The Swordsheath Scroll

18

In a snow-dusted mountain glade nine miles south of Tharkas, fourteen dwarves huddled around a little fire, sharing blankets from the day packs of three horses that stood head-low and exhausted a few yards away. Some of the dwarves had wounds, which others worked to bind the wounds with bits of torn fabric, snippets of leather, and tree bark.

Helta Graywood, her left cheek covered with a plaster of moss and mud, sat on a stone beside the fire, bathing Derkin Hammerhand's brow and right temple with a moist rag. His head rested on her lap. Nearby lay his polished helm, its right template scarred and dented. Grazed by a two-hundred-pound stone from a catapult, the old helmet-of long-ago Hylar craftsmanship-had saved his life, though he had only recently regained consciousness after several hours of nothingness. Now, as Helta bathed the crusted blood from his head, Talon Oakbeard-Third of the Ten-knelt beside him, talking in a low, tired voice.

"It was Helta who saved you," Talon said. "Most of us were knocked off the wall by that stone. We were all stunned, I guess. I think I was crawling around trying to see who else was alive and trying to remember what had happened. And there were people everywhere, all packed together, close behind the wall. Then I heard somebody say that you were dead, and all of a sudden Helta was there, with another woman. They were pushing people aside, and I saw your red cloak. Tap Tolec came and helped them. I started toward you, too, but just then a catapult stone fell from the sky. It brushed Tap, knocked him aside, and fell right on top of the woman with Helta."

Pain slitting his eyes, Derkin looked up at the girl's face. A huge tear welled from her eye, disappearing into the mud poultice on her cheek. "Nadeen," she said. "The stone fell and crushed her."

"Then more stones fell," Talon muttered. "The humans must have lofted their shots nearly straight up. Those stones began falling like rain, and there was no protection from them. I remember…" He sniffed, his voice breaking, then cleared his throat and went on. "Everybody was trying to hug the wall, climbing over one another. I was helping Tap get to his feet when I looked around, and there you were, fifty yards up the pass. Helta had you by one arm. She was dragging you, pulling you away from the raining stones. It was…" His voice broke again. "We went after you, Tap and I, and Brass Darkwood. Brass didn't make it. A few others followed, and some of us got saddles onto a few horses. We all climbed on… we could hear the stones still falling behind us. All those people… but there was nothing we could do. Nothing but try to get away."

"How many got away?" Derkin asked, his voice a harsh rasp.

"Those you see here," Talon said, stifling a sob of anger. "Just us, and Tap. We bound his arm, then he took one of the horses and went to catch up with Vin and the rest. He's probably found them by now."

"Just these?" Derkin whispered, looking around. "Only these escaped?"

"No one else." Talon shook his head miserably. "We were just beyond the cedars when I heard the stoning let up. I hung back for a minute to see. Those… those men came over that wall like a flood. Then they drew swords and began killing everyone who was still moving."

Derkin looked around the little camp again, his eyes stricken with grief. "Only these," he whispered. "All the Red-and-Grays… and Nadeen and… and Calan Silver-toe? What of Calan?"

"A stone," Helta said. "I saw it hit him."

"And you…?" Derkin looked up at her, then reached up and eased back the mud poultice with gentle fingers. He winced and eased it back into place. Something, maybe a shard of stone-had left its mark on Helta Gray-wood. The prettiest girl Derkin had ever seen would never again be beautiful. The hideous, torn wound across her little cheek would leave an ugly scar for the rest of her life.

"Lord Kane," Derkin whispered. "Lord Kane betrayed his pledge."

Sounds came on the wind then-the sounds of thousands of marching dwarves. A few minutes later Vin the Shadow and Tap Tolec were kneeling beside Derkin, deep concern in their eyes.

"Hammerhand will be all right," Helta Graywood said. "His helmet saved him."

"His helmet and his woman," Talon Oakbeard murmured.

Wincing at the ache in his head, Derkin sat upright, then struggled to his feet. For a moment he staggered drunkenly. But then he steadied himself and planted his hands on his hips.

