The Gates of Thorbardin h2-5

by Dan Parkinson

  The kender stared up and around. "Zap? Was that you?

  Enraged and frothing, Loam dropped his club, curled his body upward, and began clawing at the rope that held him. The ogre's huge hand grasped it, then hand over hand, he pulled himself upright and began to climb.

  Chess cupped his hands and shouted, "Watch out, Bobbin! The ogre's coming up your rope! I missed my shot!"

  "Drat and threadbind," the gnome's irritated voice answered. "If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself, I suppose. Now where did I put that wrench? Ah, here it is."

  The struggling, bucking soarwagon had edged away from the bridge and was beginning, little by little, to fall toward the gorge. Bobbin worked feverishly, loosing first one lug and then the next, then drew back as his winch mount broke loose, taking a piece of the soarwagon with it. Ogre, supply line, and winch plummeted away, into the mists of the great gorge.

  The soarwagon, suddenly free of the creature's weight, shot upward like a winged arrow. High above it did a tight barrel roll, looped about, and headed out over the breaks, toward the plains.

  Chess danced on tiptoes, shouting, "Come back! You've got Zap!" But it was far too late for his words to be heard.

  Wingover cut and slashed his way through a gaggle of panicked goblins at the foot of the bridge, the stench of goblin blood a miasma around him.

  His battle howl still echoing from the stone walls of the breaks, he clove through them, wading in dark gore. Stab, slash, and cut, his blade was a dancing tongue of death, his shield a dark battering ram. Goblins fell, and goblins fled. A pain like searing fire lanced through Wingover's shoulder and down his shield arm. He lunged forward and spun around.

  An armored hobgoblin faced Wingover, its sword red with blood and poised to strike again. The human tried to raise his shield, but couldn't. He dodged aside instead, barely escaping the thrust. The hobgoblin hissed, feinted, and thrust again. Wingover felt the cut on his thigh as his own blade descended, leaving a deep dent in the creature's helmet.

  A random thought teased Wingover: the hobgoblin was hiding. It waited and got behind me.

  Again the hobgoblin struck. Wingover managed to deflect the cut with his shield, and lunged forward, blade extended. The point ground against metal breastplate and slid away, and Wingover felt blood dripping down his cheek. He realized dimly that he wasn't standing any more. He sat spread-legged and dazed, and the hobgoblin's wide mouth split in a sharp-toothed leer. Raising its sword above its head, the creature charged, then stiffened and gurgled as Wingover's blade slid between its breastplate and its buckler.

  Slowly, shaking his head to clear the mists, the man got to his feet and pulled his sword free. Someone was beside him, helping him. It was Jilian, her eyes wide and excited. Wingover staggered, then stood. All around was stench and carnage… and silence. Nothing moved, and the only sound was an odd, distant singing as of great winds building aloft.

  The air felt still and heavy. Where is the sunlight, the wilderness man wondered vaguely. Why is it so dark?

  Feeling dizzy from shock, Wingover raised his head. Heavy clouds were forming above — dense, swirling clouds to the east, above the Plains of

  Dergoth; dark ropes of cloud sweeping outward from the slopes of Sky's

  End. Odd, he thought. Odd weather. But his wounds put thoughts of the clouds aside. He was hurt, he knew. But how hurt? Jilian tugged at him and pointed.

  Beyond the bridge, someone was coming. Shadows from the swirling clouds interefered, then Wingover saw clearly. Kolanda Darkmoor. The Commander.

  Barebreasted, her woman's body contrasted strangely with the hideous helmet and the weapons she carried. Goblins ran beside her. Five of them that he could see, betterarmed than the ones he had fought on the bridge.

  More disciplined. Crack troops.

  Partway up the bridge, Chane met them. Wingover had to lay down his sword to remove the dwarven helm from its sling at his back. It was smeared with blood — his own, he knew.

  He handed it to Chane Feldstone. "Here's your ancestor's hat," he said gruffly. "Jewel and all. I hope it's worth it."

  Chane turned the helm in his hands, studying it.

  "Well, don't just stand there," Wingover gritted. "Use it."

  "You're hurt," the dwarf said.

  "It's nothing much. I'll be all right. But we don't have time to discuss it. Use the helmet!"

