City of Jade

27

FIRE AND IRON

MID AUTUMN, 6E6

Brekka stepped to one of the fallen outlaws and- thuck! – pulled out his quarrel. He also retrieved one of Binkton’s two arrows; the shaft of the second had broken when that man had hit the ground. As for Pip’s sling bullet, there was no chance of retrieving it, buried in the third deader’s skull as it was.

Both Binkton and Pipper looked a bit nauseated, for ere now they had never slain ought but rabbits and other such small game. But even though these were brigands, still they were men, and their deaths sudden and violent, the battle over almost before it had begun.

“I-I never killed anyone before,” said Pipper. “It’s awful.”

Pipper glanced at Binkton, only to see someone whose face was as stark as his own might be. Binkton nodded without looking at Pipper, his gaze fixed on one of the two men he had slain.

“I mean,” said Pipper, “one moment they could be laughing and talking, and the next, they’re just-just dead.”

“Forget it,” said Brekka, holding Binkton’s arrow out to the buccan. “They are nought more than Ukhs.”

“But, Brekka, even Rucks, or Ukhs as you call them, are a walking, talking. .” Pipper’s words fell to silence.

“All Grg are vile,” said Brekka. “They have no conscience, none of them, and act as Gyphon made them long past. And these foul men are even worse, for, unlike the Grg, they have a choice. Hear me, Chakka justice against the Squam is swift and sure, and these”-Brekka made a dismissive gesture toward the slain men-“these dregs deserve no better.”

Binkton took the arrow from Brekka and stared long at it, and finally swallowed, and looked up at the Dwarf and nodded. Then he stepped to the side of the road and cleaned off the shaft and point in the grass.

The driver called for all to climb back into the stage.

“Shouldn’t we give them a decent burial?” asked one of the men, gesturing toward the dead outlaws.

“Didn’t you hear me?” growled Brekka. “They are no more than Ukhs. Leave them for the scavengers.”

The man looked at the coachmen, and the driver said to the footmen, “You heard the Dwarf. Drag them to the side and leave them for the crows.”

As the crew dealt with the bodies, nineteen-year-old Rebecca kissed both Warrows on the cheek, and this seemed to cheer them somewhat, but when she approached Brekka, he held up a hand to stop her and said, “It was nothing more than killing vermin.”

The footmen then cleared the log from the road, and the coach got under way again.

That night, as they lay over at the way station, when the two buccen were alone and making ready for bed, Pipper said, “I did not like the feeling I had when I killed that man.”

Binkton sighed and shucked out of his shirt. “Neither did I. But I’ve been thinking about what Brekka said.”

“That Chakka justice is swift and sure?” asked Pipper, kicking off his boots.

“No. That these foul men were no different from Grg. And you know, I think he’s right.”

“How so?”

“Well, Pip, think of all that we have read and heard about Tipperton and Beau and Rynna, and of Tuck and Danner and Patrel and Merrilee, and Perry and Cotton, or Gwylly and Faeril, as well as Cousin Triss and Danby and Kipley.”

“That’s a lot to think about, Bink.”

Binkton nodded, then said, “And then there is Aravan and Brega and Gildor and Vanidor and Vanidar and Riatha and Urus and a whole host of others, to say nought of the many High Kings.”

“What’s all this leading to, Bink?”

“Just this, Pip: none of them hesitated whatsoever in dealing swift justice to evildoers.”

Pipper digested Binkton’s words for long moments as he and his cousin disrobed. Then he sat on the edge of his man-sized cot, his feet dangling freely. “Yes, but those we killed were just highwaymen, robbers. Who knows, they might have been men who had fallen upon hard times and who had turned to banditry simply to feed their families.”

“Perhaps, Pip, yet there are more honest ways of dealing with hard times. No, I think Brekka is right: they were no better than Rucks.”

“But couldn’t we have simply captured them and turned them over to the King’s justice at the next town? – Oh, wait, perhaps that’s not practical. I mean, hauling prisoners all the way to the next gaol.”

