The Survivors

CHAPTER 2

The Ironroot city council boasted thirty members, elected from the various districts in the city. Each had a seat on a raised ring that ran around the outer edge of the circular audience chamber. Thanks to the wealth and importance of the Mattock Street district, Bradok’s seat was positioned just to the left of the podium where Mayor Arbuckle presided over the council’s business. The podium stood even higher than the councilors’ seats and had been carved from a solid piece of granite.

Each councilman had an ornate desk with a polished top of gray marble. An inkwell and a box of paper were provided for taking notes.

The center of the chamber was a vast open area with a tiled floor, so the councilors and the gallery above could see petitioners or orators as they spoke.

Bradok entered the chamber from the back, behind the raised ring. A narrow walkway, covered with a thick, padded carpet of crimson red, allowed the councilmen to access their seats without mixing with the crowd outside. Bradok ascended the stone steps, running his hand over the polished brass railing. A fat, high-back leather chair awaited him, and Bradok sank down slowly into it, listening to the leather creak.

He didn’t want to admit it, but it felt good-sitting there in a councilman’s seat. Maybe his mother was right; maybe there was something special about the power he was able to wield from that chair. He was a dwarf of influence.

Bradok pushed the thought away as soon as it lit on his consciousness. Looking up at the boxes above, he reasoned that if Sapphire was right about something, he probably didn’t want to know about it.

His eyes found the box where his mother sat. She had pulled the curtains aside and was looking down at him with a smile of anticipation on her face.

An hour later, Mayor Arbuckle climbed to the top of the massive stone podium and struck the gavel, calling the meeting to order. The gallery and the bulk of the private boxes had filled, and the constant drone of the assembled crowd could be heard. As Mayor Arbuckle welcomed everyone, Bradok’s eyes wandered over the gallery above the private boxes. There, a collection of tradesman and business owners had gathered, presumably to keep tabs on the council’s deliberations and how they might affect business in the city. But as he reached the end of the gallery, Bradok beheld a strange sight. On the far left sat the raggedy dwarf from the alley, still carrying his red-painted sign.

Repent lest the Gods forsake us.

Bradok smiled at the sight. Ironroot was a city, like any other. There were good folk and bad, places of legitimate business and brothels, artisans’ shops and gambling houses. Ironroot might have its share of wickedness, but Bradok reasoned that, all things considered, its people didn’t have any great cause to repent.

“… and I want you to join me in welcoming our newest member,” Arbuckle’s voice suddenly cut through Bradok’s wandering thoughts. “One of our most skilled and prominent citizens, Bradok Axeblade.”

He stood as polite applause broke out from the gallery and the other councilmen.

With the perfunctory matters dispensed with, the meeting settled down to real business. Several citizens approached with petitions of one kind or another. The council heard them and accepted or rejected them after modest debate. Bradok made his first votes-in a nervous, loud voice-much to Sapphire’s delight.

When the locals had been heard, the delegates from the hill dwarf city of Everguard were ushered into the hall. Like all their brethren, they stood a bit taller than their mountain dwarf cousins. Their clothes were coarse by comparison, designed for the harsher elements of the upper world and cut to be functional without the need of decoration. As they entered, two of their number pulled the covered handcart that Bradok had seen earlier with them.

The delegation consisted of ten dwarves, representing Everguard’s biggest industries. Once they had assembled in the center of the hall, their leader stepped forward and pulled back her hood.

Bradok’s wandering attention was immediately riveted. The burnished copper hair was unmistakable.

“My name is Rose Steelspar,” she said in a clear voice. “Daughter of Larin Steelspar, Burger of Everguard.”

“That’s like a mayor,” Much whispered from the table to Bradok’s right.

“I come to you in my father’s name and in good fellowship,” she went on. “As a token of that fellowship, I bring you a gift from the people of Everguard.”

The dwarves pulling the handcart brought it forward and removed the tarp. Underneath were dozens of baskets stuffed with fresh fruit-something very hard to come by in Ironroot. Quickly the dwarves with the handcart passed out baskets to all the councilmen. Bradok selected a large, golden pear for himself before he sent the rest of his basket up to Sapphire.

