by JA Andrews
The Torch grinned. “Stories work as payment here, too. It’s been ages since a storyman came to the Morrow.” His accent cut cleanly against the words, refining the Roven harshness a bit.
Will let out some of the tension that had been building in him. Sora had been serious about the Torch. He really did want a story. Maybe this wouldn’t be as terrifying of a meeting as he’d expected. A half dozen short but entertaining stories popped into Will’s mind. “I heard a wayfarer, Borto, tell an excellent story last night.”
“Yes, Borto’s entertaining,” Killien agreed, “but I’ve heard him a hundred times. No one new ever comes to the Morrow. The good ones never manage to get this far away from Bermea and Tun.”
“I didn’t say he was good,” Sora objected.
“Ignore Sora,” Killien said. “She told me you had the festival enthralled. That she hadn’t seen a storyteller beguile a crowd like that since her childhood.”
“Really?” Will turned toward Sora. “I hadn’t realized you’d enjoyed it that much.”
Sora’s gaze turned flinty. “I said, ‘manipulate’ not ‘beguile’.”
“I’m sure she didn’t enjoy it at all.” Killien waved away her words. “But if we based our decisions on what Sora liked, we’d never do anything fun. We’d just hunt. Alone.” Unperturbed by Sora’s expression, the Torch turned back to Will.
“Tell me about yourself, Will.” His voice stayed light, but his eyes turned stony. “What brings you all the way to the Morrow?”
“I’ve been to Bermea and Tun already, and they were…” Will paused, thinking of how to describe the two largest Roven cities without being insulting.
“Festering slums whose resources are squandered by Torches too stupid to know how to lead?” Killien offered.
Grunts of agreement echoed in the room.
“Well”—Will spun his ring slowly—“I was going to say crowded…but ‘festering slums’ works too. Everything in Bermea was gray with smoke from that army camp outside the city. And Tun smelled like fish.” The smell had lingered on his clothing for days. “They need to move that fish market. I got tired of trying to tell stories while gagging through every breath.”
Killien grinned. “I hate those cities.” He considered Will for a moment. “But I like you.”
Sora made an exasperated sound.
“The Morrow Clan heads north to the summer rifts tomorrow,” Killien continued. “You can entertain us tonight in the square and stay here as my personal guest. There’s a room upstairs that’s been vacant since a piggish stonesteep from Tun was here, charging me too much to renew the wards on our herds.”
Will hand stilled on his ring. Stay here? For the whole day?
“He’s leaving the Sweep today,” Sora informed the Torch. “I caught him on his way out.”
Will could have hugged her. “I am.”
But Killien’s expression tightened. “A day’s delay is nothing.”
A day’s delay would put him far behind Borto. He might catch up to the wayfarer again, but there was too big of a risk of losing him. Will opened his mouth, desperately searching for a way out.
The enormous man with the wild beard stood up from the table and stepped up next to Killien amused. “Surely an invitation from a Roven Torch is enough of a reason to stay.”
No. The only reason he’d had to stay in barbaric, uneducated Porreen was at this moment riding away in a wayfarer’s wagon. Will searched for the words to tell a Roven Torch that he wasn’t interested in being his guest. He glanced around the room. He was completely surrounded by Roven. His gaze caught on the wall by the door and he stopped, stunned.
Shelves filled the entire end of the room. They were mostly empty, but one shelf held at least fifty—
“Books.” His words came out barely above a whisper. “You have books.”
Chapter Seven
He took a step toward them, trying to make out titles. Along the floor in front of the shelves, packed neatly into large baskets, were more books.
Hundreds of them.
“I have a lot of books.” Killien led the way over to the shelves. “Most have been packed for the trip north, but you’re welcome to read the ones that are left.”
Will walked along the shelf reading the titles.
The Clans and the Clashes of the Sweep, History of War in Coastal Baylon, The Gods of Gulfind.
