Douglas Niles: The Last Thane

"Is the challenger drunk, sleeping off the revel of his last feast on Krynn? Or perhaps he is afraid?" sneered Darkend.

There was no reply, nor was one expected. Bellowsmoke was tall for a Daergar and a strapping warrior in his own right. Now he wore his battle armor, plates of black steel that covered his chest, belly, and groin. Supple links of chain mail rippled smoothly over his limbs and his back. His head was almost completely concealed beneath a grotesque helm, the faceplate scored by the image of a leering beast. Long fangs, honed on both edges to razor sharpness, jutted forward from beside his jowls. Darkend's pale, bright eyes flashed through the narrow slits of vision holes, and his hand was clenched around the shaft of the wickedly studded mace. Now he raised the weapon, pumping his hand up and down as his voice once again cried his public challenge.

"Khark Huntrack! I say you are the spawn of a gully dwarf, the dribbling bastard of a diseased whore! I say, show your face to me now, and die like a dwarf or else you shall be known as a coward, and your spleen will nourish the soil of the food warrens!"

Soft gasps were barely audible in the chamber. Darkend's insults had stepped even beyond the usual bravado of dueling dark dwarves. Everyone knew that if Khark Huntrack were alive he would have to come forward and face these accusations or never show his face in Daerbardin again.

Thus everyone knew what they had already come to suspect: Khark Huntrack must already be dead.

Darkend waited a decent interval so that his intended opponent would have plenty of time to appear. The great audience hall lapsed into silence, but no one looked toward the doors in anticipation of Huntrack's late arrival. Instead, all eyes remained fixed upon the strutting figure that paced back and forth across the rounded dais.

Finally a dark dwarf from the front row, a sturdy warrior in the black, bat winged helmet that characterized Darkend's personal guards, leaped to his feet and thrust his fist into the air.

"All hail Darkend Bellowsmoke!" he cried. "All hail the new thane of the Daergar and the banner of the Smoking Forge!"

A rumble of assenting cries rose through the chamber, but it was not the thundering acclamation Darkend desired. Instead, there were mutters of resentment from many quarters, and even a few outright hisses of disapproval. One of the latter was interrupted by a scream, and the aspiring thane smiled grimly behind the mask of his helmet, knowing that one of his agents had just knifed another obstacle to his throne.

"Hear me, dwarves of Clan Daergar! Khark Huntrack is dead!"

The voice came from the shadows in the back of the chamber. Darkend whirled to see a robed Daergar advancing in the middle of at least two dozen bodyguards. The dwarf's protectors had blades drawn, and their guarding posture formed steel-barbed walls before, behind, and to either side of the bold speaker. There would be no knife blade to swiftly silence this dissenter, Darkend saw with a grimace of frustration.

"Gludh Kolgard? Is that you?" demanded the lone figure on the dais.

"You know it is-just as you know that your toady Slickblade killed Khark in the last hours before his ceremony."

"If Khark Huntrack has met an untimely death, then I withdraw my unflattering remarks," Darkend replied, with a bow of facetious graciousness. "Though I certainly had no foreknowledge of the manner nor the agent of his demise."

The hisses and clucks from the gallery were very muted and swiftly faded away. No one believed Darkend, of course, but neither did anyone think it worth a possible knife in the ribs to state a universally held opinion.

"Now to the business of this day." Darkend cleared his throat, wheeling around in a full circle so that his luminous, dark-seeing eyes could pass over the entire crowd. A hush settled again as the Daergar waited, knowing that before long they would have a new thane or the prospect of further public bloodshed. In either case, there was promise of fine entertainment in the air.

"I have stood upon this dais each of the last six days, since the untimely demise of our esteemed leader, the bold and wise Thane Halt Blackmetal. Six times has a challenger named himself, and six times that challenger has failed to leave this dais alive."

Darkend paused, allowing his words to settle over his listeners. Four of those challenges had resulted in spectacular duels on this very platform, ending only when his Daergar opponent lay bleeding his life away at the feet of the triumphant Darkend Bellowsmoke. Indeed, the armored dark dwarf still felt the soreness in his ribs, the bruising of his shoulder, and the poorly healing cut on his thigh that were his own souvenirs of those fights. On the other two occasions-most recently in the case of the unfortunate Khark Huntrack-the challenger had met with an unfortunate accident on the eve of the contest, and Darkend had been spared the grueling necessity of public battle. Of all those challengers, Khark Huntrack had been the most esteemed fighter, so Darkend judged it particularly good fortune that the assassin had done his work so well.

"Now, as is the custom of Daergar law, I proclaim I have faced every challenger who dared to name himself, and I announce my ascension to the throne of our clan." He drew a breath, knowing there was one more part to this ritual, and praying to Reorx that his next words would be greeted by silence.

"I await only the announcement of a challenge, of one more dark dwarf foolish enough to throw his life away before this issue is resolved!"

He waited, allowing the echoes to ring through the huge chamber. For a moment he thought that the matter was finished, that he had won.

"I challenge Darkend Bellowsmoke's right to the throne!"

The mass exhalation, a communal sigh of anticipation, washed from the crowd like the wind that so often coursed across the surface of the world above. The words came from behind Darkend, but he knew the speaker well; indeed, he was not surprised Gludh Kolgard had spoken out. Still, the confirmation fell upon his shoulders like a weight of iron ore, and Darkend almost slumped under the prospect of another battle. It took all of his powerful will, as well as the concealment of his armor, to mask any sign of his weakness from the gathered clan. He spun, the twin tusks gleaming darkly, almost as if they were already stained with blood, and glared at the dark dwarf who had spoken. Gludh stood utterly still. He was surrounded by henchmen. Slowly the simmering tension in the vast room bubbled toward release.

"I accept the challenge." Darkend broke the impasse at last, he thought with just the right tone of bored acknowledgment. "\ will stand here after the interval of one day, that Gludh Kolgard shall have the pleasure of tasting my steel."

Now a roar of acclamation went up from the throng, and Darkend held his martial pose, though his sore arm throbbed from the weight of his mace. He wished he could bring the weapon down right now on the insolent challenger's unarmored skull.

It wasn't fair! He was clearly the master of any one, even any two, of his accursed challengers. Yet Daergar custom demanded that at least seven dark dwarves should have the chance to face him for the throne. Gludh's reputation was well known. He would be among the most dangerous, and he had been clever enough to wait until the last day, when Darkend would inevitably be wounded, battered, and fatigued from the long ordeal of challengers. Of course, should Gludh triumph, he himself would have to face up to six more possible challengers, but that would be little consolation to Darkend, moldering in his tomb.

The throng quickly filed out of the four massive gateways leading from the Arena of Honor, itself located in the heart of Daerbardin's great royal palace-the palace that should already be mine, Darkend groused to himself. Gludh Kolgard was protected by his followers as he left for his own quarter of the great subterranean city, one of the two great centers of the Daergar in Thorbardin. There would be another night of feasting and celebration, though no doubt this time some of the bodyguards would be certain to seal off the ventilation shaft.