Chapter Seven
“HEY, LAD, YOU’LL WANT TO ROUSE. We’re about at the Iron Gates and your crow is back,” I heard Asdren saying, his speech puffing warm and moist into the scarf tied around my head.
My eyes were loath to open, but I forced them wide then whimpered.
The snow had stopped. Now the sun shone down so brightly that it made my head throb.
There was little to see other than gold-gray rock, but at least the storm had moved on.
Moving back to draw more heat from the firm male riding behind me, I moved my right shoulder.
Dull, hot pain bit down hard on that area of my body.
“Easy now, you’ll not want to move that arm too much.
Soon as we get into Grommveldir proper, we’ll find a healer to sell us something to ease the discomfort. ”
“Raven. His name is Click. My mouth tastes like I licked the underside of a dwarf. No offense.”
He chuckled, his chest vibrating with a deep resonance. A pleasant sound. One he should indulge in more often. My eyelids slipped closed. Resting in his embrace was so very pleasant…
“None taken.” I was jostled by the slowing of the pony.
My sight darted about, seeking Click, who I found perched atop a stone arch, intricately carved, heavy with Dwarven lettering I could not read.
I could barely read Elvish. “The swill Borran calls whiskey does that. Best to find some wintergreen to chew on to rid the foul taste from your tongue.” We paused just through the arch. “Take care getting down.”
“You sound like the royal twins’ nanny,” I replied, easing myself forward and then down.
Thankfully I was not dismounting Hasulett, for even that slight movement brought a fierce reminder of my tender shoulder.
I opened my mind to the raven. With wobbly legs, I placed my left hand on the pony.
My headache grew into something vile and rabid as it tried to sour my stomach.
My gut was empty so there would be no more vomiting. Small favors from the goddess.
I bring notes. Fly through snow. Hungry. Feed Click.
Fly to me. Arm hurt.
Wonderful. I now spoke like the raven. I vowed never to touch dwarven whiskey ever again, even if my arm were hanging off by a thread of meat. Never again. My eyes watered at the thumping now taking place in my skull.
The raven winged his way to me, landing on my left shoulder, his clever black eyes finding my face.
Look sick. Feel sick. Feed Click to feel better.
That pulled a trembling smile from me.
I will feed you soon.
Reaching over to remove the metal tube from his leg made me wince.
“Here, boy-o, let me help.” The others were still astride their mounts, waiting for me to get my arse behind me, as Granny used to say.
“Your shoulder needs rest.” Asdren untied the thin leather strap holding the tube to the raven’s leg.
Click pecked at him. Asdren passed the tube to me and pulled a bit of jerky from his pouch to feed the messenger.
Click plucked it from his fingers warily then took to wing, landing on the arch to enjoy his treat. “Good news, I hope.”
Holding the tube in my splinted hand, I eased the lid off and dumped the missive into my palm.
Smuta and the twins rode up a space to allow their ponies to stand in the sun.
The snowy path was melting slightly. Glancing up the road, I noticed the path was widening out as it wound around the mountainside.
The note was short, praise Danubia, for looking down at the small writing made my head pound as it flipped the letters to and fro. I scowled down at the missive. Asdren stepped close, his elbow touching my hip. I looked from the indecipherable note to him, expecting to hear a taunt flow from him.
“You need someone to read it? Damn hangovers rob a soul of its basic teachings,” Asdren loudly said, his voice filled with good humor.
I heard the others murmuring in agreement.
I owed him for helping me to save face. “My head feels fit to explode.” I passed the note over.
If I could not trust those who journeyed with me, then I could trust no one.
The dwarf had saved my life. If the spymaster was angry with me for sharing something sensitive with Asdren, then so be it.
I would take the punishment. I was too sick, too sore, and too lightheaded to be worried about secrets.
Aelir could sever my tenure as an outrider if he wished.
He held the missive close to his nose and squinted. “My eyes don’t like them tiny elven words all crammed onto the page.”
“Mine either,” I confided just as a small cart with a dwarven male and female holding a swaddled babe rattled past, the back filled with casks, wheat sheaves, and crates of bright green squash.
They gawked openly at me as they passed.
I nodded, blushed, and wished I could lie down in the slush so they could run me over. It would end the whiskey misery.
