Hammer and Axe

by Dan Parkinson

  At times riding the big red horse he called Enchanter—appropriately, since until recently it had been a human wizard—and sometimes afoot, the Cobar roamed the lonely little valley and waited for someone to come, or something to happen. And now it had. With first light of morning he had awakened to see a small yellow banner fluttering on a stick near the wall where his first supplies had been left. The banner marked a fresh stack of supplies, and atop the stack lay all of his weapons—oiled, polished, and unharmed.

  He wondered what it meant. Did the dwarves intend to release him soon? Had they already given him a way to freedom that he simply could not see? Or—the thought occurred to him—was something happening beyond the valley that might cause him jeopardy? Were they giving him the chance to defend himself?

  The idea wasn’t surprising. In the time he had spent with Damon, Quist had noticed a strange sort of honor in the big dwarf.

  Could dwarves have honor? He turned the question over in his mind. Dwarves were not human, but in many of their private ways they were like humans. Could not a people who thought and reasoned as well as humans—and who honored their dead—also understand chivalry?

  Whatever the reason, Quist had his weapons back, and throughout the day he roamed the little valley, often looking upward toward the high ramparts of the sheer walls. The day did seem different from the days before. The drums—the dwarven drums, which seemed never still in this land—were extraordinarily busy. Obviously something of note was going on. And once, distantly, on an errant breeze, Quist thought he heard the sound of human trumpets. Twice at least during the day, the air above the valley shimmered and crackled with the taste of magics unleashed.

  And he noticed, more and more through the day, that Enchanter followed him around closely, seeming always to be at his heels and often raising a handsome equine head to gaze aloft at the rim of the valley and the open sky above.

  The horse seemed to sense things that Quist could not sense. The animal was skittish and nervous. Once, when it sidled against him, he pushed it away, growling, “Quit that! You don’t know anything! You’re just a horse!”

  The horse turned its head to stare at him with big, thoughtful eyes, then shook its head violently and whinnied. It almost seemed to be trying to talk, and Quist grinned at it, stroking its neck. “Just can’t speak a spell, can you,” he said. “That’s probably the only thing that keeps you from transforming yourself back into a wizard, and if you did that I’d have to kill you, because if I didn’t, you’d probably try to kill me.”

  Again the horse gazed at him thoughtfully. It turned then and ambled away as though forgetting about him. But for an hour afterward, as evening shadows drifted across the valley, he could see the animal stamping around, tossing its head, and he often heard the strange whinnying sound, as though it were trying to talk.

  It was nearly dark, and Quist was just building a small fire, when Enchanter came back. In the gloom, the horse stood over him, then lowered its head and nudged him with its nose. He glanced up. “What do you want now? I’m busy!”

  He went back to his fire, blowing his kindling alight, and the horse nudged him again, almost pushing him into the fire.

  The Cobar stood, frowned, and started to scold the animal, then stopped. Somehow, in the near darkness, it looked different than it had before. He stepped aside, just as his fire caught and gave him light to see. Quist gasped, jumped back, and gripped the hilt of his blade. The horse had wings! Somehow, it had managed to grow a pair of wide, red-feathered wings that unfolded gracefully as he stared, then folded back along its sides.

  “You’re still a wizard,” Quist snapped. “You managed a spell!”

  The horse nodded, its big eyes studying him.

  “You could grow wings, but you couldn’t turn yourself into a human again?”

  The horse shook its head sorrowfully.

  “Are you going to try to kill me?” The Cobar half drew his blade, crouching.

  The horse shook its head determinedly and pawed at the ground.

  “Then what do you want?” Quist demanded.

  The horse half-turned and sidled toward him, lowering its near wing almost to the ground. When it was only a step away, it curtsied gracefully, extending one foreleg and bending the other, offering him its back. The motion was unmistakable to any horseman.

  “You want me to ride you,” Quist muttered.

  The horse nodded.

  The Cobar hesitated for a second, then with a bound he leapt aboard the horse, his legs tightening around its girth beneath the wings. He drew his sword, raising it over the flowing mane before him. “All right,” he said. “But we aren’t going to hurt each other, are we?”