  Chane pushed back the cat-eared hood of his black cloak, and Chess gaped at him. Somehow, he hadn't noticed how much the dwarf had changed. The dwarf's swept-back beard, his intense, wide-set eyes were the same, but

  Chane was different now. Somehow the kender couldn't see him now as an amusing dwarf in a bunny suit. He might almost have been someone else entirely. Chess wondered if the old warrior, Grallen, had looked like this.

  The dwarf set the helm on his head. It fit as though it had been made for him, and seemed as though none other had ever been intended to wear it. Grallen's helm settled over Chane's head, and the green stone above the noseguard began to glow.

  Chane seemed to stiffen. His eyes closed, and when he spoke his voice had changed.

  "I, Grallen," he said, "son of King Duncan, rode forth on the morning of the last battle in the great charge of the Hylar dwarves. From the

  Northgate of Thorbardin we had come, then westward to where the roving companies encamped, then across Sky's End to the Plains of Dergoth, to join the main force of Hylar. My troop assaulted the mountain home of the wizard there. My brothers fought with courage and valor; many fell with honor at my side."

  They stared at him in wonder. Even Jilian had backed away, her eyes wide.

  "Yet when the tide of battle turned in our favor," Chane recited, "and I confronted the wizard in his lair, he smiled, and a great magic rushed from his being: a flame of power and horror that broke through stone and steel.

  "Thus in his rage and despair, he destroyed both his allies and his enemies.

  "Thus did I die, and thus now I am doomed to live in the remains of the fortress, now known as Skullcap Mountain, until the day when someone will take my helm and return it to the land of my fathers so that I may find rest."

  Clouds seethed and churned overhead, darkening the land. Whining winds aloft echoed in the chasm below. Chane stood a moment longer as one entranced, then shuddered and opened his eyes. "Grallen," he said.

  He turned to stare at the massive face of Sky's End across the bridge, and a green light glowed there among the fallen stone. It looked to the dwarf like light coming from an open door.

  "Go," Wingover said. "I'll hold them here as long as I can. Go and do what we came for… whatever that is."

  Chane hesitated, then nodded. "It is what we came for," he said.

  Abruptly he held out his hand. "Good luck, human."

  Wingover took the hand in his good one. "Good journey, dwarf."

  Chane turned toward the crown of the bridge and the mystery beyond,

  Jilian following. Chess looked after them, started to tag along, but changed his mind.

  "He's probably about to become rich and famous," the kender muttered.

  "And probably insufferable. I think I'll stay."

  Just beyond the foot of the bridge, Kolanda Darkmoor stood, looking up at them. Her stance was a warrior's stance. A victor's stance. Her eyes behind her steel mask glittered with anticipation, and something between her breasts glowed darkly. A faint, sizzling sound lingered in the air.

  And then there was no more time. Out past the breaks, goblin troops raced toward Chane and his companions, and just beyond the foot of the bridge Kolanda Darkmoor signaled her guard to advance. Wingover picked up his sword and braced himself, estimating how long it would take for the dwarves to reach safety under the mountain.

  Chapter 32

  An eerie darkness walked across the land, a darkness of writhing black clouds that swirled and coiled, defeating the sunlight. West of the bridge, Sky's End was veiled, its slopes immersed in flowing darkness. To the
east, the breaks, the low hills, and the vast plains beyond were a dancing mosaic of deepening shadow. Toward Skullcap the clouds circled and tumbled in upon themselves, twisting in clockwise rotation as the descending belly of the storm dropped lower and lower, becoming a funnel miles across. Above the gorge winds swept down from mountain passes and howled in murky glee.

  Wingover set his sword upright against a stone and used his right hand to lift his left arm, shield and all, until the flinthide's edge was just below his eyes. With a strip of fabric from his tunic he tied the useless arm in place, then retrieved his sword.

  The woman in the horned helmet gazed up at him, her pose arrogant, speculative. After a moment she called, "I want the thing you brought from

  Dergoth! Give it to me!"

  Wingover waited.

  "You won't kill me," the woman called. "You can't." Her laughter cut across the wind as she lifted the hideous mask, letting Wingover see her face.

  "I don't know what you want," Wingover shouted.

  "You know," the woman laughed. "The thing your wizard had. The thing you brought here. Give it to me!"

