Dan Parkinson - Hammer and Axe

Loosing his sword, Tag ran to the row of stalls across the wide thoroughfare and skidded to a stop. Inside a delved shop, a burly Theiwar with a leather apron was running in circles, swinging a broom. And just ahead of him, ducking from bench to bench, table to table, and cabinet to shelf, Shillitec Medina Quickfoot was dodging, scampering, and shouting taunts back over her shoulder.

“Hold on!” Tag shouted at the shop keeper. “What’s going on here?”

“It’s a kender!” the Theiwar said. “A kender, in my shop! Probably stealing everything it can lay its hands on!”

“There’s nothing here worth stealing,” Shill shrilled at him. “Even if I were a thief, which I’m not, and you’ve no right calling me that! Besides that, you’re ugly!”

Again the shopkeeper gave chase, wielding his broom, and it was all Tag could do to stop him and calm him down. When again he had the merchant’s attention, he said, “I don’t know what you’re worrying about. This is a furniture shop. There isn’t anything in here that a kender could lift, much less steal. What is it you think she took?”

“I don’t know.” The shopkeeper glared at him. “But I know about kender.”

“Reorx have mercy,” Tag sighed. He looked around for Shill and couldn’t find her. Then he thought about starting after Willow again, but didn’t even know where she had been going when he hailed her. Confused and puzzled, he walked along several tunnels, searching, then shook his head. “What do I do now?” he asked himself.

At the entrance to the north warren, Willow felt a chill come over her. A great, hollow stillness lay across the immense cavern. By the light of sun-tunnels she could see the terraces and fields, the segment paths and the irrigation ditches, the granaries and equipment sheds scattered here and there. The north warren was not the largest of Thorbardin’s subterranean farming caverns, but it was the oldest. For more than eighty years, these fields had been worked and their crops harvested. Nearly four square miles of fertile fields, terraces, and vine ledges, the old “First Warren” had been the dwarves’ great experiment with underground farming, and what they had learned here was now practiced in two other main warrens, as well as in the new worm warren where some of the Klar were harvesting edible funguses and several varieties of spices for trade.

The warrens were usually bustling, busy places, but right now the north warren seemed entirely deserted.

The silence was unbroken even by the sounds of wind and birdcall which Willow remembered from the Einar fields of Windhollow.

And, she realized, it was cold. In this place of fairly constant temperatures beneath the mountain, she had not felt chill since her arrival. But she felt it now and knew it was not imagination. In the nearest field, there was frost on the ripening melons.

She gazed at the frost, then looked up, startled. For frost to form, there must be mist. And now, looking across the wide warren, she realized that it was foggy. Looking northward, she could not see the far ledges. Though a mile away, they had been clearly visible when she had first entered. Now it was as though a deepening mist were rolling into the warren, obscuring everything in the north quadrants and moving south, toward her.

With a chill in her heart, she hurried on, deeper into the warren. The cold fog was like the fog that had swept down on her village just before the thing within the fog attacked. But the memory also brought a renewed determination, and, clutching her axe tightly, she hurried on.

She was within a hundred yards of the deepening, rolling fog when a low, rumbling hiss broke the eerie silence of the warren. Where the fog rolled beneath a sun-tunnel, filtered light sifted downward, and within the fog something moved—something very large, straightening itself upward, raising its head. With a gasp, Willow dived off the path into the edge of a field of gray-green foliage and crouched there, hidden. The fog seemed to rise before her, roiling upward, then a great, serpentine head rose above it. Fierce silver eyes beneath iron-gray carapace ridges scanned the warren, searching. A long beaklike snout breathed cold fumes, and huge silvery teeth glistened as the thing’s mouth opened in a growl.

“Rage,” Willow whispered to herself. That was what someone had called the fog-creature. Rage. The beast behind that serpentine visage was more than evil, more than cruel and cold. It was rage—killing, raving, icy rage. And it was here, in Thorbardin.

The head gazed around, then lowered again into the enveloping fog as the thing moved forward, coming toward her. Carefully, Willow got to her feet. The thing had raised its head to see what was around it. Therefore, it must be as blinded by the mists that clung to it as was anyone else. In that, it was vulnerable.

With a shiver of resolve, Willow raised her axe, darted directly into the fog, and swung a roundhouse cut at the first thing she saw move. The axe clanged, as though hitting solid stone, and rebounded, throwing her off-balance. She danced to the side, stooping to regain her equilibrium, and something huge—like a wide, half-seen web wing with claws—whisked over her head. Above her, somewhere, the creature snorted, and as she looked up the great evil head materialized in the mists directly over her. With a lunge, she swung her axe over her head, directly into the huge, fanged snout. It was like striking granite, but the thing roared and withdrew for an instant, and the dwarf girl turned and raced away a dozen steps. She was just turning back when she heard a sound to her right, like scythes swishing through ripe grain. By pure instinct, she jumped straight up, and a huge, swatting tail flattened the field plants beneath her.

Again she ran, trying to get past the reach of the thing’s tail, and dived and rolled as the tail swept past again, this time going over her, missing her by inches. Even as it passed, she got her feet under her, reversed her direction, and ran directly under the dark shadow that was the creature’s body. One more try, she told herself. I have carried this axe since Windhollow, just to cut this thing. I must try one more time.

She ran, dodged, reversed, and charged again, guessing by the movement of shadows within the mist where the various parts of the thing might be. She heard a deep, cold growl just ahead and dodged aside as the great, serpentlike head shot past her, its fangs clicking like stone on stone. As it passed, she turned and swung her axe with all her might. This time it didn’t rebound. It hit something very solid, seemed to embed itself there, and was torn from her grasp as the creature roared in pain and fury. Tumbling, dodging, and scampering, Willow ran as she had never run before, while just behind her the massive creature roared, hissed, and thrashed among ripening fields.

Willow ran until the fog around her had thinned a bit, then slowed to look back. Fifty yards away the deep fogs rolled, and above them was the face of Rage, its slanted silver eyes looking directly at her. It raised its head higher and roared, and for an instant she saw her axe, its blade embedded in the thing’s long neck.

Then the head lowered and lunged, the fogs rolled forward, and Willow Summercloud ran for her life as cold mists closed in behind her.

The nearest exit from the warren was the Third Road gate, and Willow headed for it. Like all the warren gates, it was actually two doors—a small door set within a great one. Built of massive timbers, the gates were of Theiwar design. Their purpose was to allow people to go in and out of the warrens without any stray tractor worms following them out. The small doors were adequate for dwarves on foot, or small carts and barrows, and the big doors were solid enough to turn away the nearly mindless, usually docile worms. But now, as Willow darted through the small gate into the wide tunnel of Third Road, she knew the big gate would not stop the thing raving after her.