Fate of Thorbardin

SEVEN

The Kayolin Army continued its march southward to Caergoth, crossing the Solamnic plains like some miles-long, infinite-legged centipede. Always the dwarves maintained their precise column and held to the cadence set by the hundred drummers. The miles rolled by underfoot, and the sky swept like a vast canopy overhead-an experience that many of the dwarves, those who had spent most if not all of their lives underground, found profoundly unsettling.

As he walked along the column or stood beside the track and listened to the troops as they passed, Brandon heard many whispered conversations about the uncanny expanse of space there on the surface of the outside world-an expanse that was magnified by the stark emptiness of the plains. A regular debate was waged between those, a majority, who found the daylight hours to be most disturbing, and the vocal minority who had difficulty adjusting to the night sky and its myriad stars. Both sides could agree they couldn’t wait to get back under the shelter of a good mountain range, as Reorx had intended, and escape from the disturbing and vast spaces of the surface world.

But even as the soldiers groused and complained and bickered, as soldiers have done in every army in every nation on every world throughout all history, Brandon was proud to see that the men grew stronger, leaner, and sturdier during the long hours of the march. By the second day after they had left the mountains, the Garnet Mountains had vanished over the horizon behind them, and the sameness of the plains sprawled into the distance in all four directions like a barren expanse of flatness.

Morale remained high. The troops believed in their mission, believed in the goal of restoring Thorbardin’s greatness and reinstating the ancient dwarf home among the ranks of the mightiest nations of Krynn. The campaign had tapped into a vein of deep national longing that Brandon himself hadn’t known existed, but he perceived that the brave dwarves, his men, desired much beyond their own personal satisfaction. It made him proud to call them his kinsmen.

In a few places the dwarves marveled at the wonders of Solamnia. At one point a long column of the emperor’s cavalry fell in beside them for a day of marching, and the dwarves gawked and gossiped about the magnificent horses, some five hundred strong, and the gleaming armored riders who sat astride the magnificent chargers. They came to the great Kingsbridge, a sturdy stone span crossing the Caergoth River that had been rebuilt very recently, following the war that had brought the emperor to his throne. The dwarves marveled at the smooth stonework and nodded knowingly when Brandon informed them that dwarf engineers had aided the human stonecutters and masons in creating the beautiful, functional span.

But mostly Solamnia was just vast, flat, and empty. Each of those features was a strange thing to dwarves born and raised under the ground, and it was no surprise that they found them strange. Each served to awe and impress the troops in its own way, perhaps reminding the warriors of how small each individual was when set against the whole breadth of the world. Even their nation of Kayolin, the land they knew with such righteous pride, was a mere province when compared to the great sweep of land on the surface of Krynn.

The days were cool, which made for comfortable marching, and the nights were cold enough to encourage the men to stay put in their bedrolls. There was no brawling, little scuffling, only an occasional duel, and-perhaps most surprisingly-no further complaints about the three gully dwarves who had given their pledge that they would stay out of trouble. Gus and his girls seemed to be as good as their word: they stayed out of sight and, as far as Brandon knew, out of mischief.

The smooth ground provided no obstacle to the progress of the march, and early on Brandon had seen the wisdom in purchasing carts and wagons. The horses and mules pulling them spared his soldiers the burden of carrying all of their supplies. Morale skyrocketed when the dwarves understood that they would have plenty of food and at least a nip or two of the fermented beverages they cherished in every night’s camp. Sturdy draft horses were strapped into the traces of the three Firespitters, and those great weapons, too, rolled along with good speed at little cost in dwarf sweat and blisters.

And a moment of true wonder was shared by all when, after a fortnight’s march, the army crested the great hill before the city of Caergoth, overlooking that bustling seaport. Dozens of trading and merchant vessels as well as warships flying a half dozen different flags were under sail, some arriving, some leaving. But nearby, just off the harbor mouth and standing easily at anchor, were some hundred massive transport ships, and Brandon immediately recognized them as the fleet promised by the emperor to allow the Kayolin Army to cross the sea.

“They’re huge!” gasped Tankard Hacksaw, who happened to be marching beside Brandon as the ships came into view. “Like castles on the water!”

“Galleons, they’re called,” Brandon explained breezily. As a veteran of three sea voyages, all of them across that same body of water, he felt well qualified to share his wisdom with the less-experienced dwarves-and that meant all of the troops of his army.