“You’re right, Pip,” said Binkton, yawning and pulling his cover up around his neck. “That would have been impractical. Evildoers they were, and swift and sure justice is what they deserved. And listen: dealing swift justice doesn’t mean you have to like it; only that it must be done. Now blow out the candle and let’s get some sleep.”

Pipper snuffed out the flame and darkness descended, but sleep was a long time coming, as both buccen lay in the gloom and wondered if they were merely making excuses for their killing of those men, be they bandits or no.

Three days afterwards, the Red Coach rolled into Gapton, a town at the junction just beyond the Gunarring Gap, a wide opening in the ringlike spur of the Grimwalls. In Gapton the road split and changed names: the Reach Road faring east to Vanar, the capital city of Valon; the Pendwyr Road running southeasterly, toward the Red Hills and past to the Argon Ferry and on to Caer Pendwyr beyond.

Brekka and the Warrows dropped off in Gapton, the Dwarf to rest and enjoy himself, the buccen to try for an engagement at one of the local inns. Binkton and Pipper found that once again their reputation had preceded them, and they made a commitment to the owner of the Red Foal to perform for the next five days, in exchange for room and board and a bit of the good King’s coin.

Brekka stayed at the same inn, and it was he who arranged for the captain of the city watch to be at the very first performance.

Once again Fire and Iron thrilled the patrons, and here, too, Binkton proved no gaol could hold him.

The days flew by, and as time drew near for the buccen to catch the Red Coach and move onward, they debated whether to travel to Vanar, a city of considerable size, or to stick to their original plans and go on to Argon Ferry Town. They asked Brekka for his advice.

“Certainly in Vanar, the Riders of Valon, the Harlingar, would enjoy your show. And I believe you would make a small fortune there. But what I would ask you to consider instead is to come with me to the Red Hills, and perform for Dalek, DelfLord of my Chakkaholt.”

“Put on a show for a king?” blurted Pipper.

“DelfLords are not kings,” growled Binkton.

“I know that, Bink, but he is the leader of a mighty holt, and putting on our show would be just the same as a royal performance, and if that’s not for a king, there’s hardly a whit’s difference between the two.”

“Yes, but he’s not a king.”

Brekka listened to them quibble for long moments, and then called for quiet between the two and said, “I suppose you could say it’s a choice between fame and fortune: fortune in Vanar, fame in the Red Hills, or at least in the Chakkaholt where I was born.”

Binkton looked at Pipper and asked, “What do you think?”

“We can always go to a large city, Bink, but how often will we get a chance to perform before a king?”

“DelfLord, you mean.”

“Oh, all right, DelfLord. But my question remains the same.”

Binkton turned to Brekka. “The Red Hills it is.”

Eight days later and travelling southeast, the Red Coach stopped at a stone-paved spur leading off to the right and into the ruddy hills looming up alongside Pendwyr Road. A flanking pair of Dwarven realmstones warded the pave, marking the boundary of a Chakkaholt. In the shade of a nearby tree a horse-drawn wain stood waiting, the driver, a Dwarf, sitting with his back to the trunk. Binkton and Pipper and Brekka descended from the coach, and with the aid of the footmen, they unladed the chest and their duffles and set them beside the road. The Red Coach then moved on, even as the wain driver stood and led the horses and waggon toward the trio.

“Brekka,” he called.

“Anvar,” replied Brekka.

As Anvar arrived, Brekka introduced the buccen. Binkton and Pipper eyed the second Dwarf they had ever seen. Nearly identical in stature to Brekka was Anvar, though his hair was ginger and his eyes a pale blue. Too, he seemed a bit younger than Brekka, or so Pipper whispered to Binkton.

The two Dwarves laded the Warrows’ trunk onto the wain, Anvar saying, “This seems a bit heavy for the likes of you two.”

“Oh, it is,” replied Pipper. “When we have to handle it ourselves, we unload it and move things piecemeal.”

“It is full of the equipment used in their act,” said Brekka.

“Act?”

