Age of Swords Read online

  Arion said nothing and just closed her eyes while putting a quivering hand to her mouth.

  Suri looked over at Nyphron who remained sitting on the fallen birch, a smile on his lips. “Nothing at all,” he told her. “You did wonderfully.”

  Only then did Suri notice Rapnagar.

  The giant’s head had slipped farther, only the crown exposed above the surface, and it was crushed like an egg. Suri hadn’t opened the ground. She had closed it.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Small Solutions

  Roan was, without overstatement, the most intelligent person I have ever met. To our great misfortune, we did not realize this fact for far too long; to our great luck, we discovered it in the nick of time.

  —THE BOOK OF BRIN

  Persephone had grossly underestimated the time it would take to get her people moving. Even if Dahl Rhen hadn’t been destroyed, it would have taken weeks to evacuate. The people just didn’t know how to move a village of that size. Hundreds of years had passed since Clan Rhen was migratory, and the techniques of their nomadic ancestors were lost. She considered asking Brin to provide some insight. As the Keeper of Ways, Brin was the repository of their people’s history, but the girl was in no condition to think. Even if Persephone had been able to quiz her, the forebears had lived in a world much different from the current one. Their existence had been lean. They wouldn’t have been able to imagine the wealth amassed by future generations, and therefore they couldn’t help make decisions about what to bring and the things to leave behind.

  Adding to the task was the overwhelming grief. Most days Persephone spent time prodding people who’d become stagnant while sifting through debris. Just this morning, she had come across Eli the Miller as he struggled to pull a shoulder basket out of the remains of his home. When he spotted his daughter’s hair-tie in the wreckage, he stooped, picked it up, and then crumpled to the ground. Persephone gave him the next hour to cry, but then had to assign him a task or he would have been there all day.

  “How’s it going?” Moya asked, trotting over and catching Persephone near the well.

  “Slow…real slow.” She stopped and fixed the young woman with a harsh look. “Are you packed?”

  Moya’s face assumed one of her indignant expressions, consisting mostly of sour lips. “Let’s see…” She glanced down at herself. “I’m wearing my dress and have both my arms and legs, so yes, I’m packed.”

  “Good, then you can help carry food. Do you think you and someone else could carry one of the pots of wheat?”

  “Oh, sure. No problem. While we’re at it, would you like me to carry the miller’s stone too? Seph, that pot must weigh three hundred pounds.”

  She was right, of course, and Persephone nodded, adding another task to her already long list. “We’ll need bags, and lots of them. We’ll divide each urn among ten or fifteen people.” She sighed. “Even if every man, woman, and child carried a thirty-pound bag of wheat or barley, we still wouldn’t be able to take half of what’s in the storage pit, and it’s nearly empty. And what about the elderly? I can’t ask someone like Padera to haul a heavy load.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about her. She’s tougher than all of us. That old woman will likely carry a goat under each arm.”

  “We need to find a way to bring it all. What if Tirre refuses us? If they keep their doors barred, we’ll have to camp outside for who knows how long, surviving on only what we bring. They don’t have a forest to hunt in. And what happens in autumn when there’s no harvest for the coming winter?” Persephone turned, caught sight of the well, and sighed again. “And then there’s water. I know where there are a few small streams on the way, but in the middle of summer, they might be dry. We’ll need a lot of water.”

  Moya nodded and pointed in the direction of Dahl Rhen’s patron god. “And what about Mari? She’s none too light.”

  “Oh, for the love of Elan, I almost forgot.” Persephone looked over at the stone statue. “I don’t think abandoning our god is a wise idea right now.”

  “Exactly.” Moya nodded toward the Galantians, who were clustered around more than a dozen jugs of Bergin’s beer. More than half of the containers were empty, lying on their sides. They hadn’t stopped celebrating their victory since the battle with the giants. “Maybe Grygor could carry her.”

  The two walked over to the group.

  “And then Sebek, he runs right for the biggest one,” Vorath was saying. The stocky Fhrey with the fledgling beard stood before the others, gesturing broadly with a cup that sloshed over the brim.

