“Brandon? Brandon Bluestone of Kayolin?” she asked.
Seated on the bench that doubled as a bunk, he looked up with an expression that mingled consternation and pleasure. Their eyes met and even in the lightless conditions-she did not want to risk illuminating her staff again-they could recognize each other. She braced herself, preparing for another angry outburst, but instead the prisoner threw back his head and laughed heartily.
“Do you make a habit of visiting every prisoner in every dungeon?” he said, still chuckling. “Or is it just me?”
“Actually, it’s just you,” she admitted. “I saw you get taken by Garn’s men, and then I saw them leading you into the dungeon and I followed you here. I wanted to, uh, see how you are doing. I hope they haven’t beaten you-too badly. Have you had anything to eat?”
He shrugged from his seat on the bench. “So far, my survey of Neidar versus Klar hospitality has failed to arrive at any conclusion. But my research-as you can see-continues.” Brandon’s voice took on an edge of sarcasm. “I’ll share the final result with you, for your book, if you want.”
She bit her tongue on a sharp reply, as always sensitive to the progress-or lack thereof-of her book. “I’m sorry this happened to you again. I… I wish there was something I could do. About your bad luck, I mean. And I wasn’t too nice to you last time we spoke; I wanted to apologize for that too.”
Say something, she screamed silently. For a long heartbeat, he only sat there, studying her.
Finally, he rose and came over to the door, leaning his face close to the bars. He was really quite handsome, she told herself, even if he was still dressed in the same filthy garb he had been wearing for two weeks of marching through the mountains. His hair was uncombed but rich and thick and a pleasant shade of brown. It was draped low on his forehead, almost covering one eye with a rakish, very intriguing effect. His beard, once neatly trimmed, was unkempt, but it parted to reveal a neat set of white teeth.
“Uh, actually, I’d been wishing for the chance to say the same thing to you. I could have been more pleasant when you visited me in the brig,” he admitted.
She was taken aback by his frank statement. It seemed almost un-dwarf-like! She realized that, when she first had met him, she had wanted to get him talking about his homeland, to learn about Kayolin from a dwarf who had lived there; then, it was only her research, her book, that mattered. At that moment, though, she found herself just wanting to get to know him, to understand him.
“You really are from Kayolin, aren’t you?” she said. “I should have believed you.”
“All my life,” he replied. “Until the last few months.”
“How did you come to be in the south hills?”
“It’s a very long story,” he said with a bitter chuckle.
“I have plenty of time,” she replied.
And so he told her the long story. He told her all about the vein of gold he had discovered and about his brother’s murder and Ham’s murderous betrayal. He discussed his father’s grief and his hopes, the treasure he had sent south with his son, and about Poleaxe’s treachery in stealing it from him.
“That’s where you found me, in the Hillhome brig. Waiting for execution, it turns out,” he concluded.
“Wait. You mean, you think Harn Poleaxe intended to have you killed?” she asked.
“Intended, tried, almost did,” Brandon said bitterly. He described his sham trial and his perilous predicament when he’d been shackled to the timber frame with tinder and firewood piled around his feet as the Klar attack began. “If the Klar hadn’t attacked when they did, I’d have been cooked to a cinder in the next hour.”
“That Poleaxe! He’s even worse than I thought,” Gretchan said. She told him all about Poleaxe’s attack on her and fleeing Hillhome.
“The bastard!” Brandon spit, his knuckles whitening as he gripped the bars of his cell door.
All of a sudden Gretchan felt terribly weary and discouraged. She slumped against the door. “It’s not just Poleaxe. There’s Garn Bloodfist and Tarn Bellowgranite-and the high king in Thorbardin. All they can think about, it seems, is how they can make war against their fellow dwarves.”
“Wait. You’ve been to Thorbardin?” Brandon said. “Is that your home?”
“No. I come from… far away from here,” she said. “But all my life I’ve studied Thorbardin, talked to dwarves who lived there-even some who want to go back.”
“But it remains sealed against the world, doesn’t it?”