“Seems from what I can make of it is they never found the nursemaid after she was left in Quinn’s Quay.
Rumors abound about her wedding a human.
Huh, no accounting for taste.” I nudged him to move along.
The sun was making my eyes tear. Or bleed.
I could not be wholly sure. “Says she was paid a hundred gold,” he whistled softly.
“Someone wanted the babe hauled off damn bad to cough up that kind of coin for a half-breed.”
“Half-breed elf of importance,” I gently reminded him. Click shouted at me for more jerky. My eye twitched.
“True, true. So they found her as spies do. She traveled to the pirates, where she handed the lad off to a first mate who took him from her with no questions asked. Gave her a few coppers, and that was the last she saw of the child. Hmm.” He lowered the missive to massage the blue beads in his beard.
“If they took the foundling but not the wet nurse, they must have had a female at the ready to nurse the baby, which sticks true to the tales I’ve heard about the Stormhold pirates. ”
I rubbed my left temple. “So we are on the right path. We need to move faster if possible.”
He handed the letter to me. I stuffed it into my mouth, chewed, and swallowed. Asdren said nothing, but he did nod slightly as if impressed with my paper-eating skills.
“We can make up speed once we exit the tunnels through the Tundra exit. Damn shame the pass is buried under tons of rock, as that would have cut weeks off the trip. Still, the tunnels will slice time off traipsing over the top of this here range. Nothing but goats, yeti, and the undead who fell to their deaths walk those ridges. Let’s get moving.
You look like you’re ready to cast your withers. ”
Using the pony as a guide, we ambled up the hill, my hand on the horse’s haunch, a raven kiting overhead, until we rounded a corner to view the Iron Gate.
Mounting seemed far too much. Walking would work the poison—which I was sure dwarven whiskey was—from my system faster.
I prayed. I gaped at the monstrosity of an entrance into the land of the miners.
The two steel doors stood as tall and wide as the fabled ice dragons that used to call the mountains home hundreds of thousands of seasons ago.
Engraved in the twin doors of cold metal was the outline of a female dwarf holding a pickaxe in one hand and a key in the other.
“Something to see, ain’t it?” Asdren asked as we made our way into a line of people seeking admittance.
The cart with the small family who had stared at me so was in front of us.
The female could not take her gaze from me no matter how the male dwarf with her engaged her.
“The female on the door is the Deepdelver. Mistress of the veins, lady of hidden riches. The miners leave offerings of polished stone at the entrance to every mine as homage to the lady. She shows the veins to them with patient hands.”
Every dwarf within earshot repeated Asdren’s last line.
“She looks lovely,” I whispered as the cart in front of us moved up.
I glanced around the wagon to see four guards in dark gray armor posted at the massive doors.
They seemed to be checking paperwork. On each side of the guards stood tall metallic automaton forms, easily the height of two humans, one standing on the other’s shoulders, crafted from steel.
The fabled constructs of the dwarven gate.
Amazing indeed, these metalworkers of Grommveldir.
“I was not told to bring any identification with me.”
“You won’t need it. They wouldn’t let you in no matter what kind of papers you brought. None but dwarves and those who serve them are allowed entrance to Grommveldir. Just play along at the gate.”
Just as I was about to ask what that meant exactly—was I to play at being his servant?
—I was interrupted by the grinding of stones on the ground as the constructs, standing as tall as the silver aspen trees growing along the base of the Witherhorns, yanked on two thick metal handles and pulled open the doors.
The gates opened slowly, the hinges silent, obviously well-oiled and maintained.
A wide wagon, empty, rolled through. The gates were then pushed closed by the automatons.
The next wagon moved up, the one before us, with the enthralled female.
I smiled softly at her. She spat on her fingers and wiped it on the sleeping babe’s brow before turning about to stare at the guards.
“She thinks you might be some sort of fiend. There are tales of elves with red hair and eyes that suck the life from sleeping babes,” Dulgar informed me.
“How stupid,” I barked, hating myself for speaking so loudly, and then grimaced at Click, shouldering his way into my head.
Click is hungry. Still hungry. Feed Click.
Click is pushy and loud.
I stomped away from my group to where the raven was hopping about on the slushy road, wings out, head twisting this way and that. The starving raven dance.