by Dragon Lance
Behind her, the fogs reached the great pit, and the creature within the mist spread wide, stubby wings and soared across, huge talons barely missing the latticework of crossbeams over its top. And, just below, clinging to perches and drop-lines, dozens of “Shame of Reorx” crafters stared at the huge, misty shape going past above them.
Hardly slowing her pace, Willow Summercloud dashed out into the great, vaulted emptiness of Anvil’s Echo and ran along the precarious, suspended catwalk through its center. Here and there, in the walls of the great chamber, a murder hole opened, and Willow shouted, “Alarm! Signal the gatehouse! Danger!”
She danced off the outer end of the catwalk on to solid stone and looked around. Fog was filling Anvil’s Echo as the creature came through, gliding just above the catwalk on set, web-taloned wings. Here and there, missiles flew from murder holes, but they simply entered the thick fog and bounced off what was within it. Willow turned and fled toward the dead end of the road, the gatehouse of Northgate.
*
Rage focused all her attention now on the puny little warm-blood fleeing ahead of her. She knew there were others here, but the rage within her – the rage that was all of her – was concentrated now on that one individual creature. It had challenged her and escaped. It had attacked her and escaped her fury. It had actually caused her pain, piercing the skin of her only soft part – her neck – with its edged implement.
She would get around to all the rest of the creatures in this place in her own time. They would all die. There was nothing they could do. She would hunt them down relentlessly and kill them all. But first, this one must die. This one had challenged her, and it must die as horribly as she could manage.
Through various tunnels, some wide and spacious, some barely large enough to let her spread her wings, she pursued the little creature. Often, with the mists swirling around her, she could not see her prey, but she could sense where it was. Its very warmth was a beacon to her, almost a second sight, and she longed to feel that warmth burst and flow from her fangs, to hear the screams as the warmth struggled, then turned cold.
Now the tunnel became narrower, and ahead were echoes that said the way was blocked beyond. Other warm things were there, scurrying around, and she sensed their fear. But they could wait. She wanted this one – the one fleeing her – first.
*
Willow was panting and shaking as she entered the gatehouse tunnel, with its water lofts and mechanisms, and the great, glistening screw running along its length. Desperately she looked around and saw others, cringing here and there in the shadows.
“Open the gate!” she shouted.
The gate crew cringed and stared at her, then gaped at the thick mist rolling into the corridor just behind her.
“Quickly!” Willow demanded. “If you want to live, open the gate!”
“By whose orders?” a dwarf queried, glancing nervously at the thickening mist.
Willow started to say something and was drowned out by the roar of the creature as its head emerged into the narrow corridor, rising to glare over the great screw. Its roar was like echoing thunder in the enclosed space.
“By those orders!” Willow snapped. “Stop staring and open the tarnishing gate!”
Dwarves scurried toward a long, vertical lever set in sockets at the center of a great, up-and-down column of gray iron. With only a moment’s pause, one of them pulled the lever until it was horizontal. Opposite it on the column of iron, a second lever raised from horizontal to vertical, and the unmistakable roar of flowing water echoed in the gatehouse.
Grudgingly, the huge metal screw began to turn, and the massive plug at the end of it inched back on its tracks. A rim of outside daylight appeared around its edges.
The fogs rolled, and a huge fanged head lunged forward, missing Willow by inches as she scooted under the screw and ran along its far side. The creature towered above the screw, seeking her, its prehensile neck curving upward and down, and she ducked beneath the screw again and reversed her direction. As the great head followed her, it seemed as though the creature were winding itself around the turning screw.
Dodging the crunching fangs, Willow leapt upward and grabbed the handle of her axe, still flopping beside the long neck. With a heave, she pulled it loose and struck again, making a second shallow cut.
