His eyes-pale, luminous, and staring-peered through a narrow slit in the robe that covered his face. He moved with utter silence, testing each handhold and foothold as he crept upward through an angling shaft. For many hours he had passed through the inky darkness, and now as he drew near to his destination, he would make no mistake, nothing that would yield a telltale sound or sign of his presence.
The shaft turned at right angles so that it ran horizontally, but even here the cloaked dwarf moved with painstaking care. Placing one knee after the other, one careful handhold at a time, he crawled forward. Eventually he drew near an iron grate that allowed air, smoke, and sound to waft into the stone-walled duct. He heard sounds of laughter and argument, the boasts, insults, and curses that were the hallmark of any Daergar gathering. Once those noises swelled into angry shouts and the masked intruder stiffened, wondering if he had missed his chance. But the bitter words settled into murmurs again, and apparently no blows were exchanged.
Finally he reached the grate. Ever so slowly he extended the top of his head over the opening, giving himself a view into the chamber below. The room was utterly dark, but the Daergar's eyes were keen enough to penetrate that murk.
About a hundred dark dwarves were crowded into the room. The smells of sweat, ale, and vomit were thick in the air, clear indication that the festivities had been going on for a long time. Most of the crowd was male, though the watcher could see a few females working and playing among the dark dwarf warriors. The observer took his time, scanning the sea of Daergar in the crowded banquet hall until he found the one that he sought.
Khark Huntrack was the strong, sturdy dwarf, seated amid a ring of burly bodyguards. Additional guards stood at the two doors that gave access to this chamber, and these barriers were closed, locked and solidly barred. A sharp rapping came from one of those portals, which was opened a crack by guards holding drawn swords. They left an aperture just wide enough to let a few more dark dwarf wenches slip into the room. Each of these was frisked with some enthusiasm by one or another of the guards, and only when it had been determined that none of them were armed were the bawdy females allowed to enter and mingle with the celebrating Daergar warriors.
Another keg was tapped with a loud hammer blow, and pitchers were filled from the foaming outflow. Khark Huntrack himself took a big swig from one of the first mugs, wiping the back of his hand across the froth on his beard. He uttered a loud belch that was greeted with applause, but the surreptitious observer knew Khark wouldn't be caught drunk. His bodyguards, too, were sober.
Grinning behind the gauze of his face mask, the watcher wriggled around in the ventilation tunnel until he could reach the frame of his crossbow. He assembled the weapon and tightened the mighty spring with silent, practiced movements, all the while keeping his eyes on the gathering in the room below. At last he removed a steel-shafted dart from his small quiver, laying the missile into the groove atop his small but powerful bow.
Only then did he pull the gauze from his face. He settled the weapon onto the edge of the grate and took his time, drawing a careful bead on his target. When he was absolutely certain that he had a clean field of fire, he removed a tiny vial from a pocket at his shoulder. Uncapping the bottle, he smeared a dark, oily substance on the arrowhead.
He took aim again, exhaling slowly as he felt the sweet tension in the spring and pressed the smooth wood of the stock against his cheek. His finger seemed a piece of the weapon, melding itself to the trigger, slowly applying tension. Never blinking, he studied his target with those luminous eyes.
Khark Huntrack took a long pull from his mug, leaning his head far back to drain the last drops. His eyes, shrewd and slitted, met the stare of the figure perched at the ceiling grate and widened in surprise.
The chunk of the crossbow's release was a sound that cut through the boisterous crowd in the hall. The missile flew downward, missing the mug and Khark's upraised arm, vanishing into the nest of tangled curls that was the Daergar's beard. The dark dwarf tumbled backward, his chair smashing onto the floor, and Khark's lips worked desperately, struggling to make a sound, perhaps to utter a curse or a prayer.
The room had fallen into a stunned, shocked silence.
'Poison!' hissed one bodyguard, leaping to his feet and snatching up his master's drained mug.
But another of the guards was more astute. He knelt beside the stiffening corpse, touching the shaft of the missile that jutted upward from the nest of the messy beard.
'No,' said the second dark dwarf, eyes swinging upward to regard the ceiling grate. There was no sign of the assassin, but the Daergar pointed upward with certainty.
'Slickblade,' he said.
At the word all the Daergar in the room gasped in horror and, in unison, backed away from Khark Huntrack's lifeless body.
Chapter Four
The World of Tarn Bellowgranite
The young dwarf swaggered along the waterfront of Hybardin, gratified as the thronging Hylar parted before him. Let them stand aside, he thought with private scorn. Let them wonder who I am.
The reaction was welcome and not unfamiliar. As always, it provoked a sense of his own uniqueness, a powerful and arrogant awareness. If a burly Hylar dockman had failed to step out of the way, Tarn Bellowgranite would have been quite ready to move the fellow with his fist. He found himself glaring at the crowd, looking for someone who might give him the satisfaction of a fight. But these Hylar seemed to have other matters on their minds, for no one took the trouble even to return his stare with a similar expression of belligerence. Instead, each dwarf lowered his — eyes as Tarn looked his way, or shifted himself to quickly study the dark waters of the lake. Some bent to inspect some particularly tempting bit of mushroom, bread, or meat offered by one of the dockside vendors.
Tarn should have been used to this by now, but on some deep and hidden level the attitude of the Hylar bothered him. Yet he was still one of them, in more ways than he was ready to count. His head was crowned with the golden hair, considered a mark of beauty among the Hylar, and even his beard was a straw yellow, unusually light. But his eyes were his mother's: large whites surrounding pupils of an abiding violet that darkened to purple when his thoughts were grim, as they were now. Those were eyes that could never be found in a Hylar's face, and Tarn knew that his habit of staring frankly at strangers was cause for great unease among the dwarves around him.
Let them be uneasy then.
He reached the chain ferry on time, and his mother arrived soon after, accompanied by several servants and a great cargo of crates, satchels, and bags. She nodded as she saw him, then turned to the business of ordering her luggage stowed. Only when that was arranged to her satisfaction did she turn back to her son.
'You're really going?' he asked her, still somehow surprised despite her message to that effect this morning.
'Of course, and I'll expect to see you soon,' she replied. 'There's room for you in the house, so plan to stay for a long time.'
'Yes, I'll come. I don't know when, just now, but I will.'
'Don't let your father bully you into staying away,' she warned, scowling so he knew she was serious.
'I won't,' Tarn responded, though privately he doubted that Baker Whitegranite could bully anyone-and certainly not his son.
'Good. Remember, you are half Daergar. Don't let this place of lights and gardens drive you mad. It just about did that to me.'
Tarn had been to his mother's homeland enough to know what she meant. Where the Hylar preferred flowing water, graceful architecture, and at least the minimal light provided by the sunshafts and their many small, smokeless lamps, Daerforge and its great sister city, Daerbardin were places of unrelieved darkness. Where the Hylar built for beauty, the Daergar built for strength. Great, blocky bulwarks marked the ends of the wharves there, and the buildings were ugly but practical, square of edge and thick of wall. The wide streets of the Daergar city were straight, unadorned by gardens or fountains; such amenities were recognized as a waste of space by the ever practical dark dwarves. Instead, they had avenues along which entire armies could quickly be moved from one side of the city to another.
