"Fight," the goblin managed to say. Was the kender going to talk him to death? He suspected that he was dying anyway. Then he remembered. "Minotaur," he whispered fearfully, trying to look around.
"The minotaur's over there." The kender waved an arm blindly to his right. "I'm sorry. He… he's dead." The kender started to cry again but fought it down. "The humans killed him with the gem sword. The elf's dead, too. The humans beat him up. I don't want you to die, too."
With a sudden effort, the goblin forced himself to sit up a few inches and looked in the direction the kender had indicated. The minotaur lay collapsed in a dirty brown heap, the sword's silver blade protruding from its back. The goblin remembered now the minotaur's roar as it had leapt upon the blade, its full weight smashing into the goblin's face and chest. Then the awful gurgling howl as it arose and tried to breathe with a shaft of steel through its lung and heart.
The goblin eased himself back down, fighting the dull pain that came from his chest. I should be happy, he thought. I killed a minotaur. But I feel so tired. It isn't worth it to move. I just want to… Oh. The -
"Sword," whispered the goblin. He tried to reach toward the dead minotaur. "Sword."
The kender wiped his eyes and leaned closer. "What?"
"Sword," said the goblin. He tried to reach for it. Things seemed to get dark and that frightened him, but his hand caught the kender's hand, and he felt less afraid. Stupid kender, he thought, and the world slowly drifted away.
One of the wagons carried shovels. It took the rest of the day, with intermittent droplets of rain falling all around, for the kender to dig a pit large enough to bury his three friends. The goblin had asked for the sword, so the kender carefully cleaned it after removing it from the minotaur's chest, never touching the blade. He held it by its hilt as he prepared to lay it at the dead goblin's side.
"I wish…" the kender whispered, then closed his eyes to better remember the words that his parents had taught him. He could remember only the end of the good-bye prayers, so he said that. "I wish you peace on your journey, and hope you will be waiting for me at the end of your travels."
Because his eyes were closed, he did not see the sword glow briefly as he spoke. The light faded away when he set the sword into the goblin's hand.
The kender filled the pit halfway with dirt, then covered it with rocks to keep out wolves and other creatures. It was dawn the next day before he was finished.
He left the Istarian soldiers where they lay. Then he went home.
Raindrops began falling all across the hilltop. Within minutes, the land was awash in a cold, blinding torrent.
The Three Lives of Horgan Oxthrall
Douglas Niles
Research of Foryth Teel, scribe serving Astinus Lorekeeper
My Most Honored Master:
Regretfully, information detailing the history of the Khalkist dwarves during the century preceding the Cataclysm is sparse and, for the most part, of questionable veracity. Nevertheless, I shall endeavor to collect the scraps that yield themselves to me and present them to you in as sensible a manner as possible.
The tale begins with the Istarian invasion of the Khalkist Mountains in 117 PC, following the dwarven reaction to the Proclamation of Manifest Virtue (118 PC). The Khalkist dwarves' refusal to renounce Reorx and swear obeisance to only the gods of good was viewed as a direct challenge to the authority of the Kingpriest. The resulting disastrous campaign is, naturally enough, given scant treatment in the surviving human histories.
The few traversable routes through the crest of the high Khalkists — most notably, Stone Pillar and White Bear passes — were the only overland roads connecting the eastern and western portions of the empire of Istar. Angered by the effrontery of the human proclamation, the dwarves turned their backs on a lucrative income (from tolls on the passes) and closed their realm to Istar.
The emperor invaded late the following summer (117 PC), delaying the assault until then in order to minimize the difficulties presented by the deep snow in the heights. He sent two of his legions against each of the two major passes — a total army of some forty thousand men. The rugged terrain confined each force to a single deep valley, and though each marched but a score of leagues from the other, neither was in a position to support its counterpart in the event of difficulty.
The dwarves capitalized on this disadvantage quickly, meeting the two southern legions with some eight thousand doughty warriors. Meanwhile, the northern wing of the Istarian army advanced over rougher ground, pushing toward the lofty divide at a snail's pace.
