The Dwarves (73 page)

“The range has been in sight since the moment we entered Tabaîn,” moaned Goïmgar, dreading the prospect of another long march
in the cold. “Are you trying to get us all snow-blind or something?”

Grumpily, he set off through the snow, the others following in his wake. Toward evening they came to a deserted barn filled
with bales of hay.

They lit a fire in spite of their qualms and made themselves comfortable, then cleared a spot for Bavragor to lie beside the
flames, swaddling him in three blankets so he sweated out the cold. Rodario curled up in the warmth, while Djerůn stood guard
by the door, leaving the others free to look after the invalid. They clustered around him.

“It’s nothing, honestly.” Just then he choked and spat out a large clot of blood. He was gasping for air, groaning rather
than breathing, and he seemed to be losing strength. The warmth was making things worse. “If you give me a sip of brandy,
I’ll be fighting fit.”

“It can’t be a cold,” Boïndil said firmly. He got up. “It’s gangrene, I know it. Sometimes it spreads beneath the skin, even
after the wound has healed.”

“No, Boïndil,” snapped Andôkai, “I cleaned the flesh thoroughly.”

A terrible thought occurred to Tungdil. He got up, went over to Goïmgar, and picked up his shield to examine the dent. Where
the bolt had hit, the metal was discolored and there were traces of a clear frozen liquid that neither he nor the artisan
had noticed before. His spirits sank. The bolt had been dipped in something that had stuck to the shield.

Vraccas, give him strength
. “Do you have a spell against poison?” he asked Andôkai hoarsely. “By the look of things, Sverd wasn’t relying purely on
his aim.”

“Poison?” Bavragor swallowed his cough and grinned. As his lips parted, his companions saw the blood leaking from his gums
and coloring his teeth. His mouth was full of blood. “I knew it! Did you hear that, Goïmgar? What’s the betting you’d be dead
already? I’ve drunk enough brandy and beer in my lifetime to toughen me up. Ha, a cold!”

The maga closed her eyes. “I can’t do anything against poison. My art is… I’m afraid, it’s not my kind of magic,” she said
in a soft, apologetic tone. “Healing the wound drained a lot of my energy. My strength is all but exhausted.”

A terrible silence settled over the group. There was no mistaking what Andôkai’s words meant for the mason. Balyndis reached
for his calloused hand and squeezed it encouragingly. She was too choked to speak.

“I know what you’re thinking,” croaked Bavragor at length. “Things don’t look good for the merry minstrel. It’s all right;
I wasn’t intending to return from the mission anyway.” He looked up at Tungdil. “Still, I’d give anything to see the fifthling
kingdom and fashion Keenfire’s spurs. I wanted to go out with a bang, not in a dingy barn miles away from my beloved mountains.”

Blood was seeping through his pores, the droplets merging into rivulets and soaking his straw mattress. In no time his garments
were drenched with red.

“You’re not going to die,” Tungdil told him shakily. His smile, which he hoped would be encouraging, looked more like a grimace.
“We can’t fashion Keenfire without you! You’re Beroïn’s best mason.”

Bavragor had to swallow a mouthful of blood before he could reply. “In that case, you’ll have to take me with you. We’ll make
the ax to kill Nôd’onn, you’ll see.” He nodded to the door. “Carry me to the Perished Land. I’ll fulfill my mission after
my death.”

“But… but you’ll be a
revenant,
” stuttered Boïndil, horrified. “Your soul —”

“I’ll do my bit for Keenfire and confound the rest!” The outburst ended in another coughing fit.

“What if you turn against us? The other dead souls tried to kill us and eat us!” Boïndil glanced at the others for support.
Some were struggling with their emotions, the remainder looked embarrassed.

“Chain my hands together, if you’re worried,” the mason told them. “My will is stronger than the drive to do evil. Dwarves
are too stubborn to be conquered by darkness.” He closed his eyes. “You’ll have to hurry,” he gasped. He coughed again and
blood spewed from his mouth, trickling into his well-kempt beard.

“Djerůn!” At Andôkai’s bidding, the giant stooped to lift the dwarf. Cradling Bavragor gently in his arms like a mother would
carry her child, he left the barn and stomped through the snow.

His long tireless limbs bore the mason toward the north, where the Perished Land had established its dominion, awakening anything
that died to hideous life.

