Riverwind the Plainsman

by Paul B. Thompson

  She protested bitterly, but Riverwind pushed her into the mouse hole. She slipped her shoulders into the narrow opening. Catchflea crouched on the floor, holding his beard over his nose and mouth. Riverwind spotted Brud.

  “Doesn’t the smoke hurt you?” he said, coughing between each word.

  “Smell not bad to me,” the gully dwarf said with a shrug.

  “Will you help Di An if we don’t make it, Brud?” Riverwind said.

  “Skinny pretty girl. Brud look after.” He boosted himself over the rim of the hole. “Farewell, criminal.”

  Abruptly Brud popped out onto the cave floor. Di An’s tear-streaked face appeared. “Riverwind! The tunnel is large enough for you two inside! Make the entrance wider!”

  They had an assortment of tools dropped by the gully dwarves in the cavern, so Riverwind and Catchflea hammered at the stone. Di An and Brud stood by. The glassy limestone splintered and sharp chips flew.

  The yellow smoke was so thick now that they couldn’t see across the cave. The men and Di An coughed and coughed. “Enough, enough!” Riverwind said. Di An re-entered the opening. Riverwind helped Catchflea in, and Di An dragged at the old man’s arms. Riverwind followed them. The tunnel was only two feet wide, but with his shoulders bunched the young plainsman could make it.

  Brud surveyed the sulfur-flooded cave. “Not smell so bad,” he mused aloud. The tunnel opening he regarded with a far more critical eye. “Mouse hole ruined,” he said. “Big enough for bear now.”

  He grabbed the lower rim of the enlarged hole, levered himself up, and wriggled through.

  The mouse hole tunnel ran level for forty yards, then ended on a tight vertical shaft. Notches were chiseled in the wall, and it was easy enough for them to climb the ten yards or so to the surface.

  Di An shifted a stone floor tile, and they emerged in a dark room. They lay for a while, gasping the clean air. Brud appeared and kicked the tile back over the opening.

  “Where are we?” Catchflea croaked.

  “Broken Jar House,” Brud replied. Sure enough, the floor was littered with layer upon layer of broken pottery. “Wait, I make light.”

  He found a long pole standing in a corner, apparently left for just such a purpose. Brud used the pole to poke open a shuttered window high on the wall. It was still not very bright inside the room, but enough light filtered in to reveal what a bizarre place they had stumbled into.

  It was a house, tipped on its side. The surface they sat on was not a floor, but a wall of the house. Facing them was the true floor, an expanse of white tile. Many tiles had fallen, leaving dark squares in the pattern. The surface above their heads was decorated with lively frescoes showing humans rising from pallets with their hands in the air. A tall, grave figure stood at the end of the fresco, holding a slim jar.

  “A doctor, or apothecary,” Catchflea said. “See, he’s healed the sick.”

  “These must have been his medicine bottles,” Riverwind added. He raised a fistful of fragments. The pottery was so old it was turning to dust. The pieces crumbled in his fist.

  “How did this place get this way?” Di An asked. “Why is this city an underground ruin?”

  “The Cataclysm,” Riverwind said solemnly. “Almost three hundred and fifty years ago, the world was rent asunder by mighty upheavals of land and sea. My father told me stories of that time. Xak Tsaroth sank into the ground.”

  Di An looked thoughtful. “That must have been what we in Hest knew as the Great Shattering. That was when Vartoom was cut off from the other cities of Hest,” she said.

  Catchflea sat upright. “Other cities?”

  “Yes. Balowil, the City of Lead, and Arvanest, the City of Gold.”

  Catchflea was about to draw the elf girl into conversation about these Hestite cities when Brud shimmied up the pole to the window. “Bad to say!” he muttered.

  “What is it?”

  “Goblins and masters look for you.” Riverwind leaped up, trying to catch the sill of the sideways window. He missed and landed with enough force to jar his aching ribs.

  “Let me,” said Di An. She climbed the pole as nimbly as Brud had. At the window, she pushed him aside. He kept trying to sniff behind her pointed ears.

  “Stop it, worm,” she said, fending him off.

  “How you hear with ears like that?”

