8. Faceted

“The Small King invited me, though there was no way I might decline, to visit the ruins of one of the old dwarven cities. Hewn into the earth itself, the underground settlement was as vast as it was impressive.

Their storefronts and armories of a bygone era were still well stocked by arms and artifice the likes of which humans and goblins are never likely to replicate.

I had the sense that Agrak meant to kill me there, suspecting that I might not be as loyal as I once was, and then leave me to the shadowed silence of a people long dead.

‘This was a mistake,’ he had whispered in that strange piping voice of his.

‘The trip?’ I had reasoned.

He glanced at me as if he had forgotten I was there and then showed me a smile that he had never worn before. It was a broken expression of profound sadness and regret. So much so I almost pitied him.”

Ruby of the Gem Cutters had made her way as quickly as she could to their eastern warehouse. It had been built of grey stone, wide and broad, so that any clumsy step echoed back from the expanse of darkness.

Though that gloom was often broken by looming stacks of crates, barrels and a sundry of supplies. She knew the place held equipment for the miners, whether in Timilir or in a region further afield. Ingots, raw ores, and gemstones.

She crept past an unbroken block of marble, then a small statue carved of white stone. She paused to frown at the cold visage of a young boy, and found herself reminded of Hjorvarth. “If ever there was man made of stone,” she whispered.

The lithe man behind her frowned at that, but she carried on without paying him notice.

Six members of the Gem Cutters crept in pairs of two down three warehouse rows.

They had heard word of the Crooked Teeth operating in their territory. Ruby hoped that it wasn’t true, or that it wasn’t an attempt in earnest, because the eastern warehouse was the least exposed of their holdings, standing in the richest area of the stone city, where the guards were less likely to take small bribes, because they had already been paid by the Gem Cutters.

If the Crooked Teeth could strike here then they could strike anywhere.

The three rows opened into a main square clearing, where materials, tools, and smithed goods were arrayed all around them, along with a few massive blocks of stone. Ruby smiled tightly in relief, and gestured for the five thieves to search the other side of the warehouse.

“Good of you to join us… six, is it?” a cold voice asked from above. “A reasonable response. Oh, no. Don’t run, Ruby of the Gem Cutters.”

Ruby paused, glancing back at the clearing now a dozen lanterns flickered to life.

A dozen dirty strangers stood atop the blocks of rock and the stacks of crates, reclining or crouched, watching with lazy gazes as if they owned the place. A huge grey-cloaked man knelt amid the clearing, his sagging head covered by a bloodied sack.

Ruby didn’t recognize the man as one of her own. She had the thought that he was almost as big as Hjorvarth.

“Ah.” The man who had spoken before sat on a worn barrel, which had been stacked atop a precarious column of five others. He wore his black hair short and a smile that mirrored the coldness in his dark eyes. “Recognition flickers in your eyes, dear, and your fear sparks alive. And, yet, I expected a different reaction to this gift.”

Ruby straightened, keeping a grip on twin throwing knifes. “You would offer me a corpse?”

“A corpse?” the man pitched a high laugh. “Hjorvarth the Red is merely sleeping.”

Ruby looked to her own people, their eyes hard, bodies tense beneath black clothing, whereas the leather-clad members of the Crooked Teeth appeared close to careless. She decided that the Gem Cutters must be severely outmatched. “If you—”

“Threats beget threats!” the man roared. “Only I make good on mine… but then I am not here to threaten. I am here to make peace. I am here, as I have said, to bring a gift.” He swept a mad gaze across his own people, then stared down at Ruby. He shifted on his barrel, this way and that, as if hoping it would collapse. “Do you accept the gift I have offered, Ruby of the Gem Cutters?”

Ruby felt slick with sweat despite the cold. “On what terms?”

“Peace, peace… peace!” The man grinned down at her, his teeth grimy. “Enough blood is blood enough.”

“Is it?” Ruby asked. “From where I stand there’s more to come. Rivers of it. Coursing down the streets of slums that you claim to protect. My father spent the better part of his life trying to avoid the attention of Jarl Thrand.” She smiled without sympathy. “Yet you seem to have a nasty habit of abducting those he relies on.”

