Neither met the general’s eyes as Ragat passed by. Nor did the commander pay them any notice: instead, his eyes fixed on a cloaked figure standing in an alcove at the base of the castle wall. As soon as Ragat caught the dwarf’s eye, the fellow ducked back into the shadows. With a glance around to make sure he was not being observed, the old warrior followed the figure into the dark niche.
“Greetings, great General,” whispered the dwarf. Even though the fellow was masked by a hooded robe, Ragat recognized the voice of his trustworthy spy.
“What do you have for me?” Ragat asked, knowing that the agent wouldn’t have come to him there, in such a risky place, if he didn’t have some urgent matter to report.
“Just this, lord. I think the black wizard retains an active spy in the mercantile district. Two of them, actually-partners in a business. I have watched their comings and goings and feel certain that they are serving as a direct conduit to our enemy.”
“Good work,” Ragat said. “Keep an eye on them for now. I’ll see about them for myself as soon as the fighting is over.”
“As you command, lord,” said the spy, bowing deeply. Ragat nodded in dismissal, and the robed fellow left through a hidden door in the back of the alcove. Soon, the general knew, his spy would be back in his silversmith’s shop.
Captain Veinslitter lay on the platform of Willim’s command tower. The loyal warrior’s blood leaked profusely from the garish slash across his belly, but he had not so much as cried out in pain when the keen knife had suddenly, surprisingly, plunged into him. His eyes had widened in sudden understanding; then he had fallen. He twitched slightly in the widening pool of blood. He lived for the moment, but he would soon be dead, and he knew it.
Standing over the commander who had failed to carry home his attack, Facet wiped the blood from her blade and slipped the clean weapon back into her sheath. Her face was again clean and unscarred, healed by the wizard’s most potent priests. Her black hair was neatly combed, sweeping back from her white skin like a sheen of smoky strands. Her crimson lips, moist and full, pursed in cruel satisfaction as she watched the life drain from her victim.
Willim stood nearby, half turned away but studying the scene nonetheless with the full glare of his spell of true-seeing. He had seen Facet’s eyes flash excitedly as she had stabbed the captain, whose only mistakes had been preordained by the enemy’s superior defensive position. No matter to the black wizard; Veinslitter had disappointed him, he had been punished, and the rest of the rebel army would soon know what happened to those who failed.
The wizard struggled to mask his emotions, but he felt a rush of affection and admiration for the dwarf maid who was becoming his most treasured apprentice. How strong she was! How ruthless! How loyal!
“I am very proud of you,” he said, pleased to see the flush of exultation that spread across her porcelain features.
“Come,” Willim said as Veinslitter’s feeble twitching finally settled into the stillness of death. “I have other officers who have failed me as well.”
Facet nodded, her lush lips compressed into a tight smile. When Willim started to walk away, she followed him. He didn’t face her, but with the gift of his magical sight he watched her …
And he desired her.
Peat and Sadie worked through the night. He organized the chaotic mess in the shop while she labored over completing her copy of the scroll. Peat heard the steady scritch scritch scritch of her quill against the parchment but forced himself to stay away from her and let her work uninterrupted. Tempted though he was, he didn’t even try to peer over her shoulder.
The sounds of battle had, at last, faded away. Peeking out the door, he saw the streets were quiet; the fighting seemed to have ground to a halt. No one was walking around.
However, Horth Dunstone with his wife and two children returned to the Two Guilders Emporium promptly at the appointed hour. Peat, still wondering about his wife’s surprising possession of the powerful scroll, led them inside. He made sure that the Closed sign hung in the doorway and followed the customers toward the back of the shop.
The chubby merchant turned to him with an expression of almost pathetic hopefulness on his face. As his wife and children continued on inside, he whispered to Peat. “Do you have good news for me?”
“I believe we might be able to help you,” the Theiwar answered. He cleared his throat. “But, as I warned you, it will be expensive.”
