Stormblade

11

The cold night wind cut through the valley. Sighing in the boughs of the pines, turning the day’s rain to slick ice on the shoulders of the mountain. Somewhere within the stone of the mountain itself lay Thorbardin.

Women with babes on their hips, men whose eyes were almost empty of hope, the refugees stood at the mountain’s feet, searching the shoulders and flanks of the peaks for a sight of great Southgate. Some thought they saw it, shimmering in the night. Others turned away, too tired to look any longer.

A child’s laughter rose high in the night air. It was hard to keep the children quiet. Only exhaustion would do that, and the journey of the past day had been a slow one. It was as though the eight hundred were reluctant now to approach the gates of the dwarven fortress, afraid to learn that their hopes had been in vain, that they had fled Verminaard’s mines and the horrors of slavery only to be turned away from Thorbardin, the only hope of sanctuary they knew.

Fires sprang up in the valley, dim lights like small, hesitant stars. The smoke of wood, then of cooking, drifted through the air, settling like a gray pall over the river.

It would be a night of waiting and praying. It would not be a night for sleeping as the refugees sent their representatives, the half-elf Tanis and the Plainswoman Goldmoon, to lay their plea before Thorbardin’s Council of Thanes.

There were many things Hornfel loved about his people. He admired their skills at crafting, found joy in their soul-deep loyalty to kin and clan, and appreciated their courage as warriors. He valued their hard-headed stubbornness and common sense. He loved their independence. It was that independence that made it not an insult, but a kind of tribute, when the grizzled Daewar warrior, a member of the Guard of Watch on Soughtgate’s ramparts, only turned for a moment to nod greeting to the two thanes in the rose light of dawn, then returned to his watch. They are not awed by those above their station, Hornfel thought. They trust their thanes because we are their kin. None bows or kneels to kin. He glanced at his companion whose eyes were sharper on the guards than Hornfel’s. At this hour, Gneiss’s Daewar made up the Guard of Watch, and Hornfel knew his friend well enough to know that he wanted his warriors to keep their watch with the best military precision. When the time came that Thorbardin entered the war, these Daewar would be the spearhead of the dwarven army. Gneiss was fiercely proud of his warriors. Hornfel listened to the ring of mail and steel, the scuff of boots on stone, the barked order of the watch captain, and looked again at Gneiss, gone to lean against the breast-high wall overlooking the valley far below. Cold wind raced around the ramparts. Born in the mountains, which shouldered proudly against the sky, the wind smelled of frost-touched pine forests and already freezing lakes, winter’s icy promise. A thousand feet below lay the broad sweep of a string of alpine meadows. Dressed now in the rusty brown of autumn grasses, gilded with the new rising sun, the meadow held some of the richest soil in the Kharolis Mountains. This valley had lain fallow for generations. The cities in Thorbardin fed themselves from the produce of the farming warrens deep inside the mountain.

“See, Gneiss,” Hornfel said, tracing the valley’s borders with a sweep of his hand. “Eight hundred could farm this valley and manage to keep out of their own way and ours.”

Gneiss snorted. “Are you on about that again?”

“I’m on about it still, my friend. We can’t defer the issue any longer. You yourself brought me the word that the refugees have been challenged by the border patrols. How long do you think the border guards can hold back eight hundred hungry and frightened people? They are peacefully awaiting the word of the council. They won’t wait long.”

“Aye, blackmail, is it?” Gneiss turned away from the wall, his fist clenched, his eyes flashing with sudden anger. “Admit them or face them across a battlefield?” He cocked a thumb at the valley. “That meadow will be covered with snow soon, and the snow will be red with human blood, Hornfel. The council will not be forced.”

Hornfel chose his next words carefully. “You’ve made up your mind about the matter? You think as Realgar and Ranee do?”

“I think my own thoughts,” Gneiss growled. The wind tugged at his silver-shot brown beard. His back still to the wall, to the valley and the idea of humans settling so near to Thorbardin, he watched his guards pace their watch. His expression, narrow-eyed and hard, gave Hornfel no clue to the thoughts that the Daewar claimed were not Realgar’s, but his own.

“Tell me what you think, Gneiss. I’ve gone too long guessing, and none of my guesses seem to be right ones.”

