by Thomas Head
“Sacred thunder!” he screamed.
“Oh, now! What’s all this?”
“Oh now what’s all this indeed!” Halvgar roared, silencing all onboard. “How dare you, sir!”
I turned to look at him.
“Little brother, you make off with a ripe human maid, and you dare not tell an old dwarf all the details?”
At which, Frobhur, Kenzo, Gilli, Delthal, and Jickie laughed with such an uproar that my cramped limbs ached to catch myself, lest I get tossed from the rocking vessel.
* * *
A dozen times I could have dozed off, but every time my eyelids became heavy, my uncle turned his grimace on me with a warning in his eyes: fun may indeed be had along the way, sir, but it will certainly not slow the war party.
Now wide awake, I turned wearily toward Delthal.
“What the thundering hell did you do back there to get those maids so fighting mad?”
Not a muscle of his face changed, nor did any of the attitudes alter in the least. They all seemed in a sort of stoic oblivion of my existence. Gilli’s head was thrown back and the steely, unflinching eyes were fixed on the morning’s growing storm clouds. He looked guilty as all hell and half of Yrkland, as they say.
“Suffice to say, Mister Fie, that even a merry adventurer must adhere to certain boundaries.”
“Who was she, Gilli?” I asked.
“Angry whores, as it happens.”
“What? Why would… Gilli! You… didn’t pay them?”
“I didn’t see paying no maid, not when I did all the work!” he thundered. “Besides all that, I bought their madam a damn horse when I found out what they were!”
“Oh, hell… A large black horse?”
At which the others lost their stoic cool, rollicking again like lads.
I asked no more of it. Still, Gilli spent the better part of the morning pouring out such a jumbled mouthful of quick-spoken explanations about drink, darkness, and so forth, that I was not a bit the wiser. Laughing, I told him sharply he was to be more careful with that thing.
He gave an evil leer and muttered, “Pah! Likewise, Mister Fie!”
“Oh, Master Gilli, please. You would assume to give council to such an expert?”
It was not a particularly clever joke, but a good humor had settled on us, and the vessel was sent rocking once more.
Chapter 13
Without any more reminiscing, we pushed forward. And we pushed hard. The river’s pace was merciless to row against. At places, it seemed damned near impossible, and some ten miles out from Beergarden, the impossibility of going any further loomed more heavily than ever, as foul weather threatened. The old lads were for proceeding at any risk, of course, but as the thunder clouds grew blacker, the wind more violent.
Delthal, the head steersman, lost his temper and grounded our vessel on a sandbar. Springing ashore, he flung down his river pole and refused to go on.
“By thunder!” Uncle Jickie grumbled, “Now listen here, you insolent young buck!”
But as lightening flashed, he could not sanely add anything more than that. Indeed, any of us would be foolhardy to argue. A blast of wind, snapping the great oaks as a cutter breaks kindling wood, enforced Delthal’s stance. We only boarded again to beach ourselves more securely, fastening battens down over the bales of provisions. A few of us struggled to hoist a tent, but gusts of wind tossed the canvas above our heads. Before the pegs were driven, a great wall of rain drenched everyone to the skin.
By afternoon, the river had turned brown and violent. Plainly, we were there for the day—which meant we were there for the night, too. Navigating a swollen river is too dangerous a spot for even the most adventuresome soul, be it man or dwarf.
So, with ample patience, we settled in. And we at last managed to pitch our tents. Then we kindled the soaked underbrush and finally got a pile of logs roaring. We set up a makeshift windbreak and gathered round the fire.
We spent the afternoon hunkered down, which was fortunate, as it allowed me time to draw my tartan around me and manage some sleep.
* * *
I could not have slept long, but I had the strangest, most vivid dream of my life. I dreamt of being old, and of Death himself riding atop that large black steed I had called Little Fellow. He comes bursting through my hall back in Goback. He is like a screaming ghost, still atop his horse, swinging his long scythe at me.
