The Last Thane

Chapter Twenty-eight
A Queen of the Dark Dwarves

Pounce Quickspring stared through the dusty smoke, trying to find some semblance of order in the teeming mass of Theiwar. Everywhere dark dwarves choked the crowded corridors, a mass of attackers that should have carried through every vestige of resistance. They had pushed and charged, followed the daemon warrior and killed the Hylar. By rights, the dark dwarves should have been approaching their moment of ultimate conquest.

But instead they were stuck here, pinned so tightly that the Theiwar had turned against each other, dwarf killing dwarf in an effort to make a little breathing room. The Daergar of Darkend Bellowsmoke had taken a different route, vanishing into the maze of this dying city. For once Pounce longed for word from his allies, for some sense of how the other dark dwarf clan fared. But there was nothing but this press of Theiwar, an attacking wedge that had somehow compressed itself into this narrow passageway.

The spellcasters among the Theiwar clan had exhausted their magic. A few of the arcane dwarves had vanished, using what spells they possessed in order to disappear. Others stared wildly around, eyes bright and mouths wide as they neared a state of frenzied panic. Weapons flashed here and there as the anxious warriors were quick to use violence against each other.

The blaze began at one end of the choked tunnel, a crimson wash of heat that blistered even from such a distance. The brightness was already painful, an assault against the dark-tuned eyes of the Theiwar. As it grew brighter, the light became heat, and the nervous fear grew to a mind-numbing terror.

When the dragon roared closer still, the intense heat seared through flesh and melted armor. Dark dwarves screamed and burned as they died, the stink of charred flesh spreading down the corridor and preceding the killing serpent by a mere fraction of a second. The monstrous, flaming creature flew down the narrow corridor over the heads of the Theiwar, rushing along like an explosive fireball that destroyed everything in its path.

Pounce Quickspring shrilled his cry of hatred, watching the death of his army until the flames embraced him.

In that grip of fire he perished.

"How many more of these stairs are we going to have to climb?" demanded Darkend as he slumped against the stone wall in an effort to draw several ragged gasps of breath. Behind him the legion of dark dwarves paused, taking advantage of their leader's fatigue to get some much needed rest for themselves.

"No more than five hundred; we're almost there," Garimeth said, infuriated with his ail-too-visible fatigue.

Couldn't he see? Didn't he understand? "We've got to keep moving! We don't have any other choice!"

In truth, Garimeth was more than angry. She was utterly terrified. Would the daemon warrior even notice her, much less hear her, now that she had lost the bronze artifact? She almost wailed aloud at the memory, the image of the Helm of Tongues stolen by a gully dwarf who had somehow tripped her and snatched it off her head. The thought still caused her to tremble with deep, abiding fear.

What if she did find Zarak Thuul, only to discover that he no longer knew who she was? She refused to let herself consider that possibility. Perhaps the helmet had enabled her to attract his attention, but surely they had established a bond that would not be sundered merely by the absence of a piece of metal, however arcane!

"Just keep climbing if you want to see anything left of your conquest. We have to get above Zarak Thuul to meet him before he destroys everything."

"As if there's any chance of that!" muttered Darkend.

She agonized over the deeper questions that she dared not voice aloud, questions that nevertheless were constantly whispering in her mind. Would the daemon warrior want her, even speak to her now that she did not wear the artifact of House Whitegranite?

In their wake came Slickblade and dozens of armored Daergar warriors, the elite cadre of Darkend's palace guard. The assassin muttered something to the thane, and Garimeth whirled under an onslaught of fresh suspicion.

"What is it?" she demanded.

"Slickblade suggests again that you betrayed me, and that you now betray us all," Darkend said coolly. "\ am wondering if he is right."

"He's a fool who's afraid for his own life," Garimeth retorted sharply. She allowed herself a hint of a smile, pleased with the self control that allowed her to mask her deepest doubts. The assassin was terrifyingly vague behind his mask, and she wanted nothing more than to kill him right now. "Remember, it was he who lied to you in Daerforge."

