Douglas Niles - Fate of Thorbardin

Even his girls were happy, both of them at the same time! That was not something he could remember ever happening before, and he made the most of it. First Slooshy fawned over him, boasting to everyone who would listen (which was, essentially, nobody but Gus) how brave he had been in Thorbardin, when the two of them had first met. She described their fight with the Theiwar bounty hunters, the flight that had caused them to plunge into a flooded, rapid underground pipe of water, and how Gus had helped her keep her head above water until he had been swept away and, she assumed, drowned like a rat.

Then Berta bragged about how Gus had been the mightiest highbulp in Pax Tharkas, and how he had taken advantage of the magical blue door that had appeared in their dungeon throne room, leading to all sorts of new adventures. Nobody could run away from danger better than Gus, according to the Aghar females.

Finally, both girls took turns flattering him about his courageous rescue of Crystal Heathstone and his slaying of the vile, mad Klar. Apparently, since Crystal was surrounded by her own people-and clearly those people were delighted to have her back-the two Aghar girls had concluded that she was not really a rival for Gus’s affections. Furthermore, since it was Crystal who was more or less directly responsible for all the good food and drink that had come their way over the past day, they were inclined to view the Neidar female as rather more of a good friend than a bitter rival for the highbulp’s affections.

They all got kind of drunk as the evening progressed. Still, as he paid partial attention to the earnest counsels going on around him, Gus became vaguely aware that the hill dwarves seemed to consider it a matter of pride that they go to the aid of the mountain dwarves of Pax Tharkas. They were, if anything, insulted by the fact that Tarn Bellowgranite had not called upon their assistance, as they had (rather grudgingly) agreed to provide it in the treaty signed at the end of the Tharkadan War.

Encouraged by Crystal and Slate, and inflamed by the tales of corruption and villainy running rampant in Thorbardin, the Neidar became more and more determined to take forceful, assertive action. The cause was one that the Neidar could enthusiastically support.

“Thorbardin for all!” one hill dwarf proclaimed.

“Thorbardin for all!” was the cry that echoed around the great town square of Hillhome and was embraced by seemingly every newcomer who arrived in the town, and all day and all night, there continued to be a steady stream of newcomers.

“What’s behind this civil war?” Slate asked Crystal at one point. “We’ve heard rumors, but you seem to know more than we do.”

“It dates back to our exile. The fanatic pretender, Jungor Stonespringer, kidnapped my son, Tor, and used him as leverage to get Tarn to abdicate the throne. Jungor was wildly unpopular; he issued edict after edict, banning everything from gully dwarves to music, to females owning their own businesses or going about without a male escort. More recently, a powerful wizard named Willim the Black has made a move to claim the nation.”

“And how fares the war in the undermountain?” pressed the Neidar leader. “Does it still rage?”

“Well, the most recent witness is right here,” Crystal said, looking skeptically at the nodding, groggy Aghar. “Gus, what did you see in Thorbardin the last time you were there?”

“Black wizard kill ’em all,” Gus proclaimed. It was late in the evening, and he was thoroughly drunk but more than happy to expound. “Bunty hunters hunt Aghar. Big King Stonespringer hunt Aghar. Black wizard hunt everybody. And him got big magic. Scare Gus outta there, right one, two … one, two …”

His voice trailed off. What came after two again? He shrugged, remembering that it was really not ever necessary to count higher than that. As the dwarves resumed their debating, he reached for his mug. It had been filled again by a friendly barmaid.

“This make … two drinks!” he said, draining the contents of the mug into his mouth and across his chin and down his chest. It splashed right onto the boards of the high platform upon which he and his girlfriends had been invited to sit.

Many more times that night, he quaffed his second drink until, finally, he tilted the mug back and leaned back to finish it and toppled right off the back of the bench. He rolled over the edge of the platform and onto the ground. There, his fall was fortunately broken by the soft, plump bodies of his two girlfriends who, he vaguely recalled, had made similarly elegant departures from the party sometime earlier in the night.

Thus cushioned, Gus spent a blissful two hours sleeping. When he dreamed, it was of bountiful tables, foaming kegs, and willing girlfriends, and when he didn’t dream, his body rested, recovered, and regained its strength.

When he awakened, it was with one of the worst headaches he had ever known. But even that couldn’t distract him from the excitement of the preparations. He and his girls, groaning and groggy, crawled up from the mud and back onto the platform, where they found Slate Fireforge seated at the table and a long file of hill dwarves gathered in the plaza before him. They stepped up, one by one, and signed something onto a long scroll of parchment. As they did so, Slate assigned them to the “swords” or the “crossbows” or the “spears.”

Gus was about to elbow the Neidar chief aside with a firm “Hey, that my seat!” when he was accosted by Crystal Heathstone, who took him by the arm and, with his girls following, led him to a new table in the sunlight, just outside of a bakery. A cheerful, young lad brought them a fresh loaf of bread and some milk, and Gus’s headache was instantly forgotten.

“You were splendid last night,” Crystal told him. “I don’t think we’d have mustered half this many volunteers without your testimony.”

“Well, sure ’nuf,” he agreed, stuffing a crusty piece of bread, heavily slathered with butter, into his mouth. Of course, he wasn’t certain what splendid or volunteer or testimony meant, but he trusted it was all good. He looked around hopefully.

“Nuther party today?” he asked.

She smiled, though once again he detected that hint of sadness in her eyes and her manner. “Not today,” she said. “We’re all busy getting ready to go help Tarn-and Gretchan Pax. We thought you’d want to come along with us.”

“Go Thorbardin? Why, sure,” he said. “Me ready. Girls ready!”

The rest of the day he lolled about Hillhome while the Neidar busied themselves with preparations. Curious children came around to talk to them, asking him with wide eyes, “Are you the one who saved Crystal Heathstone?”

“That me,” Gus replied before asking, “Got any beer?”

The children proved to be a woefully inadequate source of strong drink, and perhaps that was a good thing. In any event, the Neidar under Slate Fireforge left Hillhome the very next morning, with a force of some four hundred doughty warriors. Criers had been sent to the outlying towns and villages, and all day long more bands of warriors, coming those from places south of Hillhome where the column passed through, or from other villages that didn’t have time to muster in the town itself, joined the streaming column as it marched toward Thorbardin.

The bigger towns each sent sixty or eighty men, while the smaller villages might dispatch only a dozen or so, but every one of the volunteers was welcomed, and the force grew hourly as it steadily proceeded southward. Unlike the Kayolin Army and the Dwarf Home Army, the Neidar troops didn’t march with any wagons or carts in which the Aghar could ride, but Gus was surprised to realize as he strode along that his legs seemed to feel stronger than ever before. The same was true of his girls, so they had no difficulty keeping up with the steadily marching hill dwarves. Crystal even allowed the gully dwarves to keep her company for a while, right near the front of the column!