The Dark Glory War (39 page)

“How do we … The others will notice that you and I … What do we tell … ?”

She kissed me on the chest, then rolled over onto her belly and smiled at me. Her gold eyes glowed with a muted reflection of the sinking sun’s light. “Are you worried that someone might gossip about our liaison? That my reputation will be tarnished?”

I blushed. “I don’t want anyone to hurt you.” Her throaty laugh warmed me, as did the quick kiss with which she punctuated it. “Fear not, my gallant one, for Vorquelves are known for being different. The other elves here will see our dalliance as a sign of my immaturity, a tragic remnant of my being unhomed. Your people—those who are hopelessly jealous of you and driven to cruelty because of it— will know that we have found in each other strength and peace. Thus they will envy us, but they will also understand.” I raised an eyebrow. “Ummm, I think you’re thinking far better of men than I do.”

“Ah, but you inspire confidence in me for your people, Tarrant.” She half-lidded her eyes, then rested her chin on my chest. “It doesn’t matter what they say. We can’t be hurt unless we let ourselves be hurt. Here, with you, I am beyond hurting and that is all that matters. Other elves avoid unions with men because fleeting pleasure scares them. It doesn’t me and shouldn’t you. Right now we need each other, and that is enough reason to be together. Remember that always, no matter what happens, and no one will be able to hurt you again.”

As far north as Fortress Draconis is, the autumn mornings start crisp, making me even more reluctant to slip from a warm bed. As it was no one said anything to me about my liaison with Seethe—aside from congratulating me. I gathered, from a comment Seethe made, that Lord Norrington had spoken to her about our involvement. I ended up being flattered by the fact that he never spoke to me about it—which I took as an indication of his trust in my judgment.

Leigh did kid me about it a bit, but that was fine, too, since it heralded a return of the Leigh I’d known. “She’s a fine catch, Hawkins. I’d have cast my eye in her direction too, if I weren’t set to marry a princess. But you shouldn’t feel disappointed in your choice because of that.”

“Who me? No. I know that courting someone who has a century on you is a rare art.”

“An acquired taste, really, and one I’m not sure I want to acquire.”

I smiled. “But women are like wine, getting better with age . .”

“Ah, but young vintages have their charms, too.” Leigh gave me a smile that emerged free of the air of doom that had settled over him. “Once we lift the siege here and destroy Chytrine, I think I will formally court Ryhope. Scrainwood says he favors me in that regard.”

“With friends like that at court, then …” Leigh’s eyes sharpened and his voice shrank to a whisper. “I know there is no love lost between you. He’s spoken badly of you, so I’ve got his full measure, my friend. Have no doubt of that. Still, using a bridge—no matter how weak—to cross a river beats getting wet.”

I had to allow as how that was true, though I still hitched a bit when I saw Scrainwood and Leigh walking together along battlements or sharing a laugh over a meal. The only good thing I could see from their conspiracy to marry Leigh off to Ryhope was that it gave Leigh something to think about. He was very good at assuming roles and postures that would get him what he wanted, and paying court to Scrainwood distracted him from Temmer and the problems that came with it. It struck me that perhaps Leigh’s ability to shift his personality to suit a given situation was the reason the sword was able to exert as much control as it could over him. While that idea had some appeal for me, the appeal was but a thin layer of ice over a very deep, dark lake. The only solution to the problem was for Leigh to become more rigid, more mature, stronger in mind and soul. That would destroy the Leigh I’d known, but so would the sword.

I diverted myself from such dire thoughts by focusing on the situation at the fortress. I kept watches with the men and women of the Seventh Oriosan Guards. Units from the various nations served at Fortress Draconis for a one year term, at which time they rotated home. It wasn’t then as it became, with permanent garrison units being reinforced piecemeal with raw recruits ormeckanshü. Things were not yet that desperate, so the warriors I served with had not yet developed the grim, fatalistic sense that came to dominate Fortress Draconis. Occasionally Dothan Cavarre would pull me aside and have me join him, Lord Norrington, and Princes Augustus and Kirill in inspections of various parts of the fortress. By and large the inspections were purely routine, and I was very ;mnroccor) with the stockrjile of food and weapons in the warehouses. Each nation contributed to the fortress’s support and the result was enough supplies to last a dozen years.