Gneiss, his eyes still on his guards, shook his head. “I think that my warriors are going to die in lands far from these mountains where we were born. I think they’re going to die in a war that is no business of theirs.”

The old argument! Hornfel had tired of it months ago, knew no better defense against it than the one he had already presented in countless council meetings. Still, he didn’t speak until he’d mastered his impatience.

“It is our business now. Gneiss, there are eight hundred refugees at our very gate. A moment ago, you offered to water these meadows with their blood. They are not our enemies. Our enemy is Verminaard, he who’s driven the elves from Qualinesti and walks the ramparts of Pax Tharkas. Verminaard enslaved these people. He’d like to do the same to us.

“When he controls the Kharolis Mountains, Gneiss, he controls the whole north and east of the continent. If you don’t think he wants Thorbardin now, you are not the military leader I think you are.”

It was a mark of his regard for Hornfel that Gneiss kept his clenched fists at his side. “Your words are hard, Hornfel,” he said coldly.

“Aye, they’re hard. The times are hard, Gneiss. If we don’t choose soon, Verminaard will decide for us. I don’t think we could live with his choice.”

Gneiss smiled without mirth. “Gallows humor doesn’t suit you.”

“And a gallows wouldn’t suit you.”

The Daewar looked at him sharply. “Hanging is a traitor’s death.”

“Do you think Realgar would consider you anything else if he ruled in Thorbardin?”

“Realgar? Verminaard’s creature? That is a harsh accusation.”

Hornfel shrugged. “Only a suspicion, my friend.”

Gneiss looked around him, at the mountains and the meadows, at the far reaches of sky, as though he suddenly understood something that he should have comprehended sooner. When he looked back to Hornfel his eyes held both anger and admiration.

“There is a Kingsword.”

Hornfel nodded. “There is.”

“What are you saying? You can’t just make one of these, Hornfel! You—by Reorx!—you can’t just trot down to the smith and order one up!”

Hornfel smiled wearily. “I know it. Isarn meant to make nothing more than a masterblade. But Reorx touched his hand to steel that night, and he made a Kingsword. You’ve heard the rumors—you must have. It’s been stolen, Gneiss.”

“Then why—?”

“I know where it is. So does Realgar.” Hornfel briefly told him the tale of the sword’s theft and finding. “Realgar wants Stormblade as much as I do. Reorx defend us, I hope he’s no closer to having it than I am. Verminaard’s creature or not, Realgar is dangerous.”

Gneiss’s hand dropped to the dagger at his side. “He’ll be stopped.”

“No. Not unless you want to fire Thorbardin with revolution.”

Gneiss understood Hornfel’s warning at once. The Council of Thanes was badly divided on the issue of the war and the issue of the refugees. Both, at times, seemed to be the same thing. Emotions, mainly anger, ran high. If Realgar died now, by fair means or foul, his realm would rise in war. Aye, then it wouldn’t matter who had the Kingsword. The fire gleaming in its steel heart would be nothing more than a symbol of bloody revolution. The halls of Thorbardin would ring with the cries of dwarves killed by dwarves, as it had not done since the Dwarfgate Wars three hundred years ago.

“Tonight I will drink to his good heath,” Gneiss growled, “and pray that he dies in his sleep before dawn.”

Hornfel laughed. “Gneiss the Cautious!” He sobered. “It’s time to stop being cautious; it’s time to welcome those eight hundred refugees. Verminaard or Realgar, we are going to need them as allies.”

“Humans? They won’t all be like your fey mage Jordy.”

“No one is like Piper. He is clever and he is staunch. I am surprised your deep-seeing eyes do not see that. It wouldn’t matter if the refugees all had the sensibilities of gully dwarves. We need allies now.”

Gneiss was silent for a long moment. When he finally spoke, Hornfel knew that if the Daewar had not come yet to a decision, he was very close.

“Call a council meeting for tonight, Hornfel. I’ll give you my thinking then.” He started back toward the gatehouse and, when Hornfel moved to join him, he shook his head. “No, stay a while. You like the air out here. Stay and look down into your meadows and try to imagine what they will look like rilled with humans. Then, listen for the sound of their voices in Southgate, my friend. They can’t winter out there and will have to be sheltered in the mountain.

