"Bell? How-look out!"
Both whirled as an avalanche crashed down. Sunbright and Knucklebones had a vision of huge hoofs, gray, hairy muzzles, thick horns, and gray rags wrapped around tremendously wide shoulders.
Carved wooden staves pointed like nocked arrows, then they were attacked by magic, staff, and fist.
Crowded, Sunbright hollered a warning to Knucklebones. There were three or four enemies, but he could see little with snow in his eyes. Rising within arm"s reach, they must have crouched in the rocky niche, lying in ambush. For them, or for dwarves?
No matter. The barbarian slapped his free hand onto Harvester"s pommel and stabbed straight. The long sword was unlike any other seen in the Rengarth tribe, won by his father decades ago in the southlands. The blade curved slightly from the pommel, then widened so the nose was fatter than the shank. Yet metal had been cut from the tip"s back to form a wicked barbed hook. Thus the sword could stab, chop, or tear on the back draw. Sunbright tried all three attacks now.
But so close loomed these gray, s.h.a.ggy foes, and so hindered was Sunbright by waist-high bushes, that the blade was batted aside. Before the shaman could recover, a wooden staff smacked him alongside the head. White lights exploded behind his eyes. He staggered at the knees, and dimly saw the shaft rise. To do what? Stab him? Knock him onto the snow-slick path and lever him off the mountain? Either way, his stunned brain couldn"t focus.
Then the end of the staff erupted with red light. Sunbright felt a burn sear his neck, then he fell or was tripped. He crashed in snow.
To one side, slick as an eel, Knucklebones shed her coat and satchels, scrunched low as a hare and leaped high. She popped up almost in the face of the huge enemies. To her astonishment, they proved to be s.h.a.ggy beasts like upright cattle. Horns jutted from the sides of their heads, and from some dangled tiny bells on leather thongs that jingled. These cow-beings possessed the bleached skulls along the trail, then. Their long hands bore blunt, black nails, and all carried curved wooden staves.
Surprised by her rush, a yak-man shrank back to aim the end of his staff. Knucklebones gave him no chance. Doubling her fist of bra.s.s knuckledusters, she slammed the yak-man hard on the nose. The cow face jerked, and bright blood spurted, so Knucklebones knew he or she was hurt. She smacked the same spot, and saw blood erupt from twin nostrils. Good, their noses were vulnerable.
A blistering red light erupted at her. She heard Sunbright grunt and fall. Another yak-man aimed a staff at her.
She ducked just in time, for a blast of alien wind blew leaves off the tough cedars that ringed them.
Knucklebones was shielded from the tiny tornado by the hulking yak-man in front of her. Deciding to stay put and keep his protection, she closed again. She couldn"t defeat them all, but could pound h.e.l.l out of one, and hope for the best.
The yak-man grabbed his nose so blood ran between black-nailed fingers. Crowding her luck, Knucklebones stooped and aimed a savage uppercut at his long chin. Bra.s.s knuckles batted his snowy goat"s beard, bashed thin bones underneath. A loud crack announced a broken jawbone. She wanted to yell for joy, for the sheer thrill of battle. Instead, she slid even closer as the yak-man tumbled backward.
Meanwhile, Sunbright had fallen below the brush, and so saved his life. The yak-man wielding the magic staff blasted again, but the searing flame only blasted snow into steam. Ignoring the throbbing burn on his chin and neck, Sunbright bulled aside brush, glimpsed a hairy, crooked leg ending in a rough hoof worn from mountain climbing. That small target was all he needed.
Gritting his teeth against pain, he snaked Harvester past tough roots and hooked the barb behind the yak-man"s hock. A savage yank severed the tendon, and the creature was ham-strung. He toppled into a compatriot with a bawl like a slaughtered ox.
Knucklebones heard the cry and took heart. Together they might subdue these queer people and escape. Pressing one hand against the b.l.o.o.d.y-nosed yak, she slithered around his wide ribs after another foe. She found one shorter and slimmer than the others, probably a female, but the cow saw her at the same time, and whipped up a staff topped by a tiny hourgla.s.s. Knucklebones had only a second to wonder what it was- -then she was standing in the village in the valley. Beside her, Sunbright asked a milkmaid where lay the path to the dwarves" high caves. The milkmaid had blue eyes, and rubbed the tip of her nose.
