by Dragon Lance
Sigamon’s pointing finger rose again, but this time the dwarf acted first. More quickly than seemed possible, he took a step forward, crouched, and flung the iron-tipped javelin. In the distant cove, wizards gasped and ducked as the missile hurtled – it seemed – directly toward each of them.
Then the bubble went dark and flickered out of existence. In the stunned silence of the cove, someone said, “They killed him! That dwarf killed Sigamon!”
“How can that be?” another quavered. “How could any of them still be alive? That ice-freeze was enough to kill anyone instantly. And then the rain of stones …”
“Remember what he said,” a red-wearer muttered. “He said Megistal believed a dwarf could … could resist magic, somehow. He said Megistal tried an illusion on a dwarf, and the dwarf refused to believe the illusion. Stubborn, he said.”
“Nonsense!” Salanik snapped. “No one can resist magic, except with magic.”
“To be on the safe side,” a wizard in the crowd suggested, “maybe we should all go to retrieve our talisman. I don’t understand what we have seen, but we should take no chances.”
Now Kistilan stepped forward to the center of the crowd. “I agree,” he said, “that what we have seen suggests caution. Besides, that mountain fortress will take great energies to bring down. Why should we so exert ourselves, if there is a better way?”
“And what better way is that?” Salanik asked.
“Plain force of arms,” the dark wizard said. “There is an army near Xak Tsaroth. Mercenaries, ready to fight. Let them deal with these dwarves for us.”
“Mercenaries fight for pay,” a white-kilted mage said. “What would you have us do about that?”
Kistilan glared at the man. “Stupid,” he muttered. He knelt, picked up a small stone, and held it before him. Suddenly the stone became a shiny coin. Kistilan swept a casual hand, and the ground all around him was littered with coins.
“I can handle mercenaries,” he said. “The rest of you, just follow me.”
*
The drums said the fog-killer had struck again, this time at the Neidar village of Highland, near the south end of the great valley called the Vale of Respite. The Neidar farmers had taken warning from the approaching fog, and most had fled their village ahead of the thing, but some had remained to fight. Those were now dead.
In Thorbardin, Cale Greeneye heard the report from Northgate and assembled the Neidar at his command. Willen Ironmaul conferred with Barek Stone, then assigned three garrison companies of the Roving Guard to accompany the Neidar. They would go north, around the west slopes of Cloudseeker, to track down and kill the beast of the mists.
The drums were speaking now to Mace Hammerstand, captain of the Roving Guard, who was out with two companies guarding the entrance to the old Daewar tunnel against the threat of wizards until it could be permanently obliterated.
If the creature had maintained its course, it was possible that Cale Greeneye’s forces and Mace Hammerstand’s companies could trap it between them, somewhere between the Vale of Respite and Sky’s End.
By moonlight the expedition assembled at Northgate, where crews worked rapidly to complete the mounting of the great gate. Armed and solemn, carrying torches, the dwarves streamed out from Northgate and headed down the series of slanted ledges leading toward the shadowed valley below, where Neidar horse-keepers waited with saddled mounts for those who would ride.
Cale Greeneye was halfway to the pens when he saw, on the low slopes beyond the pastures, a flare of white light that seemed to grow from nothing. Only for an instant did he see it, then it was gone. But a moment later there was another flare, dimmer than the first, and by its light it appeared that great stones were raining from the clear sky, piling up on the ground as they fell. The light faded, and mutters of surprise and concern swept along the dwarven column. They had all seen something, but none of them knew what it was.
“Could it be the beast?” someone asked. “Can it have turned … and come this far?”
“It is not the beast,” Cale assured those near him. “It does not move that fast. I have trailed it. Even if it turned, it is still north of Sky’s End.” Then, nearing the horse pens, the leaders of the column came upon a battered group of masked Daergar, carrying the body of a human. The foremost of the miners raised a hand, recognizing Cale Greeneye. He removed his dented mask; there was blood on his beard beneath it.
