The Fate of Thorbardin

by Douglas Niles

  And right then its objective was clear: destroy the black wizard. The monster craved that wizard’s magic, like a drunkard craves a drink, and soon it would slake its thirst on the Theiwar wizard’s blood.

  At the same time, a glimmer of caution still sparked in the back of its chaotic, impulsive brain. It would crave, and consume, the magic.

  But it must avoid the power of the god.

  Crystal rubbed the rough cord against the squared edge of a rock until her wrists bled. She moved with agonizing slowness, watching through narrowed lids as Garn Bloodfist’s head slumped forward onto his chest. His mouth dropped open, and almost immediately he began to snore loudly.

  Was he finally asleep? He must be; she guessed that he was too stupid and transparent to try to fake his own drowsiness.

  Then she saw the contradiction in her own reasoning. In fact, the Klar had been wily enough to capture her, to seize her before she’d even had the wits to try to run away, and to tie her hands together while she had still been trying to talk to him, to discern what he wanted, what he hoped to accomplish.

  How could I have been so stupid? That, in all honesty, seemed like a more relevant query. She closed her eyes and tried to remain calm, but the reality of the nightmare was settling around her with all-encompassing gloom. What would he do to her? What did he want with her?

  For the moment, it seemed important to avoid antagonizing him. The fact that he was sleeping might be something she could turn to her own advantage. So she sawed away at the rough cords, ignoring the chafing of her skin, the cramps that seemed to shift from muscle to muscle with every move she made. The rope was tough, but the edge of the rock was at least minimally sharp, and if she could keep at it long enough—and Garn stayed sleeping long enough—then she might be able to free herself.

  And what would she do then? She tried to occupy her mind with thoughts of vengeance, but even then she couldn’t see herself crushing his skull with a rock or driving a dagger through his ribs while he slept. If she fled, she’d certainly make noise, and she very much doubted her ability to get away from him if it came to a chase through the woods.

  She shuddered in terror and fatigue, although she allowed herself a bare glimmer of relief. Garn, for all his power, had been content thus far merely to talk to her—at least on that, the first night of her captivity. But she had to face it: her future did not bode well.

  She thought back to the incident, several hours earlier, when he had accosted her in the woods. Why hadn’t she fled when she first had the feeling that someone was watching her? By the time the urge to flee had possessed her, he had already bound her wrists. Immediately thereafter he had pulled her off the road, roughly dragging her into the woods.

  They had climbed a steep slope and descended another, where she had bruised her legs and buttocks sliding painfully down on rough rock. He had pulled her through a thicket with long thorns that tore at her face and hands and waded through an icy creek. Following that splashing waterway, they had pushed up through a narrow gorge, between stone walls that sometimes ran so close together that they had to wade right up through the middle of the stream, until they had arrived at the remote grotto where they stopped.

  High, rocky bluffs rose to all sides, except for the twisting ravine up which they had ascended. The surrounding woods were thick, and she had seen no sign of any other inhabitants or even the work sites of a woodcutter or miner. It seemed they were really, truly alone, so much so that she felt certain that, even if she screamed, the sound of her voice would have been blocked by the stones and trees. And certainly it would awaken Garn.

  When they had arrived there, the mad Klar had pushed her roughly to the ground then secured her already bound wrists to a tree trunk with a further length of the rough cord. Only when she was tightly bound had he set about making a fire.

  “Garn?” she had pressed, trying to keep her voice soothing and gentle. “Why are you doing this? I thought we were friends.”

  “Friends?” he said, his eyes lighting up, the whites shining brightly in the growing light of the newly kindled flames. “Yes, friends,” he agreed, nodding as if savoring the taste of the word.

  “But then you don’t have to tie me up so tightly, do you? Can’t we talk about it?” She felt her voice growing shrill as her fear swelled, so she took a deep breath and tried to force herself to remain calm.

  Garn, for the time being, seemed content to ignore her as he piled more and more dry branches onto the fire. He apparently didn’t have any food to cook, and, to judge by his appearance, it might have been many days since he’d had a meal. But he stoked the blaze into a roaring bonfire and settled down before it.

