After bellowing and brandishing their arms awhile to intimidate the defenders, the bandits rushed forward again. They attacked with no order, no discipline. Each robber ran screaming at the wagons, waving a sword, axe, or spear. Centaurs galloped in with a club in each hand.
The dwarves, bearing short swords and axes, appeared on the sides of their wagons. They were pitiably few.
Miya’s horse, a nimble black creature she’d named Pitch, stamped and snorted, catching its rider’s tense mood. Frez’s and Darpo’s mounts likewise shifted.
“Steady,” Tol said, Shadow standing placidly beneath him. The robbers were nearly to the wagons. “Steady.”
Blades clanged loudly in the crisp mountain air. Screams of pain shortly followed as sword, axe, spear, and club struck home. It was bloody business, shocking even to seasoned warriors like Tol and his men. They were professionals, accustomed to fighting other professionals. The fracas below was nothing more than a brutal melee.
A dwarf, impaled on a long spear, was hoisted off his feet and hurled in a wide arc by two men. Robbers, trying to climb aboard the wagons, fell back without arms or hands or heads.
Tol drew his sword. “Forward, at the gallop!”
They burst through the thin line of trees with a concerted shout of “Juramona!”
If their battle cry was lost in the noise of combat, the rumble of their horses’ hooves was not. Brigands furthest from the wagons faced about, uncertain what to do. Ambushing merchant caravans was their livelihood, but there was no profit in fighting Ergothian cavalry. Some bolted. By the time Tol’s people reached the fight, half the bandits had fled.
Tol aimed for the nearest, biggest foe, a centaur. He sabered the man-horse across the back, blade slashing through the creature’s fur vest. The centaur twisted his torso around and swung a huge spiked club at Tol’s face. Dodging, Tol thrust under the brawny centaur’s arm, piercing him in the ribs. Momentum carried Tol into the falling centaur, who collapsed under Shadow’s hooves.
Pivoting, Tol sabered left and right, wounding a bandit with every stroke. He knew that men who lived on the edge of life-vicious and violent as they were-feared mutilation worse than death; death in battle was usually quick, but a gravely injured man could suffer long agonies before finally succumbing. With deep sword cuts on their backs and shoulders, the thieves abandoned the fight and scrambled for safety. Frez would’ve ridden after them, but Tol called him back.
Miya whacked one fleeing robber on the head with her staff, stunning him. Seizing him by his dirty blond topknot, she dragged him across her saddle and brought him to Tol.
“Want a prize?” she said, grinning.
She let go of the man’s hair, and he fell to his knees. Tol presented his sword tip to the brigand’s face.
“Heed this, churl,” he said in his most menacing voice. “The army of Lord Tolandruth has claimed these mountains for Ergoth. Disperse, and your lives shall be spared. Continue to plunder, and every brigand caught in the hill country will be tied to a stake and burned alive.”
Miya chuckled appreciatively, brown eyes glittering, and her merriment unnerved the robber even more.
“Answer, do you understand?” Tol demanded. The fellow nodded furiously. “Then go-and spread the word!”
All the brigands who could run were fleeing now. The ogre, obviously the chief of this pack of wolves, never entered the fight. Tol drew his little band up between the ogre and the wagons, and waited for the frightened thief to deliver his message to the ogre chief. Cowering before his leader, he relayed Tol’s threat with suitable arm waving and eye-rolling. The ogre clashed his upper and lower tusks together and gave In inarticulate roar. He started down the ledge toward them, but Kiya put an arrow in the turf at his feet.
The hulking ogre halted and made an obscene gesture at the Dom-shu woman. Unperturbed, she fitted another arrow and drew her bowstring taut. The ogre clashed his tusks again, then stalked away after his vanishing followers. In moments the valley was peaceful again.
Eight haggard, blood-spattered dwarves emerged from the tethered wagons.
“The blessings of the Maker God on you all!” called a white-bearded dwarf. He wore a long brigandine studded with brass plates and carried a well-used battle-axe on his shoulder. “Tell me your names, strangers, so I may honor your memories for the rest of my days!”
Introductions were performed, with Tol naming himself simply as “Tol.” No need to clutter matters with titles and reputations.
