Through Stone and Sea ndst-2

by Barb Hendee

  Through Stone and Sea

  ( Noble Dead, Series Two - 2 )

  Barb Hendee

  J. C. Hendee

  Wynn journeys to the mountain stronghold of the dwarves in search of the "Stonewalkers," an unknown sect supposedly in possession of important ancient texts. But in her obsession to understand these writings, she will find more puzzles and questions buried in secrets old and new-along with an enemy she thought destroyed…

  Barb Hendee, J. C. Hendee

  Through Stone and Sea

  PROLOGUE

  Dusk settled over the harbor below Chemarré—Sea-Side—the western settlement of Dhredze Seatt, home of the dwarven people across the bay from Calm Seatt. A two-masted Numanese ship drifted up to its docks. As the crew cast lines to dwarven dockworkers, the vessel settled, with five cloaked figures waiting near its rail.

  Three of the quintet wore polished steel helms gleaming pale yellow under the deck's lanterns. A glimpse of glittering chain vestments beneath crimson tabards showed through the splits of their cloaks. Each wore a long sword sheathed upon a wide belt of engraved silver plates. These three were Weardas—the Sentinels—personal guard to the reskynna, the royal family of Malourné in Calm Seatt.

  Behind them stood one of the other two, easily as tall as they were, but slighter of build. This one's earthy -colored cloak with full hood hid his face but not the hem of a white robe around his tan felt boots.

  The last of the five, standing before all the others, was much shorter.

  Hidden beneath a hooded cloak of deep sea green, small gloved hands and a slight frame marked this one as female. She gripped the rail and peered over the ship's side and up the dock, as if looking for someone.

  The crew gave these five a wide berth and hurried to unload a paltry cargo, as if their vessel had left its last port not fully loaded. By the time they finished, night had settled in.

  The ship's captain strolled past the quintet and stopped a ways off. The broadest and tallest of the Weardas nodded curtly. That brief movement exposed the tuft of a dark beard on his squared chin. The ship's captain shook his head and turned aftward toward his quarters below.

  And still the five waited—until heavy footfalls barely carried from shore.

  The woman in sea green rushed down the boarding ramp.

  She reached the dock before her panicked guards caught up and encompassed her once more. The tall one in the earthy cloak pushed close behind her as she searched the night for those footfalls. But all she saw were warehouses, other smaller buildings, and a trio of dwarves settled down to pipes and low talk.

  Yet those footfalls never broke rhythm.

  At first, the dockworkers gave no notice. Perhaps they thought it was one of their own coming on for evening duty. Then something passed through the edge of their lanterns' dim light.

  It stomped onward like a broad piece of night on the move, and then vanished from the light's reach.

  The closest dockworker jerked to his feet, overturning his heavy cask stool. His companions rose, but he turned the other way, peering shoreward and all around the port. Only then did he stare after those footfalls, as if the shadow heralded something worse he hadn't spotted.

  Slowly, the steady steps breached the edge of the light from the ship's lanterns. Illumination exposed the silhouette of a broad dwarf.

  At first, the light only caught on wild, steel-streaked black hair around a grim, wrinkled face. The rest of him remained lost, as if night clung to his massive form. An indignant hiss rose from the tall Weardas with the chin beard.

  "You're late!" he growled. "I don't like my charge being forced to wait in the dark!"

  "You are early, Captain," replied the new arrival, his voice like gravel crushed under a boulder. "And I do not care to be seen by my people … any more than necessary."

  He drew closer, stepping into full view.

  Standing as tall as the small woman, he was easily twice as wide and three times her bulk. Wild locks hung to his shoulders, framing the hard line of his mouth within a beard of short, steely bristles. Over char-gray breeches and a wool shirt, he wore a short-sleeved hauberk of oiled black leather scales. Each scale's tip was sheathed in ornately engraved steel, and two war daggers in like-adorned black sheaths were tucked slantwise in his thick belt.

