Stormblade

16

Gneiss heard the newly lighted braziers in the council chamber hiss, then sigh and settle to slow, steady burning. He massaged his temples, realizing as he did that the gesture had become as much a habit as his headache seemed to be. The cause of that headache, the eight hundred refugees who had been the subject of council meetings for too many days now, waited in the valley outside Southgate. Their representatives, glimpsed only briefly as he had entered the council chamber, were a half-elf and a tall, lovely Plainswoman. Gneiss rubbed his temples more gently. The two waited now in an antechamber for the decision of the council. On the council’s word, they would either take their eight hundred elsewhere or—Gneiss sighed wearily—settle them into Thorbardin. The Daewar looked once around the broad, oval table. None of the other thanes gathered here seemed any happier than he.

Tufa studied the surface of the polished granite table, tracing patterns in the gray stone that only he could see. He’d been silent since the council had been called to order. Bluph, the gully dwarf, drummed his boot heels against the leg of his chair. As though he’d gained a dim understanding of the importance of today’s meeting, he made an attempt to stay awake. If you can call someone awake, Gneiss thought sourly, who yawns every other minute!

The two derro thanes, Ranee of the Daergar and the Theiwar Realgar, kept to the shadows the way a fish likes water, Ranee because these days he was never very far from the Theiwar. The two were as thick as fleas on a dog’s hind end.

Hornfel, his eyes speaking of sleepless nights, rose from his place at the head of the table.

“We have agreed that there will be no further debate on the issue of admitting the refugees to Thorbardin.” Ranee drew a breath to interrupt. Hornfel, as though he hadn’t seen, continued smoothly. “The refugees’ representatives await our word. I will keep them waiting no longer. This council has other matters to attend to.”

A silence, pensive and waiting, settled over the chamber. Bluph settled for swinging his legs in the air and not permitting his heels to thud against the chair.

“We will vote.” Hornfel turned to the Klar. “Tufa, give us your word.”

The thane of the Klar declined with a slow shake of his head. “My thinking hasn’t changed. I will abide by the council’s decision.” He shot a quick, and for him defiant, look at Realgar. “Whatever that decision is.”

Gneiss sighed. Unless any of the others now voted differently than he’d previously indicated, his would indeed be the word that would determine the council’s decision. As he’d told Hornfel on the Southgate battlements, he’d come to a decision. Though he’d spoken to no one about it, his solution was the best he could devise.

Hornfel closed his eyes, drew a breath, and then nodded to the gully dwarf. “Bluph, turn them away or admit them?”

Bluph straightened in mid-yawn and stopped scratching. He blinked, then grinned widely. “Admit them.” He narrowed his eyes and looked as though he might reconsider.

Hornfel spoke quickly. “Ranee.”

“No! No! And no!”

“I thought not,” Hornfel said wryly. “Realgar?”

The Theiwar shrugged. In that moment his eyes reminded Gneiss of a cat’s, narrow and hungry. “I’ll save you the trouble of reading my mind, Hornfel. Turn them away. We’ve no place for them, no liking for them, and no need of them.”

Gneiss looked up, met Realgar’s eyes steadily. The same, he thought, might be said of you, Theiwar. Aloud he only said, “We can put them in the east farming warrens. These have gone unused for three years. We don’t know these people to like or dislike them, so that hardly matters. Need them?” He swept the table with a swift glance. “We can always use farmers. That’s what these people are. I say admit them, and they’ll work for their keep. As half-croppers, they’ll pay for it, too.”

Again Gneiss looked to Hornfel. “Your vote?”

Hornfel’s voice held quiet triumph. “Admit them.”

On his words, Realgar rose with silent grace and stalked from the council chamber. Ranee, snarling dark curses, followed on the Theiwar’s heels. There was nothing the two derro thanes could do now to prevent the admittance of the eight hundred humans.

The council had voted, and the vote was something to hold even Realgar. For now.

Gneiss watched the two leave and Tufa and Bluph after them. He sighed, half-listening to Bluph wondering how the vote had turned out, then turned to Hornfel.

“You’ve got your vote, my friend.”

Hornfel nodded, but did not look like one who has just secured a victory.

“What now? Did you perhaps think that your ragged eight hundred should spend the winter sleeping and lounging?”

Hornfel ignored the sarcasm. “Tell me, Gneiss, how are we going to make allies and friends out of the sick and hungry people we’ve just put to work half-cropping in our fields?”

