Thornhold h-16

by Elaine Cunningham

  As she spoke, she studied the old knight's face. She might not have a paladin's god-given insight into the minds and hearts of others, but she possessed finely honed powers of observation and instincts that had been right more often than not. So she noted the slow return of color to Hronulf's face, and the return of light to his eyes. She dared to hope that simple shock, not suspicion, colored his silence.

  Hronulf slowly rose to his feet. Bronwyn noticed that though his face was composed and his bearing tall and proud, one white-knuckled hand gripped the back of the chair as if for support-or, perhaps, as a tangible sign that he was not yet ready to let go of the "truth" he had believed for twenty years.

  "Of your own will, you would step into the scales of Tyr's justice?" he murmured.

  "I will."

  He nodded thoughtfully and his grip on the chair eased a little. "None but the righteous would make such bold claims. I do not require such tests."

  "But I do," Bronwyn said urgently. Until this moment, she had not fully realized how desperately she needed to know. "I have long heard that a paladin can discern truth. Will your god tell you if there is truth in the story that brought me here?"

  "I can but ask." The paladin's eyes grew distant once more, as he sought in prayer a level of insight and enlightenment that only his god could give him.

  Moments passed, long moments that were heavy with the weight of Bronwyn's twenty years of exile. She waited, scarcely breathing, until the unseen vision faded from Hronulf's eyes, and his gaze once again focused upon her. Bronwyn knew, before a word was spoken, what Tyr's answer had been.

  "Little Bronwyn," Hronulf murmured, studying her with desperately hungry eyes. "Now that I see the truth of it, I understand that my heart knew you at once. You are the very image of… of your mother."

  This both pleased and saddened Bronwyn. She lifted one hand to her cheek, as if seeking in her own face what she had lost. "I do not remember her."

  Hronulf took a step forward, both hands outstretched. "My poor child. Can you ever forgive me for what you have endured?" he asked, his voice quavering, pleading. "The fault is mine, though I did not lightly let you go. When you were not found among the slain, I… I sought you for many months. I would never have given up… until the day I wept over the remains of a girl child that I believed to be my own."

  His terrible guilt smote her heart, and she took both his hands in hers. "I don't blame you," she said hastily. "For many years I've been trying to find the truth of my past. There weren't many paths to follow, and every one ended against an alley wall. I make a living finding lost things, things that most people despair of finding. If I could not fmd my way back to my own past, how could you, who had every reason to believe your quest had ended, be expected to do better?"

  Hronulf smiled faintly. "You have a good heart, child, your mother's heart."

  "Tell me of her," she urged.

  They sat down together, and the paladin began to speak of the past, slowly and with strange awkwardness. At first Bronwyn thought the source of the difficulty was the barrier formed by lost years, but soon she realized that the reason ran deeper still. Hronulf had been seldom at home, and thus he had few memories of her in the scant time they had been a family. He did not know her. She wondered if he could ever have known her better, even if the raid had never occurred.

  Not much time passed before he ran out of remembrances. He rose, looking relieved to have some plan of action in mind. "Come," he said. "I will show you the castle."

  Ebenezer's luck, which had been notably bad of late, took a happy turn. At just the right time, he had met up with a southbound caravan and arranged with its master to have the paladin's horse returned to the Halls of Justice at Waterdeep. It took some talking and some coin, but the dwarf parted company with the merchant satisfied that all would be done as he had asked. Ebenezer headed north with a clear conscience, his debt discharged. It seemed likely that sooner or later, the young man who was so all-fired fond of Tyr would end up at that god's temple and would there reunite with his lost steed. No harm done him, other than a bit of wear to his boot soles.

  Ebenezer veered off the trade road into the foothills. The entrance to the Stoneshaft tunnels was not far off the road and so cleverly hidden that only a dwarf could see it. He found the place-a steep hillock surrounded by a dense stand of young pines-and ran his hands over the rocky wall until he found the subtle pattern in the stone. He put his shoulder to the rock door, heaving and grunting until it eased inward. He ducked quickly through the opening, which slid shut behind him with a solid thud.