“Yes. And when I finally accepted that I’d never be able to visit the place, I decided to come to Pax Tharkas, to meet the dwarves here, who left Thorbardin only a decade ago. That’s the closest I can get to chronicling Thorbardin, for now.”
“I see. And where will all this research and chronicling lead?”
She sighed. “My great ambition is to go to the Great Library, in Palanthas. I want to ask them to take me in as an aesthetic or a student. I just want to read, to study, to learn about the dwarves of the past.”
“All this talk of the past!” he challenged her, shaking his head. “What about the present or the future?”
Gretchan looked at him through the narrow bars and shook her head. “You’ve seen the present,” she admitted sadly. “War and false trials and treachery and theft. What kind of future do you think the dwarf race has?”
“Oh, it can’t be as bad as all that, can it?” he objected.
She couldn’t help but place her own hands over his, and when his fingers clutched at hers, she felt a giddiness she had never felt before. It was as if he would never let her go.
And she would never want him to release her.
Gus was busy wandering through the tunnels of the Sla-Mori. He strolled into one room full of crypts, and when one of the coffin doors started to squeak open, he fled, dashing at top speed through the darkness. He scrambled over piles of loose stones, investigated shadowy niches, and discovered a chamber where a massive chain emerged from the ceiling to be fastened to a heavy iron bracket sunk right into the stone of the floor.
Once or twice he tried looking around for Gretchan, but he felt certain she was just a few steps ahead of him, and there was simply so much to see, he couldn’t be bothered to worry about her. Little insect critters scurried out of his path, too fast for him to catch even one, but they reminded him he was getting hungry. Luckily he found a piece of old, rotten timber with a sumptuous yellow mold growing along one crumbled edge. He feasted on that rarity, spitting out the larger pieces of wood, until he felt sated. He got up to start walking again until, finally, he realized that he was very, very much alone.
He hastened down the darkened hallways, tripping and falling over many a loose rock, anxiously seeking the dwarf maid who had become his companion, his rescuer, his best friend-his goddess! He wanted to call out to her but didn’t dare risk attracting attention to himself. So he trekked on, moving as fast as his stubby little legs would carry him.
He came to a door that was standing open. The other side of the door smelled refreshingly like Agharhome, the gully dwarf slum where he had lived nearly all of his life. He slowed to an easy stroll, wandering down a winding corridor with wet, slimy walls that reminded him of home. Then he caught an especially familiar, favorite scent, the stink of wet fur and a fleshy body.
Rat! He saw the creature scampering to the side, scuttling underneath a low shelf. Instantly Gus dropped to his hands and knees, clawing after the creature, reaching his stubby fingers under the shelf. He felt its naked tail, squeezed hard, and pulled only to feel it yanked away from his grip by an even more forceful tug. “Hey! Rat mine!”
The protest came from a female gully dwarf who popped into view on the other side of the shelf. She held the wriggling rat in her hands and deftly twisted its body, snapping its neck.
“No, rat mine!” Gus retorted, planting his fists on his hips and glaring at the female. He had been startled by her abrupt appearance but managed to overcome his instinct of
flight to stand in place and face her down.
She glared back at him, stubbornly clutching the rat. Her nose, Gus saw, was impressively large, swelling out from between two round cheeks. Her hair was reddish brown, tangled, and long, straggling over her round shoulders except where her large ears caused the matted tresses to extend almost straight out to the sides.
In that moment he remembered Slooshy and how they, too, had fought over a rat on their first meeting. He had claimed the rat and taken it away from Slooshy then lost it when it slipped out of his hand. Then Slooshy died. The memory made him feel terribly sad.
“Me Gus,” he said, pointing a pudgy thumb at his chest. “You keep rat,” he added graciously.
The female Aghar scowled suspiciously, looking him carefully up and down. “Berta,” she said finally. Reconsidering her first impression, she gave the rat another twist, wrenching the little body into two parts.
“Here,” she said, extending the hindquarters toward Gus.
