by Doug Niles
This was Ankhar, the duke understood. Ankhar who had beaten him, humiliated him, destroying his prized army on the field of battle.
Thelgaard’s crossbowmen made a last stand at the end of the tents, firing volley after volley into the horde, driving back the foe for a few precious minutes so their comrades could slip past, try to form a last line, a semicircle in the rear of the camp, adjoining the riverbank. The duke roared at the archers to retreat, but before his orders could be heeded the valiant arrow-men were taken in both flanks, goblins chopping and hacking, even biting, as they swarmed from the sides and behind. Of a hundred brave men, barely a score staggered away from the gruesome massacre.
Now the whole horde of the attackers swept against the tenuous line of ultimate defense, and in seconds the position was breached all along its front. Knights fought and died to allow a few of their comrades to escape, until there was no front, no position any more. There was only madness, a welter of bloodletting presided over by frenzied goblins and hobgoblins.
The handful of desperate men who survived had fled to the riverbank, many of them skidding down the steep dirt slope into the muddy shallows. They were pushed into the waters of the Vingaard that had become a churning mass of blood, flesh, and fear. The Duke of Thelgaard lost his sword as he skidded down the bank. He was almost trampled by a fear-maddened horse as the steed lunged past him, knocking him face down in the brown water.
The duke came up gasping, heading for deeper water. Men were casting aside their armor, seizing the manes and tails of fleeing horses, starting to swim. Those who couldn’t swim, couldn’t grasp some form of support, soon drowned.
Sobbing in fury and dismay, Thelgaard wriggled his way out of his heavy breastplate, the crown-emblazoned piece of armor that had been in his family for a dozen generations. It vanished into the muddy waters as the duke swam toward the far bank, strong strokes carrying him away from the deadly shore.
Behind him, the howls of thousands of triumphant goblins sang in his ears, a chorus of humiliation and shame that would echo in his memory, he knew, for every day of the rest of his life.
Despite the down mattress and sturdy bed that was a part of his army’s equipment every time it took to the field, the Duke of Caergoth had spent an extremely restless night. Every time he drifted off to sleep, it seemed as though secret voices were whispering in his ear, warning him of dangers before, behind, to every side. Some of the whispers were lies, he knew—but others were truths!
How to tell them apart?
He awoke in a sweat, breathing hard, staring wildly around the large tent. Despite the four bright lanterns his aides kept burning through the night, it seemed terribly dark, dangerous, with unseen menace hovering in every shadowy alcove. At dawn he had a terribly upset stomach and sent immediately for his breakfast. As it arrived he had learned that two messengers had arrived from the Duke of Solanthus, but he wasn’t ready to meet them, not at first. Instead, he sent even his trusted aides away and paced nervously on the lush carpets that lined the floor of his tent, leaving the two messengers from Solanthus cooling their heels outside in the rain.
Finally, he let one of his aides in and asked about the messages carried from Duke Rathskell. “They appeared most inconveniently, you know,” Duke Walker sniffed, picking at his crepes and fresh oranges. “Now they disrupt my breakfast!”
“Excellency, it does seem to be a matter of some urgency,” said the aide. “Captain Marckus has suggested that we muster immediately, cross the river in support. There is word of a massive goblin flanking maneuver, the horde reportedly far inland of the duke’s army, coming into position to threaten the city of Luinstat.”
Duke Walker had already given initial orders, and his army was gradually coming to life around him—though he would not yet authorize the striking of his grand tent. No, he needed to keep the rain off of himself while he pondered this important decision.
Where to go? Of course, to Marckus it was all so simple: just march right up to the enemy and engage in battle! The duke had to be aware of more subtle concerns—feints and deceptions, concealed intentions, even false information. Indeed, any move to cross the river, now, would inevitably expose his army to a whole host of unknown counter-moves. It seemed best to wait here, patiently awaiting word on further developments.
