command. Smoke from cooking fires the morning before had almost led to discovery. It was the smoke that the dwarf scout had seen from atop Crevice Pass that had sent him hurrying back toward his patrol to report. It was because he had seen it that the patrol of dwarves had been ambushed and massacred. The intruders had orders from Grayfen not to let word of the encampment reach Thorin. Such an encampment would be investigated by Calnar soldiers, and the mage’s plan would be foiled before it began.
In the gathering darkness of the cove, Grayfen made his way through the sprawling camp, unseen except by those he wished to see him. The sun was gone from the sky, and the two visible moons had yet to climb above the towering, saber-tooth peaks of the Khalkists. Only the stars in an indigo sky gave light now, and it was not a light to penetrate the shadows of the cove.
Passing among the groups and clusters of his collected people, Grayfen was only a shadow among shadows — to them. But he could see them plainly, and as he made his way toward his private quarters — a circular, slab- stone hut with a low, tapering roof, surrounded by a perimeter that none but he could cross — he studied them, assessing their readiness. Six hundred fighting men he had assembled, and each of them had recruited others. Now there were thousands.
Their weapons and equipment were a motley mix of the trappings of every nomadic culture he had encountered in two years of recruiting beyond the mountain realms. There were dour Cobar among them, huddled in their own tight groups, their woven garments bristling with quilled bolts for their crossbows and the heavy hand- darts they favored. There were burly marauders from the Baruk tribes, Sandrunners from the northern plains, hill- dwelling Flock-raiders, evil-tempered Sackmen and many who fit no particular group. There were hard-bitten fugitives from the agrarian lands to the east, refugees from the fringes of the Silvanesti forests driven out by elves — and, some said, by a marauding dragon — and a hundred kinds of wandering mercenaries willing to fight anyone’s battles for a share of the spoils.
Two things bound them all together as a single force — the promise of riches when Thorin was taken and their fear of Grayfen. In recruiting, the mage had touched each of them with burning fingers and stared into their eyes with those featureless ruby orbs that were his eyes. And having touched them, he had the power to kill any one of them — anywhere — at any time he chose.
This, then, was the force that Grayfen the Mage, whom some called Ember-Eye, had amassed for his assault on Thorin. These, and his agents already at work among the people of Golash and Chandera. He was satisfied. The Balladine was beginning. The dwarves — the
Thorin would be his, and every dwarf within his reach would pay painfully and finally for the pain that lived within him each day of his life.
Grayfen made a sign with his hands, strode across the forbidden perimeter around his hut, and stepped inside, into a darkness that was not dark to him. He saw clearly in the gloom, as brightly as he saw everything — in brilliant, burning shades of red. Closing the portal behind him, he went to a plain, wooden pedestal in the center of the room and knelt before it.
With a sigh, using the thumb and first finger of each hand, he removed his eyes, easily plucking them from their sockets. Immediately, the fiery pain in his head subsided, and he rested there for a moment, letting the familiar relief of it wash over him.
With a muttered incantation, he placed the two ruby spheres on the pedestal, stood, and shuffled to his sleeping cot — a blind man groping in darkness. He found his cot and lay down upon it, wishing for real sleep … wishing that, for a few hours, he could be as blind as the empty sockets beneath his brows.
He was blind, but still he saw — as brightly and relentlessly as always. He saw the ceiling of the hut above the pedestal. He saw what the ruby orbs saw — always that, and never less. They lay in gloom, glowing faintly, staring at the ceiling, and the first sight in his mind was that ceiling. The second sight, captured within the orbs and always present, was of a ragged, bleeding dwarf with a slender, double-tined javelin in its hand — like a fishing spear, except that it hummed to itself and glowed with a crimson luster. As always, in his mind, Grayfen saw the image of that wounded dwarf — and as he saw it, it hurled its glowing javelin at his face.
