"And they've got something in that hut back there they don't want us to see," Pepperdyne added.
"I agree with Jup," Stryke declared. "We'll hold up here."
"How long for?" Coilla wanted to know.
"For as long as I need to think about why the stars got it wrong. We're all bushed. It won't hurt us to take a furlough here."
The door opened and a multitude of female dwarfs came in bearing platters of food. They laid out a feast for them and withdrew, bowing. The timber dining table that dominated one end of the room was laden with breads, fish and fruit, much of kinds none of them recognised. There were also flasks of something that resembled rice wine. Pepperdyne, born an islander, told them he was pretty sure it was distilled from seaweed. That made some of them doubtful, but it tasted good.
Sitting at the table eating their fill, which was considerable, they allowed themselves to relax a little. Though Stryke did take the precaution of stationing privates by the door and the several windows. The guards took heaped dishes of food with them and stuffed themselves as they stood watch.
"What do you think of this as a dwarf world?" Dallog asked of Jup and Spurral.
"Well, they don't seem as advanced as our tribes in Maras-Dantia," Jup replied, "but it's pleasant enough."
"If you happen to be a fucking god," Haskeer murmured.
"Any more of your insolence and I'll have you whipped, underling," the dwarf teased.
"We're not gonna be here forever," Haskeer promised darkly. "Just you wait."
Jup laughed in his face.
"That language you were speaking," Pepperdyne said. "What was that all about?"
"In Maras-Dantia, or at least what used to be our part of it," Stryke informed him, "just about everybody spoke Mutual. How else would so many different races figure out each other?"
"And now we've found it here," Coilla remarked. "How can that be?"
"Looks like there's more moving between worlds than we thought."
"How long was it used in Maras-Dantia?" Pepperdyne asked.
"Forever," Coilla told him. "Nobody knows who first thought of it."
"So maybe it didn't start there. If the worlds have bled into each other more than we know, it could have originated anywhere."
"Possible, I suppose." Coilla knew that the elder races weren't native to Maras-Dantia; it was the humans' world by birthright. It seemed logical to her that when the various races were inadvertently deposited there, long ago, they might well have brought something like Mutual with them. But she didn't mention any of that. Instead, she said, "From what we heard, it seems humans aren't too well liked in these parts, Jode."
"We gathered that much."
"Yeah, well, I think it goes a bit deeper than a tiff. Take care."
"Ahhh, ain't it cute?" Haskeer mocked. "She's worried about her little pet."
"You'll be worried about the one between your legs if you don't pipe down," she promised him.
Nobody spoke for a moment until Wheam wondered, "How do you think they're getting on in Acurial?"
"Just fine, I should think," Stryke reckoned.
"You can't help thinking what they made of us, can you?" Dallog speculated.
"Maybe we'll go down in their history books," Coilla said, only half seriously.
"Yeah!" Wheam enthused. "As a band of legendary heroes who — "
He was drowned out by the catcalls of the rest of the band.
"I think you're right about the resistance winning out there," Pepperdyne said when it quietened. "I'm more puzzled by who that bunch were who wanted your stars, Stryke."
That put a damper on the band.
"Damned if we can figure it out," Stryke confessed. "But if they really did come from somewhere other than Acurial, like that elf said, they could turn up here. We're going to have to be alert for that."
"Not much of a furlough then," Coilla came back dryly.
"If these dwarfs don't try to stop us we'll find ourselves a good defensible holdout first thing. We'll be better prepared if they come again."
"Against the magic they have?" She paused a moment before braving the next thing she wanted to say. "Stryke, about the stars…"
"What about them?"
"Given they're precious, and now we might have this new bunch trying to get their hands on them, why don't you divide them up between five of us and — "
"No."
"Don't just dismiss it, Stryke. It could be a good way of protecting the things."
"If we lost just one, that's enough to make the others useless."
"This isn't just about you, you know. The stars are our only way home too."
