Through Stone and Sea Read online

  Hammer-Stag shook his head. “I do not know, Wynn of the Hygeorhts. After they aided me in my own audacity, I asked about their journey. But they preferred to keep to themselves. They headed north, perhaps to one of the Northlander coastal towns.”

  Chane watched a tear roll down Wynn’s cheek as she closed her eyes. She looked broken, as if something she sought, desperately needed, had turned into only a figment. She was drunk, and he feared she might crumple onto the table.

  Wynn looked up at Hammer-Stag, and Chane saw desperation in her face.

  “But they are alive?” she whispered.

  Hammer-Stag leaned in upon her with a toothy grin. “There is slyness in those three. And yes, O mighty little one, I would barter my honor that they are still alive!”

  Chane rose up. “We thank you for your assistance.”

  “A little thing,” Hammer-Stag said absently, and then laughed, poking Wynn in the shoulder. “And I had the better of the barter!”

  Under that one- fingered push, Wynn nearly toppled over. Hammer-Stag quickly grabbed her before Chane could, and studied Wynn with something akin to affection.

  “The ale could not be helped—it is part of the telling,” he said. “You gave us much enjoyment tonight. A dark tale it was, but a fresh one we have never heard!”

  “Dark?” she whispered. “Not compared to others I know.”

  That was enough for Chane. He grabbed Wynn under the arms and hoisted her up. She struggled until he breathed in her ear, “Let us go . . . and find the Iron-Braids.”

  What he intended was to take her straight to find lodging, but first he had to get her out the door.

  “Yes, to the Iron- Braids!” she said loudly, struggling to stand on her own. She looked down at Hammer-Stag. “Good-bye, thänæ . . . and thank you.”

  Before the parting dragged on, Chane turned her toward the exit, and Shade followed after. But as he steered Wynn between the tables, her story would not leave his thoughts. . . .

  Or rather, Chane could not stop picturing her upon the platform, pretending to clutch the heart of an Anmaglâhk.

  CHAPTER 5

  Wynn sucked air, trying to clear her head of pipe smoke as she stumbled from the greeting house. That was why she felt dizzy and nauseous. She wasn’t drunk—not on a few gulps of ale.

  Limestone Mainway was a dim and hazy umber in her sight. Chane still gripped her arm, and she pulled away, instantly unsteady under her feet.

  “Five tunnels down . . . on the right,” she mumbled.

  Shade pricked up her ears with a whine.

  “No, we go to an inn,” Chane stated flatly.

  “I’m fine . . . now come on.”

  “You need to sleep this off.”

  Wynn flushed indignantly. “Sleep what off?”

  Who did he think he was? He wouldn’t even be here if not for her, and now he was acting like . . . like High-Tower—sanctimonious, overbearing, and stuffy.

  “I’m fine,” she repeated. “I just need some fresh air.”

  “Where would we find that, this far underground?” he rasped back. “I grew up among nobles who started drinking as soon as the sun set. I know someone drunk when I hear them!”

  A pair of dwarves in laborers’ attire stepped from the greeting house and glanced at the two humans arguing in the empty mainway.

  “We are going to an inn,” Chane whispered.

  “No! To the Iron-Braids . . . now!”

  Wynn spun about—and all the tunnel’s columns suddenly leaned hard to the right. Great crystals steaming on pylons blurred before her eyes. But no one was ever again going to order her about. Not even Chane . . . especially not Chane.

  “It is late,” he said behind her, and then paused. “But we will locate their smithy, so we know where it is. Then return tomorrow evening at an appropriate time.”

  Even through Wynn’s haze—from smoke and glaring crystals, not ale—this made sense. So how could she argue if he was right? She hated that. Rational counters were another ploy her superiors had used to manipulate her.

  Wynn found herself leaning with the columns, until she accidentally sidled into one. She braced a hand on its gritty stone until the columns straightened.

  “Very well,” she finally agreed.

  Shade huffed, and Wynn found the dog peering around her side.

  “Don’t you start,” she warned, and headed off.

  Her boot toe snagged in her robe.

  She teetered for an instant and righted herself in a few tangled steps. She wasn’t going to give Chane’s accusation any credence. She wasn’t drunk, damn him. It was just the greeting house’s stinky air.

