Beguiler

by Maxx Whittaker

“Sorcha,” repeated Kenna.

  Sorcha was near as tall as Witt; this surprised Bannock. He started to ask, then decided he wasn’t ready to offend anyone just yet.

  “Are you a necromancer?” asked Sorcha.

  “No,” said Bannock.

  She nodded to Witt. “Then why’s he all bones?”

  “I’m not bones,” declared Witt, pulling up a sleeve. “That’s muscle.”

  “Aye. Sure it is.” Sorcha grinned. “Why don’t you use that muscle to be a gentleman and help a girl carry some ore buckets?”

  “Sorcha wants to know if your squire can go with them,” said Kenna when Bannock didn’t agree.

  “Oh. He’s not my squire.”

  “What he means is yes,” said Witt, following Sorcha down side stairs.

  Kenna tipped her chin after them. “I think it’s a good idea. Dwarves his age have few companions, and he seems most effective when he’s… occupied.”

  “Understatement.” Bannock listened to the activity below. “What’s all the work?”

  “Preparations.” She waved him down an earthen ramp and into a long hall, part armory and part haphazard storeroom. High tables jutted out from the walls at intervals, workbenches set with jeweler’s tools, gilding paint, or wirecraft materials. Trails of steam drifted through a doorway at the far end, hinting at labor beyond.

  “Isibeal!” shouted Kenna.

  “Aye! Hold your skirts down.” She came back-end first through the door, dragging what Bannock could only identify as half a mechanical bear.

  “Maddhageal! I’ve missed you nigh on a week!” The dwarf woman turned and shoved up a pair of goggles, leaving bronze rings in the soot of her face. Bannock liked the way it made her blue eyes stand out, framed by black tendrils escaping the pile atop her head.

  “You can blink. Or speak,” murmured Kenna. “They’re just like people!”

  “It isn’t that!” he hissed back. Well, it was that, but not only that. “I expected… shorter. Thicker.” According to stories he expected indistinguishably male.

  Kenna was unsympathetic. “Have you ever seen a dwarf before?”

  “Once. Six very ancient, pickled dwarves.”

  “Oh, well. When you’re seven-hundred years old, I’ll come take a swing at your looks. Dwarves are like everyone else; the younger the handsomer. And not much shorter than you or me. Well,” she gave Bannock a long once-over. “Me.”

  It was true. Isibeal reached Kenna’s shoulder, and despite her height, she was long-legged, lean and muscled. A leather apron and leggings over linen underclothes made her look more like a warrior than a smith.

  “What’s this you’ve brought?” Isibeal asked in her lilting brogue. It took Bannock a moment to understand this was him. “Aegalund! Come see this absolute beast Kenna’s brought.”

  The rhythmic ping-thump of a hammer stopped.

  Aegalund stuck her head around the door. Her eyes widened and she sauntered in, standing with Isibeal. Unlike her companion, Aegalund was dark, midnight skin sheened with sweat and blade oil. Thick black hair was caught up from her crown in a scarlet headwrap, falling to her shoulders.

  Aegalund wrinkled her small nose. “I thought you meant a proper animal…”

  Bannock recognized her accent as that of the coastal lowlands, syllables long and rich.

  “I’m sorry.” Kenna unslung her pack and handed it to Isibeal. “Market prices are absolute robbery with the stalemate. I got what I could; the rest I skipped. Better to have coin in pocket for when this is over, right?”

  Isibeal tested the bag’s weight and shrugged. “Is what it is. Winter garden’s stowed away in the undercroft and the meat stores will hold for now. Our wee bairns have not gone hungry yet.”

  Children?

  No, Bannock groaned. He was going to do it. His arm bent of its own will, or the will of some vengeful god. Words came from his mouth, but they weren’t his; he was possessed.

  “Here, see what good you can do with this.” And he set one-hundred crowns in Isibeal’s hand like he hadn’t spent months of blood, sweat, sanity and whatever horrible thing Witt had done to get them.

  Bannock glanced at Kenna and caught her smirking.

  “Plucked those strings, did she?”

  “That’s enough from you,” he muttered.

  Isibeal handed the purse off to Aegalund, her smile radiant. “Kenna always brings the best gifts.”

