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“He has survived worse; my lord is too sharp a morsel for even a fire-wyrm to chew, and the dverger are skilled in treating many things.” Soren scratched at his stubbled cheek, his fingertips rasping; for all they sometimes bore beard-shadow late in the day the wolves of Naras did not let it linger overlong. “We also hear you hid our companions from pursuit and dueled atrul. It seems Eol was right to fear you would risk yourself in the battle, and perhaps rob us of hope.”
“I did little enough.” To be complimented for it was awkward in the extreme. The shivers sank inward, quivering in my bones, and I was so grateful for the fire I could barely contain the feeling. At last my teeth had halted their clattering. I could not bear to think upon what a sorry sight I presented at the moment; tiny curls of steam rose from my sodden skirts and my hand trembled, though there was no ale remaining to slop inside the cup. Arn’s ring-and-scale would need cleaning soon, and a layer ofseidhrapplied to keep rust at bay. “In any case, we are allies now.”
“Gelad mentioned you accepted their oaths. I wonder…” He glanced at Arn, as if gauging her temper; my shieldmaid simply took another healthy swallow of ale, looking very much as if she considered hefting a cask and drinking straight from it a distinct possibility. “Had we told you of our need, would you have agreed to come of your own will?”
I longed to shame him, to sayperhaps I would. But I was weary unto death, and in any case Arn was listening; she would hear alie. And I could not give these men any advantage, either. “I do not know.” It seemed a poor answer, even if honest. “My father might have forbidden it, despite any weregild.”
“Your father was near to breaking pax upon us when Eol insisted.” Soren was pale, but evidently determined to have his say. “And now you see what Aeredh feared. Nithraen is gone, and we are as hunted beasts. Dorael will feel the full brunt of the Enemy’s wrath soon, and though the lady of that place is mighty and Aenarian Greycloak, even in grief, is most fell when there is need, they cannot hold againsthimforever. The South will not come to our aid, for all they are next to suffer the Enemy’s grasp once we are dealt with. You are the hope not just of our lands but of your own.”
I merely longed to crawl into a bed—failing that, a pile of straw, or even a corner of a disused room—and close my eyes. “Little hope indeed,” I muttered, and sagged against the chair’s back.
“Eril threatened to break pax?” Arn clearly saw I wished no more discussion of what I would, might, or should have done. She bit at a hunk of waybread and chewed with great relish, her spear propped within easy reach. Despite the weariness graven on her own face, her eyes were bright and every line of her expressed readiness.
“Oh, aye.” Soren shifted as if his booted feet pained him; they were probably swelling now with the sudden return of warm blood. “He said,I prize my eldest daughter, I would not send her North with wolves.And while I have the chance, my lady Minnow, I shall tell you that your spear is mighty indeed. Not many face the Enemy’s whip-bearers with your courage. I will name any weapon you carryTrul-killer, and all who hear of your deeds from me shall be impressed.”
“My thanks for the compliment, friend.” Her sudden grin was shadowed with exhaustion, but genuine enough. The Northerner retreated, leaving us sole owners of the fireside.
I stared at the flames. Split wood, stacked neatly upon one side of the stone hearth, was ready to be fed into the maw; the image of deep furnaces under iron towers struck me again, as a dream sometimes will after one wakes.
“Strange.” My own voice, soft and wondering, surprised me. “Iwould have thought him glad to send me.” After all, Bjorn was his son, the precious copy of his maleness, and Astrid—well, who could not adore her?
But I have ever been uncanny, and difficult; Eril, no matter how doughty upon the battlefield, held weirding in proper caution as a warrior should. For all that, he sometimes expressed a measure of rough pride at having sired the first fullvolvain generations, and no festival or feast passed without him pressing gifts and signal attention upon Idra for her care and training of me. Of course losing such aid was an inconvenience, especially with trade negotiations and legal cases swarming at the year’s turn, but of his three children I was the easiest to send far afield.
When I was young, I thought him near Odynn, or Tohr the thunderer, or even Manhrweh the Great Judge—large, powerful, and booming with authority, possessing no frailties or even gentle feelings. What need had he of them, with my mother nearby?
Now, I wondered. Perhaps every child finds their parents a foreign country as the years accumulate.
“So would I,” Arn agreed. “This journey is laden with discoveries.”
“Few of them pleasant.” My eyelids had grown passing heavy. I sagged in the chair, its wooden back biting my shoulderblades. “But now your spear bears a name. Congratulations.”
“Not yet.” She finished the waybread and let the aleskin dangle from her left hand, mere fingerwidths from the smooth stone floor. These seats were well-made, but slightly too small. “I did not kill the foul thing, after all.”
“Nevertheless.”I did nothing but delay it for a few moments.Between us, my shieldmaid had the higher honor, and I hoped she knew as much. “You accomplished more than I could.”
“I shall show you to a quiet room; he needs only sleep.” Mehem the dverger had finished his ministering and stepped briskly away from the table, brushing his small capable hands together. “’Tis best for him, now. A hillwyrm, you say? One large enough to batter city gates?”
“The Enemy has devised some way to breed them for size.” Efain motioned to Elak and Karas. “Come, let us make him more comfortable. Soren, Gelad, look to the ladies. We are safe here.”
“For how long?” Soren murmured.
“As long as the ruling line of Kharak-Ûn endures in this hill, it will not fall.” Mehem fixed Soren with a baleful glare. His eyes were even stranger, now that I had chance to examine him more closely—the specks of gold caught in his irises moved in slow streams, and his pupils were not round but goatlike. “And I have no intention of giving up my home just yet, even should the Enemy of our great maker Ullwë pound upon the doors.”
I heard the tale of Redhill’s eventual fall sung much later, in a saga of Tarit the Ill-Fated. But that morn I was merely glad for the fire, and stared into its comforting glow until Mehem and Soren led Arn and me to deeper chambers—a small alcove and a water-room—where a narrow pallet upon a rude wooden frame accepted both shieldmaid andvolvafor rest we sorely needed.
The True Difference
It is said that the Great Smith Aol created the dverger in secret, and thus courted the Allmother’s anger. Indeed they reverence him as their Maker, and give the rest of the Blessed cursory—though traditional—honor. There is an argument that the Allmother put the desire to make them into the Smith’s heart, and so was not truly angered but merely playful. Upon these matters the Delvers are silent.
—Stachil of Dun Kaenis,On the Thrayn Hill-Delvers
We were awakening in stranger and stranger circumstances, Arn and I, first in an Elder city and now inside a dverger-hill upon a thin mattress stuffed with fragrant ruddy herbs, a water-room close by. The latter was of different make than the Elder one in Nithraen and there was no sauna, but we could clean ourselves, and the enclosed privy was a distinct relief. Veins of glowing rock threading through the walls provided low illumination, not nearly as bright as Nithraen’s orbs; and most blessed of all, it was warm enough to be comfortable without sweating.
Not only that, but when I woke my mother’s second-largest trunk was set in a corner of our room, and the saddlebags draped over it were familiar, being my shieldmaid’s private luggage. How either had arrived, brought somehow out of the ruin of an Elder city, neither of us could tell.
Arn poked lightly at the trunk with her spear as I propped myself on my elbows, blinking. “Weirding,” she muttered, her horn-braids disarranged by sleep and her sleeveless linen undershirt slipping from one muscled shoulder. “Sol?”
“I think it unlikely to attack, unless ’twas badly packed.” I ached all over as if I had my mother’s ague, and the bruised half of my face was stiff.
