Master of Whitestorm (48 page)

The portal opened to reveal Korendir, black-clad as always, but this time armed with sword and throwing knives, and a dagger inset with a cloudy jewel tucked in a sheath at his cuff. “The tide slacks in another hour. Your longboat has been summoned, if His Grace will arise and make ready.”

The Arrax man’s glower changed to critical interest. He began a remark, glanced at the mercenary’s face, and chose silence. Korendir’s manner held an edge that had not been evident the day before; in retrospect, instead of cowardice, the Arrax man recognized a quietude that should never in honor have been disturbed.

“Tell your prince the terms under which I take contract,” instructed the Master of Whitestorm. “No coin will change hands. But for the death of the Corrigon, I demand your sovereign will set seal to an edict that abolishes slavery in the mines. There will be no more dwarves kept captive in the realm of High Kelair.”

Upon sworn consent from the prince still cocooned in his blankets, the Master of Whitestorm closed the door. The final minutes before departure, he spent by himself with his son.

* * *

Autumn winds whipped the battlements of Whitestorm keep, and leaves torn from Thornforest flew scratching across crannies in the stone. Haldeth ventured out to make sure his apprentices had lighted the forge fire. A gust caught his cloak and forced a blast of chill through the fastening. The smith raised his eyes to curse the weather, and spotted the lady on the seaward embrasure with her hair unbound in the breeze.

The smith stopped short in his tracks.

Only one reason could bring the Lady Ithariel to stand lonely vigil above the sea.

Haldeth overcame disbelief and raced for the stairwell to the beachhead. Haifway down, with the breath burning in his lungs and every muscle protesting, he saw through the gap of an arrowslit that his effort came too late.

The envoy ship from High Kelair even now spread her canvas under the sky.

Nothing remained except to climb the battlements and consult with Ithariel; to try and comprehend what insane drive could lure Korendir from wife and child to his former feckless adventuring.

The lady waited until after the last sails vanished over the horizon. The ocean beneath the cliffs stretched empty and vast, and the wind held the mournful cries of gulls. Ithariel turned her head. A gust snatched back her hood, and morning sun lit her face. From the place where he waited by the postern gate, Haldeth saw her pain before she recognized his presence.

The smith never tried to stifle outrage. “Already you dread that he won’t be coming back.”

Ithariel started, her eyes like the mists off the beachheads in early spring. After a moment she nodded.

Haldeth clenched forge-toughened hands in bewilderment. “How could you let him go, then?”

The enchantress turned toward the sea, as if she could find answer within the rolling boom of the swells. “Sometimes a life must be given for life.” When Haldeth moved to protest, she spun back and cut him short. “Don’t speak of obligations. You’re his friend, perhaps his only trusted one. Understand that Korendir is of High Morien’s line, and White Circle enough to see his fate.”

Haldeth gave vent to his bitterness. “He’s a fool, and a son of a fool, if he could abandon his life here with you.”

Ithariel looked back with all the coldness of her enchantress’s heritage. “He has finally found his freedom. Would you take that peace away from him?
Would you dare?”

The smith persisted in frustration. “What of the daughter you conceived in such joy, that may never know life beyond the womb?”

Ithariel battled to stem her sudden tears. “She is only one, Haldeth. And I knew what I chose on the day I bonded in marriage.”

The smith no longer noticed the brisk wind. Dwarfed by the wide sky of Whitestorm, he shrugged at his own helplessness. “Could a man be worth so much?”

The enchantress raised brimming eyes and nodded. “That one, yes. Don’t be sorry.”

Too diminished to offer anything but the inadequate comfort of his embrace, the smith extended his arms. Ithariel gave in to grief and need. She leaned into his chest; fine-boned and fragile as a bird, she shed the tears she had restrained in Korendir’s presence through the length of his last night at Whitestorm. And as he held her, Haldeth was plagued by the riddle that lingered like an echo from his dreams; as if somewhere a truth existed that forever escaped his grasp.

