He watched them hungrily, absorbing every detail about them. By their very existence they proved the lie of his life and everything he had been told. There were Dwarven Masters! He did not yet know what this meant, or what he should do. In one stroke his world was changed forever.
“What are you doing here?”
He had been so caught up he had not noticed a Master approaching him from behind. He spun to face him and was knocked to the ground by a backhand blow. His mind spun off into panic- he could not imagine what his punishment would be for this, but it would be severe. The Master reached for him and Squirrel instinctively kicked out, his foot catching him in the groin.
He scrambled away desperately as the goblin folded up gasping in agony. He'd first been caught, then had done the unimaginable. He had struck a master! Panic took over and he fled blindly, away from the digging, the camp and the Masters.
He did not know how long he ran. When he slowed to catch his breath he heard the horns sounding behind him and he panicked again, running until he thought his lungs would burst. Suddenly he was trying to run in mid-air. He barely had time to register the white-water rushing towards him and hold his breath before he hit.
The river swept him along, dashing him against rocks with bruising force, turning him over and over in its current. He snatched a breath when he could, only to have it driven from his lungs by the impact with the next boulder. He heard his left arm crack and pain spiked through him. Finally he was able to struggle to the surface and float along, taking great tearing gasps of breath. The current was still strong but he was able to make his way over to the far bank and lay collapsed against it, gasping. Pain pulsed from his arm. He was sure that it was broken.
Pulling himself up the bank with his good arm, he tucked the other into his shirt to support it and tried to think what to do. Returning to the dig was out of the question, but where should he go? The early autumn air was still warm, in the daytime at least, but he had no food, nor any idea where to get some with his arm hurt. The only thing that he could think to do was to get as far away from the Masters as possible. They had come here from the north, so he would go south.
Perhaps he could find the dwarven Masters? Perhaps they would take pity on him. It was a thin thread of hope but it was all he had. He pulled himself to his feet and began to move through the trees, away from the river. He looked around and established his bearings, then moved off to the south. He moved cautiously at first, darting from tree to tree and looking around carefully before moving on. But as time went by he moved with less caution. He couldn't stop staring at everything. Trees, birds, plants… he'd never seen them so close up, or so many of them.
He was so preoccupied he almost walked straight into a pair of Masters on ulvgaed on the trail ahead of him. He froze instantly when he spotted them and then eased behind a bush, watching them intently. He waited for them to leave but they seemed to be in no hurry, simply sitting patiently and waiting. He knew from years of hunting rats that the eye is drawn to movement, so he held perfectly still as their eyes passed over his hiding spot. He was tempted to back away and try to sneak off but he knew this game too well.
A horn sounded behind him and to his right. The Masters looked, then turned their mounts and rode in that direction. As soon as they were out of sight he darted across the trail and hurried on. When he heard the horn again it was much nearer and he began to run. Down a wooded slope, across a stream and along the edge of another, steeper slope.
He heard an excited shout to his left and drumming hooves. In fresh panic he turned away and slid down the hill on his bottom, bouncing off a tree. Losing control he rolled the rest of the way down. He bit back a scream at the savage jolts of pain from his broken arm. Coming to a stop he realized he was on a trail and staggered to his feet. Hearing a crashing from behind, he looked back to see a rider come down the slope in a shower of displaced rocks and dirt. Squirrel tripped and found himself lying on his back, unable to catch his breath.
The ulvgaed leaped towards him as the Master riding the creature sawed at the reins to hold it back. The goblin grinned cruelly as he raised his horn to signal the other hunters. But before the rider could sound the alert he was swept from the saddle in a spray of blood by a red-headed dwarf with a two-handed axe. The ulvgaed wheeled and lunged but the dwarf spun the axe to stab the iron-shod butt into its teeth as another dwarf hurtled forward and sank a long, broad-bladed knife into the back of its neck. The ulvgaed fell and the second dwarf turned to look at the boy as he wrenched his knife free.
Bright blue eyes locked on his as the dwarf spoke, but the boy could make no sense of it and shook his head, terrified of the fierce blood-spattered figure before him. Then the dwarf with the axe said something. The other shot a quick glance at him and nodded. He sheathed his bloody blade then snatched Squirrel to his feet by his good arm. As the dwarf threw him over his shoulder pain, shock and exhaustion overcame the boy and he passed out.
He came to himself slowly with dim memories of being carried. He remembered being thrown to the ground and the sounds of fighting, followed by more jolting and pain. There had been conversations that he could not understand as he passed in and out of consciousness.
When he opened his eyes he beheld the tallest woman that he had ever seen. She was pretty though startlingly thin, and her eyes were full of concern. She spoke to him and while he couldn't understand the words he could tell it was a question. He sat up on the pallet he'd been laying on and scrabbled away from her, his back to the wall as his eyes locked on hers. She reached out slowly and gently touched the brand on his cheek, then turned to speak to someone else. He looked around the room and saw the blue-eyed dwarf standing near a doorway, and an older woman wearing a shirt of metal links sitting in a chair nearby. Candles lit the stone room and he realized that he was warm. The pallet was soft beneath him, as was the blanket that he'd displaced when he sat up.
He hurt all over and his arm throbbed with a dull ache. The break had been splinted and was bound tightly against his body under a clean shirt of finely woven fabric that reached to below his knees. The tall, kind-eyed woman patted his good shoulder gently and stepped away to talk to the others.
He had found them, the dwarven Masters! Or rather they had found him. He did not know where he was but he slowly relaxed. Clearly they meant him no harm and it came to him that he was safe. He shook with reaction and tears began to flow, then he was sobbing uncontrollably. He felt strong arms gather him up and hold him while he cried, pouring out the accumulated fear, the stress of his flight and injury. Finally he lapsed into exhausted slumber.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“We like to say that you can't break a dwarf's spirit, and that is even true of some. But the Baasgarta had found that they could twist that spirit, turn it back against us so that we forged and were held by chains of the same spirit that had made us indomitable. In many ways this was the worst of their crimes against Dwarves. “
“At first we thought he was someone's child that was missed in the evacuation, but the scars on his cheek and shoulder tell a different story,” Engvyr said, “When the Baasgarta caught him, well, what else could we do?”