“What have you seen of him-in your Globe?” asked Miradel. “And of Tamarwind?”
“They are well,” Belynda replied, “insofar as they have survived the battle on the beaches. But the attackers were too many; the elves have fallen back through the hills. The gnomes, I am sorry to say, were not so fortunate.”
Miradel felt a rush of guilt for, in that moment of brutal honesty, the fate of the army meant much less to her than the safety of her lover. But in another instant she acknowledged the despair brought about by the dire situation. If the Deathlord’s horde was unstoppable, how much longer could Natac, or anyone else on Nayve, hope to survive?
“Druids and sages,” Cillia declared, commanding in her position in the center of the ring. Immediately the gathered throng fell silent. “Our efforts are needed in this new war, at the Swansleep River. General Natac has sent a messenger… a not-unexpected summons, to be sure. Sages, we will need you to generate the teleports. We will use the whirlpools in the garden. Druids, the hundred of you that I have spoken to about this plan: make yourselves ready for war. We depart with the first glimmer of Lighten.”
Immediately there was murmuring among the gathered druids, knowing looks between the sages. Such a mass teleport was not unprecedented, but it was a very complicated undertaking, requiring careful coordination and a great concentration of magic. Everyone had much to do, and quickly the group broke up as individuals and pairs went about their tasks.
Miradel turned to Belynda. “You knew about this plan?” said the druid. “You are helping with the teleport spell?”
“Why, yes,” replied the sage-ambassador. “We were told that it might be necessary. But you didn’t know?”
“My work is here, in the temple; there was no need to inform me,” Miradel said. She glanced at Shandira before turning back to Belynda. “But listen, I need you to do us a favor.”
“Of course.”
“You must send the two of us tonight, when the great teleport spell is cast.”
“But your place is here, isn’t it? Why do you want to go to the Swansleep River?”
“My place… I am still trying to find it,” Miradel said. “As is Shandira. But I have concluded that place is not here. We can do good work elsewhere.”
“But there are a hundred druids, all practiced in the art of water and wind magic, going to serve at the river. Why must you join them?”
“I never said I was joining them,” Miradel answered, lowering her voice and meeting the elfwoman’s eyes directly. “I want you to send us someplace else altogether.”
“Where is that?” Belynda looked a little alarmed, which didn’t surprise her old friend.
“Later,” said the druid. “I will tell you when we come here for the spell casting.”
10
Running in the Dark
Shadows whisper
Darkness breathes,
Pulses quicken,
Mem’ry grieves
Song of the Darkdweller
The dwarfmaid walked the street next to the ghetto wall because it was the shortest route between her work-place, the low city fish market where she earned enough in gold coins to keep herself alive. Long ago her walk had taken her through the goblin neighborhood; often she would stop in a tavern there or pick up some cookshrooms at the bustling market. Since the wall had gone up, forty years earlier, her walk had gotten longer and more dull.
But she did it because it was her job, and dwarves were nothing if not dedicated to their labor. Now she was just in a hurry, hungry and tired, anxious to return to her home.
She would never get there.
The liquid came from above, a sloshing spill that caught her ear just in time to cause her to raise her face. The oil struck her in the eyes first, searing away her flesh with the burning strength of its heat. She opened her mouth to scream, and it poured down her throat. Before she could make any sound, she was dead. Her body was cruelly burned, her passable beauty mutilated even beyond recognition, for she had been murdered in the foulest fashion that anyone could have devised.
“T HE goblins seek to terrorize our population!” Nayfal insisted passionately, though he kept his tone low, as befitted a conversation with the king. “This latest attack is simply the most gruesome evidence of the fact that we need to act!”
King Lightbringer closed his eyes and leaned his head against the back of his throne, looking very old to the agitated lord. He spoke without looking at Nayfal. “They killed this poor woman by pouring hot oil over her?”
“Indeed, sire. It is clear that our people are no longer safe in the vicinity of the ghetto. We must take action-drastic action!”
“Are you sure it was goblins?”
