Elvenborn (27 page)

food. More specifically, a treat, a taste they couldn't find on their own. Like people, cattle had a sweet tooth, and now that Rena was acting as an envoy to these people, she was deter¬mined to do everything that she could to bring the weight of debt over to the wizards' side of the scales. If that meant that she spent half a day changing grass into the goodies with which the bull-trainers could reward their animals, so be it.

The magic that elven ladies were traditionally trained in was a gentle art of transformation, which they usually used to tailor garments seamlessly to fit like silken skins, to sculpt flowers into gossamer and fantastic shapes, or to make other cosmetic changes. Rena had learned to use it to turn the relatively inedi¬ble into edible and tasty—and, at need, to stop a beating heart. It had lately occurred to her that she could also use it to start a heart that had stopped, or perhaps to cure disease or mend a wound, but she had not yet had the opportunity (or the courage) to try.

The normal noise of the camp woke her just after dawn; the sounds of voices and cooking, the far-off lowing of the cattle herds. She lived with the Iron Priest, Diric, and his wife Kala. The great friend of the Elvenbane Lashana, halfblooded Mero, who was openly courting Rena, also lived with them, but Kala watched over both of them with as stern an eye to propriety as if Rena was their own child. Diric and Kala had given them separate sleeping-chambers on opposite sides of the family tent. Rena found that reassuring; raised as a sheltered elven maiden, isolated, for the most part, from all males but her brother and father, she enjoyed Mero's attentions but she was also uncomfortably shy about being courted. Not that she wanted him to stop! By no means. But she was not yet prepared to go any further than a hesitant kiss or two.

Still, waking up in the cool of the dawn, with the bustle of the camp around her and a breath of breeze carrying the scents of grass and the smoke from dung-fires wafting under the skirts of the tent, she felt just a little lonely in her solitary bed.

Lorryn isn 't so shy—but then, Lorryn isn 't a girl. She sighed. I wish I was like Shana. Shana is always so strong, so brave, and she never worries about what people will think. She won-

dered if Shana and Lorryn shared a bed; she wondered, in the freedom of thought that being only half-awake lent to her, just what went on when one did share a bed. Mero's careful kisses and caresses sent strange sensations through her; pleasant, oh my yes, but strange. Surely it wasn't—well—like the cattle, or the birds of her garden....

Her thoughts drifted; she listened to the cheerful voices of women preparing the morning meal outside. She liked the sound of their voices; they were deeper than those of the women she was used to, even the human slaves. Lovely! In¬stead of that annoying bird-like twitter, this was a melodious murmur.

Then, of course, the mood was broken as a child did some¬thing wrong, its mother raised her voice in a scold, and another child began to cry in sympathy. Rena woke entirely at that, and laughed at herself and her notions; how typical of an elven girl to try and cast a specious glamorie over something rich and sat¬isfying in and of itself, if less than perfect and not at all tranquil.

She stretched, yawned, and wriggled out of her blankets, giv¬ing herself a quick wash in the leather bucket of water that stood just inside the flap that connected her portion of the tent with that of Diric's wife. The Iron People wore loose and com¬fortable clothing perfectly suited to their nomadic way of life. Kala had fitted Rena out with the outgrown clothing of her eld¬est daughter—well suited to the slim build of an elven female. Women of these people either wore a similar outfit to the men—loose trousers with a drawstring waist and a sleeveless, v-necked shirt—or long, embroidered gowns fitted to the waist with a pair of ties in the back. In either case, the colors were earthy and bold. Rena could not imagine anything less like the gowns she had once worn in the bower, with their trailing hems and sleeves, tightly-laced waists, and pastel colors, all in the most delicate silks and satins.

Today she slipped into one of the dresses, a warm brown linen that would have made her look like a bleached-out little wax doll if she still looked like the pallid, timid girl who had es¬caped from her father's manor. But although she still had the pale silver-gilt hair of that girl, her skin was a warm ivory, sun-

kissed and glowing with health, and there was nothing that was bleached about her anymore.

She sighed, though, as she pulled the dress on over her head and tied the straps behind her back. Her first duty, today as ever, was to see if she could do anything with the captive Elvenlord, Haldor.

