Mortal Consequences (24 page)

“My warning of the monster extinguished your debt of returning the hammer. But let’s not quibble. You can, perhaps, balance the bargain.”

Quibble? thought Sunbright. The old miser attached prices to everything, with Sunbright sinking in debt by the minute. Wearily he asked, “Balance how?”

Drigor stumped along, staring at the horizon, or something inside his head. “Not now,” he said. “I’ll tell you when ‘tis time.”

“Fine,” the shaman said. “I owe you.”

Sunbright let it go. Probably he’d be dead of starvation before spring anyway, providing his tribe didn’t stone or burn him to death first….

Sunbright dreamed.

Greenwillow tripped from the night, dainty as a deer. Tall, black-haired, shining green and black like a lizard, ornate silver pommel swaying at her hip. As shadows crept up her frame, her face was revealed. Dour, eyebrows puckered, mouth pursed.

That expression Sunbright recognized. Greenwillow had often been angry at him in life, but never in dreams. He asked, “What is it?” though she’d never spoken in dreams.

“You slay my people!” Her lithe hand fell to her sword pommel.

“They slay mine!” Sunbright protested. “They insist on war! We only seek a home!”

“My people inhabited these woods when yours had tails!”

“We don’t seek to usurp them!” Even in a dream, Sunbright’s voice whined. “There’s no reason—”

“You must not slay my people!” The phantom drew her sword with a hiss. The silver blade winked and flashed in moonlight. “Kill them and you kill me!”

The blade seemed coated with frost, and Sunbright felt its chill. Greenwillow, and her sword, never looked so real. Was it because he lay sleeping near her forest homeland? The keen steel whisked near his neck, seeking blood.

“All right, I shan’t harm them!” Sunbright made more promises, more to break. “I wouldn’t harm anyone if I could help it! But I can’t speak—”

Surprising him, Greenwillow lunged forward, caught his shirt, and kissed him hard. Her lips were icy, but his body stirred at her touch. She was so like Knucklebones, so vital and vibrant, yet so different, as an eagle is from a kingfisher. How were they so alike, yet so different? Who understood women, or dreams?

When Greenwillow pulled back from the chilly kiss, one eye winked, then stayed oddly closed as she retreated. “I’ll be seeing you,” she said, then she ran into the black forest of death, or limbo, or wherever she dwelt. As she ran, she grew shorter, slighter, smaller.

Clumsy too. No longer silent as a white-tailed deer, her feet pounded the ground. Thumps made his bones thrum. Harder came the blows, until the dream shattered.

Someone kicked him awake. Mightylaugh in big boots laced to his knee. “Wake up!” the big man grunted. “We council!

“About you!”

“… his idea we come here! And he’s brought nothing but death to the clans, widows and orphans who weep the night…”

“… befriended an elf, not of our tribe, nor our race. And now we find elves here, hungry to kill us, in the very spot he directed us …”

“… how many have fallen to the Shadow Folk? Yet he goes unharmed amidst the elves! How can this be, unless he works with them … !”

Speaker after speaker took the talking stick and heaped the tribe’s woes at Sunbright’s feet. Accusations flew, wilder and wilder: he’d led them into the jaws of orcs and elves; pretended visions of these woods; murdered Owldark in the desert to become shaman; consorted with one elf and colluded with more elves to sacrifice his own tribe; practiced magic with cold light and healing; run like a coward from battle, suffering no wounds; opposed plans for the last battle, then informed the elves ahead of time; coveted the position of war chief and so plotted to have Magichunger slain; and on and on.

Sunbright Steelshanks sat like a stone and stared at the council fire as his name was blackened. Some speakers defended him, but not many, nor was he surprised. When a tribe suffered, they needed someone to blame, usually the shaman, who should know the will of the gods and the future. And he had led them here. Monkberry sat beside her son, holding a big hand in her gnarled one. Knucklebones held the other hand, hers cool and strong. Tears silently spilled down both women’s cheeks.

Long into the night the council dragged. Finally it was quiet. Mightylaugh offered the stick, saying, “Would anyone else speak? Sunbright Steelshanks, will you?”

The shaman didn’t look up from the fire, only shook his head.

“Damn it, I will!” Knucklebones spat, leaped to her feet and, quick as a jackdaw, snatched the baton. “I’ll speak!”

She stood defiant, clutching the stick like a fighting knife, as if to kill with it. Objections rang out: “She is not of our tribe!”

“She is an elf!”

“She is Sunbright’s friend!”

