Oberon's Dreams (25 page)

“Bought and sold,” Ephitel said, while he primed another shot. “They’re hungry little curs, and I had food.”

“You used your soldiers’ rations? How did you feed the regiments?”

Ephitel laughed. “They are all enterprising men. I let them feed themselves.”

Just like a Vestossi
, Corin thought.
This is how tyrants reason.
He pretended surprise. “Does that not risk the anger of the farmers?”

Ephitel sneered. “What do I care for some manling’s ire?”

“But Oberon—”

“He’s lost his grip,” Ephitel said. “That’s the beauty of my plan. I bought the resources I need with rations Oberon gave me, from dwarves made desperate for food by choices Oberon has made.”

“What choices?”

“You don’t know? Oh yes, you are a manling outside time.” He laughed. “Oberon always feared the dwarves. He feared the change that comes with guns and cannons. He feared their powder would lead to another yesterworld.”

“But isn’t he the creator? Why make dwarves if he feared them?”

“Make dwarves? Ha! Only manlings can be made. He
brought
the dwarves, and he brought them because he needed their artifice to build Hurope. He hoped to limit their threat by limiting their numbers. He embargoed trade in food and left them hungry, or I never could have bought the powder that will end Oberon’s reign. There’s a pleasing poetry, don’t you think?”

“I’ll call it treachery and nothing else,” Corin said. “Even with the gun, how can you hope to beat a god?”

Ephitel hesitated. His gaze flicked toward the cavern, and Corin realized he’d made a mistake. He’d hoped to learn some of the prince’s plans, but he’d reminded him about the sword.

“Where
has
your Violet gone off to?”

Corin’s mind raced, desperate to find some other distraction, but he could think of nothing.

Kellen moved. He’d stopped screaming some time ago, and now he struggled to his feet. He had to use the wall to support his weight, leaning awkwardly against it as he forced himself up in erratic jerks. His right arm hung limp, the sleeve soaked with blood. Corin started over to him to offer aid, but Ephitel said, “No. Stand where you are.”

Corin would not have obeyed him, even with that terrible gun trained on him, but Ephitel now aimed at Kellen. When he saw Corin’s complacency, the prince nodded. “I want to see what Kellen has become.”

A hero
, Corin thought. Every motion clearly pained him, but the yeoman held his feet, burying his agony behind an arrogant stare for Ephitel. He risked his life to buy a bit more time for Avery.

“I am only what I’ve always been,” Kellen said. His voice was weak and ragged. “I am my father’s son, and I am loyal to the king.”

Ephitel spat. “You are a coward who has never bloodied his inherited blade. I should have dismissed you long ago.”

Kellen held the prince’s eyes. “I have bloodied it now. I felled three of your men upstairs before some…some
coward
threw a blanket over me.” He grinned, relishing the word. “You have stained my name in all Gesoelig because I hesitate to steal a farmer’s food. Because I hesitate to beat your enemies to death. Because I’m loyal to the king and to the law. But I will not hesitate to fight your treachery. I will spend my life defying you.”

With his head to one side, Ephitel stared at the yeoman. “You really mean it, don’t you? Well. Your father would be proud. I never thought I’d say that to a Kellen.”

Kellen groaned, sinking lower down the wall as his strength faded. Ephitel chuckled. “So very like your father. Did you know I killed him, too?”

Kellen’s eyes went wide, though from surprise or pain, Corin didn’t know. The yeoman sucked a ragged breath and wheezed. “You did not. He died a hero. In the Pyren Pass. You were at the siege of Old Maedred.”

Ephitel nodded. “Playing cards and drinking tea. It is a boring task, sitting a siege.”

Kellen shook his head. “No. You warred against the heathens—”

Ephitel smiled. “We
watched
the heathens. We sat and waited while they starved. And when reinforcements tried to come by the Pyren Pass—”

Kellen sobbed, sinking farther down the wall. He was bent double now, every breath a labor.

Ephitel’s grin widened as he watched the yeoman suffer. “I have never told a soul, but I received your father’s message.”

