by Doug Niles
“All right, boys, thanks,” she said, gently touching her big dog’s shoulder. Kondike relaxed slightly, allowing her to ease him off the dwarf’s still form. “You can stop biting him now,” she told Gus, who was leaving bloody teeth marks on a third toe.
“What this bluphsplunging doofar do?” demanded the gully dwarf, removing Poleaxe’s foot from his mouth but holding it close enough that he could resume his attack at a moment’s notice. Kondike, hackles up, growled at the unconscious hill dwarf.
“He was waiting for me; he attacked me,” Gretchan said, feeling a queasy sickness as the full reality of the awful situation sank in. “I don’t know what would have happened if the two of you hadn’t rushed in to help. Thank you, again.”
“He not dead yet. Want me kill him?” suggested Gus with a little too much enthusiasm for the dwarf maid’s comfort. She regarded the motionless hill dwarf with revulsion, but killing him was not even a remote possibility; it would have been a betrayal of everything she stood for: decency, honor, civilized behavior. Perhaps she ought to have him arrested, but then, thinking of her encounter with the Kayolin prisoner, who had professed his innocence yet was stuck in jail, she didn’t have much faith in the local justice.
“No, we can’t—we won’t,” she said immediately. She looked around the bare room, at her backpack—it had tumbled open somehow, scattering her few possessions—and suddenly knew they had to get out of that place. Hillhome had proved inhospitable.
“We’re going to leave,” she announced. “Tonight. After I go talk to one more person.”
She quickly gathered up her possessions and strapped them into her pack. Kondike and Gus hurried to keep up as she left the inn at a trot and made her way to the shadowy street where Garrin Hammerstrike had pointed to the oracle’s hut. A few minutes later, she stood in the darkness of an overhanging barn roof, studying her objective. The house of the Mother Oracle was obvious: it stood at the end of the narrow lane, dilapidated and dark. There were no other houses, barns, or other structures nearby.
“You two wait here,” she ordered sternly, worrying more about disobedience from the gully dwarf than from the dog.
Her staff in her hand, she started down the street. She strained for some sensory suggestion—sight or sound, smell, or even something on a more subconscious level—that would help her prepare to enter the small house. She felt nothing at all, and that fact disturbed her deeply. It was as if some kind of protective screen surrounded the house, like the building itself was prepared to resist her.
She approached the battered, shabby front door and she felt the resistance more directly. It took an extra effort of will to take the last two steps to bring her up to the portal. Gretchan, always confident and serene in the face of danger, felt a surprising unease and hesitated to touch the door. Uncertain whether she would knock or just push it open, she started and gasped when she her a sharp voice from within.
“Go away!”
The speaker was an old woman, she discerned, but if she were weak or invalid, that frailty did not transfer into her voice: the words were vibrant, thrumming with a sense of power that almost forced Gretchan backward. It took all of her resolve to reply.
“I want to talk to you. Will you let me in?” she asked directly.
“I said, go away!” The words were tinged with clear anger.
“I will not!” Gretchan shot back. “I’ve come to Hillhome, traveled hundreds of miles, to meet you. You are known in places far beyond the Kharolis range. Now will you open this door, or must I shout at you from the front step?”
Surprisingly, the door creaked open, and the Mother Oracle stood in the entryway, confronting the dwarf maid. She was shorter than Gretchan, thin, and wrapped in a threadbare shawl. Her face was creased with wrinkles and her eyes were milky pale, seemingly blind—except that the dwarf maid felt those useless eyes examining her very carefully. Gretchan sensed the power in her, and her hand tightened around her staff. The anvil at the head of the pole glimmered slightly, and the oracle snorted in contempt.
“Do you think the light of the Forge can protect you here? Hillhome is lost to you—and soon, so will be the rest of the Kharolis!”
“Who are you?” demanded Gretchan, clinging to her staff even more tightly than before.
“You may learn someday, but that day will be your last!” sneered the old crone. She waved a hand, and abruptly fire crackled around the door of her house, searing yellow flames surging into the night. The heat forced Gretchan to recoil.
“Help!” screamed the old woman, and she did sound feeble, weak, and terrified. “I am being attacked!”
