The Dreaming Hunt (22 page)

Call him old, would they? Scowling, he reluctantly handed over his pack. The copper helm was buried at the bottom of it. He wore the breastplate beneath his shirt and the broken bracer on his own arm beneath a leather bracer. But the helm had been too big for him, and without a full set of armor to attach it to, it tended to turn to one side and blind him.

“What's this?” the soldier exclaimed, pulling the helm from the pack.

“Just an old hat I found a while back. I'm taking it as a gift to the grandkids to play with.”

The soldier turned it this way and that.
Curses
. Why had he cleaned the thing up, anyway? He should've left it filthy and unpolished so it would pass as junk. Sure enough, the strange veins in the copper caught a shaft of sunlight, and the intricate designs worked into the metal flashed into view. “Did you make this?”

“Gor, me? Naw. I'm just a poor prospector.”

“Mighty fine piece of workmanship for a toy. I'm thinking this is the property of the Empire. All weaponsmiths are required to offer their output first to the Imperial Army. It was an oversight if this piece weren't appropriated.”

Panic tore through him. “'Ey now. It's just a helmet. No armor to go with it or nothing. And who wants copper armor, anyway? It's too soft to be of any use,” he added in desperation.

“Move along, old man.” The soldier handed off the helm to another soldier sitting atop a wagon filled with confiscated loot. His helm was tossed into the back and disappeared from sight. Gunther contemplated making a grab for it, but there were five soldiers, and he couldn't outrun humans even if he'd had both legs and been decades younger.

“Go on. Get going,” the confiscator ordered him. “You're holding up the line.”

Furious, Gunther stumped away from the checkpoint. At least they hadn't gotten his breastplate and bracer. Heaping dire curses upon all their heads, he moved away from the soldiers. One day. One day his kind would rise up from the earth from whence they came and destroy the Empire of Koth and all who served it. By the mountain, he hoped he lived to see that day.

Fueled by rage, he made excellent time and reached Svedburg, a decent-sized town tucked into the lower slopes of the Groenn's Rest Range, just as the sun touched the peaks in the west. He stopped in a tavern for a bite of supper and a pint of ale before continuing on to his final destination. Once full dark had fallen, he headed for the Haltekrag, a pub where those he sought this night were known to congregate.

It turned out to be a smoky, dark tavern lit only by a roaring blaze on a hearth that stretched nearly to the low-beamed ceiling. The customers were as rough as the place, all dwarves, all eyeing him suspiciously. He scowled back and made his clumsy way to a table in the back.

It took nursing three pints of ale to finally spot what he sought. An inconspicuous door in the corner opened to let out a gray-bearded dwarf. From his vantage point, Gunther spotted a long table in the back room filled with more graybeards.

He tossed back the dregs of his ale and made his way to the door. He banged on it with his fist, and it cracked open to reveal a surly looking fellow completely blocking the narrow opening. “Who goes?”

“Name's Druumedar. Gunther Druumedar. Prospector up on the north face of the Hauksgrafir. I need to talk to the council.”

“They meet in Waelan, first day of each month. Make your petition to them.”

“Not the margrave's council, you fool,” Gunther growled low. “I found something pertaining to
our
kind. Something
important
.”

“Wait there.” The door closed, and he stood before it feeling like a fool. He'd come all this way, gotten robbed by the Empire, and now they weren't even going to listen to—

The door opened again. “Enter.”

He stepped inside, and every eye in the room turned in his direction. Suspicious silence filled the space. The fire in here was considerably less smoky than the one without, and its flickering light danced across the ceiling as he stared back at them.

“State your business, Druumedar,” one of the dwarves snapped.

“Mind if I sit? Been walking all day on my mechanical leg.”

Harrumphing, the speaker gestured him to an empty seat at the base of the table. The assemblage stared at him skeptically. Didn't think a one-legged prospector had anything worthy to say to their snooty selves, eh? Hah! He'd found them, hadn't he? Not that he begrudged them their secrecy. For these were the local leaders of the dwarven resistance to the Empire. With the wind screaming down off Hauksgrafir tonight, the fire guttered and flared intermittently, increasing the clandestine mood in the room.