Gneiss sighed tiredly. “They don’t have to start today, Hornfel. Take what you’ve won and tell your refugees they winter here. If it comes to fighting a war from the Outlands, they’ll be well by then and likely happy to defend the place they’re living in. If it comes to … revolution in Thornbardin, you’ve my Daewar and the Klar. We’ll need none else. Yet even as he said it, Gneiss remembered the cat’s look in Realgar’s eyes. He didn’t like the chill skittering up his spine. “Will you tell them now?”

Hornfel drummed his fingers on the table. “I want a minute to breathe.”

“Breathe? Aye, go right ahead. But have a care where you do it. I don’t like the look of the Theiwar these days.”

“Neither do I.” Hornfel said. Gneiss understood then that his friend had not been losing sleep only to the matter of the refugees. Hornfel was careful where he did his breathing. He went to the garden outside the Court of Thanes. He paced the fine gravel paths, a measured march.

He was happy for the victory he’d won. And no, he’d had no plan to let “his ragged eight hundred” lounge and sleep the winter away. Nor had he wished to offer what looked, even to him, like indentured servitude. It was no way to win allies, and he knew he would need allies soon. He’d seen the confirmation of that in Realgar’s eyes today.

He paused in his measured pacing. His circuit of the garden brought him to the largest areas of planting. Here, the wildly colored mountain flowers of summer bloomed, as they did all year round, in the carefully controlled climate of the underground gardens.

Slim-leafed bell heather and the gray-green mountain everlasting blossomed side by side. Royal fern spread wide fronds, more gold than green. Hearty yellow-flowered gorse poked through those sweeping fans as though caring little for the prerogatives of royalty, and rosebay crept up the border of the planting in low growing mats.

Hornfel touched a finger to one of the rosebay’s delicate flowers. The soft pink petals were wide in the light shining down from the many shafts of crystal leading to the surface. The rosebay’s tender flower shivered a little.

Hornfel drew back his hand and looked up at the light shaft positioned almost directly above him. The lavender glow of approaching twilight drifted down to the garden, but during the day, a diffused golden light nourished the plantings.

The same system of crystal shafts illuminated the six cities as though they lay in sunlight and provided the light needed to grow the crops that fed hungry Thorbardin.

We may love the mountains and all their deep secrets, thought Hornfel, but we love the light, too. At least, some of us do.

A soft footfall and a roughly cleared throat startled Hornfel. He turned slowly, not showing his surprise. As he met the black eyes of the Theiwar’s thane, Hornfel had the clear impression that Realgar, squinting in what to him must seem the bright glare of the garden, had been watching him for some moments. He saw the shadow of dark thoughts in Realgar’s eyes. The back of his neck went cold as though the breath of winter mourned through the garden.

“Your … guests await you,” the derro mage said. He spoke the word as though naming a plague. With a scornful smile, the Theiwar left as silently as he’d arrived.

Dark thoughts and red fury, Hornfel thought. Realgar had fought to the last moment of a long and exhausting council session, insisting that no good would come of admitting humans into the mountain kingdom. He used to think that he would be the first Realgar would murder if he could. Hornfel thought now that if the chance presented itself, Realgar would certainly murder him. But not before he killed Gneiss, whose temporizing had opened the doors to the refugees just as effectively as a firm commitment.

He supposed that the only reason they weren’t dead yet was Realgar hadn’t found the Kingsword. How long before he did? Or how long before he tired of waiting for the symbol and mounted his revolution without it?

Hornfel was no longer certain that the sword would be found. It had been too many days since word first came that Stormblade had been seen. Last night, in the dark of midnight, Hornfel began to consider what must be done if Kyan, Piper, and Stanach were dead; if Stormblade were lost again. All his plans were for defense.

Gneiss, he realized, must be considering the same plans. Three of Gneiss’s Daewar warriors seemed always to be nearby. Yet, how would they defend him against magic should Realgar swerve from his usual path of assassins and daggers in the dark?

Not at all, Hornfel thought bitterly, as he left the garden and prepared to dole out his ragged hospitality.

Gneiss’s guards did not enter the Court of Thanes with Hornfel, but stayed behind at the door within sound of his call. Three others, their weapons close to hand, waited in the council chamber. They made no pretense to politeness, but stood within an easy hand’s reach of the refugees’ representatives.

Hornfel, studied the two messengers carefully as he walked the length of the great hall. One, a red-bearded half-elf turned at the sound of the dwarf’s footfalls. He wore a sword at his hip and a longbow over his shoulder. His green eyes were hard and sharp.

