Tarrskyn Eiddersbor

Ember’s people were smart, wary, and well-trained despite their obvious youth. They moved in threes, kept their eyes open, and their weapons close to hand. After nearly two days of watching them, Tarrskyn was still bereft of ideas.

He knew he wanted something of theirs. He needed some item of dwarf-make to bring back to his ship, or that clod Shulft would write off his report as a lie or a delusion. But getting it was a different matter. Tarrskyn had stolen enough things in his life to know a difficult mark when he saw one, and if it weren’t so critical, he would have given up on this one.

He needed something light and easy to run away with. One of their weapons, maybe. Or the hand-sized object they kept in their pockets and used for almost everything. But no matter how long he watched them and considered his options, no good ideas came.

He was sipping water from his canteen and eating the last of his trail rations when it occurred to him that maybe he was thinking about things the wrong way. He was thinking like a thief, and his marks were wary. One didn’t steal from the wary, so…what to do instead?

Well…what were his advantages over them? He had a ship and a crew who knew how to use it. He had an impatient, violent bjerkar seething with anger…which the dwarves didn’t have. Oh, the dwarves had muscle on their side, no doubt about it. So did any group of thugs. There was more to a fight than whose bruisers were the biggest.

Perhaps if he wanted to take home some of their magic, he’d need to force a confrontation after all, as a distraction.

And maybe they’d rid him of Shulft.

He treated himself to a snaggle-toothed smile as his plan unfurled and caught the wind, and withdrew to find his men. They’d reunite with the ship after dark, and when they did, he’d set in motion a plan that might just write his name in the history books…

Amber Houston

“They’re leaving.”

Amber’s knee was feeling better, which was a bonus. Unfortunately, it had been replaced by a new ailment—paperwork.

DANI had insisted everything they used had to be cataloged so he could send more of what they needed. Which made sense. Unfortunately, nobody actually wanted to do the cataloging. There was too much to build, explore, find, cook, hunt, or just fetch and carry. Everyone had found their niche now, and their little colony was actually…running!

They had hot showers, hot food, warm beds, clean laundry, and even a little privacy when they needed it. Compared to the luxuries they’d all enjoyed on the ship, it wasn’t much, but as far as Amber was concerned, she had everything she could ask for. It made sense that she’d be the colony’s clerk, really. She’d done little else besides sit around learning the alien language and keeping track of things since they’d landed. Apparently she was good at it.

Amber Houston, pioneering colonial pen-pusher. How glamorous.

Nikki’s interruption was very welcome, therefore. Amber looked up from the spreadsheet she was supposed to be filling out—food reserves, consumption, and production—and blinked at her with eyes that felt fuzzy at the back.

“Who’s leaving?”

“That Tar-Skin guy.” Nikki dusted some dried mud off her hip and sat down. She was even less groomed than usual, with a smear of dirt across both cheeks that looked like she’d put it there deliberately, and she’d tied a thick sleeve of grass and sticks to her rifle’s barrel shroud. “Been tracking them for two days. They’ve been watching us.”

“I was wondering where you’d gotten to,” Amber admitted. “You tracked them for two days?”

“Wasn’t hard.” Nikki shrugged as if there was nothing extraordinary about spending two nights alone in the bush on an alien planet, tracking a squad of alien sailors. She even looked energized, in a fatigued way. “They rendezvoused with their ship, climbed on board, and headed back downstream. I left a drone to watch them.”

“Why were they watching us?”

Nikki shrugged. “I mean, we’re watching them,” she pointed out. “Tar-Skin and See-vulch both. Doesn’t matter. Everyone’s being smart.”

Amber nodded and filed that one away as good news. She considered her best friend for a few seconds as Nikki plucked a small thorn out of her sleeve. While Nikki had always been happiest when she was making a mess of herself, right now it looked like there was method to it. This wasn’t just forgetting to brush the wood chippings out of her hair or clean the flour off her nose. She’d made a deliberate mess of herself.

She noticed Amber’s scrutiny and smiled, white teeth cutting through the grime. “Kinda dumb of us to forget the face paint,” she said.

