by Barb Hendee
Chane frowned. "I do not like that plan."
Wynn stroked Shade's head. "I can't miss a chance to catch Ore-Locks if he goes home. And someone has to watch for the duchess. Shade will come with me, and I'll be fine."
Chane paced, and Wynn waited for him to accept the only option.
"If the duchess comes out, I will follow her," he finally agreed. "But once you leave the smithy, go directly to the inn, so I can find you."
Wynn nodded and stood, picking up her staff. She still wished Shade could grasp language more than just remembering sounds, but at least in that she understood it was meaningful. And there was no denying certain advantages of memory-speak. She reached for her pack hooked over Chane's shoulder. When she saw his face, she stopped with her hand gripping the strap.
He looked expectantly down at her, perhaps a hint of hope glittering in his eyes, which now had a touch of their original brown.
"We made contact with a Stonewalker," he whispered. "We are getting closer."
"Yes," she agreed. "So no matter what else, don't you get caught."
He touched the back of her hand, still high upon his shoulder. "I will find you later."
Wynn took the pack and started off with Shade pressed against her leg.
Chapter 13
Wynn headed for the Iron-Braids' smithy, her arms loaded full of bread, potatoes, and a burlap-wrapped halibut. She'd stopped in the market long enough to procure goods from what few vendors the market long enough to procure goods from what few vendors remained. Hopefully Mother Iron-Braid wouldn't take it as an insult, though Sliver likely would. Shade traipsed beside her, snuffling hopefully at the scent of fish.
"You'll wait—and behave yourself," Wynn said, not that Shade would understand. "We'll have dinner soon … I hope."
As she neared the smithy's open door, she paused at the sound of raised voices within.
"You refuse me … again?" a male voice boomed in Dwarvish.
"I will not repeat the reasons … again!" Sliver shouted back.
Wynn crept closer, peering inside as Shade stuck her snout around the door frame.
A stout male dwarf in fine dark pants and a cleanly oiled hauberk stood face-to-face with the smith. His mass of brown hair was pulled back in a leather thong, and his slightly darker beard was trimmed and crisply groomed. It was Carrow, Hammer-Stag's clan-kin.
"You protect nothing," he said, and then anger softened into pleading. "There is nothing left to protect. Your family name has faded. It will be lost one way or another."
"To even say so shows you know nothing of me," Sliver answered, "let alone my heart. So how could I accept you?"
Wynn swallowed hard. Hammer-Stag's clan-kin had proposed marriage—and not for the first time.
"Your brothers are long gone," he said, stepping closer and holding out his hand. "They have abandoned you—I have not—and I do know your heart. Take my family's name. Our children will be so honored to have you at our table's head."
For an instant, Wynn thought Sliver might reach for his hand, but the smith backed away.
"I cannot, Carrow … you know I cannot."
His expression turned cold. "Then marry into some lesser family, and keep your name … for what it is worth!"
He strode for the door.
Wynn scrambled down the passage, fumbling with her burdens. She quickly spun, pretending to stroll idly the other way. Carrow stomped past without a glance, and Wynn slowed, watching him fade down the passage.
Poor Sliver. A clan-kin of the great Hammer-Stag was in love with her. Maybe she had feelings for him, but she valued her lost heritage more.
Dwarven matrimony was complicated, leaning heavily on notoriety, honor, and status. If Sliver married into a family lesser than her own, her husband would've taken the Iron-Braid name. But she hadn't done this, and from her state, living in the depths of underside, how could there be a lesser family? Sliver was proud to a fault.
Wynn turned back. With her arms full, she tapped her foot on the door frame.
Sliver raised her head where she stood slumped over the forge. At sight of Wynn, the smith's surprise quickly vanished under ire.
"What now?" she growled.
"Might we share a meal?" Wynn asked, trying to hold up the food.
"Unless you have something to tell me alone … be gone!"
"Is that your mother's wish?" Wynn returned. "Or are you now the matriarch of the Iron-Braids?"
Sliver straightened instantly but faltered in answering.
"Then your mother's welcome stands," Wynn claimed, and stepped in without invitation. "Shall we cook?"
