Chapter 3 ♦ Frideswide
Hax’s journey up the Nordvej was tiring, but without incident. The road, well-maintained in the summer, was firm and wide, with sound, stone-arched bridges and regular towns. It seemed to unroll like a ribbon beneath her mount’s hooves. The only denizens of the countryside she saw were the four-legged ones that populated the fields and vales, and the two-legged ones who tended to them. She rode alone, avoiding passersby, and keeping her hood up and her sword concealed beneath her cloak whenever she passed through a town. Outside of the cities, elves were not a common sight in Zare, and a maiden of the Third House – especially of the Duodeci, if there were anyone about astute enough to recognize her for what she was – alone, horsed and armed, would be unusual enough to excite comment. She wanted to avoid that.
She had no difficulties with her new steed. Breygon’s mare took to her far more readily than its master had done, bearing Hax’s lesser weight without complaint. In further contrast to the half-elf, it proved to be even-tempered, tranquil, and biddable. She found herself warming to the creature, and wished that she knew its name.
In the days following her brief sojourn with Breygon and his turma, she managed to avoid company. Neither Ganesford nor the mining town to the north of it – a dismal place with the charming name of ‘Dolin’s Pit’ – had anything much to offer in the way of accommodations. Ellohyin, though, which she reached four days after leaving Bornhavn, was a different story. She arrived in the great city on the Stjerneflåde in the wee hours of the first day of Lastreap, the day that marked the end of summer and the beginning of autumn.
She slept a single night at a likely-looking establishment called ‘The Shades of Shadizar’. This proved to be a poor choice of venue, as it seemed to come alive after dark, keeping her awake with loud music, revelry, and feminine squeals. Evidently there was more going on behind its many doors than a cursory inspection suggested. As a result, Hax left Ellohyin the following day, more exhausted than when she had arrived. She would have preferred to stay another night to recover her strength, but the possibility of snow in the mountain passes preyed increasingly on her mind. She bought a long cloak of thick brown fur from a merchant in the city’s grote markt, replenished her supply of hard bread and cured meat, and pressed on.
Three days’ hard riding brought her to Bitterberg, a little over two-score leagues north of Ellohyin. Originally named for the hops that grew in profusion on the hillsides about the city, the town’s economy – as Breygon had recounted to her – had long since been overtaken by the mines that lined the hillsides, turning the settlement into a bastion of the northern iron market. Vast, low-sided barges plied the tributaries, poled downstream by sweating crewmen, loaded to the gunwales with ore. They were emptied swiftly, only to be towed back upstream – full of men, food, equipment and ale – by labouring teams of horses. The Stjerneflåde was wild and vicious here, fed by rivers and creeks descending from the Dragonspine Mountains. The whole of the city’s commerce went downstream, to Ellohyin and beyond, even to Vejborg on the coast. There was no travelling the great river above Bitterberg.
It was a busy, bustling place, filled with all manner of denizens; the only requirement for admittance appeared to be a full purse, or failing that, a willingness to work. In addition to the ubiquitous humans, she saw dwarves, halflings, gnomes, and even a few elves. She also passed what could only have been an ogre, although she had never seen one in her life, and detoured widely around a filthy work crew consisting of unidentifiable creatures bearing fangs, fur, and foul expressions.
Hax did not linger in the city, although she did part with enough gold to buy a satchel full of biscuit, jerked meat and dried fruit. She tried the wine, grimaced, decided that it was unwise to trust the local vintage in a place that didn’t grow grapes, and settled for a couple of corked bottles of distilled spirit. It was lighter than ale, and she could always mix it with water. And it could do double duty for medical purposes.
The next day she struck out for the Whitestone Pass, setting a stiff pace. There had been a decided nip in the air when she rose, and as she cantered past the fields, she saw that they were full of labourers, getting in the last of the hay before the first frosts struck. The axes of woodsmen rang, and she passed many barns packed with lowing, panicked kine, as the people slaughtered, dressed, smoked and salted the meat that would see them through another Bjerglands winter.
She dug her heels into the flanks of her mount. She had no intention of letting the snow find her still climbing the pass. Breygon’s horse, at least, seemed to be up to the challenge, and responded to her proddings with good humour. She was going to have to give it a name.
The transit of the pass was easier than she had expected. The weather cooled considerably as she mounted the flanks of the mountain, but the skies stayed clear. A few brief bursts of chill rain ensured that she stayed damp and miserable, but it wasn’t enough to soften the road. She spent the final day of Lastreap in a cliff-side hostel perched precariously at the apex of the pass, paying a pretty penny for rough fare and a simple cot. She was glad to do so; although the snow had not yet begun, the wind was high and bitter. And the fire allowed her to dry her clothes.
She started down the north side of the pass the following morning, spending a miserable night huddling in her damp fur cloak beneath a rude shelter of hacked-down evergreen branches, and reached the borders of Dunholm in the first week of Ars-Waning.
Her first contact with that bucolic land was Menyra. Like Bitterberg, it was a mountain town very much defined by its key exports – in this case, timber and pitch. Vast pine forests covered the north-facing slopes of the Dragonspine Mountains, and Menyra supported the loggers who limbed and felled the trees, and either rolled them down the hills or rafted them down the rivers for rendering in the giant fieldstone ovens south of the city.
The rising smoke blanketed the place like a permanent, putrescent fog bank. Hax rode through the unpaved streets quickly, eyes streaming, one of her precious bandages bound tightly over mouth and nose. Happily, the northern, downhill side of the city boasted cleaner air and better roads. Her nostrils thereafter went unassaulted, except by the occasional caravan carrying wagonloads of oozing pitch barrels downhill to the trading ports on the Broadwater.
She reached the largest of these port towns, Rolling River, a few days after leaving Menyra. The place had a whimsical look about it. It had been built half on piles driven into the river bed, and half in the rolling hills surrounding the water. Men and Halflings, sons of Esu and Nosa, seemed to occupy it in equal numbers, chaffering, gambling, drinking, working, singing or just chatting amicably on street-corners. In contrast to the busy (if noisome) industry of Menyra, an air of casual sloth seemed to pervade the place. Hax suspected that a great deal of bustle lay behind that facade, and that at least some of activity that appeared purposeless must have been productive. The ostentatious character of the inhabitants’ clothing and the brightly-painted facades of the businesses seemed to indicate a certain amount of comfort, if not outright wealth.
Hax found that she was receiving an undesirable amount of attention, and soon realized why. She hadn’t seen another scion of the Third House since leaving Bitterberg. Evidently, her folk were few and far between in this northern valley kingdom.
Upon noticing this, she raised her hood, and kept it up.
Desperate for somewhere warm and dry to sleep, Hax stayed overnight in a riverside hostel called ‘The Harriers’. Once again, this proved an unwise choice. The establishment was evidently the favoured watering-hole for the lowbrow celebrants of Rolling River, and had shaken noisily and mercilessly until the wee hours of the morning, exuding the clangour of unskilled but enthusiastic music, the thunder of dancing, and raucous, drunken shouts for “More ale!”
I suppose I’m destined to lie in ditches if I want to get any sleep, she sighed. She made a mental note to avoid all such places in the future.
<
br /> Three days later found her a hundred leagues upriver, searching for an appropriately-sized inn in the city of Greatwaters, the halfling capital of Dunholm. The proportion of Halpinya in this place was much higher than in Rolling River; there were few humans to be seen, and no elves of any description. The occasional gnome mixed freely with the crowds, though, and she saw the odd dwarf here and there. She thought they were hill dwarves, although she wasn’t sufficiently acquainted with the Dweorga to be certain.