T
he rest of the company packed their things and followed the giant as fast as the sparkling snow and the dwarves’ stumpy legs
would allow.

Tungdil looked up at the stars and wept silent tears for the mason who was sacrificing his soul for the sake of the ax on
which Girdlegard’s future depended. For all Bavragor’s eccentricities and occasional crotchetiness, he was a good dwarf whom
Tungdil regarded as a friend.

He heard a sniff beside him and turned to the tearful Balyndis. Her eyes were red with crying, but she smiled and squeezed
his hand. Suddenly his courage, which had all but deserted him in the barn, came flooding back.

So much had happened since they had left the secondling kingdom — too much, in fact. Their adventure had turned into something
far bigger and more perilous than they’d ever imagined. Even Rodario, renowned for his pompous comments, had fallen silent
and was brooding over the mason’s death.

“I hope Girdlegard is worth it, Vraccas,” murmured Tungdil, gazing up at the sparkling firmament. “When all this is over,
I shall see to it that our folks don’t barricade themselves back in their mountains. From now on, we’ll work together.”

Balyndis gave his hand another squeeze, but he pulled away and hurried to join Boïndil at the head of the procession. It was
the wrong time to be thinking of anything except Keenfire.

“You like her, don’t you?” the secondling said immediately, without glancing round.

“Don’t start,” Tungdil told him. “It’s the last thing I want to talk about.”

“I can’t say I blame you. She’s an attractive lass, and to someone like you, with no experience of the fairer sex, she must
look as pretty as Vraccas’s own daughter.”

“I’ve decided not to think about it until Nôd’onn has been defeated. My duty is to Girdlegard.”

“Trust a scholar to want to
think
about it.” Boïndil took care not to meet his eye: For all intents and purposes, he was addressing Djerůn’s snowy footprints.
“Think about it if you must, but remember: If something is worth pursuing, you shouldn’t waste time. Situations change faster
than you can split an orcish skull, and a moment’s hesitation could cost you your chance.”

“What makes you say that?”

“No reason.” He peered into the distance. “They’re up ahead.” He whipped out his axes. “Let’s hope the drunkard can defy the
bidding of the Perished Land.” It was evident from his hefted weapons that he was prepared to take decisive action.

The maga called out to Djerůn, who raised his armored hand and beckoned them over. At his side was Bavragor, arms dangling
limply and gaze fixed blankly on the Gray Range.

“Bavragor?” Tungdil said gently, searching the pale face for a trace of recognition. His features had aged terribly; he looked
waxen and corpselike.

“I feel… nothing,” came the ponderous response. It seemed to cost him a great deal of effort to open his mouth and form the
words. “I can’t feel my body. My mind is… empty.” The soulless eyes roved over the group and settled on Tungdil. “It feels
bad; everything feels bad. Things I loved, I hate. Things I hated…” He stared past Tungdil and fixed his gaze on Boïndil.
“I want to slaughter the things I hated — tear them apart and devour them. Tie my hands together; I don’t know how much longer
I can resist. The evil is inside me.”

“Very well,” said Tungdil, unthreading the leather strap from Goïmgar’s shield. He bound Bavragor’s hands behind his back.

“Tighter,” growled the mason. “You don’t have to worry about my blood flow: My heart stopped beating when I died.” He seemed
tense and agitated, but once the bonds had been tightened to his satisfaction, he relaxed a little and turned to Tungdil.
“I want you to behead me as soon as my work is done. I don’t want to serve the Perished Land for eternity and patrol the abandoned
fifthling galleries, massacring innocents and spreading the pestilence.”

“No dwarf will ever serve the Perished Land,” Tungdil promised. “You have my word.”

“As for you,” the mason snapped at Boïndil, “take my advice and stay away. I want nothing better than to sink my teeth into
your gullet and tear you to shreds.” He squared his shoulders and his chestnut eye glimmered cruelly before he looked down
and stared at the snow. He took a first step, then another. “Hurry, I don’t want to be a soulless corpse for a moment longer
than necessary.”

On a signal from the maga, Djerůn assumed the role of Bavragor’s keeper, walking close behind him so the others were shielded
from his jaws by a solid metal frame.

T
ime wore on, orbit after orbit, as they trudged across the never-ending flats of Tabaîn. The Breadbasket, as the fertile fields
were nicknamed in summer, was so inhospitably cold that it was essential to keep moving in order not to freeze.