“Who else would it be?” the marshal retorted. Then he added, “Of course, I interviewed witnesses. Several of your own guardsmen were in position to see. They even chased the wretches, though the gobs were quick to get off the wall. They vanished into the ghetto. Sire, we must strike those impudent wretches at once!”
“You are right, of course,” replied the king. At last he opened his eyes and looked at Nayfal, his expression immeasurably sad. “Do what you must,” he commanded.
The ferr’ells came out of the darkness, slinking soundlessly around a massive pillar of rock. Long and low and sleekly furry, they looked like stronger, and much larger versions of the wyslet, to which they were vaguely related. The three steeds crept toward the dwarves, round ears alert, seeking signs of danger or familiarity. For several moments tension was apparent in every aspect of their quivering whiskers, staring eyes, taut posture. But then, satisfied, the creatures relaxed and trotted quickly toward them. Even so, they snapped jaws and uttered deep-throated growls as proof of the resentment still aroused by their lifelong domestication.
“This was faster than I expected,” Konnor acknowledged. An hour earlier he had blown upon his ultrahigh-pitched whistle. The three dwarves had waited with growing anxiety, hoping that the mounts they had turned out many intervals before had remained within audible distance.
The trio wasted no time in saddling the ferr’ells, which hissed and pranced restively. Immediately Borand’s, perhaps sensing its rider’s weakness, turned and snapped toothy jaws. The dwarf whacked the whiskered snout sharply with his leathered fist. Accepting his rider’s mastery, the beast lowered its head and allowed the saddling to proceed without interruption. The dwarves slung several saddlebags and stowed their remaining food, climbing equipment, extra weapons, and flamestone. Then they mounted and started the long journey back to the city.
For a full cycle, forty intervals of sunless time that would have been two score days and nights on Nayve or Earth, they rode toward the center, toward the remembered lights of Axial. A quarter of the way into the trip they found the long-abandoned camp of a massive army, broken weapons and discarded equipment covering a plain four miles across. They explored the area, found the track leading toward Arkan Pass, and deduced that this had been the bivouac of the mighty army that had fought the Seers in that ill-fated battle fifty years before.
“This was one of their last camps,” Borand guessed, kicking through a cracked stewpot within which the remnants of food had long turned to dust. “They marched to Arkan Pass and to disaster, lost to Nightrock just as our army was lost to Axial.”
“Which makes me think that the Delver city has been abandoned for that long, or nearly so,” Aurand mused. “All those years we Seers have been cowering in the city, locking up goblins, pulling back from our ancestral food warrens-in fear of an enemy who no longer exists!”
From there they crossed the Salt Plain in a stretch of unbroken gallop, lashing their ferr’ells into a frenzy of speed so that they could reach the centerward heights before the nightbats could gather. By the time the great, shrieking flock winged in pursuit, the dwarves, on lathered mounts, were racing up the limestone bluffs of Escarpment. The bats, for reasons as mysterious as they were consistent, refused to fly among the crags of the broken bluff, and the Seer scouts contin
ued toward their home city at a more leisurely pace.
The implication of their discovery occupied their thoughts, and their conversation revolved around numerous speculations, hypotheses to explain the fabled city’s abandonment. They wondered if the Delvers had been destroyed at the same time as Axial’s army, a conclusion that seemed too good to be true-and too dangerous to assume. But now signs they’d seen over past decades of scouting the Underworld, memories of abandoned boatyards and silent mines, withered warrens and untracked pathways, began to make sense in a larger pattern.
Borand was also thinking about other things, and he made these known as they rode toward the last interval of their long journey.
“I’d suggest we say naught of our discovery at first,” he suggested to the younger dwarves. “Not till we’ve had a chance to speak to Rufus. So don’t be spilling your tales over a cold ale in the first tavern we visit. We need to do this carefully. If we can convince people that the Delvers are gone, it will change a lot of things about Axial.”
“For the better,” Aurand agreed.
