Douglas Niles - Goddess Worldweaver

Borand followed the aisle illuminated by his sputtering match all the way to the back of the warehouse, then turned and followed another wall toward the corner nearest to the ghetto wall. There was no sign of a door in this back wall, Darann saw in frustration. Her brother cursed and shook his hand as the flame flickered out. After a few seconds he lit another match and continued toward the side wall. Here they discovered a narrow corridor extending farther back into the warehouse. The building was huge, she realized, as they went another hundred paces away from the waterfront.

The corridor widened into another room, narrower than the large space fronting onto the wharf. This one had a tall ceiling invisible in the shadows overhead. Ladders placed at intervals along the floor led toward the lofty, unseen racks.

The third match revealed a pair of old cargo doors on the right side, secured against intruders with a heavy beam, in the terminus of the long corridor. Konnor and Aurand carefully lifted the beam out of the way, setting it gently on the ground to make a minimum of noise. Borand extinguished his match, and the dwarves gingerly pushed on the door.

They all cringed at the loud creak of hinges. A sliver of dim light, the faint background illumination of Axial’s constant aura of coolfyre, outlined the entrance, and the older dwarf placed his eye to the gap. After what seemed like forever to Darann, he drew back and spoke.

“The next gate through the ghetto wall is a long ways away, but I could see a couple of guards on duty down there.”

“Maybe we can try to bluff our way through,” Darann said, “like we have a job with the guards?”

She was not surprised when all three of her companions shook their heads; the idea hadn’t even sounded workable as she had voiced it. Every dwarf they had observed approaching the ghetto had been armored in breastplate and helm. Her brothers, in their leather riding shirts, and herself in the tattered tunic and leggings she had worn for the last five intervals, could not have looked more out of place.

“What about going over the wall?” Aurand suggested. “I saw some ladders back there leading to the warehouse loft. Maybe we can take one of them out this door and get into the ghetto that way?”

“Worth a try,” Borand agreed. Ten minutes later they had muscled one of the heavy ladders down from its perch and carried it to the door. Darann went through first, pushing open the portal as quietly as possible, then standing aside as her three companions brought out their prize.

Fortunately, this section of the alley was buried in deep shadow, and the sounds of the door opening, the inevitable scuffing of the ladder, and the exertions of the dwarves were all swallowed by the larger chaos in the ghetto. The fighting and pillaging were still some distance away, Darann judged, but vigorous enough to raise quite a racket.

When the ladder was in place, Borand reached for it, but Aurand pushed past and scrambled quickly upward, his sword in his hand. He stepped off at the top and, crouching on the narrow perch, waved the others to follow. Her older brother went up, Darann went after Borand, and Konnor brought up the rear. She found that the top of the wall was flat and several feet wide, and she remembered that she had seen guards patrolling here on occasion. The four dwarves stayed low, pulling the ladder upward, then carefully lowering it down the far side.

It seemed to take forever to the dwarfmaid, but she judged it only to be a minute or so that they remained atop the wall. Even so, she was certain that a searching beacon would illuminate them or that some wandering guard would spot their silhouettes against the city’s lights. As soon as the ladder was in place, they descended into a rank alley, with dark, shabby buildings pressing close, leaving a passage only five or six feet wide. Konnor suggested that they lower the ladder and hide it in the shadows at the base of the wall, which they quickly did.

“Which way?” Borand asked, keeping his voice hushed.

Darann had been looking around, wondering that herself. She saw a suggestion of movement, a flash of a bright eye, and bent over. There was something there, crouched in the shadows at the base of the wall, regarding them with wide-open eyes.

“Hi,” she said, “I am the Lady Darann of clan Houseguard, goblin friend. Can you tell me where Hiyram is?”

“Hello, Lady,” said a goblin, rising from his hiding place, squinting at the four dwarves. “I know of you-and trust you, for you sneak into ghetto, not smash gate.”

“Good,” she said. “And thank you. What do you know about Hiyram?”

“This way,” said the goblin. “We see if he still lives, okay?”

Lord Nayfal was nervous. How could this be taking so long? The filthy goblins were unarmed, half-starved, and notoriously cowardly. How in the Underworld could they resist his elite companies? This should have been a simple matter of herding them into the plazas in the center of their ghetto, then wading in with unsheathed weapons, giving the wretches what they deserved.

“Captain Brackmark,” he called. The lord’s ferr’ell bucked under him, and he cursed, then slid down from the saddle to stand on the ground. He had been riding the beasts for fifty years, but this was one of those times when it seemed that he was simply unable to control his stubborn and willful mount.

The officer of the guard clomped up to him, saluting. “Yes, m’lord?” he asked.

“What’s the problem? Why aren’t your men pushing through to the central plaza yet?”

“Begging your lordship’s pardon, but we’re making good progress,” Brackmark insisted. “We got ’em cleared out of the near buildings, and we’re taking it street by street, pushing toward the center.”

“That’s not good enough. Send in the rest of the reserve battalion! I want this matter cleaned up by the end of the interval!”

“I will send them, sir, of course,” replied the veteran footman, sidling away from the ferr’ell as the creature snapped and growled at Nayfal’s liveryman when that dwarf took the trailing reins. “But it might still take another interval, maybe two, before we can round up all the males.”

“Bah,” snapped Nayfal. “What makes the pathetic wretches so hard to catch? If they’re hiding behind the females, then catch-or kill-the wenches, too!”

“Not that we haven’t tried, lord. But they seem to have a million hiding places in there. We chase ’em into what looks like a dead-end alley, and-poof-the whole bunch slips out through some narrow crack no dwarf could fit his head through. They got tunnels down under the streets, and they climb all over the roofs. I lost a good man, broken neck, ’cause he chased a gob onto some cursed trellis, couldn’t nearly hold his weight!”

“Casualties are acceptable,” retorted Nayfal pointedly. “The important thing is to round up all the goblins that might ever take up arms against us. I want to remove this threat from the city for once and for all!”

“Right, and we will, like I said, m’lord. It just might take a wee bit longer than we thought.”

“Well, do as I command and send in the reserves!” snapped the nobleman, angrily snatching the reins from his servant. “And I will personally lead them in the charge!”

He kicked his foot into the stirrup and hoisted himself up, praying that the beast would remain still long enough for him to get settled. Surprisingly enough, it did, and with another jerk on the reins, he turned the sleek head toward the ghetto gate. Prodded by a single kick, the animal bolted forward, carrying his rider toward the fight.

The goblin dropped from sight before Darann, and she thought, for a moment, that he had run away. “Down here!” came the hissing instructions. “Safe way to Hiyram!”