Song of the Serpent

by Hugh Matthews

  "That one!" Drosket shouted. "Glyff! Fekret! Get him off his horse!"

  Two dwarves at one end of the double rank dropped their spears and shields and ran toward the thief. One of them seized Krunzle's right ankle and knee while the other ducked under the thief's skittish horse and came up on the other side to slip the man's foot from the stirrup. A tug and a push and Krunzle was on the road, the wind knocked out of him by a short, sharp jab to his middle as he toppled. There was no need for more violence to subdue him and take his sword belt away, but the two dwarves gave him the benefit of their fists and boots anyway.

  Bruised, bleeding, and struggling to restore his lungs to their normal function, he was hauled upright—though only as far as his knees—and held before Drosket. The squad leader leaned closer, his eyes asquint under the black thickets of their brows, and inspected the thief as he might an unwelcome pustule reflected in a mirror. "Your name," he said, "and your business."

  "Leave him be," said Raimeau. Krunzle heard a tremor in his voice, but underneath it was determination.

  Drosket looked up. "Another one needs a lesson, is it?" But his gaze came back to the man before him, and the thief saw the dwarf's gaze drop to the metal snake around his throat. Oh please, he thought, please, grab hold of it. You and your two little friends.

  "That looks good enough to be dwarf work," said the squad leader. "From the old time, when we were at our best."

  "And shall be again," growled Glyff or Fekret, whichever one of them was the possessor of a red beard and a grip that had caused Krunzle's left arm to go numb.

  "Did you take it from some noble dwarven warrior's tomb?" Drosket said, leaning in even closer to transfer some of his spittle to Krunzle's person. Then he delivered a short, sharp jab of his own—the thief was beginning to think it might be a standard dwarven greeting—that prevented the man from making any other answer than a gargled gasp.

  Inwardly, however, he was pleading with his assailant to lay hands on Chirk. He could already envision Drosket, son of Drosket, staggering back, holding up the stumps of his smoldering arms in pain and terror, with Glyff and Fekret thrown down and writhing in agony from unspecified, though serious, injuries.

  The squad leader reached. There was a crack! and a blue flash, but when the black-bearded dwarf recoiled he had suffered nothing more than a singeing of one fingertip, which he now shook, cursing, then popped in his mouth. The two holding Krunzle did no more than jump, startled, before renewing their circulation-stopping grips.

  What are you? the thief asked the snake. Tired?

  It is my choice, said Chirk. And I choose ...leniency.

  There was no time for further conversation. Drosket had removed the burned digit from his mouth. Now, from the shifting arrangement of the whiskers around his lips, Krunzle had the impression that the dwarf was smiling. It was not a smile for a thief to take comfort in.

  "Tricks, is it?" Drosket said. "I know a trick or two myself." He drew a short axe whose haft fitted into a loop on his harness, and said to Glyff and Fekret, "Hold him. Hold him well."

  It turned out that two dwarves could hold very well, indeed. Krunzle could not move. Within his mind, he called, Chirk! He heard no answer, though he was aware of the presence of the snake. Do something!

  "No!" shouted Raimeau.

  Krunzle looked over his shoulder, saw the thin man sling a leg over the front of his saddle and slide off his horse. As he landed, he drew from his pocket and opened the clasp knife he had taken from Mordach's house. He advanced upon the dwarves, the little blade before him in a trembling hand, his face full of fear. But he kept coming.

  Drosket, the axe poised in a two-handed grip above his head, froze. His little eyes first shifted to the gray-haired man, then they grew large; his mouth opened so wide that it could actually be seen among the whiskers that framed it on all sides. Raimeau, quivering, took another step.

  And now the squad leader emitted a barking sound, then another, and then a third just like the first two. Similar sounds came from either side of Krunzle, and from the spear-dwarves still ranged across the road, and he realized that he must be hearing the sound of dwarves laughing. It sounded like loose bricks rolling downhill in a steel barrel, but it was better than the sound of an axe splitting his skull, which he had moments before expected to be, for the briefest of times, the last sound he would ever hear.

