The Forge in the Forest (6 page)

Elof sat silent, held in icy thrall by the pattern of what was unfolded before him. It was shaped with cunning to appeal to all that was narrowest and most insular in the Sothran temperament, and the typical syndic most of all. They would know, if they remembered truly, that events had not been as Bryhon described them; for one thing, where had the lightning come from, that blasted their walls? But he was presenting them with every inducement to disbelieve and distort their own memories, even an open appeal to their naked self-interest, a hint that Kermorvan threatened their power.

As if scenting success, the tall man's manner grew more jovial; he grinned, and fingered his bushy beard. "And after all, why should we believe such a man, whom we knew even in his first youth as a vicious brawling braggart? Was this assembly not on the point of trying and exiling him, save that he slunk away in disgrace, to avoid a formal sentence and the seizure of his property? Such as he has. And what did we hear of him then? Tales that he had taken up with a pack of starveling corsairs, and then vanished from their ken, until, two years later, he reappears amid a sudden onslaught of savages. An onslaught he had been threatening us with for…"

"Warning," said Kermorvan, equally quietly yet so unexpectedly that all started. "Warning, not threatening."

Bryhon inclined his head. "As you will; it mends nothing. Warning us, then, for years in an attempt to spread a panic, panic that would bring him power. As in the end, it seems, it so conveniently has!" The change in his voice was startling, so loud now that it overbore the first cries of protest. "Those brown-skinned reivers took us by surprise, that is true. But have you not, any of you, asked yourselves how such a thing might come to pass? How a pack of sea-roving savages could dare assault, let alone manage to breach, the walls of the greatest city in this land? How else," Bryhon answered himself simply, "save by treason?" And he looked from Kermorvan up to the gallery, straight at Ils and Elof.

Elof felt his ears and face flame hot as if he bent over a forgefire. He sprang to his feet at the gallery rail and shouted, "And do you call me a traitor? What manner of man, then, skulks on city walls at dead of night? What manner of man tries to murder those he meets there in secret, though all they ask is to be brought before authority? And there's witnesses enough for that!"

The crowd seemed to snarl like a slide of falling rock. Kermorvan flashed him a sudden warning glance; Ils plucked him down by the sleeve. Bryhon did not so much as look at him; his voice was calm and smooth as the stuff of his robe.

"Which brings us to the manner of this singular return. Did he come openly and in brotherhood, offering to take his place among us as an equal? He did not. At dead of night he came slinking over an embattled wall. And he came in strange company. A northern vagrant, the first of many, and, though one would hardly credit it, a creature of the mountains, a race accounted as savage as the maneaters and still more beastlike."

A rush of memories awoke in Elof, of halls rich and noble in the hollow hills, clam rivers mirror-dark under stone, strong faces lined with lifetimes of wisdom and great craft. Of a folk who had succored a desperate unknown in flight from his own destiny, and set the power in his hands to forge it anew—

He was ready to spring down, to spit his contempt in Bryhon's face and dash his fist after. But to his surprise Ils at his side remained calm, though her heavy brows were drawn tight. "Be still!" she hissed, and he remembered suddenly how much older than him she must be. "We are but ciphers here, conceits in a debate, no more. It is not for us to answer, but Kermorvan."

"Then may he do so soon!"

Bryhon gestured at Kermorvan. "What do you think the ancestors he vaunts before us would have made of him then? Much what I did, I fear. And if in the days since that return he had proved me wrong, with all my heart I would have made amends, and been the first to follow him today. But has he? What has he brought us since? Help and wisdom in our need? Hardly. Instead he has encouraged a flock of carrion crows to settle upon our already devastated fields, under guise of a kinship long forsworn.
His
pack, for do they not hang upon his every word? And how many more of them are there to come, when the Northern Marches are in his hands? Shall the Northlands be emptied for us to feed? See how the half-savages he shields steal among you, the northerners who scuttle southward from their cannibal kin. See how they slip the very bread from before the mouths of your hungry children, the smallest wealth from your pocket, the roof from over your heads. A strange way to treat a city he professes to care for! Either he is mad, or he has a purpose. And what can that purpose be?" He waved a hand in Kermorvan's general direction. "I am grateful to him, in his arrogance. For so vast was his pride in what he thought his hour of triumph that he has saved me the labor of convincing you. For he stands revealed in his purpose! Is he not clad in its colors?"

