Dark Thane Page 26

  A fireball would kill him, the Theiwar thane decided. By the time the people in the crowd recovered from the explosion, she would be long gone, lofted away on the wings of a teleport spell, and safely at Jungor's side, explaining everything. Digging a ball of bat guano from her pouch of spell components, she mouthed the words to the spell, silently rehearsing to make sure she recalled the proper cadences and pronunciations. She leaned out over the battlements, holding the ball of dung mixed with sulfur aloft, looking down contemptuously as Tarn lifted his silver warhammer above his head, drawing yet another thunderous cheer.

  With her mind now focused on the magic, Brecha almost didn't hear the surprising words shouted by those below her. "The Hammer! The Hammer of Kharas!" Tarn thrust the mighty weapon over his head, holding it to its full height so that everyone in the mob could see it in his hand.

  The ball of dung fell from Brecha's fingertips, the words of the spell slipped from her mind. She staggered back from the battlements, silently thanking every god that she could name that she hadn't cast that spell. The Hammer of Kharas! He who wielded that famed dwarven relic was the true king, and no dwarf would dare challenge his rule. Its powers were many and little understood. In all likelihood, her fireball would have slain everyone around Tarn but left the one holding the Hammer unharmed. She had no way of knowing, and the main thing now was that Jungor must know this news.

  Whispering a quick word of magic, she brought to mind an image of Jungor Stonesinger and vanished, just as another thunderous roar swept over the battlements.

  "To the Hall of Thanes!"

  38

  Crystal paced the wall that ran along the north entrances of her fortress home. A cap of steel on her head and a spear in her fist, she looked no different than the hundreds of other dwarves lining the battlements or filling the courtyards. Yet the silent dwarves defending the fortress snapped to attention as she passed, returning to their vigilant watch when she moved on.

  Tarn had been gone what seemed an eternity when Glint Ettinhammer returned with a handful of Klar and the news of her husband's capture. Despite their failure to capture the transportation shaft on the second level, Otaxx Shortbeard had managed to take the third-level shaft, and to hold it against the Theiwar sent to dislodge him. The general was a veteran warrior and had fought the Theiwar during the Chaos War. He knew how to battle magic, and his foothold was enough to secure the southern half of the third level. Right now, though, she had no reserves to relieve him. And she must hold the north gate of the king's fortress, as this was the other major entry to this district. As yet, they had not been attacked. But with Tarn captured, Crystal knew it was only a matter of time before Jungor challenged her.

  She was still numb to the dire reality of her predicament. Whenever she thought of Tarn being held prisoner in a cell somewhere, she could barely stand to bring that image of him to her mind. Her heart refused to accept such a defeat. She felt as though he were merely away on an errand, and more than once caught herself thinking, "When Tarn returns, I need to speak to him about…"

  The idea that Tarn might never return lurked at the edge of her thoughts. She knew that if she seriously entertained that notion, she would break down utterly and be unable to continue. And she couldn't allow herself that luxury. Tor needed her, and so did the forces watching her as she paced nervously amidst them. She was the last thing standing between her baby and Jungor Stonesinger's fanatic minions. What they would do to the son of the king, she didn't dare to guess. She only knew that they would reach him only over her own dead body. Perhaps, if she held out long enough, she could strike a bargain that would allow their escape into exile… .

  She went cold at that desperate thought, her heart hammering in her chest. Sooner or later, she knew, she would have to accept that Tarn was doomed if he was in Jungor's hands. He was probably already dead. She had no hope that Glint Ettinhammer and Mog Bonecutter would succeed in their mad scheme to rescue the king, but she hadn't dared to try to stop them.

  The appearance of their old captain of the guard, believed dead since the Festival of Lights celebration, had surprised her when she thought she could no longer feel any emotion. And for a few brief moments, she had felt hope rekindled. True to his character, the Klar thane had tried to encourage her by pointing out that Jungor's forces had merely captured Tarn, while they had slaughtered everyone else. They must therefore want Tarn alive for a reason.

