Secret of Pax Tharkas dh-1

by Douglas Niles

  “I should kill bad dwarf!” Gus repeated for the hundredth time, as he and Gretchan trudged through the darkness across the rugged landscape away from Hillhome. They encountered neither friend nor foe; no one was about at that hour. The dwarf maid maintained a vigorous pace, and the Aghar had to trot along breathlessly in order to keep up.

  “Why you not let me kill him?” he asked forlornly, catching up and tugging on her sleeve.

  Gretchan stopped momentarily. She was still shaken by the confrontation with the Mother Oracle and by the aftermath of Harn’s attack. She shook her head, heaving a sigh. “I confess-if there was ever a time I felt inclined to resort to violence, that was the time. But there’s always too much killing among dwarves. I refuse to be a part of it.” She smiled and patted Gus’s head. “Or to let my protectors be a part of it. Still, thank you. You were very brave, rescuing me.”

  “I rescue you!” the Aghar said proudly. “Next time I kill!” he added, smacking his fist into his palm.

  The dwarf maid patted his head again. “Oh dear, I trust there won’t be a next time. Come on,” she said. “I want to make it to the top of this ridge before it’s full daylight. We don’t want anyone in Hillhome to spot us and know where we are… or where we’re going.”

  “Good deal. Where are we going?” asked Gus as Kondike bounded up a steep cluster of rocks. The big, black dog paused, his short tail wagging, as he looked back at the two dwarves and impatiently waited for the two to catch up.

  “Well now that you mention it, I don’t really know,” Gretchan replied, sitting down on a big rock as she caught her breath. They had been climbing for more than an hour, making their way from the valley to high ground. She decided it was time for a break and pulled out her pipe. Carefully she started to fill the bowl. “Away from here, for sure. There are lots of other towns I have yet to visit,” the dwarf maid noted. “And, too, there’s Pax Tharkas.”

  “What Patharkas?” Gus asked, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. It must have sounded like the name of a dark mage or a dragon, to his ears.

  Before Gretchan could reply, they heard a low growl from Kondike. They looked up to see the dog springing down from the ridge top toward them. The dog crouched in the rocks nearby. His hackles bristled as he stared and growled into the dawn light to the east.

  “Get down,” Gretchan whispered, quickly tucking her unlit pipe away. Gus immediately hunkered down beside her. Heart pounding, the gully dwarf stared across the rocky ground, wondering what terrible danger would befall them next.

  They saw a file of dwarves walking along, just below the crest of the ridge, heading directly toward their hiding place. Each of the dwarves wore a metal breastplate and a helmet. They were armed with an assortment of weapons, including axes, hammers, swords, and spears, and they marched along in a narrow formation. Beards bristling, they looked this way and that with wide, intensely staring eyes.

  Gus huddled in the shadows between the rocks as the dwarves marched past, barely a stone’s throw away from them. “Klar!” he whispered in Gretchan’s ear, obviously recognizing them.

  She nodded, touching a finger to his lips and silencing him.

  The company finally passed them by and continued on down the slope. By the time the sun was up, they had disappeared into a small grove of trees at the bottom of the valley.

  “I fear you are right. They are Klar, and they’re on their way to attack Hillhome,” Gretchan said with a heavy heart.

  “Why sad? Hillhome bad place!” Gus declared.

  “No, it isn’t so bad, really,” she said. “Even if there’s a bad dwarf here and there, or more than a few for that matter, there are many more that live normal lives and try to stay out of trouble. Anyway it just means more killing-dwarves killing dwarves.”

  “Where from those killer Klar?” asked Gus, growing more brave once the heavily armed band had disappeared from sight. “Thorbardin?”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t see how they can be from under the mountain. Unless things have changed, the gates of Thorbardin are still sealed,” Gretchan explained. “That’s what really bothers me. I think they must have come from Pax Tharkas.”

  “Patharkas!” echoed Gus worriedly.

  Gretchan sighed heavily, putting her head in her hands. She pushed herself to her feet, her face dry, her expression stony.

  “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get going.”

