For their aggression, the Klar would be repaid with death and destruction, Poleaxe vowed silently. And he would-he must-regain the Bluestone and Greenstone.
But that vengeance would have to wait.
He led the dejected Neidar down off the ridge, with the Klar watching them warily until they started on the road back into town. Their taunts against the retreating hill dwarves echoed down from the surrounding ridges as, finally, the rearguard of mountain dwarves broke their shield wall and followed their companions through the rocky niche, disappearing from view as they started on their way back to Pax Tharkas.
The mood was bitter as the warriors trudged back into the main square of Hillhome with humiliated expressions. Harn went immediately into Moldoon’s and snatched a large jug of dwarf spirits, quaffing a long swallow as he stalked back out into the street. The liquor seared his tongue but seemed, at least a little, to quench his paralyzing thirst.
Bodies of the slain, discreetly covered with blankets or cloaks, lined one side of the plaza. More than a dozen Neidar had died there, and several times that many had fallen during the failed pursuit. Nobody, not even Poleaxe, felt triumphant that they had driven the attackers away. All of the survivors were painfully chagrined by the knowledge they had been taken by surprise and nearly overcome.
They all had been too focused on the execution of the mountain dwarf outsider-busy assembling the pile of tinder, with the fire poised to burn, to consume, the wretched prisoner, even as the attack began. Brandon had been shackled and strapped to the rack. Although the condemned spy had been putting on a stoic front, Harn had been looking forward to the moment when his victim’s flesh began to char, his eyes boiling in their sockets. He knew Brandon would have broken down and wept as he died.
Strange, Poleaxe thought-the thought dawning as a sudden inspiration-how the Klar raiders arrived just at the very moment of the Kayolin dwarf’s doom.
Abruptly Poleaxe looked around for the prisoner, having forgotten him almost as completely as the vaunted gemstones. He jumped up on the platform and stared, seeing the pile of wood on the ground nearby, but it took a moment for him to recognize the splintered timber as the square rack where Brandon had been suspended, waiting to die.
And he howled aloud when he realized that the prisoner had escaped.
“What treachery-where did the Kayolin go?” he demanded, springing down from the platform, striding across the plaza with spittle foaming his beard.
The Neidar shrank away from the infuriated warrior. Two of Poleaxe’s personal guards, an armored pair carrying massive axes, exchanged looks as their leader stalked to the broken rack and kicked through the debris as if he expected to find the prisoner crouching down among the itty-bitty twigs and pieces of straw.
“Where did he go?” he roared again.
A hundred dwarves milled about the plaza, and every one of them was utterly silent in response to Poleaxe’s demand. Thus, when one dwarf groaned softly, all eyes turned to him.
“It’s Rune!” cried a maid, kneeling beside the warrior and dabbing at his bloody forehead with her apron.
Poleaxe stomped over to his lieutenant and glared down at the stricken, dazed Neidar. The huge dwarf leader kicked contemptuously at the empty manacles that lay on the ground around Rune.
“Tell me, fool. How did he get the key?” growled Harn.
“I was felled by a hammer!” Rune pleaded. “He came upon me as I lay here and wrested it away!”
“Fool!” bellowed Poleaxe, causing Rune to whimper and cringe against the ground. Trembling in fury, the Neidar warrior gazed around the plaza into the stunned, awestruck faces of his tribesmen. His fingers clutched the hilt of his broken sword-he came dangerously close to drawing the weapon and plunging the stub of sharp steel through Rune’s craven heart.
At the last instant, he held his hand. “Clean this up!” he shrieked, gesturing to the whole square. “I will be back soon.”
He paused only long enough to take another long drink from his jug of spirits, setting the container beside his chair before he stalked out of the square, through a wide gap that opened up in the ring of staring Neidar. The streets of the town were for the most part empty, and he took some small comfort from the fact there were none to witness his humiliation and despair. A bleak cloud seemed to hover over him, bearing him down as he stomped through the streets toward the shabby hut of the Mother Oracle on Hillhome’s outskirts.
“Enter!” snapped the ancient oracle, even before he had raised his hand to knock on the door. Hesitantly, he pushed the frail barrier aside and entered the small, darkened room.
The old crone sat in the same place he had left her the day before. Her milky eyes were open, staring past him, and her gnarled hands were clenched into small fists, curled in her lap.
“So. You failed,” she spit. “Tell me what happened.”
He drew a breath and quickly decided against making excuses and dissembling.
“The mountain dwarves of Pax Tharkas attacked us while we were preparing to execute the Kayolin dwarf. We were taken totally by surprise. The Klar scooped up the two stones, and the prisoner escaped during the battle,” he reported coldly.
“This is what I have seen,” she said. “You let the gemstones slip from your hold.”
“I did,” Poleaxe admitted glumly.
“And you failed to prevent the dwarf maid from coming to me. I was forced to drive her away myself, last night. It took a great effort from an old, tired woman, but I succeeded.”
“I am sorry, Mother,” Harn said, ashamed. Once again his throat felt dry, his tongue thick in his mouth. He couldn’t even muster enough saliva to present her with an excuse.
“This is unforgiveable,” she said, but her tone was surprisingly gentle. She raised her wrinkled face, her nose twitching as the lids over her sightless eyes flickered up and down. “You have changed,” she said bluntly. “You have grown but not naturally. How?”
He was startled by her statement, once more reminded that the Mother Oracle saw far and deep, despite her blindness. When he had awakened that morning, in the room where Gretchan Pax had eluded him, he had felt himself changed and grown. He had stared into a mirror and realized that he had changed physically. He felt in possession of a certain inner strength, a fateful power that he had not known as part of himself before. Anxiously he scratched at one of the bumps that had appeared on his face. It itched constantly, and despite his rubbing, he could not seem to ease the discomfort.
“I drank something,” he said matter-of-factly. “It was something contained in a bottle of dwarf spirits, but it was not dwarf spirits. I tasted the difference.”
She nodded, as if his explanation made perfect sense to her. “Good,” she replied. “This I have also seen. This something, this potion, will help you to get the stones back. That is why I am not as angry as you might expect. You must retrieve them soon, of course. As for the Kayolin dwarf, you will have another opportunity to kill him, soon enough, when you recover the Bluestone and the Greenstone.”
“But, Mother Oracle,” Harn said, puzzled. “Surely the Klar are taking the stones to Pax Tharkas. And who knows where the escaped prisoner will flee?”
“Oh don’t worry. He, like you, will follow the stones,” she said confidently. “As to Pax Tharkas, you are destined to go there anyway. Destined to attack and capture it.”
His mind reeled at the lofty goal the Mother Oracle had set for him. He knew that secure fortress well from the outside: its massive towers, the high wall, the vast battlements, the gate strong enough to withstand a dragon’s might. He could only croak, “How?”
She shrugged, as if that were an issue of no great import. “The answer will come to me and it will come to you in good time. Do not fear. But for now you must act here, in Hillhome.”