Hammer and Feather Ch. 08-13

Notes: 1) If you see this story anywhere but Literotica it isn't supposed to be there. 2) Because of shorter chapters, this is being posted in chunks.

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*Eight*

Syreilla stepped through the door Ahevhethrah opened and found herself at the edge of an encampment. The elves and Magpie followed with Nali and Odos. When her grandfather stepped through he looked strangely hazy.

"What-"

"No one is supposed to notice him." Odos shook his head, "A few do, and gods can't help but see him, but try not to speak directly to him."

"I can see he's trying to hide, what I can't see is why we're here and not where I wanted to go." She narrowed her eyes as a shadow passed over her father. "Don't get murky on me, old man. I'll step back and let you all play your games until there are no moves left but to let me do what I see should be done."

"Please don't." Magpie put his hand on her shoulder. "Whatever you see I hope it involves sparing the elves."

"It does. I'm going to break the huntress' hold on her people and send them running."

"I don't know if you can." One of the elves shook his head and Magpie snorted.

"Solchion, if anyone could, it would be the Rook."

"If our gods couldn't..." The elf he'd called Solchion looked up and took a breath. "We should let our people know we've returned."

"I'll need to speak to your gods. I wanted to go home first but if I'm already here, I suppose I could get it over with." Syr waved away the elves' baffled expressions, "They don't like me. I imagine more than one of them celebrated on hearing I'd been pushed in the lake. Stealing their stones put me in their bad graces."

"You didn't steal all of them." Odos grinned.

"I didn't have to, but I would have if they hadn't been reasonable and done what I wanted them to do." She put on a wide mirthless smile and he covered his face.

"They'll take back every insult they gave you if you can steal their stones now, my little rook."

"The huntress has them?"

"They were persuaded to gather them together, to consolidate their power. Either they were betrayed or-"

Syreilla held up her hand and tilted her head. "One, that's idiotic to put them all in one place, and two... it was the elf whore wasn't it?" It wasn't really a question. The memory of the glimpse she'd had of the elven goddess' enjoyment in deception and harm flashed like lightning across her mind's eye illuminating fragments of events for the briefest of moments. "The huntress intended to take me somewhere, she just saw a better place to strike on the shore of the black lake. The rest of the elf gods can wait, I need to speak to Nimphon." She made a face and added, "Without going back to his lake."

"I can find Finwion and get his permission for you to talk to him. There are a few other things I need to see to as well." Odos glanced at Ahevhethrah who offered his hand. "Wait here, Syreilla."

"It'll give me a chance to get my Nali settled in somewhere and to make it clear any elf being rude to her will be treated like an elf being rude to me."

"I'll make sure no one is rude to her." Magpie held out his hand to the dwarf. "You can stay with my family."

"You have a family, Magpie?" Syr smiled at him and tilted her head. "Introduce me."

"The world went mad, Syreilla. I want you to promise you'll be on your best behavior if I introduce you."

"Done." She grinned and followed along behind Nali.

As they approached a cluster of tents a familiar-looking woman came rushing out with a smile to embrace Magpie chattering away in elvish.

"My dove, my sister, and our guest don't speak Elvish." Magpie grinned, "Syreilla, this is my wife, Amtalia. Our daughter, Belthamdir Camaenien, is-"

"Syreilla?" The familiar voice didn't sound pleased. "You shouldn't allow her around Belthamdir." Tirnel Acharnion emerged from a tent with a sour look on his face. "And she brought a dwarf?"

"This is why you made me promise to be on my best behavior. You get one warning, Tirnel. Insult my Nali and I-"

"Please." A human came out of another tent in the cluster. "Syreilla, there will be no insults. Matters have been hard enough and he doesn't understand."

She tilted her head as she looked at him with one eye and then the other. His hair was short and his face was lined, with her good eye she could see that hardship had made him look older than his years. "Edun?"

The man's face broke into a familiar smile, "You remember me."

"Of course. I'm sorry I wasn't able to look in on you, I was in-"

"You were imprisoned. I know." Edun looked at Nali and blinked, "Your priestess is still a child."

"Yes. Are you still-"

"I serve Ahevhethrah. He will allow me to look after your Nali and teach her if you wish."

"I'd like that. I was never any good at priesting. Who do I need to visit about your hardships?"

