Elven Star

20

The escaping captives crawled through the tunnel, delving deeper and deeper, the voice behind them urging, “Go! Go!” The mind soon lost all awareness of where it was or what it was doing. They became automatons, moving through the darkness like windup toys with no thought of where they were or where they were going, too exhausted, too dazed to care.

Then came an impression of vastness. Reaching out their hands, they could no longer feel the tunnel’s sides. The air, though it was still, was surprisingly cool and smelled of dampness and of.growth.

“We have reached the bottom,” said the dwarf. “Now, you may rest.” They collapsed, rolling over on their backs, gasping for breath, stretching, easing cramped and aching muscles. Drugar said nothing else to them. They might have thought he’d left them, except that they could hear his stentorian breathing. At length, rested, they grew more cognizant of their surroundings. Whatever it was on which they were lying was hard and unresiliant, slick and slightly gritty feeling to the touch.

“What is this stuff?” Roland asked, propping himself up. He dug at a handful, ran it through his fingers.

“Who cares?” said Rega. Her voice had a shrill edge, she was panting. “I can’t take this! The dark. It’s awful. I can’t breathe! I’m smothering!” Drugar spoke words in dwarven, that sounded like rocks clashing together. A light flared, the brilliance painful to the eyes. The dwarf held a torch in his hand.

“Is that better, human?”

“No, not much,” said Rega. Sitting up, she looked around fearfully. “It just makes the darkness darker. I hate it down here! I can’t stand it!”

“You want to go back up there?” Drugar pointed.

Rega’s face paled, her eyes widened. “No,” she whispered, and slid over to be near Paithan.

The elf started to put his arm around her, to comfort her, then he glanced at Roland. His face flushing, Paithan stood up and walked away. Rega stared after him.

“Paithan?”

He didn’t look around. Burying her face in her hands, Rega began to sob bitterly.

“What you are sitting on,” said Drugar, “is dirt.” Roland was at a loss, uncertain what to do. He knew—as her “husband” he should go comfort Rega, but he had a feeling that his presence would only make matters worse. Besides, he felt in need of comforting himself. Looking down at his clothes, he could see, by the torchlight, splotches of red—blood, Andor’s blood.

“Dirt,” said Paithan. “Ground. You mean we’re actually on ground level?”

“Where are we?” Roland demanded.

“We are in a k’tark, meaning ‘crossroad’ in your language,” answered Drugar.

“Several runnels come together here. We find it is a good meeting place. There is food and water.” He pointed to several shadowy shapes barely visible in the flickering torchlight. “Help yourself.”

“I’m not all that hungry,” mumbled Roland, rubbing frantically at the bloodstains on his shirt. “But I could use some water.”

“Yes, water!” Rega lifted her head, the tears on her cheeks sparkled in the firelight.

“I’ll get it,” offered the elf.

The shadowy shapes turned out to be wooden barrels. The elf removed a !id, peered inside, sniffed. “Water,” he reported. He carried a gourd filled with the liquid to Rega.

“Drink this,” he said to her gently, his hand touching her shoulder. Rega cupped the gourd in her hands, drank thirstily. Her eyes were on the elf, his were on her. Roland, watching, felt something dark twist inside him. I made a mistake. They like each other, like each other a lot. And that’s not in the plans. I don’t care two sticks if Rega seduces an elf. I’ll be damned if she’s going to fall in love with one.

“Hey,” he said. “I could use some of that.” Paithan rose to his feet. Rega handed back the empty gourd with a wan smile. The elf headed for the water barrel. Rega flashed Roland a piercing, angry glance. Roland returned it, scowling. Rega flipped her dark hair over her shoulder.

“I want to leave!” she said. “I want out of here!”

“Certainly,” said Drugar. “Like I said, crawl back up there. They are waiting for you.”

Rega shuddered. Forcing back a cry, she hid her face in her folded arms.

“There’s no need to be so rough on her, dwarf. That was a pretty awful experience up there! And if you ask me”—Paithan cast a grim look at their surroundings—“things down here don’t look much better!”

“The elf’s got a point,” struck in Roland. “You saved our lives. Why?” Drugar fingered a wooden ax that he wore thrust through his wide belt. “Where are the railbows?”

