The Middle of Nowhere

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

At first light, Howland and Raika resumed their ride up the narrow valley. Howland expected Robien back by dawn, but the sun was over the mountain, and the elf was still gone. Yet the valley was remarkably quiet and calm. Raika was the nervous one. She rode alongside Howland with spear in hand, warily watching the heights above them.

As they ascended into the cleft of the mountain, they noticed signs of recent violence. They came across wrecked carts, abandoned equipment, and dead bodies, both slave and bandit. Not all were human. A pair of ogres, overcome by scores of small wounds, lay side by side atop a flat boulder. Evidently they’d made a stand against a large number of opponents before succumbing. More curious were the slain dwarves they found in overturned wagons. They were prosperously turned out, but no one had bothered to plunder them. Judging by their injuries, they were felled when a hail of stones knocked them senseless. Their horses had gone wild, turning over the conveyances. If the impact had not killed the dwarves, their cargo had. Every wheeled vehicle was laden with scores of bright metal ingots. Several hundred lay scattered on the trail for more than a mile.

“Iron or steel?” Raika wondered.

Howland dismounted and picked up a hefty bar. He rapped the ingot with a handy stone, and it made a dull sound.

“Pig iron. Why would fleeing dwarves fill their carts with pig iron?” he mused.

Three plumes of smoke rose from the plateau ahead. As they rounded the bend, Raika spotted someone on the path. She pulled back on her reins and warned Howland.

He drew up beside her. “No, it’s all right. It’s Robien.”

The Kagonesti was standing in the cart path, gazing at the scene. Raika and Howland rode slowly ahead until they reached him. Robien did not look up when they stopped on either side of him.

“Good morning,” he said. “Sorry I didn’t come back, but I thought I’d better keep watch here. I knew you’d come eventually.” He lowered the sword from his shoulder and shoved it into its scabbard.

Raika and Howland got down, tying their mounts to a convenient sapling. Howland gave Raika a spare sword from the bundle on the pack horse. She buckled it around her hips. With Robien leading the way, they entered the silent camp.

A rough stockade of pine logs had been erected around the mine works, but many of the sharpened timbers had been toppled. They had been broken down from the inside, as every one lay with their crowns pointing outward. Inside the fence, all was chaos. Great heaps of cinders and slag, still smoldering, lay alongside the central path. The air stank of coke and sulfur.

“Is there anyone alive here?” Howland wondered.

“Someone’s stirring. I heard him last night,” said Robien. “I never caught up with them, and I decided to wait until you arrived.”

A second dirt road crossed the first at right angles. They stood at the crossroads, taking in the scene. On their right was a massive furnace house made of local timber and stone. Two tall chimneys, one broken off to half the height of the other, still gave off smoke. The upper half of the broken chimney had come down on the roof of the furnace house, smashing it wide open. The wooden part of the structure had been reduced to charred wood, and the stone walls were blackened on the inside. Outside the furnace house were scores of abandoned wheelbarrows, some empty, some full and lying on their sides, spilling coal or dull red ore on the ash-covered ground.

To the left stood a number of plank and canvas huts, the kind used by an army on campaign. Most were trampled and torn. A few had been torched. Beyond them was a rail-fence stockade full of conical hide tents. The front of the stockade lay flat on the ground, facing outward.

The newcomers walked through the ruined camp. Now and then one or the other would stop to examine some trace, some relic, or some body. By the time they reached the shattered stockade, it was clear what had happened.

“The slaves must have revolted,” Howland said, pointing to the conical tents. “They were housed here. At some point they rushed the stockade and broke it down. They rampaged out, demolishing the outer camp where their captors lived.”

“Interested only in flight, they stole every animal they could find and fled,” Robien added.

“Who brought down the chimney, I wonder?” Raika said.

“Who knows?” Howland said. “Maybe the black gang did it as part of the rebellion.”

Everywhere they found signs of struggle, destruction, and a hasty departure. Near the mouth of the mine they found a sturdier, more finished building, built in the fashion of a dwarven mountain hall. Every window was shuttered with thick, seasoned planks, but they had been breached nonetheless. The big, iron-strapped door was off its hinges, stove in by a salvaged timber used as a makeshift battering ram.

Raika hesitated at the open door. “Hello?” she called. “Anyone there?”

No one answered, but they heard a scuffling from within. Out came three swords.

Robien whispered, “Guard the door, Sergeant. Raika and I will go in and flush out whatever’s here.”

Inside the hall was dim, with only the light from shattered shutters leaking in. Robien went right, Raika left.

She was sure she was standing in the sacked headquarters of the Throtian Mining Guild. Several rooms were filled with broken furniture and scattered sheets of parchment. Raika knelt to examine a random page. It was covered with columns of tiny, precisely written figures.

A thick, hairy hand protruded from under an upside-down table. She kicked it aside and found the body of a dwarf. He’d been battered to death, but his rings and silver gorget were still in place. Raika pondered relieving him of his jewelry. He didn’t need his finery any more, and the price of it might get her home to Saifhum.