I can see the bare-bone, zombie face under that hood, wiping blood from his pearl-handled scythe on the sleeve of his cloak. Death laughs at me. And it rides away as I stand at the threshold of my hall. Then suddenly Death is atop the wyrm, and he slithers with her out of the world altogether.
* * *
It was dark when I woke, and someone had added logs to the fire. The glare in the sky attracted a small, wild party of elves and shaggy-haired dwarves—degenerates who had lost all taste for civilization or had retired with elvish wives. They must have come from nearby lodges. Or else they were just a motley throng, passing through like us, for we had seen no fires. We hadn’t seen so much as a riverside horse trail.
When I saw them, I gave a low signal, the low whippet of a loon. Everyone among us drew their axes closer, some without opening their eyes.
As my fellows roused, I whistled again, this time for them to remain calm.
The party of strangers approached slowly, making a friendly show of things, waving and nodding before they drew off to a fire by themselves. They had either begged or stolen some beer. They even offered some to us, only to receive icy stares from Halvgar, Kenzo, and myself.
They just shrugged as if it didn’t matter to them.
I watched the lithe, elvish figures leaping and dancing between the firelight and the dusky woods like forest demons. With the wind and rain rustling overhead, and the river’s shores sloshing heavily on the pebbles, and the washed pine air stimulating my blood like an intoxicant, I began wondering how many years of solitary life it would take to wear through civilization’s veneer and leave one content to live like an elf, satisfied in the lodges of forest wilds.
Gradually, my mind settled. I became aware of Delthal’s presence on the other side of the campfire. He went to about halfway between the two camps and halted. He made no outwardly gesture for want of joining them, but he sat on his feet, elf style, gazing intently at their flames as if spellbound by some fire demon.
“What’s wrong with that fellow, anyhow?” Kenzo grunted, who was taking the last pulls at a smoked-out pipe.
“Sick—home-sick,” Halvgar said.
“You’d think he was near enough nature here to feel at home!”
“It’s not the wilds he wants,” my old friend explained.
“What, then?” Kenzo inquired.
“His woman, he’s mad after her,” Halvgar said, and he took his own pipe to his teeth to mask his grimace.
“Faugh!” Kenzo grumbled. “The idea of a dwarf all sentimental and lovesick for some fat lump of a whoring she-elf! Come! Come! Am I to believe that?”
“Doesn’t matter whether you do or not,” Halvgar returned. “It’s a fact. His woman’s gone east to Delmark with a gang of guides and hunters last week. The young buck has been bark at your mother loony ever since.”
“Loony? The lad’s nary spoken a word!”
“It’s in his stillness, Master Kenzo… In his stillness.”
Kenzo looked at Halvgar and muttered another unintelligible tumbling of curses.
I turned my gaze from them to the fantastic figures. They were carousing around the other camp fire now. One form in particular stood out more than the others. He was gathering the elves in line for some native dance and had an easy grace that was different from the motions of the blueskins. With a sudden turn, his profile was thrown against the fire, and I saw that while his ears were as pointed as an arrowhead, he wore a braided beard!
He was no elf. Nor again was he a man. And he was too tall to be a dwarf. Even Mighty Kenzo, at almost five feet tall, was shorter
by six inches.
Suddenly, I had one of those strange, reasonless intuitions that pop into one’s head, but are never asked aloud: Was this an elvish, dwarven halfbreed? In truth it had to be. I had long known that men and elves could produce a child. But dwarves and elves? I had never even considered the idea, and I had hardly spelled out my own suspicions when the measured beatings of a drum rang out.
There was a low, tuneless chant, like the voices of the forest. The elves began to tread a mazy, winding pace. In a strange way the motions brought up memories of a naked drunken dwarven bar maid I had once taken to bed with me. Perhaps some part of my mind was still stuck on the interbreeding of the races. I focused. The drums beat faster. The suppressed voices were breaking in shrill, exultant strains, and the measured tread had quickened. The boisterous antics of these children of the forest fascinated me. They were swaying now, dancing in a way that could only be likened to the wiggling of a bird under leafy cover. The coiling and circling and winding of the dancers became bewildering, and in the center, laughing, shouting, tossing up his arms and gesticulating like a maniac, was the elf with the braided beard.
