The Swordsheath Scroll

5

"No, I won't tell you about our mission," Tuft Broadland said for the third time, ignoring Derkin's ferocious frown. "Pass the bread, please."

Derkin broke a piece from the dark loaf on the table and handed the rest across. "You won't tell me what you and your friends are doing in these mountains, but still you expect me to let you wander around loose? You expect me to trust you?"

"After all," the man said, "I did save your life out there a while ago. That last guard would have killed you."

"He wouldn't have known I was there if it hadn't been for you crashing through the brush behind me," Derkin rumbled. "You're about as stealthy as a blind buffalo."

"I tripped," Tuft protested. "I'm not used to tilted places. Where I'm from the ground is flat, as the gods intended ground to be. But be that as it may, that last guard would have skewered you like a sausage on a stick if I hadn't put an arrow through his gullet." He glanced around, and said, "Leave the bow and arrows alone, ladies. They're mine. Help yourselves to the rest, though."

All around them dwarven women were tying up their skirts, braiding their hair, choosing weapons from the pile the man had brought in, and generally getting ready to do battle. A clatter erupted as someone dropped a sword on the hard floor, and Tuft Broadland jumped to his feet, narrowly missing banging his still sore head on a low rafter.

"Quiet, please!" he ordered. "Remember, there are still a lot of empiremen out there. If they wake up too soon, we'll have a problem." Tuft picked up the dropped sword, reversed it, and handed it to a scowling female. "Here, let me show you how to hold this," he offered.

At the table, Derkin finished his bread and washed it down with tepid water. Then he noticed that the pretty one, Helta somebody, was staring at him thoughtfully. As he met her eyes, she shook her head and shrugged. "You certainly don't look much like I expected," she explained.

"You expected me?"

"Well, not exactly," she admitted. "But I've been hoping that someone would come along and rescue us. Only, I had a somewhat different picture of who it would be. I expected someone handsome and charming and elegant, all dressed in shining armor and… and… well, what I mean is, you're kind of a mess. And if you have a charming side, I haven't noticed it yet."

With a growl, Derkin shoved himself away from the table and strode across to peer out through the broken shutters of a window. "Those two cabins out there," he said. "I saw men go into them. Are they all in there?"

"All but the six night guards," Helta said, crowding against him to point. "Those are the only two cabins with wood floors. I guess humans like wooden floors. The guardsmen sleep in that farther one-the largest-and the mine overseers sleep in the nearer one. What are we going to do about them?"

"Kill them," he said distractedly. "Be quiet. I'm trying to think." He rubbed his bearded chin, his brow wrinkling. "Be a lot easier if they were all in the same cabin."

"Well, they're not," Helta said. "They always use those two."

"I said, be quiet," he growled. Then, to himself, he said, "Twelve more armed guards, and a dozen slavers. And not a thing to work with but a handful of women."

"And a Cobar warrior," Tuft Broadland proudly reminded him, wandering past. The man was busily instructing dwarf women in the use of swords, spears, and daggers.

"And a blasted human," Derkin corrected himself. "We could charge the door, I guess, at one cabin. But two?"

A hand tapped his shoulder, and he looked around. It was the gray-haired woman, Nadeen. "She said to tell you to look in the shed," she told him. "She says you might find something useful there."

"She? Who?"

"Helta," Nadeen said. "She asked me to tell you that."

'The shed," he muttered. "All right, I'll look. Whaf s in it?"

"She knows," Nadeen said. "She's been in there."

He glanced past her. A few feet away, Helta stood, pointedly looking in another direction. "Why didn't she tell me herself?" Derkin asked.

"You told her to shut up," Nadeen explained. "I think you hurt her feelings."

Derkin stepped past the woman. "Show me the shed," he said. Helta ignored him. "Oh, rust!" he muttered, then, "I'm sorry I snapped at you. Please?"

"All right." She turned. "In the future, I'll just ignore your bad manners. Come on."

As the second moon added its light to the first, brightening the glade high on the slopes, Calan Silvertoe asked Despaxas, "What's he doing now? Can you see?"

"I can see," the elf said. "He has all the females out in the compound, unrolling metal cable. They're winding it around one of the buildings."

"What?" Calan snapped, leaning to peer into the milky bowl before he recalled that only the elf could see things in it. "Why are they doing that?"

"I haven't the vaguest idea," Despaxas said.