Making his attack in the south from ambush, at the fording of a rapid stream, the dwarven commander timed the onslaught perfectly. (Incidentally, reports indicate, but do not confirm, that the dwarven field army was led by High Thane Rankil himself.) Waiting until half of the Istarians had crossed, the Khalkist army annihilated an entire legion and harried the second all the way back to the lowlands. There the remnant of the human legion remained, its fighting spirit shattered on the granite foothills. The heights loomed like jagged daggers to the west, casting shadows of an early sunset over Istar. (I beg Your Excellency's forgiveness of my metaphorical excess!)
By this time, the northern legions had penetrated to Stone Pillar Pass, without seeing a single dwarf. Then, abruptly, the attacks began — sudden strikes from concealment. There seems to have been a simple sameness to the tactic:
A wedge of stocky, bearded dwarves bearing keen battleaxes or steel-headed hammers charged from a ridge line or ravine, slashing into the human column, then disappearing before the Istarian army could concentrate its forces. The attacks were repeated; the position of the legions became untenable. The human troops endured short rations, harsh weather, and constant harassing combat, but their generals ordered them to stand firm.
After several weeks of this treatment, during which every grown, able-bodied male dwarf was drawn into the Khalkist army, the centurions commanding the two trapped legions gradually came to grips with the precariousness of their situation. Food had begun to run low, and the icy menace of winter was a constant reminder behind the harsh autumn winds. Desperate, the commanders ordered a march back to Istar.
The humans surrounded their heavy, ox-drawn supply wagons with many ranks of guards and rumbled down the high valleys. The oxen led the charge against the dense dwarven formations when the Khalkist forces strategically chose to block the Istarian army's retreat.
Reports from Istarian sources, Excellency, confirm the truth of this last tactic, claiming that the oxen presence was often effective against dwarves. It seems that the wagon handlers fed the beasts a gruel laced with rum before the battle — a goodly dose reputed to have made the normally equable oxen most disagreeable. They are great creatures, of course, and must have loomed over the dwarves in elephantine proportion!
Nevertheless, the stocky mountain dwellers tried to stop the Istarian army, even as roadblock after roadblock crumbled before the lumbering beasts of burden as the oxen scattered the dwarves. Still, High Thane Rankil remained stubbornly determined to obliterate the two legions.
The humans finally were cornered before the last river crossing — a historical site called Thoradin Bridge, which I have located on a pre-Cataclysm map — leading to the safety of the Istarian Plains. Here a company of young dwarves stood, and once again the oxen were drawn to the fore.
At this point, Excellency, it becomes difficult to sort the legend from fact. We know that the human force was lost in total — the greatest military defeat suffered by Istar to that date. As for the course of the battle, little is known.
However, I have uncovered a somewhat implausible tale. Dwarven legend has it that a young dwarf, one Horgan of Squire, employed some great magic — often referred to as the power of Reorx — to lure the oxen away from the bridge, diverting the fateful charge that would have ensured the human escape. It is said that this Horgan wore a tunic embroidered with silver thread, portraying as its symbol the Great Forge of Reorx.
It seems, indeed, Excellency, that the youth was host to a miracle! Many accounts have been cited — dwarves who saw the blessing of Reorx ignite in young Horgan, leading the enemy army to disaster!
Reports of specifics vary here, Your Grace, but I am assured that witnesses attested to beams of silvery light emanating, sometimes from the ground, at other times from the clouds. Others heard choruses of heavenly voices — songs that tore the hearts of even stalwart dwarves with their pure beauty! O Exalted One, it makes me tremble to think of it!
But, excuse my rambling. In any event, with the failure of the oxen's charge, the defense of the bridge held and the human army met its grim fate. Legend has it that the river was tainted blood red all the way to Istar itself. (A precursor, if you will, of the great bloodletting that the gods would send against that unholy city! Indeed, Excellency — a sign of the coming, the making of the very Bloodsea itself! How splendid is the will of the gods — shown to us through the window of history!)
The tale concludes with the young hero dubbed, by the high thane himself, as Horgan Oxthrall.