  The two holding him had even loosened their grips. He shook himself free of their grasp and stood up. The dwarves were still convulsed with mirth. Drosket was doubled over, one hand touching the ground to keep himself from falling.

  They were only trying to frighten you, said the voice in Krunzle's mind.

  They succeeded, no thanks to you.

  Besides, I wanted to see—

  Chirk cut itself off in mid-thought. See what? the thief said. He got no answer from the snake, but his own reasoning supplied one. It was you. You made Raimeau come to my aid, didn't you? Even though he's frightened of dwarves.

  Again, there was no answer. But that meant there was also no contradiction. Krunzle thought a harsh word at the voice in his mind, but then his attention was called once more to the dwarves.

  "All right," said Drosket, straightening up, "we've had some good sport. Now back to business."

  "Your business, not ours," said Gyllana. "We'll be on our way."

  The squad leader made no move to stop her, but stop her he did when he said, "You'd be after that fine, strapping Taldan in a Blackjacket uniform—well, elements of one—would you not?"

  "You've seen him?" the woman said.

  The dwarf was putting his axe back into its loop. "We see everyone who comes into the Regulate. We stop them and pass the time of day." He paused to send Glyff and Fekret back into ranks. "Sometimes we send them on their way. Sometimes we send them on our way."

  In Krunzle's mind, Chirk said, He wants something. The traveler returned a brief thought: Of course he does. Aloud, the thief said, "And before you tell us which of those sendings applied to former Undercaptain Berbackian, you'd like us to tell you something."

  "Ah," said Drosket, turning to the thief, "not as thick as you look. Though that would be a trick."

  "Let us forgo the pleasantries," Krunzle said. "We've just come from the north, from Ulm's Delve. You'd like to know the news from that direction."

  The dwarf eyed him from the corner of his eye, paused to spit in a neutral direction, then said, "That could be."

  "You'll have seen the smoke."

  "There was a smudge on the horizon, and a glow last night."

  "Well, then," said the thief. He glanced up at Gyllana.

  She said, "You're doing fine. Continue."

  "Here's the offer," Krunzle told the dwarf, holding up one finger, "we tell you everything you want to know about Ulm's Delve, and you tell us the last known whereabouts and direction of travel of the Blackjacket. Plus," he continued, adding a second finger to the first before the dwarf could answer, "three days' food and drink from your rations. And,"—a third finger—"a gold coin for me. To make up for the ill treatment."

  Drosket snorted, something else that dwarves did well. "You are out of your addled—"

  "It might be very significant news," Krunzle cut him off. "A squad leader who was first to hear of it, a squad leader who then played his hand right cannily, might well see another medal out of it." He paused to let that sink in. "Perhaps even promotion."

  Drosket said nothing but looked at Krunzle in a considering way, as a man might look at a goose that had just offered to lay him a golden egg. It would have to have been a very large goose, since the dwarf had to look up at the man, but he felt that the analogy was sound. Finally, he said, "No gold coin."

  "Then a silver piece."

  "For your dignity?" said the dwarf, and Krunzle thought there was probably an amused sneer hiding somewhere in the thicket of whiskers. "How about a sincere apology?"

  "I would rather have the coin."

  "Then you will have nei
ther. But I will give you the food and drink. A supply wagon follows."

  "And my sword?"

  "Yes."

  "And the word on Berbackian?"

  "That, too."

  They agreed that the dwarves would transfer the provisions. Then Krunzle would tell them the news. Then the dwarves would tell them the whereabouts of Berbackian. Raimeau was assigned the task of collecting the bundles of bread and hard cheese and four canteens of the dark ale that seemed to be the preferred drink of dwarf soldiers in the Regulate. The lanky man moved as if in a half-dream, like a sleeper who comes awake to find himself walking about, far from his bed.

  When the supplies were stowed in their saddlebags and the three travelers had remounted their horses, Krunzle recounted the events of the preceding day. He was inclined, as he often was in telling a tale, to amplify his part in the business; but when the words formed in his mind, he found his throat briefly constricted and the snake's voice in his mind, saying, Dwarves hate a boastful human. Tell it without embellishment.