  He stood for a moment or two, giving his eyes a chance to adjust to the darkness and rubbing at his numb backside with both hands. He hadn't been on a horse for some time, and his legs and rump burned with fatigue. But he shrugged off the stiffness and took off down the tunnels at a steady, rolling run. Most humans Ebenezer knew thought of dwarves as slow and quick to tire, but any dwarf worth a pile of fingernail pairings could roll along at a smart pace for as long as he had to.

  Ebenezer figured it was getting near to sunset by the time he reached the river. He strained his ears, trying to hear something, anything, over the infernal din of the rushing water. The closer he got to the clanhold, the more anxious he felt about his kin. Quickening his pace and ignoring the treachery of the wet, uneven path, he sprinted full out past several caverns and passageways toward the tunnel that led to the heart of the dwarven clanhold.

  The smell hit him suddenly, twisting his stomach and sending his heart plummeting into his boots. There was no mistaking that smell; any dwarf who had ever raised an axe in battle knew it well. Coppery, heavy, strangely sweet, and utterly sickening-the smell of spilled blood turned black and dry, bodies gone cold.

  Terrible, numbing dread swept through Ebenezer like a winter storm, robbing him of strength and will and forward motion. He skidded to a stop. A single keening cry burst from his throat-the first and last mourning he would allow himself before he knew the whole of it. He forced himself into a run while he could still trust his legs to carry him where he needed to go.

  He stopped again at the entrance to the Hall of Ancestors, stunned by the destruction of a monument that had stood for untold centuries. The ancient stone dwarves had toppled and lay in broken pieces among the dwarves their fall had slain.

  Ebenezer stooped by the nearest dwarf and clamped his jaw shut to bite off a cry. The Stoneshaft patriarch, his Da, had led the charge. The old dwarf had not been killed by the falling statues; that was horrifyingly clear. Stone dwarves did not wield swords and spears with such slow, cruel expertise.

  Ebenezer lifted his gaze, blinking hard to clear his suddenly blurred vision. Several humans lay sprawled nearby, bearing the unmistakable marks of a dwarven axe. Ebenezer took some comfort in this. His father had not died easily, but he had died well.

  He rose and wandered through the chamber, his rage building with every dwarf he identified-and growing hotter still with each dwarf that he could not. Ebenezer was no stranger to battle, but the carnage here was of a sort seldom seen. The stamp of unmistakable pleasure, of long and lingering evil, was upon each cold and tormented dwarf.

  Ebenezer found more of the same inside the great hall. Not a single dwarf lived. Stoneshaft Hold had been decimated, and the bodies of his brutally slain kin left to molder in the empty halls.

  Grief numbed him, mercifully slowing his wits and numbing his heart. He moved in a daze through the devastation, tending the dead, marking their names in his memory. Time slowed down, became utterly without meaning. His face was as set as granite, his eyes dry and hard as he gathered the bodies of kith and clan into a single grave.

  Hours passed. In some dim corner of his mind, Ebenezer marked the time, and knew that far above him, a plump waxing moon rose over the Sword Mountains. But in this place, the dwarf knew only darkness and the terrible task before him. He did not stop for rest until all of Clan Stone-shaft had been decently laid to rest beneath a pile of mountain stone. />
  When the task was done, he slumped to the ground and tried to put words to the nagging fear in the back of his mind.

  The ruined face of young Frodwinner rose up in memory Of all the Stoneshaft dwarves, he had died the hardest and best. He'd taken enough wounds to kill a trio of dwarves and kept on fighting. Seven humans and four half-orcs had fallen to his axe. Of course, Frodwinner had more to lose than nearly anyone else in the clan. He was just two days into a wedding feast, wed to the prettiest, feistiest dwarf maid in a hundred warrens. Frodwinner and Tarlamera should have had centuries of life before them. Frodwinner had been barely fifty. He was just a kid. Just a kid.

  And with that lament, Ebenezer found words for his concern:

  There had been no children among the slain.

  This realization slammed into Ebenezer like a hobgoblin's fist. His first response was relief-like most dwarf clans, his had not been blessed by many children. He loved kids, loved every one of the rowdy little scamps. But if they were not here, where were they?

