dwarf ruler had not been easy, he knew.
“Garn Bloodfist has taken the Klar out again, hasn’t he?” she said, and he knew it wasn’t really a question.
He merely nodded.
She sighed and shrugged off his touch when he went over to her. “One of these days, he’s going to stir up a hornet’s nest, and that could be the end for us all,” she declared.
“The hornets are always buzzing,” Tarn pointed out. “Sometimes Garn swats them away.”
“Why can he only do it through war?” she demanded.
He shrugged, wishing they weren’t having that conversation. “It’s always been that way,” he pointed out.
“Not always!” she retorted. “It had a beginning: the Cataclysm. Why can’t there be an end? Why can’t we end it?”
“We’re dwarves,” he replied, not knowing what else to say. “War is in our nature. You might as well try to stop the sun from moving through the sky.”
She looked at him with a strange expression, a look that, to Tarn, was more scathing even than a glare of contempt. When she spoke, it was almost to herself. “Once, I thought you might be the kind of dwarf who would try to do just that, and to the Abyss with the consequences.”
He turned on his heel and went to the door, tense and angry. He would not slam it, not when his daughter was so near, but he looked at Crystal as if he didn’t recognize her.
“Maybe I was that dwarf, once. But I’ve seen too much. I’m not him now. I’m not that Tarn Bellowgranite anyway, not anymore.”
FIFTEEN
B randon’s mouth felt as dry as a bale of cotton and still tasted of bile. His head throbbed inside because of the lingering residue of the dwarf spirits, and it throbbed outside, where it had been bruised by Harn Poleaxe’s powerful blows. Yet for all his physical aches, he felt emotionally worse. It seemed clear that his family’s poor luck had at last found its nadir. For he had allowed the Bluestone, the symbol and the reality of his family’s legacy, to fall into the hands of a treacherous hill dwarf.
And the Neidar were treacherous, Brandon realized-almost incomprehensibly so! His mind reeled as he recalled Harn Poleaxe’s cheerful camaraderie, his friendly advice as he’d escorted the young Hylar across half of Ansalon. By Reorx, he’d been using his victim to carry the treasure that was his true quarry! And all the while, Poleaxe had been responsible for Nailer’s murder-even if he had not actually wielded the fatal sword-and for the betrayal of Brandon’s and Nailer’s claim to the ruthless and avaricious Heelspurs.
The bitterness of the reality made Brandon sick to his stomach. What a cruel irony: the hill dwarf who drank so freely, and so carelessly, had used alcohol-apparently enhanced with some kind of soporific drug-to immobilize his victim.
“Move it!” One of the Neidar prodded him with his own axe, and he stumbled as he tried to balance on feet and legs that were numbed from their bonds. Angrily he shook off the push. Shaking his head, gritting his teeth, he started to walk.
The hill dwarves and their captive moved under a slate-gray sky, which occasionally spit at them with rain showers; the sky perfectly mirrored Brandon’s mood. They trekked away from the campsite but remained on the rugged crest of the ridge instead of moving into the more easily passable valley floor. They descended a bit to avoid a lofty, open promontory, but then quickly climbed back to resume the trek on the ridge crest.
When they came to a steep-sided ravine, his captors pushed him roughly, and he skidded down to land on his hip, sliding roughly to the bottom, unable to use his bound hands for any help. Grimly he plodded up the winding trail on the opposite side, resolving that he would not give the Neidar the satisfaction of hearing him complain or seeing him suffer. Nor would he give them an excuse to beat or, worse, ridicule and mock him.
All the while he was nursing his anger, which had already flared into hatred. They were not like any dwarves he had ever imagined; they were not worthy of Reorx’s chosen! They were worse than the lowest gully dwarves, he finally decided.
It was many hours later before the troop of hill dwarves finally marched down off the rocky ridges onto a smooth road. The pair who had originally been charged with Brandon’s execution had been marching grimly behind the prisoner all day, never hesitating to poke him between the shoulders, in the area of his kidneys, or right in the buttocks with the sharp tips of their short swords. He had noted that one of those two was also carrying Brandon’s axe, clearly displaying his enjoyment at the feel and heft of his new weapon. The dwarf’s chuckles of amusement proved, to Brandon, that he considered the dishonorable torment to be fine sport.
The captive barely felt those small annoyances, however, so deep was the gloom that had settled around him. The whole day he trudged along, mourning the loss of his father’s treasure, cursing himself for the foolishness that had led to his capture without even a respectable show of self-defense. All was lost, and it seemed only a matter of time until Poleaxe staged his charade of a trial and executed the Kayolin dwarf as a spy.
It wasn’t until near sunset that Brandon finally, forcefully, reminded himself that he wasn’t dead yet. And, he told himself, if all he did was wallow in self-pity, his life may as well end in an ignominious whimper. He could not, would not, give up! If he was to perish here, he would make sure the Neidar bastards paid dearly for the privilege of killing him.
But his wrists were still securely bound, and his captors numbered a full dozen, so there was no release for his anger-at least, not in his present circumstances. He vowed to Reorx, to his father, and to the memory of his slain brother that someday, somehow, he would find the means to claim vengeance. For the moment, he would stay alert, nursing his anger.
His eyes, when he raised them, sought Harn Poleaxe, who strode at the head of the little column, swaggering along, regaling his companions with tales of Kayolin hubris and wealth.
“Their governor has decided to call himself a king,” Poleaxe declared in an incredulous tone. “Even though he doesn’t have half the holdings of Thorbardin. Believe it or not, he does most of his trading with humans!”
“Ah, you’re making that up!” said one of Harn’s ruffians.
“I swear on the Forge of Reorx!” Harn declared with an air of wounded dignity. “He sells steel to the emperor of Solamnia, and in return, the humans protect Kayolin from the goblins.”
That was a lie, Brandon knew-Kayolin was in no danger from even the most numerous and aggressive bands of goblins-but the prisoner wasn’t about to waste his breath rebuking Poleaxe, not when his own life was hanging in the balance.
The other Neidar, all except the one called Fireforge, laughed heartily at Harn’s anecdotes while Brandon’s rage simmered. He watched that hill dwarf, whose full name was Slate Fireforge, for any signs he might be able to appeal to him for help. Despite the fact he had objected to Harn’s plan to summarily execute the captive, however, Fireforge gave no sign that he was willing to extend him any other unusual sympathy.
As his mind cleared-from both the effects of Poleaxe’s blows and the lingering hangover-he reflected on the events that had led him to his sorry state. For there was more than just bad luck involved. Clearly, Poleaxe had planned the theft carefully; he had sent word to his cronies, and the band had waited in hiding for the travelers, moving in to assist when the treacherous Neidar acted.
That itself was an interesting fact, Brandon realized. Why had the big hill dwarf felt that he needed help? After all, he stood a half head taller than the mountain dwarf, who himself was a bigger-than-average specimen. And Poleaxe outweighed Brandon by a good two stone. Yet even with his victim extremely drunk, he had not struck until backed up by significant reinforcements. Perhaps Poleaxe was not as fearless as he pretended.
And why had he made his move out in the wilds? Poleaxe just as easily could have had Brandon surrounded or captured in town at an inn or in a tavern. Instead, he’d arranged for his handpicked men to effect the betrayal away from eyewitnesses.
The more Brandon thought about it, the more he wondered whether Harn’s behavior might not meet with the