The performers broke from their places and gave themselves with utter abandon to the wild impulses of the drums. And there was such a scene of uncurbed, animal hilarity as I never dreamed possible. Savage, furious, almost animal-like, it seemed like at any time they could fall upon each other with bared teeth and destroy the weaker ones like wolves.
Even Uncle Jickie, who watched now from the flaps of his tent, seemed unsure what to make of it.
Filled with the curiosity that lures many to their undoing, I rose and went across to the thronging, shouting, shadowy figures. In the next instant, a figure darted out of the woods full tilt against me. It was the fellow with the braided beard.
Quick as a hiccup, I thrust out my foot and kicked his knee. Then I dropped him with a punch. His comrades only watched as I put a foot in his chest and looked down. The moonlight, only just visible through a break in the clouds, fell on his upturned face. He snarled out something angrily.
“Help you up?” I asked.
Extending my hand to give him a lift, I felt that his palm was deathly cold.
As I let him up, he gathered himself in a sitting posture. Then he seemed shocked at the sight of me.
“Cold!” he answered my thoughts. “Cold as an old tomb!” With an absurdly elaborate bow, he reeled back among the dancers. “Frigid as a seal’s arse! Frosty as the death’s-head of your dreams! Farewell, grave skull!”
I looked him over. “What the devil is the matter with you, fellow?” I asked, pretending not to noticed that he had not answered me. I was determined to follow my uncle’s advice and play a rascal at his own game. I was curious—they say there are elves who can see into another’s soul, and that some can even see the future.
Again, his reaction was delayed for a curious moment before he spoke. “With me!” he muttered beneath his breath, momentarily silenced with astonishment. “Is it not you who seeks the Black One?”
“Who have you been talking to, you sneak!”
“Ha! I took you and your company for adventures, not fools!” he said. Then the tall dwarf went skipping madly back to his companions, drinking and dancing.
And that was that. The encounter was over. I drew back toward our camp.
“Get up, Delthal,” I urged, rushing back to where he still sat on his knees. “Get up. He’s an oracle! Talk to him. Find out what you can!”
“Oracle,” he muttered, throwing aside the hand I offered down to him.
“Yes! An oracle. A seer. What do you call them… A shaman.”
“I think his name is Mad Hila. He and his troupe make it up to Goback now and again. Do you not remember him?”
“Delthal, listen. I don’t care who he is. I only care what he is.”
“Hold on!” he exclaimed, jerking himself up back. “How do you know he’s a seer?”
“I don’t know, really know,” I began, clumsily conscious that I had no proof for my suspicions, “but he hinted at my dreams. He knew what we’re after. It strikes me we’d better not let the opportunity escape us. If I’m wrong, what would will it cost us to find out?”
“Beer. Lots of it”
“That’s it?” I asked.
“He’s a hard one to read.”
“But he’s got the sight.”
“Oh! When he’s drunk out of his regular sight, I imagine!” laughed Delthal.
We walked together to the vessel.
“We haven’t got beer,” I said, and I began rummaging through bales of the stuff with a purposeful noise, exaggerating the sounds of all manner of things knocking together.
My uncle and the rest of our company still watched wordlessly.
“What’s your plan?” Delthal asked.
I found a fine dwarfish dirk in a walnut box.
“Here.”
“A box? You’ll need more than that, Fie.”
“There’s an excellent dirk inside. He could trade it for a barrel of beer, maybe two.”
“Ah, well, thundering shit, Fie. This is tricky business, you know.”
“Tricky is our business, Delthal. We’re hunting a damned dragon!”
“Very well. Come down to the sand between the forest and the beach in about an hour and I’ll have news for you,” and he brushed past me with a look on his face that was hard to read in the half-light.