“We are Fire and Iron,” said Binkton. He pointed to Pipper and said, “He’s fire; I’m iron.”

“I invited them to put on a show for Dalek,” said Brekka. “They are quite good: Pip with his acrobatics, Binkton with his escapes.”

“No gaol can hold me,” said Binkton, beaming.

Anvar cocked an eyebrow, and Brekka said, “I would hesitate to claim that in Raudholl if I were you, Bink, for you challenge Chakka locks.”

“Raudholl?” asked Pipper.

“The name of our Chakkaholt,” said Anvar. “Or, if you prefer, Redhall.”

They clambered into the wain, and Anvar clucked his tongue and the horses started forward, and up the paved spur and into the Red Hills they went, in among the tors and crags, ruddy-colored stone rising all ’round. Here it was the Dwarves mined iron-rich ore and smelted fine steel in their furnaces to fashion into arms and armor, thought by many to be the finest in all of Mithgar. They made, as well, superior implements: plow-shares and axes and levers and pry bars and saws and other such tools. Dwarf-crafted was a term of excellence in all of the High King’s realms, and a work of armor or a weapon or a tool bearing the crimson mark of the Red Hills was held to be among the very best.

“How did you know we were coming?” asked Pipper.

Anvar laughed. “I did not. But when the Red Coach is due, north-bound or south-, someone is always assigned the duty to meet it in case there is a need. This sevenday it is mine to do.”

“Oh,” said Pipper. Then he frowned and asked, “Do you often get visitors?”

“On occasion.”

“Well, I am glad that you were at the road to meet us, else Bink and I would have had a dreadful time with our gear.”

Binkton nodded his agreement, and Anvar grinned and said, “Indeed.”

The road wended among the rises, now and then passing a thicket or a stand of old growth clutched up against a slope or huddled in a deep recess. And at one-mile intervals stood rune-laden markers declaring to travellers that they were on Dwarven land.

It was late in the day, the sun in its descent having disappeared beyond the western tors, when around a sweeping turn they came in sight of the Redhall gate, the great iron leaves standing shut. Wide it was, some thirty feet in all, and tall, reaching up twenty feet or so, with an arrangement of arrow slits high up and across the broad expanse of metal. And its surface bore an arrangement of runes, declaring this to be the Chakkaholt of Raudholl, or so Brekka explained. Out before the gate, two Dwarven warders stood, and one stepped in through a side postern when the wain came into sight.

Anvar drove the wain onto the stone forecourt and halted. After a moment, the right-hand portal, a great, thick slab of iron, opened, revealing a large chamber, and in the shadows at the far end stood another gate, this one perhaps but ten feet across and ten feet high.

“Here gather warriors in times of strife,” said Brekka, “should there be a need to charge an enemy at the gates.”

Across this assembly area the waggon went and to the gate at the far end.

Once more the warders opened the portal, revealing a narrow passage that went forward a short way and then turned sharply leftward. Into this corridor they went, the way lighted by luminescent Dwarven lanterns. Pipper nudged Binkton and pointed overhead, where machicolations gaped in the ceiling, and high up to either side were arrow slits.

The passage jagged left and then right and then left again, and they came to another iron gate. When this one was opened, a vast, well-lit chamber stood revealed, and Dwarves crossed thither and yon, emerging from and disappearing into passages to left and right.

Anvar stopped the wain beside one of these openings, and Brekka leapt to the stone floor and said, “We are here.” As the buccen scrambled down, Brekka and Anvar unladed the chest and duffle bags.

“Leave the case behind,” said Brekka. “I’ll make arrangements for someone to come and take it up. But first I’ll show you to your quarters, and if you are in mind of a bath, I’ll show you where that is, too. Then I will introduce you to DelfLord Dalek, to make arrangements for your show.”

“Well, then,” said Dalek, stroking his black beard shot through with silver, a glitter of anticipation in his dark eyes, “how can we aid you in putting on your performance?”

Pipper looked about the throne room and, glancing at Binkton, said, “Have you a chamber with high ceilings, one much larger than this?”

