Downfall

CHAPTER FOUR The Vale of Chaos

“No wonder you had us travel at night, Mal, so none but your ill-tempered self would know where we were goin’.” Rikali was whispering, her voice biting, buzzing around Maldred’s head like a cloud of annoying gnats. “Why, if I’d a clue we were comin’ here, I’d have… well, I wouldn’t’ve come along. And neither would’ve Dhamon. I’d have told him all about this place, and for a change he would’ve listened to me. We’d be cuddlin’ up somewhere nice, where it ain’t so damnably hot and dry, and… well, I’m tempted to turn right around now and…”

“Where are we exactly?” Dhamon prompted, understanding why Maldred had kept their destination secret, but now wondering if he should have pressed his partner for some information about this mysterious mission.

They were picking their way down the side of a mountain, Dhamon and Rikali following Maldred and Fetch and trying, save for Riki’s mumbled complaints, to be reasonably silent. The footing was quite precarious, with jagged rocks stretching up like crooked fingers everywhere and abundant patches of loose gravel that threatened to send them sliding to the bottom. It was dark, well past midnight. A touch of gray in the east alluded to dawn being only an hour or so away.

“By my breath,” Rikali persisted in her hushed voice, “this is idiocy, Mal, worse scheme you’ve ever come up with. First Dhamon steals all of the treasure kept at a hospital and then makes it clear it’s not to be properly split— a “door opener,” he calls it. Must be some helluva door. Where’s the door, I keep askin’.”

“Where are we exactly?” Dhamon repeated, raising his voice.

“Shh!” Maldred and Fetch warned practically in unison.

Dhamon paused, watching the three thread their way down the mountain. It looked like they were heading into a great, black pit of the Abyss at the bottom of the vale. Through the soles of his procured boots, he could feel the summer’s heat baking the land. Still, he felt better than he had in quite some time. He’d had no episodes with the scale for the past several days, and his spirits were high— too high to continue to put up with Rikali’s grumbling and this mystery. “Tell me exactly where we are, Mal, or I’m not taking another step.”

Maldred continued down the mountainside, oblivious to Dhamon’s threat. Fetch shrugged and followed the big man. But the half-elf stopped, huffed, and put her slender hands on her hips. She cast her head over her shoulder again, her mass of silvery-white hair fluttering, and she glared up at Dhamon. “We’re just south of Thoradin, in the heart of dwarf lands. Satisfied?” Then she started down again, motioning for him to follow.

“I know that much… dear.”

“The Vale of Chaos,” she added, still talking so softly he had to strain to hear her. “Smack in the middle of the Vale of Chaos.”

When Dhamon finally caught up to them, Maldred signaled they’d made it halfway down the mountainside, and he directed them behind a massive boulder.

“Never heard of it,” Dhamon muttered. “This Vale of… Chaos?”

“That’s ‘cause you never lived around here,” Rikali said. “That’s ‘cause before your head was always filled with notions of Knights and dragons and honor and such. And with… what was that lady’s name… Fiona.” She spat at the ground and cut Maldred an evil look. “Gonna all die, we are. Gonna die right here in this damnable Vale of Chaos.”

Fetch looked nervous, but kept silent, his small hand clutching a pouch of tobacco.

“Ruled by dwarves, this place is,” she continued, her voice even lower. “It don’t make sense to seek out dwarves after Ironspike.”

Jasper Fireforge, Dhamon thought, meeting her gaze. That was a dwarf Dhamon had considered a friend.

“Pigs, but this place is supposedly patrolled by an army of them stubby, hairy men.”

“There are patrols,” Maldred finally spoke, his voice low. “But it’s not an army. And they can’t be everywhere. The valley’s too big for that. And the dwarves don’t own the land, they just claim it.”

Dhamon gave him a look that said, what’s the difference?

The big man sighed and glanced around, ran his fingers through his hair and considered his words. “Dhamon, Thoradin is always skirmishing with Blöde…”

“The ogres,” Rikali cut in.

“… over ownership of this vale. It is a struggle with a long history, made more bloody in recent decades.”

“All ‘cause of the Chaos War,” the half-elf added.

“The ogres have a legitimate claim, since they roam freely over the rest of these mountains. The vale truly should be theirs.”

“Tell that to the dwarves, Mal,” Rikali whispered.

“But the ogres don’t care to press the issue at the moment. They can’t. They must direct their efforts against spawn and draconian and other minions of the black dragon who constantly encroach upon their time-honored territories.”

“Why is this valley so damned desirable?” Dhamon asked.

“Wait until the sun comes up, lover,” Rikali said. “You’ll see, or so the tales say. All of us will see. And then all of us will die.”

When they lay down, Rikali snuggled against Dhamon and rested her head against his chest. She told him to wake her at dawn if the dwarves hadn’t found them before then. Maldred closed his eyes, too, but Dhamon could tell the big man wasn’t sleeping. The knob in his throat was going up and down, his teeth softly clicking together, his fingers tracing intricate patterns in the dirt. Fetch glanced back and forth among the three of them, and occasionally, very nervously, poked his head out from behind the boulder. Dhamon dozed fitfully and briefly, keeping an eye on Mal and Fetch. When, hours later, the sun struck the top of the canyon walls, the kobold was the first to see and gasp in amazement.

Dhamon too found himself at an uncustomary loss for words. The stoical mask fell away and his face glowed with childlike wonder. He nudged the half-elf awake.

“Forget what I said earlier, Mal,” Rikali said in a hushed voice. She shielded her eyes with her hand. “This was a glorious idea. Glad I followed you here.”

Crystals of every imaginable color dotted the steep canyon walls, catching the light of the rising sun and reflecting it in near-blinding patterns. The valley was an immense dazzling kaleidoscope of shifting colors—shades of amethyst; a riot of peridots and olivines; mesmerizing quartz spires that sparkled rosy pink one moment, sky blue the next; diamonds that twinkled like ice; gems nobody could ever put a name to. The rocky mountains down which they had picked their way last night were laced with rubies and opals and tourmaline, and topaz shards and garnet and… all kinds of gems that wouldn’t normally be found together but somehow were together. All in this Vale of Chaos.

The wind picked up as the sun inched higher. The breeze sounded like windchimes as it wound around the rocks, slipped down one side of the vale, and then up the other to warm the ground. It was a warmth that, as the day went on, would become miserable heat.