Taken altogether, apart from the absence of any of her own kin, it was one of the most cosmopolitan places she had ever seen. Indeed, she thought – just for a moment – that she saw what she would have sworn was one of the fey folk. She hadn’t seen any of that rare, exquisitely shy breed since her last trek through the deep, ancient forests of Eldisle.
The halflings proved something of a challenge. They clustered fearlessly around her mount’s stamping hooves, dodging, weaving and courting death as they presented a profusion of goods for her inspection. Had she been riding Torris instead of Breygon’s far more sedate mare, she would have quickly been surrounded by blood-soaked sod and pathetic, trampled bodies. Her new steed, however, bore the distraction with nothing more than an irritated flaring of her nostrils. Hax was certain that her own expression was something similar.
She had to admit that the array of goods was impressive: woven carpets, brightly-coloured clothing (all of it clearly too small for her), hats, belts, boots, silver cutlery, earthenware teapots, horn combs, pewter tankards, tiny pocket knives…the list was all but endless. She felt as though she had stumbled into a flock of miniature merchants.
Hax tried to wave them away politely, but this proved a futile gesture given the persistence of the small folk. Eventually she gave up, spurring her mount and continuing down the street at a quick trot, praying that Breygon’s horse was compassionate and dextrous enough to avoid the scampering mass of salesmen.
As it turned out, she needn’t have worried. The Halpinya were apparently used to big folk trying to ride them down, and danced nimbly out of her way. They heckled her mercilessly in at least six different languages as she cantered off.
Night was falling, and she was beginning to despair of finding an inn that she could stand up in. Rather than risk another unpleasant night out-of-doors, Hax reined in at a suitably-sized tavern at the western edge of the town – the ‘Pickens Hovel’, a low, robust establishment built entirely of close-fitted fieldstone, and sporting a weather-beaten sign that bore crossed mining implements and a legend in the – to her eyes – indecipherable dwarven script. The lintel of the door was precisely at the same level as her forehead, but it would have to do. It was a good foot higher than the ceiling of every other place she had thus far tried.
She entered, blinking against the sooty lamplight, and sought out the proprietor. This worthy, an obvious hill dwarf with an eye-patch and a leather jerkin stained with smoke and bacon grease in equal proportions, introduced himself as one Gareth Pickens. Eyeing Hax carefully as she approached, he reached for something concealed under the bar. Then he seemed to think better of it, and placed his hands carefully on the scarred wooden surface before him. Hax smiled broadly, taking his wary regard as a compliment.
When she inquired about a room, he snorted derisively, pointing towards the hearth, where three shapes – dwarves, by the look of them – were already huddled in blankets, snoring like a trio of bellows. Hax nodded resignedly, and tossed Pickens a handful of copper. This bought her a filling and surprisingly tasty dinner (if over-salted; the dwarves, she recalled Sylloallen telling her once, over-salted everything), a mug of ale that she was quite unable to finish, and a blanket that was, if ragged, at least clean. This she folded carefully into a make-shift mattress, covering herself with her own blankets. Her saddlebags she placed under her head, with her bow and sword by her side. Between a hard floor, a smoky fire and snoring Dwarves, Hax expected to lay awake most of the night.
She was asleep within minutes.
♦
Ally’s mother was none too happy with her daughter’s new career. As soon as she learned that Sylloallen had returned with the girl from the Dræywood, she summoned them both for an immediate and thorough dressing down.
That, she realized the moment the miscreants entered her exquisitely-appointed and scrupulously clean day room, was an error of judgement. When the bedraggled pair were admitted by a handmaiden (who prudently fled, closing the door firmly behind her), all that Alrykkian could do was goggle at them in disbelief.
The warrior and the girl had spent five nights in the forest. Although they had managed to find a mountain stream in which to bathe, they remained filthy beyond description. Sylloallen was still clad in his everyday garb, but now, instead of being barely-suitable attire for the palace, his tunic, shirt and cloak were fit only for the ash heap. The right leg of his breeches was blood-soaked and torn high on the thigh; dirty white cloth, stained with more blood, showed underneath. His boots were scuffed and worn, and the left one was missing a heel; and there was a glaring, painful-looking contusion under his right eye.
The girl, however, looked far, far worse. Rykki was hard-pressed to recognize her daughter at all in the filthy, grime-encrusted guttersnipe that stood before her. The girl’s hair was smutty and tatted, and the whole sodden, mud-caked mess had been tied back with what looked like either a piece of vine or a boot-lace. She was wearing – over the rags of what had once been a costly gown – a motley collection of what appeared to be uncured hides, and she was unshod. Her bare legs were criss-crossed with cuts and scrapes, and there were dark circles etched under her eyes. Her arms were bare, and a cut on her left bicep was bleeding sluggishly.
The duchess took a deep breath to calm herself. That, too, proved to be a mistake; the pair stank like the castle midden on a summer afternoon, and her inhalation quickly became a gagging cough.
The girl looked worriedly up at her mentor.
Sylloallen made a calming gesture. “Your Grace,” he began, “Let me explain. The duke…”
“Bother the Duke,” Alrykkian cut him off. ‘Bother’ was not the term she used. “You’re rusting, Syllo. And what on earth happened to your eye?”
The knight glanced down at his mailshirt, and winced; sure enough, the fine links were beginning to turn an angry orange. “My lady, your lord husband –”
“I’ll deal with ‘my lord husband’ later,” she snapped. “And you, too. For now, go take a bath. And do something about that ridiculous bruise,” she added waspishly, with a wave of her fingers near her own eye. “I thought you fellows were able to manage with that sort of thing.”
Turning to her daughter, she said incredulously, “Are you naked under all that…that…mess?”
“Not entirely, mother,” the girl replied, exhaustion helping her to remain calm under her mother’s withering gaze. “Sylloallen took a bad goring from a boar. We needed some cloth for bandages.” She glanced down at the mangled remains of her undergarments, intermittently visible through the grisly layers of hides. “This was the best I could do.”
“Why didn’t you use his shirt instead?” Rykki asked, pointing at Sylloallen.
“He was unavailable for consultation,” the girl replied through clenched teeth.
Her mother glared. “Your tone isn’t helping your case, daughter mine.” She turned back to the warrior. “You couldn’t have just healed yourself?”
Sylloallen shrugged. “I was unconscious, my lady. Besides, what would she have learned from that?”
“Possibly that you’re not completely insane,” Rykki fumed. “Unlike ‘my lord husband’.” She jerked a thumb at the door. “Get out.”
“I’d rather he stayed,” Ally interjected.
“Thou, daughter,” her mother said frostily, “may hold thy tongue.” She gave the girl a chilling glance that promised punishments galore. “And give him back his sword.”
“
It’s her sword, now,” Sylloallen said quietly.
“Why, my dear friend,” the duchess snapped, an ominous note creeping into her voice, “are you still here?” ‘Dear friend’ was not the term she used, either.
Ally glanced over her shoulder at the hilt of the aulensis that Syllo had given her. She’d used part of the hide from the first deer they’d killed to fashion a rough baldric. It had taken a great deal of finicky work with a sharp stone to get it right, but she was proud of the result; the heel of the scabbard for the enormous weapon barely cleared the floor, but she was now able to carry it without difficulty. Still chafes my shoulder, though, she thought tiredly.
