The Gates of Thorbardin h2-5

by Dan Parkinson

  She hadn't gained much. Within seconds the ogre was in pursuit again and closing. She ran and let dwarven instinct guide her flying feet.

  Abruptly, she realized that she could see the walls.

  There was light ahead, and it was growing. The lower end of the spiral-shaft was ahead.

  Another hundred yards and the tunnel bent slightly to the left, straightened, and ended. Jilian sprinted between fallen stones and emerged on a cleared shelf on the side of a mountain — a shelf that once had been the terminus of a path. But there was no path now. It had sheared away in some long-ago rockfall. It would be a tedious climb, to get down to better ground, but at least now there was light.

  "So far, so good," Jilian panted, then turned as a thunderous growl erupted behind her. Only yards away, the ogre had emerged from the tunnel.

  It still held a hand over one eye.

  "I'm warning you," Jilian shouted, "I'm getting very tired of this.

  You'd better go away and leave me alone." The ogre growled again and started for her. Jilian picked up a rock and flung it, aiming for the thing's other eye. The rock bounced off the monster's nose.

  "Oh, rust," Jilian swore. "That's only made things worse." She hefted her sword and squared her stance sideways to the approaching ogre. "I didn't want to have to do this," she muttered.

  As the monster charged, Jilian braced her feet and swung the sword with all her strength.

  Chapter 21

  Atop the pass, the others had split up. Wiwgover sent Bobbin sailing off westward to have a look at the backtrail, then swung into his saddle and spurred his horse down the twisting, perilous path that led away into the

  Vale of Respite. Chane Feldstone started after him, then glanced aside and recognized the cavern behind the rockfall. "Tunneling," he muttered.

  Without a backward look, he dashed into the cavern and ran, his hammer at the ready. Within a few yards, his nostrils caught the earthy scent of ogre, and he gritted his teeth. "Jilian," he whispered. "Ah, Reorx.

  Jilian…"

  Chestal Thicketsway was right behind the dwarf, followed by a whining, complaining, voiceless voice that seemed to object fiercely to being dragged through subterranean places.

  The wizard Glenshadow watched them go, then chose a peak and began to climb. He noticed almost immediately that the crystal atop his staff had cleared as soon as Chane Feldstone went underground. It was something important to remember, regarding Spellbinder. Glenshadow climbed, seeking an ice pool that would give him seeing eyes.

  Down and down the searchers went, the dwarf and the kender pounding down a long, corkscrew spiral in the heart of the mountain; the mounted man descending the slope, looking everywhere, trying to see everything. In the cavern with the light shaft, Chane found prints in the dust on the stone floor and paused, then hurried on. Jilian was ahead somewhere, with the ogre in pursuit. As one, Chane and Chess darted into the far tunnel and continued downward, running as fast as they could in the darkness. The kender's natural balance and simple luck were all that kept him abreast of the tunnel-wise dwarf.

  The downward slope eased, and the tunnel began to straighten. Chane put on more speed. Just ahead, he knew, the shaft should emerge into open air.

  And if Jilian had managed to escape the ogre in the tunnel — how, he couldn't imagine — her fate would be sealed when the monster had room to maneuver. Outside, she would have no chance.

  The tunnel wound slightly to the left, and then there was light ahead… light and an abrupt, heart-stopping sound. A shrill, agonized scream reverberated back into the tunnel from just beyond its end. Chane put his head down, filled his aching lungs, and plunged ahead into the evening light. Off to one side, he heard a horseman coming downslope, rocks clattering beneath charging hooves.

  The dwarf raised his hammer. As Chane skidded to a halt, the kender bumped into him from behind, then dashed aside to wield his hoopak.

  But there was nothing to attack. Chane and Chess gathered there, staring in wonder.

  Jilian was a spinning top, just beginning to run down — a flashing, tilting, dancing blur spewing blood from the point of an extended sword.

  Cloven carnage was just collapsing, almost at her twirling feet. The head and shoulders of an ogre thudded down on top of a tangled pile of bloody parts, just as the dwarven girl's sword flashed around again and took off the top of its skull, above its eyes.

