Summoner: Book 1: The Novice (15 page)

27

The tall buildings fell away to reveal row upon row of huge white tents, exquisitely embroidered with kaleidoscopic shapes of red and blue. Springy green grass replaced the cobblestones, and each pavilion was surrounded by lovingly tended gardens. The vividly coloured flowers wafted sweet scents in the air, reminding Fletcher of his youthful summers in the mountains. Unencumbered by the dingy buildings, the winter sun cast a pale but warm light across Fletcher’s face.

‘It’s beautiful,’ Fletcher said, amazed by the sudden transformation. He had expected the Dwarven Quarter to be a squalid and miserable place, given the standard of the buildings that surrounded it. Othello smiled at his words and limped on, waving at nearby dwarves as they sat talking in the gardens.

‘This is mine.’ Othello pointed to a nearby tent. ‘My whole family lives in here.’

‘How many are there of you?’ Fletcher asked, trying not to mind the stares he was receiving from the other dwarves as they passed by.

‘Oh, there are probably around thirty of us in each tent, but ours contains my father’s workshop, so there are only twenty of us in this one. He needs his space.’

Fletcher tried to wrap his head around how a pavilion tent could house twenty people and a workshop. Each one was about the size of a large barn but, unless they slept in bunk beds, there was no way that could be true.

‘Take down your hood and remove your shoes before you go in. In our culture that is polite,’ Othello said. Fletcher helped him take off his boots; the poor dwarf had begun to turn pale from the pain of his injury and bending over was difficult for him. As he kneeled and struggled with Othello’s thick-knotted bootlaces, a short figure in flowing robes ran up the path towards them, crying out in shock. Her face was obscured by a pink veil, held in place by a delicate silver chain.

‘Othello, what happened?’ the figure wailed in a high-pitched voice.

‘I’m OK, Thaissa. We just need to get me inside. It’s best not to let the others see me injured. They will think I am being mistreated at Vocans, which is not the case.’

Thaissa parted the tent flap and ushered them in. Strangely, it was not the tightly packed room that Fletcher had expected. Instead, the floors were lined with ornate floor mats and cushions. In the centre, there was a thick metal pipe that extended to the top of the tent like a chimney. Understanding dawned on Fletcher when he saw the spiral staircase that wound around the pipe, going deep into the earth. They lived underground!

Thaissa, who could only be Othello’s sister, continued to fuss around him, piling cushions on the ground for him to lean against.

‘You have a lovely home,’ Fletcher commented as another figure came up the stairs. He caught a flash of a rosy-cheeked face with bright green eyes before the female dwarf uttered a shriek and pulled a veil over her face.

‘Othello!’ she cried out. ‘How can you bring guests here without letting us know? He has seen my face!’

‘It’s OK, Mother, I don’t think a human counts. He is my friend and I ask that you treat him as such.’ Othello slumped to the ground and clutched at his side.

‘You’re hurt!’ she gasped and ran to him.

‘Please, get the bandages. Constable Turner and Sergeant Murphy attacked me again. This time I think they may have broken a rib. I will need you to bind my chest.’

He spoke in short bursts of breath, as if it hurt to breathe, as he removed his jacket and the top half of his uniform. His broad chest and shoulders were covered with a thick pelt of curly red hair, which also extended halfway down his back. The skin of his shoulders was latticed with scars; evidence of more brutality from the Pinkertons. Fletcher shuddered at the sight.

Othello’s mother ran downstairs as Thaissa dabbed at his forehead with her sleeve. She returned soon after with a roll of linen and began to wrap it tight around his chest. Othello winced with each swathe, but bore it stoically. Fletcher could already see a black bruise blossoming on the dwarf’s chest.

‘Othello, what are you doing back so early? Someone told me they had seen you in town,’ came a voice from behind them.

‘I’m just getting patched up, Atilla,’ Othello said. ‘The Pinkertons had another go at me. Lucky I had Fletcher here to help me out.’

Another dwarf stood in the doorway. He looked the spitting image of Othello, almost identical in fact. The dwarf gave Fletcher a look of pure hatred and helped Othello to his feet.

‘The humans will never accept us. We should move out of this goddamned city and create our own settlements, away from here. Look where fraternising with this human has got you,’ Atilla ranted. ‘Get out of here, human, before I do the same to you.’

As if Ignatius could understand the words, he leaped on to the floor and hissed, allowing a thin stream of smoke to waft from his nostrils.

‘Enough! I have had it with your antihuman rhetoric!’ Othello shouted. ‘I will not have you insult my friend in my own home. It is you who needs to leave!’ He coughed with pain at the outburst and leaned on Fletcher. Atilla gave Fletcher another glare and then swept out of the tent, muttering under his breath.

