Goddess Worldweaver

10
Running in the Dark

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 continued 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, clenching 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!”

“How did he die?” Aurand asked grimly, fingering his sword as he looked across the water at the lights of Axial.

Darann described the warning from Hiyram, her detainment by the guards, and the discovery of the shattered lift. “The king suspected nothing but an accident,” she said quietly. “I looked into his eyes, and I believed him. But he told me that Nayfal himself walked Father to the lift, that he was standing right there when it happened. The cable snapped, and the brakes failed, the first time those two systems have ever malfunctioned together.”

“Sabotage. He would have needed help, but that’s a simple thing for a man of Nayfal’s connections.” Borand scratched his beard, his eyes narrowed. “You were wise to leave the city, my sister.”

“It was not so much a decision-I was chased out!” She recounted the tale of the intruders into Manor Houseguard, of her harrowing escape, and her flight over water. “I knew you would return by the Null Causeway, so I waited here, camping beside the shore, until I saw your ferr’ells coming past the outer beacon.”

“What do we do now?” Konnor asked. “Surely something, besides hiding out in the dark?”

“Yes. Now that you are here, we have to take action,” Darann declared. “We must try to get to the king, tell him what you’ve learned about the Delvers, and what I suspect about Nayfal.”

“You are right, I think,” Borand said. “But I wish we had more to tell him than mere suspicions. Is there some way we can get proof?”

“You said someone helped him to sabotage the lift. We could try to find that person, force him to confess,” said the dwarfmaid.

“Not an easy task, perhaps even impossible,” said the elder brother, shaking his head. “But Hiyram gave you warning about the plot against Father. Do you have any idea how he learned?”

“He knows a dwarf, a pailslopper, who works in the Royal Tower, seems to know something about Nayfal’s activities. But she’s not loyal to him-she gave Hiyram the warning to bring to me. If we find Hiyram, perhaps he can lead us to her, and she might be able to provide us with proof?”

“A pailslopper?” Aurand said with a grimace. “Makes us seem pretty desperate.”

“We are desperate!” snapped Darann, glaring at her younger brother. “In case you hadn’t noticed, your life is probably in danger as well! If our best hopes lie with a goblin and a pailslopper, then what does that say about our countrymen?”

“I am sorry. Your point is taken,” Aurand acknowledged. “And it says some very ugly things about our fellow Seers… very ugly indeed.”

“I have been thinking of something else,” Darann noted, continuing as her brothers remained silent. “Father got a note from a dwarfmaid who claimed to be ‘one of the lowest’ or something like that. I am wondering if she is the same woman as Hiyram’s pailslopper.”

“It’s possible,” Borand concurred. “Certainly worth speaking to the wench.”

“Your boat-is it nearby?” asked Konnor.

“At the foot of this hill,” she replied. “And big enough for the four of us, but barely.”

“We can get the supplies off the ferr’ells,” volunteered Aurand, “and meet you at the shore. Let’s get started right away.”

“Do you think the king will see us?” Borand asked, staring at the city shining so brightly in the distance. The white coolfyre beacons reflected off the still water, amplifying their brightness against the backdrop of the sunless circle.

“We don’t have any choice but to try!” Aurand said sharply. “Our father has been murdered! Do you not desire to avenge him?”

“I do,” said the elder brother, nodding grimly. “I just wonder about our chances of success.”

“That’s a waste of time from over here,” Konnor said. “Better to wonder while we’re waiting in the throne room for our audience with the king. Until then, we’ve got other problems to solve.”

“Agreed,” said Borand. “Perhaps I am simply feeling my age. It is easier, certainly, to wonder than it is to act. But so, too, is such pensive reflection undeniably useless. So let’s move.”

The two brothers started to descend the back side of the hill toward the ferr’ells, while Darann led Konnor down the steeper side facing the city. They worked their way down the rocky slope for some distance before stopping to catch their breath, still a hundred feet above the shore.

“I… I feel terrible that you were here alone,” the dwarf told Darann, clearing his throat awkwardly. “That is… since Karkald was lost, I have worried about you… I mean, with concern, of course.”

Darann sighed, touched and irritated at the same time. He had a point. Why did it seem as though she had to deal with so many problems by herself? But she clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Thank you,” she said simply. “I am glad that the three of you are here now.”

Konnor nodded, looking at her seriously, as if he had something important to say. But in the end he swallowed his words, nodded gruffly, cleared his throat again. “Yes, I’m glad that we’re here, too,” was all he said.