His companion, a tall woman dressed in the buckskins of the Plains, laid a slim hand on the hunter’s arm as she heard Hornfel’s approach. Hair that was both moon-silver and sun-gold glistened in the glow of newly lighted torches when she moved. She murmured a word, no more, and the half-elf relaxed.

At least, he seemed to. Those green eyes never softened. Here’s one, Hornfel mused, who doesn’t like playing the supplicant! Aye, well, I can’t blame you, hunter. I wouldn’t care for the role myself.

At Hornfel’s open-handed gesture of welcome, the guards moved back a pace or two.

“I thank you for waiting,” the dwarf said.

The half-elf drew a breath to speak, but the light hand on his arm moved in a way meant both to be gentle and, unconsciously, to command. The woman spoke and her voice was low and soft. The soothing whisper of a dove’s wings lay behind that voice, the whisper of a heart at peace.

“We have been enjoying the beauty of your hall.”

I doubt it, Hornfel thought, or at least your friend hasn’t been. He motioned toward an alcove off the main hall, large enough to hold a map table made from a single cut of rose-streaked marble.

“Lady,” he said as he lifted a torch from a nearby cresset, “be comfortable.”

She nodded graciously, and when she stepped into the shadowed alcove and took a seat, Hornfel thought he couldn’t be convinced to lay wager which dispelled the shadows, the lady’s own beauty or the light of the torch. The hunter followed her closely, as though he were her bodyguard, with the three Daewar on his heels. Hornfel drew an impatient breath as he observed their maneuvering. He spoke as he positioned the torch on the wall.

“You,” he said to the half-elf, “go hover behind your lady if that makes you comfortable.” He jerked a thumb at the guards. “You can all crowd in here behind me or go ward the door, whichever makes you happiest.”

The Daewar looked confused, but they knew a command when they heard one. They left the alcove. Though the half-elf finally grinned sheepishly, he went to stand behind the lady.

“Do they guard you against us?”

Hornfel shook his head and dropped into the chair opposite the woman.

“They guard me, but it hasn’t to do with you or your lady. We don’t guard ourselves against friends.”

The Plainswoman considered this, then nodded. “We are happy to be named friends.” She gestured gracefully to her guardian. “This is Tanis Half-Elven.” She smiled. “Though I am not his lady, I could be no safer with him if I were. I am Goldmoon, Chieftain’s Daughter of the Que-Shu.” Her eyes lighted with dawn’s own softness.

“The goddess I serve is Mishakal,” she said, “and I am her cleric. In her name we have come to learn if you will help the homeless refugees from Verminaard’s slavery.”

Hornfel shook his head. “Lady, there hasn’t been a true cleric in Krynn for these three hundred years past.”

“I know it, thane. Not since the Cataclysm. There is now.”

The dwarf closed his eyes. Mishakall Mesalax, the dwarves called the goddess, and they loved her no less than they loved Reorx, whom they named Father. For, if he was the maker of the world, Mesalax was the fountain from which its beauty sprang.

Hornfel looked from Goldmoon to the one called Tanis. Was it true?

He thought it might be. Gods moved in Krynn now, lending their fire to Kingswords and their dragons to Highlords. Why wouldn’t Mesalax grant her blessing to a woman out of the barbarian Plains?

Goldmoon smiled, and it might well have been Mesalax’s own light the dwarf saw in her eyes.

Hornfel glanced at Tanis. The half-elf’s determined jaw relaxed a little beneath his red beard when he looked at the Plainswoman as he did now.

“My lady Goldmoon,” Hornfel said at last, “be welcome in Thorbardin.”

He would figure out what to do about the farming warrens later. He didn’t know if Goldmoon were, indeed, what she claimed to be. He did know that he wouldn’t permit her to languish in a cobbled-together fieldkeeper’s hut any more than he would allow her to languish in a dungeon’s cell. And she, he knew, would go where her people went. Darknight spread its wings to half extension, admiring the play of its shadow stetching up the black, gleaming walls of its lair and nearly spanning the width of the rough, high ceiling. It snaked its neck to its full length and stretched its jaws wide. Though it could not see the effect, it imagined that the light of the small brazier near the far wall made its fangs appear to be gleaming daggers of flame.

It turned its head and spoke to a shadow on the wall.

“My Lord, all in all, I prefer the sunny lairs in the cliffs of Pax Tharkas to these wet, cold warrens beneath this wretched Thorbardin.”

That doesn’t surprise me, the shadow whispered. Verminaard threw back his head and laughed in his chamber in Pax Tharkas. His shadow-image on the cave wall did the same.