“Cale,” he said. “It is I, Jedden Two-vein.”
“I know you, Jedden,” Cale greeted him. “What has happened?”
“This man” — the Daergar pointed — “was a wizard. We found him on the slopes over there. I ordered him to go away, but he made spells against us. We lost seven of our company. Some were killed by ice, and some by falling stone … or what seemed like falling stone, except that stones do not fall from an empty sky. But perhaps those who died didn’t think of that.”
By torchlight, Cale looked at the body of the wizard, then turned away. “Take him to Northgate,” he said. “But not inside. Who knows what a wizard might do … even a dead one? Get word to Willen Ironmaul. Tell him what happened.”
The Daergar looked past him, at the dwarves mounting their steeds, and the foot companies assembling around them. “We heard the drums, Cale. What do they say?”
“They say the beast of the mist has struck again, this time much closer. It is somewhere north of Sky’s End.”
“Do we have troops there?”
“Mace Hammerstand is there with two mounted companies. Maybe we can trap the beast between us.”
“And if you trap it,” the Daergar said, frowning grimly, “can it be killed?”
“That’s what we may soon learn,” Cale told him.
Chapter 11
A TASTE OF RAGE
Mace Hammerstand beard the drums in the night and sent out spotters to observe a wide perimeter around the north slope of Sky’s End Mountain. The thing of the mists had struck again, this time in the Vale of Respite, far to the east of its earlier attacks on dwarven settlements. It seemed to be moving in a wide arc, from somewhere in the western wilderness into the very heart of the dwarven realm.
“Keep a careful watch,” he told his best spotters. “Especially watch the passes that come down from the Vale of Respite, just north of here. The thing may be making for the Road of Passage.”
“Aye,” a grim dwarf said. “But, Captain, what are we looking for? Has anyone ever seen the thing?”
“Not really. But we know it is large, walks on two feet – not like a person, but more like a turkey walks – and it has gliding wings and a long tail. But the thing to watch for is fog. If you see a mist that moves, report it. The thing cloaks itself in mist.”
Throughout the night and the following day, spotters stood on every crag and bluff within five miles of the old citadel on Sky’s End, their eyes roving the countryside. It was impossible to see everywhere – into each pass and crevice. Below the fanged peaks east of the Vale, the land was wild and rough – a terrain that stood on end with a hundred shadowed clefts and twisting canyons in every mile of it. But the dwarves surveyed all they could … and saw nothing.
Among the members of the Roving Guard there was speculation. If the thing was indeed moving eastward, some said, the best thing might be to stand aside and let it proceed. Eastward lay the human realms and the great, seething city of Xak Tsaroth. Xak Tsaroth, with its slave trade, its constant schemes and plots, its plundering, looting outriders, its wide-ranging tariff hoodlums, its gluttony for treasure, and the ambitions of its overlords, had been nothing but trouble to the dwarves of Kal-Thax as long as anyone could remember. If the fog beast was heading for Xak Tsaroth, some were inclined to cheer it on its way.
But between lay the Road of Passage, others pointed out. The great road was the result of a solemn treaty between Thorbardin and the knightly orders of southern Ergoth, and the dwarves were pledged to defend those who traveled it here, just as the knights defended those who traveled
it in Ergoth.
With evening of the second day, scouts reported to Mace Hammerstand. Flashes had come from the west, double-mirror signals by last sunlight. Cale Greeneye and his Neidar, accompanied by Roving Guard troops, were in place beneath the crest of Valespine. The creature had passed there and was now somewhere between them. Mace Hammerstand was requested to move troops north to cut it off, while Cale Greeneye closed in from behind.
Then the sun was gone behind the western peaks, and the signals ended. But from the south, new drums sounded. They spoke of human wizards, and of threat to Thorbardin.
It was a dilemma for Mace Hammerstand. Cale Greeneye needed him to serve as anvil to Cale’s hammer, to attack the killing beast. Yet the reason he was here was to guard the old tunnel against wizards, and now wizards were assembling.
