Chapter 8

With the wagons slowing their progress, it took three weeks to reach the nearest pass through the Skotinos Mountains. The peaks Ellerie had matched against her amulet to identify Tir a Tir weren’t visible from this side, but now that she was closer, it was obvious why Ariadne had referred to the range as the Darkstone Mountains. While they weren’t as tall as the Storm Heights, they seemed starker and more forbidding, with vast cliffs and unusual domes and outcroppings where softer stone had weathered away, leaving only a dark gray granite.

There was a checkpoint with armed stoneborn guards near the entrance to the pass. Ellerie waited while Boktar spoke to them.

Finally he returned to the group. “It’s twenty silver per wagon if we’re part of a trading caravan, or ten if we can prove we’re not. Since we’re working for a trading company and carrying goods we plan to sell, I didn’t try to convince them. Marco, you owe me sixty silver. They said there’ll be someone here tomorrow who can lead us through the mountains. It’ll take about eight days to reach the far side, following the route that’ll take us closest to Aencyr. We’re allowed to camp here for tonight if we pull off the main road.”

Eight days to get through the mountains meant they were less than two weeks away from Aencyr, and Ellerie still hadn’t managed to get the shaping spells to work. While she’d memorized both spells, she couldn’t get the mixing spell to combine the components, even after four attempts. She needed more time, and if they were stopping early for the day, she might as well give it another try now. An hour later, after the camp was set up, she was perched on a fallen log near her tent while Bobo peered over her shoulder. She held a wooden bowl on her lap. The bowl was filled with a gray sludge.

“I don’t think this is right,” she said. “The mixing spell worked fine, but this doesn’t match the description.” The resulting mixture should have had a smooth, silvery sheen.

“We may not have translated the description correctly,” Bobo said. “There’s only one way to know for sure.”

Ellerie nodded and began casting the shaping spell, trying to picture a bracelet. The book hadn’t provided any advice on how one actually went about controlling the shaping—it seemed to expect that the reader already knew. Was a mould needed, or did the wizard control the shaping with her mind? Ariadne hadn’t known either.

As Ellerie finished the spell, a form extruded from the center of the mixture. It was roughly circular in shape, but was hardly the elegant band she’d envisioned. She reached for it tentatively. It was solid and cool to the touch, but her fingers left indentations. When she picked it up to take a closer look, it crumbled in her hand.

“Well, that’s not silversteel,” she said. “At least now we know the spells are working, but the formula must still be wrong.”

“I’m not sure what else to change,” Bobo said. “We have all the components, and Ariadne double-checked our measurements.”

Ellerie thought back to what she’d seen as each component had liquefied and mixed together. “It seemed like the iron, the nickel, and the manganese combined more easily than the rest,” she said. “I think I either used too much carbon this time, or the chromium or silver weren’t pure enough. But if it’s the chromium, I don’t know how we’ll find another source.” She’d never even heard of chromium before Bobo and Ariadne had helped her translate the formula, but the Senshall office in Aencyr had managed to help Leena obtain some. “Let’s try adjusting the silver content again. Sterling silver may not be pure enough. I’ll have Leena ask the Senshall office to find the purest silver they can. Let’s hope that takes care of the problem. I’d like to have this figured out before we speak to Hildra.”

It had been mid-spring when the group had left Aencyr. It was late summer by the time they returned. It was the first time Corec had ever been relieved to see a large city—they’d been away from civilization for a long time.

After the group secured rooms at an inn, his first step was to deliver the five prisoners to the headquarters of the Bancyran Civil Guard. Marco went with him to translate, and Katrin accompanied them to help keep the prisoners in line. One of the mercenaries, hoping to get lost in the crowded city, made a break for it, but Katrin shouted out to him and ordered him to get back in line. It didn’t matter that he didn’t speak the same language—with bardic magic, it was the intent that counted. The prisoner’s body obeyed, returning to the group, while his head darted around wildly in panic. The other four men remained cowed, unwilling to risk facing any sort of magic. They’d seen too many of their compatriots killed during the battle.

At the Civil Guard building, Marco spoke to three guardsmen before being directed to a man with a captain’s rank insignia. After a long conversation, the factor turned back to Corec. “He’s willing to take them, but if they were acting in service as mercenaries, he’s not sure the magistrate will consider it a crime.”

“Tell him they were acting as assassins, taking money to murder an innocent woman,” Corec said.

