Dan Parkinson - The Covenant of The Forge

“Neidar?” Cale gazed at his father. “Knoll-dwellers?”

“The outside crews built cabins for themselves,” Colin explained. “Usually on knolls on the mountainside, where the winds would sweep away the winter snows. Over time, many of them developed a fondness for the open sky. When the work was done, some of them would have remained outside by choice had it not been for the ogre wars. Many of our people still prefer the axe to the hammer … just as you and your companions do.”

“Neidar,” Cale mused. “Maybe I am Neidar, then. I like the mountain’s sides better than I like its belly.” He nodded, started away, then turned back. “Father, those caverns beneath Cloudseeker … they mean more to you than just caverns, don’t they?”

“They may,” Colin said quietly. “Mistral Thrax has told me … from whatever strange wisdom he holds in his hands … that there lies Everbardin.”

Group by cautious group, the massed tribes of Kal-Thax withdrew from the now silent foothills, marching up the funnel passes toward the Windweaver crags. Led by the newcomers, those who called themselves Hylar, they had driven away the outsiders encroaching into their mountains and in all likelihood had the mountains to themselves now, until spring. It was time to go home and get on with their various schemes and plans.

Keeping distance between themselves and the other tribes, the Daewar angled northward above the promontory, the Theiwar headed west toward the crest of Cloudseeker, and the sullen Daergar turned south toward their mines. The wild, undisciplined Klar were here and there, going their own directions.

But they were all still within sight of one another when a sound grew on the mountain winds — a strong, strange, compelling music that was more than just the rhythms of marching drums. It was a signal, and a song. The dwarves of Kal-Thax had never before heard the eerie, beautiful drum-song of the Call to Balladine. But they heard it now, and there was no doubt what it meant. Colin Stonetooth had done what he promised. He had driven the human invaders away from Kal-Thax for the winter. And now he called his new neighbors to do as they had promised. The drum-song was a call, and a summons. It was time for the Council of Thanes.

Vog Ironface and his Daergar warriors heard the call and turned masked faces toward it, locating the source. From the heights of Cloudseeker it came, from the icy region of the Windweaver crags. Theiwar territory. Were the strangers aligned now with Theiwar? If so, then they were aligned against the Daergar.

“Come on,” Vog Ironface rumbled, his voice hollow and sullen behind his slitted mask. “If we are betrayed, let’s learn of it now.”

Slide Tolec heard the sound, directly ahead, seeming to come from his own caves, and a cold dread touched him. The Hylar! The strangers, new-come to Kal-Thax, who had demonstrated their military might and then had withdrawn, to lead a sweep to clear outsiders from the slopes of the realm. Had it all been a ruse? With everyone preoccupied, had they come back here and invaded Theibardin? Were the Hylar now in control of Theiwar lairs?

He remembered Crouch Redfire, who had first organized the Theiwar into a power in Kal-Thax, and Twist Cutshank, who had listened to false counsel and almost destroyed them. It was like something those two might have done, to carry out such a betrayal.

“Theiwar!” Slide Tolec shouted. “Forward! Prepare to attack!”

And just north of the Theiwar, Prince Olim Goldbuckle and his Daewar army heard the call and checked their weapons. The sound of drums was coming from below Galefang, where the Daewar’s secret entrance to the subterranean world below Cloudseeker lay. The Hylar had found the way to Urkhan’s caverns! They would invade New Daebardin! Olim drew his sword and sliced it forward in the cold mountain air. “Daewar to me!” he roared. “Flanks left and right! Double-time!”

“The Theiwar!” Gem Bluesleeve called, pointing to the left where Theiwar were pouring over a ridge, angling upward toward Galefang. “And there! The Daergar are coming!”

“Shields and blades!” Olim ordered. “Get ready to fight!”

On rises and ridges all around, bands of fur-clothed Klar heard the drum-call and saw the armies of Daewar, Theiwar, and Daergar heading for the source of it. “Rust and rot!” Bole Trune growled. “I give my word, I let no one break it. Klar! Fight!”

A mile or so away, huddled under an outthrust shelf of stone, small faces turned toward the sound of the drums and one of them asked, “What that noise?”

“Drum,” another said. “Like before.”

“What before?”

“Before! When we get all surrounded an’ say okay we do council.”

“When all that happen?”

“While back, Highbulp. You were havin’ nap, maybe didn’ notice.”

“Well, what it mean?”

“Prob’ly mean we s’posed to go where noise is.”

“Why?”

“’Cause we said okay we would.”

“Oh.”

There were other ears, too, that heard the song of the drums. For miles around, in caverns and valley shelters, in fields, mining camps, and snowy pastures, the Einar by the thousands turned to listen and wonder. Unaffiliated with any tribe, though they shared ancestors with all of them, the common folk of Kal-Thax heard the call and came out from tiny villages, cave complexes, and remote shelters to follow the strange, hypnotic sound — the commanding, lovely Call to Balladine.

Some of the Klar arrived first at the cliffs below Galefang. They howled down the slopes, in Klar fashion, then stopped in confusion as they saw the solid wall of iron shields facing them there.

The Daewar came then, pushing up through a snowy draw, bright garments brilliant against the white of new winter. In the thousands, they far outnumbered the Hylar foot companies and the eleven mounted Hylar waiting under the cliffs, but Olim Goldbuckle remembered the encirclement of the border camps and the precise, efficient way in which these outland strangers had made themselves part of Kal-Thax. They hesitated, and when the Hylar line made no move, they pulled back to wait.

The Theiwar came cautiously, ready to counterattack invaders in their country, but when they saw the assembly below the cliffs they were confused. Nobody was attacking anybody. Gathering to one side of the massed Daewar, they clustered around and behind Slide Tolec, their hands on their dark blades, and waited.

By the time the Daergar of Vog Ironface arrived on the scene, others were arriving, too — small groups of puzzled, cautious Einar from the nearer slopes, and even a little tribe — or tumble — of Aghar, creeping along a gully to peer out at what was happening beyond.

By dusk, thousands and tens of thousands of dwarves waited on the slope of Cloudseeker, below the towering crag called Galefang, nearest of the Windweavers. It was what Colin Stonetooth had counted on. There was such a crowd now, that no one — not even the well-armed Daewar — could start trouble without risking a free-for-all in which everyone would be outnumbered.

The sheer numbers, and the complexity of the groups, made it simply impractical for anyone to attack anyone. And to most dwarves — even the unpredictable Klar — the primary test of any situation — the primary test of anything — was its practicality.

Mounted on his great horse Schoen, and flanked by the Ten, Colin Stonetooth rode to the top of a shoulder in full view of everyone on the slope. With great ceremony, he removed his helm and shield and handed them across to Jerem Longslate, First of the Ten. Then he drew his sword and hammer and — as he had seen Olim Goldbuckle do to signal a talk — he dropped them on the ground.

The drums ceased their song, and in the silence Colin Stonetooth said, in a voice that carried to the fringes of the great crowd, “We are the Hylar. We are newly-come, but we are of Kal-Thax now, just as are all of you. So know this: in the spring, or the next spring, these mountains may be overrun by humans. Unless we — all of us, in unison — take measures to prevent it, we will all fall before the tide of human migration, if not this year, then the year after.”