Dhamon found himself caught up in the pure beauty of the place. He shaded his eyes, then blinking and turning, he looked all around at the mesmerizing display of colors. Rare, priceless, bountiful, unending colors.

“By my breath. Paradise,” said Rikali. She reached out toward a large green crystal and managed to close her fingers around it, just as Maldred grabbed her by the ankle and pulled her back.

“An emerald,” Rikali said, turning it over in front of her wide eyes, oblivious to her scraped and bleeding knees. The rough gem was a few shades darker than the paint she had applied to her eyelids yesterday. “By my breath, I’m gonna have a jeweler cut it for me.” She thrust it in her pocket and whirled on Maldred. The big man stopped her with a finger pressed to her lips.

“I’ve been here before, Riki,” he began, “a few times— alone. Always before it was only my own neck I risked. There are patrols. I’ve seen them. They mainly cover the top of the vale, catching people who come down while the sun is out and they’re readily visible. That’s why we hid the wagon and horses.”

“So that’s why we came in at night,” Fetch mused. His tiny eyes were flitting about, lighting on one patch of gems, then moving on to the next. His gaze was like a bee, never resting one place for any length and his breath was coming ragged from excitement.

“We can avoid the patrols,” Maldred continued, “And the miners. But we have to be careful—very careful, and alert. Rikali’s right. They will kill trespassers.”

Rikali’s fingers were in her pocket, the clawlike nails clicking against the edges of the emerald. “I can be careful,” she whispered. “And I can be rich. Very.”

Maldred nodded. “I don’t care if some of these gems find their way into your pockets. Take whatever you can stuff in your pouches and clothes. But we’re here first for Dhamon.”

She shot Dhamon a curious look, turned back and raised her eyebrows questioningly.

“We’ll explain later,” Maldred said.

“You’ll explain now,” she returned, her voice a little louder than she had intended.

“We need to harvest as much as we can from the vale,” Maldred continued.

“And I will use our treasure trove to buy us something very old and even more valuable. Something that will tremendously profit all of us,” Dhamon added.

“I can’t imagine more profit than this.”

Maldred softly chuckled. “Then Riki, you don’t have much of an imagination.”

She scowled and looked again at Dhamon, who was preoccupied by the shimmering beauty of this place. Her expression softened as she smiled wistfully. “For Dhamon, then. Anything for Dhamon.”

“And ultimately for us,” Maldred added. “We load up our sacks with the finest gemstones, hide behind boulders until it’s dark, then carry everything back to the wagon. Two days of this, we don’t want to press our luck for longer, and the wagon will be reasonably full and we’ll be on our way to Blöten.”

“Blöde’s lovely capital, in the heart of ogre land,” Rikali hissed, her sarcastic voice less caustic than usual. She edged closer to Dhamon. “What could the ogres possibly have that you want, lover? And why haven’t you told me about it?”

“Because you can’t keep secrets, dear Riki.”

“Now let’s get to work,” Maldred advised. “And remember, be careful.” He crept out from behind the boulder and headed farther down into the valley, trying to hide behind outcroppings and large spires as he went.

He stopped to squat between a pair of natural granite columns which were flecked with chunks of aquamarine. Glancing about, he dug the tips of his fingers into a patch of loose soil between them. A hum came from deep in his throat, high in pitch, the sound resonating musically off the columns and accompanying the wind. His fingers stirred the dirt, then suddenly his right hand started clawing, digging a hole and uncovering a chunk of rare pink topaz as big as his fist. Nudging it aside, he continued to hum and dig, finding more and more, keeping up his enchantment until he was fatigued. Leaning against a column to regain his energy, he took a deep pull from his waterskin, practically draining it. Then he opened a canvas sack and carefully filled it with the precious crystals he had unearthed.

Fetch went in another direction, making sure he could keep the big man in sight for a sense of security. The kobold was small enough to easily hide behind jutting rocks, and he picked up pieces of crystal as he went, turning them over to check for imperfections. He quickly discarded the ones that didn’t meet his considerably high standards. The pockets of his sky blue pants were bulging before long, and well before he started filling up his canvas sacks.

Rikali motioned Dhamon to follow her. “I know what’s valuable, lover. ‘Course so do Mal and Fetch. By my breath, but this is all so wonderful.” She took his hand, her clawlike nails softly raking his palm, and tugged him southward. “All of this has worth. But some crystals are superior.” She pointed at a crevice, and they quickly made their way there. Partially hidden by the shadows, she inhaled deep, thinking the air much sweeter in this place, and leaned her back against Dhamon’s chest, her head turning from right to left to watch the colors dance. “Good thing Mal hadn’t told me we were comin’ here,” she confessed. “I truly wouldn’t have gone along with it. I wasn’t foolin’ him. I wouldn’t have followed even you here, Dhamon Grimwulf.” She grinned at Dhamon. “But I am glad we’re here. Amazin’. I don’t believe the dwarves should have this all for themselves, don’t believe the ogres need it either. Can’t none of them ugly lookin’ folks truly appreciate this beauty. They’re warlike and mean-tempered people, they are, and they don’t deserve anything this exquisite.”

Dhamon hadn’t spoken since the sun came up. He was still mesmerized by what his eyes beheld.

Rikali nudged him hard with her elbow to break the spell. “And what’s this about usin’ all of this wealth, well, most of it anyway, to buy somethin’ special for you? What could you possibly want more than this?” She gestured with her hand. “Tell me, lover. You shouldn’t be keepin’ no secrets from me.”

“A sword.”

She paused, clearly surprised at the answer. “A sword’s gonna make us all rich?” She spat at the ground and shook her head. “You’ve got a sword. A pretty one that you picked up in that hospital. And worth a very pretty steel piece, it is.”

“A better sword.”

“Ain’t no sword worth giving up these gems for.”

Dhamon cut her a sharp look.

“Well, where is this sword? I could help you steal it. We’d slip into whatever ogre camp it’s in, slip away with not a one of them the wiser. And then you’d have your old sword and we’d keep all these gemstones for ourselves.”

“Stealing it would be too risky.”

