Friendly Fire

by Dale Lucas

  That got Eldgrim to snap himself out of his dyspeptic silence. “You and I both, Captain,” the ethnarch rumbled. “There’s little honor in someone else slaying your enemies for you.”

  “You should not say such things, Husband,” Leffi said. Bjalki noted the tone of her voice—not soft or disturbed at all, but hard, scolding, reproachful.

  “And why can’t we?” the ethnarch countered. “We are alone here—Hallir’s Folk, all of us. There are no outsiders here to hold our words against us, or to suggest that our inward enmities are proof of actual criminality.”

  “This is most grave,” old Hrothwar said, and leaned forward. “They will come for us now!”

  “Who?” Eldgrim asked. “That rabble that pass for a ward guard? They’re thieves and drunkards, the lot of them …”

  “All of them!” Haefred hissed. “Every man, woman, and child! If word gets around that a workingman of that sort was murdered, and that it was dwarven hands that spilt his blood—”

  “But they don’t know that dwarven hands spilt his blood!” the ethnarch snapped. “Let them prove it.”

  “This is a season in which proof is of little consequence,” Leffi said solemnly. “The sage and the arbiter speak aright. If the people of this city—even of this ward—get stirred up like a nest of hornets and grow eager to avenge that man’s murder, they shall look for the closest and most convenient scapegoat … which could be us.”

  And then, Bjalki thought solemnly, I shall have to turn the Kothrum on them as well. Gods, it really never stops, does it? First the murderers. Then any who come to fetter or accuse or punish us. What have I done?

  “We are outnumbered,” Trade Minister Broon said quietly. When they all turned to him, amazed that he’d deigned to speak, he could only shrug. “Aren’t we? If they decide to come for us—”

  “No one shall come for us,” Eldgrim said, hand pounding the table. “We’ll double the house guard. Arm everyone, from the chambermaids to the brewer!”

  I must stop this, Bjalki thought. Now, before it’s too late. Reassure them—do what a priest is supposed to do—then I shall see to the Kothrum. There must be a way to stop it … something I’ve missed … something in the texts—

  “There is no doubling, milord,” Godrumm said. “Every sword is now deployed.”

  “Then build a militia,” Eldgrim snapped. “Go to the streets, drag in every able-bodied dwarf who loves their country and their countrymen, and explain to them what’s going on—what’s at stake! They cannot refuse us—and if they do, it’s the dungeons for them! Our law—our traditions—give me the right to demand such fealty, to mobilize such a force—”

  “What’s going on, precisely?” Bjalki suddenly asked. They all stared at him as though his words were the strangest they’d ever heard. He drew a breath and carried on a little more forcefully. “We have suspicions, fears, anxieties,” he continued, trying to talk himself as much as the rest of them into a place of calmness. “But what proof do we have that the people of this city will blame us, or come for us? Perhaps this man’s death will end it all. We’ve lost one of ours, they’ve lost one of theirs. Surely that should signal that things have gotten far enough out of hand—”

  For they have. And I am to blame. The sin is mine, and mine alone.

  “Blood cries out for blood,” Eldgrim said, eyeing Bjalki like the lowest form of life he’d ever encountered. “If someone—friend or kinsman—does not seek justice for this man’s murder, then he was a poor man in life indeed. And since we’ve become the embodiment of all these stone breakers hate—”

  “That is not true,” Bjalki said. “They were angry over their dismissal from the temple project. They made that anger known in the streets. They threatened our people and caused trouble in the marketplace. In answer, some of our own folk caught a hapless boy who may or may not have had a thing to do with the trouble they caused and beat him senseless. Do we even know if he lived or died? If he had a name?”

  “If they did not want reprisal against the innocent,” Eldgrim said archly, “they should not have threatened the innocent with that riot in the market.”

  “I lost someone I cared for as well,” Bjalki countered. “I was there when Therba was murdered! I saw her bleed her last! I saw the life leave her!”

  “And yet,” Eldgrim countered, “you did nothing to stop it. Little wonder you come to us now talking of a subservient, wheedling peace. You are a bloody coward, Auspice Bjalki. I knew it from the moment you were forced upon this court.”