  As the dwarf thought about this, he also realized that he had not accounted for several adult members of the clan, including some of his own near kin. His Da rested in the cairn, beside the cantankerous, beloved dwarf woman who had borne him nine stout children. Most of these offspring, Ebenezer's brothers and sisters, also slept beneath the stone. Tarlamera was not among them.

  He sat upright. Why hadn't he realized that earlier? Tarlamera was the sibling closest to him in age and temperament. They'd fought their way through a happy childhood, and hers was the face he always sought first in a crowd of his kin. Why hadn't he looked for her and noted that she was not to be found?

  Ebenezer had heard tell of people who got through rough spots by blocking out important things, not thinking about them until they were armed and ready, so to speak. Maybe that was what he was doing. Funny, but until now he would have called that sort of thing soft-headed.

  But the time for protective denial was over. Ebenezer began to sort through the grim facts, and a pattern became clear. Most of the clan's best fighters had been slain, as well as those who spent their days tending to the practical needs of the clan: hearth mothers, brewers, coopers, cobblers. All of the elderly dwarves were dead, and the few that had had the odd infirmity. The missing members were those who had special skills-skills that no one could master quite as well as could a dwarf Their best miners were gone, including Tarlamera, whose instincts for the stone were so keen Ebenezer suspected she could smell deposits of ore and gemstones from fifty paces. The best gem workers were missing, and the finest smiths. A few of the females of breeding age. The children.

  In short, everyone who had value in some distant slave market.

  Rage, cold and fierce and all-consuming, rose like bile in the dwarf's throat. There was yet another thing he'd conveniently blotted out: his own capture by a passe! of Zhents. Suddenly he realized the true and devastating nature of his fear.

  Slavery.

  Ebenezer hauled himself to his feet, grabbed some weapons, and left behind the graveyard that had been his home. He struck out for a secret tunnel-a steep, curving passage that led up to the stronghold some humans had built on the mountain above a few decades past.

  Knights, they called themselves. They were a bunch of smug-faced meddlers who kept themselves busy tidying up the area of trolls and bugbears and so forth, reminding Ebenezer of dwarf grannies fussing about the clanhold, forever straightening up the furniture and dusting off the what-nots.

  If there were answers to be found, Ebenezer was certain that the nest of those troll-hunting, minding-the-world's-business, pain-in-the-back-of-the-lap humans was a reasonable place to start looking.

  Bronwyn followed her father down the tower stairs back into the bailey. The first signs of real animation crept into Hronulf's voice as he described the fortress to her, its history its defenses, and the good work that the paladins did for travelers who passed by. He stopped here and there to chat with the servants and exchanged bluff greetings with the other knights. To each knight, he introduced her pointedly and proudly as his lost daughter. Oddly enough, that did little to warm Bronwyn's heart or make her feel wanted. It was almost as if he felt a need to justify her presence here. But Bronwyn noticed the deep affection and respect that all the fortress inhabitants showed their commander. Those who knew Hronulf, clearly held him in highest regard. This reminded her of the knight who had sent her here.

  "I met Sir Gareth Cormaeril in Waterdeep," she said. "He sends his regards."

  Hronulf's face lit up. "You have seen him? And he knows who you are? This news must have brought him great joy!"

  "I told him my name, but he did not seem to connect me with you in any way, not even when I told him I was seeking you out in hope that you might have information about my lost family" Bronwyn said. "He commented that you had lost family, too, and would most likely be willing to give me whatever aid you could, but he did not put the pieces together."

  "Sir Gareth was a great knight and a good friend," Hronulf stated. His eyes suddenly went bleak. "It was he who found you, or so he thought-a child slain when goblins overran a southbound caravan. Perhaps his affection blinded him, then and now. He was afraid for me, so great was my grief. Although beholding your dead child is a terrible thing, not knowing what has become of her is much worse. Having settled my mind and his that you were dead, he was not looking for Bronwyn Caradoon when he beheld your face."

  "That's possible," she admitted, though she was disturbed at the possibility that she might have been found, had not Sir Gareth been so quick to pronounce her dead. Something else occurred to her. "Did Gareth know my mother?"

