Yours, Rand
“There you are!” exclaimed Bram as he spied Dagamier. “Par-Salian said I’d find you here.” He stepped through the doorway and into the small tower that formed the western point of the equilateral triangle surrounding Wayreth’s tower complex. “I’ve always wondered why the first wizards named this complex the Tower of High Sorcery, when in fact there are no less than five towers here, not to mention two foretowers.”
“Tradition,” the black-robed wizardess grunted. Dagamier was shoveling damp sand one-handed into a burlap sack that she held open with the other. The shovel was defying her attempts to jab it through the small mouth in the sack. She flung the tool aside with a disgruntled snort and wiped her sweaty, gritty brow with the back of a slender hand. “I was overseeing the workers digging the trenches out front, but apparently the elves the Speaker of the Suns had sent from Qualinesti took exception to my direction,” she explained without insult.
Dagamier spoke of the small army of dwarves and Qualinesti elves who had pledged to help defend the Tower of High Sorcery. For several days now they had been occupied with digging ditches and putting up sharpened stakes and ramparts to protect the tower against conventional assault, since the tower’s magical defenses were not operating properly, thanks to Lyim’s gauntlet. Spies working for the Council of Three placed Lyim’s own forces several days’ march east of Thorbardin, so the defenders at Wayreth were working faster than ever in their fortifying efforts.
“Par-Salian assigned me to this task to cool my heels, I believe. I’m supposed to fill up as many of these sacks as I can, so we can drop them on invaders from the tower’s walls.” She looked with a mixture of longing and irritation at the results of her labors. “I’ve managed to fill exactly two of them. At this rate we’ll just have to hope Lyim and his troops are stopped at Thorbardin.”
“We can’t count on that,” Bram said, though he knew Dagamier was just being cynical. “Here, let me help.” He hastened over to take up the shovel. “I’m used to hard labor, or at least I was when I had to plow the fields around Thonvil by myself.”
Dagamier squatted down and held the sack open to Bram’s loaded shovel. “I always thought lords had tenants, or at least oxen, for that.”
Bram laughed at the memory of the reality. “I do now, but I didn’t back before we met at the first Bastion.”
“A lot has changed since then, hasn’t it?” Dagamier observed.
Bram nodded thoughtfully. He shoveled and Dagamier sacked sand for some time in silence.
Between conferences with the Council of Three in the last weeks, they had shared many of the details of their lives since their first meeting at Bastion. Most of the revelations sprang naturally from discussions about their differing magical disciplines. Bram realized in the silence of their labors that, though she knew about his life in Thonvil, he knew nothing about Dagamier before her first appointment as one of Bastion’s guardians.
“I found some of Guerrand’s letters during my brief return to Castle DiThon,” he remarked. “Among them was one he wrote from Bastion to a gnome friend of his, though I don’t think Rand ever posted it. He mentioned you.”
“Oh?”
“Rand wrote that he was ever on eggshells with you, that he wasn’t sure if even a lifetime of study would help him to figure you out.”
Dagamier looked up, with an odd mixture of amusement and annoyance, from the bag she was holding. “Is that so?”
“I brought it up because of how it made me feel,” Bram said quickly. “I don’t know very much about you, except that, unlike Rand, I feel entirely at ease with you.”
She refused to look up and meet his eyes, but Bram could see a faint blush in the alabaster skin of her cheeks. “So what more would you know?”
He stopped his labors and leaned against the wooden handle of the shovel. “I’m not sure, exactly. Where do you come from? Have you any family? What makes you happy?”
Dagamier brought herself up from her knees, brushed the sand from them, and moved to sit on a nearby bench. “Those questions are easy enough to answer.” She folded her hands on her lap with a primness that contrasted with the way her black robe parted sensuously at the knees. “I don’t know, I don’t know, and magic.”
Bram’s arm nearly slid from the handle of the shovel. “You don’t know where you’re from? But how can that be?”
“That’s an odd question from a man who only recently discovered his true heritage,” Dagamier remarked, though not unkindly.