She headed straight for the rear door, not looking at Sliver.
As she passed, the smith snarled, "Where is your tall friend?"
"He had business at the market," Wynn answered.
"My mother is resting."
"Then we'll prepare the food first and wake her when it's ready."
Wynn tried to grip the door latch but couldn't get a hold with all her burdens and her staff.
"Are you going to help?" she asked. "Or should I just kick it until your mother answers?"
Sliver appeared too weary for more argument. "You are persistent … little scribbler."
Wynn shrugged. "I've been called worse."
The smith's gaze slipped to the goods in Wynn's arms. Exhausted by labor or other pressures, or not having gone to the market herself, Sliver grabbed the latch and gave it a wrench. Wynn shouldered the door open, entering the hearth room with Shade.
Preparations proceeded silently as Wynn nosed about. Sliver often had to retrieve or point out whatever Wynn needed. Otherwise, they didn't speak. Sliver prepped the hearth with lumps of raw coal from a battered pail. But while peeling potatoes, Wynn couldn't stand the silence anymore.
"I understand your reasons," she began, "for not accepting Carrow."
Sliver half turned. "You were listening!" she accused.
"You were loud."
The smith turned back to the hearth. "At least this time my mother did not hear."
Soon the coals gave birth to small flames, and Wynn waited, even until the last potato was peeled and cut.
"If one of my brothers married," Sliver whispered, "our lives would have been different … maybe."
Wynn stopped cutting bread. Sliver's tone betrayed how deeply her brothers' chosen paths had affected her. It was surprising that she spoke of this at all. Perhaps Sliver hadn't had anyone to talk to in a long while. This tentative truce wasn't something Wynn wished to shatter.
"How did … Why did High-Tower leave to join the guild?" she asked.
Sliver glanced up in suspicion, but Wynn simply waited.
"He was always strange," Sliver said. "Both of them were. Running off the moment work was done or sometimes before. Father would go looking for them. After the first few times, he always went straight to the temples. In the latter days, it was always the temple of Bedzâ'kenge."
Sliver shook her head with a breathy scoff.
Wynn took up the bread to cut once more. So Ore-Locks must have spent time at that temple as well. But why? Intuition told her it wasn't the right moment yet to speak of him—not until Sliver actually spoke his name.
"And it remained so," Sliver continued, "at least for High-Tower. The shirvêsh told Father that my brothers would not stop asking about our family's history, trying to learn more than what we had from our own ancestors. And High-Tower wrote everything down … like a human." Her voice turned cold. "Then Ore-Locks started leaving for days at a time, showing up at every temple in every settlement of the seatt. Until the day he disappeared altogether …"
Wynn paused with the knife halfway through the loaf. Before she asked about Ore-Locks, she hesitated again. The smith's voice grew quiet.
"Not long after, High Tower told us he would join the order of Bedzâ'kenge. My father tried to show pride, but he was broken, his second son gone. When High-Tower left for your guild, we stopped speaking of him at all. Fa
ther passed over soon after, and I was left to tend the smithy."
"How long ago did High-Tower leave?" Wynn asked.
Sliver paused, considering. "Thirty-seven summers."
Wynn accidentally tore the next slice of bread.
She had no idea of the domin's age, but dwarves often lived to two hundred years or a bit more. High-Tower was at least middle-aged, and yet Ore-Locks appeared in his prime.
"My girl?" a thin voice called.
It came from beyond the left curtained doorway at the room's rear, and Sliver rose from tending the fire.
"Here, Mother," she called. "Come have some bread. Supper will follow soon."
The curtain pulled back, and Mother Iron-Braid shuffled out. Upon spotting someone else present, she squinted her old milky eyes.
"Young sage?" she asked, and then her voice turned manic. "Have you reached Ore-Locks?"
Wynn wasn't certain how to answer. Should she admit that she'd spoken with him? Was Sliver ready to hear of a banished brother who might appear this night?
The hearth room's door swung inward, and for an instant, Wynn was relieved by the interruption.
Ore-Locks stood in the doorway.
