Blood Storm: The Books of Blood and Iron (7 page)

“No.” Sharlee set her wine down as Irwin snatched up a fourth goblet

Hector raised his eyebrows. “No?”

“It’ll have to be you.”

“Oh.” Hector thought again. “A little man-to-man talk. Can I handle that?”

Irwin downed the fourth goblet in one desperate gulp. Sharlee laughed and put a hand on Hector’s arm. “You absolutely can’t, darling, but don’t worry—I’ll tell you what to say.”

Hector heaved a sigh of relief. “That’s why I keep you around, my dear.”

“Only that?” she asked archly.

He put his arms around her and kissed her. She tasted wine on his lips, and her body molded warm against his. “Some other reasons leap to mind,” he whispered in her ear.

“M-my lord?” quavered Irwin.

Hector looked over Sharlee’s shoulder in annoyance. “Oh. Four goblets. Yes, you may go, Irwin. I should run, if I were you. We still need to figure out what to do about the lost dwarfs.”

“And we need a mermaid,” added Sharlee. “No small detail.”

“Thank you, my lord.” Irwin rushed for the door. After four steps, his knees buckled and he went down. He choked and gasped and convulsed. His face turned reddish purple, and his tongue protruded from between his teeth. Then he gave one final breath and died.

Sharlee laughingly boxed Irwin on the shoulder. “I knew it! You poisoned all of them, didn’t you?”

“Never leave your opponent a choice.” Hector kissed her again.

“A fine philosophy,” said a nonvoice.

Sharlee jerked away from Hector as a tall man in blue and white stepped over Irwin’s body, but she relaxed when she saw who it was. “Really, Will! Can’t you knock?”

“I let myself in,” the man said, “and I see poor Irwin has paid for the traffic I encountered on my way here. I’m afraid he wasn’t truly responsible for the loss of the dwarfs. That was me.”

“Well, obviously.” Sharlee put her hands on her hips. “No one else would have the money to pay them. What in
Vik’s name do you mean by leaving us with a single dwarf?”

“You need to think bigger, my dear,” said the man. “I have a deal for you.”

“A deal?” echoed Hector. “One that will give us something better than an army of dwarfs that can make golems? We want them back, Will. Now.”

“I couldn’t help overhearing what you said about the girl Aisa,” the man said, ignoring Hector’s demand. “I’ve noticed her as well, you know. Eyes and ears all over the slave market. And speaking of slaves, I have the final thing you need to make her get the power of the shape. Let me keep the dwarfs, and I’ll give it to you.”

“What’s the final thing I need?” Hector asked.

“Stop by the slave market on your way to see Danr,” the man said, “and I’ll show you.”

•   •   •

“You ready to talk?” Talfi asked for the third time since Aisa had left.

“No.” Danr thumped his horn down. He’d never been fully drunk in his life—as a thrall he hadn’t been able to afford it, and as a truth-teller he’d always avoided it—but maybe now was the time to try it. This was the proper place: a dark tavern next door to Mrs. Farley’s rooming house. It had fresh rushes on the floor and women who brought drinks and a smoky fire in the fireplace. Danr wore a voluminous cloak and kept the hood pulled so no one would recognize him—he hoped. He gulped from the horn again. The ale was new in the barrel, and cheap—more than a little sour and tasting too strongly of yeast. Perfect if you wanted to get drunk with little money.

“Why is being in love so hard?” he asked the table morosely.

“You’re asking
us
for advice about women?” Talfi said
wryly. Ranadar was sitting next to him, holding his hand under the table. Balsia was live-and-let-live in a lot of ways—Vik, there was an actual troll sitting in the corner of this very tavern—but
regi
men attracted mixed attention. The priests of Olar, who held sway farther north where Danr had grown up, taught that such men were an abomination, but Grick, his lady wife, was a little more accepting. The ocean goddess Bosha, powerful in Balsia, was happy to accept men and women who loved their own sex into her temple. The war gods Fell and Belinna did as well, but they required celibacy of such people. It was all very confusing.

Sometimes, though, Danr was sure the Nine meant all relationships,
regi
and not, to be confusing.

“It does seem fitting that Fell and Belinna are gods of both love and war,” Ranadar said, unconsciously echoing his thoughts.

