Only when the breeze shifted slightly, bearing a scent of sweat and damp straw reminiscent of the Tharkadan dungeon, did she recognize the dwarf.
“Garn?” she asked as the ball of sickness churned and thickened in her gut. “What are you doing here?”
“Why, coming with you, of course,” the mad Klar said, unsuccessfully trying to stifle a cackle of delight. “That’s why you let me out of my cell, isn’t it? So that I could follow you home?”
“But-I didn’t-it wasn’t me-” She bit back the denial, not certain what approach to take with her husband’s former captain. It was strange enough that some mysterious person had freed him, but to encounter him on the trail! She knew from her conversations with him that Garn was suspicious to the point of paranoia, and Crystal didn’t want to risk antagonizing him to a state of agitation any more intense than his normal existence. “That is, have you been following me all along? Since I left Pax Tharkas?”
“All along!” he crowed with a sense of glee that chilled her even more. “But too high and too rough on the hills. Now I follow you on the road!”
He stepped closer, and it was too late for her to flee. She stared in horror as he reached out with a surprisingly strong hand and seized her wrist. Recoiling, she pulled and twisted.
But she couldn’t break away.
“Which way go army?” Gus asked, standing on the boulder and scratching his head.
“That way!” Slooshy declared confidently, pointing toward a narrow valley that twisted away to the east.
“No, that way!” Berta insisted, pointing at the mouth of a gorge that climbed steeply toward the west.
To the south, a haze of dust lingered in the air, fine particles kicked up by the passing of some five thousand dwarves along a dry dirt road. Only moments before, the tail end of the column had vanished from view around a bend in the valley toward Thorbardin. The signs of that march would linger in the air, slowly settling over the next hour or so.
But observation skills had never been a strong component of the gully dwarf intellect, and so it was that Gus was left to glare and stare and stomp his feet, finally regarding his two girlfriends with a look of unconcealed contempt-beneath which lay genuine concern. Where was Gretchan? Where had she gone? And why had she not taken Gus with her?
Miserably, he slumped down on the rock and took a long moment to pick his nose. The girls were bickering down below, but he didn’t really pay much attention. One called the other a “bluphsplunging doofar” while the second retorted with an even gamier insult. Meanwhile, the army was gone and-it just occurred to Gus-so was their food supply.
Not very hopefully, he looked around again. There wasn’t so much as a fruit tree or berry patch in sight; even the small oak grove along the stream had been picked clean of acorns by the large army camped there. Gus’s stomach growled loudly, and he thought wistfully of the splendid tunnels of Agharhome beneath Pax Tharkas. Those passages were practically teeming with plump rats and offered many deep pools crowded with tender cave-carp. What he wouldn’t give for even the fin of one of those meaty fish.
Fish! He remembered there was a stream nearby, and without another word, he hopped down from his rock and made his way over to the narrow, shallow waterway. But the creek that had been clear and speckled with lively trout the previous night was a muddy mess, ruined by the passage of ten thousand boots through a shallow ford just upstream. All them fish gone, he thought glumly.
He wondered idly where all those dwarves had marched off to. The road to the north, he remembered, led back to Pax Tharkas. But the fortress was many miles away. And he was certain that Gretchan would not have gone that way. He looked toward where the army had disappeared, wondering if the dwarf soldiers were trying some tricky plan, trying to fool him and others from following. Why would they go to Pax Tharkas anyway? So instead he looked toward the two valleys and the gorge.
At that moment, a waft of breeze came down from the west, and it carried on its breath the faint smell of a cookfire. In that instant, Gus made up his mind.
“We go that way,” he declared, pointing firmly toward the source of the smell.
“See. I told you!” Berta said, glaring at Slooshy. “Barflooming little sloot say wrong way! Berta knows.”
“Be quiet! Alla girls be quiet!” Gus demanded, starting to walk and not much caring whether his two consorts chose to accompany him or not.
