Patrina sighed and shook her head. Alto scowled at the barbarian and then turned back to Kar. "How long will this potion last?"
"Nobody asked the troll that, did they?" the wizard grumbled and looked around. "We don’t dare eat even though my belly is playing peek-a-boo with my backbone."
"You’re always hungry," Karthor dismissed his father’s claim.
"It’s my brain!" Kar protested. "All this thinking and all the things I know take a lot of food to keep working in top shape."
Karthor wasn’t the only man to snort at the wizard’s boast.
"Thork wouldn’t give it to us if it was going to kill us," Alto reasoned. "It must run out soon. Let’s go around to the north and get as far as we can. Unless anybody’s tired? We’ve already made up more time than we lost."
"Tired, yes, but still full of energy," Patrina said. "It’s an odd feeling."
Alto nodded. He could feel it too. His body was being worked beyond anything he’d done before, but the magic of the potion gave it energy to keep working. He wondered what would happen when the potion wore off. "Then let’s go."
Without another word, they started off again. Mordrim took the lead, his shorter legs moving so fast they were a blur as he set the pace. They paused once more to fill their skins at a watering hole just off the road, and then Mordrim led them away from the road and into the hills that began to rise up ahead of them. By the time the sun had set and clouds obscured the sky to the south, a cool breeze blew against them. Raindrops began to blow over onto them, followed by lightning striking across the sky and leaving thunder trailing behind.
"It’s going to be too dark to run safely," Mordrim shouted to the others over the increasing noise of the storm.
"How much farther?" Alto asked.
"We’re in the hills already," Mordrim said. "Dwarves patrol them, but the storm has driven them to their homes. Even running full-out, we’d be most of another day to the mountains, two days by horse or wagon."
"Let’s go as far as we can," Alto said.
"We’ve damn near done that!" Mordrim insisted. "That storm’s headed this way before the hot air from the desert turns it back south and east. There’s tornadoes and worse likely to come. Garrick, you should draw your sword and point it to the sky, but run a good thirty or forty feet behind us, all the same."
Garrick reached for his blade and then stopped when he realized the dwarf meant to use him as a lightning rod. He sneered at Mordrim and was about to respond when Alto interrupted him.
"Where would you have us go? I don’t see a place to shelter," the young leader said. He’d heard of tornadoes but they were rare in the northern reaches where he’d grown up.
"Come on," Mordrim turned away and said. "I know a man who might help us."
"Might?" Alto repeated. It was too late; Mordrim had already started to run again. A fresh crack of lightning spurred Alto and the others into action. The rain was falling harder and promised to be a downpour in no time.
They ran on, their feet soon splashing through puddles and slipping on mud until Mordrim could find the right hillside to guide them to before the full fury of the tropical storm struck.
Chapter 27
"You must be chilled to the bone," the dwarven woman clucked over Patrina after she let her and the rest of the companions in. She shut the door behind them and hurried over to a chest on the floor.
"I’m fine, but I thank you," Patrina said, speaking carefully so the dwarf could understand her.
"Aye, a little water’s done us no harm. Even washed the stink off the northlander," Mordrim said. Garrick scowled at the dwarf as he continued. "Is Taroak due back soon?"
Gemma tutted again and fetched a blanket from the trunk. She insisted on wrapping it around the scantily clad princess, ignoring the dwarf until she had no other choice. "He’s checking the tunnels to be sure there’s no leaks. Does it every time and not a one yet. Waste of time."
"It is until the one time he finds one," Mordrim said.
She harrumphed. "That’s what he says."
"Then he’s a smart man."
"Smarter than his brother, at least," Gemma said.
Mordrim sighed. "I always said he got the wits in the family."
Garrick looked back and forth between them and then grinned. "Your brother?" he asked, speaking too quickly for Gemma to understand.
Mordrim nodded.
Garrick chuckled. He slowed his speech and asked, "If he got the wits, what did you get? Not the good looks!"