Riskier than this? her face asked. She poked out her bottom lip. “Must be a very big ogre camp. And you couldn’t’ve told me about all of this? I truly don’t like you keepin’ secrets from me. I don’t keep a thing from you, Dhamon Grimwulf. I never have.” She turned to stare fully up into his face. “But then, you’re nothin’ but secrets, are you, lover?”

His eyes were unblinking. So dark, she could hardly discern the pupils in his eyes. Mysterious and brimming with secrets upon secrets, she decided, and certainly worth losing herself in. His eyes could catch hers as fast as any manacle, holding them until he wanted to break the moment. She wished he would look at her now.

Rikali also wished he was as taken with her as he was by all these crystals. Finally his eyes met hers, and he began to ask her a dozen questions—not about her, but about this place. He was trying to keep his mind off his leg, Rikali thought with a sigh.

“A product of the Chaos War,” she told him, “or so the tavern tales say.” The half-elf nodded to indicate some gems that protruded from the ground, which she stopped to pick up and examine and thrust in her pocket. She discarded only a few. “During the war they claim this vale burst with priceless crystals. Oh, dwarves and ogres had been minin’ it before then, findin’ some opals and silver now and again and fightin’ over them more because they were fightin’ to expand their home territories. But there was no real reason for all o’ these gemstones comin’ to the surface when they did. I guess the gods must have did it before they left, wanted to really give the dwarves and ogres somethin’ to tussle about.” She waved her hand and sighed. “So beautiful.”

“And…” Dhamon’s voice cracked as his throat was going dry. Rikali was right. The scale on his leg had started to tingle, and he fought against the sensation, concentrated on the shimmering crystals to keep his mind occupied, tried to focus on her voice.

“The dwarves claimed the vale, of course, and the ogres claimed it, too—just like Maldred said. But this rocky hole is in Thoradin, dwarf country. Now, Blöde wraps around Thoradin like a glove. And the ogres run all of Blöde. So who knows—or cares—who it really belongs to.” She cupped her hand around a chunk of topaz. “But, like Mal will tell you, there’re plenty more dwarves than ogres, and the ogres have the black dragon and her spreadin’ swamp to worry about, too. So the runty dwarves’re winnin’ this particular turf war. And accordin’ to every tale I ever heard, the dwarves do indeed have an army guardin’ this place. Greedy little hairy men.” She spat at the ground. “I’ve had my fill of dwarves, I have.”

“What do they do with all these gems?” Dhamon forced the words out, then he gritted his teeth and clenched his fists.

“The dwarves export gems and minerals to Sanction and Neraka and are gettin’ steadily richer. Miserly little toughs, they are. But they’re careful not to take out too much at a time, keepin’ the price for gems and such still horribly high. They put too many on the market, and the gems’re just not worth as much—supply and demand and all, you understand.”

Dhamon nodded. He was sincerely interested in Rikali’s story, but it was getting more difficult to hear her. His leg was burning. The pounding of his heart was filling his ears.

“Regular folks stay far away from here—and for good reason. I had friends tell me about corpses of trespassers staked out around the vale entrance. Some twisted and mutilated, barely recognizable to their kin. Heads on poles.” She shuddered and made a face. “I don’t want to die, lover, but if I’d have known the tales didn’t do this hole in the ground justice, I would have risked my life a dozen times over before now. This is worth the risk.”

She stooped again, her clawlike fingers digging into the scree at her feet. Giggling, she tugged free a rose quartz crystal the size of an apricot. Rikali held it up so the sun would catch its natural facets, held her breath and stared at it a moment, then exhaled with a soft whistle and quickly put it in her pocket. “Not especially valuable, that one, a little too milky. But it’s a very pretty shade, and I fancy it cut just right and polished and hangin’ on a gold chain around my neck. Follow me, lover, and I’ll show you how to spot the good pieces, the ones that’ll cut the best. I’ll teach you how to picture ‘em all finished and more beautiful than they are now. Teach you how to look for flaws.”

Dhamon didn’t move. He had wedged himself into the crevice and slammed his eyes shut. “I’ll catch up with you, Riki,” he managed to gasp. “You go on ahead and find the best crystals.”

The half-elf stopped chattering, her shoulders sagged, and she moved closer, wrapping her arms around his waist. “You made it nearly five days, lover, without one of these spells. Some day you’ll beat it.” She held him tight and felt his body tremble, a sympathetic tear sliding down her face. “You will beat it,” she told him. “I just know it. Everything will be all right. Here, concentrate on this.”

She held the rosy gem in front of his face, turning it this way and that as if to hypnotize him. He tried to fixate on it, staring unblinking, telling himself how beautiful it and Rikali were, how beautiful this vale was. But the heat on his leg, increasing now, was concentrated on the scale, and it was somehow worse, different from the times before.

He tried to swallow, but found his throat had gone utterly dry. He tried to move and found himself paralyzed, the strength vanishing from his legs.

“Lover?” the half-elf asked.

Dhamon reached for his thigh, where the scale was covered by the expensive black trousers gained from the merchant robbery. “Ow!” He pulled his fingers back. It was hot, practically scalding! He doubled over from the pain. “Riki…” was all he managed.

“I’m here.” She forgot the gems and threw her arms around his shoulders, brushed his cheek with her lips. “Ride it out. Just ride it out.”

Dhamon sucked in his lower lip, cursing himself for acting like a wounded child. There was an acrid taste in his mouth he couldn’t get rid of, and his lungs burned. He looked up so he could see over the half-elf’s shoulder, trying to find something to concentrate on—anything to occupy his mind and diminish the pain.

Then, suddenly, his mind was flooded with an image, and as if in a dream he saw in front of him a wall of gleaming copper plates that reflected his face back at him. Hundreds upon hundreds of Dhamon Grimwulfs. And all of those faces contorted in pain. “Riki…” he repeated, reaching up with his hand and turning her face and pointing. “Do you see it? The scales? The dragon?”

The half-elf looked up with a shudder, her eyes spotting something not in the air in front of her, where Dhamon’s eyes remained fixed, but in the sky far overhead. “Pigs, lover! There is a dragon! So high up in the sky. Hard to see it. Wouldn’t’ve noticed it if you didn’t…”

She pointed and Dhamon saw it, the image in his mind melting away. Dhamon squinted up into the bright summer sky and saw the form arcing over the valley, dipping lower, then climbing higher and higher and higher, finally disappearing altogether from view.

