Goldmoon smiled, and it might well have been Mesalax’s own light the dwarf saw in her eyes.
Hornfel glanced at Tanis. The half-elf’s determined jaw relaxed a little beneath his red beard when he looked at the Plainswoman as he did now.
“My lady Goldmoon,” Hornfel said at last, “be welcome in Thorbardin.”
He would figure out what to do about the farming warrens later. He didn’t know if Goldmoon were, indeed, what she claimed to be. He did know that he wouldn’t permit her to languish in a cobbled-together fieldkeeper’s hut any more than he would allow her to languish in a dungeon’s cell. And she, he knew, would go where her people went. Darknight spread its wings to half extension, admiring the play of its shadow stetching up the black, gleaming walls of its lair and nearly spanning the width of the rough, high ceiling. It snaked its neck to its full length and stretched its jaws wide. Though it could not see the effect, it imagined that the light of the small brazier near the far wall made its fangs appear to be gleaming daggers of flame.
It turned its head and spoke to a shadow on the wall.
“My Lord, all in all, I prefer the sunny lairs in the cliffs of Pax Tharkas to these wet, cold warrens beneath this wretched Thorbardin.”
That doesn’t surprise me, the shadow whispered. Verminaard threw back his head and laughed in his chamber in Pax Tharkas. His shadow-image on the cave wall did the same.
Darknight lashed its tail impatiently and rumbled deep in its massive chest. It preferred the iron-fisted martial order of Pax Tharkas under Verminaard’s rule to the tempestuous storms of dwarven politics in a kingdom under no one’s rule. “Highlord, I heartily wish that Realgar would mount his wretched revolution and be done with it, so that I can be done with him.”
The shadow sharpened to knife-edged clarity. Darknight could almost see Verminaard’s eyes as red lights on the stone.
He’s still wasting his time on the ranger?
The ranger had given Realgar no good answer to the question of the Kingsword’s whereabouts in all the days he’d been the Theiwar’s captive.
“Aye, Lord. It’s the difference between you,” the dragon snarled as it listened to its belly rumble. “Were the ranger your prisoner, I would have been sucking the marrow out of his bones days ago.” As it was, Darknight had to forage at night for mountain sheep while Realgar marched bloody-footed through the ranger’s soul for nothing but enjoyment. Darknight snorted and closed its eyes. “Simple enjoyment is all he’s getting from it now. He admits that if there is an answer to be had, the ranger isn’t going to provide it. Enjoyment, and a soothing revenge for time wasted.”
Shadow eyes flared red and it scraped its claws on the stone floor of its lair. It doubted that the ranger had ever known where the sword was, and if he had, there could be nothing left of his mind now in which to sift for an answer.
“Lord, how go your own plans?”
Well enough. The troops move into the mountains and the bases will be in place. Ember will fly tonight as cover for the last of them. Ember! Flying with fire and fear as its weapons, and it was lodged here in this dank, foul hole! Darknight gnashed its teeth.
“Cover, Lord? Does Ember—” Darknight caught itself. Haughty Ember would never admit to needing assistance. “—want company?” By the Dark Queen! Its legs were cramped, its wings aching for a night flight!
The shadow seemed no shadow at all, but an image reflected on polished ebony. The dragon saw Verminaard’s face now—coldly handsome that face was, ice-eyed and hard as stone.
Ember needs nothing more of company than it’ll have, good Sevristh, and that is me. It’s a small matter of rangers.
He might have said a small matter of gnats. Darknight sighed. Verminaard laughed, ice booming in a frozen river.
Patience, Darknight. Stay with your new lord for a time yet. And the shadow was gone. The red lights faded as though they’d never been.
The black dragon growled. In Darknight’s estimation, its new lord was an ass. Realgar commanded an army of anarchists and commanded them well. It was not any easy task to control a race of murderous derro whose most pleasant dreams were of torment, revolution, and death. Still, Realgar was an ass.
Sevristh was not a political creature and had little understanding of—or patience for—Realgar’s need to acquire this Stormblade, this Kingsword. It sighed and the air shivered. These dwarves, and the Theiwar most especially, were mad for talismans and symbols. Realgar would not light revolution’s fire in Thorbardin until he held Stormblade in his greedy, white-knuckled grip. And Verminaard seemed content to wait. What matter, it thought scornfully, whether Realgar wields the Kingsword or some humble, nameless blade? Hornfel must be killed and it could hardly matter whether he died by a Kingsword’s stroke or a dagger’s blade. The one who kills him owns history. He can write the tale to his own preference later and name himself king regent or high king of the dwarves, if he wishes.
Aye, as long as he can manage to stay alive. Darknight smiled and felt a little better. That wouldn’t be long, no matter how Realgar styled himself.
The dragon felt the feathery vibrations of footsteps in the stone of the cavern’s floor and heard the distant whisper of breathing. It closed its eyes. That breathing was Realgar’s, and the dragon picked up the high, bright excitement in his scent.
Please the Dark Queen, he’d found the miserable sword!
Sevristh opened its eyes and sighed. He hadn’t. Or had he? « Darknight looked a little closer. Aye? Maybe.
Realgar came close and smiled, a cold pulling of his lips across his teeth. “I greet you, Darknight.”
“And I you, Highlord.”
The title did nothing to warm the new Highlord’s smile. It never did. High king was what he wanted to be called, and anything else would not do.
“The Kingsword has been found.”
Verminaard’s gift ran a forked tongue over sharp teeth. No it hasn’t, Darknight thought scornfully. It knew the look in his eyes by now. He only hoped it had been found. The dragon rustled its wings. “Aye? Shall I fly, my Lord?”
And then, the Theiwar surprised the dragon. “Yes, fly. The Herald is expecting you.”
Sevristh stretched its lipless mouth in a wide grin. Fly it would and, in flight, apprise the only Highlord it truly acknowledged that his plans might well be moving forward with more speed than even he thought.
17
“Where are you?” the kender had asked.
Piper didn’t know where he was. He’d told the kender he was right behind him. It was a good enough answer. He might have been, since he seemed to be both nowhere and everywhere at once. There were no landmarks in this fogbound drifting plane, it all seemed to run on forever. The things he “saw” he didn’t see with his eyes, but rather with his mind. It was not magic that showed him these things. There was no magic left to him but the spell he was caught in now.
Piper was a ghost, made so by his flute’s magic. He was dead. He stopped thinking for a moment. It was rather like holding his breath. But, like breathing when he was alive, thinking was not something he could go long without doing.
Tentatively, like a man running gentle fingers over a healing wound, he reached for the memory of his last living moments.
There had been all the pain and all the bone-deep exhaustion. He’d heard the young woman call for help, heard her cry Stanach’s name. He hadn’t heard anything else after that for a long, long time until Stanach’s thoughts, grieving and heavy, brushed up against the edges of his mind. Ah, Jordy! I’m sorry, Piper!
He’d wanted to speak then, to find some way to warn Stanach about Realgar’s men. He hadn’t the strength. He had only the need. When Stanach laid his flute beside him, he saw the instrument, though he could see nothing else at all. The flute held his music and his magic. It sang his own songs to him with a friend’s voice and gave voice to songs he’d never imagined. He found the small strength to work one last spell. The magic was the flute’s.