Hammer and Axe

13 A Strange Alliance

Pack Lodestone’s blast—or, as the scrolls of Thorbardin would record it, Quill Runebrand’s blast—changed for all time the profile of the lower northeast slopes of Sky’s End Peak. Cascading stone was sheared away from the mountain’s face by the explosion, leaving a fresh smoke-blackened precipice along the farthest shoulder, a precipice that tapered downward as it curved around the mountainside. Below, a new feature was added. The great avalanche spread a deep slope of heavy rubble downward and outward, fanning out on the curvature of the mountainside to bury everything in its path. The old citadel, built by Daewar in times long gone, no longer existed. The tunnel which had begun there, leading through Sky’s End to what was now Thorbardin, was buried beneath masses of stone, capped by a huge shelf of granite that had sheared away and fallen with the lesser debris.

The entire fan of fallen stone extended for more than a mile, and a side quake to the southeast had dumped other stone-fall down a deep cove, almost to the bridge where the Road of Passage crossed the Great Gorge. The rockfall had stopped just short of destroying the bridge. Secondary avalanches above the main shear, high on the face of the peak, had opened deep rifts in the mountainside on each side of a natural prominence, and spilled stone-fall downward to create twin swales below.

Forever after, the northeast face of Sky’s End—as seen from the human lands across the Gorge, beyond the foothills, and on a clear day from as far away as Xak Tsaroth—would resemble the face of a giant, angry dwarf with deep-set, narrowed eyes, bushy brows, and a pug nose above a wide, downturned mouth beneath which spread a wide, full beard. The side-fall, south and east above the bridge, even resembled a thick, powerful fist raised in challenge. It was a sculpture that, even though accidental, would stand for centuries as the largest piece of statuary in the entire world.

Quill Runebrand was ecstatic at the success of his venture, and most of those with him were shocked and stunned at what had occurred. Those below, who had waited in the valley, had mixed emotions for a time. Guard units spent most of the night rounding up the horses that had bolted and scattered at the explosion, and a company of dour Neidar set off immediately around the slopes to see what damage might have been done to the road and the bridge. It was bright morning before everyone was reassembled.

“You’re just lucky that fall stopped short of the bridge,” Cale Greeneye pointed out to the lorekeeper. “I expect the Council of Thanes would have personally drawn and quartered you had the bridge gone down.”

“I guess we used more mix than was really required,” Quill conceded. “But you’ll have to admit, nothing is going into that tunnel again. It would take a cataclysm to open it.”

For many miles around, the explosion had various results. The flash was seen as far away as the border posts below the promontory, east of Southgate, where a dwarven trade caravan had just delivered a large supply of weapons to human traders. It was the biggest single order of crafted armaments ever traded outside Kal-Thax. Thousands of fine dwarven steel blades, shields, helms, and various weapons of force were on their way east, into Ergoth. Where they were going was a secret even to the dwarves. Still, the third Lord Charon, whom the dwarves had learned to trust, had given his word to Olim Goldbuckle that the weapons were not for use in any way against Thorbardin.

Olim had his own ideas, though, about who wanted the weapons and why. The wily Daewar and his merchant-spies kept close watch on the world outside. Even better than the wide-ranging Neidar, Olim Goldbuckle knew the ebbs and flows of the realms beyond the dwarven lands.

“I suspect they are going to Xak Tsaroth,” he had told Willen Ironmaul when the trade order was first received.

“To the overlords?” Willen frowned.

“No, but maybe to those who are tired of the overlords.” Olim replied, grinning.

At Northgate of Thorbardin, the blast was felt and its echoes heard, and guards were redoubled the length of Anvil’s Echo.

On the western slopes of Cloudseeker Mountain, a tiny creature, half the height and a fourth the weight of a male dwarf, had just completed the scaling of a great wall to get out of the hole where her bird had left her. It had taken her most of a day to climb from the bottom of what the dwarves called the Valley of the Thanes up to the face of the mountain, and when the shock waves from fifty miles away reached her, they tumbled her backward, flailing and grasping, halfway down the height she had just climbed. For a time she clung there, hanging on to precarious fingerholds, then she took a deep breath and blinked big, lustrous eyes. “Wow!” she breathed. “I wish I’d seen whatever that was!”

Surreptitious wizards, making their way toward Thorbardin from the southeast, dived for cover when the sky lit up from the explosion, and several of them whispered abrupt spells, not well thought out. The resulting havoc was intense. Shielding spells collided with shielding spells, and wizards flew in all directions. Fires blazed up here and there, rain fell in several places, a whirlwind danced among them, and a sprig of thorny adze-brush became a nest of hissing, writhing vipers.

Days would pass before the wizards got themselves all sorted out and despelled—and before those few who had inadvertently sent themselves on long journeys could be found and brought back.