It seems that, technically, Horgan Squire was too young to serve in the army. But, as the war gradually had developed into an epic victory, every young dwarf who could break free from his hearth and home hastened to bear arms. Apparently, Horgan wove a beard of goat hair over his own sparse whiskers to give the appearance of maturity. The ruse worked — he was accepted into one of the last companies mustered for the war.
It was this company of young dwarves, formed with virtually no training, that was sent to the valley of Stone Pillar. This untried, inexperienced unit found itself standing astride the final link in the human escape route. Then, the miracle occurred — the oxen followed the youth into the ditch, and the human charge was stopped.
At the ceremony, Horgan seems to have been given some official post, perhaps honorary. I'm not certain. Nothing further of him appears in the histories.
I have enclosed this legendary note, Your Grace, for your enjoyment as much as anything else; I cannot swear to its veracity. Yet I FEEL — and I hope you do as well — that there is a least of hint of real destiny in the tale.
As to the rest of my assignment, I can report little progress. Many have heard tales of a brave courier of the Khalkists — one who carried historical texts of the dwarves into the mountains on the eve of the Cataclysm, there to conceal them for some future age. But no one can give me even a hint of the whereabouts of such a cache.
As always, I shall continue my labors to bring to light more of this obscure phase in the history of our world!
Your Most Humble Servant,
Foryth Teel, Scribe of Astinus
O Exalted Historian!
Please forgive my inexcusable delay in the filing of this report. I beg your indulgence, only to hear the tale of my recent discovery — and of the light it sheds upon our earlier image of history! I write to you by faint candlelight, from a windswept vale in the high Khalkists. My reasons for coming here, and my news, I shall endeavor to communicate while blood still flows through my coldnumbed fingers.
I have not sent word, Excellency, for I have been on the pathways of history for many months. I journeyed into the mountains to investigate a report that had filtered down to me from the most convoluted of sources — a young stable hand, who has a cousin who visits the high country, and there hears tales of the shepherds, and so forth.
The gist of the tale that reached my ears was the story of a cheesemaker who kept a herd of milk cows in the highest valleys of the Khalkists. In search of shelter one day, this humble dairyman stumbled upon a cave that had lain hidden since the time of the Cataclysm and had been only recently revealed by avalanche.
Within the cave he found a skeleton and a bundle of tightly wrapped scrolls. A shred of the wrapping was brought to me. Your Grace can no doubt imagine my excitement when the pattern of dye marked the scrap as dwarven — pre-cataclysmic dwarven!
Could this be the lost messenger? The one who carried the records of the dwarves into safety, even as the Cataclysm showered death across the lands of Istar? I hoped, but could not believe for certain. Yet the piece of evidence could not have come at a better time. Due to my ceaseless and uncomplaining diligence, I had exhausted every other bit of documentation in my local sources. It had begun to seem that the tale of the Khalkist dwarves would vanish into legend a full century before the Cataclysm, but now — now I had HOPE! Indeed, the proof was profound enough to draw me from the comfort of my study, uncomplainingly, to make the strenuous pursuit of knowledge for the library.
My journey into the heights has been arduous in the extreme. I wish you could see, Excellency, the slopes that yawned below me, the dizzying spires of rock poised above, as if waiting for the moment to cast a crushing javelin of stone onto my poor and unprotected head! Always I kept in mind my duty, to be borne without complaint, as you command.
But I digress. I finally reached the small, remote village of Saas Grund, still some miles below the cheese-maker's farm. Here, however, that worthy dairyman met me and provided me with one of the scrolls he discovered. That volume piqued my hunger for more, and so it is with resolute and uncomplaining vigor that tomorrow I accompany the man even higher into the mountains, to his lofty abode. No matter the precipitous slopes before me, nor how deep the depths of snow! Not even the icy bite of the killing wind shall deter me, nor make me long for this comfortable fire… the fire that even now sends its warmth to my bones and soothes my weary muscles and promises to restore life to my poor, benumbed fingers. The fire, and a little spiced wine…
Forgive me — once again I lose my path.
