The Gates of Thorbardin h2-5

by Dan Parkinson

  "How do you know he…?" Chane looked around and paused. "Oh. Well, I suppose you're right. It's just that humans are so hard to trust."

  "Well?" Wingover asked.

  "Beyond the bridge is a broken slope, with a trail winding down through rock outcrop for about half a mile. The trail is easy to see… or it used to be, anyway, when I…I mean when Grallen saw it. After you get out of the breaks, you'll see a few low hills ahead, and the trail will fork around the first one. Take the left fork. The right leads to the bog." He paused, and Wingover nodded.

  "Past that hill you'll see two more a mile or so away — little hills that look alike, with a gap between and the sundered plains beyond. The right-hand hill is where Grallen's helm is, with Pathfinder. The hillside faces Skullcap, and the helm's near the foot of the hill. There's rubble there, so I guess you'll just have to search through it."

  "What if it's buried or something?"

  "It isn't buried. But it's in a dark place with a tall, tilted opening

  — like a crack. Jagged, kind of. And where it is, it can't see

  Thorbardin."

  "How do you know that?" Wingover asked. Chane shrugged. "Because it wants to, and it can't. I don't know. The Irda said the two gems are god-things, left over from something a god did. Maybe they are interested in whatever that god is concerned about."

  "And what god is that?" Wingover said with a frown.

  "Assuming, of course, that there really are gods. I'm not sure I believe any of that."

  "I don't know if I do, either," the dwarf admitted. "But the Irda did.

  And Reorx is the highest of the gods… if there are any."

  "Reorx? Wingover scoffed. What about Gilean? And Paladine, and

  Kiri-Jolith? Reorx isn't any higher than them!"

  "Who?"

  "Gilean."

  The dwarf nodded. "He's all right, I suppose. I meant Reorx was greater than those other two you named. I've never even heard of them."

  "You never heard of Paladine? He's the highestranking of — "

  "He means Thak and Kijo," Chess butted in, grinning.

  "A lot of people call them Paladine and Kiri-Jolith." They both looked at the kender. Chane frowned and snapped, "What are you grinning about?"

  "Oh, I was just thinking, for two people who don't believe there are gods, you both certainly have your favorites."

  "And how do you know so much about it?"

  "I listen a lot."

  "Pure superstition, anyway," Wingover snorted, straightening in his saddle. He looked at the rising stone bridge ahead and lifted his reins.

  "I'll be back," he said. "Just hold the bridge for me if trouble comes."

  He touched heels to the horse and trotted it to the foot of the stone bridge. The horse abruptly turned tail and tried to throw him off. He clung, cursing, and finally got the animal under control.

  "Maybe he's afraid of the bridge," Chane suggested.

  "Geekay has never been afraid of a bridge in his life!" Wingover shouted. "Or a goblin, either! He's just full of vinegar from not being exercised."

  "Geekay? Is that his name? What does it mean?"

  "He named himself. It's Goblin Killer." Wingover hauled the reins. The horse spun, dug in haunchesdown, and hit the bridge at a full gallop.

  Wingover's diminishing voice came back to them: "Blast it, horse! Not so fast!"

  In seconds the thundering horse had topped out at the crown of the high-curved span and was out of sight. A moment later the ring of hooves on stone faded to a distant clatter, beyond the gorge.

  "Well, the bridge is still there," Chestal Thicketsway decided. "I guess it's safe to cross."

  "Of course it's safe," Chane growled. "It's dwarven work." Picking up his pack, he started up the bridge, the others following after him.

  "If a gnome can fly," the kender muttered, "then I guess a dwarf might miscalculate rocks and things from time to time."

  By the time Wingover got the bridge-spooked horse under tight rein, they were through the breaks and into rolling, open country. Holding Geekay to a steady trot, the wilderness man scanned the lands ahead. A few low hills lay ahead, about a half-mile away, just as Chane had said. Wingover eased the reins and headed for them, looking for signs of a trail.

