High Iron Page 3

  The gunner dropped his rod and dumped powder into his pan. We kept at them. Then he lifted the gun and aimed at us. We saw his hand on the hammer. We both fell to the ground.

  There was no shot. We waited for it, panting with our faces deep in the grass. The two with the swords would be running at us.

  “Up, now,” I said.

  We both lifted ourselves, barely. The two dunters were within forty yards of us. They held their swords out waist-high, each with both hands on the grips.

  Smoke, and another boom; the bullet cut between us. It roared past like a giant hornet. The two dunters closed on us. Their broadswords against our knives; not a promising fight.

  Then a hand took my shoulder and yanked me backward. I was powerless, back on my heels, and fell behind Jed. Another hand—of a woman dressed in brown—reached out, took him also, and brought him with me.

  The dunters slowed and then stopped, suddenly, wide-eyed. One barked to the other in their language.

  The woman holding us leaned her head between ours, released Jed, and pursed her lips to tell us to remain silent.

  It was Ralenda, the trader from Varenlend who had sometimes met me down to the south of where we now stood. She let go of my collar but put her left hand back on my shoulder. She gestured with her right that we should back off. She then began to retreat, and we followed her.

  The dunters now fanned out to search for us, but were still some distance away; they would not notice our trail through the grass. Ralenda had clearly made us invisible to them. We continued to tread backward, keeping our eyes on the frantic searchers. They dashed around in circles, shouting to each other. Several of them cut the grass with their swords, flailing. One of them with a musket was preparing to shoot, but a wiser comrade put a hand on the barrel to prevent him.

  Ralenda watched all this and smiled. We were about sixty paces away, and the crazed dunters were not keeping quiet or looking for slight disturbances in the tall grass. She spoke:

  “I think we may chance a word, now.”

  I was amazed by her rescue. I had never known her to be anything other than a traveling merchant. Varenlend was a city of mages, of course, but I assumed all those with such power would be content to confine themselves to their manors, plotting and throwing fire-bolts and so on. Furthermore she did not wear the usual white of the Varenlend magicians.

  “Ralenda. You have some wizarding to you,” I said.

  “Not by the standards of Varenlend,” she said. “This is nothing.”

  “More than enough to save us. I considered you just a wool trader.”

  “A trader of anything that can be traded,” she corrected me. “Let’s keep retreating.”

  We kept moving away from the dunters, and she continued.

  “I never had the will or the patience, or the desire, to be a wizard. There are too many deals to be made, Master Shearer, and people to meet. Like yourself. And we all know that magic is not the life it once was.” She nodded toward the crews still working on the tracks, in the distance. “Steam, machinery. Iron and gunpowder. The new powers in the world.”

  “Perhaps,” I said. “But one spell from you has just defeated a dozen dunters and their muskets.” Behind us, as we spoke quietly, they were still darting about.

  “Ah, but just wait until they learn how to shoot balls more quickly,” she said. “But I did get to you just in time, didn’t I?”

  “Indeed. We thank you. What were you doing here?”

  “The same thing you were, I suspect. I wanted to see this railroad, their progress. So I took this turn south of my route. I was heading toward Emmervale.”

  “Were you?” I said. “That’s a coincidence we meet here, then.”

  “Coincidences,” she said dismissively. “Who is this with you?”

  “My companion, Jed.”

  “Well met. Listen: I have been journeying out to tell you something. I was going to head all the way to Emmervale if need be, but here you are. I wanted to tell you, want to tell you, what is happening. I feel I owe you that much.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked. “We can see what’s happening—a dunter army building a railroad straight at us. And why do you think you owe me anything?”

  “You were always an honest partner with me. You never packed any second-rate wool in with the finest, you know.” She smiled.

  “Of course not.”

  “I have come to talk to you about this entire war, not simply these tracks. We are an alliance, now, Master Shearer. Varenlend and Caranniam have joined with Red Gorge, and with the elves also.”

  “You’ve done what?”

  “Our leaders are going to ensure that their magic—or perhaps our magic, I should say—allows us to retain our power. Now is the time. With the dunters, we have the alliance. We are assisting them with these tracks, and we have other methods, also, to keep them on our side. As for the elves, we have paid them handsomely for their iron—those rails they have provided—and afterward we and the elves will keep to ourselves. That is our promise to them.”

  “So those are indeed elves out there,” Jed said. “Subjects of Alden Silvermoor?”

  Ralenda nodded. “Indeed. You are thinking they must be from elsewhere, because Silvermoor would never do such a thing? But Caranniam helped arrange a deal by which they forged the rails for this new track. The amount needed was beyond the capacity of the dunters. And of course the quality of the elven steel is unsurpassed.

  “And with the dwarves in the mountains,” she continued, “and the men of Searose and the rest of the coast, and with—” she tilted her head— “and with you, I am afraid, we are extending our power, our influence.”

  “What are you saying?” I asked, although her message was clear enough.