“You’ve definitely taken to it,” Amber said. “Did you cover this in militia training?”

“Yup!” Nikki bubbled cheerfully. “I loved it. There’s just something about it…”

“Roy doesn’t seem as keen.”

“That’s ‘cuz he’s a brawler that likes beating people’s face in on the mat instead. And then making best friends and grilling them a steak. He’d happily live his whole life as a garbage man and grease monkey if he could. Me…I dunno.”

“You always seemed more relaxed, I guess? On Ranger weekends,” Amber observed.

“Yeah. And militia training was the same.” Nikki yawned, but didn’t seem interested in going to bed just yet. “Roy does like all that too, it’s just, y’know. That’s time he isn’t sparring, or lifting, or studying a technical order. Or, uh. With girls.”

Amber giggled, “He really is a walking stereotype.”

Nikki nodded and yawned again. “Hey, do me a favor? See if DANI can send down some actual face paint and camo stuff. If I’m gonna be lurkin’ in the woods watching aliens all day, I should have the right gear.”

Amber checked her U-Tool. “A lot of the mass in our first supply drop is marked ‘Militia Supplies,’” she said. “So I think he’s ahead of you there.”

“He always is.” Nikki groaned happily and stood up. “I’m gonna shower and get some real sleep. Don’t let the beefchunk wake me up, I won’t be held accountable for what I do to him if he does…”

Amber laughed. “Go,” she said and waved Nikki toward the dormitory. They were planning to start building cabins with more private sleeping spaces in due course, but there were only two practical options for that: local materials, or prefabs shipped from Dandelion. Option one involved tools they didn’t really have, lots of hard work, probably time to season the wood or whatever. Option two took up lots of volume and mass on the supply launches. And DANI, apparently, thought creature comforts like a private bedroom were a long way down the list.

DANI was clearly worried about their security and immediate health, however. The militia manifest was short on luxuries and long on things like ammunition, gabion bags, concertina wire, and other such nastiness. There was a massive pile of agricultural supplies including a whole flat-pack hydroponics farm, a year’s worth of rations, and the start of a well-stocked clinic.

There was also a dozen tons of ropes, bars, weights, mats, and balls, too. Amber imagined Roy would be positively gleeful to hear that news; he’d been doing strange things with boulders lately when he wasn’t busy doing something else.

Her thoughts were interrupted by her U-Tool producing a noise she hadn’t heard since they left Dandelion—her ringtone. She frowned at the caller ID, then her brain caught up and she scrambled to answer.

“Walker!”

He looked—and sounded—thoroughly pleased with himself, not to mention a few shades darker tanned and well-stubbled. “Surprise! One comms mast deployed and operational! Welcome to the Newhome Internet.”

“You have no idea how glad I am to hear from you!” Amber babbled. “Do you have any idea what’s been going on back here?”

He sobered and considered her image for a second. “If it was something with the Rangers, you’d have dealt with it,” he said. “Did something happen?”

“Walker, Newhome is inhabited. There are native sophonts! I made first contact!”

She’d never seen him look dumbfounded before. His image shook and jolted as he took a step back and sat down on a rock, and his U-Tool picked up the prolonged rasping sound his fingers made as he ran them absently through his trail stubble.

He cleared his throat after a few seconds. “Well, you’re either the most talented actor in human history, or…wow. First Contact, huh? How’d it go? What’re they like?”

“Like a cross between a lion, a really tall kangaroo, and Leif Eriksson,” Amber told him, then code-switched into their language. “Reddin berhyd n llarath er teíngudd. I already speak their language.”

“Showoff.”

“Sorry, I just…” Amber shrugged. “That’s been the big thing back here. Other than that, it’s gone pretty much to plan…see?” She swept her U-Tool around the outpost, showing off the kitchen, the dorms, and the table she was seated at.

“You did good. Very good,” Walker said. When Amber turned the screen back to face her, he looked deeply proud and gratified. “All of you.”

