Wrought of Iron and Silk, Book One [2014 Watty Award Winner]

Chapter 17 - The End Times

Chapter 17 – The End Times

The messenger from the village of Eredor was neither tall nor stern, and if anything he was considerably younger than the dwarves of the Trellheim. Lightly mustached and not yet showing more than a trace of beard, but he had a wiry, wild sort of dignity, even with his mouse-colored hair worked loose from its braids to straggle into his eyes, sweat plastering stray strands to his cheeks and forehead.

"Ori," the dwarf said, and then his eyes flicked curiously to Cecilia.

Ori made no introductions, so Cecilia spoke her name, which seemed to satisfy the messenger. Around the camp, others were watching, but the messenger pitched his voice low, so that it would not carry. "The dwarves of Eredor bid your forces greeting, Ori – and Raven, as well."

It was obviously the messenger's own addendum, but Cecilia found she appreciated the gesture. "Kari. The news is ill," Ori said, not quite asking, with a glance to Kari for permission. Kari shifted his weight back, folding his arms.

"Eredor is holding, although not comfortably. The wolf-king had aided us a great deal. But we must be ready to push forward in the spring so that Nidavellir can reclaim the Outer Lands." Kari looked at Cecilia. "The Elders wish for me to bring the remaining forces to the frontlines."

"The wounded too?" Cecilia asked.

"Everyone. Messengers have gone to every camp. The Elders think to let the entire army defend Eredor. With so many dwarves rallied we need the Trellheim on the lines in the rear."

Keeping order. That's what the Trellheim did.

Kari crossed his arms and frowned. "So it will be. Ori, will you and Raven see to the comfort of the wounded?"

"I will," Cecilia said, because there was nothing else she could have said – but inside, her gut twisted around the undercurrents, the things neither Kari nor Ori were saying about what this new strategy meant.

Kari watched Ori walk away in search of the others, and then turned back to Cecilia with a shy half smile shading his mouth. "They say you kill trolls with magic," he offered, as if holding out for inspection.

"Come," Cecilia said, brushing aside the implied question, with its freight of awe. "Let us look in on the others. I will introduce you to my sheildmates and you can bed down with them, if you like."

The shy smile turned blinding. "I'd like that."

❧

A slight intake of breath stopped Loki halfway down the long stairway, as he paused and looked down at palace gardens come alive before him. The landscape was inner and outer, in both senses: indoors and somehow within the realm of the imagination. And it was outer: seeming to be outdoors, and within the realm of physical reality. The time was both day and night inside the candlelit space, the rulers of light and shadow held equal sway in the canopy above.

Although the wedding took place in the heat of summer, the floor was strewn with leaves, and the painted winter scene was in the warm colors of spring or autumn pinks. The space was paradoxical, a threshold where Belle and Njord would die as single man and woman and give birth to their marriage. Light Elves believed their marriage was something living, and therefore requiring warmth, light, nourishment, work, rest and celebration.

Watching Freyr guide Njord to a table in the lower hall; Loki noted that men-at-arms stood by. The Alfheim cavalry, three hundred proud elves, gathered before the colossal wooden gates that provided the main ingress and egress from the palace. Those gates had not been open in thousands of years. Behind the riders, companies of elven infantry gathered in a long column. Some of these collected in the alleys and passages leading to the main corridors, for there wasn't enough open space for all of the troops, some ten thousand in number, to form up before the gates. The infantry included pike and longbow, plus many with sword and shield. The elves stood or paced restlessly, watching them, as if fearing mischief.