“So, Druumedar,” one of the dwarves bellowed with false joviality. “What brings you to our table this blustery night? Shouldn't a fellow like you be at home and long abed?”

A fellow like him? A cripple? Half a man? Why, that bellowing windbag full of elf droppings …

Fury began a slow burn in his gut. Rather than open his mouth and give vent to his irritation, he unbuckled his leather bracer, unlaced his sleeve, and unstrapped the copper bracer he'd found inside the secret tunnels of Hauksgrafir. He tossed it onto the table. It hit with a musical clink of metal on wood. A sound that made every dwarf in the room look up with interest.

“What's this?” Bellowbreath asked.

“You tell me. Have any of you ever seen the like?” Gunther demanded truculently.

One of the other dwarves leaned forward. Picked it up. Turned it over carelessly. “It is a copper bracer. Not that copper would do a soul any good in a real fight.”

As if he didn't already know that.

The other dwarf continued, “Too damaged to wear, what with that big gash in it. Nicely worked, I'll grant.”

“Nicely worked?” Gunther growled, his voice rising. “Name me one smith alive today who could fashion such a piece!”

Another dwarf took the gauntlet and turned it over with the stained and callused hands of a craftsman. He held it up to the fire and shards of green fire flashed throughout the room like a crystal catching sunlight.

Many voices exclaimed at once, demanding to know what had just happened. The smith turned the bracer this way and that again in the light of the fire, but the green flash was not repeated. Finally, the fellow laid it down on the table once more, with marked reverence. Everyone stared at the piece as if it might jump up and bite them.

“That, gentlemen,” the old smith declared ponderously, “is hardened copper. Ain't never seen it in the flesh before, but my great-grandpappy whispered of old knowledge lost of metals forged like that.”

Gunther frowned and declined to mention the abandoned forge he'd found the piece in.

The old smith was speaking again. “Making of copper armor is an ancient dwarven secret. Kept its existence from them cursed Kothites, we did.”

Gunther stood and unlaced his shirt. “That's not all. I found this breastplate and a helm that a bunch of twice-cursed soldiers confiscated from me.”

“Where'd you get it?” the smith asked urgently.

“Like I said. I'm a prospector. Work the north face of the Hauk, mostly. I took a tumble down the mountain and found the entrance to an abandoned mine. Looked like errock might have worked it.”

That got grunts of surprise and displeasure from the lot of them.

He continued, “Found a busted-up statue partly buried by a cave-in. The armor pieces were on it. The helm, breastplate, and bracer were the only pieces I found. Might be more of the suit under boulders I couldn't move, maybe the rest of the suit was destroyed.”

“May I send this bracer to my cousin?” the smith asked. “He's a master smith and would be most interested in it.”

“Our compatriots in Rignhall should see this,” someone else objected.

“Send the bracer to one, the breastplate to the other,” a white-bearded dwarf pronounced from the far end of the table.

Gunther harrumphed. If anyone was taking his armor pieces somewhere,
he
would be the one doing it. He'd found them. They belonged to him now. But he did not relish a long journey. Dangerous. Expensive. Cursed annoying on one leg and a stump.

He glared down the table at the old man but was startled out of his general irritation by the wisdom gleaming in the dwarf's return stare. “You came to us for help, did you not, Gunther Druumedar?” the man asked.

“Aye,” he answered reluctantly.

“Then let us help you. Let us send the bracer to friends of our cause. You shall take the breastplate to Sven's cousin.”

Their cause? Did the old one refer to the rebellion? Was he to be admitted to its incredibly secret ranks, then? Satisfaction coursed through him. He would be honored to take the Empire down a peg, he would. “Done,” he declared.

“Wouldn't be flashing that breastplate about, if I were you,” the smith who'd examined the bracer mumbled. “Draw the wrong kind of attention, you would.”

“From whom?” Gunther demanded.

“Everyone,” the geezer wheezed.

If the Empire coveted his strange copper armor pieces and would interfere with his learning about them, that alone was reason enough to take the armor—or at least a piece of it—to Rignhall and learn everything he could about it.

