Master of Dragons Page 15

  They will never forgive, he realised. They will never give in. They do not know how to.

  Eventually, one of dawi made a move. The dwarf broke ranks and waded towards them through knee-high undergrowth that reached his waist. His beard was steel-grey, plaited and folded up in a baroque array of knots and tassels. His exposed biceps were a patchwork of scars, tattoos and iron studs. Unlike the crossbow-wielders, he carried a warhammer, the head of which was beautifully engraved with runes and dragon-head knotwork. His helm was open-faced and crowned with drake-wings just like the Caledorians, though his were bulky and blunt in comparison.

  When he was a few paces away he rested the hammerhead on the ground before him, folded his hands over the hilt, and leaned on it. His eyes, sunk deep under bristling brows, surveyed Feliadh’s troops with calm disdain.

  ‘Who here speaks Khazalid?’ he demanded. His voice was deep and hoarse, as if clogged with coal-dust.

  Caradryel swallowed. His usual self-assurance would not help him here. ‘None do,’ he said, edging his horse to the fore of the Caledorian group. ‘I was given the words by another.’

  The dwarf chuckled. It sounded like loose stones tumbling down a ravine. ‘So I thought. You speak like a stupid child. We barely understood you.’

  Caradryel bowed in apology. ‘Forgive me. I had little time to learn. I had hoped to speak in… other circumstances.’

  ‘No doubt,’ said the dwarf. ‘Thank your pale gods that we heard the name Imladrik – that is all that saved you.’

  ‘He wishes to pass a message to his friend, Morgrim Bargrum,’ said Caradryel. ‘We had hoped to find him here.’

  The dwarf scowled. ‘If they were friends once, they are friends no longer. But if you carry terms of surrender we will hear them.’

  Caradryel paused. This was difficult. ‘Imladrik’s tidings are for Lord Morgrim alone,’ he said, trying to sound authoritative without being haughty. ‘Unless, that is, it is he to whom I am speaking.’

  The dwarfs broke into a barking, growling fit of laughter, filling the valley with their bizarre and guttural mirth. Caradryel could feel Feliadh’s annoyance, and placed a hand on his forearm to restrain him.

  Laughter is good, he thought, studying the chortling dwarf before him carefully. I will endure a thousand insults if it gets us to where we need to be.

  ‘Your mind is as slow as your speech, elgi,’ mocked the dwarf. ‘You think we would risk Morgrim in the vanguard? You speak to Grondil of Zhufbar, slayer of your sickly kinfolk, and I ask you again: what are your tidings?’

  Caradryel recalled what Imladrik had told him of the dawi.

  ‘They despise weakness, and they despise arrogance,’ Imladrik had told him. ‘Steer a path between the two: never show frailty, but never insult them. Everything they do is a challenge. Give in to it, and they will hold you in contempt; ignore it and they will assume you mock them. Remember: they kill anything that mocks them.’

  Caradryel swallowed.

  ‘Grondil of Zhufbar,’ he said. ‘I am Caradryel of the House of Reveniol. I serve Imladrik of House Tor Caled. He commands me to speak only to Morgrim. You have us at your mercy and may slay us at your pleasure, but for all that none among us will break our vows. I will speak with Morgrim alone, or I will die here in this valley. They are the choices: you, my lord, have the decision.’

  For a moment, silence. Caradryel felt a chill run up his arms. His stomach felt weak. The words ‘die here in this valley’ had slipped out rather easily.

  Then Grondil chuckled again, and shook his head. ‘Elgi amuse me,’ he said. ‘So serious, all the time. And you love your fine words.’

  He shot Caradryel a sly, intelligent look.

  ‘I’ll take you to Morgrim,’ Grondil said. ‘Though you’ll have to watch your scrawny backs with him – he doesn’t have my sense of humour.’

  Thoriol emerged into the sunlight, blinking and stumbling. He carried his gear slung across his back, just like the others. They were dressed the same way: loose-fitting white robes trimmed with a deep crimson. Baelian’s company shouldered their longbows casually, used to the cumbersome lengths of yew and silk-spun bowstrings. Thoriol remembered enough of his training to use the weapon but struggled to look proficient with it.