“Ab venerabundus, domina,” Sylloallen was saying quietly, “but she is my pupil now. She comes or goes at my will. Not yours.”
Alrykkian’s eyes went flat. Ally knew something of her mother’s power; if the hair on the back of her neck had not been so badly matted with filth, it would have stood stiffly upwards. “I sincerely hope,” the Duchess hissed, “that you’re not thinking of invoking legal precedent where o…where my daughter is concerned.”
Sylloallen smiled narrowly, wincing as the expression split his cracked lips. “I would not presume to quote the Codex Diorcan to one of your ancestry,” he replied respectfully. “You know the law as well as I, I’m sure, my lady.”
Frowning, Alrykkian drummed her fingers on her desk. “Nicely done,” she said at last. It was not a compliment. “You have my leave to withdraw. I’ll sort this abomination out with my husband when he returns.” Turning her gaze on Ally, she added, “Go get cleaned up. See the leech and have those cuts attended to. Especially your shoulder,” she added, eyeing the wound in Ally’s upper arm. “And get rid of that sword.”
Ally thought about the past five days – all of the things that she had endured, and all of the things that she had learned. She thought of the terror that had flooded through her when Syllo had taken a goring. She’d managed to kill the boar, but she’d been left alone to deal with the gaping wound in his leg. Her frantic struggles to stop the bleeding haunted her nightmares. In her mind, her master had already died a hundred times.
Against that, she weighed her mother’s abiding love for her daughters, her insistence that they attend the Collegium, her hopes for their future…and the deliberate insult to Sylloallen. My Master, she realized suddenly. Her mother’s peremptory command had been a direct challenge to his authority.
As was Alrykkian’s command that Ally surrender her sword.
Although she was certain that he did not speak, she seemed to hear Sylloallen’s voice inside her head. What are you going to do about it?
Ally lifted her makeshift, putrefying deerhide baldric over her head and balanced the heavy weapon in both hands. She saw the beginnings of a triumphal smile lift the corner of her mother’s mouth. That was enough to decide her.
She stripped the scabbard from the blade – the blade that she had, every night after the first, rubbed carefully with raw, stinking animal fat to protect it from rust. Grunting slightly at the effort required, and ignoring the agonized screaming of her overworked muscles, she faced her mother and swung the weapon into the two-handed accinxi stance that Syllo had taught her.
“Take it,” she said calmly.
The Duchess’ eyes went hard, flinty…and a burst of hearty laughter filled the room. And the sound of clapping.
Ally looked around; Sylloallen was standing cross-armed, his mouth closed, trying to ascertain the source of the chortling as well.
“Kumota näkymättömyys.” A figure faded slowly into view behind Alrykkian’s chair. It was Ally’s father. He was applauding lightly, a broad smile on his face.
Sylloallen bowed deep. Ally was far too surprised to curtsey. And, frankly, she was unsure how to do so when holding a two-handed sword, and wearing nothing but half a shift and a motley collection of uncured animal hides.
Still chuckling, Kaltas stepped forward and laid a gentle hand on his lifemate’s shoulder.
“I suppose you’re pleased with yourself,” Alrykkian snorted angrily, glancing up at him.
The Duke nodded. “I knew you had it in you,” he said to his daughter, who was still staring at him in shocked surprise. He turned to Sylloallen. “And I knew you could get it out.”
The warrior smiled, wincing, and bowed again.
“By the way, what did happen to your eye?” the Duke asked, smiling as though he already knew the answer.
Sylloallen smiled. “Your…my student,” he corrected himself, “managed to slip past my guard.”
“With what? Her fist?”
“Tree branch,” the warrior admitted ruefully. “It was a big one,” he added defensively when Kaltas burst into renewed laughter.
The Duke nodded happily. “I told you she showed promise.”
“I never doubted it, my lord.”
“You’re going to continue with this farce?” the Duchess demanded angrily.
Ally’s father leaned down and kissed his wife gently on the top of her head. “Would you rather she end up at the Starhall,” he asked, “jesting and riding, dancing and flirting, whiling away her days and nights with your sister, and the rest of the noble-born braggarts, sots and whores?”
“Kaltas!” she hissed, glancing at Ally, whose eyes had widened remarkably.
The Duke shrugged. “It’s the way the world is,” he said. “If we don’t tell her, he’ll have to.” He gestured at Sylloallen. “It’s his duty, as praeceptor, to prepare her to face the world. In every way. Nec est?” He added, smiling wryly at his friend.
“Praedixit,” Sylloallen agreed. “Sire,” he continued plaintively, “may I withdraw? As your lady wife rightly points out, I am in sore need of a bath. And a change of clothing. And a moment to beg the Protector to do something about my student’s handiwork.” He smiled, indicating the blue-black splotch under his eye. “And I could use a drink.”
“Of course, Sy,” Kaltas laughed. “And take your pupil with you.”
The warrior bowed, and Ally, still bemused with exhaustion, and thoroughly flabbergasted at the turn of events, imitated him. They left together.
As they neared the door, Kaltas called out, “Discipulus!”
Ally realized that he was speaking to her, and turned back. “Yes, father?” she asked.
“Treasure that blade,” the Duke said, his face serious. “Don’t ever let me catch you without it.”
“No, father,” she replied. She closed the door behind her.
In the hallway outside her mother’s chamber, Ally paused, smiling. Sylloallen noticed her expression. “Something funny?” he asked.
“No,” she replied. Then she nodded. “Well, actually, yes. ‘Don’t ever let me catch you without it’.”
“What’s funny about that?” the warrior asked.
“It’s the same thing you told me.”
Sylloallen laughed. “Of course it is.” He strode off down the corridor, limping slightly as he favoured his wounded leg. “That’s what your father told me, a couple of centuries ago. Who do you think gave me that sword in the first place?”
♦
At dawn, Pickens himself provided a wake-up service: a nudge, none too gentle, with the toe of his grimy boot.
Hax stirred, sitting up just in time to avoid a second kick. Stiff and cramped, she looked around for a servant of some sort, but saw only the proprietor himself. No one else was in evidence except for the other groaning sleepers who were clustered around the fireplace. She saw that there were now half a dozen ranged alongside her, all of them dwarves, and surmised that more patrons must have joined her in the night.
She stumbled out into the early morning mist, found the pump, drew a bucket of icy water, and plunged her head into it. When the water was still again, she regarded her reflection soberly. Her hair was a total loss. If I have to go much longer without washing it, she mused wryly, I’ll be better off sh
aving my head. Wringing the damp, greasy mass, she twisted it into a rough horsetail and tied it off with a hank of rawhide. She tried not to think too hard about how she smelt, or the deplorable state of her smallclothes. No more hope of a hot bath now; she was heading into the uplands. Greatwaters had been her last chance.
When she returned to the tavern, she found Pickens awake and serving breakfast. She avoided the bacon, knowing that it would be inedibly salty, and accepted half a loaf of hot bread, a pat of butter, and a pot of honey. This proved to be a better meal than she had had in some time. She was pleasantly surprised when Pickens, with a surreptitious wink, offered her berry tea rather than small beer, and emptied several cups gratefully.
In the midst of her repast, a low, guttural voice startled her. “Heading up-country?”
