by Jenna Rhodes
He grasped the sword, the double edge slicing open his palm, hot blood spurting upward and the Godling Demon swerved. Fyrvae grabbed up the weapon by its hilt, opening his fingers and letting his blood smear the length of the steel, where it ran into the channel he’d cut into it. The Demon entered the element shouting in greed and unwary need. Fyrvae thrust the sword into the furnace, blasting it a last time. The runes he’d marked on it suddenly shone, entrapping its captive. He waited till the last etching glowed, then took the blade and plunged it into the cold riverwater. A last quenching of water. Now all the other quenchings would come from blood. It inhaled deeply and all went still.
An icy blast roared through the building. The forges all went out at once. Fyrvae staggered, going to one knee. The broken thing inside of him might be as solid as bone or as wispy as soul, he had no way of knowing, but the pain came back with a keen edge to it, no less an edge than what he’d sliced himself open with. He reached for a scrap of cloth in his apron and bound his hand, the cut deeper than he’d intended, the edge of the weapon as sharp as any he’d ever honed. Rufus bellowed out orders. Bolgers scurried, grunting, to replenish the fires, their lives dependent on keeping them lit. Fyrvae took a whetstone, sharpening the blade one last time, even as he walked to the great house. Rain poured down in buckets as he made his way through the storm, his eyesight blurring, reeling in exhaustion, his shoulders bowed, the cords and sinews of his body in tense relief against his wiry frame. Rain in torrents, blessed rain. Too late? He did not know.
Inside the great house, he made his way cautiously to the hall, bumping into things now and then when his body and will could not keep him on a straight path in the shadows, weariness claiming him. Fyrvae found the table he sought and laid the sword across it. It seemed to hiss even as he set it down. Quendius would know it immediately.
He backed off quietly as voices reached him, and footfalls. He was unwilling to be caught there yet was too exhausted to move faster. He found a corner behind a tapestry hung to dampen the draft of the hall, and lingered to catch his breath . . . and waited, leaning his fevered face against the cooler stones.
Fyrvae scrubbed at his eyes, tired and blurred by soot and heat, unable to get a clear view from his hidden niche in the dim light from the sconces in the room. Guards pushed two hooded men inside, their clothes dripping with the rain and smelling of wet horse as well. One wore a greatcoat, the other a fine cloak, and both had rough hoods over their heads, their hands tied behind them. If they were buyers, Quendius did not care for their coin to treat them in such a manner. Fyrvae watched as the guards tore the hoods away from their heads, revealing two Vaelinars, and he sucked his breath in, surprised. Words leaped to his tongue. Run, fools! But he bit his lips in silence as the Armorer strode in, stripping off his fine cloak of ivory fur and dropping it over a chair, immediately seeing the blade, a smile crossing his face as he touched a fingertip to it. He ran it down the shining blade with a murmur of appreciation. He looked up, then, at his captives.
Quendius gestured to the guards. “I’ll greet my guests. You take what Bolgers you need and see to the care of the water gates. I want them opened, or we’ll have every cavern flooded in a candlemark, and then see new fires are laid down in the forges.”
The guards sketched obedience and left him facing the two strangers.
The dark shards in his eyes glittered like polished jet. He leaned one hip on the corner of the massive table, not quite standing, not quite sitting. “Uninvited as you are, what business have you here?”
The man he faced spoke as briskly as if he stripped off gloves and made himself at home, his tone matter-of-fact and otherwise unremarkable, a brilliant blue-green aquamarine glinting in his earlobe as he tilted his head slightly to gaze at Quendius. “I heard you manufactured and sold arms. I have need of such; many, in fact.”
“Going to war?”
“If that’s what it takes. The haven of Larandaril is corrupted by the masses of Kerith who crowd it. I intend to push them back and retake our lands, however it is necessary to do so.”
Quendius looked the two of them over. The younger one shifted slightly but said nothing, watching his elder and the Armorer.
“You’d break old truces? The Accords?”
“Vaelinar blood made those truces, and they are being bent now, sorely, by the mongrels who trespass our borders with every breath they take.”
Quendius smiled then. “Have you a name?”
“Gilgarran.” The prisoner lifted and dropped a shoulder in muffled salute.
“Do you know mine, and if so, how?”
“You are Quendius, and it matters little how, for the man who gave me your name is dead. He is dead because having given me your name, nothing would have kept him from giving my name to others, and it seemed prudent to stop bad manners in its tracks.” Gilgarran shifted. The laced hood of his cloak had slipped down when the other hood was jerked away, and waves of amber hair flowed to his shoulders, catching the glow of the muted light. A strand or two of silver showed among the amber, giving some hint of his age that his face did not show yet.
“My business is not known here, nor am I ready to have it known,” Quendius told him simply. “No one comes here unless I invite them.”
Gilgarran countered, “If you will not sell to me, then I propose an alliance. I’ll fight for you, providing it’s fighting you have in mind, taking back what should be Vaelinarran.”
“An alliance?” Quendius stood, raising an eyebrow. “Bold words from an unarmed captive.”
