Once A Hero (10 page)

The smaller man spoke, prompting the merchant to frown, "Is there any way, my Lady, to determine for whom these have been made? I assume they'd not be abandoned lightly."

"No, they would normally be destroyed if the marriage was dissolved." She turned the bracelet over and up so she could see inside the cuff. "Ah, there are maker-marks here. Yes, I . . ." She stopped as her throat tightened. She recognized the marks instantly and bit her lower lip to stop it from trembling. "I know for whom these were fashioned. The pieces are nearly five centuries old. They belonged to my grandparents."

"Who are now dead?"

The ghoulishly hopeful note in the merchant's voice shocked her and clearly angered the smaller man. "They are still alive. I would like to know where you got these."

The merchant looked back at the small man, disappointment evident on his face. "You may tell her what you wish. I abide by our agreement."

The smaller man unfolded his arms, depositing the twin flashdrakes on the table, then bowed to her. "I am Durriken. I supply Frigyes here with things. We've agreed that he can sell anything we can't get back to the owner or an heir. These bracelets, as I understand it, were found about a hundred years ago by someone digging in the Dead Mountains. Various connoisseurs traded for them, and they recently came into my possession. But now they're yours. I hope your kin will be happy to get them back."

"If they do not want them," the merchant smiled solicitously, "I am certain the original owner would love to regain them."

Durriken snarled at the merchant, and the man sank back in his chair. "Her kin are the original owners. Sell Polus the imperial goblets I obtained a year ago to salve him, and let Avner console himself with getting the marble goddess that accompanied these beauties when they left Polus's vault."

Gena looked at the small man. "You're a thief?"

"Frigyes prefers to call me a Practical Antiquarian, but 'thief' sums it up nicely." He shrugged and pointed to the bracelets. "I've accepted as my life's duty preventing collectors from becoming too comfortable with their loot."

Gena came out of her reverie as one of the scouts rode back to the main body of troops. He reported to Waldo; then the soldier turned to face the two of them. "They found a dead Haladin bandit in the croft. He had been wounded in the chest. One of yours?"

"Likely." Durriken nodded curtly.

"More of the warrior in you than I would have imagined."

"I do my best to hide it, but there are times it slips out."

Waldo raised an eyebrow at that remark, then faced forward and kept riding.

Gena frowned at Rik. "In these stories you told, did you mention you were a thief?"

"How they'd have figured that, I don't know." A smug smile and playful wink put the lie to that statement. "You think that's a problem?"

"Rik, Aurdon is a city founded by and run by merchants!"

"And a bigger den of thieves we'll not likely find this side of Najinda. Merchants are just thieves who prefer robbing you while making you think you're getting a bargain."

"Rik!"

The thief smiled and patted her left knee. "Don't worry, Gena, I'll be on my best behavior, I promise."

"Promise?"

"My solemn oath." Durriken placed a hand over his heart for a second. "Besides, until you pass through the city gates, Aurdon has nothing I want."

The road itself followed the valley floors as it wound its way through the hills to Aurdon. Waldo, either impatient to get back to the city or complying with orders, took numerous shortcuts. At all times he kept his scouts and outriders in place even though their unorthodox route made the chance of ambush much smaller.

Riding up and over the hills provided Gena with breathtaking views of grasslands stretching as far as the eye could see. Farms dotted the landscape, their sod houses looking like warts raised on the bare hillsides. Gena shivered unconsciously when she looked at them and was thankful Waldo had not suggested stopping at one. She understood the necessity of sod houses in a land of so few trees, but growing up in Cygestolia had left her feeling as if dwelling in the mud were somehow blasphemous.

The sun had begun its descent into the underworld when she saw the first hint of Aurdon. She doubted the Fishers and Riverens would have enjoyed knowing what her first clue to the city's presence was. Even before the city itself came into view, she saw a brownish haze hanging at the lower end of the river valley toward which they rode. Recalling the cloud raised by the Seventh Regiment's approach, she wondered at first if it might be the oxen being driven back to meet the refugees. That speculation lasted only a minute longer, dying when a breeze brought to her the woody scent of thousands of cookstoves. Only then did she realize the haze had been created as the city devoured what were once proud forests to feed its hunger for building materials and fuel.

