Stinking smoke runs in your eyes
Babbled cursing outward flies
Deepest quicksand underfoot
Where the dead must needs take root
Traditional Goblin Chant
Borand came around the base of the hill with Aurand, both dwarves straining and sweating as they carried the large bundles formed by their saddles and gear. The brothers hauled the loads to the lakeshore, where Darann and Konnar had just finished pulling the boat onto a flat section of stony beach.
“What about the ferr’ells?” she asked.
“We turned them loose,” Borand explained. “We’ll whistle for them if we come back here; with any luck, they’ll be within hearing range.”
“Good. But we won’t have room in the boat for the saddles,” the dwarfmaid declared. “Can you find a place to hide them here?”
“Sure, and we probably don’t need all of this food we have left. Dried trail bread and saltshrooms mostly. We can do better than that in the city, I’m thinkin’.”
“Well, let’s take what we can,” Darann said. She looked across the water at the brightly lit sprawl that was Axial. The six great towers, outlined in coolfyre, rose to the very summit of the world, proud symbols of Seer might. One-quarter of the city, low against the water and to the far right from where they stood, was conspicuously dark. That was the goblin ghetto, she knew. “If we have extra food, I know there’s one place in the city where it will be appreciated.”
“Right, of course,” Borand agreed.
She took her place in the stern, while the other three stowed their bundles in the center of the boat. The three males slid the boat into the shallows, hopping in one by one as the hull began to float. They took seats on the low benches. The brothers Houseguard each carried his weapon at the ready, while Konnor faced backward to man the oars. Darann held the tiller and tried to muster some sense of hopefulness.
In fact, she felt much better now that she had trusted companions. She allowed herself one moment of wistfulness-if Karkald was here, she would not have had even an iota of doubt-but then turned to the task before them.
“We can try to enter the city near the low quarter,” she said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Nayfal is having our house watched. He knows I got away and that you will be returning here eventually. And once we get close to shore, we can decide if we want to come ashore in the ghetto or land in the Fishers’ Quarter and come through the gates on foot. Then we have to find Hiyram and hope he can put us in touch with the pailslopper who has the proof about Lord Nayfal.”
“Right. And in the meantime, I think we should not let anyone else know we’re here,” Aurand agreed.
For an hour Konnor rowed them in silence. Darann studied the lights of the city, the coolfyre beacons blazing from the six towers, the ring of watch stations glittering close to the shore around Axial’s periphery. She remembered her first watch station, Karkald’s post of some four centuries earlier. It lay far from the city, so far across the water that Axial had been merely a bright spot on the horizon. The station had been a lonely place but very peaceful as well, though at the time she thought she hated it. Now, she would have given anything to be stranded alone somewhere with Karkald again.
Those outer stations were abandoned now, cold and dark in the distant reaches of the Darksea. The dwarves were looking inward these days, and she grimaced at the awareness of the cowardice that seemed to have taken over her nation, her people. She made a silent vow, in her father’s memory, to try and redeem that failing.
She wondered, then, about how she would find Hiyram. She had never approached the ghetto by water, though it seemed to her that this might be a safer route than trying to pass the guards posted at every gate into the rank goblin quarter. Looking at the beacons of the watchtowers, she saw the cones of white light play across the water, trying to pick a route that would take her up to the ghetto wharf without being detected.
As they made their way across the sea, the near shore vanished into the vast darkness of the First Circle, while the far shore gradually took on more detail, towers and streets and individual buildings outlined in eternal coolfyre. After another hour, Aurand took over the oars from Konnor, who moved to the seat just forward of Darann, as she steered them closer to the low, dark part of the city-the place the Seers had walled off to create the ghetto. It was eerily dark in there, though the wall itself and the offshore waters were constantly swept by those shifting beacons.
“Do you know where Hiyram lives?” asked the dwarven explorer, stretching his arms, rolling his shoulders to loosen the kinks brought on by his long stretch of rowing. She noticed for the first time that he was remarkably handsome, his eyes bright and cheery, his black beard neat and silky, even after several cycles in the wilderness. He had an easy smile, and she was glad that he was here.
“No, I don’t. But everyone in there seems to know him. I’ve gone into the place a number of times, taking them the few necessities I can gather, and as soon as I pass the gates, someone always seems to send for him. I think that will happen again, that he will find me as soon as we get there.”
Konnor was looking at her with a strangely emotional expression, his eyes wide and full of wonder. “You go in there by yourself? I mean, I had heard that you did, of course… but it seems… it seems so brave!”
“Brave?” She laughed, embarrassed. “Not compared to climbing around the edges of the world, going into Nightrock itself! No, I just do what small part I can to try to be useful, perhaps to resist the malady that seems to be dragging our whole people down.”
“Well, I think it’s really admirable. You know, you are quite a woman-I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone quite like you.”
She was suddenly uncomfortable with his words, his direct stare-even if it was affectionate and admiring. It had been long since a male had talked to her like this, and she couldn’t help a sense of guilt, a feeling that to accept his affection would somehow be unfaithful to her long-dead husband.
“You miss him still,” he said gently. “Don’t you?”
She chuckled wryly, surprised-and not displeased-that he had perceived her care so readily. “I know that I will, always,” she replied, remembering. Karkald could be gruff and impetuous, and his manners were poor at best. But he was kind, and he had loved her very much. Darann felt a lump in her throat as she remembered his hands, so rough and callused, yet so perfectly gentle when they touched her.
Those thoughts, all of them, were instantly banished when she heard a stutter of sound borne through the still air: like distant screams. There was an unmistakeable crash, as of a steel blade coming into contact with something hard. The noise echoed, distant but sharp, lingering in her ears even after the sound itself had faded away. It was repeated, and again, quickly rising to a remote but ringing cacophony.
“What’s that?” Darann asked in sudden fear.
They could all hear the sounds, which were too faint to fully discern. They could have been caused by either celebration or fear. Intuitively, she suspected a sinister explanation. She heard something else gradually emerging from the stillness: a rumbling beat coming from the city of Axial, from the lower flats along the null shore of the lake… from the goblin ghetto.
That was the measured cadence of armored troops on the march. Aurand rowed harder, pushing the boat through the water with palpable surges, leaving a visible wake behind them. Darann felt the lunge with each stroke, silently willing her brother to even greater speed.
“What do you think is happening?” Konnor asked as the boat cut swiftly through the eternally placid waters of the sea.
“It can only mean one thing,” Darann said grimly. “Nayfal has given orders to the city guard, and they’re moving against the goblins.”
“Surely it hasn’t come to that!” Borand protested.
“He’s convinced lots of people, maybe even the king himself, that the goblins will rise up and attack as soon as the Delvers move against us,” she replied. “I’m guessing that someone important-maybe just Nayfal, but who knows?-has decided to make a preemptive attack.”
“But they’ll be butchered!” Aurand protested. “The goblins won’t have a chance!”