  The hill dwarves wasted no time. As soon as Poleaxe pronounced Brandon’s death sentence, a number of burly Neidar grabbed hold of the Kayolin dwarf and carried him over to a square-framed rack. The prisoner struggled but was easily overpowered by the half dozen captors competing for who would punch and drag him. His arms were hoisted so that cuffs could be snapped around his wrists. Next, his legs were pulled apart, each ankle secured by a manacle, until he was helplessly spread-eagled in the middle of the stout, wooden frame. His captors, on a grunted count of one, two, three, hoisted the rack to a vertical position, so the condemned dwarf had a good view of the entire crowd.

  No sooner were the braces snapped shut on his limbs than other hill dwarves rushed forward with tinder-bits of twigs and some dry straw-that they hastily spread on the ground around him. More wood was passed forward, stout logs that would burn long and hot. Brandon tugged desperately at his manacles and tried to kick his legs free, but he was firmly trapped. Struggling to speak despite the gag that still choked him, he vowed not to let the barbarous hill dwarves witness his fear. He wished he would die swiftly.

  So engrossed was he in his own miserable drama that he didn’t immediately notice the commotion erupting on the other side of the square. The hill dwarves who had been carrying logs toward the rack abruptly dropped their loads and sprinted away from the platform. Neidar began to shout, drawing weapons, surging away from Brandon. Only then did he hear the clash of steel and realize some sort of battle was under way.

  A phalanx of armed and armored dwarves was streaming into the plaza, charging in tight lines down the city’s main street. The hill dwarves, utterly taken by surprise, fell back initially before the disciplined attackers. Brandon cheered mutely as he saw the bully Rune go down, felled by an attacker’s hammer blow to the head. The newcomers were wild eyed, Brandon noted, with long beards tucked into their belts. They wore black armor and carried shields of the same color and were armed with a mixture of axes and swords-and a few crossbows too, Brandon saw, as a rank of archers raised their weapons and fired a volley of bolts into the hill dwarves still gathered around the central platform.

  “Rally to me, Neidar!” Harn Poleaxe cried, leaping down into their midst. He waved a mighty sword over his head, his roaring voice cutting through the chaos. Hill dwarves cheered, and those who had weapons readied them, coalescing around the big warrior.

  “Charge!” Poleaxe cried, and immediately the hill dwarves followed his lead as he rushed toward the armored dwarves who had swarmed into town.

  The two forces came together in the middle of the square, blades clanging against breastplates, boots pounding on the pavement. Shouts invoking the name of Reorx rose from throats on both sides. Screaming maids and children fled, while more hill dwarves, some strapping on helmets or breastplates, rushed toward the fight from the surrounding streets.

  The attackers maintained their steady advance with impressive discipline, Brandon noted. Shoulder to shoulder, they formed a wedge and used their heavy shields to push the defenders back, sometimes sweeping them right off their feet. They came on with full-throated, almost joyous battle cries, staring with crazed, bulging eyes, swinging their weapons with brutal fury. Brandon recognized the newcomers as members of the clan Klar, but they were more disciplined, more organized, than any Klar he knew of.

  The fallen were trampled as the attacking dwarves gradually steamrolled their way across the square. Their shields edge to edge formed a wall of steel that allowed only slight gaps wide enough for a sword or axe to come stabbing out from the phalanx. Many Neidar fell, wounded or kille
d, and the rest were slowly forced back. Soon the attacking force reached the raised platform, and the last fighting swirled around the dais, hill dwarves standing their ground around Poleaxe’s great chair. Swords and axes bashed against armor, and the cries of the wounded and dying mingled with shouted commands and hoarse battle cries.

  On that chair, Brandon remembered with a jolt of excitement-and trepidation-lay the Bluestone and its emerald twin. Desperately he resumed his struggle to move, but the chains fastened to the manacles only allowed him to thrash impotently. Who were those attackers, he wondered? Fellow mountain dwarves, of course. But where did they come from, and why?

  He could do nothing to free himself. The battle surrounded the immobilized prisoner, who was ignored by combatants on both sides. A pair of hill dwarves, wielding short swords, fell back until they were planted right in front of him, staunchly contesting a trio of attackers who bashed their sword blades with heavy axes. One Neidar made a lunge, momentarily forcing the trio to retreat, but when the other Neidar tried to slip past Brandon, the captive was able to stretch out his foot a little and trip the hill dwarf into the pile of tinder under the rack.