  This dark juggernaut stopped three paces off and blew a long exhale through his broad nose, full of disdain for his challenger. Then his black pellet eyes settled upon the small woman ringed in by her taller entourage.

  "The new moon comes, this time with the year's highest tide," he rumbled. "Welcome again … Princess."

  The woman raised gloved hands to her hood.

  The movement opened her cloak, exposing a forest green skirt. The skirt's front was split around her dark brown breeches and calf-high leather riding boots. The hilt of a small horseman's saber poked out above her left hip. She pulled the hood back, revealing a mass of dark chestnut hair around a dainty face of even features that some would call fetching.

  "Duchess … Master Cinder-Shard," she corrected him, but her voice quavered and broke. "Always … duchess."

  Reine Faunier reskynna, Duchess of Faunier and princess by marriage to the royals of Malourné, nodded respectfully—almost reverently—to the dark dwarf.

  "Toying with titles changes nothing," he returned. "It disrespects heritage. It is a princess of the reskynna who comes to the Hassäg'kreigi."

  A soft laugh, like a lark in the woods, rose from the brown-cloaked attendant.

  "Oh, spare us, Smarasmôy, you old ghost tender!" that one whispered, using the newcomer's dwarven name. "Preference of title will not crack the walls of propriety."

  Master Cinder-Shard's dour expression flattened. He raised those black pellet eyes to the tall and slight figure.

  "Chuillyon?" he asked with a forced scowl. "What impish prank did you pull this time … to end up on guardian duty?"

  His caustic tone didn't hide an elder's shake of the head at some suspected mischief by a youngster.

  "Not a thing, I swear," answered Chuillyon innocently. "I chose this duty."

  At that, Cinder-Shard turned serious, almost worried. "Why not assign one of your order instead?"

  Duchess Reine remained uncomfortably quiet, and Chuillyon pulled back his earth-toned hood and the white cowl beneath it.

  Lantern light spread over a male elf's triangular face with the large amber eyes of his people, but he was no youngster to be chided. Chuillyon's golden brown locks, hanging past his oversharp chin, were faded in streaks. Prominent creases lined the corners of his eyes set around a narrow nose a bit long even for an elf. More lines framed his small mouth, perhaps as much from mirth as advanced age.

  "How fares the Order of Chârmun," Cinder-Shard asked, "without your mischievous guidance?"

  Chuillyon, whose name meant "holly," lost his soft smile. "As well as the Stonewalkers, I imagine … with such unknown times ahead."

  Duchess Reine cringed, clasping her hands tightly together. She tried to breathe slowly, normally, but her effort was plainly visible. One Weardas, with a face too boyish for his stature, leaned around his captain's shoulder.

  "Sir, we draw too much attention."

  Reine's gaze slipped to the dockworkers down the way. Three dwarves stared with anxious wonder at Master Cinder-Shard and the gathering on the dock.

  "Enough talk," growled the captain. "We go now."

  "Tristan!" Reine admonished sharply, and then lowered her voice. "You will show respect for the master of the Stonewalkers!"

  At her strained tone, everyone fell silent. Chuillyon laid a hand lightly upon her shoulder.

  "Apologies," the captain said
. "No offense intended."

  Cinder-Shard nodded and glanced briefly at the gawkers far behind him.

  "You are correct, Captain," he agreed. "Will you lead with me?"

  Cinder-Shard turned a hardened gaze upon Reine as the captain stepped beyond him to wait. A look of sadness or deep regret passed across the dwarf's craggy face. Reine set herself, every muscle rigid, as his gravelly voice declared …

  "Time again, Princess … to return to the underworld."

  Chapter 1

  The racing lift rolled over a shelf lip on the sheer mountainside and lurched to a halt at the way station. Wynn Hygeorht stepped off the lift's platform, arriving at Cheku'ûn—Bay-Side—one of four main settlements for Dhredze Seatt, the nation of the dwarves, overlooking Beranlômr Bay. Even at this dizzying height, the bay below looked wide and vast. Calm Seatt's pinprick lights marked its far shore as the glow of encroaching dawn rose in the east.

