Chapter 9 – Part 18

The dwarf turned in his pallet, then turned again.

His tent was protected somewhat from the cold and wet by an infusion, and his blankets were warmed by the same, but his old bones were aching nonetheless. Aching from memory if not from the temperature.

He hated the almost-dreams. The thoughts that intruded and swirled about when he was nearly asleep. That kept him from falling into real sleep, but instead rolled him about in a perpetual restlessness.

He kept seeing his brother’s faces. Davv, the littlest one, with a crossbow bolt’s head poking out of one eye. The killer was from another clan, and Davv was to be married the next week. John, his uncle, had raised Van after Van’s father died of heartstop. Van had come back to the hold to find John dead, his skull split open by a jealous business competitor.

And Saul. Poor Saul. The shrieks of Van Deers d’Kundarak’s older brother still rang in Van’s ears nearly two centuries later as the conjured acid ate away his hands, and without them gripping the cliff wall, Saul fell hundreds of feet to his death.

Every death a murder. Every murderer another dwarf. Every one hideous and unnecessary.

Van Deers had said publicly that being conquered by the Karrns had saved more dwarven lives that anything else. And he’d argued against independence as a result.

The subsequent attempts on his life had been only half the reason that his House sent him to the West. He’d agreed because he’d hoped to forget.

Some days were harder than others. Van Deers had mostly given up on sleeping at night.

Suddenly he awoke. There was a chiming. The old dwarf sat up, blinking and looking about. The chiming was coming from a chest where he kept a miscellany of devices, most of which he’d never really had a practical reason to use.

Slippers on his feet, he rubbed the bridge of his nose, and walked to the chest. The chiming was getting more insistent. He moved about the various bits of interest – they could never be junk to him, and idly noted their function. A sculpted reptilian scale set in amber which supposedly detected dragon-mice hybrids. A cracked tile with an indecipherable glyph that someone had found in a sunken ship of unknown design, covered in the silt of decades. A string of spheres and wires that could be set to spin and predict phases of the moon.

And a crystal rod, maybe a foot long, with Elvish script on one side, in a font no elf on Khorvaire used, and a gnomish character inscribed on a blue dragonshard set in the middle. It was supposed to be used to detect elemental bindings.

Van Deers was confused, and overly tired. The dragonshard was pointing up. He shook his head and willed it to shut off, then went back to bed.

Van Deers had never really examined the rod, and therefore was not aware that it had an extreme range setting.

Nor did he know that the long-ago drow wizard who’d crafted the thing had been worried about airborne raids. Having never heard of drow, why would he be thinking about it?

Chapter 9 – Part 17

They’d torn the provisional commander’s uniform from him before beating him and placing him in chains. The beating had been vengeful at first, and then purposeful. They’d knocked out half of his teeth, one at a time. It would be a while before he could imitate another. His natural ability to change color and texture didn’t include growing new teeth.

They’d left the back molars, too hard to get to. They hadn’t even looked at the left, lower back molar.

The front teeth were all gone, however. He’d not pass for anyone other than a toothless backwoods dweller until he bought himself some dentures. Which it was doubtful that he’d live long enough to do.

He kneeled, naked and bleeding from his mouth and nose, his hands with the broken fingers bound behind his back and then tied to his ankles. He’d tried slipping his bonds, but they were tight, and hardened by some druid spell.

And the two shifters guarding him had clouted him under his ribs mightily each time he’d tried.

The tent flap opened, and someone came in. The changeling blinked against the light, tears leaking from one swollen eye. The flap closed. Two figures stood before him.

To the left, a shifter woman in hide armor, her face covered with light hair and raccoon-like markings. She wore a wooden shield strapped to one arm, and an owl sat perched on her shoulder, eyeing the prisoner with a gaze that held far more intelligence than any animal should have.

To the right, a medium-sized humanoid figure in leather armor, a longsword on his left side and a wolf crouching at his right. The medium-sized figure had the insignia of the Wardens of the Wood on him, two officer’s stars pinned to his collar, and a red scarf on his neck.