"No one needs to be burned on my behalf." He smiled again. "But I would like for this war to end."

"I'll do my best."

"Priestess?" Nali tapped her leg with a frown, "I thought Baduil..."

The bird began to make a sound like laughter, perched on a tent top.

"He's as bad at priesting as I am. He's a good friend though." She grinned as the bird started to preen. Another lightning flash like a premonition illuminated the events in motion around the girl. "Someday, I hope not soon, you'll have the choice. You can stand under my banner as my priestess and tell the gods you won't break and you won't run, or you can walk away and go back to a different life in the mines, the life your mother wanted for you."

Nali's bearded chin came up. "I'm a dwarf, Lady Rook. We don't break and we don't run."

Beaming, Syreilla bent to press her face to the dwarf girl's, "No, we don't."

Tirnel was looking at her oddly when she straightened. "You're not a dwarf."

"My mother might have had a little bit in her. King Adevalor's daughter-"

The elf started saying something in his tongue and it sounded like cursing.

"Father!" Magpie grinned, "I didn't think you approved of that kind of language."

"I had forgotten that there were dwarves in that line!"

"If I'd known as a mortal, I'd have been ecstatic. As it is, it gives me more of a reason to hang around the mines." She gave Nali an impish grin and the dwarf laughed.

"Come in and have a meal." Amtalia looked a little nervous but she gestured toward a tent.

Glancing down at Nali, Syr murmured reassuringly, "Their waybread is terrible, but the mead cakes are nice. The dried fish was edible, too."

"We don't have any mead cakes." Tirnel had begun to study her, "You said you aren't a mortal?"

"Syreilla Acharnion," the name tasted as bitter as it always had, "was split in two. Into the mortal half, Syreilla Hammersworn, the half-elf who went back to her husband in the mine, and the divine half, Syreilla the Rook, who chose to go with Vezar Edra, the Undying."

His brow furrowed. "I was right, you're not my daughter."

She tilted her head and studied him, part of him was relieved and another part ached as if he'd lost a child.

"Odos gave a blessing at a particular moment of my conception. I was born mortal, the daughter of Tirnel Acharnion and Lady Esryn of Addan, but because of his blessing, I was also his. Most of his children become gifted thieves or poets, I became more. You had nearly two hundred years to claim Syreilla Acharnion," she tried not to grimace at the name, "and you refused. Syreilla Hammersworn has died and been given to the dwarf gods. I welcome those who want to claim their kinship with me but I don't know why you would choose to do so now."

"Perhaps I've changed."

"I'll give you the chance to prove it to me. This is one of your dwarvish grandchildren. The daughter of Syreilla Hammersworn's youngest son."

The elf went pale and Nali cleared her throat. "Adopted. He adopted me. His son is younger than I am."

"Clan Hammersworn doesn't make the distinction and neither do I."

The girl laughed and reached up to squeeze her hand for a moment. "Lady Rook sounds better than Aunt Rook."

"Aunt Syreilla might be nice too." Glancing up, she realized she was getting a few baffled looks. "As far as Clan Hammersworn is concerned, I'm the sister of Syreilla Hammersworn."

"How many children did she have?" Tirnel held open a tent flap. "I never saw her or heard from her again after she robbed me and burned down my house."

"She had three, two sons and a daughter." Syr stepped into the tent with Nali and waited until the others had joined her. Being enclosed with so many people in a small space made her nervous but before she could say anything, Edun opened the flap and tied it. "Thank you, Edun. And Tirnel? You stole from her dwarves. If you weren't her kin she'd have done worse to you."

"She nearly burned my son alive." The elf scowled. "And I had demanded recompense for the murder of my father and Dolthidir Uilos. It was refused."

"Vezar killed Dolthidir after he tried to murder us, before we were split into two parts. Kaduil killed Olthon because he gave the order to have us murdered. You don't get to demand-"

"That was what the master of that wretched mine said."

"It's the truth as far as I know it. I am sorry the old elf is dead. I could have liked him if we'd met under different circumstances."

"Then why did you..." He stopped and took a breath.

"Why did we overpower him and escape? Because he intended Vezar harm. We left him, and all of you, alive because he was family. It was his duty to make certain you didn't all die in the night, so we let you live."

Tirnel blinked.

