Fate of Thorbardin

NINE

Somehow the dwarves providing the food and drink and music for the festive welcome party in Pax Tharkas neglected to include the three gully dwarves who had proudly ridden into the fortress on the wagons hauled by the Kayolin Army. While kegs were tapped, mugs filled to overflowing and generously passed around, and platters laden with sumptuous mountains of food were displayed to every one of the many more than two tables in the place, not one dwarf thought to invite the Aghar to join in the festivities.

No matter: Gus and his girls quickly found themselves a comfortable space beneath a spacious banquet table, and by dint of furtive expeditions, both Slooshy and Berta were able to pluck up juicy, warm tidbits of meat; large pieces of sharp, fresh cheese; bread and fruit; and enough half-empty tankards of ale and spirits that all three Aghar were able to wind up comfortably and happily drunk.

The next morning, of course, they had been rudely rousted by a cleaning crew of dwarf maids who battered the gully dwarves with their brooms and brushes until the trio had to make a hasty escape from the great hall. They fled through a side door into the cellars and dungeons that were quite familiar to Gus and Berta and represented a whole new world of wonder to Slooshy.

In those stinking sewers and dungeons beneath Pax Tharkas, Gus quickly reestablished himself as the highbulp of the small but thriving Aghar community. That exalted position had become his to boast, mainly because of Berta’s advocacy when he had first come to the mountain fortress. Of course, the position was mainly honorary and, for the most part, unacknowledged. The other gully dwarves took little notice of the newcomers, occupied as they were with the usual Aghar concerns of survival and avoiding discovery and harassment by the larger dwarves who were their near neighbors. Slooshy, who had joined Gus and Berta in the dank lair, quickly and inevitably resumed her jealous bickering with her gully dwarf rival for Gus’s affections.

In part to get away from that constant caterwauling, but mainly because he had been anxious to steal a moment or two alone with Gretchan, Gus waited only two days before he ventured up the stairs and into the main halls of the fortress. There he saw the training of new companies of infantry, the ranges where row after row of crossbow troops took target practice, and the forges where new weapons were cast and older weapons were sharpened, repaired, and readied for war. Everywhere dwarves were marching and drilling and working, but fortunately they were too busy to take note of the little Aghar huddled behind a stack of shields, his bright eyes constantly alert for a sight of his beloved Gretchan.

For the whole of the long day, he didn’t see her, and it was with a heavy heart that he returned to the dungeon. He was too morose even to partake of the drowned rat that Slooshy had discovered and, in a blatant attempt to win his affection away from Berta, offered to split with him.

Instead, he went to bed hungry and alone, and as soon as the sun was up the next day, he returned up the stairs, telling his suspicious partners that he was going to “go for walk and get air!”

Once again he took up his spying place, and though he didn’t see Gretchan, he did notice Brandon Bluestone stroll through the hall in the middle of the afternoon. Seizing the opportunity, he broke from cover and raced after the Kayolin general, stealthily following him out the great gate and toward a meadow around a well of clean water. There he dived into a garden of rose bushes, ignoring the thorns that tore at his skin, and was delighted to see that Gretchan was there, apparently talking to some two and two and two young dwarves, saying something about Reorx.

She stopped her teaching to talk to Brandon for a minute, and when he departed, she resumed some boring stuff about healing prayers and curing bleeding wounds and other things that were too complicated for Gus to understand.

Finally, just before it started to get dark, she dismissed the young dwarves-they were clerics in training, Gus had finally figured out-and remained behind by herself, rinsing her face and hands in the cool, clean water from the well.

Mustering all of his debonair charm, Gus ambled out from the thicket of roses. His entrance was marred slightly by a treacherous vine that wrapped around his ankle and tripped him, dropping him onto his face before he could even say hello. The next thing he knew, Kondike was barking at him. Then the big dog waved his tail and licked the gully dwarf all over his face.

“Go ’way, big doofar hound!” he ordered to no avail. “Me here to talk Gretchan!”

“Gus?” the priestess said after she had stopped laughing and, with a curt gesture, called the dog to her side. “What are you doing here?”

“Me march with army! Alla way Kayolin to here! Me go to war! Take Thorbardin!”

At least she didn’t laugh at that, but it was almost worse to see that his words seemed to make her sad. “Oh, Gus,” she said with a sigh. “That’s very brave of you. But, well, I just don’t think it’s going to work. Not this time.”

“Why not? Gus big-time fighter! Him win war! Find Redstone for you!”

“I know you mean well,” she said, sitting down on the grass beside him, “but this is different. We’re going to climb a big mountain. There will be fighting … and killing. And, well, it’s just not a place for you.”

“Sure it is!” he argued with what he knew to be unimpeachable logic.

“What about Slooshy and Berta? Did they come here with you?” she asked gently.

“Why ask about Gus’s girls? They not go to war!”

“No, Gus. They won’t go to the war either. But they need you, don’t you see? You should stay here with them. And I promise, if we prevail-I mean, if we win-I will send for you right away. You’ll be welcome back in Thorbardin, and all of your people will be able to live there, just like before … before the king put a bounty on your heads.”

He tried several more times to convince her, but none of his arguments seemed to make any headway. Finally she grew impatient and told him that she had to be going and that he had better get back to his girls, to see that they were safe.