  "By the Hammer of Kharas," Chane swore.

  "Yuk," Chestal Thicketsway said.

  "What in the name of all the gods?" Wingover's voice came from just upslope. "Jilian? Are you… are you all right?"

  Jilian pivoted a few more times, then got her balance.

  Wordlessly the girl lowered the point of her sword and rested on its hilt as she tried to catch her breath. She stared at the pile of sliced ogre, then turned away, wrinkling her nose. At the sight of Chane, she ran to him. "I knew you'd come," she puffed, "but that… he didn't give me any time to wait for you."

  Chane simply stared at the dismembered ogre, speechless.

  "He was rude," Jilian explained. "He wasn't behaving well at all."

  Chane began to shake his head, slowly.

  "That's Cleft," Jilian introduced, pointing at the stack of ogre parts.

  "That's one way to put it," Chess noted. "Although 'sliced' would be a better word. Wow! Look at that! Feet…shins… knees… hands… thighs… nothing is connected together. Even his head's in two pieces.

  Wow!"

  Wingover had dismounted, and now he, too, stood and stared.

  "I never realized that ogres had two stomachs," Chess remarked, poking around in the gore of the monster with a stick.

  Chane took Jilian's sword and began to clean it, still shaking his head.

  "Were did you learn to use a sword?" he asked dazedly.

  "In Silicia Orebrand's parlor," she said. "It didn't take much practice.

  I seem to be a natural. Now aren't you glad I came looking for you?" She strode to Wingover's horse, led the animal a few yards away, positioned it beside a boulder, and said, "Excuse me for a minute, please." Dropping its reins, she climbed up on the rock and began unlashing one of the packs.

  Wingover was still gawking at the cloven ogre, but now he noticed Jilian with his horse, and hurried across.

  "What are you doing? Those things are mine."

  "Then make yourself useful and convince your animal to stand still," she said. "He keeps sidling away." Wingover stilled the horse, caught up its reins, and scowled across the saddle at the dwarven girl. "Those are my private things. What are you doing?" Rummaging deep in the open pack,

  Jilian drew out a long garment of stained white linen. It was longer than she was tall, but by holding it high and turning to the edge of the rock, she could study it full-length. "This will do, I suppose," she decided.

  "What is it?" Wingover tried to reach across the saddle, to grab the garment out of her hand, but couldn't reach it. "Put that back," he demanded.

  "That ogre ripped my clothing," Jilian said. "But what is this thing, anyway?"

  "It's a cleric's robe," Wingover snapped. "I traded some deerhides for it."

  "Why? What did you want it for?"

  "I intend to sleep in it! Sometime, if ever I find a quiet room in a civilized place. Now, let's drop the subject. If you can use it, go ahead,

  I guess. Do you want me to — 7"

  "I think I can tend to the fitting." Jilian smiled, folding the robe and turning back to the open pack to see what else might be useful. She had help now. The kender had lost interest in ogre internals and was up on the boulder, helping her rummage.

  "You have some nice stuff in here," Chess told the man.

  "There are goblins or something all over down there,"

  Chane said, peering down at the valley. 'They're out in squadrons, patrolling all over the place. We won't be able to go around them."

  "Through them, then?" Chess asked, looking up from a saddlebag.

  "I wish
we had Bobbin to sort out a route for us," the man said. "But he went the other way, and there's no telling when he might show up again. By the way, where's the wizard? I haven't seen him since we came down from the pass."

  "He went up," Chane said.

  "I guess we'll just have to find our way, then."

  Wingover looked at the sky. "Daylight will be gone in an hour. I guess we can try to cross by night. It's only a few miles, straight across… unless we decided to change our minds and just make for Thorbardin." He had their attention, and the expressions forming on various faces brought a grin to his own. "Just checking," he said. "I wouldn't want to try to slip through a valley full of goblins unless I was pretty sure everybody with me is as determined as I am."

