It was far too heavy for her, but she managed to catch the draconian captain just below the kneecap. He roared, driving away all the flyers. Mara let go of the sword and backed off.
Grimacing, he looked down at his leg. Green blood oozed from the wound. He opened his mouth to shout at her; nothing but snarling and flecks of foam came out.
Mara dashed away, thinking to herself, "I'll need a new name. Mara the Warlike… Mara, Queen of Battle…" A thrown dagger flashed between her arm and her side. Mara, Queen of Battle, legged it like Mara the Rabbit down the left fork of the tunnel. The draconian lumbered after her, limping painfully.
Mara dashed into a room. The draconian found her, crouched against the far wall. She stood holding the leg of a splintered chair as a weapon. As the captain came forward, she dropped it and shrank against the wall, her face a mask of terror.
"I have you," he said slowly, with satisfaction. He limped into the center of the room, smiling -
Mara tapped the wall lightly with one finger.
The Thudbaggers activated. The draconian lost his footing. Both his arms were pinned in place by the bags; he couldn't reach the sword he had dropped when the first bag inflated in his face. He poked his head up out of the balloons, and glared helplessly at Mara, who had clambered onto the bags. "You!" he said bitterly, beside himself with rage. "You — "
"Shut up," said Mara and, pulling off his helmet, knocked him cold.
She heard the sound of running feet, and then Standback appeared in the door.
"Are you all right?" He was panting.
Mara slid off the balloon. "Mara the Bold is always all right."
"That's good. When I arrived at the top level, I thought that it was a false alarm, and I came back down, and then I saw the dead and knocked-out draconians — " He paused. "You're bleeding."
She looked at her shoulder in surprise. "Not too badly." She grinned. "I gave better than I got."
Standback looked at the unconscious captain. "I see that," he said, impressed. "Were they after my weapons?"
Mara nodded. Standback, looking again at the pinned and unconscious captain, said thoughtfully, "Mount Nevermind isn't at war with draconians. We don't dare kill them, and they're too dangerous to take prisoner. What are we going to do with them?"
"I've thought about that." Mara paused for effect. "Let them escape."
Standback goggled at her. "But if they escape, they'll take our weapons or plans for our weapons away with them — "
"You want them to," she said simply.
Standback was now a complete rarity in Mount Nevermind or anywhere else: a speechless gnome.
"Think about it," she went on. "The draconians want the weapons. You need the weapons tested. They're soldiers. Who could better test them?"
As he still hesitated, she added, "And isn't the theft by real warriors a kind of validation that your weapons are worth testing? You'll be able to tell that to the committee and then ask for the hand of Watchout."
Standback blinked. "But you're not afraid to let them use these.. terrible weapons against your people?"
Mara thought about draconian troops setting off the Portapults in the field. "They are indeed terrible weapons," she said, "but letting the draconians have them will only make it a more even battle. It's a matter of honor — something the knights are big on."
Standback took her hand, pumping it up and down. "Never have I met a warrior of so much integrity — "
"Oh, I wouldn't say that."
" — and modest too." He looked back at the unconscious draconian captain. "I'll let them escape with the Portapult, the Flying Deathaxe — "
"Um, I don't know that they'll want the Deathaxe. Why don't you let them have the Thunderpack, instead?"
Standback protested. "This is too much. Won't you take anything for yourself?"
"Sometimes," Mara said nobly, "there's a greater joy in giving." She had a sudden thought. "If you don't mind, I'll just take the little failed dowser." She picked it up.
"The one that can't even find water? You want it?"
"Just as a souvenir."
Standback, tears in his eyes, said, "You're amazing. Nothing but a trinket for yourself, while you give fullscale gnome weapons to your worst enemies."
Mara, pocketing the jewel-finder, beamed. "Well," she said modestly, "I'm like that."
The Promised Place
Dan Parkinson
Once, very recently, this had been a city. Only days before, there had been a tiered castle on the highest point of the hill. Studded battlements overlooked the lands for miles around. In a walled courtyard, throngs gathered.
Below the battlements, spreading down toward the fields, had been a raucous, bustling city — inns and dwellings, shops and markets, public houses, smithies, barns and lofts, weavers' stalls and tanneries, music and noise and life.
Chaldis had been a city. But the dragonarmies of the Dark Queen had come and the city was a city no more. Where battlements had stood was smashed and blackened rubble, and all beneath was scorched, twisted ruin. Of Chaldis, nothing was left. Only the road it had defended was yet intact, and its surface showed the tracks and treads of armies just passed. The people who had been here were gone now — some fleeing, some dead, some led off as slaves. Where there had been herds now were only scorched pastures, and where crops had grown now were ruined fields.
Stillness lived here now. A somber stillness — shadows and silence, broken only by the weeping of the wind.
Yet in the stillness, something lurked. And in the shadows, small shadows moved.
Muffled voices, among the rubble: "What kind place this? Ever'thing a real mess." 'Talls been here. Somebody clobber 'em, I guess." "This all fresh scorch." "Forget scorch! Look for somethin' to eat."
And another sound, from somewhere in the lead, "Sh!" A thump and a clatter.
"Sh!" "Somebody fall down."
"Sh!"
"Somebody say, 'Sh.' Better hush up."
Another thump and several clatters.
"Wha' happen?"
"Somebody bump into somebody else. All fall down."
"Sssh!!"
"What?"
"Shut up an' keep quiet!"
"Oh. Okay."
Abruptly hushed, the shadows moved on, small figures in a ragged line, wending among fallen stone and burned timbers, making their cautious way through the rubble that once had been a city. For several minutes, they proceeded in silence, then the whispers and muted chatter began again as the effect of exercised authority wore off.
"Wanna stop an' dig? Might be nice stuff under these gravels."
"Forget dig. Need food first. Look for somethin' make stew."
"Like what?"
"Who knows. Mos' anything make stew."
"Hey! Here somethin'… nope, never mind. Just a dead Tall."
"Rats."
"What?"
"Oughtta be rats here. Rats okay for stew."
"Keep lookin'."
"Ow! Get off a my foot!"
Thump. Clatter.
"Sh!"
"Somebody fall down again."
"Sh!
They were travelers. They had been travelers since long before any of them could remember, which was not very long unless the thing to remember was truly worth remembering: traveling generally was not. It was just something they did, something they had always done, something their parents and their ancestors had done. Few of them had any idea why they traveled, or why their travels — more often than not — tended to be westward.
For the few among them who might occasionally wonder about such things, the answer was simple and extremely vague. They traveled because they were in search of the Promised Place.
Where was the Promised Place? Nobody had the slightest idea.
Why did they seek the Promised Place? No one really knew that, either. Someone, a long time ago — some Highbulp, probably, since it was usually the Highbulp who initiated unfathomable ventures — had gotten the notion that there was a Promised Place, to the west, and it was their destiny to find it. That had been generations back — an unthinkable time to people who usually recognized only two days other than today: yesterday and tomorrow. But once the pilgrimage was begun, it just kept going.