  Wynn pushed back her hood and brushed away wisps of light brown hair that the breeze pulled across her oval face. Beneath her cloak, she wore the light gray robe of the Order of Cathology in the Guild of Sagecraft.

  "We're finally here," she said.

  When she turned back, glancing up the stone loading ramp, any matching relief on her companions' faces had nothing to do with reaching their destination.

  Shade, taller than a wolf and with a shimmering coat of charcoal black, whined sharply as she wobbled out of the lift's railing gate. The dog swallowed hard, as if her last meal of mutton might come up, and drool ran from her mouth.

  Chane Andraso was little better. Tall and lanky but muscular, with solid shoulders, he didn't release the railing until he stepped onto the stone ramp. His raggedly cut red-brown hair ruffled in the wind as he followed Shade down to join Wynn.

  He was shivering.

  He couldn't have been cold, not as an undead, and she'd never seen him frightened of anything. The barest relief spread through Chane's narrow features. Then he glared back at the lift's massive wheels resting level at the station.

  Wynn sighed. "Oh, for goodness' sake—it wasn't that bad."

  Chane looked down at her, dumbstruck and aghast. Shade tried to growl, but only gagged, and shook herself all over as if trying to shed the entire experience.

  Wynn headed off, shaking her head.

  "After all we've been through," she muttered, "such fuss over a simple ride up a mountain!"

  A chain of extraordinary events had brought the three of them here.

  Two years before, she'd found an ancient castle atop the highest mountains of the eastern continent. An immense decaying library within it held texts written by ancient Noble Dead, perhaps the oldest of vampires. One vampire was still there after a thousand or more years. Wynn had taken away a pittance of that treasure, only what she and her companions could carry. She'd hoped her selections, written in lost dialects and dead languages, might illuminate theories on the Forgotten History … and the great war that some believed had never happened.

  When she returned to the small beginning of a new guild branch on the eastern continent, she'd been given the task of carrying those priceless tomes home to Calm Seatt, Malourné, and the founding origin for the Guild of Sagecraft. She'd boarded a ship and crossed the eastern ocean and the central continent, eager to finish a long, arduous journey and begin translation with her fellow sages.

  But nothing in Wynn's recent years had ever turned out as she'd hoped.

  Upon her arrival, the texts and her own travel journals had been confiscated and locked away. Only a chosen few of her superiors ever saw them. At least until sages began to be murdered in the night over bits of translation work sent out to local scribe shops for transcription. She came to realize she had to regain those texts and solve whatever mysteries they held.

  At first, she'd believed they were stored somewhere on guild grounds. Later she suspected they were hidden elsewhere. She'd spotted dark-clad dwarves at the guild, but they vanished without a trace of how they came or went. She learned what they called themselves only by chance.

  Hassäg'kreigi—the Stonewalkers.

  And now, here she was with Chane and Shade in Dhredze Seatt, a place close to home and yet she hadn't seen it in years.

  A pair of humans bundled in winter attire, perhaps merchants from Calm Seatt, waited with crates of goods at the larger cargo lift. But no one was waiting to take the smaller passenger lift that had brought Wynn up. More people bustled about the main street here than in any of the lower way-station settlements.

  Wynn gazed about the small stone city built into the mountain's sheer side.

  She'd been so young the last time she'd come here. Just shy of apprenticeship, she'd been overjoyed that Domin Tilswith had chosen her to assist him. Well, that and trying to keep up with her old master and not get lost amid a foreign place and its people.

  She stepped around the way-station's crank house into the narrow stone street, and everything before her seemed to stretch upward.

  The main road snaked back and forth up the mountain between buildings of stone and scant timber. Only short and steep side streets aimed directly upward, and most were built of wide stone steps and multiple landings. All of it was behemothlike—rather like the dwarves themselves. Dying moonlight barely revealed roofs of slate tiles, stone blocks, and shakes and planks of oak on smaller structures. Everything else was carved from granite so precisely that little mortar was ever used.