Kellen shook his head, the only answer he could muster.

“I did,” Ephitel said. “That attack was no surprise. I could have spared a hundred men to hold the pass, and no one ever would have known your father’s name. Instead, I made him a hero, and you became the penance for my sin. If I had ever guessed there was true mettle in you, I would have made you something useful.”

“No!” Kellen growled. “I would never serve you!”

“Then I would have killed you long ago and saved myself the shot now.” He lowered the gun to finish the task, and Corin tensed himself to spring, hoping he could knock the gun aside.

But Ephitel withdrew the gun. “No. I needn’t bother. You’re dying from a flesh wound. How pathetic.”

“I…am not…done yet,” Kellen gasped.

“Nor am I,” Ephitel said. “You’ll get to watch your little manling die, for one.”

He lowered the gun again, this time at Corin. And this time he didn’t think it over. He pulled the trigger.

Caught up as he was in other plans, Corin didn’t think to dodge until it was too late. But Kellen moved as soon as Ephitel made his threat. The yeoman straightened with a cry of agony and hurled himself forward. He didn’t aim for the prince’s firing arm as Corin had considered. The soldier was too weak and much too far away. Instead, Kellen the Coward dove between Ephitel and his target. The shot meant for Corin struck the wounded soldier somewhere in his torso, and Kellen crashed down to the floor.

Ephitel rolled his eyes. “How many times do I have to kill you?” He spun his barrel and reloaded the gun.

Frantic, Corin looked to the far corner, but Kellen’s sword would not save them. He looked back into the cavern, hoping desperately to find Avery waiting with the legendary blade, but he saw only shadows. He watched Ephitel tip a bit more powder into the priming pan…

And he had an idea. A gunshot hadn’t killed the invulnerable elf, but it had staggered him. It had hurt him, clear enough. Perhaps the same again could buy them time. Corin lunged toward Kellen, throwing his cloak up over both of them just to complicate the prince’s aim. Then he grabbed for the inner pocket where he had stashed the clever little paper shot. He tore the paper with his thumbnail, then peeked past his cloak just as Ephitel lowered the gun. Corin twisted, throwing his pitiful half handful of black powder straight at Ephitel’s face.

Ephitel flinched even as he pulled the trigger. Another crack of harnessed thunder, another flash of tamed hellfire, and this time there was a cloud of dust to catch the flame. It exploded like a solstice rocket in the prince’s face.

Ephitel screamed. It was a banshee’s maddening wail. Corin knew the feeling all too well. Nothing burned quite like dwarven powder. It seared sharper, deeper than any normal flame, and left a wicked stain within the mind. He hadn’t fired a cannon since the accident off Spinola’s coast. He avoided even getting near the stuff.

Now it was the prince’s turn to burn. Even if that wound would heal, it seared right now. Ephitel dropped the gun and batted at his own face, panicking. He shuddered like a tree caught in a gale. Then, with a dreadful wail, he spun and sprinted off into his catacombs, leaving Corin and Kellen there alone.

Corin fought to catch his breath, trying desperately to guess what he should do first. Kellen was clearly dying. Avery was lost. Corin had to find the sword and warn the king. But Ephitel might regain control at any time. His guards might come. All the dangers spun in Corin’s head like a tinker’s child’s toy while he sought how to use this tiny chance.

Then a voice spoke from the darkness behind him. “Pardon me, manling.” From very near behind him. “But
that
was our master.”

Corin dropped his cloak and turned to see who had found him. It was the dwarf who’d done the talking earlier. And he was not alone. The others stood behind him.
All
the others. A dwarven army caught in treachery, and none of them looked happy.

Corin spotted Avery among the dwarves, his hands and feet tied up and a gag over his mouth. He saw the sword as well, held reverentially by one of Avery’s wardens.

Corin fought against a feverish laugh, bottled it up, and met the lead dwarf’s eyes with all the sincerity he could muster. “I’m sorry. You should find a better one.”

