Dwarven Steel

by D. L. Harrison

  The large highway cut the city in half, and exited out the north side, and as Tursac indicated there were seven other smaller but still wide tunnels. Four on the eastern side, and three on the western. The area was bigger, but there were even more houses here by square footage, since they didn’t get a quarter acre for each one. There were large buildings in the market place that looked like stores and inns, and I made out what looked like warehouses on the west side, but I couldn’t identify the castle, and suddenly wondered if the king lived in a small house just like everyone else.

  I chuckled under my breath, at the thought of Alexander living in a small house and having a job, besides ruling I mean.

  The carriage rolled slowly through the city, giving others plenty of time to get out of the way, and gawk at Gerard and I on our horses. I was a bit surprised when we pulled into the back of an inn, but I supposed I shouldn’t have been. If the king didn’t have a castle, he wouldn’t have a guest wing or servants either.

  We dismounted and took care of our horses, got them put up in another new stable, and then followed our charges into the inn. The four dwarves stuck around long enough to get us a pair of rooms, and made sure we were settled, and then took off as we sat down to eat. Obviously, planning had been done inside the carriage, once again I had no clue what was going on. Lynn didn’t seem worried, so I just went with it and ate an early dinner, and drank some ale.

  “Any idea what’s going on, I know you’ve been with me the whole time.”

  Gerard smirked, and thought, “The ambassadors probably went to the king to explain the deal, and get his final approval. Then the king will probably send his representative or guide to come get us. It’s a guess, but probably a good one. There’s a good chance that won’t be until morning.”

  Damn, I should’ve thought of that. I tried to relax, and enjoy the ale, though not too much of it. I really didn’t need to get a buzz and loosen my tongue around Bryce, or my powers. To be fair, he wasn’t even being obnoxious right now, just stand-offish. I couldn’t even mingle with the dwarves, since I had to stay by Lynn and be watchful, so I settled for people watching, or dwarf watching as it may be.

  Over in one corner it looked like they were gambling, and right next to them was a couple who barely noticed their rowdy neighbors. Unlike humans, what I felt from them empathy wise was how they acted, there was no dissembling, or hiding of opinions and emotions.

  This was good and bad, because it looked like two of the gamblers were about to start a bar fight.

  I saw one clenching his fists, while the other yelled at him. I wasn’t supposed to talk, but this was a part of my duties, wasn’t it?

  “My lady, perhaps we should retire before…” my comment was cut short by a loud curse, the sound of fist hitting face, and the beginning of a bar fight.

  Lynn frowned and I raised my eyebrows. She nodded, and I got up just in time to avoid a dwarf at the next table, who was knocked away by a gambler, and shoved backwards into my chair. The fight was spreading quickly. We moved swiftly to the stairs, with the men a step behind us. I was doing my best not to snicker, and kind of wanted to stay to watch, but I had my duties.

  Apparently, I’d have no fun at all on this trip, although, I wasn’t sure when I’d decided bar fights were fun…

  The next morning came quickly enough, and the four of us were eating breakfast in silence once again. It wouldn’t be so bad I thought, if Lynn and Bryce would at least talk to each other, but that wasn’t happening. So, I was people watching again when a young female dwarf walked into the tavern and headed our way.

  She had long red hair in an elaborate ponytail, but otherwise wore simple light leather armor. That seemed to be the standard dress, the dwarven steel armor was only worn by the active guards and guardians. She was about four foot three, and when she saw us she smiled and came over. The thing that really made her stand out in my mind, was her sharp amber eyes.

  This girl was royalty, and a possible heir.

  She said in a pleasant but no-nonsense tone, “Lord Timmons, Lady Darish, and guardians. I’m Holmarra Orefall. I’ll take you to meet the king and my eldest brother, who will be joining us to show you around. We can both answer your questions.”

  Bryce said snootily, “Of course princess, we’d be delighted.”

  Holmarra grumbled, “Holmarra please.”