Riding in on the river road, Gena first caught sight of the city as they came around a bend. The moment she saw the metropolis, she shuddered. The ivory stone used to build the city's walls and largest buildings reminded her of aged bone. It appeared to her as if the earth's flesh had been gashed open and people had taken up residence in the wound, reshaping bone to suit their needs. It struck her that her revelation would have been better suited to a Dwarf, for the gods had used them to create the world—yet she knew her dismay came from the scarcity of green in the city before her.

Aurdon sprawled over a half-dozen hills, and three stone ribbons of wall surrounded the municipal core. The tallest buildings had been constructed within the second ring, and some more prosperous and ambitious dwellings lurked within the third. Outside the walls, smaller dwellings and various business establishments had spread across the valley, with a fair amount of the riverbanks near the tri-river confluence given over to warehouses and docks for servicing the barge trade.

A trumpet blast from the scouts parted traffic on the main road, so the company made quick time riding north to the first set of city gates. The guards up on the ramparts looked down at them, but did not challenge them, nor paid them overmuch attention. Waldo led them off on the first wide street that headed east and uphill around to the second gate.

The second gate had been placed facing north-north-east, requiring an army that breached the south gate to fight its way uphill to get to it. The Rangers, save Waldo and his scouts, rode off to their barracks while the lieutenant continued out and around, leading Gena and Rik to the third and final city gate. After riding down into a valley between two hills, they rode up again and around to the northwest to make another uphill approach to the gate.

Rik caught Gena's eye. "I've entered palaces at midnight with less difficulty than this."

Waldo shot Rik a sharp glance. "I have no doubt you have, Master Durriken. We have built much here in Aurdon that others covet."

"I can see that, Lieutenant." Rik replied to the man respectfully, not rising to the bait of disdain in Waldo's voice.

The guards at the last gate snapped to attention as the group rode through. The pace of travel slowed, less, Gena thought, because the streets were crowded than because the people lining the streets here appeared to be a better class of denizen than those choking the avenues and courtyards outside the third ring. And she marked in Waldo's attitude a change that allowed her to think he was not so much concerned with riding even these people down as he was with being able to strut importantly before them.

As she had come to expect, she became the object of stares and whispers, much to Waldo's apparent consternation. While the inhabitants of an urban center such as Aurdon doubtlessly would scoff at the way the farmers had feared her on the road, they, too, woutd feel a trickle of terror if she met their gazes openly. Gena accepted that the novelty of seeing an Elf for the first—and perhaps only—time invited study, and she did not hold with other Elves who maintained this proved Men to be little better than the lowing bovines they tended in fields.

Curiously enough, Gena noticed a certain amount of deference being paid to Durriken. He seemed to have noticed it as well, because she caught him furtively glancing about, yet he accepted it and even nodded to one or two women who curtsied as he passed. His reception appeared to anger Waldo—if his scowl and stiff spine could be trusted to measure his mood—but the lieutenant did nothing to act on his feelings.

Waldo reined his mount to a halt before a stone building with the ivory patina of age in the stone walls and columns. Dismounting, he turned the reins of his horse over to one of his scouts, and two others came forward to care similarly for Spirit and Benison. Rik dismounted with a flourish, then patted Benison on the neck. He offered Gena his hand, and she took it less for assistance than the desire to touch him and be close.

Hand in hand they followed Waldo up broad steps, between two statues of perched Fishers and through cast-iron doors a full fifteen feet in height and half that in width. Without introduction or travelogue, he led them across the marble-inlaid foyer, around the decorative pond in which aurfish swam lazily, and on into a long hallway in which the spaces between the arched windows were covered by heavy tapestries. Though she recognized none of the scenes depicted, Gena assumed they came from Fisher family history because of the way the knotted sleeves played prominently across the top of each tableau, and because the tapestries themselves were fastened to the wall by iron hooks made to look like the talons of a Fisher.