But croaking Iceborn cut through the tumult.

“Whoever has slain an enemy or born a child may speak in council. There is no custom against an outsider speaking. Long ago, when Heatherhill was chief, a man from the city came—”

“Thank you!” Knucklebones interrupted, stamping her foot. The tribe crowded around the council fire on the open prairie. An early morning wind damp with rain hissed in the grass tops. The fire guttered as if ashamed to see its creator laid low. The thief shook the stick as she spat her words. “You miserable lot of ingrates! If you had the honor of garbage-eating dogs, you’d be ashamed! Sunbright saved all your worthless lives by his actions and sacrifices! He sat three days without food or water in the broiling sun to find the vision of this place! You wallowed in your own dung on a pile of rocks near the ash heaps of a town scorned throughout the empire, but Sunbright made you listen! To make you listen, he challenged the lot of you to combat, when there isn’t one man or woman here worth his little finger!

“When he fought, and nearly died, you finally saw sense, and crawled off your rubbish dump to a land and sky clean and free! Sunbright recalled your traditions, promised to carry Iceborn on his own back to keep your pitiful customs alive. He fought beside you against your enemies. Look at his arms, his forehead, his knee: count his wounds! He slaved night and day, fetching water, carrying children, butchering sheep—every dirty task in camp, and never complained once, because he was glad to be home!

“And when you got here, to this verdant land that could be a paradise, he asked only to seek truce with the elves, that no blood be shed, and you might gain a foothold. But you wouldn’t listen! And now, you lousy, stinking, pus-eating, maggoty gutter rats, you’d condemn him? Condemn yourselves, for being lazy cowards, hardheaded and hardhearted—”

With an oath, Mightylaugh tore the speaking stick from Knucklebones’s hand, and slapped as if to break her neck. Quick as a terrier, she ducked, whipped out a knife, and carved a stripe up his arm from wrist to armpit. Bleeding, the war chief rocked back in shock.

“She draws blood in council! It is forbidden!” shouted an onlooker.

“Mightylaugh tore the stick away! That is forbidden by our most ancient laws!” countered another.

“She had no right to speak! And insult us when we suffer!”

“Sunbright’s suffered a hundred times!”

“No truce! No cowardice!”

“No magic!”

Words turned to shouts, to a babble of noise. Fists flew. Men and women tussled, knocked each other down.

Worried, Monkberry yanked on Sunbright’s hand and said, “Son, get up! Come quickly!”

Knucklebones hoisted Sunbright by the hand. He seemed half-dead, or frozen, slow as a crippled snake. Standing, he tottered, grabbed his forehead and squeezed. The thief bawled, “Wake up! What’s wrong with you?”

“Drag him!” Monkberry yelled. Knucklebones helped, but Sunbright’s feet plodded clumsily, as if made of wood. No one helped or came near them. Open prairie beckoned, a slate-black sky overhead, but a red glow lighting the east. The mother repeated, “Hurry!”

“Why? What’s—Ow!”

A fist-sized stone bounced off Knucklebones’s back. Another stone sailed by and thumped on grass. Risking a glance, Knucklebones saw tribesfolk flocking to a rock pile at the hillock. Men, women, and children hurled rocks. Another struck Knucklebones on the back of the thigh, and she grunted. One knocked Monkberry to her knees. Several hit Sunbright with painful thuds, but though the shaman staggered, he made no sound.

Desperate, the thief yanked Monkberry up, dragged mother and son. Stones whistled. Then one clipped Sunbright’s scalp so he crashed like a falling tree, almost trapped Knucklebones under his great frame.

The elf-woman wept for frustration as stones pelted the ground like hail. Monkberry struggled to rise. Clambering, the thief tried to shield both with her small body. More stones hit Sunbright, and one banged Knucklebone’s forehead. Woozy, she fought to keep conscious. To collapse was to die. Another stone struck her shoulder, lamed her arm. She cried unashamedly with fury and sorrow.

“Hold!” boomed a voice. “The next to throw dies!”

Like a passing storm, the stones stopped. Feet thudded all around. Meaty hands like bear paws grabbed Knucklebones, Sunbright, and Monkberry, and towed them toward the dawn. The shaman’s toes dragged in the grass, marking a double trail from the dappled stones.

Their rescuers were Drigor and his seven dwarves. The old leader leveled a crossbow at the tribe, and loosed a sizzling bolt that shattered on rocks to drive them back. Barbarians jeered, “Coward! Betrayer!” But gradually the taunts and curses died as the dogged dwarves carried all three victims far out of range, then out of sight. Four dwarves carried Sunbright spread-eagled like a sacrifice. Monkberry was toted across two shoulders like a log.

