Doing his best to conceal his delight, Olim turned back to Slide Tolec. “What we do under Sky’s End is our own business,” he said sternly. “If, as you say, we are delving a fortress city there, then that is not the Theiwar’s concern.”
“It is if you plan to rule Kal-Thax from there,” Slide Tolec said stubbornly. “You can kill those of us you have captured if you want to, but we are only a few. There are many others who will avenge us. And if we die, the rest will know why we died … because the Daewar intend to rule! No Theiwar will ever bend the knee to a Daewar king!”
“And if I told you that we have no such intention, would you believe me?”
“Would you, if you were us?”
“Probably not,” Olim admitted. “Very well. The chieftain who led you in this folly has paid with his life. We came here to protect the Pact of Kal-Thax. We will come again when humans again press the borders, and we will keep coming as long as there is threat from outside. Tell whoever is your next chieftain to expect that and to get used to it.”
“You … you are letting us go?”
“What would it accomplish to kill you?” Olim turned his back and shook his head, stifling a grin of delight. Then he straightened his face, put on his sternest expression, and snapped at his captain, “Gem! Don’t just stand there gaping. We must be on our way.”
Gem Bluesleeve blinked at his prince. “But, Sire, what he said about our delvings — ”
“So, they’ve figured out what we’re doing.” Olim quickly cut him off. “Building ourselves a fortress. Well, we couldn’t keep it secret forever, could we?”
“Couldn’t …?” Gem paused, then squared his shoulders. “Ah … no, Sire. It’s hard to keep a fortress secret.”
*
The slopes remained clear of intruders — it would be a while before humans or anyone else stirred up the courage to try another assault on the mountain realm — and Slide Tolec led a party from the border outpost back to Theibardin, the maze of hollowed-out caves that ran around two of the faces of Cloudseeker, high on the huge mountain’s crest.
It was the home realm of the Theiwar, and Slide had a grim intuition of what they would find when they arrived there. Instinct told him that Glome the Assassin had known, before it ever happened, that the Daewar stragglers had been decoys, and that Olim Goldbuckle was coming to call in force. Somehow, Slide felt, Glome had forseen the fate of Twist Cutshank, had even aided and abetted it.
It was no real surprise, then, to arrive at the Theiwar home lairs and find that Glome and his followers had taken control of the place. Glome had declared himself chieftain of the Theiwar and was proceeding with plans to attack, invade, and loot the Daewar’s new city under Sky’s End. The plan was simple and straightforward. Somehow, Glome had enlisted the help of the Daergar by persuading Vog Ironface that the Daewar intended to take over all the mining in Kal-Thax. With a combined force of Theiwar and Daergar — and as many of the wild, erratic Klar as they could round up — Glome intended to take the old Daewar citadel on the slopes of Sky’s End’s, which was — his spies assured him — the only entrance to the Daewar’s new delvings.
With the citadel held, Glome reasoned, they could lay siege to the underground city until they starved the Daewar out and forced a surrender.
When Slide Tolec and Brule Vaportongue first heard of the plan, they glanced at each other in astonishment. For the first time, it occurred to both of them that Glome the Assassin might truly be insane.
But after a glimpse of Glome himself, his eyes shining with a zealot’s fervor and an avenger’s rage — and surrounded by his hundreds of ardent followers — Slide and Brule wisely decided to keep their mouths shut. Glome was chieftain now, but not like any chieftain who had ruled before.
Glome did not accept criticism, and had repealed the law of challenge. Now, for any Theiwar to speak against the chieftain or his plans, the penalty was death.
Part III:
The Valley Lands
Southeastern Ergoth
Century of Wind
Decade of Oak
Fall, Year of Brass
15
The route of the seekers held southwestward as days became weeks and weeks became months. Across the central pass of the Suncradles and for five days beyond, the route had been charted by Cale Greeneye and his six companions in their search for the lost patrol. But everything west of that was uncharted country, and Colin Stonetooth led his people into it without ever looking back. Behind them was Thoradin; ahead — so said the prophecy of Mistral Thrax — was Everbardin.
No longer of Thorin, they were no longer Calnar, but still they were of those once called “the highest,” because of Thorin’s lofty place high above the human realms. In the dwarven manner of speech, the term was “Hylar.” So, having no other name for themselves, they took the name Hylar and carried it with them. For them, Thorin was now Thoradin, and Thoradin was of the past. Somewhere beyond the hills and plains of the middle realms lay the future.
Perched in the saddle of the great horse Piquin, with six other young adventurers at his back, Cale Greeneye scouted far afield as the tribe of Colin Stonetooth plodded onward toward a distant place none of them had ever seen — a place called Kal-Thax, which might be nothing more than legend or the dreams of old Mistral Thrax. Through the foothills leading down toward the Ergothian realm, the Hylar trekked, a thousand homeless households on the move. The steady beat of their marching drums was a promise and a warning to any who heard … a promise to the Hylar people that the prophecy of Everbardin would be fulfilled, and a warning to all others that these were a people who looked to the left sides of their tools.
Many times the dwarves had halted the journey — to rest and gather food, to perform marriages and funerals, once for the birth of a baby to one of the younger women, and sometimes just because a hill demanded to be delved, a forest cleaned of underbrush, or a vein of ore to be mined and smelted.
Now, as the procession entered even more new lands at a place where steep ravines crisscrossed a jumbled, broken countryside, they no longer resembled the serene, practical, and ensconced people they had been within Thorin. Their features were the same. They were still a short, sturdy dwarven people with dark hair and proud, thoughtful eyes, whose males’ trimmed beards were back-swept as though they faced into a wind and whose females were strong and usually beautiful. But now much of their attire was of the fabrics they had crafted along the way, and their armaments were more obviously warlike than they had favored in Thorin.
Three times the Hylar had been attacked — twice by roving humans and once by ogres — and their lessons had been learned well. They were a weathered and travel-wise group now, and most creatures gave them wide berth in passing.
At the rock-strewn top of a deep ravine that was as wide as a small valley, Cale Greeneye and his scouts drew rein, shading their eyes against the quartering sun of Krynn. The ravine walls were steep, though shelved with natural trails angling downward, and below were groves of trees lining a ribbon of bright water.
Cale studied the landscape, gazing carefully up and down the canyon, then gestured. “Let’s take a look,” he said. “That may be a good place to pass the night.”
He jerked around, then, as a voice only feet away said, “That’s exactly what you’ll have to do if you intend to cross that stream, but it won’t be easy.”
Cale squinted, then frowned as a small figure stepped out of shadows between two slabs of upthrust stone. The creature was no taller than a dwarf — not as tall as most — but was distinctly not a dwarf. He was slim and fine-boned, with a face that might have belonged to a half-sized elf and a great cascade of brown hair tied up in the back with a leather thong.