The Silver Mage

by Katharine Kerr

  Just beyond the group around the priestesses, he could see a pair of dismounted men, dragging something along the ground as they approached her. Kov’s stomach wrenched as he discerned the otter shape of dead Dwrgwn, two of them, one a full-grown adult, one much smaller. Not everyone had reached safety, then. A panicked child, perhaps, and its mother—just who no longer mattered to Kov. He felt a hatred that burned in his blood like poisoned mead.

  One of the priestesses leaned over her mule’s neck, saw the corpses, and screamed. The sound reached Kov over the crackle of dying flames.

  “Mazrakir! Mazrakir!” She flung up her hands and began to chant. The second priestess joined her. One of the horsemen unseated a spear from under his right leg and used it to skewer the child’s body. With a contemptuous flip, he tossed it into the river. Dismounted soldiers dragged the adult corpse to the bank, then shoved into the water.

  You stinking maggots! Kov thought.

  As the remnants of the huts turned to ash and glowing embers, the Horsekin rode on in a rough column. Once the last of them crossed the bridge, they fanned out to make a camp on the far side. Kov left the shelter of the reeds and paddled into deep water. He swam to the tunnel mouth, took a deep breath, and dove. In the dark water, he could see only a deeper darkness straight ahead of him. Choking on panic, he swam straight for it, found the entrance waiting, and plunged in. His knees hit mud. When he risked raising his head, he found air. He gulped it in, realized it smelled of wet Dwrgi fur, and risked a cautious “Hola?”

  “It be Kov!” Jemjek’s voice answered him. “Never did I be so glad to see a man!”

  Jemjek caught Kov’s reaching hand and pulled him forward to the drier mud of the tunnel floor. Beyond them Dwrgi voices chattered softly.

  “They killed two of us,” Kov said. “Who?”

  “Marmeg and her little Clakutt. He did grab a spear and try to fight them, and she did run to grab him and get him to the tunnels.” Jemjek’s voice caught in a sob.

  “But the bodies, they were in Dwrgi form.”

  “When we die, we do change in the great river of Death.” Jemjek sobbed again. “They rode them down, and they did laugh, Kov, they did laugh when they did slay her and the lad.”

  “Swine! Filthy, dung-eating swine!” Kov felt his eyes fill with tears. “They and their kind will pay for this. Some way or another, they will pay and pay and pay again. I swear it by the Mountain Gods!”

  Jemjek threw his head back and howled in agreement. Behind them in the hot smoky tunnel Dwrgwn wept and moaned.

  Kov wiped his eyes on his arm, then made his way through the crowd and went to his chamber to change out of his wet wrap. Someone had put a basket of blue fungus on his bed. By its light he dressed, then took the basket and hurried to the gold chamber. Thanks to the fire directly above, the warren had turned hot, the air stifling, but when he walked through the heaps and jars of treasures, by the blue light of the fungus he could see that none had come to harm. It’s not hot enough to melt gold! he told himself sharply. His irrational fear frightened him the more. He was becoming entirely too protective of these glittering piles of stolen goods.

  “Kov?” The voice belonged to Leejak, standing in the doorway. “I do come to fetch you. There be a council.”

  “Well and good, then,” Kov said. “How much danger are we in?”

  “We be safe enough if we do stay deep in the tunnels. The Horsekin swine, they did burn the covers to our doors.”

  It took Kov a moment to puzzle out what he meant. “Those structures over the entrances?” Kov said. “The things that looked like crates.”

  “Those, truly. They not find us now. We all be quiet now. They not think to look under themselves.”

  Underground, Kov supposed he meant. “How long can we hold out here?”

  “Not long. Not much food.” Leejak shrugged and spread his hands palms-up. “But we need not to stay. We have deep roads.”

  “Of course! The tunnels run a long way.”

  “Very long way north. Also toward west. We travel, we fill in behind us, block tunnels. They do never find us. Dwrgwn dig good, very good.”

  “So they do.” Kov suddenly smiled, but he knew that it wasn’t a pleasant smile. “I have an idea, Spearleader.”

  “Tell me on way to council. There been need for us to go now.” When they reached the chamber, they found it full. All of the Dwrgwn were crowding into the council chamber to consult with the Lady. They moved in silence, unspeaking, cautious. Kov entered the chamber by the door near her chair to find the room glowing with dim light from fungi baskets. Beside her chair, candles burned in small gold sconces. When he started to close the door, Lady stopped him.

