by G. A. Aiken
They groaned and gasped into each other’s mouths, shuddering until they were drained completely and could do nothing more than collapse.
* * *
Quinn rolled away from Gemma so he didn’t lie on top of her. He couldn’t believe he was covered in sweat and was panting as if he’d just run a hard race.
Thankfully, he wasn’t alone. Gemma was beside him, also panting and sweating; her legs splayed wide open. For a brief moment, he thought she’d fallen asleep. Until she asked, “Want some bread?”
“What?”
“Hungry? I’m starving.” She closed her legs and sat up, stretching her arms over her head and yawning.
“After that you’re . . . hungry?”
“Yes.” She held out a loaf of bread to him. “You should eat too.”
“Why?”
“Because when we’re done eating, we’re going to do it again. Probably a few times. It’s been a while for me.” She raised a brow at him. “You knew that, right?”
He took the bread from her. “Uh . . . no?”
“Well, it’s called war monk stamina,” she explained. “It exists.”
“Oh. Great.”
“Don’t worry, centaur,” she promised, leaning down to kiss him. “I’ll make it worth every bit of sleep you lose.”
CHAPTER 25
Setting up this meeting with the dwarves on their way to Cyrus’s camp had been Keeley’s idea. One Caid and Laila had not supported. But she knew she needed Mundric’s help.
She’d sent a messenger ahead to ask Mundric to meet her at a halfway spot between their two kingdoms. An underground dwarven location since he was doing her a favor. From her talks with Mundric two years ago, she knew this cavern had its own massive forge.
She’d been planning to meet with the dwarves long before she’d thought she’d have to face off against Cyrus but the sudden change in her situation had pushed up the schedule, forcing her to send her army ahead while she headed to the mountain range.
Grinning as she caught sight of him, she opened her arms and hugged King Mundric. The king held still.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Hugging you.”
“Dwarves don’t hug.”
“Well, I do.” She pulled back, ignoring the stares she was getting from his retinue of soldiers and advisors. “I’m just so glad to see you!”
“You are?” he asked.
“You are?” Caid asked.
“Yes,” she replied to everyone. “I like you.”
“You do?” the king asked.
“You do?” Caid repeated.
“Both of you stop that!” Keeley snapped.
Mundric glanced behind her and gave a barely there nod to the centaurs. Although the races of the Amichai Mountains weren’t remotely friendly to one another, they were loyal when it came to keeping their lands safe from humans. Keeley had the loyalty of the centaurs and the dwarves, and with their aid she hoped to keep out King Marius, but Beatrix had the elves. And so far, neither of the sisters had the loyalty of the barbarians. Then again, no one had the loyalty of the barbarians.
“I heard you’ve been working with the stonemason dwarves,” Mundric said.
“I have. My uncle Archie knows them.”
“A lot of them are my cousins.”
“I’ll try to be nicer to them then.”
“You don’t have to. I don’t like my stonemason cousins.”
Gripping his walking stick, Mundric asked, “So why are you here, human Queen? I thought you would only call on my army when you had to face off against King Marius. Is that happening?”
“No. I have a problem with his brother. Cyrus the Honored.”
“The Religion Killer, you mean.”
Keeley stopped walking. “You know about him?”
“Everyone knows about him.”
“And yet you weren’t planning to do anything about him?”
“Human religions aren’t my concern.” Mundric chuckled. “You look so disappointed in me.”
“Because I am. You can’t just ignore what’s going on around you because it’s happening to humans and you don’t like humans. Isn’t that a little simplistic?”
“I like simplistic. And no more speeches, human Queen. What do you want from me if it’s not my army?”
Keeley pulled her hammer out from the holster secured to her back. She held it in front of him.
“A better hammer?” he asked.
“No!” She held her hammer to her chest. “I love my hammer. And it loves me.”
“This just got so strange,” she heard Caid mutter behind her.
“The question is, does she love you more than that hammer?” Laila asked.
Keeley swung her hammer around until she could point it at the two centaurs behind her. “Are you two done?”
“If we must be,” Laila teased.
“Anyway,” Keeley went on, bringing her hammer back around and holding it between her hands, “I need your help with my hammer. You see, Cyrus has stolen a lot of artifacts from the human religious sects he’s destroyed. He and his wizards have apparently combined the artifacts to somehow create a protective barrier around himself that magicks cannot penetrate.”
“Is that why you’re the one who’s going to kill him? Because there’s nothing magickal about you?”
“Yes. Well,” she added, “that and he sent assassins for me. That was just rude. Didn’t even face me himself.” She let out a breath to release her anger. “Anyway, I don’t think I can have anything magickal on me when I face him. At least that’s what the magickal ones around me have told me. So I need you to make this hammer more powerful without making it magickal. So it’s magickal without being magickal. Understand?”
“Of course I understand.”
“You understood that?” Caid questioned.
“There’s only one here with the skill to help you.” Mundric started walking. “Come along, Queen Keeley. You two wait here.”
“Keeley,” Caid called out.
“I’ll be fine.”
“You’d better be,” her centaur warned.
