The Book of Fire Page 8

  Erde felt she’d lost the thread of their conversation. “But if he’s alive and on our side now, what can the problem be?”

  Rose eyed her sympathetically. “I don’t know what he has done to so earn your good opinion of him, but you must realize, dear child, that in one fateful moment, Adolphus Michael von Hoffman, Baron Köthen, went from being the most powerful and respected younger lord in the kingdom, with his hand poised for the throne, to being a fugitive of dubious integrity, under suspicion of sorcery and without lands or forces to call his own. We’re told it’s been hard on him.”

  “But what about Hal?” Didn’t he . . . couldn’t he . . . sorcery? She had imagined the two of them, man and mentor, joining forces to win great victories together.

  “Hal’s kept him alive and out of the hands of the witch hunters.”

  “Whom he’s had so much practice eluding himself,” noted Raven.

  “But Hal Engle, as you know, serves His Majesty first and foremost, and even he can’t be sure of where Dolph’s true loyalties lie.”

  Erde’s mouth took on a stubborn tilt. “King Otto is old and weak! My father always said so. Baron Köthen only wanted the throne so he could keep the kingdom together. I heard him say so to Hal. You’ll see—when the true prince is recognized, Adolphus of Köthen will pledge to him and help him make the kingdom great again!” If indeed, she added silently, he is still alive to do it. She wouldn’t know, until the next bird arrived.

  “Well,” said Rose, raising a doubtful brow.

  But Raven smiled. “I guess there’s no doubt where your loyalties lie.”

  It isn’t until the three men turn up out of the blizzard that N’Doch comes to and realizes what a fool’s paradise he’s been living in. They ride in out of the storm and bring the cold light of reality with them. He only needs one look at their grim and weary faces.

  This Deep Moor place, he reflects, is like one of those fancy damn R&R resorts, where the army sends the battle-crazed recruits to pump ’em up with enough hooch and tail and m.j. so they can send ’em back out to the front again. But then he can’t help but grin. So far all I’ve gotten is the hooch.

  The dragons have gone down the valley for exercise, as if the storm was nothing to them. But they come flickering in out of nowhere, bringing the first sighting of the intruders’ approach. The girl bursts out of the house to greet them. N’Doch is out in the yard, now that they’ve found him some serious clothing to wear, learning how to shovel snow. There’s plenty of it to shovel, and he keeps at it while the girl confers with the dragons.

  “Visitors!” she exclaims, then hightails it back into the house.

  The dogs report in next. N’Doch loves how they bound along, just like the herd of antelopes he saw in a vid once, silent and eager, sailing through snowdrifts as high as veldt grass. They race straight to the tall woman Doritt, who seems to have the same sort of way with them that Papa Dja has with his mangy pack of strays. Some things, he thinks, never change. Like how she squats her odd angular body down among them in the wind-driven snow, patting and murmuring, then gets up and marches into the Big House like she’s got their actual words to convey.

  N’Doch likes how the farmstead is always busy, even now, in the midst of a storm. Paths snake through the snow between all the outbuildings. It snowed yesterday and the day before, and now the snow is falling again, a soft swirling mist that whitens the air and fills in the path behind him. He has to work hard to keep up with it. Storm or no storm, there are cows to be milked and chickens to be fed and eggs to be collected. When he really thinks about where he is, timewise, he’s not so surprised that these women have to do everything by hand. He’s learned there’s a bake house, a laundry, an old-time forge, and a potter’s kiln among the many smaller wood-and-stone buildings that circle the big central farm house. And even a man who was blown to bits less than a week ago gets a shovel stuck in his hand or a load of wood to carry.

  N’Doch doesn’t mind the work. It keeps him warm and gives him something to focus on, which is good, ’cause he’s still feeling pretty damn floaty. He likes being part of the bustle. It’s like the village he grew up in where everybody had a function, before things got real bad and his family had to move to the city. Besides, he figures he owes these women something for all they’re doing for him. He can’t remember how long it’s been since he had three safe squares a day and a real bed to sleep in every night, the same bed even, warm and rat-free, where he can sleep without fear of being robbed or murdered for maybe the first time in his life.