“I’ll have to divide forces,” he told Mica Silvershield, his second. “You take two-thirds of our force and move northward, then form a perimeter. With luck, Cale’s Neidar will drive the beast to you, and you can kill it.”
“With luck and the help of Reorx,” the golden-haired warrior added.
“Don’t attack it all-out,” Mace instructed. “When the thing comes to you, test it with thrusts and feints. Cale believes it cannot move rapidly. If you are in jeopardy, pull back slowly, and let the others come up behind it. Cale has seen the creature and knows more about it than anyone else. Follow his lead.”
“And you, Captain?”
“I will remain on sentry here, with a hundred. The old tunnel must be guarded until Willen Ironmaul and the craftsmen can find a way to seal it forever.”
By twilight, the beast-fighters moved out, northward. “Reorx go with you!” Mace Hammerstand called after them. Then he turned his attention to the hundred remaining and the guarding of the tunnel behind the old citadel.
*
The thing called Rage was furious. In a wide valley she had found another cluster of the warm-blooded creatures and had attacked. But there had been few there to kill. Most of them had escaped, running ahead of her, spreading and disappearing into the distance. Those who remained had tried, in their puny way, to fight her, and that had been amusing. But the diversion had lasted only a few minutes. When they were all dead and torn asunder, she had vented her anger on their residences, their scattered flocks, and their inanimate possessions, but still it had been only a small diversion.
Raging and seething, wrapped in the rolling cloud of mist that the cold emanating from her always generated, she went on. The sun of day came and went, came and went, and she clambered up long slopes that led to towering peaks. Through a narrow pass she went, in dark of night, and started down the other side. It was then she realized that there were creatures behind her, following her. Instinct told her to find a hole and wait, to ambush them as they came past. There were many of them there – many to die for her pleasure. But ahead there were others, moving to block her path. To attack either group, she knew, would alert the others, would give them a chance to escape from her, and she wanted them all.
On the slopes below the pass she turned, heading southward at right angles to her previous direction. Cold, instinctive judgment told her that when the two groups of warm-bloods – the pursuers and the blockers – met, they would join and all become pursuers. They would follow her, but they would all be together. Then she could ambush the entire party. Get them all behind her, then she could find a hole and lie in wait. She could kill them all if she could lead them into a lair.
Twilight deepened as she hurried along her way, following the slopes. Here she spread wide, stubby wings to glide over a chasm, there she paused to scatter piled boulders that blocked her way, and far behind her she sensed that the two groups of warm-bloods had joined and were coming after her. Through long hours of night she traveled as fast as she could, looking for a place to lie in wait – a place where standing obstructions might obscure the mists that were always with her until the warm creatures were close enough for her to attack.
In the dark hours before morning, she found the place. Where slopes curved away and a valley lay ahead, she raised her head high above the mists and looked around. And there, directly ahead on the slopes of a high peak that soared above the far side of the valley, were the old, crumbled walls of what had once been a structure. Instinct told her that she had found her trap-lair. She braced herself on gliding wings to plunge down the remaining slopes and far out into the valley, her mists trailing away behind her like a long, thin cloud in the starlight. When she touched down she was directly below the old walls on the slope. She headed for the structure, taloned feet thudding the ground as long, powerful legs drove her upward, swaying with a massive, birdlike rhythm that her long tail countered with its swing.
Closer and closer to the place she came, and suddenly stones rained down on her from above. There were more of the little warm-bloods up there, among the shadowed walls. She heard their shouts as stones – flung and rolled – bounced off her hard crust and clattered away down the slope behind her.
Lowering her great head she hesitated, letting thick fogs build around her, then she charged.
Breaking through the walls, she was met by a shower of slung stones, then by thrown implements of wood and metal. Most of them did her no harm, but a few struck her in the neck, and she felt dim, annoying pain. Ancient memories came back to her, of the time before her sleep when those she preyed upon had discovered that they could wound her if they struck at her neck. It had done them no good. It had only angered her more, but she remembered it and lowered her head, protecting the neck, which was her only vulnerable part.
