“Such wisdom must be rewarded. A day's travel north you will find the Laagelliev, built by the First Men to contain the Dead Gods in this place. Safety lies beyond that gate.”
His father bowed stiffly to the ancient figure.
“We thank you for your help.”
She waved a hand in dismissal.
“Oh, I have not helped you! I tell you of this to give you hope, but you will never make it to that sanctuary alive. The thought of your horror and despair as that hope is betrayed will be the last, greatest joy of my life!”
The sound of her hideous cackling followed them long after she was lost to their sight.
Chapter Nine
“There is greater evil tucked away in the odd corners of this world than is held by the hearts of men. The earth was ancient beyond imagining before the first man set foot upon her soil and it would be prideful to suggest that we stand at the peak of this world’s achievements in good or ill.”
From the diaries of Engvyr Gunnarson
As dawn approached, Berget, who had been looking into the desert with increasing frequency when they stopped for rest, tugged at her mother's hand.
“They are gathering. I think we should hurry.”
Engvyr agreed. He had been feeling more and more nervous. A sense of a malign presence had been growing on him. Several times he had thought that something had brushed against him.
His father distributed more of the candied leaves, a larger portion this time to each of them, and his aunt brewed more of her spicy medicinal drink. They gave the ox and pony the last of their feed and water, along with a cautiously small portion of the leaves, and set out at the best pace that they could manage.
The rising sun did not dispel the half-seen shapes in the corners of their eyes, which were constant companions now. Neither did it reveal them. They were each aware of a growing sense of menace and they hurried their steps, gasping for breath in the thin air, hearts pounding.
His aunt handed Berget up to her brother. They were all exhausted but the stimulus of the leaves kept sleepiness at bay, though it also made them edgy. They drove themselves on as the sun climbed in the sky. More and more often Engvyr felt invisible hands pluck at his clothes, his beard and hair. Sudden flurries of wind blew grit in their faces. From time to time his Aunt or father would flinch for no reason he could see. Berget buried her face in his father’s cote, peeking out occasionally with wide, fearful eyes.
Abruptly the ground fell away before them in a long slope. Far away they could see a structure of some sort nestled between the distant hills.
Without a word they all picked up their pace though they felt as if their lungs would burst. As if this was a signal to their strange pursuers the manifestations increased. Engvyr stumbled as an unseen presence shoved him. The strange wind-bursts now pelted them with gravel as well as grit. Ghostly hands- or some other appendage- pinched and tugged at them. Egerta cried out and fell. When she rose Engvyr could see a triple-row of welts running from her temple to her cheek. She clung to the pony's harness to keep her feet under her as the invisible assault continued.
Sounds that he had thought were the wind resolved into inhuman voices, chanting, wailing and shouting. He grabbed the pack-straps and held tight as he was pummeled by small stones and rocked by sourceless blows. They staggered down the slope towards the distant structure, helpless against enemies they could neither see nor touch.
Dust devils raced them down the trail and the voices grew louder in their ears. They spoke in no language Engvyr knew, words that no human throat could form that twisted his guts and made his head spin.
As they drew near the gate the pony, as if sensing that sanctuary, broke into a fast trot. His aunt held the harness and bounded alongside. The ox would not be left behind and Engvyr found himself letting it pull him along, struggling to keep his feet under him.
He looked back and saw the dust-devils converging into a single great, translucent shape that towered into the pale blue sky. It strode towards them on more legs than any natural creature possessed. The blowing dust seemed to form mouths and limbs randomly, only for them to swirl away an instant later.
The pony and ox succumbed to panic and began to race across the final ground before the stone arch. The voices merged into one great wall of sound that hammered at their ears and tore at their sanity. He saw his father grab his aunt's cote and lift her feet from the ground as the pony, screaming in fear, bolted the last few feet to the gate.
Engvyr fell but kept his grip on the pack-strap and his legs were dragged along the barren ground. The massive shape of wind-blown dust was solidifying into a form his mind recoiled from comprehending. It seemed to be reaching for him as the maddened ox plunged through the stone arch into silence.
The instant he passed beneath its stones, the voice was cut off and the massive shape dissolved into blown dust. The ox slowed and stopped, eyes rolling and sides heaving. Its long, matted hair was soaked with sweat. Engvyr released the strap and fell to the ground, his lungs clawing for enough of the thin air to catch his breath. He lay on the ground, content for the moment to wait for his racing heart to slow. Already the memory of that massive, eldritch shape was slipping from his mind.
“Engvyr! Are you alright?”
He looked up to see his aunt standing over him and levered himself to a sitting position, wincing as various hurts made themselves known.
“More or less,” he half-gasped. He could see that she was no worse off than he and asked after his father and Berget.
“Well enough.” She braced herself against the ox's pack-frame with one hand and extended the other to help him to his feet. Boyish pride be damned he thought, and accepted her help gratefully.
His father stood, his great-cote torn and his face flecked with blood from many small cuts, holding Berget next to the tumbled body of the pony. The altitude and fear had burst its great heart, he guessed sadly. His father had protected Berget as he rolled from the saddle when the beast went down. But other than superficial wounds and exhaustion they were all whole, for a miracle.
