He stopped briefly at a vantage point overlooking the harbor. After a life in the trade cities, he was familiar with the various types of vessels used in much of the known world, but he could not for the life of him say whether there were an unusual number of southern ships. They came and went constantly for much of the year; some braved all but the really bad storms even in winter. For that matter it could well be our own folk running slaves, he thought. He was going to have to learn what he could from people, not simple observation.
On arriving home, the salle felt strangely deserted. The afternoon light slanted through the clerestory windows, illuminating a bit of swirling dust where bodies would normally pace the steps of the deadly dance he taught. With luck, I'll wrap up this business quickly so things can return to normal.
As he entered the apartment, a toothsome smell greeted him, and his stomach rumbled. A large bird hung spitted over the fire.
“It’s some time until dinner,” Gudrun informed him, “but there’s cold roast, cheese and some fresh bread if you fancy it.”
He did fancy a bit of something; he’d missed his noon meal after all. “That would be good,” he said. “Just let me change first.”
In the bedroom, he carefully divested himself of his fineries, and after closeting them, he donned his customary breeches and linen shirt. When he emerged, Gudrun presented him with a plate of food and a mug of beer. He applied himself with gusto while she pottered about, tending the fire and cleaning this or that. When he finished, he asked casually, “How was the market today? Is the food allowance adequate, or do we need to revisit our expenses?”
“Oh no sir, it’s fine. I got a very good price on coffee, actually.” She hesitated, then said, “So much so that I spent the savings on a goose for supper; I hope that you don’t mind?”
“Not a bit. I could stand a change from fish and mutton—not that you don’t do wonders with them. Any other good deals this week?”
“Oh, nothing for the household, but Berga, she’s works for the cooper’s family, said that there had been a large shipment of raw silk; the bolts were half the price of last week.”
She brought him a mug of coffee and he sipped at it while she went on about other bargains that had come up in the market. Small things like spices were as dear as ever, but bulk items from the southern nations seemed to be in surplus; coffee, barrels of wine, bolts of fabric. Which might or might not mean anything.
He ran through his mental list of acquaintances, students, and the parents of students. Some among the merchants he might ask general questions about the markets and shipping; of course, if they had any knowledge of illicit dealings they would hardly share it with him. There were some folk in the district that would tell him anything they knew for a bit of silver. The problem was that for another bit of silver they would tell anyone who asked who he was and what he was inquiring about. Obviously, that won’t do; the slavers are playing for keeps, and I’d just as soon not be ‘kept.’
He wasn’t going to figure it out by sitting there mulling. He told Gudrun that he would be back for supper and set out once again for the better parts of the city where his face was not so well known. He visited a number of "rag men" who collected and resold cast-off clothing and made several purchases. On the way home, he stopped at a modest wine-vendor and procured a few of his cheaper bottles. Arriving back at the salle, he tucked his parcels into one of the equipment cupboards before returning to his quarters.
Later that evening he went out to the salle and recovered his gear; worn clothing, a ragged great cote, and a tattered broad-brimmed hat. To this he added several knives and his lang-seax slung high under his left arm. He completed the ensemble by smearing a bit of goose-grease and grime over his face and hands, and a few liberal splashes of the cheap wine on the great cote.
The salle had once been a warehouse, and like most such in this district it boasted a covert exit. A false-floor in one of the cupboards led to a narrow passage in the foundation and then to a grate that appeared to drain into the sewer. The smell in the passage was terrible, for there was indeed an opening into the sewer necessary both for subterfuge and to prevent the passage flooding during a heavy rain. Carefully checking the alley for movement, he released the hidden catch and slipped out, making sure the grate was secured behind him. From there he proceeded to shamble down the alley and onto the streets.
Neither homeless folk nor drunks were uncommon in the district. Knowing that such were part of the landscape and ignored whenever possible, he had picked his role well. His height he disguised with a dispirited slouch, his firm, confident stride replaced by a drunken stagger. He hoped that his appearance was humble enough to avoid being targeted by local thieves, but if he were accosted, the neighborhood would be made better by having one less cutpurse.
His plan was simple: Wander the streets seeing what he might, then station himself near where he had seen the enslaved dwarves. Had he done so in his normal guise it would have been remarked upon, even were he not recognized. As it was, he hoped to blend in with the human flotsam, beneath notice or consideration.
As he meandered through the streets he occasionally pretended to drink, and freshened the spillage on his clothes. Coming at length to the place where he had been attacked the previous night, he slumped into a dark corner and watched from under the brim of his hat. People passed by occasionally, one or two stopping to peer at him before deciding he wasn’t worth robbing and then moving on.
The night grew cold, but worn as it was the great cote was sufficient to keep his teeth from chattering, and he shifted occasionally to keep stiffness at bay. Just as first light was beginning to show in the strip of sky between the warehouses, he heard the creaking of a cart. As it approached, he could just make out a whispered conversation, then a dark figure came over and kicked his foot. He grunted and shifted, then began to snore. The man retreated and there was more whispering, then the cart creaked past and away into the darkness. Smugglers, he guessed, just not the ones I’m looking for.