" No, Coilla. Not after what happened last time."
"You're blaming me for that, are you?"
"You know I'm not. How could I when I lost four of them to Jennesta myself?"
"So you won't consider it?"
"It's better my way."
"You can be such a stubborn pig sometimes!" she flared. "When are you going to get it through your head that — "
There was a commotion outside. They heard shouts and screams.
Rushing to the door, they saw dozens of dwarfs running in all directions in panic.
The band flooded out of the longhouse. At sea, a flotilla of small boats was heading for the shore. In the distance, a ship was at anchor.
The Wolverines headed for the beach. There were more dwarfs there, desperate to get away from the advancing boats. They stopped a few to ask what was going on, but got no sense out of them.
"Look!" Coilla yelled, pointing at the nearest boats.
They were manned by humans.
"I'm guessing it's not a social visit either," Stryke observed.
"Now we know why the dwarfs aren't keen on Jode and Standeven."
A number of male dwarfs were now running onto the beach as opposed to away from it. They were armed with their spears.
"What do we do?" Dallog asked.
"We make a stand with them," Stryke replied, "what else?"
"Pity they've got nobody operating those trebuchets." The corporal pointed to the ledge on the volcano.
"No time. They've been caught unawares."
"Yeah," Coilla agreed, "probably because they were too concerned with us."
"Here they come!" Haskeer bellowed.
The first of the humans were wading ashore.
"So let's get to it," Stryke ordered, drawing his sword. "Come on!" He lead them into the surf. Only Standeven held back, skulking far up the beach.
They met the invaders in knee-deep water and laid into them. The humans were shocked to be facing an unknown race, and one so ferocious, and were equally dismayed to find Pepperdyne among their attackers. That gave the band an initial edge. Soon the surf was stained red.
But it didn't take long for Stryke to realise he'd made an error. This wasn't the incomers' main or only force. Further along the shoreline more boats had come round the island's curve. Humans had already got well inland in that direction. They were fighting dwarfs on the beach, and the dwarfs weren't coming off best.
Stryke ordered some of the band to stay where they were and finish off the dwindling number of humans still exchanging blows. He took the rest up the beach to confront the bigger influx happening there. Spurral, who had proved a good runner, had seen what was happening and streaked off even before he issued the order. She was well to the fore and not far short of a group of humans wading ashore.
Running abreast with Haskeer, Jup and Coilla, and with the other band members on their heels, Stryke yelled a warning. A party of humans who must already have penetrated the island's interior were returning to the beach, and their path crossed the Wolverines'. The humans, perhaps twenty strong, were dragging and carrying screaming dwarfs towards the waves.
Stryke's band and the kidnappers all but collided. Startled by the sudden appearance of a group of creatures they were unlikely to have encountered before, the humans let go of their captives to defend themselves. The freed
dwarfs, most of them young, began fleeing back into the jungle.
The warband tore into the boatmen, savagely hacking them down. Pepperdyne, taking a great swipe with his blade, parted one of them from his head. Haskeer, employing both hatchet and knife, hurtled into a duo simultaneously, stabbing one and braining the other. Dallog plunged his spear into a foe with such force it lifted the man off his feet. Even Wheam gave a good account of himself, in Wheam terms. He managed no fatalities, but attacked with gusto and inflicted mean wounds on a couple of opponents.
They worked as fast as they could to get through the obstruction and reach the greater number of humans beyond, where more struggling dwarfs were being hurled into the humans' bobbing craft.
As the last man in their path was downed and dispatched, several of the grunts started raising a clamour. Stryke and the others looked to where they were frantically pointing.
Out in deep water, Spurral was grappling with three men. As the band watched, they pummelled her senseless and flung her into a boat, then hauled themselves aboard.
" Shit! " Jup cried. He began running.
The band took off in his wake, arms pumping, heads down.
A burly human tried blocking Jup's way. He cracked the man's skull open with his staff while barely breaking step. He ran on, splashing into the water.
