Chapter Sixteen
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Standing in the grimy street amid the rank smells and the flimsy buildings of Dewfield, Bannor tried to scream to Sarai with his eyes. He found his efforts unsuccessful. With the two elf guardsmen watching so closely, any change in his expression would allow them to see his fear. Sarai continued walking toward him. They hadn’t seen her yet.
These elves would drag Sarai back to Malan. Unless he wanted to start a war between Ivaneth and the Malanians, he would have to let them.
Eyes narrowed, the white-haired elf asked, “Have you heard of him?”
“A garrison captain you say?” Bannor spoke loudly, hoping Sarai would overhear. “Traipsing around with an ELF woman?”
The guard winced and wiggled a finger in his ear. “What’s the matter with you, Human? Have you heard of him or not?”
Bannor felt not only the elves attention, but the people gathered outside the sundries shop and the two taverns. Most of them were questionable characters that he would have preferred not notice him. Some of those people knew Bannor was a garrison captain. Flogged, either way he leaned.
I wish I could control my power better. I’d simply tell her without them hearing.
Sarai kept on. The breeze riffled her silvery hair. The sight of her made him dizzy. His stomach tightened. He couldn’t—wouldn’t allow her to be taken away.
“Well?” The guardsman prompted.
“In Blackwater, they hung a man who had an elf with him.” Bannor spoke for Sarai’s ears.
The elves frowned. What’s the matter with her? She hadn’t slowed.
The other guard leaned forward. “You’re certain? They hung him?”
“Certain.” Bannor locked eyes with him.
“Why?”
Bannor’s throat constricted. Memories of Blackwater made a wave of heat rush through him. “Killed a man trying to rape his girlfriend.”
“Someone tried to—rape—” The elf almost choked. “The woman?”
“So I hear.”
Sarai stopped a pace behind the guards. Bannor forced himself to stay relaxed. From the corner of his eye, he surveyed what the townsfolk were doing. At least five pairs of eyes looked interested in him and the elves. He’d keep an ear open in case opportunity made someone bold.
He tried not to meet Sarai’s eyes. What is she planning?
“He was executed for defending an elf?” the guard’s voice sounded strained.
“Some humans are sheep,” Sarai said. She lunged. Before either guard could move, Whitehair’s sword came free of the sheath with a shriek.
They turned on Sarai. She dropped into a crouch. Mithril-steel glinted in her hand.
Bannor drew his axes and moved. One never knew an elf’s level of skill. They might have practiced a weapon for only a summer or as long as a century.
A dagger appeared in Whitehair’s hand. His eyes widened. “Arminwen—!” He stopped and restrained the other elf. “Garech, des noth!”
Garech lowered his weapon.
Sarai nodded to them. Her sword stayed readied. “Praelor Vindae, Midach Garech, We trust your families are well.”
Bannor gritted his teeth. A praelor commanded an elven unit. He moved to stand by Sarai. He wouldn’t make the mistake of making these two nervous by standing behind them. Both elves looked pale. They feared for their lives.
The praelor bowed. “Arminwen, what are you—”
“Obviously, Vindae, We have your sword. You will go back to Father and tell him to recall his trackers. We will return when it suits Us.”
Vindae swallowed, obviously weighing his options. “We cannot—”
Sarai stiffened. “You will, Praelor. Is your midach so good he can bring Us down without killing?” The elves dropped their gazes. “I thought not. Give Us your sheath.” She elbowed Bannor. “We have not owned a good sword for over a season.”
The praelor frowned, but did as she ordered.
“The bow and quiver too. We’ve been making due with an orc bow.” Her lip curled.
Vindae reddened. “Liar human, making Her use vermin’s weapons!”
“You speak out of turn, Praelor!” she snapped.
Sarai’s tone made Bannor twitch, the guardsmen too. If he’d seen this side of her first, he’d have thought there was no gentleness in the princess. Vindae mumbled in elvish and dropped the bow and quiver.
Sarai’s eyes glittered. “Actually, Vindae, he did kill a rapist in Blackwater. They also hung Bannor. Our One does not die easily.” She smiled at their surprised expressions. “You can tell Father that too.”
