Jeff Crook: Dark Thane

“No word yet,” Crystal sighed. “A messenger arrived from Pax Tharkas two days ago saying that the evacuation of the elves was proceeding well.” She rose to her feet and picked up her staff. “Now, I believe the score is two to one in my favor.”

“Are you certain you are recovered, Mistress?” Haruk asked in concern. “Perhaps it would be better—”

“I’m fine,” Crystal snapped. “It is you who must beware. I intend to give you a good drubbing. On your guard, sir dwarf.” With that, she gripped her staff and swung.

Desperately avoiding her blows, Haruk hopped across the dusty floor and retrieved his weapon just in time to block a thrust that would have unhinged his jaw. He tumbled across the floor, thrusting wildly at her feet to give himself time and room to maneuver. Crystal seemed to dance atop his weapon, nimbly avoiding his blows while shouting, “Good! Good! Just what I would do.”

He rolled to his feet and began to backpedal as the blackened end of her staff flicked again and again in his face, mere inches from his nose. He blocked each thrust only by the most heroic effort, and he knew he couldn’t keep up with her much longer. He tried to force the charcoal tip of her staff over his head so that he could step inside the range of her weapon and grapple. At that instant, she hammered his instep with the butt of her staff then leaped back, on guard once again.

Howling in pain, Haruk hopped on one foot while clutching the other injured one.

“A spear is but a staff with one end sharpened. The blunt end can be just as dangerous,” she shouted. She twirled the staff humming through the air, passing it from hand to hand. Haruk noted that she wasn’t even breathing hard. He shook his head in disbelief.

“You should fight in the arena,” the young dwarf said with undisguised admiration.

Crystal laughed, tossing her staff into a corner. “The king would flay my hide and hang it from his wall,” she said as she took Haruk by the hand and helped him to a seat atop a barrel.

“If he didn’t, I surely would!” An elderly female dwarf stumped into the room and pointed one quivering finger in Crystal’s face. “I thought I heard staff work in here. You should have better sense than this, Crystal Heathstone. Frolicking around like you are still a girl in your father’s army!”

“Oh, Auntie, I was just teaching my pupil his staves and spears.”

“Pupil? He’s supposed to be your personal guard,” Aunt Needlebone snarled then turned on Haruk. “And you, young fellow. What have you to say for yourself? Haven’t you better sense? You might have injured your queen.”

“No disrespect, Aunt Galena, but I doubt I could seriously injure Mistress. Not on purpose, anyway,” the young dwarf answered sheepishly.

The old woman glared at him then back at Crystal, but there was a twinkle in her rheumy gray eye.

“You’re probably right at that, lad,” she cackled suddenly, slapping him on the shoulder. “Ouch! Hard as stone, that is. Why, if I was a hundred years younger… ”

Haruk flushed a deep scarlet up to his ears, to the delight of both women.

Alone dwarf strode up the earthen ramp to the towering outer gate of Pax Tharkas. The night was dark as the deep earth, with not a star in the sky, and the warriors guarding the ancient dwarven fortress had set up dozens of torches along the ramp to illuminate anyone approaching in the night. Huge stone walls rose more than a hundred feet in the air before him, bone white in the light of the torches lining the ramp. The walls stretched away in a gentle curve on either side of the ramp, disappearing into darkness long before they reached the stony slopes of the mountain pass that Pax Tharkas guarded.

The dwarf wore a ragged assortment of plate and chain-mail armor, heavily weathered. He stopped just inside the circle of the torchlight and lifted his hands palm up to show they were empty. He couldn’t see the gate’s defenders because of the glow of the torches, but he knew they were watching him, probably down the length of a cocked crossbow.

After a few moments, he pushed back the chain-mail hood covering his head, loosing an unruly mass of greasy black hair and a jutting nest of beard. Flecks of some white substance clung to the ends of his beard hairs, while the deeper crevasses of his weathered face showed white with the same substance.

He thrust out his chest and shouted, “Open the gates!”

“Who are you, and what do you want?” a harsh voice answered from atop the battlements high above him.

“I am Mog Bonecutter, captain of the High Thane’s personal guard. The thane desires entrance,” Mog answered.

“If the king is with you, why doesn’t he show himself?” the voice asked sharply.

“He doesn’t want to be shot by accident in the dark by you night-blind Daewar dogs. I know your voice, Mason Axeblade, and you know me better than you’d like. So open this door before I hew it down!” Mog roared.

“It’ll take more than one motherless iron-throated Klar to breach the gates of Pax Tharkas,” the voice shouted in answer. “Open the gates! Wake up, you sluggards. The king has returned. Open the gates for your king, blast your hides!”

As Tarn and the remainder of his guards climbed the ramp to the outer gate of Pax Tharkas, one of the massive, ironbound valves slowly and silently swung open on its well-greased hinges. Torches appeared in the gap, held aloft by grim-faced dwarves dressed in mail. Half held loaded crossbows at the ready, the others clutched spears, and they all formed a lane to welcome Tarn into the fortress.

Mog led the way through the towering gate and into the first outer courtyard. Here between the first and second curtain walls, they were met by a hawk-faced dwarf bearing an enormous, two-handed warhammer. His meticulously groomed beard lay in a profusion of curling copper ringlets across his broad steel breastplate. As Tarn approached, the dwarf stamped down a narrow stair leading down from the battlements of the first wall.

“It is good to see you, Captain Axeblade,” Tarn said wearily as he gazed around, taking in the arrangement of the fortress’s defenses with a quick glance. Dwarves lined both outer curtain walls and stared down into the courtyard. Strict discipline held their tongues, but Tarn knew they were waiting to hear the results of the battle. He was not yet ready to speak openly of the disaster, though.

The outer defenses of Pax Tharkas consisted of two curtain walls that completely blocked the mountain pass. The two outer walls were too far apart to bridge, but narrow enough to provide a killing field for any attackers unlucky enough to become trapped between the first wall and the defenders on the second wall. The first gate was reached by a ramp leading up from the valley below. The second wall was higher than the first, as the road into the main fortress climbed up into the mountains. Beyond the second wall, the two massive square towers of Pax Tharkas rose majestically into the night sky, looming like black bulwarks with their narrow windows winking with torchlight. A third wall, taller and broader than the first two, was pierced by a massive iron gate and defended the pass between the towers.

The fortress was one of the wonders of Krynn. It had been built to guard a narrow valley through the Kharolis Mountains, which connected the high plateau of the elven woodlands with the wide plains lying before the dwarves’ mountain home of Thorbardin. Dwarves and elves had built and garrisoned it together as a sign of peace between their two peoples, but that was long ago in another time. Now Pax Tharkas was a fortress on the northern frontier of dwarf lands, a buffer between Thorbardin and the troublesome north.