Both moons were high when the women of Tharkas Camp finished wrapping the guards' cabin. Silently and grimly, with Derkin directing the work by whisper and gesture, they had carried rolls of steel cable from the shed, straightened and spliced them, and wound the resulting length around and around the cabin. Planking covered the single door and the two windows, and the entire building now was wrapped with cable. Derkin completed the task, tightening and securing the lashing with a hand-winch. Then he stepped back, surveyed the result, and nodded. "Well, nobody is coming out of there," he muttered. He glanced at the smaller cabin nearby, wishing he could treat it the same way. But there was no more cable.

"All right," he told the women quietly. "Go get those jugs now, and bring torches."

They were back in moments, carrying a half dozen large clay vessels, a bundle of wrapped torches, and a shielded fire pot from the kitchen. Derkin pulled the cork from one jug and sniffed it. It was good dwarven lamp oil, probably looted by the humans from some Neidar village. With the women following him, he worked his way around the sealed cabin, emptying jug after jug of the oil, soaking the walls. The dry timbers absorbed the oil thirstily. With one jug left, Derkin backed away and turned. "Light the torches," he said. "If s wake-up time."

As torches flared alight, he raised the last jug of lamp oil and threw it high. The vessel landed on the cabin's sturdy roof and shattered, oil streaming from it. From inside the cabin, they heard the sounds of voices, then thumps and shouts as the awakening guards began to realize that they were trapped.

Derkin picked up a torch, but Helta was ahead of him. "Let me," she said. "I've dreamed about this." With fire-glow radiating her pretty face and glinting in fierce, happy eyes, the dwarf girl trotted around the secured building, igniting the soaked walls.

Derkin snapped his fingers, and Nadeen handed him an axe. He turned toward the human, Tuft Broadland, who had been standing back, watching. Tuft's craggy face was somber, his eyes wide with awe. "Gods," he whispered as the flames along the cabin walls spread, becoming a single, rising blaze.

"Well?" Derkin approached him. "If you haven't the stomach for this…"

"Gods," the man said again. "You people are thorough, aren't you?"

"Are you going to try to stop us? Those are humans in there, like you."

"Not like me," Tuft spat. "Those are empire soldiers. I'm a Cobar."

The cabin blazed, and the shouts inside turned to screams. At the second cabin a door crashed open, and men came rushing out, gaping at the blaze, shouting in confusion. The first two or three never saw the dwarven women waiting in the shadows, until the swords, axes, and clubs hit them. Others tried to fight, and some in the rear had picked up weapons. But it was over with in a minute. Taken completely by surprise, groggy with sleep and half-blinded by the glare of the burning cabin, the slavers had no chance against a dozen angry dwarven women swarming among them, cutting them down without mercy.

Thrown torches routed the last two slavers out of their shelter. One of them ducked aside, started to run, then saw Helta Graywood standing alone, gazing raptly at the blazing cabin. With a roar, the man charged toward her, raising a sword, then toppled as Derkin's axe buried itself in his chest. The last slaver was running for the wilderness when an arrow from Tuft Broadland's bow brought him down.

Derkin wrenched his axe from the dead slaver and snapped at Helta, "Pay attention! You could have been killed." Then he stalked around the grounds, counting dead humans. When he was satisfied that none had gotten away, he looked around for Tuft Broadland. At first there was no sign of him, then he appeared from the shadow of the longhouse. And behind him were other humans, following him in single file.

Just as Derkin saw them, some of the women spotted them as well. "There are some more!" Nadeen shouted. "Come on! Get them!"

"Wait!" Derkin roared.

All around him, women hesitated, then lowered their bloody weapons. Followed by his motley, blood-spattered female volunteers, Derkin approached the humans. Besides Tuft Broadland, there were six more, all wearing the soft buckskins and bright weaves of nomads.

"These are my companions from the lake," Tuft said. "They came when they saw the fire."

A tall, gray-bearded man nodded at the dwarves, then asked Tuft, "The empiremen… are they all dead?"

"Every last one," Tuft assured him.

"Good," the gray-bearded man said. "Then there will be no alarm across the pass at Klanath."

"No, but you had better go now if you want to slip through before morning." Tuft turned to Derkin. "This is Wing," he said. "He is chief of our mission."

Derkin glared at the gray-bearded man named Wing. "What do you people want?" he demanded.

Wing gazed at the dwarf. "You're Hylar," he said. "Do you come from King Hal-Thwait?"

"There is no such…" Derkin started, then changed his mind. "I've been sent by no one," he said. "Who or what do you seek?"

