There would be a price for that pleasure-the head of a column advancing on the wall of Belkuthas would be a deadly place, no matter how many siege engines battered the citadel for however long. Yet if he fell, all who saw him fall would know of his end, and perhaps in time those who knew of his life would be shouted down.
At least he would not have those cursed kender on his trail any longer!
Pard Lintelmaker sat on a stone bench at the end of a long, low chamber. Several other dwarves shared benches on either side of him.
Before him, Belot, Gran Axesharp, and Nuor of the Black Chisel squatted on moss-stuffed deer-hide cushions. They could practically reach out and touch Pard Lintelmaker’s beard, for the “audience chamber” was mostly taken up with a museum of dwarven work.
Belot had thought dwarves were robust but clumsy, shrewd but lacking elegance of taste or execution. He had ceased to think that the moment he saw the chamber.
Every sort of rock and mineral was there, carved into lace, polished until it shone like mirrors, smoothed until it was as silk to the touch. There was gold, silver, copper, and jade jewelry and ornaments, some of it set with jewels. Some of the jewels were intricately faceted, while others were raw chunks of blazing color.
There was enough to keep anyone who was interested in beauty wandering the aisles of the chamber until snow piled high at the mouth of the Lintelmaker tunnels. However, if Belot was not out of here before the leaves began to turn, let alone before the trees were bare under a weight of snow, irreparable harm would come to all the folk of this land.
Therefore, while elven calm usually made humans look as fidgety as kender, Belot struggled mightily to keep his body quiet and his face expressionless. Before this day was over-whatever day it was in this underground world without sun-they would learn the fate of Belkuthas.
Pard Lintelmaker coughed.
“It seems pretty plain that folk we fostered and therefore have a duty to are in serious trouble. Do you say that they’re innocent in the matter of Lord Lauthin’s death?”
“I have described what I saw and what I have been told by those I trust,” Belot said. “If you do not trust them-”
“Easy, lad, Nuor said. Belot wanted to bristle at being called “lad,” and suspected Nuor was paying him back for the pride-bruising flight on Amrisha. But Nuor also might be able to persuade Pard Lintelmaker that Belot could be trusted.
What Nuor said was virtually the same as what Belot had said, in slightly different words. In the end, silence came, then seemed to swell until it filled the chamber like steam filling an elven winter-bath.
“It’s as well that Lauthin’s blood is on nobody’s hands,” Pard said. “Frankly, Belot, your folk aren’t always the best of neighbors, and they might take on a trifle over our helping Lauthin’s killers. But if we’re not doing that, we’ll come.”
Belot was so relieved, he missed the dwarven lord’s next few words.
“-underground. Walking in the sun’s no faster, and we won’t do it unless there’s friendly fighters in the woods the last few days before Belkuthas. Are they?”
When Belot had translated those mutterings, he had to shake his head. “Scouts and some refugee guards, but our folk are still marching up from the south. If you were coming that way-”
“If we were taking a tooth out by way of the bellybutton,” Pard Lintelmaker growled. “No, the tunnels it will be, and Gran Axesharp will have the chief’s hammer if I can’t find anyone who’s a bigger fool.”
“You find that bigger fool, Pard, and I’ll use the hammer on him before we march,” Axesharp said.
Belot did not feel this was entirely a jest.
The dwarves did not seem particularly concerned about the renegade wizard Wilthur the Brown.
“Just because we aren’t much for the high towers or parading around in fancy robes so long we’d trip over them, doesn’t mean dwarves don’t know anything about magic. We know enough to get done what we think needs doing, and how much that is, is our affair.”
Also, Tarothin probably knew enough about dwarven magic as he knew about the other kinds. If he had not exhausted the last of his strength before the dwarves came. If, if, if-
The dwarven chief was speaking again. “We’ll need to give warning. I’ll reply to Krythis’s message, and Nuor, you can ride back with Belot to deliver it.”
The look on Nuor’s face amply repaid Belot for being called “lad.”
Nemyotes came up to Gildas Aurhinius, on foot, leading his horse, and looking so much like a soldier that for a moment the general did not recognize his secretary.
“Well?”
“The Pass of Riomis has completely collapsed. Shrines, springs, everything. It would take five thousand men or more magic than we command to clear it swiftly enough.”
Aurhinius cursed. “There goes our last chance of reaching Belkuthas before Migmar settles in around it.” He looked at the mountains ahead, dark ripples along the desert horizon.
“Maybe our tale about setting up outposts will turn out to be the truth after all.”
He half hoped Nemyotes would come up with another way of turning futility into hope. But the secretary was tending to his horse, like any good mounted fighter ought to do.
“The scouts have reported finding a centaur, ridden to death,” Haimya said.
Pirvan turned his head on the pillow to look at her. The rest of his body was too heavy to move. At least looking at her was pleasant enough. It was a hot night, and neither of them wore night robes.
“Ridden to death, or driven to run wildly?”
“They say they found marks of a rider on the centaur’s flanks. That elven healer with the scouts-”
“Elansa?”
“Yes, and by the way, I think she and Tharash are bed-mates.”
“Get to the point, woman!”
“Really?” Haimya drew out her pillow dagger and held it up.
“You were saying?”
Pirvan had given up jesting since Lewin’s death. Haimya, on the other hand, seemed to be making more jokes than ever. It helped lift others’ spirits, but it did not deceive her husband. She was whistling as she led the march past the graveyard.
“Elansa found traces of spells on the centaur. And the last prisoner the scouts took said that they-our friends outside-were looking for an escaped wizard.”
“Wilthur?”
“No doubt.”
“I doubt this means we’ve seen the last of him.” Pirvan rolled onto his back, his hands behind his head. “I could ask Tarothin, but Sirbones says he could barely counter one of Wilthur’s major spells, let alone find the man if he is trying to hide.”
“One day Tarothin will tell Sirbones to stop playing nursemaid. Then where will you be?”
Pirvan sighed. “Where I want to be is where I need not fear losing any more friends-or even people I am bound to.”
Haimya rolled on top of him. “Even more than you want to be here?”
“Well, this place has much to commend it-yes, indeed, very much.…”
Which was as far as Pirvan could go before words became, if not impossible, at least unnecessary.
Tharash awoke to the squeal of a night-flying insect in his ear. He swatted it into silence, and for a moment lay still, forgetting why he was here.
Then he felt Elansa’s sweet-scented warmth beside him under the furs, and remembered. Briefly he wanted to forget again and go back to sleep.
Instead, he crawled out from under the furs and dressed himself, careful all the while not to wake Elansa. She had moved by the time he was done, lying on her side with one bare arm reaching toward where he had lain.
She might awaken swiftly, if she sensed that he was gone. That would never do. Tharash snatched up bow and other gear, and went outside to put it on.
By the time he was done, his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, likewise his ears. There were more insects like the one he had swatted, whining about-something new in these forests, at least in this season. Probably too many unburied bodies.