Wide eyed, he took the morsel, and for two minutes the pair of them sat companionably on the ground, tearing off bits of the still-warm meat, chewing, and spitting as they discarded the larger bones, the feet, and the tail.
“This your big house?” Gus asked after a satisfied belch. He gestured to the yawning caverns, the dungeon passages and the shadowy stairwell around them.
“No,” Berta said. “Me live Agharhome, over there two steps.” She pointed into the distance. “Come into Paxhouse for food sometimes, though.”
“You have Agharhome here?” asked Gus, amazed and delighted. “With highbulp? And clans?”
Berta seemed to think about that before she shrugged. “Got clans,” she said. “But no highbulp right now. Him killed by big bluphsplunging doofar dwarf.”
“Oh,” Gus said, slumping sadly. Life for the gully dwarves seemed to be pretty much the same from one Agharhome to the next.
Berta flashed a grin, pivoting around to kneel on the floor and look him over carefully. She reached out and touched his arm, nodding in satisfaction. “Hey, you be new highbulp?” she asked. “Highbulp Gus!”
Gus gaped at her in astonishment. He couldn’t be a highbulp! Highbulps were smart! Highbulps were powerful! Highbulps were masters of the Aghar, and he wasn’t the master of anything.
“Gus make good highbulp,” Berta pressed. “You brave, but no bully-not take rat from me like old highbulp would.”
The little Aghar’s mind was reeling. His new friend had presented him with an astounding idea, and even though it was unthinkable, she made him feel very strong and brave. Maybe he would make a good highbulp.
Only then did he think of his other friend, Gretchan. Immediately he bounced to his feet, suddenly panicked by the thought she had been gone for a long time. “I gotta go!” he cried. “Now!”
He sprinted away, leaving Berta staring open-mouthed after him. Where was the highbulp going? she must have wondered.
The highbulp was miserable about Gretchan. How could he have been so careless as to lose her? He lost his goddess, best friend, the most beautiful person ever to speak to him or show him an ounce of kindness.
Distraught, he wandered through darkened dungeon halls. He was weary and despairing, but he wouldn’t give up. And finally his efforts were rewarded, as after many miles of walking-at least two, he figured-he came upon Kondike, lying on the floor of the dungeon, his head sleepily resting on his forepaws. At Gus’s approach, the big dog raised his head, and his tail thumped against the floor in greeting.
Gus knew Gretchan wouldn’t be far away from her beloved dog, and indeed, he promptly spotted the historian. She was leaning against the door of a dungeon cell, talking to another dwarf in hushed tones. Then, before the Aghar’s disbelieving-and horrified-eyes she leaned in and kissed the other dwarf full upon the lips.
TWENTY-THREE
Storm Clouds Gather
A fter another meeting with the Mother Oracle, only two days after the Klar raiders had been repulsed, Harn Poleaxe had taken the next step in his increasingly detailed and ambitious scheme. Following the ancient one’s instructions, he had kindled her fire, brewed her tea, and stood back, drinking from his jug of spirits and scratching at the multiple sores across his face and arms, as she cast the liquid onto the floor to watch it puddle and melt in the midst of the sticky debris. She studied its signs and meditated. When she finally spoke, it was with great authority and conviction.
“You must summon the Neidar warriors from all across the hills,” the Mother Oracle counseled in her blunt fashion. “Bring them to you here, and unite with them for strength. Form an army to destroy the mountain dwarves in Pax Tharkas!”
Harn was thrown by the grandiose idea. How many hill dwarves from towns a hundred miles away would care to follow him, he wondered. How many would even know his name?
“It will take some work, but they all share your goal, and many more than you know will have heard of you!” the Mother Oracle cackled, reading his mind. “The Klar from Pax Tharkas have been raiding these lands for ten years. There is not a Neidar anywhere in the Kharolis range that doesn’t hate and fear that troublemaking clan.”
“Will they come?” Poleaxe asked, feeling intrigued as he began to imagine the possibilities. He took another drink and pondered the glory: a great army, at his command!