"Lord Kane pledged a truce," he rasped. "Lord Kane has broken his pledge." For long moments, Derkin stood, deep in thought, as more and more of his people gathered around him. Then he raised his head, and his voice. "Let there be these laws among the Chosen Ones," he said. 'Three laws for ourselves, and one for our enemies. Let no dwarf of the Chosen speak falsely to any other of the Chosen. Let no dwarf of the Chosen act unjustly toward any other of the Chosen. Let no dwarf of the Chosen take from any other of the Chosen anything that is not willingly given."

"Let it be so," dozens of voices around him responded, while others farther away echoed them.

"Those are our three laws then," Tap Tolec asserted. "Good laws. Don't lie, don't cheat, don't steal. And the fourth law, Hammerhand? The one for our enemies?

"Let our enemies know, from this time forward," Derkin proclaimed, "that we will retaliate. For betrayal, for murder, for trespass… When the people of Kal-Thax are wronged, we shall always retaliate."

"And how are our enemies to know that?" someone asked.

"By example," Derkin said. "We will give them an example."

Hammerhand left two thousand people in the mountain glade-the injured, the frail and infirm, all of the women and children, and enough warriors to guard and care for them. With the rest of his army, he headed north under leaden skies that veiled the mountain terrain with winter's first flurries. Gone now were the brilliant colors of the regiments, the bright fabrics, the burnished armor. With resins and ash, with mineral spirits and crushed firestone, they had concocted dyes and paints. Now the entire army was garbed in blacks, browns, and grays-the colors of anger, of determination, and of mourning.

At Tharkas Pass they found no one living-only the mutilated, frozen bodies of the dwarves who had fallen there. Working in stone-faced silence, the dwarves buried their dead. Under a sheer stone cliff a short distance south of the still-standing wall, they laid the corpses out in dignified rows and ranks and removed their helms while Derkin called upon Reorx-and any other gods worthy of the name-to accept these honored dead with the respect they deserved.

When the brief ceremony was done, expert stonecutters and delvers clambered up the cliff's face. Fifty feet above the floor of the pass, they broke and shattered the stone so that it fell in a rain of rubble, covering and burying the bodies below.

Then Derkin replaced his helm, straightened his armor, and mounted his horse. It took three hours for the entire army to pass through the narrow gate in the wall. Daylight was beginning to fade, the clouds were dark and low, and each gust of wind whining in the pass carried fitful flurries of snow. When they were all through the gate, they closed it and headed north.

Derkin was not surprised that the humans had left the pass, and left the wall standing. Winter was coming on, and humans feared the mountain winters. Undoubtedly Lord Kane felt he had rid himself of dwarves and could wait for spring to open the pass.

All along the way, Derkin conferred with his unit leaders and with those who had served as sentinels above Klanath. Just at full dusk, they came out of the pass on a wide, sloping shelf overlooking the city directly ahead. Usually, this shelf below the pass was a busy place. Here stood Klanath's slaughtering pens, butcher stalls and tanneries, and the mills that ground the grain of those in the city. But now, as the dwarves had anticipated, the slope was deserted. It was nightfall, of a blustery winter day, and all who could would be behind closed doors, staying close to their hearths.

The usual perimeter guards would be in place, of course, and the strong guard forces of Lord Kane's compound. But out here on Slaughterhouse Shelf, there was nothing worth guarding on such a night.

Looking down on the snow-misted city, lying like a soiled crazy quilt beneath the low clouds and its own smoke, many of Derkin's army felt a twinge of doubt. Wedge Stonecut, a young dwarf who found himself now a member of the Ten, muttered, "It's so big… and all spread out. How does one attack a thing like that?"

"The way one attacks anything too big to wrestle," Talon Oakbeard said ironically. "Ignore its body and go straight for the head."

Hushed commands rippled through the massed units, and a company of nearly a thousand Daergar moved forward, led by Vin the Shadow. Most of these Daergar had been slaves in Klanath's mines years earlier, and none of them had forgotten the treatment given them by their human overlords. Now, grim and determined, they ranked themselves before Derkin Hammerhand and raised dark-steel blades in salute. All of them had their boots bound in fabric to still their footfalls, and all of them had removed their metal masks. Large, wide-set eyes glittered in shadowy, feral faces as they looked toward the waiting city.

