“Gus did a certain amount of uh, spying down there in the dungeon,” she explained.
“Why did you leave me in there?” he challenged.
“Did you ever think that it was maybe to keep you safe?” she shot back heatedly. “After all, every time you were out on your own, you ended up in some kind of trouble!”
He blinked, surprised at her vehemence and her answer. “That’s the curse of the Bluestone luck,” he retorted, wishing he had a stronger comeback.
“Maybe it’s not just luck!” she snapped. “Maybe it’s the choices you make! Did you ever think of that?”
“I-damn it, no!” he admitted angrily.
“Anyway,” she said, seeming to force herself to calm down. “Do you want to go back or come with me?”
“Like I said,” Brandon replied through clenched teeth, “lead on.”
He wondered where they were going. When he looked around, he saw a massive chain rising up from a hole in the floor in the center of the room. Each link was roughly as long as he was tall, with the metal bands themselves as thick around as his muscle-bound thigh. The chain rose up at an angle then nestled into a groove around the outer rim of a giant wheel. The wheel appeared to serve as a gear, and the chain extended straight from the top of the wheel to a hole leading into the Tharkadan Wall itself.
“That’s part of the ancient trap,” Gretchan said, taking note of Brandon’s astonishment. “It’s anchored to the bedrock outside the fortress itself. So even if the towers and the wall are destroyed, the rocks can fall and the pass can be sealed.”
“And from what you tell me, Tarn Bellowgranite has spent all the years of his exile loading that trap so that it can be used again if the pass is threatened,” Brandon said, shaking his head in disbelief.
“Yes,” Gretchan replied. She sighed. “But not just that. I think he wants to open the pass to trade caravans and commerce as well. That would be a more useful renewal of its legacy, if you ask me. Though there are no guarantees it will come to pass.”
Another door to the room burst open, and Tarn Bellowgranite and Garn Bloodfist, accompanied by a half dozen armed dwarves, rushed inside. They were followed by the white-bearded elder, Otaxx Shortbeard, who was ruddy faced and panting after the long climb.
“There they are!” cried the Klar captain, pointing to Brandon and Gretchan as he waved his soldiers forward. “Take them!”
“Stop!” shouted Gretchan, stamping the butt of her staff against the floor. The shaft made a surprisingly loud bang when it struck the stones, and to Brandon’s surprise, the men-at-arms froze. From the gaping looks on their faces, they were as surprised as he was. Each tried to move his feet, swaying and struggling, but it appeared as though the Klar warrior had been nailed to the floor.
“See, my thane!” shouted Garn, who could talk though he couldn’t move his legs. “Behold that sorcery! She is a witch! I sensed it that night she came to me, beside the river!”
“Oh, be quiet!” snapped the dwarf maid.
Brandon desperately wished for a weapon, but he was as unarmed as he had been in his cell. And Gretchan had only that little hammer. He didn’t like their chances if it came to a fight, and he didn’t think her magic and bravado-impressive as it was-could hold the mountain dwarves at bay for long.
Struggling to move, the Klar captain cuffed one of his dwarves, knocking him to the floor. “Fool,” he cried. He loomed over the fallen soldier and glared at Gretchan, clenching his fists, but he seemed unable to make any further advance.
Beyond Bloodfist, Tarn Bellowgranite sighed, suddenly looking very old. He took out a cloth and mopped his bald pate, which was slick with sweat. He looked at Gretchan, and his expression grew cold.
“I don’t know who you are or why you have come here to vex us. You’ve managed to spook my bravest captain, and he tells me you’ve taken the liberty of breaking a prisoner out of my dungeon. How do you explain yourself? Are you indeed a witch?”
Gretchan was looking past the thane at the old general. “You there. Are you the Daewar Otaxx Shortbeard?” she asked.
“I am,” he replied stiffly. “And I, too, demand that you answer my thane’s questions.”
“You are in no position to make demands,” she said. Then, softening her tone, she added, “I am not a witch.” She raised her staff, and the miniature anvil atop the pole suddenly glowed with a golden light even brighter than the sunlight spilling in through the windows. “I am a priestess of Reorx,” she said. “And I have been traveling the lands of the dwarves for a long time, studying our people, trying to understand why we do what we do.”
“The Reorx of the mountain dwarves or of the hill dwarves?” challenged Garn Bloodfist belligerently.
“He is the same god, you fool!” she snapped. “And his heart is breaking to see the strife that exists between his two tribes.”
“So you sympathize with the Neidar, then.” The Klar sneered. He pointed at Brandon. “Witness, my thane, that she has freed the hill dwarf spy from his cell in the dungeon.”
“I tell you again for the last time: I’m as much a Hylar as Tarn Bellowgranite!” Brandon declared, fists clenching as he took a step toward the Klar.
“More, actually,” Gretchan said calmly. “For you are only a half-blood Hylar, are you not, Thane?”
Tarn nodded, staring intently at the priestess. “Yes, my mother was a Daergar,” he said. “This is not a secret. But who are you, and why do you come here and cause all this commotion? You seem to know very much about us, yet you have revealed very little about yourself-save that you are a cleric of our shared god.”
“Yes, you are a cipher,” Otaxx Shortbeard said to Gretchan, sounding more curious than angry. “You rightly called me a Daewar. But what clan are you from? And where is your home?”
“I am a Daewar too,” Gretchan said. “My home… my home is in the east.”
“Do you mean… Thoradin?” asked the old general in a tone of wonder.
She nodded. “Yes. I left there more than a decade ago, intending to return to Thorbardin, to see my people’s ancestral home, to meet my kinfolk and the fellow clans. But the undermountain kingdom was sealed before I arrived in the Kharolis.”
“Then… you mean to say…?” Otaxx was still wrestling with the incredible revelation. “Did Severus Stonehand actually reach Zhakar? Did the Mad Prophet lead the Daewar to a new home in the old mountains? For years we have believed that his entire expedition ended in disaster, that everyone perished. Please-I must know!”
“Severus Stonehand and most of the Daewar did reach the Khalkist Mountains,” Gretchan said. “The way was difficult and spotted with tragedy. But he survives and most of his people survive in the caverns that were once the home of the Zhakar dwarves. They still endure many struggles, and Thoradin itself-at least, as it once was-remains an elusive dream. But clan Daewar survives.”
“By the grace of Reorx,” Otaxx said, his eyes tearing. “It is as if my deepest wish has been granted. My thane, this is wonderful news!”
“This is all damned irrelevant!” snapped Garn Bloodfist, eyes all but bursting out of his skull. Forgetting that his movements were frozen, he cuffed his man-at-arms and pointed at Brandon.
“Seize him-take him back to his cell!”
Before the poor man-at-arms could react, however, another door burst open and a gasping, red-faced watchman, one of the sentries posted atop the Tharkadan Wall, staggered into the room.
“There’s a column of hill dwarves in sight!” he announced, panting for breath following his long run down from the parapet. “Thousands of them! They’re two miles away, and they’re fast nearing the gates!”
TWENTY-SIX
“Is this attack your doing?” Tarn Bellowgranite demanded coldly. His eyes never left Gretchan’s. “Perhaps you are the true Neidar spy-come here to divert us! You hold us here, captive to your magic. And all the while your allies in the hill dwarf army are creeping up on the fortress, readying a surprise attack!”
“I tell you, she cannot be trusted!” Bloodfist declared, shaking his fist, straining to move his feet from where