  “Just trying to get ahead of my javelins,” Eres said.

  “We could use some help packing up,” Persephone told them, and folded her arms in what she hoped was a commanding manner. She looked around their circle for Nyphron but failed to spot him, which did nothing for her confidence.

  They all looked at Persephone for a moment. Then Sebek, with as charming a smile as she’d ever seen, said, “We are helping. We’re working hard to lighten the weight of beer that needs transporting.”

  They all laughed.

  Persephone waited for it to calm, then asked, “Where is Nyphron?”

  “Went off with the Miralyith and that mystic this morning.”

  “Great,” she muttered.

  “Why don’t you join us?”

  “Sorry, I have a village to save.”

  “Moya,” Tekchin said, “you can stay, can’t you? I saved you a place on my lap.”

  “There’s always plenty of room there, because there’s precious little else to get in the way,” the young woman replied.

  Tekchin’s eyebrows shot up, and Sebek laughed so hard he fell off the broken log he’d been sitting on.

  Moya opened her mouth once more, but Persephone latched on to her wrist and dragged her away.

  “Why do you always do that?” she asked. “Why do you antagonize them?”

  “They’re warriors, Seph.” Moya pulled her arm back. “You think kissing their ass is the way to impress them?”

  Persephone was still pondering the question when she spotted Raithe and Malcolm trudging up the recently cleared eastern walkway.

  “There you are,” Raithe said. “Hard to find anyone anymore.” Both men were slick with sweat. Raithe had bundled his shirt into a bag made from his leigh mor and hung it from his belt.

  “We saved twenty-three sheep,” Malcolm said. “Found most of them nicely clustered in a little valley a few miles to the northeast. They were a pleasant lot, but a handful led us on a merry chase. Habet and Cobb are watching them.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Persephone said, and she meant it, though her tone was less than happy. The efforts to round up the scattered flock served to remind her that Gelston, the shepherd, was barely alive, and Delwin was dead. Then she couldn’t resist thinking about Sarah, Brin’s mother and Persephone’s best friend. She bit her lip, sucked in a quick breath, and walked on, struggling to beat down the emotion.

  We still have so much to do.

  Persephone’s feet led her to the area cleared for packing. Bundles of the spring’s wool harvest were piled, waiting to be carded, spun, and woven into cloth. If Sarah were there…Persephone squeezed her quivering mouth closed. As she fought back tears, she saw the three Dherg sitting on the far side of the wool piles, lounging in the bundles as if they were giant pillows. Emotion boiled up. Tears or rage were her choices, and Persephone didn’t have the luxury of appearing weak.

  “What are you still doing here?” she shouted at them.

  They jumped, but for a moment none of them said a word.

  “We…ah…would like to talk to the one you call Arion, the bald Fhrey. You see we have a problem that—”

  “Arion isn’t here right now, and if she were, she wouldn’t have time to be bothered. Neither do I. Can’t you see how busy we are?”

  Frost started to say something but Persephone became distracted by what she saw over his shoulder.

  “Roan?” she yelled. “
What in Mari’s name are you doing?”

  Roan’s old roundhouse—the one originally built by Iver the woodcarver—had been reduced to little more than a lean-to by the foot of a giant. One pole remained upright and held a single crossbeam in place, but that was enough to grant her cave-like access to most of the tools and supplies. She and Gifford worked out front. He was hammering on what appeared to be a giant wooden box.

  Both Roan and Gifford paused in their fevered labor to look at her, each with a guilty expression.

  “Roan,” Persephone said, walking past the wool and the Dherg to confront the two. “I thought I made myself clear. You of all people need to get your things together.” She looked at the chisels, mallets, and ax spread out on the ground. “We need to hurry. You know that! Why are you still—”

  “Woan got an idea when she was helping me pack my spinning table,” Gifford said.

  “Roan always gets ideas!” Persephone nearly screamed in frustration. “We have no time for her ideas. We need to pack up and get out of here. I have no clue when the next attack is coming, but if we’re still here when it arrives, we’re all going to die. Do you understand that idea? We have no gate anymore, Roan. No protection, and the Fhrey are getting drunk!”