“Thanks. I’m kinda worried, though. There’s two factions of aliens, things between them are tense, and I’m trying to keep us out of it, but…”

Walker picked up his canteen, swigged from it, and set his U-Tool down in front of him so he could set up his camp. “Tell me everything,” he said.

She did. It took a while. He occasionally stopped her to clarify a point, but mostly he listened, dark brow knitting as he considered the situation. His U-Tool synchronized with the outpost’s systems, and he read up on the natives as he listened.

Finally, they were all caught up. He’d cooked up his lunch while she talked and spooned a spork-full of spicy sausage curry into his mouth with a resigned grimace. Amber smiled—she hadn’t mentioned Kelly’s Adventure Stew yet, she was going to save that treat for when he got back.

“Sounds like Tarrskyn’s scared of you,” he commented after the second mouthful.

“I think we gave him good reason to be.”

“Good. They should be scared of us. From their perspective, we’re…well, they’re the American Indians, and we’re the European colonists. If we’d reached orbit and had the chance to scan the surface properly, DANI would have flown us on to Second Star.”

“Well, as it is, we’re here. And we’ve made contact,” Amber said. “And I’ve been thinking about Tarrskyn’s advice.”

“Thinking what?”

“That we’re going to have to pick a side no matter what.”

Walker agreed. She could see it in the way he stopped and considered for a second, then very carefully and neutrally sipped his drink without giving anything away. And he cinched it with his next question.

“Your reasoning?”

Amber thought about it, putting words and finality to the thought that so far had been more like a feeling in her head than an actual argument. “In an ideal world, we could stay out of their affairs, and they’d understand it,” she said. “But if we try to step aside and let them be in this case, no matter what happens, I think Sjívull’s crew would see it as taking Tarrskyn’s side. We’ll see it as neutrality, but I don’t think they will.”

“In other words, in this case, inaction will be taken as tacit support for one side.”

“Yes. At least, that’s how they’ll see it. And then it won’t matter how we see it.” Amber let out an exasperated sigh. “Tarrskyn really did give good advice, but I don’t think we have the luxury of staying neutral.”

“So which side are you going to choose?”

“Sjívull,” Amber said firmly.

“Why?”

“Because I like him.”

Walker raised his eyebrows, smiled, shrugged and finished his food. “Fair enough!”

Amber gave him an apologetic smile. “I wish I had a better reason.”

“You don’t need one. If you like him, that means you think he’s a man of better character than Tarrskyn.” Walker swigged the last of his drink and shuffled closer to his U-Tool. “Amber, sometimes a leader has to be ruthlessly logical and calculating, but more often she needs to be a moral beacon. If you like Sjívull and dislike Tarrskyn, that’s enough. Don’t overthink it, and for goodness’ sake, keep your doubts to yourself.”

“Thanks. DANI thinks we should remain neutral anyway, but…”

“DANI isn’t here. We are. You are. You shouldn’t ignore him lightly, but at the end of the day? You’re in charge down here, not him.”

Amber tilted her head. “What about the captain?”

Walker sighed. “I miss Amida like crazy, but she’d tell you the same thing. She’s not here; you are. Speaking of Amida, I got a message from her when the link went up.”

“Don’t let me stop you!” Amber encouraged him. He smiled, nodded his thanks, and leaned forward to tap on his U-Tool’s screen.

It didn’t take him long to read, but…there was pain there. Amber could see it in his eyes. He bowed his head after a moment, and sighed heavily.

“Authors…I love that woman.”

“What did she say?” Amber asked. He shook his head again.

“I’ll explain some other time,” he promised.

Amber decided not to pry. “How long until you get back?”

“Not as long as the outbound journey. I know the land now; I cleared a trail as I went, and I’ll be a lot lighter without all that comms equipment on my back. Five or six days, maybe.”

Amber nodded. “Okay. I should get on with some work. And the sooner you start, the sooner you’ll be back.”

“True enough.” He leaned forward to end the call, then hesitated. “Hey. I know I’m back in contact now. But don’t you dare lean on me just because you can. You’ve done great without me. Keep it up.”

“We will,” Amber promised. He nodded, smiled, and ended the call.