But of course they did. The three gully dwarves scrambled over some large rocks at the foot of the gorge and pulled themselves up with their stubby, little fingers as they scaled the cliff steps blocking access to the gorge. Soon the floor of the steep-walled draw leveled out into a winding track that the Aghar, at least, could walk along.
For the rest of the morning and into the afternoon, Gus and his girls climbed higher and higher into the foothills, leaving the road behind and meandering far from the track that had been taken by the mountain dwarf army. All the while, Gus’s stomach rumbled from emptiness, and his misery wrapped itself around him like a cloud. After the first few hours, Berta and Slooshy had even stopped complaining; indeed they stopped talking altogether.
By the time the long shadows of afternoon stretched around them, they still hadn’t come upon any sign of the missing army. Nor had they discovered anything that even vaguely resembled food (and, being Aghar, their definition of food was a broad one, naturally). When night settled around them, it was too dark to go any farther, and the unhappy trio was forced to huddle together in a makeshift shelter between two rocks. They had no fire, and the night was cold, so they spent most of the night shivering, snuggling close, then elbowing each other in irritation whenever one of them shifted position.
The next morning they continued on their way, and at least they were fortunate enough to come upon a berry bush that still bore a few shriveled fruits. So they feasted enough to keep them going then climbed out of the ridge and into the next. But they saw only many more ridges and no sign of any dwarf army.
Brandon didn’t sleep much, and though he knew dawn was hours away, he finally crawled out of his bedroll, pulled on his boots, and started getting ready for the upcoming battle. His restlessness was widely shared as, all around him, dwarves stirred and grumbled, stomping their feet in the chill and kindling small fires for warmth and to heat water.
Sparks flew here and there as warriors scuffed whetstones across their blades, bringing their steel to razor sharpness. Given the constricted nature of the trail, the army had to advance in segments, but the leading element of the First Legion-the troops who would lead the way-were already gathering into columns at the base of the mountain trail.
“My scouts have been up on the ridges all night,” Tankard Hacksaw reported to Brandon. “Each company had plenty of torches; they were to light a flare if there was any chance of an ambush. We’d see it from down here for sure.”
The Kayolin commander nodded, looking around at the dark, silent summits to either side of them. “Good sign, that. Then the real fighting will come if-” He corrected himself with a confidence he still did not entirely feel. “When we breach the gate.”
“I’ll be right behind you,” Tankard pledged.
Brandon shook his head and put his hand on his loyal lieutenant’s shoulder. “No, old friend. I want you up there with me but at least two hundred paces back. I’ll stand with Bardic Stonehammer when he wields the artifact, but if the worst happens and I fall, it’ll be your job to take over command of the assault.”
Tankard looked as if he wanted to argue, but after a moment, he gritted his teeth and nodded. “As you command,” was all he said.
“Good man,” Brandon replied.
Even as they spoke, Bardic approached, bearing the long bundle wrapped in the supple leather cover made from a single cow’s hide. The big smith’s bald head was not protected by any metal cap, and a sheen of sweat gleamed on the smooth surface of his scalp.
“Shall we take a look at the key to Thorbardin’s gate?” he asked.
But as Bardic unveiled the hallowed artifact, there was no mistaking the fact that it was a weapon. The three stones forming the head of the hammer were each bright enough that they almost seemed luminescent. The Redstone was at the top of the hammerhead, with the blue in the middle and the green at the bottom. The colors were distinct, but the lines between the three stones had vanished, as if the wedges had melted or fused together.
The haft, a bar of solid steel, extended through the widest part of the head and out the top. At that end, the smith had capped the hammer with a tiny silver anvil, a perfect match of the little icon that topped Gretchan’s staff.
“Would you like to feel its heft?” Bardic asked.
Brandon nodded and took the hammer by the handle. He lifted it, feeling the solid weight of the mighty stone head. It was a good weight, and as he took a few practice swings, it seemed to glide forward with the energy of his blow, as if the hammer itself were eager to move, to strike … to smash.