  Bryce replied with a rather annoyed tone, “Of course. Holmarra. You must call us Bryce and Lynn as well if we are discarding titles for our visit?”

  I didn’t snort, but it was very close.

  He added, “Let me introduce our guards, Gerard, and Katherine.”

  I opened my mouth to correct him, but Gerard shook his head sharply. Shit, you’ve got to be kidding me. Katherine? Not that it was a bad name, but it wasn’t mine.

  I picked up my cup and finished off the juice, then we stood up and I scanned ahead with my empathy, but didn’t sense anything off. We exited the building and went north for a bit on the main street, and then turned to the right. My guess must’ve been right about the king’s home, because all there was this way was normal sized houses.

  The support columns looked brighter to me this morning, I wasn’t sure if my eyes were just adjusting, or if it changed throughout the day to simulate daylight more closely. I knew they’d been extremely dim at night. The city seemed quieter in the morning as well, maybe most of the dwarves were off to the mines, smithies, and foundries.

  The house we moved toward off the side street was a decent sized home, maybe three thousand square feet, but no bigger than the other houses around it. Some areas did have smaller homes, but it was hardly a palace. Perhaps it could be called a small mansion. The mansion was two stories tall, and based on the windows had at least eight bedrooms on the second floor, assuming the rooms were doubled up in the back. It was stone, but it was also exquisitely carved and accented like much of the city.

  Holmarra led us around the side of the house, and I could hear the hammer and steel from the small building. The king was a smith? She opened the door and took us inside, where a wave of heat hit my face as we walked in, and I saw the cherry light glow of light against the wall as she held up a hand and went into the other room.

  Three dwarven men, and a woman came back out with her.

  The king and the other woman who must have been queen were older, so it was easy to pick them out.

  The king was wearing a leather apron, and his skin was covered with dust from coal and smoke. His brow was sweating, and he had a look of annoyance on his face, in his amber eyes, and from his emotions. He was the tallest dwarf I’d seen at four foot seven, and his beard and hair were red, at least the parts that weren’t colored from the dust.

  The queen was similarly dressed, and was dirty as well, outside of her elaborate ponytail with gold and gems she looked like a smith too. She probably was a smith. She felt amusement, and her brown eyes twinkled with suppressed mirth. I wasn’t sure why, maybe she was amused at whatever had annoyed her husband the king, or maybe this was all some elaborate test, to see how the humans would deal with a monarch that worked and was dirty. I wasn’t sure.

  Bryce might have been a jackass in my opinion, but he was a consummate politician and didn’t bat an eye. Lynn looked a bit bemused, but didn’t look shocked or judgmental either. Gerard and I just tried to stick to the back and be invisible.

  The other two men were obviously their sons, same red hair and beards, though only one of them had amber eyes, the other had brown eyes like their mother’s. I wasn’t sure who was eldest yet, and which was the heir, but I’d know shortly since the eldest was coming with us according to what Holmarra told us earlier.

  Both of them were dressed in leather as well, but only the amber eyed one was dirty. So perhaps he was the middle son and would be staying here?

  Holmarra said, “Father, meet Bryce and Lynn, the two nobles sent from Trelin to assist us, and their guardians, Gerard and Katherine.”

  I grinded my teeth, a
nd thought of several ways Bryce might have an accident in here. There were all sorts of hot things, and a little telekinesis to the back of a knee… I cut off the thoughts. Still, it was annoying, my name was Katrina. I was half convinced the bastard had done it on purpose, but also wouldn’t be surprised if I was just that beneath his notice.

  “Bryce, Lynn, this is my father King Nabrec Orefall and mother Queen Hammeana.”

  Holmarra waved toward her brother with the amber eyes, “This is my middle brother Vothick, and named heir,” she waved at the older brown eyed male, “And this is Sanath, my eldest brother who will be joining us.”

  Sanath seemed relaxed, and his emotions were neutral, as if he hadn’t decided how to see us yet. Vothick seemed as annoyed as his father, maybe they just wanted to get back to work? Who knew?

