destructive of those had destroyed the Bluestone Delving, and in that instant the clan had been reduced to a minor player in the nation’s power and politics.
For more than four hundred years, the Bluestones had struggled along, managing small mines, branching into trade and manufacturing, but never attaining a status that gave them a regular presence at court. Always they were plagued by ill fortune: a mine tapped into a submountain aquifer, drowning the workers and submerging a small treasure in silver ore; a marriage that had produced two impotent offspring, narrowing the line to Brandon’s father’s and one distant cousin’s families. One enterprising great uncle had thought to display a captured ogre for the edification of Garnet Thax’s citizenry and had been unlucky enough to use cast-iron brackets, rather than steel, to contain the beast. Although the only fatal casualty of the incident had been the uncle himself, it had been a spectacularly public example of House Bluestone’s ill-starred history.
Other newcomers, epitomized by the wealthy and ruthless Heelspur clan, had long eclipsed the Bluestones. A small smelting venture had practically bankrupted Brandon’s father, Garren Bluestone, when the Heelspurs had erected a larger and more modern factory on the same level of the undercity. With the claim that Brandon and Nailer Bluestone intended to file in the governor’s court, that long decline would be reversed.
“Do you think the new mine might be as rich as the Third Delve?” asked the younger brother, remembering the tales of the mine that had brought the Bluestone family its first epoch of glory, some seven hundred years earlier. Indeed, it had been a bedrock strata of sapphire-infused rock that had caused their ancestors to adopt Bluestone as the family name.
“How in Reorx’s name should I know?’ Nailer snapped. But then he paused to consider the question and shrugged. “Maybe. It just might be, you know!”
“Yes, I know!” Brandon exulted. “Just imagine it! We could start a whole new house!”
“And what’s wrong with the House of Bluestone?” demanded the elder, glowering.
“Well, nothing.” Brandon cheerfully waved away his brother’s concern. “I mean, I’m just talking. I don’t want to start a new house, anyway. Especially if this means that our luck is changing. But if we were that rich, we could!”
“And if I had wings, I could fly to the Lords of Doom,” Nailer retorted. “That doesn’t mean I would.”
“I would!” Brandon replied delightedly. “I mean, don’t you want to try some new things, go new places? Maybe places dwarves have never gone before?”
“My home under the mountain is all the place I’ll ever need. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll come to the same conclusion. You remember old Balric Bluestone, don’t you? How he just had to climb that mountain?”
“Sure I do.” It was a story that every scion of the Bluestone family learned as a lesson in youth. “And I always loved his sense of adventure. I mean, not too many dwarves set out to climb any mountains, much less Garnet Peak.”
“And he was the only one who happened to be doing it when the Cataclysm struck!” Nailer reminded his brother. “They never even found his body. Just his axe, the one you’re carrying right now. Now come on. Let’s get out of here. We’ve got a lot of work to do before this gets settled.”
“Should we go see father first when we get back to Garnet Thax?” Brandon wondered. Indeed, once he thought about it, winning approval from crusty old Garren Bluestone would bring him a flush of pleasure deeper, more significant, than any that could be aroused by the building of new houses or collection of gem-studded jewelry.
“I’d like to,” Nailer replied. “But I really think we should go right to court. Once the claim is recorded, there’ll be plenty of time for celebration.”
“Right,” Brandon agreed. “Let’s go to the palace first.”
Another ten minutes of climbing brought them to a narrow passage almost blocked by tumbled rocks. The gap forced them into single file, Nailer leading the way as he used his hands to pull himself up. At the top the passage became almost a chimney. “Here, take the lamp and hold it up for me,” the elder dwarf requested.
“Sure.” Brandon held the flickering lantern high, watching as his brother wedged himself into the chimney. After a few moments, the sturdy dwarf braced his hobnailed boots against the stone walls and started pushing himself up and through the crack connecting to the massive Zhaban Delving.
Above them sprawled an ancient network of mines that had produced silver, lead, and some gold for the wealthy Heelspur clan over the past six hundred years. Their access point was in a shaft that had been long abandoned-and, in fact, was vigorously avoided by sensible dwarves since there had been many unexplained and fatal encounters there over the years. The cave troll, the brothers knew, had been the reason behind the “hauntings,” and they were rightfully proud of the courage that had led them to challenge the beast and earn the spoils of their hard-fought victory.
At the top of the chimney, Nailer turned and reached a hand down. Brandon passed him the lantern, which he set on the floor at the edge of the gap, then reached down again to help Brandon up the last stretch. With a last kick and a pull from his brother’s strong arm, the second dwarf rose up from the gap and set his boots, once again, on a stone floor that was plotted and mapped in the official surveys of Kayolin.
For a moment the two dwarves stood, breathing heavily, resting for the long walk back to Garnet Thax, Kayolin’s great capital city.
Then the shadows moved.
Brandon opened his mouth to cry out a warning, but a black-cloaked figure behind his brother was already lunging, wielding a black steel blade. Nailer grunted, sounding surprised, and Brandon saw the blade emerge from his brother’s chest and felt drops of liquid spatter his face.
“Nailer!” the younger Bluestone shouted. He pulled his axe from its belt sling even as he caught the slumping dwarf and felt his brother’s warm blood soaking through his shirt.
Already there were more shadows moving, dark-cloaked dwarves attacking from his left, and he was forced to let Nailer fall while he defended himself, his axe clashing into a pair of thrusting blades, snapping one off at the hilt and deflecting the other.
The attackers were strangely silent, breathing harshly as they closed in. Brandon counted five of them and quickly dropped one, splitting his skull with an overhand blow. He parried attacks from both sides, standing over Nailer’s bleeding form. When the four dark dwarves pulled back for a moment, he rushed forward two steps, swinging his axe through a half circle.
The two to his right backed away, a clear attempt to get him to charge and expose his back, and it almost worked. A red haze of battle seemed to film Brandon’s vision, and he lowered his head, ready to charge. Only as he started to lunge did he realize the danger, halting then spinning around to parry the double stabbing blades slicing toward his back. With a resounding clang, he knocked the blades away.
“Assassins!” he cried at the top of his lungs, his voice ringing out even louder than the dueling steel weapons. “Help!”
It was a futile plea in those abandoned passages, and he knew this fight would come down to his own prowess. He charged the two dwarves to his right, but they fell back, and Brandon was forced to pivot again to avoid exposing his back. One of those black blades sliced into his arm, and he grunted in pain, at the same time swinging his axe hard, severing the swordsman’s arm at the elbow. With a shriek of pain, the stricken attacker dropped away.
But the three who remained were skilled, and they worked together to push Brandon back. He stepped across Nailer’s motionless form, his heart breaking even as he struggled not to slip on his brother’s slick, rapidly expanding pool of blood. His boot stopped at the edge of the chimney as he used the niche as some measure of flank protection. The attackers pressed hard, blades slashing in high and low, and Brandon’s elbows banged against the walls of the narrow confines as he tried to swing his axe.
He teetered at the brink; then his boot slipped. He felt himself falling backward as three black blades lunged for him. The tumble into the chimney was the only thing that saved him, even though he bashed painfully into a protruding rock and dropped his axe as he clawed to arrest his fall. The precious weapon, a family heirloom more than four hundred years old, clattered into the darkness below, while Brandon clung precariously to a ledge of rock in the narrow vertical passage.
A large stone, thrown from above, bashed into his head, and he slipped, skidding another dozen feet downward. More rocks followed, a punishing barrage, and before he could wriggle out of the gap at the bottom of the niche, a heavy boulder clanged off his helmet, knocking him into a blackness that was even darker than the
