Circle at center

12
The Eyeless Horde

K arkald raced through the darkness, stumbling over unseen rocks, scraping against the pillars that rose throughout the vast cavern. Before him he saw faint light, illumination filtered around several bends of the subterranean passage, but unquestionably emanating from a bright source.

He heard Darann’s shout, then a sound like a rock clattering across the floor. Brandishing his spear, he sprinted faster, turning a corner, squinting in the brightness of his wife’s coolfyre. He saw her throw another rock, striking a target out of his sight.

But there was another beast leaping through the air, striking like a snake toward that face Karkald loved more than any other in all the Seven Circles. This was a wyslet-he saw the bristling whiskers, the narrowed snout and body, the gaping maw with its array of razor-sharp teeth. Darann raised her arm and Karkald, still thirty paces away, could only shout in horror and fury. The proximity of his wife to the target ruled out any casting of his spear, and he could never cross that distance in time to help. Even so, he charged in blind fury and then, in a moment, saw the wyslet thrashing across the floor. Miraculously, his wife was sitting with her back against the rock. Karkald saw no sign of a wound on her face.

“Gotya, rock rat!” The jeering voice came from behind the wyslet, and for the first time Karkald noticed the wiry figure with arms and legs wrapped around the predator’s body. Hiyram’s hands were locked behind the beast’s head, and though the pair thrashed and rolled across the floor, the goblin pressed with impressive strength until the snapping of the wyslet’s spine cracked through the cave.

“Kark!” Darann screamed.

He turned to see a wyslet slinking around the rock, red eyes greedily fixed upon the dwarfwoman. Karkald hurled the spear with every fiber of his strength, and the steel head and stout shaft tore right through the skinny body. The beast thrashed and hissed, pinned to the soft rock by the force of the throw.

Two more wyslets rushed in. Karkald met those with the hammer in his right hand, hatchet-or rather, Darann’s kitchen cleaver-in his left. One collapsed, slain instantly with a crushed skull, and the other disappeared into the darkness, yowling loudly, bleeding from a gash over its eye.

He looked in mute horror at Darann, but saw that she was unscratched. Drawing a few ragged breaths, she reached for him, and he tumbled into her embrace.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, as she was saying the same words. Finally she cried, and pulled him close, and he held her tightly and breathed the scent of her hair, her neck, herself. His own long arms wrapped his dwarfmaid, and he sighed a long exhalation of relief.

“Hiyram-you came back,” he said, after his breathing had steadied enough for him to speak.

“Yup,” chortled the goblin contentedly.

“Why?” asked Darann. “I thought you blamed us for the trap that caught you.”

Hiyram laughed louder. “Lotsa traps… lotsa dwarves. But I’m hungry, so I come here.”

“Hungry… but-” Darann’s voice choked off, and she looked at the bloody, wretched wyslet corpses around them.

“Happy news, that!” smirked Hiyram, swaggering up to the couple and puffing out his scrawny chest. He chucked a thumb at the three slain wyslets. “Good eatin’, if ya don’t mind stink!”

K arkald woke up with a sensation that he was still dreaming. Darann slept, curled against his lap, her back against his chest. They were both naked, covered by the smooth cloth of their blanket. He smelled her hair, let it mingle with his beard as he gently reached for her breast and allowed himself to sigh contentedly.

For the first time in many intervals, his memories were pleasant. Before sleeping, the two dwarves and the goblin had filled their stomachs with fresh meat. Hiyram had stuffed himself until his belly bulged, then announced that he was going to sleep for a year. The dwarves had practiced more moderation, even though the wyslet flesh had proven surprisingly palatable-after they learned not to breathe through their noses. Then the couple found a small grotto some distance away from the snoring goblin, and here they tenderly reaffirmed their love, each soothing away the other’s guilt with kisses, touches, reassuring affection.

These memories were especially vivid and sweet, and he pulled Darann close with a powerful burst of longing. Cupping the fullness of her flesh in his hand, he pressed against her, felt her shift and turn slightly as she slowly came awake. He squeezed, found her nipple with his blunt finger. Kissing the back of her neck through the mane of hair, he pushed his loins against her with strong, suggestive force.

When she reached her hand between them, her fingers grazed his flesh with an electric, rousing touch. Soon they were turning, she rolling to her back while he slid on top of her. She took him in, and in a breathtaking, gasping moment they became one. For long minutes they lay nearly still, murmuring sounds of love, moving hands and lips. Gradually the pace of their motion increased, though still they were nearly silent. They shared the moment of release with a deep kiss, clinging desperately to each other, love coursing as hot as the blood running through their veins.

As his breathing returned to normal, Karkald thought what a grand thing it was to be alive.

They took a long time getting up, and by the time they had ambled back to the main cavern they found Hiyram sitting, belching and sniffing the air. His eyes were luminous in the darkness and when Darann touched off a bit of coolfyre he scowled in irritation.

“Why’s for dat?’ he demanded. “Spose’d be dark round here.”

The dwarfwoman just laughed.

“Where goin?” asked the goblin, quickly shifting conversational tacks. “Way from wyselts, yup?”