  “I am saying that this new rail line, here, is being built to reach Stenhall and the dwarven mines there. The first train out will carry the heavy weapons, cannon. And other ordnance, enough to take Stenhall. A contingent of my people, and also a group from Caranniam, will be joining this dunter force soon, to help them press their attack. Within a few weeks those mines, and their production, will belong to Caranniam, and to Red Gorge; and to us in Varenlend, also. And then these trains will carry back iron, gold. To Red Gorge City, and Caranniam, and my Varenlend. We are not aiming for Emmervale,” she added, “but of course you are neighbors to the dwarves, and we understand you will not willingly accept the dunters in your land.”

  “Do you have some role in this?” I asked.

  “No more than any citizen of Varenlend.”

  “And why are you telling us?”

  “To warn you. And to explain. I feel free to speak because there is nothing you can do about this alliance, and this invasion. Not you, not the dwarves, no one. And again, I respect the trade you facilitated for me.” She shrugged. “And Shearer, there will always be a need for sheep—for wool and mutton—no matter in whose borders Emmervale lies. You work hard; you will always survive.”

  “Even if we are vassals to Caranniam, or to you, or to—Red Gorge? I do not believe we would prosper under those conditions, Ralenda. We learned this in our years as servants to the dwarves.”

  “Ah yes, that. I had forgotten. Those memories of your grandparents are still dark for you, aren’t they? It is unfortunate you never let them go.”

  “My own father nearly came of age in the mines, Ralenda.”

  “Did he? But Shearer, life under the governance of our cities will be stable. Orderly. You will benefit from our power.”

  “Benefit from it, or share it?” I asked. She ignored this.

  “Now, the future of the dwarves,” she continued, “under the domination of Red Gorge—that will be a different matter. The dunters hold the dwarves in very low regard, as you know. But that will not be your concern. I shall look for you when all this is done. You will always have a trader to count on.”

  “In that case it sounds unfortunate that all my people are not sheep herders,” I said. “But we
are not. I suppose I thank you for this news, and for seeking me out, Ralenda. But I will say that you sound extremely confident, and honestly you do not have so much to show right now. These tracks are not even halfway to Stenhall. And I wonder if any city of men can maintain an alliance with dunters.”

  “Nothing will stop the tracks,” she said. “All the power of Caranniam and Varenlend is behind them. And the dunters know better than to offend us.”

  “Very well,” I said. “You may be counting unborn ewes. But I do value all the trades we made, and again I appreciate your journey.”

  “You are heading back to Emmervale?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “You will be unseen past this horizon,” she said. “I wish you safe arrival.”

  She made a short bow and turned. She began walking back toward Varenlend, a journey of several days. She walked with her head high on a path that would take her near the remnant of the dunters who had cornered us; she must have been keeping herself invisible, also.

  “So that was Ralenda, your reliable trader,” Jed said.

  “Yes.”

  “All of that sounded to me as if she knows of what she speaks.”

  “I believe she does.”

  “Is she a woman of rank in Varenlend?”

  “More than I had guessed, I suppose,” I answered. “She always seemed prosperous, and could afford to purchase any amount of wool I could manage to bring. But now, with this magic of hers—she must be far more prominent than I thought. She spoke lightly of her power, but it is rare. It’s not every shopkeeper, even in Varenlend, or in Caranniam, who can throw spells like that.”

  “If it’s true they’ve made an alliance, and come to some agreement with the dunters, that was very wise of them. If it can hold.”

  “Wise? In the short run, maybe,” I said. “But I agree it sounds like a clever plan. And the elves selling them iron? All that together can change history.”

  “We have to get back and share this.”

  “Quickly.”

  “Do you think the dwarves will believe it?”

  I snorted.

  “Well, I am sure they will want to send out half their number to see for themselves, and tap their axes to the rails, and perhaps listen for the steam rising. But eventually, yes, Stenhall will understand. I wonder if we will be able to come to some sort of agreement with them. And I wonder if it will do us any good, in the face of this grand alliance against us.”

  We reached Britta before dark.

  “What did you learn?” she asked as she untied the horses.

  “More than we hoped. And more than we wanted to.”

  We shared with her everything we had been told as we mounted and rode.

  “This trader Ralenda,” she asked, “sought you out just to tell you this?”

  “Yes.”

  Britta shook her head. “Imagine what might have been had you been educated there, Aiman,” she said.

  Britta had known of my long-ago meeting with the wizards of Varenlend soon after it happened; I had told her about it before anyone else. She had thought I had made a mistake, at the time, and had never changed her mind.

  “They were just trying to use me to get a foothold into Emmervale,” I had objected.

  “Yes, and they failed. Because you were smart enough to see through it. And you also would have been smart enough to see through it had you accepted, and learned from them. And then we would have a Varenlend-trained wizard with us.”

  “In any case,” I said now, “my ties with Varenlend have helped us understand what’s going on, one way or another. Maybe this was destined. I am afraid we are facing some dark weeks.”

  We covered the empty country back toward Emmervale uneventfully, largely retracing our path out. The flat prairie ended, giving way to modest swells and rolls of land.

  As the sun was setting on the third day, we came upon a rare cluster of woods along a stream that crawled between two low hills. We faced another four hours of riding, we reckoned, to make it into Emmervale.