His opinion of the Torch was quickly reforming. Not only were there books, there were a decent number of books about people other than the Roven.
“Do all storymen get this excited about books?” Sora asked. “Or just ones from Gulfind.”
Will’s finger froze on the shelf and he glanced up. Sora eyed him with a raised eyebrow, but Killien looked thoroughly pleased to see his books getting so much attention.
Will turned back to the books and tried to keep his voice light. “I don’t think you have to be from anywhere in particular to love books.”
He slid out a thin book covered in yellow leather and tilted it toward the fire to read the silvery title. Neighbors Should Be Friends, by Flibbet the Peddler. Will eyes tripped over the words and he read it again to be sure. He looked up at Killien. “You have a book by Flibbet?”
“I have three.” Killien grinned. “The other two are packed.”
A book by Flibbet the Peddler.
Here on the Sweep.
Had anyone found books from the crazy old peddler this far from Queensland? He flipped it open. Flibbet’s quirky, multicolored scrawl spread across the page. This book was mentioned twice in other works by Flibbet. The Shield had wanted a copy in the Keeper’s library for…for longer than Will had been alive.
“I’ve never met anyone who knew who he was.” Killien crossed his arms and considered Will. “My father met Flibbet just before I was born. The peddler sold him the books and a sword.”
Will stared at the Torch speechless for a moment. “Met Flibbet?”
Killien nodded. “Said he was the oddest old man he’d ever met. Which, after reading his books, I believe.”
“That’s impossible.”
Killien raised an eyebrow and Sora let out a snort.
“I assure you it happened,” the Torch said mildly.
Will bit back his protest. “I just meant that I can’t believe the man was still alive. No one’s seen him in ages.”
“Who hasn’t seen him?” Killien looked at him narrowly.
The Keepers. None of the Keepers had seen Flibbet for at least eighty years.
“He’s famous in Queensland and in parts of Coastal Baylon. But everyone thinks he’s dead. At least everyone I’ve ever met. The earliest stories of him are a hundred and fifty years old.”
“My father said he was old, but one hundred and fifty seems a bit much. Maybe he was an imposter.”
Will nodded, then a thought snagged in his mind. “He sold your father a sword?”
“Gave it to him actually.” Killien motioned to a short sword hanging on pegs on the wall. It had a wooden grip, a roughly smithed guard, and weathered leather sheath. “Or gave it to me, I suppose. It’s a seax, a short sword. Flibbet told my father its name was Svard Naj and it was a gift for his new son ‘to help mend the torn’. Seeing as I wasn’t even born yet so no one knew if I was a boy, my father assumed the old man was a bit cracked.”
Will had never heard of Flibbet giving anyone a weapon. So much of his writing centered around ideas of peace, it felt out of character. But it was more than that.
“He just gave it to your father? I’ve never heard of Flibbet giving away anything. I’ve heard him make stupid trades, like offering a silver goblet in trade for a handful of chicken feathers, but never just a gift. Is it a good sword?”
“It seems to be. I only use it for ceremonial sorts of things. It’s shorter than the one I learned to fight with. And it has a feel to it. Like it’s somehow…too serious for a mere fight.” Killien laughed and ran one of his hands through his hair. “That sounds a bit ridiculous now that I
’ve said it out loud.”
“Not if Flibbet the Peddler really gave it to you.”
“Especially if he was already dead,” Sora added.
Killien grinned at her.
“I’m glad Sora found you, Will.” Killien pointed to the book in Will’s hand. “It goes without saying that guests in my house are free to read my books.”
Will wanted to read this book. Very much. Whether or not it had really been given to the Morrow by Flibbet, it looked genuine. If he could just read it through once, maybe twice, he’d be able to remember it. Memorizing books was almost as easy as storytelling. He could rewrite it for the Shield later.
But Borto was getting farther away by the moment.
Sora tilted her head and studied Will. “I don’t believe he ever agreed to stay.”
