Jason frowned. "I don't understand."
Maherralen nodded. "That's correct. You do not understand."
"We're just here to—"
"—take the Slovotsky women with you," Kennen said.
Well, that was true as far as it went; they were there to load the Slovotsky women on Ellegon-back, and dispatch them to Holtun-Bieme, as per Walter Slovotsky's instructions.
Jason said as much.
"But can we trust you with them?" Kennen said.
It's not your decision, Jason thought. It was Walter Slovotsky's. If Kirah or the girls wanted to go against Slovotsky, that was a family matter; Jason wouldn't try to force them to come along.
But they weren't here. Tennetty leaned over and whispered in his ear. "I get the impression that the Slovotsky women may not even know we're here."
"That is quite true," another dwarf spoke up, his deep voice gentle. "I am Neterren, son of Kedderren. I request that you don't think so unkindly of us."
Jason nodded. "I will hear you."
"Ah." Neterren's smile broadened. "You know something of formal argument. To begin," he said formally, his gravelly voice taking on a sing-song quality, "I was with Kirah when she gave birth to Doria Andrea," he said, spreading his hands in front of him. "I held her when she took her first breaths. To continue, it is important to me that I know she is going into good hands."
"Or? Would you keep them here against their will?" Tennetty snapped.
Neterren smiled sadly. "No. We couldn't do that," he said. "We—"
"It's all I can do to understand the filthy idea," Kennen said.
"Sure."
"Tennetty, hush," Jason said, turning back toward Neterren. "To respond to your beginning," he said in dwarvish, pacing his words with traditional slowness, "your friendship with the Slovotsky family is noted, and accepted. To respond to your continuation, it is important to me, too, that the wife and daughters of my father's friend go into good hands. Walter Slovotsky designated mine."
Maherralen shook his head. "Your word on that is not sufficient, and I am yet unpersuaded. You must convince me. I'll simply not let them know that you are here, if we decide not to trust them to your hands." The dwarf spoke sadly. "I like few humans, but I've grown attached to these three. Four, if you include their father."
"They were left in our care, Jason Cullinane," Neterren said. "We'll not simply hand them over. Not without being sure that it is right." He stared at Jason unblinkingly.
It felt something like when Ellegon probed Jason, but there was no mindtouch; it was as though the dwarf thought that by looking at Jason he could judge his essence.
But the moment passed. Neterren shook his massive head. "I can't decide. Not just from looking at you."
"Then they will be tested," the king said. He snapped his fingers at the nearest of the dwarf women, who glowered back and vanished through the curtains, returning with two large, silver drinking horns brimming with foaming ale.
"I am Wellen, son of Gwellin." Another of the dwarves stood. "I drink." He took one of the horns from the dwarf woman, gesturing with it to where Jason and the two other humans sat.
The dwarf tilted back the horn and began to drink. Both his capacity and speed were amazing; only a few gills of the brew dribbled down the sides of his mouth, running into his beard as he downed it all. He tossed the drinking horn end over end, high into the air, then caught it, slamming its mouth down on the table.
"Nicely done," the king said.
The dwarf woman walked over and handed the horn to Jason.
It was huge. There was no chance that he could possibly down it all.
"Wait," Durine said. "Is the test just for him, or is it for all of us?"
Neterren smiled. "You pass the first test; you ask a good question. Yes, Durine, the test is for any and all of you. We shall decide what is success and what is failure."
"Not you," Kennen snapped.
Durine stood. "Then I drink," he said with a smile. "I can drink real good." He took the horn from Jason, then moved a few steps away. Durine tilted the horn back and drank.
The first few swallows went quickly, but then Durine seemed to flag, to almost choke on the no-doubt bitter ale, but the big man pressed on, finally lowering the drinking horn.
A brief smile flickered across his face, then he, too, tossed the horn into the air, the few drops of liquid that remained spinning off into the gloom.
He reached up to catch the horn as it fell, then slammed it down on the table just as the dwarf had. He stood, wobbling a bit, and belched hugely.
