“Ah, yes,” Vara said. “Midsummer’s eve passed with but a whisper, and now it is …” She blinked. “Goddess, that was quick. It seems only yesterday it was the beginning of spring.”
“The time does go quickly, does it not?” Fortin’s low rumble was louder now, as he looked down at her, his eyes glistening red in the dark. “How long has it been since he left now?”
“Ten months …” She said before she realized she’d even done it. She blinked, and turned to favor the rock giant with a glare. “That was craftier than I would have given you credit for.”
The red eyes seemed to dance. “Which was why I could manage it when no other could. You simply assume I wander around eating rocks and bashing my head into things, as though I were some peon, like a troll. I am not.”
“Yes, well, I shan’t make that mistake again.”
There was a movement of the rock giant’s torso that was as expressive as one might expect from a creature who appeared to be made of living stone. “Why is it a mistake? You confessed your feelings for him, and he plainly felt the same for you. To make all these tiresome games, to accept, then to deny, then to reject him when you obviously still care, it’s all very disagreeable to the constitution.” Fortin clacked his jaw together and caused Vara to flinch from the noise of rock grinding on rock. “He was plain with you, but you can’t find it in yourself to be plain with him?”
“I was very plain with him,” Vara said quietly. “Plain enough with my intent, with my reasons. But that was between him and me, not him and me and the entire guild, which is why I don’t discuss it.”
“Oh, yes, I forgot,” Fortin said with a heavy nodding motion, “fleshlings have their notions of privacy and decorum. Well, perhaps ‘forgot’ might be a strong word. ‘Chose not to remember because your ideas are silly and irrelevant’ better captures it, I’d say. If I were to act as coyly as you people do, I don’t think I would ever find a partner to raise hatchlings with.”
She blinked. “Is that how …?” There was a noise in the foyer, and Vara heard it, her ears perking up. “Something is amiss.”
“Come along,” Fortin said, but he was already running, the ground shaking under his feet with every shuddering step. When he hit the front steps, the sound became worse, the stone floor hitting against the rock giant’s bare skin, reminding Vara of the noise of bricks being slapped together. Fortin flung open the door and there stood the guard contingent, weapons pointing into the middle of the foyer as Vara slipped around Fortin’s leg when the rock giant stopped, giving her free view of the room.
The alarm was silent, no one speaking or calling out for any manner of assistance. Still, the swords remained down, the spears remained pointed. Standing at the middle of the room on the great seal was a goblin, Mendicant, his scaly skin reflecting in the torchlight and his bright robe catching her eye. Behind him was another figure, however, only a little taller than he, with a beard that was braided all the way down to his waist, and a hammer slung across his back.
“Well, damnation,” Belkan Stillhet said from his place beside a pillar, his sword held in his ancient hand.
“Or as near as one can get to seeing it from here,” came the voice of Alaric Garaunt, as a faint mist subsided in the corner next to Vara. She fell into step behind him as the Master of Sanctuary strode across the foyer toward the seal, gesturing to Mendicant, who was nervously looking around, to move away from the stranger in the middle of the room. “Partus,” Alaric said, staring down at the dwarf who remained indifferent, examining his surroundings as though they mattered little, “how unpleasant it is to see you again.”
Chapter 70
“Well, Alaric,” Partus said from where he sat in the Council Chambers (in Cyrus’s seat, which he had selected entirely at random, and oh, how it chafed at her) “it would appear you’re in a bit of a bind here.” Vara kept her eyes fixed on the dwarf as he spoke. It’s as though I fear to take them off him, as though I suspect he would begin stealing things were I to stop watching him for a moment. She ran her tongue over her teeth nervously. For all know, he might do just that.
“So it would seem,” Alaric said, looking over his steepled fingers at the dwarf. “I presume you had no idea that we were under siege when you jumped onto Mendicant’s back as he cast his return spell?”
“Had I known,” Partus said with a slightly sour frown, “I might still have done it, because being surrounded by the dark elven army here is still likely safer than what your blighting guildmates are planning over in Luukessia. They’re going to fight a slow retreat across the northern steppes trying to buy time for Syloreas to empty-as in for all the people to leave the lands.” The dwarf snorted in derision. “How well do you think that one’s likely to turn out?”
“Mendicant,” Alaric said, looking to the goblin, “you are here to make Cyrus’s report, yes?”
The goblin had been still throughout the meeting thus far, as though he were awed by the surroundings; the Council Chambers and their stone walls, slow, quiet hearths that radiated warmth through the room. It was dark outside the windows out on the balcony, but within the chambers it was light, with torches aplenty burning on sconces on the walls in such close proximity that one could comfortably read in the room despite the hour.
“Mendicant?” Alaric asked again.
The goblin seemed to shake himself out of a stupor of sorts. “Oh, yes. Partus speaks correctly, the bulk of the Sanctuary army is presently engaged in a long holding action on the Filsharron Steppes, north of Enrant Monge.” Alaric stirred, but the rest of the table was quiet and still, save for Partus, who shot a wicked grin at Vara. She held the urge to let fly a force blast but only just. “Cyrus, Longwell and a few others are making their way to Vernadam to try and sway them to enter the war with their army, and Actaluere is presently calling up the remainder of its forces to meet them at Enrant Monge in an effort to effect a counterthrust north and destroy the portal in the cave that is allowing them to flood Luukessia with these dead souls.” Mendicant’s eyes glistened as he spoke matter-of-factly. “Lord Davidon-”
“Lord of damned near nothing, if you ask me,” Partus said with a chortle below his breath.
“He’s Lord of Perdamun and Warden of the Southern Plains,” Vara snapped without thinking then tempered the widening of her eyes out of sheer reflex. Why in the blazes did I say that? Partus made no reply but feigned being impressed by flattening his lips, then pursing them, holding a hand over his mouth as though amazed.
“Lord Davidon requests aid,” Mendicant said after a momentary stumble, “for you to send another army to reinforce him and allow him to better fight back in the impending battle, assuming you have not already sent such an army.”
Alaric sighed, while Ryin laid his head on the high back of his chair. Vara expected Erith to shift her gaze around the table, but her sight was firmly fixed on Partus at her right, the dark elf’s icy glare beyond any sort of loathing Vara had come to expect even from the mercurial healer. “Can we teleport him into Saekaj?” Erith asked, indicating Partus with a nod of her head. “I think he’d do well there, in the vek’tag pens, eating their dung with the rest of the mushrooms-”
“How I’ve missed you as well, Erith,” Partus said with a crooked grin. “I don’t suppose we’ve spoken since the day I left the Daring-”
“You mean the day when you stripped our guild of most our members and left for Goliath?” Her arms were folded in front of her, and her teeth were bared in a snarl. “Gee, Partus, I can’t really think of any reason why I might not have spoken to you since then. Oh, wait, because you’re a traitorous, lecherous ass.”
Partus feigned innocence and looked around the table as if for support. “Lecherous? Just because we had a singular night of passion-”