Oathkeeper (33 page)

Yes, they're trying to decide whether the winglike pattern of implants on the prince's back are decorative or if it was supposed to serve some mystical agenda.

Oh.
Rae'en wished she could hear them, but she felt strange asking to be included when Glayne had been so clear about the others needing not to distract her.
What are the Oathbreakers arguing about?

Grivek's opinion on the Test of Four. After Rivvek lost most of his magic, the king ruled that it was his opinion no magic should be required at all. Hasimak is defending that, but he's largely arguing against himself at this point. I'm not sure he realizes he was led to the slaughterhouse on this one.

Huh?

I didn't follow all of it
, Glayne thought.
This is the sort of thing in which Aern were never included before the Sundering, but the prince and Zhan's Aiannai clearly arranged this debate.

So this is all artifice, then?
Rae'en asked.

To be honest, I think Hasimak is playing a part, too. At its core
—

When there are stealthy Zaur Overwatch hunters on the loose with weapons that can mind-blind an Aern or kill a warsuit?! I'm
—

“—putting an end to this.” Rae'en stood. “Does the prince get to take the test or not?”

“Excuse me?” Hasimak stammered. “This is an important point for future generations of Eldrennai and—”

“I have yet to decide—” Rae'en bared her doubled canines in an expression more threat than smile, “—whether or not future generations of Oathbreakers will be allowed to exist, Leash Holder. So perhaps—”

He actually wasn't, you know
, Glayne thought back.

What?
Rae'en asked.

A Leash Holder
.

Never mind that. Get ready to kill everyone in the room who isn't an Aiannai or an Aern
, Rae'en ordered.
Maybe these Oathbreakers don't realize that in the course of defending ourselves, we have essentially already seized their capital
.

Multiple voices started up at once as, around the room, guards moved their hands to their sword hilts, a handful of new Elementalists whispered preparatory phrases to their familiars, and many a visible elemental focus began to softly glow. Aern with warpicks ready filed into the back of the chambers, those already present drew theirs.

At a subtle nod from the prince, Brigadier Bhaeshal's voice cracked like thunder. “ENOUGH!”

Everyone hold
, Rae'en broadcasted.
I think we just made the prince's point for him.

“Have none of you noticed that the Aern hold Port Ammond?” Rivvek gestured to Rae'en. “Have you failed to understand that the most intelligent of your sons and daughters do not stand at your sides because they have been accepted by the Aern as Aiannai—as Oathkeepers? We debate and kholster Rae'en sits calmly and admirably by when she has injured who need to be tended. She grants us courtesy we have not earned.”

He stepped toward the center of room, foci on his back catching the light, twinkled as muscles rippled, arms spread wide. “To whom amongst you have the Aern granted such boons?”

He practiced that
, Varvost sent.

The speech?
Rae'en asked.

Most of it
, Amber thought to her.
He's tricky
.

Rae'en could not see it as easily as her Overwatches, but then again they were all centuries old. Wait. She tracked his eyeline.
He's waiting for a specific person to speak up, isn't he?

Look at their eyes
, Varvost sent.
The key lords and ladies are in on it. They know what he's doing and have already been purchased.

He's waiting for the old guy
, Rae'en sent.

Hasimak chewed over the prince's words visibly. He didn't like it, but they'd all watched him talk himself into agreeing with the prince's right to take the Test of Four and therefore the legitimacy of his reign should Rivvek pass the test. Hands trembling with age or emotion, the old Oathbreaker sighed . . . which had obviously been the capitulation for which Rivvek had been waiting, an internal, but vital swing vote. Rae'en could read that much into what was happening even if she didn't know why or how.

“I do have a plan to save the people of this land.” Rivvek approached the testing table, resting both hands on the nonreflective surface. “Not everyone can be saved. We have done too much, to too many, for too long, to expect these former slaves to forgive.”

“The Test of Four requires magic to be used.” Rivvek held out a finger to the dragon tallow candle and lit it with fire from the tip, his scars turning pink, then red. “Magic has been used. Pyromancy. Fire.”

