Red Rowan: Book 4: The Dwarf Moot

by Helen Gosney

  Red Rowan

  The Dwarf Moot

  Helen Gosney

  ISBN 978-0-9925853-5-8

  Copyright © Helen Gosney 2016

  All rights reserved.

  Cover image © Mikesilent | Dreamstime.com

  This is a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed therein are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to real events, locations and organizations is purely coincidental.

  No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated with much love to my beautiful grand-niece, Layla, who is one year old today. What better day to publish a new book?

  **********

  Author’s note

  I thought that Rowan’s story had been told when I finished the trilogy, but then I found myself thinking “… and then what…?”

  A dangerous thought for a writer, that is, and the trilogy has unexpectedly become a tetralogy. Still, I hope that you’ll enjoy the story.

  And before you start on it, I’d like to acknowledge the efforts of my friend, Sylvia, who bravely read the rough draft for me. Thanks, Sylvia, your input means a lot.

  **********

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Author’s note

  1. “Plans, laddie?”

  2. “planning and plotting”

  3. “you’re going to be a bit busy, then…”

  4. “old habits die hard”

  5. “he was on his way home”

  6. “Do you want to keep going…?”

  7. “it won’t get better for the waiting”

  8. “good to be home”

  9. “I’ve told them I’ll do it”

  10. “what might have been”

  11. “He liked cedars”

  12. “the bunny run”

  13. “just muddled the trail nicely”

  14. “muddy, hot and sweaty”

  15. “got you at last!”

  16. “a great one for the waifs and strays”

  17. “… like a dowser?”

  18. “daft to be traipsing back and forth”

  19. “that time is right about now”

  20. “just something that Rowan said…”

  21. “an iron fist in a velvet glove”

  22. “I’m not ‘Sir’ here, either”

  23. “a private matter”

  24. “they could use the barn”

  25. “dealing with the military mind”

  26. “The Champion’s here!”

  27. “… a colt or a filly?”

  28. “We call her Rain”

  29. “what we’ve come here to do”

  30. “a little black filly”

  31. “Cows?”

  32. “‘Tis yours now…”

  33. “…‘tis certainly not a damned shortcut”

  34. “the best bridge for miles around”

  35. “a bit of a problem”

  36. “shameful and dishonourable”

  37. “ a day full of surprises”

  38. “they went around the town”

  39. “a neat, good-sized tent town”

  40. “It doesn’t worry them or the stallion”

  41. “take it, and go home to her”

  42. “… just the same as anyone else”

  43. “nowhere to kick a ball properly”

  44. “… this is my wife, Becca”

  45. “over the edge of the chasm”

  46. “too bloody proud”

  47. “that’s bloody blackmail!”

  48. “we were wrong, very wrong”

  49. “… our gift to you.”

  50. “… so folk can see you”

  51. “… better than any razor”

  52. “I can throw them all right”

  53. “just a very tall dwarf at heart”

  54. “Killing folk isn’t all it’s cracked up to be”

  55. “the day after the Moot Meet”

  56. “a very old dwarven punishment”

  57. “What the hell did you do?”

  58. “delighted with their purchases”

  59. “a new and better life”

  Afterword

  Excerpt from “Liam Tighe, Archer”

  **********

  1. “Plans, laddie?”

  The Champion’s Ball was finally starting to wind down a bit, though there were still quite a few folk drinking, dancing, and drinking a bit more.

  The Champion himself was sitting in the middle of his adopted g’Hakken kin, quietly sipping at – of all things – a cup of tea, as he watched the dancers still doggedly moving around the floor. He thought he’d seen working bullocks that could dance better than some of them. Mind you, he thought, most working bullocks don’t drink themselves stupid before they set out, and even fewer foresters do too. It wasn’t that foresters disapproved of alcohol, but most simply didn’t care for the taste of it. They might indulge for the sake of being polite to their hosts, but a single glass of wine or mug of ale or mead would last them an astonishingly long time. It was rare for any forester to ever drink spirits, even for politeness’ sake, and the potent juniper spirits that the trolls distilled they avoided like the plague.

  Fess had made sure the caterers placed big punch bowls of fresh cold water on every table where the foresters were sitting. The caterers had been surprised, even shocked in a couple of cases, but more than happy to oblige the Champion and his kin. They’d even floated sprigs of mint and slices of lemon and strawberry in the bowls in an attempt to make things look a bit more… festive. For their part, the foresters thanked them sincerely and quietly avoided the decorations. And now, most of them were happily drinking tea, to the further shock and horror of the caterers.

  Rowan glared at his ankle that was resting on a convenient chair and throbbing miserably. Dammit, he thought, if I hadn’t run around the bloody battlements to get rid of Telli’s damned Honour Guard, I could still be out there dancing too.

  On the other hand, he thought more happily, I DID run around the battlements, I lost the cursed Honour Guard, I’ve done my share of dancing and a bit more, and now I can sit here, poor injured old bugger that I am, avoiding all the fraggin matchmakers and enjoying this nice cup of tea. I can rest this bloody ankle properly now the Trophy’s over and in the meantime a bit of willowbark and a lot of liniment will help it no end.

