The Rover

by Mel Odom

  “But you can read?” Dahvee asked.

  Wick hesitated, but there was no denying the directness of the mercenary captain’s question. “Yes.”

  “Then you can come with us.”

  “I would probably only be in the way,” Wick said, not believing that Dahvee had changed his mind.

  “More than likely,” Dahvee agreed. “However, if there is a chance that you can be of any use at all to Lady Tseralyn’s rescue, I’m willing to risk it.”

  Reluctantly, Wick walked forward.

  “He’s not going anywhere without me,” Sonne spoke up.

  Dahvee hesitated a moment, then released a long breath and nodded. “Fine.” He withdrew into the main chamber.

  Wick stepped into the darkness again just as the volcano rumbled and shook debris over them. He covered his head as small rocks and dirt rained down over his head and shoulders. The rolling thunder echoed inside the mine shaft’s main chamber and made the little librarian think about Shengharck’s bellowing roar and the flame-breath that had torched the goblin chieftain. It was absolutely not, he decided, the best thing he could be thinking about while they were setting about going on a rescue mission.

  24

  Rescue Mission

  Inside the main chamber, Dahvee made Wick demonstrate his reading skills on all three mine tunnels. The mercenary captain even traced the letters as Wick called them out, but no emotion showed on the big man’s face.

  When one of the men found the marker Tseralyn had left at the entrance to Tunnel Two—and Wick was amazed again at how skillful Tseralyn had been about the placement of the markers, especially without Brant noticing it—Dahvee hesitated.

  “That’s the blocked passageway we told you about,” Wick said.

  Dahvee nodded. He turned to his troops and signaled. Two men fell out at once and moved into Tunnel Three. The volcano rumbled again during the long minutes they were gone.

  Wick fidgeted and rubbed his sore backside, trying to work the pain from it. Dahvee’s crushing landing on him had nearly crippled him again for a short time, and it was beginning to seem to the little librarian that he couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t been tired and hurting.

  “What do you know about dragons?” Dahvee asked quietly.

  “Dragons?” Wick echoed.

  Dahvee regarded the little librarian as if he were a simpleton.

  “Oh,” Wick said. “I’ve read lots of things about dragons.”

  “Read? Where?”

  “Uh, here and there.”

  Dahvee didn’t say anything, but his gray eyes bored into Wick’s.

  “I can’t tell you,” Wick finally admitted.

  “Then tell me about dragons.”

  “In the beginning,” Wick began, drawing a deep breath, “dragons were thought to be related to the Old Ones, possibly even a rejected clan of the Old Ones themselves, which is how they get to be immortal and have so many powers. But others say that the Old Ones made the dragons just as they did every other race. It’s just that the dragons were the first and the Old Ones infused in them many gifts. Of course, dragons being dragons, the dragons took those gifts for granted. Also, they have malicious and greedy natures that—”

  Dahvee waved a hand irritably. “Not that. I don’t need to know how dragons got here. They are here. You say you’ve seen one here, so I’ll accept that they exist. What I want to know is how to kill one.”

  “Kill one?”

  “If I have to.”

  “If you have to?”

  Dahvee sighed. “You’re not much of a conversationalist, are you?”

  Coming from the tight-lipped mercenary captain, the comment was almost hilarious. Or, at least, it would have been if Wick had been in a jocular mood. Talking about killing dragons, or even facing one again, didn’t lend itself very well to jocularity.

  “Dragons are very hard to kill,” Wick said. “Usually there’s an army involved, several days of fighting—”

  Dahvee waved his arm at his men. “This is all the army we’ve got. Seasoned men, each and every one of them, but they’re not an army. And we’re not going to have several days, either.”

  The volcano rumbled and boomed. Everyone in the main chamber took cover automatically.

  “Okay, well then,” Wick said, thinking furiously. “Usually dragons are armor-plated. Their scales are as tough as any steel ever smithed on a dwarven anvil. Swords and spears and even ballistae are pretty much useless against them.”

  “That’s a good thing,” Dahvee said sarcastically, “because I’m all out of ballistae.”

