High Iron Read online

  “Why do the White Mount dwarves think the party made it that far?”

  “Simply because two days’ walk—a long two days—would have put them past our border. And they assume Herrar must have made it that far. They have offered no reasoning beyond that."

  “And you know her party did not make it into your lands—”

  “Simply because we would have seen them. A rabbit does not run in our hills without our knowledge.”

  I knew that some hunters and travelers from Emmervale occasionally passed through that area without being seen by dwarves, or at any rate without being confronted by them, but I did not mention this. If the White Mount and Stenhall dwarves were set on feuding about the fate of Herrar's expedition, there would be nothing any outsider could do to dissuade them.

  “What do you think might have happened to them?” I asked.

  Maghran shrugged. “There are dangers in the wilds. There are wyverns, and other predators. You know this. And we allow those dangers to exist, in part, to help us patrol that border.”

  Again this struck me as a curious portrayal of the realities in those mountains; not even an army of dwarves would relish an attempt to exterminate a wyvern. But again I said nothing. If this dwarf wanted to portray wyverns as border guards that they tolerated, I would not argue.

  “For one of those dangers to eliminate a party of four dwarves with no trace would have been unusual, certainly. But that must have happened.”

  “Do you reckon a raid from Red Gorge might have ranged up that far?”

  “Not likely. They do not typically travel up that way, and certainly are not known for traveling quietly. But no matter what happened, Herrar is gone, and we have been blamed. This probably explains why White Mount sold that ore to the elves, even knowing that the elves might turn around and sell steel to Red Gorge.”

  “And Maghran—what do you think Herrar would have proposed to you, had she made it out to meet you?”

  “Well, that is the tragedy, isn’t it? We don’t know. But obviously we think she wanted to discuss turning our combined powers against Varenlend or Caranniam. Probably Caranniam, since they are closest to both of us.”

  “If you believe that alliance is obvious, you could still pursue it, no?”

  “Yes,” he said. “We may well yet. This is going to be the last throe of the wizards, I believe. There is too much power, now, too much steam, too much steel, for them to control the Open Lands much longer unless they conquer all right now.”

  “Ironic that they are using rail and guns to do so,” I said.

  “Ironic indeed.”

  I had gathered all the charges which I had laid, and handed them to him. He carefully rolled up the fuses and returned them to his bag. His eyes were on his work, but partway through he spoke to me:

  “These are my companions. Behind you.”

  I whirled; four dwarves were nearly upon me.

  “We’re no elves,” Maghran said, “but we also can travel quietly when we have a mind to, eh?”

  One of them was Hrond. Again now, just as he and his companions had struck me on the hillside some days earlier, they looked so much alike that it seemed they could have all been brothers. This included Maghran as well.

  One of them walked slightly ahead of the others. He was dressed in black, whereas two of the others were in dark brown and Hrond again wore a dun cloak. Hrond looked to be the youngest, and it occurred to me that all five of these dwarves seemed to wear darker clothing the older they were. Maghran himself wore very dark brown, but not the black of the dwarf out in front. This must have been a custom of theirs, although I had never heard it from our older Emmervalers who had lived in their mines. I suppose our old folks were too bitter to be inclined to share stories of dwarf culture.

  Maghran came to my side now and nodded to this first dwarf:

  “Master Shearer, this is my brother, Ghranam.”

  So that’s who Maghran was—brother to the leader of Stenhall. He had given no indication of this before.

  Ghranam slid his eyes toward me and nodded once. Hrond did the same, I saw, but the others did not, and none spoke. This group was not expressing the relative warmth, if that’s the word, of Hrond and his companions with the ansark.

  All carried battle axes, worn snug against their sides, with the heads above their belts. Two of them carried guns; Hrond had his musketoon, again, and another of the younger ones hauled a very long-barreled musket, quite heavy and as accurate as they came.

  All four of them wore rucksacks. Three of these had iron helmets tied onto the bottom. All wore heavy boots like Maghran’s. These were heavy, but still potentially quiet, as I had learned.

  Ghranam stood out for his black cloak but also for a broad silver belt he wore around it. His face was almost unbelievably grim; I would hate to think what his mood would have been had the railway aimed at his people not just been ruined. He spoke:

  “I am much inclined to find and kill these elves, brother.”

  “You were also taken by them,” Maghran said. It was not a question; he knew this party would have come to our aid had they been able.

  Ghranam nodded. “Cursed elves. They fear to show their faces until we are bound and helpless. They are underhanded.”

  “Well, we can be glad they have been underhanded with Red Gorge as well,” Maghran said, nodding toward the tracks.

  “This must have been months of work for them. I do see that,” Ghranam said. “Even for elves this measure of magic must have cost them dearly.”

  “They must have extracted a high price from the dunters,” Maghran answered.

  “That’s so,” Ghranam said. “Very well. Perhaps they are not on our side, but we can see here they are not on the side of Red Gorge either.”

  “Anyone who did this much to block the attack on Stenhall,” Maghran said, “I will consider to be on our side.”

  “I hear a herd of tundra oxen,” Ghranam said.