A half hour later, a thoroughly soaked, bloodied, and chastened Duke of Thelgaard appeared, with report of an attack on his own camp, his army routed, driven through the river. Thousands of gobs and hobs, Thelgaard said. They were too many, too disciplined, led by a canny half-giant who had struck at the knights’ weaknesses.
“See!” declared Caergoth accusingly, addressing the messengers from Solanthus. “This is why I don’t make hasty decisions! No, far better for us to remain here, on our side of the river and wait to see what’s going to happen next!”
“Aye, Excellency,” said the men.
“Now, duke, why don’t you dry yourself off and get that wound looked at by one of my healers. Have some hot tea. Take a good nap. Things will look better tomorrow.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE VINGAARD RANGE
The ridge cresting the Vingaard Mountains rose like an inverted sawblade across the horizon, dramatically marking the end of hundreds of miles of tabletop-flat plain. The four travelers were headed for a certain valley, where, in the middle of the range, a pair of anvil-shaped summits stood like watchtowers.
“Ah, I can smell the pines,” Dram Feldspar said, drawing a luxurious breath through his ample nose. “All these weeks of trekking across the flatland is a foreign thing to a mountain dwarf. When we get into the high valleys, I’m going to take my boots off and soak my feet in an icy stream until they turn blue.”
“Why would you want blue feet?” asked Sulfie. She tried to act cross, but it was obvious even the literal-minded gnome was pleased at the prospect of leaving the plains for forests and high ground.
Dram broke into a trot, with the two gnomes hastening behind. Jaymes’s long strides meant he had no trouble keeping up. Of the four, he was the only one who wasn’t staring in awe at the mountains. Instead, his eyes, squinting and suspicious, swept across the flatlands to the right, the left, and behind them.
They hadn’t seen any other goblins or humans for the past three weeks. The goblin raiders and the human armies apparently remained behind in the area of the Upper Vingaard River and the plains lying directly below the Garnet Mountains. The travelers had avoided small towns and farmsteads and in more than a score of days and several hundred miles had come upon no other travelers.
Nor, in the weeks since their crossing of Mason’s Ford, had they seen any group of trees larger than a small copse of cottonwoods, no elevation more pronounced than the eroded bank of a stream or gully. The rains, thankfully, had finally dwindled, though that meant the landscape became a swath of dusty brown soil, scored by greenery only where the infrequent streams cut sluggishly across the featureless land. Just this morning they had skirted a small verdant grove centered around a pond, on the grounds of an abandoned and collapsing manor house, which they decided not to investigate.
They had a precise destination since leaving Mason’s Ford. Jaymes wanted to get his hands on the supposedly explosive compound invented by the brilliant dead gnome Brillissander Firesplasher. How he knew about this supposed invention, Jaymes refused to say (even Dram didn’t know)—but Jaymes believed it would be very useful and profitable, if such a thing really existed.
Thus far the compound, with its smoky fizzle, had proved to be a major disappointment, and Carbo and Sulfie had conflicting ideas as to the reasons for the fizzle. Both insisted that it had worked in the past, that their brother, Salty Pete, would know how and why. But Salty Pete was lost to the lizardmen in the Brackens, so it was up to them to recreate their father’s formula. The first step was to find the necessary ingredients.
Sulfie had described the essential ingredient, a yellow and chalky stone that emitted a foul stench when heated, wh
ich she called “sulfir.” They needed to find a store of this material; she didn’t know where her father had acquired it. Dram Feldspar thought that he knew such a place, and it was he who had led them westward across the flatland.
“Yep, we’re getting close,” Dram said, studying the twin flat-topped mountains with a critical eye. “When I was here before I heard about this rock. There are dwarves who mine in this area, but the ones we have to keep a lookout for are not so much miners, they’re more like scalawags, outlaws, who will sell anything for a price. They have lots of these yellow rocks just lying around, and as far as I know don’t have any use for ’em.”
Jaymes frowned. “I’m not worried about outlaws, but we’ve come a long way if you’re wrong.”
The female gnome shook her head. “Don’t blame me. I told you we need to get some more of the yellow rock for a new batch of the compound, but I didn’t say anything about walking a thousand miles to get it. And I don’t cotton to outlaws.”