  "Oh, yes. Gwenidale was a woman of good family, and her brother was a paladin, Gareth's comrade and mine. He fell before his twenty-third year, but he was a great knight. But it has been many years since any living man has gazed upon fair Gwenidale's face. Do not fault Gareth in this matter." Hronulf smiled faintly. "He and I are aged men. The eyes fail, and even the fondest memories do not always come to our command."

  As they talked, they continued their tour of the fortress. Hronulf led her through the chapel, and pointed to the stairs that led up on either side of the back wall. They climbed the stairs on the right and emerged on the walkway that encircled the wall. Her father's pride in his domain, his obvious concern for all those under his care, made one thing perfectly clear to Bronwyn. Thornhold was truly his home, not the village she could barely remember. This place, these men, had always been first with him.

  That made her curious and angrier than she liked to admit. She decided to prod a bit. "There are no women here," she observed.

  "A traveler, from time to time," Hronulf said. "I believe that there is a female hire-sword with the caravan currently under hospitality."

  "So the knights don't bring their families here." That bothered her deeply, especially in light of her own history.

  "Few knights have families," the paladin said, then hesitated. "It is a hard life, and full of danger. There are often matters of fealty-sworn service to god or king-that must be discharged. Some men who live to their thirtieth year and beyond marry. Most do not."

  "You did," she pressed. "You had a family and left us in a small forest village." The words came out like a challenge.

  Bronwyn wished she could have been more diplomatic, but her need was too great. She needed to hear some word of explanation, some reason for the horror that had destroyed her family and shaped her life.

  Hronulf did not answer right away. He paused before the door of a long stone building that spanned the distance between the two towers, the roof rising up steeply to meet in the center in a soaring arch. Through the open door, Bronwyn could see the raised altar with the scales ofjustice above. Light filtered in through windows set high on the stone walls, falling in thin, golden slants on the knights who knelt or prostrated themselves in prayer.

  "It was my duty to marry," Hronulf said simply. "The bloodline of Samular must be carried on. W
hich reminds me, there are family matters of which we must speak. Come."

  That was no answer at all. Hoping that he would offer better, Bronwyn followed him back up to the tower. He closed the door and bolted it. This struck Bronwyn as a strange precaution, given their secure surroundings. She was even more puzzled when he took an ancient sheet of parchment from a small, locked wooden chest. "Can you read?" he asked.

  "In several languages, both modern and ancient."

  The response seemed natural enough to her, but it seemed to displease her father. "Such pride is not seemly."

  "Not pride," she said with complete honesty. "Necessity. I'm a merchant. And, I suppose, a scholar of sorts. I find lost artifacts, which means I have to study a wide variety of materials and speak to many sorts of people to find what I'm looking for."

  "A merchant."

  He spoke the words in a tone that could have served just as well if he'd said, "a hobgoblin." Bronwyn suddenly knew how a cat felt when its back went up. She swallowed the tart response that came quickly to her tongue and reached for the parchment.

  The style of the script was old, the ink faded and blurred, but Bronwyn got the gist of it well enough. The fortress of Thornhold, and most of the mountain upon which it stood, did not belong to the Holy Order of the Knights of Sainular. It was the property of the Caradoon family.

  "There is a copy of this writ of succession in the Herald's Holdfast," Hronulf said. "Upon my death, you must make provision for the fortress and see that it is used as it has been for these many centuries." He looked keenly at her. "Are you wed?"

  "Not even close," she said dryly.

  "Chaste?"

  Under any other circumstances, she would have answered that question with derisive laughter. Now she merely felt puzzlement, edged with the beginnings of anger. "I don't see what that has to do with this discussion," she said stiffly.

  Hronulf apparently heard in this his answer, and not the one he'd been hoping for. An expression of grave disappointment crossed his face. He sighed, then his jaw firmed with apparent resolve. He rose and went to his writing table. Seating himself, he took up a quill. "I will write you a letter of introduction," he said, dipping the quill into an inkwell. "Take it to Summit Hall and give it to Laharin Goldbeard of Tyr. He commands this place and will find a suitable match for you."