Days of Blood and Fire

by Katharine Kerr

  “Begin!” called the priest. “May each man’s Wyrd fight with and upon him.”

  Rhodry stepped across the sacred border and walked slowly toward the center of the ground. Matyc hesitated, started to meet him, then hesitated again and began to circle. If he wanted to make a game out of it, Rhodry decided that he’d oblige and turned to match his moves. Spiraling round and round they came closer, feinting in, dodging back, the silver dagger winking and flashing in Rhodry’s left hand, Matyc’s dull steel quivering on guard. All at once Matyc charged. Rhodry danced away and struck, dodging in as his enemy instinctively flung up his left hand to parry with a shield he didn’t have. As the blood bloomed on Matyc’s sleeve, Rhodry burst out laughing. The berserker fit sank cold claws into his heart and took him over. With a yelp Matyc threw his dagger straight at Rhodry’s head with the last bit of strength in his broken arm.

  Rhodry ducked and let him get away, stumbling back with death in his eyes, then laughed and charged and laughed again, slashing in from the side. Steel rang on steel as Matyc parried, sobbing for breath, twisting back and forth, then trying a desperate lunge that was a sheer mistake. Rhodry caught Matyc’s blade on his and let the momentum send it sailing into the grass. Panting for breath, Matyc drew himself up straight to face his death.

  “Go fetch it.” Rhodry pointed with his own sword. “No one’s ever going to say I killed an unarmed man.”

  For a moment Matyc stared goggle-eyed; then slowly, moving backward, keeping his eyes fixed on Rhodry like the proverbial rabbit watching a ferret, he angled off. While he picked up the sword, Rhodry sheathed his silver dagger to even the fight. He could feel that the god was pleased with him. Armed and ready, Matyc came back, circling again to Rhodry’s left, aiming for his unprotected side. Rhodry scorned to follow him. He laughed in one cold sob, lunged, and caught Matyc’s blade again. With a howl of laughter he twisted it to one side and stabbed in hard. Matyc grunted and spasmed, slashing back. Rhodry felt the wound opening on his left shoulder as a line of cool fire, naught more, as Matyc coughed blood, crumpled, and fell at his feet. He looked up, mouthing some word, a name—Alshandra’s name, Rhodry realized with cold horror—then choked up clots and died.

  The priest flung his arms toward the sun and shrieked a long, wordless cry to great Bel. With a toss of his head Rhodry howled in echo.

  “The god has given judgment!” Cadmar called out. “Otho the dwarven merchant is innocent of all harm and insult toward Matyc son of Arddyr and his kin and clan. Let no man perpetuate the feud that the gods have ended here upon this holy ground.”

  As the assembled warbands cried out their agreement, Rhodry felt the god leave him. Suddenly icy cold, panting for breath, he fell to his knees and clutched his wounded shoulder with his right hand. Warm blood welled between his fingers. Laughing and howling, half-berserk themselves with relief, Otho and his kinsmen came rushing over.

  “Can you walk, silver dagger?” Jorn said. “Here, let me help you. We owe you all the help we can give.”

  “My thanks, but it’s a shallow enough cut.” Leaning on the dwarf, Rhodry got to his feet. “What I need is drink.”

  “You shall have mead from my own table for this fight, silver dagger.” It was Cadmar, hurrying over. “It’s your right as the victor and the favorite of the god.”

  “No matter how much grief I’ve brought you, Your Grace? I’ll not ask you for that cup.”

  The gwerbret sighed and looked away, his face hard set against showing the grief he must have felt for a man he still thought loyal to him. His warband, however, and Lord Gwinardd’s crowded round to stare at Rhodry, a god touched man now and forever in their eyes. The bolder men reached out to dabble a forefinger on his gore-wet sleeve so they could mark their foreheads with a spot of his blood, Jill came pushing her way through the crowd.

  “Otho, Jorn, take Rhodry back to your inn. Your Grace, I think me it would be very unwise to give the silver dagger his due in your hall Matyc’s clan worries me a fair bit more than the gods and their penchant for detail” She glanced at Rhodry. “I’ll just get my medicinals and join you there. That cut’s not so bad you can’t walk, not for a man like you.”