"Nicely done, Durine," Tennetty said. "What's next?" She patted her belly. "Eating?"
"I am Belleren." Another dwarf stood. "I wrestle," he said, stripping off his leather tunic and boots, leaving himself in only breechclout and leggings.
"You're mine," Tennetty said, standing, reaching for the laces of her tunic.
"We don't wrestle women," Kennen said. "It's embarrassing enough for Belleren to have to face a human in the first place."
Durine hadn't taken his seat. "I'll wrestle you," he said.
Jason stood. "No you won't. I'll do it." Durine wasn't drunk, but he would be in a matter of moments; that amount of beer on an empty stomach would go quickly to his head.
Jason stood and stripped off his tunic, then unbuckled his holster, handing it to Durine. "What are the rules?"
"Two falls out of three. Just proper wrestling, for me." The dwarf shrugged. "For me, grips only; for you, no weapons. Punch me, stick your fingers in my eye, throw me; anything. You can even keep your boots on and kick me. If I let you hurt me, I deserve it."
On grass, Jason would have kept his boots, but their leather soles could skid too easily on the stone; he sat down to take them off.
"Let me." Tennetty smiled as she squatted in front of him and unlaced his boots. "I think you've drawn the hard one," she whispered. "How much do you want to bet the next dwarf says, 'I fuck'?" She snorted.
Jason shook his head. Tennetty always found herself diverting.
"Watch your ass," she said.
He'd been right to take off his boots: the stone was gritty and cold under his feet; it was like walking on sandpaper.
There was the metallic taste of fear at the back of his mouth as they moved to a clear space on the stone floor and squared off. Jason knew that a human with normal strength had no chance of beating a dwarf. But that wasn't the test. Or if it was, he had already failed. He'd failed tests before; it didn't kill you. Jason worked the muscles of his shoulders.
It wouldn't kill him to fail this test unless the dwarf wanted to kill him. Once those hands closed on Jason, it wasn't up to him. The dwarf could throw Jason on his head—or just twist Jason's head off.
There was a derisive laugh from one of the dwarves.
Belleren moved in, reaching for Jason's arm.
He remembered Valeran going on about unarmed fighting. You never have to be unarmed, the old captain had said. You've got feet and hands and elbows and a head—use them.
He snapped a kick at the dwarf's groin, but one of his opponent's hairy hands clamped down on his ankle, lifting it up, pushing Jason off balance.
The dwarf smiled; there were several gaps in the rows of yellowed teeth. "Not good enough."
He lunged for Jason, but Jason dodged to one side, lashing out with his foot and connecting solidly with Belleren's knee. The dwarf staggered to one side, his vulnerable back to Jason; Jason leaped on him to finish him off.
The dwarf stank of the unwashed sweat that slickened his back and bull neck. If Jason could get one arm around Belleren's throat and brace himself, he could choke the dwarf. Dwarves had stronger muscles than humans but that didn't make the arteries in their necks any more resilient. Cut off the supply of oxygen to the brain and—
—he was grabbed, lifted and slammed down hard on the stone floor, the force of his fall knocking the wind out of him.
He left a dark patch on the stone, where skin and blood ha
d rubbed off against the floor. He clenched his jaw, turning his scream into a high-pitched groan and fighting for breath as he fought his way to his knees, bent over, trying as hard as he could not to puke on the cold stone.
Both Tennetty and Durine were on their feet. He knew he was supposed to, he was expected to wave them back to their seats, but it was all he could do to fight for his next breath, to force himself not to scream at the white pain throbbing up and down his back.
Belleren waited for him to get to his feet. He wasn't even breathing hard.
Jason could breathe again, a little; he forced himself to his feet, his hands clamped over his belly, trying to force more air into his lungs.
"As soon as you're ready, we start again," Belleren said.
"No, slam him down now," Kennen hissed. "Two falls out of three."
"As soon as you're ready," the dwarf said again, waiting patiently.
Still clutching at the pit of his stomach, barely able to breathe, Jason staggered toward the dwarf.