  The horse looked around at him as though he had insulted it, then crouched, sprang, and extended great, beating wings. The ground fell away below, and they flew in a climbing spiral toward the rim of the valley above.

  The towering mass of Cloudseeker Peak rose into view, then the Promontory beyond, and Quist whistled. Out there on the great meadow were hundreds of fires—an entire army encamped beneath the stars. And all along the south face of the peak—and on the lower slopes below—were torches and lamps.

  The horse rose higher, circling as Quist realized what he was seeing. The dwarves were under siege. An army was at their doorstep, and there had been fighting. Enchanter set his wings and swooped above the south face of the mountain, diving to within fifty yards of the great portal there before climbing away. Quist saw a massive gateway, ranked by hundreds of dwarves in full armor. Some of them pointed upward and shouted, but Enchanter veered to the right and headed out over the broken lands toward the Promontory. The campfires of an army spread before and below, and Quist squinted, then hissed in revulsion as some of the figures around them became clear. “Sackmen!” he muttered. “Sackmen and Rik raiders! Mercenaries!”

  Near the center of the great encampment Enchanter set his wings and dived toward a fire apart from all the rest. Around it, many figures stood and sat. A dark-hatted one was speaking, gesturing and waving angrily while the rest listened. Quist realized that none of them carried weapons. Wizards? he wondered.

  Still high in the sky, the flying horse wheeled and raced away, back the way they had come. Before Quist realized it, they were over the Valley of the Thanes again, and descending. “No!” he shouted. “We just got out of there! Don’t go back!” But the horse continued to descend, and the valley walls closed around them. At the bottom, Enchanter touched down lightly, and Quist jumped off, waving his sword. “Why did you bring me back here?”

  As though in response, the horse folded its wings and ambled toward the little fire the man had left. When it reached the fire, it turned, looked at him, then extended a big delicate hoof, pointing. Beside the fire lay Quist’s shield, dagger-belt, bow, and quiver, just where he had left them. “Oh,” the Cobar said. “Well, thank you for remembering my things.”

  The day had gone well for the Holgar, all things considered. Blood had been shed, but most of it was human blood. Not counting the bogus “armies” which the dwarves stubbornly considered only mirages—once they had identified them—hundreds of mercenaries had fallen before the discobel disks, and quite a few more in a Daergar attack on the outskirts of their encampment after dark. By the best estimates of all the commanders, dwarven losses during the entire day were about fifty.

  And in late evening, word had come to Willen Ironmaul that Northgate was complete, its immense plug installed and in operation. He immediately ordered Northgate closed. Setting the massive plug in place would free additional thousands of guards and workers to help meet the attack on Southgate. Even now, most of the population of Gatekeep, behind Northgate, was streaming southward through the subterranean realm, donning armor as they came.

  One disturbing thing still bothered Willen. With word that Northgate was complete, Cale Greeneye came to him. “We have brought the country people to safety here,” the Neidar said. “But we will not stay. We do not belong here, Wil
len, beneath this weight of stone, any more than you and the other Holgar belong out in the open spaces.”

  Willen gazed at his brother-in-law thoughtfully. They had both been Calnar in another time, and they had both been Hylar in the migration across Ansalon. But even then, Cale Greeneye had been different. A person of the mountains and the open skies, he had never been comfortable in the subterranean abodes of the Holgar, and over the years a great many others, of many tribes, had joined him. They had become a different people, the Neidar. Just as the Holgar thanes—Hylar, Daewar, Theiwar, Daergar, and many Klar—were people of the stone, the Neidar were people of the sun. As the Holgar were people of the hammer, so the Neidar were people of the axe.

  “Some of us, those with families, will remain here,” Cale said. “But the rest are leaving. We have done what we can within Thorbardin. From this point, we would only be in the way.”

  Willen nodded and extended a hand. “Take the horses, then, Cale,” he said. “Take them and make good use of them.”

  Some time later, Willen heard that the Neidar had left Thorbardin, and Northgate had closed behind them.