Underneath the dead dwarf was a dark brown leather bag. It clinked when Raika nudged it. Sweat beaded on her lip. She opened the flap and poured the contents out.

Gold! Big Thorbardin double-hammer coins rang and rolled across the floor. Raika yelped with delight. She quickly counted forty-six double-hammers, which were twice the weight of a standard gold piece. Now she could get home in style!

She swept the thick golden disks back into the bag and quit the room without disturbing the dead dwarf’s jewelry. The gold was ample reward, and taking it was less likely to anger the dead dwarf’s spirit.

Raika emerged into the hallway as something darted across her field of view, passing from a room three doors down.

“Hey!” Raika fumbled for her sword. “Stand where you are!”

She darted into the doorway where the mysterious stranger had gone. No sooner had she done so when her danger-honed senses forced her to leap back. A heavy, black-bladed axe whistled by, missing the tip of Raika’s nose by a hair. It crashed to the floor, burying its edge in the planking.

Raika promptly stamped her foot on the axe head, pinning it to the floor. She presented the point of her sword to her attacker’s chin. He was an unusually short, rotund dwarf with wild yellow hair and a wide-eyed expression.

“Don’t kill me!” he cried shrilly, throwing up his hands.

“Strange words from an axe-wielding ambusher!” Raika said. Flushed with anger, she stepped forward, forcing her captive back. “Give me a good reason not to cut your gullet here and now!”

“Take what you will, but spare me, gracious lady!”

Lip curled, she lowered her sword and grabbed the little man by the collar. He was a young fellow, with only peach-fuzz on his chin. Yanking him up so high he was on tip-toes, Raika propelled her prisoner into the hall.

“Robien! Howland! It’s all right-I caught a little rat!”

Howland sidled cautiously through the open doors. “What have you got there?”

“The last of the mining guild, I reckon.” She shook the unhappy dwarf. “What’s your name?”

“Banngur, if you please, lady.” He shrank from her fearsome glare. “I’m not of the guild.”

“Who are you, then?” asked Howland.

“A scribe, honorable sir. A bookkeeper. I keep-I kept-the tallies for the Mining Guild.”

Robien appeared behind them. “You’d better come see this!” he said urgently. Without waiting for a reply, he dashed out again.

Howland and Raika followed, the Saifhumi woman holding onto Banngur’s collar all the way. Robien led them deep into the hall, into a large open room. Judging from the stone walls, the dwarves had built their headquarters into the side of the mountain itself.

From one side of the room to the other, and from the entrance to the rear wall, the place was filled with waist-high piles, covered with tarpaulins. Howland estimated there were more than a hundred piles.

Robien lifted the corner of the nearest tarp and flung it back. Bright metal gleamed.

“Iron?” said Howland.

Robien shook his head. “I tried to score it with my knife blade. It’s steel.”

Raika loosed her grip on Banngur. The pudgy bookkeeper tried to flee, but she easily tripped him. Planting a foot on his squirming backside, she whispered hoarsely, “Is all of it steel?”

“Probably.” Howland swallowed, hand holding his own throat. “This was the treasure Rakell was defending. There must be tons of steel here-”

“Eleven tons and forty-two hundredweight,” said Banngur. “Property of the Throtian Mining Guild, Limited.”

Raika kicked him. “Property of us!”

“Wait,” said Howland. “Let the dwarf up.”

She let Banngur stand. Howland bade the little man come closer.

“Tell us what happened here,” he said.

Banngur looked from one face to the other. Deciding Howland’s was the most trustworthy, he moved away from Raika and Robien.

“The dragon came,” he quavered.

“The red dragon? He did this?”

“He flew by and knocked down our chimney, that’s all.” said the dwarf. “When that happened, the workers revolted.”

“You mean, the slaves rebelled and regained their freedom?”

Banngur nodded.

“How many slaves?”

Numbers were Banngur’s business. “Two hundred twenty-nine, all told,” he said.

“How many guards were there when the rebellion broke out?”

The dwarf thought a moment, silently moving his lips. “Eighteen humans, and three ogres.”

“How many dwarves?” said Raika.

“Eleven, but none were soldiers. Guild members supervised mining and smelting the ore, but discipline was left to Lord Rakell’s men.”

Howland caught his comrades’ eyes. Almost casually, he asked, “What happened to Rakell?”

“He rode off to gather more workers,” Banngur said, “but he never came back. When the workers-”

Raika narrowed her eyes at him, and the dwarf corrected himself.

“When the slaves realized Rakell was overdue, they grew restive. The dragon toppling the foundry stack was the last straw. They refused to fight the fire and attacked the few remaining guards.”

“Who killed the dwarves-the prisoners or the guards?”

Banngur looked downcast. “The guards. Guild Master Tharmon would not ransom us, so the guards struck him down and looted the camp, looking for gold.”

“Speaking of which …” Raika hefted the bag she’d found. She tossed it to Howland. He glanced inside. It was a handsome sum, but compared to the lake of steel before them, it was a pittance.

Robien hefted a bright ingot. “Why didn’t your master buy off the remaining guards with steel?”

Banngur had no answer.

