The Blacksmith Queen (The Scarred Earth Saga, #1) - G.A Aiken Page 0,87
reacted . . . a little. She sat up from her spot on the floor where she’d passed out an hour before, yelled “Sichar!” then dropped back down and started snoring.
“You can’t be serious,” Keeley hissed.
“More serious than you know. You come to us,” Vulfegundis barked, her mood suddenly changing, “you make demands—”
“I asked nicely!”
“—bring your blood-soaked War Monk sister—”
“She sang for you!”
“—and you offer us nothing except an army you don’t have and that worthless hammer!”
“I didn’t offer my hammer,” Keeley growled out.
“You want our armies, bitch, you get us Sichar’s gold.”
Keeley looked at her sister and lifted her arms, as if she was showing the king and queen their own throne room. “Where?” she demanded. “Where’s Sichar’s gold? Because if I had Sichar’s gold, I’d be making Sichar’s weapons!” she ended on a powerful bellow that brought the king’s guard closer to the table.
“I know where there’s Sichar’s gold.”
As one, they all looked down to the end of the table where Quinn sat. He scratched his head. “At least, I’ve heard rumors.”
“Oh, it’s no rumor, centaur,” Mundric said. “They have Sichar’s gold.”
Fed up, Caid demanded, “What is Sichar’s gold?”
Keeley looked at him now with mouth agape.
“What?” he demanded.
“I’m so disappointed in you right now,” she replied. And he knew she was very serious.
“Sichar is one of our most powerful gods,” Mundric explained. “And, many centuries ago, he gave us a special kind of gold. We and specially trained blacksmiths of other races are the only ones who can use it to create weapons.”
“And?” Caid pushed.
“The last of it was stolen from us and we want it back.”
“And you want me to get it for you?” Keeley asked.
“You’re going there anyway.”
“I am?”
“The rumor,” Quinn said, “is that Sichar’s gold is with the wood elves.”
Keeley tossed her hands in the air. “I don’t even know the wood elves. Have never met them. Know nothing about them. Why in hells would they give the gold to me?”
“And why can’t you get it yourself?” Gemma asked. “Don’t you all have an alliance with the elves?”
“They say they don’t have it,” the king replied.
“They’re lying,” the queen snarled.
“But unless the dwarves want to start a war,” Caid explained for Keeley’s benefit, “they can’t search the wood elf territory to find it.”
“Exactly,” Vulfegundis said on a sigh, before pushing back from the table. “If you get us the gold, Blacksmith Queen . . . you get our army.”
“I was also hoping to get the wood elf army, though,” Keeley reminded them.
The king and queen laughed at that, Vulfegundis taking her husband’s arm before they headed toward their royal bedrooms.
“Yeah,” the queen said, still laughing, “good luck with that, human.”
Once they were gone, Keeley cracked her neck, a sure sign to Caid that she was ridiculously stressed.
“Well?” Keeley pushed, looking at Laila.
“You have two choices, my friend. Try to get the elf army or find the fucking gold.” Laila shook her head. “Sadly . . . there are no other options.”
Keeley rubbed her eyes. “And they were both so nice to me all night! I thought they liked me.”
“They definitely liked you,” Quinn said, standing up from the table.
“How do you figure?”
“You and your sister yelled at the king and queen of the Amichai dwarves . . . and you’re still breathing. Trust me, blacksmith. They liked you.”
When Keeley looked at Caid for confirmation, he shrugged and admitted, “He’s absolutely right. I thought we’d be rolling your head out of here.”
CHAPTER 23
Straton the Devourer attacked their town before the suns had risen above the distant horizon. Such a sudden, brutal attack—the mercenary army they’d all been hearing about for weeks yanking their gate doors open and riding in—that the town’s guards didn’t have time to do anything but be immediately slaughtered.
She just happened to be up so early because she and her sister Efa had to set up the stall where they sold eggs and whole chickens from their farm.
Most of the other sellers had panicked when those mercenaries came riding in, hacking away and shooting down good, honest people with their arrows. But for some reason, she didn’t panic. She simply grabbed her younger-by-a-year sister and they ran until they found a good hiding place.
Once, ages ago, these lands were ruled over by rulers called “jarls” rather than kings. The old jarl’s longhouse still stood despite the fact that the rest of the town had been made over into something much more modern to accommodate the travelers and traders who came in off the