by Barb Hendee
On their way through the streets of Old-Seatt, she had seen ancient fortifications and tiered walls built to withstand any assault, and twice as thick as those of Calm Seatt. The amphitheater itself was more daunting.
As the traditional meeting place of Dhredze Seatt and its last-stand fallback fortification, the amphitheater’s round outer wall was at least twenty feet thick and as high as any castle’s first battlements. Two dozen stone tiers for seating rose all around to the broad promenade running along the wall’s inner circumference. Entrances made of great iron doors were flung wide between framed obelisk columns, opening above the steps of the aisles. The stands were already half-filled, and still people poured in. Constabularies from various clans walked the aisle steps with their tall staves, assisting attendees and overseeing proper order.
Hammer-Stag, boisterous and loud, had been well-known to his people.
And this was his final appearance among them.
Wynn was aware of the favor bestowed upon herself and Chane. They stood with Mallet on the floor’s far right, just within sight of the nearer steps leading up to the raised stone stage. Only family, close friends and comrades, as well as clan elders and thänæ, were allowed on the floor among the shirvêsh in attendance. One elder shirvêsh from each Eternal’s temple, such as Mallet, was present, along with more from a temple appropriate to Hammer-Stag’s calling.
Wynn should’ve felt grateful at being included, and that thought made her feel all the worse. When she’d first asked Shirvêsh Mallet if she and Chane might attend—on the pretense of learning more about dwarven customs—she’d been stunned when he’d agreed.
“Of course,” he had said. “You will stand with me.”
Mallet had explained that the Hassäg’kreigi did not come for all departed thänæ. Only those deemed worth preserving for the people would “pass into stone.” When she’d asked what that meant, he shook his head. Answering seemed difficult for him.
Stone was revered for permanence, like the bones of the world. Even when broken, it was still stone, and its parts one day were reborn anew. To be part of such was to become part of what held up the world and kept it sound. Even among the Thänæ, only those strongest in the virtue they exemplified would bring the Stonewalkers. The bones of earth deserved nothing less. Mallet said that in all his years, he had seen the Stonewalkers only twice before.
Wynn had then asked if something else was wrong. The old monk’s intense expression within the temple proper was still stuck in her mind. Mallet didn’t answer, but the suspicious glare returned briefly beneath his grief, as if his mind wandered into darker thoughts. Wynn’s own thoughts kept turning back upon the Stonewalkers. The guilt made her shrivel inside.
Hammer-Stag, so strong and alive, had died the night after she’d met him. Death followed too often in her wake. And now, how did she honor this loss? With sacrilege, using him as bait. She could barely lift her gaze to the stage.
Beneath a shimmering gray cloth draped over a litter upon a waist- high stone block, the body of Hammer-Stag rested, hidden from sight.
On one side of him stood an aging, white-haired thänæ in a bright girdle of steel splints, with two war daggers lashed to his chest. On the other stood three shirvêsh in white vestments from the temples devoted to three Bäynæ called Stálghlên, Skâpagi, and Mukvadân—Pure-Steel the champion, Shielder the guardian, and Wild-Boar the warrior.
Funerary ceremonies had been going on for several days. First the body was carefully prepared, though Wynn didn’t know what that entailed. Then came a series of wakes overseen by immediate family, clan, and then tribe. This night was the culmination. If the Stonewalkers didn’t come, Hammer-Stag might be cremated or interred, according to his relatives’ wishes. Either his corpse or ashes would be carried away to a prepared family barrow.
“Will he be uncovered or taken as is?” Chane asked softly.
Wynn glanced up. He appeared to suffer none of her guilt or anything besides fascination with the spectacle.
“If they come to take him into stone,” Mallet answered, “he will be uncovered . . . presented to the people one last time. For now, we wait.”
Wynn pondered those words again—“into stone.” Earlier, as they’d rode the lift up to Old-Seatt, Mallet had also mentioned the “underworld” when speaking of the Stonewalkers. Did the two terms mean the same thing, or was the latter something separate? But she believed the Stonewalkers would come.