  Abruptly those wide, staring eyes fastened upon Crystal again. “Do you have food?” he asked as if the very possibility of the question was a sudden revelation.

  “Why, yes. I have a little. Some bread and cheese that I was eating on the trail. Here, if you’ll untie me, I’ll get it for you. It’s right here in my traveling pack.”

  The Klar pounced on the pack as if he expected it to make a break for freedom at any moment. Pulling out her spare cloak, he came upon her sleeping robe and rubbed his filthy fingers through the soft fabric for a very long time. Finally he set it aside, taking surprising care to see that it didn’t get dirty from the ground, and fished out the small half loaf of bread and wedge of hard cheese that was all that remained of her traveling supplies.

  “This is all?” he asked, glowering at her.

  “Well, it was only food for the day,” Crystal explained. “I’d planned to stay at another inn tonight and to eat the fare of their kitchen. You know, I’m sure there’s an inn not far away! If you take me there, we can both have a hot meal. I’ll pay for yours, happily. Imagine a roast duck! Or perhaps a ham or even a beef stew. Wouldn’t that be good?”

  She kept her voice light and cheerful but was surprised to feel her own stomach rumbling with hunger. Desperately, she watched the Klar, hoping for some sign that her tempting suggestions had penetrated the layer of his madness.

  But he shrugged and laughed. “This is fine. I don’t need more. Don’t need any hill dwarf inn, that’s for sure!”

  “But, Garn,” she continued while she had his attention momentarily, “why are you doing this? Why did you follow me? Why are you holding me captive?”

  “Oh, you know,” he said with a sly grin. “You remember.”

  “Remember? Remember what? Please! I don’t understand!”

  “Ah, what a coy game you play!” he said with a sound like a giggle. “All those nights in the dungeon, when you were talking to me … I could hear the sounds in your voice. You knew that I desired you. And I knew that you desired me. Now we can be together.”

  She almost gagged at the memory but bit back a rebuke. She had only meant to be kind, visiting him in prison. But as he continued to talk almost nonstop, Crystal was appalled to learn how much time he had spent thinking about her, desiring her, imagining things about her.

  “I know, when you sleep, that you dream of me,” he confided. “But know that I dream of you as well!”

  She didn’t try to dissuade him from his wilder fantasies—such as his belief that she desired him as much as he desired her—for she feared his rage if she made him angry. Still, she tried to reason with him.

  “You know, you really don’t have to tie me up,” she repeated as sweetly as she could muster.

  At that, his eyes narrowed, and he uttered a short cackle of laughter. But he made no move to remove her cords, and he frightened her too much for her to try and make an argument out of it. So she watched him and watched him, and finally he fell asleep. Only then did she begin to work on her tight bonds in earnest.

  And finally, she was rewarded by a loosening; she felt the strands of the rope parting.

  She pulled her hands apart and looked up to see her worst nightmare: Garn Bloodfist was awake and watching her. She tried to stand, but he sprang right over the mound of coals. His rough hands gr
asped her shoulders, pressing her back to the ground.

  And his grotesque mouth, wide open and panting, pressed over her own.

  “I knew you’d try to leave!” he crowed, his vile breath making her gag. “Don’t you dare! We’re just getting started!”

  Brandon caught up to the Redshirts at the interior fortification of the gatehouse. General Watchler’s men had secured a foothold in what looked to be a barracks room. Tankard’s first companies still fought at the two tunnels leading out of the gatehouse, while more and more of the Kayolin troops filed up the trail and into the breached entry to Thorbardin.

  “The bastards have forted up in both guardhouses,” Watchler reported. “We can’t get to them without passing through a hail of crossbows. Hacksaw and I have already lost a score of men each.”

  “Is there any other way around?” Brandon asked, dismayed at the thought that they might have broken through Thorbardin’s main gate only to be blocked a few hundred yards farther on.