Derkin returned their salute and nodded to his right, where several dwarves were pouring sand into a tin funnel set on a little platform of withes. "One hour's sand," he said to Vin the Shadow. "Then we will follow."

"An hour is enough," the Daergar said. "With Reorx's aid, or even without it, we can clear a fine passage in an hour."

"For Kal-Thax," Derkin said.

"ForKal-Thax."

Like silent shadows in the gloom, the Daergar slipped away toward the outskirts of Klanath.

"I wouldn't like to be a human guard in a dark place on this night," Wedge Stonecut breathed. 'They say a Daergar can see when there is no light at all."

"Did you notice the blades they carried?" Talon asked. 'Those curved, dark-steel swords… where did they get them?"

A few feet away, Derkin Hammerhand turned. "They've always had them, wrapped and hidden away. They've taken them out now, in honor of Lord Kane."

"They honor the human?" Talon asked, puzzled.

"In their way. It was the custom of Daergar long ago to carry such blades. They are as light as daggers, very swift and very sharp. And once drawn, they were never sheathed again until they had tasted blood."

"I wouldn't want to be a guard in that city tonight," Wedge Stonecut muttered, repeating himself.

As the sands flowed through the little funnel, Klanath dozed below Slaughterhouse Shelf. No outcries came from there, no trumpets or bells sounded, no slightest alarm. Except for having seen them go, the waiting army would have had no hint that a thousand dark-seeing Daergar now roamed those ways, doing their bloody work.

The funnel emptied itself, and Derkin climbed aboard his horse, looking around judiciously as other dark forms mounted behind him. Then he waved his footmen forward. No battle cries came from the thousands streaming down the slope now. Hammerhand had ordered silence, and the Chosen Ones complied.

Derkin waited until his foot legions were at the outskirts of the city, entering the dozen dingy streets that led toward Lord Kane's compound, then he and his horse companies moved out. For the first two hundred yards, they walked their mounts. Then at the bottom of the slope Derkin urged his horse to a trot, and all around him rose the muted thunder of hundreds of horses stepping up their pace. At the outskirts of the sprawling city, a few doors and shutters opened as the sound carried to them. Human faces peered out, then shutters were slammed and bolts were dropped into place. Most of the residents of Klanath probably had no idea what they had seen, but they wanted no part of it.

Along three narrow streets the mounted dwarves trotted, as long minutes passed. At a torchlit intersection Derkin saw a pair of Klanath guards lying in their own blood, and just beyond them at least a dozen more. No steam rose from the gaping, slitted throats of the men. The bodies were already beginning to cool. The Daergar had wasted no time opening a path for Hammerhand.

Sooty snow flurried and gusted along the streets, and the shacks and sheds became more densely clustered. Here they found more bodies-some in guard uniform and some not. And just ahead, there was the ring of steel on steel. The first footmen had reached the compound gates. But the sounds of combat were brief. A few clashes of steel, then a few more, and a series of muffled shrieks. Then the riders heard the distinct creaking sounds of great weighted gates being opened.

"At the gallop!" Hammerhand roared, and spurred his mount. The great horse, and all those behind it, bunched powerful haunches and leapt forward at a run. For a hundred feet, the three horse companies charged along parallel streets, then the streets converged, and the compound's wall lay just ahead. A pair of wide gates stood open, with thousands of armed dwarves pouring through. As the reunited horse battalion thundered toward them, the footmen spread to each side. Hundreds of charging horses thundered through, each rider shifting to one side of his saddle as a running footman swung aboard and clambered up the other side.

Within the compound, human soldiers were pouring from every barracks and redoubt, many of them only partially dressed, but all wielding shields and swords. But their resistance was puny against the overwhelming might of the dwarven forces. Faster than sleepy human companies could get themselves organized, solid ranks of dwarves swept through them, hacking and slicing. Somewhere a trumpet blared, then another and another, and torches came alive on the battlements of Lord Kane's palace fortress in the middle of the compound.

