Hammer and Feather Ch. 01-07

The dwarf girl held up the golden feather timidly and the god began to smile. "The Golden Rook leaves her feathers behind." He held out his hand to Syreilla, "Are you angry with me, my dear one?"

"A little, I'm mostly trying to figure you out. You look like both Grandfather and Uncle at once, you have the fiery corona but it's whiter and it doesn't lighten the night sky around you. You aren't murky but you're two things at once and it makes me feel cross-eyed."

Odos covered his face as Ahevhethrah laughed.

"You will adjust to me, dear one. It broke part of me to see you sink below the water. I could not continue as two pieces. The Garden of Twilight has been created, I-"

"And Vezar?" She stopped him with a frown.

"I have so much to tell you." Ahevhethrah kept his hand extended and Syreilla reached out and took it.

Kwes cleared his throat.

"Tell me as we get my little brother and my Nali somewhere safe." She glanced at the elves who had returned and were staring with awestruck expressions. "We can take the elves too."

"The doors you were once able to use belonged to Hevtos and-" The god with burning eyes stopped short as she grinned.

"No longer work? I had some time to think about things, Grandfather. I think I can make my own."

"How do you make them?" Kwes looked at her curiously and Odos narrowed his eyes.

"Father said he needed power to do it, so either the air has to be... wet with magic or you need a stone. I have my eye and my dragon's fire. Bone White's black lake isn't wet with magic, it's... it's a sucking hole in liquid form." She turned a glower on a patch of empty air. "Why don't we all go visit Orsas? I need to see him about my talons anyway."

Kwes watched as Syreilla raised her hand and a doorway lined with flame rose with it, everything on the other side was blurred as if in a heat haze. The hair everywhere on his body stood on end as the raven flew into it and vanished.

"Lady-Lady Rook." Ruinir stared in horror.

Ahevhethrah began to laugh.

*Seven*

The laughter that came from Ahevhethrah reminded her strongly of Hevtos and Syr looked at him curiously.

"The first door! This is the first door I ever made, my dear one. My sons remind me of their mother, but my granddaughter is made in my image."

Odos took hold of the Magpie's arm and led him through, giving her an approving nod. Her brother looked terrified, however. Nali reached up and took her hand distracting her from the peculiar feeling like a weight pressing and trying to close the door as her father and brother had walked through it.

"We're really going to see Orsas Fellforger?" Her whisper put a grin on Syr's face.

"He's a good dwarf. When you see the work he does you'll be impressed."

The elves started speaking to one another frantically in their tongue and she sighed.

"I don't speak Elvish."

They fell silent.

"You have a choice, stay here and make your way back without my protection or walk through that door and remain under it." She tried not to grin as they looked at each other. "If you're rude to any dwarf while under my protection I'll drop you on Bone White's shore, alive, for him to address the matter."

That seemed to settle things and they tentatively crossed over, she was better prepared for the feeling of weight this time. Syreilla followed with Nali. The door opened into an immense hall bordered by closed doors and filled with rows upon rows of steel dwarves. In her sight, most of them, but not all, gave off a faint malevolence like a mist.

"The Nightforged," Nali's murmur was barely audible.

Baduil returned to perch on Syr's shoulder calling loudly into the respectfully silent hall and the elves spun to give him horrified looks.

"Syreilla the Rook!" Orsas voice boomed out and the steel dwarves parted as he made his way toward her with a grin on his face. "I had thought you were lost."

"Delayed, Orsas, and now I'm irritated."

The dwarf laughed and gave her a pleased once over. "Irritated suits you."

He glanced at the elves and they dipped into low bows. "You found elves with manners?"

"I like to give people a choice, Orsas. They're here under my protection as long as they're polite, if they choose to be impolite I'll drop them on Bone White's shore. Alive." She gave him as wide a grin as she could manage.

Orsas' ears turned red and he started to laugh, "You should have been born a dwarf, Syreilla." He turned to bow to Ahevhethrah and gave Odos a curt nod. "And who is this?"

"My son." Odos pressed Magpie forward. "One of them. He goes by Kwes."

"Call him Magpie," Syreilla spoke up with a grin. "And my brother will refrain from putting things in his pockets or I'll put that arrow back in his leg."

Magpie gave her a dirty look and she laughed.

Nali hissed up at her, "He's your brother! You shouldn't say that!"

"Thank you, Nali!" Magpie gestured toward the dwarf girl, "I let her know you needed to be pulled out of that lake and you want to put an arrow in me?"

"I don't want to, little brother, but I will if you steal from a dwarf when I've brought you in the door. Love and gratitude are separate from the consequences you earn. I don't steal from dwarves and I don't tolerate it."

