by Terry Brooks
Jair was on his feet. “What are they up to?”
Edain Elessedil shook his head. “I don’t know. No one seems to know. But they’ve been out there for hours now. The Dwarves are all awake and on the battlements. Come with me and you can see for yourself.”
They hastened from the watch lounge down the maze of corridors beyond until they had passed through doors leading out into the courtyard that spanned the central section of the high dam. A chill wind blew across the Cillidellan, and the rain stung their faces as they hurried forward. It was still night, the predawn light a distant gray haze beyond the tips of the mountains east. The Dwarf defenders had taken their positions along the ramparts of the dam and fortress, cloaked and hooded against the weather, weapons in hand. The whole of Capaal lay shrouded in silence.
On reaching the fortress that protected the north end of the high dam, Edain took Jair up a series of stone stairs and across a line of battlements to a watchtower high above the complex. The wind seemed to grow stronger here, and the rain beat harder through the gray night.
As they paused before an ironbound oak door leading into the tower, a cluster of Dwarves pushed past them and started down the stairs adjoining. Foremost of these was a fierce-looking Dwarf with flaming red hair and beard, armored in leather and chainmail.
“Radhomm, the Dwarf commander!” Edain whispered to Jair.
Hurriedly, they pushed through the oak door into the tower beyond, shutting the weather behind them as they entered. A faint glow of lamplight barely penetrated the gloom within as a handful of cloaked forms seemed to materialize before them.
“Humph, he’d sleep all the time if you’d let him!” he heard Slanter grumble.
“Well met again, Jair Ohmsford,” a deep voice greeted him, and Helt’s massive hand extended to clasp his own.
Then Garet Jax was there, as black as the night about him, implacable and unchanging as the stone of the mountains. They faced each other, and no words were spoken. Lean face intense, the Weapons Master rested his hands gently on Jair’s shoulders and within the eyes of ice there flickered a strange, unfamiliar warmth. Only for the briefest second was it there; in the next, it was gone. The hands slipped away, and Garet Jax turned back into the gloom.
The door burst open behind them, and a rain-soaked Dwarf hastened over to where Elb Foraker crouched above a pile of maps that rested on a small wooden table. They conversed in low, hushed voices; then as swiftly as he had come, the runner was gone again.
Foraker walked over at once to Jair, the other members of the little company gathering about them. “Ohmsford,” he said quietly, “I’ve just been told that the Mwellret has escaped.”
There was a stunned silence. “How could that happen?” Slanter snapped angrily, his rough face pushing forward into the light.
“A shape-change.” Foraker kept his eyes on Jair. “He used it to fit himself into a small ventilation shaft that circulates air to those lower levels. It happened sometime during the night. No one knows where he might be now.”
Jair went cold. There was no mistaking the Dwarf’s intent in telling him this unpleasant piece of news. Even locked within that storage room, the Mwellret had been able to sense the presence of the Elven magic and to force Jair to reveal it. If he were loose . . .
“This was something he could have done anytime,” Edain Elessedil pointed out. “There must be a reason that he chose to do it now.”
And I could be that reason, Jair acknowledged silently. Foraker realizes it, too. That is why he made it a point to speak first to me.
Garet Jax reappeared from out of the gloom, sudden and purposeful. “We are leaving at once,” he advised. “We have delayed too long already. The quest given us lies north. Whatever is to happen here, we need not be part of it. With the Gnomes gathered about the Cillidellan as they are, it should be easy enough to . . .”
OOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM!
Startled, the members of the little company looked hurriedly about. A monstrous wail assailed their ears, deep and haunting as it shattered the predawn silence. It grew louder, thousands of voices giving it life, rising up against wind and rain into the mountains about Capaal.
“Shades!” Slanter cried, his rough yellow face twisting in recognition.
All six broke for the door in a rush, burst through, and in seconds were clustered against the battlements without, rain and wind thrusting at them as they peered north across the choppy waters of the Cillidellan.
OOOOOOMMMMMMMMM!