The creature roared in fury, drummed great wings, and lashed its tail, filling the gatehouse with thunder. Beyond it, dwarven gatekeepers disappeared into little tunnels. The screw continued to turn, and the opening around the great plug widened. Abandoning her axe, which was stuck again, Willow dodged past the forward braces of the screw and dived for the opening. For a second, she stuck there, caught between plug and frame. Then the opening was enough, and she squeezed through just as a formidable, fanged muzzle lodged itself in the widening crack just behind her.
Willow crouched, picked up a fist-sized stone, and flung it at the nearest silver eye, shouting insults. The crack widened and more of the slavering, icy head emerged, straining after her. Just as the carapace above the eyes cleared the opening, the dwarf girl turned and ran.
It was sixty feet from one side of the gate to the other, and Willow covered the distance on flying feet. She reached the far side, ducked through the opening there, and ran back along the screw’s length. All of the gatekeepers had disappeared, but she had seen how the gate worked. Reaching the iron column with its double levers, she dodged a flailing tail, threw her weight onto the vertical lever, and hauled it down. Valves shifted, waters flowed, and the screw reversed its rotation. The great plug began to close again.
Instantly, fogs rolled backward as the fog-creature realized the trap and began to withdraw. “Hurry, you be-rusted contraption!” Willow shouted at the screw. “Can’t you turn any faster?” With all her might, she hauled the lever down to full horizontal position. The sound of waters increased, the screw turned faster, and the creature hissed and roared in frenzied fury.
It threw itself this way and that, battering gatehouse walls, sockets, and turning screw. Great talons scrabbled against stone, digging deep gouges in the floor of the tunnel. Stubby, webbed wings beat the air, stirring the increasing cold mists into little storms. Willow Summercloud crawled behind the iron water column and huddled there, wide-eyed and pale.
The dwarves of Thorbardin had built their gates to be impenetrable. And with this as the goal, dwarven craft had done its best. The great beast’s struggles neither stopped nor slowed the irrevocable turning of the huge screw in its sockets. Inch by inch, second by second, the massive gate-plug closed into its frame, closing on the neck of the trapped beast.
Rage raved. Rage roared, reared, and thundered, flailing mighty appendages. But the gate closed tighter and tighter as geared waterwheels took the flow from high tanks and transferred their energy to the screw.
To Willow, it seemed an hour before the great, steel-sheathed stone plug pushed itself as far as it could go into its sockets and came to a stop. Hardly an inch of daylight showed around it, and in that inch was pinched the long neck of the fog-beast. Its wings still beat, its talons still scrabbled, and its tail still lashed from side to side, but now the motions slowed and became erratic. It was almost impossible to see in the gatehouse because of the dense fog, but as the beast’s flailing became feeble, it seemed to Willow that the fog became less dense.
There were shouts from somewhere, and the sounds of running feet, then armed dwarves swarmed into the narrow corridor, gaping at the sight ahead of them. The one leading was Damon Omenborn, his face a fierce scowl, his eyes dark with worry. Right behind him was Tag Salan.
Willow crawled out from behind the flow column, and Damon saw her. Leaping over the creature’s twitching tail, the big Hylar dodged under the screw and pulled the girl to her feet. He stared at her for a moment, then dropped his hammer and shield, caught her up in strong arms, and lifted her entirely off the floor, pressing her against him.
“Damon!” she managed, almost breathless. “Damon, quit th
at! Put me down!”
Reluctantly, he set her back on her feet. “You’re alive,” he said, almost in a whisper.
“I told you I’d get that thing,” she reminded him. “I got it.”
“You certainly did.” He glanced again toward the almost closed gate, throttling the beast’s neck. “Do you suppose it’s dead?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I don’t know what it takes to kill a … one of those.”
“Well, it sure isn’t going anywhere.” Tag Salan chuckled, ducking under the screw to get a better look at the fog-creature, which was still twitching. “I guess it can just stay where it is until we’re sure it’s finished. Do you think this is a dragon of some kind?”
“I don’t think so,” Damon said. “But it may be the kind of thing that dragons came from.” He turned back to Willow, still holding her arms with both hands. “What am I going to do with you?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” She gazed up at him. “What do you have in mind?”