Shortly after that he gave it up for the night; as dawn drew near he got up, stretched, and began to make his way home. Few were now on the streets, though as he passed a bakery, the yeasty aroma of baking bread drifted on the breeze. Just before the sun rose, he was able to slip inside the salle without being observed. He changed out of his disreputable garb then hurried back to his own quarters. His servants might note that he had been absent for the night but they would assume he'd taken a lover. And they'd say nothing; they knew too well the value he placed upon discretion.
He crept into his own bed to grab a few hours of sleep before his first class of the day. From here out he would have to get what sleep he could; his nights would be given over to investigation.
Chapter Nine
“We dwarves are apt to forget that there is more of magic in the world than the working of stone, metal and wood. Sometimes the reminder comes as a rude surprise… “
From the Diaries of Engvyr Gunnarson
Ageyra frowned to herself as she contemplated the street outside the inn. She was sitting on a bench by the door, puffing on a clay pipe. It was a fine, bright morning with a crisp bite in the air and she was of a mind to take her pleasures where she could these days. Dwarves were hardly unknown in Taerneal, but they comprised only a tiny part of the city’s population. There was no getting around the fact that if she made inquiries around North Harbor or into The Breakers beyond, people would notice. Come to that, even venturing into a place like that would arouse comment; no one went there without a good reason, not even the City Watch.
The Breakers were actually outside the city’s walls, named for a time long past, when folk would set false beacons to mimic the lighthouse at Taerneal. Ships thus lured to run aground or perish on the rocks made easy prey for looters. The city watch raided and burned the place to the ground several times before the locals got the message and stopped that practice, but the name had stuck, and it remained a hold-out and hide-out for the worst the
city had to offer. Like most such places the bulk of the folk were decent enough, just down on their luck and unable to claw their way up out of the cesspit they were living in. If they had to bend the law a bit to get along, well, that was just the price of survival. The point was, if Ageyra showed her face thereabouts, she had little doubt but her neck-bones would see light of day.
She and Taarven had discussed the matter at length and agreed to leave the northernmost precincts of the city well enough alone. With no proper harborage, what smuggling passed through there were small, high-value items that could be managed on a small boat; any bulk traffic, such as slaving, would have to be handled from either within the city or so far up the coast that the patrols would overlook it.
So she sat and smoked, a dwarven drover waiting patiently for her master’s call to the next job. She might appear to the world at large to be taking her ease, but in fact she was hard at work on the task that had brought them. Ageyra was a stonewright, and while her eyes drifted lazily over the street, other, subtler senses spread into the stone around her. She sought the taste, the memory, of dwarven feet in the street's cobbles, the touch of dwarves' hands laid momentarily against a wall for support. Most of the buildings hereabouts were of heavy beams and wattle-and-daub, but the foundations, often waist-high on the Tall Folk that had built them, were of rock, and stone has a memory of its own.
All morning she had moved from inn to tavern to inn, getting a mug of coffee or hot spiced cider and sitting outside, smoking. So far, her silent enquiries had revealed nothing suspicious, but if the dwarves were being moved through the district, sooner or later she’d find some indication, some trace. It was just a matter of time and patience.
Finishing her pipe, she tapped the ashes out against the sole of her boot and tucked it in the band of her hat to cool. She made her way down the street past the district’s businesses, some shops, but simple tables for the most part, set out under the awnings of row-houses or workshops. She stopped here and there to examine the items on display; cheap jewelry, second-hand clothes, tools, or the occasional weapon. The food-sellers she avoided; a drover stopping over in town for a few days would have little interest in wilted vegetables or suspect meats.
She paused and picked up a twig to clean something better left unexamined from the sole of her boot. But as she leaned against a wall to steady herself, an immensity of feeling jumped at her through the stones. Dwarves, their scent tinged with misery and pain, and something else. She froze for a moment, seeking that other, elusive essence, and when she isolated it, nearly gagged. She snatched her hand away from the wall and stared at it involuntarily for a moment before moving on. She did not know what that other presence was, but the stone itself was offended by the foulness of it. Not merely dwarves but something twisted and unnatural had passed this way. And that something reeked of evil.
She followed the magical trace, slowing occasionally to get a better sense of it. Before long there was nothing left to doubt; the wrongness she had sensed earlier was in company with the dwarves that she sought. It occurred to her that there might be more going on here than the simple trade in lives. She made careful note of the location and began her meandering way back toward the inn to inform Taarven of her findings. They could return after dark when eyes upon them would be fewer.
* * *
Taarven was deep in a game of knucklebones when Ageyra entered the inn’s common room. Catching his eye, she gave a minute jerk of her head. He answered with an almost imperceptible nod and finished up his turn before excusing himself to join her at a table across the room. He suppressed a frown as he looked her over; to a casual observer there was nothing to see, but after spending time on the road together he could tell she was shaken. He arrived at the same time as the serving girl and he raised an eyebrow to Ageyra.
“Coffee?”
She nodded assent and he motioned for the girl to fetch it as he slid onto the bench opposite. By silent accord they were quiet until their drinks arrived. Then he said, “I take it you’ve found some trace?”
