High Iron Read online

  “This must have been an impressive highway in its day,” Britta said.

  “We’ll put it on the list of things for our grandchildren to take back and renovate,” Jed said.

  Down below us on the street we saw Maghran walk into view. Herrar followed him, and behind her the rest of the dwarves. He looked up at us as we peered out the window.

  “You see nothing, I suppose?”

  “Nothing.”

  “How far this highway has fallen. At one time someone in your shoes might have seen a thousand horses marching down that road and not even remarked on it.”

  Now he lowered his eyes and looked over the building.

  “Good stonework, here. In this one, at least. Perhaps we built it for them.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “May we join you up there to eat?”

  “Of course. You are giving us title to this house?”

  “To the extent it’s mine to give, certainly.”

  The group entered and climbed up. As they appeared, one by one, I found it was good to be holed up in a room of sullen dwarven faces. I again smelled the leather and stone dust I always associated with them. They stumped around on the wooden floor, their wide backs to me as they moved to the windows. Their tools and weapons dangled from their shoulders and packs: the battle axes of Hrond, Inman, and Herrar; Hrond’s musketoon; Inman’s long musket; the small shovels of Herrar and Maghran.

  Hostenback sat down with his shoulders against a wall—well, he leaned back against it with his good shoulder— while the others spread out and took their own turns looking down at the roads outside.

  “This will do for the day,” Herrar said. “We will set out at night again. And then that will be the last time I hide my journeying for a long time, I hope.”

  “I suppose we do not risk a fire,” Britta said.

  “No,” Herrar answered. “We don’t know what eyes may be out here. And we are barely armed.”

  Once again I wondered if this little group of dwarves might have been willing to risk a battle with a force from Red Gorge, had they only had more guns with them. Perhaps they would have hacked down the scrub trees around the walls and set up a bonfire, just to attract a fight. The thought made me glad that they had in fact lost most of their weapons. I kept this to myself, of course.

  “We should sleep,” Maghran said.

  “Especially you,” I answered. “Those of us in the dungeon slept some of last night, at least.”

  “Hm, not much of a trade. I’d rather be free and up all night than sleeping in that hole. Someday we will make the dunters pay for that. A nighttime rescue teaches none of them any real lesson. I think of them wandering unmolested at our border, and then past our border, taking you,” he said, nodding to Herrar. “We must make them pay. Protect our bourn after the fact.”

  “The dunters had help, don’t forget,” Herrar answered. “Making Caranniam pay will be more difficult.”

  Maghran just grunted at this. After our recent ordeal, and Hostenback’s shooting, it was understandable that he was thinking of revenge on the dunters more so than on the wizards who had helped abduct Herrar and her escort.

  Hrond and Inman now sat on the floor, fatigued from their night digging and running. Shanter and Ferlingas, for their part, seemed to look each other over and then decide against sitting. Ferlingas asked:

  “We saw no water, in our little walk just now. Have any of you?”

  That’s why they were not yet settling down: they were filthy. I had never known them without their being covered by dunter grime, I realized, and it had not occurred to me that they likely preferred to have less dirt and stink about them.

  “There is a spring on the north side of town,” Jed said. “One street over, then all the way up. It has a short stone wall, you can’t miss it.”

  They gave him short nods and headed toward the stairs.

  The rest of us sat. The dwarves unloaded their hardware with thumps on the wooden planks. Jed and Britta seemed to float down like autumn leaves, compared to the noise and scuffs of all of them.

  Maghran spoke.

  “Master Shearer, you owe me a story. I told you about our unfortunate Twill, and the cobbers.”

  “Indeed. Do Herrar’s companions know that story?”

  “Of course. But in White Mount they claim his name was Dvill. And I believe he used larger coins.” He turned to Herrar.

  “Old Dvill put out shaved half-weights for the cobbers, is that right?”

  “That’s so.”

  Maghran snorted at this.

  “Twill, as we tell it, put out something smaller—just a few rounds. Pennies, you know. Everything is bigger in White Mount.”

  I saw Herrar barely, barely turn up a corner of her mouth in a smile, at this.

  “But now to you. You must have something, Aiman.”

  “Well, I know one. Our own work story. About the shepherd. The first one, you know. The first shepherd who was able to gather sheep and tend them. But Britta tells it better.” I looked at her.

  “Shall I?” she asked.

  “Please,” Maghran said.

  “The shepherd, then,” she said. She straightened up a bit where she sat, and drew in a breath.

  “This was when the world was young. In fact it was soon after the first winters began. Because you know that back in the beginning, the world was always in summer. You do know that?”

  “Very well,” he said.

  “But then the giant bears came, and with them their winters. But that’s another story. This woman I speak of, the first shepherd, gathered sheep for their wool—now that there was a use for it, with the cold—and watched them, and eventually sheared.

  “And she kept the flock together with a wooden whistle. She learned that they would listen to the sound, and she used it to guide them. The whistle was just a simple tube, and it played only one note. But she sounded it beautifully, and it spoke to the sheep.

  “Now back then, Wolf was always close by.”

  “Wolf.”