He was tempted to just sit there and enjoy the taste of the pear and the sight of the red-haired girl, but he forced himself to sit up straight and pay attention. As a representative of Ironroot, he resolved to listen to what the delegation had to say.

Try as he might, however, his attention kept wandering to their spokesperson’s pretty face, to the red hair and the dark eyes and the competent voice.

As best as he could figure out, Bradok gathered that Everguard would like to find ready markets for their grain, hay, cloth, and leather-things that Ironroot certainly needed. But even though Ironroot needed such goods, and even though Everguard needed ore and stone and metalwork, the council had put heavy tariffs on all those goods, which restricted their commerce. It made no sense to Bradok. Finally he leaned over and asked Much.

“We’re the only source for what they need and the only ready market nearby,” Much whispered. “We raise the prices of doing business here because there really isn’t anywhere else for them to go. They’re just a small town. They can’t afford to mount big trade missions.”

“So we take advantage of their misfortune to line the pockets of our tradesmen?” Bradok asked, genuinely shocked.

Much chuckled. “Of course not,” he said, as if such a thing could never be. “The excess from the tariff goes to the council.”

Bradok simply gaped as every petition the hill dwarf delegation brought up was rejected after a modicum of polite debate. While the farce went on, Much whispered in Bradok’s ear, explaining which council members were beholden to which concerns and what their respective cut of the tariffs might be.

“But wouldn’t there be more money to go around if the tariffs were reduced and the trade increased?” Bradok asked Much.

The little dwarf nodded with a helpless sort of a smile. “Of course,” he said. “But if we remove the restrictions, that eliminates our rake-off, and we can’t have that, now can we?”

Bradok had thought his father had been crooked, but the council was organized crookery. What he witnessed was corruption on a level Bradok could barely grasp. Mirshawn had owned brothels, drug palaces, and gambling halls, but he’d never forced anyone to frequent them. The city council, on the other hand, used the power of the law and the threat of arrest by the city guard to extort money from anyone who wanted to earn an honest living.

It made him sick.

He looked around the room at the figures behind the richly carved tables, vainly seeking a soulmate among his colleagues. Each wore fine, costly clothes with jeweled rings on their hands, gold clips on their beards, and silver buckles on their belts and boots. The dwarves of Ironroot trusted those men to rule wisely, to look out for the interests of the people and the city itself. Instead, the councilmen were busy lining their own pockets.

No wonder Mirshawn felt so comfortable here, he thought. It’s nothing more than a den of thieves.

Bradok considered saying something on behalf of the hill dwarves, but he dismissed the thought almost as soon as it came. Sapphire’s warning came back to him. If he took a stand, he would single himself out as an enemy of the council. Bradok had enough experience with wealth and power to know that would be distinctly unwise.

Finally, when Rose had exhausted all her arguments, she thanked the council for its time and led her dejected companions from the chamber. Bradok felt for them. He wanted to go after them and tell them that it wasn’t fair, but that wouldn’t change anything.

As the hill dwarves trudged away, a short, solidly built dwarf in rough leather garments entered. His hair had been combed to one side to cover a bald spot on top of his head, and his beard was braided and tied with a leather strap. Bradok recognized him but couldn’t quite remember his name. He was a dowser by profession, seeking gems, crystals, and glowstones in the deep tunnels below Ironroot. Bradok had bought stones from him and knew him to be an honest tradesman.

“Argus Deephammer to petition the council,” the scribe announced as the dwarf made his way to the center of the chamber.

“The council begs your pardon, Argus,” Arbuckle said from the podium. “It’s been a long morning, and I think we should take a short break before continuing.”

Argus nodded but made no move to surrender his ground, standing in the center of the round room.

All around Bradok, the councilmen were rising, making their way along their private walkway to the back of the building.

“Come on, lad,” Much said, climbing down from his bench. “The council has a fully stocked bar in our private room.”

Bradok shook his head. He hadn’t eaten anything but the pear all day, but after the past few hours of the session, he had a sour stomach.

“No,” he said. “I’d better wait for Mother.”

“Suit yourself, my boy,” Much said with a grin. “I, however, am going to need a belt to get me through the rest of the session.”

A few minutes later, Bradok’s mother materialized.