A heartbeat later, the agony in his leg dissipated.

“It was a copper dragon, Riki.”

She cocked her head. “It was too high to see what kind, the sun too bright.”

“It was a copper dragon,” he repeated.

“How do you…”

“I just know, that’s all.”

A moment later they emerged from the crevice, Dhamon a little shaky but intent on doing his share of harvesting the crystals.

Determined to keep his mind off the strange episode, Rikali pulled a wavy dagger from her belt, one taken from the slain Ergothian, and used it to pry free chunks of green peridot. She held one of the precious gems up to the light and began explaining to Dhamon, with a gemologist’s expertise, about imperfections and coloration in rough material.

Late the second morning Fetch sat in front of a piece of pale yellow quartz shaped like a rounded tombstone. Its large, flat facet reflected his doglike visage as if the kobold were staring into a tinted mirror.

He craned his neck this way and that, admiring his diminutive, craggy features, then he scowled when he saw the embroidered birds and mushrooms on his clothes reflected back at him. “Baby clothes,” he hissed. “I’m wearing human baby clothes.” After a moment, his scowl turned into a wide smile, revealing his uneven yellowed, pointy teeth. “A baby,” he whispered. “Goochie goochie goo.”

Fetch started humming, a scratchy, off-key tune mingled with occasional gargling sounds. His scale-covered fingers started dancing in the air, as if he were conducting an invisible orchestra. The air shimmered around him, the heat rising from the ground. The shimmering closed around him like a cocoon, until flashing and sparkling motes frolicked over his cheeks, growing and winking ever brighter. He swallowed a snicker, the sensation of the enchantment tickled him, and then he increased the tempo of his strange melody. Finally the music stopped and the motes disappeared, and the only sound was the wind playing against the crystals like distant chimes. Staring back from the mirrorlike quartz was the cherubic face of a young human boy with wispy blond hair and rosy cheeks. He opened his mouth to reveal two upper teeth cutting their way through petal-pink gums. “Goochie goochie goo!” Fetch stuck his thumb in his mouth, winked, and wriggled happily.

“Getting good at this,” Fetch congratulated himself. “Wish Maldred could see me.” The kobold twisted his neck around to make sure the big man was still in sight. “Good indeed!” Soon he was humming again, his crystal-gathering chores forgotten for a moment in favor of the magic. A few minutes later, a vacant-looking gully dwarf was reflected in the crystal. “Dwell, dwat do you dknow,” he said, imitating the nasally sound of gully talk. Next, an ancient kender with deep wrinkles and an impressive gray topknot appeared. “Most unfortunate I left my hoopak in the wagon. It would complete the image.” Try as he might, the kobold could not change the appearance of the clothes. He worked to see how long he could hold a face, guessing that almost ten minutes had passed before his own craggy countenance reappeared. “I am indeed getting much, much better,” he pronounced. “What next? Hmm. I know.”

He concentrated again, humming something now that sounded like a funeral dirge as his fingers twitched in the air along his jaw line. The motes sparkled with a darker light this time, concentrating around his brow, which was broadening, and his jaw, which appeared to melt in upon itself and widen. The scraggly clumps of reddish hair that dangled from his chin multiplied and thickened, growing longer and forming a dense, auburn beard. Heavy brows developed over eyes that were becoming larger and as blue as the sapphires he had stuffed in his canvas sack an hour ago. Fetch’s nose was swelling, taking on the bulbous shape of a large onion, and his scaly skin was turning a ruddy flesh color that made his blunt white teeth stand out. When the metamorphosis was complete, a stunted dwarf was reflected in the crystal.

“Too bad Rikali can’t see me,” he mused. “Says she’s had enough of dwarves. This’d give her a good chuckle.” The image’s eyes widened in surprise, and Fetch gulped. Above his mirrored face was the image of a real dwarf, one with narrowed steely gray eyes, and one with thick fingers wrapped around the haft of a battle-axe that was plunging down toward him.

“Mal!” the kobold sputtered as he whirled away.

The dwarf had swung his axe hard and missed Fetch only by inches, striking instead the crystal and shattering it.

Shards pelted Fetch as his image was melting off him like butter. The kobold rolled again, squealing when the axe sliced through his butterfly sleeve.

“Mal! Company, Mal!” The kobold sprang to his feet and started scrabbling down the mountainside, feet slipping on gravel as he went. A quarrel whizzed over his head as he ducked behind a hornblend spire. He risked a peek out the other side. “Th-th-there’s four of ‘em,” he sputtered. “Four very angry dwarves. And me without my hoopak.”

“This one must weigh close to three pounds, huh?” Rikali tossed over a pear-shaped crystal that was uniformly pale yellow in color.

“What is it?” Dhamon caught it and hefted it in his palm, then carefully placed it in his canvas sack. He was using the scraps of a shredded cloak to pad the crystals so they wouldn’t jostle against each other and chip. Three already-full canvas sacks sat at his feet. There were nearly three dozen more large sacks already loaded on the wagon.

“Citrine,” she said. “A type of quartz. Not as valuable as some of the other stuff we’ve been takin’, but that one’ll cut really fine. More valuable because of its size, though.”

“How’d you learn so much about gems?”

She puffed herself up, smiling. “Dhamon Grimwulf, I decided at a very young age that I wasn’t gonna be poor like my parents. So I fell in with a small guild of thieves. My dad… my parents’re both half-elves… anyway, my dad disowned me, he did, not that I minded. Said he didn’t approve of how I made my livin’. My folks were horribly poor, barely makin’ their way as fishermen in a village on the shore of Blood Bay.” She shook her head as if casting off the inconvenient memory. There was no trace of regret in her eyes. “The guild schooled me—in all the things important to becomin’ wealthy. Such as how to recognize good stones, how to tell which houses are likely filled with the most valuables, where to fence things, how to pick pockets and cut coin purses from a man’s belt. I’d still be with them if I hadn’t tried to pick Mal’s pocket when he was strollin’ big-as-you-please along the Sanction docks. Caught me, he did—and took me in and taught me other things, like how to rob merchant wagons and scam folks and to always be movin’. No roots sproutin’ from the bottoms of my feet anymore. No percentage to give the guild.” She studied his face a moment. “Why hadn’t you asked me before now?”