“Eight hundred.” Gneiss snorted. “There won’t be air enough in Thorbardin for a dwarf to breathe.”

Hornfel watched the Daewar leave and turned back to the valley. An eagle sailed the wind far out over the meadows, the sun gold on its back. He would not try to second-guess Gneiss. It couldn’t be done. He thought of his ‘fey mage Jordy’ and wondered where the mage was now, and if he, Kyan Red-axe, and Isarn’s apprentice, Stanach, were still alive.

It had been four days since Piper had transported himself and his two companions to Long Ridge. Would it take four days to find the Kingsword? Aye, and longer if the ranger who had been said to be carrying it had left the town before they arrived.

They might all three be dead. Or not. They might have found the sword. Or not. The only thing he knew for certain was that Realgar didn’t have it. The fact that he, Hornfel, still lived was the proof of that. Though Hornfel had never seen Stormblade, he longed for the sword as though it had been his, cherished for many long years before it was stolen. He wanted to touch the steel, feel the bridge to rulers hundreds of years dead. Stormblade was his heritage, a Hylar sword made for the Hylar thane who would rule in Thorbardin as his eldfathers before him had ruled.

The wind from the mountains skirled high, as though it were an echo of one of Piper’s war songs, or one of his tavern songs. Hornfel turned away from the valley.

“Young Jordy,” he said, “if you’re living still, I pray you’re bringing the sword back.”

If you are not, he thought as he returned a guard’s nod and entered the gatehouse, then we’d all better watch our backs. If Realgar finds the Kingsword, it will only be a matter of time before war, revolution, or tyranny falls on Thorbardin.

The dwarf Brek put the tall pile of rock and stone between his back and the crimson light of the hated sun. Between this huge, nature-crafted cairn and the smaller, man-built one, lay the darkest pool of shadow. Here Agus, called the Gray Herald, communed with their thane. Brek closed his eyes against the growing light and hoped that Realgar would soon call them home.

He and his patrol had seen five dawns in the Outlands, cursing the day and longing for the deep warrens beneath Thorbardin. Mica and Chert, sleeping now as best they could in the shadows, had stood well against the rigors of the sun’s bitter light. However, Wulfen, who was known as “the Merciless,” was not quite right in his head. Brek was surprised that Hornfel’s pet mage had survived under Wulfen’s guard.

Brek bared his teeth in a feral grin. The ambush had worked well. They’d taken Piper as the moons set. He was returning from the nearby forest, a rabbit in hand for his breakfast. Even a mage must give way to a set crossbow at his back and swords gleaming before his eyes. Brek hoped that Realgar wouldn’t want the mage in a healthy condition. Wulfen, it seemed, had wreaked a full measure of vengeance upon the mage for the wound he took in the battle four days ago. Brek listened to the dawn wind as it rustled through grasses dead of frost. That wind sounded like the dry whispering voice of the Gray Herald. Brek shuddered.

It was not the doings of magic that made him shudder. Though he was no mage, Brek had been in the derro thane’s service long enough to become, if not comfortable, at least familiar with the workings of magic. No, it was the clan-reft Gray Herald himself who stirred the hair on the back of his neck.

Shadow separated from shadow between the giant cairn and the Herald came to the edge of the comforting darkness. He threw back the hood of his dark cloak. A cold, baleful light flickered in the mageling’s black eye; darkness filled the socket where his left eye had been. His face, normally mobile with strange, dark thoughts, was as still as a carved mask. Watching the Gray Herald the way one would watch a starving wolf, Brek put his back closer to the pile of stone.

“The thane will speak with you,” the Herald whispered. Agus lifted his head. Like the reflection of distant storms, light flared high and then died in his eye. When he spoke again, it was not with his own rough, growling voice. As though Realgar stood beside him, Brek heard the thane’s vibrant, steady voice.

You have the mage.

The dwarf moistened his lips nervously, drew a breath to speak and found he had to draw yet another breath before he could answer. The Gray Herald, the voice of Realgar, waited.

“Aye, Thane, we have him living still.”

The sword?