A second later Gretchan heard doors bang open farther down the street. The old woman screamed again, and other dwarves, swarming out of their houses, shouted in alarm and surged toward the flames.
“It’s Mother Oracle!” someone cried.
Gretchan backed up farther, throwing up her hands to screen her face from the searing heat. She glanced over her shoulder and saw a half dozen or more hill dwarves charging toward her. Some carried buckets, but at least a few bore pitchforks or axes. She turned back to the hut and saw that the oracle had slammed the door—with herself inside. The flames surged higher, but the dwarf maid discerned that they were not consuming, not even charring, the dry planking on the outside of the building.
“Hey, you! Get away from there!” came another shout, undeniably hostile.
“You old fox,” Gretchan declared, shaking her head in dismay. With no good choice in front of her, she clutched her staff, put down her head, and ran into the darkness. It took her ten minutes to circle around to find Gus and Kondike where she had left them. By then, she saw that the flames were out, and she was not surprised to observe that the oracle’s house was none the worse for the experience. A number of agitated hill dwarves milled about in the narrow land in front of the hut.
“Come on,” she said in disgust to her two relieved companions. “We’re getting out of here.”
Harn Poleaxe came to with a throbbing headache. His mind was foggy, but when he remembered what had happened—he had had the wench on her bed, was holding her down, when that ferocious dog and stupid gully dwarf had interrupted them—his fury wiped away his pain. He stood, staggering slightly. He limped on a sore foot and looked down at his bloody toes, cursing the damned little Aghar that had dared to chomp him.
A quick look around was enough to show him that the beautiful dwarf maid had taken her possessions and gone. How dare she! A low growl rumbled in his chest. Then he sagged onto the bed, too tired to pursue her—she was probably long gone, anyway—his rage fading away. Holding his throbbing head in his hand, he just felt weary.
A momentary thought flashed though his mind: had she taken everything?
Quickly he reached into his boot, still on the floor behind the door where he had left it as he prepared for his encounter with the voluptuous maid. He felt weak with relief as he touched the cold glass and pulled out the bottle of dwarf spirits, the one that she had left on her night table. The one he had quickly stolen for his own.
He’d been pleasantly surprised to discover it—she didn’t seem the type to be carrying strong drink around—but he’d snatched it up right after he broke into her room, having the foresight to set it aside for later. She hadn’t taken everything with her, and if she were going to leave something, he was glad it was that bottle of strong drink. Just what he wanted and needed right at the moment. It was all he needed. Poleaxe gazed fondly at that perfect blend of distilled spirits, swirling like liquid treasure in the flask.
“Midwarren Pale.” he read. It sounded like a mountain dwarf vintage but not one he was familiar with; that didn’t matter; he had broad tastes when it came to strong drink.
He could resist no longer. Pulling out the cork, he placed the bottle to his lips and tilted it upward. The first drops of the liquid touched his lips, and he experienced an exquisite agony, a pain pure and piercing that rapidly became an overwhelming pleasure. I
t was not dwarf spirits, not even a foul and sour version of that splendid drink.
The elixir trickled down his throat, flowing from his belly into his limbs, invigorating him, thrilling him. He gulped down the contents of the bottle in one long guzzle, feeling a liquid fire surging in his chest. He trembled, feeling the rush all over his body, black and smothering but at the same time comforting and protecting.
Suddenly convulsing, the hill dwarf fell onto the floor, the empty bottle tumbling from his nerveless fingers. His body quivered as the essence of the elixir seeped through every fiber of his being. Shivering, he lay helpless on the floor, surrendering to wave after wave of ecstasy. He felt vibrantly, fully, sensually alive in a way he had never been before.
He couldn’t move, could barely breathe. But his mind was filled with powerful images, scenes of conquest and triumph.
Lying there, almost peacefully, he recalled the command of the Mother Oracle and knew the Kayolin prisoner must die. He, Harn Poleaxe, would make it happen, and the people of his village would hail him as a hero for doing the deed.