  “I actually need a few gifts from you,” said Kenna, giving him a dark look. “Bannock is taking the contract on the Guild.”

  “Comely and mad.” Isibeal’s mouth cocked up. “I like that.”

  “He needs a bath, a decent weapon and something to wear besides this dress.”

  “I always wonder at the Church,” said Aegalund, leaning against Isibeal and taking him in, “dressing their warriors in gowns with bald spots and little books.”

  “Aye,” said Isibeal. “I say full naked! Bastard sword. Inked everywhere including his gem pouch.

  Bannock rested a hand over his gem pouch.

  “And flames…” She drew out the word. “Flames shootin’ from his eyes. Followers like that? That’s the god I want to worship!”

  “Sounds like the Inquisition,” said Bannock, clutching his cassock dearly for the first time ever.

  “Oh. Ugh.” Isibeal and Aegalund made disgusted faces. “Good point, that. They need some competition, though. I stand by my description.”

  “Have you got tattoos?” asked Aegalund, sizing him up.

  “One...um, one or two.”

  Kenna backed away. She was fighting not to laugh, and Bannock murdered her with his eyes for it. “We had an encounter with a köttätare, and there’s no telling what someone’s over-enthusiastic squire might have dragged along.”

  “Not my squire.”

  “I’ll keep look-out while you get him kitted,” finished Kenna. “Oh!” She turned back in the doorway and pulled a letter from her cloak. “Can I leave this for Coradin? For the next time he passes through.”

  “Course!”

  “Thanks.” Kenna left without giving him another glance.

  Isibeal took the letter to one of the workbenches and opened a small door riveted to the stone. When she opened it, Bannock glimpsed three or four others waiting inside.

  “Coradin not been through for a while?”

  Why did he care? Who was Coradin?

  “Oh, rangers. Come and go like the wind.” It wasn’t really an answer.

  A red-headed woman with a face like Isibeal’s stuck her head through the doorway. “I heard there was a bit o’ climbin’ to be done…”

  Bannock couldn’t help notice she was looking at him when she said this.

  “Igrainne, you’d make a whore blush!” shouted Isibeal, digging through a cabinet.

  Igrainne stuck her tongue out one corner of her mouth, hypnotizing him, and winked.

  “Not a lot of menfolk around,” he observed nervously.

  “Or men of any sort,” said Aegalund, tucking a handful of rivets into a pouch on her belt.

  “It’s been a drought.” Isibeal came out of the cabinet and turned to give her sister a sharp look. Igrainne didn’t go.

  “We had a run a’ gnomes, few years back.”

  “Gnomes!” shouted Aegalund. “Two bangs on the anvil and a goodnight. No thank you.”

  “Wish those fingers tinkered with my gadgets half as much as his,” agreed Igrainne.

  Bannock had the sense of being present for some secret ritual no man was meant to witness. Did they forget he was here?

  “Oh now!” shouted Isibeal, scooping up an armload of supplies. “Dwarf men are like no other, and I’ll not have you two cats in heat suggestin’ otherwise.”

  She looked right at Bannock, confirming he’d not been forgotten. “Short men have better leverage; that’s just a fact. And they’re endowed to drive spikes. But after a hundred years or so of war, there’s about five to go around.”

  “I’m very sorry f
or your loss,” he managed through a dry throat.

  Isibeal grinned and nudged him as she passed. “Not as sorry as you may be in a bit. Come on.”

  “I wouldn’t go anywhere alone with her if I were you!” shouted Aegalund when he was out in the passage. Her laughter coupled with Igrainne’s and chased his descent like a premonition for a good stretch. Bannock didn’t think he’d been this nervous around women since he was sixteen.

  “Here we are,” said Isibeal, dropping her load in the doorway of a roughly circular chamber. Its pitted, ore-red ceiling dripped with condensation. A dragon’s breath of steam rose from a bubbling pool in the center.

  Bannock caught his reflection in the relative stillness of a shallow edge. He saw what Kenna meant. “Do you have a razor tucked away here somewhere?”

  Isibeal drew a small knife from her belt. “Sharp enough to shave the shine off bone.”