Dhamon shrugged. “I guess I wasn’t curious.” She discarded a cracked chunk of opal, picked up another large piece of citrine and passed it to him. “Wonder how Mal is doin’?” she mused, looking around a gypsum outcropping and searching for the big man. “There he is. Way down there.” She watched Maldred a moment, enjoying the view his sweat-slick, muscular body presented, then she waved. But Maldred wasn’t looking in her direction. He was staring up and to his right, and his hand was reaching for the great sword strapped to his back. “Trouble,” she hissed, turning her head to see what had caught his attention. “Fetch got himself into more trouble. He’s worthless.”

Dhamon sped by her, navigating around the gypsum spires, dropping his sack of gems as he tugged the broadsword from his belt.

Maldred reached Fetch just as another two dwarves appeared. “A half-dozen,” the big man growled. “And there’ll be more coming if we don’t take them out quick. Might be more coming anyway.” He immediately sized up his opponents. “Stay down,” he told the kobold. Then he was dodging quarrels from their crossbow bolts, bringing his sword around to parry some that «thwanged» off the blade as he scrabbled over the loose gravel and gems. As he neared, he shouldered his sword, bent down, and scooped up a handful of rocks, bringing his arm over his back and hurling them at the closest dwarf. Several found their marks, and one of the dwarves dropped his crossbow and rubbed furiously at his eyes.

The others were loosening battle-axes from their waists and readying to meet Maldred’s charge. He shouted as he closed the distance. “You haven’t a chance against me! Lose your weapons and I’ll spare your lives!”

The thickest of the quartet laughed loud and deep. He stopped only when Maldred was upon them, swinging his massive blade. The sword practically cut the lead dwarf in two, and then Maldred drew back the weapon and brought it down to cleave off the arm of another dwarf. One of the others started scrambling up the hill, calling for support, this being the one who had laughed so heartily. The rest gritted their teeth and one hollered, “Die, trespasser!”

“Life is precious,” Maldred said as he drew back his blade again, muscles tensing and veins bulging. “You are very foolish to throw it away.”

The dwarves were dead by the time Dhamon reached Maldred. Dhamon sheathed his sword, knelt, and tugged a thong free from one of the dwarves’ necks. Dangling from it was a large, beautifully cut diamond, the largest he’d seen. Dhamon hung it around his own neck and started searching the other bodies, retrieving finished stones set in gold and silver and stuffing them into his pockets.

The big man was shielding his eyes from the light of the crystals in the rocks and craning his neck up the mountainside, looking for the dwarf who got away. “Can’t see in this glare. But I know we’ll have company soon,” he told Dhamon.

“Aye. Let’s take what we’ve gathered and get out of here. And let’s be quick. We certainly have more than enough to buy the sword. We could buy all of Blöten, I suspect, with what we’ve gained.”

Fetch grabbed his sacks, struggling under the weight and making his way slowly up the mountainside. Maldred glanced back at his collecting spot, where four bulging bags waited. “Very quick,” he added to himself.

Dhamon whirled and headed toward his own sacks, noting Rikali was continuing to stuff gems into one, her arms practically a blur, her tunic plastered against her back with sweat. He scrabbled over the rocks and spires and was almost at her side when two steel-tipped quarrels shot through the air, one whizzing by his shoulder, slicing through his sleeve, the other lodging itself in his right thigh, finding its way to the scale affixed there.

He shouted from surprise, falling back and clutching at his leg.

“Remove the scale, and you’ll die,” he heard the long-dead Dark Knight say. Then the Knight was gone and Dhamon was writhing on the mountainside in the Valley of Crystal. A wail escaped him, long and unnerving, one that brought a choked sob from the half-elf.

She threw herself on him, wrapping her slender fingers around the quarrel and tugging gently. “Maldred!” she called, “By my breath, Mal, help me!” She continued to tug, mindless of the dozen dwarves who had loosed the last of their quarrels and were now charging down the mountain toward her and Dhamon. “Maldred!”

Dhamon gasped for air. All he could feel was intense heat and excruciating pain covering every inch of his body, turning him into a human furnace. “Damn this scale!”

Within moments the dwarves were on the pair, gleaming axes raised, intent on slaying the two trespassers. Rikali tried to shield Dhamon. “I said we were gonna die, lover,” she muttered, as the first axe came down…

And clanged loudly against Dhamon’s upraised sword. Despite the pain, he’d managed to scramble away from her and rise to his feet. “I’m not going to die today,” he told the half-elf as he pushed her away. He whipped the blade about and shoved the tip through a dwarf’s wrist. Maldred raced to his side, and the big man gave no warning to the dwarves this time. He waded into their midst and began swinging. “Join us, Riki!” he shouted. “Any time, please!”

The half-elf picked herself up and drew her wavy-edged dagger, hurling it deep into the throat of a dwarf coming her way, one who wrongly had decided that fighting her was an easier proposition than taking on Maldred or Dhamon.

All of the dwarves were heavily armored despite the summer heat. The half-elf tugged free her blade and moved on to another one. She had to look for openings in their defenses, jabbing her blade at the joints in the thick plates.

Three lay dead at Maldred’s and Dhamon’s feet before one managed to land a blow against the big man. The tallest of the dwarves cut deep into Maldred’s arm, bringing a groan from the big man. The great sword clanged to the ground, as Maldred could no longer hold it with both hands. His wounded arm hung limp at his side.

Two dwarves darted in and raised their axes, thinking the large human an easy mark now. However, Maldred’s good arm shot forward, his massive fingers closing on the haft of a battleaxe and ripping it free from the dwarf’s grip. Without pausing, he pulled the axe back and brought the weapon down on the other dwarf, cutting through his helmet and lodging in his skull. He tugged the axe free as the dwarf fell and swung it against its previous owner, dropping him.

Dhamon dispatched one dwarf by shoving his blade through a gap in the armor beneath the dwarf’s arm. Releasing his sword, which he couldn’t easily tug free, he scooped up the dead dwarf’s axe and swung it around hard, chopping into the neck of another dwarf and sending an arc of blood flying. His immediate opponents dead, he worked quickly to retrieve the broadsword and buried the axe in the chest of a corpse as more dwarves moved in.

