Kier’s shoulders shook.
Torrin steered the boy away down the corridor, toward his room. “Don’t take it personally, Kier,” Torrin said to the boy. “Adults do strange things when babies are being born. Soon enough, your father will be laughing and happy, with a baby girl in either arm.” He waited. “Your sisters.”
Kier didn’t rise to the bait. He trudged along in front of Torrin, sniffing back tears. Torrin heard running footsteps, and pulled Kier aside as a Merciful Maiden hurried past them in her red robe and blue sash.
She didn’t return Torrin’s nod of greeting. She ran to the bedchamber, holding the holy dagger used to cut the cord that linked mother and newborn child. Her prayer had already begun. “Revered Mother, hear me,” she said. “Lend your blessing this night. Have mercy on the mother-to-be and her children…”
The door opened on screaming and Haldrin’s panicked shouts that the cleric do something and do it now. It closed again, muffling Ambril’s cries.
Torrin guided Kier into his room and closed the door behind them. Like the rest of the rooms in the clanhold, the bedroom was small, barely big enough for a bed and a small chest of drawers. The floor was covered with toys. A small army of cast-lead dwarf warriors lay strewn in front of three paint-scuffed wooden dragons. Chipped glass “gemstones” lay beside a brightly painted wooden chest, and a toy drum and bell-shaker were near the door.
Torrin stepped carefully over an articulated toy dragon with a clockwork mechanism in its belly and sat with Kier on the bed. The blankets, he saw, had been mounded over Kier’s imitation Delver’s pack, to make it look as though the boy were still in bed. Torrin pretended not to notice the fact that Kier had been out on another of his illicit late-night rambles. It was not the time for a reprimand.
“Show me your new dragon,” Torrin said, nodding at the toy on the floor. “What’s his name? Does he breathe fire?”
Kier snuffled back a tear and shook his head. “Lightning,” he said. He picked up the dragon and showed it to Torrin. “See? He’s blue, not red.”
“Oh. I see that now.” Torrin’s mind, however, was on what was happening down the hall. Perhaps Ambril’s worrying hadn’t been all a flight of fancy. Perhaps she’d sensed quicksand, instead of bedrock, under her feet. If she didn’t survive the birthing…
Torrin heard the toy dragon’s wing creak, and realized he was gripping the toy too tightly. He passed the dragon back to Kier and whispered a prayer to Sharindlar, begging the goddess to intervene.
“What did you say?” Kier asked.
“Nothing,” Torrin demurred. “Just thinking out loud.” He picked up the wooden chest. “You’d better clean up, Kier,” he said. “When your mother comes to show off the babies, she’s going to step on your toys.” One of the fake gemstones rolled away from his hand. Torrin bent down to scoop it up, and spotted a pouch under the bed. He picked it up, intending to put the gemstone inside.
Kier bounded off the bed. “Don’t!” he cried. “I’ll do it, Uncle Torrin. I’ll pick them up!” He clumsily jerked the pouch out of Torrin’s hands. Something heavy fell out of it and landed with a thud on the floor: a bar of gold.
Kier looked as though he were about to cry as Torrin picked up the bar. Torrin didn’t need to ask where it had come from.
“Kier,” Torrin said. “I had a thought, just now. Perhaps the gods led you to that secret chamber in the earthmote. Maybe they knew your mother would need not just a blessing from the Merciful Maidens this night, but expensive healing potions afterward.”
Kier brightened immediately. “Do you think that’s enough to pay for them?” he asked.
“Of course,” Torrin replied, tousling Kier’s hair. “Your mother will have you to thank for her well-being, Kier.”
The boy beamed.
Torrin slipped the bar of gold back inside the pouch and rose to his feet. “Wait here,” he said. “I’m going to see how your mother is doing.”
Torrin slipped out and closed the door behind him. He hurried back to Ambril’s bedchamber. His pace quickened as he heard sobbing coming from behind the closed door. Worried, he knocked. No one answered. After knocking again unsuccessfully, he let himself in.