Killien looked at Will appraisingly. “He doesn’t look stupid enough to decline an offer of hospitality.”
Sora leaned against the bookshelf and sized Will up. “I don’t know…”
Will thought for just a moment about the wayfarer’s wagon, trundling east toward the Scales, slipping farther away, the cord between them growing thread-thin.
But he was still surrounded by a room of Roven in the middle of a city of more Roven.
He’d just have to hope that Borto was slow and his yellow wagon was memorable enough that it would be easy to track.
With a nod, let the idea of Borto go. “What sort of story would you like to hear tonight?”
“Something we haven’t heard before. I’m sick of Roven tales with clans massacring each other. Tell me something from a foreign land. Something brave and dangerous and clever.”
“The tales from Gulfind are generally clever, if you like tales that revolve around gold. I also have some from Coastal Baylon. Those people are a bit strange and their gods are so…mystifying they end up with curious stories.”
“Do you know anything from Queensland?”
The room stilled and Will felt eyes on him. He turned back to the Torch, trying to keep his face nonchalant.
“A few.”
“What are they like?” Killien’s face stayed friendly, but his eyes were sharp.
“Queensland stories have a certain feel to them. A sort of brightness.”
The Torch’s eyes narrowed so slightly Will thought he might have imagined it. He did not imagine how much Sora’s narrowed.
“Or maybe naivety,” Will added. “They really love their heroes.”
The Torch looked at Will calculatingly. “I’d like to hear some tales from our enemies. I’d imagine in Queensland the Roven always play the villain.”
Out of the hundreds of tales Will knew, he couldn’t think of a single story that didn’t portray the Roven as the enemy. “The stories I know well”—Or the stories he’d decided he officially knew while he was on the Sweep—“don’t mention the Roven at all. But others there are no more flattering to you than your stories are to them.”
Killien grinned. “Everyone from Queensland is a villain.”
Will forced a smile at that. “As for stories I know best, one is about a young man who is captured by a dragon, and the other is about one of their Keepers.”
“Which one?” Killien’s voice was sharp and something tightened in Will’s gut.
“Chesavia,” Will answered. He should have picked something less Queenslandish. Some general adventure story instead of something about magic and Keepers.
“Didn’t she die fighting some sort of demon?”
“A water demon.” Will’s estimation of the Torch rose again. “I’m impressed. I haven’t met anyone on the Sweep who knows tales from Queensland.”
“I don’t know many, but I do know who the Keepers are.” Killien’s smile held nothing pleasant. He nodded toward the baskets. “I have several books that mention them.”
He studied Will. “Tonight, tell us a story from Queensland. It will be fascinating to learn what my enemy thinks is entertaining.”
Will nodded. It would be.
Chapter Eight
“Sora,” Killien said, “show Will to his room.”
Sora’s gaze never faltered from Will’s face. “The storyman has managed to travel all the way from—where was it? Gulfind? I think he can find his way upstairs.” Without a glance at the Torch, she strode out the door.
Will watched it close before letting his gaze flick back to Killien, expecting anger at Sora’s defiance. Instead, Killien looked at the door with a rueful expression.
“I think Sora likes you, storyman.” The huge man who’d been sitting with Killien rose.
Laughter rippled through the room and Will glanced around. These people weren’t like any Roven he’d ever met. His fear had almost completely dissolved, replaced by a reluctant curiosity. “I’d hate to see how she treats someone she didn’t like.”
“Don’t mind Sora,” Killien said. “She doesn’t like anyone. But the woman can stalk a white fox in a snowstorm, so we tolerate her attitude.”
“I’m Hal.” The huge man stepped closer, rising to a full head taller than Will. Everything from his vest to his linen pants to the thick beads in his beard spoke of wealth, but his expression good-humored. “Do you know any stories about dwarves?”
A spattering of groans greeted his question.
Hal extending his hand and Will grasped it, his fingers barely reaching around the huge man’s wrist. “Because you’re part dwarf?”