Hax turned and saw a pair of hill dwarves regarding her with interest. The man was dressed soberly, in travel-stained woollens and leathers, with a knife and short sword at his belt; the woman looked a little better off, wearing robes of some sort, well-worn, but well-made. Both had plaited their hair and knotted it at the napes of their necks; the man’s beard had been similarly treated, and was festooned with small ringlets and beads.
She was glad they spoke the travelling tongue, as she knew only the merest smattering of dwarven words. “Why?” she asked around a mouthful, reaching for her cup.
“Saw you last night, coming up from Rolling River,” the man replied, frowning. “Look like you’re going far and fast. Thought you might like company.”
The dwarf-woman shot him an annoyed glance. “What he means,” she said, in a voice nearly as deep, but a lot more mellifluous, “is that we’re heading up-country ourselves, to Eastgate and home. And that, if you’re going the same way, we wouldn’t mind passing the Feywood in the company of one of your…of an elf.”
Trust them.
Hax started slightly. She hadn’t heard the Voice since leaving Breygon and the others at Bornhavn. Shrugging, she nodded. “I’m leaving after breakfast,” she replied. “Meet me outside in a quarter-candle.”
The male dwarf looked confused. “In a what?”
“Half an hour,” the dwarf-woman muttered to her companion. To Hax, she said, “Good. We’ll be there with our cart.”
As they turned to leave, the elf stopped them with a gesture. “I’m riding fast,” Hax warned. “If you can’t match my pace, we’re quits.”
The man snorted, and the woman elbowed him into silence. “I’m sure we’ll be fine, ducks,” she said soothingly. She seemed to hesitate for a moment, then added, “I’m Frideswide Balwyf, by the way. And this is my husband, Wynstan Carrlárdan.”
Hax nodded. “Any relation to the poet?” she asked, gnawing on the heel of her loaf.
The man’s eyes widened, and the woman nodded happily. “Great-grandson,” she said. She elbowed her mate a third time, eliciting a wince. “See?” she said brightly, “I knew she was good luck.”
A quarter-candle later, Hax stood outside the Pickens Hovel, staring at the dwarves’ conveyance and blinking in surprise. The thing – which looked like a large horse-cart combined with a ship’s wheel and what appeared to be an enormous whisky still constructed of highly-polished, green-tinged metal – stood next to the pump. The man – Wynstan, she reminded herself – was working the pump-handle, filling buckets which he then handed up to another male dwarf, who stood in the cart-bed. This latter worthy, whom she did not recognize, was hoisting the buckets over his head and emptying them carefully into a pair of tall wooden barrels ranged alongside the metal tub.
Wynstan looked up. “All ready, then?” he growled.
Hax stared at the contraption in astonishment, and didn’t answer for a moment. Then she said simply, “I need to get my horse,” and walked around to the rear of the tavern, wondering what she had just seen.
The story emerged, in fits and starts, during the first half-hour of their journey. The odd-looking wagon was in fact a ‘horse-less coach’, and the unfamiliar dwarf – whose name, it transpired, was Uchtred Fladingann (“Flatfingers”, the fellow explained helpfully) – was both its creator, and its pilot.
The contraption rattled softly over the ruts of the uplands highway, emitting a slight hiss every now and then. After shying several times, Hax’s horse eventually got used to it, and trotted easily alongside it.
“Got the idea from the gnomes,” Uchtred explained happily. His voice was just as gravelly as Wynstan’s, but he was a good deal more cheerful – and surprisingly voluble. “Saw one of their fire-carts down in Néahéah,” he went on. “Ingenious –” this elicited a snort from Wynstan “– but inelegant. Had to stoke it, and even with charcoal, it took’em forever to get up a head of steam. Bad planning, especially for an emergency vehicle. This beauty,” he gestured at the boiler, “stays hot year-round.”
“I don’t see any wood,” Hax said. “Or firestone.” From her saddle, she could look down into the conveyance. It was piled high with satchels, bags, packs and twine-wrapped parcels. Nothing else.
“Hah!” This from the woman, Frideswide. “No, no fuel at all, my dear. Dwarven ingenuity.” She tapped her temple with one thick finger. “And a little help from the Stoneteacher.”
Hax smiled. “Would you care to explain that?”
“The mystical might of the master of the mountains,” the Dwarf-woman replied primly.
The elf-girl nodded. “Bound elemental?” It wasn’t unknown. Kalestayne had told her about…
“What?” the Dwarf-woman expostulated, looking shocked. “Of course not! That would be unconscionable!”
Hax frowned. “Why?”
“It’s the same thing as slavery, dearie,” Frideswide replied, her tone reproving. “They’re living, thinking creatures.”
“Living, thinking, stupid creatures,” Hax corrected. “Most are no smarter than my horse, here. And I have no qualms about riding him.”
“But he’s not likely to incinerate you if you annoy him,” Frideswide responded, waving an admonitory finger. “Besides, if lack of brains were all it took, I’d have this one in a yoke in a heartbeat.” She elbowed Wynstan in the ribs. He grunted a protest. “Anyway, we found a different way. Uchtred’s idea and forge-work; and my master’s power.”
“So?” Hax asked, her curiosity overwhelming her customary taciturnity. “How’d’ye do it?”
“Spell research,” Frideswide replied smugly. Leaning over in her seat on the buckboard, she reached back, grasped a handle, and pulled. A thick brass door near the base of the ‘still’ swung open with a creak. Even from where she sat, Hax could feel a blast of heat on her face, as thought the woman had opened a furnace. But oddly, there was no light emanating from the tiny enclosure.
“That’s the boiler,” the Dwarf-woman continued. “Steam drives an arm that turns a crankshaft, spinning the back wheels. So long as we keep the boiler topped up, we can run forever.” She smiled happily. “Uchtred rigged up the gears. We can even go backwards.”
“It’s not recommended, though,” Uchtred grunted. “Too hard to steer.”
Hax tugged at her chin, perplexed. “It’s not the steering that interests me,” she said, wondering. “It’s the heat. Where did you get it? What spell did you use? And how did you make it permanent?”
“Áwunigende æledfyr,” Frideswide replied. “Umm, that would be ‘eternal fire’, in the travelling tongue.”
Hax raised an eyebrow. Kalestayne had taught her about that one. “That produces light, not heat,” she said, surprised. “How in the world did you coax fire out of it?”
“Just tweaked it a little,” Uchtred interjected. “Artificer wizard back home gave her a hand. Tuned it like a lute. This version produces heat, but no light.”
“I call it Sceadál,” the Dwarf-woman said proudly. “Shadefire. It’s become pretty popular back home. Easy enough for divine casters, like myself.”
Wynstan g
runted agreement. “Yup. Great for heating a room at night, for example. Good for cooking, too.”
“You’ll put the firestone miners out of business,” Hax remarked, saying the first thing that popped into her head.
“Not likely,” Frideswide snorted. “It’s a pretty expensive thing to rig up. Took nearly two thousand doubleweights worth of components to enchant the burner for this cart. That’s on top of five thousand doubles to build it. Horses and firestone are still a lot cheaper.”
“Plus, if you run out of water, ye’re stuck,” Uchtred added.
Hax chuckled, shaking her head. “It’s very impressive nonetheless.”
“Oh, aye,” Wynstan growled. “King liked the spell so much he put heaters and stove-burners all throughout the Thrymgaard Palace. Made us a pretty penny. Won the little woman a medal, too.”
“That’s why we’re in business now,” Frideswide commented happily.