"No." Belleren caught him by the shoulders, not ungently. "I'll wait until you're—"
Jason gave the back-handed shot everything he had, and caught the dwarf solidly on the windpipe.
"Gack," the dwarf said, his fingers tightening on Jason's shoulders.
"I'm ready now." Jason hit him again, in the same place, harder.
"Gack." Belleren released Jason and staggered back.
Jason didn't have much strength left, but he reached down and fastened his left hand on the belt holding Belleren's breechclout, and then smashed his right fist as hard as he could into the dwarf's groin. And again, and again.
"Grmph."
Jason let go of the dwarf and tottered away, as Belleren fell first to his knees, then to his face, clutching his crotch.
"If your dwarf can't get up?" Tennetty asked. "Jason wins?"
"Yes," Maherralen said. "There was nothing said about the giving of quarter; he need not wait for Belleren to recover."
Jason staggered toward the dwarf, who had gotten to all fours. All he had to do was jump onto the dwarf's back and fix a chokehold before Belleren got to his feet. All he had to do. . . .
He couldn't. If it had been a fight to the death, that would have been one thing; if lives hung in the balance, he could kick a man who was on his knees.
But Belleren had given Jason quarter. He had to wait, even if that meant losing.
And it didn't matter if that was the right or wrong answer to the dwarves—it was Jason's right answer. He forced himself to stand straight.
"I'm sorry I hit you when you weren't expecting it," he said. "I'll wait for you, Belleren."
CHAPTER 15
Janie
Those not present are always wrong.
—Destouches
Being right all the time is a real expensive habit.
—Walter Slovotsky
A wet cloth lightly slapped his face.
The cool dark reached out with vague fingers for him again, and he reached for them. It was much better to fall back into the murk, much easier than dealing with all of the pain.
The cloth slapped his face again, harder.
"Go 'way," he tried to shout, but it only came out as a mumble.
This time it was a hand—not slapping him; tugging at his arm.
"Go away." He slipped back into the dark.
"That's the thing about Cullinane men," Tennetty's harsh voice said from a long way off. "They don't wake up easy."
Another voice laughed, a sound of distant silver bells. "So Dad used to say. Can you do anything more?"
"I have done almost all I can do," a deep dwarvish voice said. It took a moment for Jason to place it: Neterren, the least hostile of King Maherralen's court. "He needs sleep now."
"He can sleep in the air," Tennetty said. "If you don't want to wake him, I will." Metal slid against leather, flesh thunked against flesh and steel rang on stone.
The darkness swam toward him, but he pushed it away, far away, and forced his eyes open, swimming up into the harsh blue light of the glowsteel hanging overhead.
Durine had Tennetty pinned against the stone wall. The room was small, and crowded; the other two had backed away to give Durine room. Durine had both her wrists in one of his hands and—
"Stop," Jason shouted. It only came out as a harsh whisper, but that was enough. "Let her go."
Durine shoved her away, hard.
"That's two, shithead." Tennetty eyed him stonily. "I was just going to touch him with the knifepoint. Wakes you up real quick."
Stooping to pick up the knife, Durine shook his head. His eyes didn't leave hers for a moment.
Jason's first reaction was to reach for his weapons. His fingers went to his side, to where one pistol lay, wrapped in his tunic. He slid his fingers inside the tunic, letting them rest on the cool steel.
Naked from the waist up, Jason was lying on a mattress bag of some sort—much softer than anything he was used to—which rested on a wooden frame. He forced himself up on an elbow, and found to his surprise that he could.
Rising to his less than majestic height, Neterren smiled down at him. "Feeling better, young Emperor?"
Actually, he was. He reached his hand to where he'd scraped half of the skin of his back off against stone, and touched only flesh. It was overly sensitive, like the skin under a scab that had just come off, but it didn't hurt at all.
"You're a healer?" he asked, as Neterren felt at Jason's wrist.
"A keen eye for the obvious runs in the Cullinane family," Jane Slovotsky said as she moved around to where he could see her. There was something unusually graceful in her walk, something like a warrior in a fighting stance.