The mage continued. “In my case, the explanation is simple enough: I was the only survivor of a shipwreck in the Straits of Algoni, off Southern Ergoth. I simply washed ashore on a piece of driftwood one day in Pontigoth. I don’t remember this, of course, since I was just a babe, but was told it by Lomas, the fisherman who found me and took me into his family. The last of his kin died of the pox when I was nearing eleven. I lived on the streets after that, not a bad place in Pontigoth, fairly safe as port cities go. I met a mage, fell in love with the Art, and eventually made my way here to take the Test. End of story. Or the beginning, as I like to think of it.”
“So you assume your parents went down with the ship?” When Dagamier nodded, Bram added, “Then you have no idea who they were, and you have no family to turn to now.”
Dagamier shrugged her lack of concern. “That’s never seemed important to me. First I had Lomas’s family, then the mage briefly, then LaDonna, who recognized my talent during my Test and has championed me ever since.”
Bram squinted at her. “In an odd sort of way, you’ve always reminded me of what LaDonna might have looked like when she was young.”
Dagamier chuckled. “Don’t tell LaDonna that. She goes to great lengths to make people believe she still is young. Besides, it’s not so odd that I should unconsciously imitate my mentor. You look a great deal like your uncle.”
“Rand and I were related,” Bram countered, “but I see what you mean.” He looked at the determined, self-made woman with a new appreciation. “You’ve had a hard life, haven’t you?”
“Hasn’t everyone?” she returned. “It’s a hard world.” Dagamier frowned her discomfort at the turn the conversation had taken toward her. “It’s even harder without the use of magic, a situation that might become permanent if we don’t get the rest of these sacks filled.” She returned with a resigned sigh to the pile of sand and held open a sack.
“Why don’t you let me cast a spell that will dry up this sand and make it lighter to shovel?” he suggested.
“Be my guest.”
Bram took his staff firmly in hand and concentrated on the sand. Instead of the dark, moist pile, he pictured a hot wind blowing across it, carrying away the moisture. As he exerted himself, the sand gradually lightened in color. Soon, flecks were tumbling down the dry outer surface.
Dagamier winked in delight at Bram. She scraped away the thin outer layer of dry sand to reveal the dark, wet mass underneath. The wizardess squeezed his shoulder encouragingly.
A thin vapor began rising from the mound of sand, until the entire pile was as dry as dust.
Dagamier regarded with satisfaction the fruit of Bram’s efforts. “That ought to satisfy Par-Salian,” she said. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For bringing magic back into my life. I’ve felt so helpless without it, just waiting for Lyim’s next move.”
Bram flushed his pleasure. “It was a minor spell, believe me.”
Dagamier looked down at the warm, brown hand still resting lightly on her shoulder. “It seemed tremendous to me.”
Bram’s hand flew back to his side. “We won’t have to wait much longer,” he said quickly to cover his embarrassment. “We’ve worked hard to prepare. We can hold Lyim off.”
“Yes, I think so too.” With an expectant smile, Dagamier visibly shook off her usual negative mood. “When you first came into the foretower, you said, There you are,’ ” she reminded him. “Were you coming to bag sand, or
was there something else you wanted?”
“What? Oh, yes.” Bram’s thoughts and heart were racing so that he could scarcely think straight. “Yes, I came to say good-bye before I leave for Thorbardin.”
Alarm darkened Dagamier’s expression again. “I thought you were to stay here with … the rest of the mages, in case Lyim broke through and made it to Wayreth.”
“The Council of Three decided this morning to send me to bolster the defenses outside the dwarven city with my magic.” Bram smiled ruefully. “I think what they really want is for me to keep the mountain and hill dwarves from fighting each other, and to prevent the strong-willed Mercadior from attempting to take over the whole lot. In any event, I can travel the faerie road and return here if I’m needed.”
Dagamier struggled to lighten her tone. “Then we should be saying ‘see you later’, not ‘good-bye’.”
“Good-bye is more traditional,” Bram said, his eyes smiling warmly into hers. Turning to leave, he reached out and impulsively touched her cheek. To his greater surprise, Dagamier’s hand flew up and briefly held his there.
“See you later,” she said in a soft voice, dropping her hand from his with obvious reluctance.