  ‘It’ll come,’ Baelian had told him during the crossing, grinning as ever. ‘Soon you’ll forget what it was like not to carry one.’

  Thoriol gazed up at the soaring spires of Tor Alessi, glistening white in the strong sunlight. Gull-shrieks filled the air. Behind him, the length of a gangplank away, the Resurviel bobbed on the quayside. Harbour-hands were already crawling all over her, furling sails and stowing lines.

  Baelian’s company assembled on the stone quay, all twenty-four of them. Crowds pushed past them as Baelian attempted to call them to order and speak to the harbour official. Everything in the waterfront seemed to be in constant motion – a carnival of unloading, loading, shouting, moving and hauling. The wind was stiff and thick with salt. The aroma of it was different to Ulthuan – fewer spice fragrances and somehow… dirtier.

  While Baelian argued with the official, Thoriol let his eyes wander across to the towers rearing up ahead. Some of them still bore the scars of ballista strikes. Banners of the King and various noble houses rippled in the breeze, exposing images of trees, horses, sea-serpents and hawks.

  Everything was martial, hard-edged and poorly finished. Tor Alessi seemed to have no purpose to it but war.

  Eventually Baelian turned away from the official, his scarred face tight with irritation.

  ‘Fools,’ he spat, rolling up some parchment and stowing it under his robes. ‘This place is full to bursting and they’re running around like startled pheasants. Useless.’ He started to storm off, then turned and gave Thoriol a significant glance. ‘Stay together. I’ve got us lodgings in the lower Eliamar quarter. Let’s not get lost in the crush, eh?’

  Thoriol smiled dryly. The captain had little to worry about – Thoriol had no plans to make an escape any time soon. Despite himself, he had found himself rather enjoying his reacquaintance with the archery he had learned as a youth. He’d taken a surprising degree of pleasure in handling the long yew bow, in stringing it and leaning in to the pull.

  It came back quickly. He remembered how he’d taken hunting bows into the forests west of Tor Vael, and how proficient he’d become at bringing back a haul for the larders. He’d always had a quick eye, and enjoyed the lightweight spring of the weapon; far more elegant than a sword or an axe. Only later had that enjoyment faded, and he’d never had the chance to become expert with the battlefield weapons of the asur companies – long, slender bows with a range of over two hundred yards and a fearful delivery. The effort required just to bend those bows was considerable, and after days of practice on the ship he was only capable of matching his counterparts’ most elementary efforts.

  For all that, the process had been oddly cathartic. The others had accepted him readily, showing little or no interest in his origins but willing to help him learn. They shared watered-down wine, bread, hard cheese and olives, discussing the potential for riches in the east, the prospects for the war against the druchii, tales – implausible or otherwise – of love affairs in Saphery and Avelorn.

  After the worst of his sickness had abated, Thoriol had found himself more at ease in their company than he would have imagined possible. His early reticence had earned him the moniker of ‘the Silent’. Despite opening up a little since then, the name had stuck, and he saw no harm in it.

  He had made friends: Loeth, the tall one from Tiranoc; Taemon, the intense brooder from Chrace; Rovil and Florean from Eataine, good-natured, jovial and as close as brothers.

  They did not judge him, except in jest. They accepted the strange gaps in his history without question, for most of them had similar missing pieces from their own half-told lives. They did not talk of arcane matt
ers or the deep counsel of kings, but they laughed often, and seemed to have few cares beyond the acquisition of prestige, the payment in gold coin every month, and the care of their bows and quivers –about which they were all fastidious.

  So the crossing had not been as arduous as Thoriol had feared. He still rankled over the deception that had brought him there, and remained wary of the ever-smirking Baelian, but he could not pretend that it had been unbearable.

  Now, looking at the teeming mass of asur around him, letting the rough-edged splendour of Tor Alessi sink in, feeling the firmness of solid ground under his feet for the first time since passing out in Lothern, he smiled ruefully.