“The training chamber, DelfLord?” suggested Brekka.

Dalek pondered a moment and said, “The banquet hall, mayhap.”

“Ah, yes,” said Brekka. “The Chakia.”

Frowning, Pipper looked at Brekka, but no further explanation was offered.

“Might we see both?” asked Binkton.

Dalek stood and motioned them to follow, and he and Brekka led the way through the twisting corridors.

Although the banquet hall was suitable, the training chamber was even better, for it had tiers of benches along the walls that could be moved to seat part of a large audience, and Dalek informed the buccen that additional benches would be brought in to add to the seating. Brekka and Dalek stepped to one side and held a brief whispered conversation, and finally Dalek turned to the Warrows. “The training chamber it is, yet what you will see here you must vow to never reveal.”

Binkton looked at Pipper and that buccan shrugged; then together they agreed to the terms.

Much of the following day was spent with a multitude of Dwarves-all under the Warrows’ guidance-driving pitons at different levels into the stone walls and the rock ceiling above and stringing lines between or hanging trapezes thereon or fitting fixed rods into the walls. They also constructed a stage with wings and a platform above concealed by a high curtain, with a ladder going up even higher. The tiered benches were moved out from the walls and arranged in a long, curving row facing the stage. Additional benches were set out before these in echoing arcs so that all in the hall could see. And, as they had in Junction Town and Luren and Gapton, the buccen arranged for the aid of two stagehands-Brekka one and Anvar the other-and instructed them as to their duties.

That evening, a great many Dwarves gathered in the hall for the first performance, but they took no seats whatsoever. Peering out from behind the curtain concealing the high platform, Pipper and Binkton looked at one another in puzzlement.

“What’s that all about?” whispered Pipper.

“How should I know?” snapped Binkton.

“What I mean, Bink, is why aren’t they finding places to sit?”

Binkton took a deep breath and slowly let it out. Finally he said, “I think they are waiting on something.”

“Yes, but what?”

Binkton groaned. “Do you think I am an expert on Dwarven doings?”

“Maybe they are waiting for Dalek,” said Pipper.

“Perhaps.”

But Dalek came and still no one took seat.

But then chatter echoed down the halls, and moments later Dwarven children reached the entry, and fell silent as they walked past the assembled adults and to the front of the hall. But then they, too, stood waiting.

Finally, a large group of lithe beings entered, each one mantled from head to foot in swirling veils, their steps silent, their progress somehow elegant. And all the Dwarves, but for Dalek, knelt upon one knee as they passed by. These graceful creatures were a half a head taller than most of the Dwarves.

“Chakia,” whispered Pipper. “These must be the Chakia.”

“Females, you mean?” asked Binkton.

“Yes. Don’t you remember the diary of Beau Darby?”

Binkton nodded. “Female Dwarves.”

“Don’t be too certain of that, Bink,” said Pipper. “Beau himself wasn’t sure, and Tipperton said they were beautiful. I can’t imagine a Dwarf, male or female, as being described as beautiful.-And look. See how they are revered? What kind of creature would cause such regard?”

Binkton snorted and asked, “Why would someone not a Dwarf ever consider being the mate of a Dwarf?”

Pipper shrugged, but then said, “They tell that Elyn of Jord loved a Dwarf.”

“That’s just a legend, Pip.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Oh, Bink, perhaps this is what we are supposed to keep secret.”

“That Elyn loved Thork?”

“No, no. The Chakia of this holt. The children, too. Mayhap we’re supposed to keep quiet about how many there are. Perhaps the numbers of the Chakka, as well.”

“I don’t know what it is we are supposed to keep quiet about, except absolutely everything we see herein, just like we vowed.-Now, get ready, for it looks like they’re all finding seats.”

As the Chakia took places in the front rows midmost before the stage, and the Dwarven children-all males-sat alongside them, the remaining Dwarves spread out among the benches and tiers behind. They all sat when Dalek did so at the very front.

Anvar stepped to the fore of the stage and called out in the Dwarven tongue of Chakur, announcing Fire and Iron.