Although the odds were turning against them, the dwarves who remained showed no signs of retreating, save the one who found his beard on fire-courtesy of Fetch, who had just arrived on the scene. The kobold grinned maliciously and shouted to Rikali that his fire spell was indeed a great boon. The half-elf ignored him and threw her efforts into parrying the attack of a particularly thickset dwarf who had a scattering of medals affixed to his armor.

Maldred felled one dwarf and was preparing to strike another as the ground started shaking beneath their feet. It was a gentle tremor at first, but it quickly gained energy, and within a heartbeat even the nimble Rikali was struggling to stay on her feet.

Dhamon slammed his blade into the thigh of one of his opponents, then felt the haft of the weapon start to slip from his sweaty fingers. He put all his effort into keeping the blade, rugging it free and sheathing it just as he felt his feet lose purchase against the jarring ground. An instant later his legs were pitched out from under him, and he was rolling down the mountainside, unable to cushion himself from the spires he was thrown against along the way. Fetch dropped to the ground and wrapped one of his spindly arms around a rock that didn’t seem to be going anywhere, the other arm snaked out to latch onto one of his bags of crystals. The dwarves and Maldred fared worst, not able to keep their balance and joining Dhamon on a pell-mell descent toward the bottom of the valley.

“Dhamon!” Rikali screamed. She half-slid after him, doing her best to avoid the rocks careening down the mountainside, and crying out when sharp ones seemingly jumped up from nowhere to slam against her arms and legs.

The mountainside thundered. Cracks appeared along the rocky slopes—small at first, like spider veins beneath pale skin, then widening until they resembled the jagged maws of monsters. Two of the dwarves screamed as they were swallowed by one of the growing fractures.

Rikali felt the ground give way beneath her feet as she slipped into one of the widening chasms. Her slender hands thrashed about until her fingers found a spiny tooth of rock. She held on tight as her body was hurled against the rockface, the breath rushing from her lungs. She coughed and blinked furiously as a cloud of dust settled in the chasm, threatening to smother her, then she gasped in terror as the ground began to seal itself. She instinctively propelled herself up the trembling rockface, finding nooks to slip into that an ordinary man would overlook. She hauled herself over the lip and rolled away just as the fissure rumbled one last time and closed.

“Dhamon!” she hollered, though she couldn’t hear her own voice. All she heard was the echo of the quake, so loud it was painful to her keen ears. Again she scrambled down the mountainside, kicking up gravel and chunks of crystal. Her heart leapt when she spotted Dhamon’s body wedged between a pair of granite columns. Maldred was hanging onto one of the columns with his good arm, his eyes shut in the face of flying rocks.

The other dwarves who had tumbled down the mountainside were nowhere to be seen. Only one helmet was comically perched atop a gypsum spire. Fetch was high above Rikali, still clinging to his half-buried rock with one hand, the other somehow still holding fast to a sack of gemstones. Rikali had dashed to the columns and was holding on tight, suffering the fist-sized stones that battered her and riding out the quake until it mercifully stopped.

She sagged next to Dhamon, gasping for clean air. “Lover?” She barely heard the word, perhaps only imagined it. Tears rolled down her face as she felt for him and her hands came away smeared with blood. “Lover? Please, oh please.” Sobbing, she put her head to his chest and cupped a hand across his mouth, hoping to find some trace of breath. “He’s alive!” she called a heartbeat later to Maldred, who slowly pushed himself off the pillar and dropped to his knees. The big man was mangled, his one arm hung limp, his sleeve covered with blood. But just how badly he was injured didn’t sink in, as her concern for Dhamon took precedence. “Help me, Mal! Dhamon’s hurt bad.”

Rikali was struggling with the quarrel again, which had broken off and was protruding only a few inches above the scale in Dhamon’s thigh. Her clawlike nails were broken, and her fingers were bleeding. “I can’t pull it out, Mal!”

He pushed her hands away, and with his good hand ripped Dhamon’s pants to fully expose the scale. Then he grunted, and with considerable effort he pulled the broken quarrel free.

“What do we do, Mal? I’m afraid he’s dyin’.” Her hands fluttered over his face and chest. “Help him. I love him, Mal. I really love this one. Don’t let him die.”

“He’s not dying, Riki.” Maldred shook his head, fighting a wave of dizziness that threatened to overwhelm him and send him rolling to the valley floor. The side of his shirt was growing darkly crimson. He’d lost quite a bit of blood, and his wounded arm was so numb he couldn’t move it. “Indeed, he doesn’t look like he’s hurt bad at all. Just unconscious.” He pointed to a gash on Dhamon’s forehead. “Hit a rock, knocked himself out. He’ll be fine. Me, on the other hand…”

“You’ve got magic. I’ve seen you mend things. You can heal yourself, I know you can. Make sure Dhamon’s all right. Please.”

“Oh, I can mend things, Riki. But nothing living.” His hand touched the scale, his thumb centering on the small wound. “I’d wager the bolt was enchanted,” he said, “else it wouldn’t have pierced this. Good thing more of us didn’t get skewered.”

“I don’t care what the damn thing was,” Rikali cursed. “Enchanted. Lucky shot. Let’s get out of here. Please. Let’s leave and everythin’ will be all right. Won’t it?”

“I care about him, too, Riki,” Maldred said, his voice too soft for her to hear. He cast a glance up the mountainside to make sure Fetch was still there and that no more dwarves had arrived. Then he looked down at Dhamon, noticed blood gushing out of the hole in the scale. “All right. Maybe I can mend this. But maybe I should just rip the damn scale off.”

“No! You do that and he will surely die. I’ll help you carry him.”

“Wait.” The big man concentrated on the hole in the scale, started humming and directing his magical energy. Several minutes later Maldred sagged against the rocky column, and where the hole once was could be seen a flat black circle near the center of the otherwise glossy scale. The ground had flowered red around Maldred’s limp arm. “I sealed it, and he’s not bleeding anymore.”

“Damn the dwarves,” she said, bending over Dhamon and running her fingers across his damp forehead. “And damn the dragons. A dragon did this to him, you know.” She touched his scale.

“I guess so.” Maldred’s voice had lost its sonorous power. He felt dizzy and terribly weak. “I don’t know how or why, but the red overlord did it.”

