Dan Parkinson - Hammer and Axe

“Wizardry,” Damon snapped, his eyes narrowing. “Those three have been up here surveying, if you can believe that. They intended to occupy this plateau and build some kind of magic place on it. A tower of sorcery. But I’ve put an end to that. I invited them to leave, but they chose to fight. I wish you’d been here. I could have used a little help.”

The dwarf girl had approached, and now she snapped, “You had help, in case you’ve forgotten! If it hadn’t been for me, you’d be dead now.”

“Sorry.” Damon nodded. “Yes, I had help. Tag, this is Willow Summercloud. She’s from Windhollow, and . . .”

“I remember,” Tag grinned, bowing slightly.

“. . . and she followed us when we came west.”

“I brought her here,” the kender girl chirped. “She had never ridden a bird before, but she has now. Cawe wanted someone to do something about these wizards, so we went looking for a dwarf, and she was the first one we found. Do you two know that you both have scorched beards?”

“What do we do with the wizards?” Tag asked Damon.

“I don’t really know, but we can’t leave them here. They’d just start building towers again.”

Tag drew his short sword. “No problem,” he said. “I’ll just cut their throats.”

The wizard in the dirty robes looked as though he were about to faint, but the nearest wizard, a bearded man with buckskin breeches and a red strap, struggled and strained at his bonds, his muffled voice audible behind his gag.

“He wants to talk,” the little kender said.

“Of course he does,” Damon sneered. “He wants to say a spell.”

The wizard shook his head urgently, trying again to speak. Damon squatted beside him. “You have something important to say?”

The man nodded.

“No spells?” Damon demanded.

The man shook his head earnestly.

Damon thought it over, then beckoned to Tag. “Remove his gag,” he said. “But stay at his side, and if he says one word . . . one single word . . . that you don’t understand, kill him.”

With the gag removed, Megistal cleared his throat, then told Damon, “It won’t do you any good to kill us. With Tantas dead, Sigamon and I cannot continue our project. It requires three.”

“Then there will be no tower?” Damon asked.

“Oh, there will be a tower,” the man said. “Others are following us. They’ll finish the project, whether we’re here or not.”

“Like rust they will,” Damon growled. “Thorbardin will see to that.”

“You can’t stop the Orders of High Sorcery.” Megistal sighed.

“We can certainly try. And with all your survey stakes removed. . .”

“It makes no difference now. We have completed the testing of the stones, and the Stone of Threes is planted at the center point. All that remains to lay the foundation perimeters for the tower is the testing of mirrors. The others will find the Stone of Threes and complete the tests. Then building will begin, and nothing you or all the dwarves of this land can do will stop them.”

“Tell me where the Stone of Threes is,” Damon growled.

“No.” Megistal lowered his eyes. “Kill me if you will, but I won’t tell you that.”

The kender girl stood beside Damon. She reached into the pouch at her belt and withdrew a bauble. “Is this it?”she asked.

“Put that back!” the wizard gasped, his eyes bulging in disbelief. “That isn’t yours, you little . . . purloiner!”

Abruptly, Tag’s blade went across the wizard’s exposed throat, and Damon had to grab quickly to stop the cut. “Wait!” he said. “What are you doing?”

“He said a word I don’t understand,” Tag explained, shrugging.

“It just means ‘thief,’ ” Damon growled. Turning, he grabbed the bauble from the kender’s hand and looked at it. It was an oval gemstone, a polished thing of many facets. Its color seemed to change constantly as he turned it in the sunlight, shifting from clear to milky white, to various shades of red, to gray, to inky black.

“I’d say, offhand, that this is the Stone of Threes,” the dwarf said. “What’s it for?”

“Put it back!” Megistal shouted. “You don’t know what you’re doing! There are only seven of those. One for each Tower of High Sorcery. Without it. . . Without all seven towers, magic will never be properly balanced!”

“Tough,” Damon mused. Casually, he held the changing gem to the light, then tasted it with his tongue. His nose wrinkled in disgust. The thing didn’t taste like a normal, natural gem. It tasted terrible.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Megistal demanded.

“I’m putting you out of the tower business.” Damon stood, put the gem into his own belt pouch, and sealed the flap.

“Hey!” the kender chirped, “that’s mine! I found it!”

“Do we kill them now?” Tag asked Damon, replacing the wizard’s gag.

“No.” Damon hesitated. “We probably should, but. . . no. Maybe they will spread the word that wizards don’t belong here.”

“What are we going to do with them?”

“Leave them,” Damon urged. “By the time they get loose, we’ll be well away from here.” He turned to Megistal. “Be grateful for your life, human,” he said. “Just remember, you have been ordered out of Kal-Thax. I suggest you leave as soon as you can move.”

While the leaders of the thanes of Thorbardin—meeting in extraordinary session on a cleared stone shelf above the Daebardin docks—got down to the business of hearing the reports of Gran Stonemill and Mace Hammerstand, Quill Runebrand wandered around the area like a small, dark cloud. Head down and hands clasped behind him, he stalked here and there muttering to himself, sometimes causing people to dodge aside to keep from being bumped into.

Deep in concentration, he tried to assemble his thoughts in practical, logical order, as any good dwarf might do when something is bothering him. But it seemed to do no good. Oh, there were things bothering Quill, all right. He wasn’t happy about the informal meeting of the council. Quill loved pomp and ceremony, and the chieftains had just dispensed with all of that and gone straight to business.

The business of the killing thing that had launched itself upon Kal-Thax worried him, too. It was frightening and unsettling that there could be such a creature, right here in the mountains of the dwarven clans. What was it? Where did it come from? Were there others like it out there somewhere? And what was Damon Omenborn thinking of to go off on some wild mission to search for such a thing’s nest? Damon Omenborn was to be the “father of kings,” if there was anything to the old stories about his birth. Now he was out there in the wild, somewhere, almost as though he were inviting his own doom.

It was Mistral Thrax who had told Quill Runebrand that Damon was destined to be the father of kings. Mistral Thrax had heard it himself from the apparition of Kitlin Fishtaker, who was legendary. Mistral Thrax had believed it, and Quill Runebrand wanted it to be true—though he couldn’t bring himself to really wish kings on his people.

But if Damon went out tearing around the wilderness lands and got himself killed, then none of it could ever come to be.

Quill stalked, muttered to himself, and worried.

There was the problem of the human wizards who had disappeared from the Road of Passage—first three of them and now, if those people on the Ergothian border could be believed, maybe a hundred or so more. What were humans doing in Kal-Thax? What were they after? And even more terrible, these were magic-users. That was as frightening to the dwarf as it was revolting.

And Gran Stonemill’s concern about the old Daewar tunnel that led through Sky’s End Mountain—that also was a great worry. Was the tunnel truly sealed? Was it proof against magic-users? And if not, could it be made so? Quill Runebrand knew little about magic, but his intuition told him that anything that had been closed could be opened.