The Gates of Thorbardin

Chapter 16

From the top op a rock outcrop, Chane and Chess had a view of the path.

It was below, and some distance away, and the moonlight cast eerie shadows where the slopes rose above it. But it was a view, and Chane crouched there, staring in wonder at the dark shapes moving down the cutback slope.

Dozens were in view, people of all sizes. Some were dwarves, and some were taller — humans, perhaps. Some scampered along the downward path, turning often to look back. Some moved more slowly, clinging to one another; some supporting others, some being carried. Behind the first wave of refugees came a small knot of figures brandishing spears and swords, moving slowly.

A few were shouting at those ahead, urging them on. Others at the rear faced back up the path, their weapons at the ready.

"Somebody's chasing them," Chess said. "That's their rear guard. I wonder who's after them."

Slowly the fleeing people made their way down the angled by-path, disappearing by twos and threes as they reached the cutback below and rounded the shoulder there. Shouts and cries carried upward, distorted by the spires and tumbles of the mountainside and by distance.

"Let's get closer," Chane decided. "I can't tell anything from here." He rose and turned to find the kender already gone, scrambling across tumble-slopes, leaping from stone to stone, heading for a better view of the path. Chane hurried after him.

For long moments the dwarf and the kender were out of sight of the path, but then they emerged on a ledge directly above it and looked down the length of the sloping angle between cutbacks. The path was empty now, as far as they could see. But just opposite the two, in a shadowed canyon from which the path emerged, something was moving, coming toward the turn.

Heavy footfalls crunched in the rubble of the path. Footfalls… and a deep, harsh voice that broke into cruel laughter.

"See 'em run!" the voice rumbled up from the shadows. "Blood an' gore.

Me, I go an' find me more. Bash 'ere skulls an' break 'ere bones! Let 'em go? Haw! Not me. Not Loam!"

The figure that emerged from the darkness was huge a massive, wide-bodied thing that loped down the path on bowed, gnarled legs. It carried a huge club in one hand, which it flailed as though it were a twig.

'%lake 'em run!" the thing bellowed as it passed directly below the dwarf and the kender. "Make 'em fleet Make 'em die… in agony. Hee, hee!"

It skidded in the rubble, faltered for just an instant, and changed course, heading down the cutback where the fleeing people had gone.

"What in tarnish is that?" Chane whispered.

"Ugly, isn't it!" the kender said. 'They're even uglier in front. Here,

I'll show you."

Before Chane could react, the kender stood, drew his hoopak-sling, and sent a large pebble flying after the monster. The pebble bounced off the thing's skull with a distant thud. Howling, the monster slapped a massive hand to its insulted head and spun around. Moon-red eyes in a massive, heavy-browed face darted this way and that, then came to rest on the dwarf and the kender.

"Oops," Chess said.

With a roar that reverberated off the mountain peaks, the great creature started up the path toward them, swinging its club.

"Anyway," Chess said, "now you have a better look at it. I'll bet you've never seen an ogre before. Have you?"

"Puny things!" the ogre roared, gaining momentum. "Throw rock at me?

Loam last thing you will see!"

"What did you do that for?" the dwarf growled. "Now look what — "

"I didn't expect him to be quite so cranky," Chess explained, interrupting. His hoopak-sling sang and another pebble — this one larger — smashed into the advancing ogre's face, full on his wide nose. Dark blood spurted, then dripped downward, veiling the thing's grotesque mouth. The ogre roared again and sprinted toward them.

"I think he's really angry," the kender said. "This one's yours. I'd better look around and see if there are others."

"What?" Chane turned, but the kender was already gone, leaping nimbly from one rock to another, upslope, pausing here and there to peer down into the shadowed pathway below.

"Rust and tarnish!" Chane stared at the advancing monster. The thing was tall enough to reach him with its club, even from the path below the rock where he still crouched. And it was coming fast. He fingered the hilt of his sword, then decided against it and unslung his hammer.

"Kharas aid me now," the dwarf breathed.

Backing up a step from the edge of the rock, Chane glanced quickly at its moonlit top, then knelt and swung. He struck stone with the spike-end of his hammer. Again he swung. Then the dwarf ducked as a hand the size of his back appeared above the stone and swung a massive club that whuffed over him.

Chane's hammer rang again on the surface of the stone, and again. The great club rose above him and descended, crunching into the stone beside him with a sound of thunder. Again the cudgel was raised aloft, and this time Chane had to throw himself to one side as it smashed down where he had been. He rolled, righted himself, and swung his hammer again. The weapon's spike sank into stone, making another hole in a precise line of holes that — he hoped — followed a faint flaw line in the rock.