“Right, then,” he announced, lacing his shirt over the beautifully inlaid breastplate. “Rignhall, you say? And where exactly will I find your compatriots?”

*   *   *

Will walked through the streets of Dupree the next day in awe. The amount of destruction the Boki had caused in their brief incursion was truly impressive. Although, as he glimpsed a few people scuttling furtively into alleys, their shirts stuffed full, mayhap the greenskins had gotten some help from the locals in their looting and pillaging.

He'd told Aurelius about the break-in at the Haelan armory, and his grandfather had sworn him to secrecy regarding the theft. Which was passing strange. What could a carved stone tucked away in an old chest in a dusty corner mean to anyone? No telling how it had gotten there or how long it had been there. What game was his grandfather playing at?

Will returned to the Mage's Guild, and the door guard announced, “The guildmaster is looking for you. Said to send you to his office straight away upon your return.”

He jogged up the stairs to Aurelius's office and knocked on the glowing door. The magic winked out, and his grandfather called, “Enter.”

Will stepped inside. As always, he took a moment to breathe in the magic permeating the space.

“There you are,” Aurelius declared. “I wish to speak with you about your father's name.”

Will winced. It was a sore subject with him that he'd been forced to give up calling himself by it. Dropping the name his father had given him seemed disrespectful of the dead. “What of it?”

“People have been talking about your resemblance to Tiberius. I've told them you look like a thousand other peasants in the colony and that your people must hail from the same region of Koth that De'Vir's did. I believe I have squelched the rumors for now.”

“Thank you, Grandfather.”

The solinari nodded solemnly. The moment of intimacy shimmered between them and then passed. Aurelius gave himself a little shake. “Nonetheless, you will have to lie low for a while. In the meantime, I am going to increase your weapon training.”

Curse his father. Why couldn't Tiberius just have trained him through his youth? By now, he would have been one of the finest warriors in the colony had his illustrious sire shared but a portion of his knowledge and skill with his son. As it was, Will could hardly stand to think about how long it would take him to become a competent warrior. He was just now becoming a half-decent staff fighter, and his father had spent Will's entire youth teaching him that much. How long would it be until he mastered other weapons with more complicated fighting styles? Years? Decades? Ever? Would he even live that long?

Gah. More negative thinking. Did it come from Bloodroot or him? He could hardly tell the difference anymore. Rubbing at the wooden disk embedded in his chest, he halfheartedly cursed Gawaine for making him choose to either keep or lose the blasted thing. He would dearly love to blame someone else, or even unkind fate, for sticking him with the thing … but no. He'd chosen this path for himself.

Gawaine said the spirit within the disk could teach him skills he would never master on his own. Perhaps one of those skills would be armed combat. He waited hopefully for some sort of response from within his gut, but today he got nothing. Curse Bloodroot, anyway.

Aurelius announced without warning, “Enough of lectures and book learning. Now you must learn how to use what your father and I have taught you.”

“My father taught me nothing.”

Aurelius pursed his lips. “You do not give your father enough credit. Now and again I see flashes of something…” Infuriatingly, the elf did not continue. Will knew of what Aurelius spoke, though. Sometimes, he seemed just on the verge of remembering something buried deep within his mind, forgotten to conscious knowing.

His grandfather continued, “While I am a competent combat caster, I do not combine weapons and magic. Hence, I am not best suited to teach you how to fight. Also, I do not rely on stored magics. Scrolls, scroll books, potions, and decanters are outside my area of expertise.”

Will had already been taught the rudiments of reading a printed magical scroll, absorbing its stored magic, and then casting it. He was still clumsy at it, but the basic idea was not difficult. As for magical potions, anyone could uncork a vial and drink. He supposed a decanter with many doses of a potion could be trickier. It probably wouldn't do to guzzle down the whole thing if only a sip was needed. He could picture how furious Rosana would be if he ever drank down a dozen doses of healing when he needed only one. He smiled until Aurelius spoke again, distracting him from pleasant thoughts of snapping gypsy eyes and rosy cheeks.