Ambril lay on the bed, pale and still. The smell of blood was even stronger, almost overwhelming. Blood dripped from the bed onto the floor. Torrin’s heart lurched. When Ambril moaned, he whispered his thanks to Sharindlar that she was still alive.
Mara held Ambril’s hand. She was the one who was crying. Sandor stood behind her, gripping her shoulders. He glanced at Torrin and grimly shook his head.
The Merciful Maiden bent over Ambril, praying softly. She held her hands over Ambril’s stomach, lacing her fingers together in a complicated pattern. The embossed silver disk that was her holy symbol swung slowly back and forth on its chain, like the pendulum of a clock winding down.
Haldrin sat on the ground, his back against one wall. He stared at the floor, his hands drooping between his knees. He didn’t even look up as Torrin entered.
Torrin approached the bed. As he drew closer, he saw a bloody knife on the floor. The Merciful Maiden had used it to performed a knife-birthing. The prayers she was using would knit Ambril’s stomach back together again, and ease the pain. The cleric’s face was pinched and pale. She had taken on most of Ambril’s pain during the cutting, something Sharindlar gave her clergy the strength to do.
Torrin suddenly realized what was missing: the sound of an infant’s cry. Two lumps lay on the bed, each wrapped in a bloodstained cloth. Neither was moving.
Mara caught his eye. “Dead!” she said in a strained voice. “Moradin has taken them both!”
Torrin halted as abruptly as if he’d been dashed with ice water. Then he remembered what everyone else seemed to have forgotten. The Merciful Maidens knew rituals that could raise the dead. The magical unguent needed for the ritual was terrifically expensive. Yet surely the gold bar in his hand would help cover the cost.
He stepped forward, trying to catch the Maiden’s eye. He held up the pouch. “This gold will pay for the unguent you need to resurrect these babes, and I’ll have more gold in short order. Thanks to the delves I’m planning, I should be able to raise several hundred Anvils, if not more…”
His voice trailed off as he realized the cleric wasn’t listening. Nor was anyone else. There should have been smiles and cries of relief. Instead, Mara whirled angrily on him.
“How dare you!” she cried. “Coming in here and bragging about your delves. Can’t you see it’s no use!”
“I…” Confused, Torrin turned to Sandor for an explanation.
Sandor stepped away from the bed and pulled Torrin aside. “They can’t be resurrected,” he said. He glanced back at Ambril and lowered his voice. “They’ve been dead too long. The Merciful Maiden says they’ve been dead for a tenday, maybe more.”
The Merciful Maiden finished her prayer. She touched Ambril’s head in a brief blessing and turned to the door.
Torrin hurried to her. “Merciful Maiden,” he said, “begging your pardon, but is there a chance you’re wrong about how long the babes have been dead?”
The cleric’s lips tightened. Her eyes were shadowed. “As I told the others, there’s nothing I can do.” She reached for the door.
Torrin caught her arm. He felt ridges under her sleeve, as if she were wearing chainmail beneath her robes. Strange. “Won’t you at least try?” he asked.
The cleric looked pointedly at her arm. Torrin hurriedly removed his hand.
“There is nothing I would like better than to save them,” she told him. “But… I can’t.”
She touched the disk that hung against her chest and turned briefly back to the bed. “May the gods bless this clanhold, and all in it,” she intoned. “A swift flight to the souls of the departed. May the gods greet them at Dwarfhome, where they will be forged anew.”
She left the room.
Torrin turned back to the others, still holding the pouch. “I don’t understand,” he said. “Sharindlar blessed this pregnancy-several times over. Ambril visited her temple every other day.”
“It’s the stoneplague,” Sandor said, his voice tense. “It’s here. In Eartheart.” His eyes fell to the bed. “That’s what killed them.”
Torrin felt as if he were going to be sick.
Ambril, still pale but healed, sat up suddenly. “My babies!” she wailed. “My babies!” She clawed for the