Chapter 14
There on the banks of those brown, raging waters began my first compromise with conscience. I knew very well my little fellows would not approve. Indeed, they would not even emerge from their tents for fear of incurring the wrath of the spirits that were about to be called upon. But I also knew that the rough-and-ready cutters sang epic poems about standing upon one’s own wits and cunning. Which was exactly what I intended. My only fear was a vague sense that I would arouse bad luck with calling on the powers of the unknown, but by thunder we were facing powers unknown!
Suffice it to say, when I went down to the shore, the shaman was sitting in the midst of a new fire, swaying. Delthal was silent, beside him on his knees. He motioned me to keep behind the shaman.
We must have sat there an hour, maybe more, before finally I heard his drunken lips mumbling my own name in a voice that sounded like a whispering fiend from old. I could not make out the nonsensical words, but something happened, something that is not easy to explain. For a strange moment, the darkness overcame me. It felt neither alive nor dead, but an indwelling for things from some ethereal world in between. I looked from the fellow out into the dark trees, half-expecting fairy watchers out there in the dark.
Then suddenly, coherent words emerged from his jumbled hissing.
“Tiamark—Devil’s wife—serve him weel this night. Halvgar’s—sh—sh—friend too—Sho’s his wife, Shir, Shiri, taken. Still alive. Weel enough. It is the way of the wyrm… not to crush, not to bite, but Shiri fought too hard. She is… crying in horror. Spent, she is. The babe there too. That wax-face babe—a she-elf offers the teat. Babbles at the teat in the dark, in the dark.”
“Ask him where she is,” I whispered over his head.
“Where’s the maid?”
“Inescapable lair. Thrown into the earth for later. As the squirrels do. As the spider… The Black One puts them away, wraps them, puts them into the slumber of bears. Eats them later. Eats them later.”
“The future, will we—”
Delthal shushed me.
“Dark,” the shaman went on. “Fie—stuffed in the devil’s mouth to his neck—broken, the pain of hell for seeking it. The hell of the venom, the bile, with spittle comes slumber… with the black smoke of its thoughts.”
“What? What venom?”
Again, Delthal shushed me.
“Small eels spark from the gut to ignite the fire! Fire to make the man-dwarf called Fie cry, make him bellow, bleat out like a spring calf. Go—run home—go back, says the mind—run to live, says the heart,”
the shaman said. And he stopped to look off at the stars, his eyes rolling back into his head.
“Ask him where she is,” I whispered. “Quick! He’s going to sleep.”
Delthal wiped his beard on his sleeve and said, “Come back to us now. Leave the dark, go outside. Where are you?”
“Hot in the halls of the dying,” drawled the shaman. “Hot under the water that rises but does not fall. Leaving now… the black lair. Blackness near the undreaming sea. As soft and rolling and ugly as the living eels in its belly,” and he rolled over in a sodden pose, as if asleep.
I felt a shudder, looking at this silent, uncompromising pose. He seemed frozen in the stance of a crab, an impossible angle for a dwarf, or an elf, or whatever exactly he was, to assume for longer than a moment. And yet he did not move. Then the earth rumbled, or else it was my bones.
And the shaman fell.
“Trust that the beast is not fully of this world or the next,” he spoke. “It is but a thing stuck between… Pray it is full of spring deer and fat goats when you arrive…”
And suddenly, the shaman grabbed me.
“But it all will matter not, Grave Skull. Death settles the matters of all, and all who conquer are conquered. Bone Face slithers around us all, the vanquished and the victorious, and you… you will knoooow why the elves wear the cooling blue paint of death.”
Chapter 15
I grunted, shivering.
As we gathered ourselves up from that encounter, the campfires were dead, or dying. There was a gray light on the water, and there was an elusive stirring of crows through the foliage overhead.
But not a sound came from the fellows.
The tall dwarf, this… elvish shaman of a dwarf, lay with his bared chest not a hand’s length from the dirk we had given him. Delthal and I looked at each other with the same unspeakable things in our hearts: Did he really see the future? Did his mind take flight from his soul to go to Heir’s Sea Peak, lair of the thunderwyrm? Or was this all just an evil dream from a black moment of desperation?
