Kings Of The North Part 18

"Defilement," the gnome said from the darkness ahead. "The mageborn cleft the stone to carry away their filth, long ago in your time; they dirtied clean stone, being too lazy to carry it away to the fields. The dwarf opened too close to it-"

"Sewers," Arvid said, in Common. "Our name for such tunnels. If this is at all like other mageborn work I've seen, there will be a place to walk alongside. Is there an opening?"

"It is poison!" the gnome said.

"Not if we do not drink of it. Or have open-alas, I do have an open wound, and you are wiser than I."

Past the stench, farther and farther. His knees hurt; his shoulders complained; his hands felt raw. He could feel warm blood trickling from the bandage he'd tied on his arm; he could scarcely bear weight on that hand. He tried walking in a crouch, one hand up to ward his head from the stone above, but that hurt as much after a short time. He was more and more tired of this, and afraid of being trapped. He forebore to ask the gnome how much farther, for fear of hearing an answer that would wrench a complaint from him.

Then he smelled freshness in the air and saw dim light ahead...and then more light, defining the surface on which he crawled, the gnome's shadow on it clearer and clearer. Was it daylight already? It could be. He stayed on hands and knees until at last the rock above him receded. The gnome waited, hand out to help him rise, and he needed that help.

Morning sunlight blazed on the open land around him-not the city or its walls. They had come out the side of a hill that rose above them to the north and cut off the view to the west as well; to the east he saw a patchwork of fields and woods below.

"Where are we?" he asked. When he glanced at his injured arm, blood soaked the bandage he'd applied, glistening in the light.

"A half-day's walk from Fin Panir," the gnome said, "over the land, that is. It is shorter, under the ground, but you, my lord-you are sore wounded. I know where clean water is, and herbs for your wound."

"I must go back," Arvid said. "I must tell them-"

"Not now," the gnome said. "Stone comforts me," he said in response to Arvid's look of surprise. "We were under stone for hours; though it could not restore my strength completely, it removed the taint of the drug he used."

Arvid felt the bright sun fading, the light going gray, and the next he knew he was lying on half his own cloak, with the other half pulled up to form a shade. Footsteps neared, a slight crunch on the pebbles, and then the gnome handed him a bowl. "Drink, my lord. It is good water."

"Thank you," Arvid said.

"And now I will clean your wound. Close your eyes; I must move the shade."

Instead, Arvid turned his head and watched as the gnome took down the shade and laid that half of the cloak flat. On that he set the carafe, a pile of herbs whose clean sharp smell tickled Arvid's nose, and one of Arvid's small knives, gleaming in the sun.

The wound, revealed, oozed blood and looked already swollen. The gnome, gently enough, bathed it with water and what had been, Arvid realized, his own handkerchief, the lace-edged one he used to prove solvency from time to time.

"It's not that bad," Arvid said, though he never liked seeing his own flesh torn.

"A clean slash," the gnome agreed. "But needing to be purified, and I have no numbweed or even ale."

"Be at ease," Arvid said. "I have felt worse."

The gnome, he decided, could have taught the healers he'd used before a thing or two about wound cleaning; he had to use every technique he knew not to cry out before the gnome had the wound packed with herbs and rebandaged. But when it was done, he could feel a change in his arm-pain, but a cleaner pain. The rag of his sleeve, blood-soaked, the gnome had rolled up and tossed away, washing his hands after.

"And now you must chew these leaves," the gnome said. "They do not ease pain at all, but they will strengthen your blood."

Arvid chewed them-a bitter, sour taste but not disgusting-and after that was able to sit up, back against a rock. "Thank you," he said. "If it is acceptable, I consider your debt discharged."

"No," the gnome said. "It cannot be. It does not balance. Without my aid, if indeed the dwarf had killed me, you would have gone down the pa.s.sage anyway, would you not?"

"Well...yes."

"And I perceive you to be a man of strength and determination; you would have made it to the opening. Your wound was serious, but not immediately fatal; you could possibly have found aid at a farm, and would have found water. So by my honor I am still in your debt."

The implications of the night's events came into Arvid's mind: what had happened, and what the Girdsmen would think of what had happened. Their knights entombed in rock that now blocked the pa.s.sage...his absence...and, if they did manage to break through, a dead dwarf, a missing gnome and master thief, and no jewel or gold. They would be after him, as furious as hornets whose nest had been kicked. And he afoot, without his purse...and no Thieves' Guild hostel nearer than Tsaia. Only one thing might work.

"I must go back," Arvid said. "I cannot think you would wish to return."

The gnome shrugged. "In reality, I did nothing against their law: I was overpowered, and by human law that makes innocence, does it not?"

"Ye-es," Arvid said. "But will they believe it? I fear I have damaged your reputation, for I told them you and the dwarf were talking thievery-that's why I was there, alone."