“Oh, of course, of course!” the customer said. He pulled a fat purse from his belt and eagerly extended it to Peat. “I trust this will be sufficient. Mostly diamonds, of course, though there are some exceptional emeralds, sapphires, and rubies in there as well. It’s, well, it’s basically my life’s fortune, with only a few stones left to help us get established on the outside.”
“I see,” said Peat. “Please wait here.”
He left the fidgeting Hylar in the shop and went into the back area, where Sadie was just inscribing the last symbols on the copy of the spell scroll she had been laboring over for the previous sixteen hours. Beside her, illuminated by the same lamp brightening her worktable, was a smooth steel tray with raised edges. Barely able to breathe, Peat turned the purse upside down, and they both gawked in astonishment as a dazzling array of stones spilled onto the metallic surface. True to Horth Dunstone’s word, most were glittering diamonds, though a few red, blue, and green gems also glimmered in the midst of the crystalline treasure.
Peat immediately snatched up one of the largest diamonds, while Sadie picked through the stones to find a large emerald and another gem, a ruby of crimson red. Each of the Guilders held their stones up to the light, examining them critically.
“A bit crude in the carving but genuine,” pronounced Peat, setting the diamond down and picking up several more with shaking fingers. He quickly confirmed that they, too, were real.
“These are brilliant. This is a fortune right here!” Sadie declared, breathing hard. “More than we’ve ever held in our hands!”
“I take it the services we promised,” Peat asked hesitantly, “are ready?”
His wife nodded. “Bring them in here; we don’t dare do this out in the front room.”
Moments later the four refugees, each clutching a small bag of belongings, had gathered in the back of the shop. Sadie closed and locked the door behind them before picking up the copied scroll. She would read the spell from the copy, which would cause the magic to consume the writing, while preserving the original for future profit-as well as an eventual path of escape for themselves, if the time came for the two Guilders to leave.
“Where are we going to go?” the Hylar girl asked a little plaintively.
“Yes, where?” asked Horth Dunstone as if the thought were just occurring to him.
“Pax Tharkas,” Sadie declared, looking at the scroll. “There are dwarves there, refugees of Thorbardin from before the gates were sealed. They will make you welcome.”
Of course, there was no way she, nor anyone else, could predict what kind of reception the new refugees would find, but that wasn’t her problem.
That was enough for the Hylar. They were anxious to leave. “Let’s go, then!” urged the mother.
Sadie began to read the incantation on the scroll. The blue glow of arcane power emanated from the page, spilling through the small room. The thrum of magic pulsed through the air, and the family of refugees seemed to shrink together, each leaning upon the others for support. With each word spoken, the ink of that symbol burst into flame, chewing through the parchment so, as she reached the end of the spell, she was holding only a thin strip of charred material.
When she was done with the casting, a shimmering blue pattern began to appear on the wall of the shop’s back room. It pulsed and glowed with an eerie light, and all six dwarves couldn’t help but shrink away from it. Slowly the image expanded until it was a circle more than six feet in diameter. The glowing azure ring surrounded the vortex at its center, the true heart of the dimension door spell. It b
egan to appear as a dark hole in the wall, a mysterious portal offering passage to an unseen destination.
“Now, now,” Sadie said, recovering to address the Hylar parents. “It won’t last long. I’d suggest each of you take one of the children by the hand and step through.”
With a last, frightened look at the two Theiwar, the Hylar couple did as Sadie suggested. With their children’s hands firmly clutched in their own, first Horst then his wife edged closer and finally stepped through the magical blue surface. The dimension door swallowed them quickly and silently took them away.
Not daring to believe what they had just witnessed, the two Guilders stared at the shimmering image in shock and disbelief. After a few moments, they shook themselves free of the trancelike fascination and went back to the worktable where they began to count their gems.
It was some minutes later before Peat, wealthier than he had ever been in his life, thought to look up at the place where the spell had glimmered on the wall.
The blue door was gone, the stone so cold and dark that it looked as if nothing had disturbed it at all.
SEVEN
BLOOD ON THE STONES
The rebel army faced the royal troops across the wide swath of Norbardin’s plaza. For a number of hours, the two forces had remained frozen, two gigantic entities that had fought to exhaustion and could no longer move. Yet each understood that the battle was far from over and would resume when both were refreshed.
