An Emperor's Gamble (Legend of Tal: Book 3)

by J. D. L. Rosell

  Now, finally, he knew the dangers that others had always faced, and accepted them poorly.

  When he finally tired of miserable remembrances, he passed the time by croaking old songs to himself:

  Farewell to thee, my Dandelion

  The road to Heaven's Knoll is long

  And I have too few coins to pay

  I'll return to you, some far-off day

  He broke off the refrain with a cough, the strain too much for his tired throat. In the silence, he remembered the many times he had sung that ditty to Ashelia, to her rare, wild laughter. He would pursue her, seeking the depths of her embarrassment, and she would nearly shriek like a girl as she sought to escape. He smiled into the shrouded room, though it hung limply like a sail on a windless day.

  "I have more good memories than I've a right to," he muttered.

  But if he'd learned one thing in all his years, it was that a man could never have enough good so that he wouldn't want for more.

  Tal startled as the door opened, then flinched away. Even as his whole body craved to stand in sunlight, the sudden brightness of the torch was agony to eyes long adjusted to blackness. Still, loathe to be entirely unprepared for the guard, he squinted through the pain to stare at his guest.

  "Another cup of water, I trust?" Tal rasped to his captor.

  "All I can offer." He heard more than saw the dwarf enter the cell, then close the door behind.

  Tal was surprised to find he recognized his visitor: Kherdorn, the silver-bearded sentry who had first met him at the edge of town. As Tal's eyes adjusted, he found the dwarf looked much the same as then, though he had removed the horned helmet, and deeper creases lined his face as he stared down at Tal hunched on the ground.

  Wordlessly, the dwarf placed the torch in a sconce on the wall behind him, then handed Tal the cup of water. Tal cradled it with trembling hands. It took a great effort not to drain the entire vessel in one gulp, but sip at it instead. He knew that, in his condition, drinking too fast might provoke the liquid to come back up, a mistake he could ill afford if he hoped to survive.

  For several long moments, Kherdorn only watched him drink and leaned against the wall, his thick arms crossed over his chest. Tal observed him in turn. He wondered how old Kherdorn was. Dwarves were not quite as long-lived as elves, but their lifespans far exceeded humans or goblins. As Tal understood it, many only started to gray after seeing a century. That Kherdorn was so silver of beard and hair alluded to at least a hundred and fifty years to his age, if not greater.

  The elderly dwarf broke the silence."I remember you, you know. From your time among the clans."

  Tal glanced at him and shrugged. "I didn't exactly blend in."

  "There were other mercenaries in the mines and the Deep. But I remember you. You always had that look in your eyes, like…" Kherdorn frowned. "Like a starved mongrel."

  Tal laughed, the sound grating like a rusted saw put to wood. "Like a wolf, I always imagined myself. But your assessment is no doubt the more accurate."

  "Khuldanaam'defarnaam." Kherdorn spoke the title almost wistfully. "'He Who Does Not Fear Death, For He Is Death's Hand.'"

  "Not wholly true, but poetry rarely is."

  "I didn't know you for what you were until after you'd fled. After you'd left Lord Yardin in a red pool. But then the other murders came to light. Norir, the copper mine warden. Henmor Craulton, one of the Hardrog elders opposing the unification of the clans under a king." The dwarf paused to spit disparagingly.

  "If you wouldn't mind spitting in the bucket — there's little enough clean floor in here as it is."

  "None of it is, if my nose is to tell." Despite the quip, Kherdorn's gaze remained hard on Tal. With the torch on the wall beside him, his craggy face fell into threatening shadows.

  Tal sighed, lowering his eyes. "I'm no mason, but even I can sense the false wall behind your words. Say what you mean to."

  He expected a vow of vengeance, that Tal had killed someone close to Kherdorn. The dwarf had nearly reached the end of his list of targets from back in those days, at least. Yet, with every tall tale, a few sins were bound to be subscribed to Tal that were not his own.

  Kherdorn took a step closer, and Tal braced himself for a blow.