‘You will have to forgive my twin brother. He too passed the testing, but his hate for your people means he will never fight for Hominum, not even as a battlemage. We both desire freedom for the dwarves, but that is where our agreement ends,’ Othello said miserably. ‘I worry about him, what he might do. I can barely remember the number of times I turned myself in when they put out a warrant for his arrest, enduring his punishments. If they tried to arrest him, he might have fought back. Then they would have killed him. What else could I do but go in his stead?’

‘It’s OK. How can I blame him for feeling that way after what I saw today? I hope that I’ll get a chance to change his mind some day. We aren’t all bad.’

‘Aye, you’re all right,’ Othello said with a grin. ‘We’ve been keeping Atilla out of trouble, working with Dad in the workshop. I might as well take you there now. My father will take a look at that sword for you. He’s the best blacksmith in all of Hominum.’

‘The inventor of muskets and pistols? I don’t doubt it,’ Fletcher said, then remembered his manners. ‘I would be honoured if you would allow me to visit your home,’ he said to the two female dwarves, inclining his head.

Othello’s mother’s veil hid her expression, but she nodded after a few moments.

‘I trust my boy’s judgement, and I am glad he has found a friend at the academy. We had feared that he would be unhappy there. My name is Briss. It is a pleasure to meet you.’

‘He has many friends. I am just one of them,’ Fletcher said, patting Othello on the back. ‘I am honoured to meet you, Briss, and you too, Thaissa.’

‘We must seem very strange to you with our veils,’ Thaissa’s voice was shy and hesitant. ‘It is not often that dwarven women meet humans. Why, many still think that dwarf women grow beards and cannot be told apart from the men!’

She giggled and even Briss let out a light, tinkling laugh.

‘I must admit, I was wondering why you wear them. Would it be rude of me to ask?’ Fletcher enquired.

‘Not at all. We wear them so that dwarves marry for love and not out of lust,’ Briss said. ‘Our spouses cannot see us until our wedding night, and so they must love us for our personalities and not our looks. It is also a mark of modesty and privacy, so that we do not flaunt our beauty for everyone to see. That is a privilege reserved for our husbands—’

‘Speaking of husbands, I must take Fletcher to see Father right away,’ Othello interrupted, flustered by his mother’s forthrightness. ‘Come on, Fletcher. He’s downstairs.’

28

The steps opened up into a chamber, as wide and as tall as the tent above. The pipe in the centre contained a crackling fire resting over a grate, the gush of hot air and smoke from below sending sparks rushing upwards. The walls were made of bare earth, propped up by strong oak beams that held the room in place. Small chandeliers with wax candles hung from the ceiling, giving the room a warm orange glow. Seven doors were built into the walls of the round room, each one made of solid steel.

They continued down into a near-identical chamber, this one containing a stone dining table. Instead of a fireplace, the pipe was connected to what looked like a large oven and kiln. Vases and pots of all sizes were stacked against the walls. Each one was painted with an intricate floral pattern.

‘This is where my mother spends most of her time. She likes baking, both food and porcelain. A man comes to buy her goods in bulk every week so he can sell them in his shop. The housewives of Hominum turn their noses up at dwarf-made pottery, so he pretends he makes them himself. We make a tidy profit,’ Othello boasted. Fletcher was astonished at how quickly the dwarf was recovering. They were a hearty people, of that he was certain.

They continued deeper and deeper into the earth, as the stairwell became more narrow and constricted. Fletcher was glad that Solomon had decided to rest with Thaissa and Briss; his stumpy legs would never have managed the steep steps.

They passed two more chambers on their way down, each one smaller than the last. The first was layered in stone and full of residual steam, with copper tubing that twisted around the central pipe column; baths of some sort.

The next room was too dark to see much, but Fletcher could just make out the outline of pikes and swords. He guessed it was a storage room, full of Othello’s father’s weapons. The stairs became so steep that Fletcher almost had to clamber down, fumbling in the dim light.

‘Sorry about the stairs. They were designed for defence, you know. The stairs go down clockwise so any men fighting their way down would have to fight with their left hand and would only be able to come one at a time. One dwarf could hold this stairway against a thousand foes, if he was warrior enough,’ Othello said, knocking the pillar in the centre that prevented a right-handed fighter from manoeuvring his sword. It rang hollow beneath Othello’s knuckles, and Fletcher reckoned he could hear the sound of hot air rushing within.

‘Have your homes always been this way?’ Fletcher asked, starting to feel claustrophobic as the low ceiling scraped against his head. For someone used to open skies on top of a mountain, this was not a comfortable experience.

