And then he remembered the ring.
It would not come off though he bent all his great strength to the task. At last he raced back to the city and retrieved the glass cup. It seemed to take only minutes until he was back at the border, back to face the shadows of the once-mountains that reached for him. He placed the cup on the hard ground and then squatted before it. He methodically laid his ring finger on the sharp edge, and bent his other fingers out of the way. With his right hand he pressed down on his left and on the finger that held the ring.
The pain was greater than any wound he had ever received. But Niall did not trust that thought, for it was so long since he had felt physical pain. Harder he bore down and bit by bit the sharp edge of the cup sliced through the flesh and muscle, till the horrid sound of the glass scraping the bone of his finger filled the land. And if there had been pain before it was as nothing to what he now felt.
But there was a delirious pleasure in that pain, a reaffirmation of something he could not name, only feel. With a fierce heat suffusing him, he gasped once and then thrust as hard as he could down on the finger. It cracked and split and finally it fell, severed from his hand, dropping with a plop into the blood-filled cup.
It floated there half-submerged, bobbing in the red liquid as a small fall of blood from his disfigured hand continued to fill the cup. Niall watched with sick fascination, his stomach turning at what he had done, at the result of his despair. The finger was now brown with the blood, and a light steam rose from the cup. The digit rolled once like some great beast in a lost sea of Hell and as it did it presented Niall the stone of the Ring of Mannon Mac Lir.
The star in the black sapphire burned silver and the light it gave off was so great that Niall backed away and covered his eyes with his arms. But the light was stronger than that and it pierced his flesh and fractured his sight. Now there was only the silver light surrounded by the steaming sea of the man's blood. And that light turned to him and regarded the man, and though Niall strove to avoid that awful gaze, he could not, nor could he hide from the many things in the silver eye.
There was such sadness there that Niall felt his heart would burst. But there, too, were many other things also. And most of all, there was a plea--a plea for forgiveness. It was not a wish that came from weakness, but from intolerable strength and power. But Niall could not find it in him to forgive, nor to hate, but surely the anger was there and could easily become more.
"Let me go," he gasped, "send me back." And the eye still filled with that overwhelming sadness turned from the man and he knew no more.
Niall awoke to face the violet eyes of Cormac mac Cainhill. The general tried to turn from the elf, for he thought he saw a silver light behind that alien gaze.
"How long?" he gasped out.
"A few days." The elf's melodious voice was soothing and Niall felt some of his strength returning at that sound; though his mind screamed refusal to the elf's message.
"Nay, it cannot be," Niall answered, "for I have been lost for so long."
"A few days in time only, Niall Trollsbane, but for you, I think, it has been otherwise."
"I have seen..." but Niall stopped at that. How could he truly put into words all that he had seen? All that had happened? "I have lost the ring," he whispered.
"Nay, you have not." Cormac lifted Niall's hand that he might see the ring that still lay on his finger. "But perhaps better for you if you had." Strong hands lifted Niall to a sitting position. In the room besides Cormac was Niall's brother Shiel, and the general was surprised to see Mearead there also. The dwarven king smiled.
"Well, well," he said, "I was beginning to wonder if you'd ever grace us with your smiling face again."
"Then it was naught but a dream?" he asked but none would answer him. At last Shiel moved to his brother's side and grasped Niall's forearm.
"I'm afraid, little brother, that it was much more than any dream I've heard tell of." Shiel lifted a mirror to his brother's face and Niall swore at what he saw.
For his once blond hair was now as white as snow, and his eyes . . . that was the worst of it, for they, too, were white, the black pupils stared back at him from some great distance. It was, he thought, as if all that he had seen had somehow bleached the color from his features, though his face was as tanned as ever.
"That, my friend," Mearead said, "was one helluva a dream."