  “We’re checking it out, but I don’t think so. This place was made for defense, after all. Anyone coming in the main gate is channeled through one of these two halls, and they’re both pretty much the same. There’s a long, open passageway before you get to the interior doors, and the defenders have firing platforms above the floor and inside the city where they can shoot from cover and pick off our warriors almost at will.”

  “All right,” Brandon said with a grimace. “I’ll go have a look. Stay here and keep the men formed up as they come through the outer gate. If we can carry one of these doors, I want to be able to pour a thousand troops into the city in the first wave.”

  “All right. Good luck,” the veteran campaigner said.

  “You stay with Watchler,” Brandon said to Gretchan, who hadn’t left his side since they had breached the outer gate. “Get the troops ready for the main attack.”

  “You didn’t think you’d get rid of me that easily, did you?” she asked with just the hint of a twinkle in her eye.

  He knew better than to waste time arguing, so he muttered a curse and started forward, carrying his axe, jogging fast enough to stay a step or two in front of the cleric. He crossed through a wide room that looked like a barracks mess hall, though the tables and benches had been overturned by combat. Some dwarves of Tankard’s legion were dragging the bodies of slain defenders into a large pile off to the side, while other dead fighters, wearing the blue and black of Kayolin, were laid out in neat rows. A quick glance suggested that more than two dozen of his troops had been slain in that chamber alone.

  The knowledge made him sick to his stomach and more determined than ever to break through the next obstacle. Crossing to the far side of the mess hall, he found Tankard himself and a hundred of his dwarves warily looking through a wide double doorway into a long, open hallway. More Kayolin dwarves had been killed there, and their bodies—most pierced by lethal crossbow quarrels—still lay where they had fallen.

  “Hullo, General,” Tankard said grimly as Brandon knelt beside him to study the constricted approach. He could see the balconies near the far end, well above the floor of the hall, where the enemy archers obviously lurked.

  “You can see it’s a tough nut,” Hacksaw continued. “They have probably fifty crossbowmen up there, back in the shadows. Even if we bring our shooters up for cover, we can only squeeze ten or a dozen around this doorway. Meanwhile, they have shots at every dwarf that tries to charge down that hall.”

  Brandon could see that the doors at the far end of the hall were tall, double doors of solid stone. “I assume they’re barricaded?” he asked.

  Tankard nodded grimly. “Pretty damned solid too. We hit them with two score men and we just bounced off, like we were slamming into a cliff wall.”

  “What about a ram?”

  “That’s the next attempt. I sent a platoon back to find something big and heavy that we could use. Ah, here they come now.”

  The general turned to see two dozen dwarves approaching across the debris-strewn mess hall. They had a portion of a sturdy stone column hoisted onto their shoulders and held the makeshift ram ready as they reached the officers at the entryway of the hall.

  “Perfect,” Tankard Hacksaw said. “Why don’t you stay here and watch us work?” he suggested to Brandon.

  “Forget it. I’m coming with you on the charge!” the Kayolin commander protested.

  “That’s not your job!” Gretchan barked before Tankard could voice his own objections. But as Brandon rounded on the priestess, his subordinate chimed in.

  “She’s a smart one, General,” Hacksaw said. “Your axe will do a lot of good once we get through that door. But until then, you’d just be making yourself a target, and a high-value one for the enemy at that.”

  Though it went against every instinct he possessed, Brandon was forced to agree that the captain was right and he should be cautious. “All right,” he agreed through clenched teeth. “But I’m coming up with the rest of your legion the moment you bust through that door.”

  “And a welcome sight you’ll be,” Tankard agreed cheerfully. He raised his voice to address his men. “Now I need all the bowmen right here,” he commanded, gesturing to the door. “We’re charging down there with that ram, and I want you to do everything you can to pick off those bastard Theiwar who try to shoot at us from the balconies!”

  There was no shortage of willing crossbowmen, but Brandon saw the truth of Tank’s earlier complaint: at the most, twelve of the Kayolin archers would be able to crowd into the doorway to provide covering fire while many more defenders would be able to concentrate their missiles against the ram-wielding attackers.

