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“I am no longer weregild, or at least not completely. Perhaps he will grow weary of my badgering and send us home.” My braids were done, ribboned, and pinned. I stood, my fists at my lower back, and stretched as my mother often did. My skirts made a low soft sound, and I was glad of their weight. “Though what good that will do, I cannot tell.”
“I have been imagining those pale things coming south.” She returned to the chest, finished her own buckling, strapping, and tying, and rose with swift grace to bounce upon her toes thrice, making certain her armor was settled. “Or one of those whip-monsters. No wonder they wish some aid, Sol. I would too, faced with those…things.”
It cheered me, albeit only faintly, that we were in accord upon that point. “I do not know how much aid we will be.” My legs were not as steady as I liked. Yet I rose, shaking my head to test the seating of my braids, and the dim glow from rock-veins made my eyes hot and grainy. “That toy of Caelgor’s nearly killed me, Arn. Thisseidhr-weapon they wish me to use may finish the job.”
“Ah. So that is the burr in your skirts.” She tapped her spear-butt once, indicating readiness for the day’s battles, and regarded me. “Idra did not train you for nothing, my weirdling. If you simply practice—”
“It is not like that, Arn.” I settled my sleeves and brushed at my skirts, heartily grateful for the appearance of our baggage. Being reduced to a single dress was not nearly as awful as the appearance oforukhar, but so often we brood upon a smaller fear to forget larger ones. “I wish it were.”
“Don’t worry.” Her smile held only the barest trace of anxiety. “The Wingéd are with us. That has to count for something.”
“Indeed.” I sought a better subject, and luckily one was handy. “I should have asked him how they dragged our trunk here. That would beseidhrworth knowing.”
“Now there is my weirdling; she sounds much more like herself.” Duly comforted, she glided to the door, peering into the hall. “Do you think you can untangle these passages? I like not being trapped.”
I rubbed my palms together briskly enough to warm them. “Mayhap I shall touch them, and see.”
Yet a few moments later Mehem arrived to guide us toward breakfast, accompanied by Gelad. I did not have time to test myself against dverger work that day, or any other during our stay.
It was probably for the best.
Atop the Listening Hill
Long live the lord of Redhill
A thorn in the Enemy’s side!
Long lived the lord of Redhill
Until at the Leap he died…
—Hillel Brightblade,The Second Saga of Hajithe’s Son
Idid not quite like our sojourn at Redhill, though it was far more comfortable than traveling in the freeze.
For one thing, we were kept far below the hill’s surface, and it was neither so light nor so airy as Nithraen. The hill had been hewn for smaller creatures, and most passages were somewhat cramped. Arn had the worst of it, with her spear to manage as well as her greater height; I was, for once, glad to be less tall.
For another, we were daily hemmed by the men of Naras, though all the Elder, those of Tarit’s warriors unwounded or not engaged upon the guard of the hill, and most of Eol’s companions left before dawn and returned after dusk. They not only kept watch upon each league the hill guarded, but also emerged at carefully chosen points to harry whatever foul thing or servant of the Enemy could be found. There had been an increase in such things of late, and Nithraen’s fall left a large gap in the Elder siege of the Black Land.
Yet there were always at least two of Eol’s wolves left behind,and neither Arn nor I could stir a step without their attendance save with the Elder, or Tarit himself. It rankled my shieldmaid, for any of her kind dislikes close watch, and it drove me to near peevishness. I was used to wandering Dun Rithell as the mood took me, riverbank to woods, the green to the Standing Stones, with only Arn for company. Often physical movement will bring an answer to some quandary ofseidhr—or any lesser sort. Yet in Nithraen we stayed in a single house, and at Redhill a cramped warren enclosed us with little glimpse of sunlight or hint of fresh air.
I might not have minded so much, for there were fires in the deeper rooms, and the cold outside did not break. The return of the men after dark each day brought melting ice dripping from boots and mantles, grim looks, and tales of sharp close combat withorukhar.
Not to mention other fell creatures.
Tarit had a great horned helm—Aeredh told us it was dverger-work—and its leering was deeply unsettling. The mask struck terror into foul and fell alike; it had belonged to his father, Lady Hajithe’s long-gone husband. It was there I also learned the tale of Taliurin, beloved of the Elder and vanished, thought dead at the hands of the Seven.
Lady Hajithe’s gravity was the result of much sorrow. Though her daughter was safe in Dorael and her son presumed there as well she refused that shelter, holding to the belief that somehow her husband would one day return to the Eastronmost. Besides, the steadings around that hall looked to her for guidance and rule; like her son, she was not one to shirk any duty, no matter how small.
In any case, it was the son of Hajithe who took Arn and me to the summit of Karat Vaerkil sometime after we arrived.
The top was overgrown withvaer, the reddish herb granting the hill its name, but none was evident amid the snow-smothered scrub tortured by constant wind when not under a depth of fluted, air-carved white. Still, there was a hexagonal stone floor large enough for a smallhouse’s foundations, flags fitted together without mortar, and I saw the distinctive look of dverger work there. In the precise middle was a stone shape—a throne, with a high back, a wide broad seat, and arms ending in frowning faces akin to the visor of Tarit’shorned helm. No snow touched either floor or chair, though I could detect noseidhrlingering in either.
The sky had cleared, a bright pale piercing blue, and though the bruise on my cheek had faded somewhat it still throbbed when the cold stroked my face. I used no healing for the wound, for I had not attended Eol’s hurts either. My mantle fluttered under a knife-sharp wind; I had repaired some small damage to it and to Arn’s, glad to have time for such a task.
Very little is as soothing as sewing, especially while one is kept trammeled by weather.
My shieldmaid stood with her eyes closed, basking in thin golden sunshine. The frigid breeze brought a blush to her cheeks, made her freckles glow, gilded her woad-stripe, and burned in her hair.