Elof could not guess what he meant, but that barb struck harder upon the city folk than any gone before. There was a moment of stunned silence, and then a roar like a great wave breaking. Elof could hear cries both for Bryhon and against him, for Kermorvan and against him also, but it was as if the same feeling fed them, a ravening anger that seemed to convulse both crowd and chamber, syndics and spectators both, as a lightning flare leaps from cloud to cloud. Blows flew freely among the crowd, brawls sprang up and spread outward like ripples in a pond. Anger rode upon the shoulders of the crowd, anger whose very cause and moment seemed forgotten in its own mad onrush. It was like a wave indeed, driven on from behind by shouts and milling brawls. The great crowd surged forward, up the steps and spilled through the doors into the Syndicacy itself. Elof shuddered as he heard the rising growl of that most savage and monstrous of beasts, a mob. Syndics sprang to their feet in fury and alarm, but their shouts went unheard in the row. His formerly stolid neighbors in the gallery were on their feet also, shouting first down into the chamber, and then at each other and others around. Feet clattered on the stairs, and a tide of rioters spilled into the gallery. "Mad!" shouted Ils, ducking down as blows were traded above her head and Elof's. "Stark mad, the whole pack of—"

Then a heap of struggling, cursing bodies tumbled between them, and they were forced apart. To either side of Elof the spectators scattered in panic, stumbling over the stairs and each other, and he saw one almost toppled over the low stone balustrade. "Ils!" he shouted, and heard a faint voice cry out, "
Elof, beware! At your back
!" He whirled, and saw a knot of tall men forcing their way determinedly through the crush in his direction, five copper-skinned northerners, all with faces hard and fell. They saw him even as he them, and plunged down on him; he saw steel glint among their garments, and his hand flew to his side for the sword that was not there. He cursed, seized the heavy bench he had been sitting on and with a heave tore it free as the first knife reached out for him; it stuck in the wood, and he upended the heavy seat and smashed it down upon the wielder's head. Another threw his weight upon the bench and tore it from his hand, and the rest sprang forward. Elof looked desperately for some weapon, saw at his feet his toolpack spilled open, and seized the huge hammer with which he had forged the sword. Short in the haft it was, but terrible weight was in its high-peaked head, as long as his forearm and cored with strange and turbulent metals of great weight, which the duergar alone knew how to refine and contain in safety. Swiftly he straightened and with wild strength he swung it against the nearest blade; there was a sharp shattering ring, and the long knife splintered against its wielder's hand. Icy pain lanced into his side, he felt a blade snag in his jerkin, fell back and struck out once again. With a frightful muffled sound the hammer struck deep into flesh,

and the man fell choking and writhing to the floor. Another loomed over him with upraised hand, in it no knife but a short sword; Elof s arm was seized from behind, and the crook of an elbow snaked round his throat. Then it was suddenly torn free, as if somebody had hurled the man away. With no room to swing the hammer, he drove it straight into the swordsman's stomach; the man doubled, and it was Elof's hand that rose and fell, once. The cry came again, he sprang round and saw Ils by the balustrade, struggling half-choked in the grip of the remaining two killers who were striving to force her over. So it was she who had freed him! From the chamber below came the ring and clash of swords, but he paid that no heed and barged through the crowd toward her. The killers saw him, pulled her back from the balustrade, but instead set her before them as a shield and charged up the gallery steps toward the door. Without stopping to think, Elof whirled his arm and let the hammer fly, as he had the tile. A handspan above Ils' dark hair it flew, and one man yelled in horror as the other's head was dashed into a spraying pulp. Ils' arm was free, and even as Elof sprang and shouldered his way through she caught her attacker by the throat and hurled him to the ground. He sprang up, snake-lithe, unfolding a claspknife from his sleeve, but Ils seized his arms. The knife slashed past her throat, she heaved, and her duergar strength told. The man cartwheeled down the steps, struck the balustrade and slid, screaming and scrabbling, over its brink.

