Rise Of Empire (98 page)

Seagulls cried above them as they crisscrossed a brilliant blue sky. Water lapped the sides of ships, which creaked and moaned like living beasts stretching after a long run.

Hadrian stepped onto the dock alongside Royce. “Feels like you’re gonna fall over, doesn’t it?”

“To answer your question from before … No, I don’t think we should be sailors. I’d be happy never to see a ship again.”

“At least you don’t have to worry about land sickness.”

“Still feels like the ground is pitching beneath me.”

The five of them bought fresh-cooked fish from dock vendors and ate on the pier. They listened to the shanty tunes spilling out of the taverns and smelled the pungent fishy reek of the harbor. By the time Wyatt returned to the ship, he was red-faced angry.

“They’re going through with the venting! They refused to listen to anything I said,” he shouted, trotting up the quay.

“What about the invasion?” Hadrian asked. “Didn’t you tell them about that?”

“They didn’t believe me! Even Livet Glim, the port controller—and we were once mates! I shared a bunk with him for two years and the bloody bastard refuses to, as he puts it, ‘Turn the entire port on its ear because one person thinks there might be an attack.’ He says they haven’t heard anything from any other ships, and they won’t do a thing unless the armada is confirmed by other captains.”

“It will be too late by then.”

“I tried to tell them that, but they went on about how they
had
to regulate the pressure on the full moon. I went to every
official in the city, but no one would listen. After a while, I think they became suspicious that
I
was up to something. I stopped when they threatened to lock me up. I’m sorry.”

“Maybe if we all went?”

Wyatt shook his head. “It won’t do any good. Can you believe this? After all we’ve been through, we get here and it won’t change a single thing. Unless …” He looked directly at Hadrian.

“Unless what?” Poe asked.

Hadrian sighed and looked at Royce, who nodded.

“What am I missing?” Poe asked.

“Drumindor was built by dwarves thousands of years ago,” Hadrian explained. “Those huge towers are packed with stone gears and hundreds of switches and levers. The Tur Del Fur Port Authority only knows what a handful of them actually do. They know how to vent the pressure and blow the spouts, and that’s about it.”

“We know how to shut it off,” Royce said.

“Shut it off?” Poe asked. “How do you shut off a volcano?”

“Not the volcano—the system,” Hadrian went on. “There’s a master switch that locks the whole gearing system. Once dropped, the fortress doesn’t build pressure anymore. The volcano just vents itself. It won’t be able to stop the invasion, but it won’t explode either.”

“How does that help?”

“If nothing else, it’ll prevent the instant destruction of this city. When the black sails appear, people might have time to evacuate, maybe even put up a defense. Once the system is shut down, Royce and I can crawl through the portals to find out what Merrick did. If we can get it fixed in time, we can raise the master switch and barbecue an armada of very surprised goblins.”

“Can we help?” Banner asked.

“Not this time,” Hadrian told him. “Can you four handle this ship alone?”

Wyatt nodded. “It will be tough with no topmen, but we’ll work something out.”

“Good, then you get out of here before the fleet comes in. You were a good assistant, Poe. Stick with Wyatt and you’ll be a captain one day. This one we have to do alone.”

Legend held that dwarves had existed centuries before man walked the face of the world. Back in an age when they and the elves had fought for supremacy of Elan, dwarves had a powerful and honorable nation governed by their own kings with their own laws and traditions. That had been a golden age of great feats, wondrous achievements, and marvelous heroes. Then the elves won the war.

The strength of the dwarves had been shattered forever, and the emergence of men had destroyed what remained. Although dwarves had never been enslaved like the remnants of the elves, men distrusted and shunned the sons of Drome. Fearful of a unified dwarven kingdom, humans had forced the dwarves out of their homeland of Delgos into a shadowy existence of nomadic persecution. Despite the dwarves’ skills in crafts, humans scattered them whenever they gathered in groups too large for comfort. For their own survival, dwarves had learned to hide. Those who could, adopted human ways and attempted to fit in. Their culture had been obliterated by centuries of careful erasure, little survived of their former glory except what stone could tell. Few dwarves, and even fewer humans, possessed the imagination to recall a day when dwarves had ruled half the world—unless, like Royce and Hadrian, they were staring up at Drumindor.

The light of the setting sun bathed the granite rock, making it shine like silver. Sheer walls towered hundreds of feet, rising out of the bedrock of the burning mountain’s back. The twin towers stood joined by the thin line of what appeared from that distance to be a wafer-thin bridge. The tops of the towers smoldered quietly, leaking plumes of dark smoke out of every vent, creating a thin gray cloud that hovered overhead. Up close, the scope and mammoth size were breathtaking.

They had one night and the following day to accomplish the same magic trick they had performed many years earlier. By the time they purchased the necessary supplies it was dark. They slipped through the city of Tur Del Fur and hiked up into the countryside, following goat paths into the foothills that eventually led to the base of the great fortress itself.

“Is this where it was?” Royce asked, stopping and studying the base of the tower.