  I had heard this also, but had hoped the dwarves had not. After their quietness in their approach, and that of the elves, it was embarrassing that my own spotters could be heard quite a distance away. I looked over Maghran’s shoulder and saw them coming into the ravine.

  Jed came first, and then Britta. Both of them watched their steps but also glanced at our group warily. There was little warmth between us and dwarves, and now that the dunter tracks were ruined—the common threat we had both faced together—much of the motivation we had felt to cooperate receded.

  Just like the dwarves, these two were well-armed. Britta carried a musket, and Jed a longbow. Jed also had—quite usefully, it soon turned out—a quarter-staff.

  “And now I introduce my cousin Britta, and my countryman Jed,” I said to Maghran.

  The dwarves barely looked at them.

  Jed was still gathering himself, I would say, for the same reason that Ghranam had been. He seemed more sheepish than bitter, though, about the capture by the elves.

  “The elves bound us, for a time. Both of us separately.”

  “We assumed,” I answered. “They took all the rest of us, also. Of course.”

  “But they performed quite a bit of work here, with these,” he said, putting his hand on a bent rail. He pushed it gently, and then a bit harder.

  “You know, I don’t think these can even be pushed down. Or not easily, at least.”

  Maghran was not interested in chatting about elven handiwork. “Well, we part here, Master Shearer,” he said.

  “This is a Shearer?” Ghranam asked him.

  “Indeed. And that means apparently we have two of them.”

  My cousin Britta barely nodded.

  “Royalty, then,” Ghranam said. This might almost have been taken as a sarcastic insult; but I could tell, and I think the other two of my comrades could also, that Ghranam spoke with some genuine respect. The Marshal had walked a careful and successful line, in his day. He had freed us from our servitude to the dwarves with a combination of guile and bravery�
�but without enough fighting to kill any dwarves and thereby start blood feuds that would have still been boiling today.

  Suddenly Jed said:

  “Horse. Get down.”

  He nodded to our west as he dropped to the ground. The rest of us lay down, also, and we crawled back toward the slope of the ravine by the bridge.

  The odds were against us encountering a friend—someone like our refugee Korben—out here twice in one day. I glanced down the line of upright rails, for that was the direction Jed had nodded, and saw him: A rider wearing red, on a brown horse.

  Maghran looked out, too.

  “That’s a Caranniam rider,” he said. “Perhaps a messenger.”

  “Yes.” The red clothing, which in this man’s case included a cloak, was the mark of the rulers of the city.

  He continued coming our direction, toward the bridge. He was still some distance from us, and he rode on the north side of the rails. We had been standing on the south side, and that must have been why he did not notice us. As far away as he was, the upright rails had concealed us.

  “Why do we hide?” Hrond asked. “He is one, we are eight.”

  “He is mounted, Hrond, and will flee if he sees us,” Maghran growled. He then spoke to me.

  “Can your tall man there wield that staff?”

  “Yes,” I said, and then I in turn spoke to Jed. “You could knock him down, and out?”

  He nodded, but added:

  “But shall we just shoot him down?” We had three guns among our group, so this gave us a good chance of sending at least one ball through him.

  “I would rather tumble him from his mount,” Maghran said. “Messengers, if that’s what he is, often know more than what is written in their letters.”

  “Very well,” I said. I told Jed: “I would guess he will slow down a bit as he comes to the bridge. Can you get beneath it, and around it?”

  “Now? Yes.”

  “Then I’ll turn him toward me once he’s here,” I said.

  Jed scrambled over to the foot of the bridge and passed under it, out of my sight.

  I was correct, it turned out, that the rider would slow at the bridge. He had been moving at a trot but nearly stopped the horse completely as he came to the planks. He wondered about the integrity of the bridge after the elf magic, just as I had.

  In addition to his red cloak and clothing he also had a fine saddle, spurs, and a breastplate that shone; but all this, unfortunately for him, had only served to mark him as a target. I got to my feet, now, and stepped out, on his right side.

  “You, there, traveler,” I said, loudly.

  He turned toward me immediately and put his hand on the hilt of his sword by his side. This was good news, for me; it meant he probably had no magic. He began to advance.

  “Hold there,” he ordered. He spoke not in Cranam but in the standard Valley Lower.

  Jed now appeared behind him, raising his staff in the air. I stepped toward the rider, Jed closed the gap, and then he swung hard.

  It hit the man on the back of the head. He was knocked forward in his saddle, but not out of it. Instantly Britta and Hrond were out and at him, and the other dwarves followed. Britta pulled him down, and the dwarves held him. He did make some efforts to free himself from their grip. These were useless of course.

  “Insolent highwaymen!” he snapped. “Common thieves!” He seemed high-born, from his language and his apparent indignation.

  “You might save your strength, and mind your manners,” Maghran said. “This is war, you are a soldier, and you were close to encroaching on our land. You’re a captive now. Show us what you are carrying.”

  “Your land,” he sneered. “You are hill people. And I carry nothing.”

  “Nothing? Just out this far from your city, heading toward a dunter encampment, for diversion. Very well. And furthermore we see your saddlebag, sir.”