  Wick glanced around at the anxious faces of the mercenaries standing nearby. Why are they looking to me for answers? I read. I’m a librarian. I don’t have the answer to every question out there. Usually, I only turn up more questions that I can’t answer by seeking to answer even one.

  “Isn’t there one story of a man, a single man,” Dahvee asked, “killing a dragon?”

  Wick thought. “No.” There are numerous accounts of single dragons killing lots of men, though. “It hasn’t been done. No single man in his right mind would fight a dragon.”

  “He might,” Dahvee said, “if he had to.”

  “But his best choice,” Wick felt he had to point out, “would be not to fight a dragon at all.”

  The men Dahvee had ordered into Tunnel Three returned. Dahvee looked at them. “We found one of Lady Tseralyn’s markers, sir,” one of the men said. “It was quite a distance away.”

  “What about the passageway?” Dahvee asked.

  “It’s been used lately.”

  “And the stream the halfer described?”

  “We didn’t see it, sir.”

  Dahvee quickly marshaled his troops, placing them in four-man units with two units across. “Hendrell, you have the point.”

  “Yes sir.” The man walked briskly into Tunnel Three carrying a torch and a sword naked in his fist.

  Dahvee waved at Wick to accompany him. “What about weaknesses? Surely dragons have weaknesses.”

  “Their underbellies,” Wick said at once. “Usually the armor over their bellies is weak. That’s where the new scales form. Dragons lose scales through shedding, accident, and sometimes while battling other dragons. When a new scale is ready, a dragon will pluck it from his underbelly and place it over his body. Part of the inherent magic in dragons makes the new scale seal into place.”

  “A good archer could get an arrow in there?” Dahvee asked, stepping into Tunnel Three.

  Wick glanced around the passageway, disheartened at once by the enclosed space presented and the darkening gloom ahead that already threatened to swallow the light from the torches. “Perhaps,” the little librarian admitted. “But it would take much more than one arrow to kill a dragon.”

  “What if the archer shot it in the heart?”

  “A dragon’s heart is very small for its size.” Wick made a fist and showed it to the mercenary captain. “Even on the largest, and Shengharck is probably the largest, they’re no bigger than this.”

  “It’s not an impossible shot,” Dahvee said.

  “No,” Wick answered. But it might as well be! Who’s going to face a raging dragon, breathing fire and slashing everything in sight with its fierce claws, and still have the presence of mind to hit a target that small? Before getting burned up by dragon breath? “However, dragons know their weaknesses as well and they take pains to see that they’re protected. A dragon rarely presents its underbelly in a battle.”

  Dahvee shined the lantern he carried down onto a small group of dweller skeletons. Most of them had crushed skulls. Rusted manacles that were no longer serviceable and a few sections of broken chain were draped over the pile of bones.

  “In fact,” Wick went on, “some of the older dragons don’t even keep their hearts in their bodies any more.”

  That caught Dahvee’s interest. “What do you mean?”

  “Dragons can work magic,” Wick said. “At least, that’s wha
t I’ve read.”

  “Like wizards?” Dahvee scowled, showing his disgust with those people.

  “Not like wizards,” Wick said. “A dragon’s magic is very limited. They can create a few special items during their lifetimes, weapons or jewelry with special powers, and enthrall a human or even a group of humans with their gaze occasionally. They can also heal themselves. And they can place their hearts outside their bodies, making them almost impervious to harm.”

  “What do they do with their hearts?”

  “They turn them into jewels.” Wick searched back through his memory of Jorgt’s Apothecary of Dragons. “Wizards who get their hands on a Dragonheart jewel are said to be able to control that dragon and be safe from other dragons. They’re also able to make more powerful spells by tapping into the mystical energy of the Dragonheart.”

  “Shengharck is the Dragon King, right?”

  “Perhaps,” Wick said.

  “Would it stand to reason that Shengharck could have transferred its heart from its body?”

  “If Shengharck was really able to do that and the story of the Dragonhearts isn’t just a myth.”

  “Where do dragons keep their hearts outside their bodies?”

