“Until they were driven off the edge of the Escarpment, to fall to their deaths below.”
The entire room sighed with intense satisfaction, only faintly tinged with horror. Colin shuddered, the hatred of the dwarren in the room almost tangible. An unwavering hatred that crawled across his skin, as black as the spot on his arm, as sickening.
And yet he understood that hatred, felt it himself, in his bones. Because of what the dwarren had done to the wagon trains, his own and the one they’d found near the underground river. They’d slaughtered everyone in that wagon train, herded them together and killed them-men, women, and children-with no mercy. They’d burned the wagons to the ground. They would have done the same to Colin’s group, would have succeeded if the Shadows hadn’t gotten to them first.
He found his hand gripping the coin so hard the edges bit into his palm and he forced himself to relax. At the hearth, the storyteller let the vindictive murmurs rise, but he interrupted them before they could reach their height.
“But that wasn’t the end. Not the end that Maarten envisioned anyway. Oh, no. Because even as the two forces-Alvritshai and men-stood at the cliffs, staring down into the shadow of the bluff, where the dwarren Riders lay in bloody, broken heaps, even as Maarten drew back from the edge and turned toward Tamaell Fedorem with a triumphant smile, the Alvritshai betrayed him.
“Fedorem’s escort, his most trusted advisers, his closest lords, leaped forward, daggers raised. Stephan cried out, his shout heard across the battlefield, as the Alvritshai fell on the King. The heir tried to kick his steed forward, but he was restrained by his own men, even as a cry of outrage rose from the Legion. Before they could react, the Alvritshai Phalanx let loose a rain of arrows, cutting down hundreds in a single volley, catching the Legion unprepared. The group nearest to Maarten charged the attackers, and then both armies were engulfed in a melee-not a battle but a brawl-as the Legion tried to retrieve their fallen King’s body. Stephan tried to join them yet again, but he was hauled to safety by his own advisers, pulled off his horse out of sight of the Alvritshai archers and dragged to the back of the Legion as they retreated, Maarten’s body in tow.
“It was a black day, a bitter day for the Provinces. We lost our King to betrayal, to the Alvritshai.” He whispered the name like a curse. “But it was a triumphant day as well, for the entire coast. For at his death, Maarten claimed the defeat of the dwarren Riders in his name, for his lineage.”
“But not the defeat of the dwarren,” the man nearest to Colin murmured, his voice no more than a whisper, so low that Colin doubted anyone else had heard.
Silence reigned in the tavern but for the faint sounds of tankards being raised in salute and a few quiet and respectful murmurs or prayers.
Then the young boy reappeared and laid a plank of meat and cheese and roasted onion down in front of Colin, along with a tankard of ale as well. “Too bad ‘tisn’t all true,” he huffed, softly enough that Colin almost didn’t hear him.
“What do you mean?”
The boy eyed him warily. “’Tisn’t all true, least not how my grandda tells it.”
Colin frowned. “And how would your grandda know?”
The boy snorted. “He wuz there! Right there, in tha King’s own men at tha end o’ tha attack. He says ‘twasn’t all of the Alvritshai that attacked, only sum o’ them, that Fedorem seemed as shocked as any o’ them. He says a few a tha lords e’en tried to stop it-Lord Vaersoom and Lord Aeren. But ‘twas too late by then. Tha armies wuz already brawlin’.”
Colin stilled. “Did you say Aeren?”
“Lord Aeren,” the boy said, nodding. “And Lord Vaersoom. There’s a group of tha white- skinned bastards in tha city right now, jus come in on a ship.”
Colin thought about the group of guardsmen he’d seen emerge from the walled manse, headed toward the wharf.
“Is Aer-Lord Aeren among them?”
The boy shrugged in irritation. “Could be, could be not. Not likely to come here.” Then he tucked one hand beneath his arm and held out the other expectantly, eyes wide.
Colin grunted and handed over the coin, and the boy was gone in the blink of an eye. He turned his attention back to the storyteller, but the crowd had tired of histories and were rowdily demanding a ribald song of mirth and mayhem, so he began to eat.
“Aeren,” he murmured, letting the bursts of laughter from the other patrons roll over him as he thought about the plains, about the Alvritshai he’d met so long ago. He might have written the boy’s story off as nonsense-a grandfather’s interpretation of the battle, told to impress his grandson-except he’d seen the slightly contemptuous faces of the other men in the tavern. The older men, the ones with scars on their faces and the habits of fighting men, their movements careful, stances too casual, even here, relaxed with drink. Those around the hearth were younger, quick to judge and eager to accept.
He wondered if the Aeren from the tale was the same Aeren he’d met so long ago on the plains.
There was one way to find out.
Colin eased a little closer to the main thoroughfare where the delegation from the Alvritshai was rumored to pass on their way to their ship at the harbor. He’d missed the initial procession to the Governor’s estate, the manse he’d seen from the ridge when he’d first viewed the city, and no one from the delegation had been spotted outside the walls of the estate since.
A wise decision, Colin thought, glancing around at those gathered on both sides of the street. Most had come to gawk at the foreigners, at their strange skin and wild clothes, some with their children in tow. “Careful of their eyes,” an old man in the alley next to Colin hissed. “If they catch your gaze, they’ll suck out your soul!”
A middle-aged woman scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. They just hold you with their eyes; it’s the knife to the gut when you can’t move that takes your soul!”
Colin’s brow creased in irritation. He pushed his staff forward between two younger men-their faces taut and angry, arms crossed over their chests-and slid in between them. He now stood at the mouth of the side street, barely more than an alley, but it was enough for him to see down the thoroughfare if he craned his neck. He hadn’t managed to find out from the citizens of Portstown if Lord Aeren was part of the group; they only knew it was an Alvritshai delegation, come to see the Governor to discuss trade agreements.
Colin settled back slightly. Provinces, Governors, and Kings. He’d learned enough in the past few hours to know that shortly after the wagon group had headed east-within a year if he’d pieced all of the information together correctly-outright war had broken out in Andover, the Feud over the Rose and its powers coming to a head, and the Proprietors of the colonies had been drawn into it. But by then the refugees from the war had grown desperate. Small groups had risen up against the Proprietors, groups like those in Lean-to, led by men like Shay and Karl and composed mostly of criminals and political dissidents, only with four or five times the number of members by then. The Court thought they could crush the rebellions. But the war for the Rose had sapped their resources. The Proprietors found themselves abandoned, the Court’s attention completely on their own lands in Andover, on preserving their standing in the Court itself while still pursuing their bid for the Rose.
The “minor” rebellions became a full- fledged revolution. The Proprietors attempted to pull together to defend their lands, but they’d allowed too many refugees into their towns. And this time the dissidents and rabble- rousers had the support of the laborers and craftsmen and merchants. The Proprietors had counted on their Armory to protect them, but in the end…
In the end, the Armory wasn’t as loyal as the Proprietors believed.
The Proprietors fell, or vanished. No one knew what had happened to Sartori, which Colin found… disappointing. He could go back and find out, sink back, but he satisfied himself with knowing that he’d been removed, most likely killed by Karl and the men who’d led the revolt.
Ahead, on the thoroughfare, a ripple passed through the crowd. Colin straightened, pushing away from the stone of the building at his back. He would have stepped forward, but the two men he’d passed to reach the position pressed forward instead, shoving people aside, their faces intent. They kept their attention on the street, where the crowd had begun to sigh with passing whispers of awe and wonder, but they pushed farther down the block, joining two other men at the next corner.
Colin frowned as he saw something pass from one of the men’s hands to another, something narrow and thin.
The crowd ahead parted as the Legion forced a path through the center of the street. The guardsmen were
