Goddess Worldweaver

15
Blood Under Coolfyre

“ I can get this door open,” Konnor whispered, as the three Houseguard siblings crouched in the alcove and waited. The company of dwarves had marched past just a few minutes before, and already they heard the smashing of at least one gate in the Wood Wall of the ghetto. “Maybe we can go through the warehouse and come at the wall farther from the waterfront.”

“How can we be sure this place is abandoned?” Borand wondered.

“Look at it-dusty and dark, and quiet as a graveyard,” Aurand replied. “No one’s been in here for years!”

Darann readily agreed. “We don’t have any choice. Let’s go!” she urged, fearful that another company would be along at any moment. Next time, the shadows might not be enough to conceal them.

Quickly, Konnor eased the door open. The creak of rusty hinges seemed terribly loud to the four of them, but Darann hoped that beyond their hiding place the sound was buried in the greater tumult rising throughout the ghetto. Not daring to spark a light, they moved into the almost pitch darkness of what felt like a single, large room-at least, the little illumination spilling from the wharf side allowed them to see only empty space to either side. Dust kicked up by their feet hung in the stale air, tickling her nostrils, and Darann suspected that it was more than just a few years since this place had seen any activity.

When Konnor pushed the door shut, nearly soundlessly, there was no way to see anything at all. Borand risked lighting a match, the sulfurous flame shockingly bright, the smoke and scent pungent. In the flickering illumination they could see long, bare shelves extending into the distance on both sides. This certainly had been a warehouse, though it was now empty of goods.

Holding the match high, Borand led them forward, down a long aisle between the empty racks. Each step kicked up more dust, and there was a lingering smell of mold, slightly tainted by fish, in the air.

“An old fishery warehouse,” Konnor guessed, whispering to Darann. “Probably abandoned not long after the king walled off the ghetto.”

Darann was inclined to agree. She couldn’t help reflecting that the cost of the goblin imprisonment had, in this case and many others, exacted a very real economic toll from the dwarves who had implemented that confinement. “What a waste,” she breathed silently-at least, she thought she had spoken silently until Konnor turned to her and nodded in agreement.

Borand followed the aisle illuminated by his sputtering match all the way to the back of the warehouse, then turned and followed another wall toward the corner nearest to the ghetto wall. There was no sign of a door in this back wall, Darann saw in frustration. Her brother cursed and shook his hand as the flame flickered out. After a few seconds he lit another match and continued toward the side wall. Here they discovered a narrow corridor extending farther back into the warehouse. The building was huge, she realized, as they went another hundred paces away from the waterfront.

The corridor widened into another room, narrower than the large space fronting onto the wharf. This one had a tall ceiling invisible in the shadows overhead. Ladders placed at intervals along the floor led toward the lofty, unseen racks.

The third match revealed a pair of old cargo doors on the right side, secured against intruders with a heavy beam, in the terminus of the long corridor. Konnor and Aurand carefully lifted the beam out of the way, setting it gently on the ground to make a minimum of noise. Borand extinguished his match, and the dwarves gingerly pushed on the door.

They all cringed at the loud creak of hinges. A sliver of dim light, the faint background illumination of Axial’s constant aura of coolfyre, outlined the entrance, and the older dwarf placed his eye to the gap. After what seemed like forever to Darann, he drew back and spoke.

“The next gate through the ghetto wall is a long ways away, but I could see a couple of guards on duty down there.”

“Maybe we can try to bluff our way through,” Darann said, “like we have a job with the guards?”

She was not surprised when all three of her companions shook their heads; the idea hadn’t even sounded workable as she had voiced it. Every dwarf they had observed approaching the ghetto had been armored in breastplate and helm. Her brothers, in their leather riding shirts, and herself in the tattered tunic and leggings she had worn for the last five intervals, could not have looked more out of place.

“What about going over the wall?” Aurand suggested. “I saw some ladders back there leading to the warehouse loft. Maybe we can take one of them out this door and get into the ghetto that way?”

“Worth a try,” Borand agreed. Ten minutes later they had muscled one of the heavy ladders down from its perch and carried it to the door. Darann went through first, pushing open the portal as quietly as possible, then standing aside as her three companions brought out their prize.

Fortunately, this section of the alley was buried in deep shadow, and the sounds of the door opening, the inevitable scuffing of the ladder, and the exertions of the dwarves were all swallowed by the larger chaos in the ghetto. The fighting and pillaging were still some distance away, Darann judged, but vigorous enough to raise quite a racket.

