Chapter Eleven Guthnyr
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Guthnyr
The wall was an ugly mix of kehlgruin and stone.
Iron spikes protruded from its irregular surface in haphazard but effective frequency.
Although it wasn’t a particularly tall barrier, perhaps twenty feet high by Guthnyr’s reckoning, the spikes ensured any attempt to climb it would be a perilous task indeed.
It stretched across the mouth of a canyon sitting amid a range of peaks several hundred feet above a winding valley to the south.
The wall’s sole opening consisted of a solid door halfway up its height, accessible via a narrow ramp.
“So that’s the Wehrtrova, is it?” Sygurn said, squinting as his gaze roved the wall. “Not going to lie, I was expecting something grander.”
“You’ve heard of this place?” Guthnyr asked him.
“Step on the wrong side of the Vortigurn’s law for long and enough and you’ll hear the tale of the Wehrtrova. A haven for Travka and outlaws secreted in the northern mountains. Always thought it more legend than truth, though.”
“Wehrtrova means Scavenger’s Nest,” Guthnyr said, turning to Deyna. “Where have you brought us?”
She didn’t answer immediately, brows set in a thoughtful crease as she scanned the top of the wall.
At her urging, they had left their small force beyond the edge of the canyon’s mouth, proceeding with only Sygurn for security.
Deyna was particularly keen that none of the Morvek be glimpsed by the sentries atop the wall.
There were a score of them, returning her scrutiny with interest but no alarm.
Three people hardly presented much of a threat.
“The place where we find either ruin or salvation,” Deyna replied before starting towards the raised track. “Either outcome depending very much on what happens in the next few minutes. I strongly suggest you leave the talking to me.”
The door at the top of the ramp was both sturdy and more expertly crafted than the wall it sat in.
Looking over the solid beams of oak contained within riveted iron brackets, Guthnyr decided it would take many blows from a ram to sunder it.
A slat opened in the door before they reached it, revealing a heavyset woman scowling in suspicion.
“Who the feck are you and what the feck do you want?” she demanded in a voice so hoarse it seemed to rattle as she spoke.
“Want to speak to Torfyn,” Deyna replied, her accent causing Guthnyr to blink in surprise. Gone were the smooth vowels of a Tuhlvyr. Instead, this clipped, roughened speech made her sound more like Sygurn. “He knows me.”
“So what’s your name, then?” the woman demanded. “Lotta feckers turn up here claiming they know him. Doesn’t go well for ’em when it turns out they’re talking shite.”
Deyna hesitated, lowering her head for an instant as if summoning courage. “Name’s Kahri,” she said. “He knows me… I’m his niece, see?”
The bemusement on the woman’s face matched the look exchanged by Guthnyr and Sygurn.
The blacksmith’s face showed considerable suspicion, unalloyed by Guthnyr’s reassuring nod.
Despite her considerable capacity for deceit, it seemed highly unlikely Deyna would have led them all this way just to lie to a holdfast full of outlaws.
“Wait there,” the woman said, slamming the slat closed.
“Niece?” Guthnyr said.
Deyna continued to regard the door in silence, her tension betrayed by the vein throbbing in her clenched jaw.
“How can a Tuhlvyr be niece to some outlaw living in a mountain shit-hole?” Sygurn asked.
“The same way a wretched slave sent to die in the Meidvang can become a blacksmith,” Deyna replied. “Now shut the feck up.”
Perhaps another ten minutes elapsed before the slat opened again.
The face revealed this time was male, older, and heavily bearded.
Slate grey eyes regarded Deyna beneath heavy brows for an instant before the aperture closed again.
A muffled shout of command sounded from within followed by the rattle of locks and chains as the door was drawn up.
The man standing in the entrance was Guthnyr’s equal in height but considerably broader.
He wore a goat-hide vest that left his thickly muscled arms bare, impressive thews flexing as he crossed them, fixing a hard glare upon Deyna.
“Not dead, then?” he grunted.
“Tried my best,” Deyna replied, a smile appearing on her lips. Guthnyr was surprised to see no artifice in that smile, just warm, if reluctantly expressed, regard. “Didn’t take.”
The man’s beard parted to reveal white teeth and he uncrossed his arms, coming forward to enfold Deyna in a tight embrace. “Ulthnir’s arse, but it’s good to see you, Kahri!” he said, lifting her off her feet. “You look so much like your mother now.”
“And you look just the same, Uncle Torfyn. Bit thicker round the belly, though. No offence.”