“Still,” Hax said thoughtfully, “a horse would be a lot faster.”
Uchtred barked a laugh. “Think so?” Reaching down, he grasped an iron wheel protruding from the floor and gave it a couple of rapid turns. The copper boiler hissed alarmingly, and a cloud of steam burst from the valves atop it. Hax’s horse shuddered sideways, spooked by the sudden noise, and she struggled to control it.
With a clanking rattle, the cart accelerated rapidly, bouncing and careening over the cobblestones. As Hax watched it recede into the distance, she heard Uchtred’s laughter billow out over the noise of its passage. “I thought you were riding fast?” he chortled.
“Slow down, ye fool!” Frideswide shouted, clutching frantically at the seat edge.
Hax sighed, and put the spurs to her mount.
♦
For the most part, the dwarves kept their rolling speed down to an easy trot out of consideration for her mare. Hax rode to the right of the cart, letting the creature enjoy the thick grass that lay beside the roadbed. This position also allowed her to indulge in increasingly lengthy conversations with Frideswide. It was during one of these that the woman – she was a priestess of Khallach, one of the four Dwarf-Lords, and the god of the mountains, whom the dwarves also called Carrláréow, the Stoneteacher – expounded at some length upon the ancient subject of elf-dwarf enmity.
“ ‘The Digger’s Cup’,” the priestess said with a contemptuous snort. “Delferelíthr. The only earthly relic of the Forgemaster, save for the stone at the First Forge itself. And that’s what the humans call it. ‘The Digger’s Cup’. I ask you!”
“Aye,” Hax muttered in agreement. Then she smiled at herself; a few hours in dwarven company, and she was already repeating their colloquialisms. “But what is it?”
“It was the bride-gift of Lagu to his eldest sister,” Frideswide replied, looking surprised. “Surely you know of it?” She elbowed Wynstan in the ribs again. “Hear you that, heya? She’s never heard of the Cup!”
Uchtred cleared his throat ostentatiously, and intoned:
Eldest the cup that the Delver made
To give to the Mother of light and shade;
Ruby the lips that touched the brim
As she clove to a mortal’s immortal whim;
So fill it with water and drink it down,
And your soul will exalt, and you’ll wear a crown.
“You’re full of surprises, aren’t you?” Wynstan grumbled.
“Some of us paid attention in school,” Uchtred replied primly, his prodigious nose high in the air.
“That’s human doggerel,” Frida sniffed. “More likely you got it in a taphouse.”
Hax was tremendously confused by all of this. “I’ve never heard that verse,” she admitted. “What’s it about?”
“It’s about the treasures of the elves,” Uchtred said, shrugging. “No idea who wrote it. Remind me sometime, and I’ll recite the whole thing for you, if I can remember it all.”
“I imagine they’d keep quiet about that stanza, ‘mong your folk,” Wynstan muttered.
“Very quiet,” Frida emphasized.
“I’m sorry,” Hax said carefully. They were both clearly agitated. Wynstan was doing his best to hide it, but his wife was giving full vent to her indignation. “I simply don’t know what you’re referring to.”
“Your people, dearie,” Frideswide said archly. “The Third House of the Elves was spawned when the holy mother,” (here she made a fist, raised it first to her lips, and then to the sky), “took a mate from among the firstborn of the Haradi.”
“I know that,” Hax said.
“Ciarloth,” Wynstan interjected absently, his eyes on the trail before them.
“Ciarloth, aye,” Frida agreed, eyeing her husband. “No accounting for taste. Any road, when they were wed, they asked Lagu, who, though the youngest of the Seven, had always been the most honourable and forthright of the Powers of Light, to bless their union. So he did, and he offered them a health; and to help them drink it, he reached into the earth, and from it pulled a wine-cup, with a bowl of stone, and a base of purest silver.”
“Bræa called for wine…” Wynstan began.
“…called for wine, aye,” Frida interrupted, elbowing her husband into silence again. “But mighty Lagu, he said no to that. He said that for the health of their line ever after, they should drink only the blood of the earth from his cup. And so he dipped it into a spring, and gave it to holy Bræa,” (fist, lips, sky) “to drink; and she drank; and her power passed into the cup.
“And from that cup,” the priestess continued, now fully submerged in her sermon, “charged with the might of Lagu, and of the Lightbringer, and of the earth, Ciarloth drank also; and so he became, even if only briefly, as one of the powers. And while so endowed, he and holy Bræa,” (fist, lips, sky) “enjoyed their wedding night; and thereafter did she give birth to the first of her children, and to others after, and they went on to found the Houses of Harad.”
She paused, took a breath, and added, “And that is the tale of the Delferelíthr – the ‘Digger’s Cup’.”
“Gifan néodlof!” Uchtred said loudly.
“Æt néodlof!” the priestess and Wynstan intoned together.
Hax had no idea what they were talking about. She rode in silence for a number of minutes, surprised by this unexpected display of piety.
She had never met many dwarves; Eldisle was so far off the main trade routes, and so far from the dwarven homelands that, prior to her present journey, she had only ever seen them infrequently, in ones and twos, here and there about the duchy. In the palace, there had been only those who had come to serve her father, usually in some technical capacity, and never for long. And those few that she had spoken to had been reticent to the point of taciturnity. Nor had any of them made mention of their theological proclivities; apparently, they had accommodated themselves to the largely secular, non-demonstrative observances of Elvehelm.
Or, the group she had fallen among now were some sort of missionaries. That was also possible.
“So now you know,” Frideswide said happily after another few moments.
“ ‘Gecythig helfan níthplega es’,” Ucthred chimed in.
Hax shot him a querulous glance.
“Old dwarven proverb,” he shrugged. “ ‘Knowledge is the greater part of any struggle’.”
She nodded. “That one I’ve heard. The Ekhani knights say something similar: ‘Knowing is half the battle’.”
“Say heya,” Wynstan grunted.
Hax waited for him to say something else, but he had lapsed into stony silence again. “So,” she asked a moment later, “why is this Cup so important? I mean, apart from its obvious religious significance,” she added quickly.
“Because you stole it, dearie,” Frideswide said complacently.
Hax swallowed and coughed simultaneously, choking harshly. Frida glanced over at her in alarm. “Do you need some water?” she asked, concerned.
Hax shook her head, gradually re
gaining control of herself. “How did you know?” she whispered, alarmed.
“How did I…” the priestess asked, incredulous. “Cildic, the theft of the Cup is taught to our schoolchildren. We call it – beggin’ your pardon, of course – ‘fácen numoléarede’. ‘The Treason of the Sharp-Ears’.” She shrugged as if embarrassed. “The young ones grow up learning about it.”
“Stupid, that,” Wynstan growled. “What’s past is past. Thousands of years of bad blood, to what end?”
“Excuse me,” Hax said. She was becoming exasperated. “I still don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
“Lagu’s cup,” Frideswide replied patiently, as though she were speaking to an addled child. “The Stoneteacher made it to toast Bræa’s wedding; but Bræa’s offspring claimed it was a betrothal gift, and never returned it, as by rights they should have done. When the priests of the Dwarf-Lords sought its return centuries later, Tior – for by then, he sat atop the Filigree Throne, and Bræa had passed into obscurity, mourning her lost mate – Tior, that you call the Mighty, laughed at them, and sent them packing.”
“That hardly seems fair,” Hax said, as neutrally as possible. She was relieved that they were talking about ancient history rather than her recent adventures in the High Queen’s garden.