Gemma’s eyes widened. Mordrim glared at Garrick and opened his mouth, but was spared a retort by the sound of a door opening deeper in the underground home. A moment later, a dwarf humming a tune stepped into a doorway and stopped abruptly. A jagged scar ran down the left side of his face from his brow to his jaw. The wound was broken only by the patch the dwarf wore over his eye.
"Oh," Garrick muttered. Mordrim had gotten the looks, it seemed.
"Mordrim!" Taroak started forward and then stopped and glanced at his wife. She turned away and stepped to some shelves where she could busy herself with some plates.
"Brother, it’s good to see you," Mordrim said.
Gemma cleared her throat and asked, "You’ll all be staying for supper then?"
Mordrim turned to look at Patrina and Alto. She shook her head and grimaced while Alto answered. "I fear not, good woman. Another time, perhaps."
"And who might you be?" Taroak asked, peering up at Alto with his good eye.
Mordrim chuckled, "This here’s Lord Alto, thane of Rockwood and hero of the north!"
"It’s true, then?" Taroak asked after a quick glance at his wife.
"It is. I was there," Mordrim said. "Seen it with my own eyes."
"I heard Rockwood wasn’t going well," Taroak said.
Mordrim shrugged. "Some greedy councilmen can’t see what’s best for all over their own love of gold."
Taroak sighed and glanced at his wife. "It’s a hard thing to give up."
"Why are you here?" Gemma asked. "Or have you come to show off the fancy people you know?"
"Gemma!" Taroak scolded his wife.
"No," Mordrim said. "We are in a hurry. Are the passages still open to Havara?"
Gemma hissed and rushed forward to jab her finger against Mordrim’s breastplate. "You’ve done enough! You’re not to go there, not ever! Get out of my halls. You’re not welcome here!"
"Gemma, that’s enough," Taroak said in a calm but firm voice. He laid a hand on her forearm and lowered her hand away from Mordrim’s chest. "Mordrim knows how things stand between us, but what’s past is past. That was over forty years past now. Least we can do is hear what he’s got to say."
Alto stepped forward so he was at Mordrim’s side. "I don’t know what problems there may be here, but I must ask you to put them aside for now. There are people’s lives at stake here. That, and maybe more."
"That never stopped this fool man in the past!" Gemma muttered.
Mordrim took a deep breath and let it out. "Maybe I shouldn’t have come here, but we got nowhere else to go. We believe there’s a woman and a man—friends and family—held prisoner in them mountains. The Order of the Dragon’s got them and if we don’t get them back, bad things will happen."
"To them, sure," Gemma spat.
"No," Alto shook his head. "The man I got my answers from told me they have plans, plans that are far reaching. The woman is my sister, a peasant girl by birth. Would so much be risked for a simple farmer’s daughter?"
Gemma’s eyes creased with confusion. "I don’t understand."
"A noble from Shazamir courted my sister and married her, then he took her on a retreat so that he could reveal that he was a member of the Order of the Dragon. The same order that butchered our family and hurt her."
"Hurt her? Why not kill her?" Gemma interrupted.
Alto clenched his jaw and forced a neutral tone as he said, "They had their sport with her and would have killed her when they were done, save tha
t I returned in time. I killed them."
Gemma’s eyes widened in understanding. "Well, I’m sorry for your sister. And you, to be fair. But I don’t see how this is any of our responsibility. Last time Mordrim came storming through with one of his schemes, things went poorly."
"Is that how you remember it?" Mordrim asked.
"That’s how it was!" Gemma snapped. She opened her mouth to say more but Patrina stopped her.
"Lady Gemma, Alto brought Caitlyn to my people. I am Lady Patrina, daughter of the Jarl of Holgasford. My father took her in and made her one of us."
"So?"
"So Alto has been made a kelgryn noble and that makes her one by relation," Patrina said. "But that doesn’t even matter. If my father will go to war for any kelgryn held without cause, imagine what he’ll do for someone he considers family?"
"I don’t know," Gemma challenged. "What will he do?"
"When I was captured, he followed after with every warrior he could spare and some he could not," Patrina said.
"And no matter how mighty the kelgryn are, the Shazamir have numbers far greater and wizards at their disposal. We have Kar."