And his skin was waxy and white, his eyes mostly white with barely a pupil, and his close cropped hair thin and gray.

The spy who’d been pretending to be the provisional commander spat blood. It was pinker, paler than human blood, but still red enough. In his bound position, he couldn’t reach the Warden of the Woods’ boots, but he’d tried.

“Race traitor,” he coughed. “Serving their plants.”

The Warden crouched, and stared directly into the prisoner’s eyes. Not a word was exchanged between the two changelings for a good two minutes. Finally the Warden smiled.

“I can break you,” the Warden said. “I know I can. You’re a coward. We figured out who you killed to get close enough to the provisional commander to garrote him. We figured out who you pretended to be before that. We traced you back to the stones that you rested against when you swam to shore after slipping off the boat.” He smiled slightly, but with no warmth. “It’s easy to find things if you know what to look for.” The smile left. “Now, who hired you to get us to stand down?”

“Go have relations with yourself,” snickered the bleeding spy. “I don’t even know who hired me, you know how it works.”

The Warden turned to look at the woman and she shook her head. He then gestured to the shifters on either side of the spy, and they simultaneously kicked him in the shins.

The changeling spy howled in pain and pitched forward, his bleeding mouth scraping the cold, hard ground. He felt the Warden grab hold of his ear, and his head was cruelly turned upwards.

The Warden changeling’s face was large in his vision, through the tears and pain. “The Dream Catcher says that you lie. She’s good at spotting lies. Even from people like you and me. You know something of who hired you, even if they said nothing. You’d want to be sure that you had cover. I’m guessing that they assured you that the Medani would be busy chasing low-level saboteurs and other changelings in Varna, so that you’d slip in unnoticed and push us all loose.”

The spy considered his options as he lay bound like a lamb for the slaughter. He swore to himself in his mind. When he’d heard that Parnain had been dispatched he’d nearly lost control of his bowels. His half-sister had a different reaction to Parnaian’s name. She’d attempted to back out then and there, and they’d killed her. A grimy claw had reached out from a bandaged hand and paralyzed her with a scratch, and then they’d fed her to something that stank of the grave.

He hadn’t needed to force himself to place the accents. Only Karrnath used undead. He’d been all set to mourn his half-sister, maybe entertain some revenge, but then they’d promised him her half.

Five thousand gold down, fifteen thousand more on success. In a Kundarak escrow. With that type of money, he’d be comfortable in a Cyran townhouse until the end of his days.

He’d rushed things. He’d done it too fast. The damned gnome butler had found the body. He should have figured out a way to bury it.

Something in the back of his mind tickled. It seemed familiar.

“He’s thinking of accents,” the shifter woman said suddenly. “It’s hard to get information from his mind, he has been trained well.”

The changeling spy froze. She was trying to get into his mind. Druid magic or the thing that his uncle had warned him about? The mind magic? His uncle had trained him to resist mental probes, but the mind tired as did the body.

He swallowed. And if they found the tooth? And if the Karrns raised him from the dead to torture his ghost? The Reachers could only kill him once, the necromancers of Karrnath could kill him many times.

The tickle again, and it was deeper in.

“Grab and hold his mouth!” shouted the shifter woman.

He didn’t give them the chance. He bit down on the lower, left, back molar, and the poison filled his mouth.

He was dead before they even pulled his head back.

Chapter 9 – Part 16

The gnome gestured angrily at the captain, and the pilot watched nervously. The winds were bearing crossways, and they had precise coordinates that they had to account for. The captain didn’t like it, but finally acquiesced.

Aundair was paying Lyrandar enough that they expected the captain to risk his ship’s structural integrity. The captain, like all airship captains, was nervous about structural damage, and losing his commission because of it. There were far more airship captains than there were airships, and Lyrandar leaned on their officers to be careful with their toys.

The ship banked, and then began to spiral in a controlled descent. The real trouble wouldn’t begin until they broke cloud cover.