  The world was a strange place. For the time being, he would see where the current path led. Thoriol the Scholar was long dead, confined to a past that he could not talk about. Thoriol the Dragon rider had always been a fiction, something that he’d known deep down would never amount to much.

  Thoriol the Archer, though. It had a certain ring to it. Perhaps not enough for him to tarry with it for more than a few weeks, but a certain ring nonetheless.

  ‘Lost in thought?’ came a familiar voice just ahead of him. Rovil was grinning at him.

  ‘Always lost in thought,’ said Taemon sharply.

  ‘Or seasick,’ said Loeth. ‘Though that won’t be a problem now.’

  Thoriol said nothing, happy to live up to his new name, but smiled back amiably.

  Then he pulled his hood up against the chill sea-wind, taking care to avoid the crush of bodies around him, and followed his companions up the winding streets from the waterfront to whatever future awaited him in the city.

  Chapter Twelve

  Caradryel sat on a low, rough-hewn bench, resisting the urge to scratch his neck. He kept his back straight and his hands clasped loosely in his lap, trying to project the kind of elegant disinterest that he supposed the dawi would expect him to display.

  Since arriving at the dwarf camp he had felt eyes all over him, scouring him like some slab of precious metal ready for the hammer. They were subtle, though; they never looked at him straight on, but only from under heavily lidded eyes. He could never quite meet their gaze – they turned away, quick as cats, muttering impenetrably into their plaited beards.

  He’d done his best to observe them in return, making mental notes of their habits and demeanour. Their physicality was quite astonishing, from the tightly corded muscles of their exposed forearms to the heavy tread of their ironshod boots. They crashed through the undergrowth like bulls, growling, expectorating and grumbling the whole time. Yet, when they truly wanted to, they could slip into the shadows like wraiths, sinking into an almost trancelike stillness.

  They smelled strongly, though not in the bestial, unclean way he’d imagined they would, but more of burned things: metal, leather, embers. If anything, they reminded him of the faint aroma he’d detected from Imladrik, the residue from the drakes he rode.

  They had treated their guests well enough – curtly, with plenty of snide remarks on elgi weakness and moral cowardice, but no physical violence. That gave Caradryel at least some hope that things were not as far gone as they might have been. Grondil had escorted him and the Caledorians to a clearing some five miles from where the ambush had been laid. On the way they’d passed several heavily armoured columns of dwarfs marching west. They didn’t so much march through the forest as annihilate it, smashing aside the grasping branches and treading the splinters into the mud. Now Caradryel sat alongside Feliadh and the others, waiting; ignored by the dozens of dawi warriors that came and went across the clearing, though their hostility was palpable on the air, hanging like a stink of contagion.

  Perhaps, he admitted ruefully, thinking back on his grand plans for ingratiation, on this occasion at least, I may have overreached myself.

  ‘Who is the one sent by Imladrik?’ came a voice then from the far side of the clearing.

  Caradryel’s head snapped up. A dwarf had emerged from the trees, flanked on either side by a retinue of axe-wielders in iron battle plate. Unlike most of the others he wore no helm, and his black beard spilled openly across his finely worked breastplate.

  Something about his eyes, the way he looked straight at Caradryel in the way that none of the others did, gave away his status. Those grey eyes had the fixed certainty of command that he’d only witnessed before in Imladrik. Like him, this dwarf walked with a kind of unconscious air of confidence. Also like him, there was a bleakness to him, an austere mien that lined his face and gave his wrinkled skin a greyish sheen.

  ‘I am,’ Caradryel said, rising from the bench and bowing.

  The dwarf lord looked at him for some time before snorting. ‘You’re no warrior,’ he observed.

  ‘Indeed not.’

  ‘Why did he send you?’

  ‘I perform these things for him. My service is with words, not with blades.’

  ‘I can see that.’

  Caradryel worked hard to maintain a deferential manner, fully aware of his danger. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the heavily armoured guards regarding him carefully, as if yearning to find an excuse to strike.

  ‘Imladrik spoke to me highly of the dawi,’ Caradryel said.