Knucklebones saw freckles on her hand, smelled manure, and bread baking in a cottage, and heard milk sloshing in the pail.
But how could this image be real? What happened to the mountain and yak-men and snow? The sun was warm on her neck. The maid"s dog snuffled her hand, and she felt its warm tongue on her fingers. How had she been transported three days into the past, and many miles distant?
The staff bore an hourgla.s.s, she recalled. Some magic time spell? Had it sent her mind into the past?
Images and thoughts tumbled in her mind, then a staff smacked the top of her head with a fierce crunch. The milkmaid"s farm winked into blackness.
Sunbright saw his lover struck down, saw her drop as if lifeless. Rage overcame sense, and he reared upright with a roar. Bushes and snow flew as he hoisted Harvester in the air, slung it far behind to shear at the bull neck of the nearest of the four yak-men, but was undone again. All four turned on him. The tornado-spewing staff aimed, puffed like a dragon, and the barbarian was blown backward to sprawl on the snow-slick path.
His head slammed stone, his burned neck sent jolts of lightning coursing through his frame. Before he could rise, the yak-woman stamped forward with her staff, and knocked Harvester from his numbed hands. A tremendous hoof stamped on his chest, and drove out his wind. Through a gray fog loomed the calm, deadly face of an otherworldly executioner. The yak-woman drew a curved scimitar, and coolly aimed to split his throat.
Sunbright bucked against the hoof, got nowhere, gasped, and drew no breath into his squashed chest. He flailed his arms uselessly. He"d die now, and Knucklebones next. So ended all his mad quests.
Obscured by snow, the curved blade topped its arch, came whistling around- -and three crossbow bolts buried themselves to their feathers in the yak-woman"s breast.
Chapter 3.
Pinned by a hoof, stunned by a head blow, half-blinded by snow and pain, Sunbright saw the yak- woman"s brown eyes roll white as she died. A thin trickle of blood stained her round nostrils-sign of lung puncture- then she slumped onto the snow and collapsed in a heap. Her curved sword landed in the snow without a sound.
Another yak-man cast right and left for danger, whipped his staff through the air, rumbled a gurgling command to his two comrades. A black crossbow bolt slammed into the side of his neck and cut his orders off. His black-nailed hand grabbed the shaft.
Glimpsing this in seconds, Sunbright rolled, scurried on knees and elbows to grab Harvester of Blood lying on the narrow path, its imprint outlined in snow. Keeping low, he shouted, "Knuckle", watch for arrows! Someone"s killing them!"
There was no answer, and a spasm of fear clutched his heart. Was she just being silent for the fight?
Or had she been killed, or pitched off the mountain? Perhaps she lay bleeding. He must- A brawny hand clamped onto his shoulder from behind, and he was hurled flat, so hard his spine rattled. Etched against a white fluttering sky surged figures like short brown bears bristling with weaponry. The bear-beings swept to either side. One leveled a crossbow, let go with a slap and clack of string and bow. Another hoisted a long-faced battle-axe and hollered a cry like a condor making a kill. In a furry wave, the newcomers roared, and fell upon the surviving yak-men.
Half-seen through snow, Sunbright winced at the slaughter. The yak-man with the bolt in his neck turned, one hand still clutching the shaft, and tried to rip free his scimitar. A screaming dwarf-for such were their rescuers-hopped in the air and swung his battle-axe so hard the cow-being"s arm was severed at the shoulder. Blood spurted over attacker and attacked. Before the yak-man could take another step, the fur-clad dwarf chopped savagely at a backwards-bent leg. Cut down like a tree, the yak-man tumbled over so fast the dwarf had to fend the s.h.a.ggy body aside.
Sunbright crawled toward where he"d last seen Knucklebones; he didn"t want to rise in front of a crossbow. The other two yak-men were hacked to pieces. Smashing through snowy brush, a dwarf lanced a bolt into a yak-man"s jaw, pinning it to his skull. Another stabbed upward with a short spear under broad ribs. Driving the spear deep, the short one shoved so hard the yak-man"s horns clacked on the rock wall behind. Again the dwarf shoved, until the s.h.a.ggy body was slammed full against the stone, then again, so hard the shaft snapped, and the dwarf stumbled against his dying foe. The last yak-man raised his staff over his head sideways, a sign of surrender, but died. Two dwarves with mattock and falchion slammed blades into the beast"s bowels, so it doubled with a cry of agony, and a third dwarf smashed down on the broad head with a warhammer square between the horns. Even then their ferocity was unquenched, for other dwarves swarmed around the fallen creatures to hack them limb from limb.
