by Glen Cook
The Aelen Kofer could not be touched by the Construct. They could make no contact whatsoever with its powers. Neither Heris nor the Ninth Unknown had the strength to move the smallest, lightest dwarf using the Construct. They had to be sailed from the Realm of the Gods to the mainland. Then they had to walk. The sailing part took many trips over two weeks. The weather was that foul.
Iron Eyes insisted that his entire following make the winter trek. He feared the new middle world.
Cloven Februaren was expected to provide supplies.
He had no problem with the essential concept. It was winter. There was little to be had out there, by theft, hunting, foraging, or purchase. Most of which options would bring the Aelen Kofer to the attention of middle-worlders. Iron Eyes did not want to be noticed.
Cloven Februaren had a problem with the execution. The work involved was overwhelming. Supplies in quantity could be obtained unnoticed only in Brothe. Then they had to be transferred out to where the dwarf company labored across the icy landscape. Which going proved murderous early on.
Cloven Februaren and Heris put in eighteen-hour days just to keep the Aelen Kofer from starving.
It was a long journey and dwarves were hearty eaters. Weather never stopped being an evil challenge.
On the other hand, the Night was no trouble at all. The minor Instrumentalities seemed thoroughly dedicated to shunning the Aelen Kofer.
Dwarves were slow travelers. And reluctant, quarrelsome travelers. Some days the band did not move at all. Which left the Ninth Unknown thoroughly frustrated as well as exhausted.
Further complications arose once they reached lands where middle-worlders still lived.
Iron Eyes wanted to remain mythological. Forever, if possible.
Though the dwarves formed a sizable company, remaining unnoticed was not difficult at first. But that did take increasingly careful scouting. Which, of course, further slowed progress.
Februaren held off exhaustion long enough to get a meal inside himself. Iron Eyes intruded. “This would be easier if the Old Ones were still in charge. We could ramble around wherever we wanted and the folks would be eager to help.”
“Too bad they’re all sealed up, then. We could bust them out, easy, if they just weren’t all locked up.”
“You’ve got a sour attitude on you lately, you know that?”
“I expect it’s because of the company I keep.”
For sure. The Aelen Kofer were making him crazy. He was worried about his health. At his age he ought not to face prolonged stress and physical labor. Though he had the Construct to support him — he was, practically, part of that machine — there were limits to what he could overcome.
Most of today’s Grail Empire was wilderness. That had not always been the case. But the fall of the Old Empire and several passages of plague had reduced the population by two-thirds. The Aelen Kofer mostly went unnoticed when they stuck to the wilds.
There were incidents. Even deep wildernesses got visited by hunters, woodcutters, and just plain wild men who could not stand the stress of civilization. The more self-confident of those reported having seen dwarves.
The news caused no excitement. Country people knew strange beings lived in the woods. No local prince or count called up the levies.
***
The fortress had no name. The nearest village was eight miles away. No one there talked about the castle. The villagers seemed unaware that it existed. Few ever went into the forest more than half a mile. Yet a ghost of a road led to the fortress, a recollection of a way that might have been important in some century now forgotten.
Cloven Februaren used the Construct to be waiting at a gateway through what looked like an innocent boundary defined by a split rail fence. On his side, that frozen memory of a road, a biting wind, and scattered precipitation that felt like a shower of frozen needles. Beyond the fence, possibly a little less enthusiasm for winter. But only a little. Patches of ice and piles of snow were plentiful. There was a glistening glaze on otherwise barren branches. Some wore little icicles, like rows of teeth, on their undersides.
On the top sides there were crows.
The Ninth Unknown stared, only vaguely aware of the racket being made by the Aelen Kofer approaching. He tried to guess how many crows. How many hundreds of crows. Or maybe ravens. He could not tell the difference with them just sitting there. Nor did he much care when faced with the question of why they were silent and still.
Crows were never silent, and seldom still for long.
Sorcery.
“Of course it’s sorcery, you ass!” he muttered at himself. “The question is, what kind of sorcery? And to what point?”
“Double Great?”