  Something bumped Wynn's leg. Shade whined and pressed closer. Young and wild, Shade didn't like crowds. Her blue eyes—flecked with yellow—grew wide as she looked around. Wynn reached down to stroke her ears.

  "Daunting," Chane rasped from behind.

  Wynn was accustomed to his maimed voice, but it still startled her in the dark predawn.

  "It can be a little disorienting at first," she replied.

  And it was. Dwellings and inns, smithies, tanneries, and shops all spread out, around, and above them in a melded maze.

  She shifted her pack to relieve pressure on her shoulder. Chane seemed oblivious to the weight of his own two packs. Gripping her tall staff, a leather sheath covering its top end, Wynn led the way farther up the main street. When she glanced back, she paused, spotting a great open archway in the mountain's side behind the crank house.

  The entire lift station could have fit through it with room to spare. The orange light of the dwarves' heated crystals spilled from its interior over people coming and going. But she had no time for a closer peek and instead looked eastward.

  The star-speckled night had lightened farther along the distant horizon, and urgency took hold.

  "We must find the temple," she said.

  Any visitor in a foreign place had to find lodging, but in Chane's case, it was foremost. She needed to get him inside before the sun rose.

  "Find?" he echoed. "You do not know where it is?"

  "Of course I know. It's just … been … a long time."

  Wynn hurried up the street's gradual slant, deeper into Bay-Side, and quickened her pace. In spite of her assurance to Chane, she wasn't certain of the temple's location. It was still the best place to take shelter, away from other travelers at an inn. It was also a place where a visiting sage would be welcomed.

  Dwarves practiced a unique form of ancestor worship. They revered those of their own who attained notable status in life, akin to the human concept of a hero or saint, or rather both. Any who became known for virtuous accomplishments, by feat and/or service to the people, might one day become a thänæ—one of the honored. Though similar to human knighthood or noble entitlement, it wasn't a position of rulership or authority. After death, any thänæ who'd achieved renown among the people over decades and centuries, through the continued retelling of their exploits, might one day be elevated to Bäynæ—one of the dwarven Eternals. These were the dwarves' spiritual immortals, held as the honored ancestors of their people as a whole.

  Wynn sought lodgings at the temple of just such a one.


  Bedzâ'kenge—Feather-Tongue—was the patron of wisdom and heritage through story, song, and poetry, their paragon of orators and historians. For as long as any history remembered, the dwarves kept to oral tradition rather than the literary ways of humankind.

  As Wynn hurried along, she noticed faint shadows upon the granite street stones. Another glance eastward, between stout buildings on the settlement's outer edge, showed the horizon growing ever lighter.

  "Are we near yet?" Chane asked.

  He didn't sound concerned, but Wynn knew better. If they didn't find the temple soon, they'd have to knock on some random door and beg admittance to get him out of the coming dawn.

  "We're in the right area," she half lied. "I'll recognize the street when I see it."

  But she wished she'd paid better attention as a girl while visiting with Domin Tilswith.

  Wynn stopped between wide steps on both sides. Another thick four-sided stone pillar stood in the intersection. Atop it, steam leaked around a huge raw crystal casting orange light and warmth about the street. Oral or not, dwarves had an ancient writing system, and columns often served the same purpose as street signs in human cities.

  She circled it, scanning for engravings upon its smooth faces—not for names of streets but for places found in the direction the column's sides faced. She could read the common dialect reasonably well, but the temple of Bedzâ'kenge wasn't mentioned. Either it didn't lie along any of these routes or it was more than one level up.

  Along the higher staircase, she spotted a mapmaker's shop on the first landing, its tan banner flying above a wide front door.

  "There," she breathed in relief. "I remember that from the last time I was here."

  She hurried up the steps past the mapmaker's shop and others, all the way to the main street's next switchback.

  "I know where we are," Wynn exclaimed.

  Chane raised one eyebrow. "I was not aware you were in doubt."

  "Oh, just come on!"