The wail rose higher, one long, continuous howl that swept through the heights. All about the shoreline of the Cillidellan, the Gnomes joined in the dark chant, voices blended into one as they faced the murky lake, the air filled with the mournful sound.
Radhomm appeared on the battlements below, shouting orders, and runners scurried from his side as he dispatched them to his captains. Everywhere there was a frenzy of activity as the garrison braced for whatever was to come. Jair’s hand moved to his tunic, searching out and finding the reassuring presence of both the Silver Dust and the vision crystal.
Garet Jax snatched Slanter by his cloak and hauled him close. “What is happening here?”
There was unmistakable fear in the Gnome’s eyes. “A summons—a summons to the dark magic! Once before I saw it—at Graymark!” The Gnome twisted in the iron grip. “But it needs the touch of the walkers, Weapons Master! It needs their touch!”
“Garet!” Foraker pulled the other about roughly, pointing to the near shore of the Cillidellan, not a hundred yards from where the high dam arced away. The Weapons Master released his grip on Slanter. All eyes turned to where the Dwarf directed.
From out of the midst of the Gnomes gathered along the shoreline, three black-cloaked figures approached, tall and hard against the coming dawn.
“Mord Wraiths!” Slanter whispered harshly. “The walkers have come!”
XXII
Down to the Cillidellan the Mord Wraiths came, gliding to the water’s edge almost without seeming to move. Hooded and featureless within the shadow of their cowls, they might have been ghosts of no substance but for the black-clawed fingers slipped from beneath their coverings to wrap with death grips about three gnarled gray staffs of burnished witch-wood. The wail of their Gnome believers rose all about them, shrieking into the whistle of the wind; to those who watched from the battlements of Capaal, it seemed as if the black ones had been born of its sound.
Then, without warning, the terrible wail died into silence as the Gnomes grew suddenly still. The wind’s strident shriek sounded across the empty expanse of the Cillidellan, and the lapping of the waves stirred with its passing.
The foremost of the Mord Wraiths lifted his staff high, his skeletal black arm thrusting from its protective robe like blasted deadwood. A strange and vibrant hush fell over the heights, and it seemed to the defenders that for an instant even the wind had gone still. Then the staff came slowly down, reaching toward the blackened waters of the lake. The other staffs joined it, witch-wood touching and becoming one as burnished tips slipped within the waters of the Cillidellan.
For an instant, nothing happened. Then the staffs exploded into lances of red fire, the flames ripping downward into the lake, burning and scorching its cool darkness. The waters shuddered and heaved, then began to boil. Gnomes shrieked in a cacophony of glee and fear, stumbling back from the shore’s edge.
“It is the summons!” Slanter cried.
The red fire burned through the murky, impenetrable blackness, down into the deepest recesses of the lake to where no light ever shone. Like a stain of blood, the light of those flames spread outward through the waters, reaching. Geysers of steam burst skyward with a violent hiss, and the whole of the lake began to churn.
The defenders on the ramparts of the Dwarf fortress stood frozen with indecision. Something was about to happen, something unspeakable, and no one knew how it could be stopped.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” Slanter snatched at Garet Jax urgently. T
here was fear in his eyes, but reason as well. “Quickly, Weapons Master!”
Abruptly the fire from the witch-wood staffs died away. The gray wood lifted from the Cillidellan, clawed hands drawing back within their robes. Yet still the waters boiled feverishly; the reddened stain had become a deep and distant glow that shone from far beneath the surface like an eye slipped open from sleep.
OOOOOOMMMMMMMMM!
The wail of the Gnome siege army rose once more, shrill and expectant. Hands lifted and joined, stretching as the staffs of the Mord Wraiths signaled anew. Steam ripped from the lake in answer to the wail, and the whole of the Cillidellan seemed to erupt with a newfound fury.
Then something huge and dark began to rise from the depths.
“Weapons Master!” Slanter cried out.
But Garet Jax shook his head. “Stand fast. Helt, bring the long bows.”
The Borderman disappeared back into the watchtower at once. Jair glanced after him momentarily, then turned back to the Cillidellan—back to the deafening wail of the Gnomes and to the black thing rising from the deep.
