There was never a time when Stanach looked into the flames of his forge and did not remember the night Stormblade had been born of ore, fire, and water. There was never a time when he forgot that on the night the Kingsword was born, it was stolen. That night, Isarn—his master, his kinsman, and his friend—began a slow descent into grief and madness. Stanach did not care about the danger. He wanted to bring Stormblade home.
He would be going, if going he were, with his kinsman Kyan Red-axe. A border patroller, no one knew the Outlands as well as Kyan did. Or so Kyan said, and Stanach, for the most part, believed him. Though he and Stanach were of an age, Kyan had always seemed older. It was his experience, his look of being always on guard for dangers that Stanach could only imagine, and the look of being able to handle those dangers with ease, that made him so. Stanach who never ventured outside Thorbardin, but stayed close to his home and family, as most dwarves did, would willingly place his life and safety in Kyan’s hands. Were Kyan not safety enough, Hornfel was sending the mage Piper to accompany him. What, Stanach thought, could possibly happen that Piper couldn’t take care of? He’d known the golden-haired human for all of the three years that Piper had been at Thorbardin. Jordy, his name was, though all in Thorbardin called him Piper. Named so by the dwarven children for all the glad singing of his flute, lanky Piper and Stanach were close friends. The mage’s carefree good spirits lightened the dark brooding that had become Stanach’s nature.
The best times were spent in the taverns of Thorbardin, killing time and kegs of ale. The best times got better when Kyan, in from the borders, joined them, trying to pass off one outrageous story after another as Reorx’s own truth.
Stanach wanted badly to accompany them. But he needed to find a way to convince Hornfel that he should be with those sent to retrieve the sword.
He did not consider this easily. The thought of leaving the mountain and separating himself from the pattern of well-ordered days frightened him.
A son of wealthy Clan Hammerfell, his future was assured. He was a fine craftsman in a respected trade. His father had lately begun to speak of marriage contracts, and his mother’s dinner conversation was now laced with references to one dwarf maid or another, subtle recommendations which both amused Stanach and intrigued him. Seventy-five was not a great many years for a dwarf to have attained. Stanach was young yet by his people’s reckoning and not in any great hurry to take a wife and begin his family. But a family, too, is wealth and riches of a kind. That wealth cannot be inherited from a father’s coffers.
“You earn it with trust,” his mother had told him. “It’s not a matter of filling cradles and watching children grow. It’s a matter of giving the woman you wed, the children you sire, the friends you find, reasons to trust you. Then, though you go dressed in rags, you are wealthy.”
Stanach rested his forehead on his drawn up knees. He was poorer than any ragged gully dwarf. He was a trust-breaker.
I should have guarded the sword better!
Aye, but he hadn’t. The Kingsword had been stolen. Though Isarn did not blame his apprentice, there was no need to; Stanach blamed himself and paid the guilt-price every time he saw a forge fire.
A warrior Hornfel would send, and a mage. What need would there be to send the apprentice who had lost the sword in the first place?
Then Stanach smiled. His cousin Kyan Red-axe was a fine warrior; Piper, a powerful mage. But neither of the two had seen the sword, neither would know it but from its description. Stanach saw it every night in his sleep.
He raised his eyes to the jeweled sky, to the red star gleaming above the mountain’s highest peak. Legend said this star was the gleam of Reorx’s forge.
“I know I should have guarded it better,” he told the god. “Father, if you give the wit-craft to convince Hornfel to allow me to accompany Kyan and Piper, I swear by Stormblade itself that I will ward it well and carry it home.”
His prayer made, Stanach rose from the ledge and, framing the words of his request to the thane, returned to Thorbardin. Trust-breaker, he called himself. He couldn’t live with the name any longer. With Reorx’s help, he would find a way to go with his cousin and Piper into the Outlands and bring Stormblade home.
3
Blood soaked the bust of the road. Four dwarves lay dead, and the only things moving were the wind plucking with cool fingers at their hair and beards, and a crow screaming in the hard blue sky.
Stanach had no thought for three of the dwarves but to be glad that they were dead. The fourth was Kyan Red-axe.
Stanach closed his eyes and bowed his head. Even the finest, most skilled warrior cannot always defend himself from a coward’s attack. His kinsman Kyan Red-axe was dead of a crossbow bolt in the back. A cairn, Stanach thought. He looked up at the crow. We have to build a cairn. For a dwarf to die, with no cairn or tomb to shelter his body was a traitor’s death. Kyan Red-axe did not deserve that. Stanach’s belly twisted sickly when he realized that this might be his kinsman’s fate. The breeze, light and cool, freshened and carried the fading scent of sulphur. Smoke, thick and rolling only a few moments before, thinned to curling tendrils now that the magic fire was gone. Stanach turned and looked for the mage. He saw him a little way off to the side of the road, leaning against the broad trunk of an oak. His red robes were the color of Kyan’s blood.
Blood spilled for Stormblade.
“Piper, we can’t leave him here.”
Piper shook his head. “We can’t stay. They’ll be back. They’re here for a reason, my friend. The only place this road goes to is Long Ridge or the sea. Realgar’s men jumped us the minute we came out of the transport spell. They were waiting for us. We’re in trouble, Stanach.”
Stanach, his hand on Kyan’s chest as though still reaching for a sign of life, looked closely at the mage. Like most humans. Piper seemed taller than anyone needed to be. His face white and drawn, his blue eyes dim. The mage was spent. He sweated in the cold air, and the sweat plastered his sun colored hair to his face and neck.
Piper had loosed two fire-spells, long arms of flame, the instant he and the two dwarves had come out of the transport spell. Realgar’s guards had been waiting. Now, drained by the exertions of the transport and the fire spells, the mage would be no threat to anyone for at least a few hours, and certainly not to the four Theiwar guards still lurking somewhere nearby. Stanach looked around. The dark line of the forest lay in the shadows to his right. Barren ground rose to stony hills on his left. Half as high as the trees, a tumbled pile of stone climbed to the sky at the brink of the woods. The crow’s hoarse cry seemed closer now.
Piper pushed away from the oak, passed through the shadows, and stood behind Stanach. “We have to leave him, my friend. I’m sorry. But we don’t dare stay here any longer.”
Stanach closed his eyes again. Kyan had a war-cry like summer thunder, like a madman’s howl. He had a strong right arm and a warrior’s heart, fierce and generous. He would have no eulogy and not even a hastily built cairn. But he would be remembered.