Ithk whined, and he whimpered. Poking up the embers of the night’s fire, Kethrenan thought that if he never heard another goblin's whining voice, he'd be a happy man.
"Let him eat, Demlin," he said, "and see he's quick about it.
They had a way to ride today, south toward the last point on Ithk’s map of caches. By now, he knew Lea's bands had emptied all the others and sealed the entrances. By now Brand would know it, for these were his ways out, and no one could live underground forever without coming up for food. He would find one way sealed, and he would perhaps find another. He would soon learn the rest when he sent men to see for themselves. He would know he dared not range the northern part of his territory now. He would know-he was no fool—he must go south.
Kethrenan grinned, as wolves do. He would know himself hunted, and he would not know who hunted him, which of his enemies, the hob or the elven prince.
For a moment, the thought gave him pause. It always did when he wondered how Elansa would fare if Brand guessed the face of his hunter.
"They will keep her for hostage, my prince."
Kethrenan looked up. Not only had Demlin become a good hunter, he'd become an uncanny diviner of his master's thoughts. Long face pale, never scrubbed to color by the wind, maimed Demlin nodded.
"She's his shield, my prince. He won't throw her away."
And why, after all, should it be strange that Demlin could know his thought? Maimed Demlin, Demlin the sudden hunter… he and his master shared the same will. Why not the same thoughts?
Beyond the fire, Ithk gnawed on the cold leg of a lean hare. Hunched against the cold, his bear-headed fur over his shoulders, his eyes darted from one to the other, master and servant. He said nothing though. He sat very still. Perhaps he was thinking, but Kethrenan doubted that. Goblins were not known for thinking.
Brand's outlaws made a dark wandering now, for reports had come back to Brand that the three caches that ran in a line—like the base of a triangle—were plundered, the ways in and out from them stopped with stone.
"It might be goblin-work," Dell said. "Someone knows where they are, Brand. You know Gnash was ready to steal the hoard when we got it. Might be him."
A little, for a moment, Elansa’s heart stirred, warming to hope. Perhaps this was the work of the hob, perhaps the work of someone else. Perhaps a prince was taking back what was stolen. Swiftly, she killed the hope and begged gods to protect her from ever showing it again. She feared that if Brand suspected Kethrenan was responsible for this, he'd kill her.
What would they do? Dell asked it. "Tianna did. Others wondered, and the tide of their voices was an anxious one.
"We go south," Brand said as he got to his feet. He commanded the camp struck, then called Char and Leyerlain to him. They conferred for a space, the elf arguing some point Brand wasn't granting, the dwarf silent. Rolling the sleeping furs, which now she carried, her unwanted bed on her back, Elansa heard them. The goal was to find a place to hunt and to go on from there.
"We go south," Brand said when others asked. "Before anything, we find food."
It was the right thing to say, for if they were not hungry, they were weary of jerky. She might have learned more, once in the time before she became Brand's bed companion. She might have learned from Char what Brand's idea was for going south. He used to tell her things, but he never looked at her now but over the lip of his bottle, never with anything but great contempt.
She had not looked to him for that. The dwarf had treated her with a rough and grudging kindness sometimes. In the absence of it, she realized, she had wrongly thought of him as a potential ally.
"Ah, he's finally pickled his wits," Dell said, seeing what Elansa did. "Don’t worry about him. One night he'll make enough noise sleeping that someone'll slip a blade between his ribs to shut him up."
She did not say so to jest.
Elansa was becoming used to the stillness of lying in the darkness, Brand's body between her and the others, listening to the sounds of others sleeping—the small whimpers, the sighs, the groaning. One wept in his nightmares, not always, but sometimes, and he was the dwarf Char. Usually a quiet sleeper, now he was like a disturbed ghost, moaning. Most of the outlaws granted him the grace of acting as though they didn't know or hear or see his night-hauntings. It was a courtesy among those who must sleep back to back and walk side by side.
One did not grant the grace, and he was Arawn. He watched the dwarf, a cold, reasoning look on him.