Just beyond and below the rock outcrop, the ogre leaped upward. For an instant its eyes were level with Chane's. The dwarf dodged, and the club descended again, raising a cloud of stonepowder. The ogre's roar was a rising, echoing thunder of rage. The club thudded here and there, searching for Chane… then paused. The sounds beyond told the dwarf that the monster was climbing. He sighted on the fault line and swung again.

The top of the ogre's head came into view, then its eyes. The creature bellowed in huge pleasure when it saw that the dwarf was trapped there with sheer cliff at his back and no place to go. The ogre clung to the stone and raised its massive club. Chane scooped stone dust and threw it into the huge, grinning, bloody face.

The ogre roared in rage, lost its hold, and dropped from view. Quickly, though, it started climbing again. Chanc's hammer rang. The sound of its impact was different now, a slight, hollow echo accompanying each stroke.

And the spike sank deeper into the stone with each swing. Again the massive hand appeared with its club, and descended a blow that would have flattened and crushed the dwarf, had it found him. Chane panted, concentrating on his work. The scrabbling sounds of clumsy climbing began again, and the ogre's head came into view.

Chane raised his hammer one last time, whispered, "Reorx, guide my maul," and brought it down against the stone. The sound of the impact seemed to go on and on, the ringing strike becoming a deep, low grinding sound as the fault opened… a hair line that became an inch, then another inch… then a cleft a foot across, that widened abruptly and crashed away into the walled pathway below, carrying the ogre with it. Chane crept to the newly sheared edge of the outcrop and looked down. The pathway beneath was a jumble of fallen stone, its walled opening filled halfway to the top. A cloud of stone dust hung above it, veiling the moons' light.

Slinging his hammer, Chane took his sword in hand and bounded down to the rockfall, searching for openings. He found a wide slit, thrust his sword into it, and prodded as far as the blade would go. Somewhere underfoot, distant-sounding and muffled, the ogre howled in outrage. Chane went looking for wider fissures.

He was still darting back and forth across the tumble of slab-stone when the kender reappeared, just above, crouched on the sheared ledge. "What did you do with your ogre?" the smaller one asked. "I hear him, but I don't see him."

"He's under these rocks," the dwarf snapped. "I can't reach him."

"Well, that's not so bad," Chess shrugged. "That means he can't reach you, either. Of course, if you'd killed him first, then buried him, you wouldn't have this sort of problem. Don't you know anything about ogres?"

"This is the first one I ever saw," Chane growled, prodding into another crack with his sword. Beneath the rocks something yelped, and the pile of stone shuddered.

"Well, you may have the chance to see some more, if that's what you want. There's something else up there quite a distance away, but definitely up the path. It might be another ogre… maybe several. They tend to come in bunches, you know."

"No, I didn't know."

"Kind of like goblins," the kender said. 'You hardly ever find one goblin without finding a lot of goblins.

Which reminds me, I thought for a minute up there that I could smell goblins. Have you ever smelled goblins?"

"Not intentionally. What do they smell like?"

"Oh, I don't know." The kender pondered it, finding the challenge interesting. "They smell like, uh, maybe a sort of a mixture of fresh manure and dead frogs. I don't know. Goblins smell like goblins. Anyway, you don't generally find ogres and goblins in the same place at the same time. That's why I was surprised to smell goblins."

Chane made a final pass from one end of the rockfall to the other, but found no opening large enough to reach the buried ogre with more than just the tip of his sword. The kender, watching him, went to one of the cracks the dwarf had already tried and inserted the butt-end of his hoopak, then plunged it downward as hard and as deep as he was able. Beneath their feet, the pile of stones rumbled and quaked, and a trilling bellow emerged from various crevices.

"I think he's ticklish," Chess observed.

"I think we should get out of here before he really becomes irritated,"

Chane said. Thoughtfully, he reached into his pack and touched the hard, warm facets of Spellbinder. Instantly the faint, green guideline was there, leading up the switchback trail, heading for the pass high above.

Yet the kender said there were more ogres up there, and maybe goblins, as well. Chane realized that he had never seen a goblin either. He didn't relish the idea of meeting some of them just now, though. The ordeal with the ogre had left him shaken.

"Maybe the thing to do," he told himself, "is to go after those people who were running down the path and find out what they know about what's waiting above."

Chess looked around, frowning. "Don't you want to see for yourself? I do."

