Friendly Fire by Dale Lucas

Author:Dale Lucas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2018-08-06T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The runner was tipped, apologies were issued to the family and Indilen, then Torval and Rem armed themselves and set out for the dwarven quarter. Thank Aemon Rem had worn his sword tonight—mostly just to assure his and Indilen’s safety on their nighttime stroll. He hadn’t truly intended to put it to use. Terrified of the prospect of Indilen heading home alone so late at night, Rem made her promise to stay with Osma and the children until morning.

“And don’t give me that cack about how brave and capable you are,” Rem said, smothering her sure-to-come resistance before it even appeared. “I know that well, but even I wouldn’t walk these streets alone at night. That’s why Torval follows me everywhere.”

Indilen had accepted that, kissed him deeply, and wished him luck. Once they were out of the house and under way, Rem asked Torval what he thought awaited them.

“Whatever it is, can’t be good,” Torval muttered.

It was closing in on midnight, so the streets were largely deserted and an unnatural, almost funereal, silence seemed to press in around them. Every moan or sigh of the wind tumbling down a side alley was amplified, while every cat mewl and mongrel bark sounded as if it were just over their shoulder. Finally, after what seemed an eternity marching through the biting cold and oppressive stillness of Yenara’s benighted streets, the pair arrived at the ethnarch’s citadel. And there, to their mutual surprise and chagrin, they found ample activity and excitement.

The first sign that something was amiss was the crowd of curious onlookers—mostly dwarves, with a few curious humans among them—crowded before the citadel gates. They pressed forward, jostling as they went, shouting, inquiring, while a full platoon of house guards formed a broad picket line between the public and the compound gates. As Rem and Torval shoved their way through the milling, pressing throng, intent on the gate and the citadel beyond, they heard the guards admonishing the crowd, pleading that they fall back and make some space before the walls. When, after a laborious slog through the crowd, Rem and Torval finally made the gates, they flashed their lead badges and stated their business. The dwarven guards, too concerned with the crowd to care much about a pair of low-level watchwardens, all but yanked them forward, cracked the gate, and allowed the two of them to slip through.

Inside the compound there was no less activity. House servants and members of Eldgrim’s court drifted and clustered about the dooryard and gardens, most wearing nightshirts or house robes, their talk all furtive whispers and hushed gossip. There were more citadel guards as well, their armored, liveried presence far more conspicuous and intimidating than it had been on Rem and Torval’s previous visit. The guards were in loose formation, skulking on the periphery of the meandering knots of courtiers and house staff, but their primary duty seemed to be keeping everyone corralled near the ethnarch’s manse and allowing only permitted personnel beyond the gardens, into the vicinity of the great temple.

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