Amber sat back and smiled, feeling encouraged and confident for the first time in days. She’d had plenty of supportive words from those on the ship, from DANI, and of course the twins had her back…but Walker absolutely would have said if he’d thought she was messing things up.

She stood up and went to find Roy.

She found him sitting with Kelly and enjoying a big bowl of Adventure Stew, which Kelly sure looked happy about. Amber smiled to herself. Her mum had tentatively given her “The Talk” about six months ago, and several years too late, and had been a little put out to learn that Amber had already learned everything from the library, DANI, and Petra McKay.

The memory broadened her smile a little. Petra had been happily matter of fact about things, while Amber’s mum had squirmed so much Amber wondered how she’d ever worked up the mindset to get pregnant in the first place. But that was a fair summary of both her parents, really—they took the easy and made it more complicated than it had to be.

Like the situation between Kelly and Roy. He was charming, handsome, big, strong, competent, and energetic; she was creative, intelligent, funny, cheerful, and fascinatingly pretty. Neither were particularly complicated, as far as Amber was concerned. Which wasn’t an insult at all—she liked straightforward people. She certainly liked both Kelly and Roy.

Which made her feel a little guilty tearing them away from each other. She didn’t want to be the villain and ruin their moment.

She flashed them an apologetic look as she approached. “Any Adventure left, Kell?”

Amber needn’t have worried; Kelly didn’t have a bitter bone in her body. She sing-songed out a happy, “Sure!” and turned to ladle out a bowl. The lumps of stewed alien mushroom in there were still disconcertingly blue, but Amber was coming to love it.

Roy gave her a squeeze. “Got sick of paperwork, huh?”

“Got news. Walker’s back in touch!” Amber grinned as Kelly handed her a bowl.

“Oh, great!” Kelly looked delighted. “So the comms network is up?”

“Yup!”

Kelly set her things down. “I’m gonna go call Emily!” she declared, referring to her older sister, whose troop had landed more than five hundred kilometers away. “See you later, Roy!”

Roy nodded understandingly. “Later, Kell.”

Well. That solved that problem. Roy watched Kelly go as she darted away to find somewhere private to call her sister, then shrugged and went a little red when he noticed Amber grinning at him.

“Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything!” Amber grinned wider.

“Stop…looking at me in that tone of voice!”

Amber laughed, treated herself to a spoonful of Adventure, then got serious. “Alright, alright…let me fill you in.”

She gave him a quick summary of her conversations with Nikki and Walker. He listened as he ate, celebrated quietly when he learned about the militia and PT supplies coming in the first drop, and nodded solemnly when she explained her reasons for taking sides in the aliens’ conflict.

“Makes sense. I like Seevul more, too. Tarrskyn ain’t one of the good guys.”

“There may not be any good guys, Roy,” Amber pointed out. “It’s all lords and politics and kings and stuff. Not a story. Just…the grubby old real world.”

Roy nodded, glumly. “You gonna talk to Seevul?”

“I probably should.”

“Cool. I’ll go wake up Nick.”

Amber shook her head and stopped him with a light hand on his arm. “No, let her sleep. She tracked Tarrskyn for two days; she needs rest.”

“You sure?”

“Hey, I’ll have you with me. And we need to start using your time more effectively or you’ll both be wrecks before long.”

“Yeah. You’re right.”

Amber patted his arm. “It’ll be fine,” she said. “You’ll see.”

Dandelion Master Control Center

D.A.N.I.

As with the evacuation launches, the second wave with the young militia on board took periodic “breaks” of one-G acceleration out of medical necessity. Not even the Nomads and Brutes who comprised the entire deployment could endure constant high-G acceleration all the way there.

They were clearly suffering. When DANI received the newest update from Butler, the young man’s face was as haggard as that of a man three times his age.

“So far, no medical emergencies,” Butler reported, rubbing his weary forehead. “Thank the Authors. Some of us can stand up now, but what would we do? The Gs are starting to feel…manageable, so we’re all pretty confident your projections will pan out. I’m looking forward to that.”