  And so the thief told of the escape of Skanderbrog, the deaths of Boss Ulm and Mordach the Prudent, the burning of the town, and the flight of the populace.

  Drosket listened with close attention, but the recounting of Skanderbrog's role in the destruction of the gold camp took him by surprise. "A troll, you say?"

  "A young one that Ulm and Mordach enslaved."

  "Not orcs?"

  Krunzle blinked. "Orcs? In these parts?"

  "There have been signs," said the dwarf.

  "What kind of signs?"

  The dwarf cast his gaze upward and shook his head. "Well, what would you think? Nothing makes a mess like an orc, and a gaggle of them make a fine mess indeed. Step in it and you'll never forget the experience." But now Drosket paused to think, and after a moment he said, "Ulm, Mordach, dead?"

  "Very."

  "You saw this with your own eyes?"

  The thief signaled an affirmative. "And most of his bullyboys. They were in the saloon when the troll made his entrance."

  Drosket's eyes had grown bright beneath the overhanging thicket of his brows. "What of the gold?"

  "The people who fled would have had their pokes on them."

  "But the refined stuff," the dwarf said. "The ingots in the stronghouse by the furnace?"

  Why didn't I think of that? Krunzle said to himself, and was answered by a metal snake that told him to pay attention to the business at hand. He told Drosket, "There would have been no time to load wagons and hitch up mules. Everyone was running before the fire caught them. Or Skanderbrog."

  No one could have called Drosket, son of Drosket, an indecisive dwarf. "Right!" he said, and turned to his double squad, producing a silver whistle that hung on a thong beneath his beard. He blew a single blast, then shouted, "Sling shields! Form up, column of twos! Glyff, detail two dwarves to accompany these three to headquarters, and go with them. Report what they've told us."

  "What about—" Krunzle began.

  The dwarf squad leader paid no attention, but continued to issue orders to his subordinate. "We will go and take possession of the mine. Send the supply wagon after us. Tell the senior crown that we will need reinforcements at the earliest, and transport to bring back the gold. Tell him we will hold the place against all comers, for the glory of the Regulate and the rebirth of dwarven honor!"

  The last was said in a shout, and the dwarves, now formed up in a narrow column, roared back with a cheer and a triple clash of spears shafts on shields. Drosket went to stand beside the leading pair and raised an arm. "Column," he shouted, "at the quickstep—"

  Krunzle kneed his horse in front of the dwarves. "What about Berbackian?"

  Drosket didn't even glance his way. "Detained, questioned, released," he said. "Said he was carrying dispatches from the Kalistocracy for the Lumber Consortium officials in Falcon's Hollow. Last seen heading south." Then he blew the whistle in three short blasts.

  On the third note, the dwarf column, less Glyff—who had turned out to be the red-bearded one—and his two leave-behinds, stepped forward at a fast walk. Krunzle moved his horse out of their way and watched them go. One of the dwarves was counting out the paces, the rest of them chiming in on every fourth beat. After a hundred, they broke into a trot. The thief had heard it said that, in the old days, dwarven armies could cover fifty miles a day, in full armor, even through mountainous terrain, at this half-walking, half-running pace. Seeing Drosket's double squad pounding down the rutted road, he thought, was like looking back across the centuries.

  "Let's go," said Gyllana. When Krunzle turned, he saw that the three dwarves detailed to return to their headquarters were already trotting back the way they had come, and the woman was spurring her horse after them. Raimeau, still looking a little dazed, was waiting for Krunzle to follow.

  The traveler kicked his horse into motion and the two men caught up with the Kalistocrat's daughter. They rode in silence for a while, then she said to the thief, "You handled that well. The negotiation, I mean."

  "I try to rise to the occasion," Krunzle said.

  "I was surprised"—her voice held a note of reflection—"that you did not make more of your role in the death of Ulm's Delve. Raimeau tells me that it was you who set the troll on his path of destruction."

  "Well," said the thief, "as I say, there comes an occasion, and I rise to it."

  She formed her mouth into a kind of shrug. "Perhaps I misjudged you."

