Teiriol came in a while later with a handful of other men, indignation and hesitation warring in his expression. “You didn’t come,” he complained in a low tone.
“They were quenching the hearth,” apologized Keisyl. “Didn’t you see Sheltya just leave?”
Teiriol shook his head.
“When do you ever?” sneered Jeirran. “They disappear as soon as they step over the threshold! A man dies, Sheltya come, lay his body out on the charnel crag, do the trick with the burning glass and say no more about it. Misaen’s ravens do their work, Solstice comes, Sheltya lay the bones in Maewelin’s embrace and all’s done. How is that supposed to help Yevrein, widowed before her time and not even by honest accident? Where’s the consolation for Nethin, poor lad, no one to guide him, wandering and wondering till he comes of age and can claim his patrimony.”
“He’s got the entire Teyvakin to guide and guard him, Jeirran!” Alured looked affronted. “Don’t judge others by the failings of the Lidrasoke!”
Jeirran’s feet scraped on the flagstones as he sprang to his feet. “You know nothing of it,” he snarled.
“Enough!” Keisyl got between the two men. “Jeir, go and see if Eirys is coming down. Yevrein has plenty of sisters to console her and Eirys could lighten cares down here with news of the festival.”
“How did you fare in Selerima?” Alured looked up with interest.
Jeirran did not answer as he stalked over to the door leading to the stairs. It was some while before Eirys appeared, pink-faced and looking self-conscious. Keisyl watched her with half an eye, ignoring Jeirran, who appeared moments later and began to circulate, exchanging greetings and news. Satisfied Eirys was settled happily with two old friends and with Teiriol sharing nudges and low jokes with a gang of youths, Keisyl turned his full attention back to Alured, who was sharing a foaming jug with a new companion. “Hordist,” he nodded.
“Keisyl,” responded the newcomer, carefully lifting an earthenware beaker in hands bent by joint evil. “It’s a bad business, this.”
“True enough.“ Keisyl drained his own glass.
“So, what’s to be done?” Alured looked dispirited.
“Did anyone ask Sheltya’s counsel?” asked Keisyl slowly.
Hordist sucked at a swollen knuckle before answering. “Peider did. Sheltya said he’d ask the bones at Solstice, see what the light stirred in them.”
“What use are dry bones?” Jeirran crossed over from another table, goblet of clear liquor in one hand. “What we need are strong arms to drive these bastards out.”
“And when they come back from the upper diggings, maybe we will at that.” Hordist looked at Jeirran with dislike. “In the meantime, all we’ve got are part-grown lads and the halt and the lame.” He held up a twisted hand. “What am I supposed to do with Maewelin’s curse on me?”
“Your feet are strong enough,” said Jeirran with a harsh laugh. “You could kick the bastards to death.”
“I might at that.” Hordist drank noisily.
Alured refilled his beaker for him. “By the time the others are back, those vermin will have dug themselves in good and strong, felled half the woods, frightened every beast with fur on its back halfway to the high peaks and had their sheep crop the ground bare beneath them.”
“At least the beasts can leave,” grumbled Hordist. “Blood and bone bred to the soke can’t just take flight.”
His complaints were interrupted as the grandfather of the orphaned boy rapped a horny hand on a table. “I give you tales of fury,” he proclaimed thickly. “When Ceider rode the north. His mail of dragonscale, his wrath as dragons-breath!”
The four men sat and listened to the legend declaimed with burning passion. Evening closed in around the fess and the rekin as the old man retraced the steps of the myth.
“Shame Peider can’t summon up Ceider from his bones and find out how to set about raising a dragon himself,” muttered Hordist as the old man paused to wet his dry throat some verses later.
“No dragons nearer than the high peaks,” said Alured morosely. “Lowlanders hunted the wyrms out of the eastern ranges in my forefathers’ youth.”
“The fess, its walls thrown down, was scorched by fury’s flame. Vengeance true was claimed, ill faith was drowned in shame!” Peider’s voice rose to a shout as he wound the tale to its triumphant conclusion.
Rousing applause filled the room and a new energy revived conversation on all sides.
“Fire,” said Jeirran suddenly. His face flushed with excitement, eyes bright and not just from the alcohol he’d drunk. “Dragonsbreath, that’s fire! We could drive the lowlanders out with fire!”
“Where are you going to get a dragon?” demanded Alured Wearily. “Ask Misaen to lend one out of his forge?”
“You’ve got wood spirit, haven’t you?” Jeirran turned to Hordist, whose slower pace of drinking had left him slightly clearer-headed. “Resins, pine knots?”
“Yes.” Slow realization dawned in Hordist’s lined face. “I can’t hold an axe but I can throw a torch with the best of them!”
His voice was loud enough to turn heads at neighboring tables. “What do you say, Rakvar?”
“To what?”
“To burning out that nest of rats in the lower soke!” Alured said with growing eagerness. “They’ve cut us plenty of wood for a nice fire!”
“Green lumber won’t burn,” said a doubtful voice, but it sounded willing to be convinced.
“It will if you chuck a cask of stripping spirit on it first,” riposted Hordist.
Harsh laughter all around gave temporary release to simmering anger.
“A good fire would send those maggot-eaten sheep scurrying all the way down to the Gap,” commented another man with approval. “Let the lowlanders go chase them.”
“Never mind stripping spirit,” said a balding man with scarred hands. “Get some acid from the assay shed and see how they like a faceful of that!”
A few looked shocked at his vicious words but more nodded growing approval.
“So what are we waiting for?” demanded Jeirran. “Wait and there’ll be nine times their number by Solstice. Burn them out now and the bones will shout their approval to Sheltya when the sun strikes them!”
“It’s the full of both moons,” said the doubtful voice again.
“Good hunting light then,” Rakvar turned to rebuke him.
Eirys and the other women looked on in some bemusement as the men rose, laced heavy boots and found capes and stout gloves.
Teiriol came over, face eager. “What’s afoot?”
“We’re going to settle the lowlanders,” said Jeirran fervently.
“We’re going to drive them off.” Keisyl looked less zealous but more determined.
“I’ll get my boots!” exclaimed Teiriol.
Keisyl looked after him with some concern; as the men began hurrying out of the door, he caught the younger man’s arm. “You can come, Teir, but watch yourself. None of the younger lads though, no one not two-thirds grown. Tell them they are to stay behind and guard the fess and the women.”
The compound was a hive of activity; workshop doors standing open as axes, picks and even shovels were passed out to impatient hands. Blades caught the light of torches raised high and shouts warned caution as small iron-bound barrels were loaded onto a bemused mule blinking at the dark sky above. The women crowded the steps of the rekin, shouting out endorsement of the plan. Two hurried out with a basket full of narrow-necked jars and another brought an armful of tattered cloth. A second mule was dusted with black from sacks of charcoal slung over its back, yellow streaks soon added from a sulfurous jar.
“Covered lights only,” yelled Jeirran and there was a flurry to kindle lamps of pierced metal, slides lowered to mute their glimmer. The heavy doors of the fess were slowly opened and the mob passed beyond the wall. They moved slowly at first until eyes adjusted to the deep twilight of the spring night and the valley formed itself from the shadows hanging all around. Moving with the practiced stealth of hunters, the Mountain Men spread out and crept down the valley, over the bridge and past the unheeding sheep. A group split off in silent agreement and lay hidden in a hollow by the shuffling flock while the rest continued in small and furtive groups. Moving slowly, with halts and cautious pauses, they finally encircled the lowlander camp. A merry fire burned between the four wagons, an awning stretched between each pair of wains, men sleeping in shapeless rolls of blankets under each one. A single figure sat idly by the fire, throwing on scraps of wood.