She sipped her coffee and nodded. “More than I expected, in fact. There’s something afoot here beyond a little slavin’." Quickly she explained what she’d found and what she’d sensed. She ended by saying, “I’ve been up the creek and down the river in my years, but this…this is something new. Never felt the like.”
Taarven had no more sense of magic than a clay pot, but over the years he’d learned to trust those who did. “Any idea what might cause such an, uh, aberration?”
The older woman shook her head. “What part of ‘I never felt the like’ is a mystery to you?” she asked irritably. “How would I know? The only thing that I know for sure is that it’s not likely to be good news for us, or those braell in its clutches."
“Figure you can track them, find out where they wound up?”
She nodded. “Trace isn’t old, last night or this morning at a guess. Won’t be faded much by tonight, and I figure dark is the time to look.” She shivered slightly. “Not that I ain’t a bit less keen on mucking’ about in the dark just now.”
Taarven nodded and regarded her for a moment. Dressed in worn, mannish clothes with a clay pipe tucked in the band of her hat, she looked much like any of the drovers in the neighborhood, whether afmaeltinn or dwarf. He didn’t know her exact age, but she was well into her second century at least, and she was one tough old bird. In the past he’d seen her mad, annoyed, happy, concerned, and even frightened. But he’d never seen her shaken before. Magic, he reminded himself, might be foreign to him but it was a thing she’d worked and lived with for more decades than he’d been alive. If she’s worried about whatever it was she sensed, best I take it seriously my own self.
“Well,” he said, “best we prepare for the evening’s festivities, and rest up if we can. No telling’ what the night will bring.”
She nodded, her eyes faraway for a moment before they snapped back to the present and met his gaze with resolution. “I reckon so.”
He finished his mug, gave her a nod and retreated to his upstairs room. Digging into his kit, he pulled out a heavy box of richly finished dark wood and opened it to reveal a parting gift from Engvyr. His former partner had ordered it from Ironhame as soon as he’d returned from the battle at Skapansgrippe. “I was going to give it to you next Mid-Winter,” his friend had said, “but it seems like you might have some use for it before then.”
He gazed down at the weapon and shook his head. “You don’t do things by half, do you?” he said softly to his absent friend. It was a princely gift indeed: a hand-gun made by Ulfbehrt and Bueller, the finest gunsmiths in Ironhame, and probably worth the price of a comfortable farm. It was a single-shot, with a mechanism adapted from a shortened version of an Infantry Long Rifle and firing the same 36-Bore/325 slug as that weapon. At close range it would punch a thumb-sized hole through a breastplate and do worse than that to the man inside it. There was a holster with it, but that was meant to mount on a saddle; the weapon was nearly twenty inches long and there was a different provision for wearing it when afoot. He wiped it carefully with a cloth, then shrugged into the soft leather harness that would suspend it under his arm and clipped that to the ring mounted at the base of the pistol-grip. He donned his great-cote over that and shrugged, getting the feel of it. The heavy garment hid the weapon well enough, at least for walking about in the dark. Satisfied, he hung up the cote and took off the harness. He’d load the gun before they left; it was best to let the powerful spring ‘rest’ until it was needed.
He looked briefly at the name of the weapon inlaid in silver on the breech: Dirge. He grinned at the dark humor of it as he set the weapon aside and lay down to nap. As he drifted off, it occurred to him to hope that any dirges sung tonight would not be their own…
* * *
The breeze off the harbor did little to dispel the mixed aromas of sewage and rotting garbage that assaulted Taarven’s nostrils in the narrow alleyway between warehouses. Despite an excellent se
nse of direction, he had gotten turned around as he followed his partner deeper and deeper into the shadier parts of the district. With the moon hidden behind clouds, they had to pick their way carefully; even their dwarven dark-vision, acute as it might be, was stymied in the cramped, narrow passages through which they pursued their quarry.
So far, the trail had passed along streets only occasionally, and then for only a short distance. It made sense that anyone involved in this business would want to keep their operations out of sight, but that knowledge did nothing to make the dwarves’ passage more pleasant.
“I’m guessing there were a couple dozen dwarves, at most,” Ageyra breathed near silently into his ear. “They seem to have gone into the warehouse here—or perhaps the sewers.”
Taarven nodded, his answering murmur as quiet as hers. “Any way to tell which?”
“Of course, there bloody is,” Ageyra responded impatiently. “Give a woman a chance, would ya?”
She placed her hands against the grimy stone of the warehouse’s foundation and Taarven turned his attention to their surroundings. He did not strain his senses, but rather calmed and centered himself and let the night-sounds come to him. He kept his eyes moving; in darkness like this his peripheral vision would pick up movement better than if he stared. Ageyra shifted once or twice as the minutes ticked by, then finally shook herself and turned back to her partner.
“They were here, right enough, but they’ve gone now,” she told him. “No telling where to, but I’ve heard these places have secret ways to get down to the water for smuggling and the like. If I were a betting woman that’s where my money would go. Down to the water and onto boats. But no hope of tracing their path without that we gain access, and frankly, I’m none too eager to do so. We’d not be able to see a thing in that dark, and striking a light could draw attention.”
“What about that, um, thing that was with them?”
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