Each ship boasted three tall masts, bare at that moment, rising like pine trunks from the wide wooden decks. Those masts would sprout canvas sails like vast leaves, Brandon remembered, and the sheets would fill with wind and allow the sailors to drive their ships wherever they cared to go. The great hulls were round, like fat bellies on the tall, sturdy vessels, and the largest of the ships would be capable of carrying at least one of the Firespitters. Those heavy weapons, as well as the oxen and carts, would be loaded aboard by the cranes they could see dotting the wharves along the near side of the harbor.

Brandon felt a rush of affection for Dram Feldspar and, by extension, his master, the emperor of Solamnia. The human was as good as his word. The ships were waiting. The army could cross the water.

And for the first time, Brandon allowed himself to believe that their crazy plan just possibly had a chance of success.

“This is Bardic Stonehammer, the greatest smith in Pax Tharkas. He has been the chief armorer in my army since my days as king,” Tarn Bellowgranite explained to Gretchan after she had accepted his invitation to join him in the foundry below the base of the fortress’s East Tower.

“My lady,” said the smith with an affectionate smile and a deep bow. “It is a pleasure, indeed, to finally meet you.”

“Thank you for that greeting and for offering to help us with the work,” the priestess replied. She was impressed: Bardic Stonehammer was probably the largest, sturdiest-looking dwarf she had ever met. His shoulders were broad and square, and his arms were as thick and strapping as any normal dwarf’s thighs. His head was bald, and his beard trimmed short-or perhaps, she wondered, to judge from the irregular cut of his whiskers, he just tended to singe it in his forge.

“It is an opportunity that I would not want to miss,” the big smith said with infectious cheerfulness. Indeed, he had a broad smile that seemed to compel good humor all around. “Not since Theros Ironfeld was entrusted with the secret of the dragonlance has such a powerful artifact been placed in the hands of one of my trade,” he noted solemnly.

Gretchan saw that the well-appointed smithy was ready for the task at hand. The three wedges of stone were arrayed on an anvil near a roaring oven, and a thick rod of steel, taller even than Bardic Stonehammer, had been procured to serve as a handle. A dozen assistant smiths, all of them accomplished in their own right to judge from their maturity and sturdy demeanor, stood ready to assist.

“But we need you to tell us what to do,” Tarn reminded her. “These are the craftsmen, to be sure, but you must be the artist and perhaps the engineer.”

“I’ll do what I can,” the priestess replied with more than a little anxiety. To prepare for the task, she had studied every available reference source she could find and had prayed to Reorx for guidance. While the references had been few and scanty, her prayers had resulted in a very precise dream, repeated over the past three nights, so she felt a certain confidence in her ability to offer plausible instruction. Still, it was a task far different from anything she had ever done before.

She studied the arrangement of the stones and made her first suggestion. “The Tricolor Hammerhead is depicted in one of the ancient scroll books, and it is shown with the Redstone on top, the Bluestone in the middle, and the Greenstone on the bottom.”

Immediately two of the assistants rearranged the stones to match the order she described.

“Now they will all have to be heated-heated to a terribly high temperature, in fact-and then removed from the heat one at a time, starting with the Greenstone.”

Bardic himself responded to her instructions, lifting the Greenstone with a pair of long-handled tongs and placing the emerald-colored wedge of rock onto a shelf within the blazing oven. Even standing a dozen feet away from the oven, Gretchan wanted to raise her hands to block the heat from her face, and she wondered at the endurance-and the tolerance for pain-of the smith who stood right at the furnace door and calmly manipulated his precious component.

One by one he placed the other two wedges of colored stone into the furnace, finally closing the door and stepping back. Only then did he give sign that the heat had affected him in even the slightest; he took a towel and wiped the sheen of sweat that had seeped from his skin to cover his face. Gretchan, blinking in surprise, saw that his beard was smoking slightly, and when she inhaled, she caught the acrid scent of burned hair.

“Do you have the trough of ice water handy?” she asked, remembering another key feature of her dream. She had described it in detail to the smith in advance, but even so she was relieved to see several assistants appear, carrying the chilly bath. Blocks of glacial frost, brought down from the mountains in winter and stored in deep icehouses, floated in the liquid.

“Chill the handle,” she ordered, and again her instructions were carried out, one apprentice holding the far end of the steel shaft while most of the rod was immersed in the water.