“Why-are there more of them around here?” Karkald asked worriedly.

The toothy face bounced up and down in an enthusiastic nod. “More and more comin’, runnin’ from Delvers, yup?”

“Delvers?” Now Karkald felt a real chill of alarm. “They can’t be around here, can they? Remember, we’re in the midrock, miles above the First Circle now!”

“Delvers climb up, too… like you two, too.” Hiyram hooted gleefully at his wordplay. “Lotsa rocks fall down… Delvers find a way up.”

“How many Delvers?” Karkald was remembering the size of the force he had seen below his watch station.

“More than I could count… or you too, either. Fingers and toes on myself, and on you and you… makes not even the start of ’em.”

“An army-climbing up here?” Darann asked, staring wide-eyed at Karkald. “But why?”

“Go to Fourth Circle,” Hiyram exclaimed with a hearty chuckle. “Elves up there-Delvers eat ’em like maggots!”

Karkald looked at his wife, saw the memory of horror in her eyes. He, too, recalled the visage of that steel-jawed monster, Zystyl, and his eyeless horde. Could the scourge of the First Circle be released against a whole new world?

“The elves know nothing of war, of hatred and killing. They’ll be helpless!” Darann whispered, and Karkald knew she was right. Nayve’s innocents would be massacred in droves. He could only nod in mute agreement.

“Then we have no choice but to keep climbing,” she declared, and he had no argument with her decision. “We have to get all the way to Nayve, to carry to the elves the warning of the Delver invasion.”

B elynda awakened to a world that had changed in a profound and unmistakable way. She sensed the alteration in the core of her being, in her ragged memories of the nightmare that had been visited upon her in the darkness. Numbly she groped for her gown, pulled the tattered garment over herself like a blanket. Her body was sore, bruised and scraped where she had been used. But that was not even the worst of it-the violation went deeper, touched at the very heart of her being, and then went further still until it had warped the place that was the Fourth Circle.

The sage-ambassador knew that her life, her world, would never again be the same. She tried to remember who she had been, why she had come to the Greens. But those memories meant nothing, had no relevance to this painful thing that existence had become.

Nistel… surely he was dead, killed by that awful blow to his head. Perhaps it was only yesterday that his life had been taken, but even that seemed, from her current vantage, like a very long time ago. It had happened before she was changed into this person she didn’t know, couldn’t even begin to recognize.

A fire burned within her, a raging conflagration that seemed to destroy her peace, her soul, everything that was good about her. Her hands curled into claws as she remembered the man, remembered what he had done to her. She would have killed him in an instant if he had been standing before her.

But when she tried to move, she realized that vengeance was, for now, an unattainable dream. The injuries to her flesh were real, and crippling. It was only with great difficulty that she could push herself to a sitting position and slip the gown over her shoulders. She ached in her limbs and joints, felt a stinging soreness in her neck. And these hurts were as nothing compared to the ripping fire in her loins, the burning, the sense of pervasive poison that, she feared, must quickly consume her body.

Perhaps it was already too late… she had a sense that she was already doomed, fatally wounded, crippled in a way that could never be made whole. The despair was so powerful that, for a moment, she almost yielded to a darkness that would have dragged her back down onto the straw mattress, never to rise again.

But it was the memory of that mattress, the place where he-the man who was a monster-had worked his evil, that gave her the strength to stand. She moved away from the bed with a shudder of revulsion, and then, once again, her hopelessness began to give way to a stronger emotion.

“I hate him.”

She said the words quietly, and they brought her some small comfort. Until this moment, hate had been an abstract concept to her, a thing that had no place in Nayve. Now she felt it in her guts, in the fury that tightened her jaw and brought a narrow squint to her eyes. She raised her hands and saw that they were fists, small but rocklike, and for an instant she fixed on the idea of striking the man who had attacked her. She swung her arm, awkwardly she knew, but even that flailing gesture brought a sense of satisfaction.

Then the flap of the tent was pulled aside and Belynda whirled. All of her anger turned to panic as she instinctively took a backward step. By the time she had recovered her resolve, she recognized the intruder not as her attacker, but as the massive centaur called Gawain.

“Come with me,” said her captor, stomping his great forehoof for emphasis.

“Why?” she snapped. “Where are you taking me?”

Her objections were ignored as Gawain reached for her with a meaty hand, snatching her arm before she could pull away. She kicked and squirmed but he had no difficulty manhandling her around, clasping her back to his chest and lifting her off the ground. Belynda kicked again, but she couldn’t reach the centaur, and each movement sent a jolt of pain through her bruised body. Such was the power of her hatred that she kicked and thrashed with renewed violence, ignoring the agony in her own flesh.

The great centaur pulled her out of the tent and she saw the encampment of her enemies in daylight for the first time. They were in a wide clearing amid the high trees of the Greens. Hundreds of unkempt people, nearly all male, stared at her. There were a few dozen centaurs, mostly at the perimeter of the camp. Closer by, in casual clumps of like kind, she saw numerous goblins and elves, and smaller groups of looming giants. All of them, even the few women present in the army, looked at her with a peculiar, disturbing sense of hunger. She saw burly giants lick their lips, goblins nod their round heads eagerly as she was carried past. Even the elves, her own people, watched with a kind of bemused fascination, though they displayed little emotion at her predicament.

