Mortal Consequences (23 page)

Knucklebones piped up, “That’s my doing, a simple cantra. Everyone born to the empire can perform small magic—”

No one listened. “Magic is forbidden!” a voice shouted.

“Taboo!”

“Hush, all!” Sunbright was exhausted in mind and body by the fight and panic, and drained of spirit. Taking Knucklebone’s hand, he let others lug Magichunger to the fire, then asked, “What is there to eat?”

“Nothing!” Goodbell spat. She nursed a fidgety child by the fire, her face drawn and lined. “Our best hunters lie dead in the forest where the game must hide. The prairie offers nothing.”

Sunbright plunked on grass by the fire. Dried dung smoked and wafted into his eyes. “I’ll try tracking game at dawn,” he promised.

“Better hunt that fight!” Mightylaugh said as he strode to the fire. “You learned nothing, Kindbloom tells us. You only got Magichunger shot full of arrows.”

“We learned plenty,” Sunbright snapped. “Use your brains instead of your mouth.”

Magichunger’s mother and sisters bandaged him, wrapped him in blankets, and rolled him near the fire. Fighters stood with empty hands, or swished swords in their anger. More barbarians came from the dark to hear the news and arguments. Mightylaugh demanded, “What did we learn?”

The shaman scrubbed aching temples, and said, “I’m guessing, but think on this: I don’t believe the elves mean us harm—”

“No harm!” scoffed several.

“I think they simply bar us from the forest. They can see in the dark. They shot Magichunger three times, recognizing he’s war chief, and could have shot me a dozen times as I lugged him out, yet they didn’t. So—”

“You’re an elf friend!” someone bawled from the dark. “They wouldn’t shoot you!”

Knucklebones’s hand tightened on Sunbright’s leg. The shaman refused to take the bait. “Look at the evidence,” he demanded. ‘They could have killed us all, but instead they let us escape, and didn’t pursue.”

“They’re afraid to fight us!” Kindbloom crowed. “They’re cowards, and know we’re better warriors!”

“Further,” Sunbright plowed on, “if they intended war, they could slip out here and slit our throats while we sleep. They could slide through this grass like snakes, but don’t.”

“Get past our guards? Not likely!”

“Never! The prairie belongs to the Rengarth!”

“And,” hollered the shaman, “I don’t think there are many elves. We’re only attacked by three dozen at most. Their tribe must be small. Legends say elves are scarce.”

“Legends say they turn invisible, and I don’t see that!” argued Mightylaugh.

“If we could force them to fight here, we’d make mincemeat of ‘em!” added Kindbloom. “No elf can stand against a barbarian!”

“They’re cowards! Skulking like coyotes in the dark!” chimed Archloft. “We should burn the forest, drive them out like rats from grain!”

More threats, rants, hollering. Sunbright groaned at their illogic, and cursed himself too. His proud people refused to consider anything new, buried their heads in custom and tradition like a child burrowing under blankets. It was partly his own fault, for he’d recalled them to tradition, too well. Faced with a new problem, they could only ply old ways, lash out blindly instead of think.

Knucklebones huddled against Sunbright, and gripped his brawny arm with her small, strong hand. Over the belligerent bellowing, she murmured, “They call you elf-friend.”

“They call me many names,” he reassured her. “It’s just wind.”

“But you are an elf-friend, for my blood is shared with the Old Ones.”

Sunbright squeezed her hands. “I love you, no matter what you are,” he said.

Her hands jerked back, surprising him. One slanted eye glared, and she said, “You think it’s evil to possess elven blood?”

“No!” he exclaimed. Shanks of Shar, thought Sunbright, was everyone mad? “No, I think… Don’t you turn against me too!”

In apology, Knucklebones laid her tousled dark head against his shoulder. “I won’t,” she promised, “but I honestly don’t know what I am, Sunbright.”

Tired, fuddled, the man hugged her close, kissed her curls. Around them, the frustrated war talk failed. The last question was, “So what now?”

“Try peace,” offered Sunbright. Eyes turned: hostile, confused, angry. “Carry a flag of truce to the forest. See if the elves will talk. Explain we seek to camp and hunt and then move on. Perhaps they’ll let us stay.”

“You said we’d winter over into spring, not move on!” spat Goodbell. “Which is true?”

“Either,” Sunbright hedged. “What’s important is to talk. It can’t hurt.”

“They’d kill the messenger!”

“Let Sunbright carry the flag!” someone piped. “It’s his idea!”

“I’m willing,” he said. Though tired, the shaman stood. “Even collecting an arrow would be worth it, just to see the enemy’s face. I’ll go at dawn.”