  There was still the concern about magical assault—that wizards might somehow circumvent the sealed plug at either gate—but spotters with far-seeing lens tubes had been at work all day, up near the crag, counting mages. It was a fair guess that at least for now the entire assault on Thorbardin—wizards and all—was concentrated on Southgate. So only a small company of guards and operators remained at Northgate.

  In all, it had been a successful day in the defense of Thorbardin. But it was only the first day, and there was still an army out there on the Promontory, an army that numbered at least six thousand organized human raiders and more than a hundred wizards.

  “We have won a day,” Willen Ironmaul told Barek Stone. “But we have not won a war. Today they played with illusions and had a look at some of our defenses. Tomorrow they will get serious.”

  On the sloping rampart below the main ledge, there were shouts and a scuffle. Guards raised lanterns, and those on the ledge saw a struggling group coming toward them—a dozen or more burly Theiwar dragging a white-robed human among them, pushing and prodding him. The man was muttering things, and now and then several dwarves floated upward a foot or two, then descended angrily, swearing in true Theiwar fashion. For a moment, two or three Theiwar seemed to glow with an eerie light. Then another grew bat wings and sprouted fangs which curved down over his beard.

  “Stop that!” a Theiwar snapped, delivering a well-placed kick at the man’s shin. The human howled, muttered something, and the kicker’s head became, momentarily, that of a rabbit. Another Theiwar reached up, grabbed the man’s beard, and bent him down to slap him across the cheek with a hard hand. “You heard us,” the dwarf said. “Stop that!”

  The man glared around at the dwarves, muttered something else, and seemed to disappear. His captors clung stubbornly to empty air and continued their struggling journey. “It’s all right,” one called. “He isn’t gone. He just invisibled himself. He’s done that several times.”

  Damon Omenborn hurried down the rampart to stop them before they reached the gate. “Where did you get this one?” he asked.

  “Slip caught him out in the breaks,” a captor said, indicating a long-armed young Theiwar who was clinging grimly to some unseen part of the unseen captive.

  “He’s still here,” Slip Codel assured the big Hylar. “Here, I’ll show you.” He reached up, groping in empty air, then with two fingers he pried open invisible eyelids. Between his fingers, a glaring eye appeared. “I don’t think magickers can invisible their eyes,” the young Theiwar explained. “If they’re open, you can always see them.”

  “Interesting.” Damon noted that by squinting he could vaguely see the outline of the wizard. The invisibility was, after all, only magic, and Damon had learned that the more obstinately he refused to accept magic, the less effective it seemed to be.

  “Who are you?” he asked the glaring eye between Slip Codel’s fingers.

  “None of your business,” an angry voice growled. “Delatas sepit mikti …”

  “Chapak!” Damon finished, pointing a strong finger at the eye.

  The unseen mage squealed, thrashed, and became abruptly visible, standing in the midst of a swarm of bees.

  “Hold him!” Damon said. “Ignore the bees; they aren’t real!”

  The Theiwar kept their grips on the struggling, howling man. “Wow!” Slip said. “Did you do that, Damon?”

  “No, he did. But he intended to do it to me.”

  “Ka—kapach!” the wizard stuttered, flailing against the bees swarming around him. The bees continued to swarm, stinging him mercilessly. “H-h-help!” he cried. “P-plea-please … help!”

  “Help how?” Damon asked casually.

  “S-s-say ‘Ka-k-k-ah-k-kapach!’”

  “Will you behave yourself?”

  “I w-w-will! I-I s-sw-swear! Ow!”

  “Kapach,” Damon said. Instantly, the bees were gone, though red welts were rising all over the man.

  “You should take up another trade,” Damon noted. “You aren’t very good at magic.” He pointed out across the dark Promontory with its myriad distant fires. “Who’s in charge out there?”

  “K-Kisti-Kistilan,” the wizard said. His stutter was becoming more pronounced.

  “Is he the one in the floating chair?”

  “Th-that’s-uh-that’s him.”

  “What does he want?”