Steering clear of the battle-crazed warriors, Sunbright found Knucklebones lying on her side in her woolens atop smashed brush. The tiny woman was already half-covered by snow, unconscious. The shaman scanned her with his hands, found a crease in her skull and blood matted in her dark hair.
Gently for such huge gnarled hands, he lifted her eyelid to peer at her pupil. One way to gauge brain damage was to compare a victim"s pupils, check they were the same size, but Knucklebones only had one eye. Then snow settling on her eyeball made it twitch. Relieved, he guessed she"d recover, once he got her warm.
Brushing off snow, Sunbright fetched her shed coat and wrapped her tight, then hung her satchels on his shoulders. He hoisted Knucklebones in his arms, but even her weight, light as a lamb, made him dizzy, for he"d also been head-bashed by a curious staff. He leaned on a rock until his head stopped spinning. Too, a burn alongside his left ear and neck itched and throbbed abominably, and he knew lymph and blood wept from the wound to soak his shirt, chilling him. Gritting his teeth, he wondered what the dwarves had in store for them.
The mountain men were busy. Savage fury abated, they resorted to their usual industrious ways.
With an axe they methodically hacked off the four oxen heads, then propped and wedged them amidst stones to dry and collect snow. Continuing, they sliced off the gray rags that pa.s.sed for the yak-men"s clothing, chopped off hands and cloven feet and threw them off the mountain, then hoisted the still- warm bodies to split the bellies and dress out the guts, which they left in a steaming pile along the trail. Finally, dragging the dressed carca.s.ses, booty of satchels and staves and swords, they stamped free of the brush and trooped up the trail with their burdens.
The last pair faced Sunbright, who was fighting fatigue, cold, and dizziness while clutching Knucklebones, who hung limp as a rag doll. The barbarian blinked when he realized the dwarf with the thick, braided hair was female, for she had a thick beard, and her face was craggy and seamed as an old shoe. Sunbright hadn"t known there were dwarven women. Legend said dwarves grew from the rocks like golems and ogres.
The frowning, blood-spattered woman paused, a thick falchion at the ready, and said, "Why have you come here?"
"Uh . . ." Sunbright groaned. The abrupt question fl.u.s.tered the shaman. "I seek the Sons of Baltar. I have-something to give Drigor."
He was never sure if his sincerity or the promise of a gift turned the tide, but the dwarven woman muttered to her companion in a voice like grinding rocks. The other growled back, then the first said, "Follow me."
Blinking against snow and exhaustion, Sunbright nodded gratefully. The two dwarves, no higher than his belt buckle, stumped up the slick path, and the barbarian picked after, hoping he didn"t faint and tumble a thousand feet.
The trail got worse for the suffering Sunbright toting Knucklebones, for eventually the dwarves turned from the path and mounted steep steps hacked from stone, then entered a pa.s.s no wider than his shoulders. The narrow chasm was dozens of feet high. Silhouetted against falling snow were crouched sentries with crossbows. Stumbling and slipping, Sunbright kept up with the st.u.r.dy, sure-footed dwarves, and eventually pa.s.sed into a black slot where warm air gushed into the barbarian"s face.
After that he saw little, for he had to hunch over. The ceiling was so low, and stretches were entirely black, though all the caves were gloriously warm. After a while he saw torchlight, and a faint glow from rough paint splashed here and there on the walls, paint infused with some magic luminosity. The dwarven woman turned once to say, "Go in there and stay put," then marched off after the rest.
Ducking double, Sunbright blundered into a rough-cut room. There was no furniture, just a single iron pipe with a spigot running along the craggy wall and daubed with glowing paint. He thanked the G.o.ds he could stand upright. Cradling Knucklebones, he shucked off his heavy coat and made a bed for her on a crude stone shelf. Testing the rusty spigot singed his hand, for it was scalding hot. He guessed all the caves were heated by boiling water springing from the earth. He used his sleeve to turn the spigot, soaked a rag, and cleaned Knucklebones"s scalp wound and face and hands. He drank some of the water, flat and reeking of iron, then cleaned and bandaged his neck wound. Sitting, he straightened his tackle, honed his sword back to razor sharpness, and-ordered to stay put-sat beside the sleeping Knucklebones. Lulled by the delicious heat, he nodded off.