“Arminwen—You have recognized him?”
Vindae stressed the word recognized. That affectionate term ‘One’ had meant more than Bannor realized. He checked the street and locked eyes with a few villagers. They made a wider circuit around them.
“He is Our One, Praelor.” She gestured. “Go now. Tell Mother that We love her, Father, too.”
The guards studied him. Soon, every elf in Malan would know what he looked like. Cosmodarus might be the only safe place left now.
They watched the elves walk off. When they both were gone, Sarai picked up the praelor’s weapons.
Bannor gripped her shoulder. His heart still hadn’t slowed. “Little Star, was that wise?”
Sarai adjusted the sword belt on her hips. She didn’t speak until she’d discarded the orc bow and quiver and had replaced them with the elvish ones. “I prefer those messengers to Mazerak.”
“Your father will send guardsmen regardless of what you said.”
Her eyes flashed. “I know, Bannor. I know very well.”
Dozens of townsfolk watched them as they headed over the hill to the docks. Between his street brawl and the standoff they’d destroyed any chance of concealing their passage through Dewfield.
Armed with the praelor’s weapons, Bannor noticed that Sarai’s bearing had changed. Before, she walked with a relaxed grace. Now, she stalked like a mountain cat among a flock of herd animals.
Bannor still found that haughty posture appealing except it wasn’t the Sarai he’d grown to know. Had becoming an elemental changed Sarai at all? Could anxiety simply be revealing layers of her nature? The royal Sarai acted stern and abrupt. She spoke of herself in the plural sense, and used her eyes and voice like weapons. He’d seen hints of the hardness hiding beneath Sarai’s gentle manner. How much of the real Sarai was the steely princess?
He reached for her hand.
Looking at him she, laced her fingers in his. “You are my One.”
Bannor listened to the way she stressed her words: my One, mine. Bannor always found the pet name endearing. The praelor’s reaction cast it in a different light; it was a troubling suggestion of ownership.
There was much to consider. The buildings thinned as they leaned into the slope. The air cleared and the humid smells of the river became detectable. He heard dockworkers yelling and the creaking of derricks swinging.
“I love you,” he said.
Sarai brought their meshed hands to her lips. “And I, you. I know the way I’ve been acting may be troubling—”
He interrupted her. “We’ll talk later. This thing with the praelor. Wren is going to pitch a fit.”
“Don’t tell her, my One.” Sarai’s grip tightened.
“What?”
Her gaze remained steady. “You heard me.”
Bannor slowed at the summit that overlooked the river and Dewfield’s five-building trade-depot. Three barges hunched at the streamside laced down with ropes and gangways. Bare-chested men scrambled about their loading chores, cursing and singing alternately.
“What are you saying?”
“Father will provide better protection than Wren. I trust him.”
“What about me going in the dungeon?”
“He is my sire, Bannor. I can persuade him that the support of a savant has more value than an alliance with King Edmund of Ivaneth. Father’s games are important to him, but so is my
happiness.”
She sounded so sure; but betray Wren? They’d promised to cooperate with her. “You’ve given this some thought.”
She nodded.
“So why not go with the guards?”
Sarai’s expression turned fierce. “Wren won’t just let us go. Those not on her side are the enemy. She will kill you to prevent your power from being used by the avatars.”
“I wouldn’t want it another way.” He felt an icy chill. “I don’t want to be a tool of the dark powers.”
Sarai thumped his chest with her fist. “There are other ways besides Wren’s. We have a right to choose.” She paused. “I mistrust Wren. I respect her power. If I defy her, my Father’s phalanx will be at my back. Perhaps then, she will follow our lead. Clear?”
His stomach churned. He shouldn’t doubt his fiancé. Her love was as tangible as the grip that linked them now. Would the Sarai he first met conceive of a power ploy such as this?
“Clear. I dislike being forced to choose between you and Wren.”
She touched his cheek. He felt the scrape of her nails. “As if there were any question of who you would choose.”