“It’s beautiful and terrifying at the same time,” Brandon said, surprised to realize he was whispering.
He felt a warm hand on his shoulder and realized that Gretchan had come up to stand beside him. Her eyes were focused on the artifact, and they seemed to shine in reflection of the three colors. Her staff was in her other hand, and Brandon didn’t know if it was real or his imagination, but the anvil on the head of the shaft of wood seemed to glow with a silvery shimmer brighter even than the moonlight that still washed the mountain valley. Reverently he handed the weapon back to the smith, who accepted it in the same awed way. His eyes gleamed, reflecting the light of the three-colored stone.
“I’ll go up there alone,” Bardic said matter-of-factly. “You’ll need to give me plenty of room to swing it.”
“I will but I’ll be close by with the Bluestone Axe,” Brandon replied. He turned to face Gretchan soberly. “Tankard will be two hundred paces behind us with the vanguard of his legion,” he said, trying once again to make the argument that had failed him the evening before. “You should stand with him. That way, if anything happens-”
“I’ll be too far away to do anything other than recover your remains,” she said simply. “I haven’t changed my mind. I’m going to be close by your side.”
He felt a lump in his throat and was too moved even to be irritated by her stubbornness. “All right,” he replied. “Are you ready to go?”
She was. They all were.
The advance column of the army moved out, dwarves marching two by two behind Bardic, Brandon, and Gretchan. The Kayolin commander started out with the Bluestone Axe in a sling on his back, but he found himself desiring the sturdy feel of the weapon in his hands. Quickly he freed it from its strap and continued along, holding the smooth haft in both of his hands, grateful for the comforting presence of his trusty blade.
The two hundred dwarves who followed directly behind him were all volunteers, all sturdy veterans of the First Legion. They wore steel breastplates, helmets, and greaves, but otherwise were garbed in leather. Each carried his weapon of choice, including swords, spears, and axes in their number. None bore a shield since, in the close-quarters combat they anticipated, even a small buckler could prove to be more of a hindrance than an advantage. They were the shock troops, the men who would advance into the first breach and hold the position for the rest of the army.
They followed the hammer, the general, and the priestess up the trail grimly, as silently as an army could move. The plans had been made and repeated to all the night before, so there was no need for discussion. They would go in quickly and violently, Brandon had explained, streaming into the gatehouse as reinforcements made their way up the sinuous trail behind. When the bulk of the First Legion had made it through the gate, they would advance, leaving the Second and Tharkadan Legions to follow along.
The sun would linger long behind the eastern ridge in that deep cut of the mountains, but the sky had brightened to a pale orange horizon and finally to a faint shade of blue as the assault force marched steadily up the trail. Brandon and Gretchan reached the place where they had stopped on the previous day’s scouting mission, but that morning they continued on without hesitation. The climb was steep, and it should have been arduous, but Brandon felt his energy, his anticipation, and his determination only increasing as they continued upward. Every once in a while, he heard Gretchan murmur a soft prayer, and he knew that she was calling upon their immortal god, Reorx of the Forge, for strength. He hoped fervently that the Master of All Dwarves was listening.
He cast a glance upward, knowing that Tankard’s scouts were stationed on the heights to either side. That was a reassuring thought as they passed beneath overhanging shoulders of cracked rock or under cornices of ice and snow that looked ready to break free, to fall and sweep the dwarves off the mountainside like a person might swat at a bunch of ants.
Finally the shadowy terminus of the trail loomed before them, much wider and taller than it had looked from below. Even so, it seemed like a very narrow and constricted passage, when Brandon considered that for centuries it had been the main point of access and egress to the great underground realm. The path ended in a solid plug of stone, the gate that merged seamlessly with the wall of the cliff on all sides of it.
