3
In a deep, steep-walled canyon where a narrow trail cut through the crest of a ridge, rays of the midday sun smote the canyon floor and glinted on the burnished armor, rich leathers, and spattered blood of those who lay there, tumbled and silent in death. Fourteen in all, they lay where they had fallen. Some had been dead for hours, their pooled blood darkening as it dried. But here and there among them were splashes of bright red — fresh blood still steaming in the cold air.
Men walked among them, crouching and stooping as they picked up weapons, pausing to loot the bodies that had not yet been robbed. Nearby, just beyond the trail’s crest, a fire had been built, and other men gathered around it to warm themselves.
“Should have been over in minutes,” a man grumbled, tying fabric around a bleeding gash in his arm. “There were only fourteen of them, and our arrows took down nine before they knew we were here. Five left, and it took us all night to finish them!”
“Stubborn as dwarves, like they say,” another muttered, stuffing steel coins into his pouch. “The little vermin fight like demons.” He glanced around. “Anybody count our losses yet?”
“Seventeen dead,” someone told him. “Few more won’t last the day. Don’t know how many wounded. Twenty or thirty, maybe. It was a mistake, letting the dinks get to the slopes. For that matter, it was a mistake charging down on them after the first volleys. We should have stayed in cover, held a defense, and finished them from a distance.”
“Sure,” the first man growled. “And maybe have one or two of them get clear? Maybe slip away to warn the whole kingdom about us? Lot of good our ambush would have done, then. Use your head, Calik! In this world you use it or lose it.”
“One of the horses did get away, Grak,” a man said. “The one out in front when we attacked. I put an arrow into its saddle but missed the next shot. It was gone before anybody could catch it.”
“As long as its rider didn’t go with it.” Grak shrugged, scowling. “I wouldn’t want to have to tell Grayfen that we let a dwarf slip through.”
“No dwarves,” Calik assured him. “I counted them myself. Counting the first one — the scout — we killed fifteen stinking dwarves and fourteen of those big horses. Wouldn’t have minded keeping one of those beasts, though. Wouldn’t I like to have a horse like that!”
Grak gazed at him, leering. “The day you can ride a dwarf’s horse, Calik, will be the day snails learn to fly.” He turned, looking around. “Do you hear that?”
Several of them raised their heads, scowling. “I hear something,” one said. “Like thunder, a long way off. What is that?”
As they listened, the sound seemed to grow, not so much in volume as in clarity. It was a continuous, rolling throb that seemed to have a texture of its own. It thrummed in the high sunlight and echoed weirdly off the chasm walls.
“It’s the drums,” Grak decided. “The dinks and their drums, like Grayfen told us. That fair of theirs, it’s beginning.”
Calik stood with his face upturned, his eyes wide. “I never in my life heard anything like that,” he muttered. “It almost sounds like they’re singing. How can drums sing?”
Grak shook his head, as though to rid himself of the haunting, distant sounds. “It doesn’t matter,” he growled. “Except it means we have to hurry. Grayfen wants us at the main camp. Clear up here, and let’s move.”
“Some of our wounded aren’t going to make it a mile, the shape they’re in.”
“Things are tough all over,” Grak snapped. “Pack up! Any who can’t keep up, cut their throats and leave them.”
Grayfen was not pleased with his ambushers. He stalked among them, his wolfskin cape swaying and flowing behind him, and they cringed as his eyes pinned them one by one — eyes as cold and bright as the rubies they resembled.
“Forty-two men lost?” he hissed. “You paid forty-two lives for a puny patrol of fifteen dinks?”
“They fought,” Grak said, then recoiled as Grayfen turned and speared him with those ruby eyes — eyes like no eyes he had ever seen in a human face. “I mean — ” he swallowed and added lamely “- I mean, they surprised us, sir. Some of them got through to us, and … and they fought like … like demons. And those slings of theirs … and their steel blades …” He shook his head, gesturing at the pile of weapons and armor on the ground nearby, salvaged from the bodies of the dwarf patrol.
“They fought,” Grayfen snarled, his voice like a snake’s hiss. “Of course they fought, idiot! Whatever else they are, the dinks are fighters! I may just send you” — he looked from one to another of them — “I may send all of you into Thorin with the first assault. You think you’ve seen the little misers fight, maybe you should see what they do when they’re defending their homes!”
“Yes, sir,” Grak muttered, keeping his eyes downward. “Only …”
“Not me,” a man behind him whispered. “By the moons, I won’t go in there with the first wave! I’m not that kind of fool.”
Grak turned, wanting to silence the man, but it was too late. Grayfen had heard. Wolf-hide cape flaring, he straightened to his full height, seeming to tower above even the tall Grak. The ruby eyes glowed with an evil light from beneath arched brows the color of his silvery mane. He raised an imperious finger, pointing past Grak. “You!” he hissed. “Who are you?”
The man didn’t answer. Paling, he started to turn away, then froze in place as Grayfen commanded, “Hold!”
Grayfen glanced at Grak. “That man,” he said, still pointing. “Tell me his name.”
“Sir, that’s only Porge. He meant no disre — ”
“Enough!” Grayfen cut him off. “Porge. Face me, Porge.”
Ashen-faced, Porge turned to face Grayfen. Cold sweat formed on his brow as the ruby eyes bored into him. The stiff finger was still extended, pointing at him.
“What kind of fool are you, you wonder?” Grayfen’s voice turned silky. “The kind who questions my command, it seems. A shame, Porge. You might have survived assault on Thorin … if you had held your tongue.”
Beneath the constant throbbing of the distant drums, another sound grew. As though the air were charged with lightning, a sizzling, crackling sputter emerged among them. Grayfen’s pointing finger and ruby eyes didn’t waver, but, as the sound grew, a slow, smoky light seemed to extend from the finger, a lazy beam that approached Porge languidly, then sprang at him and wrapped itself around his throat. Porge gagged, struggling to breathe. His hands clawed at the constriction on his throat, but there was nothing there to grip … only the smoky band of dull light. Porge gasped one last time, and his breathing stopped. His eyes bulged, his mouth gaped, and he seemed to hang from the light as his legs went limp.
For a long moment, Grayfen held him there, letting all the others see. Then he snapped his fingers, and a louder snap echoed it, the crack of Porge’s neck breaking. Grayfen lowered his hand, and the body sprawled on the ground like a tattered doll.
“Get rid of that,” Grayfen said contemptuously. He turned to Grak. “I accept that the dinks surprised you,” he said. “You had not faced them before. Now you have. Remember what you’ve learned. Rest your men now. The drums are speaking. Tomorrow we move into Golash. From there, we go to Thorin.”
Men were lifting Porge’s body to carry him away. Grayfen glanced at them, then at the pile of dwarven armament nearby. “Get rid of those, too,” he said. “We don’t want to be seen with dink steels. They would be recognized.”
Grak cleared his throat and nodded, glancing down at the fine dwarven sword hanging at his hip. It was of Thorin steel, exquisitely burnished, point-heavy in the dwarven fashion but razor-edged and beautiful. It was the kind of sword a man might spend a lifetime acquiring, a sword worth a small fortune anywhere else in the world.