Chapter Twelve
So far this journey had reminded Iorveth bitterly of the Aen Seidhe's exodus from their former palaces and towns to the dregs of society. But he took solace in knowing that unlike that exodus, this journey led toward something—not merely away.
For the next few days after Count Tarn Marco negotiated their way past the Kaedweni caravan, little more than odd monstrosity troubled them. The sorceress Faye slowly but surely recovered from the illness the Rotfiend inflicted on her. Still, out of a foolish chivalry, Lionel had insisted on staying at her mount's side, hobbling along clumsily and holding the horse's flank like a fawning parent holds a toddling child.
"Turning roses to doves is a good one," Faye uttered at one point. It made as much sense to Iorveth as any of her crazed ramblings, though it was not meant for him.
"Beggin' your pardon, Miss?" Lionel asked.
"A magical party trick," she clarified. "Turning roses to doves…it delights young children. Is that why you remain at my side, though I am ailed no more? You'd have me use my magic to entertain your child in Aedirn, when at last you two reunite."
"Um…oh! No, o' course not!" Lionel stuttered. Without looking at his face, Iorveth wagered he was blushing. Always driven by such base emotions, the dh'oine. "I ain't seekin' naught in return, Miss Faye," he continued. "You just…you mean too much t' our mission to let nary a harm come to you. Without you, an' that little pebble 'round your neck, the lot of us would be stranded out here."
"Is protection not what the dwarves are here for?"
"Aye. Well…stubby as they are, they got the lower part of you covered. Me, I can see to the top—er…" he seemed to halt in mid-sentence when he realized his own awkwardness. "…I mean, that is where you keep the pebble…you know…the top of you…" he trailed off.
He was met by silence for a moment. Then Faye spoke. "I do not mind."
"Mind?"
"Showing magic tricks to your child."
"That right, is it?" Lionel chortled. "Heh, well…I won't try n' stop you. If I ever do meet him. Or her."
Iorveth had heard all he could endure, and urged his mare further away from the pair.
The air in the Kestrel Mountains was cold, and the frost-glazed leaves on the ground made icy crunches under the horses' hooves and the wagon wheels. There were no more mysteries of the one called Lily, no more idiocies committed by the dh'oine travelers. For a time, the Scoia'tael commander found himself feeling something resembling peace. This peace was, as he expected, all too temporary.
"Whoa!" Saskia's voice called out from the front, and her steed's abrupt halt signaled the others to follow suit. They stood at the edge of another wooded expanse of mountain…only this one had sticks and branches fallen on the path. Some were as big around as a dwarf's leg, and plenty were long and entangled enough that there was clearly no easy way past them.
"Bloede cáerme, The trees must have been damaged in a storm," Lark observed.
"Is there any other way around not apparent by our map?" Saskia asked her.
"Not without going back to the road where we met the Kaedwenis," the half blood said. "We'd do best to clear the way."
"Surely swords and axes are fit for more than monster flesh," Tarn suggested. "Let us merely cut a swath and move along."
"We've no blacksmith with us, Count," Zoltan reminded him. "We can't go dulling our weapons, or we'll be no match for whatever foes lay ahead."
"Faye, I'll not inquire of teleportation," Saskia began. "But can your magic help us be rid of this obstruction in any other way?"
"A few chanted words will reduce a branch to wood chips," answered the sorceress. "But only one at a time may they be splintered."
"Ain't no reason we can't haul the wood off, is there?" Lionel added. "That is, just lash it to the horses and pull it away?"
Saskia's decision was swift. "We are a tandem, are we not, men? We'll combine our efforts. Lark, find your way through the woods to the other side of this wreckage. Report back and tell us how far it goes. In the meantime, Faye, begin your chanted words on this side, while the rest of you," she reached out to the humans, "set the horses to work hauling branches aside. Zoltan, Yarpen, cut only any branches that still cling to trees. Your weapons can endure that much, can't they?"
"Aye," Yarpen assented.
"And what of us, Saskia?" Iorveth interjected.
"We will be stalled for some time. Have your elves keep the wildlife at bay," she instructed, as she dismounted from her own stallion to put it to work pulling branches.