“Wise counsel,” Konnor agreed. “The news will be embarrassing, at the least, to Lord Nayfal. It was he, after all, who gave impetus to so many of the measures taken since Arkan Pass.”
“Aye,” Aurand chimed in. “Measures to guard against the Delver menace he claimed was just beyond the next row of hills. I’d like to see the expression on his face when he learns the truth.”
“As would we all,” said Borand. “But again, let us be the ones who control when that lesson takes place. I’m sure Father will have some ideas. I have lots of questions about how we tell the king and make sure he believes us.”
The questions remained unanswered as, at last, they came into view of Axial’s lights. They were weary and saddle sore, and even the hardy ferr’ells were limping, hopping gingerly from foot to foot as they approached, in single file, the miles-long Null Causeway leading to the city.
Before they set foot on the crossing, however, Borand’s steed reared back, startled. A shape, cloaked in dark clothes, emerged from the ditch and took the ferr’ell’s bridle-an act of no small courage, especially as the animal started to rear and was pulled back down with a forceful yank. This was clearly someone who had worked with the fierce animals before.
Even so, Borand was startled to see that black veil pull away to reveal his sister’s face. “Stop right here, big brother,” she said grimly. “The city isn’t a safe place for the Houseguard clan.”
“B OSS Hiyram-wake ups! Wake ups, now!”
The voice penetrated the goblin’s sleep-fogged brain, and he blinked, sniffling a loud inhalation as he tried to understand where he was, what was happening. With the first touch of the air he recognized the ghetto, pungent and unmistakable… and then the other details of his circumstance came to him in a rush. He was hungry and lonely, utterly without hope. Even the Lady was gone, her father slain and Darann perhaps dead as well.
“Listen! Dwarves is comin’!” The voice, in breath sickly sour with malnutrition, hissed urgently at his ear, and he knew that things, bad as they were, could still get worse. He recognized the speaker as Spadrool, a courageous goblin who had been his friend since the Delver Wars.
“What? What you mean?” asked Hiyram, sitting up groggily.
Then he heard it: a deep thrumming that at first reminded him of a basso drumbeat, some kind of ceremonial cadence. But quickly he recognized, felt in his belly, the rhythmic rumble of an army on the march.
Instantly he sprang from his pallet, sniffing the air more carefully as his floppy ears pricked up. He analyzed the sound; it seemed to come from everywhere, but in fact arose in the direction of metal. He sought a trace of smoke scent, felt a moment of relief when he failed to detect that particular menace.
But then he heard the screams.
“They come against ghetto,” Spadrool explained, confirming Hiyram’s deduction. “Breakin’ down gates in Metal Wall.”
“Are the fighter gobs gathering?” Hiyram asked. He groped through the grimy straw of his pallet, clutched the hilt of the dagger, one of the precious weapons smuggled in to him by the Lady. “And the she-gobs and little ones running?”
“Best as can be,” replied Spadrool. “Needs you to tells us.”
“Come!” Hiyram was fully awake by then and raced out the door of his hovel with his comrade, who was armed with a stout pipe of iron, trailing right behind. They sprinted from the alley into the main thoroughfare of the ghetto, a narrow lane leading upward from the waterfront. Goblins were running in every direction, crying, calling, shouting.
“All you men-gobs!” Hiyram shouted as he ran into the middle of the street. “Go to metal way-bring you sticks, stones, bring you blades if you got! Right away!”
He turned and started up the hill, alarmed to realize that he could smell smoke now, that the stink seemed to be getting stronger with each step. At the same time, he was encouraged by the fact that dozens, quickly a hundred or more, goblins were following his lead. Many were unarmed, but some bore makeshift weapons like Spadrool’s. Nowhere else but in his own hand did Hiyram see the gleam of a steel blade.
They came to the top of the hill and saw the wall rising before them. Orange flames were bright at the base, where the gate had once stood. Now dark, armored figures were tromping past that blaze, entering the ghetto in a long, undeniably military file. Another waft of smoke carried past, and Hiyram knew that other gates along this wall were under attack. In the stone maze of the ghetto’s alleys, the fires could not spread into a conflagration, but they could be destructive and frightening where they were used.