“She saved my life. You’re suggesting that I break my word.”
“Nonsense.” Sarai’s eyes flashed. “She’s had us treed the whole time. The only way to get concessions from her is to force them.”
Bannor looked to the river. He rested his free hand on the hilt of his axe. The breeze felt cold on his face. “It may be as you say. I’ll consider it carefully before I do or say anything.”
She kissed his hand and held it to her cheek. She fixed him with that same loving gaze that had never failed to make him grow warm inside. “You will see my way is best. We cannot allow Wren to bully us. If we accept her help it shall be on our terms, not hers.”
He sighed. “As you say.”
In the depot, they found Irodee standing in the shadow of one of the buildings. He wouldn’t have noticed her if not for the glint of her spear. She wore a dark cloak and had pulled the hood around her features.
She gestured them over. “Wren has booked passage,” she said. “They cast off in a quarter bell.” Irodee’s eyes glinted. “Sarai followed the elf trackers.” She nudged her. “What you doing?”
“Making sure Bannor didn’t get in trouble,” Sarai answered.
Irodee’s face clouded. Her hand whitened on the spear. “Elves leave in big hurry.”
Sarai put hands on hips. “What of it?”
Irodee leaned down so she met Sarai’s eyes. The Myrmigyne’s tone wasn’t friendly. “Stones not the only game Irodee can beat little sister in. Irodee not old as you, but she not child either. Unwise for Sarai try hurting Wren.” She stalked off in the direction of the river before Sarai could reply.
Bannor let out a breath. Sarai had underestimated Irodee again. No good would come of this. He headed them toward the barge.
The barge master, a brute with hairy shoulders, a pocked face and a filmed over eye could have given anyone nightmares. If the sight of him didn’t, his odor would have.
Bannor climbed the ramp, asked permission to board and promptly looked for someplace else to be. He noticed the barge’s wallopers stayed a discreet distance from him, too.
He spied Wren leaning against some crates. Bannor thought it no accident that the savant chose the upwind side of the barge. Irodee was already heading toward her. He and Sarai followed the Myrmigyne through the maze of ropes, timbers and goods.
Wren flicked the brim of his river-lizard hat and smiled. She frowned when she noticed his arm. “What happened?”
“Nothing a stout shovel couldn’t fix.”
She stared at him, and then apparently resolved to pursue it later.
Bannor glanced at the barge master. “Couldn’t you have booked a less fragrant passage?”
“He’s the only one heading down river.”
Irodee and Sarai found spots for themselves a safe distance apart. Wren’s brow furrowed as she noted the deliberate separation between the Myrmigyne and the Elf. She’d be wondering what caused the sudden rift between them. They’d been getting along very well before this. The savant studied him with a raised eyebrow.
He shrugged. What could he say?
They stayed clear of the wallopers as they finished lashing the freight headed downstream. The barge-master bellowed orders and gestured with a hand that looked like a claw because his two middle fingers were missing.
The barge cast off, starting its trip downstream at a leisurely crawl. Four deck hands with poles guided the wide scow toward deeper water.
Bannor heard a yell from the dock. Two figures ran from between the buildings. One man dressed in a shiny chain mail hauberk was followed by a shorter one that looked unusually broad.
“By Ukko! Hold up there!” The taller one yelled. He looked about Banner’s height with light hair. The hilt of what was likely a battle sword jutted over his shoulder.
“No room!” The bargeman bellowed back.
“Stop ye boat, I can see me-self ya got room!” The smaller man called in a gravelly voice.
“We ain’t booking!” The master boomed.
Irodee rose and shielded her eyes from the sun. The barge was over a hundred paces from the bank. She looked at Wren.
The savant frowned. “It couldn’t be him.”
“Dross-faced metal-breakin orc-kisser, pull that bleedin’ boat over or I’ll swim out and get ye me-self!”
“That one curses well,” Sarai murmured. “That’s a dwarven accent.”
Bannor nodded. “I’ve never heard of a dwarf that big though.”
“We been paid to be full. Hear me!”