  “Eldgrim!” Leffi snapped.

  “This needs to stop,” Hrothwar said.

  “When one’s people are threatened,” Eldgrim said, slowly and deliberately, “one defends them. That is both natural law and holy law. There are no questions to be asked, no soul-searching to be done. If one chooses not to act—decisively—in that moment of trial, then one is a dishonorable cur.”

  Someone started pounding on the outer door of the chamber. Amid the pounding, Leffi broke in upon Eldgrim’s pronouncement.

  “There’s no need for all this,” she said, clearly at her wit’s end with her husband’s belligerence. “Apologize to the auspice, milord.”

  Eldgrim looked at his wife as though she’d just struck him in front of the court. “What did you say?”

  “I said,” she responded, slowly and patiently, “apologize. We accomplish nothing by fighting among ourselves.”

  Eldgrim stared at her for a long moment. The pounding at the door continued. Clearly someone wanted into the room, and urgently.

  “I was not fighting,” Eldgrim told his wife. “I was commanding. That is, after all, my anointed and sacred duty. As it is yours to serve and obey me.”

  Leffi wanted to fight with him—Bjalki saw it in the squaring of her shoulders and the set of her mouth. And yet … she also knew the wisdom of retreat. Eldgrim could not be overcome head-on. He had to be finessed, manipulated. At the very least convinced behind closed doors. She knew—they all knew—that if she challenged him here and now, he would only redouble his resistance to her.

  The pounding came. Again. Again. Again.

  Leffi sat, not saying another word.

  At the other end of the table, nearest the door, Godrumm shot to his feet and spun out of his chair.

  “Come in, damn you!” he shouted.

  The door to the audience chamber opened a little, and the house herald slunk in. “Pardon the interruption, milord,” he said, addressing the ethnarch, “but there is a visitor. He demands an audience with the court.”

  “A visitor?” Eldgrim asked. “Official?”

  The herald shrugged. “I am unsure, my lord. It’s that watchwarden—the dwarf. He’s all alone.”

  Bjalki watched as everyone at the table exchanged puzzled glances, as though no one knew what to say or do. Finally Leffi looked to the herald and nodded.

  “See him in,” she said.

  Eldgrim shot his wife a baleful glare, as though issuing even that simple order, to a house servant, should not have fallen to anyone but himself.

  Bjalki hung his head. Gods, deliver us from this petty tyrant … from the spirit of hate that moves him and stains us all …

  The herald slipped out. A moment later he returned with the watchwarden in tow. Bjalki recognized the dwarf immediately, that same fellow having petitioned the court and the temple just weeks earlier in order to see his eldest son educated and apprenticed among his people now that he was of age. If he remembered correctly, this dwarf—Torval—had been guilty of some long-ago slight against their people. Was it challenging members of the martial class to a duel? Insult to priests? Bjalki could not remember the details.

  But he remembered well how Eldgrim had made the dwarf pay for his sins. The ethnarch’s apparent relish when it came to a final pronouncement on the issue of reparations and reconciliation with Hallir’s Folk.

  Kneel, he had said.

  In truth, Bjalki had thought that a harsh punishment—evidence that El
dgrim bore the dwarf some grudge and was eager to break his spirit. In practice, forcing a repentant enemy to kneel after reparations had already been petitioned for and agreed to was reserved for the most intractable of foes, those whose transgressions were of greater moral import—rebels, usurpers, and the like. Though it was well within Eldgrim’s power to demand such a show of humility, the demand had nonetheless struck Bjalki—and the others present, given their grumblings afterward—as excessive and spiteful. And yet, to everyone’s great surprise, Torval had done what the ethnarch asked. He had knelt and begged forgiveness for his son’s sake, though his gnashing teeth and burning gaze made it clear he did so under the greatest of duress.

  Clearly this Torval was determined, and strong, and loved his son deeply; otherwise how could he have endured such humiliation? That sort of power—even in apparent defeat—would forever elude a proud, contentious dwarf like Eldgrim.

  The herald let himself out. The dwarven watchwarden strode forward, stopped about five paces from the conference table, and stood. For a long time he said nothing. No one at the table said anything, either, though most of them adjusted their seats so that they would face him and see him more easily.

