The Four Forges

by Jenna Rhodes

  A soft knock interrupted all possibilities. Tiiva did not wait for an answer but looked in, saying, “Pardon, Highnesses. Azel d’Stanthe appears to be neither losing nor gaining ground.”

  “Which is a victory in itself,” Jeredon replied. The pillow-crowned queen did not stir.

  Tiiva closed the door gently but firmly behind her. “Also, I have obtained some word from the trading guilds. I think,” she added tentatively, “there is a rather large grain of salt to be taken with this. Messenger birds carried in news. Abayan Diort has forced an alliance with the city of Inthera.”

  “Forced? Word has it he was born there.”

  “They hold no allegiance to him,” Lariel muttered, her voice barely audible.

  “I think the guild is painting the news in their favor, in fact, inviting a certain panic, to make markets spike, unless I miss my guess.”

  “How so?” Jeredon watched Tiiva, immaculately coiffed and dressed, her gown falling in fold after fold of the richest material, yet never hiding her lithe figure or attributes. He’d often speculated that it would take the entire guild of traders to keep her clothed.

  “Tales are being told that Diort brought down a flood on them, cracking the valley dam wide open, and forcing them to their knees. From the storm that just swept through here, and others customarily in the summer, I think it’s more likely that Inthera drowned on its own and caved to his repeated requests for alliance to receive aid. We’ve all seen high summer flooding before as storms sail in from the south. Dams have given way before and no doubt shall again.”

  “Discount all of the news but the alliance then.”

  “It seems prudent to do so. Such manipulations are far below us.” Tiiva curtsied, deeply, toward the couch and reclining Lariel before waving farewell at Jeredon.

  He had his head turned to the door, watching the last of her curvaceous figure retreat when the cushion was flung at him, catching him soundly across his ear.

  “Damn Oxfort. We passed that petition of his, and now the guild is driving up prices in a panic, while their toll fees are dropping.”

  “Such is business.” He fired the pillow back at her, catching her squarely in the jaw. “At least you can rest easy tonight knowing that Azel seems somewhat anchored.”

  “I’d feel more at ease if I knew what he wanted to tell me that he felt he could not pass to Sevryn first.”

  “Something so Vaelinar he felt it best not to discuss openly.”

  “Don’t be an idiot, Jeredon. I know that. It was also something he did not wish to send by any messenger, as we keepers often do.” She sat up with a sigh. “I’m turning in. Go find yourself a bed.”

  And she threw the pillow back at him in a helpful way.

  He called after her, “Hopefully, I will find a bed with more curves and less lumps!”

  His answer came in the form of a snort from the other room.

  She waited until quite sure he’d either gone or fallen asleep, before donning a rain cape and vaulting over the balcony railing to drop down lightly into the street. Rainfall began again, in tiny, misting drops this time, without the fullness or the heat of the day’s storm. With only a slight hesitation, she moved in under the cover of the balcony and waited.

  “M’lady. It seems you knew I’d be watching out here.” The deep male voice sounded faintly aggrieved.

  “Daravan, you are everywhere. I knew if I went walking anywhere in Calcort tonight, I’d be bound to trip over you sooner or later.”

  “That you should wander at all is an ill omen. Don’t think that Kobrir’s job is done, with Azel dying.”

  “I would never be that hopeful.”

  “What news, then?”

  She fell in with him as they moved through the night, Daravan weaving an unseen path for them. She immediately thought of him as a Dark Ferryman in his own element of nightfall. “Azel abides. Neither better nor worse, which is on its own a triumph.” She skipped a small puddle, and his arm shot out to grab her around the waist and pull her to him. Her breath left her a moment as she looked up and could see only his eyes briefly, before he turned away and put her back down on her feet.

  “Pardon, m’lady.”

  “No pardon needed for trying to help me, but I do pardon you for thinking me clumsy.”

  He chuckled at that. “No other news?”

  “Only what you’ve probably heard on the street, some outlandish trader guild stories about Diort conquering Inthera. I’ve no doubt he’s brought Inthera in, but doubt he single-handledly flooded them to do so.”

