by JA Andrews
“Let’s get out of this wretched place.” Douglon motioned for Rass to lead the way.
The main warren reeked of rotting meat and the sour stench of the goblins, and Will pressed the leather hawking glove to his nose while he hunched over and ran after the others. Rass turned them down a thinner warren that smelled more of earth and less of goblins. When the first hint of fresh air blew past, Will sucked it in like a drowning man.
They spilled out onto the edge of the grass near the base of the enclave mountain and streamed into the nearby trees. Rass waited at the top of the warren opening, glaring down into it.
“Are we being followed?” Will asked as he scrambled out.
She shook her head. “All the goblins near here are heading south.”
Rass stood above the opening, her bare toes curling into the earth at her feet. She held out a hand, palm pointing down over the warren. Her lips pressed into a resolute line.
“I do not like these.” Her fingers bent into a claw for a breath before she slowly closed them into a fist.
For twenty paces the surface of the Sweep sank down, filling the warren.
Rass kept her hand fisted, her tiny form quivering with displeasure, fixing a furious look at the sunken earth. “Let’s not go in one of those again.”
The group stood for a moment, looking between the tiny girl and the collapsed tunnel.
“Agreed,” Will said.
“This way.” Douglon led them through the trees, angling up the mountain.
Whenever there was a gap in the tree canopy, Will scanned the sky for any sign of Talen.
Sora pointed above them. “Top of that pine.”
There sat Talen on a branch, gazing regally out over the Sweep. His feathers were unruffled, the hood still dangled from his leg. Will pushed his relief and happiness and gratefulness toward the little hawk and held his arm out. Talen shifted on the branch and didn’t look down.
“Maybe he’s mad at you,” Sora said.
Will opened himself up toward the hawk.
Fierce freedom burst into him. Wind dragging its fingers over splayed feathers. Sharp heat from the sun soaking into the dark crest of his wings, seeping deep into muscles. Hunger and purpose and focus.
“There’s only more tunnels ahead,” Sora said to Will. “Let him stay outside. He’ll find you again.”
Will took another strip of dried meat out of his pack, broke it into small bits, and spread them on the top of a nearby stump. With a parting shot of gratitude toward the bird, Will followed the others up the slope.
It took only a few minutes to reach the base of the reddish colored cliffs that they were aiming for.
Douglon, Patlon and Sora spread out, looking for an entrance while the others sat with Hal. They had climbed steadily to get there and Will could see the long stretch of the Hoarfrost Range stretching to the east. The barren top of the Scales were visible too, blocking the way off the Sweep to the east.
Will leaned a little closer to Rass. “There’s a lot of new grass out there.”
“I know!” Her face was so excited he thought she might burst. “Isn’t it the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?”
The ground flowed over small rises and short bluffs covered with not-quite-green grass. Wind moved from one hill to the next, swirling and rippling and skittering off in different directions. The blue sky sat utterly still and vacant above it.
He cast out and instead of the tiny snips of energy he’d felt when they’d been walking north with the clan, he was met with a rising tide of life, swelling, growing, absorbing the decaying grass of last year and rising with a silent blaze of power.
“It’s…” The echo of energy faded and he faced a Sweep bursting with the verdant green of spring, pushing past last year’s memories.
“Yes,” Rass said smugly. “Now you see it.”
“When I met you,” Will said, “you snuck everywhere and hid in the grass. Now you’re different. Braver. Or more daring.”
“There was no grass yet then.” She wriggled her toes into the dirt. “I always feel weak after a long winter, and everyone else seems so strong. But now…” She flexed her hands. “There’s strength everywhere.”
A strange little bird trill whistled across the mountain. Douglon stood half hidden by a large rock, motioning them to come. Hunching down behind boulders as much as they could, they made their way over and found him standing at the entrance to a thin, jagged hole.
“No more tunnels.” Rass crossed her arms and stood back from the entrance.
“You don’t need to come,” Will assured her. “You can wait for us in the grass. Hopefully, we’ll be back out this way with Ilsa in…” He glanced at the others. “Not too long. But be careful. There are a lot of Roven around.”