“You there, halt! Drop those weapons!” shouted a burly and bearded Seer, lifting up the faceplate of his helm and striding imperiously forward. He was backed by a rank of armored dwarves. “You’ll be coming with us, you lot!”
“Go away!” shouted Hiyram, the first thought that came to his mind. He lifted the knife and brandished it at the officer, who was twenty or thirty paces away.
“They’re armed!” cried the dwarf. “It’s a rebellion! To the attack, men!”
Hiyram had seen dwarven armies before, but he was still surprised at their precise discipline, the quickness with which they obeyed orders. As if they were of one mind, the dwarves tightened ranks and charged the goblins with swords raised and shiny steel shields held across their chests.
The motley group of ghetto denizens turned tail and fled at the first rush of the dwarves. Hiyram held a second, his knife pointed pathetically, but his ears told him that every one of his comrades had run away. Gulping, he spun about, strangely moved to see the redoubtable Spadrool, eyes wide and pipe clutched in trembling hand, had remained at his side.
“Go now!” he shouted, and his companion turned with him. Wide feet slapping on the wet stones, they dashed away from the dwarves, sprinting into the tangle of alleys and sewers that was the goblin ghetto.
Darann knew that her brothers had innumerable questions, but she held them at bay as they dismounted and gathered around her. “Let’s not talk here. Come with me, up the hill.”
After they tethered their ferr’ells, she led them on foot, with their companion Konnor, up to the pinnacle of the seaside elevation. Here they sat on a stone bench, one of several which formed a ring on the hilltop.
The summit was a popular destination for dwarven walkers because of the splendid view of Axial. Now, however, Darann paid no attention to the array of coolfyre beacons. The six pillars of stone stood outlined in sparkling brilliance, torches and lamps illuminating the skirts of balconies, the vertical stripes of the lift channels.
“What did you mean, when you said that the city is no longer safe for clan Houseguard?” Borand asked. “Your words send an uncanny chill down my spine.”
“I am sorry to greet with you such news, but I meant just that. My brothers, our father is dead, slain-I am certain-upon the orders of Lord Nayfal.”
“No!” cried Aurand, bouncing to his feet, clen
ching his short sword so hard his knuckles turned white. Tears came to his eyes, and his mouth worked frantically, though no sound emerged. Finally he choked out a thought: “I will not believe this!”
Borand, the elder brother, watched Darann carefully, finally stepping forward and taking her shoulders in his strong hands, still looking into her eyes. “I hear and sense your pain. It is true, my brother.” He addressed Aurand while still looking at his sister. “And I am sorry, little one, that you were left to deal with that blow by yourself… I wish that I could have been here.”
“Father slain… by murder…” Aurand’s voice was numb, as if he was trying to convince himself by stating the facts. He shook his head, blinked back his tears, and looked around fiercely. “I swear by all the ancestors of Axial-I will avenge him!”
Then his eyes fell upon his sister again, and he wept loudly, staggering to Darann, sweeping her into his arms. She sobbed, too, at last giving vent to her grief. “I am sorry that we were gone… that you were here alone to face such a crisis.”
“Rufus Houseguard murdered?” Konnor said, horror muting his voice to a dull whisper. He looked at Darann, reached out to touch her hand. “And you have fled the city. Did you sense that you were in danger?”
“Yes… more than sensed, I saw.” She told of her flight from the manor, of the dark intruders who broke in and searched the rooms with clear and menacing purpose.
“These are dark days upon us,” Borand said grimly. “And to think, we returned to Axial with a message of hope.”
“What hope can there be?” Darann asked.
Borand told her, patiently, about their discovery of the abandoned city, the indications that the Delvers might be gone from the First Circle entirely. “We were going to tell father, then go with him to see the king! We hoped to persuade him to open up some of the far warrens to food gathering again, even to let the goblins free to help with the work they have always done for us. But Father… I can’t believe he’s gone!”
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