Glen Cook - Surrender to the will of the night

“Muno is still laughing about inflicting you on me, isn’t he?”

“I was drafted. But I bet he is sitting in front of a nice fire, maybe with a cute little boy on his lap, drinking coffee and chuckling. What’s this over here?” Heris headed for the gateway.

“Stay back! We can’t just go prancing in! No telling what that might trigger.”

“I’m not going in, Double Great. I’m looking to see what this is.” She indicated a chunk of weathered board tangled in the remains of last summer’s weeds.

“It does look out of place,” Februaren admitted. Grudgingly. Because he should have noticed himself. Long ago. Maybe even the first time he came exploring.

Heris pried the board loose, cracking it lengthwise in the process. The old man took it, again failing to note an important point. He rotated the board so he could see the wet side. “Something written here. It must have been a sign. Hard to make out. Ah. In Firaldian, roughly, it says, ‘Beware of the wolves.’ And something else that I can’t make out.”

“Never damned mind that! Look!” Heris pointed. Vigorously.

A skull and some long bones lay where the sign had hidden them, sunken into the frozen mud under the dead weeds.

“Well,” the old man observed. “That’s something to keep in mind.” He eyed the crows again. They seemed mildly amused. He had stumbled across an old acquaintance of theirs.

Heris asked, “You think they’re hoping we’ll join this guy?” She shuddered. The cold had nothing to do with that.

A heavy tread approached from behind. The old man recognized that step. Khor-ben Jarneyn. Tired and hungry. “That the place?”

“It is,” Februaren admitted. “I’m pretty sure. I’ve never dared go look.”

Iron Eyes pushed between man and woman. Other dwarves rattled and clanked and came to a halt behind them. “How come?”

“It might be dangerous. Why take chances before you need to?”

“To have some fun? Huh! Might be dangerous?” Iron Eyes stepped up to the opening in the rail fence. The crows began to stir, but settled again when he stopped a foot short. Iron Eyes spent two silent minutes glaring straight ahead, at what looked like some kind of structure looming behind a dense growth of leafless trees. Then he came back. “Lots of magic in there. We’ll camp. We’ll rest up. We’ll eat and get our strength back. See if you can bring in some goats. When we’re full of piss and vinegar again we’ll go grab the Bastard. I’ll pick bits off till he says he’ll help us.”

Februaren considered insisting on wasting no time. Anytime now the Windwalker might…

Iron Eyes would remind him that the Windwalker was beached on a stony Andorayan shore, barely able to keep himself together. If Kharoulke regained strength enough to start something he would send his Chosen out long before he regained enough power to do anything directly. The Aelen Kofer would love that. They were spoiling for a fight.

A dustup with the Ninth Unknown would suit them if he started questioning their tactics.

Februaren said, “You all just get comfortable, then. Enjoy your time off. Heris and I don’t have the luxury. Come, Heris.” He touched her so they would stay together while the Construct moved them.

They materialized inside a little-used room in an out-of-the-way wing of the Delari town house in Brothe. Februaren said, “If we’re going to waste time resting we might as well be comfortable.”

Heris grunted and nodded and said, “I can buy into that. Though I don’t expect to do a lot of loafing. Those dwarves need to eat. But not before I get a hot bath and a couple decent meals inside me. Food. Glorious food. If Piper could just not bug me for a few days I’d be in Heaven.”

So, naturally, valuable loafing time got wasted on talk about what was happening in Alten Weinberg.

Khor-ben Jarneyn needed three days to steel himself for the next phase. During that time temperatures rose enough for the ice and snow to start melting.

“Spring is in the air,” Februaren declared. No one got the joke. He sulked, muttering about a congenital Aelen Kofer immunity to humor.

That third morning Iron Eyes said, “We’ve determined the bounds of the place and the three general classes of sorceries protecting it. Since you two aren’t the usual hero type that charges straight in just to see what happens, we’ll experiment before we do the time-honored Aelen Kofer slithering attack.”

“Slithering attack?” Februaren asked.

Iron Eyes ignored him. He barked orders in dwarfish. A couple dozen crossbows materialized, the dwarfish variety so powerful their bolts could punch through granite. So the Aelen Kofer claimed. The weapons began a moaning chorus of strings slicing air, slapping stops, and bolts humming downrange.

The crows over yonder shrieked, outraged. A score had become explosions of blood and feathers. Cursing, they took wing, their cries and pounding wings overwhelming the aria of the Aelen Kofer crossbows. The dwarves impressed the Ninth Unknown by downing the birds on the fly. Maybe fifty, total, died in Jarneyn’s experiment.

The dwarf said, “That didn’t bring anybody out. Maybe the Bastard doesn’t worry about his far-seers.”

“He can afford to lose a few more than Ordnan since he started with a thousand.” The All-Father of the Old Gods, the Gray Walker, had had only two ravens to keep him informed: Thought and Memory.

“You could be right, sorcerer.” Iron Eyes chuckled.

“You laughing means what?”

“The magic here is familiar. Old Gods magic, crudely done. The kind the Aelen Kofer have worked for thousands of years. The Bastard would appear to be self-taught and hasn’t had to operate around people who know what he’s doing.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning he’s never dealt with anybody who knows what he’s doing. Was I that opaque?”

The Aelen Kofer began to jabber all at once, in their own language. Heris remarked, “Sounds more like a gang of crows than a gang of crows.”

Aelen Kofer, and Iron Eyes in particular, were conservative where their dignity was concerned. Jarneyn heard Heris. He bellowed. The bickering stopped. Jarneyn barked something else, the essence of which must have been that it was time to get to work.

There was a plan. Despite all the noise. The dwarves jumped to it.

They ignored the gateway. Parties broke through the rail fence fifty yards to either hand, behind potent protective spells. Two parties of ten dwarves each advanced parallel to the remainder of a road. Four dwarves from each breach came along the fence, toward the gateway. Other fours followed the fence going away.

The rest of the company, fifteen Aelen Kofer including Iron Eyes, waited with Heris and Februaren. Jarneyn said, “You two keep your heads down. Pretend you’re not even here. You can be a big, ugly surprise if we need one.”

“That makes sense.”

Heris said, “Sure. Let him think it’s the past catching up when he’s really getting mugged by the future.”

Iron Eyes scowled. He did not understand Heris.

The crows became distressed. They tried swarming the dwarves. The Aelen Kofer did not mind. The birds could not hurt them. Helmets, beards, and armor protected them perfectly. Still, they were covered with gore and feathers when the birds left off.

The parties of four reached the gateway. They talked to Iron Eyes. One dwarf was kind enough to choose a language Cloven Februaren could follow. He delivered an entirely technical report about the architecture of the sorcery protecting the forest island.

In the Aelen Kofer view it was crude peasant fieldstone construction compared to an Aelen Kofer finely crafted formulation.

The craftsmen went to work on the gateway.