"Don't listen to her!" barked the assassin. "I tell you, lord, she is not to be trusted!"

"Thus speaks the failed killer, failed bodyguard!" she spat back, turning her back contemptuously to resume the climb.

After a few more steps she stopped and whirled back accusingly. "How could you let your master be attacked by a half-breed and a mob of Aghar?" She demanded scornfully, then fixed her purple eyes on Darkend. "And even then he let my son escape. I ask you, Brother: who is the traitor?"

"Enough! Keep going!" commanded the thane.

On one level they emerged from the stairs to seek water and rest their weary muscles. Here they found a whole rank of Daergar armor and weapons. The clutter of black metal had been cast across the street where the shadow-wights had claimed the flesh of the dark dwarf warriors. They saw movement, black and soundless forms slinking toward them from the alleys and streets of this level. The thane's party hastened back to the stairwell, preferring the interminable climb to battle with an apparently unstoppable foe.

"They've been everywhere. This is no conquest I am leading; we are merely the caretakers of disaster," Darkend moaned, utterly despairing.

Garimeth only kept climbing, step after endless step. Where was Zarak Thuul? Would he come? She didn't know, but understood that if he didn't, she would have no reason to continue living.

"This is it," she finally announced after an interminable interval.

The dark dwarves' legs were numb. The exhausted party all but stumbled as they emerged onto the wide avenue of Hybardin's Level Twenty-eight. Everywhere was silence and death.

"We're too late!" cried the female, looking up and down the street with a groan of despair. Where was he? Would he come to her? He must!

"My city! My splendid conquest! It's a ruin!" wailed Darkend, miserable at the knowledge of the lost riches, the treasures, the secrets, the potential slaves, all of it had vanished with the tide of Chaos.

Everywhere smoke swirled and broken rock littered the roadways and gardens. Dead dwarves-Hylar and Klar in equal numbers-were all over. An eerie silence filled the air with a sense of impending disaster. More and more frequently they found no bodies-only clothes, or armor and weapons scattered on the street where the owners had been sucked into nothingness. The shadows seemed to display no preference, sucking the lives of Hylar and dark dwarves with indiscriminate hunger.

"Follow me!" Garimeth somehow found the strength to run. She lurched weakly through the littered streets, turning down a side lane after she paused for a moment as if to make certain of where she was.

"Where is he? Zarak Thuul?" she cried.

Darkend stumbled along behind as they emerged into a large square where two wide streets came together.

"I used to live down there." Garimeth pointed down the street and frowned as she saw the front of Baker White-granite's house still standing.

"Never mind that. Where are we going? Where is Zarak Thuul?"

The Daergar gathered around the murky waters of a half-filled basin, looking, questioning, waiting for a decision.

"This was once a reflector pool," Garimeth said scornfully, though Darkend found it hard to imagine anything mirrored in the dark, sludgy liquid. "A watery trinket, kept for mere ornament."

"An utter waste!" declared the dark dwarf thane.

"And now it seems my husband hasn't tended to his city in my absence," she added with a twisted grin. "He has failed without me. He needed me in ways that I never needed him!"

"Forget that! We have to find Zarak Thuul!" demanded Darkend.

"Sire, could it be that she doesn't want you find him?" suggested Slickblade.

"That's ridiculous!" Garimeth was strangely terrified of the notion that she would never see the daemon warrior again. "I-we have to find him!"

"Do we?" the assassin questioned, his eyes shining through the slit of his black cloak. "I say to you, my lord, that you have trusted her too much."

"Aye, perhaps I have let myself be fooled," Darkend Bellowsmoke declared, swinging his mace free from his belt. "Kneel, Sister."

"Allow me to strike the blow, my lord," declared Slick-blade eagerly.

"No, she is my sister," the thane said solemnly. "I will do the killing!"

"But I did not betray you!" Garimeth moaned, sinking to her knees, looking up, pleading. "You saw with your own eyes. Zarak Thuul worked my will. I know he will help us again!"

