least a dozen hill dwarves up there. He didn’t dare try to retrieve it at that moment.
So he watched the diminishing battle as it moved away from him and realized with a surge of emotion that he was alive, no worse for the wear; he had been unusually lucky, even if the Bluestone was once again gone from his hands. He thrust his captured sword through his belt, trotted down a side street, and made his way down a lane up and away from town.
From there, he would follow the progress of the retreating mountain dwarves and, Reorx willing, recover his family stone.
TWENTY
H arn Poleaxe led his hill dwarves in another frantic charge, but again and again the Neidar hurled themselves against a solid shield wall of Klar. Poleaxe himself cut down his share of the enemy dwarves, stabbing one laggard then splintering another Klar’s shield, helmet, and skull with a single downward smash of his great sword. Unfortunately, that last blow also snapped off the blade of his weapon, and the huge Neidar finally had to drop back.
Gasping for breath, he felt as demoralized as his town mates. They had pursued the Klar for more than a mile out of town, at first along the road, then into the narrow side valley. Here and there the mountain dwarves had paused to form up a rearguard. The enemy captain was, cleverly, leading the retreating company through a narrow niche in a rocky ridge. The mountain dwarves were able to bar the entrance to the pass with just ten or a dozen of their number while the rest of the column made good their escape.
The number of pursuing Neidar had swelled to more than five hundred, but they were defeated finally by the narrow confines. At least two dozen of Poleaxe’s followers had fallen, and the shoulder-to-shoulder press of mountain dwarves holding the gap showed no signs of weakening. Whenever they found an opportunity, the manic Klar even lunged forward, cutting down a couple of hill dwarves who were too slow to jump out of the way.
The panting, exhausted Neidar were nearing the end of their endurance. Several burly warriors looked at Poleaxe nervously, fingering their weapons and eyeing the impermeable barrier of Klar shields. The dwarves of Hillhome, though they had successfully driven the enemy from their town, were not as well equipped, nor mentally prepared, for a pitched battle on such a steep and rocky slope.
Rage seethed through Poleaxe’s veins, muscles, flesh, but he understood that rage alone would not carry the day.
“Fall back,” Harn ordered, his voice tight through clenched jaws. “We’ll take the war to them soon enough.”
Slowly the Neidar backed away from the line of Klar, ignoring the taunts-“Run away, old women! Go back to your nursemaids’ teats!”-hurled by the victorious raiders. Most infuriating of all, to Harn, was the knowledge that the mountain dwarves had borne away not just the Bluestone, but the Greenstone as well, from the town.
He blamed himself for forgetting all about the precious artifacts when the fight started. The stupid Klar probably didn’t even know what they had in their possession. The Mother Oracle would be very angry. And Harn was suffering from an almost unbearable thirst. His parched throat seemed barely to allow the passage of breath, and his tongue felt swollen in his mouth.
For their aggression, the Klar would be repaid with death and destruction, Poleaxe vowed silently. And he would-he must-regain the Bluestone and Greenstone.
But that vengeance would have to wait.
He led the dejected Neidar down off the ridge, with the Klar watching them warily until they started on the road back into town. Their taunts against the retreating hill dwarves echoed down from the surrounding ridges as, finally, the rearguard of mountain dwarves broke their shield wall and followed their companions through the rocky niche, disappearing from view as they started on their way back to Pax Tharkas.
The mood was bitter as the warriors trudged back into the main square of Hillhome with humiliated expressions. Harn went immediately into Moldoon’s and snatched a large jug of dwarf spirits, quaffing a long swallow as he stalked back out into the street. The liquor seared his tongue but seemed, at least a little, to quench his paralyzing thirst.
Bodies of the slain, discreetly covered with blankets or cloaks, lined one side of the plaza. More than a dozen Neidar had died there, and several times that many had fallen during the failed pursuit. Nobody, not even Poleaxe, felt triumphant that they had driven the attackers away. All of the survivors were painfully chagrined by the knowledge they had been taken by surprise and nearly overcome.
They all had been too focused on the execution of the mountain dwarf outsider-busy assembling the pile of tinder, with the fire poised to burn, to consume, the wretched prisoner, even as the attack began. Brandon had been shackled and strapped to the rack. Although the condemned spy had been putting on a stoic front, Harn had been looking forward to the moment when his victim’s flesh began to char, his eyes boiling in their sockets. He knew Brandon would have broken down and wept as he died.
Strange, Poleaxe thought-the thought dawning as a sudden inspiration-how the Klar raiders arrived just at the very moment of the Kayolin dwarf’s doom.
Abruptly Poleaxe looked around for the prisoner, having forgotten him almost as completely as the vaunted gemstones. He jumped up on the platform and stared, seeing the pile of wood on the ground nearby, but it took a moment for him to recognize the splintered timber as the square rack where Brandon had been suspended, waiting to die.
And he howled aloud when he realized that the prisoner had escaped.
“What treachery-where did the Kayolin go?” he demanded, springing down from the platform, striding across the plaza with spittle foaming his beard.
The Neidar shrank away from the infuriated warrior. Two of Poleaxe’s personal guards, an armored pair carrying massive axes, exchanged looks as their leader stalked to the broken rack and kicked through the debris as if he expected to find the prisoner crouching down among the itty-bitty twigs and pieces of straw.
“Where did he go?” he roared again.
A hundred dwarves milled about the plaza, and every one of them was utterly silent in response to Poleaxe’s demand. Thus, when one dwarf groaned softly, all eyes turned to him.
“It’s Rune!” cried a maid, kneeling beside the warrior and dabbing at his bloody forehead with her apron.
Poleaxe stomped over to his lieutenant and glared down at the stricken, dazed Neidar. The huge dwarf leader kicked contemptuously at the empty manacles that lay on the ground around Rune.
“Tell me, fool. How did he get the key?” growled Harn.
“I was felled by a hammer!” Rune pleaded. “He came upon me as I lay here and wrested it away!”
“Fool!” bellowed Poleaxe, causing Rune to whimper and cringe against the ground. Trembling in fury, the Neidar warrior gazed around the plaza into the stunned, awestruck faces of his tribesmen. His fingers clutched the hilt of his broken sword-he came dangerously close to drawing the weapon and plunging the stub of sharp steel through Rune’s craven heart.
At the last instant, he held his hand. “Clean this up!” he shrieked, gesturing to the whole square. “I will be back soon.”
He paused only long enough to take another long drink from his jug of spirits, setting the container beside his chair before he stalked out of the square, through a wide gap that opened up in the ring of staring Neidar. The streets of the town were for the most part empty, and he took some small comfort from the fact there were none to witness his humiliation and despair. A bleak cloud seemed to hover over him, bearing him down as he stomped through the streets toward the shabby hut of the Mother Oracle on Hillhome’s outskirts.
“Enter!” snapped the ancient oracle, even before he had raised his hand to knock on the door. Hesitantly, he pushed the frail barrier aside and entered the small, darkened room.
The old crone sat in the same place he had left her the day before. Her milky eyes were open, staring past him, and her gnarled hands were clenched into small fists, curled in her lap.