“Who am I to judge who has crooked teeth? Who am I to judge whose need to be relieved… released.”

Those of the Crooked Teeth chuckled in chorus, but there was no true mirth to be heard.

“You all follow a mad man, then?” Ruby asked.

“Ah… I see I have been misjudged. Allow me to explain in cold certainty.” The man bared his teeth. “I want peace. I want quiet. A truce, then. My rivers of blood are mine to drink and swim in… and I don’t want you splashing around.”

Ruby scowled up at the man atop the barrels. “The Gem Cutters have not, and will not, cross into your territory. But if you interfere in my business—”

“Threats beget—”

Hjorvarth groaned, his head twisting as if trying to see through the bloodied sack.

“The bear stirs!” the mad man declared. “You should kill him! Quickly!” His eyes widened in alarm. “What stays your hand, Ruby of the Gem Cutters? Is not this man your enemy? Foster son of Brolli the Black! Interim leader of the Black Hands! Murderer of Thorfinn, son of a man, Thrand, whom you seem to hold so dear… dear.” He thumped his own thighs in frustration. “Shall I kill him, then?”

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Ruby shared her gaze between a hard face hidden by a sack and wild eyes brightened by insanity. “Hjorvarth is not a member of the Black Hands… has not been since last winter. Why would you want him dead?”

“Hjorvarth the Red…? Dead?” The mad man frowned, then beamed. “Ha! Not a thing I would ever want, I assure you! He is here for your killing or for your keeping. A gift… did I say that already?”

“Many times,” Hjorvarth said, his deep voice muffled. “And I am no gods damned animal to be kept as a pet. Whoever holds me should kill me or cut me loose, because I will offer no favour to cowards that attack me in number during the blackness of night.”

“Cowards?” asked the only man of the Crooked Teeth who wore a hooded cloak. “You hardly put up a fight.”

“Cowards,” Hjorvarth echoed. “I would have thought you hear the word often enough to think it your name.”

The hooded man laughed in contempt. “You—”

“I would ask you to challenge me to a duel, but I fear you lack the courage even tied as I am.”

The hooded man looked to his leader. The mad man shook his head.

“Silence,” Hjorvarth muttered, turning his sacked head. “The easiest fall for a man to make.”

Ruby blinked and the grey-cloaked man was standing, his boot slamming back into a stack of six barrels.

The mad man tried to leap clear, but his footing toppled away. Hjorvarth flattened him while the barrels crunched down around them, hissing out streams of sands.

The Gem Cutters and the Crooked Teeth watched in stunned silence, rolling barrels obscuring the struggle.

“Get off—”

“Are you the man that cuts out people’s teeth?” Hjorvarth roared.

Ruby drew closer, realizing he had gotten his hands free and now had a masterwork axe pressed against the mad man’s throat. She slowed to a stop when dozens of leather-clad figures emerged with readied knives or drawn bows.

The mad man grinned. “Who am I to judge who has crooked teeth?”

“Put the axe down,” the hooded man growled. “Stand clear… or I will order the death of these Gem Cutters. I will then, for good measure, have men collect five score women and children and murder them all in your name.”

Hjorvarth kept his axe against the man’s neck, but he lifted his pale gaze to the hooded man. “Five score…? Do you swear that by the gods?”

Ruby charged forward and a trio of arrows loosed in answer, shafts snapping as heads scraped against stone. She tackled the man with the cloak when he began his answer.

Hjorvarth’s axe whirled through the air and they tumbled onto the hard floor.

“Fates reversed!” the mad man now pressed a dagger against Hjorvarth’s throat. “Get off! Off, off, off! Or I’ll kill a thousand rats… insignificant fangs falling and falling like tinkling rain. Is the threat a success? Yes!”

Hjorvarth shifted his weight to let the man free. He didn’t manage to evade the man’s diving slash, but it only tore through the sack, gifting him with a ragged line of sight. “Ruby had nought to do with this,” he spoke in a steady voice. “I wish to make no habit of killing men… but then I see you more as a vile monster.”

