Blood Storm: The Books of Blood and Iron (15 page)

Ranadar left the palace, unable for decades to even share a room with his parents. He put aside the rich robes and wealthy chambers of the court and instead roamed the forests of Alfhame, looking for he knew not what. His parents showed no concern. In two or three hundred years, they were sure, he would come to his senses and return to
the duties of a proper prince. Ranadar felt sure this would never happen.

But then, one hundred and forty-seven years later, on a rare and chance visit to the palace at Palana, he had heard RigTag Who Sings Over the Stormy Sky arguing with someone at the trader’s door. To his complete shock, he found an orc woman with slaves for sale, including one who looked and sounded exactly like his
Talashka.
Ranadar had, at first, refused to believe it. The slave must be a relative, or this was a wild coincidence. Even if Talfi had somehow survived in secret, he would still have died of old age long ago.

But no, it had been Talfi, his
Talashka
, back from the dead, able to return from the dead every time he died because of the Iron Axe. And Ranadar had been worried that
he
would outlive
Talfi
! Until Danr had been forced to kill Talfi a final time to free the Axe’s power and Ranadar had, once again, been forced to watch him die with no hope of return.

It was no wonder that later, when he stood before Death herself, he had immediately offered up half his remaining days to Talfi so that he could come back. Even now, a year later, his head still spun with the implications, though when he woke up next to Talfi every morning, he found it worth every day. Perhaps, in some cases, love was indeed stronger than death itself, but only after Death had collected her sacrifice.

Lightning forked across darkening clouds, and thunder boomed against Ranadar’s bones. People glanced uneasily upward. At the house, the smaller front gate opened and from it emerged that dwarf, still clad in red. Ranadar came quietly alert. Twice in one day this dwarf was out in sunlight, occluded though it was by storm clouds. What role did the dwarf have in all this? He had essentially bought
the mermaid back for the Obsidia, that much was obvious, but why? Perhaps it was meant to be a fail-safe in case the bids weren’t high enough, as had turned out to be the case. If it were, Hector and Sharlee Obsidia must be master chess players. Or perhaps the Obsidia hadn’t wanted to let anyone buy the mermaid in the first place. But if that was true, why put her up for auction? To curry favor with someone? They were missing something, and Ranadar itched to know what it was.

He glanced over his shoulder at the golems, which were closing the little gate, and an idea began to form. Thinking quickly, he followed the dwarf at a slight distance. The golems recognized the dwarf. They let him come and go freely, either because he lived there or because he worked for the owners. That made the dwarf a way inside. If only—

“What are you doing?” hissed Kalessa in his ear, and Ranadar jumped. She had slipped up behind him in the crowd. “We are watching the house, not strolling toward the Merchant District.”

“I am watching, he is strolling,” Ranadar hissed back, more than a little miffed that Kalessa had managed to creep up on him. “That dwarf might get us into the house.”

Kalessa fell into step beside him. She also wore a hooded cloak, though Ranadar wondered how well the disguise would work—he still caught glimpses of her green-tinted skin and golden eyes. Orcs were unnerving under the best of circumstances, and Kalessa showed a casual love of violence that alarmed Ranadar. One would think that a people as short-lived as the orcs would hoard what little life they were given, but orcs often seemed to welcome death, and Kalessa was no different.

“How can this dwarf get us into that house?” she demanded.

The dwarf was definitely heading toward the market. Hmm. “I can’t spin a glamour that will hide all of us from everyone. But if I had a bit of that dwarf’s blood, I could spin a glamour that would hide us from the golems. Unfortunately, I fail to see how we can get his blood.”

“I see,” Kalessa said.

Another peal of thunder. They were entering the merchants’ and mongers’ section now. No simple stalls and unsightly wagons allowed here. Shops and stores were the rule, each with a wooden sign that said in words and symbols what was sold inside. The dwarf was heading toward an ironmonger’s shop, no doubt to buy something for a project.

“Wait around that corner,” Kalessa added. “I will return.”

“Wait!” Ranadar said. “Where are—”

But she had already trotted away. Swearing, Ranadar faded into a smelly alley and watched as Kalessa strode up behind the dwarf at the ironmonger’s front door just as the dark skies opened and water poured down. Kalessa’s knife, the enchanted one that could turn into any blade, leaped into her hand and with practiced speed, she slashed the back of the dwarf’s upper arm, tearing his sleeve and cutting his skin. The dwarf squawked in pain and surprise. He spun around, but Kalessa was loping away, and the people on the street were mostly trying to escape the rain. In a few seconds, Kalessa rejoined Ranadar in the alley, which was already ankle-deep in mud. She brandished the bloody end of her blade under the shelter of her cloak.

