Friendly Fire

by Dale Lucas

  Rem wanted to reach out to him, to lay a hand on his friend’s thick, square hand, to offer some comfort. Was that permitted? Was it even his place?

  “Ammi knows well the end of it all,” Osma was saying, her voice and tale now fading in Rem’s consciousness, replaced by his concern for his haunted partner. “The dwarves were strong, and so they fought when Stormblight assailed them. They were also tough, so they endured, even when Stormblight punished them. And oh, how Stormblight cursed—”

  Without warning, there came a pounding at the door. Rem nearly jumped out of his seat. Torval’s inward reverie visibly collapsed. The dwarf turned toward the knocking at the door, blinking, like a man emerging from a dream.

  Don’t answer that, Rem thought. No good can come of it. Who would come here so late, on such a night?

  But the spell was already broken. The tale of Stormblight, the expectation of the feast, the sense of familial warmth and togetherness—that infernal knocking had scattered it all, like fallen autumn leaves blasted by a gust of wind.

  Torval was up and across the room in four long strides. Rem, preparing himself for something terrible—he knew not what—lifted himself off his bench and stepped clear of the table.

  Torval opened the door. A young boy in rough-spun woolen clothes stood outside.

  “You’re the dwarf called Torval?” the boy asked.

  Torval nodded. “I am. What’s the meaning of this?”

  The boy handed Torval a folded note. “Just a runner, sir, begging your pardon. This is from the prefect. He needs you and your partner at the court of Eldgrim, in the Warrens.”

  Torval stared at the note, but did not open it.

  “He said to hurry,” the boy said.

  Torval turned to Rem. Rem felt his stomach curl into a tight, sickening knot.

  Gods, what now?

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The runner was tipped, apologies were issued to the family and Indilen, then Torval and Rem armed themselves and set out for the dwarven quarter. Thank Aemon Rem had worn his sword tonight—mostly just to assure his and Indilen’s safety on their nighttime stroll. He hadn’t truly intended to put it to use. Terrified of the prospect of Indilen heading home alone so late at night, Rem made her promise to stay with Osma and the children until morning.

  “And don’t give me that cack about how brave and capable you are,” Rem said, smothering her sure-to-come resistance before it even appeared. “I know that well, but even I wouldn’t walk these streets alone at night. That’s why Torval follows me everywhere.”

  Indilen had accepted that, kissed him deeply, and wished him luck. Once they were out of the house and under way, Rem asked Torval what he thought awaited them.

  “Whatever it is, can’t be good,” Torval muttered.

  It was closing in on midnight, so the streets were largely deserted and an unnatural, almost funereal, silence seemed to press in around them. Every moan or sigh of the wind tumbling down a side alley was amplified, while every cat mewl and mongrel bark sounded as if it were just over their shoulder. Finally, after what seemed an eternity marching through the biting cold and oppressive stillness of Yenara’s benighted streets, the pair arrived at the ethnarch’s citadel. And there, to their mutual surprise and chagrin, they found ample activity and excitement.

  The first sign that something was amiss was the crowd of curious onlookers—mostly dwarves, with a few curious humans among them—crowded before the citadel gates. They pressed forward, jostling as they went, shouting, inquiring, while a full platoon of house guards formed a broad picket line between the public and the compound gates. As Rem and Torval shoved their way through the milling, pressing throng, intent on the gate and the citadel beyond, they heard the guards admonishing the crowd, pleading that they fall back and make some space before the walls. When, after a laborious slog through the crowd, Rem and Torval finally made the gates, they flashed their lead badges and stated their business. The dwarven guards, too concerned with the crowd to care much about a pair of low-level watchwardens, all but yanked them forward, cracked the gate, and allowed the two of them to slip through.