Wing nodded. "Tell him whatever he wants to know," he told Tuft. "He may be useful to us." With that the man turned, waved, and trotted away. The other five strangers followed him, running as silently as elves.

"Aren't you going with them?" Derkin asked Tuft.

"No, I'm staying with you for now," the man said. "Think of me as an observer. We're on the same side, you know."

"I don't know anything. You haven't told me anything. What same side are we on?"

"We're against the emperor of Daltigoth." Tuft shrugged. "Those were his people you roasted, you know."

"I don't know anything about human emperors," Derkin said. "I'm here to get an army. What do you have against the emperor?"

"I'm a Cobar," Tuft said. "The emperor's troops have invaded Cobar lands east of here. We're at war. So I'm sticking around. You might find me useful. By the way, where is this army of yours?"

"Up there," Derkin pointed. "They're locked in that mine shaft. I'm here to free them."

"That sounds simple enough. Let's go get them."

"I think there's a company of goblins in there with them," Derkin added.

"Oh." The man gazed up the slope thoughtfully. "That complicates things, doesn't it? Have any ideas?"

"I do now," the dwarf said. "You said you could be useful. Now you can prove it."

At dawn, a grim-faced man wearing the garments and armament of a guardsman appeared at the closed entrance of the main Tharkas mine shaft. He lifted the heavy bolt from its hasps, then banged on the plank gate. From inside came the sounds of another bolt being withdrawn, then the gate opened slightly, and a sallow, bloated face peered out at him. "Time open mine?" the face asked.

For an instant, the man hesitated, his nose wrinkling. In all his life, Tuft Broadland had never seen a goblin. He had heard they were ugly things, but had never realized just how ugly they were. Large, dull-looking eyes stared at him from a face that was wider than it was long. A wide, lipless mouth revealed glimpses of dark, pointed teeth as it spoke. Below the mouth was almost no chin, just a fleshy wattle that tapered down to its bronze chest-plate. It wore a flat-looking iron helmet and held a crossbow in one greenish hand.

And the draft that wafted through the gate it had just opened stank. For a second, Tuft felt as if he was going to be sick. But he tightened his shoulders, stood tall, and frowned fiercely at the creature. "Come on, open up!" he demanded. "The slaves are wanted down in the camp." The goblin blinked at him. "All of 'em?" "All of them," Tuft said. "Bring them out, now!" The goblin opened the gate a few inches more and stepped out. It was about as tall as a dwarf, but there the resemblance ended. Tuft felt as though he were looking at a pale, erect frog.

With a suspicious glance at the man, the goblin looked past him, shading its eyes against the morning light. It scrutinized the compound below, then pointed at the smoking ashes that were all that was left of the guard cabin. "Wha' happen?" it asked. "Have fire?"

"It isn't your concern," Tuft snapped. "Just do as you're told. Bring out the slaves. They're wanted in the compound."

The goblin gazed at him again, then stepped back through the door. He heard its guttural voice rasp, "Men want all th' dwarves brought out."

Another, similar voice asked, "Why?"

"Dunno," the first said. "Looks like there been trouble. Maybe they gonna kill some dwarves."

" 'Kay," the second voice said. "They say bring 'em out, we bring 'em out. Open th' gate."

Suppressing a sigh of relief, Tuft Broadland stepped back, putting a little distance between himself and the stench coming from the opening. He had heard about goblin-stink, but realized now that one had to actually smell it to really appreciate the foulness of it.

A chorus of shouts, curses, and commands echoed from the darkness of the mine shaft, then a squad of goblins filed out and formed a double line before the gate. All of them wore body armor, and each had a crossbow at its shoulder and a bronze sword in its hand.

More commands were shouted, and dwarves started coming out of the shaft. Tuft shook his head in sympathy as they appeared. Many of them had minor wounds, some of them had open sores, and all of them looked as though they had been systematically beaten and abused.

More and more dwarves appeared, prodded along by grinning goblins, until the entire staging area before the shaft was crowded with tattered, sullen dwarves, surrounded by armored goblins brandishing weapons.

Steeling himself, Tuft stepped forward, pointing as he singled out individual dwarves from the crowd. "You," he said pointing. "And you, and you. Step out here." As the selected dwarves moved forward, he picked out others. "You," he said. "You, and you, and you."

The twenty dwarves he singled out were those who looked the strongest and fittest. They were all young males, and all in fairly good shape, compared to their peers.

