Secret of Pax Tharkas

by Doug Niles

  But that seemed a lifetime ago, even though it had been only a decade. Jungor Stonespringer’s revolt had overthrown him, and he was exiled. At first he had come with merely three hundred others, including his pregnant wife and their infant son. A mixture of Hylar and Klar dwarves and a few Daewar—those who had not journeyed east with the Mad Prophet—joined him. In the following years, other mountain dwarves had come along until he ruled a population of a thousand or so able-bodied adults, together with their young and elderly dependents. They called themselves a clan, though they were really refugees from three true clans, and they called him their thane, though he was really just the leader of a band of refugees.

  Still, he was a sort of leader, and they were a sort of clan, and their home was important: Pax Tharkas. It was their position in that great fortress, more than anything else, that gave them a sense of identity and continuity in dwarf history. Even more, it provided them all with a purpose, for Tarn had vowed to see the Tharkadan Pass reopened before he died. He deemed the task of reopening the pass so important that many nearby fields lay fallow since the farmers who would have tended them were otherwise busy in fulfilling their thane’s commands. That goal gave him the strength to rise and face each new day.

  To be sure, he very much wished to see his children grow to adulthood and prosper, but his years suggested that might not happen. He had married late, to a much younger dwarf maid, and though she had borne him two wonderful offspring, his age made him feel more like their grandfather. He was glad they were there with him, but as he often reflected privately, he often acted as father to a nation more than father to his two children.

  Long had he spurned trade with the hill dwarves, the Neidar whose settlements dotted all of the surrounding lands. His intransigence had not sat well with his wife, who was of Neidar blood, but he understood the ancient rivalries of his people better than he had when he was younger, and he knew that a mingling of populations would inevitably hurt the mountain dwarves in Pax Tharkas. He nursed the idea that his “clan” would one day return to Thorbardin to oppose and defeat Jungor Stonespringer and his fanatical followers. That narrow-minded despot represented everything Tarn hated about dwarf stubbornness, rigid thinking, and mindless obedience to authority.

  Tarn Bellowgranite’s life had already been marked by too much disappointment and tragedy. He had known love only once; his true beloved—a Hylar warrior named Belicia Slateshoulders—had died in the residual destruction of the Chaos War, and after that he had thought himself destined for a life of loneliness.

  His marriage to Crystal Heathstone had been a political arrangement, but even as they took their vows, he had hoped that it might signal a thaw in the long enmity between the dwarves of the hills and the mountains. He and Crystal had become fond of each other, even learned to love each other in a limited way, but at the same time the fractures between their two peoples had seemed to grow deeper. Eternal wars, betrayal under the mountain, and lingering clan hatreds had all cast their pall over the life of the thane and his wife. Only in their two children had they found a focus, and a hope, for the future.

  Tarn completed his circuit of the wall, looking up as he approached the east tower. The sky was clear, but the sun had not yet risen high enough for its rays to penetrate the steep-walled valley. Even so, he could detect the first signs of bright daylight limning the crest of the ridge overhead, and he paused to admire the daybreak for a minute before approaching the door to the tower. A Hylar guard snapped to attention, holding his battle axe at port arms as the thane approached then quickly opening the door for his thane.

  Tarn nodded his thanks and entered the large, open room that served as a rallying point and ready room for garrison troops. It was currently empty of dwarves, but the rows of benches and the racks of weapons and shields lining the walls gave proof of its martial purpose. A single stairwell spiraled through the center of the room, leading both up and down.

  The thane would soon descend to his living quarters, but there was another part of his morning ritual that he needed to complete first. Climbing the steps to the next level, he reached the fortress’s command center. The level was divided into four large rooms, connected by a central hallway, and he headed to the farthest of those rooms. The door was open, and he strolled into the office of the garrison commander, Captain Mason Axeblade.

  Axeblade was seated at his desk, talking to his former commander, retired general Otaxx Shortbeard. The two Daewar started to get to their feet as Tarn entered, but the thane waved them back to their chairs and took a seat for himself.