"Spurral!" he shouted. "Spurral!"
The boat she was in had begun moving away, four men pulling mightily on the oars.
Jup was wading now, finding the going harder the farther he got. Breakers battered him and he almost lost his footing.
The others were close behind. By the time they caught up with him he was more than chest high and battling impotently against the water's sluggish impediment.
They saw Spurral's boat, along with dozens of others bearing snatched dwarfs, rapidly departing.
All they could do was watch helplessly as it headed for the ship waiting on the horizon.
15
Jup was frantic, and seethed with a cold fury, but knew that keeping his head was the best hope of finding Spurral.
Stryke did the logical thing and ordered the band to find a boat. They scoured the shore and came up with nothing except small canoes, totally unsuited for venturing out to sea. He considered building a boat, or possibly a raft. But with time at a premium, and his doubts about whether they could construct something truly seaworthy for who knew how long a voyage, that looked impractical.
Boat or no, their biggest problem was finding out where Spurral might have been taken. Jup's farsight was useless because a vast body of water like the ocean, he explained, gave off an energy of its own that swamped the pinpricks generated by living beings riding it. So they needed the dwarfs' help. Which proved harder than they had first thought, simply because the natives seemed to have disappeared. Some had obviously been taken by the raiders. They could only guess that the rest had gone into hiding, probably in the depths of the jungle, or perhaps in the labyrinth of tunnels that riddled the dead volcano.
Stryke decided to concentrate their efforts on finding them. Surveying the terrain from the highest point they could easily get to, which turned out to be the outcropping where the catapults stood, he hastily scrawled a crude map of the island. This he divided into more or less equal segments. Then he split the band into eight groups of four or five members each and allotted each group a segment to search.
His own group included Jup, Coilla and Reafdaw, who was one of the Wolverines' more experienced scouts. Stryke made a point of having Haskeer lead one of the groups assigned to the farthest tip of the island. He wanted to keep him and Jup apart for now, given their tendency to aggravate each other. That was a complication they could do without.
Stryke's team had an area of jungle to search. It wasn't one of the densest parts, and they were able to pace out most of it, looking for any sign that might betray the dwarfs.
Those humans had to be slavers," Coilla said as they trudged. "No other reason I can see for taking prisoners alive."
"Oh, great," Jup groaned. "And that's supposed to cheer me, is it?"
"Yes. Slaves have a value. It doesn't serve the slavers to be careless with their wares."
"Assuming they are slavers. Who knows what goes on in this world?"
"I think Coilla's right," Stryke said. "They sought out the young and fit, so it figures. Spurral might not be having too good a time of it, but they don't gain by harming her too much."
"Not too much," the dwarf repeated bitterly. "This isn't lifting me, Stryke."
"I know. But don't we like to try working out the odds before any mission?"
"Yes," he sighed, "I suppose we do."
"Well," Coilla remarked by way of steering the subject elsewhere, "one thing we've found is that this world isn't made up of just dwarfs."
"Worst luck."
"And if there's humans here too," she went on, "there could be other races."
"Like Maras-Dantia?" Stryke said. "The way they got here, I mean."
"Could be. From what we know, Maras-Dantia was like a big sinkhole once, sucking in all those races, including ours. Could have been the same here."
"Why does it have to have been once?" Jup wondered, taking an interest despite his worry. "You mean some time in the past, right?"
She nodded. "Has to have been. All the races were too well rooted. That must take time. Other thing is, no new races were turning up out of nowhere. We never heard of anything like that, did we?"
"Doesn't mean to say it only happened way back in the past and can't happen now. Why did it stop?"
"It'd take better heads than ours to know that."
"Maybe it's happening all the time," Jup persisted. "If not in Maras-Dantia, in other places. Like here."
"Could that have been how that crew who wanted the stars got to Acurial?" Coilla wondered. "By chance? You know, perhaps they fell into — "
"Don't think so," Stryke interrupted, "not from what Pelli Madayar said. I got the sense they weren't the sort to be tossed around like corks."
