Luckily, she’d expected something of the sort, and had carried only copper crowns in the pouch at her waist; all the coins of real worth were stashed in her boot-pouch. But having planned for this contingency didn’t make it any less annoying.
She was debating going back to Tobin and having the oldster arrested after all—a few well-placed kicks might just convince the thief to give up his accomplice—but then she noticed a cluster of dwarves standing outside the city gates. They were all staring at her and murmuring among themselves. She couldn’t make out their words, but she didn’t have to.
It had started already.
At the gates, when she showed the guard her travel papers, he took longer than necessary examining them before handing them back and deferentially waving her through. She could hear him talking about her to the other guards as she passed under the great black ramparts and into the city. It was only a matter of time now.
Though she hurried down Mror’s Walk, still word traveled faster, and soon she could see dwarves ahead of her in the crowd turning back to look in her direction. The murmurs and whispers started getting louder.
“… saved Aggar Tordannon from Nightshard …”
“… never expected to see her here again …”
“… must have come back for the Tordannon trial …”
And, finally, the phrase she’d dreaded hearing since the moment she knew she’d be returning here.
“The Shard Axe! The Shard Axe has returned!”
It became a chant as dwarves began falling in line behind her. Members of other races moved back out of the way, confused and curious, as the procession swelled. By the time she arrived at Ferrous House, there were hundreds of dwarves in her wake and the buildings rang with her name.
“Sabira! The Shard Axe! Sabira! The Shard Axe!”
She hadn’t acknowledged the growing crowd up until now, but as she walked up the stairs to the huge iron doors, she turned and held up a hand for silence. Amazingly, the throng quieted in an instant. Then Sabira turned and pulled her travel papers out, handing them over to the Iron Council guards.
“I’m here for the trial of Aggar Tordannon,” she said, loud enough she knew her voice would carry to the listening mob. If she were going to be leading a parade everywhere she went while she was here, she might as well take advantage of it.
The whispering behind her began again.
The guards perused her papers. One of them, a surly looking Mroranon with an urgrosh like her own—minus the Siberys shard—eyed the crowd warily before responding.
“The council’s in closed session. You’ll have to come back when they’re in open session, three days from—”
He didn’t get any further. The murmuring got louder, and started to turn ugly.
“… the idiot Mroranon’s not letting her in …”
“… that’s ridiculous; they can’t keep her out …”
“… the Council wouldn’t be that foolish …”
Sabira let the noise build for a bit before turning and raising her hand once more. The crowd settled again, more restlessly this time.
She looked back at the Mroranon, whose jaw was set stubbornly beneath his well-beaded beard.
“I am the Sentinel Marshal Sabira Lyet d’Deneith,” she said, raising her voice and ignoring a cry of “Shard Axe!” from behind her. “I am here on official Marshal business, and I demand that you let me in to see my client.” She lowered her voice to a stage whisper. “And I’m really not sure how long I can control them,” she added, jerking her head toward the crowd.
She could see the guard calculating how much trouble he might get in for starting a riot and just how many people he’d be able to finish off before he was overwhelmed.
The crowd was just starting to get unruly again when the doors suddenly swung open of their own accord.
A female dwarf dressed in long gray robes stood just beyond the threshold.
“Sabira d’Deneith of the Marshals, welcome. We’ve been expecting you.”
Flashing the Mroranon guard a smug smile as she collected her papers from him, Sabira turned to wave her thanks to the crowd, who responded with a cheer and a roar.
“Shard Axe! Shard Axe!”
Then she turned and walked into Ferrous House, holding her breath until the doors closed behind her and shut out the last echoes of the horrible, hated name.
Sabira had only been inside the Iron Council’s meeting chambers once before, and found the outside of the utilitarian building far more interesting than the inside. The exterior of Ferrous House, though plain and functional from a distance, was actually a work of extraordinary beauty when viewed up close. From its wide base to near its slightly tapered top, the building was inscribed with delicate interlocking runes no more than a fingertip in either height or width. The runes spiraled up the ironwork façade—which had been spelled against the elements—and recounted the entirety of dwarven history. The lowest loops of the spiral told vague stories of the race’s murky beginnings in either the depths of Khyber or the icy expanses of Frostfell—not even the dwarves themselves were completely certain on that count. Their emergence in Khorvaire and the names of the thirteen great clan leaders began roughly at the knees, and ten thousand years of feuds and feats wound their way up to well past the third story. The subjugation of the dwarves under the rule of Karrn the Conqueror and their declaration of independence during the century-long Last War followed, taking up another story and a half. A thin band of purple mournlode, invisible from the ground, marked the destruction of Cyre and the enactment of the Treaty of Thronehold, which had effectively ended the great war. The spiral made a few more loops after that, and ended a good ten feet short of the roof, leaving the walls a blank canvas for all the history yet to be written.
It was something of a rite of passage for young dwarves to come here and trace their clan’s achievements in the finely wrought iron. For several hours on Sar and Sul, members of the Iron Council’s staff would staff miniature soarsleds, one for each wall. Dwarves could pay a fee and use the crystalline disks to fly slowly upward in pairs—usually a parent and child—and examine the spiraling runes for names from their own family lines.
Sabira had been told that Nightshard’s brief reign of terror had been included in one of the final loops, but there was no mention of her name, or Leoned’s. Which was fine by her. She already had more than enough fame in the Holds.
Although the exterior of Ferrous House was remarkable, the interior was anything but. Once beyond the huge iron doors, the structure could have been any of a hundred other government buildings located anywhere in Khorvaire, save that the statues and tapestries all had dwarf subjects, and the overall level of craftsmanship was, of course, just that much better.
The one exception was the Iron Council’s meeting chamber.
Located beneath the building, the main audience chamber had been hewn from solid rock, with no attempt made to finish the stonework. Thirteen stone chairs, reminiscent of thrones, sat in a raised semicircle against the easternmost wall, with the associated clan banners hanging behind them. A large circular area separated these seats from the gallery where spectators and those waiting to address the Council sat on curved benches that had likewise been carved from stone. Set within the floor of the speaking circle was a large eye of Aureon. The Sovereign God of Law and Lore, Aureon’s sigil adorned the face of the mithral seal, and anyone standing upon it was compelled to answer the Council’s questions truthfully.
Aside from the seal and the banners, there was nothing in the room to suggest that this was arguably the wealthiest nation on Khorvaire. Instead, it was stark, cold, and downright uncomfortable. Aggar had told her that the audience chamber served as an object lesson to all who entered: It harkened back to the dwarves’ uncivilized past and was an unsubtle reminder that the only thing that kept the dwarves from returning to that state was the authority of the Iron Council.