He felt terrible, but even so, he was surprised that the hangover afflicted him so severely that he couldn’t even move his arms, which seemed to be awkwardly pinned behind him. Where was he? What in the name of Reorx had he been drinking?
Gradually, a few answers came to him from deep inside his foggy mind. He had been in a campsite, traveling with Harn Poleaxe. They’d been sharing a flask of dwarf spirits… but then everything got confusing. What had happened to them?
Only gradually, as he continued to struggle to form his thoughts, did he realize the bitter truth: he was bound! He struggled against the tight cords that restrained his wrists, speared by pain as he forced himself into a sitting position. He looked around for Poleaxe, wondering if his companion, too, had been taken captive by unknown foes. But how? Hadn’t Harn told him that, at long last, they were back on his own, friendly territory?
Even when he saw his Neidar companion, sitting across the smoldering remnant of the great bonfire, grinning cheerfully at him, he didn’t remember what had happened. Only when he took in the other dwarves, a full dozen of them, armed and armored as if for battle, did he begin to comprehend the betrayal. The newcomers were casually seated around Poleaxe, clearly no threat to him. Two of them sipped mugs of steaming tea, while several more leaned against tree trunks, their booted feet propped casually on rocks near the fire.
The Bluestone luck! He’d been betrayed and captured. Complete understanding dawned when he recognized the hollow belt pouch, the sleeve containing the venerable Bluestone, held casually in Harn Poleaxe’s hands.
With an inarticulate cry of rage, Brandon tried to hurl himself across the camp. His futile effort ended in a pathetic thump onto his face when he couldn’t free his hands and, at the same time, discovered that his legs were tightly bound together at the calves and ankles.
“Here now, son,” Poleaxe said genially. “Take care you don’t pull a muscle or plant your face in the fire. Those coals are still plenty hot, you know.”
“Filthy thieving bastard!” Brandon spit, wrestling himself around, once again sitting up clumsily. He was trembling with rage, furious at his own impotence.
“Now watch your tongue, or I might just have to hit you again. Harder this time.” Poleaxe patted the hammer he wore at his belt, and Brandon understood why his head was throbbing so badly. Poleaxe addressed one of the others, who-the prisoner guessed-were obviously his fellow hill dwarves. “I tell you, these Hylar can’t handle strong drink. They should stick to lemon water or iced beer.”
His witty remark was greeted by chuckles but aroused Brandon to fresh, and fruitless, struggles against his painful bonds. “You tricked me!” he declared. “That was more than dwarf spirits in that bottle.”
Harn Poleaxe laughed and gave a mocking little half bow of thanks, as if he had just been complimented. “I wouldn’t have had to if you’d just drunk it like a dwarf. But instead, you sipped it like an elf maid so, yeah, I had to doctor the recipe a little.”
“You brought me all this way just to rob me?” Brandon asked, astounded at the treachery and mystified as to his former companion’s behavior.
“In a word, yes,” Poleaxe said. He was clearly enjoying himself. “But you should know that this is much, much more than a simple robbery. Do you know how hard it was to follow you and your brother through the caves under Garnet Thax? I had to track you all the way! Then, after you fought the troll and found the vein of gold, I knew that your father would never sell the stone-he had no need of my payment, not if you could file your claim.”
“No!” Brandon protested in disbelief. “It was you? You were there-”
“Ah, comes the dawn,” said the Niedar with a wicked chuckle. “I hastened to get word to Lord Heelspur, so that his fellows could meet you and Nailer. Of course, I had to make sure that one of you survived, and that Heelspur got to claim the new vein. All in all, I put in a lot of work to make this happen.”
“But- why?” demanded the Kayolin dwarf.
“You see, we’re going to make a war, and you-or your family’s stone, more properly-is going to help us.”
“A war? Against who?” demanded the Kayolin dwarf.
For the first time, the Neidar’s genial front cracked. “Against your own cousins down here!” he spat. “The mountain dwarves who’ve been the bane of my people’s existence since before the Cataclysm. No longer content to cower behind the gates of Thorbardin, they dare to battle us on the surface.” He hefted the beautiful blue wedge. “This is part-one part-of the head of a hammer that will smash the gate of Thorbardin wide open. It will be like pulling off the top of an anthill. Just imagine the mountain dwarves’ consternation as the Neidar army pours in. We’ll send them on their final march to Reorx!”
Brandon sat back, stunned and focused. So many bad things had happened to him recently, he had thought he was over the worst. But the full scope of the disaster that was striking his family began to dawn on him, and his throat tightened with a mixture of self-pity and despair. First, Nailer Bluestone had been murdered at the moment of hope and possible redemption. Then he, himself, had been forced into exile, carrying the last hope of the clan represented by the stone that rested in Poleaxe’s possession. He saw that Harn had even stolen his axe-the axe Balric Bluestone had carried on the surface when the Cataclysm stuck. The weapon had been strapped into Brandon’s pack, but it lay on the ground beside the arrogant Neidar.
All hope was gone, finished.
“What are you going to do with me?” he demanded with as much bluster as he could fake.
“That’s an interesting, but a tough, question,” Harn replied. He pushed himself to his feet and strode back and forth, glancing at his new companions. Brandon studied them too and didn’t like what he saw. They were a lot of ruffians and outlaws, he guessed. One wore an eye patch, while several proudly displayed the scars of battle on their faces or bare arms. An older Neidar spit ostentatiously, his eyes never leaving the prisoner’s.
“I know for a fact this one’s a spy,” Poleaxe declared loudly for everyone’s benefit. “He’s here to scout our towns and report back on our preparations. Why, at Flatrock, he claimed to be one of my own clan-mates. He’s a scoundrel, I tell you.”
“You lying bastard!” protested Brandon, flailing uselessly. “You know as well as I do why I came here… and why I claimed to be a Neidar in Flatrock!”
“A confession!” Harn crowed triumphantly. “See!”
Poleaxe stopped pacing. He pointed to a pair of the hill dwarves, burly fellows with bristling beards and stout shields. Each wore a short sword at his waist and, as if understanding the treacherous Neidar’s command, they drew their weapons at his gesture.
“Kill him,” Poleaxe ordered, and the two dwarves raised their blades and stepped forward. Brandon, though he knew it was useless, continued to strain and struggle against his bonds, feeling the leather cords cut into his wrists, the blood flowing down onto his hands.
“Now wait a moment, Poleaxe,” declared another dwarf, a grizzled warrior with his own heavy shield and a war axe tucked into his belt. “That’s mebbe going a little too far. We can take his treasure; we need it, and I know that as well as you do. But he represents no threat to us now. And perhaps he doesn’t deserve death in cold blood.”
“Who are you to say that, Fireforge?” growled Poleaxe, clearly irritated at the challenge. “I brought him here. I know the darkness in his soul.”
“It’s cold-blooded murder!” retorted the one called Fireforge.
“Not murder. Merely execution of a criminal.”
“Then what’s his crime?” demanded the stubborn advocate.
Poleaxe looked at Brandon with a sneer of contempt. “He’s a mountain dwarf spy!” he declared. “I told you, and you yourself heard him admit it. Ain’t that crime enough?”