He watched her a moment. After what had passed between them in the endrega lair, he allowed no complaint to take root in his mind for the menial task. When she had chosen to help the elves instead of her own against the insectoids, thus fulfilling her promise made in Vergen, she had reaffirmed his faith in her. Her will was truly her own, not that of any sorceress, and he questioned the integrity of her orders no longer.
There was a loud pop, followed by a scattering noise. Iorveth diverted his gaze from Saskia to the source: Faye, on foot, hands raised to cast a spell. Where one of the branches had previously been, now piles of wood chips settled onto the trail. It would make for bumpy, but not impossible traveling. The hack and slash of dwarven blades and axes striking wood soon rang out. Anticipating the curious predators this noise would bring, Iorveth scanned the nearly bare treetops as well as the forest floor, thick with leaves.
After a time, he picked up on a stir in the foliage and began to make a grab for an arrow, but relented when he saw it was only Lark returning. "This is the worst of it, here," she announced to Saskia. "But there are some smaller branches a fathom or two down the trail. Nothing that couldn't be moved by two people, tops."
"In that case, Lionel, accompany Lark and dispose of the lesser branches," Saskia told the peasant.
"Anything you say, Ma'am." With that, he left Faye's now riderless horse and followed Lark back through the thicket. Iorveth's eye lingered for a second on the spot where they disappeared. Lionel stumbled clumsily before vanishing completely from view. He'd claimed to be a woodsman once. Iorveth found it strangely amusing, then, that he could not keep his composure once off the beaten path.
Another pop, another scattering of wood chips. The footfalls of hooves plunged heavily into the soft soil, and then came the mighty rustling of branches giving way as they were dragged across the ground. Still no monsters in sight. No bandits waiting in ambush, or mountain trolls with whom to strike deals. It seemed this setback would be a minor one.
Then came the muffled yowl of pain from the other side of the wreckage. Everyone fell silent, except for Faye. "The axeman," she whispered.
"Lark! Lionel!" Saskia called out. "What was that?!"
"Nothing…!" Lionel called back weakly. "Just…just missed my step, Miss Saskia. I just need t-to…shake it off, I do."
Again there was a rustling, and again Lark emerged through the forest. This time, Lionel hung heavily upon her shoulder, supporting his weight on his right leg while dragging his left. "Something's wrong with him," Lark said. "We tried to pull a branch to the edge of the trail, and he just crumpled like a sack of cloth. Something's wrong with his leg, but he won't say more."
"Because it's nothing, really!" Lionel insisted. "I'll just be—" He tried to leave Lark's side, but as he did so, he fell once more and rolled onto his side.
Iorveth thought back to his previous interactions with the simple Aedirnian. The boot damaged by the phantom beast. Lionel's promise to have it repaired. The way he clung to the witch's horse for support.
At once Iorveth knew what was wrong. He pushed his way past Faye and Tarn, who had gathered around curiously along with most of the others. He strode to Lionel's side and roughly shoved the peasant onto his back with his foot. Lionel tried to squirm away, but Iorveth knelt down and grabbed a fistful of his tunic. That froze him to the spot.
"Lark, remove the offending boot," Iorveth ordered. Wordlessly, she too knelt and seized Lionel's boot—still damaged more than a week after the beast fight in Murivel and full of gravel. A swift yank, and his bare foot was exposed.
There were murmurs of disgust. Somewhere behind Iorveth, Zoltan mumbled "Bloody hell." Lionel's toes looked like those of a long dead corpse: grisly and black.
"Lionel?" Saskia stared as though feathers and talons would have been less of a shock to discover below his knee. Still, she clearly meant to keep her emotions in check and maintain the role of leader. "Explain this."
"Gods, I—" Lionel gulped when he saw his own foot, as though trying not to throw up. "I'd no idea it'd be this bad! Saskia, I pray you, please understand! I tried, I 'onestly an' truly tried to stay outta your way. The last thing I meant was to bring more trouble to you, after Murivel an' all!"
"What is this, Lionel?" Saskia pressed. "Poison? An animal bite?"
"Frostbite," Iorveth answered for the stammering fool, releasing his shirt. "I've seen this before. A few Scoia'tael fell victim to frostbite in the first winter after the destruction of the Vrihedd Brigade. We were scattered to the four winds and only just reformed as bandits, so we had little means for preventing it and even fewer for treatment."