“Conveniences when convenient,” the mad man mused. “Weapons away!”

“Ease off,” the hooded man ordered, rising to his feet. “It’s time to leave!”

The mad man strode over to Ruby. He shook his head, smiling in apology. “You have taken my gift. And so my peace. And so my truce. And so my rivers remain unsplashed. Good! But the gift was a bad one… evidenced by evidence. I promise next time we meet, here, I shall bring you the son of Brolli’s father… how does that sound?”

Ruby watched with ware now most of the Crooked Teeth departed. A dozen leather-clad members lingered in wait for a leader that unsettled her beyond measure. “I am glad of your peace, and your truce… but I want no more gifts.”

“And, yes, that is why you shall have them!” The mad man bowed low, still smiling, and spun on his heel.

The lantern flames faded to leave the warehouse in a pronounced darkness.

The Gem Cutters put their backs to each other or to stone until their eyes adjusted to the gloom. They waited for surrounding footfalls to grow distant then silent.

“Ruby?” the lithe man asked.

“I need to speak with Hjorvarth,” Ruby answered.

The lithe man nodded, then left to lead the four Gem Cutters on a search the rest of the warehouse.

Hjorvarth let out a slow sigh. “I’ve no words for you.”

“You just risked all of our lives,” Ruby hissed.

“What fault is it of mine if the Gem Cutters stand scared when they should be fighting?” he demanded. “Or if you yourself leap in the way of an axe to save a man who wishes to murder children by the masses?”

Ruby scowled in disbelief. “Have you lost the little wit that you had, Hjorvarth? What do you think happens when you hit the man with the axe? That the rest scatter?”

“By my guess?” Hjorvarth asked. “The man beneath me would have tried to use his knife, as he did, only I would have still had cause to catch his wrist. I would have held the blade against his neck as I walked out of here, then cut the man’s throat when I left.”

Ruby blinked. “As easy as that?”

Hjorvarth shrugged his huge shoulders. “Or perhaps an arrow punctures my skull and leaves me dead. Those men were followers… had I killed the two I meant to, this nightmare of slaughter and bloody teeth would have been at an end, which seemed good enough reason for me to take the risk.”

He tugged at the sack, plastered to the back of his head by blood, until it came loose.

Ruby barely recognized him. He looked years older, gaunter, his broad frame diminishing to better suit his lifeless gaze. He had not shaved his beard or combed his tailed hair. “What has happened to you, Hjorvarth?”

Hjorvarth pawed at his swollen flesh. “I would guess they hit me on the head.”

“I didn’t mean that,” Ruby snapped.

“I know… I offered one answer to avoid the other.” Hjorvarth strode forward, studying her as if she were cattle. “You seem unwounded… and I take it that the Gem Cutters are not of a mind to harm me. So I’ll be on my way.”

Ruby’s mouth twisted. “Do you even know where you are?”

“You yourself told me that Jarl Thrand’s Estate can be seen from every part of the city. It should be simple enough to find my way.”

“Of course… because you’ve come all this way to—”

“Answer for my crimes,” Hjorvarth finished. “I murdered a man.”

Ruby narrowed her eyes. “You were just about to murder two more.”

“Crimes I would have gladly told to Jarl Thrand.”

Ruby stared at him in silence, her lungs and heart pressed by an unexpected fear.

“There’s little need for that,” Hjorvarth said. “The time for pretending you care is long passed.”

Ruby considered saying she had never pretended. “You have the look of a man who wants to die. Is that why you’re going to Thrand? In the hopes that he’ll murder you?”

“Jarl Thrand will send me to the mines. Sam is there, and I think his son is, as well.”

Ruby frowned. “Then who is taking care of Isleif?”

Hjorvarth’s stony face lapsed into sadness. “Brikorhaan, I hope.”

“Oh.” Ruby stepped forward but the grey-cloaked man strode away. “I am sorry, Hjorvarth. He was a good man.”

“Why be sorry of that?” Hjorvarth asked, not looking back. “Of the men I knew, I can count those who have ended their lives as good men on one hand. He died fighting and protecting people… and I can only hope to do the same.”