“You did well today, son,” she said with only the tiniest hint of mockery in her voice.

Bradok descended the stairs from the platform to the walkway, taking Sapphire’s arm. He walked her out of the building and into the mushroom garden outside. Despate the council’s being on a break, the garden was empty except for a mother on a bench by the wall, quietly nursing her baby.

“Did you see what they were doing in there?” Bradok whispered, unable to restrain himself. “Those tariffs make it harder for our own people to earn a living,” he spluttered. “Not to mention our cousins from Everguard. Why, they’d be able to grow into a good-sized community in a few years if our city council just got out of their way and let them trade freely.”

“And then what would happen?” Sapphire stared at him coldly. “Once Everguard got bigger, they’d start doing what they need for themselves. They wouldn’t need us anymore. Then we’d be the ones paying the tariffs and they’d be the ones collecting them. You are young in the ways of the world, my son, with much to learn.”

“Their spokesman was eloquent, I thought-”

“Oh, that woman you thought was so pretty?” she interrupted with a raised eyebrow. “Did you think I hadn’t noticed? I didn’t think you liked your women so … earthy.”

Bradok’s temper flashed.

“It’s not about her, damn it,” he said. “It’s about what she’s here representing: honor and fellowship and the brotherhood of the dwarves.”

Sapphire stifled a laugh and ran her eyes over Bradok with a calculating look.

“My son, you are still a boy who must learn the ways of men. A boy who is a fool,” she continued after a brief silence. “In this world you either eat or are eaten. It is the strong that rule and the weak that submit, that is the way it has always been.” She stepped close and raised her lips to his ear.

“You may think it is the people who rule Ironroot,” she whispered, her voice barely audible. “That is a boy’s wishful idea. It is the men who sit in this room who rule. It is they who make the laws, decide the taxes and tariffs. They can let a murderer free from prison or condemn an innocent man to death.”

“The people wouldn’t stand for that,” Bradok said simply.

“The people wouldn’t lift a finger,” Sapphire said smugly. “They fear lawlessness. They crave the safety of a strong government and are willing to sacrifice the occasional principle to have it.”

“That’s monstrous,” Bradok said, teeth clenched to keep from screaming. “I don’t believe things are that simple.”

Sapphire laughed, loudly and with genuine mirth, as if she’d just been told an amusing story. “Yes, the world is monstrous, Bradok,” she said, touching his cheek with a strange mixture of sympathy and contempt in her expression. “And we must make our place in it any way we can. I hope you see that now. This day’s lesson has been a good one.”

Bradok wanted to answer her, but he couldn’t find the right words. Quite apart from the outrage of his offended morals, he couldn’t help wondering if Sapphire was right: The strong rule.

“You’d better head back,” she announced brusquely. “I imagine the council will be meeting deep into the day. I’ve nearly had my fill and will slip away soon. Try not to wake me with your usual ruckus if you come home late; you know how light a sleeper I am.” She started to turn but stopped to regard him with an appraising glance.

“You did tolerably well this morning,” she said. “If you continue like this, you might just make something of yourself.” She sighed, her appraising eye turning hard. “Too much to hope for, I suppose,” she said.

Bradok escorted his mother back to her booth then returned to his seat. He poured himself a glass of water from the provided pitcher, downed it, then poured another. He’d always been an honest man, a businessman who dealt fairly and gave value for value. He’d believed that the rest of the world could be that way too.

After today he didn’t know what he believed.

Sapphire could do that to him. His mother had a way of twisting his insides in a way that the meanest bouncer in the lowest tavern couldn’t match. He felt as if he’d gone a few rounds with that tavern bouncer and lost. He needed to sit and think if he wanted any chance to untangle Sapphire’s mental knots.

Half an hour later, growing commotion in the chamber hall brought Bradok back to himself.

He hadn’t noticed Argus Deephammer, still standing in the center of the chamber, stoically awaiting his turn to speak. Bradok wondered what possible business the dowser could have with the council and why his usually affable face seemed so grim and determined. Before he could give it much thought, Mayor Arbuckle banged the gavel for quiet.

“Welcome back,” he said once the noise level had dropped. “We appreciate your waiting, Argus. Now what business brings you here?”