"We were more than capable of murdering you all in your sleep. A few wards, a little dragon's fire... You should be aware that the choice to let you live was made. Family, even if they're horrible, even if they hate you, it means something to me."

She sighed. "If whatever sneaky thing was on that lump of metal hadn't made us shudder at the thought of touching it, we'd have taken it along and thrown it in a lake. We left it on him and took your horses. If we'd taken the time to think and found a way to get rid of it, maybe things would have gone differently."

"But you burned the house with Kwes inside it." Amtalia looked at her curiously.

"That was Hammersworn, we had been separated at that point, and I can promise you she didn't know he was there. If she'd known, she'd have scooped him up and taken him to the mine. She'd never met an elf who was good to her without having a sneaky reason. Leaving our brother with those she believed would be cruel to him would never have happened if she'd known he was there."

"But you've met good elves now?" Tirnel smiled faintly.

"I've met two that I liked and a few that I almost like. Sometimes I take a little time to warm up to people."

"So does Belthamdir sometimes." Magpie grinned. "She reminds me of you. When she looks at you with a certain sour expression you expect to see flames in the depths of her eyes."

Syreilla laughed and gave him a warm smile, "How old is she?"

"Fifteen, but... she's aging a little more slowly than I did. She's taking after the elf side of the family more."

"I still looked like a human eight-year-old at that age, I grew in bursts. When I turned twenty-five I finally looked like a fifteen-year-old." She gave him a grin as he blinked. "It annoyed the old man, he would grumble that I was growing on purpose after he bought me clothes."

"I'm sorry," Tirnel whispered.

As she looked over in surprise, she realized his eyes had filled with tears, "Why?"

"I should have claimed you and taken you away from her. Your mother was lovely but I grew bored of her after a short time. I walked away rather than be tied to her for a few decades. I trusted that you'd be raised in a noble house. If I'd taken you away..."

"I'd be a very different person. The dwarves say it takes the weight of the world to make a diamond, the finer the stone the more weight it bore. I wouldn't have become the Golden Rook, I might have become a songbird or something else entirely. Not many of Odos' children have a talent for magic like I have."

"Father would have been giddy to have raised you in his house." Tirnel took a breath and offered her a smile, "You'd have been his student from the moment he saw your gifts."

"He said I'd have been easy to train but I doubt he'd have sent me to learn from Zylius when I was fiftyish and I'd already been sent to learn from a few others in exchange for jobs done."

The elf winced. "He sent a child to sadistic human mages?"

"I hit a burst at thirty-two and I passed for almost twenty among the humans."

"Father would never have sent you to a sadistic mage. Once you were an adult he might have allowed you to visit with someone reasonable to learn but... You'd have been well-trained and able to defend yourself from them."

"I would have enjoyed learning from him." She studied him for a moment with her good eye, hearing that had made him feel more at peace. "If Belthamdir has any talent I can-"

Amtalia whispered something urgently in elvish and Tirnel grinned, lifting his hand. "Even if she did, magic has been... those who were once able to use it, they say it's been dried up. The only mages who have any left to use are those who serve the human goddess of war."

Syreilla put on a wide, mad grin, "I may be able to do something about that but I won't make promises yet."

"I didn't have any trouble with the wards in the mine." Nali looked at the elf curiously.

"The air is wetter there, my Nali. Magic pools in the mines, or it used to. The dwarves don't use it often."

Tirnel's eyes widened and then he broke into a sly smile much like his father's. "Does it? How fortunate your priestess is a dwarf."

"Don't. I could have liked Olthon, but I didn't. He was only kind because he wanted something from me, not because he cared about me in the slightest. If you behave that way toward me or my Nali, someday I'll be saying the same of you, Tirnel."

The look vanished from his face and he inclined his head. "Forgive me. I've wronged you enough in your life. I hope..."

"I thought the same thing when she said it." Nali shrugged. "We have something you need and you're hurting. When Father talks about Grandmother, Syreilla Hammersworn, he tells stories about how she would talk about her thieving, she'd say 'It isn't really stealing to take from those who have too much if you spend your money in the bad parts of town.'" The dwarf girl grinned as the elf smiled at her.

"It's practically charity." Syr spread her hands with an innocent expression. "Dwarves are usually good about looking after their own. We never felt the need to, ah, be charitable in the mines."

Tirnel laughed softly. "I remember that Batran always looked out for you."

