Dan Parkinson - The Gates of Thorbardin

Chane Feldstone recounted the pursuit of the refugees by ogres, as he had seen it, and Chestal Thicketsway told with glee of the mountain dwarf's defeat of the ogre beneath. The kender also told of what he had seen from aloft, in the Vale of Respite. Camber Meld and Fleece Ironhill glanced at each other, their faces stricken. Nothing was left of the places they and their people had called home. There was nothing to go back to.

"How many were there?" Wingover asked. 'You say an army. How much of an army was it?"

Camber Meld shrugged. "Two hundred. Five hundred. We couldn't tell."

"Nearly eight hundred," a cold voice from outside the circle put in.

Everyone turned. "I saw it from the mountain," Glenshadow added. "Possibly eight hundred goblins, at least a dozen ogres among them… and a human leader."

"Where were you, to see all that?" Chane Feldstone frowned.

The wizard lifted his staff. 'When I am away from you — and that accursed stone you carry — I have eyes far better than my own."

"Chane has the Spellbinder," Chess told Jilian. "Magic doesn't work when it's around."

"A human leader?" Wingover was leaning toward the wizard, frowning.

'What can you tell me of him?"

"Darkmoor," the wizard spoke almost in a whisper. "Commander of goblins."

"What can you tell us of him, wizard?" Wingover asked again.

"Not him," Glenshadow said slowly. "Her. Kolanda Darkmoor. This much the mirror of the ice could tell me. This much, and one thing more, the thing the moons in omen told. It is the intent of someone — who, I do not know — that the wilderness between Thorbardin and Pax Tharkas be occupied and held."

"They will come here, then? The goblins?" Fleece Ironhill looked at

Camber Meld, then at the rest. "My people — our people — will flee no more. But how can we fight them when they come? We have so few weapons…"

Chane Feldstone stood, looking like one who had come to a difficult decision. "There are weapons here," he said. "I will show you where… or he can." He nodded at Chestal Thicketsway. 'You will have to break them out of ice, but they will serve." He indicated the old sword slung to his back. "This is one of them. There are many more. But I demand a thing of you, on your honor."

"And that this?" Camber Meld asked.

Those you find here, with the weapons, are to be treated gently and with respect. They hve had enough of fighting."

On a winding trail high on a mountainside, the group halted its climb at a place where broken rock was strewn across a hundred yards of trail and onto the rises above.

"He's gone," Chane Feldstone said. "This is where I left him, but he isn't here now."

'You should have killed him," Wingover said. "Burying an ogre doesn't mean he'll die. Earth is their natural element. Probably another one came along and dug him out. You'll have to be very watchful now. Ogres don't forget a slight or a defeat. This one won't forget you, Chane."

"Loam," the dwarf muttered. "His name is Loam."

"His buddy's name is Cleft," Chestal Thicketsway offered. "I saw him farther up, that day. But I didn't know ogres helped each other."

"Against anyone else, they will," the man told him.

"They are not pleasant to have as enemies."

Jilian clung closely to Chane, her wide eyes alert and darting about the mountainscape. She had never seen an ogre, but she had heard of the creatures. If Chane had ogres after him, she had a feeling he would need all the help he could find.

Wingover scanned the skies, wishing abruptly that Bobbin and his flying whatzit would show up. 'You can never find a gnome when you need one," he muttered. Chane glanced around. "Why do you need the gnome?"

"It would be nice to have some idea what's beyond the next turn," the man said. "I still think he could scout for us, if he would just stick around."

"He doesn't have much control of the soarwagon,"

Chess pointed out. "It just sort of goes where it pleases most of the time."

Wingover busied himself with trying to calm Geekay.

He kept a firm grip on the animal's lead, scratched its ears and stroked its nose. The horse had been skittish for the past hour, and Wingover wasn't sure whether it was the recent presence here of an ogre, or possibly some distant scent of goblins that worried him. Geekay shared one characteristic with the elf, Garon Wendesthalas. Geekay simply did not like goblins.

Thinking of the elf, Wingover wondered where he was. Probably on his way back to Qualinost by now, he decided.

With Geekay somewhat mollified, Wingover got out one of his maps and studied it, then put it away. "We had better go on," he told them. 'There should be a goat-trail up ahead somewhere, leading off to the south. We'll follow that until we find a better path. I'd guess we're about three days from safety."

Chane glanced around at him again. "Safety?"

"Thorbardin," Wingover said. "If we make good time and stay to the high ground, it should be no more than three days until we run into a border patrol. From there, it's an easy trip home for you two, and I can head for

Barter and start spending Rogar Goldbuckle's money."

"I'm not going to Thorbardin," Chane said levelly. "I told you, I have something I have to do first."

"Then I'll just take Jilian home." Wingover shrugged.

"Either way, I'll have kept my pledge."

"You won't do anything of the kind," the girl snapped.

"I'm going where Chane goes, and you're supposed to go along with us."

"Now look, Button, all I agreed to do was to escort you into the wilderness to look for Chane Feldstone, then to get you home safely. All right. We've been to the wilderness. We found Chane Feldstone. Now it's time to go home. It's as simple as that." Nearby, the wizard Glenshadow sat on a rock, listening. At Wingover's statement, he shook his head slowly, but said nothing.

Jilian glared at the man. 'You made a debt of service. Do you intend to break your pledge?"

Wingover frowned. "I intend to keep it. I just told you that."

"Well, then, you'll have to wait a while longer because Chane has to find Grallen's helm. It's his destiny." The man stared at the dwarven girl, then at the bearded young dwarf behind her. Two of a kind, he thought. Each one more stubborn than the other. He turned to Glenshadow, sitting on his rock. 'You talk to them," he said.

"What about?" the wizard asked, his voice hardly more than a whisper.

"She's right. Chane does have a destiny. And as I said, you have no choice in the matter."

"%fell, as I said, I make my own choices," Wingover growled. "East across this ridge is a valley swarming with hostiles. A person would have to be crazy to go there." Jilian stepped back and took Chane's hand in hers.

"Then I release you from your pledge," she told the man.

"We will go on without you, and you owe us nothing more. Good-bye."

Geekay tossed his head, broke his reins free from Wingover's grip, and pranced a few steps up the path, past the glowering dwarves. He stood there, facing upward and away, snorting and pawing at the rock path. "You, too?" Wingover snapped. He pointed a stern finger at Chane. "You're going to get everyone killed," he warned. "And for what? A dream."

"The dream was real," Chane said, his voice level.

"Grallen called me to go and find his helm. Thorbardin is at stake, and the power to protect the kingdom is in that helm. But you heard Jilian.

You're free to go wherever you want to go. We don't need you."

"And where do you intend to go from here?"

"Where Grallen went. I have the Spellbinder. It shows me the way."

Wingover took a deep breath, then released it in a sigh. "That's how it is, then." He strode past them, recovered Geekay's lead, and started on without looking back, though he could hear them following.