Dark Thane

by Jeff Crook

  "That way lies Norbardin," Ogduan said, pointing north into the blackness. "It is a three mile journey through the icy waters of the Urkhan Sea. Can you swim?"

  "No," Mog said hesitantly. "But surely boats must…"

  Ogduan shook his head. "No one crosses the sea anymore, except to come here, and then only once a year. But I have a feeling even that tradition might finally have come to an end."

  "But Tarn needs the Hammer of Kharas. It is the symbol of dwarven rulership. With it, all dwarves will acknowledge him as their king and he can end, once and for all, the challenges to his authority by Jungor Stonesinger," Mog said, the dismayed words spilling out in a rush.

  Ogduan nodded his shaggy head. "Aye, he who bears the Hammer wears the Crown," he quoted. "And yet here it is. The gods are indeed capricious."

  "The gods!" Mog snorted. "There are no gods."

  23

  Orchag Bootheel minced past the watchful eyes of the Hylar merchant, his hands carefully tucked into the voluminous pockets of his tattered, baggy trousers, studiously ignoring the piles of doorknob mushrooms piled upon the merchant's cart. Only when Orchag was well past the cart did the merchant turn his attention to a pair of Hylar goodwives shopping for their family's supper. Orchag looked back over his shoulder at the merchant, a promise of murder flickering in his eyes.

  Zen hated the way the other dwarves of Norbardin treated the gully dwarves. He hated having to take the form of a gully dwarf, but it was the only way to safely move about the city. With the other clans, it was too easy to be recognized. The magic that allowed him to take on the outward appearance of anyone he killed did not grant him their memories or insights into their personality. A relative or close friend might quickly identify him as an imposter. In the first month of his "captivity" in and around the environs of Norbardin, Zen had had three close calls while masquerading as various Daergar. Since then, he'd spent the better part of his time as one or another nearly nameless gully dwarf.

  The problem was the same here as in any other large city that he had infiltrated during his long mercenary career. He had to kill his victim to take its place, which meant that sooner or later, the victim would be reported missing or its body discovered. And then, if he were spotted, he was sure to be questioned. Which meant he'd have to flee and find a new victim to mimic, sometimes without being able to take the time necessary to properly study and stalk his victim, which often led to mistakes or accidents that forced him to flee again, and find yet another victim.

  With so many gully dwarves living in the city, he was relieved of this burden. No one ever reported a gully dwarf missing, for one thing. And if they found a dead gully dwarf, they didn't take the time to find out who he was. Gully dwarves died all the time from an infinite variety of maladies. Like the farmer said when he found a dead rat in his cupboard, "now there's one less rat to eat my cheese."

  Also, to other dwarves, gully dwarves looked as alike as grains of corn. They simply didn't take the time to study them well enough to discern an imposter among them. The gully dwarves were the soft underbelly of the dwarven kingdom of Thorbardin. But Zen was not surprised that no one had ever tried to exploit this weakness. It was a singularly useless weakness, for the gully dwarves were a singularly useless race. One could not recruit spies among them, for they could not relay even the simplest of information. One could not bribe their leaders to fight on your side because they could not follow even the simplest orders. They were inherently cowardly, shy, and devious, utterly untrustworthy even as bribed allies. They had no cultural identity that could be exploited to motivate them, no enemies they hated enough to attack. In a word, useless.

  Zen found no pleasure in killing them whenever he needed to assume a new form. It was like killing a cat—a hideous, ugly, noisy affair, that was best gotten over quickly. He even pitied the species a little, which did not ease his conscience whenever he was forced to murder them. He justified the murder by telling himself that he was putting the creature out of its misery. The saddest thing of all was that he was right—a gully dwarf probably was better off dead.

  Zen had come to know the gully dwarf point of view all too well. He had felt the hatred and anger directed toward them because he had lived as them, walked among them, and shared their miseries. The other dwarf clans treated the gully dwarves little better than rats. They wouldn't go out of their way to kill a gully dwarf, but neither did they consider it a serious crime to kill one, either by accident or design. The only thing that kept the gully dwarves moderately safe among their larger, stronger, and smarter kin were Tarn's strict laws, coupled with the fact that there was so little point in killing a gully dwarf, no one bothered.