It came swiftly now, growing in size as it neared the surface. An evil summoned by the Wraiths—but what manner of thing was it? Jair swallowed against the tightening of his throat. Whatever it was, it was monstrous, its bulk seeming to fill the whole of the lake bottom as it lifted free. Slowly it began to take shape, a great and hulking thing with arms that twisted and groped . . .
Then, with a thunderous surge, it broke the surface of the lake and burst free into the gray dawn. A misshapen black body wrenched clear of the confining waters and hung silhouetted for an instant against the light. Barrel-like in appearance, it was coated with bottom mud and slime, crusted over with sea life and coral. Four great fin-legs propelled it as it rose, clawed and spiny. Its head was a mass of writhing tentacles that surrounded a giant beak-shaped maw lined with razor teeth. Suckers coated the insides of the tentacles, each the size of a man’s spread hand, the whole protected without by scales and spines. Immediately back of the tentacles and to either side, a pair of reddened eyes blinked coldly. Stretching as it rose, the thing was more than a hundred feet from tip to tail and forty feet across.
Cries of dismay sounded from the battlements of Capaal.
“A Kraken!” Foraker said. “We are done now!”
The wail of the Gnomes had risen to a shriek that forbore all semblance of anything human. Now, with the monster’s appearance into the light, the wail dissipated into a battle cry that broke across the length and breadth of Capaal. Down into the waters of the lake the Kraken thundered, its black body twisting in response as it turned abruptly toward the wall of the dam and the fortress that protected it.
“It comes for us!” Garet Jax whispered in surprise. “A thing that cannot live within freshwater, a thing that comes from the ocean—yet here! Brought by the dark magic!” The gray eyes glittered coldly. “But it shall not have us, I think. Helt!”
Instantly the giant Borderman was at his side, three long bows clasped in one great hand. Garet Jax took one, left one with the Borderman, and passed the third to Edain Elessedil.
Slanter pushed forward. “Listen to me! You cannot stand against this thing! It is a monster summoned out of evil and too much even for you!”
But Garet Jax didn’t seem to hear him. “Remain with the Valeman, Gnome. He is your charge now. See that he stays safe.”
He went down off the watchtower, Helt and Edain Elessedil close upon his heels. Foraker hesitated only an instant, a mistrustful glance directed at Slanter; then he, too, followed.
The Kraken surged up against the wall of the Dwarf citadel, its giant bulk hammering into stone and mortar with stunning force as it breached. The giant tentacles swept from the water, reaching for the Dwarves that clustered on the battlements. Dozens were caught up, knocked from their feet into the waters of the lake, and wrapped in the suckers and spines of the thing that attacked them. Shrieks and howls filled the morning air as the Dwarves died. Weapons rained down upon the black thing, but its hide protected it from harm. Steadily it cleared away the small figures who sought to hold it back, tearing at them with its whiplike arms, breaking apart the battlements behind which they sought to keep safe.
Now the Gnomes joined in the attack as well, the siege army battering the gates at both ends of the high dam, scaling ladders and grappling hooks clutched in their hands as they came. Dwarf defenders rushed to the parapets, holding fast against this fresh assault. But the Gnomes seemed to have gone mad. Heedless of the losses being inflicted upon them, they flung themselves against the gates and walls to die.
Yet there was purpose to this seeming madness. While the Dwarf defenders were thus distracted, the Kraken worked its way north until it was up against the wall where it banked closest to the gates. With a sudden lurch, it rose from the waters of the lake, fin-legs braced upon the stone of the dam where it curved into the shoreline. Massive tentacles snapped forward along the walls, suckers fastened to the gates, and the monster heaved back. With a splintering of wood and iron, crossbars snapped and locks broke apart. The gates to the citadel tumbled down, ripped from their hinges, and the army of the Gnomes poured through with a roar of triumph.
On the battlements of the watchtower, Jair and Slanter viewed the struggle with growing horror. With the gates gone, the Dwarves could no longer hold back their attackers. In a matter of minutes the fortress would be overrun. Already its defenders were in retreat along the walls leading back, small clusters rallying about their captains, desperately trying to stand against the onslaught. But it was clear from where the Valeman and the Gnome stood watching that the battle was lost.