Brek swallowed dryly. “He doesn’t have it, Thane. We took him before dawn. Wulfen has been questioning him. The mage says nothing.” Brek glanced at the small cairn, recently built. A fire ring and the little bones of past meals lay near the cairn. “But, he was waiting here, and seems to have been since we first did battle with him and killed Kyan Red-axe.”

The Gray Herald sighed as though he’d heard something his companion had not. But, it was Realgar, many miles distant, who spoke, and it was the fire of the thane’s anger Brek saw now flaring in the Herald’s one eye. The apprentice? The third one?

“There is no sign of him.” Brek spoke quickly now. “The mage was waiting for someone. I think he was waiting for this apprentice, this Stanach Hammerfell. He’ll have the sword, Thane. At least, he will have word of it.”

Aye? Well, maybe he will. Wait for him. If he has the sword, kill him and take it. He’s only one.

The thane’s voice turned bitter, scornful.

It’s likely you can manage that. If he doesn’t have the sword, the Herald will bring him here to me. It may be that he will be better at providing the answers this god’s-cursed ranger refuses to give.

“And if he has no word?”

Brek shuddered again, for now the thane spoke to Agus alone and it seemed that the Gray Herald spoke to himself, as the mad are said to do. Yes, Herald, yes. The task of making an end to him will be yours, as it always is. Amuse yourself with Hornfel’s pet mage. Arrange it so that he’s no trouble to us.

When he laughed, the Gray Herald’s hands twitched as though they wound the ends of a garrote.

Piper saw fire behind his eyes, red and glowing as the mark of the Kingsword was said to be, crimson as the blood for which dead Kyan’s axe had been named. He saw the light of the rising sun through eyes tightly closed against the overwhelming agony of broken hands. The Theiwar spoke together in the shadows between Kyan’s barrow and the giant’s cairn. Piper heard the words as they echoed between the two piles of stone and knew that they would soon come to kill him. Then, he thought, they’ll sit here comfortably between the cairns and wait for Stanach and the sword. He’ll be here today with the sword or without.

The words of a healing spell flickered in his mind like promises just out of reach. He had no means to enact the spell: Wulfen had broken his hands before he did anything else to him. Without the patterned dance of gestures, the spell was useless. Wulfen was not stupid. He’d swiftly removed any chance Piper might have had for arcane defense. The only thing of magic left to him was the old wooden flute still hanging at his belt.

They saw no harm in a flute long known to amuse children. They were wrong, and they were right. The flute’s magic was a powerful force and could call up several spells. Some required precise fingerplay, some none at all. These were the most difficult spells, for they depended wholly on the timing of Piper’s breathing. Yet, it all was useless to a mage whose fingers were ruined, who could barely draw a breath.

“Hornfel’s pet mage,” these Theiwar called him. It was not a naming Jordy resented, though he, as most of the dwarves in Thorbardin, thought of himself as Piper. He was the thane’s man, bone and blood, and to be called Hornfel’s was no disgrace at all.

There was blood in Piper’s lungs. He heard it bubbling, swishing with every agonized breath he managed to draw. When he coughed, as he did now, small flecks of it stained his lips and then the cold hard ground. His thoughts, fragmented and scattered, drifted along the currents of pain. As though he could not bear to think on this moment, this place, this pain, Piper’s thoughts drifted to other places.

Hornfel’s pet mage. Aye. Piper had arrived at Thorbardin suddenly, and as bedraggled as a hound, three years ago. The storms had been raging that night: a wild summer battle in the sky, full of roaring thunder and blinding lightning. Piper still did not remember much about his arrival, though he’d heard the tale often enough. .

A member of the Guard of Watch at Southgate had nearly tripped over the mage. Sodden and barely breathing, he lay huddled in the lee of the breast-high wall where only the watch himself had stood a moment earlier.

“Like storm-leavings at the water’s edge,” the guard had said later, enthusiastically quenching his thirst with his fellows in the guard house. “I tell you, I thought that boy was dead.” That said, he drank deeply, his eyes thoughtful. “Maybe he was and magicked himself back to life. You don’t ever know about a mage.”

Piper hadn’t been dead, though he had been as close to being dead as he thought he would ever like to come. Until now.

Piper swallowed only a little and tried not to breathe at all. He began to drag his broken right hand, inch by inch, down to his side. They hadn’t quite known what to do with him in Thorbardin. The captain of the Guard voiced the suspicion that the mage might well have been sent to spy out Thorbardin’s defenses, and so saying, found the solution to the problem of the mage on the doorstep.

