Stormblade

30

The broad bay of windows in the west wall of Gneiss’s study looked out onto gardens simply designed and laid out in the forms of interlocking rectangles. The study within had been decorated in sparse, military fashion. What few wall hangings there were depicted legendary battles and campaigns in careful detail. Weapons, both ancient and contemporary, bristled in cabinets and showcases. The furniture of stark wood and stone would be inviting to few but old campaigners accustomed to the hard fields of war.

Yet, the gardens, deep and no wider than the length of the study itself, formed a maze of flowers, herbs, and shrubbery that was one of the Daewar’s secret delights. However, lush and beautiful as the carefully planned landscaping was, this was not the lure that brought Gneiss, as it always did, to the window.

From where he stood, he could hear the cries of dwarven children at play, among them his own grandsons. These sounds, and the sight of the youngsters’ rowdy and raucous games, drew a sigh and a contented smile from the old warrior that might have surprised even his friend, Hornfel. Aye, Hornfel! Where have you been these hours past? You should have been long back, my friend. Does your silence, he wondered, herald the revolution we’ve been braced for?

None had seen Realgar for about the same amount of time.

Armor chimed against stone, and Gneiss turned from the garden to answer the peal of battle. Two humans and the half-elf Tanis waited with discernible impatience at the map table. Tanis and the knight, Sturm, stood studying the map of Thorbardin. Dark-eyed and intense, the knight traced the streets he knew and carefully connected them to access ways and transport shafts, familiarizing himself with the infrastructure of the city.

One a planner, Gneiss thought, and the other a careful hunter. Their companion, the helmed and armored warrior Tanis had introduced as Caramon, lounged in a seat nearby. All long legs and brawny arms, he was the biggest human Gneiss had ever seen. The three seemed odd and out of place here.

Too big! Gneiss thought. All of ’em are just too damn big!

The dwarf cleared his throat roughly. Gneiss was, above all things, a war chieftain. He was never an orator. He cut right to the heart of the matter at hand.

“Hornfel is too long gone in the Northgate.” He nodded to Tanis.

“Three hours now since he’s left. I don’t like it. My runners and scouts report that the cities are too quiet. All but one. They are buzzing in the Theiwar holding like hornets about to tear out of the nest.” He held out a hand to the map table. “To work.”

He briefly made the three familiar with the six small cities of the kingdom known collectively as Thorbardin and then outlined the plan of defense he and Tanis had hammered out earlier.

“I still don’t know whether Ranee will rise to fight with Realgar’s Theiwar,” Gneiss said. “Troops of my own Daewar and the Hylar will keep the northern roads out of their city blocked.” He jerked a thumb at the southeast quarter of the map and nodded to Caramon. “With this giant and half the refugees defending the access between the Daergar city and the East Warrens, and Sturm holding the southern route with the other half, I think Ranee’s warriors are going to be spending most of the revolution caged, eh?”

Caramon chuckled low in his throat. “Depend on it.”

“I am depending on it, lad,” the thane said quietly.

Gneiss then turned to Tanis. “You will do me a kindness,” he said with awkward courtesy, “if you would command your folk and the refugees. Any questions so far?”

Tanis nodded, his own smile wryly appreciative. “Just one. That takes care of the possibilities.” He ran a finger over the northwestern part of the map, tracing the areas marked as Klar and Theiwar cities, running up to the ruins of Northgate. “What about the probabilities?”

“Call ’em certainties. That’s what they are.” Gneiss stabbed a finger at the Theiwar cities. Its shadow cut like a dagger across the finely detailed map. “Here and here is where the trouble will start. Tufa has already got his Klar between the Theiwar and Urkhan Sea. They won’t be enough to hold the sneaking bastards, but I’ll reinforce them with my warriors.” He looked up then, his eyes hard with warning. “Two fields of battle, and between them is the remainder of the refugees.