  “Wild tales flood like Petitioners’ wine this time of year.

  That Inthera has fallen to Abayan’s . . . charms . . . seems likely, however.”

  “I agree. I will have to put eyes in that direction although it seems the ild Fallyn have already been looking eastward.”

  “The ild Fallyn look everywhere, including under their own beds. But do they see?”

  She did not answer immediately. He took her by the hand, his own larger and more calloused than hers; though hers handled weapons as capably as his, she felt herself thinking of her father’s hands, guiding her, a very long time ago. His touch stirred her and she pulled her cape’s hood up to shadow her face as the mist increased to a drizzle. A man did not often possess enough strength to impress her, and not all of Daravan’s lay in his body. An enigma among all the Vaelinars, she knew as little of him as any of them did.

  “Azel told Sevryn he wanted to build new libraries, across the continent, and throw them open to any who wished. Our lives would be bared.”

  “He’s expressed similar ideas before.”

  “But never put them before the Conference. He has never been a man without sound foundations.”

  “He’s survived. He’ll soon tell you why.”

  She stared into the night, putting her chin up to the soft rain, and watching the clouds in their sullen march through the evening. “It fills me with uneasiness, as if Time stands against me, and I have no blade with which to cut It down.”

  “If you’re uneasy, then I shall be also.” Daravan let go of her hand. “Make sure Sevryn stands by you. I’m going east, to look at matters for myself. Give me a man, if you wish, and I’ll see him placed within Abayan’s troops.”

  “He’d have to be Galdarkan. There are none with Vaelinar blood within them. That’s one cross we’ve not made since we came here.”

  “If you haven’t any at your call, I do.”

  “Good. Thank you, Daravan.”

  He gave a half bow. “Unlike the others, Warrior Queen Lariel, I know what trials you passed to gain your title, and to prove yourself worthy to keep Larandaril. I know what you sacrificed, what you compromise, and what you gain by your vows. We should all bow before you.”

  He was gone before she could protest, and she bit back her words, for he could not possibly hear them unless she shouted, and what she wanted to say she would not have anyone else hear but Daravan. Not even her brother Jeredon.

  No one else could know her heart and bear it.

  The rain stopped pattering, and she took it as an omen to return swiftly to her balcony, climbing a nearby column to swing onto it and back to her room, making a note that she should be moved at least another story higher for security.

  She leaned over the balcony to look back.

  Yet another figure moved below.

  A face tilted up, a glimmer of moonlight breaking through the clouds to illuminate it. Sevryn saluted her.

  She would have to stop being so damn predictable.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  “YOU’VE DONE WELL, recruit.”

  “Aye, sir, thank you. It comes from good teaching.” Not all of it from the city, a good deal of it from Tolby, but Hosmer believed in giving credit where it was due, and what he’d said had been no lie although it made his drill captain pull his lips into a thin smile. If further truth be told, if all recruits were trained as he’d been, the city would be in poor shape for guards. He’d
had days of training, not weeks or months. He’d have to put the word out to the militia that they were needed and would be welcomed by Calcort. The only muscles in his body that ached were those in his face, from being kept straight. Tree’s blood be praised that Garner had not been allowed to follow him in, for Garner would have been mocking them in his way and Hosmer would never have kept his somber pose.

  The Silverwing militia would never believe him that a ranked man had been the recruit class drill man, as well. A captain? Had he no better use to the Town Guard than that? But Hosmer would not question it. He would prove himself worthy, and better.

  He held the folded bundle of his tabard under one arm, like the other recruits, as the drill captain returned to his post in the center of the guardhouse quad.

  “New recruits, I salute you. Wear your tabards in loyalty and with honor.” His blade flashed out, nearly missing cropping Hosmer’s left ear, as the captain saluted them. Whickering straightened as if totally unaware of his near mishap and gazed down at them.

  Hosmer bit his cheek as he donned his uniform. It fell into place about him, a little looser than it had been days ago when he tried it on for the first time, so perhaps the workout had been a bit more strenuous than he’d given it credit for. Still, nothing that he or, for that matter, even Rivergrace and Nutmeg could not have handled. Shinnying trees, hauling harvest carts, and chasing young goats about had kept them all in fairly good shape.

