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“I won’t misjudge you again,” the Dragonblade said, not answering her question and crossing to the opposite gallery. “You’ve escaped me twice. There won’t be a third.”
“No,” Wistala said. “I expect there won’t.”
“And even if I fall, I have a son and a daughter to avenge me.”
“I’ve met your son. I hope he gets his chance.”
“Ah, yes. Not his finest performance. I thought I’d try him on an easier target his first night out. I never thought you’d chew your wings open. They’ve grown out nicely.”
Wistala took a breath. If she kept her eyes on the Dragonblade, she couldn’t see the heads, except he kept strolling around so she couldn’t help but view the machines.
“I wonder if Fangbreaker knows all your history,” the Dragonblade said.
“I wonder if he knows you’ve disobeyed him, and killed when he told you to capture.”
She turned and moved back through the workshops, keeping one eye on him just in case. But he stood there, helmet at his hip, chuckling. “You may walk away, dragon. Even fly. But wherever you go, you cannot hide forever. Dragons are noticed, you see?”
As she retraced her steps back dwarves seemed to be rushing about everywhere, or standing on stairways talking and gesticulating. Something had them dreadfully agitated but Wistala did not ask what. Her head hurt, perhaps from the fumes in the workshops, and she wanted to retire to her tower to sleep.
“Dhssol.”
“Oracle, what do you think?” some asked, but she passed in a daze.
“Dhssol! Dhssol!” the dwarves said, one to the other. Dwarf wives wailed it from their balconies as Wistala crossed the Titan bridge.
“Who is this Dhssol?” she asked one of the leather-slippered court workers.
“Not a who, a what,” he said, pulling at his beard. “ ‘Disaster,’ it would be in Parl. An evil star is on our house.”
The dwarves of the star-guild told her the terrible news when she returned to her tower. A tradesdwarf of the Chartered Company had made a rare appearance at the Wheel of Fire to bring tidings of sorrow and fear: the punitive column had been wiped out almost to a dwarf.
After a bloody march through villages where the dwarves left burned bodies in wooden cages, they’d been betrayed by their hired scouts, supposedly belonging to a rival clan to the lands they’d been traversing. The false scouts led to a flooded river, and while attempting to cross, they had been attacked during a snowstorm from both sides and by forces shooting down the river in narrow boats.
Hammar, now called the Dwarfhanger by his barbarian legion, was reputed to be on the march for the Wheel of Fire, destroying what remained of the column as the survivors retreated.
Some important voices were calling for Lord Lobok to be put in charge of the defense of the city, he’d had his share of luck against the barbarians and Hammar before.
“And he’s cautious, and would not improvidently expose his troops to destruction,” Djaybee said. “He can stand against this Hammar, for years if need be. The barbarians always lose interest in war after a season. It’ll be over by the summer flowers. Should he assume command?” the scientifically minded dwarf, who’d never asked her advice before, wondered.
“I would like nothing better,” Wistala said.
They were interrupted in this discourse by a visitor. This time Gobold Fangbreaker himself came to her, rather than going through the delay of having her brought to the Throne Hall.
“Tala, you have heard the rumors?” the king said as he arrived, surrounded by his black-armored bodyguard.
“Yes. Is it true, my king?”
“True enough,” he said. “Though not quite so bad as some losing their nerve would have it. Battle Commander Vande Boltcaster has a full maneuver array of dwarves left, and they are fighting as they turn back. But they’ve been forced to abandon their train and are short on supplies and have no time or capacity to seek more. I’ve had an idea. How much do you think you can carry?”
“The weight of several dwarves,” Wistala said. “Over short distances.”
“This will be a long flight of short hops, then. I need you to bring him food, medicines, and above all crossbow bolts.”
“My wings are at your command, Great King,” she said.
“There’s been talk of you being absent for some time,” King Fangbreaker said. “To where did you fly?”
“To see my friends at the circus. They go into winter camp about this time each year.”