  At first there was none, then in a low place that might once have been a mudflat he saw tracks. They were old tracks, but still clear — at least three horses, and the short, wide.prints of dwarven boots. The trail disappeared short of the hill, but Wingover made left and circled around it, his eyes roving the landscape. Sometimes he raised his shield to eye-level and peered over the top edge of it. An old trick, it was a way to see distinct movement that might otherwise lose itself in mirage. So far he had seen nothing, but vagrant breezes carried the stink of goblins.

  Wingover knew they were out there somewhere.

  As much as he watched the land around him, he watched the ears of his horse. The animal smelled goblins, too, and was wary. Its ears swiveled this way and that, pausing sometimes. When they did, Wingover scanned in their direction.

  The hill was a smooth mound, and as Wingover passed it he saw two more, just as the dwarf had described. They lay about a mile ahead, with some draws and gullys lacing the lower ground between.

  Geekay's ears turned, fixed on a direction ahead and to the left, and a tremor ran along his mane. Wingover lifted his shield, peering over its edge. Atop a narrow draw, barely a hundred yards away, something moved. It looked like a twig twitching in the wind… except that twigs twitch rhythmically, and this one didn't. It moved, disappeared below the rim of the draw, and reappeared a few yards away. Its direction was toward the point where his own path would cross the draw.

  So they're waiting for me there, he decided. But how many?

  Wingover reined a little to the left, holding hard against the bit, then let Geekay have his head. The horse had never been trained as a warhorse — not as some he had seen, great steeds in armor, ridden by men in armor, silent men who had come down from Solamnia once many years before in search of a fugitive — but Wingover and Geekay had traveled far together and had been in some scrapes.

  With the bit eased and the scent of goblins in his nostrils, and with the tug to the left from his rider, Geekay took the lead. As the horse gathered himself, Wingover jumped to the ground and headed for the draw at a crouching run, angling to the right. Behind him, Geekay whinnied shrilly and galloped away to the left. Fifty yards… one hundred… then he turned and headed for the draw.

  In the ravine, four goblin scouts paused, puzzled at the sudden change in approaching sounds. One started to raise his head and another swatted him down. "Don' look," he growled. "Get us seen. Listen!"

  "Runnin' away," another said, pointing back the way they had come. "That way."

  The goblins turned to follow the hoofbeats, but a blood-freezing howl erupted just behind them. The rearmost goblin didn't even have time to turn. Wingover's sword flashed across his back from shoulder to waist, and dark blood spurted. The second turned, tried to raise his dart-bow, and had it knocked from his hand. With his sword, the goblin barely countered the human's following thrust with a low, chopping swing at his legs. Metal rang on metal.

  The third goblin had his blade out, but the fourth caught his arm. "Back up," he hissed. "Get room. Use darts."

  They scrambled back, setting darts to their crossbows. The first dart ricocheted off Wingover's flinthide shield. The second buried itself in the back of a goblin flung from the point of a sword. The last two set darts again, then their eyes widened as the sound of thunder bore down on them from behind. One turned, screamed, and bounced off the other as the flashing hooves of a horse named Goblin Killer descended upon him. The remaining goblin was still scrambling to his feet when Geekay swapped ends and kicked. Crushed like a turtle in its shell, the goblin flew over

  Wingover's head and rebounded off a wall of the gully.

  "Not bad," Wingover breathed, catching up the reins of the excited
, wild-eyed horse. "Now let's move. It stinks here."

  He scrambled into his saddle. Geekay cleared the rim at a bound and headed for the right-hand hill ahead, Wingover wondered where the rest of the goblins were. He knew there were at least a hundred more, and among them possibly ogres — as well as a woman in a hideous armor mask that hid a face that should have been beautiful.

  Atop the hill was a bright green statue of a wizard, both arms extended to their full length, a motionless staff in one hand. Wingover blinked at it, then headed for it. Even from the foot of the hill, he recognized

  Glenshadow the Wanderer… even though he was bright green and motionless.

  The wilderness man reined in beside the wizard, gaping at him. Even his clothing and his hair were bright green. Leaning from his saddle, he asked, 'What happened to you?"

  "Take… it," the wizard gasped.