  He shifted his gaze to a certain spot in the building’s high clerestory windows and was rewarded by the sight of a pair of glowing green eyes watching him in return: Scrap, his little black cat, was still up there happily watching the goings-on beneath him. Rowan’d thought Scrap might have got bored by now and gone off mousing, but it seemed he’d been wrong.

  **********

  “So, what are your plans now, Rowan lad?” Finn asked.

  “Hmm?”

  “Plans, laddie?”

  “Oh, aye, plans… sorry, Finn, I was thinking of something else,” Rowan said as he dragged his attention back to his friend. “Well, I’ll be going back home to Sian for a while, so poor Griff and Honi can have a bit of a break, and there’s something I promised I’d help the g’Farrien with too. With one thing and another I didn’t have time to do it when I was back home last time, and then there’s the foaling and the big Horse Fair at Frissender in a few months. We’ve done well there before, and we’ve got some good young horses coming on. Mica and Soot were both in demand too, and we’d be bloody daft not to build on that. Might buy a few more nice mares too, I hope.”

  “Aye
, Toren’ll be taking some of our ponies as well, this year. Maybe you’ll see him there.”

  “I’ll make sure that I do, Finn.”

  “And will you be coming back to the garrison at all? Fess said you might be interested in trying to break in some of the young recruits.”

  “Ha! Break the buggers in is about right! Gods, some of them are bloody lazy great lumps of lads. Any forester lad, or lass for that matter, could run rings around them, and teach them a few damned manners as well. But, aye, I told Fess I’d help him out if he wants me to. The Guard’s always short of instructors. But that won’t be until the next intake, of course.”

  They sat in companionable silence for a little while, idly watching the dancers, before Finn spoke again.

  “And what about your friends… Cris and, umm, Rill, I mean? Will they be off chasing more rivers?”

  Finn found Rill’s obsession with rivers to be comical and… odd. He didn’t realise – because Rowan hadn’t told him this particular bit about his journey to Plausant Bron - that Rill had been one of the strange beings that he, Rowan, had found there. ‘The ones your kind thinks of as Gods’, as they’d put it themselves.

  Two of them had attacked Rowan and he’d defended himself, wounding one mortally and killing the other outright. Then he’d told the rest exactly what he thought of the way they were handling things in Yaarl, and that their bizarre and often terrible ‘games’ must stop. After a bit of mumbling amongst themselves, the beings had simply turned and walked away into the strange mists they’d first appeared from.

  Rowan had never understood why they’d just gone like that, except that they’d seemed… well, bored with Yaarl and all the dreadful things they’d caused. Having Rowan stand up to them had likely hurried their decision along, but in their own words they ‘would have left here soon in any case’. And when they’d disappeared, Rill had remained behind. He was ‘the one your kind called the river god’, but he’d lost his godlike powers when the nexus between Yaarl and ‘the other place’ had closed. He’d seemed simply a naïve and inexperienced young man who wanted only to see the rivers of Yaarl for himself, then. In the nearly seven and a half years since, Rill had changed a bit, matured a bit, but still seemed like an impetuous youngster at times.

  “Cris and Rill?” Rowan mused, “I think they’re going to come home to Sian with me for a while. They’ll likely stop off at Den Sorl for a few days when I do, rather than go straight home with the clan. I’m not sure how long they’ll stay, but I hope it’s a good long while. I’ve not seen them for… three years or so, I suppose. And old Brother Tadeus from Gnash is going to come with us too. He was a trooper back in the day, you know, and he and Hibbon have struck up a friendship, so he wants to see the garrison too. Apparently Tadeus was in the Trophy that Hibbon was runner-up in. The one that Crellian fellow won,” Rowan smiled as he thought about it, “I couldn’t believe it when I saw them all standing there in front of Moss and Chinook at the first Round. Well, for that matter, I couldn’t believe that the Bridge trolls had left their Bridges to their own devices to come to the Trophy.”

  “Ha! Neither could we, laddie. We thought the world had gone bloody mad!” Finn laughed, “And now they say they’re going to Den Sorl so they can see that Chinook’s Bridge is all right, and then they’re both going on to Sian to see Moss’s Bridge. And we used to think the world was mad enough before the cursed Gods upped and left.”

  He gave Rowan an odd look. He knew that his friend had had quite a lot to do with that, but he also knew that Rowan didn’t like to talk about it much, and he suspected that there were bits of the tale that Rowan would never tell anyone.

  “Well, nobody seems to be missing the Gods much, do they? Tadeus says the attendances at the Tabernacles and Temples haven’t changed much. Increased a bit, if anything. People had their heads in the sand when all those awful things happened, and now that they’ve stopped happening, and the Presence of the Gods has gone… well, they’ve still got their heads in the sand about it. ‘Tisn’t worth fretting about, Finn,” Rowan said, curious about all the questions he’d been peppered with.

  **********

  “And what about these other odd rumours we’ve heard floating about?”

  “And what other odd rumours would those be, Finn? There’s always bloody rumours floating about at the Trophy… well, even just at the garrison itself, for that matter.”