Darknight lashed its tail impatiently and rumbled deep in its massive chest. It preferred the iron-fisted martial order of Pax Tharkas under Verminaard’s rule to the tempestuous storms of dwarven politics in a kingdom under no one’s rule. “Highlord, I heartily wish that Realgar would mount his wretched revolution and be done with it, so that I can be done with him.”

The shadow sharpened to knife-edged clarity. Darknight could almost see Verminaard’s eyes as red lights on the stone.

He’s still wasting his time on the ranger?

The ranger had given Realgar no good answer to the question of the Kingsword’s whereabouts in all the days he’d been the Theiwar’s captive.

“Aye, Lord. It’s the difference between you,” the dragon snarled as it listened to its belly rumble. “Were the ranger your prisoner, I would have been sucking the marrow out of his bones days ago.” As it was, Darknight had to forage at night for mountain sheep while Realgar marched bloody-footed through the ranger’s soul for nothing but enjoyment. Darknight snorted and closed its eyes. “Simple enjoyment is all he’s getting from it now. He admits that if there is an answer to be had, the ranger isn’t going to provide it. Enjoyment, and a soothing revenge for time wasted.”

Shadow eyes flared red and it scraped its claws on the stone floor of its lair. It doubted that the ranger had ever known where the sword was, and if he had, there could be nothing left of his mind now in which to sift for an answer.

“Lord, how go your own plans?”

Well enough. The troops move into the mountains and the bases will be in place. Ember will fly tonight as cover for the last of them. Ember! Flying with fire and fear as its weapons, and it was lodged here in this dank, foul hole! Darknight gnashed its teeth.

“Cover, Lord? Does Ember—” Darknight caught itself. Haughty Ember would never admit to needing assistance. “—want company?” By the Dark Queen! Its legs were cramped, its wings aching for a night flight!

The shadow seemed no shadow at all, but an image reflected on polished ebony. The dragon saw Verminaard’s face now—coldly handsome that face was, ice-eyed and hard as stone.

Ember needs nothing more of company than it’ll have, good Sevristh, and that is me. It’s a small matter of rangers.

He might have said a small matter of gnats. Darknight sighed. Verminaard laughed, ice booming in a frozen river.

Patience, Darknight. Stay with your new lord for a time yet. And the shadow was gone. The red lights faded as though they’d never been.

The black dragon growled. In Darknight’s estimation, its new lord was an ass. Realgar commanded an army of anarchists and commanded them well. It was not any easy task to control a race of murderous derro whose most pleasant dreams were of torment, revolution, and death. Still, Realgar was an ass.

Sevristh was not a political creature and had little understanding of—or patience for—Realgar’s need to acquire this Stormblade, this Kingsword. It sighed and the air shivered. These dwarves, and the Theiwar most especially, were mad for talismans and symbols. Realgar would not light revolution’s fire in Thorbardin until he held Stormblade in his greedy, white-knuckled grip. And Verminaard seemed content to wait. What matter, it thought scornfully, whether Realgar wields the Kingsword or some humble, nameless blade? Hornfel must be killed and it could hardly matter whether he died by a Kingsword’s stroke or a dagger’s blade. The one who kills him owns history. He can write the tale to his own preference later and name himself king regent or high king of the dwarves, if he wishes.

Aye, as long as he can manage to stay alive. Darknight smiled and felt a little better. That wouldn’t be long, no matter how Realgar styled himself.

The dragon felt the feathery vibrations of footsteps in the stone of the cavern’s floor and heard the distant whisper of breathing. It closed its eyes. That breathing was Realgar’s, and the dragon picked up the high, bright excitement in his scent.

Please the Dark Queen, he’d found the miserable sword!

Sevristh opened its eyes and sighed. He hadn’t. Or had he? « Darknight looked a little closer. Aye? Maybe.

Realgar came close and smiled, a cold pulling of his lips across his teeth. “I greet you, Darknight.”

“And I you, Highlord.”

The title did nothing to warm the new Highlord’s smile. It never did. High king was what he wanted to be called, and anything else would not do.

“The Kingsword has been found.”

Verminaard’s gift ran a forked tongue over sharp teeth. No it hasn’t, Darknight thought scornfully. It knew the look in his eyes by now. He only hoped it had been found. The dragon rustled its wings. “Aye? Shall I fly, my Lord?”

And then, the Theiwar surprised the dragon. “Yes, fly. The Herald is expecting you.”

Sevristh stretched its lipless mouth in a wide grin. Fly it would and, in flight, apprise the only Highlord it truly acknowledged that his plans might well be moving forward with more speed than even he thought.