Then she thought about what lay, wrapped carefully in a towel, in her pack…and her blood suddenly ran cold. She closed her mouth with a snap. What if…
By Holy Miros, what have I done?
More importantly, what would the Dwarves say if they knew about it? And what would they do?
“Fair, aye,” grumbled Wynstan. “Not much of that going ‘round back then. Nor since.”
“As you said,” his wife responded archly, “it’s in the past. The Cup has become part of the regalia of the Third House, and is guarded as jealously as Tior’s star-crown. It hasn’t been out of the Starmeadow vaults since Ælyndarka took the throne hundreds of years since. No?” she added, glancing over at Hax.
The elf-girl’s blood ran cold again. “Not to my knowledge,” Hax replied, feeling goose flesh crawl up her neck.
“Well and good,” the priestess said contentedly. “ ’Tis said there are many things in the elf-queen’s treasure chests that are best left undisturbed. Belike we’re better off with that bauble staying where it has lain for four ages of the earth.”
“Belike,” Wynstan grunted. “Who knows what those fool priests at the First Forge might do with it, if it fell into their hands again?”
What indeed? Hax thought to herself.
Why had she never even thought to cast a divination on the damned thing? And now, to be carrying it blithely towards the Deeprealm…
This is what comes, she thought angrily, of acting on instinct instead of using my head.
Somewhere, Sylloallen had to be laughing at her.
♦
As it happened, the three dwarves had reason beyond simple conversation to be grateful for their spur-of-the-moment decision to invite an unknown elf-girl on their journey.
Above Greatwaters, the countryside grew progressively wilder. The Halpinya villages hugged the lakeshore, with fields cleared back to the thick forests of oak, ash and maple that tumbled out of the mountains like a spilled basket of greenery. The lakeshore road was firm, but hardly wide, at least by the standards of the dwarves’ fire-cart. Whenever they met another conveyance, Wynstan generally pulled off to one side and let it pass. Hax smiled the first time this happened, seeing a soft spot in the gruff fellow’s character; it would be a lot harder for one of the little folk to extricate a mud-stuck pony-cart than for the dwarves to dig their spell-powered contraption out of the mire. On the third such occasion, he caught sight of her grin and muttered something profane and unintelligible. His outburst shocked a genuine laugh from her, her first in many weeks.
Three days after leaving the Pickens’ Hovel, the quartet passed the last halfling house at the head of the Broadwater, and entered the hilly region that the residents of Dunholm called ‘the up-country’. This was a wilder but still pleasant land of gentle, rolling hills, smalls copses, and mist-filled dells. The mountains were all around them, now; the sharp, jagged peaks of the Dragonspine Range to the south, the older, blunter-looking ridge of the Dunholm Range to the north – and to the west, silhouetted each morning by the rising of the Lantern, the heavy, snow-capped spires of the Dwéorgahéahbéorgr. Despite much coaching from Frida, Hax proved quite unable to wrap her tongue around the dwarven term, and the priestess had to content herself with referring to the mountains by their customary appellation – the Deeprealm Range.
It was toward these lofty peaks that Uchtred directed the fire-coach, rolling from morning until evening. They grew ever more imposing as the tiny group drew nearer to their foothills.
The road continued, over knolls and through vales, trending generally westwards, meandering from north to south as it followed the contours of the landscape. Each morning saw more mist in the hollows; a thick, deep blanket of white, impenetrable as fluffy cotton, and cold and clinging as a damp shroud, until the Lantern rose above the western mountaintops and melted it away. The road itself was still firm, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to find. Well-set, well-worn cobblestones still showed through the hummocks here and there, and now and then Hax saw the remnants of stone walls against the greenery: abandoned farmsteads, old buildings, even the tumble-down wreck of an ancient watchtower. The sight made her shiver slightly. The mountains in Zaran Bjerglands had been desolate – but at least the marks of the Kindred were recent there. They felt alive. These lands felt long-abandoned, and dead.
She mentioned her impression to Frideswide, who nodded. “Naught but the little folk here now, sure,” she said. “But in time long past, before the Gloaming, Dunholm was one of the kingdoms of the Empire of Esud. Great fields of wheat, as far as eyes could see; cities of stone, and mighty war towers; and armies, always armies, clad with iron, shod with iron, armed with iron, and plumes all waving in the sunlight.”
“None of our legends speak of this,” Hax objected. “The tales of the Third House from the Age of Wisdom…”
Frida waved her hand impatiently. “The ‘tales of the Third House’,” she snorted. “The elves were mighty warriors, and wielders of the flux, aye; and they had the friendship of dragons. They were great writers, too. I’ve read your Ceorlinus, child. Have you noticed that history belongs to those who leave behind the most books?”
The priestess smiled wryly. “And who lend such books freely to their neighbours. Most of the history of the Age of Wisdom,” she continued primly, “was written by elves, and so it concerns the elves, and them alone. But our own history is as deep and rich; the dwarves were not idle during those days. While Tior was reading the stars, we were burrowing deep into the earth, carving a kingdom out of stone. And men were busy, too, hacking empires out of the wilderness, usually at the point of a sword.
“When the Age of Wisdom began, dearie, the elves were supreme; and under their wizard-kings, they became greater still. But all of that ended in the Gloaming. Your houses fell, but the dwarves were unscathed. Men, too, endured. The sons of Esu stood with Yarchian at Oldarran Field, true enough; and for every elf that died there, three men died also. Do your tales mention that?
“O’ course,” she went on pensively, “by that time, men outnumbered your folk by a score to one. And so while the Third House lost eight out of ten of its warriors that day, to the sons of Esu, it was merely another defeat. A bad one, to be sure, but not a catastrophe. And after the Gloaming came the Eon of Darkness – another name chosen by the elves, who had suffered so much. But to many of the kingdoms of men, untouched by war, it was a time of glory, and greatness, and the building of nations. The Powers retreated, yes, all save Ekhalra, the Dark Queen – but she demanded little more than obedience. So if the Kindred had no aid from above, neither was there much interference from below. r />
“Remember,” Frida added, wagging an admonishing finger, “while you lot, after Yarchian’s fall, lay locked behind the mountains of your homeland, licking your wounds and bemoaning your ill fortune, we laboured long and hard, and built the great cities of Dweorgaheim. And outside your borders, men forged the empire of the Yonar-ri, what stood strong for nigh on two thousand years, until it was brought down in the Sundering. The rest of us weren’t idle.
“This place – the Dunholm Vale – was once a mighty kingdom of men. All that you see around you,” Frida concluded, waving her hand in a vague circle, “are the remnants of that once-proud land.”
Hax was blinking, stunned as much by the woman’s detailed knowledge of history as by her…peculiar…interpretation of it.
Reining in her horse, she raised a hand and pointed ahead. “Except for that,” she said. “Right?”
The fire-coach emitted a hissing screech as Uchtred applied the brake. “Aye,” he said absently. “We’re here.”
They had come to the end of the Up-Country hills. Before them, the road crested a final ridge before plunging into a deep valley. Shrouded in the shadow of the Deeprealm Range, the vale was filled with dense emerald foliage, and looked dark and foreboding. Enormous trees – oak, ash, maple, and beech in the forest’s heart, giving way to lush pines and firs at its edges – clawed for the sky, leaning one against the other in a frenzied floral jumble. Beyond the forest, the mountains seemed to spring suddenly into the air – as though it was the trees that limited the extent of the peaks, rather than the other way around.