  “Leave that be for the air,” she said, “or the flames will devour it all and leave us fainting.”

  That night she wore a black dress, set with beads of onyx and jet, glittering in long sparks of light as if she, too, burned. She gestured to Kov to kneel beside her chair to her left. Leejak sat down by her right. Once they were settled, she stood. Tears ran down her face, but she wiped them away with an impatient shake of her head. For some while she spoke in the Dwrgic tongue. Kov could pick out words here and there and the occasional phrase. As far as he could tell, she was speaking of mourning their dead and of moving farther up the river or perhaps to some other river—too many unknown words baffled him. When she finished, Leejak rose and spoke as well, but only briefly.

  A few at a time, the Dwrgwn got up and left the chamber, again in silence, moving carefully through the throng and out into the hall, more quietly even than the Mountain Folk could move. At last the council chamber emptied. Lady rose and blew out the candles, leaving the room awash in pale blue light. When Kov got up to join the spearleader, Lady turned to face them.

  “Kov and Leejak, I beg you to forgive me. You were right, and I would not listen. Now all we can do is hide in our burrows like terrified water rats.”

  “Not all,” Leejak said. “But for now, enough.” He glanced at Kov. “The people do collect their things. We do move everything north, then plan.”

  “What about the gold?” Kov spoke so quickly that he once again realized how much he was coming to value the treasure. “We can’t just leave it.”

  “We won’t.” Lady’s voice ached with tears, but she managed a trembling smile. “Each of us will carry a bit of it. Many hands make light work. Kov, you go to the chamber of gold, and make sure no one has more than they can take safely.”

  All that night the Dwrgwn came to the treasure chamber in twos and threes, each carrying some sort of vessel or sack. Kov stuffed each thing full of whatever gold or gems first came to hand, but he insisted on wrapping the delicate Horsekin pottery in clothing or bedding. By dawn the marvelous hoard room stretched out empty. With a light basket in his hand, he walked around, checking each corner for dropped treasure, then went to his own chamber to pack up the few things he owned.

  All that day the Dwrgwn lay silent in their tunnels. Frightened though he was, Kov slept through most of it. When he woke, Leejak came to him with the news that the Horsekin were making so much noise setting up a camp of their own that they’d never notice any coming from under their feet.

  “So now we go north,” Leejak said. “Fast we do go. There be more Dwrgwn up at joining of east-pointing river.”

  “Let’s hope they’re still there,” Kov said. “What if the Horsekin found them?”

  “We know not that till we do get there. So we do start now.”

  As Kov followed him out, he was remembering Mic and Berwynna, whom doubtless he’d never see again. Even if somehow they thought he might be alive, they could never come to look for him now, not with Horsekin camped around the bridge. And even if somehow they could, by dweomer or suchlike, he’d no longer be there to find.

  Berwynna always knew when Uncle Mic was brooding about the loss of his cousin. Mic would slip into their tent and lie on his blankets, as limp as a wet rag while he stared at the ceiling. Only one per
son could cheer him, Salamander, who had a wealth of tricks and tales designed to lighten any heart’s load, even one as heavy and grim as that belonging to a man of the Mountain Folk.

  When, therefore, Berwynna looked into their tent and found Mic half asleep in the middle of the day, she ducked out again and went to round up her other uncle. Salamander was sitting in front of his own tent and juggling three small leather balls. When he saw Berwynna, he made them disappear one at a time.

  “Good morrow, fair niece.” He stood up and bowed to her. “Come to visit your aged uncle?”

  “Always does it gladden my heart to visit you.” Wynni paused to smile at him. “But today there be a need on me to ask you for help.”

  “What’s this? Mic brooding again?”

  “Just that.”

  Salamander flicked a hand over the front of his shirt, produced one of the leather balls, then made it disappear again. “Let’s hope his troubles vanish as easily. Lead on!”

  As they walked through the camp, Berwynna saw the usual children and dogs and a few women tending to various errands, but everything lay wrapped in a strange though welcome silence.

  “Be somewhat wrong?” she said. “All this quiet!”