Elof stood gasping, staring. How many attackers had there been? Then they saw the man whose sword and hand he had shattered run for the door, holding old Ferhas off with a knife. He had all but reached the stairs when there came a clatter of arms beyond; he sought to spring back, but a robed silhouette blocked the opening. With horrific suddenness a bright sword leaped out between the man's shoulder blades. Then a mass of guards poured through, and set about subduing the rioters and herding them toward the stairs.

Elof looked at the dead attacker, and at the red-robed man who had run him through, now stooping to wipe his sword on his victim's jerkin. The newcomer glanced up, and raised an eyebrow. "Brawling again, sir smith? And in the Syndicacy, too; no tiles here! Be warned by the fate of this one! But it appears that you took some small hurt; we shall call that lesson enough."

Elof looked down; only when he saw the bloodstain in his side did he remember the sting, and feel it anew. "A scratch, no more. And glad as I am to see you quelling disorder for once, Bryhon, you were not quite timely enough. As before, we had to do most of the work ourselves."

Red flame burned in the dark man's cheeks. "Fitting enough," he shrugged, and kicked at the copper-hued arm. "Northerner, slay northerner. Your friend put paid to another two brace on the chamber floor. Perhaps he is learning wisdom. Guards, remove this carrion."

"Northerners?" muttered Elof, following the guards who were dragging the corpses away down the stairs. "I wonder—I grew up among them, remember? These have brown skins, yes, but look at the hard faces of them, and the scarring! Do they not sooner resemble—"

"Amicac's guts, yes!" roared Kathel, stumping over to the door with Kermorvan at his heels. "Ekwesh! And the ones down here also! Where in Hella's name did they spring from?"

"Stragglers from their foraging bands, perhaps," said Kermorvan thoughtfully, "left behind in the rout, slipping into the city in the guise of refugees to seek revenge. Seeing their chance in the disorder caused by Lord Bryhon's unruly followers. But there is another, darker chance. They could be spies, assassins deliberately sent among the refugees from the Ekwesh settlements in the north. In which case…"

"We cannot afford to admit any of them?" broke in Bryhon. "It seems you learn wisdom indeed!"

"You mistake me, Bryhon. It proves my point, not yours."

"And what point is that?"

"You will hear when the session begins anew. And the sooner you call your mob to heel, the sooner that will be. I suggest you set about it."

A mirthless grin gleamed in Bryhon's thick beard. "I have not yet had my full say. But better, perhaps, that you stand convicted out of your own mouth. Speak on, then."

"Well, you make progress," croaked Ils to Elof as they climbed wearily back up to the gallery. "Bryhon speaks to you instead of at you. Wonders will never cease! Speaking of which, a wonder you dealt with that one behind you. I strove to help, but I was already half throttled."

"But you did help!" said Elof, gathering up his trampled tools from the gallery floor. "He was pulled away—"

She shook her head firmly. "Not by me. He only turned to me after you threw him off."

"Who, then?"

But Ils only shrugged. "Perhaps he slipped." She avoided the bloodied end of the bench as she sat.

Elof shook his head. "I cannot explain it. But they were certainly assassins; they knew their targets. What will Kermorvan have to say about that?"

The chamber and the crowd alike were hushed as Kermorvan stepped out to speak. He looked at them a moment, and then at Bryhon, and his gaze grew very cold. His words rang clear against the marble of the chamber. "Syndics and people of Kerbryhaine! This day you have heard my lord of Bryheren lay many grave charges against me. Or have you? I know this man of old, and I took care to listen to his actual words, not the dark things he implied. For the most part he simply struck a spark with subtly worded questions, and led your minds to blow them to a blaze. For well he knows that such cloudy and insubstantial matters are harder to dispel with solid truth! But truth is the best I have to offer you, and I warn you now, it will not be the truth you wish to hear! Yet it will avail nothing to riot or shout me down. For truth is truth, and if you stopped my voice forever it would not alter by one jot the forces I see at work. Save perhaps to hasten them." He looked at Bryhon scornfully. "I have ample answers for the trifling charges this man made, but I will content myself with an example or two only for now. Take the matter of the corsairs. I joined them only because they were willing to fight the Ekwesh, when all others in this land laughed at the idea that they could be a threat, or chose to believe Lord Bryhon's insinuations at that time, which were that I sought to win military power for myself by building up a false menace. Those corsairs are in this city now, having won pardon, and we have testimony enough that they fought the Ekwesh, and valiantly."