Stormblade

29

Smoke dragged up by the wind from the great burning in the valley, channeled through the defile and filled Tyorl’s lungs. Black, hopeless dread fill his heart. Though it was only the wail of the bitter wind on the heights, he imagined that the shrieking he heard was a dragon’s battle cry. I don’t smell dragon-stink, he told himself firmly, I couldn’t possibly smell anything in this smoky reek but ash and burning!

Still, he could not banish the dread, the sense that something huge and deadly, taloned and fanged, watched him and patiently waited for him to come within reach.

Fear of the dragon, however, seemed like a child’s warrantless night fears compared with the ranger’s terror of the heights upon which he now walked.

Tyorl cast a quick look over his shoulder. He and Lavim were running scout. Lavim’s strength had increased with the degree of his fascination. Like all kender, his fascination grew in direct proportion to the degree of danger. Tyorl was the only one who could curb Lavim’s inclination to scramble too far ahead of his companions, peer out over the ledge, or climb just a little higher up the sheer face of the wall to see down into the burning valley.

His legs weak and trembling with both fear and exhaustion, the elf pressed his back against the ice-sheathed stone of what must once have been the wall of Thorbardin’s Northgate, waiting for Finn and Kem to climb with painfully slow care over a tumble of rocks and gravel. The slither and clatter of falling stone found echoes in the thumping of Tyorl’s heart.

Ahead, Lavim amused himself kicking stones into the wind-torn depths from a ledge no wider than his foot was long.

Tyorl closed his eyes against a sudden wave of vertigo, found that darkness was worse than sight, and swallowed. He forced himself to open his eyes again.

Though the might of the gods, unleashed during the Cataclysm, had sheared away huge portions of the Northgate wall, the destruction had been capricious. In some places, like the place where Tyorl now wedged himself for balance, the raw stone of the mountain gaped like open wounds. In others, the smooth curved masonry of the wall could still be seen. The ledge was most treacherous in the niches and the gaps, strewn with the rubble of centuries.

At times, the ledge narrowed to barely three feet across. No perch for the rubble to collect, Tyorl thought, and barely a perch for an eagle to land!

Lavim sidled up beside him, his green eyes wide, his sooty face alight with a grin of complete delight.

“Tyorl, isn’t it wonderful? You can see the whole world from here!

You can see everything! I saw the bog, and I think I saw Skullcap, too. It’s not burning anymore—the bog, I mean. Skullcap couldn’t burn, anyway, it being stone.

“I’ll bet a person could see straight to Long Ridge if there weren’t all those mountains in the way. I’ll bet he could see all the way to the sea and to Enstar and to whatever is beyond that. If there’s anything beyond there, that is. I don’t know if there is.

“My father, he once said that there are other places beyond the sea, but he never knew anyone who’d actually been there. Me, I figure there probably are other places. Maybe people have gone there, and they liked it so much they just didn’t bother to come back.”

The wind screamed across the ledge. Lavim cheerfully raised his voice to be heard.

“Back in the hills, when we came off the Plains, I thought I was going to give up this business of going places. I don’t think so anymore, Tyorl. I think—once we save this Hornfel and find your friend Hauk and Stanach and Kelida again—I think I’m going to look for the places beyond Enstar.”

There was more, a happy kender’s speculations about what these imagined places beyond Enstar must look like, what the people who lived there must be like, how long it would take to get there, whether there were other kender there …

Tyorl sighed and let Lavim ramble, only half listening to him play with his dreams and spin his plans. There was no sense trying to silence him. If there were a dragon perched on the heights, as Piper had warned, it knew perfectly well that they were approaching the gate.

Anyway, it would be easier to quiet an avalanche. The kender hadn’t been so voluble since they’d left the bog. Tyorl was surprised now to discover that he had missed the sound of Lavim’s chatter. Sweat freezing on his face, wind-stung eyes streaming with tears, Finn edged up beside Tyorl. Behind the rangerlord, Kembal picked his way carefully around the last of the rubble blocking the ledge. Tyorl waited until the two were steady and balanced again before he spoke.