Hal grinned widely. He was dressed much like Killien, runes lining the edges of a wide leather vest, several silver rings spread out across his fingers.
“I know a few dwarf tales,” Will said.
“Hal is obsessed with dwarves,” Killien said. “No one understands why.”
“I do,” Will said. “They’re strong, they’re vicious warriors, they’re funny, and did you know they can”—he paused trying to think of the word— “sense rocks? When I was in Duncave, a dwarf gave me a tour of an unused tunnel system and he followed a thin vein of quartz along three different tunnels without ever shining his light on the wall. They say that when there’s a different sort of rock, they can taste the difference in the air.”
Hal’s mouth hung open. “You’ve been to Duncave?”
“Had an audience with the High Dwarf.” Which sounded more formal than whatever had happened. “But it turns out King Horgoth isn’t fond of foreigners. He offered me an armed escort on my way out.”
“Thank the black queen,” Hal breathed, “a real storyman!”
“But he doesn’t have to tell the entire story right now,” Killien broke in, looking around the room. “Because you all have work to do. It’s light enough to get these baskets packed.”
Unlike Sora, all of the other Roven obeyed Killien without hesitation.
“I want to hear about Duncave,” Hal said.
“After the herds are sorted,” Killien said, irritated.
Hal paused on his way to the door. “I’m glad you’re here, storyman.”
“As am I,” Killien said. “I didn’t expect someone as…well-traveled as you.”
Will shrugged. “You don’t learn new stories by sitting at home.”
“You do if a storyman comes to visit. Come, I’ll show you your room.” Killien led Will out of the back of the room.
“You’re not exactly what I was expecting in a Torch, either.” Will followed Killien to the dark wood stairs. The amount of wood in the house was astonishing. Will slid his hand up the smooth banister as they walked. It was refreshingly solid and unclaylike.
“What did you expect?” Killien asked without turning.
A bloodthirsty villain didn’t seem like the best answer.
“I’ve visited three other clans,” Will said. “Admittedly I never met their Torches in person, but the Odo Torch had a decidedly unwelcoming way about him, the Sunn Torch only came out to lead slaves to the dragon’s cave, rarely gracing anyone with his attention. And the Boan Torch…” Will paused.
“Was a pompous lump
of dead weight?” Killien offered over his shoulder.
Will laughed. “I only saw him from a distance during a parade, but…that is a good description. The Boan with their huge army, and the Sunn Clan with their dragon and their stonesteeps—don’t they see the benefit of working together?”
“They see nothing but their own grab for power.” Killien turned into a short hallway with two doors on each side—actual wooden doors. “Those two are responsible for spilling more Roven blood than any war.” Killien stepped into the last room on the left.
It was more Roven than the downstairs level of the house. Killien walked into the clay room and over to a window where orange drapes sighed in the breeze.
Someone outside shouted out commands and there was a bustle of activity. Killien parted the curtains, his shoulders sagging. “We’ll be poor hosts today. At this point I see little hope that we’ll be ready to leave tomorrow.” He rubbed his hands over his face and gave a tired sigh. “You don’t by chance know some foreign magic spell that would pack an entire city, do you?”
Will gave a small laugh that had a tinge of panic. “I’m not really good at magic spells.”
Killien turned away from the window and shook his head. “Neither am I.” He walked to the door. “Breakfast will be served out back shortly. There are things I need to take care of before then.”
Will pressed his fist to his chest and gave the Torch a bow as the man left.
When he straightened, he stared at the empty doorway.
That had been…unexpected. Who knew a Roven Torch could be so…unRoven.
Will put his bag into a corner and dropped down onto the bed. Instead of crunching with dried grass, the mattress cushioned him like…like a mattress. Will lay back with a sigh and closed his eyes. This had to be full of wool. He grabbed the pillow. Feathers. After the restless night, his body sank down into the softness.