He still wore only char-gray breeches and a shirt in place of his traditional attire. But the thôrhk of a Stonewalker hung around his neck.
"Mother?" he asked. "Are you all right?"
Then he spotted Wynn.
Time crawled as Chane stood behind a weaver's booth, a quarter of the way around the market from the tunnel to the Stonewalkers' hidden passage. Half of the vendors had closed or packed up their stalls. Once the rest were finished, how long before a constabulary passed by on rounds and spotted him lurking about?
Chane tensed as a flash of white caught his eye.
Around the cavern's back, Duchess Reine and her elf and guards came out of the tunnel. They headed directly across the nearly empty market for the passage to Breach Mainway.
Chane bent down and rounded the market's back wall, keeping out of sight behind scant booths and the tall, painted columns. Once he had obtained a position behind the duchess's group, he pulled up his hood and quietly closed in.
The elf spoke in hushed tones as the group neared the exit, and the duchess paused and turned.
Chane ducked behind a column and peered carefully along its side.
She looked up at her elven companion, her features stiff and unreadable. Some lingering shock or long fatigue had left her numb. But her arms were empty, the breeches and shirt gone, and no one else carried them. Barely a stone's toss behind them, Chane fully widened his senses.
A thin scent began to fill his nose.
The duchess's hair was a bit out of place. One loose tendril hung against her left temple and cheek. The sea-wave comb on that side was askew, as if removed and replaced without a mirror's aid. And her boots and cloak's hem were dark, perhaps soaked.
Chane sniffed cautiously. The scent of seawater lingered from the duchess's passing.
She never replied to the elf, and Chane never caught what the advisor said. The duchess turned and resumed her journey without any change in her withdrawn expression.
Chane crept onward, keeping Reine in his sight.
Ore-Locks's intense gaze pierced Wynn as he whispered, "You!"
Sliver stared at her brother, perhaps too shocked for outrage.
But Mother Iron-Braid nearly toppled her stool in a rush across the room.
"My son!" she wailed, grabbing Ore-Locks's shirtfront. "My son, oh, Eternals, thank you."
Ore-Locks took her shoulders, steadying her. He stood in tense discomfort, watching Wynn over the top of his stooped mother.
"You said my brother sent you," he said, "that my family was in crisis."
"What?" Sliver gasped.
Wynn stiffened. She was in it now, up to her neck in her own lies.
"Do they look well to you?" she challenged Ore-Locks.
"You already spoke to him?" Sliver demanded. "You brought him here and told me nothing?"
Ore-Locks ignored his sister, glaring only at Wynn. "Did High-Tower send you … or not?"
She had no lies left to cover her others. "No, I came on my own. I needed to speak with you. It's vital."
"Then you lied to the princess as well," he returned.
Willful deceit was notable among dwarven vices; doing so to Princess—Duchess—Reine was just that much worse. And there was little she could do to amend it.
"Only about High-Tower," she answered. "Look around. I brought the food. Sliver works too hard and long to go to market, and your mother is too—"
"No, no," Mother Iron-Braid cut in, petting her son's chest. "We are well enough, and you have come back." She turned her head a little toward Wynn. "Do not speak so, or you will drive him away!"
Ore-Locks winced at this. He carefully took his mother's hands and cast a not-so-gentle glance at Sliver. Hers in turn was even less kind for him.
Wynn knew nothing of the Stonewalkers' ways or their lives apart from their people. But she had some notion of what it had cost Ore-Locks to come home.
"Sit and rest," he said, guiding his mother toward the table.
As yet, Sliver hadn't greeted him. Instead, she intercepted him and gripped her mother's shoulders.
"Get your hands off her!" she hissed.
Ore-Locks backstepped, and Sliver settled her mother in the only chair.
The sight of his family clearly pained Ore-Locks, as if this were the last place in the world he wished to be. He glanced once at the door. Sliver crossed her arms, daring him to leave. Ore-Locks remained. Even as Mother Iron-Braid reached for his hand, he fixed his gaze on Wynn again. She couldn't help fidgeting under his scrutiny.
"I never introduced my …" she began. "I am—"
"I know who you are," he answered.
