Sandstorm (single books)

by Christopher Rowe

  But neither the wild-eyed jungle dwarves he’d known in the South nor the quieter ones he’d encountered since Azad had led them north prepared him for the pair that confronted him on the trail. Talid was an expert on arms and armor, so he knew a good word to describe the baroque angles and intricate details, infinitely impractical, of the bejeweled suits of armor these two white-beards wore. That word was “archaic.”

  As for the goliath fighter who loomed behind them, his mail shirt and enormous mattock struck Talid as infinitely practical.

  The dwarves were a little shorter than Talid, who was not a tall man, but their shoulders were twice the breadth of his. They wore full suits of plate, ridiculous off a military battlefield; certainly no soldier had designed them. The ores that went into their making-unrecognizable to Talid-bore a sheen so high that at first the Calishite thought their golden color reflected the late-afternoon sun. And the jewels!

  Cuirass and vambrace, hipguard and gauntlet, every surface that did not bear a spike or serration; all were fitted with a multifaceted ruby, sapphire, or emerald, and with other precious stones Talid didn’t know. They were clear in color, flaming orange, or royal purple, and none of them, no matter their hue, was smaller than the size of Talid’s eyes just then.

  But the demeanor the dwarves projected was not martial. Rather, it was haughty, confident, to be sure, and troubled at finding Talid standing there, not because he represented a threat but because he was a bothersome inconvenience. The attitude they wordlessly expressed reminded Talid of nothing so much as the windsouled genasi back in Calimport; he had seen them almost every day of the first five decades of his life, but they almost never saw him at all. Only the memory of that inhuman haughtiness kept him from shaking in fear as the huge warrior reached down and between the dwarves and relieved Talid of his spear.

  The dwarf who was not bearing a sword began to speak, but not to Talid, and not in any tongue he was familiar with. This ancient being bent almost double under the weight of the king’s ransom of precious stones woven into his enormous mustache. He leaned on a pair of canes that must have had wood or bone somewhere in their construction, but for all that Talid could tell, were cut straight from a vein of silver.

  The armed dwarf, whom Talid judged the younger one, startled the Calishite by speaking in perfectly accented Low Alzhedo, the language the slave classes in the Emirates used among themselves.

  “Legate Arnskull offers you a gift, though he must recognize that it is of little value. He offers you your life.”

  Talid was a liar and a thief. He was lazy, dishonorable, and, worst of all-in the eyes of the other women and men who’d followed Azad’s promises across a waterless hell-he was weak. But he was not a fool.

  “Please convey my thanks to the legate,” he said. “And please tell me what services I may rush to provide.”

  The next time Cephas woke in his cell, the woman leaning over him was not Grinta. He fought the urge to scramble back, to hold his arms in front of his face in a defensive position.

  The first time he’d ever seen one of the little people the other slaves called halflings, he’d mistaken the man for a human child and paid for the mistake when the man efficiently hamstrung him. Without a word, the man had then disappeared over the edge of the mote, the only slave to ever successfully escape Azad’s clutches.

  This woman-the lines beneath her eyes and the scars on her hands would never let anyone mistake her for a child-held a short sword beneath his chin. She gazed down at him with impenetrable brown eyes. He shifted his gaze left and saw that the woman was also standing beside his cell’s grillwork door.

  Before Cephas could decide whether he was dreaming or still seeing double from the blow to the head he’d taken on the cliff, the woman by the door flicked her right ring finger in a clear signal. The one standing above him leaned in, putting enough weight into the blade at his throat that Cephas felt his own blood flowing over his skin for the twentieth time in less than a day.

  The halfling woman placed her forefinger before her lips and breathed out. In the dying light of late afternoon, Cephas was able to recognize that she was not a perfect double of the one by the grill, though the resemblance was uncanny.