“You know those people best,” Gneiss added. “Assign them to whichever of your two captains here you think appropriate, but keep them as much out of the cities as possible.”

“A little hard on your allies, aren’t you?” Caramon drawled. Gneiss said nothing for a long moment, straining for the patience he would not otherwise have wasted on a human. By the Forge! He wished he had the manpower to do this by himself!

“You are allies,” he said, slowly, distinctly. “But, my people are edgy and likely won’t work with strangers until it’s too late. Do you understand?”

Caramon’s eyes flashed with sudden anger. Tanis dropped a hand onto the big warrior’s shoulder. The gesture itself warned Caramon to silence. Gneiss had wondered why the half-elf, likely unwelcomed by either humans or elves by the fact of his mixed blood, was the one to lead not only these two humans, but all nine companions who had single-handedly freed eight hundred slaves from Verminaard’s mines. There was, after all, this fine, young knight among them. He glanced at Sturm. At best, one would characterize the look in his eyes as one of impatience. The dwarf snorted as Caramon settled back, hard-jawed but silent. The hasty giant had at least half a brain.

“Are there any more questions?”

There were none. After another few minutes at the map, the three left and Gneiss was alone. He crossed to the windows again and realized that the shouts and laughter of the children had fallen silent. The gardens were empty. He listened carefully for the sounds of the streets beyond the garden wall. He found nothing but an eerie silence.

The captain of Gniess’s own guard found him a moment later with word that an attempt had been made on the life of the Klar’s thane. Tufa, only slightly wounded, had gone to join the fighting that had broken out at the southern end of the Theiwar holdings between the Urkhan Sea and the Klar city.

“Thane,” the captain said, his eyes grim, his fist closing on the grip of his war axe, “the Klar says that the Theiwar have split their forces and nearly fifty of them have fallen back toward Northgate. He and his warband can hold those who remain, but he fears that the squads making for Northgate are acting on some order.”

Gneiss buckled on his sword belt and assured himself of the deadly sharpness of the blade. He knew now where Hornfel was, and he knew why Realgar hadn’t been seen in hours. A trap had been sprung in Northgate.

“Ten squads to me,” he snapped. “Four of archers, the rest swordsmen. You are under Tufa’s command now. Take the rest of our warriors and support the Klar where he thinks best.”

Gneiss held no hope that he could get to the ruined gate in time to prevent Hornfel’s death. However, one hundred strong Daewar, forty archers and sixty swordsmen, would cut through the Theiwar like sun through fog. He would at least avenge his friend’s murder. A bone-snapping hug from Stanach, a hearty kiss from Kelida, and the reunion was over. Lavim tugged his old black coat into order as Stanach fixed him with a look.

“You say Tyorl is here?”

“Oh, yes.” Lavim nodded vigorously. “He’s on his way and should be here soon.” He looked around as Hauk ran toward the gate opening. “Do you think you could be just a little more careful greeting him? There’s two rangers with him, and Tyorl might not be the first one you see. Do you remember that ranger Finn that Tyorl was always talking about, Stanach?

He’s here, too, and Kem.

“It’s all right,” the kender assured Hauk, much the way he would assure a hasty watchdog that the visitors approaching the door were not to be torn limb from limb. “They’re friends.”

Hauk grinned. “Aye, old one, I know they are.”

“He’s mighty quick with that sword,” Lavim muttered when Hauk had left. “I thought for a minute there that it was going to get a bit drafty around my middle.

“Sir,” he said, addressing Hornfel, “did you know that there are people trying to kill you?”

Hornfel, quiet during the reunion of friends, now fixed the kender with a hard look. “I know it, Lavim. Tell me, how do you?”

Lavim had the feeling that the dwarf’s look was not meant as grimly as one might think. Still, he thought it a good idea to answer as best he could.

“Well, Stanach told me some of it. All the part about Stormblade and how it was made for you, but this other thane wants it, too, and that you’re all fighting about who is going to be the king something-or-other—”

“Regent.”