  An attacking dwarf brought his axe down hard, and the fallen Neidar’s head rolled from his shoulders. That Klar suddenly noticed Brandon and pulled off his gag.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  “An enemy of your enemy!” gasped Brandon. “How about a chop against these brackets?”

  With a wicked grin, the mountain dwarf brought his bloody axe blade down, splitting the beam holding his ankle bracelets. Another sideways whack broke the side support, and the square rack tumbled apart, falling to the ground and taking Brandon with it.

  “All right. But now you’re on your own, pal,” cried his rescuer, joining his companions as the attack moved on, spreading across the plaza.

  Despite being burdened with armor and shields, the Klar moved swiftly. The Neidar had fallen back but were once again rallying around Harn Poleaxe. However, they were scattered by the Klar’s charge, and even their hulking commander stumbled back-though not before Poleaxe felled a pair of Klar with crushing, well-aimed blows.

  Meanwhile Brandon was kicking his feet, sliding the loop of chain free from the splintered board. Twisting and pulling with his muscular arms, he broke the rest of the frame apart. He was still secured by four manacles, each with a thick chain attached, but no longer were those cuffs anchored by heavy wood. He jumped free of the pile of debris and firewood, albeit hung with chains and attached brackets and manacles on his wrists and ankles.

  He couldn’t get very far that way, he realized. He needed the key.

  Rune! He remembered that his old tormentor had locked him into those brackets, and perhaps the hill dwarf still possessed the key. Stumbling forward, dragging his chains, Brandon lunged across the square toward where his foe had fallen. Rune was still there, bleeding from the hard blow to his head but struggling to rise, pushing himself to his hands and knees.

  Brandon fell on him with the full pent-up fury of his betrayal. He swung his arm, heavily smacking the hill dwarf on the side of the head with a wildly lashing length of heavy chain. When Rune went down again, Brandon climbed on top of him, reaching under his tunic for the key he wore on the thong around his neck. The Neidar barely twitched, groaning and resisting only feebly as Brandon pulled the key out.

  Twisting around and sitting on the immobilized Rune, Brandon quickly worked the bit of metal into the locks on his right and left wrists, freeing his hands. Next came the locks on his ankles, and finally he was able to shed all of his trappings and stand on his feet, once again a free dwarf. Maybe, finally, his luck was changing for the better! Almost as an afterthought, he reached down and smacked Rune one more time. Then he snatched Rune’s sword off the ground, looking to take his place in the fight.

  But he quickly saw that, while he had been busily freeing himself, the tide had turned. More and more hill dwarves, some fully equipped with battle gear, had continued to pour into the square, and the reinforcements outnumbered the attackers by at least two to one. The mountain dwarves were gradually falling back, following with discipline the lead of their commander, whom Brandon spotted in the thick of the action shouting out orders-a handsome, blond male with exotic eyes and long, free-flowing hair.

  Brandon groaned as the blond Klar, passing the platform where he had just undergone his “trial,” stopped and stared at something. Eyes widening, the Klar leader snatched up the pouches containing the two stones. He opened one, and his teeth flashed a grin.

  “Fall back!” the Klar captain brayed. “Tight ranks! Retreat!”

  “No!” shouted Brandon, but his voice was drowned out in the melee.

  The Klar had secured the pouch around his waist. The mountain dwarves, forming a tight rank, backed out of the square and down the street from which the attack had burst. The Neidar pursued them, but the Klar force was like a bristling hedgehog, spears and swords pointing out from behind shields, lethal to any pursuer who dared to draw close.

  “They take the stones! Fall on them! Kill them!” Harn Poleaxe cried, cursing frenziedly. Spittle flew from his lips and his face, distorted by rage, seemed to erupt in several more grotesque warts. Brandon could only stare as the Neidar mob, led by his nemesis, raced past him, mere yards away, without taking the slightest notice of one dwarf rooted in place.

  Behind the Neidar fighters, villagers were swiftly moving through the suddenly quiet, abandoned areas, tending to the wounded, pulling cloaks over the faces of the dead. Several Neidar approached Rune, and Brandon stepped quietly away, averting his face. He was not dressed in black armor, so the hill dwarves paid him little attention. He took one longing glance at his axe, where it lay on the table beside Harn’s throne, but there were at least a dozen hill dwarves up there. He didn’t dare try to retrieve it at that moment.

