The Four Forges

by Jenna Rhodes

  “You think they will sell us inferior goods?”

  “I think they may well try. Not inferior, per se, this Quendius seems to be adept at what he does, but not up to the quality of their own arms. We’ll make our deal and depart.”

  “Giving us what?”

  “Enough arms and armor for a start, and enough intelligence to deter any surprises. The best offense, m’lady, has always been a good defense as you’ve been well versed to know.”

  Jeredon crossed his booted ankles as he stretched out in his chair. “I think we ought to just wipe them out, then and there. Save us trouble later.”

  Osten shook his head slowly, his thick dark hair waving about his head like a mane. “They could be allies later. I expect we’ll be fencing with them now and then, but my gut tells me they’re not the enemy we need to brace for.”

  “No insult to your gut, Osten, but none of the younger among us have really been in warfare. What does Bistel’s gut tell him? That’s what we need to know.”

  “Other than giving us stories of a living skeleton wielding a bloodthirsty sword, Bistel has been remarkably quiet,” Osten answered Jeredon.

  “He’s Bistel Vantane, of Hith-aryn. We should never discount what he tells us.”

  Lara said quietly, “That’s enough. I won’t go through this argument with either of you again. There will be a war, a great war, and we must be prepared to see it through.”

  “You can’t know that. And, if you insist on pressing it, your words become a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

  Her mouth tightened and thinned. “I’ll send you from my side, Jeredon, if need be. No arguments.”

  Osten cleared his throat in the awkward silence. Lariel stood. “I’ll leave you two to discuss how big a detail we take in with us and how to scout through their camp discreetly. Curse Sevryn’s hide. This is his business.”

  The two men stared at each other after she’d gone.

  “Do you think she’s wrong?” asked Jeredon, finally.

  “I think,” Osten answered deliberately, “that none of us know what magic Lariel works, but it runs in her blood just as yours and mine does in ours, and she holds her title justifiably. I look forward to interesting times.”

  Jeredon grunted before venturing, “I don’t suppose you brought some good, hard liquor with you? It doesn’t even have to be good, frankly.”

  Shouting jolted her awake from a deep and thankfully dreamless sleep. Lariel sat up in her cot as the tumult surrounded her small tent. She did not use a pavilion as Osten did, preferring to keep her presence in any camp relatively unmarked, but it seemed the commotion raged about her. She grabbed her sheathed sword and strode outside, blinking in the flaring light of torches.

  Guards immediately surrounded her. “Assassins on the grounds, m’lady.”

  She looked through a wall of muscular flesh, trying to spot Jeredon. She finally saw him at the torchlit edge of camp, arrow fitted to his bow, ready to sight on whatever target presented itself. Osten’s booming voice shouted orders that cut through the noise and quieted it, so she refrained as he took charge. She turned slowly inside the circle of guards, but the nightfall revealed nothing to her beyond the illumination. A three-quarter moon hung silvery in the sky, and she would have preferred to see by that alone. The torches made her feel more vulnerable.

  “What happened?”

  “One of the watch is down, garroted. Body still warm and twitching.”

  “Who found him?”

  “Your brother, on the way to the latrines. He wasn’t supposed to be found till morning, if at all.”

  Or he was supposed to have been found quickly, she thought, lying on the path to the latrines was hardly out of the way. She continued her examination of the outskirts of the camp, fires out for the night, the scattered groves they had camped between, the Andredia lying not far away.

  She paused, a fierce burning at the back of her neck. Lara pivoted nonchalantly as if still searching in vain, but her gaze fell on a small stand of trees just beyond the tether lines and far from the latrine trenches. A shadow separated itself from other shadows, swathed in black, and she felt his eyes meet with hers. A black-gloved hand saluted her, and then the Kobrir was gone, swallowed up by the element that favored him most.

  Lara took a deep breath. “Stand down,” she said. It would be worse than useless to send anyone after him, for the camp would empty and she would be even more exposed, perhaps a desired result. “Whoever it was is gone.” She pushed her way through the guards, calling out, “Osten! Tell everyone to stand down!”