  “Several parties went off hunting,” Salamander said. “Venison is a nice change from mutton, and we can’t eat every sheep we own, anyway.”

  In her tent Mic still lay stretched out on his blankets. When they came in, he sighed for a greeting. They sat down next to him, but he kept his gaze on the ceiling.

  “Oh, come now!” Salamander said. “If you sit up, you’ll feel better. This wallowing in guilt isn’t doing you a bit of good.”

  “Wallowing, is it?” With an angry snarl Mic sat up to confront him, then laughed a little ruefully when he realized what he’d done. “Well, mayhap you’re right.”

  “I’m always right. Now, what tale shall I tell you today?”

  Mic considered, rubbing his chin. Berwynna, however, already had her request ready.

  “Uncle Salamander, know you the story of the taking of Tanbalapalim?”

  “I know a story about it. Now, whether it’s the true story, I cannot know. It happened a long time ago, and the tale passed through the mouths of many a bard before I learned it.”

  “You know more than I do, and that’s what matters to me.” Mic leaned forward. “Is it true that refugees from Lin Rej sought shelter there, but they were turned away?”

  “In a way. The garrison in the city had run out of provisions, and they were half-starved. The Wise One among them knew that a massive Horsekin attack was on its way. The garrison could have retreated, but they decided to die there defending the city in order to delay the Horsekin and give the next fortress to the south—Garangvah—a chance to reprovision. Some of the Mountain axemen volunteered to stay and die with them, but the prince of the city—Salamondar, his name was—insisted that the rest of the refugees head east to save their women and children.” Salamander smiled with a twist of his mouth. “Or to try to save them, anyway.”

  “Salamondar?” Berwynna said. “Be that whom you be named for? That real name of yours, I do mean, Salamonderiel.”

  “It is—me and dozens of other men.”

  “Ah, I see. He were a hero.”

  “So he must have been,” Mic said. “And so your Da’s tale makes sense now. Salamander, they did survive. They ended up down in Deverry somewhere, or so Rori told us. He saw a dwarven colony there when he was a young man.”

  “So the sacrifice wasn’t in vain?” Salamander paused to wipe sudden tears from his eyes. “How very odd, peculiar, and unanticipated, to weep over it! That all happened twelve hundred years or so ago, but ye gods, it’s still good to know the outcome.”

  “Ai!” Mic said. “How I wish our Otho was still alive to hear this.”

  “Oh, come now!” Salamander said. “I didn’t mean to make you start mourning yet another soul.”

  “I’m not.” Mic grinned with a wicked gleam in his eyes. “I’d love to rub it into the old man, how wrong he was.”

  “That’s better!” Salamander paused briefly to mug deep thought. “I suppose.”

  Berwynna laughed but then cut it off when Salamander raised one hand for silence. Someone outside seemed to be beating a drum, a huge drum, growing louder and louder. She could hear women outside running back and forth and calling out to one another.

  “That be Da, I’ll wager!” Berwynna got to her feet. “I do hope the horses, they all be tethered and the like.”

  “So do I,” Salamander said. “Let’s go see.”

  Berwynna ducked out of the tent and looked up. Sure enough, the silver dragon was swooping over the camp, then turning south, away from the herds. She waited till she saw him land, then ran to greet him with Mic trotting after.

  Dallandra had heard and seen the dragon as well. After she rounded up her medicinals, including her clay jar of leeches, she hurried out to join Rori. Berwynna had already reached him; she sat between the dragon’s front legs and leaned back against his massive chest, while Mic stood nearby, watching with a fond smile. Dallandra marveled at Wynni’s courage. Many a lass would have preferred to honor her dragon father from a safe distance. Still, as a precaution, Dalla asked her to move while she treated the gash in Rori’s side.

  “He gets irritable when the willow water stings,” Dallandra remarked. “And he can’t seem to stop his tail from lashing.”

  “It has a life of its own, truly,” Rori said.

  Berwynna and Mic sat down in the grass some yards away while Dallandra readied her leeches. The edges of the wound showed only a thin stripe of morbid flesh, but she wanted to make sure the contagion spread no further. With wooden tongs she fished out the thinnest leech and set it feeding.

  “And how was the scouting expedition?” Mic asked. “What are the Horsekin up to?”

