She stepped closer, eyes widening, inspecting the unusual colored stone. “Where do you think you’re taking them? To Pax Tharkas?” she asked.
He glowered then thrust his bristling beard forward as if in challenge. “What if I am?” he demanded. “These stones are the spoils of our mission, and unless I miss my guess, they’ll make Tarn Bellowgranite and even Otaxx Shortbeard sit up and take notice!”
She felt suddenly dizzy and sat down hard on a nearby rock. “What did you say?” she asked, her voice falling to a whisper.
“You heard me,” Garn retorted. He scowled. “Say, what’s the matter with you all of a sudden?” He looked around suspiciously. “Where did you come from, anyway?”
“I’ve been traveling… for a long time,” she said in a small, disoriented voice. “I’m not sure I even remember where I come from anymore.”
For the first time, Garn looked hard at the stranger. “Well, you can stay with us if you want to be safe. And we’ll take you to the fortress with us,” he offered a little too eagerly.
“No. I’m traveling with another party,” she said curtly.
He blinked and his eyes narrowed. “What are you anyway?” he demanded. “Some kind of witch? Showing up here in the middle of the night, ten miles from Hillhome. Or is that your home?” he challenged menacingly. He took a step closer to her.
“Don’t touch me!” she snapped. She stood, facing him down. When he reached toward her, she spoke a single word: “Stop!”
The word exploded through the night like a crack of thunder. “You are a witch!” Garn said angrily, struggling to push his hand forward against the unseen force that was blocking him. “Klar!” he shouted. “Take her!”
At least he tried to shout, and his mouth worked up and down. But no sound came forth. Stunned, his eyes bulging, he stared at the mysterious dwarf maid, who glared at him with an expression that was not so much angry as distraught.
“I don’t care where you’re going,” she said with a shrug, turning to watch the moonlight reflecting in the waters of the stream. The gemstones intrigued her. But narrow-minded dwarves such as Garn Bloodfist-Bloodthirst would be more appropriate-discouraged and depressed her.
Leaving him still struggling against the force of her command, she turned and walked into the night.
TWENTY-ONE
Brandon neared the mountain dwarf camp just as dawn began to color the sky. The raiding party slumbered in a small field beside a winding stream, with a fringe of pine forest screening them. He had watched the camp through the night, and he moved carefully through the dim light, making sure not to crack dried branches under his feet or to rustle against the underbrush. He reasoned that, if he were able to walk straight up to the Klar captain and demonstrate he had entered the camp without meaning any harm, his chances of a moderately friendly reception would be significantly improved.
His plans were shattered by the appearance of four-no, six-armed Klar, who leaped out of the brush to surround him before he even reached the camp’s perimeter.
“Hey,” he objected, raising his hands in the middle of a ring of spears. One of the mountain dwarves plucked his sword from his belt while the others prodded him toward the center of the camp. “I just want to talk. I’m not an enemy!” he protested.
His protestations were to no avail. A half hour later, Brandon found himself a bound prisoner again, his wrists lashed together behind him, a sturdy chain shackled around his neck. The Klar were busy breaking camp and preparing to move out.
“What’s the meaning of this?” he demanded of the captain. “I tell you, I just want to talk!”
“Ha!” said the dwarf who commanded the company. His eyes bulged as he thrust his face so close to Brandon that he could smell the Klar’s rancid breath. He laughed, a gleeful, high-pitched sound that did not sound entirely rational.
“You’re a hill dwarf spy, or I’m a gully dwarf,” the captain hooted. “And you’d like nothing better than to follow us into Pax Tharkas!”
“You’re wrong!” Brandon cried, appalled at the abrupt evaporation of his luck-again. “I’m a mountain dwarf!”
But the Klar captain, still chuckling, was already ordering his amused warriors onto the road.
And Brandon Bluestone, his neck chain tethered to two burly Klar axemen, was once again tugged toward a captor’s lair.
Harn Poleaxe sat in the darkness of his house, seething over the events of the day. Even the executions of the two prisoners, bloody and gratifying as that had been, could not erase the sting of defeat, frustration, humiliation. The Kayolin dwarf had escaped, vanishing into the wilds of Kharolis, and Poleaxe’s hard-won treasure, the Bluestone that was going to vault him to greatness, had been stolen by the treacherous mountain dwarves.
Nursing another jug of dwarf spirits-his first one had not lasted until sunset-he scratched at the newest sore that had open up on his face. His fingernails came away red with blood. He put the neck of the bottle to his lips and leaned back, gurgling for a long time. The day had started with such fine portents and had degenerated into a disaster.
He deserved so much better!
His troubles started, he reflected, the previous night, when the seductive dwarf maid had eluded him and her companions had accosted him. That was followed by the trial that went awry, the botched battle with the Klar, and Brandon’s scot-free escape.
Yet, he told himself, he was empowered, mighty and commanding and capable in ways that he could have only dreamt about before. And it was all the result of a potion.
He took another drink of dwarf spirits, and the powerful alcohol only seemed to enhance his abilities. Beyond that drink, he felt the potion’s power coursing through his body, embellished by the spirits but not intoxicated. The enchanted liquid had changed and strengthened him, and once he had mastered his new powers, he would track down the mountain dwarves and the wench who had spurned him and all of them would pay. He would crush those opponents and any others who stood in his path. He would triumph, and in the end he would be Lord Poleaxe, master of all the hills!
He had been foolish to think of Brandon Bluestone as a naive blunderer; clearly the Hylar from Kayolin was dangerous in ways Harn hadn’t understood.
Brandon had eluded him once. Next time he would die.
And Gretchan Pax would suffer.
His gorge rose as he recalled how she had spurned him, lied to him. How dared she! His lust surged as he recalled her beauty, her pride, her sparkling eyes and swelling breasts. Before he was done, she would enjoy submitting to him, by Reorx. In the end, it would be she who desired him, and only then would he spurn her. Oh, and she’d have to die as well.
The room was very dark, and he barely noticed the shape taking form in front of him. Only when the shape’s two orbs, glowing like embers in the Abyss, opened did he feel the deep power, the mesmerizing presence of his visitor. He noted the great bat wings, smelled the fetid breath emerging from that fanged maw. The creature filled up all the space, darkening it like a great shadow, like a new and more intense form of night. The shape rose above him and stretched around him, a display of chilling power.
Harn Poleaxe dropped to his knees, gaping in a mixture of terror, awe, and reverence. “You! You will show me the way!” he gasped, certain beyond any doubt that the monster was his new ally, sent by the gods. The jug fell from his suddenly nerveless fingers, tumbling onto its side, but it was already so empty that none of the dregs spilled out.
The creature snorted, and again that foul breath washed over the hill dwarf. But it was like a perfume to him,