The trail wound down a steep slope into a small valley before them. At first glance it appeared no different than the lands they had just left, but further study showed grey-blue lichens coating the rocks, and a trace of green along a crevice in the valley floor that hinted at water.
They took the tack, harness and saddlebags from the pony and tied them to the ox's pack. It now stood phlegmatically as if nothing had happened at all. His father patted the great beast with an expression of wonder.
“If we live to see the Clanhame, old fellow, it's green fields and never again the road for you! You've earned a bountiful retirement.”
Though they needed meat they had not the heart to butcher the brave pony that had seen them through so much. Engvyr wished that they had the energy to build a cairn for the poor beast but knew that they could not spare the strength.
Though they ached to rest they had nothing to drink and no water to cook with, so they made their way down the steep trail and across the rocky valley as the sun dropped behind the peaks. There was indeed a stream, and the ox woke to new life and broke into a trot.
“Let him go,” his father said, “It's not as if you could hold him back from it anyway.”
They followed after, his father limping slowly along with the help of a cane, and found the beast knee-deep in a wide, shallow pool, his muzzle buried in the stream. They fell to their own bellies and eased their parched throats in the icy water and rinsed the grime and dust from their faces, then set about making camp.
They did not care that they were near the end of their supplies, and the aching head of altitude sickness seemed of little matter compared to their recent ordeal. They did not any of them care to chew more of the candied leaves for relief, either.
They lay their bedrolls on the sand by the pool, snuggled together for warmth as they had used the last of their store of fuel for the cooking fire. They slept the deep sleep of exhausti
on, and if their dreams troubled them they did not recall them in the morning.
They rose the next morning stiff and sore but glad they were alive to feel it. Two days later in the second valley they passed through they found the road; a good, dwarven road. It was just a strip of dirt and gravel but to them it looked like home.
Chapter Ten
“There's an old saying that 'The guilty flee when none pursue.' They are forever hunted because no matter where they go they cannot escape the guilt in their own hearts.”
From the diaries of Engvyr Gunnarson
Haaken Elovson swore bitterly as he studied the trail ahead of him. He stood and turned to the others.
“It's them, right enough,” he said. He was the best tracker among them and they respected his judgment when it came to such things. Several of the thieves swore in their own turn at this news.
“They gotta' be huntin' us!” exclaimed Darrol Reddolson. He was a miner by trade, with narrow, piggish eyes. “We're off the path that ox-train was takin' and we been windin' all over the country.”
“What I want to know is how'd they get ahead of us?” another wondered.
“It doesn't matter, they managed it somehow. Who'd a' thought they'd take after us? A woman, a kid an' a crippled up fella?” asked the trapper named Noak.
“It's that Maker-damned kid that killed Weart and Doelyr. They must all be as nuts as he is,” said Graegyr, another miner. “If Weart hadn't killed that brat…”
“Well he did kill 'er,” Haaken said, “an' he paid full price for the doin' of it but that don't mean those folks are likely to forgive and forget. If'n they set the Law on us…”
He didn't need to elaborate. Bad as it was to steal they'd laid hands on a respectable woman, and worse yet been involved in the killing of a child. Dwarves had but few children in the course of their long lives and they treasured them. The fact that the killing was an accident, even that the guilty party had died for it, mattered not one bit. It had happened during a crime they were all involved in. In the eyes of the Law they were as guilty as he was.
“Well if they're ahead of us they've lost our trail. We need to get off this road and take out another way,” said Noak.
“Don't be stupid,” Haaken said, “They trailed us this far, do you think they are just going to shrug and go their merry way when they realize they've lost us? No sir, they'll back track and keep right on coming.”
He overrode their muttering at this.
“Ya'll don't see it,” he said, “This is a chance for us. We can take them by surprise and end our troubles here and now.”
“I wouldn't mind meetin' up with that there woman again,” said Noak, “We got us some unfinished business, her and I.”
“Only way Noak can get him a woman, ugly as he is,” one of them said and they all chuckled. Noak just shrugged and grinned.
“Best we move out then, boys,” Haaken said, “Likely we can come up on them before dark, fresh as those tracks are.”
– **-
Engvyr was returning to camp with a double armload of wood when he heard the screams. Dropping the wood he unslung the Big 14 and rushed to investigate. He was just about in sight of the hollow where they had made camp when a figure loomed out of the brush ahead of him. He tried to stop to shoulder the gun but he heard a shot and something slugged him in the chest.
He found himself staring up at the sky through the leaves. He was lying flat on his back on the loam of the forest floor and there was no noise but the sounds of the woods. Breathing hurt, moving was worse, and he fell back with a grimace as he tried to think what had happened. Then he remembered the screams and struggled to his knees. He looked for the Big 14 but it was nowhere to be seen. His belt, pouch and knife were missing too.
He felt another stab of pain that took his breath away and realized that he couldn't move his left arm. He found he'd been shot high in the chest, two inches below the collarbone. The wound had bled plenty but was just seeping now. He used his good hand and his teeth to tear the hem off of his linen undershirt and wad it over the wound under his tunic. He tore another strip and used it to tie the pad in place.