Our most interesting excursion came three days after our arrival. The Draconis Baron sent a message telling me to armor up and arm myself with a dagger or two, then to meet him in the outer town. I did as requested, adding one of the captured gibberer longknives to my belt so I could have something a bit more substantial than a dagger. I came to the appointed house and entered, discovering piles of dirt packing it from floor to rafters save for a set of stairs leading down into the ground. At the base of the stairs I found Cavarre, Lord Norrington, Prince Augustus, Prince Kirill, and Faryaah-Tse Kimp. All of them were armored and armed, with the urZrethi’s weapons a pair of nasty spikes growing out of her right wrist and extending nearly two feet beyond her hand. Even Cavarre wore quilted silk armor with a mail surcoat over it and had a pair of daggers with him, so I knew some danger was expected.

Cavarre led us out and down through a reinforced tunnel that ran to the northeast. Lanterns hung from rafters to provide light, though seeing where I was going was difficult because I was last in line and the tunnel was low enough that I had to constantly stoop or bump my head. Those in front of me eclipsed the light. Because of the tunnel’s tight confines I realized the only swordwork I’d have managed would have been thrusting, so bringing the longknife was the better way to go—

The tunnel broadened into a small opening off which three more tunnels extended. As we moved into the opening, a dozen urZrethi marched past us, hauling sacks of dirt strapped to their backs. Unlike Faryaah-Tse, they were duller colors, the red of earth, the grey of ash, and black of coal. Their hands ended in shovel-like blades, while their eyes and ears had become oversized. They paid us no mind as they went on their way, presumably to dump their dirt and return to dig more. Cavarre dropped into a crouch and pointed at the tunnels. “We are now just beyond our walls, perhaps twenty feet down. We have crews digging all the time, working to find the tunnels the Aurolani sappers are creating to take down our walls. We shore up our tunnels, of course, so we won’t do their work for them, then we hunt the Aurolani. The reason for the larger ears on the urZrethi diggers is so they can hear sappers and dig toward them. I was sent word that they were close to a tunnel to the east here, and that they expected to break through this morning. I thought you might like to observe.”

He raised a finger to his lips, then pointed down the central tunnel, the one leading almost directly east. Faryaah-Tse went first, followed by Augustus, Lord Norrington, and Kirill. I came next and Cavarre dropped into line behind me. That struck me as odd until I recalled that he knew little or nothing about combat. If any of the Aurolani did get into our tunnel, they’d be hard-pressed to reach him, which was actually a good thing as far as the leadership of the fortress was concerned.

We passed through a couple of zigs and zags in the tunnel, then descended through a steep dip and back up. The dip served as a flood-stop, since the next section of tunnel was lower than the first, while the cutbacks were designed to slow attackers and give defenders time to hold them off. It also struck me that defenders further back could probably collapse the tunnel fairly easily, preventing entry into the fortress.

The air in the tunnel tasted foul and even the lanterns seemed dimmer. I’ve never been one to fear small, enclosed spaces, but scraping my back along the roof of a tunnel did begin to wear on me. Poor Cavarre reaped the reward for my discomfort, as bits and pieces of dirt rained on his head, but he didn’t complain.

At the far end of the tunnel—and I have no idea how far out we were—we stopped at the rear of an urZrethi formation. The urZrethi arrayed before us had the same shape as the diggers, but that began to change. Bumps and hard edges rose through their flesh, as if it were wet cloth being pulled taut over armor. Turtle-shell plates came to cover them; hooks and spurs grew on shoulders, elbows, and wrists. Their ears shrank away to nothing while their eye-sockets deepened. Their faces projected muzzles forward, with a hard bony ridge running the length of them. The snout tapered, making it not as blocky as that of a gibberer, and giving them more reach. Some grew fangs or tusks, others drew back lips to reveal ranks of serrated teeth. Their hands curled down into at least one spike, usually short and very stout. Many transformed their off hand into a two-fingered, one-thumbed grasping tool with big claws that could hit hard as a fist, or reach into a chest and pluck out organs. Their legs thickened and shrank as their upper bodies expanded and their arms bulked with muscle.

In less than a minute they’d gone from diggers to warriors perfectly suited to fighting in the enclosed tunnels. They couldn’t run fast, but they wouldn’t need to. The combat would all be close and nasty, full of biting, tearing, and stabbing.