“Well,” he said, “there is an old legend here in Thorbardin. It’s about me. I don’t know what to make of it, but … well, I wonder if you would be interested, possibly, in being the mother of kings?”
Epilogue
THE PROPER THING TO DO
Thousand of dwarves jammed the ramparts of Southgate as Cale Greeneye and the Council of Thanes met there to supervise the removal of fallen weapons from the battlefields below. The Einar, who had waited out the siege within Thorbardin, were going home now, back to their herds and their fields. But few of those leaving would ever again think of themselves as Einar. During their stay in Thorbardin, most had decided between the hammer and the axe.
Some were remaining behind, to join the thanes within the underground nation. But most were returning to the outside, and most of those, having chosen the sun over the stone, would henceforth be Neidar.
“We have learned a great lesson here,” old Olim Goldbuckle stated to those around him. “Willen was right. Thorbardin is invulnerable to siege, but without the Neidar outside, to complement the Holgar within, it cannot stand as the fortress of Kal-Thax.”
“We are becoming, more and more, two separate peoples,” Slide Tolec agreed. “The Holgar thanes have fought outside Thorbardin and yearned to withdraw within. The Neidar have dwelt within Thorbardin, and have yearned for the open skies. I wonder if we can ever truly be one again.”
“Or if we ever were,” Vog Ironface rumbled. “It may be that an age is coming to its end.”
“Ages begin and end only in the fettered minds of scrollsters,” Olim pronounced, then turned a wry grin toward Quill Runebrand. “No offense intended, Keeper of Lore. Without your peculiar reasonings, how would the rest of us ever know when yesterday ends and tomorrow begins?”
Willen shook his head, uncomfortable as always with the bantering of his peers. The old leaders seemed to become more philosophical with every passing year. Especially the jovial, flint-hearted old Daewar, Olim Goldbuckle, and the intuitive Theiwar, Slide Tolec. And yet, to Willen it often seemed that the less sense his chieftain-peers made, the more wisdom might be found in what they said. To his soldier’s mentality, it was a riddle beyond solution.
“Will you be coming back soon?” he asked Cale Greeneye.
“To visit, of course.” The Neidar nodded. “But maybe never again to live. Olim is right about the lesson we have learned. A fortress that nobody can get out of is as pointless as one that nobody can get into. The gates of Thorbardin must be able to open, as well as to close, and for that, there must be Neidar outside to protect the fortress, just as the fortress protects the lands around it.”
“We will only become more separate as the ages pass,” Willen said, then glanced around sheepishly. He realized that he was beginning to sound just as vague and wise as the other chieftains.
“Different, yes,” Cale Greeneye said. “We were always different, the people of the stone and the people of the sun. But not necessarily separate. We out here need the security of your presence, just as you need ours. Besides, differences can strengthen bonds if they are good bonds to start with. We’ve seen an example of that, too.”
“We have?”
“Your son … my nephew, and his Einar girl. Those two have only one thing in common, but it is their differences that will make their bond succeed.”
“I suppose so.” Willen shrugged. “You’re probably right, because Tera said the very same thing to me just yesterday. She isn’t often wrong in such matters. By the way, good luck with your kender.”
“What kender?”
“That little nuisance that has been roaming Thorbardin lately. You didn’t know? Well, she showed up at Hybardin and proclaimed that she has finished her tour of Thorbardin and intends to go see the outlands now. With you.”
“Like blazes she will!”
“As I said,” Willen said, “good luck with your kender.”
*
Quist Redfeather was playing bones with his jailers when Willen Ironmaul came for him. For a long time – for weeks, it seemed, though in this underground place the Cobar had lost track of time – he had been held captive in what he had learned was the ward chamber behind the Southgate keep. It had not been cruel captivity. They had fed him well, had given him ale now and then, and had not tormented him. But it was still captivity, without question. The grim armed dwarves who guarded his quarters left no doubt that he was not going anywhere unless and until someone in authority ordered it.