Leaving the panicked soldiers to the mercies of his footmen, Derkin led his horse company at full charge directly toward the open gateway of the main palace, where torches flared and chains began to rattle as surprised gatekeepers bent to their winches-far too late. The entire horse battalion thundered past the portcullis and into the inner courtyard, sending human guards and gate tenders flying in all directions.

The household guard, the most elite of all Lord Kane's forces, was just issuing from its halls when the courtyard abruptly filled with horses and dwarves. Better trained than the outside companies, these soldiers-led by a man with a scarred face-mounted a fierce defense. For long minutes, the battle swept this way and that through the courtyard, guards grouping and regrouping, fighting desperately while the dwarves thundered about, ranks and disciplined lines of hoofed fury, armored horses with death clinging to each side of their saddles.

Derkin had ridden halfway around the courtyard, shouting commands and wielding shield and hammer, when a human guard appeared from a niche, thrusting a deadly pike. Derkin heard the weapon strike the footman opposite him and felt the saddle shift as the dwarf fell away. With a kick, Derkin swung himself up into the saddle and struck downward. The pikeman didn't even have time to blink before a heavy hammer crushed his helmet and the skull beneath it.

Wheeling his horse, Derkin swung this way and that, searching. Then he saw what he was looking for. Below the tallest corner tower, a clot of humans was retreating slowly toward a stone gate, while dwarven riders hacked away at them. With a shout, Derkin reined toward that place, dropping from his saddle as he neared it. Behind him, the Ten did likewise, landing catlike on sturdy legs as their tall mounts clattered away. "The door!" Derkin shouted. "Secure that door!"

Afoot, Hammerhand and his newly reformed guard, the Ten, raced toward the archway. The soldiers there, concentrating on the pressing riders, weren't aware of the eleven afoot until they were among them, cutting a gory path through their formation. With shield and sword, hammer and axe, propelled by their own momentum, Hammerhand and the Ten plowed completely through the rank of defenders as the oaken door within the archway closed in their faces… but not quite. From somewhere just behind Derkin, a short, sturdy form hurtled forward, throwing itself into the narrowing gap. Stone and oak timbers closed on armor plate and stopped. Through the gap, Derkin saw a blade lash out and downward, and blood spurted.

He had no chance to see who had stopped the door. At full speed, he and the others with him hit the portal, massive shoulders flinging it back. The dwarves burst through into a large, brightly lit hall where men were scurrying about. Most of the men were unarmed, dressed as clerks or servants, and several of them shrieked and dived for cover as the door slammed open. Among them were soldiers, though, and these drew their weapons.

Derkin glanced from face to face, searching. He had seen Sakar Kane only a few times, and always from a distance, but he would know the face of the tyrant if he saw him. But all the faces he saw were strange to him. Backing away a step, Hammerhand knelt quickly at the doorway and looked down at the dead dwarf lying there, still in the portal. It was Wedge Stonecut, the young volunteer who had been so proud to become one of the Ten. Standing, Derkin pulled the body in through the doorway, then turned and closed the door. It muffled the clamor of battle in the courtyard beyond. Its heavy bar, as he dropped it into place, had a hollow, ominous sound.

Holding his shield and hammer, Derkin Hammerhand strode forward. Fourteen household guards, unnerved at his calm, grim appearance, hesitated and backed away a step. He took another long look around the Great Hall, then demanded, "Where is Sakar Kane?"

No one answered him. The guards were edging forward now, raising their weapons. "Which of you killed Wedge Stonecut?" Derkin demanded.

Again there was no answer, but he needed none. Among the guards was one whose blade still dripped with dwarven blood. For only an instant Derkin gazed at the man, then he spun full around, and his arm lashed out. The hammer flew from his hand, made one quick flip in the air, and smashed into the man's face. As the guard sprawled backward, dead, Derkin drew his sword. Flanked by the Nine, he charged the remaining guards.