They followed after, his father limping slowly along with the help of a cane, and found the beast knee-deep in a wide, shallow pool, his muzzle buried in the stream. They fell to their own bellies and eased their parched throats in the icy water and rinsed the grime and dust from their faces, then set about making camp.
They did not care that they were near the end of their supplies, and the aching head of altitude sickness seemed of little matter compared to their recent ordeal. They did not any of them care to chew more of the candied leaves for relief, either.
They lay their bedrolls on the sand by the pool, snuggled together for warmth as they had used the last of their store of fuel for the cooking fire. They slept the deep sleep of exhaustion, and if their dreams troubled them they did not recall them in the morning.
They rose the next morning stiff and sore but glad they were alive to feel it. Two days later in the second valley they passed through they found the road; a good, dwarven road. It was just a strip of dirt and gravel but to them it looked like home.
Chapter Ten
“There's an old saying that 'The guilty flee when none pursue.' They are forever hunted because no matter where they go they cannot escape the guilt in their own hearts.”
Haaken Elovson swore bitterly as he studied the trail ahead of him. He stood and turned to the others.
“It's them, right enough,” he said. He was the best tracker among them and they respected his judgment when it came to such things. Several of the thieves swore in their own turn at this news.
“They gotta' be huntin' us!” exclaimed Darrol Reddolson. He was a miner by trade, with narrow, piggish eyes. “We're off the path that ox-train was takin' and we been windin' all over the country.”
“What I want to know is how'd they get ahead of us?” another wondered.
“It doesn't matter, they managed it somehow. Who'd a' thought they'd take after us? A woman, a kid an' a crippled up fella?” asked the trapper named Noak.
“It's that Maker-damned kid that killed Weart and Doelyr. They must all be as nuts as he is,” said Graegyr, another miner. “If Weart hadn't killed that brat…”
“Well he did kill 'er,” Haaken said, “an' he paid full price for the doin' of it but that don't mean those folks are likely to forgive and forget. If'n they set the Law on us…”
He didn't need to elaborate. Bad as it was to steal they'd laid hands on a respectable woman, and worse yet been involved in the killing of a child. Dwarves had but few children in the course of their long lives and they treasured them. The fact that the killing was an accident, even that the guilty party had died for it, mattered not one bit. It had happened during a crime they were all involved in. In the eyes of the Law they were as guilty as he was.
“Well if they're ahead of us they've lost our trail. We need to get off this road and take out another way,” said Noak.
“Don't be stupid,” Haaken said, “They trailed us this far, do you think they are just going to shrug and go their merry way when they realize they've lost us? No sir, they'll back track and keep right on coming.”
He overrode their muttering at this.
“Ya'll don't see it,” he said, “This is a chance for us. We can take them by surprise and end our troubles here and now.”
“I wouldn't mind meetin' up with that there woman again,” said Noak, “We got us some unfinished business, her and I.”
“Only way Noak can get him a woman, ugly as he is,” one of them said and they all chuckled. Noak just shrugged and grinned.
“Best we move out then, boys,” Haaken said, “Likely we can come up on them before dark, fresh as those tracks are.”
– **-
Engvyr was returning to camp with a double armload of wood when he heard the screams. Dropping the wood he unslung the Big 14 and rushed to investigate. He was just about in sight of the hollow where they had made camp when a figure loomed out of the brush ahead of him. He tried to stop to shoulder the gun but he heard a shot and something slugged him in the chest.
He found himself staring up at the sky through the leaves. He was lying flat on his back on the loam of the forest floor and there was no noise but the sounds of the woods. Breathing hurt, moving was worse, and he fell back with a grimace as he tried to think what had happened. Then he remembered the screams and struggled to his knees. He looked for the Big 14 but it was nowhere to be seen. His belt, pouch and knife were missing too.
He felt another stab of pain that took his breath away and realized that he couldn't move his left arm. He found he'd been shot high in the chest, two inches below the collarbone. The wound had bled plenty but was just seeping now. He used his good hand and his teeth to tear the hem off of his linen undershirt and wad it over the wound under his tunic. He tore another strip and used it to tie the pad in place.
By then his head was swimming and he had to fight down nausea. He was able to get to his feet with the help of a tree-trunk and lurching from tree to tree he came in sight of the camp. The ox was gone and their goods were scattered. A dwarf holding the Big 14 was bent over his father and rummaging through his coat.
Feeling a surge of anger he moved forward quietly and picked up a length of firewood. He almost fell when he bent over but recovered and staggered towards the thief. Hearing his approach the thief started to turn towards him and Engvyr hit him across the face with the stick.
The blow was fueled by rage and he felt bone crunch as he struck. The blow knocked the dwarf over backwards and the gun flew from his hand. Engvyr had to struggle to keep his own feet and when the thief tried to rise Engvyr struck him down savagely.
Dropping the wood he staggered back to check on his father. He was dead. He had been shot in the back with a crossbow and his throat was cut. His aunt had suffered before she died. He covered her and suddenly wondered where Berget was. Trying to rise again he found that he could not. He knelt there, gasping from the ebb and flow of the pain until his sight went dark and he felt no more.
PART TWO: THE FORGE
Chapter Eleven
“There's a trick to fighting a superior force. You need to hit them hard and fast, keep them off balance. Give them no time to organize their response. Get them to react as individuals, without thinking. Do it right and you can more or less scare them to death.”
Engvyr watched from cover as the goblin raiding party herded along a pair of women and a half-dozen children. All of the captives showed signs of abuse. Most likely their men-folk had been killed, butchered already and their remains divided up among the goblin's packs.
The prisoners were Afmaeltinn, humans that had settled on the edge of dwarven lands as they sometimes did. Engvyr didn't much care about humans one way or the other but he'd be damned if he'd let the goblins take anyone off of Dwarven lands.
The goblins wore broad-brimmed hats and scarfs to shield their eyes and faces from the sunlight, typical when they were out by daylight. Long coats covered their rag-tag armor, with gloves on their hands and hob-nailed boots upon their feet. Three of them carried repeating crossbows, high on rate-of-fire but short on accuracy. The rest were armed with an assortment of hand-axes, spears and short bill-hooks. With just himself and his partner Taarven Redbeard to stop them Engvyr wasn't liking their odds.
Engvyr and Taarven were Rangers of the Mountain Guard, and they patrolled the remote hames and steadings among the high valleys and mountain passes of the Northlands. In the course of making their rounds they were called upon to do everything from dealing with incursions such as this one to putting down a rogue bear or boar, even acting as judges of the King's Law when they needed to. They spent three to four weeks at a time in the saddle and their only home was the Station that they were based out of.