Iron Elf - A Race Reborn (Book 2) (27 page)

I got back that evening. It was as if I’d never left. But then, it was still the weekend. I left the stables and walked back to my apartments.

Vitus met me in the hallway. “Been out hunting?”

“Y-yes,” I said. “I mean, yes!”

“Can we expect anything new for dinner, or did you not catch anything?”

I threw out my arms. “Not a thing. But I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Boar hunting is as dirty as hunting gets. A boar is bad news. There’s no better way to train a cavalryman than to focus his skills against something as fast, tough, and dangerous. We chased those hellbeasts through forest and brush. We chased them through muddy hill and harvested field. Vitus and the others galloped alongside but the killing blow was always mine, whether it was delivered by arrow, lance, or spear.

The less said about my archery the better. Everyone thinks elves are born with bows in our hands, but that’s ancient history. I was born in a city. (All I was holding was a clot of blood, according to Auntie Marilla. That’s just gross.) So I never mastered the bow. I never hunted my food, and certainly not from horseback. After months of practice my shots went in the right direction but they didn’t hit anything. They came close, but that only counts in horseshoes and fireballs. Damn, but I missed magic.

And let’s not talk about my horsemanship. Vitus had enough to worry about. Again, I’m a city elf. I’d improved, but not by capran standards. It was one of the few times I wish I were Mithenian—they were said to be born in the saddle. Anyway, I did rather better with a lance. There were fewer moving parts. I’d put in the practice, tilting at rings and tent pegs and those things that swing and hit you. I’d practiced with heavy lances, outsize lances, and hollow lances that sloshed with every step.

I’d charge across the field with my nine-foot pigsticker and do my best to nail a target that was low to the ground, as fast as a horse, and knew how to jink and swerve. You had to get them behind the shoulder and in the heart, or at least through the lungs. Difficult, since most males were armoured with scars. Many a lance was wrenched from my hand.

At least I kept my seat. You didn’t want to be unhorsed near a four-hundred-pound tusker that was likely to gore you. Unlike a lot of game animals, boars fought back. It’s why I wore chainmail chaps and the dogs wore leather vests.

We always brought around six hounds. Like capran horses they were also a little magical. They had speed and staying power, good eyes and good noses. They excelled as bay dogs and catch dogs. They could corner a boar and they could also seize it by the cheeks, holding it for the killing stroke. They were good-looking as well, with long limbs and white fur. The eyes and the inner ears were a brilliant red.

When the dogs had a boar at bay, that was the time to dismount. You could bring it back alive but the stress tended to ruin the flavour. Unless you planned to castrate the hog and fatten it, you wanted to process it as soon as possible. My first time, they had to coax me out of the saddle. Grahothy gave me a boar-spear. “Pick a tree,” he said. “In case you need to run.”

I faced the beast and tried not to shrink away. It stood in a mudhole—bristly, black, and evil-smelling. It seemed full of hatred. I’d rather have stared down a wyvern.

The boar was merely cornered. It wheeled, scattering the dogs. It fastened its mad eyes on me, lowered its head, and charged. Lister said, “Now, Angrod! Now!” I sidestepped, thrusting as I did so. I got it in the ribs but it kept coming. “Push! Push! Don’t run, push!”

I scrabbled for better footing. The dogs nipped at it and it wheeled. I thrust again. I worked the spear into its lungs, pushing it on its side. Its grunts turned to screams. The mud turned red. I planted a boot on it and bore down on the spear, pushing it in up to the crossbar. I pulled it out and hit it in the heart. It was screaming. The world was screaming. I was screaming.

My first time had been messy.

Today I faced a beast much like the other one. The dogs had taken hold of it but it was a struggle. I stood to the side but knew it could see me. It looked at me with one small yellow eye.

“What do you want?” I asked it. It gnashed its tusks. The upper ones honed the lower ones, which were nine inches long and sharp as a sword. I drew my knife, but then I looked at the animal. “A fair fight? Is that what you want?”

Laraib rode up. “Don’t take any risks. Nothing fancy. Vitus didn’t teach you so you could get killed like this.”

I switched to my Sight for a moment so I could see the boar’s heart. It was low in the chest, a small target. I stabbed it once and the animal collapsed.

CHAPTER 22:
MEERWEN

“So it’s a portal?” Mina asked. “And Snow Mountain is no mountain, but a gigantic structure?”

“It uses wave power to ventilate the shaft and pump water to the temple complex,” I said. “But its main purpose is to trap anything that comes through the portal.”

