Zen had come to know the gully dwarf point of view all too well. He had felt the hatred and anger directed toward them because he had lived as them, walked among them, and shared their miseries. The other dwarf clans treated the gully dwarves little better than rats. They wouldn’t go out of their way to kill a gully dwarf, but neither did they consider it a serious crime to kill one, either by accident or design. The only thing that kept the gully dwarves moderately safe among their larger, stronger, and smarter kin were Tarn’s strict laws, coupled with the fact that there was so little point in killing a gully dwarf, no one bothered.
Exploring the city in the guise of a gully dwarf, then, Zen was forced to endure the injustices heaped upon all gully dwarves whenever in the company of their cousins. He couldn’t buy food at a merchant stall, nor beer at a tavern, not even if he had the money, for no one would serve him. What he ate he begged or stole. He was allowed on some streets, but not all streets, and some buildings were strictly off limits. He dared not retaliate against those who slighted him, lest he be captured and his true identity revealed.
The sewers, on the other hand, were free to use as he wished. Combined with a vast network of dark alleys and cramped staircases, he was able to move pretty much anywhere within the city’s three levels, but it had taken well over a year for him to learn them well enough to not get repeatedly lost. Once, he’d been hopelessly lost for three long days in the maze of sewers beneath the Anvil’s Echo. Changing identities left one with a ravenous hunger, and he’d been forced to eat his victim to keep from starving. He still hadn’t recovered from the taste of raw gully dwarf.
Zen/Orchag turned into an empty alley and quickened his stride. He knew this alley well, knew that no windows looked down upon it, and so he felt confident in shaking off the mincing, crouching posture of a gully dwarf and he deliberately loosed his stride. Slick with offal and rotting garbage, most dwarves avoided the alleys. Yet it was the swiftest path to the edge of the Hylar residential area on the second level of Norbardin.
He was in a hurry. Jungor Stonesinger was holding audience from his rooftop, as he did most days at this time, and Zen was already late. He tried to come each day, not to hear Jungor preach, but because he was stalking his next victim. The same victim he’d been stalking for the past eighteen months, the dwarf who had betrayed him and murdered his lads that evening in The Bog.
They had made a deal. Ferro Dunskull had broken it.
Ferro was the most difficult mark that Zen had ever had the pleasure to stalk. The Daergar master of scouts (a euphemism for master of assassins) was wily and intelligent; an accomplished assassin himself, Ferro knew how to avoid assassination. And Ferro knew that Zen was stalking him, so he took extra care. He continually altered his habits, never traveled by the same road twice; there were numerous entrances to his house, all of them well guarded. Ferro had few discernible patterns to his life. He was surrounded by a tiny cabal of close confidants, and all others were kept at a safe distance. He and Zen had been playing a game of cat and mouse for eighteen months now with neither having made significant progress.
For his part, Ferro had been stalking Zen as well, but his early efforts were unorganized and crude. Ferro’s agents had beaten the bushes, so to speak, many a time and always came away either empty handed or clutching the red herrings Zen had left in their path. In all likelihood, more innocent gully dwarves had died by Ferro’s hand than by Zen’s. But of late, the agent’s methods had improved somewhat. Zen was forced to take greater precautions, to change forms more often, and to avoid other gully dwarves whenever he could. He had had to stop watching Ferro’s house entirely; the guards were becoming too wary, questioning anyone who strayed near.
So Zen had switched tactics. He knew that every mark had a weakness. He had only to find it. It had taken him eighteen months, but he had found it at last.
The alley emerged in the Hylar quarter of the second level, between an armory and a warehouse belonging to Jungor Stonesinger. Zen found this entrance much to his liking, because there was always some activity around the warehouse—wagons arriving laden with crates and leaving empty, warriors drilling in the commons between the warehouse and Jungor’s residence. A small crowd of dwarves was usually to be found outside the gates to Jungor’s house as well—supplicants and worshipers in his rising cult of personality, as well as the curious and the skeptical. Once a day, Jungor appeared behind the rooftop battlements of his house to address the ever-growing crowds, to give them moral instruction. Dwarves brought their children to hear him speak of the glory of former days, for in his words those glorious times seemed reborn in the hearts of those who heard him.
As Zen left the alley, he once more assumed the crouching, obsequious mannerisms of a gully dwarf amid his larger and stronger cousins. Few gave him a second glance, and those who did quickly turned their noses away. A mixture of fresh dung and rotting meat, kept in his pockets and smeared on his clothes, was enough to convince most of his authenticity and send them lurching away, pinching their noses. A sizable crowd stood at the far side of the commons, gazing upward and listening in rapt awe to Jungor’s speech. Zen was glad he hadn’t arrived too late, but this was another of his precautions—a gully dwarf loitering about, waiting to hear Jungor speak, was sure to arouse suspicions. Especially if one were on the lookout for suspicious-looking gully dwarves.
Now Zen was able to sidle up to the rear of the crowd and surreptitiously observe his mark.
“But how long shall the clans be forced to remain here in this second-rate city?” Jungor asked. “Norbardin? That is too grand a name for the North Gate complex. For three thousand years it has been the North Gate. Why should the king wish to change that as well? Haven’t we borne enough change? Haven’t we suffered enough already?”
Zen barely even paid attention to Jungor’s cries. Instead, he scanned the faces of those surrounding the Hylar thane, his inner circle of advisors and close confidants—captain of the guard Astar Trueshield, replete in silver armor and beard of spun gold; Hextor Ironhaft, fat and greasy eyed with money stains on his fingers; Thane Rughar Delvestone ever worshipful; Thane Brecha Quickspring, unofficial high priestess of Jungor’s unofficial cult; and Ferro Dunskull, Jungor’s master of scouts. There were also guards, and select citizens invited to join Jungor on the rooftop because of their wealth or familial connections. But Zen ignored everyone, focusing his attention solely upon Ferro Dunskull. He barely even heard Jungor’s continued exhortations.
“When was the last time the king sent engineers and survey parties into our former cities? Too dangerous, he tells us. Dangerous for him, perhaps. Dangerous that we should resume our former lives in our former homes and thus move away from these cramped domains, away from his ability to control every aspect of our lives. We are not disloyal dwarves. We only wish to live free, as once we did. So I ask you again, how long has it been since the ruins were surveyed? How do we know that it is not now safe for you to return and begin rebuilding your lives?”
Zen smiled inwardly to see the dwarves around him nod emphatically, as though Jungor were but speaking aloud the secret desires of their hearts. “Yes, yes, what he says is true.” Zen could have answered Jungor’s question in two words, for he had been forced to retreat to those ruins many a time in these past eighteen months.
Death trap. That’s what awaited anyone attempting to return to the ruins of Theibardin, Daerbardin, Daebardin or Klarbardin. Walls continually crumbled, floors collapsed without warning. He could not begin to count the number of gully dwarves and feral Klar he had seen buried alive over the past month alone. Whole sections of the cities were nothing more than jumbled mountains of ruin, their streets buried under tons of rubble and still endlessly collapsing down bottomless holes.