By then his head was swimming and he had to fight down nausea. He was able to get to his feet with the help of a tree-trunk and lurching from tree to tree he came in sight of the camp. The ox was gone and their goods were scattered. A dwarf holding the Big 14 was bent over his father and rummaging through his coat.
Feeling a surge of anger he moved forward quietly and picked up a length of firewood. He almost fell when he bent over but recovered and staggered towards the thief. Hearing his approach the thief started to turn towards him and Engvyr hit him across the face with the stick.
The blow was fueled by rage and he felt bone crunch as he struck. The blow knocked the dwarf over backwards and the gun flew from his hand. Engvyr had to struggle to keep his own feet and when the thief tried to rise Engvyr struck him down savagely.
Dropping the wood he staggered back to check on his father. He was dead. He had been shot in the back with a crossbow and his throat was cut. His aunt had suffered before she died. He covered her and suddenly wondered where Berget was. Trying to rise again he found that he could not. He knelt there, gasping from the ebb and flow of the pain until his sight went dark and he felt no more.
PART TWO: THE FORGE
Chapter Eleven
“There's a trick to fighting a superior force. You need to hit them hard and fast, keep them off balance. Give them no time to organize their response. Get them to react as individuals, without thinking. Do it right and you can more or less scare them to death.”
From the diaries of Engvyr Gunnarson
Engvyr watched from cover as the goblin raiding party herded along a pair of women and a half-dozen children. All of the captives showed signs of abuse. Most likely their men-folk had been killed, butchered already and their remains divided up among the goblin's packs.
The prisoners were Afmaeltinn, humans that had settled on the edge of dwarven lands as they sometimes did. Engvyr didn't much care about humans one way or the other but he'd be damned if he'd let the goblins take anyone off of Dwarven lands.
The goblins wore broad-brimmed hats and scarfs to shield their eyes and faces from the sunlight, typical when they were out by daylight. Long coats covered their rag-tag armor, with gloves on their hands and hob-nailed boots upon their feet. Three of them carried repeating crossbows, high on rate-of-fire but short on accuracy. The rest were armed with an assortment of hand-axes, spears and short bill-hooks. With just himself and his partner Taarven Redbeard to stop them Engvyr wasn't liking their odds.
Engvyr and Taarven were Rangers of the Mountain Guard, and they patrolled the remote hames and steadings among the high valleys and mountain passes of the Northlands. In the course of making their rounds they were called upon to do everything from dealing with incursions such as this one to putting down a rogue bear or boar, even acting as judges of the King's Law when they needed to. They spent three to four weeks at a time in the saddle and their only home was the Station that they were based out of.
Rangers were issued repeating carbines and they lived or died by them on their long patrols. These were standard spring-piston guns and they carried twenty 36-bore balls in their tubular magazines. A good dwarf could fire as many as ten balls a minute with one, and they were both very good. However with them outnumbered six-to-one even that rate of fire was likely to prove insufficient. Seeing as we're the only ones here, Engvyr reflected, and someone has to do it this is going to get real interesting.
He nodded to Taarven that he'd seen enough. The two dwarves edged back from their vantage-point and quietly crept back to their hobbled ponies. They had two riding-ponies each and a pack-pony between them. They gathered them up while discussing the situation in low voices carefully pitched to not carry in the mountain air.
“This is going to be all kinds of hairy,” Taarven said
Engvyr snorted in agreement and said, “Re
ckon if we go down along Goren's Creek through the cut we can get ahead of them before the Eyrie. Give 'em a warm welcome home.”
Taarven nodded. The Eyrie was a pass on the northwestern border of Dvargatil Baeg, and once past that the goblins were free and clear. “Reckon that's the best that we can do.”
They didn't discuss the obvious fact that they'd need better than usual luck to come out of this with their skins intact. But even if they failed and died in the attempt they had a point to make to the goblins: you don't come into Dwarven lands to murder, pillage and kidnap people without paying the price. The two Rangers were determined to make sure that price was as high as possible.
They cut over to the creek and began to work their way up the bed. It was early summer and the water was running less than a foot deep over bedrock with pockets of gravel and debris trapped in the bends, so the footing was good enough for their mountain-bred ponies. It did make for rough going and they had to portage the occasional rapids, but the creek cut across land the road went around so they were able to outpace their quarry.
“If'n we're too far off when we open up on them,” Taarven said, “They'll scatter and we might lose the captives. If we're too close they'll overwhelm us right off.”
Engvyr nodded. “We'll take out the crossbows first and then whoever else we can manage.” Too likely, he reflected grimly, what we'll see is us joining the men-folk in the packs, the choice bits at least, all neatly wrapped and ready to cook.
They joined up with the road again a few hundred yards short of the Eyrie and well ahead of their quarry. After they picketed their ponies in a hollow away from the road Engvyr slid his Infantry Long-Rifle from its scabbard, a memento from his days in the elite 3rd Rifles. He inspected it quickly then broke open the action, which was hinged a few inches from the trigger-guard. The stock acted as a lever to cock the piston in the compression-chamber mounted under the barrel.
Diaries of a Dwarven Rifleman Page 7