Men, she thought as she followed the guard’s direction toward the stream.
She found Garn Bloodfist wrapped in his cloak, glaring at the dark waters of the stream as it flowed past. At first she thought he was with someone-she heard him muttering angrily about “Revenge!”-but a glance around suggested no one else was present.
“Hello,” she said unceremoniously, stepping to his side. “So you are the famous Garn Bloodfist. I need to talk to you.”
“Who in Reorx’s name are you?” he demanded, standing up and looking her over slowly and suspiciously. His eyes bulged from his bearded face and fixed upon her with a staring intensity she found strangely irritating.
Charm is wasted on this one, she realized. In a sense, that was a relief; it allowed her to cut right to the point.
“I saw your men at work today,” she declared. “Quite a bit of butchery. I suppose you’re very proud.”
“And why shouldn’t I be?” snapped Garn, his eyes darting this way and that. “We won the day!”
“That’s as foolish a statement as I’ve heard in a long time. Win a day, and lose a year? Or a century? Is that what you’re after?” she charged. Her voice grew stronger and more shrill. “You attacked a peaceful hill dwarf village! I suppose next you want to refight the Dwarfgate War? Maybe conjure up Fistandantilus to make another Skullcap!”
He gaped at her. “I repeat, who in Reorx’s name are you?” he said, sounding a little less sure of himself.
“I am a highly respected historian,” she said, shaking a finger in his face. “And I asked you a question. Why are you opening up old wounds and refighting the Dwarfgate War?”
Garn glared at the uppity female he had never seen before. “If you paid more attention to that history you claim to find so interesting, you’d notice that the Dwarfgate War has never ended. If we don’t kill them, they’ll end up killing us!”
She shook her head. “How can you be such an idiot? How can there be any hope for our people when fools like you will take any excuse to make war?”
“I am a warrior!” snarled the Klar, his hands twitching. He wasn’t wearing a weapon, but he raised a fist, flexing it toward Gretchan’s face.
She didn’t back down; in fact, she shouted at him. “It was a tragic, foolish waste of lives-your own as well as the Neidar! You’ve inflamed the hill dwarves now. They’ll be coming for vengeance soon enough.”
“A waste?” Garn shot back, gloating. “If you’re really such an important historian, then tell me if this looks like a waste.” He pulled out a pouch and held it open so she could see, glinting in the pale light of the stars, two large wedges of colored stones. “Look!” he declared. “Unless I miss my guess, these are valuable dwarven artifacts that rightfully belong to the exiles of Thorbardin. It’s a treasure like I’ve never seen!”
She stepped closer, eyes widening, inspecting the unusual colored stone. “Where do you think you’re taking them? To Pax Tharkas?” she asked.
He glowered then thrust his bristling beard forward as if in challenge. “What if I am?” he demanded. “These stones are the spoils of our mission, and unless I miss my guess, they’ll make Tarn Bellowgranite and even Otaxx Shortbeard sit up and take notice!”
She felt suddenly dizzy and sat down hard on a nearby rock. “What did you say?” she asked, her voice falling to a whisper.
“You heard me,” Garn retorted. He scowled. “Say, what’s the matter with you all of a sudden?” He looked around suspiciously. “Where did you come from, anyway?”
“I’ve been traveling… for a long time,” she said in a small, disoriented voice. “I’m not sure I even remember where I come from anymore.”
For the first time, Garn looked hard at the stranger. “Well, you can stay with us if you want to be safe. And we’ll take you to the fortress with us,” he offered a little too eagerly.
“No. I’m traveling with another party,” she said curtly.
He blinked and his eyes narrowed. “What are you anyway?” he demanded. “Some kind of witch? Showing up here in the middle of the night, ten miles from Hillhome. Or is that your home?” he challenged menacingly. He took a step closer to her.
“Don’t touch me!” she snapped. She stood, facing him down. When he reached toward her, she spoke a single word: “Stop!”
The word exploded through the night like a crack of thunder. “You are a witch!” Garn said angrily, struggling to push his hand forward against the unseen force that was blocking him. “Klar!” he shouted. “Take her!”