XXVI

HIGH KELAIR

COLD CAME
early to the kingdoms in the north; frost etched jagged patterns across the windows of Prince Teadje’s cabin on the morning his ship raised sail for return to High Kelair. The captain in command chose prudence over risk or winter gales. He charted a southerly course, to the undying disdain of the Arrax man, who claimed to read weather like a fisherman. Flushed beneath his tattoos, the mountain born expostulated in guttural tones of insult that blizzards would choke the passes before the ship could make port. Prince Teadje settled the dispute as the ship wore past White Rock Head and pitched to the roll of unprotected waters; His Grace turned precipitously green and retched in undignified postures over the rail. While servants rushed to escort him to his berth, the quartermaster minded his captain’s barked command to maintain the chosen heading.

The Arrax man retired irritably to the maindeck; if he was galled to discover the prior presence of Korendir, his mood precluded complaint. Apparently inured to bad weather, he settled by the foremast pinrail and remained there despite the fact that his position interfered with the crew.

Tired of the mountain born’s temper, the captain pretended tolerance. As the ship heeled into her beat to windward. spray flew in sheets over the bowsprit. The mettlesome man from the north peaks became drenched and in time retired below. Only Korendir remained; quiet as shadow, he lingered at the rail long after the glimmer of Whitestorm’s wardstone faded astern.

The envoy vessel reprovisioned at Fairhaven and left in driving snow. The gales closed in and whipped up whitecaps that battered at timber and sail; the calm between storms brought skies of glacial blue, and ice that jammed the running rigging. Sailors sent aloft to clear tackle borrowed the Arrax man’s oaths; none of them understood mountain dialect, but guttural consonants and bitten syllables seemed suited to misery and salt water sores that chafed on stiffened canvas until every knuckle bled. By the time the ship backed sail in her home port, she showed the wear of a difficult passage. Her sails were patched, her men weary, and the pilot who boarded at the headland informed that the passes through the Hyadons were blocked by thirty-foot drifts.

Korendir absorbed this setback without reaction; except when he boarded the longboat with the Arrax man and the prince, he asked for a place at the oars. The craft crossed the bay with surprising speed. If the crewmen complained that their backs ached from matching the mercenary’s stroke, his look quickly stilled their complaints.

Upon a wharf chipped clear of ice, the party was met by a herald in ceremonial colors and an escort of fifteen men-at-arms. The heir to the realm and his guests were marshaled through streets narrowed to tunneled alleys by piled snow. Craftsmen paused in their shovelling, and children blocked dooryards to stare as the royal cortege climbed a succession of switched back curves behind soldiers who cleared aside traffic. The captain snapped orders at their destination, and his company saluted in double columns before the gateway to the Palace of Kings.

Inside, warmed by a roaring fire, Korendir of Whitestorm paced to the casements and looked out on a town built in tiers against the hillsides. The islanders claimed that no land in High Kelair was created level, and the setting of their port affirmed the notion. Shops, temple spires, and gabled houses were built upon terraced foundations. All lay mantled under snow, looking like ornaments sugared over by the generous hand of a confectioner, except the smoke that trailed from level upon level of chimneys marred that image of charm. The Corrigon’s predation had grown to trouble more than Arrax. Savaged by untimely freezing weather, the island’s coastal settlements were threatened by a scarcity of wood.

Deeply morose, Prince Teadje’s royal sire huddled amid cushions and toyed with a cut crystal game piece. He was elderly. His hands shook, and the massive crown of state weighed heavily on his eggshell head. His jeweled cuffs flashed by firelight as he lamented that his summons to Korendir had been sent out too late to matter.

“Sledges with dogs could cross the passes, but not while the Corrigon flies.” The sovereign tipped the chess pawn onto its side. “The last teams who tried were slaughtered. Only one driver returned to tell of their fate. He died soon after from his injuries.”

