the Council of Thanes!'
'He isn't requesting,' the Hylar said, still listening to the drums, interpreting their song. 'He doesn't ask for a meeting. He demands it.'
Throughout that day, and all of the next, sentinels on Sky's End and sentries on Cloudseeker watched as the throng of strangers approached, moving at the leisurely pace of the pack beasts among them. By the end of the second day, they had cleared the final ridges, with Cloud-seeker's north slopes directly ahead of them. The encampment they made there, along an icy little stream, was no more than three miles from the stepped slopes where the big mountain began.
By then, hundreds of seeing-tubes were trained on them, from the sentinel posts and from the walled ledge at the top of the great ramps that led to Northgate. The great oval gate was open, its impregnable plug retracted into the shadows behind its steel sheath, and a growing crowd of dwarves was gathered on the ledge, watching the intruders.
The strange drums were silent now. The strangers went about their chores, making camp for the night, and seemed to pointedly ignore all those on the mountain ahead who were gaping at them. Several times, drummers had come out of Thorbardin to signal, asking the strangers to identify themselves, asking where they were from and what they had that they wanted to trade, asking who was this Hammerhand who demanded access to the Council of Thanes. But there had been no response. It was as though the strangers had said all they had to say and were not interested in answering questions.
About sundown, Hylar guards appeared on the ledge, using their shields to clear a path through the crowd there. Behind them, two dwarves stepped from the great open portal, and walked to the wall to look down. If anyone could be said to be 'in charge' of Thorbardin in these troubled times, it was these two. Both were mature dwarves, in their middle years, and both were hardened by the burden they carried. Of all the various chieftains, wardens, bosses, and gang leaders who came and went throughout the vast, subterranean realm of the mountain dwarves, it had fallen to Dunbarth Ironthumb and Jeron Redleather to keep Thorbardin functioning despite the explosive feuds and myriad hostilities within.
Jeron Redleather, chieftain of Thane Daewar and senior member of the Council of Thanes, was a burly, bright-eyed dwarf. The elaborate gold inlays of his helmet and breastplate reflected the gold of his flowing hair and full beard, and both the exquisite faceted stone set in his helm, just above his bushy brows, and the rich blue of his flowing cloak reflected the color of his eyes. Ruddy cheeks and a round pug nose gave him the appearance of constant, secret laughter, and the rich gaudiness of his attire might have seemed to indicate a strutting vanity. Like most Daewar, Jeron Redleather enjoyed bright color and rich attire to the point of seeming-to dwarves of other thanes-pompous and a bit preposterous, but was actually nothing of the sort. Jeron Redleather could be jovial on occasion, and might strut a bit now and then, but those who knew him-friend and foe alike-were well aware he could be as tough and rigid as the very stone of Thorbardin.
His companion, Dunbarth Ironthumb, was every inch the Hylar chieftain, though he had refused for years to be chieftain of his thane. To be chieftain, he felt, would oblige him to take part in the various feuds that kept erupting in Thorbardin, and he had no interest in feuds. Of all the tribes, or thanes, only the Hylar had managed over the years to avoid the constant conflicts under the mountain, though even Harl Thnistweight, the last Hylar chieftain, had been hard pressed to remain aloof when all about him were at one another's throats.
Harl Thrustweight was a legendary name among the Hylar. He had maintained and enforced the 'Hylar Peace' among the thanes until his untimely death in a mysterious rockfall near the Theiwar city of Theibardin. Although nothing was ever proven, it was suspected that the rockfall was no accident, and a band of Theiwar led by the schemer Than-Kar had left Thorbardin soon after, never to return.
Harl Thrustweight had been the last chieftain of the Hylar, because Dunbarth Ironthumb refused to take the job, and his stubborn people refused to choose someone else. Thus the Hylar now had no chieftain. Dunbarth Ironthumb did, though, represent Thane Hylar on the Council of Thanes. And with the passing of time he had become its strongest member in many ways.
Between them, with or without the support of the rest of the council, the Daewar and the Hylar exercised enough wisdom and influence to keep Thorbardin functioning as a realm, and to keep the still simmering grudges and feuds among the thanes from erupting into any further outright civil wars.
Dour and thoughtful, the Hylar's dark eyes, dark hair, and short, backswept beard gave him an air of aloofness which was as misleading as the Daewar's appearance of careless joviality. Attired in his usual muted colors- leather kilt, dark leather boots, gray-brown jerkin, and gray cloak, his body armor, shield, and helm almost devoid of ornamentation-Dunbarth Ironthumb might have appeared cold and remote, uncaring of the tumults and turmoils of the dwarven realm he so influenced. Those who knew him, though, knew better. Not in all of Thorbardin, most agreed, was there anyone more dedicated to the welfare and perpetuity of the undermountain realm than Dunbarth Ironthumb.
Now the two leaders, the Daewar and the Hylar, looked out across the valley below the slopes, puzzled and worried. They had never heard of a dwarf called Hammer-hand, nor of any such formidable array of dwarves as was now spread along the little stream.
The leader had been described to them by sentinels who said he looked to be of Hylar origin, but no one recognized him or knew his name. And now, with the horde encamped a few hours' march from the ramps of North-gate, he was nowhere in sight. None of the hundreds of watchers had seen him since the night before, when the strangers were still fifteen or more miles away.
'Any ideas?' Dunbarth asked now, shielding his eyes against the last rays of sunset.
'They say they come to trade,' Jeron Redleather said. 'And those carts and pack beasts seem to carry goods. I think we should-' He stopped abruptly, turning half around, then shrugged. 'Odd,' he muttered. 'I thought someone brushed against me just then.'
'You were saying?' Dunbarth reminded.
'Oh, yes.' The Daewar turned again to the low wall. 'I think we should send traders to meet them tomorrow. If they have goods to trade, why not welcome them?'
'But the rest of it? That demand for a meeting with the council?'
'Oh, we won't do that, of course,' Jeron said. 'And we certainly won't let any of them inside Thorbardin. Not until we know a good deal more about them at any rate.'
'Then after the traders go out tomorrow, we'll close the gate and keep it closed,' Dunbarth concluded.
They gave orders to the guards nearby, then walked back through Northgate, through the gatehouse with its huge screw and driving mechanisms, through the old delves of Gatekeep and out along the catwalk that led from one end of Anvil's Echo to the other. All around them, alert eyes watched from murder holes, but they had no concern. The eyes were those of Dunbarth's elite home guard. Across Anvil's Echo and a few steps into the great tunnel that was the northern road to the central cities of Thorbardin, Dunbarth Ironthumb stopped suddenly and turned. A dozen yards back, his guard company halted, weapons at the ready.
For a moment, the Hylar leader looked around, then resumed his walk, striding alongside Jeron Redleather,
'What's the matter?' the Daewar asked. 'Why did you stop just then?'
'I don't know,' Dunbarth said. 'I had the feeling, for just a moment, that someone was following us. It seemed as though there was somebody walking right behind us.'
9
At break of dawn, thc fresh west wind whispering in the valleys and up the slopes of Cloudseeker had a smell of spring about it. Northgate of Thorbardin had been closed through the night, but now its great screw turned again and the huge, steel-clad stone plug that was the gate receded slowly into the gatehouse, letting the breeze and the morning light enter. Guards stepped out through the great portal, took up positions on the ledge and the ramps, and gazed curiously out across the valley below.
Cookfire smoke rose above the big encampment there, and there was movement everywhere as the
