The Swordsheath Scroll dn-3, page 5
part #3 of Dwarven Nations Series
"Oh, is that all?" Derkin's chuckle was cold and ironic. "And exactly how do I do all that?"
"That's up to you," the old dwarf said. "You're the leader."
"And while all this is going on, what's happening at Klanath?"
Despaxas pulled up his cowl again, covering his head. "A diversion has been arranged there," he said emphatically. "It should keep everyone occupied for a time."
Dawn's light had not yet touched the soft-ore pits of Klanath when the husky, broad-shouldered slave named Tap Tolec came awake to the tug of a hand at his shoulder. It was nearly pitch-dark in the great, reeking cell, but he knew the whisper at his ear. It was the Daergar, Vin the Shadow. Tap groaned and turned his head, trying to see. "Vin?" he muttered. "Is that you? Let go. I'm awake. What's the matter?"
"Look at this," Vin whispered. He sounded urgent, excited.
"Look at what?" Tap grumped. "My eyes aren't like yours. I have to have a little light to see."
Impatiently, Vin grabbed the Theiwar's hand and thrust something into it. Even in the dark, Tap recognized the heft of a stout hammer. He sat up, exploring the tool with his fingers. "You got it!" he whispered. "How did you manage that?"
"I didn't manage," Vin said. "I just woke up and… well, see for yourself!"
Vin scuttled away from him, and Tap heard sounds like someone rummaging through a tool trove. Around them, other dwarves stirred and began to awaken. Nearby, someone-obviously another Daergar miner-muttered, "Wow! Look at that!"
"What?" someone else whispered. ''What do you see?"
Then there was a quick series of rasping noises, accompanied by tiny flashes of dim light. Tinder glowed in a leathery palm, was breathed aflame, and those nearby saw Vin the Shadow raising a freshly lit candle. "There," he said. "Now you can see. Look!"
Tap stared, his eyes going wide. All around him, other dwarven slaves rubbed sleepy eyes and gawked at what Vin indicated. On the floor of the cell, in a random cluster as though someone had just dumped it there, was a large pile of implements, and more and more gasps sounded as more and more slaves realized what they were seeing. Hammers and axes were there, steel-tipped javelins and gleaming swords, maces and daggers, goblin-fashioned crossbows with bales of deadly bolts, even a few elven-style bows of lacquered lemonwood and sheaths of fletched arrows. The candle's light danced on myriad deadly shapes and surfaces.
Behind the piled weapons, shadowed by the stack, were bits of armor of numerous kinds and designs, shields and chest-plates, various kinds of helmets, leather-slung caplets and braces-it looked as though someone had foraged hurriedly through a used-armor bazaar and picked up a little of everything. And farther back in the shadowed recess were bales and kegs. Vin gazed at these, and his large eyes went narrow. "See the markings there," he said. "Those come from the mine master's stores."
Vin's attention was on something else, though. Just in front of the pile of weapons, a small, shallow bowl of dark wood rested on the stone floor. He crept closer and looked into it. In the bowl was a bit of milky liquid that seemed to glow as he stared at it, a dim, greenish light. "What's…" he began, then flinched as a voice came from the bowl-a quiet, musical voice.
"Arm yourselves," the milky liquid said. "Barricade the grating and fortify the cell. Break your chains and defend your gate at all costs. Arm yourselves and hold the cell… hold the cell…"
A thick-bearded dwarf peered into the bowl skeptically. He stirred the liquid, to no apparent effect. "That's crazy," he growled. "We can't hold out here, in this cell."
Nearby, a gnarled dwarf with deep scars on his back and only one eye hoisted a sword and picked up a shield. 'To blazes with talking bowls," he rasped. "Let's get these chains off and go kill some slavers."
A low thunder of approval began, then subsided quickly as they realized that their voices could carry to the guards outside.
"First things first," a burly slave rasped quietly. "Some of us can watch the gate, while the rest get free of their chains. Then when we're ready, we can…"
"Hold the cell," the musical voice coming from the bowl repeated urgently. "Beyond the cell lies death. Hold the cell."