  Exploring the city in the guise of a gully dwarf, then, Zen was forced to endure the injustices heaped upon all gully dwarves whenever in the company of their cousins. He couldn't buy food at a merchant stall, nor beer at a tavern, not even if he had the money, for no one would serve him. What he ate he begged or stole. He was allowed on some streets, but not all streets, and some buildings were strictly off limits. He dared not retaliate against those who slighted him, lest he be captured and his true identity revealed.

  The sewers, on the other hand, were free to use as he wished. Combined with a vast network of dark alleys and cramped staircases, he was able to move pretty much anywhere within the city's three levels, but it had taken well over a year for him to learn them well enough to not get repeatedly lost. Once, he'd been hopelessly lost for three long days in the maze of sewers beneath the Anvil's Echo. Changing identities left one with a ravenous hunger, and he'd been forced to eat his victim to keep from starving. He still hadn't recovered from the taste of raw gully dwarf.

  Zen/Orchag turned into an empty alley and quickened his stride. He knew this alley well, knew that no windows looked down upon it, and so he felt confident in shaking off the mincing, crouching posture of a gully dwarf and he deliberately loosed his stride. Slick with offal and rotting garbage, most dwarves avoided the alleys. Yet it was the swiftest path to the edge of the Hylar residential area on the second level of Norbardin.

  He was in a hurry. Jungor Stonesinger was holding audience from his rooftop, as he did most days at this time, and Zen was already late. He tried to come each day, not to hear Jungor preach, but because he was stalking his next victim. The same victim he'd been stalking for the past eighteen months, the dwarf who had betrayed him and murdered his lads that evening in The Bog.

  They had made a deal. Ferro Dunskull had broken it.

  Ferro was the most difficult mark that Zen had ever had the pleasure to stalk. The Daergar master of scouts (a euphemism for master of assassins) was wily and intelligent; an accomplished assassin himself, Ferro knew how to avoid assassination. And Ferro knew that Zen was stalking him, so he took extra care. He continually altered his habits, never traveled by the same road twice; there were numerous entrances to his house, all of them well guarded. Ferro had few discernible patterns to his life. He was surrounded by a tiny cabal of close confidants, and all others were kept at a safe distance. He and Zen had been playing a game of cat and mouse for eighteen months now with neither having made significant progress.

  For his part, Ferro had been stalking Zen as well, but his early efforts were unorganized and crude. Ferro's agents had beaten the bushes, so to speak, many a time and always came away either empty handed or clutching the red herrings Zen had left in their path. In all likelihood, more innocent gully dwarves had died by Ferro's hand than by Zen's. But of late, the agent's methods had improved somewhat. Zen was forced to take greater precautions, to change forms more often, and to avoid other gully dwarves whenever he could. He had had to stop watching Ferro's house entirely; the guards were becoming too wary, questioning anyone who strayed near.

  So Zen had switched tactics. He knew that every mark had a weakness. He had only to find it. It had taken him eighteen months, but he had found it at last.

  The alley emerged in the Hylar quarter of the second level, betw
een an armory and a warehouse belonging to Jungor Stonesinger. Zen found this entrance much to his liking, because there was always some activity around the warehouse—wagons arriving laden with crates and leaving empty, warriors drilling in the commons between the warehouse and Jungor's residence. A small crowd of dwarves was usually to be found outside the gates to Jungor's house as well—supplicants and worshipers in his rising cult of personality, as well as the curious and the skeptical. Once a day, Jungor appeared behind the rooftop battlements of his house to address the ever-growing crowds, to give them moral instruction. Dwarves brought their children to hear him speak of the glory of former days, for in his words those glorious times seemed reborn in the hearts of those who heard him.

  As Zen left the alley, he once more assumed the crouching, obsequious mannerisms of a gully dwarf amid his larger and stronger cousins. Few gave him a second glance, and those who did quickly turned their noses away. A mixture of fresh dung and rotting meat, kept in his pockets and smeared on his clothes, was enough to convince most of his authenticity and send them lurching away, pinching their noses. A sizable crowd stood at the far side of the commons, gazing upward and listening in rapt awe to Jungor's speech. Zen was glad he hadn't arrived too late, but this was another of his precautions—a gully dwarf loitering about, waiting to hear Jungor speak, was sure to arouse suspicions. Especially if one were on the lookout for suspicious-looking gully dwarves.