  “Tankard,” Brandon said, placing a hand on his old friend’s shoulder before he realized that he didn’t really have anything to say, just wanted to delay the departure of the dangerous attack for another few seconds. “Be careful—and good luck,” he declared.

  “I’m always careful—and lucky!” the captain replied with a breezy grin. He turned to the platoon that had brought up the ram. “All right, you slugs! Carry that thing like you mean it! Now let’s go!”

  Gretchan held Brandon’s arm almost as if she expected him to charge forward with the ram. Instead, he clasped his own hand over hers and watched as the brave Kayolin dwarves, with the stone column supported at shoulder height, sprinted into the hallway. As soon as they had charged through the door, the archers moved into position, immediately firing at the enemy crossbowmen who swarmed forward onto the balconies. A few of the Kayolin missiles found targets, but the defenders fired an initial volley that felled six or seven of the ram-bearing dwarves at once.

  Others raced forward into the hall, helping to support the heavy column as Tankard urged his men onward. They closed against the double doors quickly, and the makeshift ram smashed into the barrier with a resounding boom. The attackers stumbled back, but Brandon was encouraged to see the doors shaking from the force of the impact.

  “Again!” shouted Tankard Hacksaw, and his men reared back to drive the column once more into the doors. “And again!”

  But the arrow fire from above was lethal. One bolt caught Tankard in the shoulder, and he stumbled and fell. More of his men were killed, and many of those who ran to assist were shot down even before they could reach the heavy ram. Under the steady hail of missiles, the Kayolin dwarves buckled and wavered, finally dropping the stone column to the floor.

  Brandon broke free of Gretchan’s restraining hand. He raced into the hall, feeling an arrow knock into his breastplate and ricochet away. Tankard was kneeling, trying to pull the missile out of his shoulder. Brandon grabbed his old friend by his other arm, pulled him to his feet, then stumbled and careered back to the door. Together they fell into the mess hall, where other willing dwarves pulled them out of the enemy’s line of sight.

  “The rest of the men!” Tankard gasped, his face covered in a sheen of sweat. “Get them out of there! Order the retreat!”

  By the time Brandon rose to his feet
, there was no need to issue any orders. The only Kayolin dwarves left in the corridor were the dead.

  “Smell that! Smell fire!” Slooshy chirped excitedly.

  “Maybe food with fire?” Gus said, feeling the first glimmer of hope he’d felt since they had picked over the small berry bush several—two?—days earlier.

  Since that time, the three Aghar had wandered through the wilds of the Kharolis foothills. They’d come upon a few farms and villages and inns of the hill dwarves but had been driven off in each case before they could even begin to try to steal some food.

  In one case, a hill dwarf innkeeper had loosed several ferocious hounds on the gully dwarves, and Gus had lost the seat of his trousers to a savage bite as he’d tried to scramble up a very thorny tree. The fact that Berta and Slooshy had been laughing at him from the higher branches had only served to further fuel his anger and disappointment.

  But Slooshy was right: there was a distinct odor of wood smoke on the breeze. “Come this way—find food!” Gus urged, diving into a thorny thicket and pushing through to the other side. His companions came noisily behind, but he didn’t bother waiting.

  Stumbling forward eagerly, Gus tumbled into a stream and came up, gagging and choking, to find that he was standing in waist-deep, very cold water. It flowed with a noisy current, and it seemed to him that the smell of the smoke was coming from upstream, so the Aghar charged right through the icy liquid, climbing over slippery rocks, advancing up a channel that seemed to be bounded by two close-set stone walls.

  He was vaguely aware of the two chattering girls coming behind him, but his growling stomach would brook no delay. Instead, he scrambled and crawled and climbed upward to move himself through the water and over the rocks. Finally he saw a glint of light through the woods and knew he had found the source of the blaze!

  Leaping out of the stream, he pressed through another bramble on the bank and saw a small clearing where a large fire crackled cheerfully and warmly.