  “I think I said somewhat like that myself.” Rhodry grinned at her. “Done, then.”

  With the help of the dwarves, Rhodry made his way, though slowly, through the twisting streets of Cengarn. By then it was full noon, and the hot sun beat and danced upon the cobbles. Rhodry suddenly realized that the view swam round him, as if he looked through blown glass. Sweat stung his eyes. Dimly he was aware of townsfolk, stopping in the street to stare at their strange little procession. Every now and then he caught a murmured word, a guess about tavern brawls, mostly. At last they came to a hillside so steep it was half a cliff. Set right into it, between two stunted little pines, stood a wooden door with big iron hinges. Fussing and fuming about his wound and Matyc’s clan both, the dwarves led him inside to a stone hallway, lit with the eerie blue glow of phosphorescent fungi gathered into baskets and hung along their route.

  The air, startlingly cool, blew around them in fresh drafts. After a couple of hundred yards, they came at last to a round chamber, some fifty feet across, scattered with low tables and tiny benches round a central open hearth, where a low fire burned and a huge kettle hung from a pair of andirons and a crossbar. Reflexively Rhodry glanced up to see the smoke rising to a stone flue set in the ceiling as well as a vent or two for fresh air. At one of the tables, a yawning innkeep stood polishing tankards with a rag. When Otho spoke to him in the dwarven tongue, he answered with a shake of his head and rushed off through one door.

  “Just sit down, lad,” Jorn said. “Here. If you sit on the table, like, Jill will be able to work on you better.”

  By then Rhodry was more than glad to do what he was told. His entire sleeve and the side of his shirt were soaked through with the slow ooze of blood. Carrying a silver flask and a tiny glass stoup, the innkeep came hurrying back.

  “Drink some of this,” he said. “Warms a man’s heart.”

  The pale gold liquor warmed Rhodry’s entire body, or so it seemed to him, with the bite of bitter herbs in raw alcohol, but he had to admit that once he’d choked it down, it left him feeling clearheaded and remarkably comfortable. In a few minutes Jill hurried in with a big burlap sack of medical supplies. She perched next to him on the table and sniffed the air.

  “Well, no need for me to fix you herbwater if you’ve been drinking that,” she pronounced. “Let me cut that shirt right off you. Carra sent a new one for you as a thanks for aiding Otho, and it’s a good thing she did. She said to tell you that it’s one she sewed herself.”

  “Then I’m twice honored,” Rhodry said. “And tell her I said that.”

  Otho looked away fast, but there was no hiding the tears in his eyes.

  Rhodry submitted to having Jill wash and stitch the wound while Otho and Garin talked urgently in Dwarvish. The innkeep took the bloody shirt away and returned with a big flagon and some goblets, full-sized this time. Mic poured mead all round, except of course for Jill, who waved the drink away.

  “I think I’d best keep my wits about me,” she remarked. “Rhoddo, can you get this new shirt over your head?”

  With her help, he could, but the effort left him gasping. The thin and leathery Jorn insisted that Rhodry sit in the best chair, all propped with pillows, since it was a low thing indeed for a man of his height, while they drank yet another toast and Jill packed up her supplies.

  “Never did I think I’d live to see the day when an elf would do me a favor,” Otho said at last.

  “Ye gods,” Jorn snarled. “Will you mind your manners? It’s that kind of talk that nearly got you sliced into shreds and snippets by the late and unmourned Matyc.”

  “He’s got a point,” Garin said. “Apologize.”

  “None needed,” Rhodry broke in. “I’ve known Otho too long to expect courtesy.”

  Otho actually smiled, a quick and quickly over
draw of his lips.

  “Good. Don’t.” Otho raised his goblet in Rhodry’s direction. “All right, silver dagger. Name your debt price. I know you’ve got one, and I know it’s going to be high.”

  “Of course. Look, Otho, I don’t want gold or suchlike. I need help in finding somewhat up in the northern mountains, and I’ve got to find it fast. It’s summer now, but winter does tend to come before you want to see it.”

  Otho groaned and rolled his eyes ceilingward.

  “What is it?” Jorn said. “A vein of metal? Jewels or suchlike?”

  “Naught like that. A dragon.”

