torn, axe blunted. I must apologise for dragging you here now but I would have sight of your treasures.’
Yron nodded, managing to relax a muscle or two. He turned to Erys, who passed over the leather satchel. Yron unclasped it and drew out the four texts that had made the trip. So many men dead, so little to show. He handed them to Dystran, who laid them immediately on a table near him and spread them out.
‘The one in the middle there, my Lord,’ said Erys, pointing at a bound volume with intricate embossing on the cover and gilt-edged pages. ‘That is the Aryn Hiil unless I am sadly mistaken. In there are the secrets of elven longevity.’
Dystran brushed his hand across the cover reverentially and looked up. ‘No mistake, Erys,’ he breathed. ‘If there was one text I needed, this was it. You two have no idea of the rewards Xetesk will heap on you for what you have done. This will bring us what we desire.’
‘My Lord, we live to serve,’ said Erys, bowing.
Yron looked at the young mage and shook his head.
‘And you have the healthy cynicism of experience,’ said Dystran, noticing the gesture. ‘Captain, all I can offer you now are my thanks, the respect of the Circle Seven and a place to bathe and change. I have had chambers readied for you both just a little way down the hall. I have had clothing laid out for you and while you bathe, Captain, your axe will be polished and placed in a new holster. I trust you like it. And that is only the very beginning.
‘But before you go, I would see the statue fragment you have.’ Dystran held out his hand.
Yron looked at Erys again. ‘Thanks a lot.’
‘I’m sorry, Captain, I . . .’ At least he had the good grace to look embarrassed.
‘My only memento of this whole mess and my only solid memory of Ben-Foran. You owe me, boy.’
He dug into his trouser pocket and pulled out the thumb, handing it across to Dystran, who clutched it greedily.
‘Oh, don’t worry, Captain; it will be returned to you. But it needs to be researched and studied.’ He looked up and smiled again. ‘Rest assured, it remains your property. Now, please, both of you, wash, rest and dress. We are hosting a dinner in your honour in the rooms adjacent to this one. There we can discuss what is to be done to appease the elves while we have to. Thank you, Captain Yron, Erys. You have done Xetesk a service greater than you know.’
But as Yron left the chamber, he wasn’t so sure he had. Not so sure at all.
It had been a long and, if Yron was absolutely honest with himself, very pleasurable evening when the war outside the gates seemed distant. He’d spent the day relaxing in sumptuous chambers, he’d taken two baths and he’d slept in a bed for the first time in so long he’d forgotten what a luxury a mattress and sheets were.
And dressing in the fine dark silk shirt and stitched leather trousers Dystran’s tailors had so expertly made from the template of old clothes taken from his barracks room, he began to feel that perhaps his earlier misgivings were, well, misplaced. His only regret was that Ben was not here to enjoy the fruits of their success.
He’d left the gold- and silver-veined holster, in which his old axe sat like a pig’s trotter in a velvet glove, on his bed, feeling the need to be free of the accoutrements of battle for the evening, and had gone to join the dinner. It had been everything Dystran had intimated. He and Erys had been toasted repeatedly, fêted by the most powerful men in Xetesk and urged to describe ever more freely their exploits on Calaius.
Yron, cautious and close at first, had found his lips eased by the vintage red wine in his seemingly ever-full goblet and had relaxed into the celebration with growing enthusiasm. For once in his life, he was truly ahead.
As the evening wore on, and feeling more light-headed from the wine than he was used to, Yron had gone to relieve himself and then wandered back along the lantern-lit picture-hung corridor to the huge vaulted dining chamber. Bright light spilled from the open doors and the sound of laughter and the chink of glasses and cutlery echoed out to him in welcome.
He paused just to the side of the doors to let a servant