  But ever since Mog, Glint, and their company had departed, the bleak reality had returned to shadow her. The Hammer of Kharas already seemed a figment of her imagination. The Hammer was not a relic as much revered by the hill dwarves and so she placed little faith in its powers anyway. Nor was she particularly comforted by the assurances of the strange old Klar who had gone off with the rescue party. Before leaving, he had patted her hand and said in a gentle voice, "Don't you worry, lass. He won't go and get himself killed just yet." She wasn't sure if the old dwarf had been talking about Tarn or someone else, and he had slipped away before she could reproach him.

  At least Tor was safe. Right now, he was deep inside the fortress with hundreds of feet of stone between his room and their enemies. And he could have no more formidable bodyguard than Aunt Needlebone, though Crystal had been sure also to place her most trusted guards outside the door to the nursery—dwarves she had trained herself in the years since her marriage to Tarn.

  It was the darn waiting that really grated on her nerves. Though she had little hope that Glint and the others would succeed, still that tiny spark of hope tormented her. She restlessly walked the battlements, her boots stamping on the stone, cursing the darkness of this underground city and its walls that prevented her from seeing very far in any direction. She missed the wide open spaces of her homeland, the wild hills and the wind rippling through fields of grain. For perhaps the thousandth time, she peered down the dark street leading away from the gate, looking for any sign of dwarves massing for an attack. But for the thousandth time, she saw only an empty street that disappeared into darkness beyond the light of their torches. A dwarf operating a large bull's-eye lantern from atop the postern gate swept the nearer shadows, but no, she couldn't even detect a gully dwarf in its light.

  A clatter of dwarf boots in the courtyard below distracted Crystal from her thoughts. She turned to look and saw a pair of Klar talking animatedly with one of the Daewar guards assigned to this entrance. The Daewar turned and pointed up at her, and she felt her heart stop.

  "What is it?" she cried, running for the nearest tower without even waiting for an answer. In moments, she had descended the stairs and had joined the two Klar. The dwarves lining the battlements watched, their faces also dark with worry. "What has happened?" Crystal asked breathlessly.

  "Thane Ettinhammer is at the south entrances," one of the Klar guards said.

  She felt her hands go cold and numb. "Alone?" she asked.

  The guard nodded.

  Her passage through the fortress was a blur. Her feet hardly seemed to touch the ground. Word spread quickly through the residence that Glint had returned alone, and others followed behind her as discreetly as possible. It seemed to take an age to reach the south entrances, and then even longer to go from entrance to entrance until she found the Klar thane.

  As soon as she saw Glint's pale, drawn face and slumped shoulders, she knew the worst. She hardly recognized him. The Klar thane had been a figure of brash confidence since the day she had first met him. Now, she found him slumped on a curb near the southwest entrance. A dozen guards stood nearby, trying not to stare at him. When Crystal appeared, they looked away from her as well. She stood for a moment beneath a stone arch, too frightened to move, wondering if she would ever be able to draw breath again. It was some time before Glint looked up and noticed her. A strange expression passed across his face, a strange rictus grin that she didn't fathom. His pallor was bloodless. He rose wearily to his feet to meet her.

  Crystal greeted him silently, taking his old scarred hand in hers an
d pressing it. She could tell by the way he avoided looking her in the eye that this was perhaps the most difficult thing he had ever done. "Is there… someplace we could… go?" he asked in a voice strained with emotion.

  Nodding, she led him into a passage between the entrance courtyard and an inner court. There, they found a stout, ironbound door, which opened into a small armory. Little remained of its contents; the shields, armor, and weapons had been almost entirely distributed among the troops loyal to Tarn Bellowgranite. Only a few spears and an old battle axe remained.

  Crystal swung the door shut on its silent hinges and then leaned her back against it. She drew a deep breath, as her mind reeled. Was there even a need to ask? The story was writ plain enough on the Klar thane's face.

  He turned to her, eyes downcast, his great shaggy head sunk almost between his shoulders. "I'm sorry," he blurted, choking back a sob. Crystal flew into his arms, a wordless moan wrenched from her breast. She clung to his thick neck, her face buried in his chest. He wrapped his huge, burly arms around her and pressed her tight, endlessly repeating, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." It was as though he had been robbed of the ability to speak any other words.

