As Bronwyn listened some of the pain of betrayal seeped away, but her determination was stronger than ever. “I need to go to Thornhold,” she said. “I have to see my father.”
“Of course you do, child.” The gnome looked at her shrewdly. “But that’s what they expect you to do. There might be problems. Unless, of course, we can distract them.”
Bronwyn nodded as a plan started to fall into place. But one question remained. She met and held Alice’s gaze. ‘We?” she asked pointedly.
“We,” the gnome said firmly. “You do what you must, and I’ll help you however I can.” Alice hesitated, then held out her hand, offering both an apology and a pact.
A clasp of the wrist, Harper to Harper. Bronwyn understood the gesture and found it inadequate to what Alice offered and what they shared. She struck the tiny hand aside. Before the shock in Alice’s eyes could turn to hurt, she gathered the little gnome into her arms. The two women clung together in a brief, fierce embrace.
After a moment Alice cleared her throat and drew back. “Well, I’d better go see what Shopscat is squawking about,” she said hurriedly, dashing the back of her hand against her eyes.
“Good idea,” Bronwyn replied, though she had not heard the raven’s raucous voice since they’d left the shop. A fond smile curved her lips as she watched the gnome scurry out to the shop. Then she wiped her eyes and climbed the back stair to her room, to collect her thoughts and to prepare for the trip ahead.
* * * * *
The small sea cave, located to the south of the Stone-shaft tunnels by a half day’s brisk walk, measured six paces from side to side. Ebenezer marked off the width again, then again, pacing distractedly as he considered his predicament.
It wasn’t much of a cave. Exceedingly small, it was littered with dried seaweed, crab claws, and broken shells. Various mussel-like critters clung to the stone walls and ceiling, and the floor was a combination of cliff rock and ocean sand. Not exactly homey by the dwarf’s standards, but it served him now as a combination haven and prison. The large boulder he’d shoved into the opening nearly covered the mouth of the cave, keeping it secure—for now. Ebenezer wasn’t sure what he’d do when the tide came in. Drown, most likely. He could hear the sea and even smell its salty tang, though that was hard to do over the much closer and far more foul aroma outside.
“Off the chopping board and into the stew pot,” Ebenezer muttered. It was a dwarven cliché, but since it fit the situation so perfectly he thought he could maybe get by with using it, just this once.
Glumly he reviewed the steps that had led him to this predicament. He’d survived the drop from the ledge onto solid stone below just fine and had kicked his way out of the splintered crate—only to lose his balance and splash into the river. Ebenezer had never learned to swim, and now he knew why. Being in cold, moving water was damned unpleasant. He’d been tossed and buffeted about for what seemed like hours, going under more times than he could count. The only thing that had kept him from drowning was sheer cussedness— that, and the large rock that he’d slammed smack into. Fortunately, the rock was not the only one of its kind, and once his eyes had uncrossed he’d been able to make his way to shore. Problem was by then he was well past the warren of Stoneshaft tunnels and the only way back was up the river he came down on. Thank you, no. So he’d taken to the surface by the quickest tunnel and headed south along the sea’s shoreline—noisy, nasty thing, that sea—to a point where he could scale the nearly sheer cliff and get up to the Trade Way. Ebenezer’s thinking was that the road was the fastest way back to the tunnels’ entrance. Unfortunately, he had a long walk ahead—at least a half day, the way he figured it. He suspected that he would be too late.
That was what the “chopping board” looked like. The “stew pot” was no improvement. Ebenezer sighed and edged closer to the mouth of the tiny cave.
A skeletal hand lashed out toward him. The dwarf leaned back, and the grasping claw swiped past, so close that the smell of rotting flesh nearly knocked him on his backside.
“That was close,” Ebenezer admitted as he backed away. “Good thing I shaved off the mustache, or he might ‘a got a grip.”
The dwarf adjusted the boulder that blocked most of the cave’s mouth and settled down to think. Men, he could fight.
Orcs, goblins, even elves if it came to that. But he had no idea what the creatures outside his cave were—or, more accurately, had been. Wasn’t enough left of the things to tell. And even if he knew what style of fighting was called for, he had no weapons to fight with. Yep. This was a stew pot, all right.
Ebenezer ventured another peek over the rock. On the rocky shore beyond his hiding place, three misshapen creatures, their flesh so bloated and rotten as to render them unrecognizable, paced hungrily. The dwarf knew that undead creatures abounded in the Mere of Dead Men, but this was the farthest away from the swamp he’d heard of them coming.
“Lost, are you?” he bellowed out at them. “Head north, then. Follow the sea. When the going gets mushy underfoot, you’re almost home.”
There was more than bravado prompting his words. Ebenezer knew a zombie when he smelled one. Someone had raised up these poor creatures, turned dead men or whatever else they’d been into rotting, unthinking warriors. It was a long shot, but he figured the zombies might just listen to him, lacking another master to tell them what to do.
As it happened, his words had an effect—though not the one he’d anticipated.
“Hello the cave!” shouted a clear, young baritone voice. “Are you unhurt, friend?”
The shout came from the direction of the road. Ebenezer scrambled to his feet. “Got no complaints,” he hollered back, “other than being pinned down by three very dead people who forgot to lie down and quit.”
There was a pause, silence broken only by the sound of approaching hoofbeats. “I see them.”
The young man’s voice held repugnance, but no fear. That worried Ebenezer. “You got company, I hope?”
“I am alone,” the voice answered calmly, “but the grace of Tyr is with me.”
One man, confident in the favor of some human god. The dwarf groaned and slumped against the cave wall. He slid down and sat and tried his best not to listen to what was sure to come. Zombies were not tidy fighters and generally liked to tear their prey messily apart.
To his surprise, the young man’s voice lifted in a song, a hymn by the sounds of it. Wouldn’t be well received in a tavern, leastwise, being slow and solemn and not real catchy. But Ebenezer felt its power and was drawn by it. He scrambled to his feet and peered out over the boulder.
A young man, curly-headed as a lamb and nearly as fair, approached on a tall white horse. The three zombies staggered toward him, a fact that disturbed the man’s composure not at all. He merely lifted one hand to the sky and pointed the other at the undead creatures. His song lifted, swelled to a shout of power. “In the name of Tyr, I command you to yield to your fate!”
Instantly, the creatures sagged and fell. Rotten flesh dissolved, bones made brittle by long contact with unnatural, prolonged decay gave way and crumbled into powder.
Ebenezer shouldered the rock out of the way and emerged from the cave. “That’s a good trick,” he admitted.
The young man nodded. “You are most welcome, friend dwarf. It was a good thing that I heard your shouts. Now you must excuse me.”
“Hold on,” the dwarf said, catching the horse’s reins. “I gotta get word to my clan. Can you take me where I need to go?”