The Fall of Dorkhun (18 page)

“He’s not gonna do what I think he is?” Roskin asked.

Bordorn turned and watched, his mouth gaping.

“Krondious, no,” Roskin stammered.

The outcast steadied himself and measured his steps. He backed up two more paces and took a deep breath. Then, exhaling sharply, he sprinted to the edge and leapt into the air. As he jumped, he hefted the massive axe over his head, gripping with both hands. The blade nearly touched his heels as he reared it back, and for a moment, it seemed he were suspended in mid-air. The twin braids of his beard had blown over his shoulders, and his leather helmet flew from his head as he soared towards the back of the troll’s skull.

At the last possible moment, he torqued his body and brought the axe forward with all his might. As he swung, the grunt that erupted from him bellowed louder than the commotion below. With perfect timing, the axe smashed the troll’s head just as Krondious landed on its back. One full blade of the weapon sank to the handle, and Krondious let go and jumped onto an awning of a storefront. The frame wasn’t meant to hold that much weight and broke, sending Krondious and the awning to the ground in a pile.

For a moment after the axe had struck, the troll continued as if unharmed, but a couple of heartbeats later, Roskin understood why Krondious had jumped. The creature suddenly thrashed wildly, its arms flailing towards its head but unable to reach the axe. The dwarves nearest to it scattered, and Bordorn grabbed Roskin and pushed him back around the corner. The troll roared louder than thunder, and the roar dwindled into a screech. Then, there were crashes followed by silence.

Roskin shoved Bordorn aside and rushed onto the street. He hurried to Krondious who lay tangled in the awning with shards of wood over him. Roskin and Bordorn cleared the mess and untangled him, and Krondious sat up groggily.

“Where’s Aleichan?” he asked.

“Who?” Roskin asked.

Krondious gazed at him blankly, but slowly his wits returned.

“Did I get it?”

“You can say that,” Bordorn said, pointing to where the troll had crashed through a building. Its body lay still under a pile of rubble.

“I need my axe,” Krondious said, struggling to his feet. Roskin and Bordorn steadied him.

“How did you do that?” Roskin asked, astonished by what he had seen.

“Cave trolls have one major weakness. Their skulls never fully fuse at the back. My papaw taught me that before I even had a beard.”

“My friend,” Bordorn said, resting his hand on Krondious’s shoulder. “Remind me never to make fun of your papaw again.”

Krondious smiled at Bordorn and then at Roskin. A crowd had formed, and dwarves murmured about the feat that had just occurred. From the back, one dwarf began to clap and was quickly joined by several more, and within moments, the entire crowd was cheering wildly. Roskin whistled sharply to get their attention

“Spread the word to every Kiredurk in this kingdom. This is Krondious of the deep, and he fells trolls with one strike.”

The crowd erupted again, and as the trio made their way to the troll’s corpse, dwarves patted Krondious on the shoulders and back as he passed. It took several attempts to dislodge the axe from the troll’s skull, but the weapon wasn’t damaged. As Krondious cleaned it with a rag found in the destroyed building, Roskin and Bordorn examined the troll’s body.

“What do you suppose drove it this high?” Bordorn asked.

“I don’t know,” Roskin responded. “Food? Water?”

“Papaw always said that when a cave troll showed itself to dwarves, it was a sign of terrible danger.”

Roskin thought about his visions of Dorkhun in ruin, and the thought made him shiver.

“Let’s get moving,” he said, more sharply than intended. “We need to get to the capital quickly.”

With that, they exited the ruined building and retraced their steps to where they had left the pack horse. All three dwarves returned their weapons to its back and without any further ceremony continued to Dorkhun. They marched swiftly, almost at a trot, and with the pace none bothered speaking. In the small township, dwarves were clearing the disaster, and as they worked, they told and retold the tale of what Krondious had just done. By end of day, every Kiredurk in the township had heard the story at least twice, but none was tired of hearing it or telling it.