  Clutching Gifford’s large, round pottery table to her chest, Roan retreated toward the devastation of her home.

  Gifford shoved himself as upright as possible and hobbled toward Persephone. “This idea is impowtant,” he said as firmly as his lisp allowed. Leaning heavily on his crutch, his twisted back and dead leg made him a tragically comic figure, but Persephone saw fire in his eyes, a familiar sight.

  We’ll do it together, Aria had said on a day long ago when Persephone’s shortcoming had ended their friendship. She saw the intensity of her childhood friend’s stare again, this time through the eyes of Aria’s son. That stopped Persephone, and she looked past Gifford to Roan, whose lower lip was trembling.

  I didn’t mean to upset her. I didn’t mean to yell. I was just so…Persephone felt tears bubbling up again. “Okay, I’m sorry. Tell me. What is this great idea?”

  Roan stared at her a moment, then said, “No, I’m the one who should apologize. I didn’t…I didn’t think it would take so long. We’ll stop, and I’ll get packed.” Roan set down the pottery table and began picking up her tools, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  “Tell me the idea, Roan,” Persephone said, softer still.

  Roan straightened up and wiped her face. She looked at Gifford, who nodded his support. Walking over to where he’d been hammering, she retrieved a long pole.

  She wiped her cheeks again. “Gifford was sad because his pottery table is too heavy to move. Well, it’s round, so I thought maybe we could roll it. You know how we move rocks, right?” Roan asked.

  Persephone shrugged.

  “Well, we put them on a sled with logs underneath and then push. When a log comes out from underneath, we pick it up and put it in front of the others and keep pushing. It’s a lot of work moving those heavy logs, and it’s hard pushing the sled over them, but look…”

  Placing the pole into the hole at the center of the table, she tilted the large round stone up on its side. She swung the pole, and the pottery table moved easily along an arc. “Now imagine another pottery table, just like this one, on the other end of the pole. Then, if that big box”—she pointed at the wood Gifford had been hammering when Persephone first came over—“was sitting on top of the pole, we could put stuff in it.”

  “So what are you saying? Could we put pots of wheat and barley in the box and move heavy things?”

  Roan nodded. “It reduces rubbing. Instead of the entire surface of a sled grinding against a set of logs, all the weight is on just two small points.” Roan indicated where the pole passed through the disk. “I’ll put pins on the ends to keep them on.” Then her face saddened. “But it’ll take time to make the other side. It took nearly a week to chisel Gifford’s first table. But if I work real hard…I don’t sleep much, you know…and I could work on it night and day, then—”

  “She’s made a wheel,” Frost said as the three Dherg strode over.

  “She’s put a pottery table on the end of a pole,” Moya said.

  Frost’s bushy eyebrows knit together and he looked amused, as if she’d made a joke. “Don’t you people know what a wheel is?”

  Silence.

  The three Dherg laughed.

  “Wow. So she didn’t make a wheel,” Frost said and looked at Roan with newfound respect. “You made the wheel. The first one invented by your kind, I’m guessing. Very impressive in a sad and stunningly pathetic sort of way.”

  “Don’t call Woan pathetic!” Gifford said, the fire once more in his eyes. “She’s bwilliant.”

  Frost scowled. “Belgriclungreians have used the wheel for hundreds of years, mostly in mines. We put carts on them. That’s like what the cripple is making. Our wheels are made of metal, as are the axles. That’s what the pole part is called. We move thousands of pounds of rock with them.”

  “Thousands? How many Belgric…Belgriclung…oh, blessed Grand Mother! There must be an easier way of referring to your kind that isn’t as insulting as Dher…well, that Fhrey word. How about Bels?”

  Scowls all around. “We don’t jingle.”

  Persephone had no idea what that meant.

  “How about little men?” Roan asked.

  Flood’s brow rose. “We are not men! And our size is perfect. It’s your kind that is freakishly tall.”