For several minutes they waited, Bardic watching her expectantly, until there came a moment when she just knew the time was right. “Remove the Greenstone,” she said. “You should be able to see where to insert the handle.”

Quickly the master smith unlatched the furnace door and pulled it open, releasing a blast of heat into the already sweltering smithy. Once again he took up his tongs and reached in to pull out the superheated emerald wedge. Gretchan was relieved to see that a hole had appeared, penetrating the wedge side to side, just a little closer to the narrow end than the wider.

“Now take the shaft directly out of the ice bath and plunge it in the hole-hard,” she informed them.

Bardic lowered the stone onto a rack just above the floor, with the hole oriented horizontally and several feet of space underneath to allow the shaft to poke through the top. A burly assistant took the handle in both of his hands, raised it over his head, and plunged it down as though he were trying to spear a fish in the water. The icy cold metal steamed and shivered as it penetrated the hole, emerging through the top of the wedge and driving all the way to the floor.

“Put it back into the ice water now,” the priestess instructed. “Quickly!”

The assistant smith gave her a look of questioning, no doubt expecting the hot stone to shatter from such a shocking, temperature-changing immersion.

“Do it!” Bardic snapped, and his instruction was followed. Steam foamed and sizzled upward from the trough, but within seconds the stone and the metal shaft had been chilled to freezing again. When the assistant pulled up the wedge of green stone, it was intact and seemed to be permanently fused to the shaft.

“Again!” Gretchan said urgently. “Now with the Bluestone!”

The master smith pulled the second wedge of rock from the oven, and out of nowhere Gretchan thought, fleetingly, of Brandon Bluestone. How proud he had been of his family’s cherished heirloom, even before he had learned of its mighty purpose. If only he could be there to witness its transformation. At least, she told herself with a quick, silent prayer, he would be with them soon, when the artifact was used.

Even as those thoughts flitted through her head, the smiths were repeating the process, driving the head of the shaft through the hole in the Bluestone then chilling the device once more in the cold water. In short order, the third wedge of stone, the red one, was removed and affixed to the shaft.

Bardic Stonehammer pulled the artifact from the water. Gretchan could see that not only had the stones melded themselves tightly to the rock, but the lines of color where one wedge met the next had blurred slightly, as if the three stones had truly become one.

“Behold!” cried Stonehammer with all the pride of a master who had just crafted the work of his life. “I give you the Tricolor Hammerhead!”

“And behold,” Gretchan added, quietly and reverently. “We are all witness to the greatness of Reorx.”

“Gus ride ship?” demanded the little gully dwarf female who was clinging to Gus’s right arm. She glared at the subject of her query. “Then Slooshy go too!” she declared.

“No!” declared the little gully dwarf female who was clinging to Gus’s left arm. “Take Berta!”

Gus was too astonished even to complain. Instead, his eyes practically popped out of his skull as he stared at the vast array of naval might gathered in the harbor of Solamnia’s great southern port, Caergoth.

One of those ships lay tethered to the dock right before him, and a rather flimsy-looking gangplank led steeply upward to the crowded, teeming deck. Other ships, at least two and two more of them, their holds crowded with equipment and their decks crowded with nervous-looking dwarves, had already raised sail and moved away from the wharf. For nearly a full day, Gus had watched them cast off, knowing that there would always be another vessel taking on cargo and passengers. Two more, in fact.

And really, what was the hurry?

“Gus ride ship?” Slooshy repeated. “Me go too!”

“Alla girls go ship!” he retorted in exasperation. “But why so hurry? Alla time hurry!”

He looked around the dock anxiously. Nearby was a long file of Kayolin dwarves, each carrying a backpack bundling weapons and armor. They looked dour and surly, which was not surprising considering the dwarves’ universal dislike of water, oceans, and ships.

Maybe, if he waited long enough, another magical blue door would appear, and he could just step through it and arrive at Pax Tharkas, where Gretchan-beautiful, kind, generous Gretchan! — would be waiting for him. After all, he had departed Pax Tharkas through just such a portal.

Though that journey, he remembered, had taken him to Thorbardin, where he and his girlfriends had spent their time running for their lives. On the bright side, of course, he had found the Redstone and located the magic blue door again. The second time he passed through the magical portal, he had stepped into Kayolin, where he had found Gretchan and basked in the glow of her appreciation for his cleverness in bringing the blood-red wedge of stone.

