Dan Parkinson - Hammer and Axe

Still, out there to the east, across the valley they had just crossed, someone had a fire going.

“Einar traders?” the Theiwar wondered. “I didn’t see any paths back there, but we could have crossed a trail of some kind.”

“Neidar, maybe,” the Daewar suggested. “They range far out. Maybe they come this far. It might even be some of those searching for the beast.”

“Not likely,” the Hylar said. “The beast was going the other way. It could be Neidar, though, on some other errand. Or it could be a Daergar scouting party looking for new veins to mine.”

“Daergar don’t camp for the night,” the Daewar noted. “Not usually, anyway. They’d rather travel at night than in the daytime. Daylight can hurt their eyes if it’s bright.”

“Then maybe that isn’t a supper fire,” Damon suggested. “Maybe it’s a breakfast fire. It doesn’t matter, though. Whoever they are, they aren’t our concern.” He shrugged and turned to look westward. “That’s our concern. Somewhere ahead, there, is where the thing came from.”

“If your uncle Cale and his Neidar find it, we won’t have to worry about what it used to be,” the Theiwar stated. “They’ll kill it, whatever it is.”

“Then let’s hope they do, and soon.” Damon nodded. “But let’s make sure that, whatever the thing is, there aren’t any more where it came from.”

“Where do we start our search?”

“We’ll start at Sheercliff, and look there. We’ll split up and just scout around. I don’t know what we’re looking for. Maybe a nest of some kind, a cave with fresh tracks nearby, a roost. . .” He shrugged.

“That’s fine with me,” Tag Salan agreed. “But I intend to have my weapons ready to hand every step of the way.”

The Daewar glanced at the Theiwar and grinned. “I’ve never seen you in any other condition, shadow-hugger. Without your sword, shield, knives, and bludgeons, I don’t think I’d recognize you.”

Damon was staring westward, squinting in concentration, his eyes straining as he tried to see in the fading light. Tag Salan noticed his intense gaze and followed it. “Did you see something, Damon?”

“I thought I did. Like a flash of light, far away.” The three of them scanned the distance, and Tag pointed. “There! I saw it that time. What was it? Lightning?”

“Lightning where there are no clouds?” Copper rasped. “I don’t think so.”

“Well, it was more than a spark, but it wasn’t firelight.”

As the three watched, another distant flash came, a brief flare of bright light, gone in an instant. This time, they saw where it seemed to come from and noted the location by landmarks. The flashes came from Sheercliff. Whether above or below the line of the great fault, they couldn’t tell across the miles, but the flashes had all come from the same place, an area in line with a V-shaped cut in the silhouette of the Anviltops beyond.

They saw no more flashes, though they watched until the moons were high. Just those three, and no more. But it gave them a place to aim for. “We’ll begin our search there,” Damon said. “Tag, your eyes are best in shadow. You take the slopes below Sheercliff, and I’ll climb the wall and look above, on the plateau. Copper, we’ll leave the horses with you. Find a high point east of the cliff, and have a look from there. You might see something at a distance that we would miss up close.”

They made no fire that night. The speck of firelight to the east, and those odd flashes from Sheercliff to the west, told them that they were not alone in the wilderness. So the three made a cold meal of dried meat and flatbread, put their mounts on good graze beside a tiny stream, and settled in for the night. They would take turns at watch, with a particular eye on both the campfire behind them and the cliff-line ahead. Damon took first watch and awakened Tag Salan when the moons were in the western sky.

Had the Theiwar been third on watch, in the dark hours before morning when the moons had set and only starlight fell on the mountains, he might have seen the shadow that drifted by overhead, dark against the darkness. But Copper Blueboot was on watch then, and his Daewar eyes were better suited to daylight than to darkness. So, though he was alert and watchful, he did not notice the shape above as it passed over the dark camp, heading eastward toward the tiny, glowing embers of the campfire the dwarves had seen earlier.

Willow Summercloud was plagued by dark dreams, as she had been each night since the devastation of her village by the thing that came in the fog. Wrapped in a sheepskin beside the fading embers of her little fire, she tossed and turned, catching what moments of rest she could between the dreadful dreams that kept awakening her and the drifting slumber that would lead only to more such dreams.

This time, though, she awakened not from a dream but to a sound. Even as the sleep faded from her mind, she was out of the sheepskin and crouching, her axe in her hand as she scanned the darkness around her. Something had moved, had made a sound, and was nearby, but for a long moment she saw nothing. Then, dimly against the starry sky, she saw a silhouette that moved, turning to look at her with one big, glistening eye, then with another.

Gripping her axe in both hands, she backed away, squinting. The thing looked like a huge bird in the darkness, with a suggestion of tucked wings and a beak, and long, spread tail feathers that twitched as it turned its head.

“Who . . . who are you?” she quavered. “What are you?”

The voice that answered her came not from the great bird, but from a point lower down, near her faintly glowing campfire. “No sense trying to talk to Cawe,” it said cheerfully. “Cawe can’t talk. That’s why he lets me ride along, so I can talk for him if there is anybody to talk to. What’s that you’re holding? An axe? We won’t need it. There’s some wood right here to build up the fire.”

A small shadow crouched beside the coals, bent low, and blew on them, flaring them to life, then put on a few sticks. “That should do it,” the voice said. “Now maybe we can see who we’re talking to.”

As the sticks caught and began to blaze, Willow squinted. Standing by her fire was a small person, far shorter even than herself, and delicately proportioned. The creature was not much more than three feet tall, quick and graceful, with a high musical voice and a great mane of dark hair that flowed like a cascade from a tied band atop its head. Beyond, huge against the night shadows, was the thing Willow had thought was a bird. She gasped as she realized that it was a bird, though a hundred times the size of any bird she had ever seen. Its curved beak was larger than she was, and the sweep of feather ridges above its big, orange eyes gave it an extremely angry look.

“Who are you?” Willow demanded, tearing her gaze away from the giant bird to glare at the tiny person by her fire.

“That’s a good question.” The stranger nodded. “Just the sort of question people should ask if they want to get acquainted. And it’s the very same question I had in mind. Who are you?”

“I’m Willow Summercloud,” she rasped. “If it’s any of your business.”

Turning toward the bird, the small creature trilled what might have been words, or might have been music —a series of complex vocal sounds ranging from low hisses to high dancing trills almost beyond hearing. The bird listened, then responded briefly with a deep piercing chirp that might have come from a mine shaft.

The small person turned again and shrugged. “Cawe likes your name well enough. But what he really wants to know is what you intend to do about those people messing up the mesa over there?”