“You alone can make them come and unite!” the oracle hissed, her whisper hoarse and dry and like a knife that penetrated to the core of his being. “You have seen the way the dwarves of Hillhome responded to your leadership! Put your orders in writing, and send them with fleet messengers. The Neidar will surely answer your call!”
“I will, Mother Oracle!” he crowed, clenching his bloody fingers into a fist.
She nodded as if pleased. For a long time, she held her white, sightless eyes upon him, and he squirmed, even twitched around to see if someone were behind him. He turned back with the uncanny sensation that the blind, old woman was studying him.
“You must look the part of a commander,” she said. “Find a great war helm-one with a plume of feathers, so that all will see you on the field.”
“A splendid idea!” he agreed.
She reached out a bony finger, touched a bleeding spot on his cheek, and nodded. “And make sure it has a visor,” she added. “A plate of metal that you can lower to protect… and shield your face.”
And so he had done just as advised. Harn spent the next day drafting an eloquent call to action, a rather lengthy missive detailing, with minor exaggeration, the cruelties of the mountain dwarf attack against Hillhome, and the irreplaceable treasures that had been stolen from the hill dwarf coffers. He reminded the Neidar all through the Kharolis range of the long years of injustice, brutality, and violence wreaked upon their peaceful villages by the mountain dwarves of Pax Tharkas. That fortress, his missive read, was chock-full with treasures that the Hylar had stolen from many hill dwarf towns, villages, and homesteads.
He hinted, without claiming so directly, of an ally who would smash the gates of the mighty fortress and allow the Neidar army to charge inside and extract their vengeance. With each word that he wrote, he felt the growing power of his leadership, the compelling force of his will, transferred to the page. Somehow, the strength of his irresistible will would be communicated across the whole of the hill country.
At the same time as he was writing the letter, his lieutenants were gathering volunteers and fleet horses. When the missive was finished, some two dozen riders had assembled. Secretaries made multiple copies of the letter, and each rider took one of those epistles and departed at a gallop. Harn Poleaxe stood proudly in the plaza of Hillhome and watched them go, well satisfied at the momentous events he had put in motion.
Even as the horses thundered away, the town’s best weaponsmith, Kale Sharpsteel, brought him a new helmet. It was tailored to cover his whole head, resting on his breastplate and shoulder pads, and was topped with a great plume of black and white stork feathers. The smith averted his eyes as he han
ded the metal cap to Lord Poleaxe, and Harn immediately placed it over his head. He lowered the visor with a flick of his finger and found that he could see clearly through the wide eye slits Sharpsteel had perfectly placed. The lone drawback was the fact that he had to raise the visor in order to take another drink of spirits.
Only then did the hulking dwarf swagger back to the private sanctuary of his own house. The hearth there had grown dark and cold, but that didn’t matter to him; increasingly, he had become contemptuous of concerns such as food and warmth and even light. Drink, however, retained its eternal appeal, so he went immediately into the cellar, drawing himself a mug from a recently tapped keg. Removing his new helmet, he scratched at his face and sat down in his most comfortable chair.
He was waiting for someone. No, something, he corrected himself. He didn’t have long to wait.
The monster arose from the floor, its webbed black wings emerging first from the very ground, followed by its crimson eyes and that terrible fanged maw. Poleaxe trembled in a mixture of terror and delight as the creature, the being he had chosen to believe was proof of his own elite status, once again made its presence known to him.
“Have you sent out your summons?” hissed the thing.
Harn Poleaxe didn’t even stop to wonder how the creature knew about his plan.
“Yes!” Poleaxe boasted. “I have dispatched two dozen messengers to more than fifty villages and towns. I expect to raise an army of at least two thousand valiant dwarves.”
“All hill dwarves, yes?”
“Hill dwarves, every man sworn to the destruction of the mountain dwarf outpost in Pax Tharkas,” the warrior pledged stoutly. “Their longtime enmity and treachery will be punished, and my people will once again rule the hills of Kharolis.”
“That is good. My master will be pleased,” replied the creature silkily. “And when will you make this war? Time is short.”
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