She stiffened in surprise, but feigned ignorance, saying, “Naxos? Your herald? No, Excellence. It was not a dolphin.”
He nodded slowly, apparently satisfied. At that instant the young elf Coryphene had sent away returned. He bore in his arms several items of clothing. Coryphene made a quick gesture, and the elf handed the clothes to Vixa.
“What happened in the grotto?” the Protector asked. “That fire came from no volcano. Was it a chilkit weapon?”
Vixa couldn’t think of any reason to lie, and she was too weary to make an effort. “It was gnomefire, Excellence. A dwarven smith among the prisoners made it from minerals he found in the caverns. We slaves were using it to try to keep warm. Gnomefire burns when it meets water. We were able to kill several chilkit with it.”
“Can he make more, this dwarf?”
“I suppose so-if he’s still alive,” she finished sadly.
“Go to the House of Arms then. Find this dwarf for me. If he can make more of this fire, perhaps we can defeat our ancient enemy. Bear in mind, lady, if we defeat the chilkit, then we’ll have no more need for troublesome dryland labor.”
His words pierced her gloom. “No more need-you mean you’ll set us free?”
“Let us see what your dwarf friend can contrive, shall we?” He turned away and called to one of his soldiers. “Egriun.”
A sea elf with blue-streaked emerald hair stepped out of the pack of warriors. “Take her to the House of Arms,” Coryphene said. “Find the dwarf smith, and see that he gets what he needs to make this … this …”
“Gnomefire,” Vixa supplied.
Egriun gestured for Vixa to precede him. She walked out of the pavilion, and the two of them crossed the square to the central spiral ramp.
“What do you think, soldier?” she asked. “Can you defeat the chilkit?”
“One Dargonesti is worth ten redshells,” Egriun replied. He looked around at the wounded elves covering the square. “But there are fewer Dargonesti left to bear arms.”
“You should arm the citizenry.”
“That rabble? They have no stomach for battle!”
“If they were trained-”
“Might as well train a halibut before putting it on the table. The chilkit would devour them where they stood.”
Chapter 12
The Promise
Vixa made use of an empty alley to change into the green vest and short kilt Coryphene had given her. Eight levels up from the fish market, Egriun led her off the ramp. They wound up at a squat, square building whose towers merged into the roof of this level. A gate of polished stone, cut in the shape of a disk ten feet wide, rolled closed behind Vixa and her escort. She knew a fortress when she saw one-a fortress, and a prison.
Egriun took her down a long straight passage, darker even than Nissia Grotto. The walls and floor were made of dark blue slate that absorbed whatever light fell on it. Somewhere not far away Vixa heard the ring of hammer on metal. It was very warm in this place. She started to sweat.
The passage ended at a circular room with other tunnels radiating out from it. The stone floor was covered with an inlay of rainbow-hued scales, the hide of some enormous sea beast. Leather banners studded with gems and shells hung from the walls. Suits of armor wrought from tortoiseshell, sharkskin, and bronze plates stood on frames around the room’s perimeter. Seated on the floor in this warriors’ chamber were the survivors from Nissia Grotto. There weren’t more than thirty.
Vixa immediately spotted Armantaro and broke from Egriun to greet him. “Hail, Colonel!” she cried.
“Highness!”
The princess threw her arms around the elder elf.
“I thought you were dead!” he exclaimed when they parted. “But you look well enough.”
“You look as if you’ve been wrestling a dragon.” It was true. The colonel’s clothes were scorched, and he had scores of shallow cuts and scrapes on his face and arms.
“I’m too old for this nonsense,” he said ruefully, his breath wheezing in his chest. “Two hundred years ago I could have knocked Coryphene from here to the Mortas Trench.”
Vixa’s smile was fleeting. Sobering, she said softly, “I heard about Harm and Van.”
“A lot of good folk died yesterday. These sea elves claim they had other worries and couldn’t take the time to check on their captives.” Armantaro’s voice was low and bitter.
Vixa tightened her grip on his arm. She had no comfort to give the colonel. And none for herself, either.
Slowly, afraid his answer might be more bad news, she asked, “Did Gundabyr survive?”