"Tarnish that," someone snorted, a bit surprised to be talking to a bowl of what seemed to be milk. "How long can we hole up in a cell with no way out? The humans wouldn't have to come in after us. They could just wait until we starve. Or bury us alive in here."
"Hold the cell," the voice repeated, flowing over them like music. "Help is on the way. One comes who will lead you out. Arm yourselves, barricade the gate, and hold the cell…"
The greenish light dimmed, and the voice was gone. In the cavern cell now was only momentary silence and the flickering light of Vin's candle outlining the faces of hundreds of dwarves, some of them suspicious, all of them grim.
Suddenly there was other light-dim, dancing beams from lanterns beyond the cell grating-and the unmistakable sounds of human guards in the corridor beyond. Within, hundreds of dwarves listened in breathless silence.
The silence lasted only a moment. In the corridor a human voice said, "Here, you two! Wake up! It's time for the… What's this?"
"They're dead," another human voice said. "Both of them. Their throats have been cut! Sound the alarm!"
Weapons rattled, a trumpet blared, and there was the sound of hurrying feet, distant but approaching.
As one, the dwarves in the cell crowded toward the gate. "What nitwit killed the night guards?" Vin the Shadow rasped. "Now they'll all be on us before we can gather our wits."
"Maybe it was whoever brought all this stuff in here," Tap Tolec suggested.
"Nobody 'brought' it here," Vin said. "It came by magic. That bowl proves that."
"I never saw magic," someone else said.
"I don't trust magic," another said.
Beyond the grated gate, a lamp was raised. Its light danced through the bars, a moving pattern on the solid mass of dwarves crowding forward. A human voice shouted, "Here, you dinks! Get back there. Get away from this gate!"
"Nobody in here killed the guards," Tap Tolec told Vin the Shadow. "See, the bar is in place. The gate is still locked."
Those in the fore continued to crowd toward the grating, curious and pressed by those behind them. Beyond the grate, the human shouted again, and a spear flicked through the bars, threatening the mob inside. But before its tip could reach anyone, a muscular hand grasped the shaft, and a short, stout arm lifted and pulled. The human beyond was jerked up against the grating, and froze there as a sword flashed through the bars, skewering him from belly to brisket. The man screamed, hung for a moment where he was, then dropped to the stone floor as the sword was withdrawn.
Within the cell, a dwarf-the one-eyed slave with the deep scars on his back-wiped his sword blade on his tunic and rasped, "Thaf s one."
Then the corridor was full of armed humans and bright lamps, and the dwarves in the cell backed away from the gate.
"Quick!" Vin the Shadow barked. "Don't let them free that bar!"
Spears and narrow pikes licked through the grating of the portal, and human hands grasped the gate bar, starting to slide it aside. It moved only an inch before a hail of arrows and crossbow bolts from within the cell tore into the humans beyond. Men screamed, men fell, and men fled. Crazy shadows danced in the suddenly deserted corridor, where fallen lamps flickered on the floor.
"Well, that's that," Tap Tolec breathed. "But they'll be back. What do we do now?"
"Barricade the gate!" a dozen voices chimed.
"Break it down and attack the pits!" other voices shouted.
"Kill humans!" several suggested.
"Hold it!" someone roared. "Whatever we do, we'd better all do it together. Who's in charge here?"
"Not me," a dozen voices answered together.
"Well," a querulous voice came from the crowd, "somebody's got to take the lead. Who's it going to be?"
"Don't look at me," the one-eyed dwarf snapped at several others around him. "I can fight, but I'm no leader."
"The Hylar!" Tap Tolec said, with sudden inspiration. "Where's that Hylar? He can lead us!"
It took several minutes for all of them to realize that the Hylar, the one they knew only as Derkin, was no longer among them, and when that became clear, the cell was quieter than it had been. For a moment, every dwarf there had envisioned a grand victory-fighting dwarves cutting a path through masses of humans, winning their way to freedom. The way it might have been in the old, great days that the lore spoke of. Dwarven fury overwhelming, overcoming desperate odds… led by a Hylar chief.
But only for a moment had the vision lasted. Now there was only reality. They had-from where or what infernal magic no one knew-arms and some supplies. But they still were only a gang of slaves, trapped in a stone cell, and outside were the slave masters, backed by hundreds, or maybe thousands, of human warriors. They were trapped here like rats in a barrel, and the humans could come for them at their pleasure.