  “No incidents reported overnight, my thane,” Axeblade replied. He had been one of Tarn’s loyal captains during the civil war, and Bellowgranite had welcomed his choice to follow him into exile. “The night workers lifted twelve tons of rock by the time their shift was over.”

  “Good,” Tarn replied. “Looks quiet out there this morning as well.”

  “I almost wish something would happen around here!” huffed Otaxx. Ever a man of action, he chafed as the long, empty years passed by.

  But there was more to his glum nature. Both of the dwarves bore a burden Tarn couldn’t fully appreciate, as they were among the few Daewar who had remained behind in Thorbardin when Severus Stonehand, the Mad Prophet, had marched away with the bulk of the clan on his mad quest to regain ancient Thoradin. None of those dwarves had ever been heard from again, and they had long been given up for lost by those they had left behind.

  Axeblade’s parents had gone with Stonehand, but Otaxx had suffered an even more grievous loss. His wife of twenty years, pregnant with their first child, had also departed on the quixotic quest for the lost kingdom. Ever true to his duty—which he vested toward the whole kingdom, not just his Daewar clan—Otaxx Shortbeard had been unable to follow his pregnant wife, for to do so would have betrayed the oath he had sworn to his king, Tarn Bellowgranite. Even though Tarn had given him leave to go, Otaxx had elected to remain behind; he had been a source of great strength to Tarn and all Thorbardin during the dark years after the Chaos War. But Otaxx sorely missed his wife, and pined for the child he had never known—the child that might not even have made it to birth.

  He was too old to fight anymore, however, and Tarn knew he spent his days remembering his bride and second-guessing his path in life. Always gruff, Otaxx had become more irascible and more depressed as the years passed. He always hoped to hear word of Severus Stonehand’s fate, but no word ever came. Still, he was one of the few who clung to some hope the Mad Prophet’s expedition might not have met complete disaster.

  “Any word from Garn Bloodfist?” the thane asked with some trepidation.

  “I sent him another message two days ago; he’s on campaign in the hill country, but I haven’t heard back,” Axeblade said.

  Tarn nodded, not surprised. Garn was the captain of the Klar contingent of the Tharkadan garrison. Some three hundred strong, the dwarves of that impetuous, high-strung clan were unsuited to the steady labor of rock-hauling required for work on Pax Tharkas. They craved action, and Tarn had found it impossible to keep them immobile in the fortress; the inevitable fights and fits and brawls were too disruptive to the rest of his band.

  So every so often the Klar marched out of Pax Tharkas to raid the hill dwarves who lived in countless small towns throughout the vast foothills of the mountain range. Sometimes they killed some Neidar, and sometimes they lost some Klar. Almost always they returned with plunder and food, which they shared willingly enough with the rest of the garrison. Though Tarn didn’t condone their dubious activities, he knew that the Klar kept the hill dwarves off balance and probably prevented them from marshalling their forces all at once to lay siege to his fortress. Still, Garn Bloodfist was a bit of a loose catapult, and the thane could never be sure exactly what kind of trouble he would make.

  “Well, let me know if you get a message,” Tarn said not very hopefully.

  “Aye, my thane. I will.”

  He left the two Daewar and hea
ded down the stairs, past the ready room, into the many levels of living quarters that filled the lower half of the east tower. On the fourth of those, he left the stairs, walked down a short hall, and opened the door to his open, private treasure room.

  “Papa!” Tor cried. The robust ten-year-old raced over to his father, proudly holding up a wooden sword. “Look what I made! Otaxx Shortbeard promised to teach me how to parry once I have a sword! Look what I can do!” He waved the sword wildly.

  Tarn chuckled, leaning down to embrace his son. “Why don’t you go show Otaxx; I’m sure he can teach you a trick or two.”

  Next he hugged Tara, two years younger than her brother. He let her nuzzle his beard, as she loved to do; then he carried her around the playroom on his shoulders, her whoops and shrieks brightening his day like nothing else. Only when he was out of breath did he put her down, promising to return in a few minutes.