  Inside the compound there was no less activity. House servants and members of Eldgrim’s court drifted and clustered about the dooryard and gardens, most wearing nightshirts or house robes, their talk all furtive whispers and hushed gossip. There were more citadel guards as well, their armored, liveried presence far more conspicuous and intimidating than it had been on Rem and Torval’s previous visit. The guards were in loose formation, skulking on the periphery of the meandering knots of courtiers and house staff, but their primary duty seemed to be keeping everyone corralled near the ethnarch’s manse and allowing only permitted personnel beyond the gardens, into the vicinity of the great temple. Rem and Torval’s passage through the courtyard was aided by their badges, though none of the dwarven guardsmen seemed pleased by their presence. Whenever challenged, they’d flash their badges, then receive the same broad directions: carry on to the manse.

  Hirk was waiting for them outside. The big, strapping second met them when they emerged from the milling crowd of dwarves, and hastily apprised them of the situation as the three of them mounted the manor house steps and approached the guarded front doors.

  “It’s bad,” Hirk said. “Murder and desecration in the dwarven temple.”

  Torval stopped in his tracks. Rem and Hirk took a few more steps before realizing they’d lost him. When they turned back, they saw Torval standing by himself in the shadow of the ethnarch’s manse, staring off over the heads of the courtyard crowd toward the temple itself five hundred yards away. Rem hurried back.

  “Torval?” he asked. “Are you all right?”

  His partner nodded absently. His eyes slid sideward, toward the looming temple, then back to Rem. Together, they once more approached the waiting Hirk.

  “The victim?” Torval asked his superior.

  “A priestess of the temple,” Hirk said quietly. “One witness—a younger priest. A bunch of men in masks, he said.”

  “Masks?” Rem asked. “Again?”

  Hirk shrugged. “That’s what he said—the little bit I heard from him, anyway. Now come on, Ondego wants you two present.”

  He led the way. Rem and Torval fell in behind him. Present for what?

  Eldgrim was speaking—shouting, actually, loud as a mad bull elephant—when two of the Swords of Eld escorted Hirk, Rem, and Torval into the great chamber. The audience for the ethnarch’s outburst consisted of his wife, Leffi, two male priests whom Rem recognized from their previous visit, the ever-silent, ever-scribbling court secretary, and two armored, liveried dwarves whom Rem marked as high-ranking commanders of the Swords of Eld. Ondego and Queydon stood nearby—unlucky representatives of the wardwatch, stoically absorbing the brunt of Eldgrim’s fury.

  “It’s clear to me,” he was saying as Rem and company crossed the room to where Ondego and Queydon stood, “that your peace officers are woefully undertrained and undermanned to deal with this threat! If I’m not mistaken, Prefect, just say the word. I’ll have the Swords of Eld on the streets bolstering your patrols by morning.”

  “If I’m not mistaken,” Ondego said, droll as ever, “our jurisdiction ends at the gates to this compound. That means these vandals and murderers slipped by your Swords of Eld just as nimbly as they escaped the notice of my watchwardens. Your priestess died inside these walls, not outside them.”

  Eldgrim rose up off his throne and pointed a thick, accusatory finger at Ondego. “You dare make sport of this calamity?”

  “Hardly,” Ondego answered. “I’m trying to make sense of it. Now stop making threats and start working in concert with us, milord. You summoned us here, did you not? You ordered me, upon my arrival, to put my watchwardens to work studying the crime scene, did you not?”

  Eldgrim saw Torval now at the prefect’s elbow. His expression immediately darkened. “Why is this one here? What use has he?”

  “He’s one of my best,�
� Ondego countered. “If you want answers, he’s one of the bloodhounds most apt to track them down.”

  “He’s an outcast,” Eldgrim said. “A wretched vagrant. Given his hatred for his own kind, I would not doubt this foul deed was his own.”

  Torval took a single step forward. Ondego held out one arm, a silent command to stand fast and keep his gods-damned mouth shut. Rem entertained a moment’s amazement: how many men or women, elves or dwarves, in all the world, had the power to both fetter Torval and keep him silent with a single movement?

  The prefect’s self-control was starting to slip. Rem could see it in the way his eyes narrowed, and in the ever-lowering sound of his voice as he answered the ethnarch’s accusation.

  “You see here,” Ondego said slowly. “I don’t give four turds and a bucket of piss for the mule-headed feud that exists between the two of you as dwarves. If there wasn’t work to be done and my people waiting to do it, I’d say the two of you could each take up arms and have at it to settle your differences, right here, right now.”