“Hmph!” Dram said sourly. “It wasn’t a step over four hundred miles, and if we need to find a bunch of yellow rock, then here’s a likely place. The only place I know of, anyway. Just follow my lead and we’ll get in and out of here without too much trouble.”
By now the dark layer on the foothills was recognizable as lush pines sprouting in a luxuriant blanket over meadows of green grass. Wildflowers popped through the grass, blue and red and purple and white speckles waving back and forth in a cool breeze. Most delightful, clear water—in the form of a rapidly flowing brook spilling out of the narrow valley—offered welcome refreshment, a wonderful change from the brackish, muddy trickles that had marked every sluggish waterway on the whole, vast plain.
That first night in the mountains they made camp in a narrow grotto next to that stream and shared a dinner of fresh fish around a cheery fire. Not only had firewood been generally lacking on the plains, but even when they found pieces of driftwood they had been unwilling to build an evening campfire, for the light would be visible for miles. Here, steep stone walls to either side and tall trees up and down the valley masked the illumination.
As the dwarf and gnomes made themselves comfortable in mossy bowers, even Jaymes allowed himself to relax. The soft grass soothed his muscles as he lay back. The sky was bright with stars, and when he slept he wasn’t troubled by dreams.
The morning dawned clear and dry. They rose quickly and started up the mountain valley, following a twisting, steeply climbing road that looked impassable to anything like a cart or wagon, and would have provided a challenge to a sure-footed mule. Dram led the way and Jaymes brought up the rear. The two gnomes were more cheerful and talkative than ever:
“This place reminds me of Dungarden,” Sulfie explained. “It was like this in the Garnet Range—cool, and smelling like pines. I like the sound of the water splashing over the rocks. It would be a good place to live.”
“Just be alert,” Dram said, his eyes scanning the rising bluffs to either side of them. “There are those who already live here. It remains to be seen if they’ll be glad to see us.” He fixed Jaymes with a stare. “Are you ready to do this?”
The warrior merely nodded and continued on. Dram’s hand rested on the head of his axe, but—at Jaymes’s insistence—he kept the weapon tucked into his belt, instead of ready in his hand.
As the small party made its way through a narrow bottleneck between two huge boulders rising to either side of the trail, Dram came to an abrupt halt. Sulfie bumped right into him, the dwarf cursing at the impact. His hand clenched around his axe but then, with an almost visible effort, he let his arms drop to the sides.
“We’ve met the locals,” he reported.
They found themselves confronted by a half dozen dwarves, similar in size and whiskers to Dram but wearing soft deerskin trousers and shirts instead of the dark woolens and chain shirt favored by the Kaolyn dwarf. Five of them carried crossbows, and these held their weapons leveled at the four travelers, while the sixth stood belligerently, fists planted firmly on his hips.
Small pebbles clattered down from above. Jaymes looked upward, quickly spotting another dozen or so dwarves coming into view atop the large boulders to either side of the trail. A quick glance behind showed that yet another group of the valley’s guardians had slipped into position to block their retreat. All told, a good twenty or more arrows were aimed at the four of them.
“We come in peace,” Dram said, holding both hands, empty, up before him. “No need for any shooting … Hiya Swig,” he added, his tone of attempted familiarity somewhat inhibited by his clenched teeth and the fixed grimace of his expression.
“Dram Feldspar,” said the dwarf called Swig, the one with his hands planted on his hips. He was grinning now, with an expression that mingled amusement with cruelty. “I never thought you’d have the guts to show yourself in these hills again. I wonder—what’s to keep me from putting an arrow through your heart, right now?”
“Now, that would be a bit of an overreaction, Swig,” Dram argued. “At least let us tell you why we’ve come.”
“And delay the pleasure of watching your blood running onto the ground?”
“That would end up costing you a lot of money,” Jaymes interjected, stepping forward.
