to keep their bargain, but who knew what dwarves were likely to do. He felt disappointed, though. He had thought — he had been so sure! — that in learning the skills, they had also absorbed the aspects of chivalry — the sense of rightness and honor that were part of the skills. It should be as clear to them now as to him, he thought, the way of the lance — the difference between right and wrong.
Colin Stonetooth gazed up at the man icily. “Kneel before me, human,” the dwarf said. “I’m getting a cramp in my neck.”
With a shrug, Glendon complied. He would not bow, but he would kneel.
Colin Stonetooth held out his hand. “Give me your sword,” he demanded.
Glendon hesitated and heard the whisper of half-drawn blades all around him. Slowly he drew his sword, reversed it, and handed it over. The Hylar chieftain took it and set it aside, then reached around, picked up a wrapped blade, and held it before him, peeling the fabric away.
Glendon blinked, and his eyes went wide. In size and shape the sword was almost identical to his own. In length and taper, in shape of pommel and curve of guard, it was an exact twin. But there the similarity ended. This sword was exquisite, a work of the finest craft he had ever seen. Its blade glistened in the light, its razor edges as finely honed as a cleric’s shaving blade. Its hilt was of polished blackwood, inlaid with fine, elaborate patterns of silver and gold. And in the crest of its nickel-steel pommel was a perfect blue-white diamond the size of a cloak button.
Colin Stonetooth held the sword out to him, hilt-forward. “We have learned from you, Sir Glendon Hawke,” the dwarf said. “I think we have only begun to realize how much we have learned. Your pledge is kept, and with this token I complete mine. You are free of service, Sir Knight. And this sword is yours. It is the finest of our craft. It will never fail you. Take it and go, with the thanks of the Hylar.”
21
The mountains rose ahead and on both sides as Cale Greeneye and his adventurers scouted the trail, just within sound of the marching drums. Here the rising plains formed a natural pathway, funneling between high ridges toward the thrusting peaks westward. Ahead and beyond, range after range of mountains rose into the distance, each more distant silhouette bluer than the one before and rising higher into the sky.
The western plains seemed jammed with people — humans, mostly — but their encampments were scattered and aloof from one another and well out from the rising mountains. Cale and his scouts had encountered no trouble in slipping through, and now the foothills rose around them and the mountains ahead.
It was a majestic vista, crowned by the farthest and highest of the ranges ahead. There were the highlands and the peaks rising above them. On the right, blue with distance like a snow-crowned monarch, the tallest peak seemed to pierce the very sky, to shear it away as though there were no sky beyond.
To its left and straight ahead as the valley pointed was a massive mountain that seemed to dominate the view. Not as tall as the sky-ender north of it, it was far wider and was topped by three giant crags like great fangs or spearheads. Mists rolled and swirled around these spires, as grain rises in a broth when stirred by a spoon. Drifts of cloud danced there like threads weaving themselves in tapestries.
Farther south, bending away beyond the flank of that cloud-stirring mountain, was yet another giant rise, a rugged, saw-toothed eminence capped by double peaks.
“Those three crags up there” — Mica Rockreave pointed ahead — “stand like beacons, inviting us onward.”
“Too inviting for my taste.” Gran Molden frowned. “If I were going to lay a trap for travelers, that’s where I would put it, because that’s where they would go.”
“Are you thinking of laying a trap, Gran?” Cale Greeneye teased.
“I’m thinking of avoiding the traps of others,” Gran snapped. “See how this valley narrows ahead, climbing toward that widest crest? And how the cloud-comb crags beckon? Anyone coming this way would be tempted to take that path.”
“Let’s not forget what the knight told us,” Coal Bellmetal put in. “Kal-Thax is a sealed land. No outsiders are allowed in, and those who try to enter rarely return. The people of Kal-Thax don’t want visitors.”
“He also said the people there are dwarves, like us.”
“He said they are dwarves. He didn’t say they are like us.”
“Well, dwarves or not,” — Flint Cokeras tapped a hard fist against his armor-plated chest — “no one is going to stop the Hylar without a fight.”
Cale Greeneye shook his head, tightening rein to ease Piquin’s long stride. “You’re always spoiling for a fight, Flint. But why fight, if you don’t have to? Look over there, on the flank of that ridge.”
They looked to the right, shading their eyes. “What do you see?” Flint asked.
“Look closely,” Cale said, pointing. “There. On the slope. There is fresh stone there. Bits of stone have been moved, and the pattern is upward, like a trail. Someone else has distrusted this valley. They’ve made another trail, going the same way, but with better cover.”
“Wise, I’d say,” Shard Feldspar squinted, beginning to see what Cale saw. “But who would lay a trail so dim? No dwarf did that. And no human would ever be able to follow it. Maybe we’d better take a look.”
Cale turned, listening. The faint, distant drums told him that the main march was still miles away. “All right. We have time.” Nudging Piquin, he led to the right, the others following.
The upward trail was dim indeed. But for Cale’s knack for seeing what was out of place, they would not have been able to follow it. Upward it led, along the flank of a rising ridge, concealed from view except for those upon it. The only signs that anyone had ever gone this way were so subtle that only a sharp-eyed dwarf might have seen them — a bit of stone turned slightly from alignment with its imprint, a smudge on a ledge where something had scraped against the rock, a bit of gravel sunk more deeply in sand than its own weight would account for.
At a bend, Cale climbed down from Piquin’s saddle and squatted to taste the stone of an outcrop. “Well,
He was just reaching for his mounting ladder when Gran Molden’s tense voice said, “Don’t move, Cale. We have a problem.”
He turned slowly and froze. A dozen or more lithe figures stood on the trail, above and below them. Without sound, they had appeared there, only yards away, and the dwarves found themselves looking down the shafts of deadly arrows in drawn bows.
Cale gaped at the somber archers. For an instant, he had thought they were humans. But now he knew better. “Elves,” he muttered. Slowly and carefully he stepped away from Piquin, raising his hands away from his weapons. The other dwarves, in their saddles, did the same.
From uphill, more and more elves appeared, emerging soundlessly from the brush and stones of the mountainside. The dwarves stared around at them, intensely aware of the steady arrows trained on them from all sides. They had seen elves before. In past times, a few elves had come to Balladine to trade — aloof, stately people in the flowing robes and spider-silk-fine garments of the Silvanesti, and now and then a silent, furtive Kagonesti from the deep forests south of the ledgelands.
But these were different, somehow. Their garments were mostly soft leathers and rough weaves, blending with the colors of the land. Their features were neither the cold, aloof faces of Silvanesti nor the weirdly painted, intense faces of Kagonesti. These were elves, but another kind of elves.
“Hold your arrows,” Cale said cautiously. “We mean no threat to you.”
“Nor will you ever, dwarf,” the nearest one said icily. The drawn bow aligned itself on Cale’s throat, and he could almost feel the broad, razor-edged arrowhead piercing his flesh.
Then another voice came, softly but with authority. “Hold, Demoth! These people are not of Kal-Thax.”
Cale turned. Among the elves now above them on the rise — hundreds of them, it seemed — one had stepped forward. Lithe and graceful as a perfect sapling in fall, she paused with one slender, soft-booted foot on a rock and gestured. “Look at their horses,” she said. “Have you ever seen horses like these beyond the Khalkists? These dwarves are Calnar.”