“All of our words thus far have been bold, hmmm.” Gilgarran managed a humorless smile. “Truces, treaties, slaves, weapons, war, captives, alliances.”
Quendius picked up the sword. In his hidden corner, Fyrvae felt something invisible tug at his chest again as he did, bringing fresh pain, and the blade glittered in the Armorer’s hands. “It would be futile,” Quendius noted, “to deny the work I do here. You can smell the works halfway down the mountain, if you’ve any senses at all. You can see where the timber’s been cut to feed the furnaces, and the range mined for ore.”
“But you’re not ready to sell.”
“No.”
“My other offer, then. I bring alliance.” Gilgarran kept his chin up, watching the Armorer’s ash-gray countenance, even as Quendius weighed the two-edged sword carefully in his great hands.
“The trouble with alliances is that each party must offer something the other truly desires. Although I have some pity for the pristine valleys and dells of Larandaril, I don’t really care what happens to any of the havens of my . . . kin.” Quendius looked up from the weapon. “The only thing I want from you is silence.” With a slight grunt of exertion, he swung, the sword taking Gilgarran’s head off before he’d finished his sentence.
The second man dropped to his knees immediately, as the back swing of the blade narrowly topped over him and Fyrvae broke from his hiding place, running for the back hall corridor even before the first head stopped rolling, unable and unwilling to help the living man. Quendius staggered back with a curse, his wrists bowed as the sword came to unbidden life in his grip. He roared as he fought the blade which began to shriek for more blood, twisting and bucking in his hands.
Then Fyrvae burst out of the room and into the hidden back ways, the turmoil and screams fading in his ears as he raced for the mines and tunnels. He had loosed all he’d hoped to, and more. He prayed Quendius could not contain it, and it would turn on him as well.
Fyrvae had but one chance.
He could barely see in the caverns, stumbling in a broken sprint, his hands out, taking the brunt of wall and ceiling as he bumped and fell his way into them, his cut breaking open and the bandage sodden about him, and he nearly fell over Lindala when he finally reached their crevice.
“The raft! Get to the raft.”
“The river is rising. You can hear it everywhere. It’s cresting.”
“I know, I know.” He took her elbow, not to guide her, but
to let her guide him. “They’ve opened the floodgates, there is nothing on the river to stop us but the water itself.”
Lindala sucked her breath in, then tugged him after her, after stooping and picking up an ungainly bundle from their nest on the ground, their child wrapped in blankets rewoven from their ragged clothing. She hobbled as she ran, panting from her burden, and he slipped his hand to her braided belt to keep up with her. “We could have used another stick or two,” she managed.
“No time!”
“I know. The rains came!” Her voice lifted a bit, unclouded by worry. They made their way to the banks of the underground river that raced through the caverns, usually silent and dark as a serpent but now bursting, its angry edges phosphorescent in the evernight of the mountains. Lindala put her burden in the center of the raft, tucking an edge of blanket carefully about the sleeping child, and bent with Fyrvae to launch the unsteady platform over the edge. He embraced them both, with a muttered word for warmth, the last of his fragile strength for now. The raft bucked over the edge suddenly, taking them with it, gasping and holding on for dear life. The rain-swollen river frothed about them, all encompassing. If the sword took Quendius down, all their bonds would be severed. If not, they would escape but perhaps into more suffering. Yet the price of freedom was one they’d sworn to each other they’d pay. All hope, all despair.
He embraced Lindala closely, whispering in her ear over the roar of the river. “Now pray for life.”
The waters took them plunging downward.
Chapter Three
SEVRYN THREW HIMSELF to his knees as the howling blade passed over him. Something warm dribbled down the back of his neck, and he lunged forward, rolled, and came up, previously concealed long knife in hand, his bonds severed. A high keening raised the hair on his neck as Quendius struggled to retain his balance, sword in his grip. Sevryn threw a glance at Gilgarran’s head rolling across the floor, and without another second wasted, scrambled to his feet and bolted out the nearest door, the view of surprise in his friend’s eyes even as they dimmed overriding his own vision and that of the halls he raced through. His job now was to get out.
Outside, the rain fell in a dense, dark curtain. He plunged into it, boots sliding across mud, turned the corner, and headed across the grounds toward outbuildings. The immensity of the place loomed over him. He could, and would, take a wrong turn or two before finding his way out. Hooded, he had only noted that they had not gone underground while they were being brought in. That, at least, kept him from darting into the various cavern mouths gaping blackly at him. Skidding across the open space, he could hear the shouts behind him, and Quendius’ growling commands.
No time to gather himself to find the way out. He whirled and took down the Bolger sprinting nearest him, leaped over the body, and cut through the pack of guards as they reeled back in grunting surprise. Three more slices and his way cleared. Sevryn wiped blood off his face, cold and thin in the rain. It wasn’t his. He bolted at angles to his destination, zigzagging through the open. Galdarkan guards lunged out of an outbuilding, and he knew a prickle of fear. They would be much harder to take down than the Bolgers. Hounds, then hunters. And after them, Quendius . . . whatever he was, whatever it was he wielded.