Chapter 9 – Part 15

Bresbin casually chewed on a cold chicken leg that he’d paid entirely too much for. The locals were friendly enough to goblins, far more than some places as there were plenty of goblins in the Reacher armies who made life hell for Aundairan scouts, but they weren’t going to just give any grub to someone not wearing a Reacher uniform.

If you could call them uniforms. They barely had insignia. Bresbin disliked the lack of discipline that he observed, but he easily kept it off his face.

The Brelish advisers had discipline, but they spent much of their time trying to be friendly, and from what Bresbin could tell, part of that friendliness seemed to be living rough and not regularly cleaning their uniforms.

Fortunately the secondary officer remembered intelligence protocol. Such things were always left to the secondary officer. The primary was too busy keeping everyone alive.

The secondary officer had left a spool of blue thread to his left, with a red-capped needle in it, while he stitched his jacket up. In public, where he could be seen. It wasn’t that his uniform kept getting torn, it was that he was sending an alert to any Dark Lantern agents.

Gorka was in town, and the shifter expected any roaming agents to check in.

Bresbin stifled a frown, and turned to find himself a group of goblins playing dice. He’d lose some money to them and get them to talk. That would give him a way to get some information to Pienna before she went to challenge this elf and his strange messages about her.

Chapter 9 – Part 14

The major had been introduced to her only as Major East. She knew that it was a code cover, and she could easily think of three good reasons why without straining, so Pienna didn’t take any offense. She was surprised that she’d been taken directly to such a high-ranking officer, but it wasn’t long before she found out why.

“I don’t doubt you,” the major said. He had deep-set, hollow eyes, and his face carried two day’s worth of gray stubble. “But it seems strange that you would return to Varna by this great magic, and not go right to the city.”

“I seek the lay of the land, Major,” Pienna said softly. She stroked Missy’s fur and the big cat rumbled, making three nearby guards nervous. One of them wore a red scarf, but Pienna did not grasp its significance. “That is all.”

“You had a goblin with you?” the Major asked. A soldier to his left nodded.

“Brezzy,” she said. “A Gatekeeper follower, although not a druid. He is trustworthy. He is checking out some things for me. Nothing to do with your army, I do not sell information to Audnair.”

“You do not,” the Major said. “You are Chu-bat’s friend, yes?”

A tear came unbidden to her eyes. “Yes,” she said.

“And another Gatekeeper living with Vadalis, making potions for them, and elf, he wants to see you badly, does he not?”

She blinked at this. “I wasn’t aware that this was common knowledge.”

“We are a careful people, Pienna,” the Major said. “And it is my job to keep track of such things. But you have caught us at an – uncomfortable time. And your request for aid, well, we wouldn’t mind helping you, if we knew everything that you know.”

She smelled suspicion, and she saw that the soldier with the red scarf seemed to take a very serious interest in things. They clearly wanted to help her, and get helped by her in return, but just as clearly they were frightened of trusting.

Someone had burned them, and recently. There had been a bustle of activity as she’d been lead to the central of the camp, and she’d then been made to wait for a good fifteen minutes. She’d been patient, and had caught someone whispering about calling for the Medani.

She hadn’t understood what that meant, but the tumblers were beginning to fall into place.

“Major,” she said. “I know little of the local situation, and it is clear that I have come into a situation that is developing. Perhaps if you could tell me in what way I can assist you, then I can demonstrate my trust to you, rather than expecting you to take it on faith.”

The Major considered this, and then a weak smile broke out on his face. “I’m sorry, Ma’am, we’re just very nervous right now. Maybe you could come back later?”

“Of course,” she said, tapping Missy. The great cat rose to walk beside her.

“I mean no offense, Ma’am,” Major East assured her.

“I take none,” she said. “Your time is valuable, Major, and I appreciate it.” She turned to leave.

“Ma’am,” he said, sprinting to catch up to her. She turned towards him, surprised. “This Aruunis, the money he’s been spending, the alliance that he made with House Vadalis, who is spared the bombardment that periodically afflicts Varna, well…the fear is that after you assisted us, you would feel that you had to prove that you were neutral, and so you’d have to…well, we don’t know what to think right now.”