Angrod told me about the fairy ring in Deepwood. That one was connected to the world where every humanoid race had originated. The one under Snow Mountain was a lot more dangerous because it only went two ways. This made it a priceless asset to any army looking to establish a foothold on the other side. As Olympia had explained, the Order of the Gentle Fists had three reasons for existing. First, it protected the stable portal between Brandish and the Northlands. Second, it was a haven for shield maidens tired of war. And third, it rescued escaped slaves.

Slavery didn’t exist in Brandish. Not on a large scale. It’s not that elves were more enlightened. With our magic, we simply didn’t need them. The Northlands was completely dependent on them, however, and this drove much of our conflict. To humans, farming was not man’s work. Very little was except for piracy and war.

I preferred to keep an ocean between me and those people. If the human chiefdoms gained control of Snow Mountain we could expect more than the occasional inland raid. We could be looking at an invasion.

“Angrod picked the right time for a vacation,” I said. “He’s probably having so much fun. For sure he’s not dealing with anything like this.”

We looked into the pit. At the bottom, a small horde of Northlanders looked back. They weren’t happy.

“What do your elf-eyes see?” Mina asked.

“The same thing your dwarf eyes see. Torches and angry eyes.”

Nobody was surprised to learn that we had climbed an artificial mountain. Elves could raise such megastructures, although we built them more often in the past. The old Imperial roads were an example. So were Pithe Canal, Lamemheth Dome, and Drystone Harbour.

The last two were roughly contemporary. My grandfather built Drystone Harbour. Not personally, of course. Father was the first mage in the family. “Have I ever told you how—”

“Your granddad built Drystone Harbour? You already told me. Twice.”

“I didn’t know I was repeating myself. Some people will never forget that my family started as fishermen…”

“I understand. At least you earned your gold through honest trade. That’s almost as good as digging it out of the ground! These snobs of yours, where did they get their plunder? That’s right, from dwarven hoards and dwarven treasuries. And by hoards I mean life savings.”

An artificial mountain wasn’t an unreasonable way to contain a two-way portal. Even if hostiles managed to take over the Northland side, they wouldn’t be able to do anything.

“Imagine you’re ants,” Olympia had told us over dinner. “I just dropped you into an empty bottle. How do you get out?”

“I climb the sides to sweet, sweet freedom,” Yang said.

“Wrong. The glass is too slippery. Also, the bottleneck is two miles long.”

“That’s a lot of wine,” Conrad said.

“Why would it be wine?” Sandy asked. “Why not beer?”

“I smash my way out of the bottle!” Borlog said. “With my trusty club!”

“Wrong. The glass is too hard to tunnel through. You can’t even scratch it.”

“What did ants ever do to you?” Borlog asked. “Seems a cruel and unusual punishment, unless there’s still wine on the bottom.”

“Beer!” Sandy said.

“How do you normally access the portal?” I asked Olympia.

“With a crane and a very strong rope. You could fly out of there, but the mountain was only designed with my fellow humans in mind. Besides, what an elf could make, another elf could unmake.”

“I’m still not clear on who built Snow Mountain. He had to be an earth mage, but what was his name?”

“That’s not important. What’s important is that this situation can’t last. The Northlanders will find us eventually. They will send as many ships as it takes. There is a way to shut down the portal, but it’s on the other side.”

“… What if I filled the bottle with water?” Yang asked. “Then we could float to the top. Or what if we brought building materials?”

“It’d drain out the same way,” Mina said. “Two-way portal, remember? And how could you build anything without the nuns seeing it? Rocks fall, everyone dies.”

“Well, how would I know?” Yang said. “I’m an ant!”

There was a vault in the Northlands temple. A vault that, when triggered, would collapse the temple into a volcano. The portal would be useless to anyone who couldn’t swim through molten rock.

Whoever that nameless earth mage was, he hadn’t done things by half-measures. Unfortunately, the attackers must have taken the Northlands temple by surprise. There was a distinct lack of smoke rising from the shaft. The barbarians at the bottom were also a giveaway.

“She wants me to lead a team through the portal,” I told Mina. “We’re to rescue survivors and destroy the portal on our way back.”

“What if there’s an army on the other side?” she asked. “And if we retake the temple, how are we supposed to defend it? Why were you the only one Olympia called? Czeleborn is much closer.”

“She told me the attackers were most likely from a nearby tribe. Given Northland politics it’s likely they haven’t called upon their neighbours yet. As to why she called me, and me alone…” I sighed. “Few people know that the Sisterhood has an underground network for rescuing slaves. She was hoping to keep it a secret.”

“As in literally underground?”