“I’m wondering if it would be all right to ask what she told you,” Talfi put in. Danr understood what he was doing. It was a trick Talfi had worked out over the past few months to make both his and Danr’s lives easier. Last year, Danr had visited three powerful giants, and they had told him that everyone, Stane, Fae, and Kin, had small splinters of wood or stone in their eyes that clouded their vision just enough to keep them from seeing the truth. Then they had knocked the splinters out of Danr’s left eye. It let him see the truth about people and places, but it had also removed Danr’s ability to tell even a small lie, and he had to answer any question put to him with utter, complete truth, even if the listener didn’t want to hear it. Talfi was asking a question without actually asking a question, which left Danr the freedom to refuse an answer. This put him in a better mood.

“Yeah,” he said. “We can talk about it.”

“So you talked about . . . stuff,” Talfi said.

“Why do women have to be Vik-all difficult?” Danr burst out. “It’s been a year. I didn’t mean for it to take so long to get here, and now she’s mad at me.”

“Woman trouble, eh?” said a new voice, and a man in an expensive-looking red tunic sat at the table, uninvited. Danr tensed. The man looked to be something over forty, still fit and relatively handsome, despite silver in his black hair and lines webbing his face. “I can recognize it a league away.”

“This is a private conversation,” Ranadar said in his prince voice. “You may leave now.”

In answer, the man waved the barmaid over and tossed a gold coin on her tray. “A
real
round for my friends here. None of that thin piss. And some of that roast, with the apples, and the bread.”

“Who—?” Talfi said.

“My name is Hector,” he said with a wide grin. “And I’m something of an admirer of yours, if you’re all who I think you are.”

“And that would be?” Ranadar said.

The man Hector lowered his voice. “You’re the ones from the Battle of the Twist. You stopped an entire war. Vik, you’re Danr the Hero, and you wielded the Iron Axe itself. Isn’t that right?”

Danr didn’t want to answer, but Hector had asked him a direct question, and a reply pushed at the back of his throat. The words piled up like water behind a dam and finally spilled out of him. “I did, and a lot of people died for it, so keep it to yourself. We don’t want a lot of—”

“Attention, I know. Don’t blame you. I just want to buy you a round or two and say thank you.”

That surprised him. “Thank you?”

“For stopping the slaughter. I have family in northern
Balsia, and if that war had begun . . . well, in my book you’re the biggest heroes since Bal himself.” Here, Hector looked a little sheepish. “I just wanted to give you something back.”

Huh. Usually, people wanted something from Danr. The gratitude made him feel . . . warm. Appreciated. It was nice. Maybe an unexpected stranger wasn’t so bad. The barmaid arrived with her heavy tray. She laid out bread, meat, and two pitchers of ale. The food was plentiful—Danr was almost always hungry—and the new ale flowed like liquid gold. The food and the man’s kind words made Danr feel a little better, though he was still a bit put off by the man’s forwardness.

“How did you recognize us?” Talfi asked. “We’re kind of hiding right now.”

“I told you—I have family in northern Balsia.” Hector sipped from his horn. “And everyone’s heard of the half troll, the elven sorcerer, and the boy who can’t die. But isn’t there an orc swordswoman?”

The much stronger ale warmed Danr’s stomach and he didn’t bother trying to fight the question. “Kalessa’s at a leather worker’s, seeing to her armor,” he said.

“So it’s just us men, and you’re having some woman trouble, eh?” Hector tore into the bread with strong white teeth.

This was more a statement than a question, but Danr responded anyway. “How did you know that?”

“Danr,” Talfi said, “maybe—”

“Not hard to spot.” Hector raised his horn to Danr, who obligingly toasted with him and drained most of it. Drinking the smooth ale was like drinking sunlight. “Your lady isn’t here and you look sad. And I overheard the last part of your conversation.”

This last struck Danr as funny, and he laughed. “Well,
you’re right, and these two”—he waved his horn at Ranadar and Talfi, who ducked—“aren’t much help.”

“Understandable.” He poured more ale into Danr’s horn. “But I can understand your lady’s problem, at least a little.”

“Yeah?” Danr leaned toward him, curious. “How?”

“Just look at you!” Hector raised his horn yet again, and Danr obliged him with another drink. “You’re half troll. Not a lot of people like half-bloods. They’re an abomination.
I
don’t feel that way, of course, but I’m sure you’ve seen it.”

“Sure,” Danr said dryly.