  “The proud ram does not answer the challenge of a goat,” Eldgrim said.

  “And cocks shouldn’t clash when there’s a fox in the henhouse,” Ondego answered, then barreled on before Eldgrim could interrupt him. “My point is, a member of this household lies dead, and we stand here—all of us, the goat included—ready to lend a hand and find those responsible. To see justice done. Don’t waste another fucking moment of my time trying to settle old scores or tell me how to do my job.”

  “Were we both Hallirwelk,” Eldgrim said slowly, “I would see you flayed for your insolence.”

  “But we’re not,” Ondego said. “And you won’t. What say we end the pissing about and get to work, eh?”

  Eldgrim, to his credit, seemed to be working—actively working—to calm himself. He paced before his throne. He breathed deep. He hung his head and thought before he spoke.

  “Forgive me,” the ethnarch finally said, “but I find it difficult to place my trust in you, Prefect. Your methods have, thus far, proved inadequate to protect us. How, then, can they be sufficient to find the criminals? To see them punished accordingly?”

  Ondego sighed. Shrugged. “You’ll never know ’til you try, mate. Will you or won’t you?”

  Eldgrim bristled at being addressed so informally. Mate. Rem had to fight an urge to burst out laughing.

  “Go to it, then,” Eldgrim said. “But I warn you, Prefect—and this is a promise—if your ragamuffin street brigands cannot keep my people safe, my personal guard will.”

  “They’ll do no such thing,” Ondego snapped, losing his almost-returned composure again. “Law enforcement within the city walls is the job of the wardwatch, period. Vigilante committees and mercenary security forces are strictly forbidden by the criminal code. You can deploy your Swords of Eld within these walls and as picket sentries all you like, but if I see a single pair of armed and liveried dwarves patrolling my streets, I’ll clap them in irons and toss them into my deepest dungeons. And they won’t see the light of day again until you, milord, come to pay their fines in person.”

  Eldgrim grimaced. Clearly he had not dealt with Ondego enough to know just what a belligerent, argumentative bastard the prefect could be—or how protective he was of his ward. After a moment of silent fuming, Eldgrim finally just reclined in his ceremonial seat and turned his face away from Ondego, like a petulant child giving his mother the silent treatment.

  Ondego waited. Rem knew he would not set one foot inside that temple—crime or no—until the ethnarch or someone in authority gave him explicit leave to do so.

  Leffi saved the day. The ethnarch’s wife stepped forward, folded her hands before her, and addressed the prefect with perfect courtesy. “My husband’s heart is heavy, Prefect,” she said to Ondego. “The events of the past days, and now this …”

  “No explanation is necessary, milady,” Ondego said, and he seemed to genuinely mean it. “Just give the word. We are here to help—to serve.”

  “Go, then,” Leffi said. Rem saw Eldgrim turn toward her—ever so slightly, as though ready to scold her, then thinking better of it. “Go to the temple, glean all that you can, and find the men who took Docent Therba away from us. Her death is not just a tragedy … it is an abomination.”

  Rem heard her voice threatening to crack, but also noted how much control she still exercised over herself. Her eyes were dewy, on the verge of tears; her voice was wavering; but she maintained her composure. She remained strong, detached, and in the moment, no slave to her grief or her outrage.

  Unlike her husband.

  “An abomination indeed,” Ondego said, almost sighing as he spoke. “You have my word, milady, justice will be done for her. For all of you.”

  Eldgrim snorted derisively from his throne. Leffi’s eyes flicked toward him for the barest of instants before she turned her attentions back to Ondego.

  “We ask no more,” she said. “Go now. Our soldiers will assist you in any way necessary while you are on the grounds.”

  Ondego nodded, turned smartly on his heel, and marched straight for the door. Rem and the others fell in behind him, needing no explicit command to know that now was their best chance to be away before another argument started.

  “My vow still stands!” Eldgrim shouted at their backs. “If one more drop of dwarven blood is spilt, it will be my Swords of Eld seeking justice for our kind! Do you hear me, Prefect?”