When the ladder was in place, Borand reached for it, but Aurand pushed past and scrambled quickly upward, his sword in his hand. He stepped off at the top and, crouching on the narrow perch, waved the others to follow. Her older brother went up, Darann went after Borand, and Konnor brought up the rear. She found that the top of the wall was flat and several feet wide, and she remembered that she had seen guards patrolling here on occasion. The four dwarves stayed low, pulling the ladder upward, then carefully lowering it down the far side.

It seemed to take forever to the dwarfmaid, but she judged it only to be a minute or so that they remained atop the wall. Even so, she was certain that a searching beacon would illuminate them or that some wandering guard would spot their silhouettes against the city’s lights. As soon as the ladder was in place, they descended into a rank alley, with dark, shabby buildings pressing close, leaving a passage only five or six feet wide. Konnor suggested that they lower the ladder and hide it in the shadows at the base of the wall, which they quickly did.

“Which way?” Borand asked, keeping his voice hushed.

Darann had been looking around, wondering that herself. She saw a suggestion of movement, a flash of a bright eye, and bent over. There was something there, crouched in the shadows at the base of the wall, regarding them with wide-open eyes.

“Hi,” she said, “I am the Lady Darann of clan Houseguard, goblin friend. Can you tell me where Hiyram is?”

“Hello, Lady,” said a goblin, rising from his hiding place, squinting at the four dwarves. “I know of you-and trust you, for you sneak into ghetto, not smash gate.”

“Good,” she said. “And thank you. What do you know about Hiyram?”

“This way,” said the goblin. “We see if he still lives, okay?”

Lord Nayfal was nervous. How could this be taking so long? The filthy goblins were unarmed, half-starved, and notoriously cowardly. How in the Underworld could they resist his elite companies? This should have been a simple matter of herding them into the plazas in the center of their ghetto, then wading in with unsheathed weapons, giving the wretches what they deserved.

“Captain Brackmark,” he called. The lord’s ferr’ell bucked under him, and he cursed, then slid down from the saddle to stand on the ground. He had been riding the beasts for fifty years, but this was one of those times when it seemed that he was simply unable to control his stubborn and willful mount.

The officer of the guard clomped up to him, saluting. “Yes, m’lord?” he asked.

“What’s the problem? Why aren’t your men pushing through to the central plaza yet?”

“Begging your lordship’s pardon, but we’re making good progress,” Brackmark insisted. “We got ’em cleared out of the near buildings, and we’re taking it street by street, pushing toward the center.”

“That’s not good enough. Send in the rest of the reserve battalion! I want this matter cleaned up by the end of the interval!”

“I will send them, sir, of course,” replied the veteran footman, sidling away from the ferr’ell as the creature snapped and growled at Nayfal’s liveryman when that dwarf took the trailing reins. “But it might still take another interval, maybe two, before we can round up all the males.”

“Bah,” snapped Nayfal. “What makes the pathetic wretches so hard to catch? If they’re hiding behind the females, then catch-or kill-the wenches, too!”

“Not that we haven’t tried, lord. But they seem to have a million hiding places in there. We chase ’em into what looks like a dead-end alley, and-poof-the whole bunch slips out through some narrow crack no dwarf could fit his head through. They got tunnels down under the streets, and they climb all over the roofs. I lost a good man, broken neck, ’cause he chased a gob onto some cursed trellis, couldn’t nearly hold his weight!”

“Casualties are acceptable,” retorted Nayfal pointedly. “The important thing is to round up all the goblins that might ever take up arms against us. I want to remove this threat from the city for once and for all!”

“Right, and we will, like I said, m’lord. It just might take a wee bit longer than we thought.”

“Well, do as I command and send in the reserves!” snapped the nobleman, angrily snatching the reins from his servant. “And I will personally lead them in the charge!”

He kicked his foot into the stirrup and hoisted himself up, praying that the beast would remain still long enough for him to get settled. Surprisingly enough, it did, and with another jerk on the reins, he turned the sleek head toward the ghetto gate. Prodded by a single kick, the animal bolted forward, carrying his rider toward the fight.

The goblin dropped from sight before Darann, and she thought, for a moment, that he had run away. “Down here!” came the hissing instructions. “Safe way to Hiyram!”

“In that hole?” Borand demanded, skeptically eyeing the black circle in the ground. It yawned like a lightless well and seemed to emit many questionable odors. “I don’t like the looks of it.”

“You don’t have to like it,” the dwarfmaid retorted. “Just get going!”