He glanced away from the camera, checked something, and nodded to himself. “We’re using the meds a little faster than projected, but it’s still inside the range you gave us. Same goes for food. All things considered…I know we look like crap right now, but morale is high overall. We can hack it.”

DANI would need to remind them they weren’t outerdeck crews and lacked experience with high-G environments. Injuries in supergravity could be…terrible. Even among DANI’s crew, very few ever ventured into the ship’s outrigger pods, where the gravity was as fierce as the landing pods were experiencing. Few could physically endure it, and even fewer had the proper mindset. Maintenance in those pods was planned out to every individual movement the techs would make, because if there was ever an injury…

Well. Simply falling could be fatal if a person wasn’t ready, and falling was a matter of when rather than if under such extreme loads.

Butler was right. If there was a medical emergency on the launches, they’d be unable to do anything about it. Best to remind them to sit still rather than test their growing strength.

For his part, Butler clearly felt he’d reported everything that needed reporting, so he leaned forward and reached toward the touchscreen. “Next update in twenty-four hours. Militia Launch One, out.”

All in all, DANI decided, that was good. The volunteers were clearly motivated and Activating nicely. If they could endure sitting around in supergravity and still have the energy to want to get up and test their new strength, that boded well.

Thank the Authors he’d decided to include some heavy-duty exercise equipment in their cargo manifest. Energy like that took a lot of burning off before it turned into mischief.

As for the situation on Newhome itself, the colonies were progressing nicely. Now that the various camps and landing sites were in direct contact and could converse, that promised an explosion in how quickly the colony process unfurled. Already the Ranger troops further inland were loading up their launches to relocate and coalesce in centralized locations, leaving their outposts behind to serve as future logging camps, farms, mines, quarries, and patrol bases. They even had names.

Grand Rift, the furthest inland, was named for the huge rift valley that was the area’s major geological feature. Its high walls and the river running along its bottom both offered shelter from Newhome’s bright sun and fierce noonday heat, and the grassy plains around it looked dry-baked at first glance, but saw enough rain to keep the grass growing and the native ruminant herds moving through to graze. There was a lot of continent east of there, too. A lot of territory to explore, and DANI foresaw that in the future it might be the best site for the starport once Dandelion made orbit. For now, though, it was just a lot of tents and tarps in the shade.

Southwest of there was Prairie, again named for the local geography. In fact, the ground was basically flat for hundreds upon hundreds of kilometers around, with the natural bedrock buried deep under ancient volcanic ash and even older glacial till. Properly cultivated, the soil promised to be paradise for food crops. In time, the farms around Prairie would stretch from horizon to horizon, yielding enough food to comfortably feed every human being on the planet. The settlement itself was sited in anticipation of a future east-west highway, and specifically in anticipation of the need to build a bridge over the mighty river that cut the plains in half, but the farms would be the real reason Prairie existed.

DANI’s thoughts and plans extended decades into the future, and along several probable avenues…including one possible future where humanity abandoned Newhome as quickly as possible and moved on, leaving the natives to their own devices. DANI intended to campaign against that option for several reasons—not least of which was the same cold survivalist logic that had led him to evacuate the Rangers in the first place when they were shot at— but he planned for it nevertheless. It would be a dereliction of his responsibilities if he did not.

The third of his planned settlements was already named Willowton. One of the young men out there was a latent Apostle himself, doing a very fine job of building a community, and when he’d proposed the name, he’d had his way; it was named for his niece, born up on the ship, and left behind on the grounds that an infant couldn’t possibly survive the prolonged abuse of high-G travel anyway. DANI hadn’t yet vouchsafed to those colonists exactly why he’d picked an otherwise uninspiring area of dry, scrub-covered rolling hills for their home, but the truth was simple; there was oil-bearing geology under those hills. And even at the soaring height of the pre-war economy, when a few naïve souls had dared to declare the post-scarcity age had arrived, oil had never quite lost its value or usefulness.

Though, if DANI had any say in the matter, they’d use that particular resource responsibly on Newhome.