Once, then, Grayfen had been truly blind … before the double-pointed spear that took his eyes gave him new ones and the power that went with them. Once, years ago and very far away, in a place called Kal-Thax, Grayfen had known the darkness. It was a dwarf who had blinded him. Now it would be dwarves who paid the price.
Kalil the herdsman had spent the day driving his flock up from the meadows above the Hammersong, and as the Suncradles swallowed the light of full day, he chased the last ewe into the pen and closed the gate. Though his legs ached from the day’s work, Kalil was pleased. The flock had grazed well on the rich meadows. They were fat and frisky, and their wool was prime.
Far up the mountains, the drums had begun their call. Balladine was at hand. Tomorrow, Kalil would select the best animals from his herd and take them to the village, to join the trek from Golash to Thorin. Trading should be good this year; he knew the Calnar needed wool and mutton. Even after paying his trade-share to Garr Lanfel, Prince of Golash, Kalil expected to have a purse bulging with dwarven coin — and maybe a bit of dwarven steel as well.
Securing his gate, Kalil turned toward his herdsman’s shack and was nearly there before he looked up and stopped, startled at what he saw. In front of his house stood a tall, gold-and-white horse, head-down and streaked with sweat. It was clearly a dwarven horse — no one but the dwarves bred and used the huge, white-maned Calnar horses. It wore a saddle of dwarven design, richly studded with steel and silver, and its loose reins dangled from its headstall.
Quickly, Kalil glanced about, his hackles rising, half expecting to see a Calnar soldier nearby. Like most of the humans of the Khalkist realms, Kalil accepted the dwarves of Calnar. He looked forward to trading with them, and he didn’t mind mingling with them — on their lands — during the Balladine. But, like most humans, his regard for the Calnar was tempered by a deep-seated dislike born as much of envy as of the difference in their appearance from his own.
The dwarves were rich. He had never encountered a dwarf who wasn’t rich. The dwarves made steel, and they used steel, and there was — it seemed to Kalil — a certain arrogance in the casual way the short, stubby creatures displayed their wealth. It made him feel very poor by comparison.
They were ugly little creatures, to Kalil’s human perception, and they were arrogant and obviously selfish, since they seemed always to be wealthier than anyone else. The idea of a dwarf being here — at his home — irritated him as much as it startled him.
But there was no dwarf around. There was only the huge, tired horse standing in Kalil’s dooryard, and he approached it cautiously. “Ho!” he said when it turned its great head to look at him with intelligent eyes. “Ho, stay! Easy now, good horse … stay.”
When it neither bared its teeth nor backed away, Kalil picked up its reins and rubbed its muzzle with his hand. “Good horse,” he crooned, noticing that the bit in its mouth and the studding on its headstall were of fine silver. He looked further. From withers to flanks hung a skirt of delicately worked mesh, with a fine saddle atop. Kalil’s mouth dropped open. The saddle was smeared with dried blood, and the shaft of an arrow jutted upward from its pommel.
For a moment, Kalil had considered trying to return the horse to the dwarves of Thorin for the rich reward they undoubtedly would pay for a strayed animal. But now he changed his mind. To take a dwarven horse to the dwarves, its saddle covered with blood and a human-made arrow embedded there, would be worse than foolish. It would likely be the last thing he ever did.
He decided he wanted nothing to do with this horse. Still, its trappings were of the finest dwarven craft. The steel parts alone were worth a small fortune in human realms.
Glancing around furtively, Kalil set about relieving the horse of its burdens. Saddle, bridle, headstall, and mail skirt he removed, along with the pack behind the saddle and the saddle blanket, which was of fine, woven suede. He carried his prizes to his hay shed and hid them there. Tomorrow he would bury them — or most of them — to be recovered later.
When he came out, the horse was still standing beside his house, nibbling at his thatch roof. “Here!” he snapped. “Leave that alone!”
The horse backed away, staring at him, and then, as though it had tolerated all the human company it cared to, it turned and trotted away, up the hill.