“I come before the council today on a most serious matter,” Deephammer said, his voice booming off the stone walls and echoing throughout the chamber. “Two days ago I was in the deep tunnels when I heard a voice calling to me,” he continued gravely. “I followed the sound of this voice, and it led me down into the bowels of the world, into caves where I had never before been. Then, in the lowest cave, I found a moonwell.”

An audible gasp ran around the chamber. To the faithful, moonwells were sacred places, blessed by Reorx himself. Bradok knew them to be pools or springs where the water was so rich with dissolved minerals that it glowed a pale silvery light. In any case, moonwells were rare and their water highly prized as a curative.

“When I found the well,” Argus went on, his eyes flashing around the room to make sure everyone was listening, “I could still hear the whispered voice, but I could not make out the words it spoke. I sat and drank from the fountain and, as soon as that blessed water touched my lips, the voice was made clear to me.

“I heard the voice of Reorx himself,” Argus declared, raising his voice even louder, with no hesitation or sign that his statement was in any way out of the ordinary. “He showed me the sins of Ironroot, the wickedness that breeds here like rats in a sewer. He bade me come here, to you, and deliver this message: Repent of your evils and turn again unto your God, or this great city of Ironroot will be utterly destroyed.”

At that last statement, a roar erupted around the room. Some were shouting that Argus was right, while others expressed outrage at such a threat. The councilmen around the ring were shouting, demanding that Argus explain himself. Mayor Arbuckle hammered on the podium for silence, which he did not receive for a full five minutes.

“What is the meaning of this?” Arbuckle demanded. “How dare you come before this august body with your childish fantasies and presume to pass judgment on us?”

As Bradok watched, Arbuckle seemed to be swelling like a toad, his face a mask of puffy red blotches.

“We are not weak-minded fools,” the mayor shouted at the dowser. “We are men of the world, and we have seen the magics of the humans and the elves. What are your precious priests but a bunch of charlatans, using their magic to manufacture gods who never did exist-all so they might have power over us?

“And now you come here,” Arbuckle continued. “Now you demand that we turn from our learning and our wisdom and go back to the foolish traditions of our ancestors. Repent! Repent for what?”

“Then you will be destroyed,” Argus said, his voice softening but somehow carrying to the farthest corners of the room. “Next month, both the moons will be new in the sky together,” he said. “I have done my part. I have warned you. You have till then.”

“Says you,” a councilman called from the far side of the room.

“So declares Reorx, your god,” Argus Deephammer replied. Bradok was amazed at how strong, how unbowed he seemed in the face of such hostility and anger.

Furious voices rose again only to be cut off by the sound of someone clapping slowly. All eyes in the room turned to a tall, slender dwarf with a forked beard sitting a few tables to Bradok’s right.

“An excellent performance, Argus,” the dwarf said, rising. He walked around in front of his desk and jumped down to the floor of the audience chamber. “It’s only a pity that there is no witness to your tale, no god that anyone has ever met or shook hands with named Reorx to make good on your threats.”

Bradok had never met the dwarf, but his reputation had preceded him. Jon Bladehook was the closest thing the local secularists had to a leader. Bladehook had traveled extensively in his business as a merchant and had grown both cynical and rich. Bradok sat up straight, like many others in the council, suddenly focused on the showdown between the believer and the secularist.

“You say that we will be destroyed in a little over a month if we don’t do as you say?” Bladehook asked.

“I have no commands to give,” Argus said simply. “If you wish to know what Reorx requires of you, go to his priests.”

“But if we don’t, we’ll be destroyed,” Bladehook pressed.

“So says Reorx,” Argus reiterated. “Not I.”

Bladehook nodded sagely then turned to his fellow councilmen. “I wonder, brothers,” he said. “What will happen if Ironroot does not heed the warnings of this mad dwarf?” He indicated Argus. “Surely a being as wrathful and powerful as Reorx would give the dwarves of Ironroot signs of his power before the deadline passes: a small disaster or poison air or a sickness perhaps? Have we detected any sign yet … other than this ugly warning?”

Murmurs of assent rippled around the chamber.

“Then I say we arrest this dwarf,” Bladehook shouted suddenly, fiercely pointing his finger at the surprised Argus.