He awoke to heavy stamping and jumped off the shelf with sword in hand, quick and lithe as a panther, but groggy in mind. So, weaving and clutching a sword, he greeted his frowning hosts.
The dwarf was old. His wrinkled face was framed by a bushy white beard and eyebrows, with six silver rings braided into his drooping mustache. He wore a tunic of rough-out gray leather with a s.h.a.ggy hump behind his neck, and Sunbright supposed the hide came from a yak-man. A kilt of goat hide, much stained by rust and pitted by burn marks, hung to battered boots stiff with tar. Somehow, he looked familiar.
"I am Drigor," stated the dwarf. Of course, Dorlas"s father resembled him. "What have you to give me?"
"I am Sunbright Steelshanks, of the Raven Clan of the Rengarth Barbarians." If they still exist, he thought dismally. "I bring you-bring you-"
But the old dwarf"s deep brown eyes had already spotted the warhammer holstered on the barbarian"s belt. Without words, Sunbright pulled the weapon and handed it over.
With hands marked by crooked fingers, inch-thick callouses, and burn scars, the dwarf cradled the hammer as gently as a baby. The hammer had always looked and felt big enough to slay an ox, but in those hands it looked like a toy. Without any visible emotion, Drigor said, "We heard. But you were there? Tell me how it came to pa.s.s."
A little civility would be nice, Sunbright thought, a please and thank you for risking his and Knucklebones"s life to visit these mountains to deliver a hammer. But the old man-if dwarves were men-had just been reminded that his son was dead, so Sunbright could stifle his irritation.
"We were bodyguarding a caravan, and almost to Dalekeva, when the Hunt caught us . . ." Still groggy, and hungry, Sunbright sat on the stone shelf beside a sleeping Knucklebones and told the tale.
How within sight of the city walls, a hunting party of decadent Neth on golden mechanical dragons and birds swooped down. How Dorlas discharged his duty by sending the caravan"s merchants ahead while the bodyguards fought from the woods. How, eventually, the forest was ignited, so they ran for the city gates. How Dorlas, wounded, fell behind, and insisted they run on. How a huntsman pierced the dwarf with a golden lance through the belly but, incredibly, Dorlas hung onto the lance, jerked himself up it, yanking the shaft through his own guts, to crush the metal wolf mask of the huntsman and kill him first, before the dwarf died himself. How Sunbright and Greenwillow were saved by Dorlas"s sacrifice.
Though he was an excellent storyteller, like all tundra dwellers, Sunbright didn"t embellish the story, for Dorlas"s deeds needed no exaggeration. All through the tale, the eyes of Drigor never left the shaman"s face, and Sunbright felt burned anew, as if he"d been pierced to the guts himself, cut open to expose any untruth.
"A good death, and brave . . ." The old dwarf talked mostly to himself. "We own little here in the Iron Mountains, we Sons of Baltar. Scanty food, iron used up, little coal to burn. So, for generations now, our children are our resource. We train our sons and daughters to war, and send them into the world of men to fight as soldiers and bodyguards. Many never return to this, our ancestral home. So with Dorlas."
Sunbright was quiet at this epitaph, feeling that, rather than floating a coffin down a river, he"d finally helped bury Dorlas, who"d been a friend in the short time the barbarian had known him. He murmured, "I"m sorry."
"Sorry is nothing," p.r.o.nounced the dwarf, obviously an old mountain adage. Then surprised him with, "I owe you, Sunbright Steelshanks. I, Drigor, son of Yasur, owe you a favor." He tipped the warhammer, then left the stone room.
Sunbright sat on the shelf and stared at the empty doorway, wondering what next? A quiet stir made him turn.
"A dwarf owes you a favor. Better than money in the bank."
Sunbright looked into Knucklebones"s single eye and asked, "How long have you been awake?"
"Long enough. As a child, I learned to wake silently. You make powerful and lasting friends, country mouse."
"I meet a lot of people, true, though some I must kill. How"s your head?"
"It hurts. What are you looking at?" she murmured, almost against his chin as he loomed above her.