Tungdil had read somewhere that light reflected by the snow could harm the eyes and cause permanent damage. To protect his
companions from blindness, he ordered them to bind cloth around their faces and look out through tiny slits.

Their journey was slow and laborious. The only members of the company who didn’t seem to mind the march were Djerůn and the
undead mason, who plowed their way impassively through the snow. Since their provisions were frozen solid, they had the onerous
task of thawing their food by the fire every evening before they could eat. Without the warm garments given to them by Xamtys,
they would surely have perished in the cold.

At length Boïndil became more restless, his fighting instincts ever harder to repress, while Bavragor had been stripped of
the very things that made him who he was; he didn’t drink, didn’t sing, didn’t laugh, just stared into the distance. On one
occasion he took the edge off his hunger with a mountain hare. Ripping it from a metal trap, he ate it alive, leaving nothing
but bones and fur. The sound of his frenzied eating and the cracking of bones made Goïmgar, whose hand rested permanently
on his sword, more nervous than ever.

The Gray Range edged closer and closer. Its peaks seemed almost in touching distance, yet still they struggled through the
snowdrifts of Tabaîn, finally crossing the border into Gauragar and, after an exhausting march of many orbits, reaching the
slate-gray foothills of the range.

On their way they encountered neither orcs nor any other beasts, although they occasionally saw their tracks. Great armies
were advancing southward, but fortunately for the company, their paths never crossed.

At last they neared the stronghold’s outermost defenses. Even from a distance they could see that no one had been posted to
defend the ramparts against intruders from Girdlegard’s interior.

The beasts from the north had torn stone from stone, destroying walls and toppling towers until nothing remained of the stronghold’s
former splendor. Their work had been done so thoroughly that Tungdil and the others were hard-pressed to imagine how the kingdom
had looked during Giselbert Ironeye’s era. Fragments of stonework testified to the fifthling masons’ skill, but the glorious
ramparts were nothing but ruins. It was a harrowing sight for the dwarves.

Although the defenses seemed deserted, the company approached the gates with caution.

“Stay here and don’t make a sound,” Boïndil told them as they struggled to the top of a steep pathway. “Narmora and I will
check for sentries.”

The pair slipped away, darting between the gray rocks and hiding behind sections of masonry that loomed out of the snow. Their
goal was an open gateway, as tall as a house, leading straight inside the mountain.

Tungdil scanned their surroundings and listened intently. A chill wind whistled through the cracked ramparts, producing high-pitched
notes that rolled together in a tune. Icicles hung like glassy stalactites from the mountain ledges, and fifty paces to their
left, a waterfall had stopped midstream in a frozen sculpture of ice.

No orcs, no ogres, no älfar, nothing.

“Did you hear what he said?” Goïmgar smiled bitterly. “He told us to be quiet! If only he could hear himself.”

“He’s not exactly graceful,” agreed the impresario, “although the comparison with the delightful Narmora certainly doesn’t
help.”

Tungdil watched as they stole forward, Boïndil relying on his diminutive size, while the half älf sprang between the rocks
with the elegance of a dancer. There were no telltale noises from the snow beneath her feet; she seemed barely to land at
all, skimming across the ground as light as a feather. Boïndil’s chain mail, by contrast, made a terrible racket, even through
his thick fur coat.

Narmora was the first to reach the gates. She pressed herself against the wall, listening intently to the darkness before
slipping inside. Her silhouette melted into the gloom and she disappeared from sight.

Furgas fiddled determinedly with his gloves. “Sometimes I wish she wasn’t so daring,” he whispered.

“Don’t worry, old chap,” Rodario soothed him. “Narmora is a woman who knows her talents and isn’t afraid to use them. You
know the sort of thing she got up to before the three of us were a troupe. This is child’s play by comparison.”

“I’d rather not talk about Narmora,” Goïmgar chipped in hurriedly. “She’s scary enough as it is.”

Boïndil had also reached the gates to the fifthling kingdom, conquered over a thousand cycles earlier by the Perished Land.
He stopped, apparently undecided, and looked about, but the coast was clear.

At that moment, Narmora emerged from the enormous tunnel. The black shadows stuck to her like cobwebs, wrapping themselves
around her lovingly, reluctant to set her free. She waved to them, her relaxed manner signaling that there was nothing to
fear.