"Up!" cried Brand, his voice almost cheerful. "Up! Let’s go! We'll be hunting supper soon."
Though he'd spoken more from hope than certainty, he was not wrong. That day, Char, always the guide in the darkness, found a way out the outlaws had never mapped—an easy way, a smooth slope and uncomplicated by twists or turns.
The hour was early, night only lately faded from the sky. Still, this much light was more than she'd seen in a long while, and it dazzled. A breeze touched her skin, and Elansa watched as three archers left the mountain, running downslope and bounding like spring goats let out from the dark confines of winter's byre. Among them was Brand, and they were not long away, for this was a good time for hunters. It was Brand himself who brought back the two small lambs, neat-footed offspring of wild mountain sheep. He carried them back up the hill, one slung over each shoulder, to the cheers and laughter of his men.
Seeing him, Elansa shuddered, for he reminded her of the ogres. They went past her, hunters with long strides and bellies soon to be filled with good food. She stood a moment, looking out, her hand upon stone. She was startled by the wild wide stretch of the world without. How far the borders of that outer region, where the horizon bound the stony waste to the sky never-ending?
In the brightening sky, something moved, something wide—winged and dark. It sailed in circles, drifting low, soaring and circling again. The freedom of it took her breath, the simple ability to change direction, to form a will and carry it out. In her, tears rose. She refused them and refused to feel the tightening of her throat. These things she never allowed herself. These things she did not risk, for to allow one feeling was to allow another, and another, and soon there would be others she could not permit. Instead, she treasured her numbness, almost calling it holy.
She lifted her arms as though they were wings, unknowing, unaware of what she did.
A hard hand took her wrist and turned her. Brand pulled her close, and she saw his eyes were alight with the triumph of the hunt. He smelled like the wind, like the wider spaces he had run in. He took her chin in his hand, but not in rough grip. A little his fingers moved against her neck, a caress. She did not turn, and she tried not to see him, though she looked right at him.
"Come inside," he said, and his mood was good. The command sounded more like a request.
It was, of course, no such thing. He took her to his stony bed while others went out to find wood for fires and cleaned and cooked the kill. He did not command her to undress. He did that for her himself, slipping her torn blouse over her head and taking off her ragged trousers. When he moved to take off her broken boots, she stopped him and did it herself. They had been of finest make, good riding gear once… she would not think of that or feel his hands on her. Still, she noticed he was not so peremptory this time. It was not a matter of satisfying himself or underscoring his authority with his men.
He touched her gently, and once, his lips against her neck, his beard on her breast, he said, "I saw you try to fly."
He sounded amused but not angry.
She dared not respond to that, the care he took to be easy with her or his amusement. She lay beneath him as she always did. She let him do what he willed, as she always did. Once she wished she could kill him, but even that she did not allow for long. She must not feel, not even that.
When he was finished, he turned away from her. He didn't sleep. He lay staring at her. She closed her eyes, but neither did she sleep. She listened to the outlaws, the mingled voices of women and men. She smelled th
e blood of lambs, the sudden sharp bite of Char’s dwarf spirits, and smoke and leather and unwashed bodies. When she opened her eyes at last, she saw Brand had a pouch in his hand, the one that hung always from his belt. He jogged it a little, and something rang within.
Her eyes grew wide, and her pulse raced suddenly. It was her stolen phoenix! Her Blue Phoenix! When had the thought of it, the memory of its magic, been chased from her heart? Almost as soon as she'd been taken. Almost the very day she had entered this wretched captivity. She had been hemmed by need on every side, the hundred needs of survival, and they had crowded out all else, narrowing her. Thoughts of her phoenix, the magic and the beauty, had long ago flown out of that constricted existence.
"You remember it," he said.
Elansa swallowed, trying to find her voice. "I do." Brand uncinched the pouch. He spilled the silver links of chain into his hand and tumbled the sapphire phoenix atop them all. How lovely it was! Firelight gleamed on the sapphire, the whole stone shaped by gods, never by the hand of a mortal. He looked at it for a long moment.
