“My tresses?” Elyn turned her eyes toward the Dwarf, but his gaze refused to meet hers.
“The soaring hawk, Lady,” Thork said at last. “She gleams as would red gold, just as does your hair. A fitting symbol of your kinship, a bond between this red huntress of the skies and this red huntress of the plains.”
Elyn turned her face away, her heart hammering for no reason. And the red hawk circled higher and higher, until it was but a speck in the sky, flashing copper now and again.
Onward they rode, stopping at last for a noon meal alongside a clear stream running out into a greensward. As Thork prepared a small fire, Elyn took up her sling and trod quietly into a swale, returning shortly with but a single rabbit at her belt. “Sparse fare, Thork,” she grumbled. “Not much game hereabout, I ween.”
“Someday, Lady, you must teach me the manner of that rockthrower of yours,” said Thork, reaching out and taking the coney from her, pulling a dagger from his boot. Thork stepped to one side and began to dress out the game, preparing it for the spit.
“Not rocks, Thork,” responded Elyn, “though they’ll do in a pinch.” She fumbled at the pouch upon her belt and withdrew a small lead ball. “Instead, these, Warrior: sling bullets.”
Thork set the rabbit above the fire and rinsed his bloodied hands in the stream. Then he reached out and took the metal shot from her, turning it over and again in his fingers. “Chod,” he said. “We call this grey metal, chod. It is common, easily smeltered, easily fashioned. Yet there is something about the working of chod that is dangerous. Like a slow poison. For the most part, we Châkka leave it be.” Thork handed the bullet back to Elyn. “Steel would be better.”
As the steeds munched upon grain, Elyn and Thork sat and watched the rabbit cook, each taking turns at rotating the spit above the flames. “It seems the token the Wolfmage gave us provided protection from Andrak and his minions,” remarked Elyn, breaking the silence. “At least nothing came upon us in the dark. Nothing that is except memories. . and dreams.”
Thork did not reply, instead turning the spit again.
Elyn fingered the token on the thong about her neck. “You know of metals, Thork. What be this alloy?”
Thork turned to look, then moved closer, his eyes widening in amaze. “Starsilver! This be starsilver.” Reverently he reached out and touched the nugget. “You would call it silveron, yet it is none other than the special metal placed within Mithgar by Adon. No wonder it holds magic.”
“Is it as rare as I’ve heard?” Elyn stretched the thong to its limit, looking upon the nugget with new eyes. “I thought it common silver, but now I see it is not.”
“Aye, rare and priceless,” answered Thork. “Only in a few places within Mithgar is it known to exist, and every grain is carefully sought out, for it is precious.”
Elyn cocked her head to one side, and quicksilver swift changed the subject. “Thork, what did the Wolfmage mean when he said that being a Châk signifies that you cannot lose your footsteps?”
Thork rocked back on his heels and peered intently into the fire, and for long moments Elyn thought that he would not answer. But then, as if he had made up his mind about some aspect of their relationship, he at last spoke. “We Châkka have a special gift given to us by Adon: wherever we have stepped, wherever we have travelled by land, be it on foot or astride a pony or within a waggon or by other means, the track we have fared upon comes alive within us, and we can unerringly retrace our steps. There is an eld Châk saying: ‘I may not know where I am going, but I always know where I have been.’ And it is true, for easily can we step again a path trod, be it pitch black, be we blindfolded, forward or reverse, it matters not, for still can we trace out a route once travelled. Without this gift, we could not live in the labyrinths below the ground.” Without further word, Thork pulled the rabbit from above the fire and split it in two, giving over one half to Elyn.
They rode through the rest of the day, settling into another coppice-sheltered campsite when evening drew nigh. As darkness fell and Elyn spread her bedroll ere turning in, she looked across the fire at her comrade. “Thork, when I attacked you yesternight, it was not you I was assailing: instead it was your Lineage. You see, I loved my brother very much.”
A long silence stretched between them, broken by the Dwarf at last: “As I loved my sire.” With these words, Thork cast his hood over his head and stepped into the shadows beyond the reach of the firelight.
Tears sprang into Elyn’s eyes, yet whether they were for herself or for Thork, she could not say.
All the next day they rode in silence, each wrapped in thoughts unspoken. A covering of clouds crept across the sky, and the wind grew chill, presaging the winter to come, and the Châk Prince and Human Princess huddled in their cloaks and moved across the land. By nightfall a cold rain fell from above, and the twain spent a miserable night under a leaking lean-to hastily constructed by Thork from boughs of whin and pine.
Sometime in the night the frigid drizzle ceased, and next morn as the Sun broke over the horizon, the two ate in silence. The dawn air was cold and damp and uncomfortable, and the chill seemed to seep into the very bones. Groaning, Elyn got to her feet. “Ah, me, but what I wouldn’t give for a good cup of hot tea.”
Rummaging about in his knapsack, Thork held up a brown packet. “Lady, if you can light a fire in this wet wood, we can both have tea.”
“Hah!” Elyn barked, snatching the packet from Thork. “Set me an impossible task, will you? Hola, but wait, mayhap there be a way after all.”
Emitting a low, throaty laughter, the Princess searched her own pack and extracted a tiny lantern. Unfastening a metal clasp, she pulled the diminutive brass and glass square-pane chimney from the base. In a trice she had the wick burning, and in anticipation Thork had a small pot of water ready to suspend above the flame.
After some time, they hunkered down within the edge of the woods and sipped warm, bracing tea, each revelling in the smell and taste and heat of the drink. And as they savored their mutual victory over nature, before them in the east for as far as they could see lay the open wold, and somewhere in the far distance beyond the horizon lay their hidden goal. They sat in silence for a while, yet at last Elyn said, “Thork, I must tell you something. Until these past two days, I never considered that others had lost loved ones in the strife between our Folk. Oh, I knew it, but I didn’t feel it. My only thought was that I had lost those dear to me. I did not stop to think that when Elgo was slain, so too was Brak. And just as my brother was loved, Brak must have been loved as well. And I did not admit that in the War, casualties were suffered by both sides. But, I am not ready to dwell upon the rights and wrongs of the deaths suffered between us. . not yet. But this I do propose: that during this day, as we ride eastward, I will try to see the justice of your claim against the trove, and you will try to see that of mine.”
During Elyn’s words, at mention of Brak’s death, Thork had cast his hood over his head, a Châkka gesture of mourning. And when she spoke of considering the Jordian claim against the trove, Thork shifted uncomfortably, as if being asked to do something that went against his grain. He turned his head away, and stared off into the morning distance, his sight flying far across the open wold, as if seeking some sort of answer along the rim of the world.
“Thork?” Elyn’s voice was soft.
The Dwarf turned and looked deep into the emerald pools of her eyes, his own dark glance shadowed and unseen deep within the cowl of his cloak. And down within the viridian depths he seemed to find an answer, his discomfort vanishing in the endless clear green of her gaze.