“Lavim, how much farther to the gate?”

The kender shrugged. “Just around the next bend. I’d just caught a glimpse of it when you called me back that last time. We’re really almost there, now, Tyorl.”

“And where is this supposed dragon?”

Lavim’s eyes went vague and unfocused. Then he grinned again, nodding as though in response to Piper’s information. He pointed straight up the cliff’s face.

“Right up there. It’s in a big cave in the mountain and Piper says it’s not very happy. It’s a black, and they don’t like light, he says. There’s too much light coming into the cave now.”

“A black. Is there a chance that it won’t fly because of the sunlight?”

“Oh, no,” Lavim said with the infuriating cheerfulness of a kender hedged upon all sides by approaching disaster. “Piper says that it hates the light, but it’ll still fly. Probably the light’s just making it more annoyed. He says that’s why you feel the dragonfear; it’s really unhappy now and just throwing around little fear spells out of sheer bad temper. If it were really mad and doing those fear spells for real, you wouldn’t be able to move.” He cocked his head again, then nodded. “And Piper says that it knows very well that we’re here, too.”

Finn looked like he could happily murder the kender for his light-hearted delivery of such information. Kembal slid his sword from the scabbard as silently as he could and flattened against the cliff. Tyorl only sighed. “All right, Lavim, give the rest of it.”

“The rest of what?”

“Why hasn’t the dragon attacked? Does Piper know that!”

“Uh, I didn’t ask—”

“Ask!”

“Right. I—oh, I see. Piper says its because the dragon’s waiting. It knows we’re here, and it knows it can pick us off any time it wants to—”

Finn snarled something and Lavim shrugged, managing to look both innocent and offended. “Well, I’m sorry, but that’s what he says the dragon thinks. It’s waiting.” The kender glared at Finn. “And don’t ask me why, because I don’t know because Piper doesn’t know. All he knows is that it’s waiting. I dunno, maybe it’s waiting for something to happen or—”

Lavim swallowed whatever it was he meant to say. His voice only a shaking whisper, he said, “I think we’re too late.”

So pale was the kender that Tyorl, afraid that Lavim’s legs would buckle under him, grabbed the kender’s arm. “Lavim, what? What is it?”

“We’re going to be too late—oh, Tyorl, we’re going to be too late!”

“Lavim, what are you talking about?”

Lavim twisted out of Tyorl’s grip and bolted, scrambling and limping along the rubble-clogged ledge.

“Lavim! No! Wait!”

Instinctively, Tyorl lunged for him.

And missed.

Caught off balance, Tyorl’s ankle twisted and he fell hard to one knee. He only dimly felt the pain as distant fire shooting through his knee and leg.

He was aware of nothing but the long, terrible drop into the fiery valley a thousand feet below, felt nothing but the cold, empty certainty of his death. Though he wanted to, there was not enough air in his lungs to scream.

With a hoarse cry, Kembal grabbed his arm. Hauling with all his strength, the ranger had Tyorl’s back against the cold rock of the cliff face before Finn could move.

“Damn the kender!” Finn snarled. “Damn him!”

Stone and bits of the crumbling ledge slid over the edge of the cliff, rattling down to the valley below. A cold wind clawed at Tyorl’s face and hair. He hardly felt it for the roaring of his blood, the thundering of his heart. Nausea roiled in his belly, hot, acid bile stung his throat. He wanted to vomit but hadn’t the strength for it.

His hand trembled so badly that he needed two attempts before he could clutch Kembal’s arm. Tyorl gasped for what breath he needed to speak.

“Forget about the kender,” he whispered, wanting for some reason to laugh when he heard the thin croak that used to be his voice. “The gate is around this bend. Give me a hand up if you can.”

Finn shook his head. “No, sit here a moment, catch your breath. Your legs won’t hold you if you try to stand now.”