Reafdaw had been walking ahead, scanning the greenery. Now he stopped and held up a hand. They cut the talk and froze. He used gestures to indicate a point on the jungle floor that to them looked no different to any other. They quietly caught up with him.
He pointed downward. Two things became clear with scrutiny. There was trampled vegetation in a particular spot. And when they grew accustomed to the scene they could make out a patch of ground that had a phony look to it. It was just about possible to see the lines that hinted at something like a trapdoor. They silently positioned themselves around it, weapons drawn. Stryke began issuing orders via signing.
Jup and Reafdaw crouched and inserted their blades into the almost invisible slits. On a signal they levered the trap out of true, and with Stryke's and Coilla's help, lifted and tossed it aside.
A piercing scream came from the pit they exposed.
They looked down. A young female dwarf was cowering below in a hollow not much bigger than herself. She wasn't alone. Three dwarf children, all males, clung to her. Their dirty, upturned faces were terrified.
Jup spoke softly to them in Mutual, assuring them they were safe. The orcs stepped back out of sight while he did it, to save spooking them. At last Jup won their confidence, and got them to accept that the orcs were friendly. They were helped out of their dank pit and given water, which they bolted.
Stryke judged it best to take them to the elder's longhouse. On the way they were silent, and noticeably still fearful. But the orcs, and even Jup, despite his anxiety, held back on questioning them.
Being in the more familiar surroundings of the village, and then the longhouse, seemed to reassure the quartet. If not exactly relaxed, they at least became easier in themselves. They were given food, and more to drink.
The girl's name was Axiaa, or something very much like it, and she was related in some obscure way to the three children. Obscure because, as she haltingly explained, in the closed community of an isl
and, everyone was related.
The boys were called Grunnsa, Heeg and Retlarg, as far as Stryke and the others could nail it. Their names didn't translate to Mutual, and the dwarfs' throaty first language made understanding no easier. Grunnsa was the oldest, at ten or eleven seasons. Heeg and Retlarg were perhaps seven or eight, and brothers. Grunnsa was their cousin, and possibly their uncle too, such were the island's tangled relationships.
It seemed that the brothers' parents had been taken by the humans. Grunnsa's might have been too, or could be in hiding somewhere. It was unclear.
"Who were those raiders, Axiaa?" Stryke asked.
Being addressed by an orc, and the servant of a god to boot, made her a little shy, but she answered, "Gatherers."
"Seen them before?"
"Oh, yes. They come from time to time and take away some of our kin. Never all. They like for there to be more when they return."
"Why do they take you?"
"To trade. Sell. For work on other islands."
"Are there many other islands?"
"Yes. Many."
"The dwarfs have visited them?"
"A few have. The brave ones. But most of us never leave here."
"Why?"
"Outside" — she waved a hand in the direction of the sea — "is death."
"Oh good," Jup said.
"Axiaa," Coilla asked, "do you know where our friend was taken? The she-dwarf we came with?"
"The goddess."
"Er, yes, that's her. Where did she go?"
"Bad place."
"But do you know where? How could we find it?"
The girl didn't seem to grasp that.
"We know!" Retlarg piped up.
Coilla turned to them. "You do?"
"Yes," Heeg confirmed.
"The grown-ups don't know we know," Grunnsa confided. "But we found out."
"How?"
"Show you?" Retlarg asked.
She nodded, puzzled.
The three youngsters leapt to their feet and tore to one side of the spacious room. They fell upon a piece of furniture not unlike an ottoman: a couch that doubled as a storage chest. Throwing aside its coverings, they raised the top. There was a jumble of household possessions inside, which they cheerfully tossed onto the rush-matted floor as they burrowed. At last they retrieved a rolled, yellowing parchment, about the length of an orc's arm, secured with a round of smooth twine. They ran back to Coilla and gave it to her.
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