"I guess we'd better do what that bowl said," Vin the Shadow said bleakly. "Barricade the cell, hold the gate, and wait for reinforcements."
4
Assault in Small Force
Despaxas had gone off someplace. One minute he was there, the next he was gone, and when Derkin asked Calan Silvertoe where the elf was, the one-armed Daewar simply shrugged and waved a careless hand. "He comes and goes as he pleases," he said. "I don't try to keep up with him."
"That shadow thing is gone, too," Derkin noted.
"Zephyr?" Calan shuddered. "That thing is hardly ever around, but even now and then is too much."
"Is it dangerous?"
"Despaxas says it isn't," Calan said. "But I don't like it, anyway. I was with him the day he… called it up. He was fooling with little spells, just sort of practicing his magic, and all of a sudden there was that thing, right there with us. Despaxas says it wasn't really there. He says its actual body is in some other plane-whatever that means. He thinks one of his spells got tangled up with somebody else's spell in that other place, and Zephyr wound up stuck halfway between. So the elf made a pet of it… or of the part of it thaf s here. I guess it's harmless. I just don't like magic, and I don't like things that look like bat-fish shadows."
The two dwarves passed the hours of daylight in a small, deep cove high on a mountainside. There was a little, crystal-cold spring there, and game trails all around, but Derkin lay in wait beside the spring for more than an hour, festooned in shrubbery and pretending to be a bush, before anything edible showed up. Had he been armed with a sling, or even a throwing-axe or javelin, he would have hunted the trails for a deer, wild hog, or even a small bear. But all he had at hand was a stout stick, so he waited in ambush and settled for a brace of rabbits.
Calan had a little fire going in a deep glade, and while they cooked their dinner, the old Daewar told Derkin-in exquisite detail-of the habits and routines of the humans who ruled the Tharkas mines. The foot company of soldiers numbered eighteen, the slave masters and warders an even dozen, and only one shaft was being worked. It was worked through the daylight hours, by several hundred dwarves divided into small groups. The shaft entrance was guarded, and only a few dwarves were allowed out at any one time. These carried the best ores outside, for stocking.
Each night, the shaft was sealed with all the slaves inside, while the soldiers stood guard in three six-man shifts.
Derkin was astounded that the old dwarf, who had been a slave himself in a distant pit mine until the night before, could know so much detail about this place. But as with all subjects, Calan Silvertoe said just what he intended to say, explained what he intended to explain, and refused to comment on how he knew.
The longhouse was just what it seemed, Calan said. Once the central hall of a thriving dwarven community, now it served as kitchen and washhouse, and as quarters for the female dwarves who worked in it as slaves.
By the time the sun was sinking behind the western peaks, Derkin had a clear, detailed picture of the movements and habits of the humans below, and only one remaining question.
"How do they control the slaves inside the shaft?" he asked. "If only the mine masters enter there, and never the guards, what's to keep the dwarves below from simply ganging up on the slavers and killing them?"
"I'm not sure," Calan admitted. "Maybe it's the goblins."
"What goblins?"
"Well, when Lord Kane's troops first came here to take control, there was a company of goblins with them. When the area was secured, and the attack force left, the goblins weren't with them. And they haven't been seen since. So maybe they're in the mine shaft. Goblins are right at home underground. Maybe the humans hired them, and left them there as enforcers."
"Wonderful," Derkin rumbled, suppressing a shiver. If there was one thing most dwarves detested more than magic, it was goblins. "Goblins in the mine," he muttered. "As if things weren't complicated enough."
By last light of evening, Derkin lay concealed just above the mine camp, watching the closing of the shaft and the positioning of the guards. It was just as Calan had said. Food was brought from the longhouse, then six armed humans remained outside, taking up positions in a wide arc around the mine yards, while the rest retired to a pair of the old dwarven cabins to sleep.
Those on guard made no fires, and Derkin realized that they would have light enough to see soon. Within an hour, at least one of Krynn's moons would be in the clear sky, and the humans felt no need of firelight.