  King Nabrec said gruffly, “It is good that you are here. I’ve already given orders to my best two masters, one a master smith and the other a master rune-wright. You can meet them later if you wish, but whatever is killing my children and young adults needs to be stopped as quickly as possible. My daughter and son are a credit to my family, and have full knowledge of everything that went on, and can answer your questions. As for me, I have my own work to do.”

  I bit my bottom lip to stop a smile, Bryce seemed totally poleaxed at such a gruff and dismissive speech. Apparently, the king was annoyed that he’d been dragged away from his project.

  Bryce recovered a little, and bowed, “Of course your majesty, we’ll resolve this as quickly as possible.”

  The king measured both Bryce and Lynn, and then grunted and went back into his smithy. The queen and Vothick turned without a word and followed him. I sensed Sanath was amused, he might have even been smiling, but it was impossible to read facial expressions under those damned beards.

  Holmarra was smiling, I wasn’t really sure I got why though. They were straightforward in expression and emotion, and acted on how they felt, but that didn’t mean what they felt or their motivations weren’t a mystery to me. They were in a way, alien in thought. I could guess one of the motivations, the king wouldn’t waste time gabbing when his people were dying, not for some meaningless political tripe as he’d see it. But the annoyance was beyond me, and maybe it didn’t even have to do with us at all, for all I knew his son or wife had done something to annoy him.

  Empathy didn’t mean I knew everything, I just felt the emotions. Sometimes context made it easy to figure out, but most times that wasn’t the case.

  Sanath cleared his throat, “Did you want to visit the murder sites in order, or does it matter?”

  Bryce asked, “How many have there been?”

  Sanath replied, “Eleven, there are two new murder sites since Tursac left to request your aid.”

  Bryce said, “Which ones we visit first won’t matter, but we will need to know the order, and approximately when the murders happened. The strength, decay rate of the residual magic, along with its type will tell us what our enemy is, and how strong it is. I assume the last two were like the others, one dwarf alone, no witnesses and no one heard anything?”

  Holmarra answered, “The same, no witnesses, no one felt, heard, or saw anything.”

  Bryce replied, “Okay, show us to at least four sites, including the first and last.”

  Shouldn’t I feel something because of this, I mean from the dwarves? Why didn’t I feel fear from the city, why were kids and young adults not using the buddy system, why… I had a million questions, but bit my tongue. I was here to watch the professionals work and guard their backs. Problem was, they might have been powerful mages and experts in magic, but they didn’t ask any questions outside of what they needed for magical calculations. Perhaps they didn’t need to, if they could find and trace the magic they wouldn’t need to.

  I was eighteen, and hardly a brilliant investigator, but wasn’t having more information better? I decided all I could do was watch and listen, which was what I was supposed to be doing anyway while guarding Lynn’s back.

  Sanath said, “Follow me.”

  Sanath led us out of the building, Bryce and Lynn followed, Gerard and I followed them, while Holmarra took up the rear. I stretched out my empathy to look for anything out of place as we walked through the streets. We were headed back west across the city, toward the warehouses and the three western tunnels.

  I felt all sorts of things with my empathy, from grief and anger, to lust and love, as we crossed the city. What I didn’t feel was the fear of a city under siege. I tried to imagine that back in the human cities, or back home. If teenagers were being randomly killed by a serial murder, people tended to take notice of such things. Maybe the dwarves were more different than I’d even realized, or maybe there was something else going on here to account for it.

  As we passed by the warehouses, I noticed there weren’t really more than a handful of dwarves on this edge of the city, and that one of the three tunnels was closed off with a gate of sorts. The dwarves I did see, were wearing armor of dwarven steel, obviously guards. But what were they guarding, the tunnels, which one, or was it whatever was in the warehouses, or because someone died near here?