Pipper, now waiting at the top of the ladder, peered down through a space between the concealing foredrop curtain and the high platform, to watch as Anvar turned and pointed upward; that was Pipper’s cue.

And Pipper in red and trailing orange and yellow ran to the end of the springboard and leapt outward and plummeted down, to the screams of the Chakia and the shouts of the Chakka and the cries of the children below.

As Pipper and Binkton ran back out from the wings to take another bow, ’mid the clapping and cheers Pip looked over at his cousin and said, “I thought those Dwarves were going to charge the stage and save you from the Spikes of Death.”

They straightened and then bowed again to thunderous applause, and Binkton said, “I think they were simply trying to stop the Chakia from wailing for fear of my life.”

On the next bow, Pipper said, “The Dwarves did seem to have trouble holding back when it seemed the Chakia were in distress.”

And the very next bow, Pipper added, “I thought one of the Dwarves was going to throttle me when I almost touched a Chakia during our blindfold mental act.”

“Keep that in mind the next time, bucco,” said Binkton. “Now hush, while I make my challenge.”

Binkton stood and raised his hands for quiet, and when it fell he called out to Dalek, “My Lord Dalek, no irons or gaol can hold me. Have you one in this holt?”

The next day they took Binkton to a seldom-occupied lockup, one now and then used to hold someone who had gotten too deep in his cups and had become belligerent. Not that being thrown in a cell was a common occurrence among the honorable Chakka. Typically, violence was settled with more violence, fists being the weapons of choice, but occasionally a winner of such a bout went on a rampage, in which case several Chakka would haul the perpetrator to the tiny prison and shut him in, much to his chagrin when he finally sobered.

Just like his jailers elsewhere, the warders thoroughly searched Binkton, and finding no lockpicks or other devices, they shut him inside. And then as agreed, they left him alone. When they were gone, he slipped the long length of wire out from his belt. The tip of one end of the wire had previously been bent at a sharp angle to act as a single lockpick, and this was what Binkton first tried to use, to no avail. Carefully, he examined what he could see of the interior of his restraints, and then he bent the other end of the wire into a peculiar shape and tried again. It took Binkton four candlemarks to escape from the Dwarven fetters and cage, but escape he did. And when the Chakka smiths asked him how he had done it, Binkton showed them the weaknesses he had finally discovered in their shackles and in the lock on the door. “The irons were easier than the cell, but both were quite difficult,” he said. “Even so, I stand by my claim that no gaol can hold me, not even a Dwarven one.”

The locksmiths growled and one of them said, “Next time, Waeran. Next time.”

Five days and four house-packed performances later found the Warrows waiting alongside Pendwyr Road for the southbound Red Coach to appear. With them were Brekka and Anvar.

“Where will you go?” asked Anvar.

“Argon Ford Town,” said Pipper.

“And then maybe to Rivers End,” said Binkton.

“But ultimately to Caer Pendwyr, where we hope to open our own theater and music hall,” said Pipper.

“You’ll need a King’s license to do so,” said Brekka, “and those are difficult to come by.”

“To say nothing of the cost,” said Anvar.

“Well, if all folks reward us like your DelfLord did, the coin shouldn’t be too hard to acquire,” said Binkton.

“Here comes your ride,” said Brekka, pointing up the road.

The Red Coach rumbled to a stop alongside the junction, and no one got off. Anvar and Brekka hoisted the trunk up to the footmen atop, and then stepped back.

“Take care, my friends,” said Anvar, “especially in Rivers End. They say it’s a rough place, what with Rivermen and the like prowling the streets.”

“I think they can handle themselves,” said Brekka. “After all, I’ve seen them in action.” Then he turned to the buccen and added, “Nevertheless, Anvar’s advice is good, so watch out for those who would do you harm.”

“Don’t worry, we will,” said Pipper, and he and Binkton clambered aboard the Red Coach, and the driver clucked his tongue and cracked his whip and off toward the mighty Argon River they went.