Her destination, she soon perceived, was a large tent of white canvas. Before it stood a pole, and atop that staff was a pennant of white and red. It drooped in the still air, but she remembered Tam’s description of the crimson cross. Vaguely she recalled that the man’s tunic, hellish in the candlelight the night before, had borne that same image on its breast.

Then she looked beyond the great tent and she saw that another post had been planted in the ground. This one was stout, like a sturdy tree trunk, and around its base was piled a mass of brush and kindling.

She remembered the story of the burning, the tale she had heard from Tamarwind and Deltan, and for the first time considered the possibility that she would die here. The irony was staggering and infuriating: She had gained the concrete evidence that she needed, and in doing so ensured that she would not get to bear witness in the Senate. An insane urge to laugh flickered through her mind. But the tent loomed large now, and her hatred immediately swelled. This time it was tinged with any icy fury that, she vowed, would help her to think, to plan.

“In here.” Gawain unceremoniously put her down and then pushed her through the open flap of the tent.

Blinking against the darkness, she saw only a little movement. In a moment she recognized the man coming toward her, saw the black beard and the even darker eyes. He looked at her with an expression of scorn. His hands were planted on his hips. His viper-headed staff was propped against a chest on the other side of the tent.

Belynda attacked. She sprang forward with fingers outstretched, reaching like claws for those wicked eyes. At the last second he threw up an arm, and she raked across his wrist to draw parallel lines of blood. Her foot lashed out, but the folds of her gown prevented the blow from having any force.

“Witch!” cried Christopher. “Aye, thou art Satan’s deceiver!”

He punched her in the face and she tumbled backward. He strode forward to stand over her. “I had a mind to offer you God’s salvatation, but you have chosen the pits of Hell instead!”

“I spit on your salvation!” Belynda tried to twist away, but the man was quick and powerful. Seizing her golden hair, he jerked her upward with a neck-wrenching tug. The elfwoman gasped and choked as he wrapped an arm around her throat, squeezing her windpipe in the crook of his elbow.

She flailed with her feet, kicking on his heavy boots with no effect. Her elbow slammed into his solar plexus and he cursed, then pressed her neck until her vision was tinged with red and ultimately faded to black.

By the time she could see, they had emerged from the tent. The men of Christopher’s army were streaming toward the stake, gathering in a thick, churning ring of eagerness.

“This is a witch and a harlot!” he proclaimed, to murmurs of agreement that rumbled from all sides. “She will die in the cleansing power of flame-Pray to God Almighty that her evil is expurgated in that passing!”

Hoarse cheers rang from the lot as they formed a corridor leading from the tent to the stake. The big centaur was there, and plucked her from the knight’s grasp. Belynda recoiled from the sight of goblins leering at her, burly giants howling for blood. Other centaurs raced about in a frenzy, and the noise swelled thunderously.

Belynda drew a deep breath, ready to fight again, but now she was pinned in Gawain’s muscular grip. Her lungs strained for air, and a tinge of madness rose in her mind… she had to fight, to kill! Her purpose was only vengeance and the only fear she felt was the terror that she would die without exacting that retribution.

She knew she was hallucinating then, for she thought she saw Tamarwind Trak among the elves of the company. And there was Deltan Columbine, just on the other side… surely a sign that she was losing her mind. Still, she found it curiously comforting that she imagined her friends here, elves she had known for so long who could now be the witnesses to her death.

Her delusions ran deeper than she suspected, for she also caught a glimpse of dusky brown skin and a handsome, unsmiling face. Wasn’t that the warrior, Natac, summoned to Nayve by Miradel? Belynda had met him only once… Why would she now remember him? Perhaps this was another effect of the madness that presaged death. She hurt for a moment when she remembered Tamarwind, and the serenity that had marked their days together. Now serenity was gone, from her life and from her world.

Suddenly Gawain groaned and tripped forward. Tamarwind-it was Tamarwind!-grabbed Belynda’s arm before the centaur crushed her. A dozen other elves suddenly whirled on the nearby men of Christopher’s army. Heavy clubs knocked aside enemy elves and goblins, and two big men she recognized as humans swung heavy staves, bashing the faces of a pair of giants. Both of these tumbled to the ground.

The centaur, Gawain, was kicking, entangled in a noose that had snared three of his hooves. Natac, wielding a long, slender sword, stabbed quickly at an elf who tried to intervene. The weapon left only a pinhole in the victim’s chest, but the elf tumbled backward to kick weakly in a growing pool of blood. The warrior froze, looking in shock from his weapon to the bleeding corpse. By the time Natac shook his head and moved again, Belynda and Tamarwind had stumbled away. Tam used his heavy, stone-tipped spear to drive back several attacking elves.

“Come on!” he hissed. “We have to get to the forest!”

In the swirl of battle Belynda saw that Natac stood before Sir Christopher, who was unarmed. The knight slowly backed away.