  “Shall we push through, or camp for the night?” I asked.

  “I am always ready to keep moving,” Jed said. “But we might be dodging watchdogs if we get into town that late. The people are edgy, and no one is expecting me by dawn.”

  “Nobody is staying up gazing out her window for me, either, I’m afraid,” I said.

  “Don’t be so sure, Aiman,” Britta answered. Nonetheless we settled down by the stream and built a fire. Jed took out his kit to light twigs, as Britta and I gathered wood. Our food was dried fruit, and hard bread, so we did not really need to cook anything; but the fire was a welcome diversion after the day of riding. Eventually I unrolled a blanket, wrapped myself, and slept.

  Some hours before dawn, Jed shook me.

  “Aiman, wake up.”

  He said it only once, and then stood to look eastward.

  I came to my senses quickly. That he made no joke about waking me so early, and said nothing about what he saw, alarmed me. I rose, blanket and all. Britta was already up.

  There was a glow on the horizon before us, in the direction of Emmervale.

  We could not run the horses at a gallop all the way to Emmervale, but we pushed them as much as we could. All the while the glow continued. The town was on fire.

  “Who could have done this?” I asked. “Are there more dunters far to the east?”

  “There must be,” Jed said. “The dwarves wouldn’t attack us.”

  Dawn came, and we neared home. The glow in the sky faded; in its place we could see smoke. We reached the outskirts of town in the light of morning, and every house and barn we saw was either burning or had burned down.

  We could hear gunfire and a rumble of distant shouts from the center of town. We ran the horses hard, now, and tore down the grass streets through smoke.

  Jed rode first. He had drawn his long knife. As we cleared one corner of a lane, at which a thatch-roofed house was aflame, we saw a dunter hurrying down the street before us.

  Dunters in Emmervale. A force of them well in advance of the mob by the end of the rails. As I looked at this one running, I felt off balance, confused. If they were here on this street, who knew where else they might be. Across the river? Even up among our sheep?

  We had surprised this one, and Jed surged forward to lean out and slash him as he ran. The knife struck the dunter’s helmet, but the marauder kept his feet and bolted away.

  Musketry was now right nearby. The shooting seemed to be coming from the far side of the river, and was pointed in our direction; this was some relief amid this nightmare, because it meant—we hoped—that our people still held the wall around the center. The town has walls, centuries old but restored, on the east side of the river. I prayed that the shots from that direction meant that the invasion, and the burning, had been confined to the west side. This would have been bad enough—about a third of the town lay on the west bank—but it might have meant that most of the people, at least, had managed to cross the river to safety.

  “Jed, wait,” Britta called. He heard and came back.

  “A lot of that shooting sounds like it’s aimed this way.”

  “It does,” I said. “We can’t just ride in there. Let’s track back south, this side of the river, and then cross over.”

  We trotted past several rows of houses, all burnt out. Some were of stone, with the roofs gone and blackened holes where the windows and doors had been; others had been wood and were now only piles of charred beams and smoking debris. These fires must have been set soon after darkness, the day before, to have largely burned themselves out by now.

  We did not see any bodies, outside on the streets at any rate. As we continued, we began to pass a good number of houses that the dunters had not torched.

  “Lily’s house?” Britta asked me. She meant my older sister, who lived on this side of the river. Her home was back in the direction we had come from.

  “It’s probably gone,” I said.


  We came upon a mill on the river which had not been touched. I knew there was a bridge behind it. We approached.

  “Easy,” I said. “We’ll be in view of the wall on the other side of this building. They may be shooting at anything.”

  But before we could turn the corner around the mill, a man stepped out of it.

  “Look—” Jed said, fearing a dunter, but caught himself. It was the miller, an older man named Sennet.

  “Aiman,” he said. “You all made it through. We’ve been worried about you.”

  “We just rode in.”

  “Watch yourselves.” He nodded once as he said this. I noticed that his hands and shirt were blackened with ash. He was a strong man, still clear-eyed after a long night, but exhausted.

  “We’ve finally gotten up on the walls,” he said, “and we’re shooting. But it sounds like it’s dying down—maybe the beasts have left.”

  “What happened?”

  He raised his arm and pointed past us. “They came in from the west overnight. We heard a few shots, first, and then everything erupted. Have you seen many?”

  “Only one.”

  “It’s actually a blessing they stopped to burn as much as they did, I think. It gave people time to run. Crowds made it across the river to the walls. My family did.”

  “There was no resistance to them on this side?”

  “No time,” he answered. “People just woke up and fled, if they were lucky. I don’t know how so many dunters moved across those plains without being seen by anyone. Friends of ours out there are sparse, I know, but a few must have seen them coming. And we had at least some people like yourselves scouting, as well. I’m afraid this army just overran dozens of farmers out there.”

  “They must have come in like a storm,” Jed said.

  “So they did.”

  “Your mill has not been touched?”

  “The wall was manned by the time the dunters made it this far,” he said. “I’m lucky I’m within range of it. A few shots kept them away. They came no closer than up that street, there. Their advance in town was slow, but I don’t know how they came out here from their sties unseen in the first place.”