“Will this do?” she asked.

“Er . . . yes.” Ranadar wiped water from his face. “Why did you do that?”

“Sometimes,” she sighed, “you Fae think overmuch.”

W
ind tore at the windows of the rooming house and rattled the shutters while water eked in around the edges. Aisa paced within the confines of her room. Danr watched her warily.

“It is nearly midnight,” she raged. “We know where the mermaid is, but the storm traps us here.”

“It will pass,” Kalessa said philosophically. “We will find her.”

“I failed her,” Aisa said. “The tincture of foxglove and marigold made her ill, but the trick still failed. It is my fault she is still a slave.”

Danr took her hand. It was small and callused in his. “Don’t beat yourself up, Aisa,” he said. “It’s not the fault of the people who’re trying to help her.”

She looked at him. The moment stretched out, longer and longer, and he didn’t want it to end. He smelled smoke from the fire, felt the heat from her hand, saw the deep brown of her eyes. Then she took her hand back and looked away. “I know that here,” she murmured, tapping her head, “but not here.” And she tapped her heart.

Kalessa, who was still drying herself out by the fire, gave a small cough. “We still do not know why the dwarf bought the mermaid back for the Obsidia.”

“Do we know that’s what he did?” asked Talfi from his perch at the edge of the bed. “Maybe he really did buy her for himself.”

“No.” Kalessa waved a hand. “No one with enough wealth to buy and keep a mermaid would be working as a servant for someone else, and he is very much a servant.”

“It’s really obvious Hector and Sharlee Obsidia never meant to sell her in the first place,” Danr rumbled. He could still feel Aisa’s hand in his. “So what are they up to?”

“It almost certainly has something to do with the way Sharlee drugged Aisa,” put in Ranadar. “What did she learn from you, Aisa?”

“Nothing important,” Aisa said quickly. “We must move, before Hector and Sharlee move the mermaid.”

“Maybe we should go out despite the storm,” Talfi said.

Ranadar shook his head. “It will wash the dwarf’s blood away. We must simply wait until—”

The rain stopped as if a bucket had been emptied. The damp weight left the air, and the wind died down.

Aisa polished her nails on her blouse. “You were saying, O wise one?”

Danr, who had grown up much farther north, far from the volatile weather tossed in by the sea, checked the window in amazement. “Will it start up again?”

“Not until the next one, whenever that is.” Ranadar held out his hand to Kalessa. “Your knife. Make it bronze, if you please.”

“Are you asking to play with my blade, elf?” Kalessa asked archly.

“Only with your permission, my lady.” Ranadar kissed the back of her hand.

“You are an orc woman flirting with a
regi
elf,” Aisa observed.

“One who’s attached,” Talfi added.

“How far the mighty have fallen,” Aisa finished.

“I do need to get out more.” Kalessa sighed and handed Ranadar her knife, the one that had stabbed the dwarf. The blade, now bronze, still bore streaks of blood. Ranadar turned to Talfi.

“This will not hurt.” He touched the flat of the blade to Talfi’s forehead, leaving a bloody smear, and spoke some words. A blink of light, and Talfi was no longer there. Instead a dwarf stood in his place, and in Talfi’s clothes. Now that his features were uncovered, Danr could see the dwarf had slightly bulging eyes and a long, thin nose matched by a long chin. A black beard spilled down his—Talfi’s—tunic, and unkempt hair made a bushy mess on his head. His hands reminded Danr of trowels with fingers, and his back had a slight hunch. Danr whistled under his breath. The others moved closer to admire. The dwarf looked up at them. His face was the dwarf’s, but his expression was definitely Talfi’s. It was eerie.

“Very nice,” Aisa said. “How did you make the clothing fit? I was half expecting him to be naked.”

“That would be awkward,” the dwarf said in Talfi’s voice, and that made Danr’s skin crawl.

“It’s a glamour, not a change of shape,” Ranadar replied. “I know what Talfi’s clothing looks like, but I didn’t understand the dwarf’s appearance until I had the blood.”

“Will this glamour fool a golem?” Kalessa asked.

Ranadar nodded. “That was the whole point. It was cast with blood, so it will.”

On impulse, Danr closed his right eye and looked at
Talfi with his true eye. The dwarf vanished, leaving Talfi in his place. When Danr opened his eye, the dwarf reappeared.