  He turned to Buttennoff, whom they all liked to call Butterknife for his skill with daggers, saying, “Come to dinner tonight to celebrate?”

  Buttennoff studied him, light Kernan blue eyes indecisive. “You have sisters?”

  “I do, but pay them no mind. Their personalities are horrible, and they’re going to treat you rudely no matter what you do.”

  His friend had no family in the city, having come from the southern capital, and would be alone this evening. Buttennoff relaxed visibly, his good-natured handsome face breaking into a smile. “I will do, then. Pick me up at the barracks after duty?”

  “See you.” He trotted off after his patrol sergeant to get his assignment. The new recruits usually worked on foot as horses and their upkeep were expensive in the city, and the back ways and alleys were often more suitably roamed by foot patrol anyway. He’d gotten his own quarter on assignment, and couldn’t decide if it was terribly good sense or awfully bad judgment on the captain’s part. Good sense, because he should know his own ground well, and bad in that, if there were any corruption to be had, it would be gotten through that same familiarity. Perhaps the captain hadn’t even given the matter thought at all. He seemed to have the Mayor’s Ball more on his mind these days.

  Captain Whickering fussed more about that gala than any of the clients that bothered his mother, and hell knew she had her hands full of finicky women. He could only give praise that it wasn’t in his shift for guard duty.

  Hosmer would do his best, and if that pulled up the rest of the guards’ standards by their bootstraps, so much the better.

  Afternoon made little difference to the heat, as it lingered in the paving stones of the walkways and on the storefronts and columns, so that as the sun lowered, its assault did not diminish, nor would nightfall make it much cooler. Shyna pushed her hair from her face as she stepped from Lily Farbranch’s shop, frowning. Her lips felt chapped as she licked them, and her throat dry as sand, and she made her way across the rutted street quickly, only the prospect of something wet and strong perking her up. The need for a drink ached inside her, a deep gnawing ache, something she’d expressed to Adeena often though her cousin had never understood. Oh, it would hurt tomorrow morning, too, after she’d drunk and woken up, but it wasn’t the same. The pain from having a finger squished in a window shutter was different from having a needle stick, wasn’t it? No one doubted the difference there!

  She shrugged in her light cotton gown, damp under her arms and against the back of her neck, sticky with summer heat. She’d find a cool corner, mayhap, before the tavern filled, and sip her discomfort away. Then to home, a snuggle with the old man and a bit of supper, and bed. It wasn’t a grand life, but she’d come to expect little, and as long as her old man didn’t mind her drinking and kept a roof over their heads, things could have been worse. She ducked her head against the summer heat and hurried along the alleys to the small tavern she liked best, The One-Legged Frog, and slipped inside.

  It wasn’t that they knew her at the Frog, which they did, or that they let her run a tab, which they didn’t, but that the tiny lodging stayed relatively free of the choking toback smoke the Dwellers loved to chuff in and out, as most of the customers here were of good Kernan stock. Dwellers had overrun Calcort since she’d been a girl, taking jobs and good housing, and though she couldn’t deny they were a hard-working lot (unlike the aristocratic Vaelinars who never seemed to do anything of worth but always had coin), she felt crowded by them. Not a word could she say, though, not with Thom Stonehand their hearty mayor. As popular as he was short, not much grousing about him would be tolerated. No, the best she could hope for her lot was to be allowed to sit in her cups in the evenings and a bit of work during the day to help pay their way. Someday, she and her mister planned to move outside the gates and grow a sunflower farm with little to do but watch the tall yellow flowers reach to the sun, go to seed and be harvested while they sat in rockers on their porch.

  “What’ll it be, Shyna? Jug of the same? We’ve got some decent hard cider if you want a change.”

  “Dweller mill?”

  “Aye, a new one.”