  Now Zen was able to sidle up to the rear of the crowd and surreptitiously observe his mark.

  "But how long shall the clans be forced to remain here in this second-rate city?" Jungor asked. "Norbardin? That is too grand a name for the North Gate complex. For three thousand years it has been the North Gate. Why should the king wish to change that as well? Haven't we borne enough change? Haven't we suffered enough already?"

  Zen barely even paid attention to Jungor's cries. Instead, he scanned the faces of those surrounding the Hylar thane, his inner circle of advisors and close confidants—captain of the guard Astar Trueshield, replete in silver armor and beard of spun gold; Hextor Ironhaft, fat and greasy eyed with money stains on his fingers; Thane Rughar Delvestone ever worshipful; Thane Brecha Quickspring, unofficial high priestess of Jungor's unofficial cult; and Ferro Dunskull, Jungor's master of scouts. There were also guards, and select citizens invited to join Jungor on the rooftop because of their wealth or familial connections. But Zen ignored everyone, focusing his attention solely upon Ferro Dunskull. He barely even heard Jungor's continued exhortations.

  "When was the last time the king sent engineers and survey parties into our former cities? Too dangerous, he tells us. Dangerous for him, perhaps. Dangerous that we should resume our former lives in our former homes and thus move away from these cramped domains, away from his ability to control every aspect of our lives. We are not disloyal dwarves. We only wish to live free, as once we did. So I ask you again, how long has it been since the ruins were surveyed? How do we know that it is not now safe for you to return and begin rebuilding your lives?"

  Zen smiled inwardly to see the dwarves around him nod emphatically, as though Jungor were but speaking aloud the secret desires of their hearts. "Yes, yes, what he says is true." Zen could have answered Jungor's question in two words, for he had been forced to retreat to those ruins many a time in these past eighteen months.

  Death trap. That's what awaited anyone attempting to return to the ruins of Theibardin, Daerbardin, Daebardin or Klarbardin. Walls continually crumbled, floors collapsed without warning. He could not begin to count the number of gully dwarves and feral Klar he had seen buried alive over the past month alone. Whole sections of the cities were nothing more than jumbled mountains of ruin, their streets buried under tons of rubble and still endlessly collapsing down bottomless holes.

  "You dwarves of the Theiwar, Daewar, Daergar, and Klar clans have homes you can return to," Jungor declared. "Only our home, Hybardin, is completely lost to us. The rest of you can rebuild. We must build anew. But build we shall, one day. One day you shall return to the homes of your grandfathers, and there you will find the mortar to fill that empty place in your hearts. We want to be dwarves again, dwarves of the mountain. Here, in Tarn's city, we live little better than hill dwarves, a people the king loves despite their history of treachery. I fear that one day we shall hear the tramp of hill dwarf boots in our streets."

  "No! Never!" the crowd shouted, driven to a frenzy by the Hylar thane's meandering diatribe. The speech lasted for nearly an hour, but Zen had already slipped back to the alley before Jungor dismissed the crowds with a benediction that left them weak and warm. Zen marveled at the one-eyed dwarfs skill. The effect was complete—from the eyepatch to the tattered robes to the wizard staff, Jungor looked part prophet, part shaman, part ghost. Zen could appreciate Jungor's masterful manipulation of the crowd. Jungor would have made a good Dragon Highlord, Zen reckoned.

  "He'll certainly be king someday, unless Tarn wises up," the draconian in gully dwarf disguise muttered under his breath. Zen knew that he was in a unique position to decide the fate of this miserable mountain and its miserable people. He held information that would ruin Jungor if revealed and assure Tarn's seat forever. But he wasn't particularly inclined to favor Tarn, either. In fact, he didn't care one way or the other who was king of all these filthy dwarves. All he wanted to do was to make Ferro Dunskull pay for his treachery. After that, he might see who was most willing to buy his information or his silence. He hadn't really planned that far ahead.