“I’ll go with you,” Knucklebones added.

“No, you won’t!” Mightylaugh roared. When the crowd hushed, he barged on. “If we parade to beg a crust of bread and sip of water, they’ll think us weak! We’ll have lost the war! I say—”

“Who are you to contradict a council?” Sunbright snapped.

“This is no council!” Mightylaugh spat. The big man had earned his name for his jolly manner, but that had evaporated under the recent strain. The whole tribe was wrought up. “The council rules in peace. This is war, and the war chief decides! Magichunger is hurt, so as second, I become war chief, and I say we attack at dawn when the rogues are tired from watching through the night. We attack with every fighter, and slay every pointy-eared bastard in the forest!”

The tribes’ battle cry shook the starry night. Screaming and whooping ran up and down the line of campfires. Sunbright spat in disgust. That challenge would alert every elf from the Barren to the Purple Mountains. And the mountains wouldn’t be barren, but drenched in blood. He groused to Knucklebones, “Ravens and foxes and maggots will rejoice at this choice.”

“We don’t expect you to join us, Sunbright!” sneered Mightylaugh. “You or your pointy-eared friend.”

“We’ll fight,” the shaman returned. “If nothing else, I can fetch wounded. That’ll keep me plenty busy. But be warned …” Standing tall against the small fire and dark horizon, he reached over his shoulder, and hauled out Harvester of Blood with a low moan. The long blade flashed yellow in the firelight. “The next time someone mentions the ears of the woman I love, or doubts her loyalty, I’ll cut off his ears and feed them to him.”

The shaman stalked into the night.

Knucklebones matched his long strides by half-skipping, clinging to his elbow. Her spirit sang at Sunbright’s public proclamation of love. Yet she sorrowed, too. For deep in her heart, she doubted her own loyalty.

As the sun rose blood-red on the eastern horizon, the Rengarth Barbarians roared a challenge and charged the forested slopes, their shadows running ahead.

Straight into disaster.

Slim black arrows flew from the forest like dragonflies, and every one of them found a target. A dozen barbarians, howling and waving their bronze and iron swords, fell before they reached the woods. More arrows whistled from close blue spruces before the tribe broke through, then they were barging under the canopy of maple and ash leaves. Dark ghosts flitted amidst trunks, elusive shapes that infuriated the screaming barbarians and faded like morning dreams. Still, like magic, arrows sped amidst the barbarians and slammed backs, buttocks, bellies, and biceps. The woods were a bedlam of noise and pain.

Sunbright and Knucklebones had hung back from the initial charge. They’d shown loyalty in joining the tribe, but were reluctant to run mad against the dark ones defending their homeland. The pair ran up the slope after stragglers, past wounded and dead, until they reached the trees and green dawn light.

“What now?” the thief panted. “Which way?”

Human screams and the elven shrills resounded like thunder before rain. Sunbright shook Harvester in rage. “I don’t know! We shouldn’t even be here!”

“Then why—”

From the ground, a shower of leaves exploded upward. Dark forms camouflaged with greenery and berry juice stabbed with slim swords. Sunbright had a moment’s thought: Now we know how they disappear so quickly. Then he fought for his life.

He lunged backward from a blade stabbing for his face, and batted wildly. He trod on Knucklebones’s foot and lurched. The elf’s blade kissed his neck, then flicked back to skewer his heart. The shaman knocked the steel aside just in time, lashed to kick the elf away, but the slim female warrior was too quick. Amidst berry stains and hair black as Greenwillow’s, her black eyes raged. With a deft snap of her wrist, she sliced Sunbright’s thigh, parting his long, faded shirt, then skin and muscle. Instantly the leg felt weak. When Sunbright snatched it back, it trembled.

With no other defense, he lunged at the elf-woman. She dodged easily. He stumbled and twisted, too late, felt steel pink his kidney. He cannoned into a tree to avoid the blade. Behind, Knucklebones gasped and cursed, but before Sunbright could swing Harvester into play, steel slashed his forearm. Then the elf’s point flickered at his eyes. He might as well fight the wind.

The shaman wrenched Harvester up as an awkward shield, but his heart despaired. Barring a miracle, they’d both be dead in seconds.

The wild-eyed, wild-haired elf stepped back, and braced her foot for a killing blow. Sunbright swung his huge blade—

—and a warhammer flew from the trees behind.

The hammer smashed the elf’s jaw, and knocked her sprawling. A cleaver flung from a different direction, and smacked aside the blade of the elf pressing Knucklebones.