Glayne took a step back from the edge of the throne room, unnoticed by most who weren't Aern.

Glayne?
Rae'en sent.

A moment, kholster Rae'en.
Cold and sure, Glayne's thoughts were suffused with fading fear.
I will adjust.

“Command of water.” Prince Dolvek quenched the flame with water from the bowl.

He relit the candle with his finger.

“Command of earth.” He snuffed the flame with dirt from the bowl, cupped in his hands.

He lit the candle again.

“Command of air.” Rivvek blew out the candle.

“And the candle . . .” Taking a stick of wood from the final bowl, he set it alight with his finger, then used the branch to light the candle. “. . . is lit a fourth time.”

“Am I king?” Rivvek folded his arms across his chest and walked up the four steps to stand by the throne. Rae'en reached for the crown to put it on him, but the look in his eyes told her to wait.

Hasimak bowed low and the others followed.

“Excellent.” King Rivvek took the crown and placed it upon his own head. “My first act as king is to sentence all Eldrennai the Aern will not accept as Aiannai, or some other acceptable name, to death.”

CHAPTER 24

DWARVEN KNOW-HOW

While one embodiment of Kholster stood in the throne room admiring King Rivvek's ingenuity, another waited by Vander's side. A third Kholster kept an ear on Sedvinia as she helped heal Wylant's wounds. But a fifth Kholster paced a warehouse at the docks where Glinfolgo supervised the storing of what Coal, the great gray dragon, had referred to as Kholster's equalizer.

Junpowder barrels lined sections of the walls with cannon, cannonballs, rifles, and stores of ammunition arranged in a pattern Kholster knew made perfect sense to Glinfolgo, even if the Aern around him hadn't quite assembled it yet. On either side of the massive stone doors, torches and crystal glow lamps lay scattered next to piles of broken crates containing mercantile goods for shipping. Dwarven replacements cast an even white light from the corners and ceiling.

Four Aern stepped through the open doors carrying a disassembled bed, which made Kholster chuckle. Why the hard-hided Dwarves slept on such cushioned contraptions he would never understand.

The spirits of Marcus Conwrath and Japesh materialized nearby, watching the assembly.

Conwrath wore the same embroidered sash and poncho he'd had on when Kholster had snapped his neck to free him of Shidarva's control thirteen years earlier. His ear was notched to show his rank, and his clothes were still dusty from the road between Bridge 37 and Darvan. Japesh's brown skin had grown wrinkled, only a few straggling hairs clinging to his bald pate, his tunic wine-stained.

“What're they going to make out of all that nonsense?” Marcus inclined his head in the vague direction of Aern carrying a metallic frame and wooden headboard.

“It's a bed.” Japesh laughed at the recognition on his captain's face as more Aern carried in a mattress, pillows, and bed linens. “Some of the girls up to the brothel in Midian had beds like that. All extra soft and stuffed with feathers.”

How did he know to unload the junpowder and weapons from the ships?
Harvester asked.

“He did not know.” Kholster smiled broadly as he paced the chalk outlines Glinfolgo had drawn on the floor of the warehouse. “But no one is better at guarding their secrets and treasures than Dwarves.”

I don't understand.

“Glin doesn't think there is going to be a war with the Oathbreakers,” Kholster said. “He's afraid someone will steal them.”

“If them elves are planning to fight you,” Japesh said, scratching his chin, “they picked a funny way of doing it. Your girl already has Port Ammond.”

You think Rivvek has a plan?

Whose scars are on his back?

Yours, but I'm growing concerned, sir.

Concerned how?

You did not reap Dienox when he attacked your wife. A simple penalty is not
—

He's not mine to kill. Only to reap
.

Sir?

Did he wrong me or did he wrong Wylant?

Wylant, sir. Even so
—

Let me share a memory with you, Harvester
, Kholster thought.

Reaching back to Helg's death, Kholster shared it with his warsuit. Pain at not just the loss of a wife, but also the exponential sorrow of knowing that Rae'en had lost her mother and, in so doing, had been injured in a special sense with which Kholster could not identify. The investigation, discovering Helg had died in a senseless quest for political power . . . all over a Dwarven Foreman election.