  I bit my lip again, I was doing that a lot lately, as I suppressed the obvious questions. Maybe I was annoyingly curious, but it was who I was. No one challenged us, probably because we were with the king’s children, and we stopped fairly close to the cavern’s edge, between the closed tunnel and the central tunnel.

  I stretched my empathy, telepathy, and telekinesis as far as I could around us, and down the tunnels. I felt a handful of dwarves in the center tunnel a couple of hundred yards in.

  Holmarra said, “This is where the first died, about a foot to my brother’s right.”

  Chapter Nine

  Gerard and I stayed alert, while Lynn and Baron jerk face dropped their packs on the ground and started to pull out all sorts of devices, along with what looked like a large leather log book and a writing instrument. I wished I could feel magic, I had no idea what any of it did. They set up several round silver plates about twice the side of a coin around the area Holmarra indicated, and then set up several devices around that.

  Then Lynn picked up the leather book and opened it up, and grabbed a pen. When she looked at Bryce, he nodded and then I felt his emotions again. Obviously, he couldn’t do this while shielded or it would mess things up, otherwise he’d have never dropped it in my presence. He felt arrogant, but also very focused as he started to circle the devices while muttering a spell under his breath.

  There was nothing showy, or flashy, but the devices started to light up in different colors and words that I didn’t recognize. I suppressed the urge to go into one of their minds to pull out a magical vocabulary and understanding.

  Lynn started to note it all down, and I felt her amazement as she did so. I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad, probably bad. When she finished writing, Lynn helped Bryce pack everything away except the ledger.

  Lynn asked, “You said this was the first, how long has it been?”

  Holmarra said, “Just over three weeks. Twenty-two days to be exact.”

  Lynn wrote that down, and shook her head as she went over everything.

  Sanath asked, “Is there a problem?”

  Lynn muttered under her breath, “You could say that,” which drew a warning glare from Bryce.

  Holmarra’s eyes narrowed, “What’s the problem, could you not find anything?”

  Lynn’s eyes widened, but she looked over at Bryce for guidance.

  Bryce answered, “The opposite problem. We did detect elemental water based magic, but the readings seem far too strong for something done twenty-two days ago. Worse, we’ve never seen or heard of anything with this kind of signature, either in power or type. Whatever it is, it’s strong if it’s residual magical can remain this… focused, for so long. Don’t worry, we’ll find it.”

  Sanath nodded, “The last site is not far from here. Follow me and watch your step.”

 
We followed Sanath toward one of the tunnels. The south-western tunnel was blocked off, we passed the middle one with a few dwarves in it by moving north along the cavern wall, and then we turned left and entered the third northernmost western tunnel which had no one in it.

  Small runes along the walls must have recognized our presence, because they started to glow with a soft light. The ground was smooth, but the walls were crumbling and there was some loose dirt and stone near the edges, which I supposed accounted for Sanath’s warning to watch our step.

  How did the newest one die in here? Was this the dwarves first mine and now abandoned as played out? How did the young victim get past the guards around the warehouses without their notice? Why would a dwarven youth invade a played-out mine in the first place? These weren’t young children, and grew up around mines and smithies, why would they come here? Why would one come here alone when there was a killer on the loose? Why…

  So many obvious questions, but Lynn and Bryce didn’t ask one of them. Honestly, it was driving me nuts as I once again held my tongue. They had magic, and until they failed to trace the source of the magic I’d keep my mouth shut. If it worked, I supposed all those whys wouldn’t matter, but it still drove me crazy.

  Holmarra pointed over by the wall, and they once again set up their gear, Bryce mumbled his magic, and Lynn wrote it all down. I felt her emotions, and could tell she didn’t like the readings at all, but this time she didn’t say anything.

  We spent the morning going from site to site, all five we visited were on the western side of the city, and they did their thing and took their readings. Afterwards, we all returned to the inn we were staying at, and ate a late lunch.

  The food was quite good, and I ignored the stares as I piled it up on my plate.

  Holmarra asked, “What have you discovered?”