  Shyna muttered as she pulled up a chair and sat, and shook her head a vigorous no. “Give me my jug,” she ordered, as she made herself comfortable, leaning back into the dim corner, feeling some of the sun’s glow on her face fade.

  “Will do.”

  By the time the small place filled to the brim, she’d been through her allowance of two jugs and sat morosely looking at the dry bottom of the second, preparing herself to go home while still in a delightfully rosy, if melancholy, haze. Someone jostled her arm, and she nearly dropped the clay jug, which would not have gone well, for the tavern cleaned and refilled the jugs from their cellar of kegs, and she frowned.

  “Sorry, lass. Well, if it isn’t a sewing maid from our shop!” a voice sounded softly by her ear, a voice that lilted of the elven and Shyna frowned deeper.

  “What a pout! Don’t tell us that fussbudget of a Dweller works you to the bone. Let us buy you a drink or two, a well-earned tip for good work,” a second added, as two lithe forms slipped into chairs at her side. Shyna would have protested, but the jugs came out of nowhere and sat frothing on the tabletop before she could and truth be told, she did deserve a bonus for all her hard work. She picked up a jug. “To your health, m’ladies,” she toasted, and sipped the foamy brew delicately, so as not to lose a drop.

  The tavern being dim and the jugs overfull, she found it difficult to recognize the two veiled ones near her, although the one with a bit of copper skin showing beneath her gauze looked familiar. Gods knew that Lily Farbranch and her daughters drew the elven to their wares, as though good Kernan coin wasn’t good enough. She set her jug down. “I thank you,” she said formally, despite her thoughts, and a soft burp ruined her attempt at manners.

  If they noticed, they gave no sign. Instead, they launched into idle gossip about fashion and gowns for the summer dances, smiling as Shyna loosened her tongue a bit and talked about that cape and this dress and such, proud of her work. Somewhere deep into another jug, the copper-skinned one leaned forward, saying, “That sounds beautiful. If only I could see it, I might order another one for myself. Alas, the shop is closed, we passed it on the way here.”

  “I,” began Shyna, interrupted by a slight hiccup, “can get in.”

  “Surely not. You’ve a key?”

  “Keys!” Shyna fluttered her hand about loosely. “Locks ’r nothing for those who know ’em. Want a look? I’ll give you one!” She lurched to
her feet.

  With a sway and an occasional reel, she led the elven women down the lane back to the shop which did indeed seem very quiet and dark and closed for the night. Shyna squinted up and down the street. Very late, it was. She hadn’t noticed. Her old man would be more than miffed at her. The free drink was fine, it was that she hadn’t brought any home to share with him! She put her hand on the shop-keeper’s lock and brought out a stout pin. With a twist and a few pokes, she had the lock open and dangling, and the three of them pushed their way inside, giggling.

  The taller one, with dark brunette hair, pushed her veil away as she lit a sconce, and took Shyna by the hand. “Show me, show me!” she called gaily, but the copper one seemed more interested in shelves and drawers and the like to Shyna’s confusion, as the first led her away. They pawed through the finished clothes and veils, twitching them back into place so no one would be the wiser, when the second whistled sharply from the workroom after many wooden bangs, slides, and shufflings.

  “I have it,” she said.

  Shyna blinked. “What’s that?”

  “Nothing, lass, nothing. Galraya says we should go.” The unveiled one patted her hand. “What fun we’ve had.” She pushed two tens of silver into Shyna’s hand. “Take a jug or two home on us, and lock up tight.”

  Befuddled, Shyna watched the two gathered up at the threshold, the copper-skinned one muttering as if unhappy, “The message was here all right, but they’ll not know what it means. It must have dropped out of the goods. Tiiva must be told as soon as possible.”

  “Sssssh. Have you got it?”

  “No, I left it, no one will be the wiser. Get the lock for her, she’s so drunk she’s fumbling it!” And the copper one fled into the night.

  Shyna frowned, losing the words from her thoughts almost as soon as they were spoken, as her new friend closed the shop for her and put the shopkeep’s lock back into place. She clenched her hand tightly about her coins. The unveiled one pulled her covering into place and touched Shyna’s forehead gently.