“Kill him!” The sage-ambassador’s voice was a shriek, a sound she had never imagined, let alone heard, coming from her own throat. She shouted at Natac again, her face taut with hatred. “Kill him right now!”

The knight suddenly backed away, turning to run into his tent, while a pair of enemy elves charged the Tlaxcalan with spears. Natac stabbed, cut one elf down and bluffed the other into a hasty retreat.

“Go after him! Kill him!” cried Belynda.

“That is not the way to make war,” Natac declared, shaking his head. Still he looked stunned, unsure.

Belynda suddenly broke away from Tamarwind Trak and made a dash for the knight’s tent. Natac managed to seize her wrist as she ran past. With surprising gentleness he pulled her back, until Deltan and Tamarwind had her again.

“We don’t have time for that!” the warrior whispered, following her. “We’ve got to move!”

And then they were running, the three humans and a dozen elves fleeing the camp of many hundreds. A roar quickly rose behind them, and Belynda knew that the battle was far from over.

K arkald looked at Darann, the expression in his eyes urging her to remain utterly silent. She nodded, then looked past him, again staring into the ravine where the rocks themselves seemed to be alive, crawling steadily along the floor.

But those numberless marchers were not rocks, Karkald knew. They were Delvers, an army of the Blind Ones that trailed into a column more than a mile long through winding cavern and trackless vault.

“See-there, they goin’ up!”

To Karkald, Hiyram’s voice was a blaring trumpet, though actually the goblin spoke in a breathy whisper. In any event, the Delver horde continued its inexorable march, working its way up the steep ravine toward another cave, still higher in the darkness.

Karkald knew it was time to back away from here. His hands outlined in gentle coolglow, he signed that Darann and the goblin should follow him. Only after they had wormed through a hundred feet of passage, leaving the large cavern far behind, did they begin to relax.

And so it had been for a full interval, now. Here, as they had done every few cycles, they had found a vantage from which to spy upon the marching Delvers. Always the Blind Ones had been moving upward, climbing through the complex network of caverns that honeycombed the world over the First Circle.

“See,” Hiyram repeated through a drooling, triumphant grin. “Like I tole ya, they always goin’ up.”

Karkald nodded. “How far away is it now, to Nayve?” he asked Hiyram.

The goblin scratched his bald, wart-covered head. “Let’s say climbin’ for ten, twenty more cycles. Maybe some more and maybe some less. Maybe then we see.”

The dwarf nodded. This was more or less the same response that the goblin had been giving since the couple had made his acquaintance an interval ago. Even so, the goblin’s vague predictions had more basis than Karkald’s own wonderings, for Hiyram, at least, had seen the world called Nayve and its brilliant sun.

“We have to get there first,” Darann said firmly. “The Fourth Circle is a world that has known nothing but peace… the elves and their neighbors will have no preparation for a horde like the Delvers.”

“We will,” Karkald said, his own conviction strong in his voice. For a long time he had wavered in his own mind, but now he knew they had no choice.

Another truth lurked beneath the surface of his awareness: He felt a profound curiosity about this new world, the Fourth Circle. The whole notion of the “sun” was a compelling idea in its own right. Coupled with a plenitude of food and a great mixture of thriving races, the image in his mind became a goal that pulled him steadily onward. Axial was gone, in his mind if not in Darann’s, and Nayve promised the hope of peace and a future, a place they could perhaps even make a permanent home.

After a too-brief rest, they started out again, following paths that diverged from the main cavern followed by the Delver army. Hiyram was a good climber, and seemed content enough to stay with the two dwarves.

Some uncounted number of cycles later they paused for a bite of dried fungus and water. The coolglow had faded so that each of the three companions was a bare ghost in the darkness. And then it was that Karkald noticed the phenomenon before them, a glow of powerful brightness originating beyond a few more twists and turns of the cave. He stood, and Hiyram drew a long, snuffling breath and nodded.

“A breeze,” Darann said in wonder. She, too, sniffed the air. “And so many scents.”

But Karkald’s attention was all on the brightness. He was aware of the others trailing behind, but he made his way as quickly as he could, scrambling over rocks and through a shallow streambed. Rich moss coated the boulders, and he squinted against the steadily growing illumination.

He came around another bend and he saw it, finally. He was looking out of a cave mouth, into the shade of a forest. But everywhere there was dazzling brightness, flowers aglow as if burning, shafts of sunlight sparkling through the thick limbs overhead.

He had found it. He had reached the land of the sun.

Belynda ran beside Tamarwind, but looked over her shoulder as they neared the woods. Her eyes blurred with tears, anger and frustration combining to fill her with anguish. By the Goddess, she wanted him dead! And Natac had refused to kill him!

Vaguely she saw speeding shapes coming closer, realized that the centaurs were galloping toward them from all parts of Sir Christopher’s camp. Something flashed across her vision-arrows! Abruptly the galloping centaurs halted, one of them tumbling to the ground and others cursing or grunting in pain.

Then Belynda and her rescuers reached the trees. She saw other elves around them, elves with bows and arrows. These archers fired another volley, and the stinging missiles drove the rest of the centaurs into a hasty retreat, a pair of them dragging their wounded comrade by his human arms.