“They plenty safe!” he shot back, but Gretchan was already walking up toward the gate. She let him accompany her as far as the great hall, but when she went to the door leading up into the East Tower, she firmly told him not to follow and closed that same door right in his face.

“Don’t say Gus no follow!” he fumed, stomping his way down the stairs into the dungeon. “Gus follow every place! Gus follow, even follow alla way to war!”

And that determination, at least, made him feel a little better. That night, he even let Berta and Slooshy argue about who would get to give him a foot rub. Of course, by the time they settled the argument, he had already fallen asleep.

“Where are you going?” Tarn asked as he discovered Crystal Heathstone busily packing a backpack in the royal quarters. “My army marches tomorrow! I expect you to be on the parapets, leading the cheers as we march off to reclaim Thorbardin!”

His wife, still beautiful and smooth skinned after so many years of tumult and exile, glared at him, and when she spoke, her words were not really all that surprising.

“I’m leaving you,” she said. “I’m going back to my people. You don’t need me here.” Her voice caught and she shook her head angrily. “You don’t want any Neidar here!”

“That’s not true!” he protested. “I–I don’t even think of you as a Neidar!” His voice grew stern. “I think of you as my wife, by Reorx! And I will not have you marching off to the clans of my enemies!”

“They’re not your enemies, you doddering old fool! But I know that I can’t convince you of that! And frankly, I’m ready to give up trying. So I’m going back to Hillhome, to see if there’s more honor among the hill clans than there is here, among your mountain dwarves!”

“I forbid it!” Tarn spluttered. “You will not leave Pax Tharkas!”

She laughed, a short and bitter sound. Something in her eyes caused him to hesitate, to wonder at the determination, the anger, that he had never seen in her before.

“Just try to stop me!” was all she said.

And in the end, he could only watch as she walked away.

Willim the Black awakened from a most unpleasant nightmare in which he had been trying to teleport away from a looming, horrific firestorm. But his magic had failed him, and he could only quiver and tremble and sweat as the lethal, incinerating presence crept closer and closer.

He awakened to find that he had cast off his blanket and was lying on the bare mattress, naked and soaking wet from his own perspiration. Facet was not there-he had sent her away after he had taken his pleasure from her-but he suddenly wished, very desperately, for the comfort of her embrace.

“Master, I heard you,” came her musical voice from the door of his sleeping chamber. “Are you distressed? May I comfort you?”

“Yes-I need you!” he croaked. “Come to me now!”

“Of course, Master. But first, have a cool drink. Here, I brought you some wine.”

He gratefully accepted the full tumbler she offered him, drinking so eagerly that the purple liquid trickled from the sides of his mouth, ran into his beard, and spattered across his chest. He was about to order her to bring him a towel, but for some reason his head was spinning.

He was groggy and terribly tired.

Before he knew it, he slept.

Crystal had packed lightly, for there was little she desired to take away from that place. The one thing that grieved her above all was the thought of leaving her son behind. But she knew Tor would not choose the hill dwarves over his father’s mountain clans. And if she compelled or persuaded him to go, Tarn Bellowgranite would make that an excuse for war.

So she would go alone.

She didn’t even have any regrets, except perhaps for the fact that it had taken her so long to make the decision. But finally she understood the truth: there were too many barriers, too many chasms, existing between her world and her husband’s. She would be better off without him, and he would be better off without her.

She spent a long moment grieving for her daughter, who had died there. Then she shook her head, hoisted her pack onto her back, and started down the stairs. She didn’t look back, not even when she passed the guards at the main gate of Pax Tharkas, and saw them exchange worried looks. Yet neither of them challenged her.

Finally she was on the road, the fortress falling away behind her. Her home was ahead of her, many miles away, but they would be good miles. Of that she was certain.

And there was another thing she knew.

It was good to be free.

The mad dwarf knew that he had outwitted them all. He was clever, too clever by far, for the king and his lackeys to catch him. Once the unseen benefactor had freed him from his cell, he had not gone up into the fortress of Pax Tharkas, where every corridor, every room, every hall would be watched and, as soon as his absence was noted, searched.

No, Garn Bloodfist had not climbed upward. Instead, he made his way even deeper into the Tharkadan cellars, slipping past the slumbering turnkey then making his way toward an ancient route that very few dwarves knew existed.

The Sla-Mori, it was called, the secret way.

And so it was, a way out of Pax Tharkas, a passage that had carried him into a forested ravine more than a mile beyond the high walls, the ranks of torches, and the patrolling sentries.

There he had hidden for countless days, eating berries and grubs, hiding in the streambed whenever anyone approached, using the simple expedient of burying himself in mud until only his eyes and nose were exposed to the air. He kept his eyes closed, and the tactic had worked, for he had not yet been discovered.

As the days passed and the imminence of winter became more clear with each chill night, he wondered what to do. He watched the road leading away from the fortress, hiding as the hill dwarf traders and mountain dwarf hunting parties went past. He reminded himself that he hated them all, the hill dwarves and the mountain dwarves. They were all his foes, and they would pay.

Then one afternoon he was startled to see a lone female figure striding away from the fortress. He recognized the beautiful hair, gray but still soft, and the strong, determined stride. She was the former queen, the one who had visited him and calmed him in his dungeon of torment. He loved her, in his own way, for that care.

But then he remembered another truth, undeniable, and burning like a fire in his gut.

Oh, yes, he hated her too.