The fourth settlement was the furthest north, centered in a hilly area with good access to the mountains and their considerable mineral wealth, and didn’t yet have a settled-upon name. Deep penetrating survey scans had already identified rich seams of several vital ores and a vast field of what he hoped was anthracite coal, but the short-term appeal came from a huge aquifer that fed several cool streams, which merged on the lowlands to become the great meandering, serpentine waterway that ran through Prairie and, eventually, past…

…First Contact. The westernmost settlement was in good proximity to some nice, arable flood plain, good grazing land, useful stone quarry, and a forest full of intriguing and potentially useful xenobiology…but the location wasn’t ideal. Had Newhome been uninhabited, DANI would have ordered Troop 732 to consolidate northwards toward the other nearby launches once Walker got back and left their outpost to serve as a hub for farming and development in the area.

The natives had changed his calculations there. The river was deep and navigable enough to get their sailing ships up, even several kilometers inland. That opened the prospect of trade and the necessity of diplomacy. Whether or not the human settlers remained on Newhome, the natives simply could not and should not be ignored. So in fact the slightly awkward, isolated location would serve well. First Contact would be the well-controlled gateway to human territory, sparing the aliens the worst of the culture shock.

And, DANI reflected wryly as he reviewed his maps, it would hardly be a human endeavor if absolutely everything was perfectly ordered and in its place, would it? Humans had a confounding capacity to improvise around his best laid plans.

All in all…he was satisfied with the situation planetside. The more support he could give, the sooner and more smoothly things would develop, but the launches now speeding their way in-system to land on Newhome carried the last of what those colonists truly needed from Dandelion.

If the ship exploded tomorrow, the Rangers had everything necessary to build a thriving civilization down there.

So now all DANI had to do was ensure the ship didn’t explode.

He scanned the space around them again, something he did a few dozen times a second now. He needed to stop that, really; the scanners were located in the outrigger pods, and with Roy stuck planetside, DANI was down to a mere three outerdeck engineers who could effect any needed repairs. One of those engineers in fact was Dan, Roy’s father. Gram-for-gram, he was every bit a paragon of strength like his infamous son…and nowhere near as massive. To make matters worse, the other two engineers were much closer to Dan than Roy, which severely constrained DANI’s options.

Already he’d been far too reliant on Roy and had used him to perform major sensor upgrades only four months prior. They were new systems of exceptional make, but new designs always had kinks to work out. Pushing those new sensors as hard as he had been and needlessly incurring maintenance hours was probably foolish…

But he had to know.

After all, whatever had shot at them was still out there.

So he kept pinging, kept listening, kept watching, and kept worrying.

And in the privacy of his own mind, he prayed fervently for the chance to finally meet their aggressor and talk.

Sjívull Wylderrjorssían

“Your people build quickly.”

Sjívull acknowledged Ember’s compliment with a duck of his head and a lash of his tail. It was nice of her to say, and she was probably sincere, but Sjívull had spent quite a lot of the last two days wishing his men were dwarf strong. Felling trees, stripping the bark, notching the logs, and rolling them into an interlocking frame to create what would ultimately be quite a modest winterhall was hard and time-consuming work, and they were starting a little late in the season.

At least Wavebird was safely up out of the water, away from Tarrskyn’s men and the flasks of fire oil the bjerkar Shulft had boasted about. She was rolled slightly onto her side, and with a log wall to hold her up, had become a decent shelter in her own right. When the rains came, they would have somewhere dry to sleep, and that, after all, was the first and most important function of a winterhall.

Having somewhere to cook and feast and while away the stormy season with songs and sagas and boasting was the rest of it.

Ember and Roí had seemed…bemused, somehow, when he described the winter.

“Rains?”

“Storms. Fierce ones.”

“No snö?” Roí had asked. Sjívull had turned to Ember for a translation.

“…What is snö?”

Her reply had been bewildering. She’d done her best to describe it, but left Sjívull scratching his ear in confusion. In the end, she’d given up, and made a comment to Roí in their own language.

“Hattuhr climb et dden urth, reemembuh? No pohl arraiss kaps.”