Februaren jumped. Heris had turned into being beside him, unnoticed. “Just thinking out loud, child. You want to take a turn? Why are all those damned crows over there? And why are they so quiet? They ain’t sparrows but they still bicker in their damned sleep.”
“Somebody spelled them so you’d work yourself into an apoplectic lather worrying about why they’re quiet.” Then, in her best spooky voice, “Or maybe they’re not crows. Maybe they’re demons spelled to look like crows.”
“Muno is still laughing about inflicting you on me, isn’t he?”
“I was drafted. But I bet he is sitting in front of a nice fire, maybe with a cute little boy on his lap, drinking coffee and chuckling. What’s this over here?” Heris headed for the gateway.
“Stay back! We can’t just go prancing in! No telling what that might trigger.”
“I’m not going in, Double Great. I’m looking to see what this is.” She indicated a chunk of weathered board tangled in the remains of last summer’s weeds.
“It does look out of place,” Februaren admitted. Grudgingly. Because he should have noticed himself. Long ago. Maybe even the first time he came exploring.
Heris pried the board loose, cracking it lengthwise in the process. The old man took it, again failing to note an important point. He rotated the board so he could see the wet side. “Something written here. It must have been a sign. Hard to make out. Ah. In Firaldian, roughly, it says, ‘Beware of the wolves.’ And something else that I can’t make out.”
“Never damned mind that! Look!” Heris pointed. Vigorously.
A skull and some long bones lay where the sign had hidden them, sunken into the frozen mud under the dead weeds.
“Well,” the old man observed. “That’s something to keep in mind.” He eyed the crows again. They seemed mildly amused. He had stumbled across an old acquaintance of theirs.
Heris asked, “You think they’re hoping we’ll join this guy?” She shuddered. The cold had nothing to do with that.
A heavy tread approached from behind. The old man recognized that step. Khor-ben Jarneyn. Tired and hungry. “That the place?”
“It is,” Februaren admitted. “I’m pretty sure. I’ve never dared go look.”
Iron Eyes pushed between man and woman. Other dwarves rattled and clanked and came to a halt behind them. “How come?”
“It might be dangerous. Why take chances before you need to?”
“To have some fun? Huh! Might be dangerous?” Iron Eyes stepped up to the opening in the rail fence. The crows began to stir, but settled again when he stopped a foot short. Iron Eyes spent two silent minutes glaring straight ahead, at what looked like some kind of structure looming behind a dense growth of leafless trees. Then he came back. “Lots of magic in there. We’ll camp. We’ll rest up. We’ll eat and get our strength back. See if you can bring in some goats. When we’re full of piss and vinegar again we’ll go grab the Bastard. I’ll pick bits off till he says he’ll help us.”
Februaren considered insisting on wasting no time. Anytime now the Windwalker might …
Iron Eyes would remind him that the Windwalker was beached on a stony Andorayan shore, barely able to keep himself together. If Kharoulke regained strength enough to start something he would send his Chosen out long before he
regained enough power to do anything directly. The Aelen Kofer would love that. They were spoiling for a fight.
A dustup with the Ninth Unknown would suit them if he started questioning their tactics.
Februaren said, “You all just get comfortable, then. Enjoy your time off. Heris and I don’t have the luxury. Come, Heris.” He touched her so they would stay together while the Construct moved them.
They materialized inside a little-used room in an out-of-the-way wing of the Delari town house in Brothe. Februaren said, “If we’re going to waste time resting we might as well be comfortable.”
Heris grunted and nodded and said, “I can buy into that. Though I don’t expect to do a lot of loafing. Those dwarves need to eat. But not before I get a hot bath and a couple decent meals inside me. Food. Glorious food. If Piper could just not bug me for a few days I’d be in Heaven.”
So, naturally, valuable loafing time got wasted on talk about what was happening in Alten Weinberg.
***
Khor-ben Jarneyn needed three days to steel himself for the next phase. During that time temperatures rose enough for the ice and snow to start melting.
“Spring is in the air,” Februaren declared. No one got the joke. He sulked, muttering about a congenital Aelen Kofer immunity to humor.