“Yes, that’s it. Sort of like a king and sort of like the fellow who watches the store while the shopkeeper has his dinner, right?”

Bemused, Hornfel nodded.

“That’s what I thought. Piper told me the part about how this other thane is trying to kill you now. He—”

“Piper?” Kelida shook her head. “Piper, Lavim? He’s—”

“Well, yes, he is. He’s dead. But he told me. You just ask Tyorl. He knows. It’s kind of a strange story, Kelida. You see, it all started back in Qualinesti when Stanach was building the cairn for Piper and—”

A confusion of cries, some from Hauk and Tyorl at the gate and some from the south end of the gatehouse, brought Stanach to his feet.

“What is it, Stanach?”

“They’re coming to kill the thane, Lavim. How are you weaponed?”

“My dagger. I lost my hoopak in the bog, but—”

“You’ll find plenty of weapons in the guards’ quarters over there. Arm yourself well and come back here to me.”

As Lavim scurried toward the guards’ quarters, Stanach caught him back by the collar. “Wait. What do Tyorl and these rangers have?”

“The rangers have bows and swords. Tyorl lost his bow in the marshes.”

“Show them the weapons lockers and get them armed fast.”

Stanach was thinking quickly now. An increase of four in the ranks of Hornfel’s defenders would make little difference at all if Realgar stood ready to bring several squads of warriors against them. Stanach smiled coldly. But we have archers now. That should count for something. He touched Kelida’s arm with his broken-fingered right hand.

“Lyt chwaer, send Tyorl up here and—” Stanach stopped, suddenly aware that he was speaking without authority.

Hornfel nodded to Kelida. “Kelye dtha, when you’ve done as Stanach asks, give Finn my welcome to Thorbardin. Tell him that I’m in need of good archers, and I’d be grateful if he would put his men at the command of my young captain here.”

Stanach watched her sprint down the corridor with Hornfel’s message.

“Stanach,” said Hornfel, breaking the momentary silence, “If I’m to die, it will not be like a rat in a hole.”

“Every sword is welcome here, Hornfel Thane, and yours not the least.”

Stanach turned and, with a whispered word, gave his plan of defense to the six waiting in the gatehouse.

Outside in the great hall, the murmuring of the Theiwar fell silent, the rattling of their swords against mail and breast plate was stilled.

Like the voice of winter, Realgar’s order to attack rang cold and high. There was only room in Stanach for a last prayer, and he made that as he lifted his sword and instinctively found its balance.

Please, Reorx, please defend us now …

The two archers, placed out of sword’s reach on the ancient gate mechanism’s shaft, kept the air thick with arrows. Kelida knew no difference between her terror of being impaled on an opponent’s sword and her terror of catching a friend’s arrow in the back.

More frightening than the rangers’ arrows were the bolts from Tyorl’s crossbow. Those split the air with a wailing shriek that was always echoed by an enemy’s high, dying scream.

“Leave the aim up to the archers,” Hauk had said. “That’s their business, Kelida. Yours is staying alive.” He’d started to say something more, but there had been no time. The battle dragged them apart. Kelida fought with no more skill than she’d had in the great hall, but with as much, if not more, ferocity. It did not take a tactician’s skill to know that their backs were to the last wall now. There was nothing behind them but the burning valley a thousand feet below the city. A black and silver liveried guard lunged from her right, a second from her left. Kelida drove her dagger into the throat of one and kicked out, breaking the knee of the second. Blood was everywhere, steaming from her dagger’s steel and running between her fingers.

Someone, she thought it was Lavim, bellowed a warning to duck and she did, only realizing as she dropped to the blood-slick floor that the warning had not been meant for her. A length from her and to her left, a Theiwar, bolt cocked and ready in his crossbow, dropped to one knee and took aim. His target was Hornfel.