  So he watched the diminishing battle as it moved away from him and realized with a surge of emotion that he was alive, no worse for the wear; he had been unusually lucky, even if the Bluestone was once again gone from his hands. He thrust his captured sword through his belt, trotted down a side street, and made his way down a lane up and away from town.

  From there, he would follow the progress of the retreating mountain dwarves and, Reorx willing, recover his family stone.

  TWENTY

  Captains Of dwarves

  H arn Poleaxe led his hill dwarves in another frantic charge, but again and again the Neidar hurled themselves against a solid shield wall of Klar. Poleaxe himself cut down his share of the enemy dwarves, stabbing one laggard then splintering another Klar’s shield, helmet, and skull with a single downward smash of his great sword. Unfortunately, that last blow also snapped off the blade of his weapon, and the huge Neidar finally had to drop back.

  Gasping for breath, he felt as demoralized as his town mates. They had pursued the Klar for more than a mile out of town, at first along the road, then into the narrow side valley. Here and there the mountain dwarves had paused to form up a rearguard. The enemy captain was, cleverly, leading the retreating company through a narrow niche in a rocky ridge. The mountain dwarves were able to bar the entrance to the pass with just ten or a dozen of their number while the rest of the column made good their escape.

  The number of pursuing Neidar had swelled to more than five hundred, but they were defeated finally by the narrow confines. At least two dozen of Poleaxe’s followers had fallen, and the shoulder-to-shoulder press of mountain dwarves holding the gap showed no signs of weakening. Whenever they found an opportunity, the manic Klar even lunged forward, cutting down a couple of hill dwarves who were too slow to jump out of the way.

  The panting, exhausted Neidar were nearing the end of their endurance. Several burly warriors looked at Poleaxe nervously, fingering their weapons and eyeing the impermeable barrier of Klar shields. The dwarves of Hillhome, though they had successfully driven the enemy from their town, were not as well equipped, nor mentally prepared, for a p
itched battle on such a steep and rocky slope.

  Rage seethed through Poleaxe’s veins, muscles, flesh, but he understood that rage alone would not carry the day.

  “Fall back,” Harn ordered, his voice tight through clenched jaws. “We’ll take the war to them soon enough.”

  Slowly the Neidar backed away from the line of Klar, ignoring the taunts-“Run away, old women! Go back to your nursemaids’ teats!”-hurled by the victorious raiders. Most infuriating of all, to Harn, was the knowledge that the mountain dwarves had borne away not just the Bluestone, but the Greenstone as well, from the town.

  He blamed himself for forgetting all about the precious artifacts when the fight started. The stupid Klar probably didn’t even know what they had in their possession. The Mother Oracle would be very angry. And Harn was suffering from an almost unbearable thirst. His parched throat seemed barely to allow the passage of breath, and his tongue felt swollen in his mouth.

  For their aggression, the Klar would be repaid with death and destruction, Poleaxe vowed silently. And he would-he must-regain the Bluestone and Greenstone.

  But that vengeance would have to wait.

  He led the dejected Neidar down off the ridge, with the Klar watching them warily until they started on the road back into town. Their taunts against the retreating hill dwarves echoed down from the surrounding ridges as, finally, the rearguard of mountain dwarves broke their shield wall and followed their companions through the rocky niche, disappearing from view as they started on their way back to Pax Tharkas.

  The mood was bitter as the warriors trudged back into the main square of Hillhome with humiliated expressions. Harn went immediately into Moldoon’s and snatched a large jug of dwarf spirits, quaffing a long swallow as he stalked back out into the street. The liquor seared his tongue but seemed, at least a little, to quench his paralyzing thirst.

  Bodies of the slain, discreetly covered with blankets or cloaks, lined one side of the plaza. More than a dozen Neidar had died there, and several times that many had fallen during the failed pursuit. Nobody, not even Poleaxe, felt triumphant that they had driven the attackers away. All of the survivors were painfully chagrined by the knowledge they had been taken by surprise and nearly overcome.