The wizard stiffened. "I’m no kelgryn," he protested. "In fact, I—"
"Or if we can get in there, we can put a stop to this before it starts. It’s true what is said of me. I killed a dragon to rescue the woman I love. I love Caitlyn and Namitus no less and I’m willing to do whatever it takes to save them."
Taroak studied Alto while Gemma twisted her beard in her fingers. Mordrim’s brother nodded. "Answer this question, was coming here Mordrim’s idea?"
"Only at the last," Alto said without looking at the dwarf. "He’s pledged his service to Lady Patrina, and she and I are pledged to each other. I needed a way to get through these hills and only when we had no other choices did Mordrim bring us here."
Taroak turned to his wife. She pulled at the twists in her beard and frowned.
"By Preth's spear, we're wasting time!" Garrick blurted out. "Are you the man of this, uh, home or not?"
Taroak drew himself up and squinted at the barbarian. "We're civilized folk down here," he growled. "My wife and I are a team. Partners. Equals. We agree on a thing or it doesn't happen."
Garrick opened his mouth but Patrina glared at him and said, "Garrick, that's enough."
"No, it's not," the barbarian spouted. "I spent time with a clan of my kin in the mountains and one day a boy came running out of the mountains. He was their son. He watched his brother fall to a raiding party of ogres and he ran back to warn the others. We made ready and fought them when they came and that boy saw his brother, mother, and sister all die one by one. In the end, the ogres were driven back, but their home was burned and he alone survived from his clan."
Everyone stared at Garrick, waiting for him to continue. It seemed he'd said his piece, for no more came from his mouth. Alto nodded and turned. "I know how that boy feels. It's a terrible thing to not have a family to lean on."
"What happened to the boy?" Carson asked.
"Borwin," Garrick said. "His name is Borwin. I took him to my people where he was accepted as one of their own. He will grow strong and proud, but he will be scarred by what he saw that day."
"And the memories that fade," Alto added in a somber tone.
"What's your point?" Taroak asked.
"Dwarves really are thickheaded," Kar muttered. "Even this bumbling oaf knows the value of family and how foolish it is to let something come between it."
Gemma's eyes narrowed as she stared at the wizard. She snorted and waved her hand. "Fine, take them down the tunnels, but don't you dare go there, Taroak! I'll not risk your other eye, nor the thought of raising our young alone."
"Your young? You've got a child?" Mordrim asked.
Taroak glanced at his wife's midsection. "Soon," he said. Gemma's cheeks flushed red enough to show over the hair on her cheeks.
Mordrim grinned. "That's good to hear! Our line lives on."
"You could have settled down," Taroak said. "You still can."
Mordrim snorted. "Keeping this lot from getting themselves killed doesn't leave me time nor the chance to meet many fine dwarven women."
Garrick opened his mouth but Mordrim stomped on his foot to silence him. It worked.
"So we're to be off then?" Carson asked after an awkward silence fell on them.
"Aye, come this way," Taroak offered. He turned and waved with his hand, and then stopped and leaned over to give Gemma a kiss on the cheek. "I'll be back safe and sound, I promise."
"You'd better," she muttered before she stormed off deeper into their home.
Taroak sighed and shrugged, and then motioned again for them to follow him.
As they filed after him through the tunnels that made up the dwarven home, Patrina glanced at Garrick and asked, "What were you doing with those people? The ones you said were killed."
Garrick seemed to ignore her question for a moment before he said, "I was courting their daughter, Kendall."
Patrina stopped, drawing a cry from Kar as he nearly ran into her. She stared at the back of the barbarian as he kept walking until Kar cleared his throat behind her, startling her into movement again.
At the other end of the hall, Taroak grabbed a few torches and passed them to the others, and then he said, "Prepare yourselves to put your eyes on beauty the likes of which few mortals can claim to see and live to speak of."
"Is it guarded?" Alto asked.
The dwarf reached up to touch the scar on his cheek. He glanced at Mordrim and said, "Only by whatever curse you bring with you."