  "Take what?" He looked the mage over and noticed that one hand was balled into a tight fist. Wingover pried it open. In the wizard's hand was a crystal, the twin of Spellbinder, except for its color. As red as

  Spellbinder was, so was Pathfinder green.

  Wingover took the crystal, and the green color faded from the mage.

  Glenshadow slumped, trembling. "I–I shouldn't have touched it," he rasped. "Should have known. Spellbinder binds magic, turns it against itself. Pathfinder freezes it, holds it in stasis. It was how Gargath held and controlled the graystone."

  Wingover flipped the crystal over in his hand. "Very pretty," he said.

  "All right, they're waiting for us at the bridge. Can you ride?"

  "Can't get through," the wizard said, still trembling.

  "The goblins… they're behind you, heading for the bridge. I saw them from up here. With Pathfinder, I couldn't move. But I could see… everything. The dwarf was right. Thorbardin is breached. Here."

  Glenshadow stooped and picked up something Wingover had not noticed until then — an old dwarven helmet, not elaborate but of fine craft. It was a horned and spired helm of burnished metal with skirts and a carven nosepiece. Above the noseguard was a setting.

  "The gem belongs here," Glenshadow said. "Please put it back in place."

  Wingover took the helmet and turned it, wonder in his eyes. Grallen's helm. There was no doubt of it. The dwarven prince of old had been here.

  He had been inside the fortress of Zhaman, and only this helm had survived to tell of it. And it had called out to Chane Feldstone in dreams.

  Carefully Wingover reset Pathfinder in the helm's setting. His hard, but gentle fingers refit the brass prongs that had held it, and for a moment

  Wingover was tempted to put it on his head. It would fit, and it might speak to him… then he changed his mind. This is Chane's to do with as he must, he told himself. And if there is one lesson I can learn from this wizard here, it is not to fiddle with things that are beyond me.

  Wingover bound the old helmet with thongs and hung it from his saddle, then reached a hand to Glenshadow. "Come up," he said. "The horse can carry double. We've got to get back to the bridge."

  Chapter 30

  Because the goblin army was so widely spread, fanned across the plains in three troops, miles apart, Kolanda Darkmoor decided to move against the people at the bridge. Even though the wizard might be with them, the defenders were still only a handful. She ordered Thog to gather the main force on the central plain to await her signal.

  Thus, when Wingover made his dash from the breaks to the fork-trail hill, spotters saw him from less than a mile away. The word of his sighting was relayed immediately.

  "We got foragers workin' those gully-washes," the runner said. "They'll get him there."

  "Groups of four?"

  "Like you said," the sprinter noted, "he won' get through. Jus' one man… they'll get him."

  Yet, moments later, the rider was seen again, farther away and past the washes, heading for the more distant of the twin hills. Kolanda swore, halted her platoon, and pulled Caliban from beneath her breastplate.

  "Caliban!" she snapped. "See for me now." She held the withered heart to her forehead without ceremony.

  "She is arrogant," the whispering voice said. "She will require special attention when… ah?" The voice became a hiss. "Glenshadow!"

  "See for me!" Kolanda ordered. "The man on the horse, what is he doing?"

  The view closed on the distant rider, who was swerving to climb the hill, then shifted to the hilltop, Kolanda stiffened. The wizard there stood immobile, arms outstretched, and shone with a green glare that seemed to burn through her skin. She jerked Caliban away from her forehead. "What is that?"

  "She doesn't know what has hurt us," the feathery voice whispered. The heart vibrated in the Commander's hand, the air sizzled and trembled, and

  Caliban loosed a bolt of pure energy across the miles, aimed at the wizard on the hill. Then Caliban went cold in Kolanda's palm. "An element protects him," it whispered. "I could not reach him."

  "Is his magic more powerful than yours?" the woman snapped.

  "She doesn't understand," Caliban whispered. "It is not his magic. It is something else. Wait… ah. The man has taken it. Now Glenshadow is revealed. Now I can fight him. Hold me up. I must draw power from you."

  "Wait," Kolanda commanded. "The thing he had, that the rider has now, is that what the dwarf is seeking?"