Rikali cast a glance at Maldred. “By my breath, you’re more than just hurt. I’m sorry. I’m so selfish. All the blood you’ve lost, Mal…”

Ignoring her, he pushed himself to his feet, then bent to shoulder Dhamon with his good arm. Another wave of dizziness struck, threatening to pitch him to the ground.

“You need to rest, Mal,” she protested. “You shouldn’t be movin’. I can carry Dhamon. I can! All of us need…”

“We need to get out of here,” he gasped. “Just like you said. There’ll be more dwarves soon, wondering what the quake did to their blessed valley. Time to heal later, Riki— provided we can get out of here alive.”

The ground trembled again. Maldred had braced himself, but the half-elf wasn’t as quick to react. She tumbled to the ground and managed to catch herself on a spire. The ground shook a moment more, then quieted.

You coming? Maldred mouthed, as the half-elf picked herself up. He turned and started up the mountainside again.

They recovered two bulging bags of gemstones on their way up, Rikali carrying them when Maldred insisted he could handle Dhamon by himself. Even so, he stumbled a half a dozen times as they continued on. The mountain rumbled twice more as they climbed—aftershocks of the first quake or precursors to another. Fear made them drive themselves faster.

“It’s still here,” Rikali said when she spotted the wagon. “Pigs, but I figured the horses would be long gone—takin’ all of our gems with them.” A moment later she saw why the horses hadn’t bolted. A boulder had tumbled down, blocking the horses’ path. There had been nowhere for them to flee.

Maldred nested Dhamon on top of the bags in the wagon bed, using their stolen clothes to pad him. Fortunately, the wagon had received little damage. Maldred sagged to his knees and closed his eyes. He sat back, opened his mouth to say something, then passed out and fell onto his back.

“Mal!” Rikali struggled to pull him up, but he was dead weight and too much for her. Fetch deposited the bag of gems he had somehow managed to hold onto, then scurried to Maldred’s side and began tugging on his shirt trying to help. “Worthless,” the half-elf spat at the kobold. “You had a hard enough time with the sacks of gemstones. Ain’t possible for you to lift Mal.” Undaunted, the kobold put his effort into pinching the tight flesh of Dhamon’s face and chittering at him in his odd native tongue, which he knew the human found irritating.

Dhamon’s eyes fluttered open as he softly moaned. “What…” Fetch nodded toward the back of the wagon.

“Help me,” Rikali urged him. “C’mon, you can do it.”

Dhamon shook off the dizziness and reached over the back of the wagon, wrapping his arms around Maldred’s chest. Muscles bunched and his jaw tightened as he tugged the big man into the back of the wagon. “Heavier than he looks,” Dhamon huffed, his arms momentarily numb from the effort. “Much heavier.” He slumped next to Maldred and his fingers felt about his own forehead, finding the gash and pressing tentatively on it.

“Get us out of here, Fetch,” Dhamon snapped. “Before we have more company.”

The kobold scampered to the front of the wagon and put his shoulder against the boulder blocking it. He grunted and cursed, his muscles straining. Rikali joined him and pushed hard. The earth helped the pair’s efforts, rumbling slightly with another aftershock and providing just enough impetus to budge the rock. It rolled slowly down the mountainside, careening into natural pillars, sending shards of crystal into the air and breaking apart as it went.

Panting, the kobold climbed up onto the wagon, his feet dangling. Rikali passed him the reins, then scrambled up and ripped open Mal’s shirt, tearing the sleeve and fashioning it into a tourniquet for his injured arm.

“I can’t feel my arm, Dhamon,” Mal said, his voice so hoarse and soft he had to lean his face over to hear. “I can’t move it.”

Rikali offered him soothing words as Dhamon searched about beneath the canvas sacks and found a jug of hard cider. He poured some on the wound, and Maldred shuddered at the stinging sensation.

“There, you can feel something,” she said. “That’s a good sign.” Softer, she said, “Isn’t that a good sign, Dhamon?”

Dhamon didn’t reply. Holding his forehead, he was scrutinizing his big friend, his eyes unusually wide and sympathetic, but he was frowning. “I hope so,” he finally whispered.

Rikali regarded Dhamon for a moment. “Perhaps this should be me layin’ here instead of Mal,” she said too softly for him to hear.

Then she returned her full attention to the big man and tried to blot some of the blood away with a section of her own tunic. “Where should we go? Someplace to get him help. Someplace. Dhamon, I don’t know what to…” she started.

“We have got to get away from here,” Dhamon said, wincing slightly as he poured more cider onto Maldred’s arm. “Toward Blöten. Fetch knows the way.”

Four nights later they sat around a fire roasting a large rabbit. Despite the late hour, the air was still hot. The ground was so starved for water that it had become powdery like ash. Fetch risked a few sips from his last water-skin and grumbled that they’d be even richer if they could find a way to make it rain in these mountains.

Many of the clothes they had claimed from the merchant wagon had been fashioned into bandages for Maldred, replaced as they were needed.

Dhamon refused Rikali’s attempts to bandage him, saying he wanted all the available cloth saved for Mal. He convinced the half-elf that he looked far worse than he felt—though he was certain he’d either bruised or broken a few ribs. He moved carefully, and breathed shallowly. His oily hair was matted with blood, and it was badly tangled and streaked gray and brown with dust and dirt. The stubble on his face was becoming an uneven and unsightly beard, and his clothes were soiled and tattered. He’d managed to save one shirt from the merchant haul, tucking it away beneath a sack of gems so the others wouldn’t find it and rip it into bandages. But there was no reason to wear it now—it was for later, he decided, when he reached Blöten and needed to look better.

All their clothes were dark with sweat stains and dried blood. Fetch had fared the best, escaping with only a few scrapes, though his clothes were riddled with holes. He was playing nursemaid to the rest of them, inspecting the cuts and bruises they’d picked up from their ride down the mountain, and serving as their sentry.

Now, with his good hand, Maldred was tracing patterns in the dirt. His wounded arm was wrapped close to his chest to keep it immobile. The kobold intently watched the big man, thinking the symbols mystical and part of some spell. He tried to copy the patterns, then grew bored when he couldn’t fathom them and instead busied himself by passing out wooden plates.

