the hollow belt pouch, the sleeve containing the venerable Bluestone, held casually in Harn Poleaxe’s hands.
With an inarticulate cry of rage, Brandon tried to hurl himself across the camp. His futile effort ended in a pathetic thump onto his face when he couldn’t free his hands and, at the same time, discovered that his legs were tightly bound together at the calves and ankles.
“Here now, son,” Poleaxe said genially. “Take care you don’t pull a muscle or plant your face in the fire. Those coals are still plenty hot, you know.”
“Filthy thieving bastard!” Brandon spit, wrestling himself around, once again sitting up clumsily. He was trembling with rage, furious at his own impotence.
“Now watch your tongue, or I might just have to hit you again. Harder this time.” Poleaxe patted the hammer he wore at his belt, and Brandon understood why his head was throbbing so badly. Poleaxe addressed one of the others, who-the prisoner guessed-were obviously his fellow hill dwarves. “I tell you, these Hylar can’t handle strong drink. They should stick to lemon water or iced beer.”
His witty remark was greeted by chuckles but aroused Brandon to fresh, and fruitless, struggles against his painful bonds. “You tricked me!” he declared. “That was more than dwarf spirits in that bottle.”
Harn Poleaxe laughed and gave a mocking little half bow of thanks, as if he had just been complimented. “I wouldn’t have had to if you’d just drunk it like a dwarf. But instead, you sipped it like an elf maid so, yeah, I had to doctor the recipe a little.”
“You brought me all this way just to rob me?” Brandon asked, astounded at the treachery and mystified as to his former companion’s behavior.
“In a word, yes,” Poleaxe said. He was clearly enjoying himself. “But you should know that this is much, much more than a simple robbery. Do you know how hard it was to follow you and your brother through the caves under Garnet Thax? I had to track you all the way! Then, after you fought the troll and found the vein of gold, I knew that your father would never sell the stone-he had no need of my payment, not if you could file your claim.”
“No!” Brandon protested in disbelief. “It was you? You were there-”
“Ah, comes the dawn,” said the Niedar with a wicked chuckle. “I hastened to get word to Lord Heelspur, so that his fellows could meet you and Nailer. Of course, I had to make sure that one of you survived, and that Heelspur got to claim the new vein. All in all, I put in a lot of work to make this happen.”
“But- why?” demanded the Kayolin dwarf.
“You see, we’re going to make a war, and you-or your family’s stone, more properly-is going to help us.”
“A war? Against who?” demanded the Kayolin dwarf.
For the first time, the Neidar’s genial front cracked. “Against your own cousins down here!” he spat. “The mountain dwarves who’ve been the bane of my people’s existence since before the Cataclysm. No longer content to cower behind the gates of Thorbardin, they dare to battle us on the surface.” He hefted the beautiful blue wedge. “This is part-one part-of the head of a hammer that will smash the gate of Thorbardin wide open. It will be like pulling off the top of an anthill. Just imagine the mountain dwarves’ consternation as the Neidar army pours in. We’ll send them on their final march to Reorx!”
Brandon sat back, stunned and focused. So many bad things had happened to him recently, he had thought he was over the worst. But the full scope of the disaster that was striking his family began to dawn on him, and his throat tightened with a mixture of self-pity and despair. First, Nailer Bluestone had been murdered at the moment of hope and possible redemption. Then he, himself, had been forced into exile, carrying the last hope of the clan represented by the stone that rested in Poleaxe’s possession. He saw that Harn had even stolen his axe-the axe Balric Bluestone had carried on the surface when the Cataclysm stuck. The weapon had been strapped into Brandon’s pack, but it lay on the ground beside the arrogant Neidar.
All hope was gone, finished.
“What are you going to do with me?” he demanded with as much bluster as he could fake.
“That’s an interesting, but a tough, question,” Harn replied. He pushed himself to his feet and strode back and forth, glancing at his new companions. Brandon studied them too and didn’t like what he saw. They were a lot of ruffians and outlaws, he guessed. One wore an eye patch, while several proudly displayed the scars of battle on their faces or bare arms. An older Neidar spit ostentatiously, his eyes never leaving the prisoner’s.
“I know for a fact this one’s a spy,” Poleaxe declared loudly for everyone’s benefit. “He’s here to scout our towns and report back on our preparations. Why, at Flatrock, he claimed to be one of my own clan-mates. He’s a scoundrel, I tell you.”
“You lying bastard!” protested Brandon, flailing uselessly. “You know as well as I do why I came here… and why I claimed to be a Neidar in Flatrock!”
“A confession!” Harn crowed triumphantly. “See!”
Poleaxe stopped pacing. He pointed to a pair of the hill dwarves, burly fellows with bristling beards and stout shields. Each wore a short sword at his waist and, as if understanding the treacherous Neidar’s command, they drew their weapons at his gesture.
“Kill him,” Poleaxe ordered, and the two dwarves raised their blades and stepped forward. Brandon, though he knew it was useless, continued to strain and struggle against his bonds, feeling the leather cords cut into his wrists, the blood flowing down onto his hands.
“Now wait a moment, Poleaxe,” declared another dwarf, a grizzled warrior with his own heavy shield and a war axe tucked into his belt. “That’s mebbe going a little too far. We can take his treasure; we need it, and I know that as well as you do. But he represents no threat to us now. And perhaps he doesn’t deserve death in cold blood.”
“Who are you to say that, Fireforge?” growled Poleaxe, clearly irritated at the challenge. “I brought him here. I know the darkness in his soul.”
“It’s cold-blooded murder!” retorted the one called Fireforge.
“Not murder. Merely execution of a criminal.”
“Then what’s his crime?” demanded the stubborn advocate.
Poleaxe looked at Brandon with a sneer of contempt. “He’s a mountain dwarf spy!” he declared. “I told you, and you yourself heard him admit it. Ain’t that crime enough?”
“That’s a lie!” shouted Brandon. “You know it is!”
“You think I don’t know about your secret mission? The maps you were supposed to make for your mountain dwarf king?”
The captive struggled vainly for a second, his tongue as tied as his arms and legs, fury dropping a red haze across his vision. The two executioners looked at Poleaxe expectantly, though one of them cast an uneasy glance at Fireforge.
Brandon understood that the latter, for whatever reason he was defending him, represented his only chance at survival. “He stole my father’s life-fortune with his treachery,” he protested desperately. “I come from Kayolin. Why would my governor, who is no king, have interest in provoking an attack on the hill dwarves of Kharolis?”
“Good questions,” Fireforge noted. His hand still rested on his axe, though he had made no move to draw the weapon. “At the very least, they deserve to be settled in trial. You might be the clan chief, Harn, and we all know your reputation and your courage in battle, but I won’t stand for a cold-blooded execution, not here and now.”
Poleaxe flushed, grinding his teeth behind the tangle of his beard. He took a step toward Fireforge, towering over the other dwarf, as he did every one of the other members of the band.
But there was something in the grim determination of his opponent’s steady, and eerily calm, gaze that held his hand. Poleaxe turned and spit in Brandon’s direction, the spittle hitting the mountain dwarf’s outstretched boot. Finally he shrugged, a gesture of casual, if insincere, acquiescence.
“Have it your way,” he said sullenly. He glared at the two dwarves he had ordered to kill Brandon. “Untie his feet and pick him up. But watch him carefully. He’s a snake, that one.”
Then he turned to the prisoner, and again his face was transformed by that mocking smile. “You’ve got a lot of walking to do,” he declared before turning and mounting his horse.
FOURTEEN