The king’s troops had spent the interval eating, repairing broken weapons, sharpening dulled blades, and strengthening defensive positions. They had piled makeshift ramparts along their front, forming barricades from the detritus of the stands and stalls that had once occupied so much of the square. The building materials of the stalls-usually stone slabs occasionally mixed with fibrous fungi-boards and rare planks of real wood imported, long before, from the surface world-formed walls and platforms.
With the notable exception of the ale vendors, whose goods had been confiscated by the combatants and quickly consumed, even the products of the sellers had been used in the manufacture of the barricades. The stock of the stonemasons had been hastily organized into solid walls; the finished products of the metalworkers were converted to use as weapons; even the raw ingots of iron and tin were stacked by the catapults to serve as ammunition in the face of the next enemy charge.
The rebel forces, alternatively, had spent little time picking over the battlefield except to clear paths and evacuate the wounded. The wounded warriors had been dragged back to Willim’s lines. Those with only minor hurts were bandaged and returned to their companies; the more grievously injured would be left to their own devices on the tables and floors of several inns that had been commandeered as infirmaries. Those who could recover were expected to do so; those who could not were left to die.
Willim’s troops, too, needed food and were given sustenance in the form of dried meat and mushroom bread. After the dwarf warriors ate, the black wizard ordered the rebel troops to assemble on the plaza in front of the city’s main gate. He, Facet, General Darkstone, and two other captains who had failed in their jobs mounted the steps to the highest platform, where the five dwarves stood in plain view of the assembled troops.
At a nod from the wizard, Facet stepped up behind one of the officers.
His eyeless face expressionless, Willim addressed his voice to the throng of troops while directing his words at the first doomed soldier.
“Captain Balfour. Your axemen failed to carry the corner redoubt. Do you deny this charge?”
“No, Master. I failed, and I deserve to be punished.” Balfour’s voice was steady, dispassionate.
Willim nodded at Facet, and her hand moved swiftly, the keen blade slicing through Balfour’s thick beard and the equally thick neck underneath. With the wet gurgle of air and blood mixing in his slashed windpipe, the captain pitched forward and lay still in the midst of a puddle of blood.
Facet’s black eyes gleamed and she licked her crimson lips as she took up position behind the next officer.
“Captain De’Range. Your pikemen broke and fled in the face of an enemy counterattack. Do you deny this charge?”
“No, Master!” croaked De’Range, his eyes wide with terror as Facet stepped up to him. The veteran dwarf’s legs shook, and General Darkstone, one step to his left, flashed him a scornful look. Again the wizard nodded; again the keen dagger slashed, and the captain fell beside his fellow officer. Facet took a step to her left, blood still streaming from the knife blade as her eyes came to rest, almost affectionately, upon the general.
“General Darkstone!” Willim barked. The sturdy Daergar veteran stood at attention, eyes front. “You are my army commander. Yet your army failed to win the battle. Do you accept responsibility for your abject performance?”
“Master, I can only offer my worthless life as penance,” Darkstone said stiffly. Despite himself, his eyes shifted warily to Facet. The female wizard was stroking her bloody blade, careless of the sticky liquid covering her fingers. She seemed nonchalant, even bored. Her alabaster features, chiseled and beautiful and as cold as marble, were a warning to the troops who stood rapt below.
Willim nodded. “That is the honorable answer I expected. Therefore, I decline the offer of your life and instead give you this charge: you will lead the next attack, and you will carry the battle into the king’s palace. Do you accept this task?”
“Yes! Thank you! With all my heart and soul, Master-with all my sinew and steel! I shall prove myself worthy of your trust or die in the attempt.”
“Yes,” declared the wizard loudly. “I believe you will.” Willim stepped close to his general and lowered his voice, speaking into Blade Darkstone’s ear. “And when you enter the palace, you may take revenge for your family, for your daughter. You may take the one called Ragat Kingsaver and exact payment in flesh. But the king you shall save for me.”