  "I want to know why," the dwarf said in a low voice. "You have too quick a smile and too sharp a tongue, 'tis true. But then as well as now, you don't strike me as the sort who loves dealing death. It was in the tavern I most often found you down in our ancestral halls, drinking yourself into a stupor, as if your past might be drowned or washed away."

  "You have a vivid imagination, Kherdorn, but poor vision. Daggers rather than tortured souls hide behind smiles, in my experience." To illustrate his point, Tal flashed him a weak grin.

  The dwarf appeared unfazed. "Tell me, Death's Hand. Why did you kill those men? Why act the assassin?"

  The word hit him like the lash of a whip. Assassin. He hated the title no more than Death's Hand, and certainly less than Magebutcher. But it was free of story and artifice, and he could not feign being misunderstood with that unadorned designation.

  He could not pretend to be anything other than a killer.

  No smile touched his lips as he looked up at Kherdorn. "I've only told one man of this before. And I would trust that friend with my life."

  The dwarf didn't respond, but only crossed his arms again, waiting.

  Tal sighed. "Very well. I suppose after all my lies, it's past time to tell the truth."

  Meeting the dwarf's obscured eyes, he formed the words to his confession, one he had scarcely dared admit to himself before.

  "Those deaths, those murders — I did them at the behest of my employer. I—"

  He faltered and barely rallied his resolve. When he continued, his voice had fallen to a whisper.

  "I killed them in service of the Extinguished."

  Hunting a Legend

  Garin began his pursuit before breaking his night's fast.

  As soon as light filtered hazily over the rim of mountains, he left the room he shared with Falcon and knocked on Wren's door. He wasn't surprised when Ashelia answered, eyes shadowed and hair wild and untamed. Any embarrassment at seeing her disheveled had dispersed over the days traveling together, though it still came as a small shock. The Peer had always been supremely composed back in Elendol.

  "What is it, Garin?" She sounded a hint annoyed, though she was too tolerant to willingly show it.

  "Sorry, Ashelia. Wren's supposed to meet me now. I don't suppose she's up?"

  She stepped aside so he could see inside the dim room. "I suspect she will be the last to rise, as usual."

  Garin could just make out Wren's form huddled within the cot closest to the door. Muffled protests erupted from the blankets at the cold draft. From the second narrow bed emerged a smaller form.

  "Morning, Garin!" Rolan said cheerily. "Where are we going?"

  "You're going nowhere," Garin answered with a wry grin. "Wren and I are taking a walk around town."

  "No, I'm not," Wren called drowsily.

  Exchanging a glance with Ashelia, Garin entered the room and began methodically peeling off the blankets from Wren.

  Snarling curses too foul for Rolan's young ears, she managed to pull her coverings back on. "Fine! I'm getting up!"

  "You'd better," he warned. "Or I'll set your quilt on fire."

  Once, the black look she gave him would have set him to quivering. Now, he only grinned.

  It wasn't long before Wren stomped outside wreathed in her furs, though she remained in as sour a mood as before.

  "Do you have to be such a prat?" she muttered.

  He pulled his cloak tighter about his face. "This isn't just a stroll, Wren. The chieftain's hiding Tal somewhere."

  He did not need to say aloud it was more a hope than a surety.

  "I know that!" Despite her vehement irritation, she kept her voice low and her eyes scanning the town around them. "But it wouldn't kill him if we waited until after t
he morning meal to search..."

  Garin hoped she was right.

  Their circuit of the town didn't take long. Vathda had an impressive great hall, but there were few other buildings along the main thoroughfare. Most of the homes were carved into the surrounding cliffs — a hallmark of dwarven abodes, Wren assured him. But even with the interweaving canyons they had to walk down to visit every borough, he guessed it wasn't more than an hour before they were back before the great hall. Nothing they saw had looked like a prison, though he supposed one could have been secured behind any of the nondescript doors.

  "Maybe we missed a crevice," Wren mused as she stared at the cliffs behind them. "Vathda might go further back than we thought."

  "Maybe."

  Garin's suspicions traveled in a different direction. He wondered about a dungeon beneath the great hall, or perhaps off of the chieftain's chambers. Dathal seemed too mistrusting to leave prisoners out in the open.