When Marco translated that to Nysan, the guard captain’s eyes grew wide, as did the prisoners’. They shouted objections until Katrin ordered them to be quiet. Apparently they’d expected a light punishment.

Marco and the guardsman spoke again, almost arguing at times. Then the man talked to each of the prisoners one by one before turning to Marco again.

Marco said, “The captain wants us to return their arms and armor, and any coin they had when they were captured. Since they didn’t actually succeed in killing Leena, the magistrate will likely allow them to pay a penalty fee to avoid prison. If we give them their things back, they may be able to afford to pay it themselves.”

“No,” Corec replied. “They’re enemy combatants under the code of military law, and their belongings are battlefield salvage. What we took was ours by right.” He hadn’t kept the men’s weapons or armor anyway.

Marco hesitated. “Code of military...?”

“Northern Aravor Covenant of Military Action, signed by Larso, Matagor, Tyrsall, Circle Bay, and Abildgar four hundred seventy-seven years ago. Just tell him the battlefield salvage part—Bancyra will have a similar law.”

Marco passed along the message. The captain appeared unhappy, but finally accepted custody of the men.

Leaving the Civil Guard building, Marco said, “I think he was planning on keeping the coin for himself.”

“Probably,” Corec agreed. “Which means he can be bribed if our prisoners know anyone in Aencyr. But they’re from the east—they may be stuck here for a long time if they can’t come up with a bribe or a penalty fee. That’s justice of sorts, I suppose. At least it’s better than nothing, and maybe they’ll think more carefully before they take their next contract.”

“We’ll have to come back tomorrow morning, with Leena, to give evidence.”

“That’s fine.”

The three of them returned to the inn and gathered up a few bundles, then headed to the Senshall office. Corec and Katrin waited while Marco spoke to the desk clerk and handed over a sealed letter.

When he rejoined them, he said, “They’ll send a messenger to deliver your letter to Lady Hildra this evening.”

“Thank you,” Corec replied. “And the armorer?”

“He wasn’t able to give me a specific name, but he said their shops are all in the same area, over on the east side of the market.”

“Good. Let’s go. I’ll need you to translate for me.”

The Senshall office was near the company’s warehouses at the northern river port, so it was less than a mile to reach the market district, where they found streets lined with shops, surrounding an open air bazaar full of vendors hawking early harvests. The press of people in the hot sun was almost overwhelming, and the tall conical hats everyone wore made it difficult to navigate.

“I should have let you take this,” Katrin muttered, referring to the padded overcoat she held folded up in her arms—the one she’d purchased in Snow Crown. The stitching on the left side had gotten caught on a bramble while they were in the swamp. Over time, it had unraveled, and the padded inner lining had shifted around.

Corec laughed. He was already carrying a heavy canvas bag slung over his shoulder. “It could be worse,” he said. “You could be wearing it.”

She frowned. “Do you think the armorer will have something that isn’t so hot and heavy? This was designed to be worn farther north.”

“You’d be trading protection for convenience,” Corec said. “Padded armor is always hot.” Katrin had kept the coat close at hand while they traveled, but she refused to wear it in the heat. Even Corec had left his plate armor in the wagons until they’d reached the mountains. The grasslands had offered enough visibility to see potential threats coming. “You could try wearing whatever this is, once we get it put back together.” He shook the bag he was carrying, which was full of thin silversteel plates of various shapes and sizes. They’d obviously once been attached to some sort of armor.

“But it’s metal,” she said. “I wouldn’t be able to use my magic.”

“Maybe it’s better to have the protection in case you need it. Then, when it’s safe enough, you can take it off or switch to the padded coat.”

Katrin smirked. “When is it ever safe enough to do that in the middle of a battle? Of course, if we’d just stop getting into fights...”

Corec laughed again. “I’ll see what I can do. Once we find a place to settle down, you won’t need to bother with it most of the time.”

They made it through the crowded bazaar and found the row of smiths and armorers two streets to the east.

“I’m not sure which would be best,” Marco said, as the three of them looked down the line of storefronts.

“The second one on the left has padded overcoats and doublets,” Corec said. “That’s the one we want. We don’t need an armor smith.”

They went inside and Marco spoke to the shopkeeper, a slender, bookish man who looked out of place on a street full of blacksmiths. It didn’t take long to explain the repairs they wanted on Katrin’s coat. Then they moved on to Corec’s request. He emptied the bag of metal plates onto a worktable.