  He went into the bedroom, then, and found his wife, Crystal Heathstone, standing at the window, as she often did, as he had known she would be doing. She turned to look at him, the anguish on her face tearing at his heart. She would always be a hill dwarf, daughter of a former clan leader, and her life as the wife of a mountain dwarf ruler had not been easy, he knew.

  “Garn Bloodfist has taken the Klar out again, hasn’t he?” she said, and he knew it wasn’t really a question.

  He merely nodded.

  She sighed and shrugged off his touch when he went over to her. “One of these days, he’s going to stir up a hornet’s nest, and that could be the end for us all,” she declared.

  “The hornets are always buzzing,” Tarn pointed out. “Sometimes Garn swats them away.”

  “Why can he only do it through war?” she demanded.

  He shrugged, wishing they weren’t having that conversation. “It’s always been that way,” he pointed out.

  “Not always!” she retorted. “It had a beginning: the Cataclysm. Why can’t there be an end? Why can’t we end it?”

  “We’re dwarves,” he replied, not knowing what else to say. “War is in our nature. You might as well try to stop the sun from moving through the sky.”

  She looked at him with a strange expression, a look that, to Tarn, was more scathing even than a glare of contempt. When she spoke, it was almost to herself. “Once, I thought you might be the kind of dwarf who would try to do just that, and to the Abyss with the consequences.”

  He turned on his heel and went to the door, tense and angry. He would not slam it, not when his daughter was so near, but he looked at Crystal as if he didn’t recognize her.

  “Maybe I was that dwarf, once. But I’ve seen too much. I’m not him now. I’m not that Tarn Bellowgranite anyway, not anymore.”

  FIFTEEN

  HOMES OF THE NEIDAR

  Brandon’s mouth felt as dry as a bale of cotton and still tasted of bile. His head throbbed inside because of the lingering residue of the dwarf spirits, and it throbbed outside, where it had been bruised by Harn Poleaxe’s powerful blows. Yet for all his physical aches, he felt emotionally worse. It seemed clear that his family’s poor luck had at last found its nadir. For he had allowed the Bluestone, the symbol and the reality of his family’s legacy, to fall into the hands of a treacherous hill dwarf.

  And the Neidar were treacherous, Brandon realized—almost incomprehensibly so! His mind reeled as he recalled Harn Poleaxe’s cheerful camaraderie, his friendly advice as he’d escorted the young Hylar across half of Ansalon. By Reorx, he’d been using his victim to carry the treasure that was his true quarry! And all the while, Poleaxe had been responsible for Nailer’s murder—even if he had not actually wielded the fatal sword—and for the betrayal of Brandon’s and Nailer’s claim to the ruthless and avaricious Heelspurs.

  The bitterness of the reality made Brandon sick to his stomach. What a cruel irony: the hill dwarf who drank so freely, and so carelessly, had used alcohol—apparently enhanced with some kind of soporific drug—to immobilize his victim.

  “Move it!” One of the Neidar prodded him with his own axe, and he stumbled as he tried to balance on feet and legs that were numbed from their bonds. Angrily he shook off the push. Shaking his head, gritting his teeth, he started to walk.

  The hill dwarves and their captive moved under a slate-gray sky, which occasionally spit at them with rain showers; the sky perfectly mirrored Brandon’s mood. They trekked away from the campsite but remained on the rugged crest of the ridge instead of moving into the more easily passable valley floor. They descended a bit to avoid a lofty, open promontory, but then quickly climbed back to resume the trek on the ridge crest.

  When they came to a steep-sided ravine, his captors pushed him roughly, and he skidded down to land on his hip, sliding roughly to the bottom, unable to use his bound hands for any help. Grimly he plodded up the winding trail on the opposite side, resolving that he would not give the Neidar the satisfaction of hearing him complain or seeing him suffer. Nor would he give them an excuse to beat or, worse, ridicule and mock him.

  All the while he was nursing his anger, which had already flared into hatred. They were not like any dwarves he had ever imagined; they were not worthy of Reorx’s chosen! They were worse than the lowest gully dwarves, he finally decided.