The mountain born listened from a corner, expressionless behind tattooed sigils; only his eyes followed as a chancellor in embroidered robes resumed the recitation of bad news. “The town of Arrax is lost. The grain stores are nearly exhausted, and hunters who dare the wilds to set traps only become prey for the Corrigon. The creature has grown larger. It is said to fly over the rooftops by day and strike at the folk in the streets. Families have taken refuge in the mines, where they need not have fire to keep from freezing. But shelter is all the caverns can offer. The last messenger to report said that children were languishing from starvation.”

“Last messenger?” Korendir never shifted from the frozen tableau through the casement. But his words cut. “How did that man win through?”

“He was no man, but a dwarf, my Lord of Whitestorm.” The chancellor affected a deprecating cough. “That one reached the coast by scaling the peaks of the Hyadons. He survived a great folly. That route has no trail and no pass.”

Now Korendir did turn. He bent his level gaze upon the King of High Kelair and said, “What one dwarf accomplished, determined men can equal.”

The councillor looked askance at this, yet the king stroked his combed silver beard, and his mood of despondency brightened. “I could offer twenty-five men and relief supplies. But their own children are not dying, and the escarpments must be climbed upon ropes. My soldiers are willing and strong, but they have limited experience at mountaineering. What will keep them in heart when the winter peaks tax their endurance?”

“That can be solved,” Korendir said promptly. “But we’ll need more men to carry food.”

The Arrax man had followed this exchange with rapt intensity; now he spoke up and cut off rejoinder from the chancellor. “I can find volunteers who are willing. They could be ready to leave by afternoon.”

“And who will guide this rescue mission?” The chancellor sneered his derision. “The dwarf?”

Korendir returned an expression of surprise, then coldly surveyed the official from the jewelled tips of his slippers to the fur-capped crown of his head. “Who else?”

The chancellor jutted his chin. “The mission you propose is ill favored, and to consider a dwarf as guide a worse misjudgment yet. Their kind lie. The one who came in was a branded slave. He would just as soon lead humans off the nearest vertical precipice.”

“Not when he stands to gain freedom for his people,” Korendir snapped back. “Your thinking’s as blighted as a slave master’s. The people of Arrax will be dead before spring and the Corrigon by then grown too large for any man’s weapon.” He spun and faced the old king, who had lifted the toppled pawn and sat turning it mindlessly between his palsied fingers. Yet Korendir framed his address as if the man were not infirm, or indecisive, or half lost in the blankness of advanced age. “Act now, or not at all, Your Grace. I came to your realm to spare lives, not to belabor the obvious.”

The king set the chess piece upright upon the board. He blinked at the very still shadow framed in the brightness of the window. “Let it be now.” If he was no longer young, he was still quite capable of command, for his chancellor bowed and kept silence.

* * *

Four mornings later, muffled in a jacket of sables sewn skin side out, Korendir stood at the end of the sleigh road and bent to strap snow shoes to his feet. Around him, the king’s men-at-arms exchanged gripes, while a cluster of Arrax men and eight mismatched dwarves did the same, but less boisterously, and pointedly at a distance from the rest. The packs the small folk donned were at least as heavy as the humans’ and in snowshoes, they waddled like ducks.

Someone noticed and cracked a jibe. The laughter that resulted was silenced by reprimand from Korendir.

That moment, in sunlight that glared off of snowdrifts and the blade-sharp peaks that divided the coast from the upland plateaus, the mountain born understood a thing. He traced the honor sigil at his forehead, while around him, his countrymen went still. They watched in disbelief as the one who had been Prince Teadje’s envoy prepared to give Korendir his name.

The Arrax man stepped forward and slapped his patterned jacket with his fist. “Lord of Whitestorm, I am called Echend. Let it be said that you know me in honor.” He ended in sarcasm, expectant that his gesture would meet with incomprehension.

A few kings men appointed to the expedition knew something of mountain ways; these paused in their preparations to stare.

Except the mercenary, who raised passionless eyes from his lacings. Without hesitation he dropped to one knee and scooped snow into his bare right hand. “Echend,” he repeated clearly. “Korendir, son of Morien, accepts the honor of your name. May the gifted prove worthy of the hour, and the day, to the crossing into spirit yet to come.” In acceptance of sealed pledge, he let droplets of new-melted snow trickle down his collar toward his heart.