  We pulled down the bag. It did indeed contain a letter; just one. We found nothing else of interest on the animal or the man. He made some show of resisting the dwarves’ search of his person.

  The letter he carried had been folded and sealed, with a stamp on the wax.

  “Two crows,” Maghran said. “This is from Somoroveln himself then, it seems.”

  “It’s not addressed to anyone,” I said.

  “No. I suppose this man here was to deliver it in person.”

  “Do we mind breaking the seal?” I asked.

  “We must.”

  Maghran opened the letter. It was a large sheet of fine paper. It rippled a bit in the breeze. He held it so that I might see it also.

  He shook his head. “What odd runes. These look like the decorations of children. Nothing to me.”

  The characters were nothing I recognized, either. I could read some of the old high script of the wizards, as well as Cranam and our own language, but this was different. These runes were mostly based on squares, and had only tails and crosses on the corners or on opposing sides to set them apart from each other.

  Maghran turned to the captive messenger and pointed at the letter.

  “What does this message say?”

  The man shook his head slightly.

  “I would not share it with you even if I knew.”

  “I suspected not,” Maghran said. “Who is it for?”

  “That I do know, but again I will not share it with you.”

  “Right,” Maghran said. He turned back to me. “It must be code, I would think. Not a real language. We have scholars who might read it, but it could take weeks.”

  “Scholars,” I repeated, and I thought about it. Then I turned to Britta.

  “Do you fancy an excursion?”

  Her face fell.

  “Not her,” she answered. “Really?”

  “Quiet down and come over here. Jed, you also.” I motioned them closer to Maghran and me, so that the messenger would not hear us.

  “Yes, her,” I said. “She’s not so far away from us, here, you know.”

  “I’m afraid she isn’t,” Britta answered.

  “Who is this you speak of?” Maghran asked, quietly. We stood in a tight square, and he was expressing more interest in what we had to say than he had up till now. “There is some learned woman out here?”

  “Learned, but that’s not the half of it,” I said. “Duchess Wilhelmina.”

  “Duchess? Of what? Not anything out here?”

  “Not here, exactly. Down in the Kurtenvold. But no, there’s nothing of importance there either. Nonetheless it’s what she calls herself. You must meet her.”

  “Is she some sort of necromancer?”

  “No. She would be glad to have you believe that, though. Just a hermit who lives out near here in the Kurtenvold.”

  “In truth? When I think of a hermit, it’s always a male,” Maghran said.

  “I don’t know how else to describe her. She passes through Emmervale now and then—”

  “We have seen her perhaps once in the past five years,” Britta interjected.

  “Yes, well, she has passed through a few times, but mostly stays out here. For years at a stretch. She is aged, and knows many languages, and fancies herself knowledgeable about magic. I think she would be able to help us read this.”

  “You’ll seek her out now?” Maghran asked.

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll accompany you, if you’ll have us.”

  “I thought you had some other errand?”

  “Plans change.”

  “Very well, then.”

  “What will we do with this one?” Britta asked, inclining her head back toward the rider.

  “Take him along. Perhaps we can find someone to leave him with, but we can’t free him. And we ought to keep him alive. If nothing else, he looks like he must be worth something.”

  All four of us turned and regarded him, at this moment. The other dwarves guarding him had allowed him to stand up. I imagined what was going through the unfortunate fellow’s mind: It was probably obvious
to him that we were sizing him up to determine if he was best suited to be captured, or captured and beaten, or fed to ansarks.

  We turned back to one another.

  “Very well, he comes along,” Maghran said. “Bound, of course.”

  He turned and walked over to the man.

  “Your name?”

  “It’s the reason you will be struck down,” the man said.

  “Is it, now.” Maghran pulled a knife from his belt. “Handsome cloak you have there,” he said. “Vibrant dye.”

  He took a corner of it and cut off a wide swath. He then reached up, grabbed the man’s tunic, and pulled him down to his knees quickly, easily, as if he were bending down a twig on a sapling. Britta, Jed and I pinned him, and Maghran gagged him with the cloth.

  We told the others about our plan. The dwarves then withdrew to talk with each other. After a few minutes Maghran spoke to us again.

  “Ghranam and one other are going to return to Stenhall. The other three of us will stay with you.”

  “Very well. We welcome your company.”

  “Two of us shall leave so that we can get the explosives back home, in part,” he said. “It’s either that, or destroy them, and this is a good amount. I don’t want to be carrying them around lest they fall into ill hands. Those elves, among others, could decide to try to take them. Although I don’t intend to let them surprise me again. But regardless, Ghranam is carrying that load back.”

  The dwarf who departed with Ghranam was one of the pair in the dark brown cloaks. We were left with Hrond, and we learned the other was named Inman. Inman was the one who carried the long musket.

  “Let us move,” Maghran said. “I would suggest we stop in the late afternoon. That will be far enough for this day. Perhaps you agree with me, Master Shearer.”

  “I’d be glad to stop then,” I said. “None of us slept last night.”

  Maghran nodded at this.