  There was enough to occupy his mind in the present. He crouched in the shadows, watching the crowd break up. Opposite him across the commons, another alley passed between the home of Hextor Ironhaft and the east wall of Jungor's estate. This alley was much wider than the one in which Zen hid, and no one used it for their middens. Doors opened into it from both sides, and windows on the upper levels overlooked it. Six alert Daergar guards stood at the alley's entrance, crossbows held at the ready while they warily scrutinized anyone who wandered near. Zen dared not approach them, for he knew by their familiar faces and their livery that they were Ferro's personal guard. They had orders to shoot on sight any gully dwarf who came within thirty yards.

  As Zen expected, Ferro emerged from a door letting into the alley from Jungor's estate. It would be indecorous for a Daergar to be seen exiting through the front door of the Hylar thane's house. Ferro was accompanied by a thin Daergar female wearing black leather breeches and a hardened leather breastplate. Her arms were bare, smooth and milky white, her black hair long and bound in a single loose braid that hung down the center of her back.

  Ferro and the female Daergar consulted for a moment in the alley, then parted, Ferro heading toward his guards, the female strolling in the opposite direction, her hips lolling languidly from side to side. Her name, Zen knew, was Marith Darkforge, and she was one of Ferro's closest "advisors."

  Zen pushed aside a pile of garbage and lifted a small iron grate from an opening into the sewer. As swiftly as any gully dwarf, he vanished down the hole, pulling the grate back into place above him. He landed with a splash inside a low, round sewer tunnel, quickly glanced both ways to make sure no other gully dwarves were around, then started off.

  The sewer tunnel ran directly beneath the commons to the alley beside Jungor's estate, which it followed for some distance before splitting off into a larger sewer. Zen passed the place beneath which Ferro had stood only moments before, then continued down the sewer tunnel, where he followed the larger branch until it reached a wide collection pool. Here, the water and raw sewage surged and spumed down a drain to an even larger pipe some distance below. Pale brown rafts of foam raced each other in circles round and round the chamber. The sewage lay just below the level of a narrow access walk that led from the entrance pipe to a ladder cut into the stone wall and leading up. Zen crossed over and swiftly ascended the ladder, pushed aside a grate, and emerged in a carter's yard in the midst of a milling herd of yellow cave oxen. The sleepy beasts hardly
even noticed his appearance, while their enormous bodies hid him from the sight of anyone who might happen by. He was lucky that none of oxen had been standing on the grate, and that the muckboy wasn't at this moment hosing down the stableyard.

  Replacing the grate, Zen crawled between the legs of the cattle until he reached a low wall. He crouched behind it on his knees for a few moments, softly counting under his breath, "One-fifty one, one-fifty-two, one-fifty-three. When he reached one-sixty, he stood just in time to see Marith Darkforge disappear around the corner of the building directly in front of him.

  He leaped over the wall in one bound, crossed the crooked street crowded with laden wagons, and quickly ascended a narrow staircase cut into the side of the building. At the top of the staircase he found a small servant's door propped open by a lump of coal the size of a child's fist. He ducked through the door and entered a long, dark hall, removing the coal as he passed so that the door closed firmly behind him, its latch locking into place with a loud click. Pausing, he heard footsteps ascending a nearby staircase. He shrunk into a dark corner beside a closed door, ducked his head between his shoulders and began to make small retching noises.

  As the footsteps reached the top of the stairs, they paused. He heard a sharp intake of breath, then a relaxed exhale. "Stinking gully dwarf," a female voice muttered as the footsteps continued, entering the hall and approaching him. "Is this what I pay good rent money to come home to?" Zen kept his head lowered, even as he felt a sharp kick to his shins.

  "Gods! What a smell," she exclaimed. Zen rocked forward, clutching his bruised shins and mewling pitifully. This gave him the opportunity to shift his weight onto the balls of his feet. Another kick landed on his jaw, snapping his head back. "Get out of here, you filthy, stinking rat. How did you get in here?"

  Zen heaved with dry retches, spittle flowing into the matted hairs of his beard. "Mercy," he moaned. "Me sick."