The Swordsheath Scroll

14

It was after sundown when Lord Kane's Third horse Battalion came within sight of the barbarians' camp. The wide plains here, below the Kharolis foothills, could fool the eye. What had appeared to be campfire smoke four or five miles away had proven to be campfire smoke nearly fifteen miles away. But now they were within a mile, and in the mountain-shadowed light of evening, the soldiers could see the fires beneath the smoke.

"About a hundred savages," a lieutenant remarked, riding beside the battalion's leader, Commander Tulien Gart. "That's what the footmen back there estimated. I see nine or ten separate fires, and that's about right for a camp of that size. What do we do with them when we have them?"

"We shall have to kill some of them, I suppose," the commander said, his austere features showing his distaste. As a proud soldier and descendant of knights, Gart found no honor in harassing simple barbarians. "They'll fight when we fall upon them, but we shall take as many prisoners as possible." Privately, he wondered if sparing any of their lives was a kindness. As prisoners, they would become the property of Lord Sakar Kane. The prince would likely use them as examples-a message to any other savages who might think of attacking an empire march.

"These plainsmen have fast horses," the lieutenant noted. "If they see us coming, they'll run."

"We'll wait until just dark, to attack," Gart decided. "I want no talking, no clattering armor, no sound at all from this point. We proceed in silence, by hand signal only. Pass the word to all units. Silent approach, then at my signal spread, form, and charge."

The lieutenant grinned and saluted, reining his mount around. 'The savages will never know what hit them," he said.

As darkness fell across the rolling plains, the members of the Third Battalion walked their mounts up a grassy swell. They paused there, spreading and wheeling into a long line, facing the peaceful camp three hundred yards away. Signals were relayed from the center by platoon officers, and each soldier carefully removed the mufflings and strappings from his armor and the armor of his horse. Such muffling was necessary for a silent approach by an armored unit, but would only get in the way in a charge.

With shields and lances at the ready, the line of horsemen waited, squinting, peering at the little camp. It looked as though no alarm had been given. The fires were burning low, and a few recumbent figures sprawled near some of the fires or sat in the entrances of the three or four little shelters that were visible in the firelight. No sentries were visible, and no one seemed to be doing anything beyond just sitting around, enjoying the evening breeze.

"Poor, ignorant savages," Commander Gart muttered, raising his arm. "This won't take any effort at all." All along the line, lieutenants raised their arms, ready to relay his signal.

"And to think we get paid for this," a soldier whispered somewhere.

The evening had darkened, and the time was as good as any. With a sigh of anticipation, Tulien Gart brought his arm down and forward, and put spurs to his startled mount. The big horse gathered its haunches and surged forward in a fast trot that became a belly-down run. To the right and left, the entire line moved in unison with the commander, and the quiet of evening erupted into a thunder of hooves and a rattling of mail.

In nine seconds, the thundering line had gone a hundred yards. In seven more seconds it covered the second hundred, and six seconds later it smashed into the little camp, a wide, sweeping juggernaut of armored men and armored horses, bristling with leveled lances. Fires were scattered by flailing hooves and smothered by rising clouds of dust. Tents and lean-tos collapsed and were trampled into the soil. Lances pierced the reclining figures, vaguely seen in the turmoil, and voices were raised in surprise. "What is this, anyway?" a soldier shouted. "This isn't a man! It's nothing but a straw dummy!" "Same over here!" another responded. "Where are they?"

"Dismount and search!" Tulien Gart ordered. "Find them! Find their tracks!"

"They can't have gone very far," a lieutenant noted. "These fires have been tended within the past hour."

For a time, the entire Third Battalion was afoot, torches held high and swords in gauntleted hands, searching.

Tulien Gart stood in the center of the ruined dummy camp, shouting commands as the search widened, then widened again. But when an hour passed with nothing found, he sighed and called them all back in. "We'll camp here tonight," he decided. "It's too dark to move. In the morning, we'll find their trail."

The battalion was just building its fires when an ashen-faced brace of lieutenants hurried up to Tulien Gart and saluted. "We're missing some horses, sir," one of them said.

"And we know where the savages have gone," the other added.

Gart stared at them. "Missing… horses? How many horses, and what became of them?"