  “He w-wants this p-puh-place,” the unhappy wizard said. His face was beginning to swell grotesquely from bee stings. “The r-r-rest of us w-uh-want the S-st-stone of Th-uh-thr-three-threes. Kis-Kistilan w-wants uh-Th-Thorbardin.”

  “None of you can have either one,” Damon assured him.

  “You c-can’t st-s-uh-s-stand against m-m-magic!” the man snapped. “You-y-you’re foo-f-fools to th-th-think you c-ca-c-uh-can.”

  “Are we?” The Hylar pointed at the man again. “Delatas sepit mikti …”

  “N-n-no!” the wizard shrieked.

  Damon grinned at him, then lowered his hand.

  “H-how … how did y-you, uh, l-l-learn that?” the man quavered, stammering uncontrollably.

  “I learned it from you just a moment ago. I have an excellent memory.”

  With the coming of dark, most of the forces on the outer line had withdrawn to the nearer perimeter to rest and have their supper. The humans, as night-blind as any Daewar or Hylar, were not likely to move until morning. But here the dwarven commanders had failed to reckon on the wizards. An hour before first moonrise, trumpets sounded on the near slopes, and attack forces of human mercenaries charged the outer dwarven camps, following patches of eerie light that lit the ground ahead of them as moonlight through openings in the clouds might light a stormy night.

  Only intense discipline saved the Golden Hammer—farthest out on the main trail slope—from annihilation. Several hundred Sackmen warriors, guided by the skills of wizards, came out of darkness and fell upon the Daewar brigade with howls of triumph and the clashing of metal blades.

  Had the surprised Daewar been any other non-Hylar unit, they would have been massacred. But at the first hint of attack, even before Lodar Yellowkilt could call orders, the Daewar footmen had leapt into circle formation, forming a solid, double ring of steel shields and steel blades. Some of the Sackmen got through the first ring as dwarves fell before hand-darts and singing long swords, but none got through the second ring. For long minutes, the fighting was furious, steel ringing on steel, the war cries of the mercenaries a wild counterpoint to the chanting of the fighting dwarves as their blades snaked out from behind their shields and came back dripping red.

  The outer ring was breached once, and then again, and yet again, but each time, dwarves from the inner ring moved up to fill the gaps. Within the circle, dwarven slings hummed as slingers sailed round after round of iron shot into the press of humans. And at the center of his troops, Lodar
Yellowkilt stood atop a water keg, deflecting arrows and darts with shield, helm, and bracelets as he squinted at the line of combat lit by magical glare. He saw an intense push by humans forming just beyond the south side of his ring and shouted, “Downtrail quadrant, break and charge!”

  Just as the humans at that point rushed the circle of dwarves, the circle bulged outward toward them, ranked shields parted suddenly, and a chanting flood of dwarves charged out, shields high, directly into the face of the attack. The two charges met and bored into each other, then the humans withdrew. Slingers pelted them from behind as they ran.

  In the broken gullies south of the main trail slope, the human surprise attack was not as successful. These were old hunting grounds of the wild Theiwar, and the Theiwar holding the sector now were well acquainted with them. It was here that a hundred or so invaders learned what some of their ancestors had learned in times past: the specialty of the Theiwar was ambush.

  The humans, roughly a hundred mercenaries and two or three wizards, charged into the breaks, aiming at the peaceful cook-fires just ahead. By the time they saw that the fires were unattended, it was too late to turn back. Slim Theiwar blades and dark-iron Theiwar hammers ran red with blood on that night, and very few of the attackers escaped.

  Daergar night-fighters, on their way back from harassing the human camps, were not as fortunate as the Theiwar. A blaze of eerie light caught most of them with their masks off and blinded them as two squadrons of invaders raced among them, slashing and cutting. The Daergar skirmishers left nearly forty dead on that bloody field—almost half their company.

  It was mixed infantry that stood off the mobs of humans who made it almost to the ramparts. Under direct command of Barek Stone, four companies of Thorbardin guards formed ranks below the sloping roads, and the humans who made it there, past several other dwarven units, were no match for them. The fighting lasted no more than minutes, and then the invaders turned and disappeared into sudden darkness.