"He did. Being bought off the headsman's block was one of the luckiest days of my life. It hurts sometimes, knowing it's no longer my home." She mentally ran her fingers over the tangled and knotted threads in her mind. "I need to go back to my dragon and find out what's happened. His threads are tangled."

"Threads?" Nali frowned.

"I can explain it to you." The elf exhaled as he studied her. "Dwarvish grandchildren. I will make mistakes, Nali. I made many with my children. Can you be patient with me?"

"As long as you're patient with me." Nali rubbed her beard with a smile, "Father says I get into more trouble than he did as a child. My family before him used to punish me for everything, whether I did it or not, because they thought I probably had."

"I'll see if your Grandfather Odos will teach you how to talk yourself out of trouble when you get caught." Syreilla grinned at her, "He's good at it but he used to tell us-"

"Stop getting caught!" Magpie grinned. "It's less helpful advice than he seemed to think."

"You have to ask him how he would have done things and then he'll talk for hours about the different ways it could have been approached. When you learn how to get him talking you can learn a lot from the old man."

"I'm surprised you wanted him to talk for so long. He said you couldn't sit still. You had to have something to do with your hands."

"Father was that way." Tirnel sat up straighter, "He would toy with something small or," he steepled his fingers and began tapping them, "play with his hands."

"I do that." Syr pointed at his steepled fingers. "It helps me think."

She caught herself returning his warm smile. "You have changed, and I'm glad, Tirnel."

"You've changed too, Syreilla."

"I have."

Before she could say more, Edun cleared his throat gently, "Lady Rook? They need you to come out of the tent. Your grandfather is ready to take you to see the clever boy."

"We'll talk more." She inclined her head to Tirnel and gave Nali a reassuring smile. "You should be safe enough here and I'll be back soon. Be as polite as they are. If they're rude make sure you get their names." Syr grinned at Edun's look of exasperation. "No one fucks with mine twice. I just need to be made aware. If you gave me a list of names I would work my way down it, dear one."

"I have a list." Magpie grinned. "It's a short list, I dealt with most of them myself."

"I'll get it from you when I get back."

Coming to her feet she stepped out of the tent and let her hazy-looking grandfather open a door for her. Finwion's clearing looked wildly different, there were ragged cloth tents and rope bridges in the trees. With her good eye, she noticed the movements and shadows, small people hiding and darting between the trees and tents with elvish skill. She made her way through, looking around, and saw a figure slumped and staring at her as it leaned against the base of a tree.

His large eyes looked reddened and dull and he wore a hood tied beneath his chin. Syreilla approached with a frown and one of the small figures leapt out of hiding, brandishing a paring knife. Turning her head from side to side she realized the tiny, dirty figure was a child. Boy or girl was impossible to tell with their close-cropped hair mostly hidden by their hood and their ragged clothing gave no indication either.

She crouched and tilted her head as the child looked confused. Finwion breathed a laugh and made a flapping gesture with his arms.

Baduil burst into the clearing with a loud cawing and a great deal of flapping. He took a place on a limb above them to adjust his ruffled feathers.

"I thought you would stay with Nali."

The raven gave her a look of pure annoyance.

"Forgive me, dear one. I'll remember to bring you with me next time or to tell you to stay."

The child demanded attention by waving the knife and Syr shook her head pulling the spare boot knife out of her sleeve where she'd put it to carry it. "If you're going to threaten me, at least use a dwarven knife. They cut better."

She offered it hilt first and the child stepped back to give Finwion a baffled look. The large-eyed elf was smiling faintly. He gestured between them and the child looked incredulous.

"I'm Syreilla the Rook. Finwion is a friend of mine. I won't harm him or you, little one, unless he gives me permission."

The elf snorted and waggled a finger at her. She crouch-walked closer and the child leapt back.

"I need to speak with you. It was the one you wouldn't let me burn, wasn't it? That convinced everyone to put their stones in one place? And then she took them to the huntress?"

He exhaled loudly and gave a curt nod.

"Can you go speak to Nimphon for me? I don't want to go near that lake again but I need to talk to him."

Finwion gave her an almost doting smile before he shook his head no.

"You're afraid of the black lake?" The child inched forward giving her a look of distrust.

"I got pushed into it! It was twenty years before someone pulled me out. You wouldn't want to go near it either."