At least he tried to shout, and his mouth worked up and down. But no sound came forth. Stunned, his eyes bulging, he stared at the mysterious dwarf maid, who glared at him with an expression that was not so much angry as distraught.
“I don’t care where you’re going,” she said with a shrug, turning to watch the moonlight reflecting in the waters of the stream. The gemstones intrigued her. But narrow-minded dwarves such as Garn Bloodfist-Bloodthirst would be more appropriate-discouraged and depressed her.
Leaving him still struggling against the force of her command, she turned and walked into the night.
TWENTY-ONE
Same New Problem
Brandon neared the mountain dwarf camp just as dawn began to color the sky. The raiding party slumbered in a small field beside a winding stream, with a fringe of pine forest screening them. He had watched the camp through the night, and he moved carefully through the dim light, making sure not to crack dried branches under his feet or to rustle against the underbrush. He reasoned that, if he were able to walk straight up to the Klar captain and demonstrate he had entered the camp without meaning any harm, his chances of a moderately friendly reception would be significantly improved.
His plans were shattered by the appearance of four-no, six-armed Klar, who leaped out of the brush to surround him before he even reached the camp’s perimeter.
“Hey,” he objected, raising his hands in the middle of a ring of spears. One of the mountain dwarves plucked his sword from his belt while the others prodded him toward the center of the camp. “I just want to talk. I’m not an enemy!” he protested.
His protestations were to no avail. A half hour later, Brandon found himself a bound prisoner again, his wrists lashed together behind him, a sturdy chain shackled around his neck. The Klar were busy breaking camp and preparing to move out.
“What’s the meaning of this?” he demanded of the captain. “I tell you, I just want to talk!”
“Ha!” said the dwarf who commanded the company. His eyes bulged as he thrust his face so close to Brandon that he could smell the Klar’s rancid breath. He laughed, a gleeful, high-pitched sound that did not sound entirely rational.
“You’re a hill dwarf spy, or I’m a gully dwarf,” the captain hooted. “And you’d like nothing better than to follow us into Pax Tharkas!”
“You’re wrong!” Brandon cried, appalled at the abrupt evaporation of his luck-again. “I’m a mountain dwarf!”
But the Klar captain, still chuckling, was already ordering his amused warriors onto the road.
And Brandon Bluestone, his neck chain tethered to two burly Klar axemen, was once again tugged toward a captor’s lair.
Harn Poleaxe sat in the darkness of his house, seething over the events of the day. Even the executions of the two prisoners, bloody and gratifying as that had been, could not erase the sting of defeat, frustration, humiliation. The Kayolin dwarf had escaped, vanishing into the wilds of Kharolis, and Poleaxe’s hard-won treasure, the Bluestone that was going to vault him to greatness, had been stolen by the treacherous mountain dwarves.
Nursing another jug of dwarf spirits-his first one had not lasted until sunset-he scratched at the newest sore that had open up on his face. His fingernails came away red with blood. He put the neck of the bottle to his lips and leaned back, gurgling for a long time. The day had started with such fine portents and had degenerated into a disaster.
He deserved so much better!
His troubles started, he reflected, the previous night, when the seductive dwarf maid had eluded him and her companions had accosted him. That was followed by the trial that went awry, the botched battle with the Klar, and Brandon’s scot-free escape.
Yet, he told himself, he was empowered, mighty and commanding and capable in ways that he could have only dreamt about before. And it was all the result of a potion.
He took another drink of dwarf spirits, and the powerful alcohol only seemed to enhance his abilities. Beyond that drink, he felt the potion’s power coursing through his body, embellished by the spirits but not intoxicated. The enchanted liquid had changed and strengthened him, and once he had mastered his new powers, he would track down the mountain dwarves and the wench who had spurned him and all of them would pay. He would crush those opponents and any others who stood in his path. He would triumph, and in the end he would be Lord Poleaxe, master of all the hills!
He had been foolish to think of Brandon Bluestone as a naive blunderer; clearly the Hylar from Kayolin was dangerous in ways Harn hadn’t understood.
Brandon had eluded him once. Next time he would die.