In a clearing beyond the Einar fields below Cloudseeker, three pairs of eyes turned abruptly northward when the explosion occurred. One pair of eyes was dwarven, the other two human, and they glanced aside only momentarily before returning to the business at hand. All day the three had been here, in this clearing; the situation was a standoff. Damon Omenborn had contrived the circumstances, then gone off toward Thorbardin with Willow Summercloud tagging after him.

Those who remained were the dour Theiwar guardsman, Tag Salan, the human Cobar warrior, Quist Redfeather, and the red-strap wizard, Megistal.

Damon had told them to wait until he returned, and wait they did, because Tag Salan demanded it.

The wizard was protected from the Cobar only by the fact that Quist Redfeather had given his word to the dwarves that—as long as Megistal behaved himself—he would not put an arrow into him. The Cobar, in turn, was protected from the wizard’s spells by the fact that, at first hint of sorcery, Tag Salan had solemnly promised to bury a heavy axe in the wizard’s skull.

And the Theiwar was protected from the two humans by their intense dislike for each other, as well as by their curiosity. Damon Omenborn had hinted to each of the men that he had some ideas that might benefit them.

It was a strange alliance, but one that Damon Omenborn had decided might prove productive. First, though, he had a many-colored stone and an Einar girl to deliver safely to Thorbardin. They had taken the humans’ horses, which—Damon pointed out bluntly—were from the herds of Thorbardin and therefore had never belonged to either of the humans to begin with.

In the teeming human city of Xak Tsaroth, the flash on Sky’s End Peak was seen as far-off lightning, and the rumble of sound—when it arrived—was like distant thunder. From the grand palaces of the overlords to the filth and stench of the slave pens, from the teeming thieves’ markets to the wall-top barracks of the city’s custodians, from the shacks and hovels of commoners to the lavish lairs of court fops and tariff-takers, the city on that evening was alive with rumors and whispers. Armed companies of custodians were everywhere, roaming the streets and alleys with torches lit and swords in hand, and in every inn and garret people gathered to speculate in hushed tones.

Darr Bolden was alive, they said. Darr Bolden had escaped the overlords and had emptied the dungeons where many of his followers had been held. Darr Bolden, leader of the secret Society of Freemen, was somewhere in Xak Tsaroth, and his followers were gathering to him by the thousands. The Freemen were arming themselves, and Darr Bolden had promised more arms—a blade and shield for every man willing to follow him against the overlords.

Where he would get such weapons, no one knew. But the whispers went on and on. Darr Bolden had done the impossible before. Maybe he would do it again. Maybe—just possibly—the Freemen might rid Xak Tsaroth of the tyranny and corruption which for so long had weighed upon its citizens.

And there was another who heard—and felt—the explosion that changed the visage of Sky’s End. Patiently she had waited, sure that they would come to her—the warm-blooded creatures outside the tunnel. Hidden behind her reset stone gate, she waited, ready to rage and kill. But they did not come. Instead, the mountain shook and rumbled, and the tunnel filled with choking dust. And when she went to see what had happened, she could not get out. Even her great strength was nothing against the mass of solid, fallen stone that sealed the tunnel’s end.

For a time she raged and stormed, up and down the dark length of the hole in which she was caught. Once before, in ancient times, she had been trapped and buried by those who feared and hated her. Now it had happened again. But she was not frozen in ice this time. She was awake and angry and able to strike back. Cold with a fury that filled the tunnel with thick mists, she went deeper into the mountain. There had been two seals; maybe there were more that she could break. Maybe this tunnel had another end, somewhere. And, if it did, maybe they were there—the pathetic creatures who had trapped her. If so, they would all die horribly. She would see to that. She was Rage, and they could not stop her.

When the explosion on Sky’s End occurred, Damon Omenborn was already in Thorbardin making his way toward the Life Tree with a grim, determined Willow Summercloud following after him. Several times he had tried to get rid of her—to leave her in the care of dwarves who would look after her and see that she had quarters and food—but she had refused. With a stubbornness that even the most hardheaded Daergar would have admired, she stuck to the big Hylar, trudging along after him even as her eyes darted here and there, gaping at the wonders of this underground world which she had never seen.

She knew about Thorbardin, of course. Every Einar did, and many had visited the undermountain fortress. For years Willow had heard stories of the mighty undertaking of the bonded Thanes of Hylar, Daewar, Theiwar, Daergar, and Klar—the tribes that those outside had begun to refer to collectively as Holgar, or mountain dwarves—who were building whole cities beneath a great peak. But hearing the stories was one thing, and seeing the place quite another.

