Nancy Berberick - Stormblade

The black dragon observed the lands below as a man might who stands over a well constructed map table. Dropping still lower, it swept over the high forests east of Crystal Lake and out across the low hills bordering the Plains of Dergoth, which the dwarves call the Plains of Death. Darknight flew as Lord Verminaard’s emissary to Realgar of Thorbardin. It would soon be addressing the dwarf as Highlord, if he accepted Verminaard’s offers. He undoubtedly would accept. The dwarf was known to be canny, ambitious, bold, and a little mad. He had the soul of a Highlord, a soul only a little less arrogant than that of a dragon. He waited for it now to arrive from Pax Tharkas. Sevristh would serve a new Highlord.

At least for a time. Verminaard’s gifts all had teeth. Even as he prepared to welcome Realgar as a Highlord, ruthless Verminaard already had plans afoot to move supply bases and troops in the mountains. With their strength to back him, he would depose the Theiwar and claim conquered Thorbardin as his eastern stronghold. Sevristh knew all this, and more.

The wind was a cold, fierce opponent who challenged the black dragon to dare its willful currents and invisible waves. Laughing as it flew over the marshes, Darknight skimmed the cloud-heavy sky, diving and rolling, thrusting with wings as wide as a ship’s sail, and climbing, climbing until it burst through the thick, icy boundary of the clouds and came to the stars above ancient Thorbardin.

Aye, the dragon thought, all Verminaard’s gifts had teeth and mine are sharp indeed!

“Let him do the work,” the Highlord had said, “and give him whatever help he needs to do it. When the Council of Thanes is safely fallen, get rid of him.”

For nothing but the pleasure of arcane exercise, Darknight cast a spell of fear and blackness. Tonight, in the dark and secret comfort of its den in the caverns below the cities of Thorbardin, it would lull itself to sleep with thoughts of small marshland creatures dying of a stopped heart and an overwhelming terror they could not have understood.

The cold night wind cut through the valley. Sighing in the boughs of the pines, turning the day’s rain to slick ice on the shoulders of the mountain. Somewhere within the stone of the mountain itself lay Thorbardin.

Women with babes on their hips, men whose eyes were almost empty of hope, the refugees stood at the mountain’s feet, searching the shoulders and flanks of the peaks for a sight of great Southgate. Some thought they saw it, shimmering in the night. Others turned away, too tired to look any longer.

A child’s laughter rose high in the night air. It was hard to keep the children quiet. Only exhaustion would do that, and the journey of the past day had been a slow one. It was as though the eight hundred were reluctant now to approach the gates of the dwarven fortress, afraid to learn that their hopes had been in vain, that they had fled Verminaard’s mines and the horrors of slavery only to be turned away from Thorbardin, the only hope of sanctuary they knew.

Fires sprang up in the valley, dim lights like small, hesitant stars. The smoke of wood, then of cooking, drifted through the air, settling like a gray pall over the river.

It would be a night of waiting and praying. It would not be a night for sleeping as the refugees sent their representatives, the half-elf Tanis and the Plainswoman Goldmoon, to lay their plea before Thorbardin’s Council of Thanes.

There were many things Hornfel loved about his people. He admired their skills at crafting, found joy in their soul-deep loyalty to kin and clan, and appreciated their courage as warriors. He valued their hard-headed stubbornness and common sense. He loved their independence. It was that independence that made it not an insult, but a kind of tribute, when the grizzled Daewar warrior, a member of the Guard of Watch on Soughtgate’s ramparts, only turned for a moment to nod greeting to the two thanes in the rose light of dawn, then returned to his watch. They are not awed by those above their station, Hornfel thought. They trust their thanes because we are their kin. None bows or kneels to kin. He glanced at his companion whose eyes were sharper on the guards than Hornfel’s. At this hour, Gneiss’s Daewar made up the Guard of Watch, and Hornfel knew his friend well enough to know that he wanted his warriors to keep their watch with the best military precision. When the time came that Thorbardin entered the war, these Daewar would be the spearhead of the dwarven army. Gneiss was fiercely proud of his warriors. Hornfel listened to the ring of mail and steel, the scuff of boots on stone, the barked order of the watch captain, and looked again at Gneiss, gone to lean against the breast-high wall overlooking the valley far below. Cold wind raced around the ramparts. Born in the mountains, which shouldered proudly against the sky, the wind smelled of frost-touched pine forests and already freezing lakes, winter’s icy promise. A thousand feet below lay the broad sweep of a string of alpine meadows. Dressed now in the rusty brown of autumn grasses, gilded with the new rising sun, the meadow held some of the richest soil in the Kharolis Mountains. This valley had lain fallow for generations. The cities in Thorbardin fed themselves from the produce of the farming warrens deep inside the mountain.

“See, Gneiss,” Hornfel said, tracing the valley’s borders with a sweep of his hand. “Eight hundred could farm this valley and manage to keep out of their own way and ours.”

Gneiss snorted. “Are you on about that again?”

“I’m on about it still, my friend. We can’t defer the issue any longer. You yourself brought me the word that the refugees have been challenged by the border patrols. How long do you think the border guards can hold back eight hundred hungry and frightened people? They are peacefully awaiting the word of the council. They won’t wait long.”

“Aye, blackmail, is it?” Gneiss turned away from the wall, his fist clenched, his eyes flashing with sudden anger. “Admit them or face them across a battlefield?” He cocked a thumb at the valley. “That meadow will be covered with snow soon, and the snow will be red with human blood, Hornfel. The council will not be forced.”

Hornfel chose his next words carefully. “You’ve made up your mind about the matter? You think as Realgar and Ranee do?”

“I think my own thoughts,” Gneiss growled. The wind tugged at his silver-shot brown beard. His back still to the wall, to the valley and the idea of humans settling so near to Thorbardin, he watched his guards pace their watch. His expression, narrow-eyed and hard, gave Hornfel no clue to the thoughts that the Daewar claimed were not Realgar’s, but his own.

“Tell me what you think, Gneiss. I’ve gone too long guessing, and none of my guesses seem to be right ones.”

Gneiss, his eyes still on his guards, shook his head. “I think that my warriors are going to die in lands far from these mountains where we were born. I think they’re going to die in a war that is no business of theirs.”

The old argument! Hornfel had tired of it months ago, knew no better defense against it than the one he had already presented in countless council meetings. Still, he didn’t speak until he’d mastered his impatience.

“It is our business now. Gneiss, there are eight hundred refugees at our very gate. A moment ago, you offered to water these meadows with their blood. They are not our enemies . Our enemy is Verminaard, he who’s driven the elves from Qualinesti and walks the ramparts of Pax Tharkas. Verminaard enslaved these people. He’d like to do the same to us.

“When he controls the Kharolis Mountains, Gneiss, he controls the whole north and east of the continent. If you don’t think he wants Thorbardin now, you are not the military leader I think you are.”