Scream of Stone

24

5Marpenoth, the Year of the Unstrung Harp (1371 DR) The Canal Site

"By Thard Harr’s belt-bustin’ gut,” Hrothgar growled at the gray sky, “I think I might be gettin’ used to all this constant drippin’.”

Surero smiled at the wet dwarf, his long beard pasted to his leather apron. His boots were sunk as much as an inch deeper into the mud than Surero’s, though the alchemist had two feet in height on the stonemason from the Great Rift.

“Careful, there, Hrothgar,” the dwarfs distant cousin Vrengarl warned. “Sayin’ things like that out loud in front of all these humans… people’ll think you’ve gone soft.”

Hrothgar puffed out a scoffing laugh and said, “Then they’ll see how soft my boot is when I stick it up their”

Surero looked up when the dwarf stopped speaking. Hrothgar had lifted one foot out of the mud, and the deep brown dirt fell off it in clumps.

“Well, maybe that wouldn’t feel so hard after all,” he said.

The two dwarves shared a loud, raucous laugh, and Surero joined them, only a little more quietly. He’d been uneasy since word had begun to filter through the camp of the murder of Horemkensi.

Devorast, who worked at Surero’s side at that very moment, measuring the depth of the holes they dug in the wet ground to set kegs of smokepowder, had refused to discuss the murder in detail. Surero knew that Devorast hadn’t arranged the man’s death, though by all rights he should have. And something about that made the crime all the more disturbing to Surero.

Whoever had killed Horemkensi likely had his eye on the canal, either to seize control of the construction, or to once again put a stop to it. Either way, it would interfere with their work, and whoever this new player was, surely he wouldn’t be as easy to fool as Horemkensi had been.

Surero had suggested that Devorast step up and publicly reclaim the realization of his own genius, but that, at least as of yet, didn’t happen. Devorast seemed maddeningly content just to do the work, leaving the credit to whomever was in that position upon its completion.

“That’s deep enough,” Devorast said, standing and flicking mud off his hands.

“Well, let us get out of here before you bring in that smokepowder,” Hrothgar insisted. “That boomin’ o’ yours hurts my delicate ears.”

“And we wouldn’t want you to have any trouble listenin’ to yourself whine, now would we?” Vrengarl shot back.

“How Tsout we test the hardness of my muddy boots on your disrespectful arse, eh?” Hrothgar said as the two dwarves scrambled up the muddy side of the shallow trench.

“You can try,” Vrengarl replied, “but let’s do it back at camp. I’m hungry.”

The dwarves complained and threatened and harrassed each other until they finally crested a hill and disappeared from sight. Devorast watched them go with a strange expression.

“Is something?” Surero began, but Devorast held up a hand to silence him. He was listening, and Surero did the same.

All the alchemist heard was the rumble of the rain pounding the saturated ground.

Devorast reached out, grabbed Surero’s arm,’ and pulled him down into the mud. The alchemist gasped, then spat dirty water out of his mouth. He almost spoke, then he heard ita leathery rustle.

A bird, he thought, but a big one. Too big.

Surero looked up into the driving rain, squinting, but the clouds were low and dark, and he couldn’t see anything above them. The sound was gone anyway.

“What is it?” he whispered to Devorast, who drew the long knife he’d taken to carryingmore as a tool than a weapon. Surero had nothing like a weapon himself.

“I think you will find,” a stern, deep voice came from above them, “that you will live longer if you throw the knife away and submit.”

Surero saw Devorast wince at the sound of that word, “submit,” then he looked up to the lip of the trench, which was only a few inches above his head. A man dressed entirely in black armor, with a long black weathercloak fluttering in the wind, stood looking down at them. His long sword was sheathed at his belt, and his hands were at his side, hanging loose, but Surero could feel a tension there, and he knew that the man could draw and strike in the blink of an eye.

“You are Ivar Devorast,” the man said.

Devorast stepped away from the wall of the trench to get a better look at the man, and Surero heard the flapping of wings again. On the other side of the trench, only a few yards away, a strange creature like a tiny black dragontiny for a dragon, but still a bit larger than the biggest man Surero had ever seenalit in the mud and stared at them with smoldering red eyes that glowed in the dim light.

More black figures emerged from the rain, some human, some not.

“We’re surrounded,” the alchemist breathed.

The man in black laugheda cold, humorless sound and said, “Indeed. Master Devorast… the knife?”

“Ivar?” Surero said. His hands started to shake, then his knees. He couldn’t make himself decide if he wanted Devorast to drop the knife and “submit,” or lunge at the man in black and fight for their lives.

Devorast tossed the knife away without a word, and it sank halfway in the mud on the floor of the trench. The black monster on the other side of the trench ruffled its wings and gnashed its teeth, and Surero couldn’t help thinking the thing was disappointed.

“I am Captain Olin of the ransar’s black firedrakes,” the man in the black armor said. “I have come on the orders of Ransar Pristoleph to place you both under arrest for the murder of Senator Horemkensi.”

Surero’s heart sank and his hands began to tingle and go numb.

Don’t faint, he told himself. Do what Ivar does.

Devorast heaved a tired sigh, seemed not the slightest bit surprised, and said nothing.

“We didn’t kill him,” Surero heard himself say, then he coughed and clenched his teeth together hard.

“I don’t care,” said Captain Olin.