Hiyram ran with terrible fear pounding in his heart, but he did not let that fear turn to panic. Spadrool was still at his side, and together they had been able to send many females and youngsters toward the lower end of the ghetto, while they raced into view of the Seer troops and led the invaders off the track.

Of course, despite his determination, there was plenty of panic to be found in the goblin ghetto. They found several bodies, goblins of all ages and both genders who had been cut down with violence. Sometimes other fleeing goblins were too distraught to listen to their advice; one elder fellow, half deaf and limping along with a cane, simply waved them off and hurried up the street, straight into the path of one of the Seer patrols. Hiyram groaned aloud as he saw the goblin flinch back from a blow, then fall to the ground to be kicked and stabbed by the dwarves. Crouching in the shadows, he waited until the dozen or so Seers had tromped past, then went to see if he could aid the old goblin. He was not surprised to find that the fellow was already dead.

“Why they do?” Spadrool asked pathetically, looking down at the frail-looking corpse. “What for they come?”

Hiyram shook his head, a low growl rumbling in his throat. He didn’t know the answer. For a time, earlier in this very interval, he had wondered those questions himself, not coming close to an acceptable answer. Now, with violence and suffering all around him, he would no longer worry about the whys and the what fors. The knife had been almost forgotten in his hand, but he discovered his fingers clenched painfully around the hilt.

“Come. We got work,” he said, starting off at a trot, the faithful Spadrool sprinting after until he caught up.

The two goblins came around another corner and found several females with a score of youngsters huddled, sobbing, in the niche between two buildings. The heavy footsteps of dwarven interlopers grew louder in the street, coming toward them.

“Follow him!” cried Hiyram, pointing at Spadrool. “Take them down to sewer flats-hurry!” he urged.

“But-you come, too!” declared his companion.

“Right after,” Hiyram said. “But go!”

With an anxious glance back, Spadrool took off, the terrified goblins hurrying along behind. Hiyram trotted after, looking over his own shoulder, seeing the rank of dwarves turn into the street. One spotted the fleeing party and raised a shout; immediately, the tromp of marching boots broke into the clatter of a dead run.

One of the females screamed, and several children started crying. Their progress was too slow; the dwarves would catch them inside of a minute! Casting around for something to do, Hiyram spotted a stack of empty, rotting barrels stacked haphazardly beside the roadway. He ducked behind the stale-smelling kegs, looking anxiously as the fleeing goblins hurried up the street. From his hiding place he couldn’t see the pursuers, but the sounds of clomped, nailed boots grew thunderous as they approached.

Judging his moment carefully, Hiyram pushed against the bottom barrel, nudging it over, toppling it into the street. Several casks atop that one fell outward, one shattering and the other tumbling over the stone roadway. Immediately he heard cursing and crashing, saw the rolling barrel bounce toward him as a heavy object-an armored dwarf-collided with it. Urgently he pushed at the stack, sending more barrels rolling across the street, scattering the pursuing guards like ninepins.

“There he is-get him!” The shout seemed to be right in Hiyram’s ear, and he whirled in sudden fear. A dwarf, huge and strapping and fiercely bearded, thrust at him with a short sword. The goblin ducked under the blow, then dove headlong into the tumbling barrels, dodging a heavy boot that tried to stomp down on his head.

Bouncing to his feet, he darted behind another dwarf, thankfully observing that Spadrool and the fleeing goblins had disappeared down the street. But now the dwarves were focusing on him, circling menacingly. One hacked downward with an axe, shattering a barrel into kindling as Hiyram tumbled away. He ducked, crept past another barrel, then leaped to his feet. The road was open before him, and he put down his head and sprinted-

Right into the gut of a dwarf who somehow emerged into view, having been hidden by a rolling keg. This one had a sword, and as he gasped for breath, he raised the weapon, aiming a blow at Hiyram’s head. Other dwarves closed in, the rest of them coming from behind, jeering and shouting.

The knife seemed heavy in the goblin’s hand. He remembered Darann’s entreaty that he never use it against a dwarf, not unless his life depended upon it. Every fiber of his conscience urged him to hold back his hand, resist the violence that was overwhelming him. But that dwarven blade was close now, quivering as the fellow lined it up for a killing blow.

“I’m sorry, Lady,” Hiyram groaned.

And then he stabbed.