  “How do you live with a face like that?” she spat.

  From the window Di An could see the street. A lizard man stood at the hole. A new ladder had been lowered into the cave, and goblins were being sent down in pairs, armed with clubs. The lizard man carried a large sword. The elf girl relayed all this to her friends.

  “We’re in the stewpot, yes,” said Catchflea.

  “Life like stew,” Brud observed. They waited for him to finish the analogy. Brud said nothing. He turned his back to the window. He felt he’d said it all.

  The door to the Broken Jar House was on the “ceiling.” Di An kicked tiles loose and climbed out on the vertical wall, with only her toes and fingertips to hold her up. Brud was rapt with admiration. Di An reached the door and pulled the handle. The corroded copper crumbled in her hand.

  Di An leaned out far from the wall, one hand and both feet clinging to the narrowest of holds. With her climbing hook, she picked at the blackened hinge pin on the door. The hardened Hestite steel soon broke apart the ancient brass pin. The corner of the door sagged inward. Hooking onto the door frame, Di An swung free from the wall.

  “Woo! Brud want to try!”

  The elf girl ignored him. She wedged her foot against the sagging door and pushed. With a loud crack, the remaining door pin snapped. The battered wooden door fell. Di An hooked her foot on the doorjamb and vaulted out.

  Brud clapped his thick, dirty hands together. The Que-Shu men applauded as well. Di An lowered the chain. Riverwind and Brud climbed out, then hauled Catchflea up with the chain.

  “That fun. Do again?” said the gully dwarf hopefully. They ignored him and studied their position.

  The Broken Jar House was lodged in the wall of the cavern, sixty feet above the street. The wall they were standing on slanted down, and opened on a triangular crack in the pit wall. There seemed no place to go until Brud bustled by.

  “Where are you going?” Riverwind asked.

  Brud pointed below and to their right. “Home to Aghar town. See wife. Hungry.”

  “Wait! Hold there.”

  Brud ignored them. He hopped from the wall of the house to a narrow ledge that ran out of the crevice. Riverwind followed, though the ledge was barely wide enough for one of his feet. Brud reached the front of the crevice and did a quick right-face. In full view of the entire city, he strolled along the ledge toward a waterfall. Riverwind could see a tunnel had been carved behind the falls. To his companions he said, “Come! Brud has shown us the way.”

  Di An and Catchflea worked their way around the ledge. They had to press close to the cliff face. Brud kept going.

  Riverwind was halfway to the falls when they were spotted by the goblins. A shout went up. “Now we’re in for it,” he muttered. He tried to increase his pace.

  Bolts flicked at them, bouncing off the stone wall. Brud appeared on the other side of the falls and waved. He ducked into another hole in the cliff face and vanished.

  “I told you he was a worm!”

  “Could we keep moving, yes? That last arrow almost parted my hair!”

  A rumble from below proved to be the sound of the goblins moving a full-fledged ballista into the street. They loaded the cup with assorted stones and pulled the trigger rope. The throwing arm threshed forward, sending a shower of fist-sized rocks at the trio. One struck Di An in the back. She cried out briefly and lost her hold.

  “Di An!” Riverwind shouted. Her slight body disappeared below his line of sight.

  There was not time to grieve or worry. The lizard men ordered the goblins to winch down the ballista and fire again. This time Catchflea was pummeled by four or five stones. He lost hi
s stance and plunged from sight.

  Riverwind was only yards from the falls. His heart pounded, not only for his own danger, but for the fate of Di An and Catchflea. Spray was dampening his face when a large rock hit him behind the knees. His legs folded, and he dropped backward off the ledge.

  I’m falling again, he thought calmly. Will this be the last time?

  Chapter 18

  Children of the Dragon

  The lizard men were used to having their slaves, the gully dwarves, try to escape. They kept rock-throwing ballistae handy in the streets to knock the little folk off the cavern wall, should they try to leave. Since dead slaves could do little work, the lizard men had stretched large nets around the base of the walls to catch the Aghar. Now those nets caught Di An, Catchflea, and Riverwind. Goblins cut the ropes, and the whole net assembly collapsed inward, trapping the three of them.