“Men of Ergoth, are you not?” Tol said this was so, and the dwarf added, “I am Mundur Embermore, of the clan Hylar, and these are my retainers.”
“Hylar?” said Darpo. “The high clan of Thoradin? You’re a long way from home, Master Embermore.”
“Aye, ’tis true, and well I wish I were in the halls of the mountain king again!”
He explained that the dwarves had been sending out mining expeditions to different mountain regions, and they’d found rich diggings in the Harrow Sky range. Gold, and better still, iron.
“There are veins of red ore in these peaks that make the mines of Thoradin look like Aghar holes,” he proclaimed.
“Master Embermore, these mountains are no healthy place to work,” Tol cautioned.
It was true enough, but Tol also knew the new emperor would not be pleased to learn that dwarves were exploiting the riches of a land so close to the empire’s border. He urged the dwarves to depart quickly. The bandits might recover their nerve at any time, especially if they realized Tol’s “army” was only five strong. Mundur saw the wisdom of this and ordered his thanes to work with an impressive, booming voice.
Two wagons had been destroyed, and three of the ox teams slain, but from the remnants Mundur Embermore reorganized his caravan. However, the dwarves could not move on until their fallen comrades were solemnly interred. Tol understood their sentiment, and he and his people stood a nervous watch while the dwarves honored their dead.
When the last stone was placed on the last cairn, Mundur approached Tol, still mounted on Shadow.
“Our brothers will sleep in peace, thanks be to you and the Maker God,” he said. His deep-set blue eyes were rimmed with tears. “A thousand blessings on your noble brow, Ergothian!”
“We can’t let thieves run free,” Tol replied, embarrassed by the dwarf’s continued gratitude.
“No, indeed!” Mundur smiled, showing broad yellow teeth. “Allow me to repay your gallantry in my own small way. May I see your sword?”
The rest of Tol’s party collected around him as he drew his saber and offered the hilt to the dwarf.
Mundur ran a thick thumb over the flat side of the blade, then licked it. “That’s good iron. Mined in the west of your country, no more than five winters past I’d say.”
He summoned one of his thanes, and the two of them measured the saber with great care.
“You favor a curved blade, soldier?” Mundur asked, and Tol admitted he did. To his helper, Mundur said, “Bring Number Six.”
The thane retrieved a long wooden box from one of the wagons. When this was presented to Mundur, the elderly dwarf opened it and removed a finished sword with a long, curved Made and a cup hilt made to enclose the wielder’s hand completely. He presented the weapon to Tol.
“Try this, Ergoth.”
The cup hilt was somewhat snug, as the grip had been sized for a dwarf, but Tol’s own hands weren’t overly large. The weapon’s length was right and its balance excellent. Sweeping out from the oil-finished hilt, the blade was quite thin, and displayed an intricate pattern of whorls in its surface.
“We made up a number of sample weapons at the mine,” Mundur explained. “To show the folks back home what can be done with the metal we found here. What think you of the blade?”
Tol swung the saber. It was fast and light, but he doubted the thin blade would stand up long in close combat. As politely as he could, he said so.
Mundur’s eyes gleamed. “It will serve you well, a very long t
ime. The sword is yours, warrior. A small gift from Mundur Embermore to his benefactor. Use it in good health!”
Chuckling deep in his chest, Mundur departed. With much waving, shouts of gratitude, and whip-cracking, the dwarves formed their caravan and went on their way.
Kiya took the sword from Tol’s hand and brandished it a few times. “I feel no magic in it,” she said, handing it back.
“I doubt there is any.” He slipped his old, much-used saber back in its scabbard and regarded the new weapon with a practiced eye. “Mundur’s a miner and a smith, not a spell-caster.”
“A handsome blade, though,” Frez noted. Miya commented sourly that gold would’ve been a better reward than another sword, no matter how well wrought.
Tol hung the new weapon from a thong behind his saddle bags. As Shadow jounced along, the cutting edge wore against the end of a saddlebag. No one noticed until the contents of the bag spilled out on the stony ground.
Darpo rode up from behind and pulled the dwarf blade free. With no more force than its own weight, it had sliced through the thick leather bag.
