Days of Blood and Fire - Katharine Kerr [124]
“Just that,” Garin went on. “Gallia or whatever you called it. But it was the Horsekin who were the real trouble. I don’t understand all of it, but it seems plain enough that your ancestors fell upon the Horsekin first, and they fled any way they could to get out of danger. One of those ways was ours. They don’t make good neighbors, you might say. We had some warning, time enough to retreat to the mountains and hide out till the worst was over. Then we fled here. We thought your ancestors would be marching upon us next, but they never came.”
“Luck and naught more,” Oho sneered. “Sheer luck that dwarven heads weren’t decorating their cursed walls. Oh, it’s a lovely tot your people are, Rhodry Maelwaedd. Is it any wonder that everyone hates you? You never belonged here, and it’s a pity you don’t all go back where you came from.”
“Otho!” Mic and Garin barked in unison. “Hold your tongue!”
Rhodry felt as if someone had kicked him in the stomach. Not from the elderly dwarf’s venom—he was used to that—but from the shock of this new view of a history he’d barely considered before.
“Oh, ye gods,” he whispered. “And the Hordes fled south, didn’t they? That’s when the Great Burning—oh, ye gods! They destroyed the elven cities because they were fleeing us.”
“Just so.” Otho grinned, all smugness. “It’s your people behind that, just as sure as if you’d lit the torches yourself.”
Garin snapped three dwarven words that wiped the smile off Otho’s face, then continued for another, sentence that had the old man turning pale.
“You didn’t know,” Garin said to Rhodry. “There was no way you could have known, and from what I understand, your people came here because you’d been driven out of your home, too, conquered and slaughtered by some stronger enemy.”
“We were. The Rhwmanes they were called, and a ruthless lot they were, but still! Ye gods! How can I ever go back to my father’s people now, knowing what I know?”
Garin merely shrugged, waving helpless hands in the air. Rhodry reminded himself that his living to see the West-lands again was too unlikely for him to be vexing himself with the problem. If he did live to see his father once more,he decided, then he’d tell that learned bard what he’d discovered and let him deal with it. Until then, like the warrior he was, he put the past out of his mind, but the surprise lingered for a long time, and with it a real unease.
They’d come well out into the lawn in the center of the horseshoe of cliffs. All the way across, at the deepest bend of the shoe, Rhodry could see the gleam of white water where the river poured out of a cavern and, beside that, marks that seemed to be stairs, marching up the cliff face toward a dark slit. When Garin saw him looking that way, he pointed it out.
“The public entrance. Rhodry, I’m sorry, but we’ll have to leave you in the envoys’ quarters for a while. That’s what they’re called, that is, a couple of houses, and quite nice they are, too, for visitors. We dwarves don’t let strangers into the deep city, no matter how well we know them.”
“Fair enough, especially for a bloodthirsty barbarian like me.” Rhodry flashed him a grin. “How long before we get on the road again?”
“Er, well, that depends.” Garin hesitated, glancing Otho’s way, then smiled in a rather unpleasant manner. “Well, Otho, since you’re so keen on throwing the truth into people’s faces, surely you won’t mind if I tell our guest yours.”
Otho made an inarticulate howl, but it was only halfhearted, as if he knew defeat when he saw it.
“Otho’s got to stand trial, you see,” Garin went on. “There’s a certain matter of the old fault that got him exiled, and a fine will have to be assessed. I hope that it doesn’t take too long. Things like this have been known to drag on for months at a time.”
Otho snarled, but feebly.
“I hope it doesn’t indeed,” Rhodry said. “Far be it from me to stand in the way of justice, but Jill seemed to think we’d best hurry and all that.”
“A postponement!” Otho said, and he actually smiled. “We might be able to