Elizabeth Haydon - Destiny - Child of the Sky

“Give.”

Trying to keep his hands from shaking, Hagraith crept to the opening where the Thumb joined the Palm and carefully pulled the leather package from beneath his jerkin. He held it out to Krinsel, who took it with steady hands, the hands that had caught a generation of infants and more than a few treasures that bore the Sign. He skittered back to the recesses of the Thumb, panting.

With great delicacy Krinsel unwrapped the plate, holding it in one hand as she held the low-burning tallow up to examine it. Her eyes widened, and her face relaxed into a slight smile.

“It is the Sign,” she said reverently. After a moment she turned her dark gaze on Hagraith. “Finder you are.”

Hagraith bowed his head in relief, feeling the tightness in his abdomen abate. Sweat that had been held back by fear now poured from his brow.

He could keep his testicle, the price of misinterpreting the Sign or presenting a false find.

Krinsel held the plate aloft in both hands and closed her eyes.

“This one it is, Voice?” she asked quietly. The other Bolg crouched in the Fingers closed their eyes, listening intently, but they heard nothing but the noise of the smithy, the hammers ringing steadily, slowly.

After a moment she opened her eyes and shook her head stoically. “For the hoard this is. Good, Hagraith. Finder you are.” She turned to the tunnel that lay in the place of the Smallest Finger. “Give.”

One by one she examined the objects—a coin like the thousands of others in the hoard, the badly scarred lid to a box made of wood with a blue undertone to it, and finally a pot that had been brought all the way from Sorbold with the Sign inscribed inside. Each item Krinsel pronounced as genuine, and held high for the Voice to recognize.

As always, there was no answer.

Smoothly Krinsel rose and nodded to the empty tunnel in the place of the Pointing Finger that led down an endless corridor to the hoard. The Finders followed her, bearing their treasures to the place such things were housed.

Night had fallen when Achmed returned to the Cauldron. The lamps had been lighted, filling the brightening hallways with thick smoke and the rancid smell of burning fat, which seeped quickly into his sensitive sinuses and nasal cavities. It made his bad mood even blacker.

The chandeliers in the Great Hall had been lighted as well; the renovations were almost finished. He took a moment, even in his fury, to stop and look around at the awesome sight of the polished marble columns, the newly restored symbols of the star Seren, the Earth, the moon, and the sun meticulously inlaid in the floor. Above him the domed ceiling was a dark cerulean blue, studded with tiny crystals that reflected the light of a mirrored device in the center of the floor, making it look like the firmament of the sky sprinkled with stars.

The illumination from the firepit in the floor that lighted those mock stars was the only light in the vast room, leaving many corners of it dark. Achmed stepped into a shadow, breathing evenly to slow his wrath.

Grunthor was sitting in one of the ancient marble thrones on the dais, one enormous leg slung over the arm of the stone chair. He was singing one of his favorite chanteys, fueled, no doubt, by the contents of the large flask that sat in a place of honor on the other throne.

When the sounds o’ grim battle

Have long stopped their rattle

And the sweet smell of entrails and gore

Pass away on the wind

Salute me, my friend,

For Oi’ll go a-rovin’ no more.

I’ll no longer tarry on

And leave to the carrion

The glory of well-wa-ged war,

When the killin’s all done

What’s the point? Where’s the fun?

Oh, Oi shall go rovin’ no more.

On that bittersweet day

With no more foes to slay

Our martial life naught but a bore,

We’ll make us some thrones

Of their skulls and their bones,

And we’ll go a-rovin’ no more.

-

The fury exploded behind Achmed’s eyes. Angrily he strode down the long aisle leading up to the dais.

Grunthor heard him coming at the beginning of the next song he was preparing to sing. He stopped, stood quickly to attention, and broke into a wide grin, which disappeared as the king came to a halt before the dais, slamming down his bundle of weapons on the floor. The crash of steel and the clang of metal jangled harshly.

Grunthor looked at him in amazement. “What’s all this, then?” he asked.

Achmed crossed his arms.

“When I asked you to watch over the throne, I had not meant that you should be warming it with your considerable arse while someone sells the kingdom out from under me.”

Grunthor, still standing at attention, went even more rigid. The muscles in his tree-trunk arms began to tremble with anger, and his face solidified into a mask of blind fury. Achmed waved at him dispassionately.

“At ease, Sergeant. I’d rather snarl at you as my friend than berate you as my Supreme Commander.”

Grunthor assumed parade rest, his face now a stoic mask within which two eyes filled with fire burned.

“What’s all this, then?” he repeated steadily. “Sir.”

“A cache of weapons I found among the bodies of a quarter-column of dead Sorbold soldiers,” Achmed said, pushing the weapons around with the toe of his boot. “They’re culls, fortunately—the Sorbolds are such mindless imbeciles that they cannot even see the flaws, the lack of balance. But they had them—any thoughts as to how that might have happened?”

“No, sir,” the Sergeant replied rigidly.

Achmed watched Grunthor for a moment, then turned his back to him. It was time for the longtime ritual.

“Permission to speak freely?” said Grunthor rotely.

“Granted.”

“I proffer my resignation, sir.”

“Refused.”

“Permission to speak freely?” the Sergeant repeated.

“Granted.”

He listened, his back still turned, for the great relaxation of military discipline, for the enormous inhalation that came whenever Grunthor crossed from the realm of loyal soldier into the one of enraged equal. He braced himself as the great rush of air surged in through Grunthor’s huge, flat nose.

The Sergeant-Major threw back his head and roared at the top of his lungs. The sound echoed through the Great Hall, making the columns vibrate.

A moment later from behind Achmed there came a rending of carpet and the cracking of iron bolts. One of the ancient thrones of Anwyn and Gwylliam, formed from solid marble and weighing in excess of three men in full armor, sailed through the air over Achmed’s head and bounced off the polished stone floor, skidding over the image of the star and coming to a halt, with a tremendous thud, on its side. Silence reverberated in the Great Hall.

Achmed turned back to Grunthor.

“Feel better?”

The Sergeant was mopping his gray-green brow. “Yes sir, a bit.”

“Good. Now, let me hear your thoughts.”

“When Oi find out ’oo broke faith, Oi’m gonna stick every one of them weapons in ’is eyes, then roast ’im over sagebrush and serve ’im to the troops for the ’olidays on a bed of potatoes with an apple up ’is arse.”

“Rhapsody does always say that you should celebrate special occasions by having friends for supper. Any other thoughts?”

The giant Bolg nodded. “It’s got to be someone on the third shift—that’s when the culls are destroyed.”

“More than likely. But there are two thousand men on the third shift, and it will take an egregiously long time to discover which few are responsible. Agreed?”

“Yeah, but we ’ave to root out the traitors.”

“Yes, but we have other, greater concerns. In the months I’ve been gone our most secret weaponry has made its way into the hands of a neighboring army. If Sorbold is to be the staging ground of the attack on Ylorc, they have far more knowledge of our workings than I am comfortable with. We have to respond quickly.”