She remembered how she'd noted that none of the outlaws had spoken of the hobgoblin's fire-staff but in low whispers, their voices shrouded in superstition. What would Brand's reaction be if he knew the true worth of the sapphire?
Brand slipped the silver chain over his head. The look he gave her as he did this was a complicated one, but Elansa had been long away from her feelings. She could not intuit a meaning.
To the surprise of his men, Brand did not head for the last cache, though they did go south. Whenever they would stop he consulted with Char, quietly in corners. They had a plan between them, the dwarf and the human. They were long-time schemers, these two who had arranged a plot to steal a princess.
"Put it to you this way," Brand said to all of them gathered. "Someone's found our caches. Someone’s blocked our ways out. I'm thinking whoever it is knows where all the hiding places are, and he's expecting us to run to the last."
The outlaws muttered.
Ley lifted his head, a sharp gleam in his long elven eyes, and said, "I expect even Nigh-toothless Kerin has better sense than that."
They laughed, even Nigh-toothless Kerin who'd had the bad sense to fight with a troll. The mood among them eased.
"Even Kerin," Brand agreed. "So we're gonna be keen witted. We're going south. North or east doesn't seem like a good idea, and west is out of the mountain. I like it better in here." He waited for them to murmur and mutter and sort their own agreement out among themselves. "South for us, and something good and grand."
They liked the sound of that, all of them. Even Arawn. Yet it wasn't long before Arawn’s mood changed. A day of walking, a short night of rest, another day of walking, and his became the voice most often heard on the way through the torchlit gloom.
"A mile above is like three below," he said at the start of another day's march. "Be getting tired of it now. Tired." When he said that he looked not at Brand. He stared right at Char as though the distance were the dwarf's fault—a turn missed, a road mistaken.
Char slid Brand a glance, and Brand nodded. When Elansa looked back along the line she saw Dell's head up, her hand upon the hilt of the sword at her hip. The tall woman was but a dark form in the darkness, yet Elansa knew that if she could see Dell's face she'd see it shaped into lines of wariness.
"Come on," Char said, his tone heartier than it had been, almost encouraging. "The way gets longer the more we linger."
The voices of the outlaws welled in the cavern, mingling with the whisper and hiss of torches. Elansa thought some of those voices had more of Arawn’s mood in them today—discontented and restless. It was not the same kind of restiveness she'd sensed in Tianna on the day they saw the ogres. This had more discontent in it, a dangerous edge. She was not alone in sensing this. Brand went like a hound who'd caught a bear's scent, head up and keen.
They had a practiced order for marching: Char and Brand in front, Elansa right behind. Dell kept the rear. Her eyes were no better than any human’s, but she had a sense of hearing as keen as a cat’s. The others had places between, and Fang and the hounds ranged freely up and down the line. They made good time, for the way was smooth for a long while, the ceilings high and the walls wide. The torch bearers kept their fire high, the flickering glow illuminating a floor that seemed to have been worked not by nature but by craft. This didn't last long. Char took a turn into a narrower passage, one that required him to bend low.
"Down," he called back, bending at the waist.
His companions dropped to all fours, Elansa among them. She crawled on stone, scraping her hands and leaving behind little prints of blood. Behind her, men cursed, Arawn the loudest, and Char's voice came back in scornful challenge.
"Come on, ya’ whining babies. It's not that far!"
Knee to hand, knee to hand, they followed, some bleeding, most cursing, until at last they could stand again, stretching cramped muscles and wiping blood on the sides of their trousers.
Brand stood at the entrance to the taller passage and watched each man pass him. To every man he had a low word to say, sometimes a joke, sometimes commiseration, sometimes praise.
Elansa, standing to the side, saw each one of them respond. Even Arawn responded when Brand nudged him and said, "Up on your feet now, Arawn, before we mistake you for a dwarf."
The sullen lines of Arawn’s expression eased a little, and he crooked a grudging grin.
They have traded such, the joke and the grin, before, Elansa thought. Why, at some time they must have been good friends.