“Pride, wasn’t it?” said Howland. “That, and steel is too bulky to move without draft animals, and they were all gone, weren’t they?”

Banngur nodded again.

“How long ago did all this occur?”

Banngur said several days-on about the same day that Rakell perished in Nowhere.

“Get out,” Howland said.

Banngur blinked a few times, uncertain what the human meant.

“Begone!” the soldier shouted. “You’re free, get out!”

Banngur shuffled backward a few steps then said, “I have nothing. How will I get to civilized parts?”

Howland tossed the bag of gold coins at him. “That’ll get you anywhere you want to go.”

“If some rascal doesn’t gut you first and take it away from you,” Raika said cheerfully.

White-faced, Banngur ran from the room.

Raika ran to the center of the storeroom, whipping off tarps right and left. “We’re rich, sergeant! We’re stinking rich! By thunder, with a third of this haul I could buy the office of Grand Mariner of Saifhum myself!”

“I’ve never seen so much steel,” Howland agreed.

It fell to Robien to voice the unhappy truth. “But we’ll never get it all down the mountain.”

He held up an ingot in each hand. “These weigh twenty pounds apiece. There must be thousands of them. How can we move them? We only have four horses between us.”

Raika clutched at a pile with both hands. “We could repair some of those wagons-!”

“No time,” said Howland.

“What do you mean?”

“Too many people know about this hoard. Every slave who escaped, every hired blade who took part in the slaughter of the guildmasters knows this steel is here. How long do you think it will be before one of them comes back with enough help to claim the steel?”

“So we’ll take what we can! Maybe two or three piles each?” Raika said desperately.

“We’d kill the horses trying to haul so much, and if we took a few wagon loads, how would three of us defend our cargo against every wandering mercenary gang and brigand band on the plain between here and the sea?”

Raika’s joyous expression shattered like a cheap pot. “Can’t we take something?”

“No more than you can safely carry.” Howland stacked four ingots in the crook of his arm. “This is enough for me.”

Robien took none. “Steel means little in the forest, my home. When I need money, I collect the bounty on a wanted criminal. Beyond that, my needs are few.”

“Well, carry some steel for me then!” Raika protested. She tried to manage five bars, but one slipped out of her arms and fell ringing on the floor.

In the end she loaded her horse and the pack animal with ten ingots, two hundred pounds of steel. Each bar bore the stamp of the mining guild, certifying its purity and hardness. When Raika returned to her island home, she wouldn’t have enough to buy the office of Grand Mariner, but she would have enough to purchase and outfit her own ship. She would be a captain at last.

By early afternoon they were back on the trail, riding down the ravine to the plain. Robien, who hadn’t asked before, queried Howland about Ezu.

“He left. You know Ezu,” he said. “He did leave you a parting gift.” Reaching into his saddlebag, Howland brought out the saffron spectacles. “Ezu wanted you to have these.”

The elf would not take them. “I must rely on my own skills, the ancient ways of my people, and not a conjurer’s tricks.”

Howland shook his head. “They’re a tool, like any other. You carry a steel sword, which your forebears did not know. Would you give up steel to be more like your ancestors?”

They argued good-naturedly for some time, and Robien finally accepted Ezu’s spectacles.

On level ground, Howland stopped his horse. Already Robien had turned his mount south, toward the forest lands of his birth, while Raika faced north, toward the distant sea. Howland faced dead ahead, due west.

“This is where we part,” he said.

“Come to Saifhum,” Raika urged. “A man of courage and wits can do well there.”

“Ride south, if you wish,” countered Robien. “In the forest, all are free.”

Howland thanked them, but declined both offers. “The time is right for me to return to Solamnia, the land of my long-ago youth. I’ve cleansed my soul of the stain of collaboration. The steel in my saddlebags will buy me a small homestead, and there I will live out my remaining years. I shall till my own field,” he said, “and raise the food I eat.”

“You, sergeant? A farmer?” asked Raika ironically.

“It’s an honest life.”

He shook hands with Robien and wished the elf success. Robien managed a cryptic smile, saying, “Only one bounty has ever escaped me.”

“Amergin?” Howland said.

“He died in the battle,” Raika added unnecessarily.

“Yes. The Brotherhood of Quen will be very disappointed.”

The old soldier said, “Everyone needs one failure in their life. It keeps you humble.”

With a final wave, Robien galloped away. Following the lowest contour of the land, he soon disappeared in the distance.

“Farewell, old man,” Raika said. She put a strong hand behind his neck and pulled him roughly to her. She kissed him on his stubbled cheek.

“Farewell, sailor. I didn’t think we could do it, but we did.”

She wrapped the reins of her mount and the pack horse around her fist. Patting the bars of steel in her saddlebags, Raika said, “Next time you go recruiting, leave me out, will you? The pay was good, but the hours were terrible!”

She moved off at a stately walk, unwilling to tired her burdened animals. It took a long time for the Saifhumi woman to pass out of view, but Howland remained where he was until he was alone on the plain.

The setting sun stabbed at his eyes. Hitching the brim of his old felt hat down low, Howland started for home.