  "You would not be the first," he said. "Why, if I say so myself, I am known up and down the lands of the Inner Sea for my—"

  "Then again," she said, "perhaps not."

  Chapter Eight

  The Noble Head

  A half hour's ride in the wake of the three dwarves brought them to the end of the gently sloping plateau. Abruptly, the land began to rise, and now the rutted road had to switchback its way up steeper inclines. As they climbed, the grass gave way to heather and clumps of gorse, punctuated here and there by moss-covered boulders of black rock, veined with lighter minerals. They seemed to have been scattered at random, but when Krunzle commented to that effect, Raimeau informed him that the rocks had probably been flung from the mouth of Mount Sinatuk the last time the volcano had erupted.

  "When was that?" the thief said.

  "No one knows," said the gray-haired man.

  "And when is it likely to go off again?"

  Raimeau spread his hands. "Who can say?"

  Not long after they began to climb, they met the dwarf troop's supply wagon, loaded with boxes and barrels and the dwarves' personal kit, and pulled by six of the short-legged but powerful ponies that had long ago been bred down to a size that dwarves could handle.

  Glyff and his two dwarves recovered their gear from the wagon while conducting a brief colloquy with the four dwarves who manned it. The vehicle then set off the way the travelers had come, the driver whipping the ponies up to a trot. While the three escorts put on their packs, Krunzle used the opportunity to ask how far they had to travel before they reached their destination.

  "For us, unencumbered, no more than an hour," said Glyff. He was an almost exact copy of Drosket, though not quite as wide and without the gray streaks in his beard. "With you to slow us down, nearly two."

  "We have had no breakfast," said Gyllana. "We would like to rest and eat some of these rations." She patted the saddlebag in front of her leg.

  "Eat as you ride," said Glyff. "Our news must reach the senior crown forthwith."

  "Then you go on ahead, and we will catch you up," said Krunzle.

  The dwarf emitted a sound that suggested his throat was congested with gravel. "You'll do no such thing!" he said, unslinging his spear. "You'll move on, or you'll be moved!"

  The other two had followed Glyff's lead. The thief said, "Are we then under arrest?"

  "You are under escort. If you'd like to try for under arrest, just keep blathering." Glyff looked at Gyllana as he said, "Though you'd find it hard to eat your brekkie with y
our hands tied behind your backs."

  "Well," said the woman, "that makes it clear." She pulled a cob of bread wrapped in waxed paper out of the saddlebag and bit off a piece. Her knees put the mare in motion.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  The road zigged and zagged its way up a series of increasingly steep slopes, topping ridges and descending only a short distance before it began to climb again. The mountains were much nearer now. After noon, they came to an almost perpendicular cliff and turned left along its base. Krunzle kept expecting to see the road enter a canyon and continue to climb. Instead, he was surprised to come around an outcrop at the foot of the precipice and see the wagon ruts ahead disappear into a gateway cut into the living rock.

  Twin gates of heavy dark timber, studded and hinged with black iron and three times the thief's height, stood open. Beside them, turning toward them as they came into view, was another squad of spear-dwarves whose leader bore on his helmet the same long-hafted axe, though his was in tin.

  Glyff stood at attention before this worthy and spoke to him too softly for Krunzle to hear. But there was no mistaking the import of their discussion. The three travelers were swiftly surrounded and told to dismount, but no attempt was made to take away the thief's short sword; he had the impression that the mail-shirted dwarves, not one of them possessing fewer than two weapons besides a spear, did not consider him a threat. Probably not even a nuisance, he thought in Chirk's direction, but received only the mental equivalent of a distracted grunt.

  "Up," said Glyff, indicating the gateway with a motion of his helmeted head.

  Leading his horse, Krunzle went to look through the opening. He saw a flight of steps leading upward into darkness. Far up, a dim light was set in the wall, then another, even farther. "The horses can't do that," he said.

  One of the gate guards took the reins from his hands. "They go by the ascender," he said.

  "The ascender?" said Gyllana.

  "Good dwarven engineering," said Glyff. "Pulleys and counterweights. Now get climbing. We've a report to make."