  Jorn sputtered. Garin whitened. Mic sat down hard on the floor. Only then, seeing their terror, did Rhodry believe that a dragon truly existed for him to find. When he glanced Jill’s way, he found her watching him with a certain admiration.

  “Worms and slimes!” Otho spat out. “Why don’t you ask for the moon, silver dagger? We could make a ladder long enough for you to climb to the heavens and fetch her down.”

  “I’ve always heard that the Mountain People pay their debts. Isn’t that true?”

  There was a beat of silence in the room as loud as any drum. Rhodry had attended enough royal courts to know that he’d committed a discourtesy and a major one, but whether he’d thrown a challenge or simply been insulting he couldn’t tell. At length Garin looked daggers at Otho, snapped a few words in Dwarvish, then turned to Rhodry.

  “I’d ask you not to judge us all by my kinsman.”

  “Now, here, I meant no insult. I was just speaking offhand.”

  “There’s naught offhand about debt and the paying of debt.” Garin paused for another significant glance Otho’s way. “And since we owe you Otho’s life, then the dragon you shall have in return.”

  “It’ll take us a while to raise the army,” Jorn put in. “I hope you’re not in a hurry or suchlike.”

  “I don’t need an army,” Rhodry said. “All I’m asking you is to help me find the beast. I’ll do the capturing and suchlike.”

  The dwarves all looked back and forth at one another for a long moment, then stared at Rhodry. He didn’t need dweomer to hear them thinking “half-witted dolt” and “madman.” Garin turned to Jill in mute appeal.

  “If anyone can tame the beast,” she said. “It’ll be Rhodry.”

  “Oh,” Garin sighed. “Well, then. If anyone can, you say? If. Well, then.”

  “Humph.” Otho considered, combing his beard with nervous fingers. “I’m sorry now I didn’t let Matyc cut me into pieces. It would have been a faster and a lot more pleasant way to die.”

  “Some of us have been having similar thoughts,” Jorn remarked absently, as if to die ceiling. “But kin is kin, and debts are debts, and there we are and here we are.”

  “Just so,” Garin said. “We’ll have to go to Enj.”

  “Where’s that?” Otho broke in.

  “Not a where, a who.” Garin nodded in Otho’s direction. “He was born some years after you—er, well—left us so sudden, like.”

  “The where’s not such an easy thing, either,” Jorn said. “The trip to Haen Marn’s somewhat of a trial in itself.”

  “We’ll have to suffer it, then.” Garin shot him a dark glance, as if in warning. “No one knows more about dragon lore and fire mountains than Enj. If anyone can find this beast, it’ll be him.”

  “But he’s mad,” Mic wailed. “Stark raving.”

  “Oh, splendid!” Jill laid her sack on the floor and turned toward the dwarves. “That’s all Rhodry needs, a madman for a guide. And what do you mean, volcanoes?”

  “That’s where they live,” Jorn said. “Dragons, I mean. They’re cold-blooded creatures, the great wyrms. They’d die in winter without some source of heat. And I wouldn’t call Enj mad, exactly. All of his clan are a bit—well, er—unusual-minded.”

  “Mad is what I calls it,” Mic snapped. “Starkly, ravingly, babblingly daft.”

  “Otho, you know the dragon hearth in his grace’s hall?” Jorn turned on the bench to present Mic his back. “Well, Enj’s people carved it.”

  “Ah, I see.” Otho nodded sagely. “Well, then.”

  “Well then what?” Jill said. “It’s a beautiful bit of stonework, but what does that prove?”

  “You wouldn’t understand, Jill,” Garin broke in, “for all your dweomer. It’s a thing that only the Mountain People would understand.”

  Jill rolled her eyes heavenward, but she held her tongue. If Rhodry hadn’t been so tired, he would have howled in berserk delight. As it was, he found himself grinning.

  “Fire mountains, vicious beasts, dwarven madmen— oh, it all sounds a splendid little journey you’re sending me on, Jill.”

  She made a sour face in his direction.

  “Hah!” Otho snorted. “Smirk all you want, silver dagger, but think of this, will you? If we take you on this fool’s errand, you’ll have to walk.”

  “Walk?” Rhodry felt his grin disappear. “What do you mean, walk?”