"But,i-it started as just a little bitin' feeling," Lionel said. "I-I've worked through worse in Aedirn. Splittin' headaches, an achin' back…none o' them was worth going hungry to give 'em rest. I even helped build Vergen's battle defenses with a smartin' wasp sting in my chest. Beside that, a little pang in the foot didn't seem worth a fuss."
"That 'little pang in the foot' may have been avoided," snarled Iorveth, "if you'd done as I said and gotten the sorceress to fix your boot."
"Miss Faye was ailin' something awful when that fiend bust on her, back at the fur trappers' camp," Lionel pretested. "I planned on askin' her sooner or later, but when the bitin' feeling stopped, I didn't see no hurry."
"Well, now you can see why it stopped," Lark interjected, gesturing to his blackened digits. "Or have you been sleeping with your boots on all this time, too?"
"I didn't know," Lionel shook his head. "I didn't have no idea."
"All that matters is what can be done for him now," Saskia interjected, before Lark could. "Iorveth, you said there were Scoia'tael who suffered this in your ranks. What became of them?"
"The elves touched by frostbite lived," Iorveth replied. "But none will ever draw a bow again."
"W…What do you mean?" Lionel choked.
"Their fingers had to be cut from their hands."
"Almighty gods!" The human squirmed on the ground below Iorveth. "You can't mean 'at! You're not really sayin' you'll chop my foot off, are you?"
"You'll keep the hind half of it. The front, however, must go."
"No! Please, no!" Lionel clambered up to a sitting position. "But you said yourself the elves had no other way of treatin' it! What about us, then? We got other ways, don't we?"
"Name them," Iorveth challenged sourly. "I'd gladly hear how my archers might have been salvaged."
"We got…" Lionel's eyes darted wildly. "We got herbs, and the like. We got magic! Miss Faye—dear, sweet Faye—ain't there nothin' you can do?" His pleading gaze fell on the sorceress.
"I am sorry," she murmured. "No herb can awaken dead flesh. My magic may speed up a body's ability to heal…but if I were to speed up this," she looked at his decaying foot, "then I'd only be helping it to spread."
"There you have it," Lark assessed wryly. "There's no other way. I'd hold still, if I were you."
Iorveth motioned to the other Scoia'tael nearby. "Restrain him. And give him something to bite down on."
Lionel whimpered what were likely to be deity names as the elves approached him.
"Hold on, doesn't this all seem terribly extreme?" the Count spoke up. "This fellow is a laborer, by birth and practice. He collects firewood, makes and breaks camp. An amputation would deprive him the very purpose of his being. And since Saskia so rightly asserts liberty for all, doesn't he deserve the sound opinion of one more qualified? Surely the sorceress can whisk him back to Vergen for proper care?"
"Any doctor or feldsher in Upper Aedirn will call for the same treatment that I mean to render," Iorveth retorted. "Only they will demand coin for it that 'laborers by birth and practice' do not possess."
"So sure, are you?" another dh'oine snapped. "You were so hot to torment that bandit south of Murivel. How do we know those swords of yours ain't just grown thirsty? Poor Lionel here could be just the excuse an old human-killer needs to whet his appetite."
Others slowly crowded around, closing in and leaving little space for tending to Lionel.
"Your suspicions of me grow more tiresome by the day," spat Iorveth to his latest accuser. "They failed you when my men turned the tides in the besieged Vergen. They failed you when I returned from Loc Muinne with Saskia, and time and again as I defended this party on its quest."
"…Aye," the man conceded. "But if Lionel were one of your lot, you wouldn't be actin' so rashly!"
"If he were one of mine, he'd have heeded me and avoided this plight!" Iorveth shot back.
"As lice eat and shit in my beard, Iorveth, will ye give yer damn 'bleeding heart warlord' act a rest for once?!" pierced an irate dwarven voice. The command seemed to cut through the onlookers, who parted to give Zoltan room to stride up to the scene.
Iorveth's lone eye narrowed at Zoltan. It had appeared to him that he and the dwarf were at an understanding after their night watch in the fur trappers' valley. To be confronted by him like this now only rekindled the spite he felt back in the Arachas lair outside Flotsam.
But then Zoltan continued. "Ye can't honestly be that dense. Whether they admit it or not, everyone here knows by now ye wouldn't spill their blood under Saskia's eye. But the longer you insist on playing the aggressor, the longer they'll keep on playing the victims."