As if there was anything lord-like about him now!

Neither Haldor, nor his fellow-captive Kelyan, were entirely sane anymore, but Haldor was worse. When she and Mero had come back to the camp of the Iron People, one of the first things that Diric had requested of her was to see if anything could be done about the two captives, who had been taken by the great-grandsires of the current Iron People and pressed into service as entertainers, using their magic to create illusions. They clearly couldn't release either of the Elves, for even if they weren't mentally competent anymore, they still knew too much—and they couldn't give them over to the Wizards either, at least not in Rena's opinion. In the time they'd been gone, Haldor had lapsed into a stupor or torpor and could scarcely be roused enough to eat. It had fallen upon his fellow captive Kelyan to take care of him, but at least they were no longer forced to entertain the Iron People, and thanks to Rena's trans¬formative magics their diet was something other than curds, milk, and meat.

She hated going near them, to tell the truth. She wasn't afraid of them, but there wasn't anything she could really do for them either. She had the rather sick feeling that they were both too far gone to help. If only there was some way to wipe their minds clean of everything that had happened to them since they'd been captured! Then they could be put to sleep and set down by a dragon somewhere—perhaps where one of the El-venlords' trading-caravans crossed—

She paused, one hand on the tent-flap. That's no bad idea, she thought, struck by the notion. And maybe Mero is the one who could do just that! Mero, like all the halfbloods, had both the magics of his human mother, and those of his Elven father. The human magics included the ability to understand the thoughts of others—could Mero change them as well?

She lifted the partition-flap, intending to ask him as soon as she saw him, but to her disappointment, he was nowhere to be found. Neither was Diric, for that matter; only Kala was in the part of the tent that served as a common area for eating and so¬cial functions. The Iron Priest's ample wife was bent over her breakfast-preparations, and looked up at Rena's entrance, her teeth shining in a startlingly white smile against her dark brown skin.

The Iron People were unlike any humans that Rena had ever seen; their skins were a black-bronze (nearer to black than to bronze) and their ebony hair curled more tightly than sheep's fleece. Nomads, though not by nature, they descended from a long line of cattle-, goat-, and grel-breeders whose religion and lives centered around their forges. In the long-ago when the El-venlords first came to this world, they had a close alliance with another human race of farmers, now vanished, called the Corn People. The Iron People provided the "meaty" side of the di¬etary equation, the Corn People the grains and vegetables. The Iron People worked in leather and metal, the Corn People in pottery and fabric. Then the Elvenlords had descended, and drove the more-mobile Iron People into the south, presumably adding the Corn People to their long list of slave-nations.

"There is another group of Corn People come," Kala said cheerfully. "Diric and Mero have gone to speak with them. I expect them back before too long; they went off without any food, and I have never yet seen a man who can do without his morning meal without becoming cross."

Rena laughed, and went outside to their little fire to help Kala with her meal-preparations.

Ever since the Iron People had arrived in what now appeared to be their ancient pasturage, this plain below the mountains where the Wizards and Traderkin lived, small groups of people with flax-colored hair had been drifting into their camp, claim¬ing the right of ancient alliance. They resembled the descrip¬tions that Lorryn had read in the old histories, and they certainly spoke a language similar to that of the Iron People, so there was every reason to think that they were the remnants of the Corn People.

Certainly Diric's folk believed it and welcomed them as long-lost kin. Mero was perfectly pleased to see them coming to the Iron Folk; if the old alliance could be re-established, with the Corn People farming part of the plains for grain, the fiber-crops of hemp and flax, and vegetables as they once had, the Iron People would have one more reason to settle. There was plenty of good grazing here; all they needed to be perfectly happy was a steady supply of iron ore.

If we can induce them to settle—if we could just work out a way to find them enough iron! she thought, helping Kala by spreading the thin batter for morning cakes on the hot stone that served her as an oven. All of the families had such a stone, flat and black, polished smooth, which served as a cooking sur¬face or to keep foods or liquids warm, and they were cherished as the important objects they were. The thin, tough pancakes that they used for bread were cooked on these stones, eggs could be fried atop them, pots of tea or soup kept warm on them. They were buried in coals to heat them for cooking, the coals and ashes brushed to one side when the surface was needed.

