Dan Parkinson - The Swordsheath Scroll

"Wonderful," Derkin rumbled, suppressing a shiver. If there was one thing most dwarves detested more than magic, it was goblins. "Goblins in the mine," he muttered. "As if things weren't complicated enough."

By last light of evening, Derkin lay concealed just above the mine camp, watching the closing of the shaft and the positioning of the guards. It was just as Calan had said. Food was brought from the longhouse, then six armed humans remained outside, taking up positions in a wide arc around the mine yards, while the rest retired to a pair of the old dwarven cabins to sleep.

Those on guard made no fires, and Derkin realized that they would have light enough to see soon. Within an hour, at least one of Krynn's moons would be in the clear sky, and the humans felt no need of firelight.

The positioning of the guards indicated that the men did not expect trouble, and certainly not from beyond their perimeter. They had placed themselves to watch the mine and the buildings, not to watch the surrounding wilderness. A slight, cold smile tugged at the Hylar's whiskered cheeks.

"How you do this is up to you," the old Daewar had told him, shrugging as though he hadn't the slightest interest in what came next.

"Then how I do it is my way, and mine alone," he had snapped. He had left Calan dozing beside the little spring, and was glad that he had. He had no need of anyone as unpredictable as Calan Silvertoe.

His plan was a simple one-take out as many guards as he could, as quietly as he could, then open the mine shaft and somehow free the dwarves within. If there were also goblins in there… well, he didn't know where they were or what they might do, so there was nothing to be gained by worrying about them.

He carried one weapon at hand-a stout, hardwood stick four feet long, sharpened at both ends. It was as near to a delver's javelin as he could improvise. In Thorbardin, Derkin had once prided himself on his skill with the working javelin.

In deep dusk, he crept to the first of the guard positions and peered around. By last good light, he had seen a human guard seat himself beside a fallen tree, leaning back against the trunk. At that moment, he had selected this one as his first target.

Derkin came up behind the man, soundless feet sure on the mountain slope. He was almost within arm's reach when the human heard or sensed something. The man started to turn, started to rise, but it was too late. With a lunge, Derkin flung himself across the tree trunk, thrust his javelin over the man's head, and snapped it back, under his chin. Gripping the shaft with both hands, Derkin heaved back. The man gurgled; his feet drummed the ground. Then his neck snapped, and he lay limp.

Derkin relieved the man of a dagger, leaving his other weapons where they lay. The bow and arrows and the awkward, light-bladed human sword weren't worth carrying around.

The second guard was harder to get to. This man was in a narrow, upright cleft of rock, hidden from both sides. The dwarf could have charged in on him, and finished him with a thrust of his javelin, but the chance of a silent kill in that manner was nil. The man would have time to shout or scream before he died.

For a moment, Derkin puzzled over it, then he crept up beside the cleft, remaining just out of sight. When he was near enough to hear the human breathing, he drew his dagger and tossed it onto the sloping ground just outside the cleft. It landed with a little thud, and lay glinting in the starlight.

In the cleft, the human stirred, muttered something to himself, and stepped forward, squinting. Another step, and he was out of the cleft, bending over, reaching for the dagger. He never heard the quick whir of Derkin's javelin as it lashed downward, its stout staff colliding with the exposed base of his skull. The man staggered, pitched forward, and Derkin thrust one of the sharpened ends of the staff into his throat, cutting off a strangled scream before it began.

He retrieved his dagger, relieved the guard of what he had already decided he wanted-a bronze-headed belt mace-and went on. The third guard, he knew, wore no helmet.

Five of the guards lay dead, and Derkin was stalking number six, when he froze in his tracks. Nearby, someone or something had moved, a slight rustling of brush. Motionless, he waited, and again heard the slightest of sounds. Just off to his left, someone else was creeping stealthily toward the position of the dozing guard.

A deep scowl lowered Derkin's brows as he mouthed silent curses. "Calan," he whispered to himself, "if you mess this up for me, I swear I'll brain you."

In the dark of evening, when the ore slopes were quiet and cool breezes drifted through the mountains, Helta Graywood slipped out of the dusty, suffocating grain loft, down the narrow ladder to the floor of the longhouse, and padded across on small, bare feet to the rear door, staying in shadows in case any human outside might happen to glance through the broken shutters of a window. Around the dimly lit main room, several dwarf women sat on benches or lay on makeshift cots, resting from the day's labors. Some of them glanced at Helta as she passed, and the nearest one-a gray-haired matron with deep creases around her eyes-said, "Stay close, Helta. There will be bright moonlight tonight."

The girl paused. "I'll be careful, Nadeen," she said. "But I do need some fresh air."

Nadeen nodded, understanding. The grain loft was never a pleasant place to work, even under the best of circumstances. Close and stifling, the little chamber above the kitchen was always dusty, always hot, and always reeked of the acrid odor of decaying grain. And now, with the redoubled supplies the human invaders had brought in, the place was nearly unbearable.

Helta Graywood was the youngest of the female slaves kept at the mining compound. She was hardly more than a girl, and strikingly featured, with a face that combined the soft, delicate lines of Daewar ancestry with the wide-set, slightly slanted eyes and dark, lustrous hair of a Hylar grandfather. Generally speaking, human males had little interest in dwarven women, finding them sometimes amusing but rarely attractive. It was the judgment of the women of the longhouse, though, that Helta Graywood might be an exception. And that being the case, it was best to keep her out of sight of the humans in the compound.

Thus it had become Helta's lot to be permanent warder of the grain loft, ever since the human invaders had come. It was the one place available to them that no human was likely to go.

Helta spent her days in the loft without complaint. But sometimes, after a day when the sun on the loft roof had made the space inside seem like an oven, it became just too much. Some evenings, she simply had to go outside for a time, just to feel the breezes and breathe the clean, scented mountain air.

Now the mine shaft had been sealed, the night guards were out on the perimeter, and all of the other humans had gone to their bunks. Helta peered out the back door, looked this way and that, listened carefully, then slipped out and closed the door behind her.

There would be an early moonrise, but right now it was dark outside, the only light a faint, frosty glow from the stars in the ebony sky. For a time, Helta simply stood and breathed, enjoying the cool, clean air. Then, as was her habit on these forays, she walked. The exercise felt good, and she had long since figured out the limits of the area hidden from the night guards' positions by the longhouse. Captive dwarves were not allowed outside after sundown, but as long as she remained hidden from view, she felt fairly safe.

As she walked, pacing back and forth the length of the building, she thought melancholy thoughts of the family she would never see again-her father dead at the hands of human invaders, her mother and sisters led away for sale at some slave market in the human lands. The humans had come through the pass in force, a surprise attack that was cruel and bloody.