"Nightmare," Niall whispered and he pushed the mirror away. Seeing his mood, the elf and dwarf left, and so it was Shiel who answered the many questions Niall now had. He told Niall of the battle of Tonith and of the news of the army of Ruegal. When he told of how the maker had been found dead in his chambers, his body crushed as if by some great weight, Niall simply nodded but did not speak. "The fight in the caverns beneath the Tivulic mountains continues, but two days ago the Laird Ceallac and King Mearead felt that it was secure enough to come and try and help you." Shiel smiled warmly down on his brother. "We thought we'd lose you, laddie, and Ceallac said it was yourself and no other that freed you from the trance."
"And Father?" The muscles in Shiel's face hardened at Niall's question.
"I cannot say what ails the man, Niall,he answered. "He would not ride into battle with us, claiming he would nae leave you while you were in your coma. But he did nae visit you once." Shiel ground his teeth together. "He sits upon his throne all day, and at night he just roams the battlements. He willna speak to anyone, not even me." Niall left it at that, what questions he had about his father he would save till he met the archduke face-to-face.
"The dragon?" he asked, and Shiel was frightened by the odd light in his brother's strange eyes.
"We cannae know where the beastie is," he answered, "but between Mearead and Anlon I think that overgrown lizard's doom is nie upon him." But Niall did not answer him and stared straight ahead. For a while Shiel stayed with him, all the animosity and jealousy between the two now wiped clean by Niall's burden. Shiel remembered his brother as he had been as a boy. A laughing child and in their youth the two had been great friends, perhaps brought closer by the shared loss of their mother. But in his manhood Niall had ever striven to outshine all others. There were times that Shiel had hated his brother for, that, but now he looked upon the strange features of Niall, and there was no longer any anger at the past. For Niall had obviously paid a terrible price for his daring, and Shiel knew he would never turn from his younger brother again.
But such thoughts were not for Niall Trollsbane as he slowly fell asleep under his brother's gaze. There were many things for him to remember, things he must remember. And not the least, the question that had begun his true journey.
"What happened to all the women?"
C H A P T E R
Eleven
The goblin's short pike darted out toward Mearead's chest; the dwarven king deflected the blow with his small shield and in the same motion brought his ax down on the wooden shaft of the pike. The ax sheared the weapon in two. Mearead leapt at the goblin, slicing open the creature's chest with the sharp spike topping his dwarven ax. The goblin fell, trying to scream through its blood-filled snout.
Behind Mearead three companies of Ruegal's finest, led by Shiel mac Mannon, charged. The dwarf waded through the goblin horde, his ax blade killing at every stroke. The men who followed him struggled to keep up with the king, but he was ever in the forefront of the battle.
After fifteen minutes of fierce resistance, the goblins broke and fled the large chamber. In two days of hard fighting the army of southern Tolath had finally cleared the mid-halls of the dwarven caves of the Tivulic mountains.
It had been some of the hardest fighting since the war had begun, and both sides had taken atrocious casualties. There had been no place for large battles to settle the issue, just a continuous series of sharp clashes in the dusty halls and long-unused chambers of the dwarven caves. The Tivulic mountains were being washed in the blood of warriors.
The goblins were better suited for this kind of fighting than
the humans or elves, being on the average about half a foot shorter than the men and better able to fight in tight corners and small hallways. But with Mearead's leadership, the army of southern Tolath had been able to outmaneuver the goblins time and again.
Mearead leaned against the cavern wall as Shiel's men helped their wounded and beheaded the goblins left behind, dead or alive. Shiel came up to the dwarven king and bowed low. He had learned in the weeks of battle that the dwarf was a fierce and ruthless warrior, and here in the dwarven caves none could match Mearead in skill.
"And now, my lord?" he asked. Mearead did not answer for a moment. The dwarfs white beard, plated with iron, was stained a brown red and his scale armor stank from the gore that covered it. He looked up, and Shiel was glad that the dwarf wore his dragon helmet, for in moments after a battle no man wished to look into the berserker eyes of Mearead, lord of the Crystal Falls.