  “But you are little. How about dwarfs?” Persephone said. “You know, like dwarf rabbits or dwarf wheat. They are smaller but just as good. In the case of dwarf wheat, it’s even better because we get higher yields with less acreage. Would that be okay?”

  The two frowned but shrugged.

  “Fine. So, how many dwarfs would it take to move a thousand pounds with your carts?”

  “On level ground? One.”

  “One?”

  “Well, it takes a bit of effort to get it rolling, but then not much at all. Of course we affix our wheels to the axles and grease the bearings.”

  “Grease the bearings?” Roan asked, looking at the little man with stern intensity.

  “Yeah, at the places where the axles rub on the wheels.”

  Roan nodded, a smile forming.

  “Without using metal,” Persephone said, “doing what she’s trying to do here, could this thing carry a lot of clay urns of wheat and barley? And what about jugs of water and beer?”

  “Easily,” Frost said. “But why not use barrels? They’d be much lighter.”

  “What’s a barrel?” Persephone and Roan asked together.

  Frost raised his hands in exasperation. “I’m starting to understand why the Fhrey refer to your kind as Rhunes. A barrel uses planks of wood bound with hoops of metal. Smaller than your pithos, but they weigh a fraction of all that clay.”

  “And that, what did you call it, wheel? Could you help Roan carve more of them so we could make several of these carts?”

  “Well, we could…but it’d be faster to down one of those huge trees from the forest and just saw disks from its trunk.”

  “Saw?” Roan asked.

  Frost rolled his eyes. “Dear Drome, are you really so backward? Yes, a saw is used to cut through wood. We could use one to make wooden wheels and staves for the barrel.”

  “And how long would that take?” Persephone asked.

  “Well, not long if we could get our hands on some metal. Rain, do you think you could dig some up?”

  He nodded. “The surface around these parts has been picked clean, but there is plenty below.”

  “I’ll make you a deal,” Persephone said. “You help Roan, and I’ll ask Arion to talk with you. Agreed?”

  “Agreed.” Frost nodded.

  “What do you say, Roan? Wanna work with the dwarfs and learn to make some new things?”

  Tears were back in Roan’s eyes. She nodded enthusiastically while Gifford bea
med a smile in her direction.

  —

  In less than three days, the Dherg had helped Roan create six carts and more than a dozen barrels, which were truly remarkable. When first filled with liquid, they leaked, but then the wood swelled and the metal bands held the staves in place until not a single drop escaped. Not only was Persephone able to pack up every last grain in the storage pit, but she had six full barrels of water to ensure that the people of Dahl Rhen wouldn’t go thirsty on the trip even if the streams along the way were bone-dry from the summer’s heat.

  The saw was an even greater miracle. With it, a dozen wheels had been created in just a few hours, simply by slicing through the trunk of a large tree they felled at the eaves of the forest. Watching two of the Dherg push and pull it back and forth was a comical sight. Especially since they argued constantly.

  With the tasks completed, it was time for Persephone to honor her promise, and she offered to act as an intermediary. She’d already obtained Arion’s consent to the meeting, and given how helpful the Dherg had been, she wanted it to go well. Besides, the Dherg were better at speaking Rhunic than Fhrey and she didn’t want any mistakes in communication to cause a rift before their request was fully aired. She led the three over to a small lean-to that was acting as Arion’s living quarters.

  “Is now a good time?” Persephone asked in Fhrey.

  “Good as any.”

  Persephone was impressed with the change in the Dherg’s demeanor. Gone was the hostility and distrust, and they reverently bowed in greeting. “As I mentioned, the dwarfs have been very helpful. Our travel to Tirre will be much easier. They have a problem and would like to speak to you.”

  “Dwarfs?”

  “Yes, that’s what we’re calling them now. Can I impose on you for their audience?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Persephone smiled, stepped back, and Frost came forward. “Flood and I are from Nye, that’s a small town in the south of Belgreig. We met Rain in Neith.”

  Persephone translated for Arion, “These three live in a city across the sea.” Then to Frost she said, “I’ve heard of Neith. That’s directly across the Blue Sea from Dahl Tirre. It’s near Caric, right?”