  “That should do.” Bannock took the knife and waited.

  She didn’t leave.

  “Are you –”

  Isibeal snapped a length of brown twine between her fingers. “I’m waitin’ to measure. And I’m not measurin’ you in that great sack.”

  Heat and moisture made the burlap itch. Its coarse nails dug his injury and Bannock wondered when he’d contracted such a severe case of modesty. The newest of old wounds, maybe.

  He tugged off the robe and threw it aside.

  “Now, or after?” asked Isibeal, looking him over with tape ready.

  Bannock didn’t hear the question at first; he watched a bead of water form in the hollow of her throat and lick a path down her chest where it disappeared below the line of her apron.

  “Why not both?” he asked. “How does it go? Measure twice, cut once.”

  “You’ll work me to death measurin’ you so,” she said, closing the distance.

  They fought hands, Bannock’s fingers stumbling over the straps of her apron, the ties on her leggings.

  Isibeal’s cord bit his flesh, except when she could use it as a snare to trip up his efforts.

  Bannock saved the goggles for last, pushing them off her head and freeing a wild tumble of dark curls.

  Isibeal tugged down his braes and smiled. “I don’t know what you kenned was goin’ to happen. I just meant to help you shave…”

  Bannock stepped backward into the water. “I don’t know what kind of man you take me for. I just wanted someone to hold the mirror.” He tugged Isibeal in after him.

  “Hold the mirror,” she chided, taking the knife from him. “And if I did, you’d go off and tell the Midlanders what shite hospitality the duwende have. Sit yourself,” she pushed him onto a lip beneath the surface with a small shove.

  The water bubbled around them like a cauldron, heat easing his muscles and igniting old wounds. Isibeal’s thighs were cool by comparison when she climbed into his lap, straddling him.

  Her full, high breasts clung to the skin of his chest. Bannock cupped her waist and tried to pull her closer. Isibeal fought the effort, gripping his wrists and laying his arms along the pool’s rough rim.

  “I don’t need that. I know how to take care of myself.”

  Absolved, Bannock leaned back his head and closed his eyes.

  Isibeal leaned back; her shifting weight ground their bodies together and he grunted.

  “One or two tattoos, aye.” She laughed, breath soft and cool against his damp skin. Her fingernail traced the shape of the raven on his left breast, raking a trail down his arm. He knew each tattoo by where her fingers stopped.

  She brushed a length of his right bicep; the banner of his father’s house.

  Ad Utrumque Paratus; Isibeal traced the phrase marked along a corded white scar beneath his heart.

  “What’s it say?”

  Bannock opened his eyes. “Prepared for Both.” Life or Death.

  Isibeal made a sound of approval. When she scooped water and raised her hands to her face, he saw the markings down both arms. A runic wolf, braided knotwork.

  “They’re a history,” she said, wetting his face.

  His or hers? Both, he guessed.

  Isibeal raised up to reach the soap and their bodies fit together.

  Bannock swore; she froze on her knees, breast damp against his cheek. He kissed her skin and drank in the sensation of another body around his.

  The sensation had almost faded when she settled in his lap, pushing him deeper.

  Isibeal leaned her forehead against his and they panted together. “I’m good with my hands, but this is a wee bit of risk…”

  Bannock ran his hands over her and smiled, eyes half closed. “That’s my favorite word.”

  Isibeal lathered her hands. She cradled his face and massaged the lemon-tannic suds into his beard.

  Bannock was aware of her strong fingers, her soft thighs against his hips, her body around him, hotter than the water.

  She brought the knife over his face in short, slow passes. On the third or fourth stroke she circled her hips.

  A groan tore from him.

  When she’d finished, Isibeal cupped more water and rinsed his face. Heat stung his sensitive skin and the brush of her fingers was electric.

  He gripped her hips. Isibeal threaded arms around his neck, head in the crook of his shoulder. Strands of dark hair tangled across his lips as they writhed against each other, shrouded in steam.

  She clung to him, cried out against his throat and her body strangled release from him before he was ready. But it was enough; nothing profound or complicated. Just enough.

  Isibeal pulled away, eyes bright and a soft ruddy flush painting the tops of her cheeks. She raised her arms behind her head and invited him to fondle her breasts one last time before she stood up.

