Douglas Niles - Fate of Thorbardin

Finally she was on the road, the fortress falling away behind her. Her home was ahead of her, many miles away, but they would be good miles. Of that she was certain.

And there was another thing she knew.

It was good to be free.

The mad dwarf knew that he had outwitted them all. He was clever, too clever by far, for the king and his lackeys to catch him. Once the unseen benefactor had freed him from his cell, he had not gone up into the fortress of Pax Tharkas, where every corridor, every room, every hall would be watched and, as soon as his absence was noted, searched.

No, Garn Bloodfist had not climbed upward. Instead, he made his way even deeper into the Tharkadan cellars, slipping past the slumbering turnkey then making his way toward an ancient route that very few dwarves knew existed.

The Sla-Mori, it was called, the secret way.

And so it was, a way out of Pax Tharkas, a passage that had carried him into a forested ravine more than a mile beyond the high walls, the ranks of torches, and the patrolling sentries.

There he had hidden for countless days, eating berries and grubs, hiding in the streambed whenever anyone approached, using the simple expedient of burying himself in mud until only his eyes and nose were exposed to the air. He kept his eyes closed, and the tactic had worked, for he had not yet been discovered.

As the days passed and the imminence of winter became more clear with each chill night, he wondered what to do. He watched the road leading away from the fortress, hiding as the hill dwarf traders and mountain dwarf hunting parties went past. He reminded himself that he hated them all, the hill dwarves and the mountain dwarves. They were all his foes, and they would pay.

Then one afternoon he was startled to see a lone female figure striding away from the fortress. He recognized the beautiful hair, gray but still soft, and the strong, determined stride. She was the former queen, the one who had visited him and calmed him in his dungeon of torment. He loved her, in his own way, for that care.

But then he remembered another truth, undeniable, and burning like a fire in his gut.

Oh, yes, he hated her too.

It’s been too short, our time here together. I wish we weren’t leaving for another week! Why’d you have to be so Reorx-cursed efficient?” groused Brandon, looking at his steel breastplate with distaste.

Gretchan sighed, making a sound that was a mixture of affection and aggravation. She was already dressed in her traveling clothes: her leather moccasins were laced tightly over her calves, and the woolen outer cloak she wore for warmth lay across the trunk, along with her sacred staff. The window’s shutter was open, mountain darkness and chill yawning beyond, and he knew that she, too, would have been more than happy to simply go back to bed.

“I wish we could take some more time together right now. Believe me, I do,” she said. “But we’d just be passing the hours here in a mountain fortress built for war, with another war looming as soon as we decide to take care of our responsibilities.” Her voice turned sharp. “Or would you have us forget about Thorbardin, forget about everything but our own selfish desires?”

“No,” Brandon acknowledged, sliding his arms through the sleeves of his metal armor. “Not when there’s a real chance that the next war might be the last war, at least as it pertains to us dwarves. We might as well have at it.”

If only the last three days hadn’t been so restful, so pleasant, so … loving! In the back of his mind, he realized that he’d been hoping to spend a week or more there, assuming that it would take at least that long for the two armies to muster, gather supplies, and coalesce as a single force.

But Gretchan’s early arrival had allowed Tarn Bellowgranite time to prepare his men for an expedition, and the combined army was ready to march from Pax Tharkas a mere seventy-two hours after the Kayolin troops had turned up. Supplies had been stockpiled, weapons and armor repaired and readied for the campaign, captains assigned, and units organized for war. Tarn himself had become the mission’s most ardent supporter, and his own men had taken heart from their leader’s resurgent energy.

Too soon the dawn of the first march had come, with gray light suffusing the valley of Pax Tharkas while the snowy massif of Cloudseeker Peak, with its corona of cornice and glacier, slowly took shape on the southern horizon. Brandon gazed at that mountain and shuddered, unable to suppress a shiver of growing apprehension and almost insurmountable reluctance.

Gretchan seemed, as usual, to know what he was feeling deep inside.

“I wish we could stay here, right under these covers,” she agreed as though reading his thoughts, wistfully looking at the large, still disheveled, bed. “But you’re right: this campaign could finally end these decades, even centuries, of violence. If we restore freedom to Thorbardin, we can look forward to a long and well-deserved peacetime.”

“I still wish that stubborn old fellow would have agreed to bring the hill dwarves with us,” Brandon complained. “I’d feel better about our chances.”

“Of course, you are right about that,” the female cleric agreed with maddening calm. “But even without the Neidar, we’ll be marching with a very capable force.”

The Kayolin general had to admit the assembled army was impressive. Right outside their window, hundreds of cookfires dotted the vast encampment to the south of the fortress wall. In addition to the four thousand troops he had brought south, Tarn Bellowgranite had mustered another thousand well-trained veterans, dwarves he called the Tharkadan Legion.

Among that force were some five hundred Klar of proven courage and loyalty. They were commanded by a one-eyed captain named Wildon Dacker. Dacker had served with Tarn Bellowgranite even before the long exile and was a much steadier and more reliable captain than his predecessor, Garn Bloodfist. And Dacker undeniably held the loyalty of his Klar warriors. Though they retained the impetuous and frenzied traits of their clan, they made for exceptional shock troops, and when they attacked in a berserking frenzy, their whoops and wails would test the courage of even the stoutest opponent.

The rest of the Tharkadan Legion consisted of heavily armed and armored Hylar and Daergar, under the command of Mason Axeblade. They, too, were seasoned veterans who had proven their loyalty to Tarn Bellowgranite many times over through the years-so much so that all of them had chosen to follow him into exile more than a decade earlier. They were ready to march with him unto death to reclaim his rightful throne.

The former king of Thorbardin suggested that the entire force should be named the Dwarf Home Army, and so it was done. The agreement had been sealed over two nights of feasting and celebration and, dwarves being dwarves, much drinking. The captains of the two realms had gotten to know each other as friends, while the troops had sized each other up and been satisfied, even impressed, by their new comrades in arms.

Dawn was brightening toward full daylight with inexorable speed as Brandon hoisted his backpack onto his shoulders and took up the Bluestone Axe. Gretchan hoisted her staff too, and they were at last ready to go.

Near the door, Kondike whined and waved his tail halfheartedly.

“You’ll have to stay here, old friend,” Gretchan said sadly and fondly. She gave the dog a pat on his broad head but wouldn’t let him out the door. “Tor Bellowgranite will come and let you out in a few hours,” she explained as if the animal could understand. “But I’m keeping you behind the door until we’re well over the horizon.”