He'd only seen that kind of walk a few times before: it was the kind of studied grace possessed by a few of the more prominent members of a traveling acrobatic troupe that had passed through Biemestren a few years before. Both men and women always walked with perfect balance.
It was the same kind of grace that Walter Slovotsky had. Balance ran in the Slovotsky family, it seemed.
She was dressed in leggings and a mannish brown cloth tunic, long enough to be more of a shift, belted tightly at her waist to reveal a slim but definitely female figure. Her light brown hair was cropped short, framing a face with high cheekbones, ever-so-slightly slanted brown eyes, and thin lips bent into a smile that was partly friendly, partly mocking. He knew that she was fifteen, about to turn sixteen, more than a year younger than he was, but her appraising look made him feel like he was being examined by somebody at least five years older.
"When you're done checking me out, maybe we can re-introduce ourselves," she said. "I don't know how well you remember me, but we were kids together ten years ago, I'm Jane Slovotsky."
He reached for something clever to say. "You grew up." That wasn't it.
She laughed again, and he wasn't sure whether she was laughing at him or with him.
Neterren released Jason's wrist. "You'll feel better in the morning; it would be best if you rest for the remainder of the day, though." He turned to the humans. "He could use some more sleep."
Jane shook her head. "I'll be short."
"Just a little time, eh?" Neterren smiled.
"Got a few things to talk over with Hero, Junior, here." She folded a blanket over into a cushion, dropped it to the stone floor next to the bed and seated herself on it, tailor-fashion.
Neterren's eyes twinkled. "Then I'll be sure you don't tire him."
Tennetty shrugged. "We might as well leave." She turned to Durine. "I'll keep an eye on him while you go tell the others, outside."
Durine shook his head as they walked to the door. "I'll be outside, young sir, if you need anything. Tennetty will brief the others." He closed the heavy wooden door behind him.
"How did I do?" Jason asked.
Neterren's brow furrowed for a moment. "Oh. The third fall. Belleren picked you up and slammed you down, in less time than it takes to say it. Bunged you up fairly heavily
, too."
"I thank you for healing me, Neterren," he said formally, as he'd been taught to give thanks.
"You can thank him for the use of his room, too," Jane said. "Such as it is."
"I don't need much, Jane," the dwarf said. "The cell serves my needs."
"I mean," Jason went on, "did I pass the test?"
Jane snorted. "Think it through, hero. You were being tested, among other things, to determine if you're good enough to protect me. You lost—and to an opponent you could have beaten. Maherralen doesn't impress too easily, and that didn't do it."
But the dwarf king had said that if Jason didn't pass the test the Slovotsky women wouldn't even know that he was there. He said as much.
Neterren smiled. "Jane has run through these warrens for ten years; she knows them as well as any Endell dwarf does. She also knows the hazvarfen, the echo paths, better than anybody else." The dwarf gave her an affectionate pat. "She was listening. The Slovotsky women are free here, young Emperor. We aren't . . . constituted so as to be willing to hold them here by force. It is still my opinion that you shouldn't go, Jane," the dwarf said.
"To begin," she said formally, in dwarvish, only cheating a little on the gutturals, "I do not rely upon Jason to protect me. That big ox of his looks like he would be better at such a thing. To continue, if he does protect me, it's going to be with a gun, knife, bow or sword—I do not think that any matters of importance are dependent on his mastery of the art of wrestling, no matter how highly the Moderate People rank that art. To continue further, any issue of danger aside, it seems to me that I must go along. I invite discussion." She waited.
The dwarf nodded. "I respond to your beginning: I am concerned about your well-being. I respond to your continuation: I am concerned about your well-being. I respond to your further continuation: I am concerned about your well-being, and—"
"You are stalling," she said in Erendra. "You won't hold us here by force, but you would prolong the conversation forever." She threw up her hands in exasperation.
Neterren chuckled. "Very well, little one. I'll be back to check on you later, Jason."
Guardians of the Flame - Legacy Page 39