  Shade padded beside her, intermittently whining and huffing. Chane caught up on her other side. Why was he so tall? He towered over everyone here among the dwarves. That too annoyed her.

  They passed varied closed shops so worn and nondescript she couldn’t even tell what they were.

  “You never told me that story,” Chane said, catching her off guard.

  “What . . . what story?”

  “About the white woman—the one you call Li’kän. I did not know that you had kept her from killing you by the power of words.”

  Wynn peered up at him and almost tripped again. His pale features were drawn and pensive.

  “Oh . . . that.” She hesitated. “I didn’t figure everything out by myself.”

  “I assumed as much,” he answered.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing,” he returned quickly. “It seemed too brief and simple—but necessary for a tale. I see that.”

  “Chap figured it out,” she admitted. “I helped once he understood what we should do . . . embellishment is part of dwarven ‘telling.’ The teller has to be the hero. Facts wouldn’t have gained fair trade.”

  “You did well,” he said. “Very well. I had no idea you could give such a performance.”

  Wynn flushed, surprised by the effect of his praise.

  “I thought they would jeer you off the floor in three or four phrases,” he went on.

  She stopped in her tracks. “You thought what?”

  Chane’s expression went blank. “I only meant—”

  Wynn hissed at him, mocking his voice, and trudged onward. Jeered off the floor? Indeed! Was that what he thought of her? She lost count of the tunnels, and spun about to check again.

  “Five!” she said tartly, and turned back to the last one they’d passed. “Let’s find the smithy.”

  Then her stomach rolled. Or the stone beneath her seemed to do so. An acrid taste coated her tongue.

  Chane’s mouth tightened, as if he were still puzzled by her offense—the dolt.

  Just as Hammer-Stag had said, they couldn’t have missed the smithy. Of the few establishments or residences cut into the dark path’s stone, it was the only one still aglow. With its old door shoved inward, warm red-orange light flickered upon the tunnel’s floor and opposite wall.

  “It’s still open?” Wynn said in surprise.

  “Not likely,” Chane answered. “It is well past the mid of night . . . unless . . .”

  Wynn didn’t need him to finish. How long had they lingered in the greeting house? Was dawn already near?

  Shade sniffed—and then sneezed—as she crept toward the door.

  The scent of char and metal increased around Wynn, sharpening her dizziness, but she spotted no smoke. That seemed impossible at this depth. She stepped in beside Shade, peeking through the smithy’s open door.

  Inside, a young dwarven woman pounded on a red-hot mule shoe gripped in iron tongs. Sparks flew at the hammer’s dull clanks. Although wide like her people, she looked slight for a dwarf. A mass of sweaty red hair was tied back at the nape of her neck.

  Her simple shirt was of some coarse, heavy fabric and rolled up at the sleeves. She wore leather pants with a matching apron darkened from labor. Strangest was her glistening, soot-marred face.

  All dwarves had small, pure black iri
ses, but hers seemed a bit larger than High-Tower’s. Her nose was a touch smaller, and she didn’t have his blockish wide jaw. Hers was smoothly curved. Severe-looking, she still didn’t bear much resemblance to her older brother.

  Was she an Iron Braid or a hired craftswoman in the family’s smithy?

  Glancing into the red-lit space, Wynn took in the long, open stone forge, its hot coals so bright they stung her eyes. Thick-planked tables lined the walls, laden with tools as well as rough collections of goods either finished or needing more work. A pile of mule shoes rested on the table nearest the door. A way back was another table burdened with ax, pick, and sledge heads, and other implements for miners.

  There was so much for such a small, out- of-the way place that Wynn realized other workers must be employed here. But on this late night, the young woman labored alone. That didn’t seem right for hired help.

  Then, upon the rearmost table, Wynn caught a soft glint—two glints, actually.

  A pair of swords lay beside one heavy buckler shield. One was shorter and broader, with a thickened hilt obviously made for a dwarf. The second was a single-handed longsword suitable for a human. Both had the distinctive dark, mottled gray sheen of dwarven steel.

  Not all smiths were weaponers. It was a specialty of great skill, though Wynn knew little about the craft either way. But those weapons, simple and unadorned, as preferred by the dwarves, looked finer than all she remembered from her travels.