Iorveth clenched his jaw. Did Zoltan truly suggest that his begrudging protection wasn't enough for these humans? That they meant to goad him into kinship, too?
"What is it you propose, dwarf?"
"Do right by the lad, as ye already were," Zoltan said. "But for fuck's sake, quit scarin' him all the more. Then ye'll make much shorter work of all this."
Iorveth's glance fell on Saskia, just a few paces back from the cluster around Lionel. Though her word was absolute and would have dispelled any quarrel once it past her lips, still she stayed detached. But Iorveth detected no weariness or disinterest in her face. Instead, she watched him intently, her eyes expecting…perhaps trusting.
He understood. She had vouched for him all that she could, and now she trusted him to act without her sanction. She'd rewarded his trust, and now it was his turn to reward hers.
"Very well. Know this…Lionel." He forced himself to say the peasant's name as if it were a tortured confession. He looked down at the crippled axeman. His words were flat and emotionless, but no longer venomous. "There is no reversing what's been done, but we must stop it from going any further. If…" He trailed off and suppressed a grimace, disgusted by what he was about to say. "…If you're ever to meet your child back in Upper Aedirn, it will be with a cane in your hand…but better a cane than a coffin."
The fear in Lionel's expression lessened. He stared at the ground. "My child…" Iorveth heard him whisper. Then he looked back up in resignation and drew a ragged breath. "A-Alright…" he stammered. "But I beg of you…I beg of you…please make it fast. Please."
"Lark, tie a tourniquet around his ankle," Iorveth instructed.
She obeyed. "Now, hold still," she told Lionel as she tightened the knot. There was no mocking in her voice this time.
"Here, lad." Zoltan pressed a knotted strip of cloth into Lionel's hand. "Bite down on it."
Lionel did so, then shut his eyes tight in tense dread of the next few moments. The core of the crowd expanded outward without fully dispersing. Iorveth gripped his sword and eyed the man's decrepit foot, now propped against a stone. One strike was all it would take.
The sword came up, then sharply back down with a dull, wet smack. Next came the convulsion, the muffled bellows of pain.
Iorveth's precision remained true from his ever more distant human-hunting career. Though Lionel's leg now flailed about, it ended in a pulpy mass of blood and tissue. The other end sat inanimate against the stone.
"Get rid of that," he ordered Lark with a wave of the top of his sword towards the appendage. She wrinkled her nose as she pinched one of the dead toes between her fingers, then pushed through the onlookers to toss it away into the shrubs.
Faye knelt at Lionel's side, as though she had glided to him like a wraith. She brushed a palm over his agonized face and whispered a few words in his ear. A painkilling spell, from the looks of it. His wild thrashing gave way to mere shuddering, and his screams became whimpers.
"Dress the wound," Iorveth ordered Lark when she returned. "As you did the horses' injuries after the bandits' ambush." Again she obeyed, aided by the herb-imbued bandages Faye was already busy preparing.
Iorveth left the pair to tend to the aftermath. Saskia stepped forward to meet him. There was no need to voice her gratitude; her smile and short nod did that. "How long until we are able to set forth?" she asked.
"We'd best camp here," he said. "I've no idea how the witch's spell works, but if it's at all like fisstech, then the axeman may become ill when the shock and effects wear off."
"Anything you say," she complied, then turned to the rest. "I trust you will all make no objection to camping here?" she addressed them. Then, with a wave to the branches that had just been cleared, "Our axeman may be indisposed, but there's no shortage of kindling for our fires already."
"We'll pick up Lionel's slack, Miss Saskia," a common human called out enthusiastically. He and his fellowmen strode forward to collect the wood, while the dwarves began to unpack tents for assembling.
Iorveth was left standing as their fear and distrust of them once more faded away like the morning dew.
(***)
That night, what Iorveth hoped would be a moment's repose was cut short by a dwarven holler.
"Oy, ye broodin' butcher!" Yarpen called out, waving to him from a gathering of stout, bearded men softly illuminated by a few miners' lamps. They were seated in a circle, some facing towards him and some facing away. "A word with ye!"
Iorveth raised an eyebrow. He'd grown accustomed to Zoltan's barbs, but for the most part Yarpen Zigrin had left him be. Wary of where this would lead, he approached the dwarves wordlessly. Zoltan, seated next to Yarpen, spoke up first.