“Some edge!” Darpo declared, handing the weapon to Tol.
Miya picked up Tol’s scattered belongings. When she saw his tin drinking cup, she whistled loudly between her teeth. The cup was also deeply scored by the blade.
Tol dismounted. Sword in hand, he tossed the ruined cup in the air and slashed at it with Mundur’s blade. The cup flew into two halves, bisected.
“It is enchanted!” Miya exclaimed.
Kiya gave Tol a quick look, lifting her eyebrows. He shook his head and casually rested a hand at his waist where he wore the millstone. He had touched the blade to the Irda artifact, with no result. The sword’s power lay not in magic but in superb craftsmanship.
“Try something harder, my lord!” Darpo urged.
Tol pulled a silver coin from his belt pouch. Holding the saber edge up, he balanced the coin on it. With a single, sharp heave, he brought the saber over in a wide arc. Two silver semicircles landed on the ground. Kiya offered a brass spoon, and Mundur’s blade sliced it just as easily.
Miya stooped and retrieved a black iron horseshoe from Tol’s fallen gear. Wordlessly she held it out. This would be the supreme test. Horseshoes were forged from the toughest iron. A common saber could be ruined by hacking a horseshoe; it might even snap in two.
Tol tossed the horseshoe into the air and swung the blade hard. He felt only a slight resistance, heard a snap, and the horseshoe hit the ground in two pieces. The edge of Mundur’s sword wasn’t even nicked.
Frez whooped, Darpo laughed, and the Dom-shu sisters clapped each other heartily on the back. Tol slipped the dwarf blade into his empty scabbard.
“A good sword,” he said, calmly. Unable to maintain his facade, he grinned suddenly. “I think I’ll keep it!”
Miya, the inveterate haggler, was all for going after the dwarves to see whether more blades could be bought. Kiya finally had to take Fitch’s reins and lead her sister away from temptation.
The sun was high. Since they’d descended from the heights, the day had turned sultry indeed, with white haze rising up to obscure the once brilliantly blue sky. Trees became common again as the land flattened. Behind them, the silent gray mountains they’d conquered looked like a forbidding fortress. Miya marveled that they’d managed to cross such lofty peaks.
Spread below them, the Harrow Sky hill country resembled a quilt, a patchwork of green vales and brown hills. With Tarsis four days behind them, Tol expected to reach the sea in another four.
At his order they shed their distinctive Ergothian clothing, trading scarves, hoods, and cloaks, until each of them looked appropriately anonymous. No sense announcing themselves as imperial warriors, Tol said. A small band of wanderers-perhaps robbers themselves-would invite much less attention than Ergothian soldiers.
A few leagues farther on, signs of habitation grew more and more common. Smoke was on the wind, from hearths and campfires. Here and there crude vegetable patches appeared, gouged out of the flinty hillsides. The hardscrabble gardens reminded Tol of his childhood. He’d spent many a morning hoeing in such fields alongside his father, mother, and two sisters.
As always, thoughts of his family brought a pang to Tol’s heart. Not having seen them for years, he had searched out their farm as he led the Army of the North southward on its long trek to Tarsis. He’d found the tiny homestead, tucked in the hills south of Juramona, but it was abandoned. The pens had fallen down, and the house in which he’d been born was roofless and derelict. No trace of his family remained. Caught up as he was in a war, Tol could not take time to look for them.
The first person they encountered since the dwarves’ departure was a little girl. With only a willow switch, she was herding a trio of pigs, each as large as herself. She shied away from the five riders, driving her charges off the path. Although only about twelve years old, she had hard eyes and a long dagger tucked in the rope knotted around her waist. She gripped its wooden handle as they passed.
“The natives are so friendly here,” Miya snorted.
“You grew up free in the forest,” Tol said quietly, as they gave the wary child a wide berth. “A farmer is surrounded by enemies: the weather, insects, thieves, overlords. Life makes you hard-or you die.”
They came to a village nestled between three hills. An open town, with no wall to defend it, it was a cluster of stoutly built log houses centered on a common well. One of the larger homes had a porch. As they passed the open door, Kiya sniffed.
“Beer,” she said.