Chapter 11

A Race in the Wilderness

Molgheon led the group along the abandoned logging trail that snaked around Mount Khendar. They had been marching for two days, over rough terrain, and each dwarf was fatigued from the steep slopes, loose footing, and thick undergrowth. Their skin was scratched and torn from thorns and thistles, and their nerves were frayed and frazzled from the soldiers on the main road to their west and the treacherous ravine to their east. On each dwarf’s face, the strain of ever-present danger showed through gritted teeth, furrowed brows, and pursed lips.

The only thought that kept Molgheon moving forward was that once she got them to the gate on the southern face of Mount Gagneesh, she would return to Bressard’s home and be finished with war. She hadn’t told anyone of her plan and had decided she wouldn’t until they were at the gate. By that point, the others would be so relieved at reaching civilization, the shock of her decision wouldn’t deter them from delivering the criminals to Dorkhun.

Her only hesitation was Roskin. He wouldn’t understand why she needed to escape to Mount Roustdohn and hide from the world. He was young and ambitious, and for him, life was still moving upward. Molgheon, on the other hand, knew her best days were behind her. Her aching hands and joints told her every morning that youth was gone, and the loneliness she felt from spending a lifetime with nowhere to call home had eaten at her. She wished there was a way to tell him all of this herself.

But at this point, Bressard needed her more than Roskin did, so she would lead them to the gate but no further. By her calculation, that would get her back to the mountain in time to prepare for the coming snows. Any deeper into the kingdom and she risked both of them starving. All her life, she had put duty and responsibility ahead of her own desires, and for the first time, she had set her will on something she wanted only for herself. In exchange for caring for Bressard in his final days, she would live her life in the solitude of Mount Roustdohn, far from the turmoils of the encroaching Great Empire. While part of her felt guilty for being selfish, she knew she had earned the right to make this choice.

As she dwelled on her thoughts, she grew aware of something moving parallel to them through the forest. At first, she thought it was a mountain lion or maybe a pair of rock wolves, but as time passed, she realized it was something more intelligent. It matched their speed perfectly and kept a constant distance from them. In some ways, it reminded her of the dog beast in the eastern mountains, but this was a far more dangerous predator.

Centuries before, when elves and humans lived together peacefully, some humans lived among the Koorleine and learned their ways of hunting and tracking. Now, the descendants of those humans served the Great Empire as scouts and sentinels. During the Resistance, some of the closest calls Molgheon encountered were because of the trackers, known to dwarves simply as the Ghosts. She wasn’t certain that’s what followed them now, and she couldn’t be definite if there were one or two, but she was sure that if she didn’t end the threat soon, they would be overtaken by several platoons of soldiers and have no chance of escape.

She whispered to the Ghaldeon behind her to keep following the trail and maintain the pace. She conveyed seriousness with a stone cold expression. When he nodded, she slowed and moved to the edge of the path to let the others pass so she could discuss the problem with Leinjar. In the middle of the group, Torkdohn and Jase were each tied across the back of a horse, and their mouths were gagged. As his horse passed, Torkdohn’s eyes burned with rage. She matched his stare, and both refused to look away. Finally, the curve of the trail turned his horse from her. The memory of being trapped in the cage still fresh and painful, she continued to stare after him until Leinjar was beside her.

“We have an issue,” she whispered, moving in step with him on the narrow trail.

“I think I saw them,” Leinjar whispered back. “Two humans to our left.”

For a moment, Molgheon was speechless. She hadn’t expected a Tredjard to be so keen in a forest.

“What’s your plan?” he asked.

“I’m not sure.”

“Let’s take them,” Leinjar growled, his eyes wide and crazed.

“I promise you one thing,” Molgheon returned, holding up her hand to steady him. “Those two are far stealthier in the forest than anything you’ve ever encountered.”

“What then?”

“They’ve been tracking us for a couple miles, and neither has broken off to bring soldiers, so they may not think we’re worth bothering about.”