In all her life, in her little village of Windhollow, she had never seen as many people as she saw now at every glance. By the hundreds and thousands, they thronged the ways and concourses, busy dwarves of all ages and every description going here and there, doing this and that. Anvils rang and forges puffed, the ring of delving seemed to come from everywhere, and the buzz of hundreds of voices was a constant hum of sound. She marveled at mighty lifts, carrying stage after stage of dwarves up and down shafts. She gaped at a long string of cable-carts on rail tracks, disappearing into a side tunnel that was itself larger than the entire village of Wind-hollow had been. She stared in wonder at people pausing to drink from wall-mounted stone troughs where fresh water flowed, and her nostrils twitched at the delicious odors coming from a bakery where dozens of dwarves worked at ovens, turning out great loaves of dark-meal bread while people lined up to buy the loaves hot and fresh.

High above, in the soaring ceilings, she saw the sun-tunnels she had heard of and marveled at the massive glass artifacts, gathering and shedding the evening light from outside. She wondered how they would look in the daytime with sunlight coming through.

And when she caught her first glimpse of the Urkhan Sea, it so bedazzled her that she dropped her axe. It clattered on smooth stone paving, and she stooped to retrieve it, then gazed again at the marvel before her. She had heard that there was a lake in Thorbardin, but she had never imagined anything so marvelous as her eyes now beheld. The lake was large, its far shores dim and distant, the deep waters catching evening light from above and reflecting it upward from luminous green depths. It was a magnificent sight, but it seemed only a simple setting for what rose above its center. There, standing above the waters, spreading toward the cavern’s ceiling a half mile above, was the mighty stalactite called the Life Tree of the Hylar. Solid, living stone, it shone with dark lusters that reflected themselves in the waters beneath it. And spreading outward from its “base” were busy, bustling wharves and piers, fronting the entrances to the delvings of Hybardin.

Willow stopped and stared, then hurried to catch up to Damon. “Where are we going?” she panted.

He looked down at her and shook his head as though in defeat. “I’m going to the Life Tree,” he said. “I have things to do. Why don’t you just. . . well, relax and look around? Or get yourself a meal. There are all sorts of places to eat around here. You won’t need coin. Just say that you are my guest. Maybe you can find a nice place to sleep and get to know some of the people.”

“I said,” she repeated, “where are we going?”

He shook his head again and pointed toward the lake. “Out there,” he said. “That’s where I live.”

“Hybardin,” she said, testing the word. “How do we get there?”

“By cable-boat,” he said. “Just like anyone else.”

The boat was about thirty feet in length, operated by Theiwar boatmen. It had large, chain-driven winches at each end and a boarding plank joining it to the low wooden dock. Willow followed Damon aboard, stepping carefully to avoid the crowd of dwarves already aboard. They were mostly Hylar, all males with the dark, swept-back beards of their kind, though among them were a few golden-haired Daewar, broad-shouldered Theiwar, and two or three masked Daergar. Most of them wore armor, and all of them seemed to know Damon. Several waved at him, some greeted him, and most turned, then, to gaze at Willow.

As she passed a row of filled benches, she barely overheard a whisper between two of those there, “Where do you suppose Damon found her?” And the answer, “I don’t know, but if there are any more like her there, I’ll take the next patrol.”

She felt a flush rise in her cheeks, but kept her head down and followed until Damon found them a place to sit, almost in the bow of the boat. The Theiwar wincher there nodded at the big Hylar, smiled at Willow, and called, “Full!”

The call was echoed from the other end of the boat, someone pushed off the gangplank, and the winches rattled as the boat headed out across the faintly luminous waters of the Urkhan Sea. Above, a sun-tunnel caught the final light of dusk and magnified a star that appeared in its field. Waves lapped at the side of the boat, and combs of spray rose off its bows. Willow shifted slightly, moving closer to Damon, then glanced at his face and frowned. He seemed, momentarily, to be far off. And a great sadness glinted in his eyes.

“What’s the matter?” Willow asked. There was no answer; he seemed not to have heard. After a moment the Theiwar boatman leaned toward her, raised a hand to his lips, and whispered, “You don’t know, girl? Damon had a wife once, a long time ago. Our boats weren’t as good back then. It was on this very line that a boat capsized, and she was drowned.”

“A long time ago, you say? How long?”

“A very long time,” the Theiwar said. “Maybe forty years or more.”

“Yes,” she said, turning to look at Damon, who was heading for the nearest lift. “Yes, that is a long time.”

It was a quiet and subdued Willow Summercloud who followed Damon Omenborn ashore. She had never ridden a lift and almost fell when the stage she was on shot upward into the Life Tree. But someone caught her and steadied her. “Thank you,” she said, then turned to look into one of the most striking faces she had ever seen—a Hylar woman with streaks of silver in her long hair and wide-set, thoughtful eyes that seemed somehow familiar.

“These things take some getting used to,” the woman said. “My name is Tera Sharn.”