The damp brought out the stink of the manure piles as he strong-armed himself over a log barricade. Pigs ran squealing from him, bristle-backs with raised hackles as he plowed through and jumped the other side of the corral. Mud and worse flew from his footfalls. At the far side, he turned and quickly let go two of his daggers. Two Galdarkans fell, one with crimson spurting from his neck, the other holding his leg and cursing him.
Sevryn scaled the side of the low barn and raced across the top. From its vantage, he could see the troops massing to bring him down, squad after squad filling the open yards between the buildings. His chances dropped with every man he saw emerge.
Damn Gilgarran. Why hadn’t he let Sevryn speak? If he had, they’d all still be inside, talking, perhaps sitting with a goblet of brandy to warm them, with a round of bread and cheese in front of them, and Gilgarran still alive. Why hadn’t he let Sevryn speak?
Sevryn jumped from the low barn to the taller building, catching at the eave and pulling himself up and over. Barely out of breath, he took the structure at a headlong run as arrows whistled after him. Bolgers swarmed the barn. He fought with boot and long knife, slashing and rolling their bodies off into the others coming up. Something heavy caught him in the back, bringing him to his knees. He went limp, overbalancing the attacker, and they both rolled and fell off the barn. He landed on top, removed his long knife from the Bolger’s chest, and got to his feet as Galdarkan guards rounded the barn.
Sevryn lunged at them, scattering the archers before they could get their bows up and a shot off. He left his long knife in the back of one’s knee, and pulled another as he headed toward the main yards again, thankful that in his arrogance Quendius hadn’t had them searched nearly thoroughly enough.
Surprise his main element, he cut through one squad which was clearly astonished that he had doubled back into their midst. By the time they’d shouted they had him, they were all facedown in the mud, and he angled off again.
He found himself facing huge, solid wooden buildings that smelled of heat, smoke, charcoal, and steel. If Gilgarran had expected one forge, he’d underestimated by several, but now Sevryn understood his mentor’s intense interest in the place. As he darted inside, he put a finger in his coat cuffs, loosening a thread, then dumped three small balls into his hand. They needed heat or fire to ignite, and what blasted at him would be more than sufficient. The great stone oven roared with the intake of fresh air as he threw the doors open wide, and Bolgers snapped and snarled at him from the corners. He grabbed a pair of tongs and placed a ball deep inside the oven. Grabbing a hank of keys off a tall hook far from the reach of those shackled, he tossed them at the nearest Bolger, saying only, “Run fast.”
He planted the other two balls as well before the shouting of the guards drew near. Taking his own advice to heart, he raced across the compound.
Sevryn gave up the idea of finding a horse to get away. Unless he got his own trained mount, who was dead tired after days of travel anyway; he couldn’t trust it to get through the troops without panicking and being brought down. He would be better on his own feet. He leaped through the pigpens again, heading for the main house. The gate he sought had to be on the other side.
An arrow struck. He felt it bury itself into his greatcoat and upper left arm. It stung, but the thick wool of his coat and the silk lining took the brunt of the blow. Worth its weight in gold, that silk lining was. He reeled anyway, letting them think the injury worse than it really was. Howls of triumph split the air behind him. Now he knew where they were.
Sevryn skidded to a halt in the mud, turning, unfastening his coat. Three more throwing daggers they’d failed to find when disarming him met his touch. Three tosses, four Galdarkans fell, one of the dead tripping the fourth who fell on his own sword with a guttural cry of pain.
Nearly out of blades now, Sevryn again angled away from the direction he truly wanted, leading them away, not giving them a chance to block him. Arrows struck the ground at his heels, thunk, thunk, thunk! He bowed his head and put all he had left into a sprint.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the gate. Still open, for what enemy did Quendius have in this hidden fortress?
Sevryn cut back, and went for it. He had but one purpose that Gilgarran had given him: to get out. Keep silent and remember the astiri, the Way. He burst through the gate, gasping, and into the mountain wilderness, and Quendius was blocking his path, sword in hand, keening like a devil wind in a high tempest. Galdarkans flanked either side of him.
“Almost clever enough!” Quendius laughed without humor. He brought his sword arm up, even as he beckoned his guard to close in. The weapon belled like a howling creature in his fist, blood ribboning down its steel and washing away in the pounding rain.
The mountain spewed forth with a roar that deafened him. The explosion shook him to his core. A second time, and then a third, flames shooting upward to the leaden sky, the molten fury undaunted by rain and cloud. Billows of smoke and ash shot up, and his nostrils stung with the smell of the explosions and fire. Debris rained down on them, hot and fiery bits of wood, metal, and stone.
Quendius turned sharply. “Velk,” he spat and more, fury welling out of him, and Sevryn knew he was a dead man.
“Do not kill me,” he got out in a hoarse whisper as the guard closed on him. Something clubbed the back of his head. Red flashes split the great black darkness crashing down on him, as he lost all control of his mortal body. This was why Gilgarran had not let him speak. His Talent, his Voice. His Voice persuaded, commanded, when he used it. Gilgarran wanted to be sure no one was prepared for it.