  But then the men arrive, and it’s like being jolted out of a pleasant daydream. Suddenly N’Doch is wondering how long it’ll be before this war the women all gossip and debate about comes spilling over the valley walls like the proverbial tsunami. He’s sorry about this. He’s just left his own sort of war behind, and he doesn’t wish it on them for a moment.

  He leans on his shovel when Doritt comes back out on the terrace with Raven and the girl in tow. Raven squints up at the sky, hugs a heavy shawl around her. Doritt, in tall leather boots, heads for the horse barn. “I’ll get Margit and Lily saddled up.”

  “You can’t send them out in this,” Raven calls after her. Margit and Lily are the trackers, N’Doch knows. Margit is also the blacksmith. He likes those two women. They remind him of the girls in his old gang. Lily has promised him a ride out to the Grove if the weather ever clears. N’Doch has never been on a horse, at least not a real one, never touched one in his life, and just this morning, Doritt had him mucking out stalls. Talk about total immersion. He shakes his head in amazement.

  “Somebody’s got to see who’s coming in.” Doritt disappears around the corner of the barn.

  “I told you, it’s Hal,” insists the girl.

  Raven shook her head. “Hal’s got a war to worry about now. He can’t just take off whenever the fancy strikes him.”

  “Earth knows Hal and he’s sure it’s him.”

  “How close did he get?”

  “Not too close, just in case. But . . .”

  “It can’t be Hal. There’s three of them. Hal’d never brought a stranger into Deep Moor in his life until he brought you.”

  “And there goes the neighborhood,” says N’Doch from the yard.

  Both women look at him, but nobody laughs. He shrugs and goes back to his shoveling. But out of the corner of his eye, he watches Raven as she stands, hands on hips, staring across the farmyard toward the snow-shrouded valley as if there was already something to see out there.

  Doritt comes back from the barn. “They say they’ll go out as far as the Grove—they’ve been wanting to check on Gerrasch anyway—and escort whoever it is back in, whether they’re welcome or not. Margit says to have the troops ready.”

  “We’ve got time. It’ll take them at least an hour from where the dragons spotted them, maybe longer in this weather.” Raven touches the girl’s arm. “Go tell Rose—she’s working in the library.”

  The girl jumps like she’s been daydreaming, then races off inside. N’Doch can see she’s worried about something. Doritt does an about-face and strides back to the barn, leaving Raven alone on the snow-swept porch, the white flakes catching in the dark cloud of her hair. N’Doch would like to say something to her. Not a come-on or anything. She looks too sad and worried all of a sudden. Well, maybe a little come-on, just to cheer her up. Raven understands how to play the game. But he speaks no German. She speaks no French. All he can do is smile encouragingly.

  Uh-huh, he tells himself. Time to start learning another language.

  The storm has blown up into a real howler by the time the three men struggle in. The dragon-as-Sedou stands next to him in the lee-side shelter of the spring house, where Doritt has stationed them.

  “Just in case,” she says, shoving stout poles into their hands.

  N’Doch uses the pole to brace himself against the wind. He’d prefer his trusty old fish blade that’s gotten him in and out of many a tight scrape. But nothing
came back with him through the veil of centuries, nothing but his flesh and bones, in several pieces. Even his clothes were in tatters. He hefts his pole. It’s about two meters long and maybe three centimeters thick. He turns to Sedou. “What d’ya think?”

  Sedou’s grin is veiled with snow. “We can take ’em. Whoever they are.”

  N’Doch levels the staff at him endwise and feints. Sedou counters with the stick held across his chest in both hands. Instantly, N’Doch sees that’s the right way to use it, like, to ward off a blade. Particularly a real long one. It occurs to him that these guys are probably gonna be carrying swords. His anticipation quickens.

  Sedou’s still wearing the same old dashiki and jeans that N’Doch’s song had conjured him in. N’Doch shivers. He can’t remember ever being so cold. Suddenly he feels like it’s him who’s the older brother. “You ought to get some clothes on.”

  “Cold doesn’t affect me.”

  “Well, it looks weird. People might think you’re showing off.”

  “Since when did that bother you?” Sedou raises his staff and takes a stance. “Wanta do something about it?”