“On what charge?” someone called from the gallery.

“He has threatened this council and the people of Ironroot,” Bladehook said. “And surely he has confederates, dwarves who are poised to provide these ‘signs’ of Reorx’s power should we refuse to believe their messenger. They, too, threaten the city and her people.”

“By thunder, he’s right,” Arbuckle yelled, pounding the lectern with his gavel. “Guards, arrest him.”

Two soldiers rushed forward and took hold of Argus Deephammer’s arms. For his part, Argus made no attempt to resist them.

Shouts of approval and a few scattered cheers erupted in the chamber. Bradok didn’t hear any of it. He felt sick. The actions of the council were wrong. They had been wrong all day. He knew Argus, knew the man was good and honest. Perhaps he had fallen asleep and merely dreamed the voice of Reorx in the deep tunnels, where he found the moonwell. But Argus himself posed no real danger to the town.

He wanted to object, to stand and speak on Argus’s behalf, but one look at the sputtering, angry faces around the hall told him what kind of response that would receive. And glancing up, he remembered his mother’s warning: don’t speak against the consensus and never unless called upon. He could well see that all his fellow councilmen were in agreement with Arbuckle.

“And what of his confederates?” Bladehook asked, climbing back up to his seat. “Who are they? Let us ferret them out.”

“Good idea, Jon,” Mayor Arbuckle said before turning to the guardsmen who had arrested Argus.

“Take him to prison,” the mayor declared, “then go to his house and arrest his family, his close friends too. We’ll cut out this zealotry before it has a chance to cause chaos and rebellion in our city.”

Suddenly, without thinking, Bradok found himself rising to his feet. He stood so quickly and so forcefully, he knocked his chair over backward. The chair rolled down the steps of the platform and into the outer walkway, clattering loudly as it went. All eyes in the hall turned to stare in surprise at the new councilman. Truth be told, he was as shocked as they to find himself on his feet, and didn’t have the slightest idea of what he was about to say.

A deafening silence followed, broken only by the nervous cough from someone on the far side of the hall. Bradok opened his mouth to speak, but at first nothing came out. He knew he mustn’t say the words his conscience screamed out in the dark recesses of his mind. He ought to be diplomatic. Yet he could think of nothing diplomatic or anything else to say. His mind was a blank.

“Ahem. Yes. All right, the chair recognizes Councilman Axeblade,” Arbuckle said, his genial, affable voice back.

“Brothers, councilmen,” Bradok began haltingly, his mind frantically scrambling. “Before we allow ourselves to, uh, get carried away, perhaps we should slow down and think. Arresting Argus might seem prudent as a temporary measure, but what will people think if we arrest his family?”

He paused to let that question sink in before stumbling on. “They’ll wonder if their council are a bunch of weaklings, fearing women and children.”

Several people in the gallery laughed nervously and the councilmen exchanged looks.

“And what will those people do if they see us as weak?” Bradok said, remembering his mother’s own words from that morning. “You and I both know that if they see us as weak, they might decide they don’t need us making their decisions for them.”

The silence that followed his words stretched out for a long time.

“Thank you, Bradok,” Mayor Arbuckle finally replied in a small voice. “Your words speak prudence and a wisdom beyond your years.” He cast his eyes around the chamber at the other councilmen. “Surely there must be some other way to find this dwarf’s confederates, ways that won’t rile the populace.”

“You can silence me,” Argus interjected, his voice still loud and confident, “but others will come in my stead until it is too late.”

“Enough of this,” Mayor Arbuckle said, waving at the guards. “Take him away.”

Argus Deephammer went without a struggle. Bradok watched him go, keeping his emotions under tight control. He couldn’t save Argus, but at least Bradok had spared his family from rotting in prison with him.

Two pages had picked up Bradok’s chair and returned it to the platform. As Bradok returned to his seat, he cast a sideways glance at Jon Bladehook. To his surprise, the secularist leader was glaring back at him with undisguised animosity. Blade-hook had clearly intended Argus’s arrest to be the first, but not the last among the believers. That plan had been thwarted by some upstart newcomer.

Bradok felt certain he’d made a powerful and dangerous enemy.