Indeed, many fetid smells lingered in the air around them, and Darann felt grimly certain that most of that stink originated from within that pit. But she took a deep breath and knelt on the ground, reaching inside the dark circle until she felt a rung of metal placed in the wall. Leaning forward, she found another a foot below.

“There seems to be a ladder,” she reported. “I’m going to follow him.”

“Count me in.” Aurand, not surprisingly, came right behind, then Konnor, and finally the still-grumbling Borand. Darann, grateful for the loyalty of her comrades, tried not to breathe through her nose as she groped her way down the slippery but solidly mounted rungs. Even so, the air actually tasted of foulness, coating her mouth with a residue that was cloying and choking at the same time. After eight or ten steps, she landed with a wet splash onto a slick floor and moved to the side so that her companions could join her.

Her brother struck another of his ubiquitous matches. They quickly saw that they were in a drainage pipe, brick-walled and tall enough for them to stand without stooping. The water was only a few inches deep, and the air was thick with those foul, albeit unidentifiable, odors. Here the smoke from the match was in fact a blessing, for it obscured those unknown smells. There was a stone arch twenty or thirty feet away, a support for the pipe apparently, and the cylindrical passage seemed to continue into the darkness beyond.

“This way,” said the goblin, selecting one of their two options. In the light of the match his skin was a grayish green, and his mouth visible as a wide gash partially filled with crooked teeth, below those wide, brightly reflective eyes. His big feet slapped across the wet floor as he started off. After a moment’s hesitation, the four dwarves came behind.

The match fizzled and went out, and for a time they slopped along in utter darkness, Borand not wanting to expend his complete supply in this featureless passageway. Once they passed under a shaft leading upward, hearing sounds of marching feet directly overhead. The goblin continued on, and the Seers followed.

Finally their guide stopped, a fact that Darann discovered when she walked into him in the inky darkness. “Go up here,” the goblin declared. “Find Hiyram.”

Now Borand struck another light, revealing a set of iron rungs similar to those they had descended. The goblin led the way, and again Darann was right behind him. At the top of the shaft they had to push a heavy iron cover out of the way, though as soon as they started it moving, willing helpers grabbed on from above and slid it off of the exit.

The goblin quickly popped up. “These good dwarves,” he said. “Lady Darann comin’ up!”

“The Lady!” Immediately hands were extended, and the dwarfmaid allowed them to hoist her onto the ground. Her three companions quickly followed, standing somewhat nervously in the midst of a throng of goblins. Some of this rabble was wounded, and many of them carried makeshift weapons, mostly clubs and stones. More than one cast a glowering look upon the intruders.

“Where’s Hiyram?” she asked. “I need to talk to him!”

“Hiyram!” The shout was carried out from the group. “You waits here, stays quiet. Dwarves not happy in goblin-crowd, not now, not on this interval. Hiyram comes to find you.”

“I understand-and thank you,” Darann said.

A few minutes later, the crowd parted to let someone pass, and Darann practically sobbed with relief as she beheld the familiar, flop-eared visage. The goblin’s face brightened momentarily, then darkened with sudden, intense concern.

“Lady-you get from here!” he urged, his eyes wide. “The ghetto bad place now! You gotta go away! Why you come here now? Why?”

“I know about the danger,” she said. “And I’m sorry. I wish I could help you right away.”

“Metal-shirt dwarves come. They say we kill dwarfmaid with hot oil! No gob do that-was more black ones, dwarves of the ferr’ell marshal! We saw ’em, chased ’em, but no catch. They kill maid, blame us!”

Nayfal! Darann was not surprised to hear that the corrupt lord was behind the current attack. “There’s one thing I might be able to do. I have to talk to the king, to convince him that Nayfal has caused him to make a terrible decision. But I need help. You told me about a pailslopper… someone from the palace who heard of the plan to kill my father. I need to talk to her! Can you tell me how to find her?”

“She told me to tell none, but now…” Hiyram shrugged, gestured to their surroundings. “What choice do we have? Yes, I will say her name; she is called Greta Weaver, lives in room on top of Goat Hair Inn.”

“The Goat Hair? I know that place. It’s a soldiers’ tavern, not far from ghetto, on the road to the royal tower,” Konnor said. “I can find the place, once we get out of here.”

“Yes, that Goat Hair tavern. Good luck,” Hiyram said. “You can go from ghetto out pipe.” He gestured to the goblin who had guided them here. “Red-Eye Fobber will take you.”