  They joust a little among the drifts until N’Doch’s feeling warmed up and breathing hard. He pulls back with a laugh. “Do we have to go to all this trouble? Couldn’t you just, y’know, spit fire at them or something? Instant barbecue?”

  Sedou sobers. “Not me. That’s my brother.”

  For an instant, N’Doch is confused. Then he says, “Oh, that brother. The big guy can do that? No kidding.”

  “I meant the other one.”

  Right. The other one. N’Doch recalls it well enough, pounding hell-bent down that long tunnel in Lealé’s mystical house, pursued by a roaring gout of flame, breathing in the searing heat, sure he was about to be incinerated by a dragon he’d never even met. Come to think of it, his vision of running was a lot like that. His two dragons had gotten all excited when he described his vision to them. Earth made him repeat every detail of the burned-out, ruined landscape.

  Water had asked: Is it a fix?

  Earth had replied: I THINK IT IS.

  “The other one,” N’Doch says now. “I remember. The one we gotta go after.”

  Sedou nods. “And soon. But only when you’re ready. When your body is healed.”

  N’Doch flexes his shoulders, wrinkles his nose to the snow and wind. “Feels pretty good right now.” In fact, too good. The suspicion is growing that he feels not only different but better than he ever did before. “Say, listen, did you guys . . . did you, like, put in any improvements when you worked me over?”

  But the dark man opposite him just smiles back at him blandly, a distinctly un-Sedou smile. N’Doch can see the dragon in his brother’s eyes and knows this question won’t get a straight answer.

  That’s me, all right. Just a poor dumb soldier on R&R, kickin’ back, enjoying myself, while a coupla dragons shape me up for the next big battle.

  Later, he hears the sharp halloo of the dogs escorting the intruders in. But the snow is flying so thick in the gathering dark that the riders are halfway into the farmstead before N’Doch can pick them out. The snow muffles the sounds of their approach, but the alert has already been downgraded. Lily has ridden in ahead to give the okay to light the lanterns and call the watchers in from their posts. One of the riders, at least, is known to her. N’Doch figures it must be this Hal they all talk about. The women have gathered in the yard. Doritt and the twins warm their hands at the flame of a tall torch they’ve uprighted in the snow. N’Doch thinks it looks festive, but he can feel the tension beneath the women’s cheerful chat and banter. It’s not normal for visitors to show up unannounced in the middle of a blizzard. There might be something wrong. Rose waits on the stone terrace, bundled up in a bright woolen shawl, all reds and rusts and oranges, as if she could banish, with bold wielding of the spectrum, the approaching gloom of night. Her often stern face is lit with a womanly anticipation, and N’Doch recalls that according to the girl, this Hal, if it’s him at all, is Rose’s lover. The girl is there next to her, front and center to greet him, but she’s still looking worried. Even more so than usual.

  He hears a soft rhythmic chink, metal against metal. The riders fade into view at last, darker shadows rising up through a field of darkening gray. They are hooded, and wearing epaulets of snow. N’Doch realizes he’s gripping his stick as if his life depended on it. He relaxes his fingers inside his gloves, but not his stare. Margit rides ahead, then two men abreast and one behind. Reflexively, N’Doch susses out the power structure: Margit, of course, the guide. Then the Chief Honcho, the tall guy on the left, alert but relaxed. To the right, the challenger. He decides this due to the tense, forward jut of the guy’s chin and the angled slope of his shoulders. And then behind, erect and on edge, the Bodyguard. N’Doch thinks this one looks less sure of himself than the others, but all three of these guys look as tough as any gang leader he’s ever known. For that matter, so does Margit. He can almost smell the aura of blood and gunpowder they bring with them. Well, no, probably not gunpowder. Not yet. He looks for weapons, sees none. Now he wishes he’d taken Papa Dja up on some of those history books he was always offering. He’d like to know what to expect.

  They pull up in the center of the yard. Margit vaults off her horse and the dogs fall silent, like this is some sort of signal. The women crowd around immediately, reaching for bridles and reins, calling out greetings. The horses are steaming. Ice stiffens their manes and tails, mounding up in the straps and buckles of the tack. A laden packhorse straggles in out of the gloom and is led aside.

