Dan Parkinson - Hammer and Axe

“I suppose so.” Willen shrugged. “You’re probably right, because Tera said the very same thing to me just yesterday. She isn’t often wrong in such matters. By the way, good luck with your kender.”

“What kender?”

“That little nuisance that has been roaming Thorbardin lately. You didn’t know? Well, she showed up at Hybardin and proclaimed that she has finished her tour of Thorbardin and intends to go see the outlands now. With you.”

“Like blazes she will!”

“As I said,” Willen said, “good luck with your kender.”

Quist Redfeather was playing bones with his jailers when Willen Ironmaul came for him. For a long time—for weeks, it seemed, though in this underground place the Cobar had lost track of time—he had been held captive in what he had learned was the ward chamber behind the Southgate keep. It had not been cruel captivity. They had fed him well, had given him ale now and then, and had not tormented him. But it was still captivity, without question. The grim armed dwarves who guarded his quarters left no doubt that he was not going anywhere unless and until someone in authority ordered it.

The Cobar had made two vows to himself. The first was that if he ever got out he would never again get mixed up in dwarf business. The second was that, after this, he would never again play games with dwarves. The game of bones had always been a favorite pastime for Quist, and he took pride in being good at it. But, somehow, he was now down to his last arrowhead. He had already lost all of his weapons. Although he had been relieved of them upon entry, now they no longer belonged to him, but to various dwarven jailers. He had lost his boots, his cloak, his favorite feathered headgear, and he had lost his copper bracelet. A jovial, gold-bearded guard named Plaid Silvernail was wearing it now.

For all of his watchfulness, he had found no evidence that any of the dwarves cheated at bones. Still, they usually won. So, by the time a band of dwarves showed up from the interior with orders for his release into their custody, Quist Redfeather was ready for a change.

The new guards were thoroughly armored and efficient. All had the same dark, back-swept beards that he had noticed on Damon Omenborn. He suspected they were of the tribe called Hylar.

Briskly, they escorted him along a corridor where a huge auger-banded metal screw sat in great sockets, and past the massive gate-plug that had awed him the first time he saw it, and still did. Beyond, on the walled ledge outside Thorbardin, others waited. The one who stepped forward, peering up at him with hard, wise eyes, bore a striking resemblance to Damon Omenborn, though this dwarf was older and had a stance that suggested high position.

“I am Willen Ironmaul,” the dwarf said in a voice that was like smooth, deep riversong. “My son told me how you helped him, and how you behaved with honor when you might have done otherwise.” Without waiting for an answer, the dwarf turned and started down the rampart. “Come with me, human,” he said.

Quist followed along. He would have followed, even if he hadn’t wanted to, because of the ten efficient-looking armed dwarves who ringed him and herded him forward. At the bottom of the rampart, Willen Ironmaul clapped his hands, and other dwarves came from beyond new, fresh-hewn battlements. They led twelve horses, eleven of them wearing the saddles and gear of dwarven mounts, the twelfth magnificently attired in human-proportioned trappings.

As Quist gaped at the horse, pursing his lips in appreciation of its fine lines and handsome appearance, Willen Ironmaul said, “This animal is Damon Omenborn’s best horse. Its name is Shamath. It is yours now, by my son’s wish.”

The man stepped toward the animal, hardly believing his ears, then paused. He glanced aside at the Hylar chieftain. “It’s a real horse, isn’t it? I mean, it isn’t a wizard or something? It won’t sprout wings?”

For a second, the grim lines of the dwarf’s visage softened. He almost smiled, then straightened his face. “Shamath is a horse,” he assured the human. “He has never been anything but a horse.” He clapped his hands again, and one of the ten escorts produced a bundle, which he handed to Quist. Within it were an exquisite light shield of dwarven craft; a strong, recurved bow of fine lemonwood; a beautiful dagger; a thick, bound sheaf of arrows with dwarven steel points; and various straps and wraps for the implements. Another of the escort stepped forward with a parcel which contained Quist’s own lost boots, cloak, copper bracelet, and feather headgear.

“I had to buy those things back from your, ah, hosts of the gate,” Willen Ironmaul said severely. “They cost me a nice price, too. Even a human should know better than to play bones with a Daewar.”

Without further explanation, the dwarves mounted their horses, clambering up the short boarding ladders slung from their saddles, and at a gesture from the Hylar chieftain, Quist swung aboard Shamath. He knew the instant his legs cradled the animal’s big barrel that he had never ridden a finer horse.

Still surrounded by armed dwarves, the man was led away, riding out from the dwarven fortress toward the Promontory, angling eastward toward the border roads.

It was a three-day trip from Southgate to the secluded cove above the Road of Passage, where the dwarves took their guest, and not once in those three days did any of them, Willen Ironmaul or the Ten, give him a word of explanation as to where they were going, or why. Dwarves, Quist Redfeather decided for the hundredth time, could be the most exasperating people in the world.

Still, he had no choice, and, except for being kept in the dark, he was treated courteously.

Then, on the third evening, they topped out on a low crest directly above the cove where the Road of Passage crossed from dwarven to human lands. Below them were tents, fires, and people—human people, doing human things.

Willen Ironmaul rode up beside the man then and pointed. “That tent there, the one with the awning. Tell me who you see there.”

Quist squinted in the dusk, then his eyes widened in disbelief. “Seena,” he said hoarsely. “My wife! And those are my children! But they were captives! The overlords . . .”

“There has been a change in the city of Xak Tsaroth,” Willen Ironmaul told him. “The overlords have been overthrown, and others are in power there now. We may be able to work out some trade agreements with the new proprietors, our trade warden tells us. He says Darr Bolden and his followers seem like reasonable people . . . for humans.”

Quist stared down at the evening fires, his eyes round as he gazed at the familiar figures and dear faces of his family. He raised his reins, then hesitated, turning. “Your son, Damon . . . He arranged this for me?”

“It seemed the proper thing to do,” Willen Ironmaul said gruffly.

“Where is he? Where is Damon?”

“My son,” the Hylar said, “was married a few days ago to a very stubborn little Einar girl with auburn hair and iron opinions. Following the wedding, they took up new quarters in Hybardin and . . . well, they haven’t been seen since.”

Quist nodded. “Then let me thank you,” he said, extending his hand.

With a growl, the Hylar chief reined his mount and turned away. “I’ll never understand humans,” he rumbled, glancing back. “If that were my family down there, I wouldn’t be wasting time up here chatting.” The Hylar snapped his reins and headed back the way he had come, his ten escorts falling in behind him.

“Dwarves,” Quist Redfeather muttered, shaking his head. “Of all the . . . all the . . .” At a loss for words, even to himself, he drummed Shamath with his heels and headed for the cove where his family awaited him.