Dan Parkinson - The Gates of Thorbardin

"Well, that's not so bad," Chess shrugged. "That means he can't reach you, either. Of course, if you'd killed him first, then buried him, you wouldn't have this sort of problem. Don't you know anything about ogres?"

"This is the first one I ever saw," Chane growled, prodding into another crack with his sword. Beneath the rocks something yelped, and the pile of stone shuddered.

"Well, you may have the chance to see some more, if that's what you want. There's something else up there quite a distance away, but definitely up the path. It might be another ogre… maybe several. They tend to come in bunches, you know."

"No, I didn't know."

"Kind of like goblins," the kender said. 'You hardly ever find one goblin without finding a lot of goblins.

Which reminds me, I thought for a minute up there that I could smell goblins. Have you ever smelled goblins?"

"Not intentionally. What do they smell like?"

"Oh, I don't know." The kender pondered it, finding the challenge interesting. "They smell like, uh, maybe a sort of a mixture of fresh manure and dead frogs. I don't know. Goblins smell like goblins. Anyway, you don't generally find ogres and goblins in the same place at the same time. That's why I was surprised to smell goblins."

Chane made a final pass from one end of the rockfall to the other, but found no opening large enough to reach the buried ogre with more than just the tip of his sword. The kender, watching him, went to one of the cracks the dwarf had already tried and inserted the butt-end of his hoopak, then plunged it downward as hard and as deep as he was able. Beneath their feet, the pile of stones rumbled and quaked, and a trilling bellow emerged from various crevices.

"I think he's ticklish," Chess observed.

"I think we should get out of here before he really becomes irritated,"

Chane said. Thoughtfully, he reached into his pack and touched the hard, warm facets of Spellbinder. Instantly the faint, green guideline was there, leading up the switchback trail, heading for the pass high above.

Yet the kender said there were more ogres up there, and maybe goblins, as well. Chane realized that he had never seen a goblin either. He didn't relish the idea of meeting some of them just now, though. The ordeal with the ogre had left him shaken.

"Maybe the thing to do," he told himself, "is to go after those people who were running down the path and find out what they know about what's waiting above."

Chess looked around, frowning. "Don't you want to see for yourself? I do."

"I'd just as soon know what I'm getting myself into before I get into it," Chane decided aloud. "I'm going to talk to some of those people. You can go on up there if you want to."

"Good idea," something soundless seemed to say. "Let's go."

"Hush, Zap," the kender said. "I know what you're trying to do."

"Misery," the spell mourned.

The dwarf glanced around. He was growing accustomed to the ditherings of the kender's companion, but it still bothered him.

"Zap thinks if I take him far enough away from you and Spellbinder, that he can happen," Chess said with a shrug.

The dwarf had already started back down the zigzag trail, so the kender followed him. Chess looked back toward the distant heights now and then and wished the old spell hadn't attached itself to him.

Full morning lay on the valley by the time Chane and the kender rounded a bluff on the mountain's long slope and saw people ahead. Where a stream came down from the heights, two rough camps had been established, a few hundred yards apart. The larger camp, and farthest from the rising mountain, was of dwarves. The nearer, smaller camp — no more than a few cookfires and bits of bedding where injured people rested — held a few dozen humans.

As the dwarf and the kender neared, those humans capable of holding weapons came out part way and formed a defensive line, watching the newcomers carefully. In the dwarf camp beyond, people scurried here and there; twenty or thirty dwarves soon came at a run to join the human fighters.

When they were near enough, Chane cupped his hands at his cheeks and called, "Hello there! Can we join you? We're peaceful!"

There was hesitation, then a burly human with a full beard stepped out of the line and called, "Who are you?"

"I'm Chane Feldstone," the dwarf returned. "That's Chestal Thicketsway.

We were on our way up the mountain when you passed us. I want to talk to you."

"There were ogres and goblins behind us," the man said, shading his eyes against the morning sun. "If you came from there, how did you get past them?"

"We only saw one ogre," Chane called, "and no goblins, though there may have been some higher up."

"How did you get past the ogre you saw?"

Chestal Thicketsway danced forward, past Chane. "Chane Feldstone is a famous warrior," he shouted. "He dumped rocks on your ogre and buried him."

"I'm not famous," Chane hissed at the beaming kender. He turned his attention to the people ahead. Closer now, he could see them clearly. Many of them had fresh, bound wounds, and those huddling in the two camps beyond were in a sorry shape. "Who are you people?" he called. "Where have you come from?"

The humans and dwarves — and women among them, Chane noted, of both races — relaxed visibly as the two strangers came near and they saw that they weren't goblins. The burly man lowered his pike and tapped himself on the chest with a grimy thumb. "I'm Camber Meld. That's Fleece Ironhill over there." He pointed toward a gray-bearded hill dwarf standing just ahead of a phalanx of armed soldiers. "We're chiefs of our people. We have

— er, had — villages a mile apart in the Vale of Respite. That's the next valley over. His people are herders. Mine are growers. Or were." He looked around, blankeyed. "I guess what you see is all that are left."

Chane stopped just a few paces from the leaders, looking from one to the other. "What happened?"

"They fell on us just at daybreak," the dwarven chief said. "An army of goblins and several ogres. First my village, then Camber's. We didn't have a chance."

"We fought," the man corrected. "For three days, we fought, first in the villages, then retreating up the slopes. But there were too many of them, and we weren't prepared for defense. There haven't ever been goblins around here, and not many ogres."

"But there are now," Fleece growled.

Chane stared at them bewildered. "What did they want? Why did they attack you?"

"Base for the Commander," the dwarven chief said.

"One of my herders hid in a ravine and heard some of them talking.

That's what they said. 'The Vale of Respite would serve as a base for the

Commander.' And they were taking slaves."

"Is that why they followed you over the ridge?" Chane asked.

"Ogres followed," the dwarven chief muttered. "Two of them, at least, though one may have stopped to torture a few of our people who fell behind. The other one was right behind us."

"Why do ogres follow anyone?" the human leader snarled at Chane. "To torture, to mutilate, to kill." He looked at Chane curiously. "But you got him, huh?"

"I didn't kill him," Chane said. "I tried to, but all I managed was to bury him under some rock."

"We irritated him, though," Chess said helpfully.

The dwarven chief also was gazing at Chane, studying him. 'You don't look like a hill dwarf," he said.

"I'm not. I'm from Thorbardin."

The hill dwarf sucked in his breath, his eyes narrowing to slits. He half-raised the axe he carried, then shrugged and let it down. "Mountain dwarf," he rumbled. "But I guess that war was over a long time ago."

Chane thought abruptly of the ice-field — only a few miles away — where two kinds of dwarves remained frozen in bloody, ancient conflict. "I hope so," he said.