  “Just that. How do you expect horses to survive a trip like this? We might even end up traveling underground.” Otho held a hand upside down and made striding motions with his fore and middle finger. “So walking it is. I know what you elves are like. Tender little feet, all of you. Lost without a horse.”

  “Otho, will you hold your ugly tongue?” Garin snarled. “You owe the man your life!”

  “And it sounds to me like he’s asking me to give it right back to him, traipsing round the mountains, hunting dragons.” Otho drew himself up to full dignity. “Not much of a bargain, is it now?”

  “You could pay Enj and his clan to accept your blood debt for you,” Jorn said.

  “Hah! And what will they want for that? Every gem I own, no doubt. I’d be beggared!”

  “Better than being dead, isn’t it?” Rhodry said, grinning.

  Otho merely snorted in contempt at the very idea. Jill picked up her sack.

  “I’d best get back to the dun. Things are bound to need some straightening out. Rhodry, I suggest you simply stay where you are, if our friends agree?”

  All the dwarves but Otho nodded a yes.

  “Splendid,” Jill went on. “I’ll have Yraen bring you your bedroll and suchlike later. Lord Matyc has a brother who’s honor-bound to look into this whole affair, you know. Which reminds me. Can you walk? I want a word with you, privatelike.”

  Instead the dwarves withdrew to the far side of the big room to argue among themselves about the best way to approach this mysterious Enj. Jill hunkered down by Rhodry’s low chair.

  “I asked you not to let this come to murder,” she hissed.

  “Murder? You asked me to let it come under the laws, and that’s exactly what I did. A priest of Bel himself judged the affair, didn’t he?”

  “True, but you leapt at the chance to have at Matyc with cold steel.”

  “So? The man was a traitor.”

  “We all thought the man a traitor. That’s not necessarily the same thing.”

  He would have argued more, but his head was swimming from the drink, to say nothing of the wound. Jill stood up with a little shake of her head.

  “Well, no use in discussing it now. I’ve got to get back. I’ll be back tomorrow, say, when you’ve had a chance to sober up.”

  “Do that. Ye gods, you could at least thank me.”

  She started to speak, then merely set her mouth in a tight line and turned away.

  “Otho,” she called out. “See if the innkeep can find your savior here a bed that fits him, will you?”

  Before Rhodry could think of what to say to her, she’d slung the sack over her shoulder and marched off. He yawned, yawned again, and fell asleep where he sat.

  When Jill returned to the dun, she found the ward a shouting, surging confusion of men and horses. She slipped in the gates without being noticed and made her way along the curve of the wall until she could get round the mob and cross safely to the broch complex. In the doorway to the great ha
ll Gwerbret Cadmar was standing and talking to a kneeling rider while just behind the pair the chamberlain and equerry hovered. All of the men looked deeply worried, especially the kneeling rider.

  “If his grace orders us to stay,” the fellow was saying. “Well have to try to leave anyway. You might as well just hang us all straight off, Your Grace, and spare the dun the fighting.”

  “I’ll do no such thing, lad, and I’ve not ordered you to stay, either. I asked you to consider staying, that’s all.”

  “But, Your Grace, I can’t—”

  “I know.” Cadmar held up a hand flat for silence. “The situation has an honor of its own, and that honor demands that you take your lordship’s men home. Here, get up.”

  All at once Jill understood—the rider was Matyc’s captain, and the pack in the ward, the warband the lord had brought with him. Mentally she cursed Rhodry with every oath she could think of. The captain rose, dusting off the knees of his brigga.

  “I’ve written a letter to your lord’s brother.” Cadmar held out a hand, and the chamberlain put a silver message tube into it. “Will you deliver it for me?”

  “I will, Your Grace. After ail, he’s our lord now, isn’t he?” The captain glanced the chamberlain’s way. “He will inherit, won’t he?”

  The chamberlain groaned and ran both hands through his thinning hair.

  “That’s up to the priests. But by all rights the lands of a lord who loses a trial by combat are forfeit, to be reassigned by his overlord.”

  “Well, then,” Cadmar broke in. “I’ll just see to it that the brother—”

  “Your Grace!” The chamberlain tugged on his sleeve. “By tradition though not law the lands go to the temple.”