  It was many hours later before the troop of hill dwarves finally marched down off the rocky ridges onto a smooth road. The pair who had originally been charged with Brandon’s execution had been marching grimly behind the prisoner all day, never hesitating to poke him between the shoulders, in the area of his kidneys, or right in the buttocks with the sharp tips of their short swords. He had noted that one of those two was also carrying Brandon’s axe, clearly displaying his enjoyment at the feel and heft of his new weapon. The dwarf’s chuckles of amusement proved, to Brandon, that he considered the dishonorable torment to be fine sport.

  The captive barely felt those small annoyances, however, so deep was the gloom that had settled around him. The whole day he trudged along, mourning the loss of his father’s treasure, cursing himself for the foolishness that had led to his capture without even a respectable show of self-defense. All was lost, and it seemed only a matter of time until Poleaxe staged his charade of a trial and executed the Kayolin dwarf as a spy.

  It wasn’t until near sunset that Brandon finally, forcefully, reminded himself that he wasn’t dead yet. And, he told himself, if all he did was wallow in self-pity, his life may as well end in an ignominious whimper. He could not, would not, give up! If he was to perish here, he would make sure the Neidar bastards paid dearly for the privilege of killing him.

  But his wrists were still securely bound, and his captors numbered a full dozen, so there was no release for his anger—at least, not in his present circumstances. He vowed to Reorx, to his father, and to the memory of his slain brother that someday, somehow, he would find the means to claim vengeance. For the moment, he would stay alert, nursing his anger.

  His eyes, when he raised them, sought Harn Poleaxe, who strode at the head of the little column, swaggering along, regaling his companions with tales of Kayolin hubris and wealth.

  “Their governor has decided to call himself a king,” Poleaxe declared in an incredulous tone. “Even though he doesn’t have half the holdings of Thorbardin. Believe it or not, he does most of his trading with humans!”

  “Ah, you’re making that up!” said one of Harn’s ruffians.

  “I swear on the Forge of Reorx!” Harn declared with an air of wounded dignity. “He sells steel to the emperor of Solamnia, and in return, the humans protect Kayolin from the goblins.”

  That was a lie, Brandon knew—Kayolin was in no danger from even the most numerous and aggressive bands of goblins—but the prisoner wasn’t about to waste his breath rebuking Poleaxe, not when his own life was hanging in the balance.

  The other Neidar, all except the one called Fireforge, laughed heartily at Harn’s anecdotes while Brandon’s rage simmered. He watched that hill dwarf, whose full name was Slate Fireforge, f
or any signs he might be able to appeal to him for help. Despite the fact he had objected to Harn’s plan to summarily execute the captive, however, Fireforge gave no sign that he was willing to extend him any other unusual sympathy.

  As his mind cleared—from both the effects of Poleaxe’s blows and the lingering hangover—he reflected on the events that had led him to his sorry state. For there was more than just bad luck involved. Clearly, Poleaxe had planned the theft carefully; he had sent word to his cronies, and the band had waited in hiding for the travelers, moving in to assist when the treacherous Neidar acted.

  That itself was an interesting fact, Brandon realized. Why had the big hill dwarf felt that he needed help? After all, he stood a half head taller than the mountain dwarf, who himself was a bigger-than-average specimen. And Poleaxe outweighed Brandon by a good two stone. Yet even with his victim extremely drunk, he had not struck until backed up by significant reinforcements. Perhaps Poleaxe was not as fearless as he pretended.

  And why had he made his move out in the wilds? Poleaxe just as easily could have had Brandon surrounded or captured in town at an inn or in a tavern. Instead, he’d arranged for his handpicked men to effect the betrayal away from eyewitnesses.

  The more Brandon thought about it, the more he wondered whether Harn’s behavior might not meet with the approval of every citizen of Hillhome. Perhaps he might be able to find, if not outright allies, a few decent dwarves once they got to the town.

  The road they were following meandered along a valley surrounded not by mountains, but by forested ridges. Soon they passed a dam—made of stones set so perfectly it could only be the work of dwarves—and a millhouse, where a large wheel turned with the flow of the stream. Brandon began to spot stone houses in the woods to either side, and when the road passed around another bend, they came upon a bustling village, filling the valley before him from wall to wall.