‘Yes, as far back as we can remember. We think it was at first to defend against the wild animals and orcs, but in time we preferred to sleep below the earth. It’s so quiet and peaceful down here. I must confess, I have been having trouble sleeping in the top of that tower, with the wind blowing into my room.’

‘Yes . . . me too,’ Fletcher said, thinking back on the figure from the drawbridge last night.

‘Here it is,’ Othello said as they reached the bottom of the stairs. There was a large steel door surrounded by stone, as if it had been embedded into a natural sheet of bedrock underground.

‘Even if they dug around this, they would have to chip their way through the stone to get in. My father takes his privacy very seriously. There are many others just like this, to house the factories that produce the muskets. But this one is special. It is where the first musket was ever created.’

He knocked his fist against the door with a rhythmic booming pattern, a secret code of some sort. A few seconds later, there were a series of bangs as locks were removed. Then a familiar face opened the door.

‘Athol!’ Fletcher exclaimed, smiling at the familiar face. ‘Othello’s father is your boss? I should have guessed, what with those beautiful guns.’

‘What are you doing here?’ Athol’s face filled with surprise and confusion. ‘And with Othello of all people?’

‘He’s my friend from Vocans,’ Othello said, pushing his way into the room. ‘I want to introduce him to my father.’

‘Uhtred is busy now, Othello. You’d best be coming back another time,’ Athol warned. ‘Wait out here, Fletcher. I don’t think he would want you in the workshop.’

The dwarves disappeared inside, leaving Fletcher to peer in. The room was filled with tools and piles of metal ingots. In contrast to Berdon’s forge, everything was organised to an almost obsessive degree. The inside of the room radiated heat, as if Fletcher had his face a few inches away from a bonfire. Just out of sight, a murmured conversation went on, but Fletcher could not make out what they were saying over the muffled roar of the forge’s flames. Then rumbling like the bellows of the forge itself, a voice rang out.

‘WHAT?’ the voice thundered. ‘HERE?’

Footsteps thudded through the chamber and Othello’s father stood in front of him. The dwarf’s naked chest was enormously broad, with brawny arms spanning the doorway as he blocked the view into the room. The red beard that hung from his chin was split into a fork that hung in two braids down to his waist, and his long, droopy moustache hung almost to his stomach. His thick pelt of chest hair glistened with sweat in the orange glow of the forge’s fire.

‘Athol tells me you asked to work as my apprentice just a couple of days ago.’ Uhtred’s deep booming voice echoed in the tight confines of the stairwell. ‘Now I find you’re chumming up to my boy, wheedling your way into our forge. I don’t trust you, not even as far as I could throw you, and I warrant I could chuck you a good long distance.’

Ignatius stirred from beneath Fletcher’s hood, sensing the threat. Fletcher took a few steps back. He was horrified by the implication. Yet he understood how suspicious the situation appeared.

‘I swear, I had no agenda in coming here. I worked in the north as an apprentice blacksmith. I had just arrived in Corcillum and was seeking employment! Othello and I only met when I enlisted at Vocans. I need a scabbard for my sword, and your son offered to take me to a trustworthy blacksmith. I did not even know he came from a smithing family until just a few minutes ago, nor that Athol worked here until just now. I will go upstairs. My deepest apologies for disturbing you.’

Fletcher bowed and turned to leave, but had only made it to the first step when Uhtred cleared his throat.

‘I may have . . . been hasty. My son is a good judge of character, as is Athol. But I must test your story first and see if you were really an apprentice. Athol, hide the musket-making tools and fetch one of the smaller hammers for Fletcher. If he is a spy, best to find out now so we can take the proper precautions. In the meantime, show me this sword. I have not seen a khopesh of quality for a while.’

Fletcher removed his sword and handed it to Uhtred. It looked tiny in the dwarf’s meaty hands, more like a sickle for pruning flowers than a deadly weapon. He was almost five feet tall, practically a giant for a dwarf.

‘You need to look after this better. When was the last time you oiled it, or sharpened it?’ Uhtred asked, turning the blade this way and that in the dim light. ‘A sword is a tool, just like any other. I will leave you an oilcloth to wrap it in whilst the scabbard is prepared, should your story check out. Look after your weapons, boy! Would you let your demon starve?’

‘I guess I have been lax of late,’ Fletcher said with embarrassment. He had barely given the khopesh a second thought since he had received it, other than during his fight with Sir Caulder. Another twinge of guilt ran through him as he thought of how much time and effort Berdon must have put in to make it.

‘All right. Athol should be done by now,’ Uhtred said, stepping out of the way. ‘Let’s see what you’ve got.’