The Cobar had made two vows to himself. The first was that if he ever got out he would never again get mixed up in dwarf business. The second was that, after this, he would never again play games with dwarves. The game of bones had always been a favorite pastime for Quist, and he took pride in being good at it. But, somehow, he was now down to his last arrowhead. He had already lost all of his weapons. Although he had been relieved of them upon entry, now they no longer belonged to him, but to various dwarven jailers. He had lost his boots, his cloak, his favorite feathered headgear, and he had lost his copper bracelet. A jovial, gold-bearded guard named Plaid Silvernail was wearing it now.
For all of his watchfulness, he had found no evidence that any of the dwarves cheated at bones. Still, they usually won. So, by the time a band of dwarves showed up from the interior with orders for his release into their custody, Quist Redfeather was ready for a change.
The new guards were thoroughly armored and efficient. All had the same dark, back-swept beards that he had noticed on Damon Omenborn. He suspected they were of the tribe called Hylar.
Briskly, they escorted him along a corridor where a huge auger-banded metal screw sat in great sockets, and past the massive gate-plug that had awed him the first time he saw it, and still did. Beyond, on the walled ledge outside Thorbardin, others waited. The one who stepped forward, peering up at him with hard, wise eyes, bore a striking resemblance to Damon Omenborn, though this dwarf was older and had a stance that suggested high position.
“I am Willen Ironmaul,” the dwarf said in a voice that was like smooth, deep riversong. “My son told me how you helped him, and how you behaved with honor when you might have done otherwise.” Without waiting for an answer, the dwarf turned and started down the rampart. “Come with me, human,” he said.
Quist followed along. He would have followed, even if he hadn’t wanted to, because of the ten efficient-looking armed dwarves who ringed him and herded him forward. At the bottom of the rampart, Willen Ironmaul clapped his hands, and other dwarves came from beyond new, fresh-hewn battlements. They led twelve horses, eleven of them wearing the saddles and gear of dwarven mounts, the twelfth magnificently attired in human-proportioned trappings.
As Quist gaped at the horse, pursing his lips in appreciation of its fine lines and handsome appearance, Willen Ironmaul said, “This animal is Damon Omenborn’s best horse. Its name is Shamath. It is yours now, by my son’s wish.”
The man stepped toward the animal, hardly believing his ears, then pau
sed. He glanced aside at the Hylar chieftain. “It’s a real horse, isn’t it? I mean, it isn’t a wizard or something? It won’t sprout wings?”
For a second, the grim lines of the dwarf’s visage softened. He almost smiled, then straightened his face. “Shamath is a horse,” he assured the human. “He has never been anything but a horse.” He clapped his hands again, and one of the ten escorts produced a bundle, which he handed to Quist. Within it were an exquisite light shield of dwarven craft; a strong, recurved bow of fine lemonwood; a beautiful dagger; a thick, bound sheaf of arrows with dwarven steel points; and various straps and wraps for the implements. Another of the escort stepped forward with a parcel which contained Quist’s own lost boots, cloak, copper bracelet, and feather headgear.
“I had to buy those things back from your, ah, hosts of the gate,” Willen Ironmaul said severely. “They cost me a nice price, too. Even a human should know better than to play bones with a Daewar.”
Without further explanation, the dwarves mounted their horses, clambering up the short boarding ladders slung from their saddles, and at a gesture from the Hylar chieftain, Quist swung aboard Shamath. He knew the instant his legs cradled the animal’s big barrel that he had never ridden a finer horse.
Still surrounded by armed dwarves, the man was led away, riding out from the dwarven fortress toward the Promontory, angling eastward toward the border roads.
It was a three-day trip from Southgate to the secluded cove above the Road of Passage, where the dwarves took their guest, and not once in those three days did any of them, Willen Ironmaul or the Ten, give him a word of explanation as to where they were going, or why. Dwarves, Quist Redfeather decided for the hundredth time, could be the most exasperating people in the world.