  “Usually with their hoard. Which is usually as well hidden as they can make it.”

  Dahvee nodded, deep in concentration.

  Quite frankly, all the talk of dragons had sent renewed fear screaming through Wick. The little librarian peered anxiously into the dark as they continued down Tunnel Three.

  Less than an hour, and many volcano rumbles later, the point man, Hendrell, returned to the mercenary group. He signaled frantically with his hands, no longer carrying his torch. Instantly, the mercenary company doused their torches and Dahvee dimmed the lantern he carried. Only a pale yellow glow flickered over the group, barely separating them from the darkness surrounding them.

  “I found Lady Tseralyn,” Hendrell said as he squatted down in front of the mercenary captain.

  Wick’s heart climbed to the back of his throat.

  “Is the lady well?” Dahvee asked.

  “Yes sir. She appears to be.”

  “What about the others?” Sonne asked.

  “There are eleven other people with her,” Hendrell answered. “The ones that I clearly saw fit the descriptions you gave of them.”

  Wick’s heart leapt for joy. Although they’d only been together a short time, he’d been deeply concerned over Brant and his band of thieves. And fierce old Cobner. “Were they all well?”

  “There’s one dwarf they’ve got tied up pretty securely,” Hendrell said. “Looks like he’s been banged around a bit, but he’s tough enough.” A grin lighted the mercenary’s face. “And men. I’ve never heard the kind of language he’s using on those goblinkin. Every now and again, one of the goblins gives the old dwarf a good whack for bellowing at them, but I think he’s beaten them into the ground with it.”

  “That could provide a distraction for us,” Dahvee mused. “But no one should speak that way in front of Lady Tseralyn.”

  The mercenaries around Wick quickly lost their grins at Cobner’s rebellion.

  “No, sir,” Hendrell agreed. “I just hated listening to it myself.” He looked away.

  “How many goblins are there?” the mercenary captain asked.

  “Twenty-two.”

  “What are they doing?”

  “They appear to be waiting for someone to come up the stream.”

  “Stream?”

  “Yes, sir. The stream’s there just like the little halfer said it would be.”

  “Where does the water come from?” Dahvee asked.

  “The wall. It appears the dwarves did construct the stream. Probably as a source of fresh water and for the supply line like we were told.”

  “What about their guards?”

  “Three of them. All of them posted at this end. None of them are especially alert. And they’re posted beyond the torchlight the other goblins carry. Probably to protect their night vision. If we move quietly and quickly enough, we can take down all three before the goblinkin know we’re among them.”

  Dahvee nodded. “Fine. This is how we’re going to do that.”

  Wick sat with the reinforcements ten minutes later, his heart solidly lodged in the back of his throat. No matter what he did, there didn’t seem to be enough air in the passageway and he couldn’t swallow his heart back down to where it belonged.

  The men around him smelled of sour leather. The books in Hralbomm’s Wing had always described the rescue cavalry as clean-cut and fierce fighting men. Wick had imagined steely-thewed warriors with daring smiles on their faces. Instead, the rescue party the little librarian crouched with behind boulders and rocks were all average-looking in build. Most of them were already wounded from their earlier battle or battles in the Forest of Fangs and Shadows, and they hadn’t bathed in days.

  The most shocking thing to Wick, though, was the fact that the men didn’t look heroic. They looked afraid. Fear had tightened their faces and made lines around their eyes and mouths.

  Their emotions touched the little librarian in ways he hadn’t imagined. He’d seen the pirates aboard One-Eyed Peggie face dangers as well, but they’d done it with more confidence. As he ruminated about the difference in the two groups of men, he wondered if the difference might spring from the fact that the pirates had fought from aboard the ship, which was more or less their home territory, while the mercenaries had to invade land that they’d never seen before. When he got back to Greydawn Moors, he intended to research the subject to satisfy his own curiosity and reconcile his experiences.

  Tunnel Three continued down a steeper grade than Tunnel Two had. Less than a hundred feet away, wrapped in the comfortable yellow bubble of light created by the torches the goblinkin carried as well as the bonfire they’d started, the captives and their captors sat along the edge of the stream.