  She didn't know how long she clung to him. He bore her weight patiently, even though he seemed on the verge of collapsing with weariness. He shifted, gathering her with one arm while the other hung limply at his side. Perhaps he had been injured, though the thought barely penetrated Crystal's consciousness. Gradually, her sobs lessened, though she doubted her grief would ever be dulled. Every time she would look at their son from now until death claimed her, she would be reminded of his father.

  She needed to hear the words spoken, no matter how painful.

  "So Tarn is dead then," Crystal asked, her face still pressed to the Klar thane's chest.

  "He will be soon enough," Zen disguised as Glint answered. "As will you."

  Crystal looked up to see the rictus grin had returned. Glint's pale eyes hardened to dark pinpricks; his face took on an explicable reptilian pallor.

  The door creaked open. It was enough distraction to give the draconian assassin pause. The dagger in his fist hesitated just inches from Crystal's throat.

  It was Haruk Mastersword standing in the doorway. "Mistress, here you are. Graps said you had… Mistress!" Crystal saw light flicker off the dagger in the Klar thane's hand. With warrior's reflexes, she reacted instantly, striking the blade up and aside even as the hand that wielded it plunged toward her throat. The point of the blade gouged a furrow beneath her chin but otherwise passed harmlessly aside. Zen swore a dwarven oath.

  Crystal twisted out of his grasp as he reversed the blow with a backhanded slash. She ducked beneath the attack so that it merely scraped shrilly across her metal armor, throwing a spray of sparks into the air. She had left her spear back at the north entrance. But before Glint could renew his attack, Haruk stepped between her and the thane, his sword drawn.

  Shrugging off the form of the Klar thane, Zen once more assumed his natural shape—that of a sivak draconian— astonishing the two dwarves now confronted with his seven-feet-tall form. Taking advantage of their surprise, Zen snatched a battle axe from the weapon rack on the wall behind him and struck.

  Haruk barely managed to fend off the attack at the last instant. The power of the huge draconian's blow numbed his arm, but he maintained his grip on his weapon and parried another devastating slash. Sparks exploded in the air as the two weapons collided like a thunderclap. Haruk staggered, trying to maintain his position between the draconian and his mentor.

  Meanwhile, Crystal dragged a spear from a barrel. It was ill-made and too lengthy for her, but she had to help Haruk somehow.

  Zen swung his axe in a low arc. Once more, Haruk parried it, but this time his numb fingers could no longer maintain their grip. His sword torn from his grasp, the force of the slash sent him staggering back. Crystal stepped to her left and slipped past him. A quick thrust of her spear distracted the draconian long enough to allow Haruk to move out of the creature's reach. Haruk shook his hands to try to regain some feeling, while Crystal's drove the draconian back a step with a series of lightning feints.

  But the draconian was fast. Crystal feinted once too often. Timing his attack perfectly, he slashed out with the axe, lopping off her spear just below the steel head. His next blow was aimed to do the same to her head.

  Picking up his sword, Haruk shrieked his battle cry and leaped at the draconian. Crystal instantly recognized Haruk's habitually futile reaction to an opponent he could not defeat, knowing that he intended to sacrifice himself in order to strike a major blow. The young dwarfs attack was slow, clumsy, and easily thwarted, yet it was intended to distract the creature. Crystal seized the moment and struck with the staff portion of her spear, shattering the draconian's knee. Zen cried out and stumbled, his axe dropped, and Haruk, off balance and swinging wildly, tumbled over him.

  Before Zen could recover, Crystal tossed aside her by now useless weapon and grabbed another spear from the barrel. Zen struggled to rise, but Haruk had become entangled with his legs. Crystal thrust with all her might, not knowing how thick the draconian's scaly hide might be. The sharp spear head sheared through scale and muscle to emerge an arm's length from the creature's back.