  The tall man on the left swings stiffly out of his saddle. He shrugs back his hood, brushing snow from the folds of his cloak. In the glow of lantern light, N’Doch catches a metallic glint in the wide cuffs of the man’s gloves, and in the close-fitting headgear worn under his hood. Curious, N’Doch steps in a little closer, until he can make out the fine steel links meshed together, and understands that the man has on body armor. Chain mail. The term floats up from some memory of an ancient history vid. Wow, N’Doch marvels. I’m seeing knights in armor.

  The Honcho wears a tired, apologetic air. But he calls over his shoulder to the Bodyguard in the low kind of voice that carries, casual with command. “You may uncover, Wender.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  My lord. N’Doch’s never heard anyone say that for real before, and it might strike him funny if this wasn’t clearly such serious biz. The musician in him relishes the addition of a few bass notes to the symphony of women’s voices he’s listened to for so many days. And he notes approvingly that Margit has been sensible about security. Before shoving off his hood, the Bodyguard yanks down the blindfold he’s worn for the inward journey and lets it hang knotted at his throat. He blinks and looks around.

  The Honcho hauls off a glove and combs back his mesh headpiece, revealing cropped gray hair, a damp, weathered face worn thin with travel, and a flash of red within the darkness of his cloak. N’Doch studies him. An older man, not old. Still strong and vital, but with a lifetime’s hard messages revising his features. Raven has come forward to meet him and is holding his horse’s bridle. His smile speaks mostly of relief as he bends to plant a quick kiss on her cheek. “Can’t fight worth a damn in this weather. Thought we’d come visit.”

  N’Doch wonders if the Honcho’s easy informality is an artifact of dragon simultaneous translation, or if he’s got a few more expectations to dump. In the vids, knights in armor always spoke real stiff. He’ll never know for sure till he can speak the language for himself.

  “Strange company you’re keeping,” Raven murmurs.

  “Isn’t it?” The Honcho straightens, his eyes scanning the little crowd until they settle on Rose, standing still as a statue on the terrace, smiling.

  “Rosie,” he murmurs. “Forgive the unannounced intrusion.” He strides across the hard-packed snow to take Rose in his arms.

  Rose says, before her rich voice is completely sm
othered in his cloak, “It’s just as well you’ve come. The dragons have returned.”

  He lays a finger to her lips, tossing back a quick nod at the men in the yard. But his face lights with boyish wonder. “Dragons? There are more than one now?”

  With the Honcho for sure identified, N’Doch turns his attention to the Challenger, who’s remained slumped and silent on his horse. The women seem awkward with him. They haven’t gathered around to greet him like they did the Honcho, like he’s a stranger, or maybe it’s something else. It’s too dark to tell, but N’Doch senses a glare smoldering under the shadow of the guy’s hood, and a tight-sprung readiness to him, even in his current posture of total disregard which N’Doch reads as a sullen fiction. The Bodyguard dismounts, giving his horse up to one of the redheaded twins with a grateful nod. He comes around beside the Challenger’s horse. He’s big, this Bodyguard, almost as tall as the Honcho but younger and broader, the very definition of muscle. N’Doch would not like to meet him alone in an alley. But his manner is clearly deferential as he shoots a quick glance up at the hooded rider.

  “My lord, if you will allow me . . .”

  The Challenger lets his horse dance a little, and looks away. N’Doch decides this guy is gonna be the trouble.

  Pulling off his own gloves, the Bodyguard, who the Honcho has called Wender, clamps them between his teeth, then reaches up to the front of the guy’s saddle to untie a long piece of red cloth. N’Doch is interested to see that they’ve bound the Challenger’s wrists. Wender pulls the cloth free, then grabs the horse’s reins at the bit to steady it so the rider can dismount. The man does not move. Wender looks like he’d rather not plead. “My lord baron?”

  “Let me,” says Raven, easing up beside him. The big man looks down at her, then bows a little and stands back. Raven lays a familiar hand on the rider’s calf, still neatly stowed in his stirrup. Again, N’Doch spots the dull gleam of mail. “Hello, Dolph,” said Raven. “Aren’t you coming in?”