There are prison cells deep and dark in Thorbardin, and Piper woke in one of them, shackled and wondering whether he had miscast a spell seriously enough to transport himself into the Abyss.

He’d only wanted to go to Haven, and that was no long leap from the Forest of Wayreth. No long leap in magic.

He’d known he was yet in the mortal plane when he discovered that his jailors outside his cell were dwarves. The dwarf who brought him his rations of warm water and dry bread was uncommunicative, answering his questions with a grunt or not at all. Though he once brought the mage warmer blankets against the cold and damp, the dwarf guard never said a word more and was careful that Piper’s hands were never free. Always, he thought, his eyes still shut against the pain, his hand growing strangely numb as he dragged it toward the flute, always they know about a mage’s hands.

After two days, Piper was brought before the Council of Thanes. Still bound and shackled for fear that he would try to defend himself with magic, or charm the council into believing him innocent of the charge of spying, Piper told his story of a transport spell gone awry to the six thanes in their great council chamber.

They wrangled long over the issue, as they were accustomed to do over almost any matter. “Spy!” some cried. Others had their doubts about that charge, but were not inclined to be understanding or absolve the mage of the sin of trespassing in the dwarven holdings. Dragons flew the skies of Krynn openly now, and armies were massing for war in the Outlands. If they could not be certain that Piper was innocent of the charge of spying, the Council of Thanes would happily consign him to the dungeons and iron shackles for the rest of his life, thereby settling the matter to everyone’s satisfaction except Piper’s.

Only one of the thanes had even considered the matter of Piper’s freedom. That one was Hornfel, and he argued hard for the sake of the young human whose disarming innocence and genuine goodwill, coupled with the tale of miscast magic, moved him. Hornfel pledged his own word as bond for the mage and so pledging, bought Piper’s freedom. Piper, his hand wholly numb now, knew he’d touched the flute when he felt it roll against his side. He listened to the wash of his own blood in his lungs and seemed to hear Hornfel’s bemused sigh again.

“I usually judge a man aright the first time. But know this, young Jordy: you are the keeper of my word now. See that you keep it well.”

Jordy had thought then that he’d have no trouble keeping Hornfel’s pledge. He instinctively liked the dwarf and owed him his freedom. He was also fascinated by Thorbardin, where few humans had come before now. Jordy spoke impulsively and never regretted that he did.

“We’ll trade pledges, sir,” Jordy had said gravely to the dwarf who had saved him from the endless cold and darkness of Thorbardin’s dungeons,

“I’m in your debt and, if you’ll have me, in your service.”

In those two years, the young man was called by some Jordy, by others Hornfel’s pet mage. Then, the children who ran in Thorbardin’s streets and great gardens, delighted by the blond giant’s music, began to call him Piper. The mage had found his by-name, a thane and lord to serve, and, though he wasn’t looking for one, a home.

Piper, sweating in the cold dawn, marshalled all his strength and, with his forearm, nudged the flute carefully out and away from his side. It lay near his shoulder now. Bracing his feet against the hard ground, he did a slow, painful bend and grasped the scooped lip of the instrument in his teeth.

One of the Theiwar laughed, a sound like wind howling around barrows. Piper straightened. When he did, a broken rib moved in his lung, tearing and tearing. Blood leaked into the place where air should have been. He had no breath left for the complicated spells now. He had no time left either.

A spell, he thought, swift and sure to get me out of here!

A transport spell. Not to take him far, he hadn’t the strength for that, but just to hide him well in the forest where they would have to search for him. It was likely not all of them will search, he thought as he slowly, painfully filled his lungs with air. However, Stanach might hear them and be warned long before he sees them.

Piper closed his eyes and thought of a glade he knew deep in the woods, near the borders of Elvenwood. These Theiwar would search long and far before they ventured too close to haunted Qualinesti. Three notes he needed, all low and sounding like wind when it sweeps through the grass. Three words of magic. The words he had and the breath he found.

For a timeless space Piper felt no pain, no need to breathe. All sense of being drained away, like the tide dragging away from a shore, as Piper rode the music.