Echend shouted in pleased surprise, for the response was the proper one, and flawlessly executed. “You are my kinsman from this day forward.”

“Let it be so.” Korendir recovered his glove and oversaw the final arrangements as if unaware of the eyes that watched his back. The king’s soldiers regarded him with faint distrust, while the dwarf guide, Indlvarrn, whispered to his fellows that there was more to this mercenary from Whitestorm than met the casual eye. How he had known mountain tradition, and when he had memorized so obscure a ritual response, no one present could guess.

On that observation, the expedition to spare beleaguered Arrax set off across a valley of pristine drifts.

* * *

At the instant Korendir’s party broke trail, a storm breaker boomed on the shores beneath Whitestorm keep. The sound rattled the window glass and shook the timbers of the gates, but the knock upon the panels outside was heard by Haldeth in the forge. He frowned, laid aside his hammer, and stepped out into windy afternoon. The knock came again, plain over the thunder of the surf; not an illusion. The smith unbarred the side postern, and the portal swung open to reveal the enchanter, Orame.

Haldeth recoiled in astonishment.

“Is my arrival so surprising?” The wizard stepped into the bailey, as groomed as though he had just set forth from his tower. Sunshine struck autumn colored highlights in his hair, and his eyes sparkled with impatience. “Your mistress Ithariel has need of me.”

Haldeth sucked a breath of frosty air and reached around the wizard to draw the bars. “And Korendir?”

Orame raised his brows. “Crossing the valley of Kashiel, which is logical, since he plans an ascent of the Hyadons by way of the Graley glacier. Now show me to your lady.”

Haldeth dropped the bar with a clank that shook the braces. He had been drinking with sailors often enough to have heard of the Graley, a sparkling, near-vertical couloir whose ridge was always smothered under cloud. “Glaciers?” he said sharply. “Are the passes closed, or has the Corrigon grown so aggressive that the roads are considered unsafe?”

“Both.” Orame’s lips thinned with the beginnings of annoyance. Since the smith lacked the manners to desist from questions, the wizard stepped aside and sought the chambers of Ithariel on his own.

Haldeth remained standing in the gusts that raked the bailey. He should have known better than to badger a wizard. Plagued by rising uneasiness, the smith called the boys from the forge, then hastened ahead to the kitchens for the ordinary bother of Megga’s scolding, and hot soup to drive off chills.

Evening came; Orame stayed on as guest of Whitestorm’s lady. By night the wardstone in the watch tower burned a strange and unsettling blue. Haldeth huddled in his blankets, unable to sleep; and the dawn brought a second White Circle initiate asking admittance at the gates. At week’s end, the pair became joined by others, bringing the total to five. By the hour that Korendir and his company set foot on the ice beneath the Hyadons, nine enchanters took up residence at Whitestorm. By day and night the keep rang with powers that made the sunlight shimmer strangely, and the fires burn green in the kitchen. Megga baked bread in the ovens undisturbed, but Haldeth was never so complacent. He moved his cot and blankets into the drafty forge. Waking between nightmares in the deeps of winter dark, he swore he would ask the wizards of their purpose. Yet mornings came, sunlit or gray with snow, and always his courage failed him. Whether the wizards opened gateways to Alhaerie or meddled with natural progression, dread undermined his curiosity.

* * *

The expedition to relieve Arrax labored ahead through soft snow, and crusted over drifts that grabbed at each stride, and glass-hard, wind-scoured glacier. Gusts ripped down from the Graley and caught up gouged ice from the crampons strapped onto each man’s boots to prevent slipping; slivers whirled like crystal into the aquamarine depths of the fissures. The landscape was white, gray, and steel-blue, the sky frosty; cold bit into the bones of the living without reprieve. Days had passed since anyone could remember being warm. High Kelair grew little timber, and the foothills above the Kashiel valley supported no forest at all.