Darpo added, “Someone’s roasting a joint of beef.”
“A tavern!” Miya reined up. “Civilization at last!”
Tol would have preferred to ride straight through, but his own stomach growled in response to the smells of cooking. He turned Shadow toward the porch. A rangy, barefoot boy in dirty hide trews came out and tied their mounts’ reins to a hitching post. Tol gave him a few coppers to watch their animals.
Dismounted, they stretched knotted limbs. Tol warned them to say nothing about who they were or where they were going.
This early, the hostel’s only inhabitant was the innkeeper. She was a sharp-eyed old woman with a face like a hatchet. Tol and his companions affected an air of laconic indifference and seated themselves around a rude trestle table. Once they were settled, the innkeeper came over.
“Well?” she said, raising thin gray eyebrows.
“Beer. Bread. Meat,” Tol intoned. She gave a twitchy nod and headed off to the rear of the house.
The common room was dark and low ceilinged, and smelled strongly of smoke and spilled brew. Shafts of daylight slanted in through chinks in the ill-fitting plank walls and dust motes tumbled lazily in the light. The floor was dirt, covered by a layer of crumbled pine bark. The surface of the table was crisscrossed by knife cuts.
The old lady returned, laden with food and drink. She fairly staggered under her load, and Frez would’ve gotten up to help her. Tol tapped his arm to halt him. Soldiers of Ergoth might assist a burdened old woman, but stray wanderers would not be so polite.
Despite her gaunt appearance, the innkeeper was strong. She made it to the table without spilling a drop or losing a single loaf. She doled out the victuals with practiced ease. Every diner received a flat loaf of hearth bread and a wooden mug of dark beer. In the center of the table, the woman placed a steaming rib roast, sliding the hot meat from her platter directly onto the none too clean tabletop. Food dispensed, she held out a red, work-worn claw.
Still maintaining his tight-lipped pose, Tol put what he thought was a stingy amount in the old woman’s hand, two silver pieces. She took the money readily, testing each coin between the only two molars in her head, then left them.
Darpo and Frez, accustomed to more civilized ways, were a bit nonplussed, but the Dom-shu sisters overcame any reticence they felt and began slicing off slabs of beef.
“Not bad,” Kiya declared of the food.
&
nbsp; Miya agreed through a mouthful of bread.
Tol took a sip of beer. The brew was young and raw, no older than his last haircut, but the flavor was surprisingly good. He drained the mug quickly.
Just then a stranger entered the rough tavern. Silhouetted in the open doorway, he surveyed the room with hands on hips. As he sauntered their way, Tol’s party continued eating but kept wary eyes on the fellow.
“Greetings,” he said, halting in the shadows three paces from their table. “Do you belong to those horses outside?”
Miya swallowed beer and said, “Yes, what of it?”
“We don’t see horses much around here, that’s all. Passing through?”
He stepped into a shaft of sunlight. He had a pleasant face, round cheeked and swarthy, with dark hair cut in a bowl shape, and narrow, gray-green eyes. His chin was clean of whiskers and his ears upswept into points, but his solid build proclaimed his mixed parentage.
When Tol said they were indeed only passing through, the half-elf came closer. Clad all in dark brown leather, he had twin daggers in his sash belt, pommels out for quick drawing. Tol tensed and knew Kiya, Darpo, and Frez were likewise on guard.
The stranger smiled, lifting his arms slightly away from his sides, as though to reassure them. “I see you are obviously prosperous folk, but would you be interested in a fair-paying job?” he asked.
“What sort of job?”
“A simple one, excellent sir. Escorting a few wagonloads of goods to the coast.”
Tol would’ve smiled, but he realized the gesture could be misunderstood. This slippery fellow had taken them for mercenaries-a reasonable error-and wanted to hire them to go just where they intended to go anyway!
“How much?” asked Miya, rising to her feet. She was a head taller than the half-elf, and her eyes were alight with interest. She could reduce even the hardened street merchants of Daltigoth to tears with her relentless bargaining.
Unlike most men, the half-elf seemed unperturbed by the Dom-shu’s size. Looking up at her calmly, he replied, “Since you’re mounted, one gold piece per day.”
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