Ahead the river narrowed, and someone had built a narrow quay for fishing. The taller hit the smaller one on the shoulder and pointed to it. They both took off at a run.
“Irodee think it sounds like…” Her voice trailed off.
“I know what they’re planning,” Wren remarked.
“Think we should get ready for a fight?” Bannor asked.
The barge master saw it, too. “Watch yourselves, boys. Them two is real determined to board us. Keep us right in those shallows.”
The blond man pelted down the quay, his hair whipping in the wind. He seemed to see the occupants of the boat more clearly. “Irodee!” he hollered. “Get them to pole in!”
“Laramis?” Irodee leaped onto a crate. “Laramis!”
The barge passed the quay with some fifteen paces to spare.
“Ukko’s breath!” The man leaned forward and seemed to fly as he launched himself off the end piling.
Bannor swore he must have been part bird. Wind whistling through his tabard he hit the deck with a half-pace to spare. He stumbled forward and sprawled among the freight.
“Boys get that stower off my deck!” The master boomed. Behind him there was a splash and a curse.
Irodee shouldered through the polers and snatched Laramis up. “Mada!” She cried swinging him around joyfully.
“My jewel!” He gasped back. “Jewel! JEWEL! Aggh-Enough!”
The master raised a pole to fend off the man that had lunged out of the water and gripped the side of the barge.
The man with the dwarven accent focused burning eyes on the bargeman. “Best be gettin that stick out of me face or you be eatin it.”
“Let him on,” Wren told the master. She sighed. “The party just became a little more interesting…”
* * *
Starholme Prime, I have learned is the greatest legacy of the First Ones, the race whose blood runs within our veins. They who are the children of Gaea and Alpha.
The Ka’Amok are mere accidents, re-emergences of Alpha’s persistent seed.
With all the First Ones only a distant memory, one would think it would be those of the pantheons that Gaea favors. She does not. Her words and ears are only for the Ka’Amok.
If ever a mother was fickle, it is she.
—From the Dedriad, ‘musings of an immort
al’.
Chapter Seventeen
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Bannor leaned over the gunwales and grabbed the arm of the person hanging on the side of the barge. Bracing himself, he dragged the broad-shouldered man out of the river and onto the cluttered deck of the barge. The master and one of his assistants stepped close even though Wren had told them the two newcomers could stay aboard.
The one-eyed bargeman’s odor made Bannor wish he could turn his sense of smell off.
As the brawny man climbed to his feet and shook the water off, Bannor saw he’d guessed correctly. This wasn’t a human, but an exceptionally large dwarf. He stood two heads shorter than Bannor, but was half again as wide. Size wasn’t the only thing unusual about his dwarf. He had no beard, only a bushy mustache that drooped past his chin. Flecks of gold glinted in his rust-colored hair and eyes.
Bannor extended a hand. “Bannor Starfist,” he said.
The Dwarf took hold with a pressure that suggested he could have pulped bone. “I be DacWhirter Ironfist, ye be callin me Dac though.” He looked at himself. “You be havin any blankets among yer things, Boy?”
“There’s a matter of passage,” the barge master started.
Dac’s hand went to the war-hammer in his belt. “There’ll be a matter of dyin if ye bother me again fore I’m dry.”
The master went back to tending his boat. Bannor led Dac to their packs and pulled out a blanket. He sat next to Sarai and pulled her close. She rubbed her face against his shoulder.
As he dried off, Dac spoke to Wren and Sarai. “Ladies—sorry about me language. Sometimes me mouth—well, sometimes it be sayin what me mind is thinkin, ya understand?”
Wren smiled. “No offense taken. So, you must be a friend of Laramis’?”
“That I am, Missy.” He scrubbed the blanket over his head and glanced across the river to the mountains. Thunderclouds boiled over the crags their undersides pierced by the sharp points. “Looks like another storm, dross, I’ll never be gettin dry. Seems I be more oft wet than not this ten day.” He turned and focused on Laramis who was still embracing Irodee. “So that’s his mate, eh?” He shook his head. “Thought his young-one was big. You could make three fair-sized women outta this one.”
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