“They might occasionally use tunnels, my dwarven friend. The point is that it’s secret. And Czeleborn has always been too friendly with humans.”

“This handsome hunk of elf. How close were you?” She leered. “Is that why you stopped Conrad from getting up? Didn’t want your lover getting hurt?”

“Ha! He’s not my lover anymore. And he doesn’t need my protection.”

“You didn’t spend all your time on this mountain, did you?” She waggled her eyebrows.

“You should see yourself. Actually, the nuns never marry or have kids, but they didn’t take vows of celibacy. I was only a lay nun, in any case. I got weekends off.”

“What was it like with Czeleborn?”

“You’re turning into a dirty old woman, Mina.” I paused. “Shall we use Angrod as a baseline?”

Her eyes widened. “You think I slept with him? But we’re just friends!”

It was my turn to waggle my eyebrows. “You wouldn’t be the first dwarf he’s slept with. And I know he likes them short, cute, and cur… are you blushing?”

“He’s always been the perfect gentleman! Heronimo can get so caught up in his training. And he likes to drink. If he weren’t a Northlander he’d be dead from alcohol poisoning.”

“Did he ever wake up with the head of a jackass?”

“No, he’s cool with the mob. Thing is, his healing factor keeps him alive, but the alcohol stays in his system long enough to… you know.”

“I understand. And it’s probably a guy thing, why Angrod hasn’t looked at you that way. The man is a tomcat. He’s got me, at least one chronicler, that slut of an ambassador… I wouldn’t be surprised if he was in bed with his assistant.”

Mina shook her head. “He’d never take advantage of his position. That might be another reason why he’s never propositioned me. Technically, I’m a member of his staff. I represent my father in his court.” She looked at the ground. “There’s also the fact that my da was planning to get us together. He was fixing for me to meet a newly-discovered crown prince when I ran away. So I never thought about Angrod that way.”

“This is the same situation with me and Czeleborn. Mother and Father would love it if we got together. I don’t know what to feel about it.” I stood up. “Anyway, Olympia called me because the collapse has to be triggered in a specific way. You need to be an earth mage like myself.”

“Sounds simple enough.”

“Something’s missing. The Northlands temple is a fortress. It couldn’t have been taken by surprise. It must have been an inside job. And if it was, the enemy would have known that seizing one temple wouldn’t be enough.”

I looked at Mina. She realized it too. “We’ve been infiltrated.”

Olympia was in her nightgown.

“We need to talk,” I said. “I think the enemy’s here, on the mountain. I don’t know why they haven’t attacked yet.”

“Do you know how hard it is to find weapons in this god-blasted nunnery?”

Elsa strode toward us, brandishing a machete with her shield. Breeda and Brooda carried clubs that might have been table legs. Elsa sliced the air. “I advise you to surrender. Even with so crude a weapon I am more than a match for you. My girls aren’t bad either.”

Olympia and I settled into fighting stances. The abbess threw off her robe. “To me, my armour!”

From behind us bits of golden metal clattered and flew past us. They came back and assembled themselves upon Olympia. Bands wrapped around her arms. They became gauntlets, bracers, and pauldrons. She gained a tiara and a skullcap. More pieces into an open-faced helmet, then a metal breastplate. The seams glowed hot as the parts welded together. Olympia didn’t even grunt.

“You okay?” I asked.

She punched the air. “I am Northlander! And I say we put the pain in them!”

I woke up face down in the snow. Olympia was in a similar position. “Bitch threw her shield,” she said. “Didn’t see it coming. Bounced off my head first.”

“You two okay?” Mina arrived. The rest trailed behind.

“Abbess?” I asked. “If that’s supposed to be armour, then why is it low-cut? If it’s supposed to be protective, why does it have a cleavage window?”

“You know how it is, dear. Made for a woman, designed by a man.”

“Amen,” Yang said. Everyone looked at him. “Wha-at? All the guys were thinkin’ it!”

“The crane’s missing,” Sandy said. “Various tools and kitchen utensils are missing too.”

“How many spies are there?” Conrad asked.

“Six, I think,” Olympia said. “They had meals together.”

“There’s eight of us,” Sandy said. “We can take them.”

Conrad shook his head. “Not you. You’re not trained for this.”

“Fuck you! You’re not leaving me again!”

“That basket could hold six men if they’re friendly,” Olympia said. “Meerwen, you ready to try this again?” She looked like I felt, and I had a hell of a headache. Lying down sounded like a good idea. But we weren’t done yet.

“Let’s do this,” I said. “Sandy, you’re with us, but hang back. Shield maidens are some of the best.”

We walked to the pit.