“I take it that’s the Feywood,” Hax said, raising an eyebrow and clearing her throat.
“Aye,” Wynstan grunted. He glanced over at her, eyes narrowing. “What’s the matter? Thought you’d like it. Taste o’home.”
Hax shook her head slowly. “That’s not what home looks like,” she muttered.
“No?” the dwarf shrugged. “Well, gotta go through it anyway.” Standing, he checked the brass gauges stapled to the sides of the water tuns. “Plenty of juice,” he murmured to himself.
“I hope you’re feeling rested,” Frideswide said moodily.
“I’m fine,” Hax answered, frowning. “Why do you ask?”
“Because,” the priestess replied, “we don’t stop until we reach Eastgate.”
Hax thought glumly about her aching posterior. Her expression must have mirrored her thoughts, because Frida’s discomfiture seemed to disappear. She laughed out loud. “You can always join us on the cart if your fundament pains you, dearie!” the dwarf-woman cackled.
The elf coloured slightly. “I’ll be all right,” she said stiffly. “Why the caution?”
“The fey folk aren’t ill-natured,” the priestess replied, “but they’re tricksters.”
“I know,” Hax said. “We’ve plenty of their sort in the forests, back home on Eldisle.”
“And they’ve no notion of Kindred limitations,” Frida went on, as if the elf-girl hadn’t spoken. “They’ll lead you off a cliff for chuckles, and then be genuinely shocked when it turns out you can’t fly. That sort of thing.”
“They don’t mean any harm, o’course,” Uchtred murmured, looking trepidatious, “but you won’t be any less dead. Best just to keep your guard up, your eyes open, and your feet on the path.”
“They’re not at all malicious back home,” Hax said, frowning, eyeing the trees ahead with alarm.
“It’s likely a little different living next to elves, compared to living with an expanding human empire for two ages of the world, and then in total isolation for a third,” Uchtred replied. “No?”
“I suppose,” Hax shrugged. She couldn’t believe that they were in any real danger. She thought about stringing her bow, and then rejected the notion. The fey she had seen had been masters of concealment; if they were hostile, she wouldn’t get a shot off anyway.
She decided not to mention that fact to her already sufficiently-nervous companions.
“Just keep yer eyes open, everybody,” Wynstan growled. “Are we ready?”
“Aye,” Uchtred said.
“Yes, dear.”
“Lead on,” Hax replied, wondering if she should be more concerned.
Wynstan released the brake. The fire-coach emitted a screeching whistle and a blast of steam, lurching forward down the hill, towards the narrow gap where the ancient Yonar-ri highway entered the forbidding wall of trees.
♦
Six hours into their journey through the forest, Hax had begun to regret her earlier bravado. She had saddle sores on her saddle sores. Only pride kept her from abandoning her mount for one of the fire-coach’s padded seats.
But she already had reason to feel more useful.
Less than a mile inside the first looming trees, they had been challenged. Rounding a sharp bend in the forest path, they had come upon a short, squat, goat-legged fellow with a hairy chest and a pair of knobbly, curling horns atop his head. He was standing in the middle of the path, half-leaning on a long spear of ash bearing a dark, fire-hardened point.
Uchtred groped for the brake and the fire-coach shuddered to a halt, hissing alarmingly. Hax reined her horse in beside the fulminating contraption.
“God e’en to you, sir,” Frideswide called out, speaking the Travelling Tongue. “We are travellers on the road to the Eastgate of the Deeprealm. May we pass?”
The creature – Hax recognized it at once as a satyr, one of the more whimsical and unpredictable of the fey folk – gabbled something at them. Hax strained her concentration, and the words came through clearly. She coloured slightly. It was speaking the tongue of the forest folk – the common speech of those who lived among the trees, liquid and beautiful, like a fine distillation of the Elven tongue.
It was not the language that interested her, though. It was the words. Had they been spoken aloud at the Queen’s court, they would have resulted in drawn blades.
Hax cleared her throat in embarrassment. Glancing over at her companions, she saw nothing on the Dwarves’ faces but blank incomprehension, and relaxed slightly. “The master welcomes us to the forest,” she translated – very loosely – “and demands a toll for passage.”
“What does he want?” Uchtred grunted. “It is ‘he’, right?”
“Satyrs are all male,” Hax confirmed. She could feel the flush rising to the tips of her ears. “He…uh, maybe we should offer him some gold.”
“Over my cooling corpse,” Uchtred muttered.
“Is that really what he asked for?” Frida wondered softly, shooting the elf a sidelong glance.
“Well…uh, no,” Hax admitted, cheeks flaming. “No, he didn’t. But I’m…sorry, I’m not going to translate what he really wants.”
Frida blinked in confusion. “Come on, now, dearie. What’s he after?”
“Well,” Hax temporized, “…er, I suppose if I were to put it politely…‘a tumble in the leaves’.” And that was putting it very politely, she thought.
Frideswide chuckled. “Not willing to make so great a sacrifice for a trio of newfound road-mates, eh?” she laughed. “I thought better of you, cildic!”
“Actually,” Hax corrected coolly, smiling despite herself, “he suggested that we both join him behind yon hillock.”
Frida’s eyes widened. Uchtred roared with laughter, slapping his thigh repeatedly.
“Well,” the satyr piped up, switching to the travelling tongue, “it’s not much fun if you’re not going to tell them everything I said.”
Its voice was surprising deep and mellifluous. “Lovely lady of the Deeprealm,” it continued, “what I propose is that, in exchange for safe passage through my woods, you, the elf-maid and I amble off, arm in arm, and spend a few hou…”
“Enough, sir,” Hax interjected, wiping tears from her eyes at the look on Frida’s face. “Enough, I beg you.” She took a deep breath, remembering a story she had once heard – from a most surpris
ing source. “My companion and I would be delighted – nay, honoured – to join you in fulsome frolic. Your company and your masterful attentions would be a most welcome respite from the uncouth, unwashed and unseemly wights in whose company, by circumstance rather than by choice, we travel.”
“What,” Frideswide whispered through clenched teeth, “are you doing?”
“Trust me,” Hax whispered back. Raising her voice, she pursed her lips ostentatiously, made wide calf-eyes at the hairy little man, and batting her eyelashes like an idiot courtier. Uchtred was making choking sounds, and seemed to be having difficulty keeping his seat.
“But,” Hax continued, doing her best to ignore the hiccoughing dwarf and imitate a lust-besotted imbecile, “what are two worthless chits such as we to one so virile as yourself, who has no doubt enjoyed countless conquests? And with lovelies far more delectable than we?
“Would you sully the memory of past pleasures, merely to roll in the dirt for a few, unsatisfying moments with two worthless, travel-stained wretches like ourselves?”
To the dwarves’ collective astonishment, the goat-man seemed to except this grotesque flattery at face value. “What you say,” he mused solemnly, “is true. I have favoured more than a few with my attentions. Many maids more comely than thou have felt the thrust of…”
At that point, he digressed into a lengthy monologue, describing (in detail so vivid that, after a moment, tears were rolling down Uchtred’s bearded cheeks, and Hax was forced to bite her lip to keep from chortling aloud), a lengthy list of thoroughly improbable conquests, each more spectacularly unlikely than the last. Hax made the mistake of glancing at Frideswide, and nearly lost control of herself when she saw that the dwarf-woman was quaking with appalled laughter.