The positioning of the guards indicated that the men did not expect trouble, and certainly not from beyond their perimeter. They had placed themselves to watch the mine and the buildings, not to watch the surrounding wilderness. A slight, cold smile tugged at the Hylar's whiskered cheeks.
"How you do this is up to you," the old Daewar had told him, shrugging as though he hadn't the slightest interest in what came next.
"Then how I do it is my way, and mine alone," he had snapped. He had left Calan dozing beside the little spring, and was glad that he had. He had no need of anyone as unpredictable as Calan Silvertoe.
His plan was a simple one-take out as many guards as he could, as quietly as he could, then open the mine shaft and somehow free the dwarves within. If there were also goblins in there… well, he didn't know where they were or what they might do, so there was nothing to be gained by worrying about them.
He carried one weapon at hand-a stout, hardwood stick four feet long, sharpened at both ends. It was as near to a delver's javelin as he could improvise. In Thorbardin, Derkin had once prided himself on his skill with the working javelin.
In deep dusk, he crept to the first of the guard positions and peered around. By last good light, he had seen a human guard seat himself beside a fallen tree, leaning back against the trunk. At that moment, he had selected this one as his first target.
Derkin came up behind the man, soundless feet sure on the mountain slope. He was almost within arm's reach when the human heard or sensed something. The man started to turn, started to rise, but it was too late. With a lunge, Derkin flung himself across the tree trunk, thrust his javelin over the man's head, and snapped it back, under his chin. Gripping the shaft with both hands, Derkin heaved back. The man gurgled; his feet drummed the ground. Then his neck snapped, and he lay limp.
Derkin relieved the man of a dagger, leaving his other weapons where they lay. The bow and arrows and the awkward, light-bladed human sword weren't worth carrying around.
The second guard was harder to get to. This man was in a narrow, upright cleft of rock, hidden from both sides. The dwarf could have charged in on him, and finished him with a thrust of his javelin, but the chance of a silent kill in that manner was nil. The man would have time to shout or scream before he died.
For a moment, Derkin puzzled over it, then he crept up beside the cleft, remaining just out of sight. When he was near enough to hear the human breathing, he drew his dagger and tossed it onto the sloping ground just outside the cleft. It landed with a little thud, and lay glinting in the starlight.
In the cleft, the human stirred, muttered something to himself, and stepped forward, squinting. Another step, and he was out of the cleft, bending over, reaching for the dagger. He never heard the quick whir of Derkin's javelin as it lashed downward, its stout staff colliding with the exposed base of his skull. The man staggered, pitched forward, and Derkin thrust one of the sharpened ends of the staff into his throat, cutting off a strangled scream before it began.
He retrieved his dagger, relieved the guard of what he had already decided he wanted-a bronze-headed belt mace-and went on. The third guard, he knew, wore no helmet.
Five of the guards lay dead, and Derkin was stalking number six, when he froze in his tracks. Nearby, someone or something had moved, a slight rustling of brush. Motionless, he waited, and again heard the slightest of sounds. Just off to his left, someone else was creeping stealthily toward the position of the dozing guard.
A deep scowl lowered Derkin's brows as he mouthed silent curses. "Calan," he whispered to himself, "if you mess this up for me, I swear I'll brain you."
In the dark of evening, when the ore slopes were quiet and cool breezes drifted through the mountains, Helta Graywood slipped out of the dusty, suffocating grain loft, down the narrow ladder to the floor of the longhouse, and padded across on small, bare feet to the rear door, staying in shadows in case any human outside might happen to glance through the broken shutters of a window. Around the dimly lit main room, several dwarf women sat on benches or lay on makeshift cots, resting from the day's labors. Some of them glanced at Helta as she passed, and the nearest one-a gray-haired matron with deep creases around her eyes-said, "Stay close, Helta. There will be bright moonlight tonight."
The girl paused. "I'll be careful, Nadeen," she said. "But I do need some fresh air."
Nadeen nodded, understanding. The grain loft was never a pleasant place to work, even under the best of circumstances. Close and stifling, the little chamber above the kitchen was always dusty, always hot, and always reeked of the acrid odor of decaying grain. And now, with the redoubled supplies the human invaders had brought in, the place was nearly unbearable.
