing the spear tied to his saddlebags—a relaxing of the shoulders, a deepening of his smile lines, and a small nod to himself. An acknowledgment passed between Dormael and his father, and that was all the two of them needed to say. After the exchange, Dormael felt a weight lift from his shoulders that he hadn’t realized had been there.
Bethany was passed around from grandparent to grandparent, the victim of a storm of hugs, kisses, and hair-rufflings. The girl looked a little bewildered at the treatment, but weathered it with as much smiling grace as she could muster. Dormael’s mother loaded her with an entire bag full of clothing, and ribbons had been braided into her hair. Luckily, the horses they’d taken from the Aeglar Cultists provided ample space for luggage.
Shawna looked terrible.
Her eyes were red around the edges, and her skin had a sallow tone that made Dormael’s stomach clench with sympathy. She had to be feeling nauseous, but she held herself together with a dignity that would have honored her noble station, could she stop squinting so hard into the light. Her hair was still wet from the bath she’d taken, though she was huddled deep into a fur-lined cloak. Shawna gave a stiff traditional bow, and mounted her horse with muttered goodbyes.
Dormael wondered if the woman remembered anything about the night before. What did she recall about their clumsy, lustful dance into his bedroom? She’d given him no indication, and had endeavored to avoid conversation with anyone at all. Hangovers could be terrible that way—Dormael knew the feeling well.
Allen came trundling out of the house loaded down with weapons. Dormael might have expected such a thing, knowing his brother, but the amount of weaponry the man lugged around was ridiculous. In one trip he carried a long spear over one shoulder, and a baldric over the other shoulder which held a long, curving saber. On his arm was a targe—a small shield with a spike in the center—and he carried a short sword clutched in his hand. After lugging all this down to his horse and tying some of it in place, he went inside for a second load.
When he appeared again he had a pair of short bows in leather cases, complete with a quiver full of arrows. An Orrisan style handaxe swung at his belt, which had a bearded blade and a hardwood shaft. A leather harness stocked with throwing knives attached to the light, segmented armor he wore. His fists were covered in a type of spiked gauntlet that
would have turned a punch into something disfiguring. Under his arm, he carried a steel helm.
Dormael just watched his brother loading up, shaking his head.
Allen sensed that everyone was looking at him, then turned to take in all the incredulous glances.
“What?” he said.
“We were just wondering where the war is,” D’Jenn said, stifling a yawn. “How many weapons do you really need? The rest of us get by with one.”
“Speak for yourself,” Shawna muttered. D’Jenn gave her a bland look, and she shrugged in response.
“The rest of you can get by with one if you want,” Allen said. “My level of skill, however, requires a bevy of choices. Sometimes I want to shoot things—hence, the bow. The spear is good for mounted charges, and hunting boar, too. Obviously, the sword is for stabbing people. You’d be surprised how often steel gets stuck in a body, and you have to spend precious moments wrenching it out—”
“That’s enough!” Yanette said, throwing up her hands. “I don’t want to hear that shit!”
Laughter issued up from everyone standing around them, but Allen stalked over and gave her a noisy kiss on the cheek. She rolled her eyes and hugged him again, plucking at his armor as if she could straighten it.
“You know I love you, you old witch,” he said.
“I know,” she replied, a sob escaping her chest. “You’d better get going, or I’m going to start crying again.”
Within a few minutes, they were heading down the road away from the homestead, their remounts trailing along behind them. Dormael turned to watch his home fade into the distance, wishing that he could have spent more than one night. When they made the edge of the land owned by his family, he felt a bittersweet twinge in his chest. He vowed to return when this was all over, and spend a little more time at home.
It took them a few hours to make their way back to the fork in the trail and turn again to the northwest. The day was clear, and freezing. The biting wind whipped through the highlands, stifling any conversation. Signals were passed up and down the line with the Hunter’s Tongue, as no one cared to come out of their hoods long enough to scream over the wind. The Runemian Mountains loomed in the distance, rocky crags carpeted in greens and browns. Here and there a light dusting of snow could be seen in the passes, but the Runemians didn’t reach high enough to maintain constant snow-caps, even in winter. They made steady progress northward throughout the day, until they found a copse of trees and made camp on the edge of the foothills.
The Seven Signs: Three Book Collection Page 55