She suddenly comprehended. “You just caught a changeling, so you’re as jumpy as a spring-loaded gnome’s toy.” His face showed shock, then a sheepish acknowledgement. She gave a small head bow. “Major, as long as I am in Varna, you may call on me.”

He grinned, gave a small salute, and they parted ways amicably.

Chapter 9 – Part 13

Tettalla, or Tetty, as his grandchildren called him, was fussy. It was his business to be fussy. He had been a clerk in the army of the Eldeen, and a butler after that to a lieutenant who had been promoted to a captain, and then a major, and finally a provisional general. When Tetty had first met the young man, he’d been more concerned with studying the druidic mystics than commanding an army in the field. Due to the fact that he’d survived battles that his superior officers hadn’t, the young man had both aged rapidly and been promoted rapidly.

And Tetty had been with him, assisting him, helping the provisional commander move the things that needed to be moved.

At one time he’d had twelve grandchildren that called him Tetty. Now he only had three. The other nine had been lost to Aundairian weapons, Aundairan spells, or famines caused by Aundairian attacks.

It shamed Tetty that he could remember a time when he saluted Aundair’s flag. Before Aundair had abandoned them, then sought to reclaim them in blood.

Tetty dusted first, then checked the ties on the clothing bags. The cords had to be drawn most tight, then sealed with wax in order to prevent humidity damage. After checking on the ties, he turned down the bed. A spot of something caught his eye, but he couldn’t identify it. He made a note to do more laundry.

He then checked the desk. It was a simple thing, with drawers that never carried anything other than pens and ink, as the important papers were kept in locked and trapped boxes, but Tetty always studiously waxed the desk surface three times every day. There was always a chance that the scratches on the desk may give a clue to someone who ought not be there, so he waxed frequently. This was even more important lately, as the provisional commander was about to move the army into Aundair before the heavy snows came.

Tetty wasn’t supposed to know that, but he was a keen observer, and the provisional commander had been fretting about challenging the major, and other junior officers that were older than he. The middle officers wanted to disband, but the provisional commander was determined to advance.

The man had been so worked up about it, that he hadn’t given Tetty the usual cheery greeting that morning. Ever since they’d survived an attack two years before, the provisional commander had always greeted him the same way. “Good morning to you, Tetty, and mind the arrows.”

This morning it had just been “Good morning,” and the man’s eyes had been puffy and sleepless. The provisional commander had barely touched his breakfast, and he’d departed with his bodyguards to get to the meeting early.

Tetty felt bad for the man. He was so overworked. It was so much responsibility for one so young.

The gnome bustled over to a corner of the tent where a long chest sat. He frowned. It should properly be standing. There were delicately folded winter linens in there.

Tetty lifted the chest, or tried to. It was much heavier than it should have been. He frowned, and fingered the latch.

There was a lock on it. A new, unknown lock.

Tetty whirled and looked at the boxes with the military documents. They were still sealed, untouched, the magical alarms in them having not even been jostled. The gnome then turned back to the long chest.

A cheer went up from outside. Shifter and human voices began animatedly discussing the rumor that they’d heard, about being discharged for the winter.

Tetty grew cold inside, and slid a long, slim took from his belt. He’d been apprenticed to an artificer in his youth, and while he’d gone in a different direction in the end, he’d learned something about locks.

He was rusty. It took him a good three minutes to get the lock open and discover the provisional commander’s body. It took him a whole ten seconds after that to alert the red scarves that the provisional commander had been killed, and that a changeling was currently giving orders to disband the army.

Chapter 9 – Part 12

Henry rubbed his arms to keep the circulation going. The civilian clothes were not as warm as his uniform, but he was sacrificing come comfort for deniability. He’d kept the cap, however. One military-issue cap wasn't unusual. Even civilians scrounged for good winter clothing.

He had four men including himself, not ten, and one wasn’t exactly a volunteer. But he’d put them together well before he’d finally made the colonel guilty enough to give him permission. They were coming now, to yet another graveyard produced by the war. Some two years ago a number of men had been hastily buried here, several of them enemy dead. The Reachers avoided the place, which made it perfect for this clandestine meeting.