  Someone here had higher skills than the making of mule shoes.

  A strange sound filled the smithy, like a rhythmic puffing of breath, as a gray mass slowly descended beyond the open forge. Two cask-size iron counterweights, one rising as the other fell, hung on a chain over a cart-wheel-size gear mounted to the ceiling. At each jolting descent, a smaller gear did a full turn, driving an iron arm connected to a bellows pump. But the coals did not pulse with the bellows.

  A wide tin flue above the forge caught rising smoke and seemed to suck it up like a mouth. Each “breath” came in time with the bellows’ pumps. The counterweights halted, and the tin mouth went silent.

  Wynn saw thin smoke spill upward over the flue’s lip.

  The woman jammed the mule shoe into the coals in a burst of sparks and stepped around to grab a chain dangling from the higher counterweight. She hauled upon it, thick muscles bulging in her arms as it changed places with its counterpart. When she released her grip, the clicking of chains and gears resumed, along with the flue’s pulsing breaths. The woman rounded the forge and picked up her iron tongs.

  Though dizzy, Wynn clearly remembered Hammer-Stag’s accounting of names. High-Tower’s sister was named Skirra, which roughly meant “Sliver” in Numanese. As the smith jerked the mule shoe from the coals and set its red-hot metal upon the anvil, Wynn stepped in and dropped her pack inside the doorway.

  “Is this the Iron-Braid smithy?” she called out. “Run by Sliver?”

  The woman’s hammer hung poised in the air. Her dark eyes rested briefly on Wynn, shifted to Chane, and finally dropped to Shade.

  “We are closed,” she said in a deep voice.

  The hammer fell with a sharp clank, sparks spitting from struck metal.

  Wynn hesitated. “Are you . . . Sliver Iron- Braid?”

  “Come back tomorrow,” the woman said.

  That wasn’t a denial. Wynn’s stomach rolled again as she took two steps, trying not to trip on her robe.

  “We’re not seeking s-s-services,” she said, and then stopped, trying to swallow away the cottony sensation in her mouth.

  The woman lowered her hammer until its head barely clicked upon the anvil.

  “I am Wynn Hye . . Hyj . . . orth . . . of the Guild of Sagecraft,” Wynn added. “I . . . we stay at the temple of Bezu . . . Bedaka . . .” She gave up on Dwarvish. “We stay at the temple of Feather-Tongue. We traveled a long way for news of your brother.”

  Sliver’s expression hardened. Even her cheekbones appeared to bulge above a clenched mouth.

  “The smithy is closed!” she snarled. “And maybe you would know more of my brother than I!”

  Shade paused in sniffing about the nearest table legs, and Chane stepped in quickly, placing a warning hand on Wynn’s shoulder. Wynn didn’t know how she’d given offense.

  “No . . . not High-Tower,” she corrected. “Your other brother.”

  Sliver straightened slowly, not blinking once as she stared back. She sucked air through reclenched teeth and took a fast step toward Wynn, the hammer still in her fist.

  “Get out!” she roared.

  Before Wynn finished a cringe, Chane stood partially in front of her. Sliver sneered at him, not the least bit intimidated.

  “I said leave,” she repeated, full of warning. “I have no other brother!”

  Wynn’s brief fright faded. Perhaps it was how dwarves respected strength and forthrightness, or maybe just pride at her successful “telling” in the greeting house. Something emboldened Wynn, but it certainly wasn’t the ale. She stepped directly into Sliver’s face.

  “Don’t lie to me!” she shouted back. “I saw him when he came to the guild to visit High-Tower. He’s one of your people’s Stonewalkers.”

  Sliver’s mouth gaped, and she backed one step. “Meâkesa . . . went to Chlâyard?”

  Then her voice failed, and so did Wynn’s.

  Why did a meeting between brothers shock their sister so much? Then Wynn realized through her haze that Sliver had just given her the name of a stonewalker.

  Meâkesa . . . Ore-Locks.

  “We need to speak with Ore-Locks,” Wynn insisted. “It’s critical. Where do I find him?”

  Sliver shuddered as her face twisted in revulsion . . . or was it fear, perhaps pain?