Darkend raised his mace, his tusked helm stark and frightening as he stared down at his sister. With a sudden gesture, he whirled and brought the weapon down on Slickblade's head.

The assassin fell, killed instantly. The rest of the Daergar warriors gasped softly, astonished by the dire turnabout.

"Let that be the end of his whispering," the thane observed coolly. "He forgot that whispered words, like a snake held by the tail, can turn on the whisperer."

The dwarfwoman didn't pause to reflect on her miraculous survival. Instead, she rose and gestured to the house. "You have made the right decision as always, brother. I am grateful. Come with me."

In her mind was a thought. Perhaps Tarn had brought the helm here and delivered it to Baker. She could try to reason with her son. Surely Tarn would understand why she needed it so badly!

She went to the large wooden door, but found it locked. No one answered in response to her violent pounding, so Darkend ordered several of his warriors to smash in the portal. Soon the party entered the house, kicking through the debris left by the broken door and stalking through the hallways and rooms beyond.

"There's no one here," Garimeth said anxiously.

She started down a hallway but halted abruptly as they heard a deep growling outside the house. They hastened back to the doorway, looking out to see a haze of fire roaring through the street.

"Primus!" she cried, as the fire dragon halted before them, furling his flaming wings.

A tall, dark form stalked forward, emerging from the bright background to loom before the two Daergar. The daemon warrior's eyes glowed, sparks of impersonal fire that flickered from one dark dwarf to the other.

"Zarak Thuul! We have found you!" cried Darkend triumphantly. He turned importantly to his sister. "Tell our great servant-our friend-that the attack is finished and we are very grateful for his help. But tell him he must wait, must hold any further attack until my dwarves have had a chance to consolidate our occupation."

"Please accept our humble gratitude," she began, looking into those feral eyes of fire, seeking some hint of the previous pleasures that had flickered there before. "And please know me, remember me, hear me, all-powerful one."

"Of course I hear you. I have always heard you. But I see you now with different eyes, and I think that you no longer entertain me." The daemon warrior's reply had come in perfect mountain dwarven, right down to the tone of insolent contempt.

"Zarak Thuul, look at me, know me!" Garimeth protested, throwing herself on the ground before the monstrous black being and reaching out her hands. She dared to touch the massive, taloned feet. "Please, grant me your favor once more."

"I shall do one thing for you, dwarfwoman. Rise."

Slowly, tremulously, she lifted herself to her knees, then stood staring upward at the immaculate beauty of his dark form. She thrilled as those fiery eyes dropped to regard her, shivered as that consuming gaze once again washed over her flesh.

"I am yours, mighty lord!" she cried, throwing her arms wide, offering herself willingly to this creature of Chaos.

"It pleases me to touch you again, to give you the stroke of my greatness." Zarak Thuul flicked a great claw, slicing into Garimeth's neck.

"I don't understand!" she cried, stumbling back, recoiling more from disappointment than from the force of the blow. Her vision blurred, light swam before her eyes, and she looked down in disbelief, watching as her lifeblood spilled into the street before Baker Whitegranite's house.

Interlude of Chaos

What did 1 ever see in that insect? Zarak Thuul was angry at the dwarfwoman and angry at himself for allowing himself to be deceived, to think that she was something mightier than she really had been. Without that strange helmet, she was pathetic-a silly mortal like all the rest.

Then Zarak Thuul threw back his head and laughed, knowing the deception didn't matter, that nothing mattered. And now it was time to finish this dwarven city and proceed to all the other cities of Thorbardin, to reduce them to rubble.

In truth, the female had been an interesting diversion, nothing more. She had intrigued him for a time, and it had pleased him to do the work that she desired. Something about her had touched him briefly, but that was gone. Instead, she had been proved feeble, just as utterly useless as any other mortal.

And now his power would be truly unleashed. This realm of dwarves would suffer as it had never suffered before. There was much for him to do, and he would continue until all this realm of shadow was reduced to a place of death, horror, chaos.