Whatever that meant, it satisfied Roí’s curiosity.

“Your people build swiftly too, Lady Ember. You built a fine hall in mere days!”

She shook her head, deflecting the praise. “We brought what we needed to make our hall with us. It was…” she paused. “…Uhmm…ah. It was designed to be built fast. No need to cut down trees.”

“If only Wavebird could carry such a thing…” Sjívull sighed. He considered his ship ruefully. She was a beautiful blade of a thing, designed to slip gracefully through the water…and very much a fish out of water. It was a sorry sight.

But there was no avoiding that. She was safe from being set alight, and safe from being damaged by the winter storms when they came. She was where she needed to be.

“I saw…things…at your hall,” he said, rather than dwell on his ship. “Lanterns without flame, clean water without barrels…”

“More of our tools,” Ember explained. “We—”

She was cut off by the sound of a lookout’s cry, followed by the shouting of men running toward the river and drawing their weapons. Drynllaf appeared at Sjívull’s side an instant later with an explanation.

“Eiddersbor is back.”

“Godspit,” Sjívull cursed. “I was really hoping he’d build his own winterhall and we wouldn’t see him for a few fivedays…”

“I fear that is not to be, young lord.”

Sjívull sighed. “Fine. Let’s go see what he wants…but have a few of our men watch our backs. I don’t want any of his sneaking up and burning Wavebird.”

“Aye, lord.”

Tarrskyn was in fact leaning on his spear on the far side of the river, with a peace flag held loosely in his spare hand, flanked by a couple of his men. He waved merrily as Sjívull approached the shore, apparently unfazed by the presence of bows, or of Roí and his dwarf weapon.

“Well met! I see Lady Ember disregarded my kind advice!” he called.

Sjívull glanced at Ember. She had mentioned Tarrskyn’s visit to her camp, so he wasn’t surprised by the news, but he was curious how she would reply.

She didn’t disappoint. “Your advice was most welcome, Captain Eiddersbor!” she called back, “but we are here, and we don’t have the luxury of not taking a side.”

Tarrskyn waved his hand breezily, as though the alliance between Wavebird and the dwarves was of no real consequence. “A pity, but I understand, of course. Young Lord Wylderrjorssían is your neighbor, and I am far away! Far more sensible to be allies with your neighbors!”

“Why are you here, Eiddersbor?” Sjívull demanded.

“Why, to parley of course!” Tarrskyn gave the sorry, neglected, stained rag he was using for a peace flag a jaunty wave. “And perhaps to trade! We have our own winterhall to build.”

“Trade? You’re trying to kidnap and ransom me!”

“Long term, yes. Here and now, I’m just trying to build somewhere dry to rest my head! And I’m sure we have some surplus you want, and you must have something we’re short of! Surely civilized and enlightened men can put aside the bad business between them to face the winter in peace?”

To Sjívull’s left, Ember frowned and fished her Yutül from her pocket.

“Civilized and enlightened men certainly may, Tarrskyn Eiddersbor!” Sjívull rejoindered. “Do you know of any around here?”

Tarrskyn laughed, then whistled sharply. “When you come into your lordship, they should call you Sjívull Thorntongue! Your wit is sharp but indiscriminate!”

“And my patience is limited! You’re a sworn foe of mine and my family’s, Captain!”

Tarrskyn pulled a face as though he’d just smelled something foul. “Nonsense! I am just a humble mercenary!” he replied. “I’ve sworn no oath of enmity against you or your kin, and may the gods strike me dead if I’m lying!”

Sjívull scowled. “What do you propose to trade?” he asked, buying time to think.

Tarrskyn just grinned at him and whistled again. A short pip, a long rising note, and then another pip.

“Wh—?” Sjívull began, before something blurred down from overhead in a dark reddish-black streak and swooped past him. Ember yelped and fell over, Roí exclaimed loudly, Drynllaf drew his sword, and then with a harsh keening cry the most ragged, feral-looking hunting Aurnak Sjívull had ever seen wheeled out over the river, beating its wings to gain height with something in its claws.