Sunbright gaped. The warhammer on the turf was battered, nicked, the handle sweat-stained. And familiar. He’d carried it for years.

He turned to see who’d thrown it, and finally found his breath.

“Drigor!”

Not wasting words, the old dwarf dropped a hand like a vise on Sunbright’s forearm. The shaman was towed as if chained to oxen. More dwarves swarmed, even bulled through blue spruces where Sunbright couldn’t pass. The elf attacking Knucklebones was clubbed down with axe and mattock handles. The thief was hoisted bodily over two heads, and toted down the slope like a reindeer carcass in a game dance.

Dragged along, Sunbright tried to quell his amazement. Drigor looked the same: face wrinkled as a winter apple, bushy white beard with six silver rings braided into his mustache, queer leather tunic with shaggy hump, stained goat hide kilt, and rusty, pitchy boots. The dwarf was hung like a peddler with satchels, rope, blanket, axe, warhammer, backpack, pouches, and tools. Seven more dwarves, all younger than Drigor, thudded through the woods in heavy boots. Knucklebones squawked to be set down, but no one listened.

They burst free of the trees and down the slope. The dwarves neither panted nor sweated, but jogged like clockwork engines. Sunbright felt like a child in the iron grip of Drigor, son of Yasur, father of Dorlas, of the Sons of Baltar of the Iron Mountains.

The barbarian attack had been broken. Survivors limped down the slope for the prairie. Some sported black arrows, and several helped wounded companions. Sunbright demanded Drigor let go. Disregarding his own wounds, the shaman sheathed Harvester, and tended the wounded on the slopes. The dead he let lie: over a dozen in sight. Wives and husbands streamed up the slope, wailing and sobbing when they found relatives. Sunbright hoisted Peacefinger, a small red-haired woman, across one shoulder, and with Drigor’s help, shouldered Darkname across the other. At Drigor’s direction, dwarves carried others. Before long, all the Rengarth Barbarians, living, dead, and in between, retreated from the slope.

“What madness is this?” asked Drigor. He lugged Hammerlove across his backpack. The man’s white head lolled, neck broken. “Who ordered such a foolish attack?”

“A fool,” Sunbright answered. “We’ve a tradition of fool-hardiness going back centuries.” His bitter irony was lost on the dwarf. Sunbright needed breath to carry, but needed answers more. “Are you real, Drigor, or a dream? I left you half a world away. On the other side of the empire.”

“We are real,” stated the literal dwarf. “We needed to find you. To warn you … to settle our debt.”

Debt? the shaman wondered. Oh, yes, returning Dorlas’s warhammer. Dwarves took promises seriously. Sunbright sucked wind as they swished through prairie grass, waist-deep on the dwarves.

“Warn me of what?”

“A monster hunts you. Like nothing I’ve ever seen. Tall, thin as a sword, with a hide like ice-worn granite. And more spells than fill a grimoire. It followed you and attacked us, crying for revenge.”

Sunbright almost dropped two carcasses. “A what? A monster? After me? Arms of Targus!” he swore. “Why?”

The old weaponsmith shrugged under his grisly burden and said, “You made a powerful enemy somewhere. Mighty queer you don’t know it, though. I recall enemies better than friends.”

Sunbright asked a dozen questions, learned the gory tale of the tentacles of doom and the shrieking fiend, but knew even less when he’d finished. A monster clad in flint? How was that possible? And why hate him? None of it made sense.

Plodding toward camp with morning sun in his eyes, Sunbright asked, “How did you find me?”

Old, crinkly eyes squinted to guard a secret. “Dwarves know the earth,” Drigor answered vaguely. “We listened for your tread.”

A lie, Sunbright knew, mystic mumbo-jumbo. Many folks had seen the barbarians enter the prairie, bound west. Hundreds of marchers left a wide track. He didn’t press. His mind whirled with enough questions.

The sun was fully up, bright in the huge, deep sky. But a chill stained the air, a painful reminder that winter was not far off. Having failed to win a foothold on the forest, Sunbright’s tribe might be trapped on the prairie without food or shelter or fuel. Was there no place for them, now that the tundra had died?

Which reminded him. “Thank you for saving our lives,” he said to the dwarf. “Our debt must be repaid in spades. Or do I owe you?”

“You owe me doubly,” the dwarf calculated. “Cholena, who had been my wife, was killed by your monster, blasted to flinders before my eyes. And three other sons of the mountain. You brought the monster upon us, and now we’ve saved your life and hers,”—he nodded at Knucklebones, still being carried aloft—”as we once saved you from yak-men in White Owl Pass.