* * *
Back in his kilt and chainmail, Quinn gulped his tea and ate his fried boar while the rest of the travel party stumbled into the dining room, glaring at the sun blasting through the tall windows and cursing the days they were born.
He’d warned them not to drink too much wine, but they hadn’t listened, and now here they were. The only one who seemed unaffected was the Abbess and he’d watched her put quite a few glasses away last night before he’d left for Gemma’s room. And yet she’d entered the dining room with her usual rosy cheeks, bright eyes, and soft steps as if nothing bothered her.
“Brightest day, all,” she greeted, her hands tucked into her white robes.
“Is the yelling necessary, Your Holiness?” Balla barked.
“Are we sure those servants didn’t poison the wine?” little Priska asked, her head cradled in both hands. “Because I think . . .” She moved her hands to her mouth, then bolted from the room.
“I have something to soothe the stomach,” the Abbess proposed.
“I thought you’d want us to suffer,” Ima said into the table since that’s where her head rested at the moment.
“Perhaps on another day. But we have far to go and I must travel with all of you. I’d prefer not to spend all my time tiptoeing my horse around your vomit.”
The Abbess stood. “I’ll get my bag.”
“Morning!” Gemma exclaimed as she swooped into the room, her grin wide. The servants, despite her misstep the evening before, had done a fine job of cleaning her white tunic and chainmail. She fairly sparkled. “How is everyone this fair morning?”
“You’re in a much better mood,” the Abbess noted.
“I am in a much better mood. How good of you to notice.” She clapped her hands together and Quinn briefly feared everyone was going to attack her. “Now, we are on the road within the hour. Be ready. Where’
s the vicar?”
“I’m here, Brother Gemma!”
“Vicar!”
“Brother!”
Father Aubin slammed his fist on the table. “If everyone does not stop yelling—”
“You’re the only one yelling, Father Aubin.” Gemma motioned to the vicar. “I want to see that map of the Old King’s castle.”
She took one of the scrolls from the vicar’s hands and, after moving the plates of food and chalices aside, she spread it out. They all leaned over the parchment, studying it closely.
“We don’t know what changes your sister has made since she’s moved in there,” Quinn reminded Gemma as they studied the detailed maps.
“So when we get in, we find someone to help us out.”
She rolled up the scroll and handed it back to the vicar. “Everyone get your things. We go. Now.”
Quinn caught her arm but waited until everyone else left the room. When they were alone, he kissed her, then shoved a piece of toasted bread into her mouth before reminding her that “this isn’t about killing Beatrix.”
Gemma swallowed a large gulp of tea from Quinn’s cup before asking, “Why do you and my sister keep saying that to me?”
“Oh, come on, Gemma. Why do you think?”
* * *
Keeley watched Queen Vulfegundis, master blacksmith of her guild, work on Keeley’s hammer.
Every once in a while, Keeley would tear her eyes away from the beauty of watching a true master at her craft, simply to smile at Vulfegundis’s husband, Mundric.
Using only metals the dwarves had mined themselves over the eons and a heat so powerful Keeley couldn’t even stand as close as she wanted without worrying about losing skin, the dwarven queen added layers to Keeley’s hammer again and again until, finally, she took it off to a table with several other dwarf women, where they spent another two hours on it.
Keeley couldn’t see what they were doing but she patiently waited.
When Vulfegundis finally returned, she casually held the hammer in one hand. No fancy pillow held the weapon. No massive giant covered in jewels walked it toward Keeley while musicians played dramatic music. It was just the queen, walking along, occasionally swinging the hammer to ensure she still liked the weight.
“Yeah,” she said when she was near. “This should do you quite nicely. At least until I have time to make you something decent. Not that there’s anything wrong with this. I mean, for a human, you did a pretty okay job. Excellent for a human, really. Now all I did was . . . you all right, luv?”
Keeley couldn’t hear her, though. She was too busy looking at her hammer. The hammer that now glowed like some fabled weapon held by a god. Her knees buckled and the king’s guard caught her and helped her sit on a bench before she could hit the floor.
“You didn’t feed her, Mundric?”
“We ate! I fed her while we waited and gave her drink too. I don’t know what’s wrong with her. I hope it isn’t catching. You know how diseased these humans are. A sniffle and before you know it, they’ve spread a plague that wipes out half the earth!”
“I’m fine,” Keeley said. “I’m fine. It’s just . . .”
Keeley forced herself to raise her eyes to the dwarven royals.
“I’ve just never seen anything so beautiful, Queen Vulfegundis.”
The queen looked down at the hammer. “You mean this?”
Keeley reached out to touch it but was afraid her hands were too dirty.
“Such exquisite workmanship. I can only dream of ever being this good.”
“That’s the truth,” the king muttered. “Owwww! Watcha hit me for, female?”
Vulfegundis placed the hammer into Keeley’s hands. “Take it. And give it a few practice swings.”
She pulled Keeley to her feet. “I’ll be right back.”
The queen rushed off and Keeley closed her eyes and took several breaths. She did that so she wouldn’t burst into tears. She knew the dwarves would be shocked and disgusted by such a display from a blacksmith. But the beauty of what she held . . . How could they not understand? Were they simply so used to having such beautiful things lying around? How spoiled they all were.