  “Good watchwarden,” Leffi finally said, “how can we help you today?”

  The dwarf drew a deep breath. “Milady, I come to you—to all of you—as a private petitioner, not a member of the watch.”

  Eldgrim frowned. “A private petitioner …”

  “You know my son is in your care at present,” Torval said. “I humbled myself before you to secure his fostering and apprenticeship.”

  “Humbled,” Eldgrim said, then sniffed. “Tetherix, was it?”

  “Tavarix,” Leffi corrected him. “His name is Tavarix.”

  “Just so,” the watchwarden said. Bjalki could see the rage in him, simmering just behind his blue eyes, clear in the balled-up, white-knuckled hardness of his fists at his sides. The dwarf continued. “Coming to you now, in this fashion, is not easy for me … just as asking for you to accept him was not easy, given my … history.”

  “‘A father’s sins scar a son’s back,’” Eldgrim said, quoting from the Pillars of Kondela.

  Torval looked right at the ethnarch, eyes narrow, gaze steely and unwavering. “I should think the homage I’ve already paid has squared my debt to our people. Now, as for my son … speak of him again as bearing any scars not earned by his own endeavors, and you shall have some of your own, good ethnarch.”

  Bjalki literally heard everyone’s breath catch. He could not believe the dwarven watchwarden’s audacity. Neither could anyone else, apparently.

  Truth be told, he admired it.

  “You dare,” Eldgrim snarled.

  “I dare,” Torval answered. “I gave you what you asked for, Eldgrim, and you gave me what I requested in turn. I’ll not give you a copper more, nor another milord, nor a single knee dropped in obeisance. Our deal was struck when I knelt to satisfy your pride; now I expect you to hold up your end of it.”

  Eldgrim shot to his feet. “Remove this impertinent worm,” he said.

  Godrumm moved to do so. Torval offered the captain of the Swords of Eld a burning glare and a spoken challenge.

  “Try it,” Torval said.

  Godrumm froze. Torval swung his gaze back toward Eldgrim.

  “Let’s cut to the chase here,” he said. “I came and begged your forgiveness so that my son could regain a place among his people. When you accepted him, you made a pledge of your own: to protect him and keep him safe and see him through the end of his boyhood. But the violence in this city—the violence perpetrated against you and by you—”

  “Violence!” Eldgrim shouted. “We are guilty of nothing, you—”

  “I don’t believe you,” Torval said, looking right at him. “But I also can’t prove it. I have only my instincts, but I trust those. And I know my own people. I know that at least some of you—if not in this room, then out there, in those streets—would take the wrong done to you and seek to revisit it on your enemies tenfold. That is the dwarven way, is it not? Unbending pride? Unending vengeance?”

  Leffi stood now. She stepped away from the table and toward Torval. Bjalki could see on the courtly lady’s face that she wanted an end to this little meeting, not only to protect them, but to protect this watchman as well. The rage, the naked hatred, was clear as a cloudless dawn on Eldgrim’s face. Bjalki almost fancied he could see gears and clock springs turning and tumbling in the ethnarch’s mind, working out any and all methods of attack to humble the proud little watchman before him, or to end him entirely.

  “Why have you come to us?” Leffi asked Torval. “Surely not only to cast aspersions and insult us?”

  Torval looked contrite—a little, anyway. It was as though she were the only member of the court whom he could take seriously, whom he could truly respect. “Milady,” he said slowly, “I mean no insult. I just need my son back, at least until this mess is over and done with. At that time he can continue his education and apprenticeship. But for the time being, he should be home, with his family, where he can be safe. Not right in the line of fire. Not where your sins”—he indicated all of them seated at the table—“can scar him.”

  “Once again,” Eldgrim said, “the father’s cowardice stains the son.”

  Torval stepped forward then. Every muscle in his body went taut, every vein standing out like creepers on the bark of a tree.

  “Try me, if you think I’m a coward,” he growled. “When my people took my locks and beard and exiled me, it took nine of them to get me on my back! How many men have you got, Ethnarch? Or do you think you can take me alone?”

  The ethnarch was on his feet, striding forward now. He held out a hand to Godrumm.

