Rej? The old city?’
‘The very one. It had carved wooden doors. When the Horsekin arrived, back in the Time of Death, they didn’t hold. The besiegers lit a fire in front of them, and when the doors burned through, they finished the job with axes. But one of our loremasters carved these runes here –’ Garin pointed at the staff ‘– on a scrap of wood so they’d be remembered. Over the years, they’ve been carved on other staffs, but this one came to me from my father’s father. It was a hundred years old when he received it as a child.’
‘It must be nearly a thousand now, then.’
‘Yes. There’s a superstitious legend about the runes, too. They’re supposed to contain a dweomer spell.’ Garin rolled his eyes heavenward. ‘Anything that’s no longer understood is supposed to contain a dweomer spell, of course. Don’t take it seriously.’
‘Oh, don’t worry! I won’t. But now I know why Lin Serr has steel on its doors.’
‘We may learn slowly, but in the end, we learn.’ Garin paused for a smile. ‘Now, spell or no spell, I’m letting you borrow that staff because I can’t go to the battle myself. We’ve never had a formal badge for our envoys, but you’re new on the job.’
‘Very new.’ Kov could hear his voice shake and coughed loudly to cover it.
‘Just so.’ Garin smiled at him. ‘So I decided you might need something to mark your standing and keep your spirits up. This staff’s never left the city since the day my father’s father brought it inside. Carry it proudly, and never shame it.’
‘I’m very grateful for the honour. I’ll do my best to live up to it.’
‘That’s all any man can do, eh? Now get on your way. There’s a mule for you to ride, by the by, down at the muster.’
Out in the meadow, five hundred dwarven axemen drew up in marching order, followed by a veritable parade of carts, each drawn by two burly menservants. The sappers and miners were milling around, scrutinizing each cart, repacking some, adding wrapped bundles to others. Kov invited Lord Blethry to come along as he and Brel Avro inspected the muster. Blethry murmured his usual polite remarks until they came to the line of carts. Most carried provisions, ordinary stuff all of it, but those at the head of the line were loaded with mysterious-looking crates, barely visible under greased wraps of coarse cloth that would keep them dry during summer rains. Embroidered runes decorated each cloth. Blethry fell silent, studying the runes, craning his neck to get a better look at the crates.
‘Can your read our runes?’ Kov said with a small smile.
‘I can’t, truly,’ Blethry said. ‘I was just noticing the wheels of your carts here. The design is quite striking.’
Good parry! Kov thought. Aloud, he said, ‘A little innovation of ours.’
Blethry nodded, and indeed, to his eyes the wheels must have possessed a fascination of their own. Instead of the solid slab wheels of Deverry carts, dwarven craftsmen had lightened these with spokes radiating from a metal collar that attached them to the axles. Strakes, that is, strips of metal studded to give them a grip on the road, protected the wooden rims.
‘Much lighter,’ Kov said, ‘but just as strong. Easier to fix, too.’
‘Stronger, I should think. I trust you’ll not be offended if our cartwrights look them over when we reach Cengarn? I shan’t be able to keep them away.’
‘Of course not. I’m sure our men would take it as an honour if they should copy them.’
‘Would you two stop jawing?’ Brel turned on them both impartially. ‘The sun’s up, and it’ll be hot soon. Mount up, both of you! Let’s march!’
Kov and Blethry followed orders. During the long ride down from the mountains, whenever the contingent camped, Blethry found excuses to walk by the dwarven carts that contained the wrapped bundles and crates, but, Kov could be sure, no one would ever give him one word of information about their contents. The design of a set of wheels they were willing to share, but the formula for the mysterious cargo was going to remain a secret forever, if the Mountain Folk had their way.
They reached the border of Gwerbret Ridvar’s rhan when they came to the dun of one of his vassals, a small broch tower inside a high stone wall, perched on a hill wound around by a maze of earthworks. All around it stretched litter from a military camp – firepits, garbage, broken arrows, broken tent pegs, and assorted ditches, hastily filled in. The dwarven contingent drew up to camp some distance away in a cleaner area. Kov remembered this dun as belonging to the clan of the Black Arrow, but men wearing Cengarn’s sun blazon on the yokes of their shirts came trotting over to greet them.
‘What’s happened to Lord Honelg?’ Kov asked Blethry.
‘I don’t know yet.’ Blethry gave him a grim smile. ‘But I’m assuming he’s dead. He turned traitor, you see. When I left Cengarn, the gwerbret was getting ready to march on him. From the look of things, Ridvar took the dun.’
Cengarn’s men, left on fort guard, confirmed Blethry’s guess. Lord Honelg was dead, his lands attainted, his young son a hostage, his widow gone back to her father’s dun.
‘Who’s the new lord here?’ Blethry said. ‘Or has Ridvar reassigned the lands yet?’
‘He has, my lord,’ the fortguard captain said. ‘Lord Gerran of the Gold Falcon. You might remember him as the Red Wolf’s common-born captain, but he’s a lord now.’
‘I do indeed, and he’s a grand man with a sword and a good choice all round.’
‘We all feel the same, my lord. Are you marching down to Cengarn on the morrow?’
‘We are.’
‘His grace may have left already. He’s mustering his allies at the Red Wolf dun for the march west.’ The captain turned to Kov and bowed. ‘It gladdens my heart to see your people, envoy, with a war about to start.’
‘My thanks,’ Kov said. ‘But it sounds to me like the war’s already started.’
‘You could look at it that way, truly,’ the captain said, grinning. ‘But either way, we’re glad you’ve come in on our side.’
The Mountain Folk weren’t the only allies of Gwerbret Ridvar who were readying themselves for the Horsekin war. At the dun of the Red Wolf, a good many miles south-west of the dun that now belonged to the Gold Falcon clan, Tieryn Cadryc and his men were only waiting for the arrival of his overlord to ride out. Preparing the warband for that ride fell to Gerran of the Gold Falcon, its lord and so far one of its only two members, the other being his young page Clae. Despite his sudden elevation to the ranks of the noble-born, Gerran still considered himself the captain of the tieryn’s warband, mostly because none of the tieryn’s other men could fill the post. Although the tieryn had a son, Lord Mirryn, Cadryc was leaving him behind on fortguard.
Every night at dinner in the great hall, Mirryn would stand behind his father’s chair like a page. When Cadryc arrived, Mirryn would bow to his father, then without a word pull out the chair at the head of the honour table to allow Cadryc to sit down. He would wait to eat, too, until all the others at the honour table had finished their meal. After three days of this treatment, Cadryc had had enough.
‘Still
