shouted conversation.
Basalt hung on for his life as they rocketed down the nar row, twisting road. He looked over at Hildy, saw her eyes locked on the horse and the route before them, her face fixed in an expression of fierce, teeth-gritting determination. He thought about the five harrns in the back of the wagon, and began to feel all confused again.
What should we do? They expect me to decide: but I'm no adventurer! I can't do this! Now that we are nearing our goal, the whole plan seems hare-brained. My foolhardy idea is risking the lives of six others, as well as my own!
Then Basalt remembered his Uncle Flint's words of inspi ration. Maybe together he and his comrades could meet these mountain dwarves and best them. They were seven young hill dwarves, all strong, all well-armed. He sneaked another look at the sun. If they were lucky, they would reach the derro in daylight — and gain a significant advan tage over their subterranean-dwelling cousins.
Dark pines grew to each side of the rutted track. They passed an occasional farm or forest cottage, inhabited by a few of the hill dwarves who had emigrated over the pass years before. Basalt and Hildy both examined every one of them closely for signs of derro, but saw none. As the length ening shadows of the trees stretched over the road, Basalt began to fear that he and his crew would be too late to find the derro before dark.
'I see something there!' Hildy whispered suddenly, point ing to a dirt track, deeply rutted, that branched off from the road. At the end of it, some fifty yards away, was a large, dark brown barn of heavy logs. The windowless structure had a large opening on one side, sheltered by an extending, overhanging portion of roof. Four heavy derro wagons, their iron-spoked wheels towering higher than any of the dwarves, stood in the yard. One black-armored derro, standing in the shade beside a wagon, squinted at them as they rolled by. None of the horses was around, and only the single derro was conspicuous, performing a listless circuit of the wagons, obviously bored.
'Stay down!' Basalt hissed to the dwarves in the back.
They drew even with the path. 'Go past,' Basalt muttered to
Hildy, his heart pounding. 'Let's not show we're unusually interested.'
Without missing a beat, the frawl urged the draft horse along. The small wagon rumbled past the track and was once again surrounded by dark, towering pines.
'Okay, stop here,' Basalt ordered after they had rolled several hundred yards beyond the muddy trail. Grayhoof lumbered off the road, pulling the wagon under the thick branches of several overhanging boughs. 'Everyone out!
Hurry — the sun's already dropping behind the trees.'
The six other hill dwarves piled out of the wagon, hefting their weapons and standing in the darkness beneath the trees. For a moment no one moved, and then Basalt realized that they were waiting for him to give the orders.
'Okay,' he offered, his voice a hoarse whisper. 'We've got to move quietly. We'll sneak through the woods until we get to the edge of their barn. Then we take them by surprise.'
Holding their axes and daggers firmly, the hill dwarves advanced in a file through the woods to the left of the barn,
Basalt leading the way to the clearing.
Suddenly Basalt squatted. His companions followed suit.
'There's still just the one guard, so the others must be in side,' Basalt whispered. 'And the horses. 111 get the guard quietly. As soon as I do, rush the barn.'
The others nodded acceptance of his plan, and Basalt flushed when Hildy kissed him quickly on his freckled cheek. 'For good luck,' she said.
He crawled forward until he crouched among the last branches of the pine trees before the clearing, watching the listless derro perform his circuit. Finally, the fellow turned away from Basalt, stepping around one of the wagons and disappearing from his sight.
Instantly Basalt started forward, trying to run in a crouch. He winced with each footfall, but soon reached the wagon where he had last seen the guard. Clenching his axe in both hands, he looked toward the barn. No alarm, yet.
No sunlight reached the floor of the clearing, but the sky overhead was still bright. He hoped that would be enough to impair the derro.
Resolutely, Basalt stepped around the corner of the wagon. Before him, with his back to the hill dwarf, was the derro, not ten feet away. Basalt tried to creep soundlessly, but his foot made an audible thunk as he lowered it into a muddy patch of ground.
The derro whirled in surprise. Basalt saw the fellow's wide eyes blink in confusion, and then the mountain dwarf squinted. 'Eh?' the Theiwar began. 'Is it time, already?' In the bright light he mistook Basalt for one of his own com rades.
'It's time,' grunted Basalt. Suddenly all the tragedy, all the frustrations and humiliations inflicted by the mountain dwarves, was focused onto this derro in front of him. Ba salt's silver-bladed axe flew forward, biting into the side of the unsuspecting Theiwar's neck. Soundlessly the dwarf dropped to the ground.
For a moment Basalt froze, listening and thinking. He tried to detect some kind of revulsion or horror in himself.
He had never killed anyone before; shouldn't he feel some remorse? Yet the slaying of the derro seemed like any other task, difficult and dangerous perhaps, but very necessary.
'That was for Moldoon,' he whispered to the corpse.
Then he stepped back around the wagon and gestured to the others.
The six hill dwarves rushed from their concealment. Ba salt leaped forward to join them, and the whole band charged through the gaping door into the darkness of the barn.
Their eyes struggled to adjust to the sudden change in lighting. They heard the mountain dwarves cursing, smelled the presence of the heavy draft horses.
Basalt could see several derro, who had been squatting around a low cookfire, leap to their feet and snatch up weapons. Several others were still wrapped in bedrolls.
Now they struggled awkwardly to escape, taken unawares.
Basalt cracked his axe down, hard, against the parry of a derro's short sword. The mountain dwarf staggered back, thrown off balance. Basalt swung again and again, driving him farther back. He attacked with a reckless savagery that surprised even himself.
This Theiwar wore metal armor and used his blade with skill, striking past one of the hill dwarf's blows to scrape Ba salt's leg. But his experience was no match for the hill dwarf's savage onslaught, and in another step the mountain dwarf backed into the wall of the barn.
The derro lunged once more, a desperate stab at Basalt's heart. The hill dwarf skipped nimbly out of the way, and the enemy had no parry for his next blow. The battle-axe sliced into the derro's forehead, driving deep into his brain.
Soundlessly, the mountain dwarf toppled forward.
Basalt wrenched his weapon free, whirling to look around the barn. Several other derro lay motionless, and one of the hill dwarves writhed in pain, sprawled on the ground. He saw Hildy driving her heavy sword at another derro, and Basalt sprinted toward her. She ran the fellow through without any of his help, however.
The Theiwar. who had finally struggled out of their bed rolls wasted no time in fleeing from the barn, casting fright ened backward glances at the hill dwarves. In moments they disappeared into the surrounding forest.
'Let 'em go,' Basalt advised when Turq and Horld started after. 'We've got the weapons we came for.'
Hildy knelt beside Drauf, the wounded young harrn. A chubby lad, he had been cut in the thigh, but the blade had not touched bone. Hildy bound the wound and stopped the bleeding, making Drauf more comfortable. 'I'll be okay,' he muttered, sitting up weakly.
'Good,' Basalt said, clapping him on the back. 'Let's be gone from this hole and get back on the road to Hillhome, then. There should be enough moonlight to guide us, but we can stop along the way if we must. We'll take the two wag ons that have weapons in 'em. Turq and Horld, go look un derneath the boxes.' He described the