"Now, my overlarge friend, we find a path to the lower halls." Mearead's whole head and face was covered with the dragon helmet and due to some property of its metal the dwarfs voice sounded thick and alien.
"The lower halls?" Shiel sheathed his sword in one fluid motion. "My lord, I thought we would move to the other side of the caves, maybe even to the upper halls."
"No, that's what they expect of us." Mearead pushed himself off the wall, shrugging his weariness away. "Somewhere near here will be a path to the lower levels. I doubt there will be any great defense of them. Like most dwarven caves these were built for defense from the bottom up, a memory from the time of the Fomarian wars and their dogs, the cronbage."
"But even if we take the lower levels, we'll then have to move up, and you yourself just said that the caverns are built in defense of such an attack."
"The problem with you, my boy, is you lack the three-dimensional thinking necessary for this," Mearead answered. "We'll have the whole bottom levels and half the middle. In essence we'll have the enemy surrounded on three sides. From there we can--ah, never mind." The dwarf reached up and patted the man's arm. "It'll take me half an hour to explain it to Ceallac anyway, so come along and let's see if I can teach you lunk-heads something of strategy." The dwarf turned and walked away, Shiel following, shaking his head. Mearead passed out insults as easily as wisdom, he thought. But in truth it was hard not to like the dwarf, even if he was an irritating little bastard.
An hour later Ceallac was silently agreeing with Shiel's assessment of the dwarven king. The three of them, joined by Cormac and some of the other captains, were holding council in a small hall captured from the enemy just the night before. The floor and walls were still stained with blood.
"I understand, Mearead, that it is a dreadful bane you must bear," Ceallac said. Mearead just looked questioning at him. "Having to explain such obvious strategy to such lesser minds as we." A few of the humans laughed at this.
"Now Ceallac," Mearead answered with a grin, "be careful what you say or some here might be thinking you are the first elf to ever have a sense of humor." None took offense at this, for all the leaders had become used to one another during the long battle of the caverns. And all realized that the dwarfs strategy would work, even if it did take a little time to understand it properly.
Just then a warrior arrived with a message from the earl of Althon. Bran had found the entrance they sought to the lower caves.
"That's it then," Mearead said, lifting his helmet upon his head. "Good luck, everyone, and try to remember what I've said." One by one the warriors left, talking quietly among themselves. Cormac tapped Shiel's shoulder.
"Have you heard any news of your brother?" he asked.
"Aye, I have, lord." Shiel's features were drawn with a look of exhaustion. "The lad is still too weak to leave his bed, and though he asks for our father every day, the man will nae come to his own son."
"I'm sorry," the elf answered.
"Na, na, there's nothing to be sorry about, my lord." Shiel shrugged. "Niall will recover and be fiercer than ever, I deem; as for the archduke, well, he isn't the only member of the Clan Ruegal, and if he has forgotten his honor, neither of his sons will ever."
"You push yourself too much, Shiel mac Mannon," Cormac said. "Your father's actions leave no mark on you for good or ill. You cannot bear the burden of the whole Clan Ruegal."
"Can't I now?" Shiel felt puzzled by the elf's concern; Cormac acted like no elf he had ever met. "My father will nae ride to war, nor even speak to his sons. The heart is gone in him, and none of us have the time to find out why. And Niall," Shiel sighed, "the lad has been through too much, too much, I think. And I don't doubt the Dark Ones will turn their minds to him now."
"Don't speak of such ill fortune."
"Och, am I a coward to keep from facing the truth?" Shiel's voice filled with anger. "I don't know what that damned ring did to my brother, but he paid a hard price for his daring. In truth, I fear for the lad, even though I know he is now greater than he was, and greater than ever I will be. . . still I fear for him. Aye, the truth of it is, I think he has become a man to fear."