“I thought so.” Roland nodded. “Well, if that was why you saved us, you wasted your time. You’ll have to ask those creatures for them. But maybe you’ve already done that! The SeaKing told me you dwarves worship these monsters. He said you and your people are going to join these tytans and take over the human lands. That true, Drugar? Is that why you needed the weapons?” Rega raised her head, stared at the dwarf. Paithan slowly sipped water from the gourd, his eyes on Drugar. Roland tensed. He didn’t like the glitter in the dwarf’s dark eyes, the chill smile that touched the bearded lips.

“My people …” said Drugar softly, “my people are no more.”

“What? Make sense, damn it, Blackbeard!”

“He is,” said Rega. “Look at him! Blessed Thillia! He means his people are all dead!”

“Orn’s blood,” swore Paithan, in elven, with reverence.

“Is that it?” demanded Roland. “Is that the truth? Your people … dead?”

“Look at him!” Rega cried, almost hysterically.

Minds confused, blinded by their own fears, they had none of them really seen the dwarf. Eyes open, they saw that Drugar’s clothes were torn and stained with blood. His beard, of which he had always taken great care, was matted and tangled; his hair wild and uncombed. A large and ugly gash had opened the skin on his forearm, blood had dried on his forehead. His large hands fingered the ax.

“If we’d had the weapons,” said Drugar, his gaze fixed black and unblinking, on the shadows moving in the tunnels, “we could have fought them. My people would still be alive.”

“It isn’t our fault.” Roland raised both hands, palms outward. “We came as fast as we could. The elf”—he pointed at Paithan—“the elf was late.”

“I didn’t know! How was I supposed to know? It was that damn trail of yours, Redleaf, up and down hundred-foot cliffs that led us right into the bastards—”

“Oh, so now you’re going to blame it all on me—”

“Stop arguing!” Rega’s voice screeched. “It doesn’t matter whose fault it is!

The only thing that matters is getting out of here!”

*

“Yes, you’re right,” said Paithan, calming down, subdued. “I must return and warn my people.”

“Bah! You elves don’t have to worry. My people will deal with these freaks!” Roland glanced at the dwarf and shrugged. “No offense, Blackbeard, old boy, but warriors—real ones, not a bunch who’ve been sawed off at the knees—won’t have any problem destroying the monsters.”

“What about Kasnar?” said Paithan. “What happened to the human warrior^ in that empire?”

“Peasants! Farmers.” Roland dismissed them with a gesture. “We Thillians are fighters! We’ve had experience.”

“In bashing each other, maybe. You didn’t look so great up there!”

“I was caught off-guard! What do you expect, elf? They were Elven Star on me before I could react. All right, so we won’t bring these giants down with one arrow, but I’ll guarantee you that when they’ve got five or six spears through those holes in their heads, they won’t be asking any more of their stupid questions about citadels!…”

, . . Where are the citadels?

The question reverberated through Drugar’s mind, beat and hammered and pounded, each syllable physically painful. From his vantage point in one of the myriad dwarven dwellings, Drugar stared down upon the vast moss plain where his father and most of his people had gone to meet the giant’s vanguard. No, vanguard wasn’t the correct word. A vanguard implies order, directed movement. To Drugar it appeared that this small group of giants had stumbled over the dwarves, coming across them by accident not design, taking a brief moment away from their larger quest to … ask directions?

“Don’t go out there. Father!” Drugar had been tempted to plead with the old man. “Let me talk to them if you insist on such folly! Stay behind, where it’s safe!”

But he knew that if he had said such words to his father, he might very well feel the lash of that walking stick across his back. And he would have had reason to beat me, Drugar admitted. He is, after all, king. And I should be at his side! ’ But he wasn’t.

“Father, order the people to stay indoors. You and I will treat with these—”

“No, Drugar. We are the One Dwarf. I am king, but I am only the head. The entire body must be present to hear and witness and share in the discussion. That is the way it has been since the time of our creation.” The old man’s face softened, saddened. “If this is, indeed, our end, let it be said that we fell as we lived—as one.”