Alto frowned and glanced at his dwarven friend. Mordrim shook his head. "These men aren't the greedy sort; they'll do fine," he said.
Taroak nodded. "For their sake, I hope so."
Taroak drew back the bar on a door and opened it up to reveal an unlit tunnel that stretched into darkness before them. Without another word, he stepped into the tunnel and led them into the unknown.
Chapter 28
"Were you serious?" Patrina asked the barbarian as they walked down the passage.
Garrick turned and let her see his furrowed brow.
"The girl. You said her name was Kendall?"
Garrick shrugged. "She was nice. Strong in body, mind, and heart."
Patrina waited until she was sure the northerner would say no more before she said, "I wish I could have met her."
"I’m glad you didn’t," he said with a ghost of a smile. "She had enough troubling ideas of her own."
Patrina laughed. "Are you saying I’d be a bad influence?"
"Be silent," Taroak called back to them. "We’re almost there!"
Garrick offered Patrina a shrug and then reached for the sword on his back. Patrina smiled as she pulled her own axe into her hands and made ready for what lay ahead.
"This is new," Mordrim said a few minutes later when they were stopped by a heavy iron and wood door that spanned the tunnel.
"The king didn’t want nobody going in there," Taroak said. "Just like he didn’t want nothing come out of it."
"You guys notice we’re back to normal?" Carson asked.
Taroak glanced at him and then looked at the others. His gaze rested on Mordrim, asking the question without saying the words.
"Hopefully no worse for wear," Kar said. "Might want to head back and take that lovely dwarven lady up on her offer for supper."
Mordrim sighed. "Was a touch of magic to get us here quick," he explained to his brother. "We wasn’t sure when it would wear off."
Taroak frowned and turned back to the door. "I’ll open the door for you, but I won’t go no farther. It’s to be locked behind you, too."
"How do we get out?" Alto asked.
"I’ll return every day about the same time for a week. If you’re not out by then, you won’t be leaving," he said. "Truth be told, if you’re not out in a day, you’ll never see the light of day again. Speaking of light, leave your torches here."
"Is it
that bad in there?" Alto asked as he dipped his torch into a bucket filled with dark water. "You said it was beautiful."
He shrugged and glanced at Mordrim before turning back to the door and pulling out a key from beneath his shirt. "Watch out for the snakes," he said as the lock clicked. Taroak twisted a bar, unclasping two thick steel arms from one another. He spun them away and then pulled out a secondary locking bar before pulling the door open.
Mordrim met Alto’s gaze and motioned for the man to go in. Alto nodded and led the others in, stopping at the edge of Taroak’s torchlight. Mordrim turned to his brother and stared at him. "It was good to see you," Mordrim offered.
Taroak sighed and glanced back up the tunnel. "Funny how things change."
"I’m not laughing."
Taroak’s expression stayed somber. "I used to catch her staring into space at times. She was thinking, and I feared she was thinking about what might have been. I was afraid what might happen if you ever came back. Just like I was afraid I might get word one day that you might get yourself killed on one of your fool adventures."
"You deserve a woman who cares that much about you," Mordrim said. "She’s a battleaxe, but there’s no finer weapon to have on your side."
"You’re right, she is a battleaxe!" Taroak smirked for a moment before he laid his hand on his brother’s shoulder. "Be careful, Mord. We’re not the foolish children we once was. I heard tell of things getting worse in them mountains. And that means they’ll be worse in there."
"I’ll be careful," Mordrim promised. "Now you get back and prove to Gemma that you’re a better man than I ever was."
Taroak chuckled. "It’s not like anyone ever doubted that!"
The two dwarves embraced and then parted ways. No sooner had Mordrim stepped through than the door swung shut behind him and plunged them all into darkness. "What’re you all looking at?" the dwarf griped.
"Uh, nothing," Carson said. "It’s pitch black."
"I can see," Patrina reminded them. "A little, at least. Enough."
"Aye, it’s enough," Mordrim said. "My tunnel vision’s out of practice but there’s only one way to go and it’s a smooth tunnel for a piece."
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