“Yes, Master. As you command,” Darkstone pledged grimly.
Willim stalked to the very edge of the platform, stepping up onto the knee-high rampart so his assembled troops could see him from his boots to the top of his head. He turned his eyeless face upward and raised his voice to a shrill yell.
“My brave warriors!” he cried. “We will attack again, and this time, I will send a leader before you, one who will sweep the enemy from his entrenchments and pave the stones with his blood. Facet! Bring me the hearts!”
Immediately the female dwarf bent down over the slain captains. With a word of magic, she touched their metal armor, and the breastplates broke open to reveal the lifeless chests underneath. With quick slices of her keen blade, she cut out first Balfour’s then De’Range’s heart. Reverently she carried the still warm organs to the wall, where she knelt and placed them at her master’s feet.
“Thank you, my dear one,” the wizard said, surprising all the dwarves-none so much as Facet herself-with his tender tone and unusual words of endearment. Then he touched her chin, lifted her face toward his, and absorbed the beauty of her perfect features, her blood red lips, the swelling wonder of her magnificent breasts.
He barked loudly again, his words cutting through the vast cavern like a crack of thunder.
“Now, my warriors. Watch and take courage! I shall summon the one who will lead your attack!”
He shouted words of pure magic, and the two hearts swelled and began to spew black smoke.
Meanwhile, far away and blissfully unaware of all that …
Gus Fishbiter, Highbulp of all the Aghar in Pax Tharkas, was living the good life. He had shelter from the weather, food when he needed it, and affectionate female companionship. Furthermore, no one had tried to kill him for as long as he could remember, a span of at least two days. He tried to count the days: one, two, one two. Yes, two.
He reflected on his wonderful fortune as he leaned back on his mattress-packed with real straw! — and watched Berta massage his large and exceptionally filthy feet.
“You miss that one,” he
said, wiggling the large toe on his left foot. “Needs a good rub.”
“All right, Highbulp,” Berta said with a sigh. “But how ’bout then you rub my feet?” she asked hopefully.
Gus snorted and chortled. That was one thing he really liked about her: how funny she was. In truth, he was a pretty lucky gully dwarf.
“Finish two feet; then get highbulp some food,” he declared, stretching out and loudly cracking his joints. He yawned, smacked his lips, and indulged in a long, slow, luxurious excavation of his left nostril. His efforts were so productive that he was about to repeat the procedure on the other side when he was distracted by something.
“What that?” he said, his sparsely whiskered chin dropping in astonishment. Something was happening to his wall!
He stared at the side of his throne room-the throne room that was, in fact, merely an unused cellar chamber in the great fortress of Pax Tharkas. Many Aghar-more, even, than two, which was the highest he could count-lived in that cellar and the surrounding, moldy dungeons. They grubbed and rooted and scavenged, as did gully dwarves everywhere on Krynn, surviving on garbage, bugs, rats, blindfish, and whatever scraps they could steal from the other clans of dwarves who occupied the higher reaches of their ancient fortress. They stayed out of Gus’s way, and he, in turn, didn’t try to give them any orders since that would have tested his authority.
It was a nice, quiet, stinky place to live, lacking the hostile Klar and Theiwar that had made Gus’s former life, in Thorbardin, such a trial. In Agharhome, he had lived with his family, each member of which was larger and meaner than Gus and regularly tried to steal his food. Whenever he had ventured out of the den, he had to worry about feral Klar hunters and Theiwar bunty hunters.
Of course, he would have lived his whole life in that great underground nation except for the unfortunate encounter that had led him into the clutches of a nasty Theiwar black-robed wizard. He never failed to shudder when he remembered that mage’s eyeless face as his captor had studied the hapless gully dwarf in his steel-barred cage. Gus still didn’t understand how he had escaped from that horrible wizard’s lair, but he knew that it had something to do with a strange drink he’d snatched off the wizard’s table. He could still remember the mad dwarf’s rage as Gus had swilled the liquid and suddenly found himself outside of Thorbardin, on a mountaintop, standing in a deep drift of what he had later learned was called “snow.”
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