"I'd just as soon know what I'm getting myself into before I get into it," Chane decided aloud. "I'm going to talk to some of those people. You can go on up there if you want to."

"Good idea," something soundless seemed to say. "Let's go."

"Hush, Zap," the kender said. "I know what you're trying to do."

"Misery," the spell mourned.

The dwarf glanced around. He was growing accustomed to the ditherings of the kender's companion, but it still bothered him.

"Zap thinks if I take him far enough away from you and Spellbinder, that he can happen," Chess said with a shrug.

The dwarf had already started back down the zigzag trail, so the kender followed him. Chess looked back toward the distant heights now and then and wished the old spell hadn't attached itself to him.

Full morning lay on the valley by the time Chane and the kender rounded a bluff on the mountain's long slope and saw people ahead. Where a stream came down from the heights, two rough camps had been established, a few hundred yards apart. The larger camp, and farthest from the rising mountain, was of dwarves. The nearer, smaller camp — no more than a few cookfires and bits of bedding where injured people rested — held a few dozen humans.

As the dwarf and the kender neared, those humans capable of holding weapons came out part way and formed a defensive line, watching the newcomers carefully. In the dwarf camp beyond, people scurried here and there; twenty or thirty dwarves soon came at a run to join the human fighters.

When they were near enough, Chane cupped his hands at his cheeks and called, "Hello there! Can we join you? We're peaceful!"

There was hesitation, then a burly human with a full beard stepped out of the line and called, "Who are you?"

"I'm Chane Feldstone," the dwarf returned. "That's Chestal Thicketsway.

We were on our way up the mountain when you passed us. I want to talk to you."

"There were ogres and goblins behind us," the man said, shading his eyes against the morning sun. "If you came from there, how did you get past them?"

"We only saw one ogre," Chane called, "and no goblins, though there may have been some higher up."

"How did you get past the ogre you saw?"

Chestal Thicketsway danced forward, past Chane. "Chane Feldstone is a famous warrior," he shouted. "He dumped rocks on your ogre and buried him."

"I'm not famous," Chane hissed at the beaming kender. He turned his attention to the people ahead. Closer now, he could see them clearly. Many of them had fresh, bound wounds, and those huddling in the two camps beyond were in a sorry shape. "Who are you people?" he called. "Where have you come from?"

The humans and dwarves — and women among them, Chane noted, of both races — relaxed visibly as the two strangers came near and they saw that they weren't goblins. The burly man lowered his pike and tapped himself on the chest with a grimy thumb. "I'm Camber Meld. That's Fleece Ironhill over there." He pointed toward a gray-bearded hill dwarf standing just ahead of a phalanx of armed soldiers. "We're chiefs of our people. We have

— er, had — villages a mile apart in the Vale of Respite. That's the next valley over. His people are herders. Mine are growers. Or were." He looked around, blankeyed. "I guess what you see is all that are left."

Chane stopped just a few paces from the leaders, looking from one to the other. "What happened?"

"They fell on us just at daybreak," the dwarven chief said. "An army of goblins and several ogres. First my village, then Camber's. We didn't have a chance."

"We fought," the man corrected. "For three days, we fought, first in the villages, then retreating up the slopes. But there were too many of them, and we weren't prepared for defense. There haven't ever been goblins around here, and not many ogres."

"But there are now," Fleece growled.

Chane stared at them bewildered. "What did they want? Why did they attack you?"

"Base for the Commander," the dwarven chief said.

"One of my herders hid in a ravine and heard some of them talking.

That's what they said. 'The Vale of Respite would serve as a base for the

Commander.' And they were taking slaves."

"Is that why they followed you over the ridge?" Chane asked.

"Ogres followed," the dwarven chief muttered. "Two of them, at least, though one may have stopped to torture a few of our people who fell behind. The other one was right behind us."

"Why do ogres follow anyone?" the human leader snarled at Chane. "To torture, to mutilate, to kill." He looked at Chane curiously. "But you got him, huh?"

"I didn't kill him," Chane said. "I tried to, but all I managed was to bury him under some rock."

"We irritated him, though," Chess said helpfully.

The dwarven chief also was gazing at Chane, studying him. 'You don't look like a hill dwarf," he said.

"I'm not. I'm from Thorbardin."

The hill dwarf sucked in his breath, his eyes narrowing to slits. He half-raised the axe he carried, then shrugged and let it down. "Mountain dwarf," he rumbled. "But I guess that war was over a long time ago."

Chane thought abruptly of the ice-field — only a few miles away — where two kinds of dwarves remained frozen in bloody, ancient conflict. "I hope so," he said.