“And you,” Darann said. “Can’t you get out of here, through the pipes underground?”

Hiyram shrugged again. “Lots of gobs go there, ladies and little ones. We fight here, till they can go. Send many away, but where to away? Get killed in ghetto, get killed in city, or drownded in lake? Find place to be safe-then we go, too.”

“Good luck, my friend,” Darann said, giving him an embrace. He hugged her back, then gestured. “Go, now!”

They started back toward the well they had emerged from, but they had taken only a dozen steps when a phalanx of dwarven guards came around the corner to block their path. The goblins and dwarves both froze for a second, until the sergeant of the Seers raised his axe and shouted a hoarse cry. Immediately, the dwarves charged forward.

“Run! Back there,” Hiyram urged, tugging at Darann’s hand. She hesitated, unwilling to flee in the face of her own countrymen, until Borand took her arm and pulled her along. She looked back, saw several goblins rush forward in attempt to slow up the attackers. A few sharp blows were enough to cut them down. The rest of the goblins turned and fled, carrying Darann and her companions with them.

“Here, another hole up there,” Hiyram said as they approached another intersection. “Run up hill, look in alley at top, on sword-hand side of street.”

“You come, too!” she urged.

“I come, but after you go-so run!”

Sensing that the stubborn goblin meant what he said, she cursed and started to run up a road that climbed the steep hill. Konnor fell in behind her, casting glances back at the pursuit, his sword ready in his hand. “Wait, here-take this!” said the dwarf. She saw that he had found a battered shield somewhere, now extended it toward her. Not sure what to do with it, she nevertheless took the buckler and held it awkwardly in her left hand.

Once more they looked down the street, toward Borand, Aurand, Hiyram, and the other goblins. They saw a wild melee at the intersection behind them, heard smacks of steel on steel and the surprised cursing of wounded dwarves. Somehow the motley group was buying them a little time.

“He said to look for an alley on the sword-side, on the right,” the dwarfmaid gasped, running short of breath. She spotted a dark gap in the row of ramshackle buildings. “That must be it!”

A goblin was in front of her, and she recognized Red-Eye Fobber, their original guide. “Hole in there,” he said. “Go down right away!”

She stopped at the entrance to the alley. A single glance showed her that the fighting down the hill was savage. Her brothers, side by side, were holding a half dozen dwarves at bay, but another big axeman was pressing against Hiyram, swinging his heavy weapon in roundhouse swipes that slashed over the goblin’s head.

“This way!” Darann cried. “Hiyram-over here!”

She despaired as her voice seemed to vanish into the thunderous melee, then took heart as she saw the valiant goblin glance in her direction. He blinked once and turned his attention back to the dwarf, using the slender knife to somehow parry another slashing blow from the heavy axe.

But the power of the dwarf-at-arms was enough to send the goblin tumbling backward, and Darann could only watch as a dozen swordsmen spilled into the intersection, coming from the other direction. They met an equal number of goblins, but this rabble was unarmored, bearing but knives, sticks, and clubs as weapons. With a sharp rush, the disciplined dwarves scattered the goblins, killing four and routing the others back up the narrow, steeply climbing street.

A big goblin with a cleaver, one eye matted with a bloody smear, suddenly rushed from the depths of the alley, charging at Darann. She lifted the shield and grunted as the powerful blow knocked her against the wall. “No-I’m a friend!” she cried, but he didn’t seem to hear or to care. Instead, he raised the cleaver and uttered a growl so piercing that it raised the hairs on the back of her neck. There was nowhere to go, so she used the shield as a weapon, charging against the goblin, pushing him away for a second.

Then Hiyram was there, rapping his fist sharply on the side of the big goblin’s head. “This Lady dwarf, fool! She help gobs outta here!”

The bleeding attacker just scowled, but by then the tide of retreating goblins carried them along, away from the alley and the steep hill. “Gotta find you way outta here,” gasped Hiyram. “Get you going now! This alley, around the corner then you go down hole!”

“Follow me!” Darann shouted, and Hiyram repeated the command. In another moment she was running along, followed by the sounds of broad, flat feet slapping against the bedrock. She raced as fast as she could, darting around the corner, then stopping as, finally, she saw the unguarded manhole cover.

Konnor was there, too, and several goblins came behind, though they initially shied away from the leather-clad Seer. Hiyram followed the dwarfmaid up to the narrow hatch.

“Through there,” he explained breathlessly. “It goes into pipe, will lead you to the city outside ghetto, toward Royal Tower. Best escape for you.”