  When Wynn had eavesdropped outside of High- Tower’s study, she got the sense that he hadn’t seen his brother in years. They were both so bitter, with no connection other than blood. Shirvêsh Mallet hadn’t heard from High-Tower for a decade or more, and the mention of Ore- Locks visiting High-Tower had struck Sliver even harder.

  How long had it been since either brother had looked in upon their younger sister?

  Sliver snatched the front of Wynn’s robe.

  Wynn sucked in a breath in fright. Before she shouted a warning, Chane latched onto the smith’s thick wrist, and Wynn never got out a word. Sliver released her hammer and rammed her flat palm into Chane’s lower chest.

  Chane was gone before Wynn heard the hammer clank onto the floor.

  She heard Chane hit the outer passage’s far wall in a clatter of packs as Shade let out a savage rolling snarl. Sliver’s face twisted in an echo of the dog’s noise as she hoisted Wynn higher.

  Wynn’s feet left the floor, and ale welled up in her throat.

  She couldn’t even gasp as Sliver threw her out of the smithy after Chane. She slammed against something yielding but firm, and the staff clattered from her grip as she flailed. Then Chane’s arms wrapped around her as they both fell back against the passage’s far wall.

  The tunnel’s dimness, welling ale, and the haze in Wynn’s head mounted one upon another. She slid down Chane’s legs to the floor, struggling to get untangled from her twisted cloak. She heard and saw Shade poised and snapping in the doorway before the maddened smith.

  “Shade . . . no!” she gagged out.

  Foam built in the back of Wynn’s throat, filling her whole mouth with a bitter, acrid taste. She tumbled forward onto all fours as Chane crab-stepped aside to get his footing.

  “Shade!” Wynn choked out. “No!”

  The dog finally backed into the passage, still growling.

  Sliver spun away into the smithy and slammed the door shut.

  Wynn’s last glimpse of High-Tower’s sister was of a face warped by outrage and fright. She tried to get up, but the floor seemed to roll beneath her hands like a ship’s deck.

  Her stomach clenched so hard she squeaked in pain.

  Chane watched helplessly as Wynn vomited all over t
he tunnel floor. When she retched again, he dropped to his knees and pulled back her hair. He had to grab her when she almost collapsed in the pool of slightly foaming ale.

  She felt so small in his arms as her body clenched and heaved, and she finally collapsed against him. Her eyes closed as she went limp with a shuddering inhale.

  “Wynn?” he whispered, afraid to even shake her a little.

  Shade rushed over, whining in open alarm, and began pawing at Wynn’s robe.

  “Back,” Chane rasped, but the dog either did not understand or would not listen.

  “Witless . . .” Wynn mumbled. “Witless . . . Wynn . . . me and my stupid—”

  Another heave cut off her babble, and she curled over Chane’s folded knees, trying to hold it back.

  Chane looked frantically up and down the tunnel.

  Lost in an underground city of foreign people, with only an antagonistic elven dog and a half- conscious sage, what could he possibly do? If not for Shade’s presence, he would have hunted down some lone resident and forced answers to his need.

  Down the way, a bulky figure stepped out of a draped doorway.

  Chane glanced at Shade and gritted his teeth.

  “Pardon,” he rasped in Numanese, hoping his maimed voice did not startle the person.

  The figure paused and turned and then came thumping down the way. As the man entered the bit of red light seeping through the smithy door’s cracks, Chane looked into the face of a young male dwarf. Beardless and dressed in burlap breeches and jerkin under a rabbit fur vest, he wore a sloppy hat of lime-striped canvas slouched upon his head of wiry brown hair.

  “I need to find the nearest inn . . . common house . . . lodge,” Chane said in frustration.

  The young dwarf crouched, frowned at the pool foaming ale, and then peered at Wynn’s huddled form.

  “A’ye, dené beghân thuag-na yune rugh’gire!” he said, and shook his head with a sympathetic sigh.

  Chane sagged. His first lone encounter was with a dwarf who did not speak Numanese. Even intimidation would gain him nothing. He slid Wynn’s staff into the lashing on his own pack, mounting the whole of it onto his back, and then grabbed for his other pack, preparing to head out in search of an inn.