After Fetch finished waiting on them, and after he wolfed down his own meager share of the cooked rabbit, he recovered the last jug of distilled spirits from the wagon and placed it next to Dhamon. In a great show he withdrew the old man pipe from its pouch, tamped tobacco into the bowl, and lit it with his finger in an effort to demonstrate to all that he’d truly perfected the fire enchantment.

After that, the kobold paced in front of them, clicking his pointed teeth on the stem and gently thwacking his hoopak on the ground while he waited for a magical request. When none came, he took a deep puff on the pipe, blew a smoke ring into the air, and broke the silence. “At least I didn’t lose my weapon in that quake, like Maldred and Riki did. Didn’t have to take one of them dwarven axes like Mal,” he stated. “At least Dhamon’s pretty sword stayed in his belt. So we had some good fortune after all. My ‘old man’ didn’t get a scratch on him. And we got all these rough gems…” He frowned when he saw Maldred glaring at him. “Oops. Well, I’m sure you’ll find another sword just as big and heavy and sharp,” he said quickly. “And we’ll get some more daggers for Riki.

In Blöten.” When he figured out that nobody was appeased, the kobold finished with his pipe, carefully replacing it in the pouch, and then he excused himself to patrol the grounds around their camp—just to make sure no dwarves were tracking them.

“I’m still a little sore,” Maldred quietly admitted to Dhamon after a long silence. “And a little weak. But I guess I should just be happy I’m alive.”

“Ah, Mal,” Riki said. She slid closer, cringing when Dhamon wrinkled his nose at her. “Mal, don’t you worry. You’re too mean to die.”

Maldred rubbed the muscles of his injured arm and was barely able to make a fist. He frowned. “Had never been hurt like that going into the valley before. But then I’d never stayed as long, or had an earthquake to contend with on top of the dwarves. Never came away with as much, either.”

“Are we going back?” There was hope in the half-elf’s voice. “I mean, if we need all these gems to buy Dhamon his sword—which we shouldn’t ‘cause nothin’ in the world should be that expensive, maybe we could take a big old wagon back just for us and…”

He shook his head. “Not for a while, Riki. The dwarves will double their patrols. Maybe in a few months, perhaps right before winter sets in. Or maybe we’ll wait until just after the first snow. They wouldn’t expect anything then.”

Her eyes gleamed merrily.

“At least I’m on the mend,” he continued. “And thankful to feel at least something in my fingers. I know a good healer in Blöten who will finish the job. Have him take a look at the two of you also.”

“Doubt you’ll need him, Mal. Riki’s right, you’re too mean to be down so long,” Dhamon joked. His words were slurred, heavy with the alcohol he’d been drinking. An empty jug lay on its side at his feet. He awkwardly moved the new jug to between his thighs, his finger playing around the lip. “Besides, being hurt like this is a good excuse to take it easy for a while.”

Rikali slid over to sit between them, tugged Dhamon’s jug away and took a long pull from it, then coughed and sputtered. She handed it back and studied her fingernails. Sighing, she reached up and draped an arm across each of the men’s shoulders. “I figure we’re two days from Blöten, maybe less. I wonder if there’re grand shops to visit. Maybe Dhamon can’t buy his sword with all of that on the wagon. And if he can’t, we can keep all of that for ourselves, right?”

Maldred disregarded her. He glanced at a battle-axe that lay within reach, the firelight dancing off its blade, which held his attention. Finally, he looked away into the darkness and said, “Riki, we’ll have a grand time in Blöten celebrating our good fortune. And we’ll get you some new knives. And we’ll get Dhamon his sword, too.”

“I want to buy some more clothes. And perfume. And… Mal, did I ever tell you about this grand house I want built? On an island far… did you hear something?” Quick as a cat, she glided away from the men and peered off into the darkness on the far side of the camp. The fire cast tendrils of light toward the rocks and scrub grass, and the grass moved lazily to an almost imperceptible breeze.

Dhamon struggled to his feet, fighting to keep his balance. His hand fumbled for the sword at his waist, his fingers were thick from the alcohol. He favored his right side, and reached for a cane Fetch had fashioned from a tree branch. Maldred was a little slower to rise, hefting the battle-axe in his good hand.

“Did you hear it? Dhamon? Mal? It’s Fetch. He’s…”

There was a crashing in the dry brush, the sound of cursing, and the shrill voice of the kobold. A moment later a disheveled-looking black man tramped into the clearing, the kobold clinging to his leg. The man was soaked with sweat. In addition to a knapsack that hung from his back and several skins of water that dangled from it, he had a large sword strapped to his waist, and more than a dozen daggers in sheaths crisscrossing his chest. He was swinging a great two-handed polearm at Fetch while at the same time trying to shake the snarling creature off. But the polearm was much too long and unwieldy, and the kobold would not be dislodged. More crashing followed, the clang of metal and the hiss of a sword being drawn.

“Rig!” Dhamon shouted, his tongue feeling swollen from the distilled spirits. “Leave him be!”

The black man growled and kicked out with his leg, trying again to remove the kobold who bit down through the fabric and found his calf. Rig howled as Fiona charged into the clearing. She was quick to lower her weapon the moment she spotted Dhamon, though she didn’t sheathe her blade, and she kept her shoulders squared, ready for trouble.

“Call the little mutt off,” Fiona told Dhamon, glowering at him as her fingers tightened on the pommel of her sword. “Call him off now, or I’ll cut him off and toss him on your fire.” She raised the tip of the sword for emphasis, and her eyes narrowed and locked onto Dhamon’s like a vise.

“Fetch,” Dhamon said almost gently, “Let the man go.”

“Trespasser. Spy,” the kobold grumbled as he released Rig, swatted him for spite, and scurried to Dhamon’s side. The kobold puffed out his chest and bared his yellowed teeth, hissing. “Good thing I was patrolling, Dhamon.. Otherwise them two defenders of justice would’ve snuck up on us and stole all of our…”

“So good to finally meet some of Dhamon’s old friends!” Rikali cut in, cracking a forced smile and stretching out her hand. She glided toward the Solamnic Knight. “You must be Fee-ohn-a,” she said, her tone almost polite. “Dhamon has told me so very much about you. And you’re…”

“Very angry,” Rig stated. He ground the tip of the glaive into the dry earth. His eyes, like daggers, were aimed straight at Dhamon.