Before, the voice had always vanished with the question, carried away on the shuffling and scraping sounds of retreat. This time it didn’t.
“He won’t have it. Up, boy, up!”
Hauk couldn’t rise. Gnarled hands, shaking and rough with scars, touched his face ancient frames for his pain.
“My Stormblade, he wants my Stormblade. He thinks he’s found it, boy. He thinks he’s found it!”
Fear lanced through Hauk. Smoke from the oily lantern streamed like the banners of the dead. Orange light splashed across the darkness. Hauk rolled onto his back and looked into the face of a dwarf. White hair hung, long and unkempt, to his shoulders. A beard, thickly tangled, spilled almost to his waist. Tears lay on his face, terror in his brown eyes. Though it took every shred of strength that he had, Hauk lifted his hand, frightened by the sound and the creaking of his muscles. He grabbed the dwarf’s wrist. Horror twisted the old, bearded face as it gazed into the eyes of the one it had seen killed by Realgar many, many times. Cavern followed cavern: rock walls soaring up to shadow-draped ceilings; the cold, heavy scent of water; the smell of stone in an endless chain of caves.
He was strong, the dwarf, for all that he seemed as ancient as the mountains themselves. The dwarf flinched every time he had to bear Hauk’s weight or the grip of his hands on his arms. He didn’t take Hauk’s weight easily, but he did take it. He badly wanted the ranger out of that prison cave and to a place that he imagined would provide a safe haven from Realgar.
In that way, they came at last to the final cavern. The dwarf led Hauk to a rough pallet on the floor against the far wall. Four blankets thick, it was warm and, despite the cold stone beneath, felt as fine and welcoming as a lord’s bed. Torches lined the walls of the cave, their intricately worked iron brackets evenly spaced. The ventilation in the place left hardly a trace of their smoke.
The dwarf, quietly muttering to himself as though he would not, for any price, disturb Hauk’s rest, went about the place checking small piles of food supplies and water flasks. A low brazier stood in the center of the stony chamber, and, from time to time, the dwarf stopped to tend it. Each time he did, he looked over at the ranger and his muttering stilled.
Hauk studied him carefully. The brown old eyes were surely mad, but something new flickered in them now, seen for the space of a heartbeat and then gone, chased away by pain, longing, and fear. The new thing was recognition. Hauk didn’t know why it was there, he couldn’t begin to guess what it was that the dwarf recognized.
He didn’t care. He gave him nothing back, not even blinking to break the cold steady stare he knew terrified the ancient dwarf. Little by little, like the tide creeping back at dawn to a barren shore, Hauk’s strength returned. As his strength grew, so did his rage and hatred. He would wait patiently for revenge, for as long as he had to wait. Then, he would rise up and drag the heart out of the old bastard with his bare hands and grind it into the stone.
21
Stanach lifted his right hand with his left. Beneath its bandaging, the broken fingers lay as heavy and senseless as steel bars in his palm. His knees watery and weak, still he waved off the support Kem offered and took one, then two faltering steps. Drawing a deep breath, he walked to the cave’s mouth. The ranger had assured him that he’d find his strength soon enough.
Stanach leaned against the cave’s stone wall and looked out to the water. He hoped Kem was right. Smoke, like dark fog, drifted upriver, shepherded by the cold, heavy wind. The sky throbbed red, high above the top of the forest. Kelida, Stormblade still at her hip, ran a short distance along the bank to meet Lavim. The kender fairly danced with excitement. Kelida snatched his arms, holding him still enough to hear what she had to tell him. Then, pouches jouncing, Lavim scrambled downriver to where Tyorl ranged the water’s edge.
As Stanach watched, two other rangers broke from the forest’s cover and joined the elf at the water. One, Finn, pointed north. Stanach turned back to the cave. “What is it?”
Kem, his face sculpted of shadows and finely drawn with worry, looked up from packing his healer’s kit. “Forest fire, they say. We’re getting out of here, Stanach. Are you all right to walk? Finn wants to ford the river here and put it between us and the fire as soon as we can.”
“Aye, does he? Then I’d better be all right to walk.” Stanach softened his growl with a shrug.
Lehr, shaggy hair tumbling in the wind, stepped into the cave. He and his lord had been well into the forest, and Lehr smelled of smoke and burning. He eyed Stanach sharply, then slapped his shoulder hard enough to make the dwarf grateful for the wall behind him. “Aye, you’ll do it on your own legs, eh? Good. Kem, let’s get moving.”
Kembal threw his healer’s pack over his shoulder. “How far north is the fire? Damn, Lehr! What started it?”
“Not very far, and it’s moving fast.” The ranger checked the cave, saw that nothing had been left behind, and cast a quick look back to the river.
“We figure the leading edge is between us and the rest of the company, but we don’t know where the flanks are and we didn’t have time to look. Finn says the only place we’ll find the company—or them us—is on the eastern bank.”
The ranger was gone before either Stanach or Kembal realized that he hadn’t answered the question of what started the fire. Kem grimaced impatiently.
Stanach left the cave carrying his sword on his back and a hard lump of dread in his belly.
“It’s not much of a river here,” Tyorl said, “and maybe only waist high. Can you do it, Stanach?”
Whether his returning strength was a result of the healer’s draught or the impetus of the distant, whispering growl of advancing fire, Stanach knew that he would be able to keep up with his companions in the river. He cast an eye skyward. The moons had set. The crimson glow over the forest looked like vengeful dawn.
“Aye, I’ll do it.”
Though the elf nodded, Stanach saw doubt like shadows in his eyes.
“I’ll be right behind you. Kem says you’d better keep your hand dry if you can.”
Finn entered the water first, longbow high over his head. The smoke channeling upriver hid him from sight before he’d waded very far. Bandaged hand well out of the water, trusting to his well-oiled leather scabbard to protect the sword slung across his back, Stanach followed Finn into the river.
He gasped as the icy water caught him, tugging with insistent strength at his knees, then swirling high and clawing at his chest. The cold ached in his bones and muscles and quickly numbed his feet as though they were not stoutly booted.
Tyorl and Kelida waded in next. Taking her cue from Finn, the girl brandished Stormblade, wrapped in her cloak, high over her head both for balance and to keep the sword dry. Kem cut out to the side, flanking the crossing and ready to assist any who needed help negotiating the quickening current. Lehr kept close to Kelida, offering a hand to steady her when she needed it. Once, he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her close when the current tangled her feet.
Lehr laughed aloud as he set Kelida on her feet again. The ranger clearly did not mind a pretty girl in soaked hunting leathers clinging to his neck. Tyorl looked as though he minded greatly. Surprised to hear himself wondering if the flat of his sword would teach the impudent young ranger some manners, Tyorl passed Stanach, who readily dropped back to let him by.
Lavim held no place in the line. Giving himself up to the inevitable, he plunged into the icy river, cutting through the black water with all the enthusiasm of a fish and none of that creature’s grace.
When Stanach finally stumbled onto the rocky eastern shore, clumsy with cold, heavily awkward and bound to the ground again, he turned to look back the way he’d come. Like the breath of ghosts, wavering and dark, the smoke veiled the far bank. Kelida dropped light hands onto his shoulders.