"About twenty, it looks like." A lieutenant shrugged. "We're still counting."

"Why are we missing twenty horses?" Gart snapped.

"They were stolen, sir," a lieutenant said, scuffling his steel-shod feet. "While we were searching around the camp, it looks as though some of the plainsmen just walked in and led them away. There was a lot of confusion and…"

"Gods!" Gart stormed. "I'll want the name of every horse handler on duty during that search." He cursed for several seconds, a stream of carefully chosen invectives that was an education to some of his younger personnel. Then he turned again to the pair of lieutenants. "You said you know where the savages are?"

"Yes, sir," one of them replied.

"Well, where?"

The soldier turned and pointed eastward. "Over there, sir," he said.

Gart looked, and began swearing again. There, out on the prairie, were the lights of fresh fires, a night camp being prepared. In the prairie distance, the little camp might have been only a mile or so away. Or it might have been fifteen or twenty miles.

"Well, that was entertaining," Tuft Broadland said to Despaxas as they sipped hot ale beside a fresh fire. "And we picked up twenty-three horses in the bargain."

"Will they follow?" the elf asked.

"Of course they will. They can see us as well as we can see them, and those Ergothians have no eye for distance. They'll wait for morning, then they'll come clanking and crashing after us. I think tomorrow it might be nice if a few of them happen to fall into a pit or something, just to keep them interested. And maybe we'll put a few more of them afoot. Gods, it must be uncomfortable, walking in cavalry armor, carrying those horseback shields and heavy lances! But of course they won't discard as much as a gauntlet or brace. That would be disgraceful!" He grinned wolfishly.

"Can your people take it from here?" the elf asked. "I mean, without your presence, can your warriors keep those soldiers occupied for a week or so?"

"Of course," Tuft assured him. "One thing about empire troops, you can count on them. In a close chase, it will be several days before they'll admit to themselves that they're being dawdled. And by that time, they'll be at least a week's travel from where they came from. But why do you ask?"

"I promised you a chance to observe Derkin's army," Despaxas said. "If you'd like, we can go now."

"To Tharkas?" Tuft inquired. "Yes, I'd like to see what that sourpuss dwarf is up to. We can be there in a couple of days."

"No, I said 'now,' " the elf corrected. "Zephyr is close by. In his own plane, he is a great wizard. As a verger, he can lift us from one place to another in a. moment by wrapping us in his wings."

"Absolutely not!" the Cobar snapped. "I'll be hanged if I'll let myself be wrapped in fish wings."

"Then I'll transport us myself." Despaxas shrugged. "Transport is a simple enough spell."

The man glared at him across the fire. "I know about your transport spells," he reminded the elf. "They make people dizzy."

"It only lasts a moment," Despaxas said.

"I'm not going anywhere without a horse under me!" the Cobar growled. "Being afoot is for Sackmen and Ergothians."

Despaxas smiled-an innocent, disarming smile. "Then get your horse," he said.

In the span of a single day, the floor of Tharkas Pass had become a beehive of activity. Thousands of bustling, busy dwarves worked in the shadows of the great, precipitous walls of the pass, barely four miles from Lord Kane's stronghold at Klanath.

At the place where a dwarf named Cale Greeneye had driven a metal spike centuries earlier, marking the boundary of the dwarven land of Kal-Thax, the Chosen Ones worked at building a massive stone wall. By the hundreds, dwarven workmen disassembled the stone walls three miles south at Tharkas Camp, while hundreds of others loaded the great stones onto stone-boats. With teams of oxen, bison, and even a few elk, dwarven teamsters hauled the stones into Tharkas Pass.

Within the pass, at the site Derkin Hammerhand had selected, stonemasons recut, sized, and drilled the great blocks of solid rock, hoisted them with winches and slings, and set them in place while hundreds more scurried about, fitting each joint with "pegs" of iron bar to secure them. Every stone weighed at least a thousand pounds, and some weighed a ton. With blocks of such size, human builders would have settled for mortared joints and relied on the weight of the materials to make the wall secure. But these were not humans. These were dwarves, and they held to the dwarven philosophy of construction: if you can't build it right, don't build it at all.