Halfway down the corridor Gena began to hear the sounds of fighting, the ringing skirl of steel disengaging itself from steel. As no shouts of alarm accompanied it and Waldo did not react to it, she assumed the sound was not alien to the house this late in the day. Waldo turned right and pointed them through a doorway that opened onto a wide porch standing above a small courtyard surrounded by a splendid garden.

Despite all the combatants being covered in studded leather armor and wearing full helms, Gena recognized Count Berengar instantly. The locks of flame-red hair hanging down from beneath the helmet only provided confirmation of the conclusion she had based on his tall stature and heavily muscled body. Clad in black, using a rapier in each hand, he moved with a fluid grace she remembered well from the dance floor at the reception where they had met.

The two men he fought worked well as a team, yet remained unable to pierce his defenses. Berengar kept his blades wide, facing them straight on, waiting for them to choose an avenue for attack. Normally that would have resulted in his death, but Berengar's extended reach, fast parries, and swifter ripostes meant closing with him was to enter a sphere of death in which he held sway.

"M'lord, I have arrived with your guests." Waldo's announcement and a muffled "Hold," from Berengar brought the fight to a halt. As Berengar handed his blades to a servant and doffed his helmet, Waldo turned to Rik. "You will surrender your flashdrakes to me now, sirrah."

Gena felt a jolt through Rik's right hand, but her grip prevented his drawing one of the handcannons or punching Waldo. Rik shot Gena a sharp glance, then almost instantly let his anger go. "I beg your pardon. Lieutenant? Did you ask to examine one of my flashdrakes?"

"No, I demanded their surrender. It is the law here in Aurdon."

"Waldo! What is this?" Berengar rushed up the steps and stopped several short of the landing, keeping himself at eye level with Durriken. "These are my guests."

The soldier blinked with surprise. "But the law, it is clear. He . . ."

"He is my guest." Berengar shook his head and sighed, then looked up at Durriken. "Forgive this discourtesy, please. Waldo is correct in that it is a law here in Aurdon that only nobles may possess flashdrakes. I can clearly see these are of Dwarven manufacture, not the poorly constructed imitations that the Haladina occasionally circulate." The big man looked back at the people standing in the arena below. "While we have chosen to eschew flashdrakes in favor of more honorable weapons, the law was passed to prevent commoners and peasants from being harmed by the combustion of inferior examples of hand-cannons. If you will give me your parole that you will not use them except in most dire need, I believe we will have no difficulty with your continued possession of them."

Durriken nodded graciously. "You have my word on it, my lord."

"Splendid." Berengar stepped up to the landing and smiled at Gena. "My dear lady, it is once again an honor to bask in your radiance." He bowed, then took her right hand and kissed it gently, his moustache and beard tickling her flesh.

Gena looked up at him and smiled. "And I, we, are honored to be received in your home. You are looking well."

"And with you here, I am much, much better." He turned to face Durriken. "I understand from the men Captain Floris sent back that you are Durriken, a finder of items long lost."

Rik bowed his head. "I am."

"Fortune smiles, then, that you have come with Lady Genevera." Berengar's glance flicked past their joined hands, his bright blue eyes narrowing for a moment; then he pointed them past Waldo and back into the house. "I have arranged for adjoining suites for you. I would have used but one; however, my parsimonious forebears made the guest accommodations quite small. Please use one as your parlor and the other as your private chamber."

"My lord is most generous."

"I hope you will think so after we have a chance to speak more fully." A hint of urgency drifted into Berengar's voice. "As Lady Genevera can tell you, I tend to be more direct than other nobles, and I know you must be wondering why I asked for her to come here with all haste. I realize you are road weary and wish to rest, especially after having to deal with Haladina on the road, but I feel letting you know the reason I summoned you is quite important."

He looked at her quite solemnly. "You know, of course, that Neal Elfward played a key role in the history of Aurdon."

Gena nodded. "I do."

"Good." Berengar's eyes narrowed. "I've asked you here because I need your knowledge of him—and good Durriken's skills will likewise be valuable, I think. You see, I need to unmake what Neal created. If I do not, a city that has prospered over five centuries will cease to exist inside five years."