“We’ve got to escape while we can, boy!” Slanter insisted, a hand gripping the other’s arm.
But Jair refused to leave, still searching for his friends, almost too horrified by what was happening to do anything else. The Kraken had slipped once more into the waters of the lake, dragging its bulk back along the sea wall toward the center of the dam. In its wake, the Mord Wraiths glided to the edge of the shattered battlements, gray staffs raised in exhortation as their Gnome followers surged forward. With implacable purpose, the Gnomes moved into the fortress of the Dwarves.
“Slanter!” Jair cried suddenly, pointing into the heart of the battle.
High atop the ramparts of the forward wall, Helt’s giant form rose up through the smoke and dust, Elb Foraker at his side. Bow gripped tightly in one hand, the Borderman braced himself against the parapets, sighted downward to where the Mord Wraiths stood, slowly drew back the bowstring, and let it slip free. A shadowy blur, the long black arrow sped away to bury itself deep in the breast of the foremost Wraith. The creature straightened with a shudder, hammered back by the force of the blow. A second arrow followed close upon the first, and again the Wraith staggered back. Shrieks of dismay rose up from those closest to the black things, and for an instant the whole of the Gnome advance seemed to falter.
But then the Mord Wraith steadied. One clawed hand grasped the arrows embedded within it and drew them free with effortless ease. Holding them high for all to see, the monster crushed them into splinters. Then the staff of witch-wood lifted and red fire burst from its tip. All along the battlements the fire burned, exploding into stone and defender alike. Helt and Foraker flew back as the fire reached them and disappeared in an avalanche of broken wall and dust.
Jair started forward in fury, but Slanter yanked him about. “You can’t do anything to help them, boy!” Without waiting for any argument on the matter, he began dragging Jair along the ramparts toward the stone stairway leading down. “Better start worrying about yourself! Perhaps if we’re quick enough . . .”
Then they caught sight of the Kraken. It had lifted itself out of the Cillidellan midway along the sea wall where the broad courtyard joined together the fortress that guarded the ends of the high dam, its tentacles and fin-legs gripping at the stone. Once clear, with only the hindmost portion of its barreled body still submerge
d within the lake, it pivoted slowly to where the Dwarf defenders were attempting to escape the north fortress. Tentacles stretched across the girth of the high dam in a writhing mass; in seconds, all passage out was blocked.
“Slanter!” Jair cried out in warning, falling back against the stairs as one giant feeler swept past his head.
They retreated back up the stairway, crouching down within the shelter of a balustrade where it curved back into the parapets. Spray from the monster’s tail fin that thrashed within the lake mixed with dust and shattered stone to rain down about them. Below, the Kraken’s tentacles groped and hammered about the fortress walls, clutching at anything that ventured within reach.
It seemed for a moment as if any chance of escape back across the courtyard had been lost. But then the Dwarves counterattacked. They rushed from the lower levels of the fortress, the darkened stairwells, and the tunnels that ran beneath. Foremost among them was the Dwarf commander Radhomm. Red hair flying, he led his soldiers into the tangle of giant arms, cutting and hacking with a broadax. Bits and pieces of the Kraken flew in a froth of blood, reddish ichor spilling down upon the dampened stone of the dam. But the Kraken was a monstrous thing, and the Dwarves were little more than gnats to be brushed aside. The tentacles came down, smashing the tiny creatures who swarmed about it, leaving them lifeless. Still the defenders came on, determined to clear the way for those trapped within the doomed fortress. But the Kraken swept them aside as quickly as they appeared, and they fell dying all about the monster.
Finally the Kraken caught Radhomm as the Dwarf commander fought to break past. The monster swung the red-haired Dwarf high into the air, unaffected by the broadax that still flailed in stubborn determination. The Kraken lifted Radhomm; then, with horrifying suddenness, it smashed him downward to the stone, broken, twisted, and lifeless.
Slanter was pulling vainly at Jair. “Run!” he screamed in desperation.