  He had begun to bellow out her wishes when a new riot started by the horse-lines. The grunts and thuds of fists hitting flesh and the sound of scuffling carried. This was hardly the Kobrir’s style and why would he double back? she thought, and headed that way, guards thundering on her heels. A higher-pitched voice cried out, “We know her! M’lady queen! Rivergrace is missing!”

  A short, determined form separated from the fray, flinging herself on Lariel, knocking both of them to the dirt. Osten lunged at them, whipping out his blade to lie across the throat of her attacker. Nutmeg blinked in amazement at the sword slicing between them.

  “Hold!” sputtered Lariel, fighting for breath under the sturdy Dweller.

  “I suggest you don’t move, lass, because I’m not withdrawing,” Osten rumbled at his hostage, his damaged face scowling downward.

  Nutmeg, atop Lariel, froze.

  “Withdraw,” Lariel told her captain as she began to wiggle free.

  The blade removed with great reluctance and Osten held it loose, not sheathing it. Jeredon brought up a second Dweller hooked by the elbow, tall and slight comparatively for Dweller stock, who commented wryly to his coconspirator, “Nutmeg. You can’t tackle a queen.”

  “I didn’t mean to! I was throwing myself on her mercy!”

  “And knocking both of us on our duffs.” Lariel straightened her nightdress and dusted herself off.

  “I take it you know these two.” Osten began to sheathe his greatsword, sliding it in very slowly.

  “This is Nutmeg Farbranch and this, I suspect, is another of her many brothers.”

  Garner bowed as well as he could, one arm still tightly hooked with Jeredon’s. “Garner Farbranch, m’lady Lariel.”

  “Neither of them is tall enough to have garroted Frink, so I’ll post a walking guard and advise you in the morning.” Osten saluted her.

  “Do that.” Lariel knew they would not have another encounter tonight, but her men needed to know of the concern and measures they would take.

  “You have a man down?” Garner, whose resemblance to Nutmeg was not easily visible particularly in his sardonic expression, nudged his prone sister with a toe, adding, “You can get up now.”

  “Yes. His body was found just before your appearance.”

  “That would explain our welcome.” Garner eyed Jeredon, sizing him up. To his sister, he mouthed, “Impressive.”

  Nutmeg blushed. Flustered, she worked on setting her blouse and traveling skirt to rights, as Garner continued, “We thought someone had crossed our trail a few times, but never caught sight of him. He’s quiet and clever, but even so flushed a bird now and then.”

  “You’re lucky you didn’t see him. It likely would have been the last you looked upon.” Jeredon slung his bow over his shoulder. “That does not, however, explain why you’re here, skulking in the middle of the night.”

  “We were NOT skulking.” Nutmeg’s stomach growled loudly in emphasis.

  Lariel laughed. “And that explains what they’re doing here in the middle of the night. Come on, I’ll have a table set, you can talk, we’ll listen, and you’ll tell me why Rivergrace is missing.”

  Talk waited a short bit till Garner and Nutmeg had plenty of food in front of them and Jeredon, sent out to take care of their horse and pony, returned to listen to the tale, for Nutmeg seemed loath to say anything without his being there. Nutmeg ate as if starved, while Garner watched her w
ith a twinkle in his eyes, letting his sister grab the first of the foods laid out for them, and waiting till she’d gobbled some down before fixing his own plate. Jeredon watched, too, his face twitching slightly.

  She looked up to see the two men eyeing her. “Oh,” she retorted to their silent appraisal. “It’s fine for you to not go hungry. You’ll eat raw fish.” She shuddered.

  “Raw fish became a necessity when you dropped the flints into the river.”

  “That wasn’t my fault. You said there was a snake creeping up on me!”

  “You did jump.”

  “And the flints jumped with me!” She blotted the corners of her mouth delicately with a napkin and sat back. Jeredon watched with a kind of fascination.

  “Farbranches,” Lariel intervened calmly. “I think we need to know what this is about Rivergrace and why you’re so far afield seeking her.”

  “She’s disappeared.”

  “When?”