“How should I know?” Hadrian replied as his eyes coursed up the length of the south tower. Up close, it blocked everything else out, a solid wall of black rising against the light of the moon. “I can never understand why such small people build such gigantic things.”

“Maybe they’re compensating,” Royce said, dropping several lengths of rope.

“Damn it, Royce. It’s been eight years since we did this. I was in better shape then. I was younger, and if I recall, I vowed I would never do it again.”

“That’s why you shouldn’t make vows. The moment you do, fate starts conspiring to shove them down your throat.”

Hadrian sighed, staring upward. “That’s one tall tower.”

“And if the dwarves were still here maintaining it, it would be impregnable. Lucky for us, they’ve let it rot. You should be
happy—the last eight years would only have eroded it further. It should be easier.”

“It’s granite, Royce. Granite doesn’t erode much in eight years.”

Royce said nothing as he continued to lay out coils of rope, checking the knots in the harnesses and slipping on his hand-claws.

“Do you recall that I nearly fell last time?” Hadrian asked.

“So don’t step there this time.”

“Do you remember what the nice lady in the jungle village told you? One light will go out?”

“We either climb this or let the place blow. We let the place blow and Merrick wins. Merrick wins, he gets away and you never find Degan Gaunt.”

“I never thought you cared all that much if I ever found Gaunt.” Hadrian looked up at the tower again. “At least not
that
much.”

“Honestly? I don’t care at all. This whole quest of yours is stupid. So you find Gaunt—then what? You follow him around being his bodyguard for the rest of your life? What if he’s like Ballentyne? Wouldn’t that be fun? Granted it’ll be exciting, as I’m sure anyone with a sword will want to kill him, but who cares? There’s no reward, no point to it. You feel guilt—I kinda get that. You ran out on your father and you can’t say you’re sorry anymore. So for that, you’ll spend your life following this guy around being his butler? You’re better than that.”

“I think there was a compliment in there somewhere—so thanks. But if you’re not doing this to help me find Gaunt, why are you?”

Royce paused. From a bag he drew out Wesley’s hat. He must have fetched it down before they left the ship. “He stuck
his neck out for me three times. The last one got him killed. There’s no way this fortress is blowing up.”

Even in the dark, Royce found handholds and spots to place his feet that Hadrian could never have spotted in the full light of day. Like a spider, he scaled the side of the tower, until he came to the base of the first niche. There he set his first anchor and dropped a rope to Hadrian. By the time Hadrian reached the foothold of that niche, Royce was already nailing in the next pin and sending down another coil. They continued this way, finding minute edges where several thousand years of erosion revealed the maker’s seams in the rock. Centuries-old crevices and cracks allowed Royce to climb what had once been slick, smooth stone.

Two hours later, the trees below appeared like tiny bushes, and the cold, wintry winds buffeted them like barn swallows. They were only a third of the way up.

“It’s time,” Royce shouted over the howl of the wind. He anchored a pin, tied a rope to it, and climbed back down.

Hadrian groaned. “I hate this part!”

“Sorry, buddy, nothing I can do about it. The niches are all over that way.” Royce gestured across to where the vertical grooves cut into the rock on the far side of a deep crevasse.

Royce tied the rope to his harness and linked himself to Hadrian.

“Now, just watch me,” Royce told him, and taking hold of the rope, he sprinted across the stone face. Reaching the edge of the crevasse, he leapt, swinging out like a clock’s pendulum. He cleared the gap by what looked like only a few inches. On the far side, he clung to the stone, dangling like a bug on a
twig. He slowly pulled himself up and drove another pin. Then, after tying off the rope, he waved to Hadrian.

If Hadrian missed the jump, he would slip into the crevasse, where he would end up dangling helplessly, assuming the rope held him. The force of the fall could easily pop out the holding pin or even snap the rope. He took a deep breath of cold air, steadied himself, and began to run. On the far side, Royce leaned out for him. He reached the edge and jumped. The wind whistled past his face, blurring his vision as tears streaked across his cheeks. He struck the far side just short of the landing, bashing his head hard enough to see stars. He tasted blood and wondered if he had lost his front teeth even as his fingertips lost their tenuous hold and he began to fall. Royce tried to grab him, but was too late. Hadrian fell.

He dropped about three inches.

Hadrian dangled from the rope Royce had anchored the moment his partner landed. Hadrian groaned in pain while wiping blood from his face.

“See?” Royce shouted in his ear. “That went
much
better than last time!”

They continued scaling upward, working within the relative shelter of the vertical three-sided chimneys. They were too high now for Hadrian to see anything except the tiny lights of the port city. Everything else below was darkness. They rested for a time in the semi-sheltered niche and then climbed upward again.

Higher and higher, Royce led the way. Hadrian’s hands were sore from gripping the rope and burned from the few times he had slipped. His legs, exhausted and weak, quivered dangerously. The wind was brutal. Gusting in an eddy caused by the chimney they followed, it pushed outward like an invisible hand trying to knock them off. The sun came up and
Hadrian was nearing the end of his endurance when they finally reached the bridge. They were slightly more than two-thirds of the way, but thankfully they did not need to reach the top.