  Before they could fight or flee, each was plucked from the net by several goblins. Heavy manacles were snapped on the two men. Di An was tied with leather thongs, as her wrists were too small for the fetters. At the direction of the two brawny lizard men, the three were marched down the street toward the place they’d glimpsed earlier.

  They were halted by a gated entry on the left side of the street. More armed goblins opened the gate, and the captives were driven in. Within was an entryway. A larger room was visible through the open door. The goblin soldiers pushed them to the right, to a large cell. Without a word, the three were shoved into the cell and the door closed behind them.

  Catchflea sagged to the floor. All the good spirit seemed to have left him. He laid his head against the wall and closed his eyes. Riverwind strained against his fetters, but the wrought iron was nearly an inch thick. The door was no better—oak strapped with iron, four inches thick. It did indeed seem hopeless.

  Di An sniffed her bonds and started chewing at them. The leather was tough, but she was able to gnaw through one strap in about half an hour.

  “Good!” Riverwind said encouragingly. “Keep it up!”

  “My jaw hurts,” the girl complained, but she resumed chewing.

  She never had a chance to finish. The door opened, revealing a lizard man wearing an officer’s gold badge.

  “Come! The commander would see you,” he said.

  A full dozen goblin guards were drawn up outside. Riverwind, Di An, and Catchflea were marched through the empty hall into another courtyard. Smells of cooking drifted in the air, torturing the hungry travelers’ stomachs.

  “To the right! Quick march!” roared the officer. The cadence of heavy feet increased. A large waterfall cascaded down the cliff face to their right. It flooded out the old street. The lizard men had built a wooden bridge across the swelling stream. Facing them was the blank east wall of the palace. Someone had restored the walls, but left the columned facade in ruins.

  They headed for that facade. Standing among the stumps of the broken pillars was the largest, most grandly dressed lizard man they’d seen yet, undoubtedly the commander. Unlike the other, horn-beaked, lizards, the commander had a flat face, covered with small, colored scales. Also unlike them, he had no tail or wings. He wore brilliantly shiny metal armor and a sweeping blue cape. An awful air of majesty and self-confident power surrounded him.

  “Shanz, are these the intruders?”

  “It is they, Commander Thouriss,” said the officer. “No others have turned up.”

  “Keep alert. Humans have the irritating habit of congregating in large numbers.” The lesser officer bowed and left the prisoners facing Thouriss. The goblin guards fanned out, making a barrier between the captives and the plaza.

  “Why are you here?” he said, planting his clawed hands on his hips. He was much more humanlike than the stooped, beak-nosed lizard men.

  “We’re lost,” said Riverwind.

  “Are you? Name yourselves.”

  The Que-Shu men told Thouriss who they were. The commander pointed at Di An. “Who is this?” he rumbled.

  “A waif we adopted on our journey,” said Catchflea. “An orphan. She mends our clothes and fixes our meals.”

  “She is not human.” Di An was cringing between the two men. Thouriss pointed at her again. “Come forward, creature, that I may see you better.” When Di An didn’t respond, a guard prodded her with the butt of his pike.

  “Who are you?” demanded Thouriss.

  “Di An.” It was all she could say. The commander’s vast green eyes bored into hers.

  “Where are you from, Deee Ahhnn?” He drew out the simple syllables, making them sound strange and potent.

  The elf girl swallowed and opened her mouth, but she was so frightened no sound came out. Riverwind interjected, “Silvanesti. The girl is from Silvanesti.”

  Thouriss blinked his milky, membranous eyelids. “So, you have been in the east. How did you find it?”

  “Uh, find it?”

  “Are not the borders of Silvanesti closed to foreigners?”

  “We found the girl wandering, yes,” Catchflea said quickly. “It was in the New Coast region that we met.”

  Thouriss took a step closer to Di An. “Why did you flee Silvanesti, elf?”

  She flinched at the forbidden word. Riverwind hoped her anger would overcome her fear.

  “She’s too frightened to speak,” Riverwind said.

  “Are you frightened of me, little one?” Thouriss towered almost three feet over the elf girl. He reached down and pinched the back of her dress in two fingers, lifting Di An off the ground. She began to weep. He brought her close to his serpentine face.

