Douglas Niles - Goddess Worldweaver

“D’you know dwarfmaid, Greta… she’s a pailslopper, for master of the palace.”

A pailslopper, Darann knew, was a scullery worker of the lowest class. They worked in inns and of course at the palace and for some of the loftier nobles. She couldn’t think of one that she knew by name. “This Greta… she works for the king, then?”

Hiyram shook his head. “Master of palace,” he repeated with a snort. “Not king…”

“Nayfal!” Darann guessed. “She works for Nayfal?”

The goblin shrugged, his ears flopping with the exaggerated gesture. “Hates Nayfal, but sees him lots. She nice person… like Lady Darann.”

The dwarfmaid reflected on the irony: she was flattered to be compared to the pailslopper who hated the esteemed Lord Nayfal. At the same time, her stomach tightened, and she began to fear Hiyram’s news.

“Greta comes to ghetto-told me secret, told to tell you.”

“What is it?” Darann’s voice was a taut hiss.

“Nayfal has plan… a trap… a trap for Lord Houseguard. He must change to Nayfal’s side, or bad thing will happen.”

“My father!” Darann felt a stab of fear. “When is this… this trap, to happen?”

“Must be soon,” the goblin said. “Greta said I had to tell you right away.”

The dwarfmaid felt a rush of gratitude followed by an ache of fear. “Rufus is going to see the king today. I have to stop him!”

“Good lady, do that-please!” urged the goblin.

But Darann barely heard; she was already racing to get dressed, trying to stem the trembling of her hands, and wondering if she would possibly be in time.

Karkald kicked his feet into the sand, tromping up the steep slope of the dune. He resented the wasted effort of his climbing as the loose grains collapsed under his weight. He estimated that, for each foot that he gained uphill, he slipped down three or four inches. Working as hard as he could, he was still frustrated by the amount of time it took him to reach his destination at the top of the sand pile.

Furthermore, he was still disoriented by the teleportation spell that had brought him here from Riven Deep. He avoided that magic whenever possible, but occasionally-such as now-it was required for haste. It always left him grumpy and irritable, with a sensation of prickling that lingered along his belly and chest for the better part of a day. Still, it had snatched him across a hundred miles in a moment of time, bringing him from the great canyon to this verdant coast. He wanted to rest, to sleep, but instead he was to be confronted by yet another vista of war.

When he finally arrived at the battery position, he leaned forward and braced his hands on his knees while he caught his breath. Even so, he was already inspecting the position out of the corner of his eye, and by the time he straightened and walked onward, he was mostly pleased with the disposition of the weapons.

“Karkald’s here, General Galluper!” called one of the elven gunners, and the big centaur turned from the forward lip of the dune to greet the dwarf.

“Ah, my good engineer,” said the horse-man. “I trust you will approve of my placements.”

“You know better than I how to shoot these things,” Karkald said, gesturing to the wheeled weapons, four in number, that had been dug into the soft sand. Each commanded a view and a field of fire over a great swath of the beach below.

That smooth strand was still clean, washed by waves of emerald seawater and trimmed with white foam, but it was impossible to look across that view and not see the menacing presence of the armada, a cloud darkening the sea to the limits of the horizon. Karkald was taken aback. Now that he was this close, the black ships seemed limitless in number and terrifyingly real in proximity. The bows were angled toward the shore, and the first wave-perhaps five miles out, certainly closing fast-advanced in a line that spanned the view from right to left.

He corrected himself: far to the left, in the direction of metal, he saw an array of white sails, triangular sheets of canvas marking the placement of some of Roland Boatwright’s fleet. There were precious few of them by comparison to the ships of the armada, but the dwarf was heartened by the sight of the flames and smoke that marked that end of the enemy line.

“The batteries on the boats are inflicting great damage on the death ships,” Gallupper said, as if reading his mind. “Many hundreds of the enemy have been destroyed this morning alone-and the killing yesterday, they said, amounted to nearly a thousand ships.”

“A thousand ships…” Karkald could hardly conceive of such numbers, especially when it was merely a fraction of the massive fleet that was still deployed before him. He looked along the crest of the dunes, where this battery was but one of a hundred or so, deployed with killing zones along a twenty-mile stretch of the shore. In that realization, he knew that the batteries, and the brave elves entrenched below the crests of the dunes, the giants and gnomes deployed in reserve… they would not be enough.

When he looked to the rear, he saw that his concern had been anticipated by Gallupper. The batteries could be pulled out of line quickly, each hauled by a couple of powerful centaurs, and a rough pathway had been cleared, leading down the dunes and into a patch of scrubby pines beyond. Still farther away, two or three miles from the beach, rose a range of rugged, rock-crested hills.

“If we lose the shoreline, we will fall back to the hills,” Gallupper was explaining, following the direction of Karkald’s gaze. “There are narrow ravines leading through them, and we will deploy to block them, to bottle up the Deathlord’s army for as long as we can.”

“Aye,” Karkald said, relieved that the plan had been made, disappointed that it was not just advisable but essential. He looked seaward again and could have sworn that the armada was another mile closer to landing.

“Just beware, old friend,” he said, clapping Gallupper on his equine shoulder. “And do not wait too long to pull out.”

Darann took only the time to don her sandals and a light robe, the soft deerskin a hallmark of an earlier time, when trade between Axial and Nayve had been commonplace and profitable for the merchants of both circles. Now, the warmth of the soft fur gave her just a suggestion of the life and the security she had once taken for granted.

She hurried to the lift station, leaving Hiyram to make his way to the stairway. Coolfyre lights blazed from each of the Six Towers, and she could see below the great city coming to life for another interval. Darkbulls pulled carts toward the marketplace, formations of royal guardsmen marched back and forth for the change of the duty, and the hammers of early rising forge men were already battering their irons.

The lift cage was quiet, however, lacking even the low hiss of steam that indicated pressure. Almost groaning in despair, she reached toward the test pipe, felt the cold metal.

Why now? She wanted to scream. The lift went through a half interval’s maintenance every cycle or so, but how could she have the accursed bad luck to find it shut down now, when she so desperately needed haste?

She wasted no time in turning around and racing back to her apartment, unlocking the door with haste and charging into the anteroom. “Hiyram?” she asked, louder than she intended, hoping to catch the goblin before he departed.

There was no answering sound. She charged through the kitchen and found the delivery door closed and latched. Pulling it open, she ducked through the narrow passage beyond and found herself at the edge of the deep, central pit that ran the full length of the pillar’s center. There was a metal handrail before her, and she seized it, swaying to a sudden onset of vertigo.