“We’ll go-but you come after, as soon as you can!” she cried.

“Bull-Hair, go with!” cried Hiyram, clapping the one-eyed warrior who had earlier attacked Darann. “Lead the gobs away from here. I come after the end!”

“You get started,” Borand said. “Auri and I will help hold them up.”

“No!” the dwarfmaid insisted. “You have to come, too!”

“We’ll be right behind,” her brother assured her. He turned to the big goblin. “Take her down there-now!”

Without hesitation the battle-scarred Bull-Hair dove through the hatch. Konnor and Darann started after, down the ladder and into the now-familiar dankness of the drainage sewer.

Her last sight was of Hiyram and her brothers as they gathered a dozen stalwart goblins and headed back down the street, determined to hold up the pursuing Seers.

“Stop them!” shrieked Nayfal, as his restive ferr’ell pranced beneath him. Of course, mounted as he was, he was in the best position to lead the pursuit of the fleeing goblins, but he was too reasonable to do that. Let the foot soldiers risk their lives. His role was here, in the saddle, and in command!

Two companies of dwarves charged forward, pitching in to the goblins who were battling with such unusual ferocity. Nayfal saw several of his men fall back, wounded and bleeding, but was pleased that others quickly stepped in. Axes and swords rose and fell, and he could only imagine-happily-the carnage that was being wrought.

But the number of goblins was shrinking faster than he could explain by death and wounding, and as the dwarves pushed forward, he got a glimpse from his saddle that confirmed his worst fears.

“They’re getting away!” he cried. “Stop them!”

There could be no stopping the escape, however, not when the rear guard fought with such ferocity. It was only when the last of the refugees had vanished that the attackers overwhelmed the goblins, taking several prisoners.

It was then that Nayfal got his next surprise, one that brought a grim smile to his thin lips. For there, among the prisoners, were the two brothers of clan Houseguard. Somehow, fate had delivered them right into his hands.

“C OME on-keep moving!” shouted Bull-Hair, the urgency of his voice amplified by the pitch darkness of the tunnel and the distant sounds of battle fading behind them.

Darann had held up, wanting to wait for her brothers, but Konnor took her arm and spoke to her softly, persuasively. “They’ll meet us at the Goat Hair Inn if they can. Borand knows where it is; we’ve been there together, in happier times. But what they’re doing, staying back there and fighting, that’s for you. Don’t waste it by staying behind.”

“Dammit, you’re right,” she snapped, before turning and following the slapping footsteps of their goblin guide. Surely her brothers would find a way out-they had to! She wouldn’t let herself believe that they could get snared in Nayfal’s sweep.

They seemed to go for a long time, covering a greater distance than in their first subterranean trek, when they had been seeking Hiyram. Darann had no trouble believing that they had moved beyond the ghetto walls, but she found it impossible to get any sense of bearings, to have any idea where they were going. She simply followed along behind Bull-Hair, and when the sounds of his steps abruptly stopped, she halted, too.

“Here, go up,” their guide said suddenly. “This quiet place; nobody see, if you careful. Be careful.”

“We will-thank you,” Darann said, squeezing the loyal guide on his shoulder. “You be careful, too.”

She felt for the rungs, found that Konnor had aleady started up the metal ladder. She came along behind, silently climbing. A minute later the two dwarves emerged through a sewer drain on a quiet side street, several blocks away from the ghetto wall. Trying not to think about her brothers, Darann couldn’t suppress a single, grieving sob as she looked down the hole they had emerged from. Were Borand and Aurand back there someplace? Or had, as she feared, they been snared by the attacking guards? Konnor put an arm around her shoulders, and she drew a breath, banishing her fears, angrily rubbing a hand across her moist eyes.

“The Goat Hair Inn is not far away,” Konnor said, taking his bearings from the position of the city’s great towers rising into view around them. “We can walk there in ten minutes. Let’s hope Greta Weaver is at home.”

“And that she’s willing to tell us the truth,” Darann agreed, drawing some comfort from her companion’s calm awareness. He offered her his arm, and she took it, reasoning that their chances of being questioned by guards was lessened if they could be mistaken for a normal couple.

They found a main street and, though they wanted to run, walked along like a couple out for a stroll. True to his word, Konnor soon led her up to the door of a run-down inn. They heard sounds of raucous laughter within, while the not unappealing scent of coal smoke and grilled meat wafted into the street from the door. With an air of bravado that Darann hoped was real, Konnor swaggered forward, pushed open the entrance, and led her inside.