He was a powerful speaker, this Hylar who pretended to the regency. Given enough time, he might convince Gneiss to cast his vote with the other witlings who then would open Thorbardin’s gates to the ragtag legions of humans who were fleeing a war of their own making. Realgar’s fists tightened at his side. In the midst of the rant and the rage of Ranee’s opposition, the Theiwar had felt, like a cold blue shadow on snow, the touch of the Gray Herald’s mind. At that moment, he’d seen the Gray Herald standing against a mud-spattered stable wall in a rain-wet alleyway in Long Ridge.
They’d found the ranger. They’d not found the sword.
Ranee’s fury was a child’s pouting when compared with what tore through Realgar in that moment. None knew and none saw. Not even Gneiss, so intently staring. But the Gray Herald had heard his curse. Earlier, he’d tracked the ranger with the Kingsword. When they set to waylay him, he’d had it. Now, they didn’t know where it was. Realgar snarled. That other ranger, the elf, must have it!
Or … who? Kyan Red-axe was dead. Hornfel’s pet mage and mad Isarn’s apprentice were still near the town, but as yet knew nothing of Hauk and Stormblade. They were busy eluding Brek and his guards. The human must be secured, and the elf must be shadowed.
“Bring me this ranger,” he had communicated to Agus, even as he smiled at Gneiss. “I’ll know who has the sword within the hour.”
At that moment the Gray Herald had laid his hands upon the head of the young man and spoke the words of a transport spell. Rhuel and Agus now waited with the ranger, Hauk, in the depths of Thorbardin. The tunnel widened, its weeping walls swept back and up to a suddenly heightened ceiling. Realgar bared his teeth in a deadly smile as he entered a broad, roughly circular cavern. The place was as dark as the tunnel had been, its walls as rough and damp. Realgar crossed the floor, smoother here, and stood over the body of the unconscious ranger.
Hauk stirred. The Theiwar smiled and waved absently, dismissing his two guards.
6
In an alley, behind what had once been the most prosperous street of shops in Long Ridge, an old kender squinted against the wet night wind and brought his face closer to a locked door. The stink of burned wood filled the alley, and the kender sneezed once, then again. This shop was among the very few on the street still undamaged. The dragon had missed it, intentionally or not, and even the looting soldiers had not damaged it too much. The kender was having a difficult time with the lock. Lavim Springtoe was absolutely not prepared to consider that he was getting too old to finesse even this simple lock. He was sixty, and that was not a great accumulation of years at all. Why, Lavim, like every kender, knew that Uncle Trapspringer had lived until well past seventy before he even admitted to feeling less than youthful.
Actually, Uncle Trapspringer had reputedly lived until the ripe old age of ninety-seven before the dire phantom of Rigar’s Swamp finally got him. For his part, Lavim was not certain that any dire phantom had actually ‘gotten’ Uncle Trapspringer. That doubtful piece of information came from his father’s cousin’s aunt, and it was well known in the family that Aunt Evalia could never get the facts straight. Lavim had always heard—from his mother’s sister’s nephew, a far more reliable source who was a connection of Uncle Trapspringer’s via a second cousin—that it was Uncle Trapspringer who got the dire phantom. Certainly it made for a better story.
The kender, a little stooped and very white-haired, surveyed the alley again, listened carefully for approaching footsteps, heard none, and returned his attention to the back door of the shop.
His eyes were not weak, his sight was simply impaired by the miserable pall of soot and smoke that had become what used to be air in Long Ridge. If his hands shook, Lavim was certain that they did not shake with age but with hunger. The place he sought entry to being a baker’s shop, Lavim thought it likely that there would be something to eat lying about that no one was interested in. Afterwards, he would fix the lock so it locked even better.
He tossed his head, flipping his long white braid over his shoulder, and set to work again. All the fine lines of his wrinkled brown face deepened with his concentration. He leaned a little against the door, not so that his long, canted ear might be closer to the lock to hear the tumblers fall, but so that he could brace his shoulder for perfect balance.
It is said that eye level for a kender is door-lock height for the same reason a chipmunk has extra cheek space. A twist of the lock’s horizontal bar brought the satisfying ‘snick!’ of a tumbler tumbling. A second twist, and then a third, and the lock was a lock no more. Obviously, Lavim thought as he stepped silently into the back of the baker shop, this lock was not meant to keep anyone out. In its own way it was an invitation. A small loaf of brown bread lay on a table. Lavim pocketed it and thought how pleased the baker would be to discover that someone had saved his shop from the depredations of the mice that would surely have trooped through the place once they discovered food lying about. By removing three small honey cakes from a nearby shelf, Lavim rescued the baker from rats. He defended the hapless shopkeeper from ants when he filled a small pouch with sweet rolls, and considered his night’s work done when he scooped four small muffins into his pocket, thereby saving the poor baker from an infestation of roaches.
Satisfied that the baker would return to his shop in the morning a happy man, Lavim Springtoe slipped back out the alley door, reset the improved lock, and headed for the tavern.
He wondered whether the tavern still stocked dwarf spirits. The current occupation—infestation, his father would have said—made the possibility highly unlikely. Few supplies were getting into Long Ridge these days, and those few were rapidly claimed and consumed by Verminaard’s army. However, Lavim was a forward looking fellow. His father, who had possessed an endless store of kender common knowledge and passed most of it on to his son, liked to say than an empty pouch will never be filled unless you open it.
Lavim set out for the tavern chewing a large bite of honey cake and fortified with his father’s optimism.
He was thirsty from all his work and good deeds, and a few hours still remained before the watch would cry curfew.
Stanach felt oppressed by the noise and heat of the tavern. The place smelled of wet wool and leather, sour wine and flat ale spilled long ago. But these were no worse than the odors in some of the taverns he and Kyan had frequented in Thorbardin. His sense of oppression was rooted in the overwhelming feeling that he was a stranger among strangers. Tenny’s held more humans than Stanach had ever seen. Only a few of them, small groups here and there, seemed to know each other. Others stood shoulder by shoulder with fellow drinkers, yet seemed to stand alone. The sound of their talking, the closeness of them, made Stanach wonder if there were enough air in the place for all to breathe. We need more air in our lungs than you do, Piper would have said. The mage would have made the remark, Stanach thought, with a wry smile and a cocked head, if he were here to make it. Stanach didn’t know where Piper was and he didn’t even know whether the mage was still alive. He smeared a ring of ale on the scarred table and scowled. Piper had survived. He was, after all, a mage. And a clever one, at that. He was also, Stanach realized, a stag surrounded by a pack of wolves. But a stag can break free and do serious harm to the pack. He held onto that thought and prayed that Piper had been able to lose Realgar’s guards in the woods, as he had.
Stanach had come into Long Ridge at sunset last night, a cold wind at his back. He’d looked first for a place to lodge and then for a place to eat. He’d found both in Tenny’s.
Food and a room were not all he’d found. Stormblade was, indeed, in Long Ridge. At least it had been last night.