The gnome shrugged. "But you erred. Do you not remember I expressed shock at the dwarf's plan? Or was that before you came?"

"I heard that-I had forgotten. My pardon."

"We can stand surety for each other's tale," the gnome said. "Your wound also speaks for you, and if you speak for me-"

"Then we had best start," Arvid said. The herbs had cleared his head and steadied him; he would have preferred an excellent lunch, a bath, and a long nap, but he had seen hard times often before. He was able to stand, and the gnome pointed northward.

"From the top of this hill, you can see the city," he said. "But there is a sheep trail easier to follow."

"I am glad," Arvid said. Standing, in the full force of the midday sun, without his hat, he felt unsteady at first. He hung his cloak from his head, for that small protection, and smiled down at the gnome. "Let us be off, then."

"Is it not a problem for you humans to leave your blood behind?" the gnome asked, pointing to the blood-soaked rag of his sleeve.

"There are no blood-mages in Fintha," Arvid said. "Girdish don't allow them."

The gnome gave a curious rasping sound. "Human blood-mages are not the only ones who work magic with blood." blood-mages are not the only ones who work magic with blood."

"Then what?" Arvid asked.

"Bury it deep or take it along and do so later. I have no strength to do it without tools."

"I have pockets in my cloak," Arvid said. He stuffed the stiffened thing into one of them, and they headed for the city along the sheep trail on the side of the hill.

Heat beat up from the rock outcrops on the hill, intensified the smell of sheep droppings and wool. Arvid told himself it was only the heat that made him unsteady enough to stumble now and then. A hot breeze came up from the land below, smelling of hay and flowers. To the east, clouds gathered slowly into clumps, then more swiftly into towers, dark at the base. It would rain-might already be raining-there, but here on the uplands the sun reigned.

Around the shoulder of the hill, Arvid caught a glimpse of the city wall in the distance. It seemed near and far at once, as if he had doubled vision showing the real distance and his sense of how fast he could travel. He glanced at the gnome. "Do you think we can make it by sundown?"

"I do not know all the country," the gnome said, "but I do know there is no chasm or steep between here and there." He squinted. "If that is a gate-if there is a gate on this side-we should find a road soon."

In another three hundred paces they could see a road. Here and there a tree hung over it; Arvid longed for that shade. Once on the road, Arvid fixed his mind on staying upright and moving as steadily as he could; the gnome, at his side, said nothing until they came to a well, four trees, and a bench set ready for travelers.

"Water. We stop."

Arvid leaned on the well coping, feeling the cool damp air ease his face. The gnome was already up on the coping, working the windla.s.s. "I should-" Arvid began.

"My lord, sit on the bench. I will fetch water. I have still the carafe."

Arvid staggered to the bench; it felt a half-season cooler in the shade there. He let the cloak fall back from his head. The gnome brought the bucket back to the well coping, filled the carafe, and brought it to Arvid. After a bowlful of water, he felt a little better. The gnome drank, and then Arvid again. Now Arvid was aware of hunger, but no worse than he'd known other times. He wet his face and looked around. Under one of the trees, a few hardy summer flowers bloomed: blue sage, star-eye, tinset. He plucked one spray of tinset and laid it on the well coping; the gnome added the silvery-gray leaf of blue sage.

They had scarcely started again when a party on horseback, all in Gird's blue and white, rode up behind them and surrounded them.

"Ho, travelers-did you see aught of a man in black and-" The speaker paused. "You! You are that thief! And this must be-"

"I am not a thief," Arvid said. "I am Arvid Semminson, come to Fin Panir at the request of the Marshal-General, and this is my companion, who will share his name if he wishes."

"Liar!" The man, red-faced now, spurred his horse closer to Arvid. "You killed Girdish knights; you stole-"

"I killed a dwarf," Arvid said. "I killed no knights, nor did this gnome. I stole nothing."

"It is gone, and your horse and pack; you must have done it!"

"It" must mean the necklace. His horse, his pack? Had there been other thieves, and he had not noticed? In the meantime..."Do you see a horse and pack?" Arvid said. "If they are gone, someone stole them-it was not I, for if I had taken my own horse, I would be riding, not afoot."

"It threw you and ran off, and no wonder," the man said.

Arvid sighed. Girdsmen had heads like stone; facts shattered on their preconceptions. "I am not so ill a rider," he said instead. "I left my horse in the care of your stable, and my pack hanging from a peg in a guest room. If they are gone, then they were taken by someone else."

"Are you, a thief, accusing Girdsmen of thievery?"

"I accuse no one; I merely state the facts. If it is gone, someone else took it because I did not."

"Where were you last night and this day, then?" the man asked.

