“We don’t always have to go looking for trouble,” Miya said, looking somewhat longingly at the western path.
Kiya spat on a stone. Her spittle froze even as she was speaking. “It would be dishonorable to ignore those in distress,” she said, giving her sister a narrow-eyed look. Miya glared right back.
“Warriors of the empire must defend its citizens.” Frez’s words caused Miya to sigh. Appeals to duty were irresistible to Tol. There was no question now which way they’d be going.
They mounted, and with Tol leading, entered the southwest passage. The going was steep, but the rock was weathered and eroded, the ruts and grooves providing better footing for the horses than they’d had for days.
As the little band wound through the ravine, the sounds of conflict waxed and waned. At times they heard nothing, then they’d round a curve and the noise became so distinct they could almost make out voices. After another league passed, Kiya moved to Tol’s side.
“Let me go ahead.”
He nodded. Kiya dismounted, tossing her reins to Tol. She climbed the rocky slope on the north side of the ravine and disappeared among the boulders perched precariously on the mountainside.
A shrill, bleating note echoed through the canyons. It was not an Ergothian horn. The Harrow Sky hill country was rife with robber bands and small armies of marauders serving self-styled lords. The sounds could represent a battle between one petty princeling and another. If so, it was none of their business and Tol would withdraw with a clear conscience.
Kiya came back, moving quickly.
“It’s a caravan,” she said, panting in the thin air. “Ambushed!”
“How many brigands?” asked Tol.
“Forty or fifty, on foot. Humans, centaurs, and I think I saw an ogre among them. Their prey is a caravan of ten wagons. The caravan is drawn up in a ring around an outcropping of stone, but ten little men are too few to hold off the robbers.”
“Little men-you mean kender?” Tol asked.
Kiya shook her head. “No, stout little men-dwarves. They will not survive without help.”
Tol drew his saber. Miya sighed again.
“Cheer up, sister,” Kiya told her. “Exercise will warm your blood!” Miya muttered darkly.
They rode down the draw, pausing where the ravine opened onto a broader valley. Screened by trees, they surveyed the situation.
Ten large, ox-drawn wagons were circled around a broken spire of stone. Two of the wagons had been burned, and bodies littered the ground. The dwarves were putting up a valiant fight.
A roar of voices and the clatter of arms announced the return of the bandits. They were a motley crew, as Kiya had said, and forty-three in number, men mostly, and a handful of centaurs. A towering figure in rust-streaked armor stood on a ledge overlooking the battle. His remarkable size marked him as an ogre.
Tol explained his plan of attack. “We’ll let the robbers get deeply engaged with the dwarves again, then we’ll surprise them. Make as much noise as you can-whoop and shout like we’re five hundred instead of five.” To Kiya he said, “Put a few arrows in that big fellow, won’t you?” She promised she would.
After bellowing and brandishing their arms awhile to intimidate the defenders, the bandits rushed forward again. They attacked with no order, no discipline. Each robber ran screaming at the wagons, waving a sword, axe, or spear. Centaurs galloped in with a club in each hand.
The dwarves, bearing short swords and axes, appeared on the sides of their wagons. They were pitiably few.
Miya’s horse, a nimble black creature she’d named Pitch, stamped and snorted, catching its rider’s tense mood. Frez’s and Darpo’s mounts likewise shifted.
“Steady,” Tol said, Shadow standing placidly beneath him. The robbers were nearly to the wagons. “Steady.”
Blades clanged loudly in the crisp mountain air. Screams of pain shortly followed as sword, axe, spear, and club struck home. It was bloody business, shocking even to seasoned warriors like Tol and his men. They were professionals, accustomed to fighting other professionals. The fracas below was nothing more than a brutal melee.
A dwarf, impaled on a long spear, was hoisted off his feet and hurled in a wide arc by two men. Robbers, trying to climb aboard the wagons, fell back without arms or hands or heads.
Tol drew his sword. “Forward, at the gallop!”
They burst through the thin line of trees with a concerted shout of “Juramona!”
If their battle cry was lost in the noise of combat, the rumble of their horses’ hooves was not. Brigands furthest from the wagons faced about, uncertain what to do. Ambushing merchant caravans was their livelihood, but there was no profit in fighting Ergothian cavalry. Some bolted. By the time Tol’s people reached the fight, half the bandits had fled.
Tol aimed for the nearest, biggest foe, a centaur. He sabered the man-horse across the back, blade slashing through the creature’s fur vest. The centaur twisted his torso around and swung a huge spiked club at Tol’s face. Dodging, Tol thrust under the brawny centaur’s arm, piercing him in the ribs. Momentum carried Tol into the falling centaur, who collapsed under Shadow’s hooves.
Pivoting, Tol sabered left and right, wounding a bandit with every stroke. He knew that men who lived on the edge of life-vicious and violent as they were-feared mutilation worse than death; death in battle was usually quick, but a gravely injured man could suffer long agonies before finally succumbing. With deep sword cuts on their backs and shoulders, the thieves abandoned the fight and scrambled for safety. Frez would’ve ridden after them, but Tol called him back.
Miya whacked one fleeing robber on the head with her staff, stunning him. Seizing him by his dirty blond topknot, she dragged him across her saddle and brought him to Tol.
“Want a prize?” she said, grinning.
She let go of the man’s hair, and he fell to his knees. Tol presented his sword tip to the brigand’s face.
“Heed this, churl,” he said in his most menacing voice. “The army of Lord Tolandruth has claimed these mountains for Ergoth. Disperse, and your lives shall be spared. Continue to plunder, and every brigand caught in the hill country will be tied to a stake and burned alive.”
Miya chuckled appreciatively, brown eyes glittering, and her merriment unnerved the robber even more.
“Answer, do you understand?” Tol demanded. The fellow nodded furiously. “Then go-and spread the word!”
All the brigands who could run were fleeing now. The ogre, obviously the chief of this pack of wolves, never entered the fight. Tol drew his little band up between the ogre and the wagons, and waited for the frightened thief to deliver his message to the ogre chief. Cowering before his leader, he relayed Tol’s threat with suitable arm waving and eye-rolling. The ogre clashed his upper and lower tusks together and gave In inarticulate roar. He started down the ledge toward them, but Kiya put an arrow in the turf at his feet.
The hulking ogre halted and made an obscene gesture at the Dom-shu woman. Unperturbed, she fitted another arrow and drew her bowstring taut. The ogre clashed his tusks again, then stalked away after his vanishing followers. In moments the valley was peaceful again.
Eight haggard, blood-spattered dwarves emerged from the tethered wagons.
“The blessings of the Maker God on you all!” called a white-bearded dwarf. He wore a long brigandine studded with brass plates and carried a well-used battle-axe on his shoulder. “Tell me your names, strangers, so I may honor your memories for the rest of my days!”
Introductions were performed, with Tol naming himself simply as “Tol.” No need to clutter matters with titles and reputations.
“Men of Ergoth, are you not?” Tol said this was so, and the dwarf added, “I am Mundur Embermore, of the clan Hylar, and these are my retainers.”
“Hylar?” said Darpo. “The high clan of Thoradin? You’re a long way from home, Master Embermore.”
“Aye, ’tis true, and well I wish I were in the halls of the mountain king again!”
He explained that the dwarves had been sending out mining expeditions to different mountain regions, and they’d found rich diggings in the Harrow Sky range. Gold, and better still, iron.
“There are veins of red ore in these peaks that make the mines of Thoradin look like Aghar holes,” he