  “The day before the riots, as close as we can reckon. Sevryn asked our brother Hosmer to bring her to him, and she never came back.”

  Jeredon swapped a look with Lariel. “Where,” he asked quietly, “was she supposed to meet him?”

  “A hospice, a hospital. Something like that.”

  “They went back to see Azel again.” Lariel grasped on the first thing that made any sense at all.

  “He never mentioned it.”

  “Azel wouldn’t. He treats visits to him for information with utmost confidentiality. He’s a librarian, a historian. He would do that.” Lariel added to Jeredon, “Send a bird to him, see if he’ll confirm it. I am a bit surprised, though. I didn’t think Rivergrace would ever go back after what he told her.”

  Nutmeg leaned over to pinch a piece of fruit off Garner’s plate since hers was now empty. “That’s the fellow who read her blanket?”

  “Yes. The . . . mmm . . . fellow.”

  “She wouldn’t talk about him, other than to say he’d nearly died, and he seemed a gentle man. He said her scrap was part of a betrothal blanket or wedding blanket, and most of it was torn away. She cried about it and wouldn’t talk to us. We let her think about it. Sometimes you have to let Rivergrace be alone.” Nutmeg licked her fingers of the juicy fruit matter-of-factly.

  Lariel looked at the two Dwellers, pondering her choice of words. Jeredon, out of their view as their attention fixed on her face, shook his head slightly. She agreed silently with her brother. Rivergrace’s revelation to her family was her decision to make, and it seemed she had decided not to tell them of her true self. Lariel would leave it that way unless there came a time when she had no choice but to tell them of their adopted daughter’s destiny. “You came after them with no idea where they might have gone?”

  “We thought of two places, our home on the Silverwing, and your kingdom, Highness,” Garner said as he slapped away Nutmeg’s hand hovering to steal a piece of nut bread from his plate. “We saw some tracks toward the Nylara, but nothing beyond that, and turned for here. It’s a long ride, and your borders are sealed. We couldn’t pierce Larandaril.”

  “It is that. No one treads upon the kingdom without a badge for passage or unless it’s opened to them. However, I can’t send you home just yet either. We’ve not seen or heard from Sevryn ourselves, but I can’t spare anyone for a search party now. I’ve a diplomatic meeting high sun after tomorrow. You’ll accompany us, stay quiet, and watch closely. These men are neither friends nor enemies, but I need your silence about them, lest you reveal something you shouldn’t. After the meet, Jeredon will take a handful of men and supplies, and we’ll go looking. Agreed?”

  “Very generous of you, Highness,” Garner told her and bowed over his plate.

  “Speaking of generous.” Nutmeg looked at them hopefully. “Is there any more nut bread about?”

  Chapter Seventy

  SEVRYN DASHED COLD WATER on his face, washing away grit and the odor of woodsmoke, and bringing him alert. He stayed crouched by the river, looking at the range of Blackwinds rising just to the north of him. The Blackwinds joined to the Burning Mountains and then arched to the high Heaven’s Teeth to the northeast, but it was the Blackwinds which drew his intense scrutiny. They crowned Larandaril and he was in those lands, and thought of what they’d often said of the queen . . . that she knew whenever anyone stepped into her kingdom. He knew she did not, but he wished it were true now.

  Rufus had told him of wagons and coaches moving through the trader passes along the edge of the Blackwind, headed to the northern tip of Larandaril, and so they had come here, but for what reason, he wasn’t sure. He did not quite trust Rufus who never explained why he’d been watching smugglers or why he wanted Sevryn to know about them, for that matter, but in his halting manner, he’d informed Sevryn. Caravans taking that route ran a risk of crossing the Blackwind runners as well as bandits, villagers displaced by Lariel when she moved towns off the borders years ago hoping to forestall the contamination of her lands. Neither would be pleasant encounters. Those risks might be run if snow had cut off other passes or wildfire by lightning strikes closed the lower routes, but he couldn’t see a reason to take the Blackwind road in these days. More likely these were smugglers who’d chosen to come down out of the same range he wished to head into. He debated his options.