The warm creatures swirled around her, lashing out with blades and hammers, dim in the deepening mists, and she lashed back at them. With talon and fang, wings, legs, and sweeping tail, she raged among them, tearing them apart, crushing and sundering their frail bodies, killing and feasting in an ecstasy of rage.
There were dozens of them. Many dozens. Some might have gotten away in the turmoil, but instead of fleeing they pressed their attack, and she killed, killed, and killed. When a sharp pain hit her, she realized that one of the creatures had somehow gotten beneath her head and struck upward, cutting her neck. It was only a tiny wound, but she roared and reared upright, then plunged downward, going for the one that had cut her.
The creature dodged and rolled, and her flashing claws closed on two others who had stepped in to defend the fallen one. With teeth and talons she tore them apart and was looking for the other one when something caught her eye. Deep in shadows, behind the old walls, was a recess in the mountain’s face. And at the back of the hollow was a blocked hole.
Turning from her carnage, Rage trotted into the recess and looked at the massive obstruction. With a few running steps she drove a shoulder into it and felt it sag. Again she hit it, and again, until it fell away. The hole behind it was a huge tunnel leading away into darkness. She roared, and the returning echoes told her that the tunnel ended some distance away … either ended or was blocked. But that didn’t matter. The pursuers were behind her, and they would come for her. She would be waiting. A hole like this was a perfect place for ambush. Let them follow her in here, and none would escape.
Back in the open, among the ruined walls, Rage roamed her killing field. Here and there she found a warm-blood still alive and crushed it. Then there were none left. A hundred sundered corpses littered the area, surrounded by the remains of their pitiful weapons and bits of smashed armor. Had any of them escaped? she wondered. Certainly not more than one or two. These creatures had not tried to flee; they had stood and fought. They had even tried to counterattack.
At the outer wall she reared above her mists and saw one of the creatures limping away, down the slope toward the valley. She would have gone after it, but in the same glance she saw movement across the valley.
With a deep growl, Rage turned and headed for the hole she had found. Let the one go. She would wait for the many. Wading through the gore of her killing field, the great cr
eature paused here and there to batter and rend the silent bodies of her victims, keeping low so that her fogs would hide her, and the walls would hide the fog. When her fury was momentarily satisfied, she crept out and walked eastward, letting her mists be seen and leaving distinct tracks. Then, out of sight of the valley, she climbed to a height, set her wide, stubby wings, and glided swiftly back to where she had started.
Behind the ruined walls again, she crept into the hole in the mountain. Deep into the darkness of the tunnel, she came to a second barricade. A stone plug, blocking the shaft. Carefully this time, almost gently, she worked it loose, turned it, and passed beyond, then turned to set it back in place. Now she would wait. The creatures would come; a few would explore and find nothing. But eventually, they would all come in. Then she would have them. Crouching in the darkness, as patient as time, Rage waited.
*
Mace Hammerstand was dying. He knew he was dying. His left arm was gone, bitten off above the elbow, and all his attempts to tie off the wound were not enough. His life’s blood was seeping from him. Even worse, his chest had been crushed, and his lungs were filling with fluid.
Still, though, he kept going. The way was downhill, and he must go as far as he could, so that the thing at the citadel could not come and finish him off. Somewhere out there, in the valley or beyond, were the remains of his Roving Guard and Cale Greeneye with his Neidar rangers.
He was dying. The world swam before his eyes, and he found he could not move anymore. He didn’t remember falling, but he was down, lying across a stone on the hillside above the valley. Desperately, he clamped hard fingers over the stump of his left arm and squeezed until the pain cleared his vision. To keep from passing out, he pounded his heels against the rock, gritted his teeth, and tried to whistle. It wasn’t much of a whistle. Blood from his pierced lungs choked him and started him coughing, and that brought more blood. He felt as though he were strangling.