  The woman standing at his side lowered her hand and drew a cylindrical object from the pouch at her belt. Still moving in perfect silence, she handed this over to Cephas. It was a long sheet of some thin, fibrous material, and Cephas had a good idea what it was. Thinking of the tale of the Land-locked Marid, he gingerly unrolled the sheet. He whispered, without meaning to, “A scroll …”

  The sisters-for they were clearly such-exchanged a quick, confused glance. The one next to Cephas, who wore her chestnut-colored hair to her shoulders whereas her sister’s was cropped close to the scalp, eyed Cephas uncertainly. She twirled the fingers of her left hand-Cephas noted that her right held a dagger-mimicking his unfurling of the scroll in a faster pantomime.

  Complicated rows of black lines were inked onto the parchment. He showed the unrolled scroll to the women. “I’ve never held writing in my hands before,” he said, still unsure of their purpose but unable to believe they would give him a scroll and mean him harm.

  The sister closer to him opened her mouth and eyes wide, as clear an indication of surprise as any Cephas had ever seen on the canvas. In response, the other woman clapped her free hand against her forehead and shook her shoulders. Even though it was silent, Cephas recognized the halfling’s laughter.

  “You thought I would be able to read this,” he said. “And now you mock me because I cannot. But it’s no fault of mine. Azad says that letters are for the free. If you are free women, then read me what is written here.”

  They leveled long, inscrutable looks at each other. Then, as one, they kneeled before him and put their hands to the heavy scarves wrapped around their necks. As one, they lowered the scarves, and Cephas saw the flesh there was gray and lifeless. If these halfling sisters meant to mock him, they would have to find means other than taunts, for it was clear they had no voices.

  There was a dwarf among the caravan guards up from Saradush-a greasy-bearded spearman with evil breath-and Azad sent for the man to serve as a translator. He did not want to depend on the strange dwarf whose Alzhedo was too flawless for Azad’s liking. Luckily, the guard was more or less sober, but his usefulness proved limited.

  The man was awestruck by the pair, and, in any case, it grew apparent that the one Talid had claimed spoke only a Dwarvish tongue-this Legate Arnskull-had no plans to speak in Azad’s presence.

  “He ain’t likely to start any time soon, neither, sir,” said the spearman, running dirty fingers through his beard. It took Azad a moment to realize that the man was actually attempting to groom himself. “Look at them runes on the legate’s armor. Look at the pattern of the gems in his beard-sapphire, then garnet, then sapphire, then diamonds colored like chalcedony. Sir, that is a lord out of legend sitting on your pillows there-one of the high councilors of Iltkazar; a prince of Old Shanatar, and liegeman to the Clanless King.”

  The elderly dwarf with the mustache sat ignoring everyone in Azad’s quarters, sniffing at the plate of figs and dates Shaneerah had ordered brought, without deigning to let one pass his lips. Azad grabbed the caravan guard by the scruff of his neck and hauled him to his feet.

  The other strange dwarf, who had not given a name and chuckled when Shaneerah suggested that he sheathe his sword, watched the Calishite with undisguised interest, and not a little amusement. Azad reminded himself that these fools-whoever they were-had elected to come alone and barely armed into his place of power.

  He shoved the spearman toward the exit. Shaneerah, standing guard beside it, opened the cedarwood door and hurried the dwarf along with a curse and a kick. Azad turned to the supposed legate’s bondsman, and said, “Your finery impressed that fool. But that’s still not to prove the old man is some kind of ambassador from the dwarves who built this place. If you thought he might encounter the forces who took
the mote from your people, why would he come without an armed escort?”

  “The legate’s mission, freedman,” said the dwarf, still using the archaic dialect of Alzhedo that the djinn of the deserts favored, “is one of investigation and research. The outpost that was here when you and your people arrived was not sanctioned by our king, Mith Barak, and the outlaws who built it absconded from our caverns with several valuable machines we wish to recover. If these are still to be found among the equipment you have claimed, and should you maintain your refusal to simply wager the earthmote on the contest between our goliath servant and your champion, we will offer you salvage fees we believe you will find most reasonable.”