  Chane Feldstone's thoughtful frown didn't relax. The dwarf stepped closer to the human, looked up into his eyes, and held his gaze. "I never wanted to get involved in anything like this. I didn't want to wind up in the wilderness, or fight ogres and goblins, or be singled out to finish some task that was begun before ever I was born. But I won't turn back now. I wouldn't if I could. Do you know why? It's because something very bad is happening…or is going to happen. I happen to be here, and I happen to have a chance to do something about it. If I don't, then who is going to?" "I wouldn't miss it for anything," Chestal Thicketsway assured

  Wingover. "And I think that goes for Zap, too." He glanced around at nothing in particular. "Doesn't it, Zap?"

  "Misery and confusion," something silent seemed to say.

  The kender grinned. "That means he can hardly wait to see what happens next."

  Jilian Firestoke peered out from behind a screen of mountain brush, where she was doing something. "What Chane said goes for me, too," she said.

  "Any further doubts?" Chane asked the man.

  Wingover shook his head. "Not a single one."

  "Then let's stop talking about it and go on," Chane snapped.

  "Someone is coming." The kender pointed. A moment later brush parted on the rising slope and the wizard Glenshadow came into view. He looked haggard and cold, but his steps were firm.

  "The valley is full of goblins," Chane told him. "We are going to try to cross at night."

  "I've seen them," Glenshadow said. "They are all over, and they're moving around. Where is the crystal? Where is Spellbinder?"

  "Right here." Chane reached into his belt-pouch. As his fingers touched the artifact it pulsed warmly, and again he saw the luminous green path leading away across the Vale of Respite, toward the slopes beyond. He drew it out. It glowed, rosy in the half-light.

  "Put it in a hole," the wizard said.

  "Why?"

  "Because I'm curious about something. Don't worry, I won't trick you.

  There. That hole in the rock, put it there."

  Suspiciously, Chane squatted beside the indicated hole. It was little more than a foot deep, just a pocket where erosion had widened a crack on the stone. The others gathered around, curious.

  "Go ahead," the wizard insisted. "Put it in there. You can take it out again in a moment."

  Chane lowered the crystal into the hole, rested it on the bottom, then stood and stepped back. Glenshadow backed away, his eyes nearly closed.

  The crystal device on his staff glowed feebly. "There is an effect," he muttered. "It makes a difference."

  Chestal Thicketsway blinked and looked up. A drop of rain had fallen on his head.

  "Are you finished?" Chane asked the wizard. "It's time to go."

  "Yes," Glenshadow noted thoughtfully. "It is time to go."

  "What was that all about?" Wingover asked. But the wizard had turned away.

  Chane retrieved the crystal, put it away, and lashed his pack. Jilian came from the screen of brush, now clad in a tunic of stained white linen, scaled down to fit her by a series of clever tucks, folds, and ties. She handed most of the once-robe back to the human.

  Wingover stared at her. "I don't know why I ever thought that old robe was for me," he said.

  Chane took the lead, and they started down the darkening slopes, toward the Vale of Respite, where goblins now occupied what had once been a vale of peace.

  When they were gone, something massive came from the rocks and paused to look at the heap of chilling gore that once had been an ogre.

  He prodded the mess with his toes, then stepped over it and went to where the dim trail led downward. He growled, a noise that rumbled like distant thunder.

  "Cleft was careless," he muttered. "Cleft is dead. Should have waited for Loam, instead. But puny ones are still in sight. Loam will have a sport this night." Without looking back, the ogre took the trail where the searchers had gone.

  Chapter 22

  Full night lay on the valley, a nigtht of moons in crescent pale above the smoke that hung like a layer of smudgy cloud just at the treetops.

  Bonfires, dozens of them, glowed at ragged intervals along the course of the winding stream that fed the valley from the south. Out in the meadows, near the treelines that marked the grazing fields and burned-over stubbles, other fires marked a perimeter. And through it all, suffusing the acrid pall of smoke, was goblin-stench.

  Mounted, Wingover ranged out on the forward flanks of the little band of travelers — first warning and first defense for the group, should they be discovered. He went silently, keeping to shadows where he could. Chane

  Feldstone led the rest, his hammer ready in his hand, the ancient path of

  Grallen visible before him as a faint green mist.