“Hello,” Willow said. “I’m Willow Summercloud. I. . . this is the first time I’ve been to Thorbardin. I’m with someone, but he went ahead on another of these stages. He lives here, you know. His name is Damon. Damon Omenborn.”

“Of course,” Tera Sharn said. “I was in Daebardin when I heard Damon had returned. And you”—she looked Willow up and down, nodding her approval—“you came with him.”

“It really wasn’t his idea,” Willow admitted. “I think he’s been trying to get rid of me, but I can be pretty stubborn.” She looked around in confusion as the lift stage stopped at a higher level and started to step off, but the woman caught her arm.

“Not here,” she said. “Damon will be in the high levels. I’ll show you.”

“Thank you,” Willow said again. “I don’t want to lose him.”

“Even if he wants to lose you?”

“Oh, I don’t think he wants to lose me. Not really. He just doesn’t realize yet that he doesn’t, you see. Want to lose me, I mean. I mean, he hasn’t noticed yet, so I have to stay with him until he does. Notice. I mean, notice me.”

“Damon hasn’t noticed you?” Tera’s level eyes became even more thoughtful.

“Oh, he knows who I am. After all, I’ve followed him all over the wilderness and helped him defeat wizards, too. But he hasn’t noticed me.” She glanced down, shaking her head. “That doesn’t make much sense, does it?”

“It makes perfectly good sense,” Tera Sharn assured her. “Damon can be a bit dense at times. He takes after his father in that respect.”

“You know him personally, then?”

“You might say so, dear. I’m his mother.”

“Oh!” Willow’s hand went to her mouth. “Oh, rust! I’m sorry. I mean, I shouldn’t have said all that about. . . about him not noticing.”

“Why not? I expect it is very true.” The stage stopped again, and again, and finally reached a level where Tera Sharn stepped off, pulling Willow after her. “Come with me, dear,” she said. “Damon is probably just ahead there, with his father at our quarters. But we shall go in the other way and join them presently.”

Tera led the girl around a series of turns, into another corridor, and through a plain wood door which closed behind them. Beyond was an archway and the sound of male voices, but Tera pulled the girl through another door and began to rummage through trunks and drawers. One after another, she brought forth a beautiful, filigreed kilt, a blouse of elvenspin, stockings and soft boots, and a plaid weskit. Willow’s eyes widened at the rich textures, the subtle hues of the fabrics. She had never seen such beautiful clothing.

Tera Sharn pointed toward a wall-trough, with a basin and soft cloths below. “Wash up from your travels, dear,” she said. “These things are for you. You can change beyond that curtain.”

“For me?” Willow gaped at the woman. “Why?”

“Because underneath all that travel grime, you are a very pretty girl,” Tera said, “and it’s high time my son noticed you.”

Leaving the girl to change, Tera went into the main room and greeted her son, then stepped back, gazing up at him. “You’ve changed, Damon,” she said. “Something about you . . .”

“He has had a run-in with wizards,” Willen Ironmaul said coldly. “The change you see is anger, and well he might be angry. What they were trying to do . . .”

“They can’t do anything without this.” Damon held out a stone that seemed to be constantly changing colors—from clear to white to shades of black to shades of red. “They have come to our land to build a place of sorcery. But without this, they can’t build it.”

“They will come for it then,” Willen said. “They won’t give up easily.”

“We will have to stop them,” Damon agreed. “But I have an idea about that.”

“Our son is thinking about forging an agreement with a wizard,” Willen explained. “He has one, more or less captive, outside the fortress. He thinks he can strike a bargain.”

“I think this particular wizard would rather learn more about us than build a tower,” Damon said. “I think we can bargain.”

“You think he would help us, against his own kind?” Tera asked.

“Oh, not directly. But he can teach us things we need to know. About what magicians can do and how they think. I have learned more from him, just in a few moments of conversation, than he realizes. I will learn more. But this,” he said, handing the stone to Willen Ironmaul, “must remain here. In Thorbardin. They must never get it back.”

“I promise you they won’t,” Willen said, then his eyes widened as the portal behind Damon opened, and Willow stepped in. “Well, hello! And who is this?”

Damon turned and his mouth dropped open. For a moment all he could do was stare, then he managed, “W-Willow? Is that you?”

“It’s the first time he has really noticed her,” Tera Sharn told her husband, quietly.

“The first. . .” Willen looked at Tera, then resumed his gaping at Willow. “By thunder! Has he been blind?”

Crooking a dainty finger, Tera led the regent of Thorbardin from the room. Willen looked back over his shoulder, at the two still standing in the other room, gazing at each other. “You had a hand in this, I’d say,” he muttered to his wife.

“Of course I did. When a person meets his match, it’s best that he realize it.”