  Black draconian blood erupted from Zen's mouth. Feeling the imminence of death, he spoke now in the language of dragons, which few mortals knew or understood. But the import of his words and the hatred with which he spoke, spitting blood and phlegm with each phrase, was all Crystal needed to hear to know that the creature was calling down its blackest curse upon her head. An involuntary shudder passed down her spine.

  With his last, dying words, Zen laid his great reptilian head down on the cold stone floor stained black with his own blood. For eighteen months he had lived by his wits undetected in the halls of Thorbardin, slaying at will until his revenge was completed. And now he had been killed by a woman and a mere child. His shame knew no bounds, and he prayed to whatever god would listen that his curse be granted. His prayer ended unfinished.

  Crystal dragged Haruk away from the filthy creature. Though it no longer seemed to breathe, neither did it seem to be entirely dead. Its muscles continued to twitch, its mouth to champ. Even as they watched in horror, the creature began to transform once more. But this time, it took on the appearance of Crystal herself. After a few moments, they found themselves looking at her own dead body stretched out on the floor with a spear wound in her chest. Crystal stared at it a moment longer until she was nearly overcome with revulsion.

  She turned to Haruk and quickly looked him over. "Are you badly injured?" she asked.

  "What is that thing?" the young dwarf answered absently as he continued to stare at her corpse.

  "Haruk, listen to me," Crystal demanded. The tone of command in her voice broke through his shock. He jerked to attention, just as he had done from the first days he was a lowly student in her spear class.

  "N-no, I am uninjured," he stammered.

  She breathed a quick sigh of relief. Multitudinous questions boiled in her mind, but she asked the most obvious one first. "Haruk, what are you doing here? I thought you were with your uncle."

  "I am, or, I was," he said. "Uncle Jungor sent me here with a message, knowing that you would be obliged to see me."

  Crystal frowned in disappointment but nodded that she understood. Perhaps this was the bargain she had hoped for, the trade that would allow her to escape into exile with their son. "What does the Hylar thane have to say?" she asked.

  "He offers a trade," Haruk answered ashamedly, and sheepishly too, the words leaving a bad taste in his mouth.

  "Very well. What does he want for Tarn's freedom? Whatever it is, we'll pay it. I hope you understand, Haruk, that I bear you no grudge. But I am sick to my soul of mountain dwarves and their wars and intrigues."

  "Tarn's freedom?" Haruk asked in confusion.

  "Yes, what does he want in exchange for the king?"

  "But Tarn… tha
t is, the king is already free. He escaped. I… I thought you knew," Haruk stammered.

  With a shriek of joy, Crystal wrapped her arms around the young Hylar warrior and lifted him off the ground. "Escaped, you say?" she cried as she set him on his feet. "Escaped? Then what could Jungor possibly want to trade for?"

  "The Hammer of Kharas," Haruk answered solemnly, gathering his dignity. Hearing the sounds of battle, several dwarves had gathered at the door. They gaped to see the two Crystal Heathstones—one dead and sprawled on the floor, the other quite alive. Not a few wondered which was the real one.

  "The Hammer? And what does the Hylar thane offer for it?" Crystal said.

  Haruk's face blanched, and he seemed to struggle to produce the answer. Finally, he said in a cracking voice, "My uncle offers… the life of your son, Tor Bellowgranite, in exchange for the Hammer of Kharas."

  39

  Tarn hurried north toward the fortress. With the Hammer of Kharas in his hands, he had marched through district after district, rallying the people of Norbardin to his banner, quickly relieving the besieged Klar and Daergar quarters in the Anvil's Echo with hardly a fight, so great was the mob that swarmed to follow him. Arriving in the Council Hall, he and his force were met by Shahar Bellowsmoke, standing amidst a scene of bloody slaughter. The Daergar in his command had killed hundreds of dwarves loyal to Jungor Stonesinger, many after their surrender. Among the dead were Shahar's own brother and Astar Trueshield, captain of Jungor's personal guard, slain by Shahar's own hand in single combat on the council steps. Shahar, still drunk on revenge and murder, greeted the thane with a soot-stained face and gore-soaked hands, grinning fiercely.