As quietly as possible I drew my longknife, then, almost as an afterthought, I shucked off my left glove and tucked it down inside my jerkin.

Cavarre watched me do that for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, in the dark, touch will count for more than any other sense. Very good, Hawkins.”

“If it has fur, I can stab it.”

Ahead of us, near the wall of the tunnel, Faryaah-Tse shone like a beacon compared to the other urZrethi. She maintained the shape she had taken when she joined us, which left her looking very childlike and innocent. She raised her arms and crossed them, then pulled them apart sharply.

Two diggers at the front of the tunnel stabbed their hands deep into the dirt and clawed it back. A little hole opened up, but before they could expand on it, the urZrethi warriors surged forward, blasting through with their shoulders. “For Boragul,” shouted one, and a half-dozen voices answered, “Varagul for Victory.” Other war cries I could not understand, though the guttural pulsing of“kang vatt ki-det” really needed no translation. Through the wall and into the enemy tunnel they poured, with snarls and snaps and howls greeting them. Of that combat there was not much to see, as swaying lanterns only gave me occasional glimpses of the action. I remember most the scent, the thick, musky odor of gibberers and the sweet, sharp tang of blood. I remember the sounds as well: the snarls evaporating into whimpers, the wet splash of blood spurting rhythmically, the crunch of bones breaking, the grunt of someone having the breath driven from him, and the dying sighs of creatures as they went down with crushed skulls.

I shifted to the right side of the tunnel and moved to the fore, but found nothing to do. We had been brought along as observers, and the urZrethi meant for us to do just that. I suspected the reason we had been invited along was so we could see how well the urZrethi fought—as if that could dispel any concerns we might have over them because of the Man-urZrethi War fought centuries before. But I had no reservations to begin with, and all this display managed to do was make me wonder how men managed to fight the urZrethi to a standstill.

The battle ended quickly. We’d entered the tunnel behind the digging party and, though they were armed, the tight confines gave them little room to fight. The urZrethi slaughtered them with the loss of only two of their own. No one bothered to count Aurolani bodies, but both vylaens and gibberers had been slain. Judging by the number of longknives hauled back, at least two dozen of the enemy had died.

The urZrethi sent a half-dozen people back up the tunnel with rope. This they fastened to support beams in the Aurolani tunnel. When they got back to our tunnel, the urZrethi formed a line and pulled on the ropes, tugging away the posts and beams to collapse the tunnel. A great rush of air and dust blew back into our tunnel and I coughed for a bit while blinking my eyes to clear them.

Up above us—well east of the fortress—a snakelike track of sunken turf would mark the Aurolani graves.

The Draconis Baron led us all back to the surface and we looked a frightful mess. Dust caked us all over, save for the twin tear tracks down our faces. Augustus spat out a fair amount of dirt, then joined me at a cistern in the street, where I dunked my head and washed it off.

I relished the feel of water dripping down my neck and over my spine. It felt good to be back out of the tunnel, back in the cool, fresh air. I wanted nothing so much as to run off and relax in one of the steaming pools in the Crown Tower, but I remained there, watching Cavarre and the urZrethi.

The diminutive Baron greeted each of the urZrethi as they exited the house. He thanked them and appeared to be addressing each by name. That struck me as remarkable because of how they had shifted shape. Still, if he had a way to recognize them, if he was able to speak to each of them as he had each of us when we arrived, that would explain why the garrison felt confidence in his leadership despite his youth and martial inexperience.

I walked over to Faryaah-Tse and dropped to a knee beside her. “What will you do for a memorial for the two who died?”

She shook her head. “They were buried where they fell. That is the fate of warriors, to be returned to the earth where they died, or as close to it as possible. Because we shift shape, and remain changed when we die, we do not have the cultural attachment to seeing the dead that men seem to. We will simply go off, eat a meal, share stories and remember, so we can tell their kin how they passed.”

“A memorial meal, that’s a good idea.” I nodded. “Men do that.”

“It is also vital for us.” She looked at me with black eyes. “Shifting is not easy for us. It tires us out and strains our bodies. We need to eat to regain our strength so we can change back. If we could not, we would be stuck like this.”