“Yes!” Armantaro turned to survey the room. “There he is,” said the colonel. Gundabyr lay by the far wall, his back to the room. “Poor fellow, he’s taken his twin’s death hard. Very hard.”
Vixa and Egriun went to the dwarf. She laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Wake up there. They need you at the forge.”
Gundabyr rolled his head back so he could see who spoke. “Hello, Princess,” he rumbled.
“Hello yourself, Gundabyr.”
The dwarf noticed Egriun looming behind her. He rubbed his face and sat up. “What’s this long drink of water here for?”
“Coryphene wants to see you,” Vixa explained. “He knows about the gnomefire. He wants you to make more, to use against the chilkit.”
The dwarf turned his bearded face to the wall. “Tell him to go and … soak his head.”
“Listen to me!” Vixa shook his shoulder hard. “You have a chance-we have a chance-to help ourselves as well as the Dargonesti. The chilkit have surrounded Urione. The siege must be broken. Gnomefire may be the only thing that can do it!”
“So what.” His voice was flat and emotionless. “Let the redshells have the city. We’ll never see the sun again, no matter who wins.”
Vixa yanked his arm, turning him to face her. She whispered fiercely, “I saw what happened to Garnath! Do you want the same fate for us all? If the gnomefire helps defeat the chilkit, Coryphene has hinted he’ll let us go. Our lives are in your hands, Gundabyr. Garnath saved my life. Can you save us all?” She stood and stared down at him. “Show the blueskins what a forgemaster of Thorbardin can do!”
Gundabyr stared at her for a long time. Suddenly, he exhaled sharply and hopped to his feet. He stalked past Vixa and the patient Egriun.
“Well,” he said to the sea elf, “what are you waiting for? Take me to your Protector. If he wants gnomefire, I’ll give him a crab boil he won’t soon forget!”
The dwarf’s proud words echoed through the chamber. When he and his escort had departed, Vixa allowed her trembling knees to bend at last. She sank to the ground. The terror and excitement of the past twenty-four hours had left her weak and wrung out. Her mind was filled with thoughts of Harmanutis and Vanthanoris, of Captain Esquelamar and all the others who’d been lost on this journey.
Her first command was supposed to have been a simple task: pick up the ambassador-what was his name? Quenavalen? — and take him safely home to Qualinost. She hadn’t thought of Quenavalen or the Ergothian civil war in many days.
How many days had it been? The lack of day and night made things extremely confusing. The weary princess occupied her mind for several moments trying to determine exactly how long she’d been in this city of sea elves. She guessed five days since they’d been brought here by the dolphin shapeshifters. It certainly seemed much longer.
She was so very tired. Vixa’s eyelids began to droop. Armantaro came to sit beside her. She dozed, leaning against his shoulder, while he watched the comings and goings of their captors. Racks of arms were dragged out and rapidly distributed to those who’d lost their weapons in the previous battle. Helmets were repaired or replaced. A single warrior casually stood watch over the former slaves. Even this guardian seemed unnecessary. None of the exhausted, bedraggled slaves appeared capable of making an escape, and even then they would have to get past the chilkit surrounding the city.
Vixa had been sleeping only
a short time when the sound of Armantaro’s coughing roused her. “Are you ill?” she asked groggily.
“Not at all. I just swallowed more of the ocean than is prudent.”
She had to smile. “Adversity never wears you down, does it, Colonel?”
“So,” said Armantaro in a very low voice, “how did you survive in the sea, lady?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
He feigned amazement. “I? Doubt the word of my princess and commander?”
She sat up, stretching and yawning. “I thought I was dead,” she finally replied. “But someone took me up and restored me to life.” The colonel’s only reply was an upraised eyebrow. “Naxos, the dolphin herald,” she whispered.
“By Astra!”
“That’s not the half of it. There was no way for me to return to Urione, since I had no airshell, so Naxos offered me a solution.” She hesitated, now that the time had come to speak of it. Armantaro begged her to continue. “Naxos said I could become like him,” she finished.
The old colonel paled. “Like him? You mean, become a dolphin?”