  “Too many evil things,” Rori said. “I’ll give Cal and the prince a full report when they come back. For one thing, though, the bastards are building their fortress upon some sort of long barrow.”

  “That can’t be stable,” Dalla said. “Good.”

  “Indeed, but I saw somewhat stranger still. Wynni here told me about a bridge over the Dwrvawr, so I decided to take a look at it. I found it near that strange little village, just as you told me, Wynni. Fire and fumes! It’s the most flimsy-looking bridge I ever saw, but that’s not the strangest thing yet. In the water there were two huge animals with brown fur, like enormous otters.”

  “Gartak,” Mic broke in. “The folk there called the monsters gartak.”

  “Mazrak’s more like it.” Rori swung his head Mic’s way. “When one of them climbed onto dry land, he changed into a man.”

  “What?” Dallandra nearly dropped her tongs in surprise. “Just like that?”

  “Snap of my fingers, if I had any.” The dragon paused to rumble with laughter. “He spun in a circle, danced if you can call it that, on his short legs. Then this peculiar blue light flashed around the otter-thing, and a man stood there.”

  His laughter had dislodged the leech. Dallandra used the tongs to pick it out of the grass.

  “Did you see the other otter change?” She dropped the leech back into the water then took out one of its fellows. When she held the fresh leech up to the wound, it grabbed hold with its smaller mouth and began to feed on the sour flesh with the larger.

  “I didn’t. It stayed in the water. Now, there was a third fellow on the riverbank, but he was different-looking. I was far too high to see him clearly, but he looked like one of the Mountain Folk.”

  Berwynna gasped, and Mic cried out. He clapped his hand over his mouth to stifle the noise.

  “Think you it could be Kov?” Berwynna said to her uncle. “My Dougie—” Her voice caught, but she continued on. “My Dougie did wonder if Kov were truly dead, or if he were mayhap taken for a slave or such.”

  Mic lowered his hand; he was smiling, his eyes full of sudden hope. “Maybe it’s so,” he said. �
�Ah ye gods, maybe he’s still alive.”

  “I can find out easily enough,” Dallandra said. “I remember him quite well, so I can scry for him.”

  “I’d be truly grateful if you did,” Mic said.

  Dallandra looked up at the sky, where a few streaks of high cloud offered a focus. When she thought of Kov, his image built up quickly, though at first she had trouble identifying him, since the only light, and that a peculiar blue, came from glowing baskets.

  “He’s in a dark tunnel with an absolute mob of other people,” Dallandra said. “I can’t tell if they’re asleep or just resting, but they all seem to have big bundles and baskets and the like with them. Refugees from the Horsekin? It could be.” She banished the vision. “He looks very much alive to me, Mic.”

  Tears welled in Mic’s eyes. He wiped them vigorously away on his sleeve. “Then I’ve got to head back north,” Mic said. “He’s my bloodkin, distantly, perhaps, but bloodkin nonetheless, and it’s my duty to ransom him.”

  “It’s too dangerous,” Rori broke in. “There are bands of Horsekin raiders all over the countryside.”

  “But—”

  “Uncle Mic?” Berwynna laid her hand on Mic’s arm. “Remember you when I did wish to go haring off across the countryside to find Da’s book? You did tell me then that the danger were too great. It be worse now, from what Da does tell us.”

  Caught, Mic looked back and forth between his niece and the dragon, then nodded. “Well and good, then,” Mic said. “But how do we know that the danger won’t come his way?”

  “We don’t,” Dallandra said. “It’s in the laps of the gods.” She frowned at the dragon’s side, where the leeches were finishing up their work. “As is this wretched wound, apparently. I think I’ll have Neb take a look at it.”

  Once she finished tending to Rori, Dallandra returned to camp. She found Neb, told him that she wanted him to examine the dragon’s wound at some point, then went to her tent to nurse a hungry Dari.

  Late that afternoon, in a flourish of silver horns, the hunting party rode back to camp with venison to distribute. Prince Daralanteriel and Calonderiel turned their horses over to Pir to rub down and put out with the herd. Dallandra followed the pair as they hurried out to speak with Rori, who was lounging in the high grass on the opposite side of camp from the herd and the flocks. While Pir’s dweomer was gradually accustoming the horses to the scent and sight of dragon, the sheep lacked the capacity to learn, and Pir knew nothing of ovine ways.