Dan Parkinson - Hammer and Axe

When Gran Stonemill and the Neidar company arrived at the Great Road, there was no one on it, and he felt a sense of relief. Gran Stonemill was of Einar descent and had lost ancestors to the wandering hordes of outsiders who had come into these lands in the old days, before the Pact of Exclusion. The road, he knew, was a good idea, but just the sight of outsiders—particularly humans —journeying across Kal-Thax, so close to the scattered fields and villages of the mountain people, was still unsettling to him.

But the road was deserted now. Three hundred feet wide and bordered by high walls of fine dwarven crafting, it wound away southward toward the Great Gorge and northward toward Tharkas Pass, and no one was in sight on the few miles visible from the western crest. At Redrock, though, they found the company of Neidar guards assigned there, and Gran got their report.

Mages, the guard officer told him. Three human mages had entered the road somewhere in Ergoth and had followed it at least beyond the Gorge, where dwarven guards held the bridge. The three had crossed the bridge and had not returned. Drum signals had gone out, alerting those farther on to keep an eye on the humans. But they had not reached Redrock, and a scouting party had gone all the way back to the bridge and found no trace of them. Somewhere along that stretch, the three had left the road. Now, presumably, they were roaming around Kal-Thax, doing whatever humans afflicted with the abomination of magic did.

A search had been conducted, expanding out twelve miles either side of the road, and no trace of them had been found.

Gran shivered at the news. Like any dwarf, his distaste for magic and those who practiced it was intense. Magic was not reasonable. It followed no natural pattern and no natural rules. It was, purely and simply, an abomination.

Like most dwarves, Gran Stonemill had never actually seen a wizard, so far as he knew, and had only the sketchiest idea of what magic-users were capable of doing with their craft. But the stories he had heard told him not to underestimate the power of magic, and his own experience told him to expect the worst of any human. Climbing the sentinel tower, he turned slowly, scanning the mountain terrain, trying to guess what purpose human magicians might have in coming to the dwarvenlands. Certainly the three had a reason for journeying to Kal-Thax, and obviously they didn’t want the dwarves to know why they were there.

But what was the reason, and where had the wizards gone? The mountain land was vast; they could be anywhere.

North? Probably not. Had the three been heading north, they could simply have stayed on the road, where travel was permitted by treaty—even for wizards—and was far easier for humans than cross-country travel in these mountains. Probably not east, either. There lay the Kharolis foothills and, beyond, the plains of human Ergoth. And due east from the Redrock Peaks was the human city of Xak Tsaroth. If the wizards had been heading for Xak Tsaroth from the lower plains, they wouldn’t have come into the mountains in the first place. And having gone to the trouble to come from Ergoth to here, it wasn’t reasonable that they would leave the road and go into hiding, just to go back where they came from.

Gran gazed westward, troubled and puzzled, to where the Kharolis Mountains climbed away into blue distance, range after range of rugged peaks. What was there for wizards? In the valleys and on the slopes there were the fields and settlements of the Neidar, and beyond them the widely scattered Einar. For a hundred miles or so, there were dwarven habitations scattered here and there throughout the mountains. And beyond that was the wilderness. The Bigtooth range lay there, and beyond it the Anviltops, and beyond them . . . who knew what lay beyond? There was nothing but more mountains.

Gran turned slowly, his gaze swinging southward. Beyond the Redrock Peaks, hazy with distance, stood the mighty eminence of Sky’s End, thrusting a thousand feet above any other prominence. And beyond Sky’s End was Thorbardin. The Neidar’s eyes narrowed. What would humans seek in dwarven lands? What did humans always seem to seek? Conquest. And where would one go if one intended to conquer the dwarven lands? Thorbardin. There, deep beneath the surface of Cloudseeker Mountain, was the stronghold of the dwarves.

Had the wizards aimed for Thorbardin? But why? Even if they knew of the place, they would never be allowed inside. Southgate, on the far side facing the Thunder Peaks and the Daergar mines there, was complete now, with a massive, steel-sheathed gate that could be closed at a moment’s notice—a gate that was impregnable. Not even magic could penetrate Southgate. Not even dragons, or the mightiest armies, could ever breach it.

Northgate, facing Sky’s End and the broken lands bordering Ergoth, did not yet have its gate in place, but it, too, was heavily guarded. At the first sign of trouble, thousands of armed dwarves would mount a defense in the great shaft of Anvil’s Echo. Not even magicians would be able to negotiate the suspended bridge from one end to the other of that great chamber, with sling-stones, javelins, and bolts coming at them from the murder holes which lined the way.

Then a memory struck Gran Stonemill, and his jaws clenched. There was another way in! Though it had been sealed for nine decades, the old Daewar tunnel beneath Sky’s End was still there, unused and practically forgotten. Delved by the gold-molders a hundred years ago, straight through Sky’s End into the subterranean caverns beneath Cloudseeker, the tunnel had been the means by which the caverns which now were Thorbardin had first been occupied.

It was sealed. But could the seals stand against magic spells?

Gran practically flew down the sentinel ladder and signaled to his Neidar. When they were assembled, he divided them into five squads of ten each. Four would take up the search for the wizards where the road guards had stopped. Twelve miles west of the Road of Passage, they would form a cordon and sweep westward, searching. The fifth squadron he would take himself, directly south to Thorbardin, to see the Council of Thanes. It was time to speak of magic and to take another look at the old, original entrance to the undermountain fortress.

Megistal stood alone atop the escarpment of Sheercliff as another sunrise announced itself above the mountain peaks. Standing at the very edge of a precipitous, hundred-foot drop, the wizard sighed and shook his head in annoyance, ignoring the bickering of his two companions some distance behind him. He was not standing there, gazing eastward, for the sake of the view. He was standing there because it was the surest place to keep his back turned to the other two wizards who were scurrying about and throwing angry words at each other.

Just at the moment, Megistal wanted nothing at all to do with either of them. He was exasperated with them both, and so angry that he wasn’t sure what he would do if they crossed his vision right now. He was afraid he might lose his self-control and hit them both with a spell so terrible that he would regret it. But he knew he would not. The deep, secret magics granted to him and only a few others by the Scions were not for selfish use, even in exasperation. Still, he growled at the very thought of Tantas and Sigamon.

Not only had they wasted an entire, exhausting day of surveying this blasted mesa, they had virtually wiped out the work that had been done before. Megistal didn’t know which of them he blamed more, the lanky, self-righteous Sigamon or the scuttling, sneering Tantas.

Tantas had started it, of course. In a simple survey spell with his dark stones, he had added something extra. He just couldn’t resist showing off his destructive powers, it seemed, and the spell had gotten entirely out of hand. Instead of simply marking a survey point with his lightning, the dark wizard had started a grass fire which swept across great segments of the flat mesa top, propelled by mountain winds.