  "Or maybe he doesn't have Tal, after all," she continued. "From how we last saw him, I doubt anyone could capture him if he didn't want them to."

  "I haven't seen any signs of a recent fight, though. You'd think he'd have left a few blasted houses behind."

  "Right. Which makes me think — are we sure Dathal knows anything at all? All we have to go off of is suspicion."

  Garin turned away. "I don't trust him, Wren. And I think he knows something. Just go with me on this one."

  Behind him, he heard her sigh. "Fine. But if your gut is wrong, we're going with my instincts next time."

  They went to the great hall for their morning repast. The feast that had taken place during their arrival must have been a celebration of some sort, for no dwarves thronged the tables this time. Garin hesitated at the entrance until the beleaguered steward bustled them over to a table to sit.

  Soon, he was sipping from a brothy soup thickened with cream and full of chewy mushrooms and tough, rooty vegetables that made his jaw ache to gnaw through. A fresh loaf of flatbread was also passed around, and though its smell and texture were different than Garin was used to, it was useful for mopping up the last of the soup. To finish off, each person was allotted a single, wrinkled apple, smaller than the palm of his hand. Though it smelled overripe from its winter storage, Garin bit into it and smiled at the taste of sweetness he and his companions had been so long deprived of. The fare was nothing compared to what he might have eaten in Elendol or the Coral Castle, yet he was grateful for the relief from road rations all the same.

  The clan leader was once again sitting in his chair, and he watched Garin and Wren eat for a long while before averting his gaze. Garin, for his part, tried to subtly survey the room. Of what he could see, the hall appeared unlikely to host a dungeon — there was simply no space for one. Yet, with few clues as to where else Tal might be, he tried to hold onto the hope.

  As they left the great hall, the food sitting heavy in his belly, Garin found his mood weighed down as well. Maybe he had imagined Dathal's fleeting expressions. The chieftain might be spiteful and capricious, but it didn't mean he held Tal captive, or even knew anything of him. In fact, it seemed very much in character to lead on his guests through unfounded conspiracy.

  Returning to his room, he found Falcon sitting up in bed and scribbling in a journal. Garin dropped down on his bunk and watched him for a few moments in silence before speaking.

  "What are you writing?"

  "Hm?" Falcon looked up with a vague smile, his focus slowly pulling away from the page. "Oh, just a few thoughts on our journey thus far."

  Garin glanced at his inked letters. "Looks to me like you're composing."

  The bard's grin turned sheepish. "Clumsily, but yes. I'm making my first stumbling attempts at continuing my life's work."

  The Legend of Tal. Garin held the name of Falcon's song in his head for a long moment before a thought brought him out of his reverie.

  "You mentioned something once — how Tal had a run-in with the Hardrog dwarves."

  Falcon set aside the journal and quill with obvious regret, then turned to face Garin. His remaining hand touched absently at his stump, which he kept covered by tying the end of his shirt. "Yes — he did."

  "Will you tell me the tale? Without embellishment," Garin added quickly.

  The bard flashed a wry grin. "I'll do my best."

  Falcon paused and looked aside, his eyes growing distant. The gold threads whirled faster for a moment, then settled as his gaze returned to Garin. His leaning posture now felt intentional, a pose, the performer in position at the beginning of a play.

  "Following the Red Summer — when Tal was known as Gerald Barrows and gained renown for driving the Yraldi marauders from the Sendeshi shores, thus becoming the Red Reaver — he remained a ruined man. Hunted by the Warlocks' Circle, haunted by his memories and his personal demons, he drifted inevitably toward that place where many broken warriors go: Dhuulheim, the land of the dwarves, and the perilous mines that keep the clans thriving."

  Garin had become statue still. He remembered Tal's confession back in Elendol. Garin had been abed, laid low by a wound from his supposed Dancing Master. As he laid there, Tal had told him how his father died.

  I'm glad you were broken then, he thought to the absent man. If you hadn't been, I could never trust you now.

  If Falcon knew the truth, he gave no sign of it, but only continued with his tale. "The clans' mines have always been a honeytrap for those seeking a violent end, and mercenaries have trickled there throughout the years. Between the endless, dull watch of the Fringes, the severe hand of the Reach soldiery, and the rumors of dwarven riches, many cannot resist the pull toward the mountain depths. It doesn't hurt that dwarves have ever been profligate in their vices. Every manner of oblivion can be found in Dhuulheim, should one seek them out.

