emphatically. 'It should keep everyone occupied for a time.'
Dawn's light had not yet touched the soft-ore pits of Klanath when the husky, broad-shouldered slave named Tap Tolec came awake to the tug of a hand at his shoulder. It was nearly pitch-dark in the great, reeking cell, but he knew the whisper at his ear. It was the Daergar, Vin the Shadow. Tap groaned and turned his head, trying to see. 'Vin?' he muttered. 'Is that you? Let go. I'm awake. What's the matter?'
'Look at this,' Vin whispered. He sounded urgent, excited.
'Look at what?' Tap grumped. 'My eyes aren't like yours. I have to have a little light to see.'
Impatiently, Vin grabbed the Theiwar's hand and thrust something into it. Even in the dark, Tap recognized the heft of a stout hammer. He sat up, exploring the tool with his fingers. 'You got it!' he whispered. 'How did you manage that?'
'I didn't manage,' Vin said. 'I just woke up and… well, see for yourself!'
Vin scuttled away from him, and Tap heard sounds like someone rummaging through a tool trove. Around them, other dwarves stirred and began to awaken. Nearby, someone-obviously another Daergar miner-muttered, 'Wow! Look at that!'
'What?' someone else whispered. ''What do you see?'
Then there was a quick series of rasping noises, accompanied by tiny flashes of dim light. Tinder glowed in a leathery palm, was breathed aflame, and those nearby saw Vin the Shadow raising a freshly lit candle. 'There,' he said. 'Now you can see. Look!'
Tap stared, his eyes going wide. All around him, other dwarven slaves rubbed sleepy eyes and gawked at what Vin indicated. On the floor of the cell, in a random cluster as though someone had just dumped it there, was a large pile of implements, and more and more gasps sounded as more and more slaves realized what they were seeing. Hammers and axes were there, steel-tipped javelins and gleaming swords, maces and daggers, goblin- fashioned crossbows with bales of deadly bolts, even a few elven-style bows of lacquered lemonwood and sheaths of fletched arrows. The candle's light danced on myriad deadly shapes and surfaces.
Behind the piled weapons, shadowed by the stack, were bits of armor of numerous kinds and designs, shields and chest-plates, various kinds of helmets, leather-slung caplets and braces-it looked as though someone had foraged hurriedly through a used-armor bazaar and picked up a little of everything. And farther back in the shadowed recess were bales and kegs. Vin gazed at these, and his large eyes went narrow. 'See the markings there,' he said. 'Those come from the mine master's stores.'
Vin's attention was on something else, though. Just in front of the pile of weapons, a small, shallow bowl of dark wood rested on the stone floor. He crept closer and looked into it. In the bowl was a bit of milky liquid that seemed to glow as he stared at it, a dim, greenish light. 'What's…' he began, then flinched as a voice came from the bowl-a quiet, musical voice.
'Arm yourselves,' the milky liquid said. 'Barricade the grating and fortify the cell. Break your chains and defend your gate at all costs. Arm yourselves and hold the cell… hold the cell…'
A thick-bearded dwarf peered into the bowl skeptically. He stirred the liquid, to no apparent effect. 'That's
Nearby, a gnarled dwarf with deep scars on his back and only one eye hoisted a sword and picked up a shield. 'To blazes with talking bowls,' he rasped. 'Let's get these chains off and go kill some slavers.'
A low thunder of approval began, then subsided quickly as they realized that their voices could carry to the guards outside.
'First things first,' a burly slave rasped quietly. 'Some of us can watch the gate, while the rest get free of their chains. Then when we're ready, we can…'
'Hold the cell,' the musical voice coming from the bowl repeated urgently. 'Beyond the cell lies death. Hold the cell.'
'Tarnish that,' someone snorted, a bit surprised to be talking to a bowl of what seemed to be milk. 'How long can we hole up in a cell with no way out? The humans wouldn't have to come in after us. They could just wait until we starve. Or bury us alive in here.'
'Hold the cell,' the voice repeated, flowing over them like music. 'Help is on the way. One comes who will lead you out. Arm yourselves, barricade the gate, and hold the cell…'
The greenish light dimmed, and the voice was gone. In the cavern cell now was only momentary silence and the flickering light of Vin's candle outlining the faces of hundreds of dwarves, some of them suspicious, all of them grim.
Suddenly there was other light-dim, dancing beams from lanterns beyond the cell grating-and the unmistakable sounds of human guards in the corridor beyond. Within, hundreds of dwarves listened in breathless silence.
The silence lasted only a moment. In the corridor a human voice said, 'Here, you two! Wake up! It's time for the… What's this?'
'They're dead,' another human voice said. 'Both of them. Their throats have been cut! Sound the alarm!'
Weapons rattled, a trumpet blared, and there was the sound of hurrying feet, distant but approaching.
As one, the dwarves in the cell crowded toward the gate. 'What nitwit killed the night guards?' Vin the Shadow rasped. 'Now they'll all be on us before we can gather our wits.'
'Maybe it was whoever brought all this stuff in here,' Tap Tolec suggested.
'Nobody 'brought' it here,' Vin said. 'It came by magic. That bowl proves that.'
'I never saw magic,' someone else said.
'I don't
Beyond the grated gate, a lamp was raised. Its light danced through the bars, a moving pattern on the solid mass of dwarves crowding forward. A human voice shouted, 'Here, you dinks! Get back there. Get away from this gate!'
'Nobody in here killed the guards,' Tap Tolec told Vin the Shadow. 'See, the bar is in place. The gate is still locked.'
Those in the fore continued to crowd toward the grating, curious and pressed by those behind them. Beyond the grate, the human shouted again, and a spear flicked through the bars, threatening the mob inside. But before its tip could reach anyone, a muscular hand grasped the shaft, and a short, stout arm lifted and pulled. The human beyond was jerked up against the grating, and froze there as a sword flashed through the bars, skewering him from belly to brisket. The man screamed, hung for a moment where he was, then dropped to the stone floor as the sword was withdrawn.
Within the cell, a dwarf-the one-eyed slave with the deep scars on his back-wiped his sword blade on his tunic and rasped, 'Thaf s one.'
Then the corridor was full of armed humans and bright lamps, and the dwarves in the cell backed away from the gate.
'Quick!' Vin the Shadow barked. 'Don't let them free that bar!'
Spears and narrow pikes licked through the grating of the portal, and human hands grasped the gate bar, starting to slide it aside. It moved only an inch before a hail of arrows and crossbow bolts from within the cell tore into the humans beyond. Men screamed, men fell, and men fled. Crazy shadows danced in the suddenly deserted corridor, where fallen lamps flickered on the floor.
'Well, that's that,' Tap Tolec breathed. 'But they'll be back. What do we do now?'
'Barricade the gate!' a dozen voices chimed.
'Break it down and attack the pits!' other voices shouted.
'Kill humans!' several suggested.
'Hold it!' someone roared. 'Whatever we do, we'd better all do it together. Who's in charge here?'
'Not me,' a dozen voices answered together.
'Well,' a querulous voice came from the crowd, 'somebody's got to take the lead. Who's it going to be?'
'Don't look at me,' the one-eyed dwarf snapped at several others around him. 'I can fight, but I'm no leader.'
'The Hylar!' Tap Tolec said, with sudden inspiration. 'Where's that Hylar? He can lead us!'
It took several minutes for all of them to realize that the Hylar, the one they knew only as Derkin, was no