  Azad glanced at the older dwarf’s supposed badges of rank. Sapphire, then garnet, then diamond, the spearman said. Yes, these dwarves could afford to buy anything Azad might be willing to sell.

  “We put all the machines we’ve found to our own uses,” he said. “That’s why there is an arena for our fighters to meet upon. What if you’re after something we don’t wish to part with?”

  The bondsman said, “The legate considered this possibility when we heard of the … imaginative way in which you deploy the furlers and the taps. Not to worry.” From his sleeve, the dwarf drew forth a small book, the gilded clasp of which was crafted not only to lock the cover, but to hold an ebony stylus topped with a ruby the size of a robin’s egg. “Should you have found a use for the particular instruments we wish to retrieve, I will simply execute a schematic, and the legate will re-create the devices upon our return to Iltkazar. You have been here for twenty years, after all,” he added. “The machines have no doubt suffered in your unskilled hands.”

  “No doubt,” Azad agreed. “Which only leaves the question of why I shouldn’t let my dear wife relieve the legate of his enormously impressive mustache and send the two of you back to your holes with a warning to this clanless king that the next time he wants something from me, he should send a more impressive delegation.” Azad ran his hand over his own smooth chin. “The legate shouldn’t worry, of course. Shaneerah has a steady hand with a shaving razor.”

  The pleasant expression on the standing dwarf’s face did not change. “The fee for merely studying the machines, instead of taking them with us when we leave, is, of course, smaller.” He still held the unadorned short sword loose at his side and made no moves with it, not even the idle gestures that would normally accompany conversation.

  The old dwarf made a sign then. He waved the younger one over and indicated that he wanted to stand. The bondsman took one smooth step to his master, and, still not varying that loose, easy grip on his sword, extended his other arm. The legate made a wheezing noise as he pulled himself to his feet. The inelegant effort was painful to watch. He murmured something that reached only the younger dwarf’s ears.

  “The legate wishes to begin our inventory of the mote’s machinery,” said the bondsman. “The sun begins to set, and he does not like to sleep above ground.”

  The old dwarf produced a pair of silver canes, and began shuffling to the door, not even glancing in Azad’s direction. Azad started to speak, but to his surprise, Shaneerah interrupted him.

  “There is a stairway cut out of the ground a few paces to the left. It is the closest,” she said, swinging the door open. “Please wait for me there, and I will take you down to the winch below our quarters. I ask that you not go down alone-the man working the machine will draw on you if I do not accompany you. I will be there in a moment.”

  The legate never even slowed but simply hobbled through the door. Azad noted the old man did turn left, even though his bondsman had not offered a translation. The younger dwarf sketched a brief bow to Azad, then swept out the door.

  Shaneerah put a hand on his shoulder, and Azad leaned his head over to kiss her weathered fingers. “You mean to kill them in the narrow spaces where the works are housed?” he asked.

  His wife squeezed his shoulder, then withdrew her hand. “Oh, my husband,” she said, “did you never face any of the stout folk in the arena? Confine them in close quarters and they become twice as deadly. No, my love, your eye has grown dull if you believe that old man endangered himself coming here. I do not know what the one you called a ‘bondsman’ is, but I know my heart and head tell me he could kill us both with a thought.”

  Though Cephas was trained to always think of gladiatorial combat as a show for a paying audience before anything else, at heart he was a warrior-the moves he made that elicited the guttural cheers and savage hisses of the unlawful arena crowds were theatrical because they were the moves he knew best. The nature of the arena floor, with its variation and unexpected threats thrown against the combatants to thrill the bettors in the stands, demanded a fighting style that was almost as much flash as it was edge.

  So Cephas knew what a show was. But he had never seen one such as the halflings silently acted out in his cell.

  The women were clearly capable fighters. They had the wariness of eye and the grace of movement that the best Cephas ever faced possessed, and they handled their keen weapons with easy familiarity.

  But they were also storytellers.