“My true eye sees right through it,” Danr reported.

“Then it is fortunate the golems do not have true eyes,” Ranadar observed. “Your turn, my orcish princess.”

He smeared Kalessa’s forehead with the blood, and in an instant, an exact copy of the dwarf took her place, except this one wore woven leather armor.

“How do I look?” the dwarf said in Kalessa’s voice.

Aisa burst out laughing. “Oh my! Hearing a woman’s voice come out of that body . . . Kalessa, you and I had better say as little as possible.”

“Is that how you keep an orc quiet?” Talfi observed.

“It is a fine thing for you that your lover has my knife,” Kalessa said, but it was hard for her to keep a straight face—she was arguing with her dwarfish twin.

Ranadar smudged Aisa’s forehead next, creating a dwarf in the loose skirt and blouse Aisa preferred. Here, Danr laughed. “Er . . . maybe you should wear something else?”

Aisa the dwarf twirled, and her beard stood out. “Is this not what dwarfish women are wearing this season?”

“Just put on a cloak for the trip to the house,” Ranadar said tightly. He was sweating a little now. “We only have to fool the golems, and they will not care what we are wearing.”

He reached up to swipe Danr’s forehead with the blade. Danr felt a slight tingle. All the other dwarfs in the room clapped their hands over their mouths in startlement or silent laughter.

“That was so strange!” Aisa said. “You are short now!” She reached out to touch the air above where the dwarf’s
head would be and touched Danr’s chest. He automatically took her hand and pressed it to his heart. Even though it looked like a stumpy dwarf’s hand, it felt like hers.

“I’m here,” he said simply.

“Oh, that hurts.” The Talfi dwarf rubbed his eyes. “Your hands are in the wrong place, but also in the right place. I can’t make it work.”

Ranadar smeared the last of the blood on his own forehead and became a dwarf in brown and green silk. He handed the knife back to the Kalessa dwarf, who sheathed it. “We need to move quickly,” he said gruffly. “I can only hold this for a short time.”

They hurried down the back stairs so the other inhabitants of the house wouldn’t notice them. Outside, the sky had cleared, leaving crisp, bright stars. Danr, who could see perfectly well in the dark streets, took the lead. Fortunately, the house where the mermaid was being held wasn’t that far away, and the streets were all but deserted at this time of night, allowing them to move with speed, though once they heard tromping feet. The entire group of them pressed against a house and stared wide-eyed at half a dozen trolls trudging down the street. Each troll topped Danr by a good three feet, and their arms were heavy as glacier ice. They were pulling great wagons loaded with what smelled like clay. The one in front, clearly the leader, caught sight of the group, and Danr’s heart stopped.

“Heading for the Bosha Temple?” the lead troll called out without stopping.

“No,” Danr replied truthfully.

“We’ll be there later,” Talfi jumped in, making his voice gruff. “Lots of clay, huh?”

“You would know,” the lead troll said, continuing on his way with the others.

“What was that about?” Kalessa asked when they were out of earshot. “Why are they bringing clay to the temple of Bosha, and why would
we
know anything about it?”

“They think we’re dwarfs,” Danr reminded her.

“I still do not see any significance. Did you not tell us Prince Karsten allowed the trolls into Balsia to dig sewers? What do sewers have to do with cartloads of clay?”

“We must move along,” Ranadar interrupted.

The elf was all but panting when they arrived at the high wall that surrounded the stone house.

“Will you be all right?” Talfi asked in a worried voice.

“Just keep moving,” Ranadar replied tightly.

Inside the iron gate, a golem stood guard. Aisa walked straight up to it and waved her hands. The golem didn’t respond. Kalessa drew her knife and it flicked into a full-length sword. She feinted at the golem through the bars. It still didn’t react.

“A fine job with the glamour,” Kalessa said with satisfaction. “But how will we get inside?”

Danr strode up to the small iron gate beside the large one, grasped the bars, and heaved
.
The muscles on his arms bulged and the bars dug into his fingers. The iron gave, then bent open with a quiet
screech.

“All in,” he said.

“I forget just how strong you are,” Kalessa said, and slipped through the opening. Aisa followed with a smile of approval that made Danr’s heart swell with pride, even if the smile came from a dwarf in a dress. Then Talfi went.

“I cannot go through.” The Ranadar dwarf was still standing some distance from the gate. “If I touch the iron, it will disrupt my spell.”

“They touched iron,” Danr said.

“They are not holding the spell together.”