  “Wolf, the first. Yes. He was not a large creature, barely larger than those today, but he was smarter. And he stood up straight; many of our animal enemies were more like us, back then. Bear, Snake, thieving Crow; they walked and used hands, back in the beginning, because all of them were still vying with humans to rule the earth, and we had not yet beaten them down as we would.

  “Wolf had learned that he could never defeat the shepherd in a fight. The shepherd carried a spear, or a bow, always some weapon, and she was able to defeat Wolf every time. So Wolf learned to skulk, and hide, and move around the edge of the flock, always waiting his chance to take one by stealth. He seldom got any, because the shepherd was too smart for him. She was always watching her sheep, staying between them and Wolf, and using her whistle to guide them.

  “But one day a lamb ran away from the main flock, and the shepherd ran to find him. Wolf then did something very clever; unusually clever. He could have moved in and taken a single sheep, while the shepherd was away, but he thought better of it. He could have sheep for a lifetime.

  “Because he saw that she had left her whistle behind when she ran after the lamb. It was lying on the ground to the side of the flock, near a fallen tree where she had been sitting.

  “Wolf ran up to it. He grasped it, put it across his knee, and tried to snap it in two. But the whistle was made of thick ironwood, and he couldn’t break it. He tried again; nothing. Then he looked to his right, and left, and behind him. The shepherd was still far off. He had a sharp stone knife with him, so he began to use that as a drill. He set about ruining the whistle. He worked all day to run it through with holes, so it would no longer sound. He drilled as many holes as he could into it; he had time to punch six of them through. Then, just as darkness was falling, he saw the shepherd returning with her lost lamb. Wolf dropped the perforated whistle by the fallen tree and ran off.

  “Wolf was indescribably pleased with himself. He had used his smarts and controlle
d his hunger long enough to wreck the shepherd’s prized whistle, and now he would have the edge. Her flock had barely moved, and Wolf did not take one with him. He knew he could eat a sheep the next day, and the next and the next, when the shepherd’s sound failed her.

  “But of course the shepherd picked up the whistle and learned to play it with the holes, and now it was a flute. She was able to play entire songs, not just the one note. Within a few days she was nearly able to make the sheep dance with her music. It became even harder for Wolf to molest the flock, and eventually he was forced to drop to all fours so he could try to outrun rabbits and rats.

  “And that is how we shepherds learned to use flutes.”

  Britta finished with a nod. The dwarves murmured at this end of the story, and they applauded—even Hostenback.

  It was still broad daylight outside, and there was nothing to cover the windows, but still most of us slept. We unrolled blankets and covered our eyes. Tam Shanter and Ferlingas came back, then, wearing cloaks and little else as they carried their wet clothes in their hands. They wrung them out and laid them over the window sills. Jed and I stayed awake, keeping watch.

  “Tomorrow we can finally head home,” he told me. We spoke quietly.

  “Yes. Finally.”

  “I wish this were over. It’s been quite a journey. Especially for you. You don’t suppose Thona and Bollard will have mopped up the dunter problem by the time we get back?”

  This was a grim joke, of course, but I shook my head. “Quite a problem still to deal with. And now they have a load of cannons heading out as well. All of our work these past few weeks will be just the first piece of saving Emmervale, I’m afraid.”

  “You think the dwarves will really join us?”

  “It sounds like it,” I said.

  “That would be good. But this will still be a nightmare, Aiman. Many of our people will get hurt when we push those dunters out, no matter how much help we have. I’m afraid we’re going to see a terrible battle out on that plain. Something no one from Emmervale has seen since—who knows how long.”

  I could only nod along, slowly. I wished I had something better to offer.

  I then slept for a few hours. Jed woke me, too soon.

  “Aiman, Britta,” he said. “Get up. People are coming from the east. People in white and gray, at speed, and more in red behind them. All are coming right here.”

  “Varenlend and Caranniam,” I said.

  “It must be.”

  I sat up. I shook sleep off and then slapped Maghran on his back as I stood up.

  “Visitors,” I told him. “Coming from the east.”

  Britta and I moved with Jed toward a window.

  Some distance away from us, out to the east past the ruins, I saw the two groups as Jed had described. The Varenlenders kicked up dust, but through it we could see the red Caranniam pursuers behind them. Perhaps two dozen horses in the first group now approached the remains of the east side of the town wall. They were galloping hard. A few carried carbines.

  As they reached the wall they rode around it and turned to face their pursuers.

  Behind them came fifty or sixty riders from Caranniam. They ran hard, also, but seemed more methodical. As they neared the town they spread out to be able to outflank the Varenlenders on either side.

  The riders in white and gray mostly dismounted and crouched down behind sections of the broken-down walls. Their backs were to us, as they faced the red line.

  Maghran and Herrar now came up to us.

  “Much excitement here for a deserted outpost, Maghran.”

  “I wonder if these Varenlenders are remnants from the ambush outside Emmervale,” he said. “Maybe they have been pursued all this time.”

  Now one of them shot at a rider outside the wall. More shots followed. And then the mages of Caranniam responded, not with shots of their own but with magic: A few of them waved their arms, and the air in front of them flashed and then blurred. I guessed they were stopping Varenlend bullets.