At length, the satyr’s ode to his own virility trailed off. He gazed at them expectantly.
Hax knew that she had to acknowledge his claims, and struggled to master herself. “Truly,” she gasped, “you have accomplished feats to shame even the Powers. The Maiden of Blinding Beauty, wondrous Miyaga, would consider herself blessed if she could but benefit from your masterful labours.”
“Indeed she would,” the satyr agreed, stroking his goatee and looking extremely pleased with himself. “So. As you say; I would far rather meditate on past glories, than tarnish their memory with a few moments’ frantic scrabbling in the dirt with two gruesome hags like yourselves. Have you a token?”
“I…a what?” Frida replied, her voice finally under control.
“A token, a token,” the creature said impatiently. “A trifle, a trinket, a bauble; something to remind me forever that there were two – and only two – grubby strumpets on the whole of the earth who were too plain to merit my attention.”
“Allow me,” Hax interjected. Reaching behind her neck, she untied the leather thong that held a small, drilled piece of amber about her neck. “Take this, sir, I beg you; and with it, cherish the unrequited longings of two uncouth maids who met with thy magnificence, and were found wanting.” She tossed the stone to the goat-man.
He caught it and eyed it closely, a gleam of avarice in his emerald-green eyes. Struggling to conceal his glee, he looked up at Hax, and said, “It is small, lumpy and altogether plain, and so, a perfect reminder of your unworthy selves. Get you hence, and pass the forest in peace. And may the morrow bring me prettier fare.”
Hax bowed in her saddle. “Let’s move,” she whispered to Uchtred. Still convulsing silently and emitting, like his boiler, the odd hiss of escaping air, the dwarf released the brake. Metal squealed, and the cart rattled forward.
Hax dug her heels into her horse’s flanks and trotted into the lead. Glancing back, she saw the little goat-men perched on a grey boulder, trying to tie the leather thongs around his own neck. As she watched, some two-dozen of his fellows swarmed out of the trees, discarding spears and bows as they reached for her necklace. The gang was still squabbling like magpies when she lost sight of them around another bend in the forest track.
Frida blew out her breath in a relieved whoosh.
Wynstan was chuffing silently with uncontrollable hilarity. “What is it?” the priestess asked him crossly.
“ ‘Gruesome hag’,” the dwarf chortled, bursting into laughter.
“You watch it, now,” his wife warned, wagging a finger.
“ ‘Grubby strumpet’.”
“I’m warning you!”
“Why, what’ll you do to me? ‘Lumpy’…”
He never finished the sentence. Frideswide’s stout fist whistled around, driven by the compact power of her form, and thudded into his ear. Unfortunately for Wynstan, his shout of surprise and pain contained a little too much laughter. This only led to more blows.
Uchtred collapsed to the bed of the fire-coach, roaring with glee. Hax wondered whether she was going to have to leap aboard and grab the tiller.
♦
“So you’re saying they want you to talk them out of it?” Frida asked once her temper was under control again. Wynstan was back at the tiller, sporting a purpling eye and a split lip, and still shaking from time to time with tremors of mirth.
Hax nodded. “Satyrs are very proud of their…er…their endowments,” she replied, blushing slightly. “And their prowess. It’s their defining characteristic as a race. It’s almost a madness for them. They don’t really lust after those who aren’t of their sort,” she continued, the tips of her ears burning. “I mean, they would, of course; when there’s a satyr about, even the furniture’s not safe. But others among the fey folk have similar...er...appetites, and manage to keep them pretty satisfied in that regard.” She flushed. “Of if not satisfied, at least busy.
“What satyrs really want, you see,” she continued, “are tokens of respect and deference from those they encounter.”
“Is it always jewellery?” Frida asked.
“It can be just about anything,” Hax shrugged. “It’s the gesture that matters, the ‘tribute’, not the value. They live in the woods, after all; gold really doesn’t mean anything to them. They just like it because it’s shiny.
“Shiny is good; unique is better. And the deference you display to their leader’s magnificence,” she added. “That’s the most important part of all. That fellow back there,” she nodded over her shoulder, “managed to talk four pretty rough-looking characters out of a nice bit of sparkle; and he did it in a way that enhanced his reputation as a paramour before the rest of his troupe. I helped him with that. It’s why he let us go so easily. He’ll be running that gang a while longer, I think.”
Frida nodded, smiling. “So that’s why you were playing up to him,” she chuckled. “I thought you’d gone mad.”
Hax shrugged. “It’s a common enough game for them,” she said. “Elf-maids find out about satyrs when they’re young, especially if you live cheek-by-jowl with’em, as we do in Eldisle. You learn. Either the easy way – from your mother, as I did – or the hard way. For example, by being caught alone in the forest by a randy troupe.”
The smile drained away from Frida’s face. “You don’t mean that they…that…” she began, her voice hollow.
“No! No, no!” Hax replied quickly. “Not at all! Satyrs are wild and unpredictable, but they’re basically good folk. They just like playing their little games, and as you saw back there, they’re pretty colourful in describing the games they like to play. It can be a little frightening to be young, naïve, and surrounded by a gang of playful pucks like that, of course. But however…um…explicit their prose, they’d never act on it. They’ll see a lost youngling home first, and even fight to protect her.”
Hax smiled again, shaking her head. “Of course, when she finally gets back to her parents, she’ll definitely know more about the ways of the world than she did when she left. And a great many more cursing words.”
“They’re more than ‘playful’ here in the Feywood,” Wynstan growled. “I’ve come through twice
before, and once I ended up with a handful of arrows stuck in my wagon-bed.”
Hax shook her head in disagreement. “They’re masterful archers,” she averred. “If they’d been aiming for you, they’d’ve hit you. Like as not, they were just making mischief.”
“Bloody dangerous mischief,” the dwarf muttered.
The elf-girl nodded. “As you said before, they’ve no understanding of peril,” she agreed. “You could hardly hit one of them with an arrow, and even if you did, they seem to heal right up. So they wouldn’t think to worry about hurting you with one of theirs. It’s one of the things that make them so unpredictable.”
She chuckled ruefully. “I once heard the Queen tell a tale about how, during a hunt and cheuvauchée near Two Rivers, she and her maidens ran into a big covey of pucks. They had to talk their way out of it. That’s where I got the idea to…to…”
Her voice trailed off as she realized that all three of the dwarves were staring intently at her.
“What ‘queen’ would that be, now, my darling?” Wynstan asked, squinting at her, his curiosity manifest in his face.
Hax realized instantly what she had done. Damn it! A bolt of fear shot down her spine. “I…I’d heard, once, that the Queen…” she stammered, her face reddening again. But she couldn’t think of anything to say. She shut her mouth, berating herself silently for letting it run on.
Frida leaned over the seat railing and patted her arm. “You’re among friends, dearie. You can tell us or not, as you see fit.”
Hax nodded. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, mortified beyond words at her stupidity. “I don’t want to lie to you. But if you know the truth, I’ll put you in danger, and I can’t do that.”
She looked so thoroughly miserable that Frida smiled sympathetically.
Uchtred chuckled. “Best to change the subject, then,” he remarked. “Do you know any good songs?”
Hax blinked tears out of her eyes. “A few,” she admitted, grateful for the respite. “Let me think on it awhile, will you?”
“Take your time, dearie,” Frideswide murmured.
They rode on through the darkling wood. But the silence seemed deeper and more painful than before.
♦♦♦