“The Sweep is awake again.” She gave a little smirk. “The Roven should be careful of me.” She turned and scrambled down the slope, her arms and legs twice as thick as the first time he’d seen her.
Will slid through the gap in the stones. Ahead of him a cave twisted into gloom. This definitely wasn’t a dwarven tunnel. The rocks around him were rough and irregular, the passage thinned and widened erratically, piles of stones jumbled on the floor. The passage was mostly naturally made, but in the narrowest parts, rough tool marks were visible. Up at the front, Patlon stopped in the dark, muttering and shoving against a rock blocking their path. He stood frozen against the rock for several heartbeats before it tilted and rolled forward with a crushing, grinding noise.
“If you don’t shut up, cousin,” Douglon’s voice came from behind Will. “The entire Sweep is going to know we’re coming.”
Patlon shoved against the rock with a growl. “I’d be alright with an honest fight about now. I’m tired of sneaking.”
“You beat the rock,” Douglon pointed out, as he climbed over it.
A half hour and three more shoved rocks later, the tunnel narrowed again to a point blocked by a thick wooden door. In the orange glow of the moss, the door looked like slats of black, rough wood. Iron straps held it together and it sat snuggly against the rocks around it.
“This is the back end of the enclave tunnels,” Hal said, “If we can get through this, there’s nothing stopping us from reaching the enclave. But it’s locked from the other side.”
There was no handle or hinges visible, and Douglon and Patlon brought their bowls of glimmer moss up close to the edges of the door.
“It’s barely locked.” Patlon knelt down next to the door and peered through the crack.
“You should break the hinges.” Douglon stuck something thin through the far side.
“Messing with rusty hinges, that’s a quiet idea. Why don’t we just scream until they come find us. Be helpful and oil the hinges.”
“If you break the latch, the hinges are still going to squeak when you open the door,” Douglon pointed out,
“Are you going to be helpful?”
“Already done.” Douglon tucked a little tin back into his bag. “Have you gotten through the latch yet?”
A sizzling noise and a wisp of smoke trickled out of the crack in front of Patlon. “Almost. I need—”
Douglon set the handle of a thin saw into his cousin’s outstretched hand. Patlon grunted in acknowledgment and slid the blade through the edge of the door. It took barely any time before he grunted again and handed it back.
“We’d have been through by now and back with the girl if you’d just have done the hinges.”
Slowly, Patlon pushed at the door and it cracked open. A low, groaning came from the hinges along with a cool, damp breeze. Patlon worked the door back and forth in little nudges until the groaning stopped.
“You didn’t oil them very well,” he whispered to Douglon.
“You didn’t open it right.”
“Let’s hope the big man remembers where he’s going,” Patlon muttered.
“Tunnels don’t change,” Hal whispered back, sounding annoyed, “Even over ten years.”
&n
bsp; Hal squeezed past the dwarves, taking the lead through the tunnel. Will brought up the rear, occasionally holding his bowl of glimmer moss behind them, searching the jagged, empty tunnel.
Through the forms of the others, Will caught the gleam of the dwarves’ axes in their hands. They passed caverns spilling chilled, dank air into the tunnel. Long teeth of rock hung down from the ceiling dripping water as though the mountain was melting. Rounder, lumpy stone fingers reached up out of the floor toward them.
A little farther on, Hal turned into a thin tunnel winding off to the left, and came to an abrupt stop. The glimmer moss lit a pile of rocks completely filling the tunnel.
Hal swore. “This is—This was the tunnel that leads to the living quarters.”
“Sometimes tunnels change,” Patlon pointed out.
“Is there another way?” Will asked.
Hal scratched at his beard. “Through the main cavern. The Torches’ enclave meets in a smaller cave off of it, hidden enough that it will be out of view, but if the meeting has started, there could be people in the main cavern as well.”
Will’s heart sank a little. “Maybe we got here before it started.”