"It"s a shame you"ve only the one, because it"s a pretty eye," he whispered, then he planted a big juicy kiss on her eyelid.
"Yick! That"s not where they go!"
He kissed her small, firm mouth.
"Better?"
"Much better," she murmured.
Sunbright and Knucklebones spent the night huddled under two blankets and the glowing iron pipe. The stone was hard, but the warmth wonderful. In dry clothing and with breakfast (their own rations) under their belts, they felt better, if sore.
Drigor walked into the room shouting, "Are you better?"
Noise made Sunbright"s head throb, but he answered civilly, "Yes, we"re better, thank you. This is my friend, Knucklebones, by the way."
The dwarf only puffed a wisp of ring-braided mustache from his mouth. "It"s well you can travel,"
he said, "for you must leave."
"Leave?" The word was jerked from Sunbright.
By the glow of luminous paint the dwarf"s face looked like old parchment. He nodded glumly, brooking no argument, and said, "We have nothing to offer you, and you nothing to offer us. Your mission is accomplished and you may go. We conserve food and fighters because of yak-men. What you saw yesterday was another scout party. The yak-men covet our mountains. They push in from the east, and we are busy killing them. This takes food, and we have barely enough to feed ourselves."
"More folk on the move . . ." Sunbright pondered aloud. "Tell me, do you find the animals fewer, and sickly, even plants not thriving?"
Drigor frowned, and said, "Yes, perhaps. The elk and goats did not climb as high this autumn, and even the high-dwelling chamois have moved to lower meadows to scratch moss. Scouts tell us the lichen and gorse is thin on the highest peaks, and not recovering from their graze. Why ask?"
"The high mountains are another harsh territory, but fragile, like my tundra. I sought my people in traditional lands for months and never found them. They"ve moved into new territories, unless they"re all dead, which I don"t believe. Now you tell me yak-men press in from the east, outside the empire. I wonder if they too find their land can"t support them."
"I care not." Drigor waved a craggy hand as he said, "These mountains can"t support them either, and we kill all they send. But our best fighters are away soldiering, and the yak-men are many.
Sometimes I think ..."
The pause arrested Sunbright and Knucklebones, but the dwarf never finished, only changed tack.
"Never mind. You must go. Gird yourselves. A guide will lead you out." He spun on his heels and stamped away.
"The rotten b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!" Knucklebones snapped. "The lousy cheapskates! Pitched out into the storm without so much as a by-your-leave! Why not just hurl us off the mountain, for Shar"s sake?"
"Or charge us for the room and hot water," Sunbright sighed. "It would be kind to give us some of the yak-men"s rations. They had food satchels."
"I"d like one of those carved staves." Knucklebones groused. She rammed clothes into her ox hide pack, yanked the straps tight, and slammed her blanket roll atop. "They"re probably worth a fortune!
And we earned them, for we engaged the enemy first."
"We would have died if the dwarves hadn"t attacked," Sunbright reminded her.
"They still stink, the penny-pinching shrimps. I hope their mountain collapses around their ears."
She shut up as a dwarven woman, the same who"d led them here, clomped through the doorway.
Crossing her arms, the dwarf waited impatiently for them to strap on their tackle. Silently, the humans complied. Without a word, they followed her through corridors black or illuminated, searing hot or just warm. Knucklebones craned her head around, for she"d seen nothing when carried in. They heard bursts of coa.r.s.e laughter, smelled cookfires and food, glimpsed rooms where dwarves repaired gear or stoked charcoal fires for forging. Once she heard a s.n.a.t.c.h of lonesome song like a coyote"s cry.
Deliberately she dragged her feet to slow them.
For Knucklebones found this mountain enclave enticing. The winding dark tunnels with jots of light, so warm, reminded her of home, the sewers and tunnels of the floating enclave of Karsus. And too, the hustle and bustle and busyness reminded her of the thieves" community with its quiet secrets and bold camaraderie. Visiting the dwarven warrens made the city-born orphan feel homesick, and yet at home.
But they were ejected. A wave of cold air gushed, and made Knucklebones draw her sheepskin coat close to her neck. Her breath fogged, misting the picture of the outdoors, though she knew it was sunny. By the time her one eye had squinted open, they stood alone at the mouth of the pa.s.s, the dwarven woman having turned back.