“Ah,” Corin said, as the spinning in his head began to settle. “I guess it was the Ephitel business that brought you down.”

Ogden frowned. “I think I should be offended.” Then he hung his head. “But then, you have a point at that. You have a strange way of making it, but it’s a fair point all the same. Ehrin, Durhl, come see what you can do for this poor sod. Biffin, cut the slick one loose.”

One of the others who had come with Ogden in the coach bustled forward and grabbed his chieftain’s coat. “What are you doing?”

“What we should have done a week ago. Or from the very start.”

“But Oberon will have our heads!”

“He’ll have ’em all the same,” Ogden said. “Or Ephitel, if he wins out. You heard how he talked of the jailers, and they’re his men. They’re his own kind. He wouldn’t treat us well once his need is done.”

“You’re right at that,” Corin said. “I have seen it more than once.”

“But the payment!” the other dwarf cried.

Ogden shook his head. “It was never worth the price. And now he’s demanding more than we could ever give.”

The other dwarf licked his lips and avoided glancing Corin’s way. “Perhaps…in exchange for these prisoners…”

“I thought the same when we caught the slinking Violet,” Ogden said. “But you saw how this yeoman stood against the prince. You saw how he took a bullet even when he knew the price. There isn’t food enough within the world to buy that kind of valor. It isn’t ours to sell.”

“Then you will let us go?” Corin asked.

Ogden nodded. “Aye.”

“With the sword,” Corin pressed. “We have to have the sword.”

“That, I think, we’ll keep,” the chieftain said. “It’s the only piece we’ll have to barter our salvation.”

“That sword has valor of its own,” Corin said, playing to the dwarf’s strange sense of honor, but Ogden cut him off before he could say more.

“I know well this blade’s pedigree. And the purpose to which the prince had hoped to put it.”

Corin sighed. “Then you know why you must—”

“Relent there, manling. You’ll need your strength to get away alive. Don’t waste it on a haggle you can’t win.”

Avery came forward then, freed from his bonds. He clapped Corin on the back by way of greeting. “Listen to the dwarf. I’ve tried to talk them round before. It never happens.”

Corin rounded on Avery. “We cannot go before Oberon empty-handed.” He turned back to the chieftain. “But if we have that sword, he will listen to us. Give it to me now, and I will tell him how you served us at the last. Then he will conquer Ephitel, and I will see that he is not unkind to you.”

“Ooh, I like that!” Avery said. “You may trade it for redemption here and now.”

When the chieftain appeared to consider the offer, his second grabbed his coat again. “Don’t do it, Ogden. Would you put us at their mercy?”

“Not theirs,” the chieftain said, but then he pointed down at Kellen. “But at his I would. If we can raise him, if he will give his word, then I will yield the blade to you and call it done.”

“I appreciate your consideration,” Corin said. “But time is short. Ephitel could return at any moment with a regiment behind him.”

Ogden shrugged. “Then we will leave by the other tunnels.”

Corin brightened. “You have other tunnels?”

“Aye. What, did you think we brought three clans down here one carriage at a time?”

“I had not considered it.”

“We have,” Ogden said. “And we’ve considered more than once what a twisting viper Ephitel can be. We have our plans for terminating this arrangement.”

“Do they involve a pile of those powder kegs in a vault beneath his mansion? And a very long fuse?”

Ogden gave a low whistle. “They hadn’t until now. I like your style, manling.”

“Call me Corin.”

“Would you know where to find this vault?”

Corin blinked. “I didn’t really…” His eyes fell on Kellen, breathing slowly now but still unconscious. Still far too pale. Corin nodded. “Yes. I think I know the way. And I left the door unlocked.”

“Glad to hear it,” Ogden said. “Biffin here can run the fuse, but once he lights it, run.”

Corin shook his head. “There will be others in the house. Cooks and servants. Decent guards.”

“We’ll set off a couple warning blasts before, then. Give them time to all clear out, then bring the sinkhole down.”

“You’re serious,” Corin said.

“We’re double-crossing Ephitel. We have to be.”