Douglas Niles - The Heir of Kayolin

Trying not to think about the seemingly bottomless drop off the edge of the shelf, Brandon followed her count, swinging his legs over in the steady “one,” “two,” “three” count she barked out. On the last, their feet swung over the ledge, and they both let go of the cape, tumbling onto the shelf. Brandon landed on his feet, flexing his knees, but Gretchan stumbled and slipped, rolling to her side and starting to slide over the edge.

Diving toward her, Brandon reached out a hand, and Gretchan caught it with both of her own. The force of landing on the ground nearly wrenched his shoulder out of the socket, but he pulled her away from the ledge, rolling onto his back and holding her on top of him.

“Well, that wasn’t so bad,” he said, grinning into her face.

But she wasn’t looking back at him. Instead, her eyes were trained on the dark cave just behind the ledge. Whatever she saw there caused her to draw a deep breath and scream.

Where’s my wife?” Garren Bluestone demanded. “Where’s Karine? What did you do to her?”

The dwarf struggled against the ropes that bound his arms tightly behind his back. He twisted in the muscular grip of at least two captors. He couldn’t see anything because the Enforcers had placed a dark hood over his head before they’d even removed him from his house. He’d heard his wife screaming for help but had been powerless to intervene as his captors dragged him into the street.

She had been pulled out the door with him, but Karine’s voice had faded into the distance as they forced him to march along, leaving her and his home behind. Whether she had been taken in a different direction or perhaps returned to the house, he didn’t know. He’d felt miserably helpless and terribly frightened for his family as the king’s Enforcers pushed Garren toward the nearest stairway. With swords poking his back and buttocks, the prisoner had been marched up a long series of steps. He’d been too distraught to count them but estimated that he’d climbed some six or eight of the city’s levels. His best guess was that he was in the League of Enforcer’s headquarters, which he knew to be on the level directly below the palace-the very highest level of all Garnet Thax.

After hearing several doors clank open then slam shut behind him, Garren was pushed down into a hard wooden chair. One more door slammed, very nearby, and he heard several other dwarves moving around him and chairs scraping on the floor. Someone with a big chest and a deep voice coughed harshly.

Abruptly the hood was pulled from his head. Garren was seated at a small table, his arms still bound behind him. Two black-clad Enforcers stood flanking him; one of them had removed his hood.

But the captive dwarf’s eyes immediately went to the fellow sitting across the table from him, a villain regarding him with flat, emotionless eyes. Garren recognized Baracan Heelspur: the son of Lord Heelspur had his father’s large, hooked nose, and a thick head of dark hair that sprouted so low on his forehead it almost merged with his black, shaggy eyebrows. His eyes receded far into his head and were shaded by a blunt, protruding brow. They might have been black cave mouths, dark spots underneath a shelf of cliff.

“I’m so happy that you could join us,” Baracan said, his sneering tone unmatched by any expression of delight or even interest in those black eyes. “I’ve wanted to have the pleasure of your company for some time now. I was just waiting for the proper occasion.”

“Where’s my wife?” demanded Garren. “What have you done with her, you butcher?”

One of the guards smacked Bluestone, hard, on the ear. “Don’t insult the captain,” snarled the dwarf.

Wincing, his head ringing, Garren drew a breath. “Where is she?” he repeated.

“Don’t worry about her,” Baracan Heelspur said with an easy chuckle. “It’s you we’re interested in. If you tell us what we need to know, nothing … untoward … will happen to your lovely wife.”

“Is she here? Did you lock her up too?”

“I told you,” Baracan said with just a hint of annoyance. “Stop worrying about her. It’s you we’re interested in.”

“All right.” Garren forced himself to breathe deeply, to remain calm. “Why are you interested in me? What do you think I’ve done?”

“Obviously, for one, you were harboring a fugitive. Your son is a renegade dwarf, I’m certain you understand. Not only did he defame me, personally, in the presence of the king, but he sought to deny my father’s rightful claim to a new, and very valuable, vein of gold ore. You’ll be flattered to know that he was one of the first outlaws to be placed on the list; you might even say his name was noted before there even was a list.”

Garren seethed. He knew the real story: his two sons, Nailer and Brandon, had discovered the ore on a daring expedition. They had battled and slain a fearsome cave troll in the process. Then, as they had made their way back to the city, they had been ambushed by masked assassins. Nailer had died; Brandon had been fortunate to escape with his life. The purpose behind the assassination had become clear when Garren and his surviving son had heard Lord Alakar Heelspur loudly claim the ore in the name of his clan, crediting his son with both the discovery and the slaying of the cave troll. Brandon’s appearance in the royal court-and his strenuous objection to Heelspur’s claim-had badly embarrassed the lord. Lord Heelspur hadn’t forgotten that humiliation.

But Garren knew better than to try to make Brandon’s case then and there. Perhaps the contemptible dwarf sitting across the table from him had even been one of Nailer’s killers. That possibility caused Garren’s pulse to pound in his temples, and he strained against his bonds with all his strength. But the ropes were thick and the knots secure; he could only glare at the captain of the Enforcers and imagine his vengeance.

“He slipped into the city rather cleverly; my guards at the Kayolin gate have since been reassigned to gully dwarf surveillance. But how did he escape from your house? My men claim they were mysteriously blinded when they tried to arrest him.”

“How should I know?” Garren spat. “I couldn’t see anything either.”

“It smacks of sorcery, if you ask me,” the captain of the Enforcers said.

Garren shrugged. “Is that against the law now too?” he asked.

“No … not yet. So do you deny that your son was in your home when my men raided your cozy little domicile?” probed Baracan.

“My son was visiting my wife and I,” Garren said stiffly. “I was not aware that you consider him a fugitive or that his name was on any ‘list.’ He’s been traveling for more than a year, and we were naturally delighted that he had finally returned home.”

“Do you deny that you, yourself, secreted him out of the city immediately after he slandered my father in the king’s court?”

“You and I both know that he told the truth,” Garren said levelly. “And the truth cannot be called slander. The rest I neither deny nor affirm.”

“He slandered my father!” declared Baracan, pounding wildly on the table. For the first time his eyes flashed with emotion: they burned with a plainly murderous rage. Garren felt more certain than ever that Baracan Heelspur, personally, had taken part in Nailer’s murder. He met the captain’s gaze with a level look, while in the deepest depth of his soul he harbored murderous thoughts of his own. Perhaps some of that hatred showed in his eyes since, for just a moment, the Captain of the Enforcers averted his eyes and blinked nervously.

Abruptly he turned back to the prisoner and pointed an accusing finger. “And don’t think we don’t know about the rest of your nefarious schemes. We’ve been watching those who follow the Bluestone faction for a good long time now.”