  And then a man in gray reached out his hand, from atop the wall, and the land before him cracked and shook. Two of the pursuing riders were knocked from their horses, and stayed down.

  “I thought it would be all lightning bolts and the like,” Jed said.

  “Not even the best wizards have the power to keep that up for long,” Herrar answered. “That’s why they carry carbines, and blades.”

  It continued like this, a battle that was a combination of musketry and wizards’ blasts. I saw one Varenlend man load his musket with powder and ball, replace the ramrod, and then snap his hand; fire ripped away toward a line of the Caranniam horsemen. They flinched, and then he raised his gun and fired.

  “We should get down while we can,” Maghran said. “It’s all well and good if they have at each other out there, but if the Varenlenders retreat we’ll be in the crossfire.”

  “Or in their sights,” Herrar said.

  Everyone was up, now, and gathered blankets and equipment. Shanter and Ferlingas snatched their still-damp clothes and threw them on. We were the last three to head down; Britta and Jed went first.

  But when I reached the steps to descend, the floor changed. It became one solid slab of stone, somehow, and suddenly there were walls close around me. I turned around to try to see what had happened. I wondered if the little building had collapsed, and if this was my addled mind’s response.

  But behind me stood a woman, looking momentarily as surprised as I was. She was dressed in the white of Varenlend.

  “How do you know this place?” she demanded.

  “I don’t,” I told her. I don’t know why I felt I needed to respond, but I answered her. “I was in a building in Midwall.”

  “And you still are. But you found the inner passages.”

  “I was just standing on a second floor.”

  “Indeed. That’s how one starts.” She regarded me suspiciously. “I’ve never known anyone to just stumble upon our portal. But again, you may have a gift.”

  Now I recognized her:

  Annelle.

  She looked much the same as she had seven years before. Her jaw was lower now, and broader, but she had the same black hair, gray eyes. And of course she was still young. I had assumed she would have no idea who I was, but she recognized me instantly.

  “Aiman, it is you,” she said. “It’s no surprise you were able to enter.”

  “Enter what?”

  “This place. This is a hidden plane in Midwall.”

  “A plane?”

  “A place apart. Outside of your usual horizon, and used by my people for hundreds of years. Few can find their way in. But you are talented, still. The scion of Emmervale.”

  “We’ve no position like that,” I said. “What is this passage?”

  I looked past her. We were standing in a narrow room, or perhaps a hall, and beyond her it continued and looked less like stone and more like glass. There was light, past her; some source of illumination, somehow. There were gaps in the walls that might have led to more rooms.

  “A hall in the other plane,” she repeated. “There’s no other way to describe it. It is space between the spaces out there. In here we are not visible to anyone outside.”

  “Varenlend has always known of this?”

  “Yes. It has been a meeting place for us. And a refuge.”

  “Why not bring all your companions along?”

  “Not all of them can know this. If we all used it, Caranniam would learn. So here we can hide for a moment.” She shook her head. “It was much better circumstances for all of us when we met years ago, wasn’t it.”

  “I would say so.”

  “We should have pressed you harder, Aiman. We could have used you. We still could. We had a plan, then. A plan to elevate Caranniam and Varenlend, together; and it would have helped Emmervale too. Lovely Emmervale with your fields and your old ways. It would have worked. But Caranniam talked us into another plan, and now we have their treachery. You know Sok
ran is dead, and Annira also?”

  “No, I did not know that. We haven’t heard.”

  “Killed outside your town, when Caranniam struck us in the night.”

  I did not consider offering condolences, of course, and she did not seem to expect them.

  “So you were there, too,” I said. “Outside our town.”

  “I was. We were all to assist in the attack on Stenhall. But now that alliance is over, and again I want you to contribute your power to us, Aiman.”

  “You attacked us. You sent dunters into our streets.”

  She shook her head dismissively at this.

  “That was only a foraging raid of theirs. Our target was Stenhall.”

  “People were killed, Annelle.” My voice was sharp.

  “You were never our target. We could have taken Emmervale had we wanted to.”

  I began to object, but she shook her head quickly and continued.

  “We could have. But we did not want to. And we never wanted to attack Emmervale, nor even wage a direct battle with Stenhall. We had a different plan, Aiman. We should have carried it out. You can still help us do so.”

  “We’re not interested in harming Stenhall.”

  “It would not be harming anyone as much as protecting yourselves. You, simple people in the hills, far from industry”—she spat the word—“would gain. As would we. We would put dunters and dwarves back two hundred years.”

  “I don’t know what we would provide you to help with that.”

  “Not your town; just you, Aiman. You have the power to assist.”

  “By doing what?”

  “Channeling power. Wizarding.”

  “I have no such ability.”

  “Yes. You did when I saw you seven years ago. And here you are. You have not lost it.”

  “Because I turned some grass brown, back then.”

  “Yes.”

  “I decided afterward that must have been your doing in any case.” This was not exactly true; I had never wielded magic again, but I always remembered the feeling I’d had of working that change there on that hillside years ago.

  “It was your work, not mine.”