Vixa nodded, watching the Dargonesti moving around them. “It was the only choice I could make.”
“But you’re an excellent swimmer, lady! You could have reached land!”
“Two hundred leagues? Besides, do you think I would leave you and the others behind? Is that what a Qualinesti officer does in time of danger?”
“No, lady. Forgive me. No child of Verhanna Kanan would abandon her troops.”
Armantaro’s mention of her mother brought that lady strongly to Vixa’s mind. The princess pondered what might be happening in Qualinost now. Did they even know she was missing? Somehow the bright, leafy beauty of her home didn’t seem real now. The only reality was Urione, the chilkit, and the life-and-death struggle being waged.
“Did I ever tell you about my son, Vintarellin?” Armantaro asked.
“No,” she replied, surprised. “I didn’t know you had a son.”
“My only child-he’s perhaps twenty years older than you. I was thinking of him just now. When he was very young, he came to me and asked permission to enter the priesthood of Astra. He had no interest in becoming a soldier, but wanted to learn the ways of leaf and vine.”
“An admirable ambition.”
Armantaro sighed heavily. “I didn’t think so at the time. The family of Ramantalus have always been fighters in their prime, and stewards of the Speaker in their old age. I told Vintarellin he would have to learn the duty of combat first.”
This harsh attitude seemed unlike the Armantaro Vixa knew. She asked, “And did he?”
“Oh, yes. I sent him off to a frontier post in northern Qualinesti. He became a remarkable archer and hunter. It was said my son could pierce the eye of a hawk on the wing. Unfortunately, blood and sport took control of him. He came to love the hunt, not as a necessary craft, but for the killing itself.”
Vixa didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry, Colonel,” she finally murmured.
“It’s a hard thing to say, but I despise my son. We haven’t spoken in over thirty years. He lives in the high forest, feared and hated by all-an outcast. It’s my fault, of course. I should have let him have his heart’s desire when he asked for it.”
“Maybe the blood lust was always in him. At least he expends it in the forest and not on his fellows.”
Armantaro said softly, “Parents complain when their children are foolish. They blame it on youth. I think it’s we who are foolish, because we’re old. We forget what it’s like to be young.”
Vixa patted his battle-scarred hand. “Parents and children always have problems. Look at my mother and me. I’m one of Qualinesti’s most acclaimed fighters, yet nothing I do is ever good enough for her,” she said ruefully. “I lack fire in my soul, she says. I’m sure she wonders if I am truly her daughter.”
It was the old colonel’s turn to comfort his princess. He spoke up quickly. “I believe the lyremaster set her straight on that score. As I recall, he told your mother in no uncertain terms that you were far too, ah, fiery for the arts.”
The memory surprised a chuckle from Vixa. She squeezed his hand and grinned. “You heard about that? Oh, he was a sour pickle, was Master Picalum.”
“No doubt he was, once you broke your lyre over his head. What had he done to anger you so?”
“He told me I had no rhythm in my fingers!” was the indignant response.
Armantaro laughed softly.
A troop of Dargonesti, their armor restored and refurbished, marched out of the House of Arms. New warriors straggled in, looking shocked and pale. From snatches of conversation that drifted their way, Vixa and Armantaro discerned that a sizable contingent of sea elves had been lured into a trap and slaughtered by the chilkit.
“This can’t go on,” Armantaro stated. “Coryphene will have to risk all in a final throw against them. If he sits tight, they’ll strangle this city and cut his troops apart, like gardeners pruning grapevines.”
Vixa agreed. Gundabyr had better hurry with the gnomefire.
A tense silence fell over the city of Urione. Within its graceful shell, a hundred thousand Dargonesti waited for the outcome of a strange race. Who would win, the dwarf or the chilkit?
No one was more uncertain than Vixa. She and Armantaro had remained in the House of Arms for a full day, not knowing what might be happening. Then a soldier had come, and they were taken to the Square of Artisans, where the dwarf toiled. Ostensibly they were there to help in the work, but the old colonel was of the opinion that their presence was more intended to keep the irascible dwarf calm and on the job.