  “Why did you run away?” he said. “Why?”

  “Leave her alone!” Riverwind cried. A guard hit him with the shaft of his pike. Riverwind whirled and kicked the armored goblin in the knee. He toppled with a ringing crash. Other guards closed in. Riverwind ran up the shallow steps until he was within arm’s length of Thouriss.

  “Put her down!” he said.

  Thouriss waved the guards away. He held the weeping girl to Riverwind, who lifted his fettered arms and took her.

  “This affection your race has for others is very interesting,” he said. “I do not understand it, but it is interesting. You knew I could kill you, yet you risked your life to intercede for her. Why?”

  “I will not stand by and watch your bullying!” Riverwind said. The elf girl was clinging to him, her face buried in his shirt. “I care what happens to her.”

  Thouriss did not display any anger. Instead, he seemed intrigued by Riverwind’s response. “Interesting,” he said. “I must consult Krago on this.”

  He dispatched a guard to the closed corridor on the right. Shortly, the goblin returned with a cowled figure who clutched a large, ancient book. The cowled one walked slowly, his face bent to the written page.

  “Leave your studies, Krago. I wish to ask something.”

  The cowl lifted, revealing blue eyes and a patch of fair hair. A surprisingly young face looked out from the hood. He closed the book with a snap and a spray of dust. Riverwind was intrigued to see a fellow human among the goblins and lizard men.

  “What is it, Thouriss?” asked the young mage. His brows had lifted in surprise at the sight of the humans and elf girl, but his attention quickly returned to the lizard commander.

  “What is the reason for affection between warm-blooded creatures?” asked the commander. “Why does it happen?”

  Krago sighed. “We talked about this before.” He shifted the heavy book in his arms. “Humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes, and kender all form attachments to others who have traits that complement their own.”

  The commander looked perplexed. “What traits could there be between a plainsman and an elven girl?”

  Krago walked to Thouriss, his sandaled feet kicking out from under his faded clerical robes. “Reason it out, as I taught you,” he said.

  Riverwind listened to the exchange between the human and the reptilian commander with great interest. There seemed to be some odd bond between the tw
o.

  Thouriss’s eyes widened. “Males attach to females in order to breed.”

  “Not likely here,” Krago observed. “Consider the age difference.”

  “Immature warm-bloods arouse feelings of protectiveness in adults. This is the motherly instinct in females, the fatherly instinct in males.” Thouriss studied Riverwind curiously, as if he could see this trait in his face. “You feel like the girls father?”

  Riverwind set Di An on her feet. He gestured to Catchflea to come forward and stand by him. The old man, with a glance at the goblin guards, did so. “We are friends and companions,” Riverwind said. “Nothing, more or less.”

  “This is interesting!” Thouriss exclaimed. “I believe I shall study them a while.”

  The young cleric was already buried in his book again. “That’s a military matter,” he murmured. “Do as you like.”

  “What would a civilized person do next?” asked the commander.

  “Invite us to dinner,” Catchflea said quickly.

  Thouriss grinned, showing needlelike fangs. “Excellent! You shall all dine with me—you too, Krago.”

  “But my work—”

  “Oblige me!” was the sharp reply. Krago looked up and shrugged.

  “At what hour?” he asked.

  “The sixth.” To the guards, Thouriss said, “Take them to the Court of Reception. I will send for them shortly.”

  The goblins flanked the trio and marched them out again. They turned right off the plaza, crossed the stream by means of a plank bridge, and entered a narrower street that paralleled the main one.

  “Do you see what I see?” Riverwind said under his breath.

  “I do, yes,” said Catchflea. Suspended in the air in front of them was a pot—an enormous pot, hanging by a stout chain. The chain ran up and up, until it vanished in the darkness of the cavern ceiling.

  “What is it?” asked Di An.

  “A hoist, I believe,” said Catchflea. “A way out, yes?”

  “If we are lucky.”

  The hoist was secured some eight feet off the ground, no doubt to keep gully dwarves from meddling with it. Riverwind sized up the pot. It should hold the three of them. Now, how to reach it?