Hammer-Stag had been special. Judging by all who gathered here, he’d achieved greatness in a world where others sought it only in self-service—if they sought it at all in more than wishes and fantasies.
She noticed Chane looking down at her, studying her. Perhaps he saw her shame or sadness. He looked much better since they’d returned to the temple. Although he was still pale, a hint of color showed in his narrow face. The goat’s blood must have helped.
The three shirvêsh upon the stage held up their hands, and the crowd’s buzz quickly died.
Wynn saw movement everywhere around her.
All the shirvêsh on the amphitheater’s floor slowly formed a line. Mallet followed with a quick gesture for her and Chane to wait. One by one, they filed up the steps to the stage as the trio of shirvêsh in white stepped back, bowing their heads with closed eyes. Each passing shirvêsh paused, laying a hand upon Hammer-Stag’s draped form, and their lips moved in some unheard whisper to the dead thänæ.
Wynn remembered the an’Cróan’s elders that she’d encountered in the Farlands. Compared to their tall, cloaked forms and reserved expressions, these wide, stout dwarven monks in breeches and bright vestments were a stark contrast.
One white-haired woman in a deep azure vestment stopped beside the cloth-draped body. Unlike those before her, she lifted her eyes to the people.
“I will miss your fine voice and the just swing of Burskâp,” she said aloud to all.
Wynn grew confused, wondering if that final word were some nickname for Hammer-Stag.
“Joy be with you . . . always,” that woman said, then leaned over and kissed Hammer-Stag’s covered head. “May Arhniká favor you.”
Tears welled in Wynn’s eyes.
Arhniká—Gilt-Repast—was one of the oldest Bäynæ she knew, revered for the virtue of charity. Her shirvêsh were known for helping the destitute to find placement for learning new trades and skills to rebuild lives of honor. Wynn wondered how a warrior like Hammer-Stag had gained such affection from a monk of Arhniká.
One by one, the shirvêsh offered silent blessings, acting as avatars of their respective Eternals. Wynn watched as Mallet approached near the line’s end. His eyes closed in a moment of stillness, and he too whispered something to Hammer-Stag. With his hand still upon the thänæ’s covered form, he raised his head.
“You were our strong arm, a champion of those in need,” he said simply. “You will live among us in our tellings. May Bedzâ’kenge sing to you.”
Wynn looked away, anywhere else. She peered among those upon the floor who watched the blessing of the dead, and then raised her eyes to the crowded stone stands. Her gaze caught on a familiar face.
Sliver sat in the lowest stand nearest the stage’s far side still dressed in blacksmith’s attire, as if she’d come straight from her forge. Her expression was tightly set in distaste.
Wynn tugged lightly on Chane’s sleeve, whispering, “Look.”
Chane followed where she pointed, spotting High- Tower’s sister, and his eyes narrowed in a flicker of hostility. Then he frowned in the same puzzlement Wynn felt.
Sliver would’ve had to close the smithy for several days, traveling by tram to attend the ceremony. There was no direct lift from far Sea-Side to the mountain’s top. Had she known Hammer-Stag personally, or was she just here like all the others, paying her respects? Her expression said otherwise. She didn’t appear to notice Wynn and only glared at the stage—or at one of two square entrances in its back wall.
Before Wynn pondered further, a
rolling resonance grew in the amphitheater. All the shirvêsh began to sing in deep baritone voices as they filed back down the stairs. Their chant vibrated between the high stone walls.
Their song was too difficult for Wynn to follow, perhaps uttered in some ancient dialect reserved for such ceremonies. All she picked out were the names of Eternals, but to her, their thundering tones mattered more than their words. Mallet finally stepped down to the amphitheater floor, but any new questions Wynn had were cut short.
Three armored and armed dwarves, two graced with thôrhks of spiked ends, stood at the floor’s far side. The third warrior looked somehow familiar to Wynn. With them was a young shirvêsh in the white vestment of one of the three warrior Bäynæ. All four spoke close together until the younger warrior cocked his head at Mallet’s passing.