Rage. Harvester quivered with it, but Kholster kept sharing that intimate and terrible time. Sense memory washed over both of them. Harvester grunted, a sound Kholster had never heard Bloodmane make, when the warsuit experienced Midio's skin tearing, her bones breaking in his grip. She screamed until her voice was gone and blood gushed from her throat.

Kholster showed Harvester the varied looks of horror on the faces of the male and female Dwarves of the voting committee. The sigh of relief when Midio died for the cave-in she had rigged. They thought it was over.

And then Varvost and Glayne had dragged Polimbol, the architect of the plot, out between them with Feagus, Amber, and Vander positioned so Kholster could miss nothing.

“You ordered the mine collapse that killed my wife,” Kholster seethed, spittle hitting the light gray cheeks of the conniving thing that had stolen his wife with his lust for power, for control.

All the proof was there, but Kholster had wanted to hear it from Polimbol's lips.

“Confess.” Kholster's voice cut the air, low and harsh. “And on my oath I will not kill you.”

“It's true,” Polimbol said. “I did everything you say I did, but Helg wasn't supposed to die. I meant to—”

Kholster bared his doubled canines and snapped at the air, slightly embarrassed by the lack of control even as he surrendered to it. He didn't like to think about it, but revisiting the memory this time, he understood it was one of the closest times he'd ever come to becoming Foresworn.

His Overwatches pulled him back from the edge of disaster, just as they'd been ordered to do.

He's to be Glinfolgo's kill . . .
Vander and the others shouted in his mind,
not yours. Stop
.

And stop he had . . . and stood there watching while Glinfolgo pounded the Dwarf to death with the bone-steel mattock Kholster had forged for him.

Kholster let the memory end, but Harvester still trembled.

I understand, sir, but I don't see how, even with the penalties you have requested in her favor . . . she can't kill Dienox alone
.

Your failure of imagination
, Kholster teased, remembering when Coal, the great gray dragon, had said the same to him back at South Number Nine,
not mine
.

Given that you forged me, sir, I believe any failure of imagination on my part to be at least partially yours
.

Kholster let loose with a barking laugh but explained no further. One never knew exactly how much Aldo or Two-Headed Kilke could overhear.

Across the room, Conwrath and Japesh sat on the newly assembled bed watching Glinfolgo address the Aern. He looked so young with his beard shaven close to the skin, but sea sickness had encouraged the change. It had been that or smell sour beard the whole journey. Not that Vander hadn't teased Glin anyway, but . . .

Vander.

“I know you're all concerned about your Prime Overwatch,” Glinfolgo shouted, “but we'll handle this first and then I'll go check on him.”

Fifty Aern hoisted barrels of junpowder and rolled (or carried) cannons from the warships at the docks.

“But, High Foreman . . .” An agreeable, but slow—if the Dwarf judged him charitably—Aernese soldier stood in the center of the warehouse they'd commandeered (next to the bed), while his soldiers moved around him, following Glinfolgo's plans. “Why are we—?”

“I'm busy!” Glinfolgo shouted, adding a furious stomp to the floor and a growl for emphasis. “We're three-quarters done. If you need another explanation when we're finishe—no!” Glin bellowed at one of the Aern stacking junpowder barrels. “None should be stacked atop another. Look around! Do you see any other barrels double-stacked?”

“No,” the Aern grumbled, “but usually an Overwatch is showing us exactly where—”

“Chalk!” the gray-skinned Dwarf bellowed. Hand outstretched, expectant, he growled when no chalk appeared. “Fine. I have some, but if you want me to mark the floor for you the least you could do . . .” Thick fingers fumbling at the various pouches on his belt, Glinfolgo pulled out a long stick of chalk. Rows of perfect circles appeared in his wake as he crawled across the stone floor. Behind him Aern unloaded one barrel, lined up perfectly within each circle until they were all in place. He paced back through the rows of barrels, checking each one, muttering the tally. He did the same with the rifles, cannons, and ammo, before rolling four cannons in front of the bed, mouths aimed at the door.