A chill sank straight through Wynn. The duchess had told him—perhaps all the Stonewalkers—about her. They knew exactly who she was and had been warned against her.
"Yes, I'm the one who … brought those texts back," she confirmed. "I'm responsible for the translation project, the one you and Master Cinder-Shard warned High-Tower to stop."
Ore-Locks carefully pulled from his mother's clinging grip and backed toward the door.
"Forgive me, Mother," he said. "There is great treachery here, and I cannot stay."
"Treachery?" Sliver echoed, glancing at Wynn. "From her?"
Mother Iron-Braid frantically turned from one to the next. "What is this … ? What are you all talking—"
"No!" Wynn snapped at Ore-Locks. "I simply need to see the texts, for all our sakes. Just listen—"
"Enough from you!" Sliver shouted, then lunged one step at her brother. "You speak of treachery? Look to yourself! We have suffered enough without you bringing your false ancestor among us!"
Ore-Locks didn't wince this time, but he didn't quite meet his sister's eyes.
"We want no part of you … or it," she went on. "I will not let you taint us further. Get out!"
Wynn was confused by this exchange.
"I never imagined High-Tower would leave," Ore-Locks whispered. "But deny our past all you want. It changes nothing. One of ours, long gone before us, called me to serve … and I am no longer part of this world."
Ore-Locks stepped out into the dim workshop, and his mother let out a mournful wail.
Wynn panicked, rushing for the doorway. "Ore-Locks, stop!"
He'd already reached the outer door and didn't turn. Wynn tried desperately to think of something to halt him. He wouldn't speak of the texts, but there must be something to give him pause, even for an instant.
"Who is Thallûhearag?" she called.
Ore-Locks paused.
"No, daughter!" Mother Iron Braid shouted.
Shade's deafening snarl came quickly, but Wynn never had a chance to turn.
Something struck her back, and her head whiplashed as she shot out of the hearth room. Tumbling and scraping across the smithy's floor, sh
e heard Shade barking and snapping. She tried to push up and roll over, but her hands stung sharply when she pressed against the floor.
Sliver shrieked, and Shade yelped, and Wynn flopped over on her back.
Shade stood between her and the hearth room's door, all her fur on end and her ears flattened as she lowered her head in menace. Sliver stood in the doorway with mixed shock and revulsion on her broad features. She was gripping one forearm. A bit of blood seeped between her thick fingers.
"Oh, no!" Wynn breathed. "Shade was only—"
In one fluid motion, Sliver chucked out Wynn's pack and staff.
"Don't!" Wynn cried, reaching out where she lay.
To her shock, Shade lunged sideways and under the falling staff. Its sheathed crystal's end struck near Shade's shoulders, and the haft rolled off her rump to the floor. Wynn's surprise at Shade's action was short-lived, and she caught one last glimpse of the smith.
Sliver slammed the door shut, and its crack echoed through the workshop.
Wynn sat up as Shade wheeled and padded over. Then the dog let out another warning rumble, baring her teeth as she glared beyond Wynn.
"Where did you hear that title?"
Wynn jerked around.
Ore-Locks's massive form stood above her. The light of the forge's dying embers cast his face in orange-red and glimmered faintly on his thôrhk. He looked like a hulking statue of heated rock ready to fall upon her.
"From you," she answered, "when you came to see your brother."
"So you are spying on me?" he accused. "Hunting me?"
"No … I mean, yes," she fumbled. "It was an accident. I'd gone to see the domin but heard voices. I didn't want to interrupt, so I waited."
Ore-Locks crouched, and Wynn's hand stung sharply as he took it. At another warning from Shade, Wynn waved off the dog. Ore-Locks let out a sigh.
"My sister should not have assaulted you, but the scrapes are not bad and should heal soon enough."
"I agreed with you," Wynn said, though it brought a puzzled wrinkle to his brow. "In what you said to High-Tower. The translation project isn't being handled well. That's part of why I came. Four sages dead, as well as city guards in Calm Seatt, and next to nothing has come from all the work on those texts … from the Forgotten … in the time of Bäalâle Seatt."