Determined to do what she would do with any weapon that had been modified, Keeley held the hammer in her hand. She held it at her side for a few moments, then she began to swing it a few times. Just as quickly she stopped, turning in astonishment to the king.
“How . . . how did she make it lighter? She didn’t remove anything, but she made it lighter.”
“Are you going to be all right? You look like ya might pass out. Don’t pass out.”
“I won’t. I promise I won’t.” Keeley took control and again focused on the king. “Got anything I can hit?”
The king and his guards all moved back, leaving just one poor bloke standing there.
The dwarf’s eyes grew wide and he shook his head. “That beast of a woman’s not hitting me!”
The king rolled his eyes. “Not you, idiot! Move!”
The idiot scrambled out of the way, revealing a large block of stone that had come up directly from the ground where it still stood. It had to be thousands of years old, and since it had never been destroyed despite its proximity to all these busy dwarves, Keeley assumed that it couldn’t be.
“Perfect,” Keeley said.
She stood in front of the stone and loosened up her shoulders; took a few practice swings with her hammer. When she felt comfortable, she grabbed the weapon’s handle with both hands, swung it back, delighting in how easy it was now that the hammer was just a bit lighter.
Grinning, Keeley swung the hammer forward just as she heard “wait!” in the distance, but it was too late. Her arm was already in motion and the distance was simply too short to pull back in time.
The hammer hit the stone and Keeley had to shut her eyes as it exploded into a thousand shards. Pieces of rock cut her face and neck, her bare arms and hands.
Keeley stumbled back and immediately began to shake the stone dust from her hair, terrified to open her eyes.
“What the fuck did you do to her hammer?” she heard Mundric yell.
“Not nearly as much as you think, ya dumb bastard!” Vulfegundis yelled back.
Hands grabbed Keeley and led her to another bench. Stone shards and dust were brushed away from her face and eyes so that she could finally see again.
“I am so sorry,” she said when she could look at the king and queen.
“Not your fault, darlin’ girl,” Vulfegundis said. “It was this old fool.”
“I didn’t know you made my hammer so powerful.”
Vulfegundis laughed. “That wasn’t the hammer. That was you.”
“But . . .”
“All I did was use our metals to make it lighter, so you don’t have to put as much power behind your swings and so that human magicks can’t destroy it. Oh! And it can absorb magicks. Can’t really do anything with them, but it’ll keep them off you during a fight.” She shrugged. “But that was it.”
Keeley pointed at the designs. “But these runes.”
“Old dwarf runes. I think they look nice, and the sight will terrify your human mages. But that’s about it. Didn’t want to use anything truly magickal.”
Now Keeley pointed at where the ancient rock had once stood. “Then how did I . . .”
“Since you were exerting less power to swing the hammer, you had more power to unleash on the stone, which me husband should have known.”
“How was I supposed to know that?”
“Just look at her! That’s ages of blacksmith breeding there! Och!” She dismissed the king with a wave. “Be careful with that hammer now,” she warned Keeley. “Until you get used to it. Understand?”
Keeley nodded. Still in shock.
“And I wanted to give you this.” She handed over chainmail, but it was not made of steel. “Don’t worry. It’s not magickal either. Should fit you well enough. Well, it might be tight in the shoulders, but it’ll do you a
bit better than that centaur shit you’ve currently got on.”
“Be nice. They made this for me.”
Vulfegundis snorted, but Keeley couldn’t be too mad at the queen. Not after the hammer.
“How do I ever repay you for this?”
“Your firstborn,” Vulfegundis replied. But when Keeley’s eyes grew wide in panic, Vulfegundis laughed and said, “I’m only kidding. I wouldn’t want that half-centaur baby. No one would.”
“I’ve had such a lovely day—I’m going to go before you ruin it.”
“Okay. Try not to get killed.”
Knowing that was the best she would ever get out of the dwarves, Keeley simply nodded and returned to Caid and Laila with her new treasures.
* * *
Gemma didn’t know why she bothered to hide her tunic under her cape. Several religious factions had come to King Marius’s territory for protection, and they wore their robes and colors quite boldly. And she doubted she’d find her sister out here among the rabble. Beatrix barely associated with the people she’d grown up with all her life, including her own family. It was doubtful she’d care to meet the peasants lucky enough to be allowed near the castle where she slept.
But Gemma still kept the hood of her cape pulled low over her face just in case. No use taking risks this late in the game.
On the last two days of their ride here, they’d come up with a plan. Perhaps not the best plan but a plan nonetheless. It was better than nothing and it would do for now.
Gemma tugged on Quinn’s sleeve. “Where’s my sister?” she asked.
“Keeley?” he whispered back.
“No!” She couldn’t believe he’d utter that name here. Now. Was he mad?
“Ainsley. I just realized we didn’t really give her a task, and we should give her something to do.”
Quinn didn’t stop walking but his head dropped.
“What?”
“Ainsley’s with your sister. Kee—”
She snapped her fingers to stop him from saying that name. “She is?”
“Yes. She asked you both which sister she should go with, and you both ignored her, so she decided where she should go herself.”