Wrought of Iron and Silk, Book One [2014 Watty Award Winner]

Chapter 14 - Vanaheim

Chapter 14 – Vanaheim

The next night and for many years after, the trellwarrens were harried by trolls, but small parties only. The dwarves lost a small number of warriors, due to their tactically placed picket lines and patrols, of course – it would do no good to reclaim the warrens if a troll army swept down on one of the lightly defended holes in the absence of the guardians – but a small band could creep in where an army could not. Still, they could not keep the trolls out entirely. At least this time they didn't have to fight their way into The Outer Lands. Traveling without an army, they moved faster and light-footed through the pass without drawing the attention of trolls or wild orcs.

They came back to the trellwarren before sunset. Tin travelled fast, even over snow and with the winter at their back, blowing hard. Cecilia huddled in the wonderful warmth of a greasy sweater that the elder dwarf-mother had nalbound from yarn spun of musk oxen, sheep, and goats wool, and blessed the woman's name. The mittens were excellent too. Two pairs, packed with the shed undercoats of trellmice, and she thought she might keep all her fingers, even the nails, in this cold.

During most encounters on their way back, Cecilia didn't have to use her weapons, but instead, exercised her magical abilities. Tin was sentry during the second attack while Cecilia and Fenrir pulled down two trolls by themselves before their comrades could rouse the warrens. It was the first time Tin had seen her use such large scale magic, but it came as no surprise to the dwarf that she was so powerful. The magic in Cecilia's attacks muted every other sound in the area, and the trees shattered into thousands of splinters, propelling forward into troll bodies, rendering them into a mess of bloody pulps. Despite all this, it was Tin's deepest frustration that, although he knew why the trolls were coming down from the north, he could not tell his fellows of their plan to kill the trellqueen.

The journey was otherwise uneventful.

Whether the Æsir was truly watching over them or not, they made it into the pass before the storms came down. Cecilia wished Loki was with them, or even that she dared permit him to perceive where she was. If he'd known, she wouldn't have been able to keep him from following – alone if necessary, over the hundreds of miles that had spread between them. She didn't want to think about what he'd do to Tin or to the trolls, if they got between them, if he ever came to know it.

Five cold weeks into winter, frost on the fur ringing their hoods, their lips bleeding despite anointing with grease and butter, they came to the broken gates of the trellwarren where Cecilia and Fenrir had first met Tin.

Two of the King's Guard were waiting for them at the gates. They stood just inside the mouth of the tunnel, where the weak winter moonlight could not reach them, the torches in their hands catching sparks off the jewels in their hair and ears and off the wicked blades of the weapons they carried.

"Tin," Cecilia said quietly, "they don't look friendly."

"They aren't." Tin gave her a small nod and shifted his spear point away from the guards.

"You could have mentioned that before."

One of the King's guards thumped the butt of its spear on the smooth stone of the tunnel floor. "Raven of Asgard, you have broken your vow."

"Is this how King Hreidmar hails his soldiers home from battle?" Cecilia said with a measure of annoyance. "My companion, Tin, of the Smith's Guild and the Iron Kinship, accompanied me without knowledge of my intent," she said, laying stress as strongly as she could that the both of them were defending Nidavellir, "and I told him of the legion of trolls approaching from the north." She stepped heavily on the dwarf's foot to forestall protest. "We were concerned with the safety of the Trellheim."