“No!” she cried as she launched herself at the dwarf’s back, dagger high. She plunged the blade between the bowman’s shoulders, and she knew she’d killed him when his scream vibrated in the dagger’s steel.

Before Kelida had time to react, Lavim roared warning again. A dagger flew over her head, missing by scant inches. Kelida heard a horrible, bubbling moan and turned.

She knew at once that turning had been a mistake. A heavy weight toppled her from behind. Hands pinned her arms to her side, a knee driven hard into the small of her back sent a sharp pain lancing through her. Nausea churned in her stomach, her vision grayed.

Panicked and weak, Kelida heard someone scream her name.

There was nothing she could do to free herself, no breath to take to even answer. She heard the rough grating of a steel blade scraping on bone.

Had she been struck?

She didn’t know. There was no pain … until the blade was withdrawn. She knew then that she had been stabbed, and knew it only a moment before she knew nothing at all.

The screams filling the gatehouse echoed the screams tearing through Hauk’s soul. Like a starving raptor, he fell upon the Theiwar as though they were nothing more than prey. He killed silently, a voiceless creature seeking death and hoping those deaths would amount to vengeance and that vengeance could amount to cleansing. Those who died on his sword and were luckless enough to look into his eyes as they did, carried an image of fire and ice with them through eternity.

“Kelida!” someone screamed.

Hauk yanked his sword from the belly of a Theiwar.

Kelida!

She was down, lying in a spreading pool of blood, her left arm outflung, her hand reaching wide as though for help or pity. She didn’t move. A Theiwar lay half across her back, staring up at the dark vault of the ceiling with sightless eyes. His body bristled with arrows, and protruding from his neck was a crossbow bolt.

But there was no getting to her. Realgar’s guards swarmed through the gatehouse, and the waves of battle carried Hauk far from the blood-stained floor where Kelida lay, still and silent as the dead.

“Kelida!” Tyorl howled warning, but too late. Too late!

The bolt he loosed flew true, taking the Theiwar guard in the throat. But too late! He looked wildly about the gatehouse, searching for someone who was in the clear and close to her. Lavim was, but only for the second it took Tyorl to draw a breath to call to him. One of Realgar’s dwarves jumped him from behind, dragging the old kender down in a tangle of arms and legs.

His mind worked on two levels now: the level of searching for someone to help Kelida, and the level of attack and defense. Tyorl sent a steel-tipped bolt through the heart of the dwarf who rose up to plunge a dagger into Lavim’s back and shouted for Stanach, who was just dragging his sword from the gut of another.

The wailing of the dying, the screams of the attackers and defenders both dinned in his ears. Tyorl couldn’t be sure that Stanach had heard him, but he no longer had the attention to spare. Four Theiwar, their cold black eyes gleaming with a wild blood lust, rushed him.

Too close to his attackers now to make any use of the crossbow, Tyorl abandoned the weapon for his dagger and sword. Steel in each hand, roaring Kelida’s name as though it were a war cry and a talisman both, he leaped among the dwarves.

Stanach kept his back so close to Hornfel’s that a sword’s blade could not have passed between them. The thane fought with deadly skill and a cold fury, and no Theiwar would take him from behind while Stanach still lived.

As short as that span may be, Stanach thought grimly.

Realgar had called up fifty warriors. The enemy outnumbered them by odds Stanach didn’t care to reckon. Still, the entrance to the gatehouse was narrow, and the three archers within exacted a deadly toll. Stanach thought they could hold the gatehouse for a time, if all of his seven could fight with any skill. But one was an untutored girl, one an old kender, and the three rangers were exhausted before they’d ever picked up their weapons. And I am one-handed and failing fast …

Stanach staggered as Hornfel, hard pressed by two opponents, fell back against htm.

“Break,” Hornfel panted, “break the form, Stanach! I can watch my back. You’re needed in the gatehouse!”

“I’m needed here,” Stanach growled.