“Of course,” Bram responded, his throat tight. “You owe me lessons in magic, and I intend to collect!”
Laughing, Dagamier pushed him roughly toward the door. “Go save Thorbardin, so the rest of us can remain idle here.”
Bram smiled encouragingly at the black-robed wizardess as he slid through the door.
* * * * *
A chilly wind plucked at the corners of Bram’s cloak and forced its way underneath to prickle his skin. He wasn’t concerned about the weather, though; the wind that made his body shiver was blowing out of the east, and carried with it the sounds of an army on the march. It was still faint, just a distant rumble and clatter that faded in and out, and even then only when he listened carefully.
Several of the dwarven scouts who had been posted far to the east had already reported back. When Bram had arrived from Wayreth and joined the forces assembled, he had first been surprised to see that dwarves were used as outposts. With their short legs how could they carry a message back to the main army quickly enough for it to be useful? But their great endurance enabled them to run almost all day without stopping for rest. Indeed, just that morning Bram saw two dwarves arrive who had been running ahead of Lyim’s advancing army since the evening before, and they were still able to give a precise account of what they had seen. Bram was beginning to believe the amazing legends of dwarven strength that were spread as tall tales in Northern Ergoth.
The dwarven scouts reported that the forces from Qindaras had marched north out of the Plains of Dust, then followed the foothills along the southwest coast of Newsea. There the army joined up with the Hillhome highway, which led directly toward the mountains and fertile lands to the west. And Wayreth.
If any of them had harbored a hope otherwise, there could be no doubt now that Lyim’s target was the Tower of High Sorcery. Thorbardin would hold no threat or interest for an ex-mage who was bent on destroying magic. The tower beyond the dwarven city was the only logical choice, since it contained the greatest concentration of magical energy and knowledge outside the Lost Citadel itself. If the tower were destroyed, the cause of magic would be irreparably harmed.
There was one stumbling block to Lyim’s progress: the Kharolis Mountain range. Just outside the hill dwarf settlement of Hillhome, some twenty leagues north of Thorbardin, was an opening in the northeastern Kharolis Mountains known only as the Pass. It was not a true pass, but a break in the mountains, as if some gigantic hand had scooped a valley right across the range. The Pass was the only place an army could cross the mountain range. It connected a swamp on the south edge of the Plains of Dergoth with the western coastline of Newsea. The Pass was less than a league wide, but an army could not ask for a better passage through the mountains. If Lyim’s army made it through there, they might just be unstoppable.
The forces determined to stop Lyim’s progress included Mercadior’s three hundred cavaliers and a dwarven host comprised of just under five hundred feuding hill and Hylar mountain dwarves. The dwarves had put aside their differences, temporarily at least, to do battle with Lyim’s legion.
Far to the west, Bram could just make out the round contours of Skullcap. He had heard the legends of the ancient structure of the mages. Originally known as Zhaman, the spires of the magical fortress had soared above the Plains of Dergoth, but an explosion loosed by the notorious mage Fistandantilus during the Dwarfgate Wars had caused the structure to collapse into the hideous mound it now was. The eerie, skull-shaped remains rose solitary against the bleak flatness of the Bog, an enormous stretch of tangled, stinking swampland.
Bram looked around at the rocky face of the mountain that formed the southern flank of the Pass. Hundreds of sturdy Hylar dwarves from Thorbardin would soon be concealed in those rocks, ready to set off an avalanche against the unsuspecting army that approached. An equal number would be similarly positioned on the northern flank.
“Remind all of your lieutenants to wait until the army is halfway through before setting off the rock slides.” The speaker was Thane Hothjor, the leader of the contingent from within Thorbardin. He was tall for a dwarf, only about a head shorter than Bram, and massively built. The great, blackened axe that Hothjor swings about as easily as a stick probably weighs half as much as I do, Bram thought incredulously.