Wynn suddenly recognized him. It was Carrow, Hammer-Stag’s kinsman from the greeting house.
The monk among them quickly reached out, and Mallet turned to join them.
They stood talking below where Sliver sat, but the dwarven smith never looked down. As the last of the filing shirvêsh exited onto the floor, their chant died away. Wynn saw the dark, uncertain expression return to Mallet’s old face. Carrow made some sharp exclamation, and one warrior thänæ gritted his teeth. The youthful shirvêsh in white frowned as well.
Wynn craned her head, wishing she could hear them. Something troubling passed among those five. She took one step, peering about to see if she might sneak closer.
Chane’s grip closed on her arm.
Wynn tried to pull away but couldn’t break his hold. “I’m just trying—”
“Quiet!” he rasped.
Chane was also staring at Mallet and his four companions.
Wynn had known a few Noble Dead since first meeting Magiere, Leesil, and Chap. Like their skin, their disquieting eyes lost some color in death. Still, there was always some tint that remained.
Any hint of brown drained from Chane’s irises, and Wynn shivered as his eyes turned as colorless as ice.
The instant Chane gripped Wynn, halting her, he heard Shade snarl. Wynn tried to pull free, but he was not going to let her try to sneak up on Mallet. He fixed upon the far gathering around the old shirvêsh. As the chant died away, and the amphitheater remained quiet for the moment, Chane quickly widened his senses, listening.
Unlike the others in the small group, Carrow looked more outraged than forlorn.
“Heârva!” he snapped.
Whatever that meant, the closest thänæ clenched his jaw as the white-clad monk frowned in silence. Chane was uncertain if they disagreed with whatever Carrow had uttered, or if they just disapproved that he had said it aloud. No one verbally denied the young one.
Chane heard Wynn suck in a sharp breath, but kept his gaze locked on Mallet and the other four.
“Your eyes . . . what’s wrong with . . .” she began, but never finished. “What are you doing?”
“I am trying to listen.”
“Why?” she asked. “You don’t understand Dwarvish.”
True—especially if she kept interrupting—as it was hard enough to pick up on the conversation. But he might catch something she could translate.
“You would hear nothing,” he answered, “if caught sneaking up on them . . . in plain sight!”
“You can’t possibly hear them from here,” she argued in hushed voice. “Can you?”
“Not if you keep talking!”
Wynn’s intelligence and education were never in doubt, but not so for her wisdom at times. She did not always make wise choices in the moment. Her rashness had already lost them one potential source of information.
Mallet leaned close to the monk in white, and Chane could not pick up their whispers. In frustration, he glanced down at Wynn.
“He-air-va,” he said, trying to pronounce the one word he had caught clearly. “What does it mean?”
“You mean . . . heârva?” she asked, and he nodded. “Umm . . . a past-tense verb from the root heâr, referring to ‘slaughter’ . . . so ‘slaughtered.’ ”
“In other words, killed . . . or slain?”
“No, marû is the root for a killing or execution. Dwarvish and Elvish, akin in structures, have more specific terms for—”
“This is no time for language lessons!”
Wynn’s brow furrowed in anger. “Heâr is the concept of ‘slaughter’ . . . the killing of that which cannot defend itself or does so to no effect!”
Some of her ire faded when she glanced across the amphitheater floor.
“What is going on over there?” she whispered.
Chane wanted to know as well.
Only Mallet and the other monk still spoke in close whispers. The three warriors listened in silence. Wynn’s question stuck in Chane’s head as he looked to the stage and the body covered in gray cloth.
Hammer-Stag, braggart that he was, seemed more than able to defend himself. So what made Carrow so angry at a time of mourning? And by Wynn’s accounting, why had he used such a specific term for his kinsman’s demise?
Wynn watched that quiet gathering with intensity, until Shade suddenly inched out ahead of her. About to grab the dog, she realized Shade was standing at full attention, ears raised, staring at Mallet and his companions. Carrow turned away from the others in sudden disgust—and Shade’s head moved.