And Gretchan Pax would suffer.
His gorge rose as he recalled how she had spurned him, lied to him. How dared she! His lust surged as he recalled her beauty, her pride, her sparkling eyes and swelling breasts. Before he was done, she would enjoy submitting to him, by Reorx. In the end, it would be she who desired him, and only then would he spurn her. Oh, and she’d have to die as well.
The room was very dark, and he barely noticed the shape taking form in front of him. Only when the shape’s two orbs, glowing like embers in the Abyss, opened did he feel the deep power, the mesmerizing presence of his visitor. He noted the great bat wings, smelled the fetid breath emerging from that fanged maw. The creature filled up all the space, darkening it like a great shadow, like a new and more intense form of night. The shape rose above him and stretched around him, a display of chilling power.
Harn Poleaxe dropped to his knees, gaping in a mixture of terror, awe, and reverence. “You! You will show me the way!” he gasped, certain beyond any doubt that the monster was his new ally, sent by the gods. The jug fell from his suddenly nerveless fingers, tumbling onto its side, but it was already so empty that none of the dregs spilled out.
The creature snorted, and again that foul breath washed over the hill dwarf. But it was like a perfume to him, anointing and blessing him, crowning his greatness. Harn Poleaxe shivered in delight and, pressing his face to the floor, waited for the monster to speak.
“Harn Poleaxe, you are a servant of the Black One,” declared the creature. “It is his elixir that has empowered you and his will that you must obey.”
“Speak!” Poleaxe begged. “Only tell me what to do, and I will do it. Tell me how I may strike at Pax Tharkas.”
The creature hissed, a rasping sound that might have been taken for laughter. “You already know our master’s will, I see. He will be pleased.”
“I know his will, and I know mine! I am fated to wipe out the mountain dwarves in the fortress! I know what I must do. I must raise an army of Neidar, and we must attack the walls. But the gates, oh my lord! How can we take the gates?”
The thing made that noise again, and Harn was certain that it was a sound of amused pleasure. The red eyes glowed, and the maw gaped open again.
“Leave the gates to me,” it said.
Brandon stared upward at the massive towers and wall blocking passage up the valley. He had seen Pax Tharkas portrayed in drawings and sketches, but the reality of the monument took his breath away. It was as if a part of the mountain range itself blocked their path-a massive slab with a flat, carved face, flanked by summits of utterly symmetrical, perfectly solid peaks. For a moment he forgot that he stood in chains, an abject prisoner of his fellow mountain dwarves. The legacy of that place, its all-encompassing majesty, seemed to banish all trivial emotions into the far corners of his brain.
For two weeks his Bluestone luck had held true. He had been treated miserably. His lowly status as a prisoner had been pounded home every day he had been marching with Garn Bloodfist’s Klar.
For several days he had tried to convince the wild-eyed warrior that he was, in fact, a mountain dwarf of clan Hylar. Every time he made the claim, however, the Klar had grown more agitated, more paranoid. The Klar loudly accused Brandon of spying; he was convinced the Kayolin dwarf was a Neidar from Hillhome. He was fed stingily, poked and kicked, and threatened with execution if he didn’t shut up.
At least Brandon caught a glimpse of the Bluestone and its companion Greenstone now and then when Garn took the colored stones out and studied them lovingly. Captain Bloodfist was proud of his prizes. His eyes seemed to shine in their glow, and he giggled and chortled as he carried them around the camp, endlessly enjoying their heft and beauty. It was clear, at least, that he treasured his treasures.
Other glimpses were less encouraging, however, as on the nights-about every forth evening-when Garn stalked, alone, into the darkness beyond the perimeter of his camp. He would shout and rail against the sky, the stars. Most of his words were garbled, and sometimes he would sob in abject grief or howl in a seeming frenzy of rage. On those nights, even his bravest warriors gave him a wide berth. When the captain returned to camp, exhausted from his ranting, he invariably slept through the following dawn, and the company was several hours late getting onto the trail.