His back pressed hard against the cliff face, Tyorl pushed himself up, sliding along the rock as though he would never allow as much as an inch of air between his back and the stone again. “We haven’t any time now, Finn. Something’s happening in the mountain.”

“According to that damn kender’s dead mage?”

“Yes,” Tyorl panted, “according to Piper. Believe it or don’t, Finn. You cannot deny that Piper—or Lavim, if you choose—has been right about everything so far.”

Finn didn’t deny it. Nor did he openly accept it. He only sighed with exaggerated patience. Finn found it easier to look down into the burning valley than at the heart-shattering terror in the elf’s eyes. He gestured to Kembal. “Take the lead.”

Kembal edged carefully past them. When he was safely past, Tyorl, his face white as death, followed. Behind him came Finn, and Tyorl felt the rangerlord’s eyes on his back.

Watching, the elf thought, to see that I don’t slip, but I swear, I can hardly bear the weight of his look!

The sun was failing, its light gray through the filter of smoke rising from the distant valley. Lavim, his back to the stone and his dagger in hand, kept himself in the shadow of the mountain as he approached Northgate’s opening. When he spoke to Piper he did so silently. It must have been a very big door!

Piper said nothing.

“I said,” he whispered aloud, “it must have been a—”

I heard you, Lavim. Hush! There’s no time for chatter now. They’ve got a few minutes—you’d better get in there while you can.

“Who’s got—”

Will you hush!

Who’s got a few minutes?

Hornfel and Stanach and Kelida and—

Stanach! And Kelida? What about Hauk? Is he there, too? I’ve heard so much about him, and it would be nice to finally meet him. Piper—

Footsteps, slow and heavy, sounded from within. Lavim peered very carefully around the edge of the doorway. He squinted into the darkness and held his breath.

A dwarf, his shoulders broad, his chestnut beard thick and long and shot through with silver, walked slowly down the narrow corridor. In his right hand he carried a sword, in his left a dagger. The clothes he wore were blood stained and torn.

That’s Hornfel, the Hylar thane.

Is it? Really? That’s what a thane looks like? He needs a good night’s sleep and—

The dwarf paused by a half-opened door and leaned against the stone wall. Then, as though chiding himself for resting, he quickly straightened. He looked at his sword and went back down the corridor the way he had come. After a moment, he toed open the door.

“It’s time, Stanach. They’re here, and they are many.”

“Stanach,” Lavim whispered.

It was Stanach who entered the corridor, followed by a thick-chested, stocky young man who looked like he needed not only a good night’s sleep, but several very good meals.

Abandoning caution like unnecessary baggage, Lavim whooped joyfully and scampered into the gatehouse.

“Hey! Stanach!”

The young man turned, sword in hand, and lunged for the kender.

“No!” Stanach shouted, “Hauk, no!”

Yelping in shocked protest, Lavim ducked, barely in time to miss being spitted by Hauk’s sword. His eyes on the glittering blade, Lavim picked himself up very slowly and put his back to the wall.

“Hey, Stanach,” he whispered, “do you think you could tell him I’m a friend of yours?” He glanced at Hauk and nodded with what he hoped was reassurance. “I really am, you know. Once, in Long Ridge, there were twenty-five draconians chasing him, and they would have caught him, too, but I saved his life. Then, when the—the waddayacall’ems caught him in the river caves, me and Tyorl and Kelida rescued him.

“And, well, Stanach probably doesn’t know about this—but it’s true, you just ask Tyorl when he gets here!—I used Piper’s magic flute, and we wouldn’t be here now at all if I hadn’t transported us right to the mountains. Or—well, maybe not right to the mountains. You see, the spell makes you a little sick in your stomach, and I didn’t want to turn up in somebody’s house or right in the middle of the city and, ah, make a mess. So, we kind of ended up in the bog and—gods!—that place is really burning!”

Squeezed nearly breathless in Stanach’s embrace, Lavim had no further chance to list the rest of his credentials.