Orsas' gaze fell on Nali, "Nali Rookfriend?"

As Syr glanced down the girl was flushed and half hiding behind her. "Are you afraid?"

"Lady Rook, I..."

"She stole from Sirruil."

Crouching and looking into the girl's frightened eyes, she saw the heart of the matter, a jumble of memories and feelings, Syreilla gave her a reassuring smile before pressing their faces together. Standing up again, she put her hand on Nali's head and gave Orsas her most innocent expression, "Of course she didn't, Orsas, she borrowed a few things from her father. It's not even worth a stern look."

The dwarf folded his arms and narrowed his eyes. "She 'borrowed' his things in the night from a locked chest. That's stealing, Rook."

"Not at all, it's borrowing without asking. If she keeps what she borrowed, that's stealing. She intended to give it all back when she took the items, as long as she does-"

"Dwarves don't borrow things that way." The room felt like the forges for a moment and she caught herself grinning.

"You just said I should have been born a dwarf, Orsas, you can't have it both ways. That's my preferred way of borrowing things, it avoids unpleasantness, like having to hear the word 'no'. Nali belongs to me, I don't think Sirruil minds if she does things my way."

He was giving her a flat look when Odos broke into laughter.

"Our family tends not to take a dim view of a little light theft now and then, my little rook, but that argument won't take you as far as you hope with dwarves."

She waved her hand at him without breaking Orsas' gaze.

"It won't happen a second time, Rook. She knows better."

"It won't happen a second time. Speaking of things that people should know better about, why was my Nali being sent back to Half Shaft Mine in the first place?"

A faint smile twitched at the black-haired dwarf's mouth, "That rookish temper and talent for trouble she has weren't being discouraged enough for the people of Bhiraldur. And while the matter is at hand, I seem to remember telling you that Baduil couldn't look in on her too often."

"He's only looked in on her once, hasn't he? For about..." She glanced down at Nali.

"Twenty years." The girl grinned up at her.

"Is that how you count it, Syreilla the Rook?" The dwarf started to grin, "I'll remember that if you ever give me another favor."

Syreilla gave up and laughed, dipping into a bow, "I hadn't intended to, you know. But I got this terrible feeling, Orsas. I was waylaid before I could get in the door at home and by the time I was standing on the shore of that lake... I knew there was nothing I could do but be who and what I am." She crossed to him and took his hand as he offered it. "Some responsibilities should never be shirked. My Nali needed to be looked after by someone who would help her no matter what. I trust Baduil. I love that bird."

Orsas chuckled and nodded. "Khiril kept an eye on them. He was itching to claim her for one of his, and your Baduil too."

"I like Orefinder but he hedged on taking Syreilla Hammersworn. If I have to give up a dwarf of mine I'll give them to you." She squeezed his hand and his ears reddened again.

"Keep flirting with me Syreilla, you'll end up as a Fellwife yet."

"I have a dragon to get home to. His threads feel tangled. The things I need to put right feel like they're stacking up."

He gave her a grim smile, "You're going to need help to do it. They haven't told you about what's happened?"

"Not yet. I know that the huntress had plans she'd been working on for a very long time. She was murky like dirty water under a shadowed bank. She wants to spread pain and spill blood, I doubt she's gotten less murky."

"She's been extorting the gods for support and for their stones. Outside the mines is a terrible place right now. They take the caravans heavily armored and as little as possible."

"Is she starting on the dwarves?"

"She's made a few forays and regretted it."

"I'll keep you all out of it as much as I can."

"You'll need us, Syreilla."

She exhaled and closed her eyes for a moment feeling the crushing weight press down before meeting his grim gaze. "I promise you, Orsas, I'll ask if I do. Risking the ones who mean a great deal to me doesn't come easily."

"You'd have made a good dwarf, Rook. If you can keep those you borrow safe I'll let you take a few from Clan Hammersworn for your own and let your banner fly with the priest's caravan."

"Put my banner on all of them to ward off thieves and marauders. I do my best to make sure no one fucks with mine twice, Orsas. And I like dwarves." She gave him her widest, maddest grin and he pulled his hand away to smack her on the rump, returning it.

"Was her mother a half-dwarf, Odos?" The black-haired dwarf glanced back at her smugly smiling father.

"Not that I'm aware of but I suppose it's possible there was some dwarf in her mother's lineage. It was the line of the first King after Edra was locked away."

Orsas arched a brow, "One of the more ambitious freehold Masters took one of King Adevalor's bastard daughters for a wife. Not all of the children stayed in the mine."

"They'd have gone back to their royal kin." Odos was grinning, "What clan?"

"Palestrike. They've long died out."