"Good on ye, seeing to poor Lionel today," Zoltan commended him. "The lad may not be free with his gratitude, but you did right by him."
Iorveth's gaze was unblinking. "I did what was needed. I care nothing for any gratitude—my only concern was to be done with his folly and on our way."
In the dim flicker of lamplight, he thought he saw Yarpen's beard subtly bobbing as his mouth silently mocked Iorveth's words. By the time the elf brought his full attention to the veteran, Yarpen was promptly scratching at the hairs under his nose.
Iorveth disregarded this. "Is this all you called me for?" he asked sourly.
"Nay, there's more," Yarpen replied. "There's been a wee bit of hearsay that you might be holdin' onto a relic some in Kaedwen think holy."
Iorveth's lip curled. "I never bothered to take holy relics from the dh'oine I've killed. Only the bits of armor and weaponry they held were of any value to me."
"Aye, but that's just it," Yarpen said. "This relic is a bit of weaponry, in fact. A spearhead, so's I'm told."
"Spearhead?" Iorveth echoed. He reached behind his back and into the folds of the blue scarf permanently tied around his waist. He dislodged the tipped blade from its concealment there and glanced at it for a second. He had always assumed it a spearhead like any other—one that a Kaedweni soldier had once wielded against him but failed to finish the job. He'd kept it after that encounter and committed his would-be killer's face to memory. Though he'd considered any human's flesh worthy of its sting, he had held fast to the idea of one day driving it into the face of the one who first delivered it to him. Even a near identical face—a son or a brother—would have sufficed. To him the spearhead was no holy relic. It was way to remind the dh'oine that the Aen Seidhe would never stop repaying their cruelty in kind. "You mean this?" he asked.
Zoltan elbowed Yarpen in the side. "I told ye so!" he chortled.
"How is it a broken spear earns such reverence?" Iorveth puzzled.
"Some refugees from Kaedwen say that when Henselt put a torch to his last advisor three years past, a soldier stuck the poor wench with it to end her pain," Yarpen explained. "In death, the bloody sorceress got her own cult following. Her believers get a hard-on for these artifacts of her execution. They figure it'll grant them the dead witch's favor, or some shite."
Iorveth's lip curled in a fleeting sneer. "After Loc Muinne, I doubt any in Kaedwen have much regard left for mages, living or dead," he remarked flatly. "I can tell you without a doubt, the spear holds no such sentiment for me, either."
"Never once crossed my mind that it did, elf," Yarpen retorted. "Which is why I waved your shriveled arse over here. Surely ye wouldn't mind wagering such a trifling little trinket in a game of dice, would ye?"
Iorveth couldn't help but steer his gaze towards Zoltan. Had this been his suggestion?
"Why are ye giving me that look?" Zoltan asked. "Skalen Burdon—the alderman's nephew back in Vergen—he collects this sort of rubbish in dice games. Yarpen here's got a mind to bring back something interesting to catch the lad's eye. He was the one who brought the spearhead rumor up. I just told him I'd seen ye sharpening one on the barge from Flotsam."
Iorveth gripped the spear and pivoted his wrist, looking it over from front to back. His first impulse said to wedge it back in its hiding place and walk away. But he found himself closely examining the splintered remains of its length and the fine tipped edge. The day of vengeance for which he'd been idly saving this fragmented weapon may never come. In his future, there would be no more prowling in the forests, no more ambushes by human scouts, and no more bloodshed except in defense of Upper Aedirn. As foolish as Skalen's collection of relics may sound, Iorveth was forced to concede that's all the spear was: a relic of his bygone days as a bandit.
"What is it I'm to barter the spearhead against?" he asked at last. "I've little use for coin."
"Feh. Elves. Always the minimalists," Yarpen muttered. "Right then…if I win, ye hand over just the spear. But if ye win, I'll take a night watch off yer hands."
"Extend that offer to any one of my Scoia'tael, and I will aceept," Iorveth countered.
"Aye," Yarpen agreed. "If the dice favor ye, I'll stand in for any one of yer Squirrels. But only one, and on no more than one occasion."
"Very well."
