“It’s right over these ridges,” Garn replied. “It’s called Hillhome. After we’re done with it,” he added with a chuckle, “maybe they’ll call it Hellhome.”
His troops settled in to their bedrolls with his assurances of imminent action. But Garn, as always when battle loomed, couldn’t sleep. He stalked around the periphery of the camp, checking on the status of his sentries. All were awake and bristled and glared at his approach, proving their watchfulness.
Beyond the ring of guards, Garn Bloodfist was alone in the night. But as always when he was by himself, he keenly felt the presence of another.
“Give me strength, my father,” he said softly. “Allow me to prepare for my vengeance! Keep my blade keen, my wits sharp, on the morrow! Trip and confound and blind my enemies, so that they will fall before my charge!”
With each word, his voice grew louder. He didn’t realize the sentries were watching nervously, hearing his voice rise from the hillside and ring through the night. Garn’s fists clenched and he raised them to the sky, holding his pose, allowing his father’s resolute strength and unbending will to flow through him.
Then Dashard Bloodfist was before him, his father’s bloody face staring down at him from the night sky. That was the exultant truth that brought Garn Bloodfist, so often, under the open skies of the world: the chance to, again, see his father, stare at the gaping wounds that marred his face and neck, that ended his life. Dashard Bloodfist had been killed by dwarves-the rebelling Daergar and Hylar of Jungor Stonespringer’s war. He had been betrayed by the troops of his own company because he had trusted soldiers who were not his fellow Klar.
“Revenge!” Garn Bloodfist cried in a voice that was nearly a howl.
In his mind he pictured the houses and shops of Hillhome, imagined his shivering joy as those structures were destroyed, as the hill dwarves perished under the sudden onslaught of his ruthless Klar.
Only it wasn’t the Neidar who were the target of his vengeance. They were merely a target of convenience, an enemy that gave him cause to fight, to raid, and to kill. They were capable enough, the hill dwarves, and over the past ten years, they had learned to fear Garn Bloodfist and his Klar. After the next day, they would have still greater cause to be afraid.
But he would fight and kill them only because the real enemy was beyond his reach. The vicious Hylar, the fanatics who followed Jungor Stonespringer in his determination to seal Thorbardin against the world-they were his true enemies. They had killed his father during their civil war and would have killed Garn as well if he hadn’t gone into exile with the Failed King.
And Tarn Bellowgranite might be a failure, but for the time being, he provided the Klar with a place to live and a fortress wherein they could keep their battle skills sharp. Tomorrow those skills would come into play again.
But soon, Garn Bloodfist vowed, the Klar would find a way to attack their true enemies. They would shatter the gates of Thorbardin and carry the war, an orgy of killing, into the world under the mountain.
EIGHTEEN
B randon glared through the darkness of the brig. For many long minutes, he didn’t move, keeping his eyes fixed upon the door where Gretchan Pax had departed. Her unannounced visit had jarred and unsettled him. He had been steeling himself for a confrontation with Harn Poleaxe or one of the Neidar’s agents, and instead the strange dwarf maid came to converse with him, as if he were some kind of tour guide or research subject.
Who did she think she was? Some sort of dwarf queen, apparently!
Still, Brandon acknowledged as he cooled down, she wasn’t the person with whom he was really angry; she just happened to be the one who came along while he was stewing. In point of fact, Gretchan had been really something to look at. Her smile, her hair, the pronounced swell in the front of her tunic… she would have turned heads even amid the loveliest dwarf maids in all Kayolin. Thinking it over, Brandon began to feel a glimmer of gratitude; she had, after all, untied his wrists willingly enough. Though why in Reorx’s name didn’t she carry a knife, as virtually every other self-respecting dwarf, male or female, did?
Bah! Why was he wasting time thinking about another damn fool hill dwarf? He’d had enough of the Neidar to last him the rest of his lifetime! He slumped against the cool, damp wall of his cell, crossing his arms over his chest and closing his eyes.
“Psst! Hey, you. Brandon, right? Is it true, what she said?”
Brandon looked up in surprise. He was being addressed in a hoarse whisper by one of the two dwarf prisoners closest to his cell, both of whom he had guessed to be mountain dwarves. The fellow’s beard bristled, and his hair sprouted from far down on his forehead. His eyes were pale and milky, but his expression was genuinely curious.
“What about what she said?” Brandon replied warily.
“That you’re a mountain dwarf? That you come from Kayolin? Up north, across the Newsea?”
“Yeah, that part’s true,” he acknowledged. He studied the bristle-haired mountain dwarf. “I take it you’re no hill dwarf either?”
The other dwarf scowled and spit. “I like to keep as much space as I can between me and the filthy Neidar.” He chuckled grimly. “Seems like they want to keep company with me, though.”
“Tough luck, that. Are you from Thorbardin?” Brandon asked curiously.
The other dwarf shook his head. “You really are from out of town, aren’t you. There’s no dwarf gone into or out of Thorbardin in many years. The new thane sealed the place right after Tarn Bellowgranite was exiled.”
“But there are mountain dwarves living outside of Thorbardin, then?”
The other dwarf shrugged. “In a few places. Pax Tharkas, mainly. That’s where Bellowgranite ended up with his exiles. They’re the ones stirring up most of the trouble between the clans-his Klar captain, Bloodfist, is a real butcher. Likes to make war and leaves it for the rest of us to live with the consequences.”
“So there is still warring between mountain and hill dwarf?” Brandon pressed. Maybe that explained a little about Poleaxe, who had talked with hatred about the mountain dwarves, Brandon remembered, and appeared to be some kind of leader among his own kind.
“The feuding and fighting never really ended,” said his informer. “Take us. We’re simple Theiwar miners, working our claims on the far side of the Kharolis. “Of course, we can’t trade with our own nation anymore, not since the kingdom was sealed. But we try to make an honest living; there’s a few towns and delvings of our kind in the mountains. We were unlucky enough to get swept up by the Neidar when they was marching against Tarn Bellowgranite and his men.”
“When was this?” Brandon asked.
The Theiwar shrugged. “Maybe a year ago. Hard to keep track of time in this place.”
“What happened? Were the Neidar attacking Pax Tharkas?” asked the dwarf from Kayolin. “I heard that place was practically impregnable.”
“Well, maybe it is. I don’t think the Neidar was trying to take the fortress, though. They just made an ambush for when the Klar came out and tried to wipe ’em out on the trail.”
“But they didn’t succeed?” Brandon guessed.
“Nope,” the Theiwar said with evident satisfaction. “Say what you will about those wild-ass Klar; they’re damn fine fighters. I think the hill dwarves lost a couple dozen of their men, and the rest went running for home. We were one of the lucky ones, I suppose, prisoners.”
“Yeah,” the speaker’s companion said bitterly. “Our mine just happened to be right on their way.”
“I know a thing or two about bad luck,” Brandon agreed. “Mine hasn’t exactly been gold-plated either these last few days.”
“I hear you, mate,” said the Theiwar.
“What were you charged with?” asked Brandon. “Did you get a fair trial?”
“Fair trial?” asked the Theiwar, poking his friend in the ribs. Both sat back, roaring with laughter. “Who’s been telling you fairy tales?”
Brandon slumped back into the darkness, thinking about the sad twists and turns his life had taken-a life, he