In short, I pen this note to you tonight, Most Esteemed Historian, in the hopes that you soon shall receive the remainder of my tale. But even in the one scroll I have perused I have discovered a story of relevance to my earlier work. I admit, however, that I present it to you with some embarrassment, since it seems to contradict an incident I had earlier reported.
The scroll I read is the family journal of Horgan Oxthrall — the young warrior I told you about who miraculously drew away the oxen at the Battle of Thoradin Bridge. It was written later in his life, in 92 PC, to be precise, as he worked in the service of his thane.
Horgan recalls, in this journal, the story of that day of battle, when the human invasion had been broken. He described that sturdy wooden river-crossing that he had only later learned was called Thoradin Bridge. The battle of twenty-five years ago was a memory that had been etched, vividly, against the canvas of his brain. In his mind he could still hear the white water frothing below him. He saw, as if it had been this morning, the snorting oxen lumbering toward him, steaming breath bursting from the monstrous creatures' black nostrils.
And, as always with the memories, came the guilt, the lingering sense of shame that would never quite give him the room to breathe.
He knew the tale that legend had created, of course: the power of Reorx had blessed him at the moment of battle-truth, and he had cast a thrall over the massive oxen leading the human train, luring them away from the charge that certainly would have opened the escape route across the bridge. Horgan even remembered the looks of awe upon the faces of his comrades as they witnessed the "miracle."
Yet, in his own mind, he recalled the stark terror that had seized him like the coils of a constricting serpent, threatening to crush his chest and squeeze his bowels into water. All he could think of was escape, but shock prevented his legs from responding even to this, the most basic of emotions. Even as his comrades streamed away from him, panicked by the oncoming beasts, Horgan stumbled numbly until he stood, alone, before the lumbering charge.
We see proof of one thing in his words, Excellency: oxen did indeed inspire a panicked terror in the dwarven troops — a terror that seems peculiar to their race. Of course, most of the Istar War had been fought in terrain too rough for the beasts to play any major role, but on flat ground the huge, buffalolike creatures loomed over the dwarves and were tru
ly intimidating.
Horgan's mind reeled, and here — in his own words — we learn of another source of his shame. It seems that the young hero was stinking drunk! Before the battle — quite against orders — he and several in his platoon had snitched a bottle of potent rum. Horgan claims to have guzzled far more than his share. Indeed, he states that his hands shook so much that he spilled the stuff all over himself.
Now he stood there, dumb with shock, gesticulating wildly — to some mysteriously. Finally, his brain's frantic messages to flee reached his legs, and Horgan turned toward the ditch. The bridge stood open to the human wagons.
But the oxen ignored their drivers' commands and veered sharply from the road. Bellowing loudly, pawing the earth with their great hooves, and snorting in agitation, the beasts lumbered after Horgan, following the dwarf determinedly into the ditch. To the other dwarves, it had seemed a miracle. The wagons were immediately mired, blocking the road and the bridge, and the entire human army was crushed. Only Horgan Oxthrall knew the real explanation.
The oxen stared at him stonily, their eyes glazed, their breath putrid… and rank with rum. You will remember that the poor creatures had been fed a goodly dose of spirits themselves. Now, in the midst of battle (probably starting to sober up), they sniffed out this equally intoxicated dwarf and followed him in eager anticipation of more rum!
Of course, none of the other dwarves figured out what was going on. Horgan was a hero. After the battle — when presumably, EVERY dwarf stunk of rum — the thane appointed Horgan to the elite order of Thane's Scouts.
As one of the scouts sworn to High Thane Rankil, Horgan's job was to routinely patrol the rugged Khalkist heights, which formed the border of a dwarven nation surrounded by enemies. The scouts were drawn from the finest, proven veterans of the Istar War. It is in the service of his thane that Horgan Oxthrall labored for twenty-five years, a full quarter century after the victorious war. Lonely patrols through the heights, battles with groups of human brigands and trespassers — it was a solitary and adventurous life that seemed to suit Horgan well.
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