  Rufus gave a hissing whistle behind him. The Bolger could move quietly if he wished, very quietly, and knew to stay downwind. Moving to the riverbank, he jabbed a hand toward the sky to the west. Narrowing his eyes, Sevryn saw what the other did: a faint hawk on the wind, circling to get its bearings as if just taking to the air or being released. Jeredon fancied red-tails for messengers. Could he be hunting nearby? Sevryn argued with himself whether he wished to meet with Jeredon yet or not. If smugglers were moving along the far border of Larandaril, he ought to know what they might be carrying when he did ride on to meet with the queen. She’d be furious with him as it was. He nodded to Rufus that he’d seen the bird. Another took wing right after it, and he knew then it was Jeredon. He always sent two messages out. The only question now was where the hawks headed. North or northeast? Could be any of four or five holdings. If he was with them, at the queen’s side where he belonged, he’d know where they were sent, and why.

  No, this matter of belonging had changed for him. Rivergrace did not divide his loyalties, she fulfilled them.

  He’d taken his own path, and would walk it.

  He wiped his hands on his trousers. “I think we’ll head up into the Blackwinds a bit. I want to see what that caravan is all about.”

  Rufus grunted noncommittally. He washed himself, a brief splash in the water before they trudged back to mount up. Rivergrace had already bathed, from head to toe it seemed, her chestnut hair glistening wetly on her shoulders. She smiled brightly and he felt taller. He knew the feeling couldn’t stay, but he treasured the moments he had.

  Treasuring moments with biting insects, however, was not what he had in mind. Grass ants found their way inside his shirt and began biting as he lay on his stomach and he responded by clamping down on the inside of his cheek to stifle his anger, but it wasn’t the ants which infuriated him. He looked down from his perch at the encampment, his throat closing and his mouth going sour. He couldn’t mistake the tall, heavily muscled figure of charcoal gray moving among the wagons, bellowing though he could not hear the words, cuffing those who did not move fast enough. He should take the bastard out now, but he needed to know why Quendius camped at Larandaril’s edge. Bold as brass, he strode across the foothills of the Blackwinds, his camp aimed toward the borders of the kingdom, without trespassing, but menacing. The sun lowered on the horizon and soon would be dipping into dusk, and he’d get close then. In the meantime, he slid his hand inside his shirt, viciously pinching and crushing whatever ants he could reach and scratching away the others.

  He concentrated on balance and clean thought, fighting back the rage that fountained inside him. Gilgarran would have his ears for losing control. The ild Fallyns,
he’d coached, are sadistic with a purpose. The pain and anger they wreak brings loss of control and discipline, all to their advantage. That they enjoy it is merely a bonus to them. Remember that. Only one of his many lessons about control. Nothing was to be gained by that, by the rage, except giving Quendius an advantage the murdering son of a bitch didn’t need. Quendius moved in constant anger and domination but everything he did was calculated. Besides, he enjoyed it as well, and that fact roiled in Sevryn’s newly regained memories.

  He watched as two men struggled with a long, willowy post and then got it set into the ground, a banner unfurling into the wind. The bronze eagle of Abayan Diort over the sun of Galdarkan Guardians rode the air under a flag of treaty, and Sevryn drew back. Now he understood why they were there, and why Jeredon had been close by.

  They were readying to meet with Lariel.

  Did she know who Diort carried for a partner?

  Worse, would she care?

  He crawled backward till he could safely stand, then he swatted himself free of ants, cursing freely, until his rage thinned enough that he dared to return and face Rivergrace. As he passed Rufus, he grabbed the Bolger by the flap of his vest.

  “You knew.”

  Rufus widened his stance for balance. He bobbed his head once.

  “Next time, I’ll kill you first, then kill him.”

  The Bolger’s leathery face split in that wide ear-to-ear, hideous grin. “You can try.” He grunted and shrugged out of Sevryn’s hold.

  Rivergrace stood by Black Ribbon, scratching her chin and singing a made-up song about sun and river and fishing birds as she waited. She stopped when she saw the anger on Sevryn’s face. “What is it?”

  “We ride,” he said, “in hopes of catching the queen before she does something incredibly stupid.”