Shade wasn’t watching the gathering, just Carrow. Then she looked up at Wynn and whined softly. Her face almost expressed frustration, as if she didn’t know what to do next.
Wynn reached down. The instant her hand lighted between Shade’s shoulders . . .
. . . a memory erupted in Wynn’s mind.
She was looking down a long passage lit by braziers spaced far apart. Then she was moving, walking along it. Hunks of stone lay on the floor among scattered chips of pulverized rock. She looked aside, running her hand across stone, feeling and seeing the deep gouges and pitted marks. All along the way, the walls were beaten and broken by something swung with great force.
One pit was so deep that her thick fingers slid in to the last knuckle.
Wynn went cold inside. That hand was broad and heavy, callused of palm, its wrist nearly three times as thick as it should be.
This wasn’t her memory.
Wynn glanced down at Shade, now watching Mallet weaving his way back among others on the amphitheater floor. Another image rose in Wynn’s mind, and it flickered with a third.
She saw Hammer-Stag’s face, seemingly pale and shocked but with hints of frozen rage at the instant of death. The dead visage quickly vanished, replaced by one of two shirvêsh from the temple of the three warrior Bäynæ.
She saw them speaking to her, their expressions strained, but their voices were muted and garbled, as if not remembered clearly. Then it dawned on Wynn that these weren’t Shade’s memories either.
Wynn snatched her hand off Shade’s head, sucking in a breath so fast she heard it.
“What?” Chane asked. “What is wrong?”
Shade cocked her head and one ear twitched in a hint of puzzlement.
Wynn shuddered. Those memories couldn’t have been Shade’s. They had come from someone else—perhaps someone here in this place. But that wasn’t possible.
Chap couldn’t pass the memories he’d dipped from others, and Wynn had been among other true majay-hì. They didn’t have even his ability to read people’s memories from a distance. He’d once told her they could memory-speak only by touch with one of their own. They couldn’t even pass on a “heard” memory not their own unless it was given to them by another. This accounted for how Shade had received a few hazy memories through Lily long after Chap had left his chosen mate behind.
And Wynn . . . she was the only exception.
Chap’s dual nature—Fay-born within a Fay-descended body—combined with how he’d tried to suppress the taint of awry magic left in Wynn, somehow ended up allowing her to hear him inside her head. This also had to be how Shade was able to memory-
speak with her alone.
But not with stolen memories.
“How could you?” Wynn whispered.
Shade’s blue eyes widened until their yellow flecks showed clearly. She crept closer, sniffing wildly at Wynn—then lunged suddenly.
“No!” Wynn squeaked.
Shade slammed her forepaws into Wynn’s chest.
Wynn toppled flat on her back. Before she could fend off the dog, Shade shoved her face hard against Wynn’s cheek. A cascading flood of images followed.
A shattered passage . . .
Hammer-Stag’s dead, pallid features, his hair streaked with gray . . .
Two elder shirvêsh in white vestments, faces lined with fearful worry . . .
“Get off of her!” Chane hissed.
Wynn’s head was still spinning as Shade wheeled away. Her sight had barely cleared when she heard Shade’s jaws snap. When Wynn sat up, all the hackles on Shade’s neck and upper back stood on end.
Shade faced the other way, growling as her whole body shook in rage. And Chane . . .
He stood a pace off, holding one hand with his other as he glared at the dog.
Chane must have tried to pull Shade off, and she’d bitten him!
“Both of you, stop it,” Wynn whispered, and looked to Chane. “She wasn’t trying to hurt me.”
Chane acknowledged with a quick glance toward Wynn, but Shade wouldn’t budge.
“Shade,” Wynn whispered. “No . . . no more.”
Shade pivoted about, growing quiet. Inching closer, she lowered her head, though she was still so tall she looked Wynn straight in the eyes.
Wynn stared into those sky blue crystalline irises and hesitantly reached out, running her fingers down Shade’s neck. She felt the persistent shudder in Shade’s whole body.