In the Square of Artisans, where all the city’s workshops were concentrated, Gundabyr had the finest crafters beneath the sea at his disposal. They worked feverishly mixing the minerals the dwarf needed. Fortunately, the Dargonesti had supplies of each ingredient stockpiled in the city. They used the components for different purposes-for example, raw bitumen as the cement in their mosaic floors-so everything was on hand.
Making gnomefire itself was the simplest of Gundabyr’s tasks. How to deliver it, though? This question occupied the dwarf’s every waking moment. How could the Dargonesti spread the fire paste on the chilkit without spilling it on themselves?
“On land, I’d just tell ’em to toss the jars,” Gundabyr grumbled.
“Underwater the jars wouldn’t hit hard enough to shatter,” Armantaro pointed out.
“Yes, I know,” said the dwarf sourly.
Vixa made a suggestion. “How about some type of catapult?”
Gundabyr scratched a few calculations on the white tabletop. A cadre of Dargonesti crafters craned their necks to follow Gundabyr’s odd markings. They shook their long blue faces, exchanged worried looks. The drylander was mad, utterly mad.
“Thunderation!” Gundabyr bellowed, smearing the numbers with the heel of his hand. “A catapult won’t work underwater either! No skein could keep tension when wet, and anyway, we’ve got no wood for the frame! Blast and thunderation!”
Vixa folded her arms. “The main difficulty is that water is much thicker than air, yes?”
“Yes, yes,” Gundabyr replied testily.
“Yet fish move freely in it.” She thought of her own recent experience. “And the dolphins practically fly through it. Why? Because they have fins and flukes, and muscles to power them.”
“Hmm. Perhaps we could strap firepots to the dolphins,” the dwarf mused.
Numerous blue faces registered shock as the Dargonesti protested this idea loudly. Vixa held up her hands for peace. “No,” she agreed. “That’s a terrible idea.”
Gundabyr scowled.
Armantaro had been sipping from a shell of fresh water. “We’re making this too complex,” he said. “Simple answers are usually the best. How would we fight the chilkit on land? We’d charge them with cavalry armed with lances!”
The old colonel grabbed the shard of coal from Gundabyr and began to sketch on
the table. “If we were to use long shafts, thicker and stronger than the Dargonesti spears, attaching a pot of gnomefire to the ends-”
“We could ram the chilkit from a safe distance!” Gundabyr finished. He jotted down some figures. “The lance will be heavy, so we’ll put two soldiers on each one. Congratulations, Colonel, you’ve invented the firelance!”
The Dargonesti artisans quickly grasped the idea, and a basic model was made. Normally, the sea elves used a species of seaweed for their spearshafts. Dried and treated with certain minerals, the strands of seaweed became rigid and stayed that way, even in water. However, the strands weren’t thick enough for Armantaro’s firelance. This problem was easily solved by braiding a great many strands together before the hardening process.
“How much time do we have?” asked the colonel.
“It’s been two and a half days since the last chilkit attack,” Vixa said. “They’re still massing outside the city. There’s no time to lose.”
Virtually every artisan in Urione was drafted. Painters and house builders joined the shapers and toolmakers in turning out strong, thick shafts by the score.
Everyone worked that day, through the night, and all the next day as well. Armantaro caught snatches of sleep in the potters’ den. Here pots were fired over a volcanic vent. It was the warmest, driest place in the city. Gundabyr spent most of his time supervising the making of more gnomefire than had ever been concocted at one time. Vixa helped inspect the final products before they were assembled and the gnomefire added to the pots.
The pots themselves were cylindrical, with a socket on one end, a lid on the other. The shaft of the lance went into the socket, and a pair of bronze pins was inserted to hold everything together. The gnomefire paste was poured in, and the lid anchored with a sticky, waterproof jelly made from mashed kelp. The resulting firelance was twenty feet long, weighing almost one hundred pounds.
On the second night of work, Vixa was alone in the warehouse, counting pots and shafts. Coryphene arrived with only a single warrior as escort. The Protector of Urione watched the Qualinesti princess from the doorway until she turned and saw him. Vixa dipped her head in a brief salute.
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