That third morning Iron Eyes said, “We’ve determined the bounds of the place and the three general classes of sorceries protecting it. Since you two aren’t the usual hero type that charges straight in just to see what happens, we’ll experiment before we do the time-honored Aelen Kofer slithering attack.”
“Slithering attack?” Februaren asked.
Iron Eyes ignored him. He barked orders in dwarfish. A couple dozen crossbows materialized, the dwarfish variety so powerful their bolts could punch through granite. So the Aelen Kofer claimed. The weapons began a moaning chorus of strings slicing air, slapping stops, and bolts humming downrange.
The crows over yonder shrieked, outraged. A score had become explosions of blood and feathers. Cursing, they took wing, their cries and pounding wings overwhelming the aria of the Aelen Kofer crossbows. The dwarves impressed the Ninth Unknown by downing the birds on the fly. Maybe fifty, total, died in Jarneyn’s experiment.
The dwarf said, “That didn’t bring anybody out. Maybe the Bastard doesn’t worry about his far-seers.”
“He can afford to lose a few more than Ordnan since he started with a thousand.” The All-Father of the Old Gods, the Gray Walker, had had only two ravens to keep him informed: Thought and Memory.
“You could be right, sorcerer.” Iron Eyes chuckled.
“You laughing means what?”
“The magic here is familiar. Old Gods magic, crudely done. The kind the Aelen Kofer have worked for thousands of years. The Bastard would appear to be self-taught and hasn’t had to operate around people who know what he’s doing.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning he’s never dealt with anybody who knows what he’s doing. Was I that opaque?”
The Aelen Kofer began to jabber all at once, in their own language. Heris remarked, “Sounds more like a gang of crows than a gang of crows.”
Aelen Kofer, and Iron Eyes in particular, were conservative where their dignity was concerned. Jarneyn heard Heris. He bellowed. The bickering stopped. Jarneyn barked something else, the essence of which must have been that it was time to get to work.
There was a plan. Despite all the noise. The dwarves jumped to it.
They ignored the gateway. Parties broke through the rail fence fifty yards to either hand, behind potent protective spells. Two parties of ten dwarves each advanced parallel to the remainder of a road. Four dwarves from each breach came along the fence, toward the gateway. Other fours followed the fence going away.
The rest of the company, fifteen Aelen Kofer including Iron Eyes, waited with Heris and Februaren. Jarneyn said, “You two keep your heads down. Pretend you’re not even here. You can be a big, ugly surprise if we need one.”
“That makes sense.”
Heris said, “Sure. Let him think it’s the past catching up when he’s really getting mugged by the future.”
Iron Eyes scowled. He did not understand Heris.
The crows became distressed. They tried swarming the dwarves. The Aelen Kofer did not mind. The birds could not hurt them. Helmets, beards, and armor protected them perfectly. Still, they were covered with gore and feathers when the birds left off.
The parties of four reached the gateway. They talked to Iron Eyes. One dwarf was kind enough to choose a language Cloven Februaren could follow. He delivered an entirely technical report about the architecture of the sorcery protecting the forest island.
In the Aelen Kofer view it was crude peasant fieldstone construction compared to an Aelen Kofer finely crafted formulation.
The craftsmen went to work on the gateway.
Minutes later Iron Eyes said, “The way is open, now.” He trundled through the gateway. “Definitely instinctual work. All self-discovery. But still damned powerful.”
“Must be nice to have a god for your mom,” Heris said. “All that kick-ass power. He must’ve been hell on wheels when he was a baby.”
Iron Eyes launched a tedious exposition about demigods not coming into their powers till puberty.
Cloven Februaren interrupted, “Another benefit: He’s been around and healthy for about a half-dozen centuries.”
Heris gave him a look but did not comment.
Iron Eyes, irked at being cut off, got in no hurry going forward. But, then, haste was a killer when dealing with sorcerous defenses. “Ah. And here come the wolves. We definitely caught this mob napping.”