  “Your sword, Captain!”

  “Sir?”

  The ethnarch roared, “Your sword, so that I may cut this fool down where he stands!”

  “Please,” Leffi shouted. “Control yourselves! I shall have no bloodshed in here! Not a drop!”

  “There is no cowardice in wanting to keep one’s kinfolk safe,” Bjalki offered, entering the fray in an effort to allay the mounting tension. “Lord Eldgrim, this dwarf’s intentions are honorable, and his request simple and clear. I beg you, stand down and let him be.”

  “Quiet, you,” Eldgrim said. “You hedge priest. You sniveling wretch.”

  Bjalki felt his heart start to hammer in his chest.

  “Ethnarch!” Hrothwar shouted. “Control yourself!”

  Eldgrim now seemed to forget Torval was even there. He turned on Hrothwar. “This priest, as you call him, let good priestess Therba die at the hands of sneak thieves! He ran when he could have fought! Why, in all the sundry hells, should I show him any respect or deference when there is no honor in him?”

  “There we are,” the watchman broke in, “back to honor. You’re so very concerned with everyone else’s honor, Lord Eldgrim. I wonder that you don’t pay more attention to your own.”

  Eldgrim’s head swung toward the watchwarden. “Say one more word, sweppsa, and it won’t be the humans that your boy will need to fear.”

  Bjalki watched, horrified, as the watchwarden Torval lunged right at the ethnarch, seized his ermine-lined robe, then lifted him and hove him a good ten feet from where he stood. In an instant Captain Godrumm was on his feet, sword ringing as it leapt from its sheath. Eldgrim hit the wall with terrific force, then slid to the floor. Though stunned, he regained himself almost immediately.

  “Please,” Bjalki said, his voice sounding weak even in his own ears. “Please, all of you, stop this.”

  The dwarven watchwarden was armed now, a sturdy maul in his hand. He stood on guard, eyes darting back and forth between Captain Godrumm on his right and the ethnarch directly in front of him. Captain Godrumm, for his part, seemed too shocked to move. His sword hovered in the air, bent toward the watchwarden, trembling.

  “Guards!” Eldgrim shouted.

  The doors to the audience chamb
er thundered open, and a bevy of house guardsmen poured in, scale mail rattling as they ran, swords and pikes at the ready. It didn’t take the newcomers long to realize what was happening; there stood their captain, sword drawn, facing off against an armed stranger, while their ethnarch stood, back to a wall, face a mask of red rage. As Bjalki watched, the guards encircled the dwarven watchwarden, lowered their weapons, and raised their shields.

  Torval made no move for a moment. Finally he lowered his maul and raised one hand in deference.

  “My weapon’s lowered,” Torval said calmly.

  “You dare,” Eldgrim said, teeth gnashing so hard Bjalki thought they might all crumble.

  “You threatened my boy,” Torval answered. “Gods-damned right I dared.”

  “Seize him,” Eldgrim said.

  “Stop this!” someone roared. Bjalki turned toward the raised voice, the sound of thunder and rage and despair. It was the Lady Leffi.

  The ethnarch’s wife stood there, body shaking, face betraying sorrow and pity. Everyone stared at her, amazed and awaiting the next word.

  “You do not rule here,” Eldgrim said, leveling a finger at her.

  “For this moment—this one moment—I do.” She stared him down, unwavering, unbending, unafraid. A long, pregnant silence fell upon them.

  Finally the Lady Leffi spoke again, more calmly this time. “Captain Godrumm, lower your sword and disengage.”

  “With respect, milady,” the captain began, making no move to obey her.

  “Now!” she shouted. “There will be no bloodshed here today!”

  Godrumm finally took two long steps away from Torval, then lowered and resheathed his sword. He hung his head, afraid to look the seething ethnarch in the eye.

  “Break that circle and let the watchman go free,” Leffi commanded. The guards looked puzzled for a moment, not sure whether to obey or not. Finally one of them took two steps back, swung aside, and opened a space for Torval to retreat through. The others remained as they were. Torval stepped through the breach in the cordon and marched toward the door. When he had reached it, he turned back to face Eldgrim, who still stood with his back to the chamber’s outer wall.