Nothing short of an earthquake would ever move this wall so much as an inch, once it was completed.

The pass at this point was only sixty feet wide at the bottom, and the growing wall extended from one side to the other, completely closing it off except for a reinforced gap in the center where a narrow gate would be hung. Within the space of a day, the wall was two tiers high-shoulder-high to its builders-and Derkin's masons estimated that it would be at least twenty feet high before they ran out of prequarried stone. Twenty feet was not as high as Derkin envisioned the great wall, but it would be a start. Within a week or a little more, Tharkas Pass would be closed to casual travel. The single gate, made of steel-reinforced timbers, would be four feet wide and nine feet tall. Once the wall was up, and the gate closed and guarded, nothing less than an all-out siege would open northern Kal-Thax to outsiders again. The wall would not be impenetrable-not as Thorbardin was-but it would be a formidable obstacle to any who tried to enter uninvited.

Throughout the day, the dwarves had worked. Now as evening shadows darkened the pass, they changed shifts. Those of Daewar, Theiwar, and Klar ancestry were replaced by dwarves of Daergar ancestry, whose eyes were sensitive in daylight but excellent at night. In this way, the work would continue without stop until the task was finished. Torches were lighted for the day's last caravan of stone-boats, and these were being hauled into place for unloading when, abruptly, chaos broke out in the pass just a few paces south of the rising wall.

Where there had been only empty ground just moments ago, between groves of mountain spruce, suddenly there was a bucking, pitching horse with a man clinging to its light saddle. Dwarves by the hundreds turned to stare at the unexpected sight as the horse spun and danced, rearing and bucking enthusiastically. The man on its back clung grimly, shouting curses and threats as he tried to bring it under control. Dozens of dwarves had grabbed weapons and begun closing in on the spectacle when a second figure appeared out of nowhere-a cloaked, hooded figure that was obviously not a dwarf. The second apparition gazed at the bucking horse and its clinging, swearing rider for a moment, then turned and raised a hand toward the surrounding dwarves.

In the crowd, blades flashed and slings began to hum. Then Derkin Hammerhand strode forward, turned full around, and commanded, "Hold your weapons! These are not enemies!"

"Hello, Derkin," the cloaked figure said. "It has been a long time."

"Despaxas." Derkin nodded. "Calan said he thought you might come." He pointed at the still-pitching horse and its angry rider. "What's going on here?"

"Horses don't like transport spells." The elf shrugged. 'They usually act up a bit upon arrival."

It took more than a minute for the man to bring his horse under control, and when he was once again in charge he swung down from his saddle and pointed an angry finger at Despaxas. "You knew that would happen," he snarled. "Why didn't you warn me?"

Despaxas shrugged eloquently. "You said you wouldn't go anywhere without a horse under you," he purred. "And far be it from me to try to tell a Cobar anything about horses."

For a moment, the man glared as though he were contemplating murder. Then he shook his head. "Crazy elf," he muttered. He turned, his eyes roving the crowds of dwarves all around, then turning upward toward the shadowy stone that climbed skyward on both sides. "Where are we?" he asked.

"In Tharkas Pass," Despaxas said. "At the place where a dwarf once marked the border of his homeland."

"And where is…" His eyes lit on the sturdy, red-cloaked figure of the dwarven leader and blinked. "Derkin? Is that you?"

"Hello, Tuft Broadland," the dwarf said.

"Well! You certainly have changed, these past years. I hardly knew you."

"We all change," Derkin said, then glanced at the elf. "Well, most of us do anyway. Come with me. Our main camp is just at the south end of the pass, where there's water. You two can tell me all the latest news. I understand the war on the plains is still going on?"

"And on, and on," Tuft said bleakly.

"Well, we'll eat, and you can tell me about it. Tomorrow I'll show you what we're doing here."

In the busy, crowded dwarven camp, people stared at the human and the elf with surly suspicion until Derkin made it clear to everyone that they were his guests. Then it seemed the dwarves couldn't do enough for them. They crowded around with platters of roast meat, freshly baked dark bread, and tankards of ale. Tuft marveled at the sumptuous feast that seemed to be ordinary fare for these people. "How do you do it?" he asked Derkin. "I mean, I see an army here, but where does the food come from?"