  "As to what these mercenaries strive against, few details can be said of those creatures. Beasts, blacker and more terrible than anything the Enemy has sent down from the Eastern mountains, were woken from their birthplace at the heart of the World by the dwarves' delving. Embroiled in sorcery from conception, those of the Deep are potent beyond measure, and a constant threat to the rich mines that proliferate throughout the mountains' veins. With a wealth pried from the stone, the dwarves have ever lured greedy and desperate men to fight in their eternal war against the darkness.

  "So that autumn, Tal — Barrows, that is — joined their ranks, and descended into the Deep. Only, where other sellswords perished, he managed to stay alive. Wounded and half-dead, Barrows dragged himself back up from the battle with a creature that has no name, but has been called many things. Barrows himself only said this of it: 'If dragons had an older, meaner aunt, that'd be about right.' He claimed there was no killing the Deepspawn. Yet the fact that he returned at all made him of vital interest to many.

  "One of those was the advisor to Lord Yardin of the Hardrog clan, an elf who called himself Inanis. With hair as black as coal and eyes as bright as diamonds, this Inanis was ever whispering into the chieftain's ear, and his seeds often found root in the dwarf's mind. When he whispered of 'the Survivor,' Lord Yardin immediately summoned Barrows to his service. He paid the expenses for his recovery, then placed him as his personal errand boy for his most grisly tasks.

  "Only, unbeknownst to the chieftain, Barrows served two masters. In the dead of the dark, Inanis approached the Survivor and made him a proposition he could not refuse. Not all among the clans were unaware of Barrows' true identity. In exchange for not divulging his secret, and with rich compensation on top of it, the elf conscripted him into his service.

  "What this employment would entail, Barrows only discovered one night several weeks later. Inanis appeared in his chambers unannounced and told him of his first task: to assassinate an influential warden of a copper mine. The advisor stressed that the task must be done without discovery, or the act would be in vain. When Barrows protested, Inanis relented and told him the reasoning: that the warden was a mean-spirited man who beat
his workers and left them to die if monsters invaded the mines. Barrows held this rationale tightly in mind and went about his task. Sure enough, the next day, the warden was found dead in his bed. Though not an elderly man, all assumed he had passed away in his sleep.

  "Barrows hoped that would be the last of the favors. But it wasn't long before Inanis returned with another name and another list of excuses. Not seeing another choice, wanting to believe what he was told, he killed while others slept, then drank away the guilt during the waking hours for a month at a time.

  "But his ignorance couldn't last. Slowly, word of his victims began reaching his ears, and the lies Inanis had told him unraveled. The mine warden had not been a cruel man, but a kind one. A smith, who was supposed to be underhanded and cheated her customers, turned out to be a saint who fed orphan children. Slowly, willfully slowly, Barrows picked up a pattern among his victims: to a one, they were good-hearted, lawful folks.

  "Barrows knew he could no longer remain blind to what he did. Though buried deep under blood and violence, his conscience awoke and compelled him to take a stand. But no sooner had he resolved to put an end to Inanis' demands did the advisor appear with one last request: to end Lord Yardin's life.

  "At first, he refused. He had just made up his mind to stand up to Inanis, after all; he could hardly lose resolve at the first encounter! But Barrows believed the orders to kill had come from the chieftain all along. And when the advisor told him to kill Yardin, he believed the elf had finally awoken to his conscience as well.

  "So Barrows complied. It was his most difficult job yet, for the chieftain went nowhere unguarded. Blood was shed beyond just his target, but in the end, no dwarf could stand against the Survivor. The chieftain died in the chair he had ruled from.

  "While Barrows still stood in the throne room, Lord Yardin's blood staining his blade, Inanis entered. Behind the advisor came more Hardrog warriors than even the Survivor could take on. Inanis accused Barrows of treachery, and though the dwarves wanted to crush his bones then and there, the elf persuaded them to leave the execution for a more public display.