  They passed through the door of the audience chamber into the grand foyer beyond, Eldgrim’s voice still echoing behind them.

  “I bloody well heard you, you prick,” Ondego snarled under his breath.

  Queydon was ordered back inside with Watchwarden Firimol to record testimony from the witness as an officer of the Swords of Eld led Ondego, Rem, Torval, and the others directly across the courtyard to the great temple. Armored house guards and watchwardens of the Fifth lingered outside the glowering edifice, both parties eager to get to work, but unable to do so until the prefect and the ethnarch had come to an agreement. The officer gave orders for the doors to be opened, the great iron hinges squealed, and in moments their grim little band advanced through a dark, broad foyer, emerging moments later into the temple sanctuary. It was dim within, the space vast and the available light unequal to the task of filling it, but the lamps, torches, and candles on hand would have to do. The gods knew the Fifth had accomplished more with less in the past. Rem said a silent prayer that they could work a miracle and resolve this mess before dwarf-human relations grew any rockier.

  Once inside the sanctuary, Ondego turned to the lot of them, Rem, Torval, and Hirk having been joined by five more watchwardens to aid in their investigation: Djubal, Klutch, Hildebran, Horus, and Pettina. The watchwardens all clustered together now, shoulder to shoulder, as their prefect addressed them.

  “Go over it—every inch,” Ondego said. “Every crack, every crevice. Do it fast. I don’t know if our kind host will have a change of heart and shoo us off, so treat every moment like it’s your last opportunity to see what there is to see.”

  “Sketches?” Torval asked.

  “On it,” Klutch said, brandishing a bag Rem had seen him with before, crammed with parchment, paper, and charcoal, so that hasty renderings of a crime scene could be rendered for later review. However Klutch vexed Rem with his teasing, the man was a true artist with his charcoal and worked at remarkable speed.

  “Aye, then,” Ondego said. “Get those back to the watchkeep the moment you’re through, Klutch. Sketches or no, though, I want everyone here to give the place a once-over with their own eyes. Your intuition might pick something out that the sketches won’t reveal. To work, you bastards.”

  He clapped his hands. The watchwardens present scattered into the sanctuary to start examining the crime scene.

  Torval led Rem up the center aisle, past a great, black pool of congealing blood that stained the flagstones just a stone’s toss from the altar. A rough outline of the slain priestess’
s prone body—already removed—was apparent both in the gelid mass of the blood pool itself and beyond, where seeping blood had stained the priestess’s unfurled robes and haphazardly impressed her form on the flags. As Torval knelt and examined the pool, Rem moved around it, closer to the altar and the main stage of worship. He studied what he saw, trying to imagine what the temple might have looked like when orderly, for it was now in complete chaos.

  The stone altar was too heavy to move, but a great pile of scrolls, brass lamps, censers, and bowls of unburned incense and old ash now lay scattered about its base. It also looked as if someone had taken a quarryman’s hammer and chisel to the altar itself. Though the huge masonry could not be moved, it had been cracked and riven by several powerful blows. A heavy stone brazier lay toppled and broken to one side, the cinders and ash once contained within it now strewn everywhere, without a lick of heat or fire left in them.

  Rem mounted the platform steps. Off to the right of the altar were a series of elaborate wooden arks—stoutly made chests of oak and hickory and ash in a number of sizes, all well lacquered and tightly fitted, chased with brass or bronze, hinges and lock assemblies rust-free and well oiled. Rem supposed these must have been reliquaries, to hold the holy sacraments and artifacts employed in the course of dwarven worship. Every one of those chests had been demolished, overturned, their contents strewn all over the stone dais: a bottle of expensive, fragrant oil, smashed; more incense—the rare stuff, from the far east or the sunbaked south—scattered like kindling and crushed beneath heavy bootheels; bound codices and more artfully inscribed scrolls torn to shreds, their contents littering the worship area like oversize confetti.

  A terrible smell suddenly tickled Rem’s nostrils. He stepped nearer, trying to get a better look at the detritus and wreckage. There were puddles, stains, and thick brown curds of some unknown substance stuck here and there. The smell and the color told Rem what he was looking at.