  The short-haired halfling rolled her shoulders and bounced across the floor. She untied her short sword’s sheath from her belt and twisted the scabbard through the air, rolling it across the backs of her hands in a move that exactly mimicked the attack of a flail. She gave Cephas a haughty look, threw her shoulders back again, and stretched to her full height before putting her back to the wall opposite Cephas and sliding down to a seated position that mirrored his own.

  “I get it,” he said. “You’re me.”

  The other woman gave him a curt nod but again indicated that he should be silent. She was making a performance of her own. If the two women were different in stature, Cephas would not have guessed it. Yet the long-haired sister now seemed taller, bulkier, slower. This time, the loosened scabbard was not a fast-spinning flail, but some huge and heavy weapon, wielded with such ease, Cephas realized, because the halfling woman was meant to be some warrior even stronger than he was himself.

  The shorter-haired woman suddenly leaped to her feet, then leaped again in an arc that suggested a much greater distance than what she could truly achieve in the cramped space. Cephas felt the cell rock on its suspending chain, and he hoped no one outside would be curious about what caused the motion.

  That first leap was familiar to Cephas. It was a diminished version of the flying attack he had made against the omlarcat the day before. Had these women been in the audience?

  Then the other halfling-clearly not meant to be a cat but still some gigantic man spinning a polearm or greathammer-struck her sister a solid blow in the chest, knocking the woman to the floor. The hammer danced, and the woman holding it rushed to capitalize on the heavy strike she had just landed. Rise and fall, rise and fall, the hammer blows came down in such quick succession that Cephas could barely follow the moves. The halfling woman meant to be him avoided the strikes by twisting and turning on her back.

  Cephas started to speak, but the women anticipated his interruption. Simultaneously, they glared at him, even while they kept up the moves and feints of what made for a fierce gladiatorial game.

  His survival in the show-battle they were acting appeared in doubt. The short-haired sister simply stopped fighting, and, in an action conveying surrender, kneeled before her sister. The hammer rose again, but instead of striking a final time, the longer-haired woman gave her sister a friendly chuck on the shoulder. At this signal, the woman portraying him stood, then made a lightning-fast swing with her weapon directly at her sister’s head.

  The woman watched, raising no defense, and the flail swung wide. Now it was the short-haired woman who gave her sister a playful cuff. Both women spread their hands, dropped their weapons, and embraced each other.

  They turned to Cephas, eyebrows raised.

  “If I fight a giant with a hammer,” he said, “he is my friend. We should make a show, as
I did with the cat.”

  The long-haired woman gave Cephas a broad grin and stepped over to pat him on the head. Even her sister, who was clearly of a grimmer disposition, smiled briefly.

  “But why?” Cephas asked, ignoring their praise.

  The smiling sister picked her short sword up from where it lay on the floor. She held it straight up above her head in the manner of a triumphant warrior, then angled the tip back and dragged the point across the rafter above her. The noise was soft, but clear-a steady scratch of metal digging into wood, punctuated by a rhythmic tick every time the point passed through one of the 640 marks Cephas had gouged there with his thumbnail.

  As the halfling dragged her sword faster, the ticking sounds came closer and closer together until they made a steady hum; a hum that reminded Cephas of the song he had heard from the ground before Azad’s men struck him down. The woman was erasing all his past attempts to escape.

  “If I make a story out of a fight with this giant,” he said, “you will help me escape Jazeerijah?”

  Again, the smiling woman nodded.

  “When?” he asked.

  A roar rose from the arena. The first bouts, mastered by one of Azad’s lieutenants and featuring gangs of goblins fighting against merchants’ guards, had begun as the sun set. The short-haired woman jerked her head toward the noise.

  “Tonight?” Cephas asked.

  She nodded at him, then at her sister, who responded by gathering up their discarded sheaths and flipping her sister’s sword off the floor with the toe of her boot. The short-haired woman caught it and the scabbard that followed, then eased the grillwork door open. The cell had been unlocked the entire time.