The shifter arrived first. He was tall and burly, and he wore leather armor studded with metal plates and rivets. It made not a squeak as he walked, no, loped into view. Standing upright, he might have been two or three inches over six feet, but the beast-man preferred hunching when he stood and moved. It kept his broad, wolf-like nose closer to the ground.

He called himself Dawn, notwithstanding that in Breland that was a woman’s name, and when he shifted he could track like the wolf that he resembled. He could also produce wickedly long and sharp teeth like a wolf. And like a wolf, he was loyal to those who were loyal to him.

Carl had saved Dawn’s life twice, and the beast man with his bulging muscles and reddish-brown body hair had sworn that he would find the Brelish human, wherever Aundairian or Karrnathi troops were holding him.

“Captain,” the shifter said, raising his head a bit, if not saluting.

“I’m just a soldier,” Henry said. “I’m not an officer, Dawn.”

“You a captain now,” Dawn grunted, absent-minded checking the hilts of the three swords that he wore, and the crossbows strapped to his legs. Dawn was not long on smooth words, but he wasn’t short on weapons.

Or brains, no matter how he talked. Dawn was cunning. Like a wolf.

The Halfling came with the gnome next. Dawn heard them before Henry did, but the old soldier had battlefield reflexes, so he heard the soft footfalls only a few seconds after the shifter. Of course light as Phillen’s feet were, if the Halfling had cared about being heard, they’d not have known he was there until his body parted the mist.

Phillen wore armor like Dawn’s, only a miniaturized version of it. The cocky Halfling had a shaved head and bright blue eyes, and the only visible weapon on his person was a sling. A sling he was very, very good at using, especially in conjunction with the several dozen magical stones he kept on his person.

Phillen’s sister, a baker, not a soldier, had been killed by a nervous Aundairan infantryman some twelve years ago. The Halfling had been mad for killing them ever since.

Right now he was grinning that wide, cocksure grin that he had, bouncing a key from one gloved palm to the other. The key was to the collar that was fastened around the neck of the fourth member of their expedition.

Manfred Oboken was the name that he’d been convicted under, although doubtless he’d used others. He’d been a small-time crook and a moderately talented illusionist who’d finally been caught by the Dark Lanterns. Manfred had thought that he’d been involved in a lead-as-gold scam, and had been horrified to find out that he’d been unwittingly assisting Cyran spies. He’d been even more horrified to find out that he’d been accused of treason and they were going to behead him.

They didn’t of course. They’d offered him a pardon if he spent ten years in the army instead of twenty at hard labor.

Manfred didn’t like army life any more than he liked the simple and itchy wool robe that he wore with his collar. But he’d used his illusion magic successfully on a number of occasions, and he would be very, very useful in hiding them in the Aundairan countryside.

Manfred’s black, glittering eyes locked on Henry, then on Dawn, then on Henry again. “You’re going to rescue that junior officer, Carl, aren’t you?” he asked.

“He’s not stupid, this wizard,” grinned Phillen. “No he’s not. So tell us, boss, what’s next?”

“Anita’s Ford,” Henry said.

“That’s seasonal,” Dawn grunted. “Summer only. Rest of the time the water’s too high and too cold.”

“Phantom’s Crossing,” Henry told him.

“That’s a myth,” frowned Phillen. “You sure you don’t want to steal a boat instead, boss?”

“Not a myth,” Manfred said suddenly. “But the key has been lost for over two score years.”

“I don’t have the key,” Henry told them. “But I know how to find the keymaster. Or at least I think I do. If we get there and it doesn’t work, we’ll try another way. But we can’t go the regular ways, they’re being watched. And the idea is to not fight the entire Aundairan army.”

“Let’s go then,” growled Dawn. “It’s quite a walk.”

“I procured some mounts,” Henry said. “I don’t know if Manfred can ride, but –”

“I’ll tie him to the saddle,” grinned the Halfling.