But finally, they had reached their destination. The Klar had spent some time that morning, before they broke camp, in polishing their black armor and shields and cleaning some of the dust and grime from their hair, beards, and boots. They entered Pax Tharkas in a proud column of fours, each dwarf with his shield slung across his back, feet pounding the pavement in regular cadence, up the broad ramp leading to the massive wall.
The great gate in the center of the main wall was wide open. Brandon, in the middle of the column, was chained to a pair of burly warriors, the links fastened to the collar around his neck. Even so, he could swivel his head in awe, taking in the massive structure.
Even the atrium of Kayolin, which was essentially bottomless, was not as far across as the breadth of the massive hall. The whole place seemed to be hollowed out, at least on the ground level. There was a pile of rocks and boulders roughly jumbled in the center, but neither wall nor any other kind of partition divided the enormous space. Very high overhead he could discern a series of catwalks crossing back and forth and side to side through the upper reaches of the wall. The ceiling itself seemed to be lost in shadows, but he was certain that it was well over a hundred feet above his head.
“Bring the prisoner with me,” ordered the captain. “We’ll go see the thane.”
A trio of Klar warriors fell in behind Brandon, whose wrists were bound behind him. At least one hundred other mountain dwarves were in view. Most were working, hauling, levering, and carrying large rocks to a series of lift cages at one side of the great hollow hall.
As they approached, one of those lifts was filled with rocks, and a dwarf rang a bell. Brandon watched as the container, which was little more than a sturdy wooden box attached to a block and tackle, creakingly rose into the darkness far overhead.
“Hold that work, there,” Garn barked as several laborers approached an empty lift with the beginnings of the next load. The captain, the prisoner, and the three guards crammed into the box, and Garn signaled to the bellman. Once more the gong sounded, and that crate, like the other, began to rise into the heights overhead.
The lift climbed smoothly and swiftly with no yawing or pitching movements even as the floor fell away. Brandon estimated they were hoisted more than a hundred feet into the air before the cage slid snugly into a notched landing. There they found a dozen dwarves, some with shovels and picks, others cranking away on the block and tackle winch.
“Welcome back, Bloodfist,” called one burly foreman. “At least you don’t weigh as much as a box of rocks.”
; “Where’s Tarn Bellowgranite?” asked the captain, ignoring the pleasantry.
A harsh voice answered him from out of the darkness. “Damn it, Bloodfist! Are you crippled? You know there’s stairs you could climb-why did you waste the time of the load men?”
“I have a hill dwarf prisoner, my thane, and important treasure,” Garn Bloodfist called as sternly as his leader had spoken. “I didn’t want to waste any time in bringing you the news.”
The captain turned and fixed Brandon with his piercing, intense eyes. “You will now meet the thane of Pax Tharkas. Mind your tongue, or I will have it cut out of your head.”
Tarn Bellowgranite stepped into view, making his way along a dark, narrow wooden catwalk to the lift landing. The dwarf looked old and tired, except for the undying spark of anger in his eyes. His head was bald on top, surrounded by a fringe of gray hair, and his shoulders slumped, his back bent, as he clumped along. To Brandon, he looked like a dwarf who had been carrying a great weight-greater than any box of stones-for a long, long time. The thane was accompanied by another elderly dwarf, a sturdy-framed fellow with white hair and a beard who, though his belly bulged perhaps more than he would have liked, still bore himself like a lifelong warrior.
“Greetings, my thane,” said Captain Bloodfist, bowing low. His men did the same and, after a moment’s hesitation and an elbow in his sides, so did Brandon. The Klar straightened and spoke again, addressing Tarn’s companion. “Greetings too, General Shortbeard,” he said. “I am glad that you, also, are here to receive my report.”
“Well?” demanded the thane, looking Brandon up and down. “What manner of hill dwarf is this? Rather an unusually big fellow, to be sure.”
“I keep telling this dummy, I’m not a hill dwarf!” the prisoner retorted, meeting Tarn’s angry eyes with his own steady glare. “And I would expect better treatment from my own kinfolk in the mountain clans!”
“Shut up, you,” declared one of the guards, delivering a ringing blow to the back of Brandon’s head with the hilt of his sword.
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