Patricia Briggs - Dragon Bones

"About a thousand," I said, pulled back to more urgent matters. "And they've just left Tyrfannig. They'll be here by nightfall. Even if you've managed somehow to get the whole of the Blue Guard, you cannot hold Hurog. Unless…Axiel, how many of your people are here?"

"Just those you see here. The days when my people could afford to waste lives in armies are long gone, Ward. We've left the rest of the Blue Guard at Callis to come home the slow way."

"Right," I continued after drawing a breath. "So we need to get every person out of Hurog and into hiding in the mountains. Kariarn doesn't want Hurog. He wants something hidden here. He knows where it is, and once he has it, he'll leave. But there is no time to waste. The bronze doors on the mountain make a good place to gather. It's high. You can see for miles if Kariarn sends men up it, and it might be possible to defend it from people attacking from below." It was only as I finished that I realized I was issuing orders.

Duraugh gave me a considering look. My uncle had only known me while I was pretending to be stupid. I didn't know how long Beckram and Tosten had been here nor what kind of story they'd told my uncle, but it must have been something, because he only nodded and said, "If Kariarn is so close, explanations can wait. We'd best get organized."

Evacuation took much longer than I was comfortable with, but Duraugh was thorough. He mounted all the grooms and sent them and the horses on to Iftahar. We gathered all the foodstuff and anything that could be used as a blanket or a weapon. I found my father's sword and knife in the armory and fastened them on my belt. Kariarn still had mine.

As I strode out of the armory, I came face-to-face with my mother.

She smiled at me vaguely. "When did you get back, Fenwick?"

The skin on the back of my neck crawled. "Mother, I'm Ward. Father is dead."

Her smile widened but didn't cover the blankness of her eyes. "Of course you are. And how is my baby today?"

"There you are, my lady." Her maidservant trotted around the corner of the hall. She shot me a defensive look and wrapped a heavy wool cloak around my mother's shoulders. "Let's get you out to the courtyard." To me she said, "She's been like this for a while. Mostly she doesn't even know where she is."

Oreg appeared at my side, his arms full of blankets.

I took a deep breath. "Are you through gathering things? We need to get to the bailey."

When we got outside of the keep proper, my uncle was already hard at work. Fascinated, I watched Duraugh use the Blue Guard as the base of the troop of soldiers he formed out of household servants. When he was finished, a ragged army marched smartly up the trails to the great doors high in the mountains overlooking Hurog. It was a tricky climb at best, but with such an urgent need for swiftness, I found our pace unbearably slow.

"So," said Beckram marching beside me, carrying a sleepy child of three or four who belonged to one of the kitchen maids, "Did you ever try to dig under the bronze doors?"

I think it was the first time my cousin had sought me out for conversation. I knew he could care less about the doors. It was a peace offering between us.

I accepted it. "No. After you and Erdrick dug that trench around them, my father made me fill in the holes."

He laughed shortly. "Erdrick thought it was a waste of time. I did the digging." The child he held peered worriedly into my cousin's face. He smiled at her, and she tucked back down against him. "Why do you think they are there?"

I shrugged and began climbing with him again. I suppose I could ask Oreg. "They've been there a long time, Beckram. I used to think they hid the dwarven ways, but I take it the entrance to the dwarven tunnels is in Hurog itself. The Hurogmeten—my father—said he thought it might have been the grave of some ancient hero." We buried our dead on the side of the hill. Perhaps it was an ancient tradition.

Just ahead of us, my mother fell and wouldn't get up when her maidservant tried to tug her to her feet. Hesitating, I knelt beside her. "Mother?" I said.

Blank eyes stared into mine.

"Aunt, you can't stay here," said Beckram, hampered by his burden.

I didn't know what to do. In my extremity, I reached for the familiar comfort of Hurog's magic. I hadn't meant to do anything at all, but I had been looking for my mother in those blank eyes—and I was a finder .

Cold chills crept up the back of my neck as I realized what the magic told me. There was nothing behind the blank gaze, truly nothing. My mother was gone forever.

"I'll carry her," I said, answering the maid's anxiety.

I picked up my mother's body, which still breathed and moved, and carried it the rest of the way up the mountain. I would remember my young mother who played with me while my father was away at war and not the woman who hid in her herbal potions until there was nothing of her left.

We made it to the bronze doors before Kariarn reached Hurog. I found a place to sit where I could look down at the keep. I should have been exhausted, and I was, but the flow of Hurog's magic through my flesh kept me from feeling it much. So I felt almost peaceful as, from my mountain vantage point, I saw Kariarn's massive army approach Hurog. They stopped when they saw Hurog's open gates. After a long hesitation, during which I imagined them sending a few riders to make certain the keep was indeed empty, a section of people pushed through to the bailey.

Tosten came up behind me and hit me hard in the shoulder. It was the first time he'd approached me since I'd found them all in the great hall.

"What's that for?" I whispered furiously. Sound travels oddly in the mountains, and Duraugh had warned us all to keep quiet once we'd sighted the Vorsag.

"That's for sending me to safety while you went out to get all the glory. Haverness told us there was no possible way for an army to get to Hurog before Kariarn. And you knew it, too," he returned as hotly.

I rubbed my shoulder and decided he'd a right to be angry. "So how did you get here? You could have pushed me over with a feather when I saw you in the great hall. You were supposed to be safe at Callis."

Tosten grinned at me, the expression so young it hurt my heart. "You're going to wish you'd come with us," he said. "You remember there were only a few keeps the dwarves traded with?" I nodded.

"That's because they travel on an underground waterway, and there are only a few places where it surfaces. Hurog is one, and Callis is another." He chuckled, "You should have seen old Haverness's face when Axiel led us to an opening in the cellar."

"You should have seen my father's face when he found out I'd showed our secret ways to humans," said Axiel as he seated himself by my side. The eight dwarves who'd been following him as if they were some sort of honor guard found places to sit in front of him. He handed me a blanket, and I wrapped it around me. "I explained the situation to him, and he allowed us to bring everyone here." He looked at me earnestly, as if anxious to cement my good opinion of his father. "That wasn't without cost, Ward. The waterways take a lot of magic to traverse, and my father hasn't much power to waste."

Tosten shook his head in awe. "It was incredible, Ward. Some of the caverns looked like they were made of crystals. The boats were flat, like the riverboats the Tallvens use on their tame rivers; but the waterway isn't tame at all. I don't think we'd have made better time if we'd flown."

Beckram, wandering by with Ciarra beside him, paused to say, "It was incredible. Mostly because we all survived to disembark at Hurog."

Ciarra sat down and dragged half my blanket around her. I wrapped an arm about her shoulders, content at last. The magic of home soothed my soul; Ciarra's presence just solidified my well-being. Against all odds, Hurog would survive this intrusion as would my uncle. Kariarn wouldn't seek us out here.