“We can’t risk hoping for that.”

“You’re right, but we have only one chance to do this. If even one of them gets away, we won’t make it to the valley.”

Leinjar took his pike from his back and held it with both hands, resting the wooden shaft across his torso. Carrying his weapon in marching formation, he looked less a threadbare escaped slave and more the soldier he had once been. Molgheon notched an arrow and nodded.

Without word to the other dwarves, they darted off the trail and sprinted up the incline towards the Ghosts. The two humans drew short swords and spread out. Molgheon motioned for Leinjar to take the one to the right, and he rushed in that direction. She raised her bow and aimed for her target, but he had stepped into a cluster of trees, blocking a clear shot. She circled around and watched for any sign.

In a forest, most people rustle branches or crunch brittle twigs without realizing, and those subtle motions and noises make them easy prey. Ghosts had learned from the elves to move through the forest undetected, and they rarely gave away their positions. As Molgheon continued to circle the cluster, she strained her ears and eyes for any hint of the tracker. She had learned during the Resistance to listen for noises they made to mask their movements, sounds that mimicked the natural din of the forest. To most, their subterfuge blended perfectly, but part of Molgheon’s training had been to detect them.

Behind a thick bunch of leaves, she heard buzzing like a swarm of winged insects, but the pitch was off slightly from the natural sound, so she aimed at the center of the buzz. Though she couldn’t see any trace of the human, she trusted her instincts that he was the source. The arrow whizzed from the elven bow in a flash, slicing through the green wall of leaves and striking a surface. The Ghost stumbled through the leaves in her direction. A low groan escaped as he collapsed to his knees, the arrow piercing his right lung. He looked at Molgheon, shock and disbelief on his face as he struggled to reach the arrow. She notched another and finished him before turning to locate where Leinjar had gone.

***

Four days earlier, as the Western Regiment of the Emperor Vassa’s Army marched up Mount Roustdohn, they happened across a freshly and rapidly abandoned campsite. The orders the captain had been given were clear and direct; Emperor Vassa wanted the Western Regiment to assemble in the Snivegohn Valley and procure enough farms to sustain themselves through the winter. The captain, an ambitious young leader who wanted to make general before forty, had every intention of achieving that objective ahead of schedule, so he wasn’t about to slow the march to inspect one campsite.

However, he was curious what so many dwarves were doing ahead of his army, so he dispatched his personal scout to find the two trackers in the forest at the base of the mountain. The trackers were a strange lot; their ancestors had lived among wood-brains, which had made them unfit for work outside a forest. They usually stayed away from the regular infantry and spent nearly all of their time tromping through the forest. To him, they were a lazy, lower class of soldier, and truth be known, he was glad they kept to themselves so he didn’t have to tolerate their presence.

But they were good at their jobs, and he was confident the two of them could find the dwarves, determine the threat level, and handle the situation. So he sent his scout to find them and kept his soldiers marching up the mountain even as twilight made the way difficult. The Snivegohn Valley would be his first major conquest and the next step in his ascent through the ranks.

***

The two trackers inspected the campsite the next evening, and though the regiment had trampled most of the evidence, they garnered a decent grasp of what had happened. Nine dwarves had been there, with five saddled horses and a wagon. They had heard the regiment and had bolted up the mountain. Then, their trail stopped abruptly. Even though someone had tried admirably to re-hide it, the camouflaged gate was easy for them to locate in the daylight, so they climbed over and sneaked down the overgrown trail.

The house was well-hidden from the main road, and had they not been tracking the nine dwarves, even they might not have noticed it. They inspected the yard and found the abandoned wagon in the dilapidated barn, discarded remains of three freshly slain deer, and tracks leading into the forest away from the house but parallel to the main road. The dwarves were on foot, leading the horses, and they had been gone for one to two hours at most. Inside, an ancient dwarf sat alone in the living room. He barely clung to life and was no threat to their mission.