  "She plays at riddles," the dry voice grated. "Hold me up."

  Kolanda felt the familiar tingling in her skin as Caliban started to restore his energy for another attack, drawing from her own reserves.

  Abruptly she dropped the withered thing, letting it hang on its thong outside her breastplate. 'You will obey me," she commanded. "Obey or find no source for your magic. Without me, you are nothing. We do this my way.

  Do you agree?"

  "She oversteps," the voice whispered, distant and dry. "She will pay when the time is right. It must be so."

  "Another time, we can discuss it," she said. "But now, do you agree?"

  "How can we fight as two?" the ancient voice insinuated. "When I am at rest her armor hides me, and hides all from me except her. When I am in use, she must hold me in contact with her; she can do nothing else."

  "Do you agree?" Kolanda demanded.

  "I agree," the distant, evil voice said. "For now. But how?"

  "Like this," she said. Reaching behind her, the Commander loosed the lacings on her breastplate, then pulled it off and threw it aside for the slaves to pick up and place in the cart. The blouse beneath it she tore from neck to waist, exposing her breasts. Caliban hung now in the cleft between them, and his voice was no longer distant.

  "I can draw from her heart to fight, as well as from her head," it admitted.

  Immediately, Kolanda felt the tingling again, this time through her chest, and the surrounding air seemed to sizzle. "My way," she reminded.

  "You can have the wizard, but not at risk of the man and the thing he carries." The distant vision came again, but only vaguely now that Caliban was not at her eyes. Still, it was enough.

  The wizard was mounting the horse, swinging up behind its rider.

  Kolanda beckoned a hobgoblin. "Noll," she commanded, "take the platoon at double-time and go to the bridge. Take those you find there. Kill them if they resist." She motioned the troops forward, and they lined out at a run, followed by the cart drawn by slaves and by the swamp goblins searing them with whips to get more speed from them.

  Only Kolanda and her personal guard of six selected fighting goblins remained. With them at her heels, she set off at a steady trot toward the edge of the breaks. Where the trail emerged, she would wait for the two riders coming from the hills. Caliban could have his revenge on the wizard. He could have the other man, too, as far as she was concerned, but intuition told her that the thing he carried with him must not reach the dwarf at the bridge. It must not reach Thorbardin, of course, but more than that she herself must have it.

  Whatever it was, it had the power to punish Caliban.r />
  The two men on the horse were still nearly a mile away when Kolanda

  Darkmoor and her guards took up ambush positions along the trail, just where it entered the broken lands.

  Half a mile to the west, Noll and his platoon of goblin warriors crept through narrow ways among heaped boulders, approaching the abutment of

  Sky's End Bridge. Behind them came the cart, pulled by slaves. In the same cart Kolanda Darkmoor's lacquered steel breastplate lay atop bundles of lathed bronze darts, foraged weapons and supplies, and bits of booty picked up along the trail. Where it lay, it almost hid a sleek longbow of elven design and a single arrow… the last arrow of Garon Wendesthalas.

  Weak and battered, beaten and mutilated, the elf clung to the side of the cart for support as swamp goblins harried the slaves along. He clung, and his hand was never far from the bow and the single arrow.

  Wingover was long since out of sight by the time Chane and the others had crossed the arched bridge, and they settled in to wait between a pair of pillars that might once have been guard towers, flanking the east end of the bridge. Guard towers or, Chane thought, possibly counting towers for inspection of wares in transit. Idly, the dwarf found himself thinking: this might once have been a trade road. Wingover had spoken of trade roads. Probably there had been such a road, going out from

  Thorbardin to points north by way of Pax Tharkas. Obviously there had once been a lot of trade between the undermountain kingdom and other realms — far more than the modest efforts of Rogar Goldbuckle and other traders produced now.

  Thorbardin itself was full of things not dwarven. Elvenwares of great beauty were treasured under the mountains, as were tapestries and feather arrangements, cunning table services of carved wood made by humans somewhere, toys and folding screens, vine-laced frames for paintings, small bits of treasured ivory. Chane had seen such things all his life in