Cormac said nothing to this, for he well understood the forces that tore at the man. Shame of his father's apparent cowardice, for Mannon would not leave his hall now for anything, and now the added fear for Niall. Whatever had happened to Niall, he had truly changed. There was a promise of magic and doom about the man that was all too clear to elven eyes. It was Ceallac himself who pointed out that Niall had been the greatest of the human warriors, save perhaps Fin, and whatever the ring had brought him, he now was stronger than before. But what that meant, the elven prince could not say, though Shiel wasn't the only one who feared that the Dark Ones would seek to strike Niall down before he reached his promise, as they had so many before....
It was Lord Anlon, the unicorn, who found them and it was he who first understood their significance. He bellowed once, and his great hooves stamped the stone beneath them with such force that the whole cavern shook.
"My father should have known!" he cried. "Or the goddess," he added quietly. Then snorting fire, he turned and raced from the caves and no one knew where he went.
Prince Ceallac went in search of Mearead to tell him the news. The elf found the king directing a group of warriors who were rebuilding a small tower that had guarded a crossroad here, deep beneath the mountains of Tivulic. The lower halls had fallen to the allies in a week of battle, and now they controlled the whole lower levels from the north to the south of the dwarven caves. Mearead's strategy had been a brilliant success, and the old dwarf was enjoying himself by reminding everyone of that fact. But now Ceallac must crush that joy.
"Lord Mearead," he said softly and the dwarf turned with a quick smile, a smile he lost when he saw the look on the elf s face. Mearead sighed.
"What now?" His voice, too, was soft.
"We have found something." Ceallac's dark eyes swept the warriors in the room. "I think it best you see for yourself before it becomes general knowledge." Though the dwarfs curiosity was apparent he asked no questions. Leaving some last-minute instructions to the foreman, he trudged after the tall elf.
They waited for him in a humongous cave, waited patiently, feeling little. There were perhaps ten thousand, maybe more, and the cave was hot and dank with their despair--if they even felt that. They were the slaves of the dragon and the allies had known that in time they would find such. But they expected them to be dead and they expected them to be human. None thought to find this. None expected to find ten thousand dwarves, beaten and defeated by their long years of slavery.
And they were beaten and that was the hardest thing of all for the dwarven king. Never had he thought to see any of his people so. They were barely covered with bits and pieces of rags. Their bodies were slumped over in postures of submission, their skin covered with thick scars of whip and chain. All were unbelievably emaciated, many too weak to stand, or even move-- They were ridden, it seemed, with horrid diseases, and the cave stank with the smell of the sewer and decay. But it was their e
yes that the dwarven king could not face.
A sea of dark eyes faced him, but they were eyes of animals waiting for the butcher's knife. No intelligence, no defiance, not anything shone in those empty eyes. They stared at him with little curiosity and even less recognition. They waited for the orders that had ruled their lives, the listing of the rules they must follow till they died. But no orders came, and the great dwarven king simply stared back, but they could not recognize what he felt. Sadness was not an emotion they had indulged in, in their brutal lives.
"Who are they?" Mearead's voice was husky.
"We think the original inhabitants of this place," Ceallac answered. The elf clenched and unclenched his jaw repeatedly, making the muscles of his cheeks dance about his face. Only in this way did he show his anguish. "They've been bred to slavery, Mearead. All these here, their whole lives, it is all they have ever known. For several generations at least, probably more."
"But they are dwarves." Mearead sat down slowly and faced the crowd before him. "They are dwarves," he repeated. But Ceallac had no words for the king. The two stood on a great rock facing the dwarven slaves about them. The cavern was so vast that its far walls were lost in the darkness, for no lights burned here. Earlier when the elves had lit torches the dwarves had cried in fear. They had never seen the sun in their life; even the red comfort of fire had been denied them.
But Mearead's sight was not impeded by the lack of light, though he wished it were.
This cavern had been rough cut, and not by dwarven skill. The near wall was uneven and full of sharp projections as the low ceiling was. The floor was broken and covered with refuse. In some comers pathetic attempts had been made to create ragged tents that some slave could call home.
Morigu: Book 02 - The Dead Page 12