But more of Sir Christopher’s cohorts closed in, sweeping around the centaurs to form a line in the clearing. They brandished clubs wildly, and many waved crude, stone-tipped spears. The Knight Templar, now carrying his great staff, was in the lead.

“There they are!” shouted the knight, his voice a thundering roar. “Tools of Satan, minions of the she-witch. I compel you, Crusaders, in the name of God-kill them!”

Immediately five hundred throats echoed their leader’s cry, the wave of sound hitting Belynda like a physical blow. Her anger still burned, but for the first time a new possibility intruded into her mind: She had her proof now. She should carry testimony to the Senate, should alert Circle at Center to this very real threat.

“Go!” cried Natac, shouting to Tamarwind and Belynda. “Get away from here-we’ll hold them off!”

“No!” roared a fresh voice. “We’ll hold them!”

The sage-ambassador was stunned by the sight of a burly giant swaggering through the woods. Her first thought was that they were trapped, attacked from behind before they could make their escape. She was stunned when Tamarwind let out a whoop of recognition.

“Rawknuckle! Rawknuckle Barefist of the Greens!”

The black-bearded giant grinned darkly, greeting the elf with a gentle tap on the shoulder-a tap that sent the laughing Tamarwind stumbling to the side.

“What’s going on?” Natac demanded, sword drawn, his eyes on the looming newcomer.

“We’re friends o’ yours, and enemies o’ that lot!” snorted Rawknuckle, gesturing to the Crusaders, who were rushing closer. “Now, let us through!”

“My pleasure,” Natac replied, standing back as fully two dozen or more giants lumbered out of the woods after Rawknuckle Barefist. They bellowed fearsomely, and the mob of startled Crusaders hesitated as they were confronted by this new threat.

“Now-hit ’em while they’re mixed up!” shouted Owen. “Rout ’em with a Viking charge!”

“Yes!” Natac agreed instantly. “Stay here with the sage-ambassador!” he barked to Tam, as Owen and Fionn rallied the elves.

They swept from the woods in a quick rush, following the giants into the clearing. Belynda saw that there were many more elves here than the dozen or so who had rescued her from the camp. The two big, shaggy men and Natac led them in the attack, while others-following Deltan Columbine’s instructions-drew back long bows and launched steel-headed arrows into the mass of the Crusaders.

“Take the fight to them!” roared the Viking.

“For Ireland!” shouted the other human, his voice a bellow cutting through the chaos.

Those two brawny humans were clearly bold warriors. One bore a club, the other a staff-and with these weapons they cracked the heads of the elves and goblins who had skidded to a surprised stop in the face of the charge. The giants, too, kicked through Sir Christopher’s warriors. Rawknuckle swung his club and landed a crushing blow to the face of an enemy giant. Other elves rushed forward, wielding staves and a few stone-headed spears.

The shocking attack was too much for the disorganized Crusaders, and the mob turned as one and raced away. Under Natac’s shouted order, the giants, humans, and elves on their side halted almost immediately, then quickly started falling back toward the woods. Before they reached the trees, Belynda, Tamarwind, and the elven archers had already started away from the camp.

They moved in single file, along a trail. Though the sage-ambassador gasped for breath in her effort to keep up, she would allow no slowing of their pace. Deltan Columbine was directly before her, and Natac was right behind.

“Where’s Tamarwind?” she asked anxiously, when she couldn’t find the scout among the small portion of the column within her view.

“He’s picking out the path,” Natac said. “He is the captain of this company, and seems to have a good head for directions.”

“Tam… captain?” Belynda was nonplused. So many changes… and then her memory hardened again. Of course the world had changed-she herself had become a key instrument of that transformation just the night before.

And how many more nights would pass before she had her revenge?

Her dark thoughts propelled her, gave strength to her legs and wind to her lungs, as the small band fled through the long day. Finally, as night approached, the column veered to the side. Belynda saw the vague outlines of a bluff rising from the woods, and then she saw a darkness that was surely a cave mouth.

All of those realizations faded away as she saw a familiar figure step into view.

“Nistel!” she cried, rushing forward to sweep the stubby gnome into her arms. She felt a sharp pain in her throat, and then her eyes were spilling tears, her mouth making strange, sobbing noises. The gnome, too, was sniffling, and when finally they stepped apart he blew long and hard into his handkerchief.

“I thought you were slain,” she said softly. “I am so glad to see you.” She stroked his long white hair, fussed over the spectacular bruise that blackened one cheek and eye. “But how did you escape?”

“I, er-I went to get help for you, and ran into Gallupper first. We were going to look together when we, um, found Tamarwind here. He introduced me to Natac, and I told them what had happened. They went to look for you.” Blinker burst into tears again. “Oh, lady-I wanted to go too, but they were too fierce. Gallupper and I waited here for you.”

“I understand,” Belynda said gently, deeply touched by the gnome’s devotion. Such loyalty… surely it had lain within him for years. She had sensed it, had come to take it for granted. “There’s no doubt that you saved my life,” she added, feeling a rush of affection for her assistant of so many years. He was more than that, surely! Belynda laid a hand on Blinker’s shoulder and looked into the moist eyes. “My friend.”