He sliced the arm from his opponent. Bone glared white and obscenely naked. No sound came from the Theiwar but a thin, gasping with no voice behind it.

Stanach read the scream in his eyes.

Blood sprayed high, steaming in the cold air. Stanach ducked to avoid the blood and kept a firm control over a rising urge to vomit. When Stanach recovered his stance it was to face yet another opponent. Realgar!

Sapphired Stormblade raised for a killing blow, Realgar’s eyes shone with a hatred like the heart of a raging fire. Stanach saw his death in those eyes and in the red-shot gleaming silver of Stormblade’s steel. He swung his own sword up to counter and didn’t know the defense had gone well until he heard the ring of steel on steel and felt the numbing vibration of Stormblade’s strike against his sword. Stanach threw his whole weight behind his blade, pushing with all the strength he had left. His strength was not sufficient. As inevitably as the moons rode the sky eastward, so did Stormblade push closer and closer.

Stanach smelled the rusty stench of blood and saw that blood, thick gouts of someone else’s life moving in slow sliding trails down Stormblade’s smooth steel.

In some far place in his mind, Stanach thought that a pattern was coming right, a circle closing. He would die on the blade of the sword for which he had risked his life and the lives of those who had become his friends.

Realgar hissed, and Stanach, feeling the first tremors in the muscles of his sword arm, knew the hiss for laughter.

Someone bellowed wildly and tackled him low around the knees. Stormblade’s steel cut the air where Stanach’s neck had been. He crashed to the broken tiles and slid with the force of the tackle on the blood-slicked floor. Gasping for breath that would not come, Stanach groped blindly for his sword.

“Up!” Lavim yelled, “Up, young Stanach! C’mon! Get up! There’s more of ’em! Look!”

Stanach lurched to his feet, still gasping. He looked wildly around. More, aye! He laughed aloud. The most of the dwarves he saw wore Daewar scarlet and silver!

“Friends, Lavim! Those are Gneiss’s warriors!”

Stanach sucked in a long breath and realized then that the deep song of bow strings and flown arrows was stilled. The clash of steel on steel rang now only in the great hall. The gatehouse behind him was silent. He stared numbly at the old kender who had once again saved his life. “Where’s—where’s the thane?”

Blood crimsoned the kender’s hands nearly to the elbows and his old black coat was slashed. A bruise purpled his wrinkled cheek and the mark of a dagger scored his forehead. But he was still on his legs, his green eyes gleaming.

“I’m not sure,” Lavim said. “He might be in the gatehouse. He ran back toward Tyorl. Stanach, that crazy-eyed dwarf who was going to slice off your head followed him! Piper says he’s the one who wants to kill Hornfel.”

“Piper says—” Stanach shook his head. Piper says … But there was no time to think about dead mages. He had to find Hornfel.

“Who’s still standing?” Stanach asked.

“Finn has a sword cut in the leg. Hauk is all right. Kelida’s hurt but I saw Kern a minute ago and he says she’ll be all right.” Lavim fell silent, tugging at his long white braid.

“Lavim,” he said, strangely calm, “who else is hurt?”

“I—I don’t know if Tyorl will be all right—”

“What happened to him?” Stanach snapped.

“That dwarf with the crazy eyes—he was chasing Hornfel and Tyorl got between ’em and—Stormblade—”

As though he hadn’t heard the old kender’s words, Stanach looked slowly around the hall. Twenty-nine Theiwar lay dead or dying. Realgar was not one of them, and Stanach didn’t know where Hornfel was. Lavim didn’t know if Tyorl would be all right.

Stanach spoke harshly, his throat thick with fear and impending grief.

“I have to find the thane. I—I have to, Lavim. Is Hauk with Kelida?”

“Yes.”

“Get him. We owe him a debt of vengeance. Tell him I know where he can collect it.”

Lavim watched him go and only too late realized that in the excitement of finding his friends again, of the battle, he’d forgotten to tell Stanach about the dragon.