Following Char, they went into caverns where wind moaned like ghosts, and into others in which the air didn't stir at all. These last, Elansa liked least. Their stillness was like something trying to steal her breath.
Through all the winding ways, though the humans lost all sense of direction and time passing, Char assured them he knew not only the way south, he knew the hour and time of day. And hue enough it was that he was able to predict the flight of bats out from a cavern at sunset, the rush of their return at night's end, and this when not even the grayest gleam of light could be found. He knew all the passages and tunnels as though he'd played in them since childhood.
"Come ahead," the dwarf said, when weary men lagged. "I'm thinkin’ it's time we got some water for the bottles, eh?"
"Water?" Arawn laughed. "And where will you find that for us, dwarf? Know a pretty little glade we can lay ourselves down in while the water runs by the banks?" His voiced dropped into bitterly cold regions. "Or maybe a fountain springing dwarf spirits to lull you to sweet dreaming sleep?"
Silence settled all in the darkness, a crawling unease. With the suddenness of wind lifting, the murmur of voices swelled, louder it seemed, and undercurrents of fear ran beneath.
Arawn snickered. Dell, coming up from the rear of the line, stood tall between the dwarf and his heckler. With a chill, Elansa realized some line was being drawn upon which the outlaw band was invited to choose position—Arawn on one side, Char, Dell, and Brand on the other. Feet shuffled again, and the band began to separate, to choose.
"Enough," Brand snapped.
No one moved. All along the line the murmuring fell still, yet the tension didn't ease. Unvoiced questions hung in the air. The choice that Dell meant to force breathed like something hidden in shadows, alive yet unseen.
Char stepped away from Dell and turned from Brand. "Y' can all stand around here if y’ want," he said. His tone said he was not warmed by Dell's show of support, or Brand's. "Or y’ can follow. Up to you."
Dell moved back down the line to take up the rear guard. In silence, Brand and Elansa followed Char. One by one, the others fell in behind, some with a will, others uneasy now where only an hour before they had trusted.
A countless time of walking later, the dwarf stopped. Not looking around, he said to Elansa, "Lift the torch higher."
She did, illuminating what lay ahead. Like a small doorway, one all but Char would have to stoop to p
ass, the opening looked into a vast hall, wider and higher than the cavern under Hammer Rock. Soft, silvery illumination filled the opening, and beams of light shot down from high above.
"There are openings," Char said, "so high up you can only see the shafts of light but never the gaps in the stone roof. It comes down very far, that light, and that's why it’s so pale."
Doubtless that light would indeed seem pale when compared with the light of the outer world, yet it seemed glaring in this place where utter darkness reigned. Squinting against it, Elansa lowered the flaring torch. Over Char’s head, she saw a wonder beyond.
From the ceiling hung stalactites, some as thick as a human’s chest, others as fragile as the first icicle of winter. Up from the ground a forest of stalagmites reached, some not as high as Elansa’s shoulder, others so tall they touched the distant ceiling, making arches through which the outlaws could pass. Looking to the left, she saw, far along the wall, an opening to match the one behind. Another series of tunnels and passages ran behind that second entrance.
"The Hall of Reorx," Char said, his voice low with reverence as he spoke his god's name.
"Is it?" she asked. "Did the god make this?" Elansa looked at him curiously. "Is there lore among the dwarves about this place?"
Behind them others pressed. Elansa and the dwarf moved forward into the hall and out of the way.
"No," Char said. "No lore."
He walked ahead. She followed, and the light pouring down from above showed a floor that sloped gradually down in one smooth flow, as though a god had indeed crafted this place, shaping and burnishing the stone. Moisture glistened on the walls, on the stalactites and stalagmites, and this caught the light and enhanced it. Elansa saw glimpses of color in the stone—blue and red and pearly white, striations of black and green…
Char cocked his head, looking at her keenly. He seemed to relent, a little, of whatever grudge he'd conceived against her.
"No lore, but y’ can't think a god didn't have a hand in this."
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