"I'll take these twenty first," he told the goblin who seemed to be in charge. "Hold the rest of them here until I come back."

"Better take some guards," the goblin said. "They might try to run."

"If they do, they'll meet arrows," Tuft said. Imperiously, he beckoned his selected group of dwarves. "Follow me," he commanded. After a few steps, one of the dwarves behind him said, "I haven't done anything… Who-"

"Hush!" he rasped. "Just be quiet and follow me. I'm a friend."

Nearing the compound, first one and then others of the dwarves gasped, some of them breaking step as they gaped at the "slavers" coming and going in the open area. "Those are women," someone said. "Our women, wearing guard clothes."

"That's my mother over there," another exclaimed.

"Hush up and keep walking," Tuft commanded. "Those goblins up there are watching."

He led them to the longhouse, and, after ushering them inside, slumped on a bench. "Whew!" he breathed. "I never thought that would be so easy."

The mine slaves looked around in bewilderment at the few dwarven women sorting armor and weapons, and at the man who had led them from the mines. "Who are you?" one of them demanded. "What's going on here?"

"He's with me," Derkin Winterseed said, coming through the back door. "I came to free you."

The slaves stared at him, and one of them asked, "Why?"

"Because I need you," Derkin said. He picked up an axe and tossed it to the questioner, who caught it neatly. "Do you know how to use that?"

"Of course I do," the miner said. "Who am I to use it on?"

"Goblins," Derkin explained.

Within moments, all of the ex-slaves were armed and ready, and Derkin sent Tuft back up the hill.

When the man returned, followed by nearly two hundred dwarves and thirty armed goblins-the entire company-the compound was empty. The man strode to the front door of the longhouse, opened it, and jerked a thumb at the dwarves. "Inside," he said.

Sullen and silent, the prisoners filed through the door while grinning goblins prodded them from behind.

Thoroughly occupied with tormenting their charges, none of the goblins saw that both doors of the building were open, and as fast as the dwarves entered the front, they were hustled out the back, handed something that would serve as a weapon-prybars, hammers, table legs, saw blades, anything available-and led around to the far side of the equipment shed. Only when the last dwarf had entered the building did a few goblins look inside and notice there were only a dozen or so dwarves, and they were turning to attack.

One goblin actually got into the longhouse, impaling a dwarf on his bronze sword before another dwarf brained it with a stool. The rest were stopped at the door and pressed back, dwarves flailing away at them with anything that came to hand.

His sword singing like winter wind, Tuft Broadland beheaded one goblin and cut the legs out from under another before the rest realized that he was attacking them. Then when they turned toward him, a howling, surging tide of armed dwarves came around the corner of the building, flooding through and over them. Dark, rancid goblin blood flowed like water.

Most of the goblins fell within moments, overwhelmed and outnumbered. A few broke and ran, but were quickly overtaken and killed. Derkin had made it clear that no enemy was to be allowed to escape, and the dwarves were thorough in their slaughter.

When it was over, four dwarves were counted dead and three others injured. At Derkin's direction, the victors collected every goblin corpse in the vicinity, as well as those of the dead slavers hidden in the other cabin, and threw all the bodies into an abandoned pit, which they then filled in. They kept all the fallen weapons and bits of human armor. The goblins' armor was buried with them. As Derkin explained to Tuft, no dwarf would ever wear anything that had been worn by a goblin. It was impossible to wash out the stench.

When all that was done, Derkin gathered his new army in the compound. "We'll rest here a few days," he told them. "You'll eat well, tend your wounds, and clean yourselves. Those fit to work can set up a forge and start making weapons. We'll need hammers, axes, swords, pikes… anything any of you know how to use. And I am going to drill you in orderly combat. I-"

A hand went up, and a dwarf said, "Excuse me…"

Derkin turned to him. "Yes?"

"That all sounds fine," the miner said. "But just who the blazes are you, anyway?"

"My name is Derkin," he said. "I'm your leader."

"Who says?"

"I do," he said flatly.

Nobody dared disagree.

Behind the longhouse, the dwarven women had fires going and great tubs of water heating, and were cutting soap into small bars. They had decided that the first thing to do was to get the "soldiers" fit to be around. Dwarves, clothes, tools, and weapons all were to be thoroughly scrubbed.

When they were ready, Helta went to Derkin and handed him a piece of soap, a comb, and a pair of shears. "You, too," she said. "If you're going to be a leader, then look like one."