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“Enemy?” Lobok asked. “Lord Hammar is a good friend, we’ve had much commerce with him. The dwarves just come to guard our prize on the way back.”
“I’ve heard he’s been calling himself King Hammar,” Wistala said, and flew off back to Fangbreaker with Lobok’s reply.
So as she hung in the darkness over Galahall, seeing the lights go on within and the carpets laid on the doorstep, she turned and made a careful approach to the nearby stream where the dwarves were camped at the base of the ridge she’d crossed so many years ago in the company of Stog.
She asked for a meeting with Lord Lobok, busy dressing for the court dinner celebrating another successful transaction, for the boy Rayg waited at Galahall to be sold to the dwarves. She was admitted with the expediency one would expect of a courier from King Fangbreaker, and found him buttoning a formal robe over a chain shirt. He wore a mask of red silk stretched under and over a decorative wooden frame, like a child’s kite.
“Lord Lobok, are you going yourself?” she asked, putting her head in his tent so as not to crowd him and the servant-dwarf helping his lord dress.
“Of course. It’s a welcoming dinner, and as leader and emissary I’m expected. You don’t—”
“The night feels wrong to me,” Wistala said. “Are your soldiers arrayed well?”
“We’re on the thane’s land,” Lord Lobok said, fingers fluttering against his chain shirt. “There’s nothing to fear here.”
“As long as the thane is true. I’ve had horrible dreams, but they must be wrong. They must be.”
Lobok left off dressing, turned his silk-masked face to her. “Why do you say your impressions must be wrong? You are King Fangbreaker’s, honors upon his name and so forth, famous Oracle.”
“Who could mistake such omens? The feather landed on your doorstep. The Fates have chosen you.”
Lobok and his servant exchanged a glance. “Of course.”
“Yes. I am overwrought, seeing those barbarian encampments around the thane’s hall. I’m imagining things.” She began to shake. “But beware, O lord; if anyone speaks of a blood relationship between Hammar and the child you are receiving tonight, blood will be shed. A dagger at your back.”
She let her eyes roll wildly and then flopped over, closing the water-lids over her so that she would look glassy-eyed.
“Oh! Oh! Oh, no,” Lord Lobok said, his hands clasping and unclasping, then gripping elbows tight. “Someone. Ummm. Is it safe to dump water on dragons?”
Wistala rattled her sii and lifted her head. “Nur . . . what am I doing here? Ia, I’m happy for you, Lord Lobok, you live again . . .” She blinked, shook her head. “I beg your pardon, my lord, were you saying something? I seem to have fainted.”
Lobok gestured to his servant, took a quavering gulp of wine from a proffered cup. “You didn’t have another vision, did you?”
“Oh. No, I don’t think so. Hazy, so hazy. My eyes vex me. There’s a mist about you, my lord. It must be the scented candles. Excuse me, I am obliged to fly back to the throne room.”
She left Lord Lobok calling for more wine.
Three days later King Fangbreaker’s throne room was lined with many of the most noble families in the mountains, hearing the report of Field Commander Djosh. Wistala waited for it to be read again in Parl, having begged to know what the message she carried read:
Noble King and Assembled Select and Lordly Dwarves,
I write you to report a most satisfactory outcome to an attempted treachery by Lord Hammar and his barbarians on the two hundred ninetieth of this year. I thank the Fates for the eagle and his feather landed upon Lord Lobok’s door, for were it not for him not a dwarf of this expedition may be returning.
Lord Lobok insisted on our arrays being placed within hearing distance of Galahall, ready to answer a cry for assistance, and I can only marvel at his foresight, inspired, I’m told, by our lucky dragon, who sensed matters amiss.
I am told that during dinner an unusual number of barbarian leaders were present, as the infamous Hammar was building around himself a court of scoundrels. As the servants poured wine for a toast, Hammar gave some sort of code word that he was letting his illegitimate son—I shall not sully the throne room with his coarse discourse—be sold for little more than the song that wooed his mother. At this there was some stirring at the priests’ end of the table and Lord Lobok let out such a shriek of warning that we would have heard it were we camped two vesk away. Lobok drew blade and flung himself sideways behind the table, knocking over a server who was making to bring the cask of wine down on Shieldmaster Dar’s head, Lord Lobok’s bodyservant tells me.
At the calls of alarm and assistance from Lord Lobok I sent my hardhanded dwarves forward and they stormed through the windows of Galahall in good order. The barbarians made some semblance of a fight but clearly intended for the dinner to be a slaughterhouse, not a battle hall, and seemed not much experienced at close quarter fighting under roof and among furniture. Our dwarves, used to such environs, secured the boy with some loss of blood, almost all of it on the part of our opponents, and no loss of the treasure we brought to purchase him, for treachery abrogates any deal. I hope the throne will approve.
Barbarian cavalry, long prepared to finish off the villainy indoors, made an effort to harry our retreat, but our catafoua made them fall back with loss.
Wistala smiled, for she’d had Lessup’s mead-deliverers start rumors of warlike preparations in the dwarf camp where they’d just sold their honeyed brew.
I close this dispatch by saying we have lost few dwarves as we retreat in good order for the Ba-drink. I write to you in Lord Lobok’s stead, for he travels with the healing wagons, and is so dosed with medicines after his experiences he is currently unable to write legibly. If you have any orders beyond returning to the Hardhold with our young prize, they will be immediately carried out by
Your faithful Field Commander,
Djosh Scarchin