  Wingover faced Kolanda, trying to hold her gaze, counting silently. It was only three hundred yards to the rockfall beyond the bridge. The dwarves should reach it any moment. Once within that hidden portal, they might be safe. He didn't know how he knew that, but he knew.

  "You've come too late for that," he shouted. "It's gone."

  "Gone? Gone where?"

  Above and just beyond the woman and the goblins, a figure appeared on top of a rock. It was Glenshadow. Bison cloak whipping in the wind, long hair and beard streaming, he leaned for a moment on his staff, then stood erect as the staff's crystal cap winked to life. A clear crimson beacon blinked to life in the darkening murk.

  "They made it," Wingover muttered. "Spellbinder is beneath the ground."

  On the flat top of a sundered stone the wizard Glenshadow raised his glowing staff and shouted, "I know you, Caliban!" His voice carried on the wind like flung ice, and a brilliant flare of crimson shot out from his staff toward Kolanda Darkmoor — shot out, and stopped just short of reaching her, swallowed up in a darkness that had a voice of its own.

  The sibilant, withered voice said, "And I know you,

  Glenshadow. You are the last." Blinding light blazed where the crimson beam ended, and crackling thunder rolled.

  Glenshadow's beam receded, swallowed by a wave of darkness that rushed toward Glenshadow. Rushed, then hesitated. Wingover's mind reeled. Which

  Glenshadow? There wasn't just one any more. There were three. Then five.

  Then a dozen, and more. Myriad Glenshadows, everywhere, all moving in perfect unison as they willed their magics back upon the darkness centered at Kolanda's breast.

  "Trickster!" the withered voice rasped. "Red-robe, you'd fight me with illusion?" Blacknesses writhed outward, seeking all the Glenshadows.

  "Die," the voice whispered.

  The blacknesses snaked out, and one by one the image mages were gone… except one. As Wingover watched that one grew to gigantic size. Hundreds of feet tall, his stance spanning the nearby breaks, Glenshadow absorbed the blackness cast at him. It pierced him here, there, searching, and lost itself in his vastness.

  "Illusion," the withered voice hissed. "Can you do no better than that?"

  The winds swirled, sizzling, and the searching blackness grew. Great dark holes appeared in the fabric of Glenshadow's massive image, and it seemed to flutter in the wind, dissolving. From one tiny corner of it a beam of crimson lanced out and smote the thing at Kolanda's breast, making it shriek and writhe. It fought back, then, and again the span between them was colliding energies, crimson and black with blinding glare between.

  Somewhere beyond the bridge, greater thunders erupted. The stone bridge trembled, keened, and swayed. Somewhere across the gorge a piece of the mountain was falling.

  "Where is the thing I want?" Kolanda shouted again, her voice rising in anger.

  "It's where you can never reach it now," Wingover called and started forward, limping. A goblin dart thumped into his shield, clung for an instant, and dropped away. A pigeon egg splattered on the armor of a goblin, then a pewter mug took the creature full in the face. One beside it screeched as a dagger made from a cat's tooth whistled from the kender's hoopak and lodged in its throat.

  "I've had enough of this," Kolanda Darkmoor spat. She stooped, retrieved a set and loaded crossbow, and trained it for an instant on Wingover. "It ends now! Caliban, finish it!" Massed darknesses welled outward, seeking

  Glenshadow. The dark magics reached out, then hesitated and swiftly faded.

  The crossbow faltered as Kolanda Darkmoor looked down at the arrow standing in her breast, piercing the withered heart of Caliban, linking it forever to her own heart by a common shaft of hickory Wood.

  Beside the north spire Garon Wendesthalas slumped, a goblin's blade piercing his throat. Slowly he sprawled, his bow sliding from nerveless fingers to lie beside him. He turned his head and looked up the bridge rise, then raised a battered hand in final salute to his old friend,

  Wingover. He didn't move again;

  The winds howled, and hailstones battered the land. Lightning like spider legs walked across the Plains of Dergoth and the nearer hills, striking among the goblin troops there. Staccato and brilliance, darkness and storm, the bolts danced on winds that screamed and sang and buffeted the swaying stone bridge.

  Chestal Thicketsway clung to a bridge rail and shouted, "It's Zap! He's happening!"