  The dwarf lord grunted. ‘Imladrik,’ he repeated slowly, as if savouring the bitter taste of the word. ‘He is here again, on this side of the ocean?’

  ‘He is at Tor Alessi.’

  ‘Why did he not come himself?’

  ‘For the same reason, I imagine, that you do not walk in the vanguard.’

  The dwarf nodded slowly. ‘Once he rode freely all the way to Karaz-a-Karak. He was our guest at the Everpeak. Did you know that?’

  ‘They were freer times.’

  ‘They were.’

  The dwarf lord gestured to his retinue – the faintest movement of a finger – and the armoured warriors withdrew a few paces, crossing their arms and glowering on the edge of the clearing.

  ‘These are my bazan-khazakrum,’ he said to Caradryel. ‘Each has sworn a death-oath and would lay down his life a dozen times over before any harm came to me. They find your presence an insult.’

  Caradryel resisted the urge to glance at them. ‘I regret that.’

  ‘Perhaps you think that your status will be enough to protect you.’

  Caradryel could sense Feliadh and the others tensing up and willed them not to do anything stupid. Caledorian hot-bloodedness was an asset on the battlefield but a handicap for this sort of work.

  ‘I understand the point you are making,’ he said.

  ‘Do you?’ The dwarf lord drew closer to him. ‘What point am I making?’

  ‘What happened to your ambassadors was shameful,’ said Caradryel. Those words, at least, were no deception – Caledor had been stupid to humiliate the dwarf embassy and all but the most blinkered of his ministers knew it. ‘Imladrik regards it as an unforgivable crime.’

  ‘Unforgivable, eh?’ The dwarf lord came closer still. His forehead came up to Caradryel’s chest, but somehow the disparity in height did nothing to alter the unequal relationship of threat that existed. Caradryel felt ludicrously skinny next to the solid mass of flesh and iron that stood before him. He could smell the dwarf’s breath – a meaty, beery aroma. ‘Imladrik knows we never forgive anything, so that’s not saying very much.’

  Suddenly, with a jerk of speed, the dwarf grabbed Caradryel’s long blond hair and yanked him down to his knees.

  ‘Shall I rip these golden locks from your head?’ he hissed, pushing his face towards Caradryel’s in a snarl. ‘Shall I shave your head and send you limping back to Tor Alessi?’

  Caradryel grimaced, feeling his scalp flex, hoping Feliadh had remained completely still. The dwarf twisted his fist further, half-pulling a clump free, making Caradryel gasp.

  Then the pressure released. The dwarf let him go, shaking a few loose tresses fro
m his gauntlet in disgust.

  ‘We do not do such things,’ he muttered. ‘We leave that to savages.’

  Caradryel caught his breath, still on his knees.

  The dwarf lord glared at him coldly. ‘So what do you have to say to me?’

  Caradryel looked up. ‘You are Morgrim?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Then I am instructed to tell you this. Imladrik knows of the wrongs done to your people. He laments the death of Snorri Halfhand. He grieves for the loss of trust between our peoples, and understands that much blood has been shed on both sides, but still believes that an unwinnable war between us may be averted. He wishes to speak to you, as he once did, to explain what we know of this conflict’s origins.’

  Morgrim looked at him wearily, as if he’d hoped for something better, but did not interrupt.

  ‘There are things about my race you do not know,’ Caradryel went on. ‘We are divided. This war is part of that.’

  Morgrim laughed harshly. ‘You say this now, when your cities are besieged. You say this now, when our strength is revealed and you realise the folly of shaming us.’

  Caradryel wanted to stop him there, to point out that however strong the dwarf legions were they had nothing to compare with the flights of dragons, and that Imladrik’s embassy was sent not from weakness but from strength, and that Tor Alessi had been turned into an anvil on which even the mightiest of hosts would break like foaming surf.

  But he said none of that – it would have done no good.

  ‘So what can Imladrik offer?’ demanded Morgrim, his eyes flashing with anger. ‘My cousin lies dead. Some of my people now live only to see the elgi driven into the sea – what shall I say to them?’