The One Dwarf was present, streaming up out of their dwellings far beneath the ground, coming to stand on the vast moss plain that formed the roof of their city, blinking and winking and cursing the bright sunlight. In the excitement of welcoming their “brothers” whose huge bodies were almost the size of Drakar, the-dwarven god, the dwarves did not notice that many of their number stayed behind, standing near the entrance to their city.

Here Drugar had posted his warriors, hoping to be able to cover a retreat. The One Dwarf saw the jungle move onto the plain. Half-blinded by the unaccustomed sunlight, the dwarves saw the shadows between the trees or maybe even the trees themselves glide with silent feet onto the moss. Drugar squinted, staring hard, trying to count the giants’ numbers but it was like counting the leaves in the forest. Awed, appalled, he wondered fearfully how you fought something you couldn’t see.

With magic weapons, elven weapons, intelligent weapons that sought their prey, the dwarves might have had a chance. What must we do?

The voice in his head wasn’t threatening. It was wistful, sad, frustrated. Where is the citadel? What must we do?

The voice demanded an answer. It was desperate for an answer. Drugar experienced an odd sensation—for a brief moment, despite his fear, he shared the sadness of these creatures. He truly regretted not being able to help them.

“We have never heard of any citadels, but we will be glad to join you in your search, if you will—”

His father never had a chance to say another word. Moving silently, acting without apparent anger or malice, two of the giants reached down, grabbed the old dwarf in their large hands, and rent him asunder. They tossed the bloody pieces of the carcass to the ground casually, as one tossed aside garbage. Systematically, again without anger or malice, they started to kill. Drugar watched, appalled, helpless. His mind numbed by the horror of what he had witnessed and been unable to prevent, the dwarf acted on instinct, his body doing what he’d prepared it to do without conscious thought. Grabbing up a kurth hom, he put his lips to it and blew a loud, wailing blast, calling his people back to their dwellings, back to safety.

He and his warriors, some posted high in the trees, fired their arrows at the giants. The sharp wooden points, that could skewer the biggest human, bounced oft the duck hide of the giants. They treated the flights of arrows like flocks of stinging gnats, brushing them away with their hands when they could take time from their butchery to remove them.

The dwarves’ retreat was not panicked. The body was one—anything that happened to a single dwarf happened to all dwarves. They stopped to assist those who fell. The older lagged behind, urging the younger forward to safety. The strong carried the weak. Consequently, the dwarves were easy prey. The giants pursued them, caught them easily, destroyed them without mercy. The moss plain grew soggy with blood. Bodies lay piled on top of each other, some hung from trees into which they’d been hurled. Most had been battered beyond recognition.

Drugar waited until the last moment to seek safety, making certain that those few left alive on that ghastly plain made it back. Even then, he didn’t want to leave. Two of his men had to literally drag him down into the tunnels. Up above, they could hear the rending and breaking of tree limbs. Part of the “roof” of the underground city caved in. When the tunnel behind him collapsed, Drugar and what was left of his army turned to face their foe. There was no longer a need to run to reach safety. No safety existed.

When Drugar came to, he found himself lying in a partially collapsed section of tunnel, the bodies of several of his men lying on top of him. Shoving the corpses aside, he paused to listen, to see if he could hear any sign of life. There was only silence, dreadful, ominous. For the rest of his life, he would hear that silence and with it the words that whispered in his heart.

“No one …”

“I will take you to your people,” said Drugar suddenly, the first words he’d spoken in a long, long while.

The humans and the elf ceased their bickering, turned, and looked at him.

“I know the way.” He gestured into the deeper darkness. “These tunnels … lead to the border of Thillia. We will be safe if we stay down here.”

“All that way! Under … down here!” Rega blenched.

“You can go back up!” Drugar reminded, gesturing. Rega looked up, gulped. Shivering, she shook her head.

“Why?” Roland demanded.

“Yes,” said Paithan. “Why would you do this for us?” Drugar stared up at them, the flame of hatred burning, consuming him. He hated them, hated their skinny bodies, their clean-shaven faces; hated their smell, their superiority; hated their tallness.

“Because it is my duty,” he said.

Whatever happens to a single dwarf, happens to all.

Drugar’s hand, hidden beneath his flowing beard, slipped inside his belt, the fingers closed over a sloth-bone hunting dagger. Terrible joy flared up in the dwarf’s heart.