“Got the same edge to your tongue too.” Torfyn laughed and set her down, his amusement fading rapidly as he turned his attention to his niece’s companions. His scrutiny lingered most on Guthnyr, especially the blue tattoos upon his brows. “Got y’self some new dogs, I see.”
“More like… partners in a new enterprise,” Deyna said, the Tuhlvyr’s tones creeping back into her speech. “One you would do well to join. If you’re as smart as I remember.”
“Always a scheme with you.” Torfyn shook his head. “After your mam passed and you took yourself off all those years ago, barely fifteen summers old, I knew I’d hear of you one day. Either as one risen high or hanging from a rope having schemed once too often.”
“I rose high enough. But I’m still dodging the rope.
” Deyna cast pointed looks at the folk flanking Torfyn.
The heavyset woman was most prominent among them, her suspicious scowl still in place.
The others were mixed in age and size, but uniform in their villainous appearance.
Some wore patchy armour, all wore weapons. None looked friendly.
“Got somewhere we can talk?” Deyna asked. “Private like.”
The settlement inside the wall was constructed on several levels, stone foundations built upon by wooden scaffolds draped in hides against the weather.
The smell had the acrid edge common to most towns but Guthnyr didn’t find it particularly objectionable.
A visitor to many a port, in Ascarlia and Albermaine, his nostrils had been assailed by worse.
The Wehrtrova was plentifully supplied with occupants too, many thronging the avenues between the mongrel buildings with children staring down from their rooftop shelters amid a babble of excited chatter.
Guthnyr noted that, busy as the streets were, all the townsfolk made way for Torfyn and his strange visitors.
The building he led them to was unique in featuring no modifications. Two storeys high and constructed of stone brick, one half of it was dominated by an overlarge, bottle-shaped chimney. “Forge,” Sygurn grunted in recognition. “Looks like her uncle’s a smith.”
His estimation was quickly borne out when Torfyn led them through a broad doorway into a workshop where coal glowed bright in a stone circle.
Half a dozen men and women stood at anvils arranged around the forge, pounding hammers to steel and iron.
They all ceased their labours at a shout from Torfyn.
“Enough for today. Go and get drunk. Not you, Halvor,” he added, causing a tall, lean young man to linger as his workmates trooped out.
He was beardless, his features possessed of an aquiline handsomeness that struck Guthnyr as familiar.
The reason became plain when Torfyn spoke on.
“Meet your cousin, boy,” he said, gesturing to Deyna.
“Kahri, who you’ve heard me speak of more than once.
Though I’d lay a hefty bet she goes by another name these days. ”
“You’d be right,” Deyna said before affording the young man a respectful nod. “Well met, cousin.”
“Well met, indeed,” Halvor replied, inclining his head with a smile Guthnyr found annoyingly wolfish.
“Looks like you do a good trade, Uncle,” Deyna said, spreading her hands to the forge. “Wouldn’t have thought this place could support a smithy so large.”
“Things have changed since your day,” Torfyn said. “The Wehrtrova sits at the centre of a whole mess of settlements now. Every year that passes, the Vortigurn’s taxes send ever more Travka into the wilds. And where there’s folk, there’s always a need for worked metal.”
“Including weapons?” Without waiting for an answer, Deyna reached into her cloak and produced the kelvehr knife she had pilfered from the forge in Tahrim Kyrn. “Like this?”
Her uncle’s brows tightened and his eyes widened as Deyna placed the knife in his hand. One as practised as he in the ways of metal knew something remarkable when he saw it. “Who fashioned this?” he asked, tracing a finger along the centre of the gleaming blade.
“I did,” Sygurn said.
Torfyn’s beard bunched in a manner that indicated the rueful grin of a man knowing the answer to his next question before asking it. “Care to show me how?”
“Which brings us to that enterprise I spoke of,” Deyna cut in before Sygurn could respond. Pointing to the knife, she added, “This blade can pierce mail and armour. It’s forged from steel that will never break with an edge that will never dull. We call it kelvehr.”
“Blessed steel, eh?” Keeping hold of the knife, Torfyn went to a nearby bench and took up a plate-sized sheet of hammered metal.
Moving with a speed that belied his size, the smith drove the knife into the sheet, the blade piercing it up to the hilt.
“Good to know my own niece won’t lie to her uncle,” he grunted, drawing the weapon clear.
“For I’d wager my very balls this blade was not crafted by the hand of man alone.
” Receiving no answer, he laughed again. “You have more?”
At Deyna’s nod, Sygurn replied: “A little over three hundred weapons in all. Axes, knives and swords.”