Then he stared into the haze of the distance, and it was as though his vision were more keen than it had ever been before. He swept closer until he stood in the middle of a battle, untouched by enemy blade, laying waste to all sides. He saw a host of foes, dead and dying all around him. He saw an army of Neidar, charging at his command, sweeping toward a high fortress.
Yes, he, Harn Poleaxe, was a great leader of dwarves!
He recognized the fortress even as his consciousness slipping away: the two towers, the long connecting wall, and the gate—the gate standing open to admit him, to admit his army.
Finally, the towers and walls came crashing down, and Harn Poleaxe stood victorious upon the wreckage of Pax Tharkas.
The minion soared over the town of hill dwarves, flying low since the lights were dimmed with most of the citizens retired for the night. The red and white moons had set, leaving the black moon master of the skies—for those, like the minion, who could sense its presence. The creature watched from the air as the dwarf maid who had burned it with her horrible staff stalked into the street, accompanied by her dog and the gully dwarf that was the creature’s quarry. But she still walked with that pole in her hand, swinging it easily at her side, and the minion dared not approach, for fear of that searing brightness.
Snarling like a rasp of wind through dry branches, the monster banked, hovering above the two dwarves and the dog. Its nostrils flared and its red eyes glowed as it sought the spoor of the treasure that the gully dwarf carried, the flask of potion that he had stolen from the wizard in Thorbardin. The minion’s keen senses probed, seeking, looking, smelling. Its master had commanded it to retrieve that elixir, and it had to find it.
But to its great surprise, its senses told it that the potion was no longer carried by either the gully dwarf or the female.
Once again the gaunt creature veered, curling through the skies over the town, circling, roaming, seeking. It found itself in a quandary, one of conflicting goals: the wizard had charged it with killing the Aghar and returning to Thorbardin with the missing potion. No longer was the potion in the possession of the gully dwarf, though.
The minion stared at the dwarves as they strode rapidly down the road and out of town, thinking of that tall, magical staff.
The dwarves could go, for the time being. The minion would circle in the skies over the town and try to figure out what had happened to the potion.
NINETEEN
ON TRIAL
Brandon awakened with the loud opening of the brig’s door. Several dwarves entered the building and stood near the entrance while the jailer, together with the bullying Neidar called Rune, came swaggering all the way back to the mountain dwarf’s cell. Rune flourished a sword while the turnkey unlocked the barrier and pulled it open. Brandon wondered what the bullying Neidar had done with his venerable axe.
“Time to come out and play,” Rune sneered. “You get to be the center of attention!”
Pushing himself to his feet, Brandon emerged from the cell. But they didn’t know his hands were no longer tied. He owed the dwarf maid historian a favor, he reckoned.
Abruptly he jabbed his elbow into the jailer so hard, he knocked the dwarf into one of the barred doors. With a curse and a clatter of metal, the filthy turnkey tumbled to the floor.
“Watch yourself!” Rune declared, jabbing the tip of his sword against Brandon’s side until the prisoner swiftly twisted out of the way and grabbed the hill dwarf by the wrist, pinning his sword hand against the bars of an adjacent cell.
“Hey—how’d you get your hands untied?” Rune demanded, squirming. The jailer scrambled to his feet and moved toward Brandon, but he froze at the glare from the burly Hylar.
The other dwarves at the door, swords drawn, edged closer, and Brandon could see there was no escape. Releasing Rune’s wrist and brushing past the jailer, Brandon shrugged and continued toward the outer door and the painfully bright daylight outside.
“Good luck,” he heard the Theiwar prisoner say loudly, and he grunted an acknowledgment.
It was morning, he saw as he emerged, and Hillhome was bustling with pedestrians. At first he guessed that the moderately crowded street was busy with hill dwarves making their way to work. Only most of them weren’t going to jobs. They were going to his trial.
Rune prodded him down the steps and toward the middle of town. The gathered hill dwarves watched him with barely concealed hostility, and the bulk of the crowd followed along as the Neidar led his prisoner toward a small square in the center of Hillhome.