Hal’s answering grunt sounded doubtful, but he continued down the tunnel. Only a hundred paces farther, another cavern opened up on the left. Will followed the others in and caught the smell of mossy water. On the far side of the cavern, a tunnel wound off and the mouth of it was not completely black. Hal ordered the glimmer moss covered, and motioned for silence, then stepped into the tunnel.
Without the orange moss, the tunnel rocks were bleached to a stale grey. The tunnel was thin to the point where Will’s shoulders brushed the sides occasionally, and the only noise he heard was a curse from Hal as he squeezed through a particularly tight section. The wet, green smell of moss grew stronger as the tunnel grew brighter, and a shushing noise teased at his ears.
Ahead of him, Alaric turned sharply to the right, and Will blinked into brightness. Light and the sound of rushing water poured into the tunnel from a horizontal crack in the wall. The others leaned against the wall, squinting through it. Will stepped up between Alaric and Sora, and looked out into a long, thin cavern. Straight ahead, the far side opened in a gaping maw and sunlight streamed in, landing in a blinding patch on the stone floor. The cave looked out high over the rippled surface of the Sweep, stretching away to the hazy horizon. Straight below them, down a cliff face, sat a lake. It was flat and silty brown, reflecting smudged images of the drab cavern walls. A river flowed out from it, edged with pale green moss, sliding toward the mouth of the cave until it disappeared over the edge. Just before the mouth of the cave, a thin, arching bridge crossed the river. The constant wind of the Sweep blew the edges of trees and grass outside the cave, and the smell of the grasslands mingled with the moss.
An unintelligible tangle of voices echoed loudly through the cavern against the backdrop of the waterfall, and Will leaned forward until he could see through the crack. A little to the left, a smaller cave branched off, angling sharply away from the sunlit cavern. In the gloom, dozens of torches lit rows of long tables and benches. A couple dozen Roven congregated in small knots among them, grey-shirted slaves standing along the walls or carrying pitchers. Along the far wall the tables were laden with food. At the near end, just before the tables, a wide, flat stone like a platform filled the center of the floor.
“Killien’s not here,” Hal said in a voice so low it was almost hard to hear over the noise of the cave. “But I do see all the other Torches.”
“And Lukas,” Sora said.
Lukas limped among the groups of Roven, filling cups and keeping his eyes pointed down in a more servile stance than Will had ever seen.
“There’s Sini and Rett.” Will nodded toward a back table where the two were busy hunched over some food.
“I don’t see Ilsa,” Sora said.
“Each clan has its own permanent quarters," Hal said. “The Morrow’s is, of course, the smallest. I’m sure it’s been ignored over the years we haven’t been here. Ilsa is probably there. And if Killien isn’t here with the other Torches, he probably is too.”
“It’d be easier to talk to Ilsa if Killien were doing something else,” Will pointed out.
“Lukas doesn’t stay away from Killien for long if he can help it.” Hal nodded toward Lukas who was continuing to pour drinks. “I would guess Killien will show up soon. I don’t think he'll bring Ilsa to the Torches’ meeting, but it might be worth staying to find out.”
Will pushed back a surge of irritation at the delay, but it wouldn’t do them any good to sneak into the Morrow’s quarters if Ilsa was on her way to this gathering.
An older Roven man in red dyed leathers climbed up on the boulder. His hair hung down his back in long, grey braids, and his equally long beard was decorated with glints of silver and red. A severity was carved into the creases of his face and his shoulders were set resolutely. He knocked a thick wooden staff against the rock and the cavern quieted.
“Torch Vatche of the Temur,” Hal said. “One of the few Torches who allies with Killien. This mountain is on his land. The powerful clans demand gifts at the opening of the enclave, beginning with the least powerful, which would be the Morrow. But with Killien not here, Vatche will have to go first.”
“We are pleased to offer these gifts to our brethren.” Vatche’s Roven accent was harsh as he motioned for two slaves along the wall holding small chests. The first walked over to a tall, angular man wearing wine dark leathers. His fingers glittered with rings and gems, runes were stitched or stamped into every surface of his clothes, and a large yellowish burning stone hung around his neck, swirling slowly with a viscous, murky light.