These wolves were of a breed unknown to Februaren. Those now becoming scarce in Firaldia were gray and mastiff size. These had dark tan and almost black coats on their backs. They were larger. Some might go two hundred pounds. There were a lot of them and they were ferociously upset.
The Aelen Kofer did not mind the wolves, either. Foursomes crouched in a little shielded square and hacked at anything in reach. When one square broke under a torrent of wolves the dwarves just rolled up in balls and let their armor protect them while crossbows elsewhere worked on their attackers.
Februaren asked, “Why would the Bastard think wolves would be effective against people in armor?”
Heris snapped, “He doesn’t get many visitors wearing armor?”
Iron Eyes told her, “He doesn’t get any wearing Aelen Kofer armor. These beasts would shred regular mail like rotted cloth. You two get into the center, here. You aren’t wearing Aelen Kofer armor.”
Iron Eyes’s party formed concentric circles round Heris and Februaren.
The wolves came. All of them. Once. They tried leaping the outer ring. Many suffered from upward thrusts of spear, sword, or ax. But they were amazing jumpers. Several smashed into dwarves of the inner circle, on the fly, and bowled the Aelen Kofer over.
Februaren took Heris’s hand. They turned sideways. They then stood inside the tree line of the woods beyond the fence and observed.
The dwarves of the outer circle did not break discipline. They did not turn to help those behind them. They let Iron Eyes and his companions dispatch the wounded wolves.
The two parties paralleling the road stopped to lend supporting fires.
The wolves recognized failure quickly. The biggest and darkest howled. The survivors raced away, too fast to be targeted. Their tails were down but not so far as to concede defeat.
Heris and Februaren rejoined Iron Eyes. Who said, “That’s a damned useful trick, old-timer. You sure you can’t teach me?”
“Not if you insist on remaining Aelen Kofer.” He did not mention having noted that Aelen Kofer had more pathways to their own world than they admitted. How else to explain their company being more numerous now than when it had left the Realm of the Gods? It expanded only when there were no humans around to see it happen.
Februaren had a feeling the journey would have gone fast
er and more comfortably had the Aelen Kofer understood middle-world geography. They could have done the overland part in their own world, in a more gracious climate.
Februaren did not raise the subject. Iron Eyes would admit nothing.
Allies need not share every secret.
Iron Eyes said, “It’s too late for me to pick something else to be. This is your world. Have you ever seen so many wolves in one place?”
“No. I can’t imagine a pack numbering sixty or seventy.”
“Definitely not natural.”
There were seventeen dead wolves. Injured animals disappeared into the wood. The rest remained out of range but watchful. Respectfully opportunistic.
Heris said, “That’s not natural, either. And they aren’t interested in us because they’re hungry.”
The wolves all radiated health. They were well fed and well groomed.
Februaren asked, “What next?”
Iron Eyes said, “We go kick the door in and yell, ‘Surprise!’”
“That does sound like fun. Heris and I will be right behind you.”
Iron Eyes awarded the old man a narrow-eyed, sour, almost suspicious scowl. But he got his people moving. The crows raged in protest but kept their distance. Death came suddenly when a bird ranged too near the Aelen Kofer.
Likewise, the wolves. Awaiting their chance.
The bolt from an Aelen Kofer crossbow moved so fast you might only note a flicker before it hit you.
A grim, gray little castle lay at the heart of the wood. It looked deserted. Its drawbridge was down and had been for so long that weeds had crept in over its edges. The moat was turgid but the water did move. Barely. It was not frozen, nor was it more than two feet deep, but it was thick. The bottom was foul, loose mud that went down at least that much farther.
The surface of the drawbridge boasted dried leaves, a few dried weeds that had grown between the timbers, and several dangerous patches of ice. Around it, for thirty feet, lay a scatter of human bones.
Iron Eyes grumbled. “Those bones. I remember. Did you plan to remind me before … What?” The crows had gotten excited.
Two elderly men had appeared on the drawbridge. One carried a rusty old bill, the other a lance that had seen its best days centuries ago. They lacked no confidence. They prepared to hold the bridge.