A raised platform occupied one end of the open area. A pair of hill dwarf guards, each carrying a long-hafted battle axe, stood to either side of a large, thronelike chair—which was unoccupied. To the left, a wooden rack had been erected, and judging from the manacles attached to the upper and lower supports, Brandon deduced that the contraption was a means of immobilizing, while undoubtedly torturing, a spread-eagled prisoner. He felt a twinge of fear but resolved not to give his captors the satisfaction of seeing him squirm. Instead, he swaggered into the plaza with all the bravado he could muster.
The edges of the square were crowded with muttering hill dwarves, mostly males conspicuously armed with a variety of weapons. They glared at Brandon as he was pushed into the center of the square. Rune stood right behind the prisoner, his sharp blade prodding the mountain dwarf at intervals. The dwarf from Kayolin tried to scan the crowd, looking for a glimpse of blonde hair, of that pretty, oval face with the small, upturned nose. He felt surprisingly dejected when he realized Gretchan Pax wasn’t here to record his fate.
“All set for the festivities, are you?”
He turned to see Slate Fireforge eyeing him. The hill dwarf had ambled up behind him, and while his expression wasn’t exactly friendly, nor was it as hostile as so many others in the crowd.
“Don’t see that I have much choice,” Brandon replied with a shrug, trying to appear nonchalant. He squinted at Fireforge. “Why’d you stop him from killing me that morning up in the hills? You don’t believe him, do you? You know I’m not really a spy, don’t you?”
Fireforge made a face, half bemused, half grimace. “Can’t say one way or the other, to tell the truth. But I believe there’s a proper way to do things, and slicing your head off on a rock up there just didn’t seem, well, proper. And Harn Poleaxe knew that too, or he wouldn’t have listened to me.”
“He seems to be a pretty important fellow around here. Why is everyone so anxious to do anything he says?”
The hill dwarf pondered the question for a while but finally answered. “He comes from money—his father was the richest goldsmith in the north hills. And he’s always been a leader. Quite handy with a sword … and with the ladies.”
“And with a bottle,” Brandon noted, his bitterness showing.
“Aye-uh, that too. But mainly it was when that old woman, whom they call the Mother Oracle, came to town, ’bout ten years
ago. She took him under her wing, so to speak, and he’s been on a run of good luck and prosperity since then. I hear it was her sent him to Kayolin, to look for that stone you brought down here.”
“Who’s this Mother Oracle?” Brandon asked.
“An old, blind dwarf woman, is all,” Fireforge replied. “Claims to have some mystical powers. I guess she’s given Harn Poleaxe some good advice, though.” He nodded at the other side of the plaza, where the crowd was starting to stir. “Looks like the show’s about to start. Good luck to you,” he said, apparently sincere.
“I’ll need it,” Brandon muttered. “But I don’t think I’m going to get it.”
He stared at the platform with its lofty chair, a veritable throne, and was not surprised to see Harn Poleaxe swagger into view, pushing his way through the crowd that parted for him. He was dressed in a fur cape and shiny black boots, looking for all the world as if he were the lord of the place.
But a closer look at the hill dwarf leader did surprise him—just as it apparently surprised the others in the crowd, who whispered to each other or simply stared at the hulking figure of the Neidar.
For Harn Poleaxe had changed considerably from the last time Brandon had laid eyes on him. His already oversized body seemed to have grown bigger, so that he towered over the biggest Neidar of his bodyguards. His head, in particular, looked huge and swollen, with his eyes receding into deep, almost cavernous, sockets. Several warts had sprouted on his cheeks, and the hill dwarf scratched at one of them as if it gave him great pleasure. He twitched in a sudden nervous gesture, looking behind him and glaring. Then, as Poleaxe neared the chair on the platform, those eyes turned menacingly at the Kayolin dwarf. He was a new, strangely transformed, frighteningly different Poleaxe.
Brandon met that glare even as he felt its power. A wickedness lurked in Poleaxe’s presence, an abiding evil that, somehow, hadn’t been obvious before, during his long journey with the hill dwarf. Poleaxe puffed out his barrel chest and strutted back and forth on the raised platform, and some in the crowd audibly gasped at his remarkably strapping presence. His arms, too, seemed to have grown in size and length, and his muscular limbs swung easily, his fists seemingly reaching to his knees.