The two assumed their places at the compact battlefield of fortune known as the dice poker board. Iorveth was familiar enough with the rules of the game, though not an enthusiast by any means. The dice rattled in his hand for a passing moment and then tumbled onto the grimly adorned board. One, two, three, three, six, he read the resulting numbers to himself.
As his dice were moved to the edge and Yarpen's took their place, the dwarf's hand proved more favorable. One, five, five, six, six.
While chances of besting the opposing hand were slim, resignation did not even occur to the Scoia'tael commander. His fingers extended to collect the one and two for re-rolling.
"Not backing down, eh?" Yarpen mused. "Does that scrawny neck so miss sticking out for every noose in the Northern Kingdoms, that it stoops to sticking out for the sake of a wee pointy stick instead?"
Iorveth shrugged off the dwarf's attempt to sway him. "It is in my blood to fight improbable odds to the very last," he retorted. "I'm not about to defy my nature now."
"Then let's make this more interesting," Yarpen suggested. "You manage to pull off the win of a lifetime there, and I'll take one night watch off the hands of a Scoia'tael each night until we arrive in Hengfors."
For once, Iorveth allowed himself to smile in amusement. "All for a 'pointy stick'? It's beginning to seem like you believe in Henselt's dead witch yourself, Zigrin."
Yarpen guffawed. "Ho ho, you miss the point, butcher. It's not just the spear I'll be playin' for now. No, should the dice favor me once more, I'll take the spear…and you'll be answerin' some questions I have on my mind."
"And what do your questions concern?"
"Five things. A mane of flaxen hair, two blue eyes and a pair of pert tits."
Iorveth tried not to give away his surprise, but clearly his reaction was not lost on Zoltan from the sidelines. "Thought that might get your attention," he said with a smirk.
Glancing with suspicion around the camp, Iorveth quickly found the two travel companions he trusted the least: Faye and Tarn. The sorceress knelt by the spot where a semi-conscious Lionel lay draped in a blanket. Her palm was outstretched, and from thin air a butterfly came into being at her fingertips. It fluttered onto the invalid peasant's nose, and he grinned groggily. The illusionary insect returned to the nothing from whence Faye summoned it.
The Count, meanwhile, was hidden behind the trunk of a nearby tree. He called to one of the simpler humans, his hand jutting from the tree base. The mere servant, while keeping his eyes firmly away from Tarn, waved some leaves in the noble's direction until they connected with his waiting grasp. The purpose of the leaves was easily discernible.
If it had been Faye of Ban Ard or Count Tarn Marco with a mind to question Iorveth about Saskia, he'd have told them in the plainest of words to hold their tongues. He admitted that Zoltan Chivay, for all his dwarven brazenness, had given him no real cause for distrust. Yarpen Zigrin, on the other hand…
As Iorveth recalled, Yarpen made no secret of his past exploits as a dragon hunter. Could it be he suspected…?
The Aen Seidhe drew back from the two dice, and instead laid the spearhead on the game board. "Take it. I've nothing to say of what you would ask, and the Scoia'tael will continue to defend the caravan by night without complaint."
Yarpen let out something between a snort and a chortle as he took the spearhead. "Have it yer way, then—ye just said enough as it is. Looks like ye were right, Zoltan; the Virgin of Aedirn makes the old human-slayer as long as he is tall."
"Nothing is impossible, is it?" Zoltan added. "If Upper Aedirn can wrest her independence, then even an elf that thirsts for human blood can wake up one morning with a taste for honey."
Iorveth's nostrils flared. That's what this was about? Not accusations as to the Dragonslayer's true nature…but mere lecherous insolence?
"You both assume far too much," he countered barely above a growl. "Your queen is no one's conquest. Not on the battlefield…nor off."
"Fine, fine," Zoltan conceded. "Seems a sense of humor was too much to hope for from the likes of ye."
"Aye," said Yarpen. "Clear off and give someone else yer seat at the dice board, before that stick up yer ass bends to the point of breaking."
Iorveth did indeed stand to go. He tuned out the sounds of the dwarves' banter and laughter as they receded into the night.
Raucous dwarven banter or no, far be it from him to allow such crude words about Saskia in his presence. The maiden human body that Yarpen so shamelessly referred to was the least of her many honorable traits.
And even if he did dare to imagine her as more to him than a noble leader and a secured future for the Aen Seidhe, he was certain she'd never return such views.