Hothjor was addressing the representative from Hillhome, a stocky, unsmiling dwarf named Tybalt Fireforge, who served as head constable in the village. Even now he wore a constable’s uniform—shiny leather breastplate and shoulder protectors hardened in boiling oil and dyed blue, gray tunic beneath to his knees, gray leg wraps, and thick-soled leather boots. The rest of his Neidar forces, waiting in the hills now, were not so nattily dressed; most were hardworking, hard-muscled farmers who wore mismatched armor that was no less effective for wear. Hillhome had a mayor, one Holden, but rumor had it he was too comfortably entrenched in a warm cottage to fight here himself. Besides, he couldn’t have held a candle to the vitriolic Fireforge.
“Don’t you worry about my men following orders, Hylar,” Tybalt Fireforge snapped. “You just keep your diggers from running like cowards when they see the enemy.”
Thane Hothjor’s face turned purple. “Look, you—”
“Gentlemen,” Bram interjected, a hand lowered to a thick shoulder of each dwarf. “I understand your people have a history of bitterness, but—”
“You call the Great Betrayal ‘bitterness’?” bellowed young Fireforge. “Reorx’s Beard, man, his people sealed the gates of Thorbardin against my ancestors during the Cataclysm. They left the hill dwarves to starve, to suffer the full force of the gods’ punishment!”
“Nevertheless,” Bram cut in again before Hothjor burst a blood vessel defending his people. “You both agreed to put aside your differences to help stave off this newest threat. Please, save your anger for the enemy.”
“We agreed to help only to save Hillhome,” grumbled Fireforge.
“And the Hylar came from Thorbardin to fight,” said Hothjor, “only under the condition that we would recover the Gauntlet of Ventyr, which never should have left our vaults in the first place.”
Fireforge arched an accusing brow. “Someone less charitable might suggest this whole crisis could be laid squarely at the ugly feet of the Hylar.”
“It happened centuries ago!”
“My dear dwarves,” Emperor Mercadior interrupted, thumping his battle gauntlets against a palm impatiently, “we will all be to blame for the destruction of magic if we do not get on with reviewing our plans for defense. Hothjor?” The emperor waved a peevish hand for the Hylar thane to continue.
Hothjor’s eyes narrowed to sparkling slits in his bearded and scarred face as he gave Fireforge a superior smirk. “The Pass is too wide to inflict serious casualties with an avalanche,” he resumed in his b
ooming voice, “unless the army is a great deal more spread out than we expect. We’re not trying to crush them with boulders. We want to cause a panic that will separate the tail end of the column from the van. Once the army is split, the hill dwarves and Mercadior’s cavaliers on the plain will charge into those that run toward the west. Our job, at that point, is to move down and keep the two halves of the army apart so we can destroy it a piece at a time.”
Hothjor ran his fingers through his long beard. “We’re going to be badly outnumbered, even though we’ll be facing only half of the invaders’ army. And we can expect that, once the course of things becomes clear, some portion of those trapped to our west will turn and try to fight their way back through us. When that happens we’ll be pinned smack in the middle of an army that outnumbers us eight to one. When every Hylar stands his ground without flinching, we will be the anvil against which these invaders are smashed by Mercadior’s hammer. It will be a day filled with glory!”
At that, the assembled Hylar officers banged their axes and hammers against their shields and clomped their thick, booted feet, an annoying tendency Bram had come to see both Neidar and Hylar shared. Nevertheless, the Hylar were a fearsome sight in their heavy armor and long beards and braids, wielding their rune-etched weapons. Their cheer raised such a din that Bram feared the carefully planned avalanches would be triggered. But at a wave of Hothjor’s axe, the Hylar fell immediately silent. At a glance from the surly Fireforge, the Neidar officers from Hillhome quieted as well.
Hothjor barked a single command, “Go!” and the Hylar turned and disappeared into the rocks as easily as mountain goats. Bram watched in amazement as the fluttering plumes on their helmets bobbed momentarily above the boulders, then were gone.
Mercadior turned to Bram. “Of course, you’re the pivotal element here, Bram. Our ambush is designed not just to destroy the invader’s army, but to give you a chance to attack Lyim with your tuatha magic. With any luck, he is still unaware of our forces, so he will not expect your presence here.” Mercadior lowered his voice, though Hothjor and Fireforge were otherwise engaged with their lieutenants and no longer listening. “I’d feel best if you worked within the protection of my cavaliers.”
The Seventh Sentinel Page 27
