Douglas Niles - Goddess Worldweaver

Not that she had much to lose, herself. Once she had had great cause for living, for hope of a bright future. She and Karkald…

But her husband had been gone for fifty years now, slain along with the entire Army of Axial during a vicious battle with the Delvers at Arkan Pass. Only a few battered foot soldiers and Marshal Nayfal had survived that debacle, bringing the tale of the historic catastrophe back to the city. He had reported that the Delvers were massed in a huge army, greater numbers than the Unmirrored had ever previously mustered. With the bulk of the Seer army annihilated, the knowledge of the teeming enemy lurking in the lightless fringes of the First Circle had become Axial’s overriding reality. Everyone knew they were simply biding their time, waiting for the perfect time to attack.

Since then, the Seer dwarves of this great city had gone into a state of perpetual siege, waiting for the Blind Ones to attack in force. Though that attack had never come, the leaders of her city had seemed to succumb more and more to fear and paranoia. Even the goblins, once welcomed among the dwarves as reliable, if lower-class, workers, had been shunned. Nayfal had reported that a great company of the wretched creatures had abandoned their positions during the great battle, and since nearly every family in the city had lost at least one member in that doomed campaign, public opinion had been harsh and unforgiving.

This situation with the lower race had been exacerbated ten years after Arkan Pass, when a band of goblins had attempted to assassinate King Lightbringer. Only the actions of a heroic palace guard, a veteran sergeant named Cubic Mandrill, had thwarted the plot, though the brave guard had lost his life in the attempt. Lord Nayfal himself had exposed the plot and put the treacherous goblins to death.

Despite the fact that only a few rogue males had been involved in the attempt on his life, the king had ordered all of the wretched creatures then living in Axial into this cramped and unsanitary quarter of the city. Eventually he had ordered the wall built, so that the goblins were confined until such time as the king and his marshal decreed them no longer to be a threat.

In her despair, Darann had to remind herself that there were reasons to take precautions, to remain free. Her father, Rufus Houseguard, depended on her more than ever. And she had two brave brothers, Aurand and Borand, who still served in the Royal Army. They would be heartbroken if anything happened to her. Finally, there were these goblins, many of whom had been loyal soldiers of King Lightbringer until, in the years following Arkan Pass, they become the targets of increasing harassment and suffering.

Her mind turned to practical concerns. She shrugged out of her heavy backpack and quickly undid the flap at the top. “Here… I’ve brought you forty pounds of citrishroom, all I could trade for at the market. And the rest is salt.”

“I hope you know the depths of our gratitude,” Hiyram said quietly. “The citrus alone will keep a hundred of our youngsters alive for another year. And the salt… well, it is more precious than gold or flamestone.”

The goblin lowered his voice. “Have you been to see the king? Is there any word on his condition?”

She shook her head. “Nayfal controls the audience list, and he doesn’t want me in there. He’s even trying to keep my father out, though I know Rufus is still seeking an audience. I will see my father tonight, but I can’t think of any reason to be optimistic about changes happening, not in the near future anyway.”

“I understand.” The goblin’s eyes were downcast.

Darann had one more piece of business. She took the goblin’s arm, and they stepped around a sharp corner, where they were concealed from the observation slits in the outer wall. She reached into her tunic and pulled out a narrow dagger from the sheath she had concealed between her breasts. The keen steel glinted faintly in the dim light. “Here is another one,” she said, as Hiyram took the forbidden weapon without a word, slipping it through his belt so that it vanished into his grimy trousers. “Only, please…”

“I understand,” the goblin whispered. “And you have my pledge; we shall not use these weapons, save only if we need to fight for our very lives.”

“I hope it never comes to that,” she said fervently.

“Aye, Lady,” Hiyram whispered as she started away. His words barely reached her through the darkness. “So do I.”

Karkald wandered away from the company while the Hyac piled the bodies of the slain harpies. The smoke from the fire rose like a pillar of blackness into the sky, and though he intentionally walked upwind from the pyre the air still seemed to reek of bile and char. His stocky legs bore him along the ridge, with the vast yawning gap of Riven Deep beginning a few hundred yards to his right.

Out of old habit, his hands went to various parts of his body, where he had his tools strapped to belts, slings, and harness. “Hammer, chisel, hatchet, file. Knife, pick, rope, spear.”

He sought the calmness those words had once brought him, but it seemed that sense of placidity was gone forever, had been gone since he and his company of dwarves had been magically transported here, to the world of Nayve, following the disastrous battle at Arkan Pass. True, he had managed to keep those survivors, several hundred strong, together here in the Fourth Circle. And they had friends here, good and loyal people such as Natac and Janitha, Belynda and Roland Boatwright.

But how he missed Darann! At times like this, when he had created a new invention-a device that had worked perfectly, bringing more than a thousand harpies to sudden doom-he should have felt some sense of elation. Instead, he only wanted to tell her about it, and it seemed the only pleasure he would ever gain would be if his wife, herself, could again tell him that she was proud of him.

Janitha came up to him as he was sitting on a flat-topped rock, looking without seeing as the Darken shadows thickened along Riven Deep. “Our best count was more than fourteen hundred of them brought down by your net,” she said cheerfully. “It was hard to get an exact count-lots of them got pretty well chopped up or burned before we had the time to count heads.”

Karkald snorted, making the effort to be civil. “That’s something, anyway. With the Delvers and golems stuck on the other side of the Deep, it’s nice to know we have something that might give the harpies pause.”

“Yes… it begins to seem that the decisive battle will not be fought here after all,” the Hyaccan chieftain replied.

“Have you heard anything from Circle at Center?” asked the dwarf.

“The landing of the death ships appears to be imminent,” Janitha said. “One of the faeries brought a missive just now. They are making for shore, to the metalward of Argentian.”

Karkald nodded. “Good beaches there, the smoothest coast on all of Nayve, I should think.” He felt strangely unmoved, though this was the development the whole world had been dreadfully anticipating for so many years. Was it because this was not his world, that he was a stranger here? He knew it was much more than that. With Darann gone from his life, nothing that happened to him on any circle would seem to be terribly important.

She looked at him sharply, and he sensed that she had more to say. He waited, and after a few heartbeats she continued.

“There was word from the last group of miners, too,” she said quietly. “The gnomes and goblins, and some of your dwarves as well, that started their excavation four years ago. They worked their way down for more than three miles, following caves where they could, digging when they had to… trying to find a link to the Underworld.”