"You only see about a third of us here," Derkin told him. "We have farms and granaries all over southwest of here and herds in every valley. Armies must have food and provisions, so the Chosen Ones are more than an army. They have become an entire people. The first year after we freed ourselves from the empire's mines-the last time you saw us-we devoted our efforts and time mostly to gathering those Neidar who wanted to go with us and to scouting new trails and territories. The Neidar have been a scattered people, which is why so many of them wound up as slaves in the human mines… that, and the fact that Thorbardin didn't protect them as it was supposed to. But they aren't scattered now. And they aren't slaves, either."

Helta Graywood came from a shelter, carrying blankets for them to sit on while they ate. Tuft grinned at the girl and bowed slightly. "I remember you," he said.

"Everybody always remembers Helta," Derkin said softly.

"But she wears no token," the Cobar noted. "Haven't you married her yet?"

"No, he hasn't," Helta said. "I've told him a dozen times to marry me, but he puts me off. He says he won't commit to anything except reclaiming Kal-Thax. He's stubborn, among other things."

And stupid, too, Tuft thought, but kept the notion to himself. Most of the dwarven women he had seen were far from beautiful, at least to his human eyes. But Helta Graywood was a striking exception.

Old Calan Silvertoe joined them, then, and they spread their blankets beside a fresh fire. Finishing off a roasted haunch of some delicious meat, Tuft said to Derkin, "I'd like to see your settlement in the wilderness. You people must be doing wonders there."

"No human has seen what we are doing out there," the dwarf said levelly, "and none will. But if you people ever get through with your stupid war, you'll see the results. We intend to open trade routes and trading centers-east, west, and north."

"That's after you reclaim Kal-Thax, of course," the Cobar said bluntly.

"Of course. That's what we're doing now. That's why we're building a wall."

"The land you're claiming-or reclaiming-is territory that Lord Kane considers his own," Despaxas said. "The Emperor Ullves granted it to him."

"Then the Emperor Ullves lied to him," Derkin said. "This land is ours. It was never his to grant, and never will be."

"You think a wall is going to stop Lord Kane from trying to take back what he considers his?" Tuft asked.

"Maybe not." Derkin shrugged. "Walls are like fences. They are built primarily to keep neighbors out. But they don't mean much to enemies."

"Then what's the purpose of it?"

"It will slow him down, at least," the dwarf said.

"You'll have to fight him," the elf said quietly.

Derkin studied them both with shrewd, dark eyes that were far more experienced than the same eyes had been just a few seasons before. His scrutiny also fell on Calan Silvertoe. "I expect to," he said. "And I'm beginning to understand why each of you was so anxious to help me before… and why you want to encourage me now."

"What you are doing here will help us in our war against the invaders," Despaxas said. "There's no secret about that."

"But I wonder if you-any of you-understand that I want no part of your war," Derkin growled.

"You didn't want to be anybody's leader either," Calan Silvertoe reminded him. "Sometimes there isn't much choice about things like that."

Derkin turned away, yawning, ignoring him. But he caught the glance that passed between Despaxas and Calan Silvertoe and felt a sudden coldness in his bones. They knew. The old, one-armed dwarf and the ageless elf, they knew what Derkin knew but didn't want to admit, even to himself. The human lord of Klanath would see Derkin's wall not as a boundary, but as a challenge. He almost certainly would not choose to turn away and leave Kal-Thax alone.

In the deepening night, muffled drums sang their songs through the mountains. Drums that Hylar crafters had taught Derkin to build and use as a boy-as his Hylar ancestors had always built and used them-and that Despaxas the elf had taught him a new song for, somewhere in the wilderness. The song of Balladine.

Now the drums were signaling, as they always signaled. Derkin's people-and the far-ranging Neidar who had joined them-now numbered some twenty thousand. The nine thousand here at Tharkas were the Chosen Ones, the fighting core of what had become a new and widespread clan. Most of the rest were in the wilderness, near a place called Sheercliff, though some were still farther west, staking out territory for a future trade center to be called Barter.

They were far separated in miles, but not in mind, and the drums carried their messages back and forth through the mountains.