Syr stretched with a grin. "Hammersworn is solid but Palestrike is pretty."

"They were bad-tempered and devious, Syreilla."

"I like them already." She laughed as he gave her a flat look. "There's nothing wrong with either of those things if you use them the right way. They're tools like dragon's fire and a good knife."

That drew a bark of a laugh out of Orsas. "They are and you're a skilled hand."

He led the way to the forges and she tilted her head curiously as he went to a covered pedestal. The dwarf seemed to be waiting for something and she glanced around as the others filed in behind her and stood with respectful and curious expressions.

Khiril Orefinder and Thyldind Trueshield joined them a moment later.

"Did you swim out of that lake, Rook?" Orefinder was grinning at her.

"No, he needs to dredge that damned thing. Nali Rookfriend pulled me out." Syreilla gave a sidelong look at the elves standing nearby, "You can bet I'll tell the elves I swam, though." She wrinkled her nose at them and the dwarves broke into laughter.

Orsas gave her a fond look and then pulled the cloth away. On the pedestal, atop their leather sheaths and belts, sat the finished talons he'd been making, a pair of wicked blades, the inner curve smooth and sharp and the outer curve just slightly serrated almost until it reached the tip. The metal had a rippled pattern like water and the hilts of the blades were of gold and steel, made to look like the skin on a bird's toe made metal, rippled and wrinkled in places and ending in a gold pommel engraved with stylized feathers that were unmistakably dwarven in design.

She picked them up and admired them, the heft, the perfection of the way they fit her hands. Held up the right way there was an eye-shaped gap between them and she blew through it sending a tongue of dragon's fire into the air.

"Orsas... these are magnificent."

"That's why you let her call you by name!" Orefinder sounded teasing and she looked away from the blades to see Orsas scowling at him with a flushed face.

"What?"

"I only hear that tone from my wife after I've spent an hour with my face buried in her-" Magpie stopped with a lewd grin on his face as Odos smacked his side.

"You should never have let him be raised by elves, old man."

"At least I didn't marry my cousin."

"We have a sister I haven't met?"

He stared at her flatly as the dwarves roared with laughter.

"Did he allow dwarves to raise you?" One of the elves asked with an annoyed smile.

"He'd never have gotten her back." Orsas grinned.

"From the time she was twelve until she was in her seventies I stayed closer to her than any of my other children."

"You left her so young?" Another elf looked aghast.

"The elf who got me on my mother abandoned me entirely before my birth. Father at least saw to it I had an education and the tools to look after myself."

"And he arranged with me to give you a chance at a family." Orefinder folded his arms. "He should have done it sooner."

"He should have brought me this sweet child." Ahevhethrah frowned at the dwarves.

An argument began in the language that used to make her ears feel runny, now it just annoyed her for lingering at the edge of her understanding. Magpie and the elves covered their ears and Nali dropped to her knees.

"That's enough," Syr spoke firmly but no one paid her any attention. "I said..." She brought the blades together and struck them before raising her voice, "THAT'S ENOUGH!"

All eyes turned toward her in disbelief as her voice echoed over the forges.

"The elves are under my protection, my brother is in pain, and my Nali is on her knees. If you want to argue you'll do it in a language that doesn't hurt their ears." She glowered at all of them, "I wouldn't be the Golden Rook if my life had been different. For good or ill, I am who and what I am. And as pleasant as all of this has been, I have work to do."

"Don't forget your boot knife, Syreilla. Or your sheaths." Orsas looked her over appreciatively before pulling a slim blade from hiding under one of the sheaths.

The steel blade was patterned much like the talons but on the slim straight blade, it strongly resembled the pattern of a feather. The handle was almost solidly black and the pommel was a rook's head with a silver beak.

"Orsas!"

He jabbed his finger downward and she laughed as she dropped to her knees. Fellforger helped her get the belts and sheaths into place to carry her talons on her lower back out of the way of most of her tools. After her talons were settled into place, she traded out her boot knife for the new one. Slipping the old knife she'd been given into her sleeve, she stood back up.

"I'll take this one home and put it with my spare kit."

"What spare kit?" Odos frowned. "I searched your chamber, I even tore your garden apart."

Syreilla gave him a black look and the elves started to smile. "I keep my hidden things hidden, old man, and I was just getting finished with my garden. You-"

"Ezar has put it back together. He and Cyran have become good friends. They've had the time, he and my brother are occupying your chamber. Your uncle has a lot to discuss with you."

She tilted her head studying him, it was as if he were tugging at the edge of something on the border of her understanding. "Ezar?"

"You'll meet him when you go home, but... I'd put off meeting Vedra. We should take Kwes and his friends back before we discuss it."

"Drop me on the doorstep first."