  Chestal Thicketsway was a small, darting shadow, sometimes among them and sometimes not, but never far away. The kender's sheer, wide-eyed excitement and curiosity was a source of real concern to the rest, but there was little enough anyone could do to curb him. A kender was always a kender.

  Had Chess been as tall as a goblin, Wingover might well have chopped off his head when the kender appeared unexpectedly in shadows beside him and

  said, "I-"

  The sharp sword that whisked past the top of Chess's head would have taken a goblin at the gullet.

  "Oops," the kender said. "Did I startle you? Sorry."

  "Keep your voice down!" Wingover whispered. 'What are you doing here?"

  "I'm part of this group, remember?" Chess held it to a whisper now. "I just wanted to tell you, there are goblins moving back and forth among the fires. I saw a handful of them right over there, just a minute ago."

  "A handful?"

  "Five. They have a dead sheep."

  "I wish you'd stay with the dwarves," Wingover hissed. But there was no answer. Chess was gone again, off on some adventure of his own. At least,

  Wingover reassured himself, the little creature could move silently when he felt like it.

  They were nearly a mile into the valley when Wingover saw movement near the end of a hedgerow a hundred yards away. He signaled, a downward thrust of his spread hand, and reined into shadow. The stench of goblin and smoke was everywhere, and the sky above was a low, drifting fabric with fireglow on its belly. Only rarely was any trace of the moons beyond visible.

  Crouching in silence, Wingover chanced a glance back and saw that the rest were out of sight. They had seen the signal and faded into a clump of trees at the edge of a field.

  At first there was nothing to see, then there was movement just ahead.

  Dark shapes appeared, coming over a low knoll, directly toward Chane's party. Wingover counted three silhouettes with wide, round heads, wearing inverted-bowl helmets. The glint of weapons showed amongst them.

  The shadows came on, moving quietly, their only sound an occasional muted clank of metal on metal. Wingover dismounted and raised his shield an inch, peering over the top of it, his sword ready. The goblins were so close that the man could hear their guttural voices:

  "… not much farther. Don't get too close. Want to ring them, not run into them." A few steps more and they stopped. Wingover saw a tiny flare of light made by a hooded lamp, its top lifted an inch to light a straw.
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  They had torches! Suddenly Wingover realized what they were doing. They were part of an encirclement, preparing to flare torches.

  Somewhere a hoopak whistled, and one of the goblin shadows stiffened, gurgled, and fell. The human didn't hesitate. Still crouching, he launched himself at the remaining two, clenching his teeth to stifle the battle cry that built in his throat. Like a darker shadow, Wingover was on them, and his sword sang softly as it clove between the helm and collar of the nearest one.

  Without stopping, Wingover thrust at the remaining goblin, and his blade rang on metal. In the fitful light he saw its glittering eyes, wide with surprise, saw its mouth open to shout alarm. He clubbed the goblin with the edge of his shield. It crumpled at his feet. Before the hooded lantern could strike the ground, Wingover caught and covered it. Then he took a quick look around, raised himself slightly, and signaled.

  In moments the others were with him.

  "They know we're here," Chane said.

  "They know, all right. Stay close and follow me — straight out across that field. And hurry!"

  They moved, trusting to no more than luck to see them to the next cover.

  The searchers crept across a narrow field of stubble, where dead things they could not make out were beginning to rot, then down a slope into a gully that would carry seasonal runoff toward the main flowing stream.

  "Lead," Wingover whispered to Chane. "We need distance, quick!"

  The dwarf went ahead silently, and they increased their pace, staying low in the gully.

  Wingover glanced back, looking over the cut just where it deepened.

  There, where they had been, torches were springing alight by twos and threes — a wide ring of lights that would have bathed them in glowing fire had they been there.

  He went on, catching up to the rest, counting them as he passed. There was no sign of the kender. Chane eased back to cover the rear now, and

  Wingover led, choosing the best and most silent route down through the gully.

  "How do they know we're here?" Jilian whispered.