She saw Gallupper standing shyly just beyond, and looked up at him with fondness. “You, too, young centaur… you are the bravest of your clan, for you resisted the summons of evil. The knight has used powerful magic to bring warriors into his ranks-I know, for I felt that power myself. You did the right thing by staying away.”

Gallupper embraced her, and she sensed that he was holding back sobs, no doubt tormented by the knowledge that most of his clan, the family and friends of his life, had been thus corrupted.

Having received Natac’s permission to build a few small fires, the band of warriors made camp around the mouth of the cave and spread out to gather around the smokeless blazes. Tamarwind and Natac joined the sage-ambassador and Nistel as they shared a loaf of dry bread, washed down with sips of cool water drawn from a nearby stream.

“How far away from the camp did we get?” Belynda wondered.

“Fifteen miles, or more,” Tam offered. “Owen and Fionn and the giants are waiting back a mile or two, ready to give warning if they’re pursued.”

Abruptly the elfwoman turned to Natac. Her emotions had cooled, but the ember of hate still burned in her soul and she confronted him frankly. “You had that knight, Sir Christopher, right before you-and yet you didn’t kill him? Why not?”

Tamarwind’s eyes widened at the question, and Nistel gasped. Natac, however, lowered his eyes and shook his head. “I hesitated, Lady Ambassador, out of the memory of my own training. In battles such as those waged by Tlaxcala and Mexica, we never tried to kill the enemy commanders. Of course, we would capture them, if possible, and offer their hearts as sacrifice to the gods-but that was not a battlefield death.”

“And now you know that those gods do not exist!” she retorted.

Natac winced. There was some kind of deep sadness in his eyes that made Belynda regret her harshness. “Yes, I do know that. And as I think about it now, it seems that I might have accomplished much good by slaying the knight on the point of my sword. But in that, I failed.”

“Forgive me… You came to rescue me, to save my life. In that you succeeded, and for that heroism I owe you all. It is churlish of me to-”

“No!” the warrior interrupted. “You are right to speak to me of my errors. I must learn, and you must teach me what you can. We must all be teachers, and students, if the Nayve you love is to have any chance of survival.”

Belynda shook her head. “I can teach you nothing of war, except that perhaps now I understand the fury that can drive people to slay others. For in the case of that knight, I want very much to see him dead.”

“Why are you so determined?” Tamarwind asked hesitantly. “Did he hurt you?”

Anger surged again and the elfwoman whirled on the scout, ready to spew all the reasons for her hatred. But during her next intake of breath she saw the concern on Tam’s face, realized the hurt she would cause him, and Nistel, if they knew the truth of what had happened. Furthermore, she felt a sudden, engulfing shame that choked her throat and froze her tongue. She vowed that she would never reveal what Christopher had done to her, not to Tamarwind or anyone else.

“I… I could sense the power of his evil,” she began lamely, but then found more conviction as she continued. “He is the root of the violence in the Greens, in all of Nayve. If he didn’t kill Caranor and the other enchantresses, then the killers were his minions, operating under his orders.”

Even as she spoke, she formed the conviction in her mind: Christopher had certainly been the agent of Caranor’s death. She recalled the spark of worry she’d felt when she hadn’t been able to contact the enchantress through her seeing globe. Now that spark had grown into a blaze greater than any conflagration she could have imagined. And the knight would die, she vowed-but she would find a way to kill him with her own hand. It was not only a mistake, it was a great wrong, to expect Natac or someone else to do this task for her.

“He bears the Stone of Command, and is using it to bind the soft-willed among our people-and goblins, centaurs, and giants as well-to him. He tried to use the stone on me… I think it is only my long years as a sage that gave me the strength to resist.”

The others were still pondering her statement when they heard a soft sound from within the cave.

“Excuse me… Are you elves?”

Tam and Natac leaped to their feet, the warrior with his sword extended toward the shadows. Three figures moved slowly forward, to be gradually revealed as they approached the fire.

“Dwarves!” gasped Tamarwind Trak.

“And a goblin!” Nistel added, pointing at the figure that held back from its two companions.

The dwarf in the lead was heavily bearded, and carrying many items of equipment, including a spear that was pointed toward the ground. A thick rope was coiled from his shoulder to his hip, and a hammer and cleaver swung from his belt. Other less readily identifiable implements were slung from various parts of his tunic.

The other dwarf was a female, full-breasted with a pretty face that was quite round by elven standards. She carried a knapsack and several waterskins and strode confidently beside the male. When they paused near the fire, she took his arm in her hand.

The goblin grinned foolishly, at last coming around the dwarves so that he, too, could absorb some of the fire’s radiance. He nodded his big head atop its skinny neck, snuffled loudly, and then spoke to the dwarves.

“See. I tole ya. Here we are. Dis Nayve, I’m bettin’ fer sure.”

“I am Karkald and this is my bride, Darann,” said the bearded dwarf. “And this is Hiyram.”