With help, Knucklebones found her feet, though her head throbbed. Laying a small hand on a dwarf’s shoulder, she murmured, “Thank you again. Again we owe you our lives.”

“Chalk it against the next life. You’ll never repay in this one.” Drigor’s dwarven humor came straight-faced. “Cappi, swing north. We’ll circle the camp.”

“Where are we bound?” asked Knucklebones, glad someone else took charge.

“Barren Mountains.”

Knucklebones swooned at the thought of all that marching, but bit her lip and trudged, supported by a dwarf she realized was female. She hadn’t seen the dwarves since they arrived. After the rescue in the forest, Sunbright had told them what little he knew of the surrounding land. Drigor had said, “We shall be back,” and the lot marched off. Knucklebones hated to think of the consequences if they hadn’t returned.

“What’s wrong with Sunbright?” she asked. “Why so slow, as if dead drunk?”

“I have seen it before, in dwarves and humans.” Drigor marched at the head, parting grass like a boat. He carried the famous warhammer, stout enough to fell an ox, in his hand. “These barbarians follow hearts as much as heads, and your friend has lost heart. His tribe has cast him out, but kept his soul. He is empty, dead inside. A tree uprooted. Do you understand?”

“I—I think so.” Pain and fear and despair made Knucklebones sob, just once, then she swallowed the lump in her throat and said, “Cut off from his people, he loses part of himself.”

“Most of himself” Drigor corrected. “So with dwarves.”

Knucklebones murmured, “So with all of us…”

Ground down by exhaustion, fear, and worry, Knucklebones collapsed hours later. It mattered little to the dwarves. Drigor draped her across his backpack like a dead deer and marched on. Dusk was near when he called a halt.

A tilted canteen and rough hand gently washed Knucklebones’s face. She spluttered awake, grabbed for her knife, but the rough hand pinned hers, and a guttural voice cooed, “Rest… .” The dwarven woman stepped back to give the thief room.

Knucklebones was chagrined and disgusted that she’d fainted, then awakened so slowly. Yet moving her head sent a jolt through her whole body, made her groan aloud. A fist-sized lump throbbed above her eye patch. For a second, panic made her stomach flip. Had the stone hit her one eye, she’d be blind. Breathing slowly, she let the fear go, and forgave herself for weakness. Careful with her tender head, she looked about.

They sat high on a mountainside, higher than the tallest elms of the forest. Sinking sun on autumn leaves made a forest-fire glow. To the east the prairie burned gold, but the long shadow of night rushed across it like a storm cloud. She lay on an irregular shelf of rock. Monkberry lay nearby, head pillowed on someone’s white leather pack. A fire crackled in a crevice, and meat skewered on sticks sizzled and dripped. Dwarves perched on rocks like gargoyles and stolidly munched their meal. Behind them, an overhang formed a shallow cave. Sunbright sat with his back against rock, eyes closed, unmoving.

Close to tears, the thief took in the wide-sweeping vista, the quiet camp with crackling fire, the stunning sunset. In the time she’d been asleep, the world turned from a violent, self-consumed hell to a haven of peace. Part of her wished to stop the sun, to stay like this forever.

But another part blazed with anger at the barbarians’ blind, stubborn stupidity. Fear and despair had bred a cold rage. Crawling to wobbly feet, she clutched her head and croaked to Drigor, “What—Ow!—what are your plans?”

The dwarf bit a bone in half with yellow teeth, and sucked marrow before saying, “We shall explore.”

Knucklebones peered at the gathering gloom. The mountain chain rose like stairs to snowy peaks in the distance. “All these mountains?” she asked.

Drigor pitched bones on the fire, nodded.

“What about us?”

A shrug. “You may come with us, if you can keep up,” the dwarf said. “Or stay here.”

Knucklebones stifled a groan. Here was a lovely spot, but she was no mountain goat. Teetering on her wobbly legs, she staggered to Sunbright, and creaked down beside him. “Sunbright? Are you awake?”

He nodded without opening his eyes. He was pale as a corpse, and as still. A cracked scab marred his neck where a stone had struck. He bore many bruises, but his silence most bothered the thief.

“Are you all right? Open your eyes.”

He did, but stared at the twilight without seeing. Knucklebones was reminded of Wulgreth of the Dire Woods, with eyes dead as stone. Staring into those hopeless eyes, she couldn’t think what to ask.