10
Running in the Dark
Shadows whisper
Darkness breathes,
Pulses quicken,
Mem’ry grieves
Song of the Darkdweller
The dwarfmaid walked the street next to the ghetto wall because it was the shortest route between her work-place, the low city fish market where she earned enough in gold coins to keep herself alive. Long ago her walk had taken her through the goblin neighborhood; often she would stop in a tavern there or pick up some cookshrooms at the bustling market. Since the wall had gone up, forty years earlier, her walk had gotten longer and more dull.
But she did it because it was her job, and dwarves were nothing if not dedicated to their labor. Now she was just in a hurry, hungry and tired, anxious to return to her home.
She would never get there.
The liquid came from above, a sloshing spill that caught her ear just in time to cause her to raise her face. The oil struck her in the eyes first, searing away her flesh with the burning strength of its heat. She opened her mouth to scream, and it poured down her throat. Before she could make any sound, she was dead. Her body was cruelly burned, her passable beauty mutilated even beyond recognition, for she had been murdered in the foulest fashion that anyone could have devised.
“T HE goblins seek to terrorize our population!” Nayfal insisted passionately, though he kept his tone low, as befitted a conversation with the king. “This latest attack is simply the most gruesome evidence of the fact that we need to act!”
King Lightbringer closed his eyes and leaned his head against the back of his throne, looking very old to the agitated lord. He spoke without looking at Nayfal. “They killed this poor woman by pouring hot oil over her?”
“Indeed, sire. It is clear that our people are no longer safe in the vicinity of the ghetto. We must take action- drastic action!”
“Are you sure it was goblins?”
“Who else would it be?” the marshal retorted. Then he added, “Of course, I interviewed witnesses. Several of your own guardsmen were in position to see. They even chased the wretches, though the gobs were quick to get off the wall. They vanished into the ghetto. Sire, we must strike those impudent wretches at once!”
“You are right, of course,” replied the king. At last he opened his eyes and looked at Nayfal, his expression immeasurably sad. “Do what you must,” he commanded.
The ferr’ells came out of the darkness, slinking soundlessly around a massive pillar of rock. Long and low and sleekly furry, they looked like stronger, and much larger versions of the wyslet, to which they were vaguely related. The three steeds crept toward the dwarves, round ears alert, seeking signs of danger or familiarity. For several moments tension was apparent in every aspect of their quivering whiskers, staring eyes, taut posture. But then, satisfied, the creatures relaxed and trotted quickly toward them. Even so, they snapped jaws and uttered deep- throated growls as proof of the resentment still aroused by their lifelong domestication.
“This was faster than I expected,” Konnor acknowledged. An hour earlier he had blown upon his ultrahigh- pitched whistle. The three dwarves had waited with growing anxiety, hoping that the mounts they had turned out many intervals before had remained within audible distance.
The trio wasted no time in saddling the ferr’ells, which hissed and pranced restively. Immediately Borand’s, perhaps sensing its rider’s weakness, turned and snapped toothy jaws. The dwarf whacked the whiskered snout sharply with his leathered fist. Accepting his rider’s mastery, the beast lowered its head and allowed the saddling to proceed without interruption. The dwarves slung several saddlebags and stowed their remaining food, climbing equipment, extra weapons, and flamestone. Then they mounted and started the long journey back to the city.
For a full cycle, forty intervals of sunless time that would have been two score days and nights on Nayve or Earth, they rode toward the center, toward the remembered lights of Axial. A quarter of the way into the trip they found the long-abandoned camp of a massive army, broken weapons and discarded equipment covering a plain four miles across. They explored the area, found the track leading toward Arkan Pass, and deduced that this had been the bivouac of the mighty army that had fought the Seers in that ill-fated battle fifty years before.
“This was one of their last camps,” Borand guessed, kicking through a cracked stewpot within which the remnants of food had long turned to dust. “They marched to Arkan Pass and to disaster, lost to Nightrock just as our army was lost to Axial.”
“Which makes me think that the Delver city has been abandoned for that long, or nearly so,” Aurand mused. “All those years we Seers have been cowering in the city, locking up goblins, pulling back from our ancestral food warrens-in fear of an enemy who no longer exists!”
From there they crossed the Salt Plain in a stretch of unbroken gallop, lashing their ferr’ells into a frenzy of speed so that they could reach the centerward heights before the nightbats could gather. By the time the great, shrieking flock winged in pursuit, the dwarves, on lathered mounts, were racing up the limestone bluffs of Escarpment. The bats, for reasons as mysterious as they were consistent, refused to fly among the crags of the broken bluff, and the Seer scouts continued toward their home city at a more leisurely pace.
The implication of their discovery occupied their thoughts, and their conversation revolved around numerous speculations, hypotheses to explain the fabled city’s abandonment. They wondered if the Delvers had been destroyed at the same time as Axial’s army, a conclusion that seemed too good to be true-and too dangerous to assume. But now signs they’d seen over past decades of scouting the Underworld, memories of abandoned boatyards and silent mines, withered warrens and untracked pathways, began to make sense in a larger pattern.
Borand was also thinking about other things, and he made these known as they rode toward the last interval of their long journey.
“I’d suggest we say naught of our discovery at first,” he suggested to the younger dwarves. “Not till we’ve had a chance to speak to Rufus. So don’t be spilling your tales over a cold ale in the first tavern we visit. We need to do this carefully. If we can convince people that the Delvers are gone, it will change a lot of things about Axial.”
“For the better,” Aurand agreed.
“Wise counsel,” Konnor agreed. “The news will be embarrassing, at the least, to Lord Nayfal. It was he, after all, who gave impetus to so many of the measures taken since Arkan Pass.”
“Aye,” Aurand chimed in. “Measures to guard against the Delver menace he claimed was just beyond the next row of hills. I’d like to see the expression on his face when he learns the truth.”
“As would we all,” said Borand. “But again, let us be the ones who control when that lesson takes place. I’m sure Father will have some ideas. I have lots of questions about how we tell the king and make sure he believes us.”
The questions remained unanswered as, at last, they came into view of Axial’s lights. They were weary and saddle sore, and even the hardy ferr’ells were limping, hopping gingerly from foot to foot as they approached, in single file, the miles-long Null Causeway leading to the city.
Before they set foot on the crossing, however, Borand’s steed reared back, startled. A shape, cloaked in dark clothes, emerged from the ditch and took the ferr’ell’s bridle-an act of no small courage, especially as the animal started to rear and was pulled back down with a forceful yank. This was clearly someone who had worked with the fierce animals before.
Even so, Borand was startled to see that black veil pull away to reveal his sister’s face. “Stop right here, big