“Tell him this is armor plating, but we’re not sure what sort of armor it was attached to,” Corec said. “I don’t see any rivets or hooks for brigandine or an old-style coat of plates, but they might have been used as internal lining without rivets.”

Marco repeated the message.

The armorer picked up one of the plates, a rounded piece obviously designed to cover part of the arm, then spoke.

“He thinks the metal’s too thin to be armor,” Marco said.

“Tell him it’s tougher than it looks.” The plates were thinner than the full cuirasses they’d found in the armory, but silversteel was strong enough that even the thin plates might offer as much protection as a normal steel breastplate.

The shopkeeper nodded and started organizing the mess, laying out the plates in the shape of the armor.

Corec had attempted that a few times himself, but there always seemed to be extra pieces. When he’d been gathering up the plates in the armory, it hadn’t always been clear where the remains of one suit of armor ended and the next began.

The armorer continued his work, setting some pieces aside, out of his way, but using others to assemble a second suit of armor. The new one appeared different, though—the plates were of different shapes and sizes. He spoke again.

Marco said, “He says it’s something like a jack of plates—did I translate that right?—but instead of overlapping plates, it has two separate layers. They’re arranged so that the top layer covers all the gaps in the bottom layer.”

Corec nodded. That was better than he’d hoped. And while a normal jack only covered the torso, the pattern the man was laying out was more in the style of a padded coat, providing cover for the arms and the upper legs. “Can he reassemble it? Tell him we have more, and ask if he can put together a couple of them while we’re still in Aencyr.”

The two men spoke, then Marco turned back to Corec. “Do you want wool or linen? And do you want any layers of padding?”

“No padding this time. Let’s try one in wool, like a coat, and one in linen, with just the upper body, like a shirt or a tunic.”

“You only want to use part of the set on the second one?” Marco asked.

“Lightweight armor for a scout or skirmisher. We’ll still have the other pieces if we don’t like how it turns out. If the armor works, I’ll want to buy some of these plates as part of my share.”

“You’ve already claimed half the equipment from the armory. It’s not going to be cheap.”

“I know.”

Hildra wasn’t quite what Ellerie had expected. Instead of Yelena’s elegant dresses, the stoneborn warden was wearing a blacksmith’s apron over her work clothes when they arrived. She was pumping the bellows at an outdoor forge attached to her workshop, but joined them inside after a servant showed them in. Her dark hair was pulled back in a severe braid to keep it out of the way, and there was a smudge of soot on her left cheek.

“Your messenger wasn’t a surprise,”Hildra said to Corec in greeting, glancing at the hilt visible over his shoulder. “I felt the sword heading this way a few days ago. Among other things.”

“Thank you for seeing us, Hildra. We have some news, but first I’d like to introduce you to Lady Ellerie di’Valla, of the royal family of Terevas. She’s the leader of the expedition I told you about. Exalted, this is Lady Hildra.” Corec had suggested using Ellerie’s formal terms of address for the introductions, to make sure she was taken seriously.

Hildra looked her over, her eyes stopping at Ellerie’s pointed ears and silver hair. “Just Hildra, if you please,” the woman said. “I don’t have an official title.” She might not have claimed a title, but her tone made it clear she was addressing Ellerie as an equal.

“You can call me Ellerie. I hope this isn’t an inconvenient time.”

Hildra glanced back at her forge. “It’s nothing that can’t wait. Terevas—that’s in western Aravor, yes? The home of the silver elves?”

“Yes.”

“The message said you had need for someone with my expertise. What can I do for you?”

“We were successful,” Corec said. “We found Tir Yadar. We’ve learned a lot—I’m not even sure where to start—but we could use your advice on a few matters.”

“Oh? Let’s sit down.” They found a few chairs scattered around the workshop. Corec moved them closer together while Hildra rang a bell and requested tea from the maid who answered the summons.

“Now,” Hildra said, rejoining them and taking a seat, “what is it you wanted to talk about?”

Ellerie was supposed to handle this part of the conversation, but, like Corec, she wasn’t sure where to start. “We found Tir Yadar, like he said,” she began. “The city had been abandoned and mostly emptied, but we found some things that we need to have appraised. Weapons and armor, as well as some other enchanted items. We don’t know what they all do. Corec thought you might be able to help with that, too.”

Hildra sat back in her chair, looking thoughtful. “A lot of people have gone searching for Tir Yadar. Are you certain? It’s not the only lost Tir.”