  “I think it’s a shame you’re passing through,” she said, climbing from the pool.

  Bannock couldn’t move yet. Instead he watched her go, admiring her backside when she bent for her clothes. “I think the real shame is that dwarf men don’t shave.”

  She laughed and threw him a cloth. “But now you know why they grow their plaits in the first place.”

  When he got to his feet, she raised her measuring tape. “Think it’s safe to try again?”

  He gave her the most serious face he could manage after what they’d shared. “I wouldn’t tell you if it wasn’t.”

  -Eighteen-

  Bannock shrugged under the armor’s weight. Damn, but it felt good.

  Isibeal stood back to admire their handiwork.

  “Now that’s a proper warrior,” said Aegalund, circling him.

  “Not yet…” Igrainne held out the sword she’d been holding. “It’s not beautiful, but it’s the best-crafted weapon in the north.”

  Bannock gripped it. The sword was shorter than he was used to, but the blade was perfectly balanced.

  “Where’s my beggar?” asked Kenna, intruding.

  When Bannock turned, she stopped smiling and stared. “Well. You’re not entirely hideous.”

  “Not once he’s had a proper shave,” murmured Isibeal, jostling him as she passed.

  Kenna raised a brow.

  Bannock shrugged. What could he say? It was the best shave he’d ever had.

  “Who brought this here?” Bannock wheeled at the voice, but so did everyone else and that gave him pause.

  The woman was a little taller than Aegalund, but there was no doubt the two were related. Soft creases winged her dark eyes, and she kept her hair shorn to a thick velvet atop her head, but otherwise their features were copies.

  She held up his Crusader sword. “Is this yours, amuigh? This soul-eating blade?”

  Outsider. He felt the sting of her word as sharply as the look Kenna was giving him.

  “I carry it, but it’s not mine.”

  “He’s come to help with the gosselin, Fara,” said Aegalund.

  “Where did you get that?” asked Kenna, still staring at the weapon in mild horror.

  “Witt found it in the mara slough.” />
  “This is an evil that should never cross the threshold of the duwende’s halls. There’s no reason noble enough to carry such a thing,” said Fara.

  “It’s a clue,” said Bannock, refusing to be shamed out-of-hand. “To what, I haven’t sorted out. Witt found the dead Crusader between two empty sets of High Inquisitor armor.”

  Fara looked unmoved, but Kenna chewed her lip. “So, the Crusader was dead, but not the Inquisitors?”

  “I can’t prove that, and Witt has no idea, but my gut tells me…” Bannock nodded. “What were they doing this far north? Did they kill the Church’s knight, or something else? I feel like that sword is part of a bigger clue. I just can’t figure out what they were up to.”

  “I can.” Kenna stared at the sword with disgust. “It’s an old ritual. A mara copulates with a dead victim. She eventually births a demon and the mara hive feed on it, increasing their power. In lore, mages and diabalists would hunt the impregnated mara; if the offspring were cut from her it was a kind of...blank. A demonic template to be formed as the possessor desired.”

  Igrainne made a retching sound. “That’s a shade horrific.”

  “Rather than hunt one, the Inquisition decided to make their own,” guessed Bannock.

  “Hazardous to his companions. They had to restrain him, lure the mara into shallow water, and catch her after. They didn’t do so well. Arrogant, only sending two,” said Kenna.

  “Arrogant sums them up completely. What the hell were they making?” He exchanged looks with her.

  “What’s this far north that the Inquisition would care about?”

  “Witches,” said Isibeal. “They’re after the witches.”

  “Imagine a mara’s cunning, stealth, and appetite melded to a Crusader’s zealotry.” Kenna shook her head.

  It fit together for Bannock at last. “A hound. The Inquisition were ridding themselves of Church competition while making a witch-hunting hound from a demon.”

  “Sounds like they failed,” said Aegalund.

  “That never stops them,” he muttered. “What does keep them at bay is goblins.” He felt frost settle over the room. “They’re the only creature I can think of not interested in religious politics and not forced to treat with the Inquisition’s dominance. They might be the last race with some kind of upper hand.”