“My Yutül!” Ember scrambled to her feet and took a few futile steps after it. “That thing’s got my Yutül!”

“Never mind, Young Lord!” Tarrskyn called smugly. “I got what I came for!”

“You give that back!” Ember yelled at him, but Tarrskyn and his men vanished amid the trees, leaving only mocking laughter and the Aurnak’s hunting cry behind.

Roí had readied his weapon and aimed it at the bird but gave up with a frustrated growl. Sjívull could see why; it was already little more than a climbing black dot in the sky. Even for dwarves with their magic, that shot would just be wasted.

Ember put her hand on his arm. “Itsokae,” she soothed. “Weehaf spairs.”

He made a disgruntled noise but clicked a little toggle on his weapon and slung it back around his shoulder on its strap, muttering something Sjívull didn’t catch.

Whatever he said, it made Ember giggle. “Langwij,” she chided, then turned and raised a hand to her brow to try to follow the bird. Futile, it was long gone. “He’s playing with power he doesn’t understand, the fool.”

“Dangerous?” Sjívull asked.

“Might be. It can do a lot more than you’ve seen.”

“Like what?” Drynllaf asked.

Ember gave a serious look. “Its name means ‘tool-that-can-do-anything,’” she said.

“Say no more.”

“It’s okay, that name is a bit of an exaggeration,” Ember reassured him. “But yes. Potentially very dangerous.”

“How dangerous are we talking, here?”

“That depends on…things. When they’re first made and given to a child, they have locks on them to limit what they can do. As we train with them and grow older, the locks are opened, and it can do more. Mine was fully unlocked. It could certainly be a blade, one you could never parry. It would just cut right through any normal sword or shield and ignore armor.”

“With a weapon like that…”

“It can be locked again,” Ember reassured him, apparently oblivious to the rather more alarming thought that had just risen in Sjívull’s mind, to the effect that every dwarf in the world could have a weapon against which mere shields were useless. Those long-striking war wands of theirs had been concerning enough. “From afar. We just have to wait a few hours.”

“Perhaps if we’re lucky he’ll skewer himself and sink his ship while he meddles with it,” Drynllaf grumbled.

Ember just sighed in frustration and looked in the direction the fleeing mercenary had gone. She muttered something to herself in her own tongue.

“I’m…sorry for your loss, Lady Ember.” Drynllaf softened. “It must be very valuable.” His soft spot could never be resisted for long, but Ember shook her head no.

“We each have one, and a few extra. It won’t take long for me to have a new Yutül. It’s just…um…” She paused and snapped her fingers several times with a scowl.

“Annoying?” Sjívull suggested.

“Yes! Thanks. Annoying.”

“Why does it take a few hours to lock it again?” Drynllaf asked.

“All locks have their key, even if this one works from afar. But in this case, the key is very far away. It will take time for the message to get there. There is…still much we need to talk about. Sorry.”

“And I would hear it, except we have pressing matters to attend to,” Sjívull replied. “Your people and mine both need their shelter, meat, and drink. And neither of us are entirely secure in those regards yet, are we?”

“No. But…soon. You deserve to hear the full story.” Ember glanced back up the hill toward her own camp. “We should get back. The sooner we do, the sooner that Yutül will be locked and made safe.”

“Go, then,” Sjívull encouraged. He didn’t want Tarrskyn to have the full power of such a thing any longer than was strictly necessary, even if he doubted the pirate had any inkling of its true powers. After all, Sjívull didn’t.

“Good night.”

Sjívull watched the dwarves go. It was reassuring that they seemed irritated rather than truly worried, but if there was one thing he’d learned about Lady Ember and her people in their short acquaintance, it was that they barely noticed the power they were cloaked in. Their winterhall was a wondrous place of magic lanterns, unlimited clean water, food that cooked itself, and other wonders, but to the dwarves, those were all just tools.

Could people become so accustomed to such power that they forgot how miraculous it truly was? He made a note to hear their full story sooner rather than later, then turned back to his duties to his own people.

And he vowed to never give Tarrskyn Eiddersbor the benefit of his trust again.