“Right.” Danr strode back to him. “Brace yourself.”

Without further warning, he picked Ranadar up. The glamour flummoxed Danr a little until he hit on shutting his right eye so he could see the elf’s true form. Then he tossed Ranadar lightly over the wall. There was a soft yelp and a thump.

“Are you all right?” Danr whispered.

A number of curse words followed. Danr assumed they meant yes, and he ducked through the gate himself. The golem standing guard, meanwhile, didn’t seem to notice. It didn’t even move.

On the other side, Talfi was helping Ranadar to his feet. Aisa and Kalessa had spread out to scout. All of them were still in their dwarfish glamours.

Danr felt large and conspicuous, even in the darkness. His troll’s eyes could see quite well in the starlight, and it was nice not to be speared with pain every time he glanced at the sky, but it was nervous work being here. The great house loomed like a stone dragon over a treasure of carefully sculpted bushes and well-laid flower beds. Crickets, emboldened now that the rain had ended, chirped softly all about. Danr heard faint splashing.

“This way,” he whispered, and led the others around the side of the big house. The windows were dark, thank Rolk, and they came across only a single golem, which ignored them completely.

“We have to hurry,” the Ranadar dwarf said through clenched teeth. “The glamour will fail soon.”

“Hold on.” The Talfi dwarf took his hand. “You can do it, Ran.”

Aisa and Kalessa moved ahead without comment. Kalessa had her blade out. It was in the form of a curved sword—bronze so it wouldn’t bother Ranadar.

In the rear garden, they found a large open space. A
pavilion with a canvas roof had been erected there, and just past it lay both the mermaid’s tank, now empty, and a pool filled with water that reflected the stars. Danr’s heart gave a little jump. This had to be it, and no one seemed to be around. They could get out quickly, without trouble. Aisa would be happy, and then they could go off to find Grandfather Wyrm to regain the Kin’s power of the shape. For the first time in his life, Danr would be fully human, fully accepted, and able to live a normal life.

Aisa hurried over to the stone-lined pool. Kalessa, however, caught up with her and yanked her back. “You do not know, sister, how the mermaid will react.”

As if in response, a great splash erupted near Aisa’s feet. Aisa gasped. A moment later, the mermaid’s head and shoulders appeared amid a ring of ripples. The tattoos masking her face gave her an angry, savage look.

“Who are you, dwarf?” she hissed.

Aisa, still in her dwarfish disguise, knelt at the edge of the pool. “I am a human, not a dwarf. This is a spell that allows me and my friends to slip past the golem guards. My friends and I have come to bring you out of this place.”

The mermaid considered this. “Any place is better than there. I will go with you.”

Danr exhaled, and Aisa relaxed, too. He hadn’t thought the mermaid might refuse.

“What is your name, not-dwarf?” The mermaid glided closer across the smooth water of the pool.

“I am Aisa,” she said. “This is Ham—his name is Danr.” Aisa pointed at the others and made quick introductions. “I have long wished to actually touch a mermaid.”

“My name is Ynara.” The mermaid put out a dripping hand. “Take my hand, cousin.”

Aisa reached out. Danr discovered his heart was pounding. He understood how deeply important this was to her,
and he felt proud and thrilled to stand next to her while she fulfilled one of her dreams. Her fingers stretched toward the mermaid’s.

Ranadar screamed in pain. The dwarfish disguises vanished with a
pop.
Aisa, now human, snatched her hand back. Danr whipped around. Ranadar had gone down to the ground with the shaft of an arrow sticking out of his shoulder. Talfi shouted his name and knelt beside him.

“An iron arrowhead,” Talfi cried. “They know we’re here!”

“Intruders! Intruders!” A dozen rune-covered golems poured into the garden. Their molded faces and empty azure eyes were blank as stone, but they moved quickly, and they were stronger than even Danr. Kalessa managed three or four swings that carved pieces out of one golem before two others got her by the shoulders and disarmed her. Her blade thumped to the grass and changed back into a small knife. One golem grabbed Aisa, which sent Danr into a rage. He managed to pull the head off one golem, but four swarmed over him and forced him to his knees. Talfi hesitated, not sure if he should run or stay, and the moment cost him. A golem caught him in its stony grip. Ranadar proved no resistance whatsoever. The mermaid vanished to the bottom of the pool.

Hector and Sharlee Obsidia strolled into the garden. Sharlee was holding a bow. Behind them came the dwarf, still dressed in red.

“My golem!” the dwarf cried, and rushed over to the one Danr had pulled apart.