Thorbardin itself. And certainly if there were the slightest passage-point through the Guardian Walls, somebody within would have noticed it.
Not the Valley of the Thanes then, Chane decided.
And not Southgate, which was the common entrance to Thorbardin since the
Cataclysm, nor likely the mostly abandoned Northgate, with its shattered portal ledge. Northgate might be unused, Chane told himself, but it's not undefended. It was equipped for the same impenetrable defenses as
Southgate.
Possibly some long-forgotten tunnel or shielded pass breaking through into one of the warrens, or one of the lower cities? Kiar, Theiwar…
Daergar? It didn't seem likely to him. Surely someone would have noticed.
"There's a creature with long, flexible arms and not a bone in its body."
Chane looked up. "What? Where?"
"In the Sirrion Sea," the kender said. "Aren't you paying attention?
That's what I'm talking about. The Sirrion Sea. They also say that there is a gigantic island out there, just far enough from the Isle of Sancrist to be out of sight, that isn't an island at all. It's really a gnomish ship, hundreds and hundreds of years old, that was supposed to drive itself by a geared rod with a weight atop it. The reason it's in the sea, they say, is because the gnomes who built it set out westward and that was as far as they got before the falling rod buried itself in the ocean floor. They've been working on it ever since, trying to iron out all the bugs, and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger."
With a low growl, Chane Feldstone returned to his own thoughts. The
First Roads One of the Halls of Justice? There was so much to Thorbardin, so many different parts and places in the kingdom beneath the Kharolis
Mountains. Chane Feldstone had seen so few of them, and almost none of the outside perimeters and capping peaks that protected the dwarven kingdom.
Chane sighed and tried another tack.
Grallen had learned… so the Irda said… that there was a secret entrance, and that Thorbardin would be threatened by invasion because of that entrance. But where was it'! Grallen had not been in Thorbardin when he learned of that; he had been outside, fighting in the Dwarfgate Wars.
Grallen had not returned alive, but he had tried – or at least intended – to find the secret passage and block it somehow. The dwarf rubbed his chin. Where, then, did Grallen go? Using his crystal, Chane could see a green line that he intended to follow. It was, he trusted, Grallen's path.
And yet, where did it lead?
"Five unicorns," Chestal Thicketsway said.
Again the dwarf glanced around, startled. "Where7"
"What?"
"You said 'five unicorns.' Where?"
"Oh, all over," the kender shrugged. "I'm not even sure
I believe him, you know. Capstick Heelfeather has been known to exaggerate. But that's what he says. He says he has personally seen five unicorns. So far, I've only seen one."
"I wish that wizard would come back," the dwarf muttered.
"Why? I thought you didn't like him."
"I don't. I wouldn't trust that mage as far as I can spit, but he knows a lot of things about outside that I don't know."
"Is that all?" The kender brightened. "I've been outside all my life.
What do you want to know?"
"Well, to begin with, where exactly was Grallen when he died?"
"I haven't the foggiest notion," Chess said happily.
"Ask me something else." Shaking his head in exasperation, Chane went back to his puzzle. How am I supposed to find a secret entrance if no one has a clue to its location? he wondered. And even if there is a secret entrance, and I find it, what am I supposed to do about it? Apparently the only one who ever knew anything about any of this was Grallen, and he died a long, long time ago and never told anybody… did he?
Chane shook his head. If Grallen did tell someone about the entrance, why didn't somebody do something about it back then? Or since? Why me?
"Dwarves and humans," the kender said. "At least that's what I -"
"Will you please be quiet?" Chane stormed. "Can't you see I'm trying to think?"
"I'm just trying to tell you, there are dwarves and humans down there."
"Where?"
"On the path, where all the animals were. But the animals are mostly past now, and there are people over there, going down that path as fast as they can. Some of them are bleeding, too. I wonder what's going on."
Chapter 16
From the top op a rock outcrop, Chane and Chess had a view of the path.
It was below, and some distance away, and the moonlight cast eerie shadows where the slopes rose above it. But it was a view, and Chane crouched there, staring in wonder at the dark shapes moving down the cutback slope.
Dozens were in view, people of all sizes. Some were dwarves, and some were taller – humans, perhaps. Some scampered along the downward path, turning often to look back. Some moved more slowly, clinging to one another; some supporting others, some being carried. Behind the first wave of refugees came a small knot of figures brandishing spears and swords, moving slowly.
A few were shouting at those ahead, urging them on. Others at the rear faced back up the path, their weapons at the ready.
"Somebody's chasing them," Chess said. "That's their rear guard. I wonder who's after them."
Slowly the fleeing people made their way down the angled by-path, disappearing by twos and threes as they reached the cutback below and rounded the shoulder there. Shouts and cries carried upward, distorted by the spires and tumbles of the mountainside and by distance.
"Let's get closer," Chane decided. "I can't tell anything from here." He rose and turned to find the kender already gone, scrambling across tumble-slopes, leaping from stone to stone, heading for a better view of the path. Chane hurried after him.
For long moments the dwarf and the kender were out of sight of the path, but then they emerged on a ledge directly above it and looked down the length of the sloping angle between cutbacks. The path was empty now, as far as they could see. But just opposite the two, in a shadowed canyon from which the path emerged, something was moving, coming toward the turn.
Heavy footfalls crunched in the rubble of the path. Footfalls… and a deep, harsh voice that broke into cruel laughter.
"See 'em run!" the voice rumbled up from the shadows. "Blood an' gore.
Me, I go an' find me more. Bash 'ere skulls an' break 'ere bones! Let 'em go? Haw! Not me. Not Loam!"
The figure that emerged from the darkness was huge a massive, wide-bodied thing that loped down the path on bowed, gnarled legs. It carried a huge club in one hand, which it flailed as though it were a twig.
'%lake 'em run!" the thing bellowed as it passed directly below the dwarf and the kender. "Make 'em fleet Make 'em die… in agony. Hee, hee!"
It skidded in the rubble, faltered for just an instant, and changed course, heading down the cutback where the fleeing people had gone.
"What in tarnish is that?" Chane whispered.
"Ugly, isn't it!" the kender said. 'They're even uglier in front. Here,
I'll show you."
Before Chane could react, the kender stood, drew his hoopak-sling, and sent a large pebble flying after the monster. The pebble bounced off the thing's skull with a distant thud. Howling, the monster slapped a massive hand to its insulted head and spun around. Moon-red eyes in a massive, heavy-browed face darted this way and that, then came to rest on the dwarf and the kender.
"Oops," Chess said.
With a roar that reverberated off the mountain peaks, the great creature started up the path toward them, swinging its club.
"Anyway," Chess said, "now you have a better look at it. I'll bet you've never seen an ogre before. Have you?"