Rena spread the batter atop the stone with circular motions of a horn spoon; Kala performed the trickier task of judging when the thin cakes were done enough to peel off and flip, and she did it with fingers toughened by many years of working at her own jewelry-forge. Rena wouldn't have dared to try; she'd have come up with blisters on the tips of every finger.

The finished cakes, paper-thin and tasty, were tossed into a basket to wait. Breakfast was always cakes, milk, a little cheese or meat, and whatever fruit could be found. There were bram¬bles out here, and the berries were just coming ripe. Rena her¬self had gathered some yesterday, after cheating a bit by softening the thorns with her magic so that they wouldn't stick her while she gathered the fruit.

Just as they finished the last of the batter, they heard the voices of the two men: Diric's a low, cheerful rumble like the wheels of a heavy cart on a bumpy road, Mero's a clear tenor.

"—I haven't any idea where this 'Lord Kyrtian' came from," Mero was saying as they came around the side of the round

tent. "There certainly wasn't any Elvenlord commander by that name when I had any regular contact with the Elvenlords."

By that Rena realized that Mero had been catching the Iron Priest up on what he'd been told last night when Shana had fi¬nally been able to reach him with her thoughts.

"But this can mean very little to us," Diric objected, then paused to bend and give his wife a morning-kiss by way of a greeting. He was a tall, round-faced human, heavily muscled— not surprising, given that he was the chief Priest of a religion that centered around the forge. Rena was no good at judging the ages of humans, but Mero said he guessed that both Diric and Kala were probably in their fifties. "Kala, my rock-dove, the young one tells me that the Demons have a new War-Captain in their battle with their own rebellious youth. This one seems to have rather more sense than the last, and is making progress in his campaign to bring them to heel. Mero is concerned that this could mean trouble for us."

"This can have very little to do with us," Kala agreed com¬placently. "Except, perhaps, good. Let them concentrate on each other and forget that we are here."

"But that's just what won't happen if this Kyrtian is success¬ful, don't you see?" Mero objected, as Rena nodded vigorously.

But the gray-haired Iron Priest only shook his head. "Time enough to be concerned if it happens," he responded with a shrug. "My people will be more fretful that their forges are dark than that some war among Demons has possibly taken another turn."

Mero bit his lip and looked to Rena for help, but she couldn't offer him any. Diric was right; the Iron People hadn't had to en¬gage the Elvenlords in combat for generations, and legends were unlikely to arouse any anxiety in their hearts at this point. But the lack of iron for their forges was a problem, and a cur¬rent, even urgent one.

It was a concern for the Wizards, as well—the Young Lords' Rebellion had been grounded on the foundation of the iron jew¬elry that the Iron People had made and the Wizards had distrib¬uted. Wearing this jewelry, the rebels—not just younger sons, but the abused and reviled Lesser Lords with very little magic,

who often were treated as badly as any human slave—were protected from the Great Lords' magic. For the first time, they were able to act without fear of levin-bolt and paralyzing pain, and act they had.

But that had used up the scant store of raw iron, and the Iron People were grumbling about the lack of material to work with and wondering if their sacrifice to help save the Wizards by giv¬ing the Great Lords a new threat to worry about had been worth it. So far, the only bits of iron that the dragons had been able to find had been coaxed out of the ground and dropped as raw lumps between the territory claimed by the Wizards and the strongholds of the Elves. They formed a barrier of protection, difficult to find and disruptive far out of proportion to their small size, and the Wizards were very reluctant to remove them, however badly the Iron People wanted them.

The plain fact was that the Iron People were not going to make any more of their jewelry for the Wizards unless and un¬til the Wizards came up with more iron. And the supply of jew¬elry to sneak in among the rebels had long ago run out. How much more disruption could be accomplished if simple iron torques could be sent in among the human slaves? Those iron bands could negate the magic that controlled the slaves through their collars—with them, escapes could be successful, and even the takeover of an entire estate. Without them—nothing would change. If this Lord Kyrtian managed to conquer the Young Lords by power of arms alone, the Wizards would desperately need another diversion to keep the Elvenlords occupied, and the human slaves could only look forward to more abuse, more repression.