“Did you come from the First Circle?” Belynda asked in wonder. There were no dwarves on Nayve, though the inhabitants of the Underworld were known from legend and the teachings of druids, who had observed them through the Tapestry. “How did you get here?”

“We climbed, at least we two dwarves did,” said the male. “For more cycles than we could count. Ever since the great quake.”

“The quake?” Tamarwind did some mental arithmetic. “We felt that here-that was five intervals, half of a year ago!”

“Intervals… ten per year,” Karkald mused. “They must be the same thing here as in the First Circle. We have forty cycles per interval… is that your pattern, too?”

“Forty days per interval,” Tam replied.

“Days are when you see the sun, right?”

Hiyram sighed. “I tole him about the sun, but he don’t believe… even saw it today, from cave.”

“It was terribly bright, even from inside,” Darann observed.

Belynda nodded. “Welcome to the Fourth Circle,” she said. “Please enjoy the warmth of our fire, and share our food.”

The three travelers wasted no time in sitting down, and were clearly famished-they ate as much bread as they were given, and quickly devoured the apples and dried meat that other elves, attracted by the visitors, brought over to the fire to share.

After they had eaten, the dwarves told their story. Karkald began bluntly.

“I regret to tell you that we bring warning of a grave threat to your world, an army on the march from our own circle, bringing the promise of violence and destruction.”

“You speak of the Unmirrored Dwarves, the Delvers?” asked Belynda.

“You guess correctly, wise elf. We fled the First Circle because of two things,” Karkald explained. “The attack of the Delvers, which drove us out of our home, and the destruction of Axial because of the quake.”

“Axial… gone?” asked Belynda. The great center of the Underworld was known to her only by reputation, but that reputation invariably labeled it as one of the great cities of the Seven Circles.

“At least… it looked like it disappeared,” Darann said, despair written across her features. “We could see the lights from the watch station, until the earthquake. Then there was just the darkness.

“And the Delvers were already on the march?” asked Natac.

Karkald replied. “They number in the thousands, and I believe their original objective was Axial. But in that they were thwarted by the great quake. Since then they have turned their march upward, through the midrock. We last saw them three or four cycles ago, and they did not have far to go before they reached the surface.”

“What are these Delvers like?”

“They wear armor of metal, and carry sharp blades in each hand. They fight shoulder to shoulder, and advance in an unstoppable line. Their master is an arcane called Zystyl.”

“What is an arcane?” Natac probed further.

“They are the cruelest, and mightiest, of the Unmirrored,” Karkald explained. “Arcanes are chosen for the talents of their senses… they are sightless, but possess the ability to feel the presence of living beings. There are tales that each arcane is tested at a young age… that they immerse their mouths and noses in molten steel. The effect layers the jaws in metal, and burns away the outer portion of the nostrils-presumably to enhance the creature’s sense of smell.”

“I only know that Zystyl is the most frightening thing I have ever seen,” Darann said with a shudder. “I thought of ending my own life when it seemed as though I would be his prisoner.”

It was a somber group of travelers that settled down for a few hours’ sleep, knowing that they would be back on the march even before the Lighten Hour. Tamarwind suggested that Belynda have the most comfortable bed they could find, a small, mossy niche between the burls of a great oak’s roots. Someone lent her a cloak she could use for a pillow, and Tam offered his poncho as a blanket. Nistel, Tamarwind, and Natac were all nearby.

In the darkness the sage-ambassador could not get warm, despite Tam’s heavy poncho. She shivered under the chill import of two grave threats now converging on her world. The future was as dark as the night, and seemingly equally dangerous.

Belynda tried to encourage herself. At least her testimony would force the Senate to confront the reality of the Crusaders. Nayve would have to take action! And the presence of the two dwarves would certainly provide evidence of their own story.

Even so, pain was everywhere in her body as she settled against the ground. And when she slept, too briefly, that pain twisted its way into her dreams, bringing nightmares that jolted her awake and left her trembling, anxiously praying for the sun.

T o Zystyl’s ear, the army of Delvers moved not so much with a cadence of marching feet as with the soft, scuffing slither made by thousands of leather soles. For this stretch Kerriastyn led the way so that the army commander could stand off to the side and experience the passage of this great horde.

First sense was in the sound, of course. For an hour he had relished the almost liquid noise made by the army’s passage. Considering their numbers, the Delvers were in reality very, very quiet. Occasionally a stone would rattle through the cavern, or a warrior would grunt or rasp for breath over a tricky part of the trail, but for the most part there was just that sibilant, dry rasp of moving feet.

And the smell of the army was a profound pleasure. The arcane absorbed every spoor, of sweat and grime, of urine and feces and blood and the hundred other taints that marked individuals and groups within the great mass of dwarves. If the sounds of his army established its vastness for the commander, then the smells individualized his men, brought them closer to him. Of course, he often reached out to touch the Unmirrored warriors as they passed-a pat on a shoulder, fingers stroked over an eyeless face, an arm firmly squeezed. Each contact provoked a shiver of pleasure in the dwarf so honored, and it reassured the leader that his role was secure.

