Nancy Berberick - Stormblade

Across the street two dragonarmy soldiers, humans both, walked unsteadily in the direction of their barracks. Drunk, the Gray Herald thought, and no problem to me.

From the stable came the quick impatient thud of a horse kicking back against its stall. The dwarf felt the wood at his back shiver with the impact. A stableman cursed, and the horse whinnied high.

The tavern’s door opened. Noise and light spilled into the street, then faded as the door closed. The Gray Herald stood away from the stable wall, his dagger in hand. Footsteps, hollow and slow, approached. Down the alley, Rhuel stepped from the shadows.

The Gray Herald drew a short breath and peered out into the street. Hauk, head down and thinking, walked away from the tavern in the direction that would bring him past the alley. The Gray Herald smiled and moved his right hand in a swift gesture. Magic sighed in the shadow of the alley.

Hauk stopped at the alley’s mouth and cocked his head as though he’d heard his name called. He looked back the way he’d come and saw no one. The street was empty. All he heard now was the muffled sounds of laughter and conversation from the tavern. The Herald moved his hand again, the gesture more complicated now.

Though he believed he was continuing down the street, Hauk stepped into the alley and a sleep spell. The one-eyed dwarf doubted Hauk would even remember the long, slow fall before he hit the ground. Kelida turned up the last chair and dropped the floor mop into a wooden bucket of dirt-scummed water. The tavern was quiet now but for the banging of pots in the kitchen and Tenny’s grunts and curses as he hauled empty ale kegs out to the alley. With the back of her hand she brushed at the hair escaping in wisps from her braids. Her feet sore, her arms aching from carrying trays loaded with tankards, she was more tired tonight than she’d ever been. Not even during harvest time, with field after field of corn, wheat and hay to cut, stack and haul, had she ever felt as tired as this.

Her throat tightened. Unbidden, sharp tears pricked behind her eyes. There would be no harvest this year. None next year. Someone, in bitter humor, had said that the farms were plague-struck. A plague of dragons. No, Kelida thought now, just one dragon. One had been enough. She would have nightmares about the day the red dragon struck for a long, long time.

She turned around at the sound of the front door opening. Some late-returning lodger, she thought, and looked to see who had entered. The elf, whose friend had wagered with her life at daggers, closed the door quietly behind him. Kelida bent to lift the bucket, and the elf crossed the room with three long strides and took it from her hand.

“Let me,” he said. “Where does it go?”

Kelida gestured behind the long trestle that served as the bar. “Thank you.” She stepped behind the trestle to finish wiping it down. The elf left the bucket near the kitchen door and returned to the common room. He leaned his elbows on the bar and, saying nothing, watched Kelida work.

“The bar is closed,” she told him, not taking her eyes from her wiping.

“I know. I’m not looking for a drink. I’m looking for Hauk.”

“Who?”

“Hauk.” Tyorl smiled a little and mimed throwing a dagger. “You met him earlier. Have you seen him?”

“No.” Kelida scrubbed hard at a sticky wine stain.

“By the look of you, you don’t care if you ever see him again.”

She glanced up at him then. His eyes, long and blue, danced with amusement. Where his friend had been stocky and muscular, this elf was tall and lean. Hauk had moved with the solid step of a bear. This one had a deer’s grace. Kelida did not know how to judge his age. He might be young or old. One could not often tell with an elf.

“Tyorl,” he said, as though she had asked his name.

Kelida nodded. “I haven’t seen your friend since—since he left the tavern earlier tonight.”

“He hasn’t been back to claim the sword?”

“He gave it to me.”

Tyorl shrugged. “Oh, yes. Hauk’s apologies, when he’s had too much to drink are always extravagant.”

Kelida glanced at him quickly. She thought suddenly that the sword which she’d thought so fine and expensive, might more appropriately have come from an elflord’s coffers.

“Was it yours? He said it was his to wager. But—”

“Oh, it’s his, all right. He’s the swordsman, lady, I’m the bowman. If I need anything else, I’ve my dagger.” Tyorl smiled. “I taught him to play daggers and can still beat him. It’s enough for me.”

In spite of herself, Kelida smiled. “That sword would buy half the town.”

“It would buy the town and two more like it. He hasn’t been back at all?”

“No. I—I have the sword.” She’d left it in the storeroom, but wrapped in old flour sacking and well hidden behind two tuns of old wine. The wine was Tenny’s best, and no one dared draw from the barrels but he. He hadn’t had reason to draw from them tonight. She’d thought about the sword and the riches represented by the gold and sapphires all night. Perhaps she could sell it and find a way out of Long Ridge, though she had no idea of where to go.

“Shall I get it for you?”

He frowned. “You’d just give it to me?”

“What will I do with it?”

“Sell it.”

Kelida shook her head. “And then what?”

“I don’t know. Get out of here.”

“There’s no place to go. My family—my family is dead. No one travels the roads alone. I certainly wouldn’t if I had something worth stealing.”

She looked at him closely. “Besides, that’s your friend’s sword. Why do you want me to sell it?”

“I don’t want you to sell it. I’m just surprised that you don’t want to sell it. Just as well. Sooner or later he’ll be back for it.”

Kelida returned to her wiping. “I said he gave it to me.”

Tyorl nodded. “Well, you deserve a certain amount of revenge upon our friend Hauk.” He smiled and pushed away from the bar. “Don’t give it over quite so easily, lady. Make him sweat a little for it, eh?”

Kelida said nothing, but watched as Tyorl left the common room and mounted the steps for the rooms above. She retrieved the sword, an awkward bundle in the old brown sacking, and took it to her cold, drafty attic room at the top of the tavern.

The room smelled of the stableyard which it overlooked and the sour, smoky reek from the tavern, to which she had almost become accustomed. The lodging was fully two thirds of her pay. Meals and a few coins were the other third.

Kelida sank down on the pile of straw and rough woolen blankets that served her as a bed. She unwrapped the sword, slid it a little way from the simple, undecorated scabbard, and watched gold and silver, sapphires and steel catch the faint light of the stars.

Hauk had wagered all this wealth on the skill of his hand! Was he mad or had he simply been drunk? His clothes, hunting leathers and tall boots, made her think of a ranger.

His voice, she decided, was better used to shouting the triumph of a hunting kill or roaring a challenge. It hadn’t dropped to soft apology easily. Suddenly, she found herself looking forward to morning and Hauk’s return for the sword.

Then she remembered that she was angry with him. A little revenge, the elf had said. Kelida smiled. She supposed she did deserve a little revenge.

The stones wore badges of blood, the marks of the passage of eight hundred people. The refugees stretched out in a long, straggling line, staggering, lurching, falling. Some who fell picked themselves up. Others lay, tasting red dust and shuddering with cold, until they were passed by or helped to their feet. If helped, they thanked their rescuers when they had breath to. If passed, they picked themselves up. If they did not, they were dead.