  “’Tis the rumour that the Guard are interested in training more horses to do what Mica and Soot can do, laddie,” Finn looked at him closely.

  “Ah, you’ve heard about that, have you? Well, ‘tisn’t a secret exactly, but I don’t think Telli and Fess want it spread about too much just yet.”

  “Don’t fret yourself, Rowan. You know what a closemouthed lot we dwarves are when we set our minds to it. So, tell me what you can, without getting yourself into trouble.”

  Rowan grinned at him.

  “Nothing’s going to me into trouble for a good while, Finn, old friend. But you remember when Horsemaster Ross came to Sian for the last foaling, a few months ago?”

  “Aye. I was talking to him a few days ago and he was still full of it. He’s a good lad, isn’t he?”

  “Aye, he is. And the two young Cadets that came with him were damned good too. Anyway, they wanted to see what Mica and Soot could do, so…” Rowan shrugged.

  **********

  2. “planning and plotting”

  Rowan had ridden first Mica, and then Soot, in the fluid, beautiful movements of advanced battle training, a technique that Rowan had discovered in an old forgotten book at Den Siddon and taught to his stallions almost on a whim. The technique had all but died out now amongst Guardsmen and everyone else. He’d kept up the practice after leaving the Guard simply because he found the movements to be beautiful in and of themselves, and he’d thought it a shame for the techniques to be lost completely. Besides, it kept the stallions fit, supple, active, and responsive, and they seemed to enjoy it. They’d paced through the intricate, elegant measures and then moved onto the above ground movements that were so astounding. They’d pirouetted and leapt and kicked with all the grace and flair of dancers. Ross and the Cadets had watched open mouthed.

  **********

  “Bloody Hells, Rowan, that’s… incredible. And so beautiful. I can’t believe that a horse can do things like that,” Ross said excitedly. He wasn’t sure which had impressed him the most: the sheer beauty and elegance of the movements, or the discipline and hard work it must have taken to achieve such mastery. Fess had tried to explain it to him, but he hadn’t managed to capture the sheer wonder and majesty of it.

  “Thank you. They’re both bloody good at this. But, beautiful as it is, you’re not really looking at it in the right way, Ross. This is called advanced battle training for a reason, and Mica saved my life with it at Messton. Truly, he was just… just devastating against the Plaitens. They were as frightened of Mica as they were of me…” Rowan said softly, knowing that he and his horse had killed far more than their share of Duke Rollo’s men when the Duke had invaded Wirran nine years ago. “Imagine how you’d try and face an armed Guardsman riding a horse trained like this, when they really meant business.”

  Ross and the Cadets thought about it and paled.

  “I’d have to be very damned quick about it. If you didn’t bloody kill me, Rowan, the horse would do the job for you,” Ross said slowly.

  “Aye, ‘twas about the strength of it,” Rowan said, “Of course the horse has to have some protection, just like we do, but not too much or it slows them down, like too much slows us down. You know the Wirran Guard isn’t as heavily armoured as most, but that’s why they’re so effective…’tis all in the speed and shock value, I think. Mica had chainmail and a shaffron, and some protection for his legs,” he saw the mystified looks on the faces of the Cadets, Dorrel and Kurt, “The shaffron is sort of like a helmet that protected his head, but it… it had a spike on the front. ‘Tis why you often hear tales that M
ica has a horn, as if he’s some sort of… well, truly, I don’t know what. But when he canters or gallops with his head tucked in low on his chest like that… that was how he’d charge and… and gore anyone in the way.”

  “Great bloody hells!” Dorrel and Kurt looked distinctly green around the gills, Rowan thought sadly. He hoped they wouldn’t think differently of him now, but… well, it was as it was.

  “Battle isn’t pretty, lads, believe me. It’s an endless nightmare of blood and pain and screaming and terror and death. If by some strange chance you manage to survive it, you’ll carry its scars forever. We’ve been bloody lucky there’s been nothing except Messton for generations, and I can’t tell you how much I hope it’ll stay that way. It won’t, of course, but I truly hope I’m not around to see it again.”

  Nothing more was said about it for a good while, as Ross could see that their talk had brought Rowan’s memories of the battle crashing back, as they still did at times, all these years later. In fact it wasn’t until some hours later, when they were sitting around after supper, that Ross spoke about it again.

  “Rowan…” he began slowly, “I… I don’t want to revive old memories that are best not revived, but I’ve been thinking about the battle training..”

  “Mmm? What were you thinking about it, Ross?’

  “I… I was thinking that we should be trying to train more horses like that, over and above the stuff that every troop horse is trained to do.”

  “Why?”

  “Well…” he struggled to put it into words, “I think it’d be wrong for the techniques to be lost, as you say. They have a purpose over and above any actual battles. Look how strong and fit those stallions of yours are, Rowan. They’ve always been better than any troop horses I’ve ever seen.”

  “They are better, Ross. Well, I think so, but I’m likely a bit biased.”

  “Aye, well… maybe. But Soot was Wirran bred, you said, bred to be a troop horse in Wirran. Yes, he’s superb, but his breeding’s more or less the same as every other troop horse, isn’t it?”