Beyond the physical sense, Zystyl also perceived his men through the power of his arcane being. He felt the powerful hunger in all of them. Most pronounced, of course, was the yearning for food, for warm meat that would fill bellies and slake the gnawing aches that had thus far characterized this campaign. But he sensed a hunger for war, as well, and for violence and torture and plunder. He knew that once they reached Nayve and found enough food for a few good meals, his army would be once again ready for war.

No other Delver leader could have engineered such a march, Zystyl knew with pride. Kerriastyn was a skilled enough arcane-she had proven adept at finding a good, wide route through the caverns of the Interworld. But the female had no sense of the grand plan, and she lacked the power to bend a thousand wills to her own desires. In truth, she was content to let Zystyl lead, and as long as she remained that way, he would be content to let her live, and to use her skills in whatever way he desired.

Lost in his musings, Zystel’s attention snapped back to the present as a soft murmur of noise whispered along the line. The column slowed to a halt, and the captain was already making his way beside the file of men. By the time he reached the head of the line he knew why they had halted, though Kerriastyn told him, anyway.

“Smell the air… and feel its movement against your face. There are living things before us.”

“Nayve!” hissed the captain.

“I think you are right,” Kerriastyn said, a remark bordering on impudence. Still, in his excitement Zystyl would let it pass.

“Advance with caution!”

Now the two arcanes led the way. The cavern widened around them, and myriad new odors were carried on the gentle breeze. A number of scents were tantalizing, promises of food and nourishment. Others were strange, rich and unusual but not unpleasant. The cavern opened still wider, the Delvers pushing through a curtain of ropy strands that were clearly some kind of vegetation.

Abruptly Zystyl’s sensations were overwhelmed with heat, searing pain that scorched his skin and drew an involuntary scream from his throat. He heard Kerriastyn, beside him, similarly groan. Together the two arcanes tumbled backward, through the screen of vegetation into the tolerable coolness of the cave.

“The sun!” hissed the captain, making the word into a curse. “Who would have thought it could be so vicious?” For a moment he felt a glimmer of panic-could it be that this whole expedition was a mad dream, doomed to failure by the presence of unbearable brightness and heat?

It was Kerriastyn who offered him some comfort. “Remember the legends-the sun is bright for half of each cycle. Then the Fourth Circle grows dark. We must wait until then before we venture out.”

Her suggestion made sense, and Zystyl was, grudgingly, about to agree, when they were distracted by a noise from outside.

“Who’s there?” It was a youthful voice, soft and mellifluous. “Are you hurt?”

Immediately Zystyl tensed, drawing a breath through his wide, moist nostrils. A new scent greeted him, rich and meaty and sweet in a way that no dwarf had ever been.

“Yes,” he replied, his voice a rasping croak as he affected great weakness. At the same time he touched Kerriastyn, signaling her to fall back against one side of the cave while he pressed against the opposite wall.

“Where are you?” The voice was closer now. “I can’t see through the creepers… I say! A cave! Matty, come here and help.”

“Yes… please help!” gasped Zystyl.

They heard hands clawing at the vegetation. “Here… let’s just pull this out of the way.” The speaker was very close now. Zystyl’s arcane senses could sense the living spark of a person barely a step away from him. Tall, slender… clearly an elf.

“There you-” The elf’s statement ended in a startled gasp.

Zystyl and Kerriastyn came forward at the same time and snatched the elves. Zystyl seized one by the forearms and pulled him unceremoniously into the cave, latching steel-taloned fingers into his victim so harshly that the elf screamed shrilly. The one called Matty, a female, was taken by Kerriastyn. In a few seconds dozens of Delvers had gathered around the two sobbing, terrified elves.

“This one,” Zystyl said, indicating the male. “Butcher him now, so that the horde may eat. You.” He turned to the female, who had sucked in a dry gasp of air at his words. “You may live, so long as you provide us with information.”

The male elf tried to squirm away, but a dagger sliced his neck and he fell without further sound. Matty shrieked so loudly that Zystyl bashed her across the face; the blow was powerful enough to knock her out. As a consequence, the captain was forced to wait, sulking, until she groaned and recovered consciousness.

And then she sobbed so hysterically that Zystyl was on the verge of slicing her throat, too, just for some peace and quiet. He restrained himself only because he so desperately needed knowledge about this world.

Instead, he contented himself by partaking of the feast that was already rejuvenating his army. The male elf was not plump, and the pickings were slim, but the very thought that the Delvers were in a region where there was fresh meat for the taking improved morale many times over.

Finally, they were able to get some pieces of information from the elfwoman. They would have to wait only a few hours before the Hour of Darken, as she called it. Zystyl judged that the Blind Ones would be able to tolerate the world then, at least until the Lighten Hour.

“We need to go to a place where there is a great cave,” he said, clacking his metal jaws in anticipation. “You will lead us to that place-or we will eat you.”

“I-I will show you the way,” the woman agreed. “There is a tunnel through the Ringhills, just such a great cave where you can hide from the sun.”

She described the tunnel, a long corridor of darkness that carried a road toward the city. Zystyl determined that the Delvers could reach that tunnel in one night of marching, so he settled his army to rest. When it was dark, they would commence the advance on the Metal Highway and its long, dark tunnel.