Iron Elf - A Race Reborn (Book 2) (32 page)

Tamril acted as my herald. The girl had her way with words. According to her I was the fearless protector of my people, the perfect example of chivalry, and the proud owner of an enormous manhood.

First the archery round. They encased my head in a full helm and topped it with a hat. Hafgan and I cantered toward each other, him from the south and I from the north. The stands were at our backs. We passed left shoulder to left shoulder and loosed our arrows.

My head was suddenly lighter by one feathered hat. Hafgan’s was untouched. We turned. The extra arrows were in my bow hand—I pulled one out and nocked it. Sham gave me another hat and I charged. Again we loosed our arrows. Again I lost my hat. We wheeled, got another hat, and galloped for the third approach.

I stood in the stirrups, twisted my hips, and drew the arrow back. Aimed. At the horse’s highest point I released. Like a joke, the arrow flew over Hafgan’s head. His arrow, meanwhile, deprived me of another lid.

“Well, that was a perfect failure,” Vitus said.

“Think of it as stimulating the headgear industry.”

“It doesn’t matter. We’re not playing for points. But now’s your last chance to withdraw with honour.”

“Eh, I liked those hats. Hafgan shall pay!”

I stood before a mirror in my tent, my sparring partners acting as my squires. Lister and Laraib helped me out of my leather armour. I was left in my arming doublet, a jacket of padded silk. Sham took away my wine goblet and Herkus started with the plate harness. He buckled the sabatons onto my feet and hung the leg defences from the doublet’s hem. They snapped breastplate and backplate together and hung the arm defences from my sleeves. The gauntlets were like slipping my hands into a pair of bells. The helmet they screwed onto my shoulders so it was all one piece.

I could barely turn my head. I could barely move, for that matter. My left side was so heavy I leaned. Not that my right wasn’t well-protected. I was, in fact, wearing a hundred pounds of steel. This was jousting armour, and for jousting you didn’t need to walk or move around much.

They’d added a tilt barrier to the field. This time we’d be meeting with the stands to either side. The guys helped me to my mount. This was a new horse, with a new saddle. The front and back were raised—it was like settling into an easy chair.

Tamril handed me the lance. “Fight well, my king. Do me proud.” She tied something around my left arm.

“This is underwear!”

“Hello-oo! That’s why it’s called a lady’s favour!”

So with panties on my arm, I saluted Hafgan and rode to meet him. I gathered speed. I leaned forward, legs bent, steering with my knees. Hafgan came closer. I lowered the lance over the horse’s neck. I gripped the lance palm up, the butt of it held under my arm and braced against my body. Hafgan showed me how it was done.

WHAM

“Mommy!”

I reeled. I’d never been hit so hard. He’d shattered his lance on my grid guard, the shield on my left shoulder. We were two men in heavy armour and Hafgan had focused our combined force on a single point.

The impact was unreal. Even through my slab-like armour, I felt it. I remember Hafgan’s lance bending. The gridded shield kept it from glancing off. Bending and splintering. The air was full of chips of wood and paint. Hafgan’s lance was painted red.

I reeled. My armour rang like a bell and my lance went flying. I let go the reins like I’d been taught—no sense tearing the horse’s mouth. My whole body hurt. Then the pain settled on my shoulder and it was breathtaking.

“Good,” Vitus said. “Good! One more!”

The flags flew up and again we charged. We leaned forward, lances levelling. Our horses muscled forward, churning up sand, hooves biting and fighting for traction. WHAM

I lost my lance again. I flipped over the saddle and smashed into the dirt with a hundred pounds of steel on my back.

“Oh—bad fall. Bad fall!”

“You okay?” Grahothy asked.

“—Aghk turn me over gonna vomit—”

They flipped me before I puked into my helmet. My breakfast came pouring out the eye-slits. I retched for a long time and was miserable.

They poked a straw through the visor. I rinsed my mouth, spat to wash the inside of my helmet. It helped with the smell.

“All right, champ,” Vitus said. “Now you gotta get up on the horse again.”

I started crying.

But they got me in that goddamn saddle. Gave me another lance, for all the good it would do. I put spurs to the horse and lowered the lance. Palm up, couched under my arm. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe!

WHAM

CHAPTER 26:
MEERWEN

We cleared the Northlands temple without further difficulty. Embarrassed, Mina threw herself into the task and we took no casualties.

We found the prisoners where the humans had left them. The abbey lacked dungeons, of course, so the invaders had thrown the nuns into the dormitory and bricked up the doors and windows.

“Stand back!” I punched my way through.

Among their number were several escaped slaves. The temple had sheltered more, but most had been taken by new masters. The ones that remained were judged to be worthless. They wouldn’t survive another journey.

Conrad’s was wide-eyed. “My people were farmers but none of them got as bad as this.”

Five halfling men and women. They were a wretched lot. Their backs were bent and their arms hung askew. Hard labour had ruined the joints and twisted the bones. Without tools, their callused hands were empty. I doubted if any were half my age, but years of abuse had withered their bodies. They shuffled into the light, hurting at every step, looking like ancient corpses.

One slave, the black one, had something of a family resemblance with Conrad. She could have been his mother.

“Oh,” he said. “Oh.” He tried to give comfort but the woman cringed, expecting a blow. He backed away, biting his knuckles.

“This is how it’s always been,” Olympia said. “In the human chiefdoms the strong rule and the weak are property.”

When he could speak normally he said, “It’s monstrous.”

“It’s the Northlands.”

I saw marks from chains and ropes, whips and branding irons. One man had been beaten close to death—his back was a mat of ropy scars. More than back-breaking labour, these people had endured cruelty enough to dim their eyes and stun them into silence.

“Alfredi! Alfredi, I need you!”

“Save your healer, Baron Czeleborn,” Olympia said. “It would take weeks to straighten their bodies, to say nothing of their minds.”

While others secured the temple and evacuated the prisoners, Olympia took me and Father to the deepest part of the complex. It was a simple stone vault. Four pillars stretched to the ceiling. I sensed the great weight of the monastery complex above us. And beneath us? I activated my Sight. “Oh, wow.”

My father frowned. “I don’t see anything. But geomancy was never my strongest subject. Daughter?”

“Like, oh wow.”

Whoever had built this temple had been an earth mage of the highest order. From this underground chamber, I could see for miles. It was like being in an observatory that could peer through solid rock. “The floor’s gone transparent. The walls, ceiling. Everything. And I know how to seal the portal.”

They asked me how. It was hard to explain. The elven wizard had put as much work here as they had in Brandish. Back home they’d raised a mountain. In the Northlands they’d laid the foundations for another mountain—a goddamn volcano.

Beneath our feet great forces slumbered. There were vast caverns and connecting tunnels. There were subterranean rivers emptying into sunless seas. And there were magma chambers. Everything had been shaped by a single mind. The region would not suffer earthquakes. It would not trigger by accident. But it was also like a line of dominoes. The right push, in the right place, was all it needed to implode. “It’s a combination lock,” I said. “I can unlock it now.”

Father turned to the Abbess. “This was your home, Olympia. Your life’s work. You must give the order.”