But then she had gone south without him, leaving him to the increasingly aggravating company of his girlfriends. Furthermore, the priestess had departed without so much as a good-bye, and Gus had had to eavesdrop in many different parts of Garnet Thax before he learned where she had gone. Fortunately, his spying had also revealed to him that Brandon-who the dwarves were calling “General Bluestone”-intended to lead a great army southward to rendezvous with the beautiful priestess. Gus had decided on the spot that he would follow along, and he reasoned that his frank discussion with the general, centered around the misunderstanding about the purloined steaks, ensured that Gus, too, could travel across the sea on one of the ships.

In fact, the general approached, striding down the line of soldiers, clapping men on their shoulders, and encouraging those who looked hesitant. “Just think of it as a wooden cave,” he said breezily, gesturing to the nearby ship. “Why, you hardly even feel it moving!”

Something in Brandon’s eyes made Gus think he was, at the very least, exaggerating the case. Still, most of the fleet was sailing out of the harbor, and the little Aghar sensed that his chances to accompany the army-and to find Gretchan-were rapidly diminishing. There were only a few ships, barely more than two, still left to board.

So he took a deep breath. Slooshy still clutched his right arm and Berta his left as he swaggered up the gangplank at the end of the column of soldiers. No sooner had they tumbled over the rail and found a place to huddle on the deck between casks of water and dwarf spirits than the sail dropped with a loud whoomf.

The wind blew steadily, and by the time Gus lifted himself up to peer at the shore, the dry land was at least two and two more long jumps away.

“Facet! Come here!” barked Willim the Black.

“Yes, Master,” came the immediate reply. The apprentice, draped in her silken robe, approached from behind the wizard. Her face expressionless, she stopped two paces from him and bowed deeply.

The wizard stood at his worktable, his face turned toward the far corner of the laboratory. Of course, he didn’t need to direct his attention toward that which he wished to see; he was currently studying the row of bottles along one shelf on the right side of the table. At the same time, he observed the female’s calm obedience and allowed a cold smile to crease his scarred, thin lips.

“Bring me a silver bowl of clean water,” he ordered.

“At once, Master.” The apprentice hurried away and soon returned from the water barrel with the requested bowl.

“Put in on the table. I intend to cast a spell of scrying, but my shoulders are stiff,” Willim said calmly.

Immediately Facet did as she was told and more; once the bowl was resting on the table, she stepped behind the black wizard and began to gently massage his shoulders. Her fingers, as always, seemed to possess an extrasensory perception, a keen insight that allowed them to know exactly where to touch him, where to press, where to stroke. Almost immediately he felt the tension drain from his taut muscles.

He ignored her then, though of course she didn’t cease her ministrations, and turned to concentrate on his spell. He dropped a few crystals of powdered silver into the water and poured in a bit of oil. Finally he muttered the words to a powerful spell.

Immediately the tingle of magic spread through his body, energizing him like a drug. Facet’s touch became even more sensually pleasurable, though of course the magic-user did not allow pleasure to detract from the concentration required for his spell.

As the magic took hold, the water in the bowl, filmed with a thin coating of oil, began to glow. Images shimmered there and Willim couldn’t suppress a frown, for they were images of war. He saw no sign of the fire dragon, which was something of a relief, but instead he noted martial pictures: dwarf troops waging battle against a backdrop of stone, underground. He saw a blue axe flailing and slaying and he flinched.

Then a chill of real terror ran down his spine, and even Facet’s ministrations couldn’t stop his trembling. The image was there, clear and menacing: a three-colored hammer, held high against the outside sky, raised like a talisman of ultimate warning.

“Leave me!” Willim shouted, turning and pushing Facet away with a violent shove. He saw that she had allowed her black robe to fall open while she was massaging him, and that effrontery enraged him further. She tumbled to the ground, shocked and bruised, but she knew him too well to cry out. Instead, she scuttled around the table, pulling her robe closed over her breasts and cowering in the shadows between the table and the potion cabinet.

But Willim had already forgotten her. His whole being was suffused with the terrifying picture of that hammer. He knew that his enemies had created the dread artifact, the only thing in the entire world-besides Gorathian-that he feared.

And he knew, too, that his enemies were coming for him.