  His shield to the raging wind, Wingover fought his way to the foot of the bridge with the kender clinging to him. They fell, rolled, and sought shelter in a storm like no storm ever seen on Ansalon… at least since the Cataclysm.

  "Three spells cast Fistandantilus,"the Irda had said, "in the Valley of

  Waykeep. The first was fire, the second ice. The third has not yet happened."

  Now, the sundered Plains of Dergoth were washed by storm, as Zap fulfilled his destiny.

  Rockfall had hidden the old trade portal. What once had been an iron-framed gate, nine feet wide and twenty feet high, with cable-cart stays and transfer platforms, now was a forgotten gap behind hundreds of tons of tumbled stone. Hidden, but not closed.

  With Jilian following, Chane Feldstone crawled through a cleft among the rocks and entered a tunnel, which was more a maze that only a dwarf or a curious kender might have riddled out. Behind them, faint now, was the rolling thunder of the storm. Chane eased around a hairpin turn between boulders, then crawled over a buried slab and under another, following the green light that seemed to speak to the gem set in the old helm he wore.

  On and on they went, and everywhere was dark, fallen stone with only the green trace to guide them. Pathfinder pulsed and glowed as the stone maze wound on dimly. In the pouch at Chane's belt, Spellbinder throbbed a silent song.

  Jilian's cheeks were moist with wiped-away tears, her throat tight with dread and regret. People she had come to love were now left behind. They would probably die so that the mission of Grallen and of Chane's dream could be completed. She had looked back just once, from the top of the bridge, and felt as though her heart might break. The two had seemed so small back there, so helpless — a bleeding man and a bright-eyed kender with his hair coiled around his throat. Just those two, facing…Jilian had not looked back again.

  For the first time in her life, Jilian felt the weight of mountains above her, the press of the stone through which they made their way.

  "Maybe we can go back and help them," she whispered. "I mean, when you've done whatever it is you are supposed to do." Ahead of her Chane squeezed his broad shoulders through a narrow crevice and took another turn, pausing only to make sure that she followed. He said nothing, though she knew he ached for their friends just as she did.

  Another tight, jagged opening between tumbled slabs, another turn, and

  Jilian heard Chane's breath catch in his throat. He clawed and pulled thro
ugh a crack, and when he was beyond it he turned to give her his hand.

  Greenish light flooded about him and lit up the cavern he had discovered.

  Chane and Jilian looked around. The light they saw was Pathfinder's glow, reflecting back from the delved walls and ceiling of a wide, hewn space. A few bits of rubble lay scattered among neat mounds of piled stone. Nearby, an old cable-cart lay on its side.

  "A transfer terminal," Chane said. He pointed to the left. A clean, unshattered tunnel led away there, into darkness. Pathfinder pulsed, and the narrow trail of green light appeared again, on the dusty floor. It led straight to a mound of crushed stone, up the side of it to the top, and stopped at a little cone of green light, with a red center.

  Chane walked to the mound, head-high to him, and stood a moment, listening to something that only he could hear. Then he took Spellbinder from his pouch. The red gem pulsed warmly, its glow the color of

  Lunitari's light. Reaching out, he placed the gem on the pile of stone, where the spot of red shone.

  From behind the dwarves, from the buried gate they had traversed, came a sound of distant, rolling thunder. Spellbinder's light grew in power, flared brilliantly in the cavern, then settled into a steady, warm glow that seemed to fill the air with tiny music.

  "Come." Chane took Jilian's hand. "Pathfinder has brought Spellbinder home. Now we must hurry."

  "Can we go back?" she asked.

  As though in answer, the thunder grew beyond the gate and the cavern quaked ominously. Chane headed for the left tunnel at a run, pulling

  Jilian along with him. The thunder mounted behind them.

  Once beyond the cavern, Pathfinder's steady green glow lighted a cable-way long forgotten, a finely-delved tunnel that seemed to go on ahead of them unobstructed. "Hurry," Chane said. Behind them, the thunder became the roar of solid stone shearing and the chatter of rockfall. A cloud of dust obscured the opening of the cavern, and the faint red light winked out.

  "It's sealed," Chane rumbled. "And locked against magic. That was what

  Grallen intended to do."