“Torch Noy, Sunn Clan,” Will whispered to Alaric. “They have the most stonesteeps. And control the dragon.”
“The Temur would like to thank the Sunn for their generosity in letting us hire their stonesteeps,” Vatche said, his voice emotionless as the servant opened the chest, showing a pile of colored gems, the top of which shimmered with a greenish light.
“Doesn’t sound very generous,” Alaric whispered.
Torch Noy barely glanced at the chest before waving it away and turning back to his food.
“If the smaller clans don’t offer bribes to the Sunn and the Boan,” Sora said, leaning closer so Alaric and Will could hear, “the protective spells the Sunn stonesteeps place on the herds will be prone to inexplicable failures, and the Boan soldiers will accidentally raid their outlying settlements.
“The trick is to make both clans think they received the better bribe. One year the Boan chief thought that the Sunn clan’s gift was more valuable than their own. They rode into Vatche’s house, killed his servants and his two nephews.”
Will scanned the main cavern, but there was still no sign of Killien. Or Ilsa. How long were they going to have to wait?
Vatche stood tall on the boulder and motioned to the other slave. The man shuffled forward and placed a slightly larger chest on the table before the enormously fat Torch of the Boan Clan. A chill dragged across Will’s neck at the sight of the man. The stories of the Boan’s Torch were uniformly cruel.
“Albech,” Will whispered to Alaric. “Torch of the Boan. He has more warriors than the rest of the clans put together.”
The slave opened up the chest and pulled out a corked glass bottle sloshing with grey liquid. Albech’s eyebrow rose slightly and his hand flinched back away from the chest. With a quick nod, he flicked his hand at the servant to take it away.
“Poison.” Sora let out a long breath. “The Temur dip their arrows in it. I’ve never seen them share it.” Her eyes flicked from the Boan Torch to the Sunn. Neither man looked at the other. “Two decent gifts. At least neither wants what the other has.”
With a slight bow toward the room, Vatche stepped down.
“This is taking too long,” Will whispered to Hal. “Let’s head to the Morrow’s quarters and if Killien’s there, we’ll deal w
ith it.”
Hal nodded, then paused. Another Torch was approaching the boulder.
“Ohan of the Panos Clan,” Hal said, his voice hard.
This Torch stalked forward like a wiry cat, his hands hung with an exaggerated ease, too still at his sides. His dark red beard was trimmed to a short point beneath his pinched face.
“The clan that betrayed Killien to the Sunn,” Hal continued, “burned our grass, and tried to murder Killien in his home just days ago.”
Before Ohan could reach the boulder a distant cry rang out. A shadow flickered across the sunlight on the edge of the cave and the grass along the mouth flattened to the side.
Torch Noy’s head snapped toward the opening, his hand grabbing at the yellow stone at his chest. Ohan and the rest of the room turned.
A huge shape dropped into view and light scattered off garnet scales, darting through the cavern with skittering glints of blood red. The dragon flared massive wings, the membrane glowing crimson in the sunlight, dark veins and tendons stretching across them like twisted roots.
With scrambling claws, the creature sank down onto the cave floor next to the river and slithered toward the cave with the Torches, his wings curled back above him.The dragon slid forward until it reached the smaller cave and turned its emotionless face toward the Torches who had shoved back from their tables and scrambled away. Only Torch Noy stepped forward, the yellow burning stone held out before him, the other hand held up, commanding the creature to stop.
Red light rippled down the side of the dragon as he reached the boulder where Vatche had stood and stretched his head into the room. The Roven pressed against the back wall, utterly silent. Noy, his voice raising higher and higher, continued to command the dragon to leave.
With a long, ominous breath, the dragon relaxed its wings. A figure got to his feet on the wide scales between the roots of his wings, and slid down the dragon’s shoulder, landing on the boulder.
“I’m glad we’re still giving gifts.” Killien rested a hand on the dragon’s neck. “Because the Morrow have some to hand out.”