  The water gurgled from the left side of the passageway, pouring out into the carved streambed from a half-dozen holes cut into the wall. Judging from the pressure and the amount of water cascading into the stream, Wick knew that the underground river they’d heard earlier had been tapped by the Iron Hammer Peaks dwarven clan when they’d set up their mines.

  Brant, Lady Tseralyn, and the others sat in shackles and chains in the center of the large boat dock. Fourteen boats were already tied up at the iron piers jutting up from the water.

  The goblinkin sat around them, eating from three pigs slowly roasting over the bonfire on spits. The pigs had been gutted but otherwise left intact. Large tusks curved out of the pigs’ mouths, giving clear indication what vicious opponents they must have been. The raucous voices of the goblinkin were louder even than that of the rushing stream and water gurgling from the wall. But Cobner kept up an incessant barrage of taunts of curses that interrupted their conversations.

  Even with his excellent night vision, Wick only saw Dahvee’s mercenaries as flitting shadows that descended upon the three goblin sentries. All of them died—a mercenary’s hand over their mouth to prevent a final scream, and a blade through their hearts—in the space of a drawn breath.

  Dahvee, crouched behind a large boulder, was sixty feet nearer the goblinkin. The bonfire and torches barely limned him in the darkness for Wick to see, and the little librarian had no doubt that the goblinkin wouldn’t have been able to see the mercenary captain at all. Dahvee raised his right hand and dropped it.

  Immediately, arrows flew from the bows of the mercenary archers. The gurgling sound of the stream covered the humming bowstrings. The shafts took the goblinkin without warning, piercing hearts and throats almost at the same time. By the time the first shafts hit, the archers had a second arrow on the way. The archers fired a third volley, just as Dahvee had instructed, as the goblinkin came to their feet. The shafts cut down the goblin slavers that thought to run toward their prisoners.

  “Charge!” Dahvee shouted, rising up from behind his boulder with his sword nake
d in his fist. He ran toward the goblins, followed by his men.

  Wick watched in mixed horror and admiration as the two groups closed on each other with hoarse shouts and curses. Steel rang against steel and sparks sprayed from the blades. Cobner and the other dwarves roared out their approval and encouragement, partaking of the fight even while tied down.

  The goblins tried to present a unified front, but their line quickly collapsed and broke. At least two of them that Wick saw threw themselves into the stream in an effort to get away.

  In seconds, the bloody battle was over. Dead goblins and pieces of dead goblins lay strewn at the feet of the mercenaries.

  Dahvee gave quick, succinct instructions, setting up a perimeter guard and letting the men standing rearguard around Wick know that they were supposed to hold their positions in case a retreat was necessary. He checked the goblins as he spoke, quickly locating a key to the prisoners’ manacles.

  Wick left the rearguard and ran forward with Sonne. The little librarian knew he wore a foolish, excited smile but he didn’t mind.

  Dahvee freed Lady Tseralyn, then handed the key to one of his mercenaries while he helped the elven woman to her feet.

  “Thank you, Captain Dahvee,” Lady Tseralyn said. “Your rescue was very well planned out, and your timing is impeccable.”

  “My Lady,” Dahvee said, blushing uncomfortably, “I only wish we’d not lost you in the forest.”

  “Nonsense,” the elven woman said. “You survived after we were betrayed, and you came for me when you could. That’s all anyone could have asked.”

  “So this is what you were waiting for,” Cobner roared, clapping Brant on the back. “And here I was thinking we were all bound for the Hanged Elf’s Point slave pens for sure this time.”

  “Of course I was waiting on this,” the master thief said. “I’d noticed Lady Tseralyn laying her markers since we left the Forest of Fangs and Shadows. I took a chance that she really was what she said she was and left them intact. Didn’t you notice them, you old brute?”

  “No.” Cobner looked sour for a moment, then he reached down amid the pile of goblin bodies and brought out his battle-axe with a grin. “Ah. Much better.” He turned and saw Wick then, and his grin became even bigger. “There you are, little warrior. We were all wondering what had become of you and Sonne.”