"Last night I was in the treasure chamber of Gird's Hall," Arvid said. "With the knowledge of your Marshals' council, I had baited that chamber with a sapphire and two pieces of gold. While I was there, as I had expected, the dwarf I warned Marshal Perin about made an entrance through the rock itself. He had overpowered this gnome, and stolen power from the gnome to make an entrance. The dwarf was angry and grew stone across the door I had used; the only way out was through the pa.s.sage he had created. I killed him, taking this wound-" He held up his arm. "I found the gnome still alive, and he led me through the pa.s.sage to the outside."

"You trusted him?"

"I had no choice," Arvid said. "I needed his help to get out of that place-I cannot burrow through stone."

"He is rockfolk; he could-"

"His power was spent; I told you. The dwarf stole it."

The man leaned forward, resting a forearm on his horse's neck. "Let me tell you another tale, Arvid Semminson, that I think runs truer than yours. You and these rockfolk planned the whole thing. You let them into the treasure chamber, after they burrowed along; together you killed the knights in the corridor, you taking that wound you show so proudly. Then you and the gnome came out the secret pa.s.sage; the dwarf meanwhile sealed the pa.s.sage with rock, bespelled those who watched the necklace, and made off with it and your horse and pack, and-since he failed to meet you at the appointed place-you came trailing back, feigning innocence, hoping to escape the just punishment you deserve."

The man sat up, drew his sword, and all around the circle of hors.e.m.e.n came the rasp of swords being drawn. "Liar," the man said. "Thief. You deserve death, and death you shall have, and we the reward for bringing back your corpse. Dead or alive, the High Marshal told us when we rode out. Dead it shall be."

Arvid did not move. "I have not yet told all I know about the paladin Paksenarrion," he said. "It is for that I was invited here. Do you think the Marshal-General will be pleased to know you silenced one she herself asked to speak?"

"You-!"

"I can be killed, if so she judges, after I have spoken of Paksenarrion. But I cannot speak, if you kill me now." He shrugged. "It is, of course, your decision."

"He is right, Pir," one of the others said. "And the Marshal-General should arrive today; it will do no harm to wait. We won't let him escape again."

Arvid considered pointing out that he hadn't "escaped" in the first place, and had been coming back on his own, but in view of the drawn swords held his peace.

"Very well," the first man said, with bad grace. "Then get a march on, you, and don't dawdle."

"Considering that I've had no sleep, no food since yesterday, and have a wound, and my companion is not at full strength either, you may have to accept a slower pace than you, riding, would find reasonable," Arvid said.

"A day's fast never hurt anyone," the man said, wheeling his horse discourteously close to Arvid.

"Pir-" one of the others said.

"I'll go tell them we found him," the man said, and spurred to a gallop. The others looked down at Arvid with less hostility.

"You could ride pillion," one of them said.

"I don't ride," said the gnome.

"It would be quicker," Arvid said to him, "but if you cannot ride, then I, too, will walk. My thanks," he said to the rider who had offered. He took a few steps forward, but standing in the heat had affected his balance, and he nearly fell, his vision darkening.

"My lord!" The gnome was at his side, a hard-muscled shoulder under his arm, helping him. "You cannot go on."

Arvid shook his head. "I can. It's just the standing-"

"No," said one of the Girdish. "It's not right." He dismounted and eased the reins over his mount's ears. "I will help you mount, and I will lead my horse."

"Torin, are you sure?"

"I am sure that it is not courteous to force a wounded man to walk such a distance in the heat, without food or water. And we must go at a foot-pace anyway, for the gnome's sake."

"Pir won't like it."

"Pir can-" The man swallowed whatever he might have said and offered Arvid his hands to mount. Arvid would have ignored that, but when he tried to raise his wounded arm to the saddle-bow, he could not. Mounted, he looked down at the gnome.

"I'm sorry-"

"It is nothing, my lord. I am quite able to walk."

Arvid draped his cloak over his head again. In such wise they made their way to the city faster than Arvid could have walked it, and neared the gate by late afternoon. He would have dismounted when they came to the gate, but his guide would have none of it.

"You do not need to exhaust yourself up the steep to the Hall."

They found the forecourt in some confusion. The Marshal-General had just arrived, having been overtaken by a search party sent out on the river road to catch the fugitives; it had returned with her. Others, sent north and west, had not yet returned. As well, two students had gone missing. Cl.u.s.ters of Marshals, knights, and staff were huddled here and there, all talking against one another.

In this chaos, the arrival of another seven riders caused no notice at first but to bring grooms running out to take the horses. Arvid slid off, wrenching his arm in the process; the gnome moved up close to him.

"There they are!" Pir, spotting them across the court and pointing, had a voice that affected Arvid like a squealing saw. "We found this one at least!"

Faces turned toward Arvid, including the Marshal-General. She came toward him, the others shifting out of her way, and looked him up and down.

"Arvid-you look the worse for wear."