Paul Thompson - The Qualinesti

Ulvian’s one meeting with Feldrin had not gone well. The chained prince, now dressed in the green and brown leathers of a forester, had been led by Merith to the canvas hut where the master builder lived. The dwarf came out to see them, setting aside an armful of scrolls covered with lines and numbers. These were the plans for the fortress.

“Remove his chains,” Feldrin rumbled. Without a word, Merith took Ulvian’s shackles off. Ulvian sniffed and thanked the dwarf casually.

“Save your thanks,” replied Feldrin. His thick black beard was liberally sprinkled with white, and his long stay in the heights of the Kharolis had deeply tanned his face and arms. He planted brick-hard fists on his squat hips and skewered the prince with his blue eyes. “Chains are not needed here. We are miles from the nearest settlement, and the mountains are barren and dry. You will work hard. If you try to run away, you will perish from hunger and thirst,” the dwarf said darkly. “That is, if my people don’t hunt you down first. Is that clear?”

Ulvian rolled his eyes and didn’t answer. Feldrin roared, “Is that clear?” The prince flinched and nodded quickly. “Good.”

He assigned Ulvian to the grunt gang, and a burly, bearded human came to escort the prince to his new quarters.

When they were gone, Merith’s shoulders sagged. “I must confess, Master Feldrin, I am exhausted,” he said, sighing. “For ten days, I have had the prince in my keeping, and I haven’t had a moment’s rest!”

“Why so, Lieutenant? He doesn’t look so dangerous.”

Feldrin stooped to retrieve his plans. Merith squatted to help.

“It wasn’t fear that spoiled my sleep,” the warrior confided, “but the prince’s constant talk! By holy Mantis, that boy can talk, talk, talk. He tried to convert me, make me his friend, so that I wouldn’t deliver him to you. He’s engaging when he wants to be, and clever, too. You may have trouble with him.”

Feldrin pushed back the front flap of his hut with one broad, blunt hand. “Oh, I doubt it, Master Merithynos. A few days dragging stone blocks will take the stiffness out of the prince’s neck.”

Merith ducked under the low doorframe and entered the hut. Though the walls and roof were canvas, like a tent, Feldrin’s hut had a wooden frame and floor, sturdier than a tent. The mountains were sometimes wracked by fierce winds, blizzards, and landslides.

Feldrin clomped across the bare board floor and dropped his scrolls on a low trestle table in the center of the room. He turned up the wick on a brass oil lamp and settled himself on a thick-legged stool, then proceeded to rummage through the loose assortment of parchment until he found a scrap.

“I shall send a note back to the Speaker,” he said, “so that he will know you and the prince arrived safely.”

The lieutenant glanced back at the door flap hanging loosely in the still, cool air. “What shall I do, Master Feldrin? I’m supposed to guard the prince, but it seems you don’t really need me.”

“No, he won’t be any trouble,” muttered the dwarf, finishing his brief missive with a flourish. He shook sand over the wet ink to dry it. “But I may have another use for you.”

Merith drew himself up straight, expecting an official order. “Yes, master builder?”

Stroking his thick beard, Feldrin regarded the tall elf speculatively. “Do you play checkers?” he asked.

Bells and gongs rang through the camp, and all over Pax Tharkas workers set down their tools. The sun had just begun to set behind Mount Thak, which meant only an hour of daylight remained. It was quitting time.

Ulvian dragged along at the rear of the ragged column of laborers known as the grunt gang. His arms and legs ached, his palms were blistered, and despite the cool temperature, the stronger sun at this high elevation had burned his face and arms cherry red. The overseers—the mute, bearded human Ulvian had met his first day in camp and an ill-tempered dwarf named Lugrim—stood on each side of the barracks door, urging the exhausted workers to hurry inside.

The long, ramshackle building was made from slabs of shale and mud, and the rear wall was sunk in the mountainside. There were two windows and only one door. The roof was made of green splits of wood and moss, and the whole barrack was drafty, dusty, and cold, despite the fires kept burning in baked-clay fireplaces at each end.

Inside the dim structure, the grunt gang members headed straight for their rude beds. Ulvian’s was near the center of the single large room, as far from either fire as it could be. Still, he was so tired that he was about to fall on his bunk when he noticed the man who slept on his right was already in bed, where he had apparently lazed all day. Ulvian opened his mouth to protest.

The prince froze two paces from the bed. The human’s head and right leg were swathed in loose, bloodstained bandages. His hands hung limply over the sides of the narrow bunk.

“Poor wretch won’t live the night,” rasped a voice behind the prince. Ulvian whirled. A filthy, rag-clad elf stood close to him, staring at him with burning gray eyes. “He was taking a load of bricks up the tower, and the scaffold broke. Broke his leg and cracked his skull.”

“Aren’t—aren’t there healers to take care of him?” Ulvian exclaimed.

A dry rattle of laughter issued from the throat of the sun-baked elf. He was nearly as tall as Ulvian, and very thin. When he looked down at the human on the bed, dust fell from his blond eyebrows and matted hair. “Healers?” he chortled. “Healers are for the masters. We get a swig of wine, a damp cloth, and a lot of prayers!”

Ulvian recoiled from the loud elf. “Who are you?”

“Name’s Drulethen,” said the elf, “but everyone calls me Dru.”

“That’s a Silvanesti name,” Ulvian said, surprised. “How did you come to be here?”

“I was once a wandering scholar who sought knowledge in the farthest comers of the world. Unfortunately when the war started, I was in Silvanesti, and the Speaker of the Stars needed able-bodied elves for his army. I didn’t want to fight, but they forced me to take up arms. Once out in the wilderness, I ran away.”

“So you’re a deserter,” said Ulvian, understanding dawning.

Dru shrugged. “That’s not a crime in Qualinesti,” he said idly and sat down on the nearest bed. “While I wandered the great plain, I found it was easier to take what I wanted than work for it, so I became a bandit. The Wildrunners caught up to me, and the Speaker of the Sun graciously allowed me to work here rather than rot in a Qualinost dungeon.” He held out his slender hands palms up. “So it goes.”

No one had spoken at such length to Ulvian since his arrival at Pax Tharkas. Dru might be a coward and a thief, but it was obvious he had a certain amount of education, which was as rare as diamonds in the grunt gang. Sitting down on his own bed, the prince asked Dru a question that had been bothering him. “Why can’t we get closer to the fires?” he said in a low voice. Dru laughed nastily.

“Only the strongest ones get a place by the chimneys,” he said. “Weaklings and newcomers get stuck in the middle. Unless you want a beating, I suggest you don’t dispute the order of things.”

Before Ulvian could broach another question, Dru moved to his own bunk. Dropping down on the bed, he turned his back to the prince and in seconds began to snore lightly with each intake of breath. Ulvian threw himself across his own bed, which consisted of strips of cloth nailed to a rough wooden frame. It stank of sweat and dirt even more strongly than the barracks as a whole. The prince locked his hands together behind his head and stared at the crude ceiling overhead. The orange-tinged sunlight filtered in through the chinks in the roof slats. While he pondered his fate, he dozed fitfully.