Only the perfectly smooth face of that huge plug suggested that it was something other than a piece of the natural mountainside. It was impossible to discern any more details of the entryway until Gretchan held up her staff and cast the bright light of Reorx across the gate. That revealed the outline of the entryway. The ceiling arched some twelve feet above the ground and the sides of the portal were a similar distance apart. Brandon felt strangely relieved by the vast size of it, as it meant that Bardic would have all the room he needed to swing the hammer with all of his might.
“Looks like we might as well get on with it,” the smith said calmly.
Brandon took one last glance behind him, holding up his hand to halt the initial vanguard of the column several dozen paces behind him. Gretchan remained at his shoulder, though they both backed up enough to avoid the backswing of the mighty artifact, which Bardic intended to drive upward and over his head in a straightforward blow.
The cleric started to chant, invoking the name of Reorx, speaking words in an ancient tongue. Brandon did not recognize the words, but they seemed to infuse him with strength, causing the blood to pulse through his veins, the energy of his body to hum and crackle in his ears. The head of Gretchan’s staff glowed, so bright he couldn’t look at it.
Bardic Stonehammer stood still, with the artifact resting on his shoulders. His face was peaceful, eyes half closed, and he seemed to be listening very carefully to the priestess’s prayer. Brandon took a half step forward, unable to restrain his eagerness, until the smith breathed a long sigh and shook his head.
“Don’t try to help me,” he warned. “I will do this alone.”
So instead, Brandon stepped back alongside the priestess and waited. The face of the gate was outlined brilliantly in the glow from the cleric’s anvil, and in that light he discerned a faint line, a crack no wider than a blond hair, running vertically through the surface of Thorbardin’s gate.
Bardic apparently saw that possible crack too. Taking the Tricolor Hammer in both hands, he drew a deep breath, raised it high, and let the artifact drop slightly to swing it low behind his shoulders. His muscles tensed until, with a smooth exhalation, he whipped the hammer upward, impossibly high, and drove it with all his strength into the granite surface of the gate. The three stones of the hammerhead met the gate exactly above that hairline crack.
Then a storm broke around them all.
TWELVE
A WIZARD UNCHAINED
&
nbsp; Kondike paced around the upper wall of Pax Tharkas. Frequently he stopped at one of the crenellations in the battlement, rose to rest his forepaws on the stone, and stared anxiously along the winding southward road. She, his mistress, his beloved Gretchan, had gone that way, accompanied by a countless swarm of other dwarves, all girded for war. And she had bade him, Kondike, to stay there and wait for her.
He wasn’t used to that kind of treatment, and he didn’t like it, not one bit. Restlessly he backed down from his upright perch and paced some more, back and forth across the platform. He whined and sniffed the air, but there was neither promising scent on the breeze nor any sound that might indicate his owner’s imminent return.
He looked toward the door, the way that led into the tower, that allowed passage down the stairs and eventually out the front gate. That door was still closed, so the dog resumed his pacing, broken only by the frequent looks toward the Kharolis Mountains. He ignored the two sentries who paced back and forth, just as they ignored him. Every once in a while, another anxious whimper escaped him, and he would return to the parapet, rise onto his hind legs, and once again stare southward. Seeing nothing, he’d then go back to pacing, occasionally glancing toward the door.
Finally that door opened, and the dog’s ears perked up at the sight of the young dwarf emerging into view with a dish and a bucket. Kondike raced over, tail wagging, and immediately set to work chewing and swallowing the scraps of bread, gravy, and fatty meat that filled the bowl to the top.
Of course, he still missed Gretchan, but food was food. And the food was right there.
While Kondike ate and drank deeply from the bucket of fresh water, the young dwarf scratched the big dog’s head or stroked the strong ridge of backbone extending down along his sturdy frame. The nice, young dwarf had been there every day since Gretchan had left, and Kondike had gone from tolerating him to welcoming him, especially since, at least once a day, the lad brought him food.
Fate of Thorbardin dh-3 Page 13