Swig stared appraisingly at the warrior, who returned his wary look with a cool, neutral expression. The two gnomes looked around nervously, sidled close together, and held each others’ hand. After giving a good, long impression of a person wrestling with a really difficult decision, Swig finally nodded and made a gesture. The rest of the dwarves in his party raised their weapons so that the arrows were no longer sighted directly on the travelers.
“Money, eh? Ah, you speak to my heart, stranger,” the dwarf said to Jaymes. “Very well—you four will come with me. We’ll share a mug around my hearth. You’ll have ten, maybe fifteen minutes to tell me why I shouldn’t have you killed and your bodies dumped in the garden as fertilizer for next year’s hops.”
Swig Frostmead was a hill dwarf chieftain, every bit as proud and vain as his cousins, the mountain dwarves. Here, north of the Newsea, the traditional rivalry of the two dwarven tribes was more removed than in Thorbardin. There, at the time of the Cataclysm, the mountain dwarves had sealed the gates of their underground fortress against their hill-dwelling kin. That perceived betrayal was a three-century-old wound that left a still-bleeding scar.
But dwarves are ever stubborn, and there was clearly no affection wasted between the hill dwarves of the Vingaard Range and the mountain dwarves of Garnet, which included Dram—one of the Feldspar clan from Kaolyn. Jaymes took note of the hostile looks exchanged between Swig and Dram as the four travelers were escorted to Swig’s hall, a stone-walled house in the center of a village high in the valley of the Vingaard Mountains.
This was clearly a prosperous community. The buildings were mostly of stone, though they often had ornamental woodwork on the eaves, around the doors and windows. The narrow streets were clean, paved with cobblestones, and the few oxen they noticed in a streamside pasture were fat and sleek, clearly well fed and cared for. The mountainsides beyond the village were dotted with the dark mouths of mines, and several tall chimneys rose from an area of foundries and smelters just beyond the houses. Still, the air was clean, as the mountain wind carried the smoke up and over the adjacent ridge.
Within the hill dwarf’s hall, they seated themselves on benches before a broad hearth, Jaymes made a point of sitting between Dram and Swig. The chieftain clapped his hands, and several young maids—rosy cheeked, smiling, and pleasantly plump—emerged from the kitchen, holding large mugs in each hand.
“Welcome to Meadstone. So, you tell me you have a way for me to make some money,” Swig declared, after the cold mugs of bitter ale had been served to himself, his score of armed guards, and even—surprisingly enough—the four prisoners. “What’s to stop me from just stealing it off your bleeding corpses?”
“Well, we don’t have any money,” Jaymes replied.
“Not now, not yet. Of course, you could have the satisfaction of killing us today, but nothing at all after that.”
“And if you live, does all this money appear like magic?”
“We came here to make a proposition. Dram here remembers you as a shrewd businessman and an intrepid miner. If we live, I offer to buy something from you—something that you can mine in great quantity, that you currently have very little use for.”
Swig leaned past Jaymes to glare at Dram. “You brought this fool here? After what you did to my daughter?” he demanded.
“Now, er, Swig,” Dram said, holding up his hands again. “You got the wrong impression. I didn’t actually do anything!”
“Liar!” roared the hill dwarf, rising to his feet so quickly the thick ale in his mug almost slopped over the sides. He paused and took a long drink, so that he could gesture with no danger of wastage. “I caught you sneaking out of here with your pants in your hand! Are you claiming she ain’t pretty enough for you?”
“No! She’s lovely—a real treasure! A mountain flower,” Dram protested. “Er, a hillside flower, I mean. But my intentions were honorable. I had split a seam, and she was mending it for me! I know how it looked. Mighty suspicious. But that’s all that happened!”
“Bah—why’d you run away, then?”
“You wouldn’t let me explain it at the time! If you recall, I took an arrow in my hindparts as it was! You were in no mood to listen to reason!”
Swig snorted. Still, he blinked, as if considering Dram’s words. “That’s the same story she gave,” he grunted. “Clever, you mountain dwarf scum—even working out your lies together in advance!”