“There you are, then.” Hector scratched his chest. “Once she marries a half-blood, all those people will see her as a traitor to humans. And since you’re famous, they’ll all know about it. No way to escape it. Must be hard for her.”

Half-blood. Traitor. The words stabbed Danr with an icy dagger and he sat still as a winter boulder. That was it. Hector’s words made cold, terrible sense. Really, it made a number of thoughts rush together, like streams trickling into a gushing river. Aisa was angry about the merfolk, yes, she was, and she was nervous about marrying a half-troll because of the shit it would bring into their lives. Would their marriage last with people always judging them, attacking them, making both of them outsiders the way he was now? Still, she had indeed said she would marry him, if he asked. That was hope. A tiny fleck of warm hope. If only he could figure out what to do with it. He sat up straighter.

“Too bad you can’t be, I don’t know, fully human or something,” Hector continued with a pull on his ale. “No one would recognize you, and the half-blood problems would just . . . vanish. Poof.” He drummed his fingers on
the table. “Well, we’re what the Nine made us, and no changing it.”

“You’re awfully forward for someone we just met.” Talfi hadn’t touched the food. “You say you spotted us across the room? This dark room? With Danr wearing his cloak?”

“You have keen vision,” Ranadar agreed.

Danr ignored them.
Fully human.
How had he not thought of it before? Being half human and half troll was really the source of everything that had gone wrong in his life. He wasn’t entirely welcome among either race, only half welcome—ha!—which was as much to say he wasn’t welcome at all. He only had half a relationship with Aisa. Really, he only had half a life. What he really needed was to be fully one thing or the other. Then he could live his life, a full life, in peace. But that wasn’t possible.

Or was it?

Hector reached up to clap him on the shoulder. “I can see you’re deep in thought, my friend. Maybe my advice was the right thing, eh? Glad an ordinary man could help a true hero.”

Danr blinked at him. The man had been helpful indeed. And extremely coincidental. With only a moment’s hesitation, he closed his right eye and looked at Hector only through his left.

Through his left eye, he saw Hector. The first thing he saw was . . . the truth. The man wasn’t lying or misrepresenting. He was telling the truth as he knew it. Danr also saw things he had missed before—the exacting cut of Hector’s clothes, the ease with which he carried himself, the hidden pouch of money in his tunic. This was a man of great wealth, and he had acquired it himself, not through inheritance. And Danr saw more.

The light dimmed and the air chilled despite the fire. Gooseflesh crawled over Danr’s skin. Darkness oozed through Hector like a rotten worm. The darkness coiled around a strange power, a presence, a
thing
Danr couldn’t put a name to. The thing had no shape. It was possible Hector didn’t even know it existed, wrapped in darkness as it was. It wasn’t alive. It wasn’t magic. It was a part of Hector himself, a terrible part of the man. It was hunger. This man was never satisfied with anything. He had devoured people, families, and businesses, and still he was hungry. He could devour a town, a city, a country, and never be satisfied. What was more, this man knew it, knew himself, and didn’t care in the slightest. Nausea clawed at Danr’s gut. He tensed and his guard went up. Hector might have been telling the truth about Aisa’s fear, but there was more here than Danr wanted to become involved with.

“What’s the matter?” Hector asked.

And from under his hood, Danr had to answer, “You’re a rich man, Hector, but you don’t appreciate your wealth because you always want more, and more, and more. The darkness and the hunger you carry inside will turn on you like a pair of starving dogs. I don’t want to be near you, and you should leave this table before I hurt you to make you go away.” He met Hector’s eyes and crushed the drinking horn in his fist. It popped like a dead bone.

“Danr!” Ranadar said, more than a little shocked. Talfi’s eyes likewise widened.

Hector seemed unruffled. He took a sip of ale from his own horn. Only Danr’s left eye noticed the slight tremor in his hand. “So. You may be right.”

“I’m right. Leave now.”

“Does any of this make my advice about your young lady wrong?”

The true word popped out. “No.”

“Think on that, then. Consider it my gratitude for saving the world, even if you’re cruel to me in taking it.” He drained the last of his horn and left the table. Danr watched pointedly until he left the tavern. Only then did he let out the breath he was holding. The air warmed again.

“That
was
cruel,” Talfi said once the front door had shut. “Even if he was suspicious.”

“If a terrible man asks me a terrible question and gets a terrible answer, he deserves what he gets,” Danr said bluntly.