The Last Thane cw-1 Page 4

  "No," said the second dark dwarf, eyes swinging upward to regard the ceiling grate. There was no sign of the assassin, but the Daergar pointed upward with certainty.

  "Slickblade," he said.

  At the word all the Daergar in the room gasped in horror and, in unison, backed away from Khark Huntrack's lifeless body.

  Chapter Four

  The World of Tarn Bellowgranite

  The young dwarf swaggered along the waterfront of Hybardin, gratified as the thronging Hylar parted before him. Let them stand aside, he thought with private scorn. Let them wonder who I am.

  The reaction was welcome and not unfamiliar. As always, it provoked a sense of his own uniqueness, a powerful and arrogant awareness. If a burly Hylar dockman had failed to step out of the way, Tarn Bellowgranite would have been quite ready to move the fellow with his fist. He found himself glaring at the crowd, looking for someone who might give him the satisfaction of a fight. But these Hylar seemed to have other matters on their minds, for no one took the trouble even to return his stare with a similar expression of belligerence. Instead, each dwarf lowered his — eyes as Tarn looked his way, or shifted himself to quickly study the dark waters of the lake. Some bent to inspect some particularly tempting bit of mushroom, bread, or meat offered by one of the dockside vendors.

  Tarn should have been used to this by now, but on some deep and hidden level the attitude of the Hylar bothered him. Yet he was still one of them, in more ways than he was ready to count. His head was crowned with the golden hair, considered a mark of beauty among the Hylar, and even his beard was a straw yellow, unusually light. But his eyes were his mother's: large whites surrounding pupils of an abiding violet that darkened to purple when his thoughts were grim, as they were now. Those were eyes that could never be found in a Hylar's face, and Tarn knew that his habit of staring frankly at strangers was cause for great unease among the dwarves around him.

  Let them be uneasy then.

  He reached the chain ferry on time, and his mother arrived soon after, accompanied by several servants and a great cargo of crates, satchels, and bags. She nodded as she saw him, then turned to the business of ordering her luggage stowed. Only when that was arranged to her satisfaction did she turn back to her son.

  "You're really going?" he asked her, still somehow surprised despite her message to that effect this morning.

  "Of course, and I'll expect to see you soon," she replied. "There's room for you in the house, so plan to stay for a long time."

  "Yes, I'll come. I don't know when, just now, but I will."

  "Don't let your father bully you into staying away," she warned, scowling so he knew she was serious.

  "I won't," Tarn responded, though privately he doubted that Baker Whitegranite could bully anyone-and certainly not his son.

  "Good. Remember, you are half Daergar. Don't let this place of lights and gardens drive you mad. It just about did that to me."

  Tarn had been to his mother's homeland enough to know what she meant. Where the Hylar preferred flowing water, graceful architecture, and at least the minimal light provided by the sunshafts and their many small, smokeless lamps, Daerforge and its great sister city, Daerbardin were places of unrelieved darkness. Where the Hylar built for beauty, the Daergar built for strength. Great, blocky bulwarks marked the ends of the wharves there, and the buildings were ugly but practical, square of edge and thick of wall. The wide streets of the Daergar city were straight, unadorned by gardens or fountains; such amenities were recognized as a waste of space by the ever practical dark dwarves. Instead, they had avenues along which entire armies could quickly be moved from one side of the city to another.

  "I'll be careful," he assured her. "And I'll come as soon as I can."

  He helped his mother load her things and watched as she sailed away. Her mood had been brisk and cool, though she sharply chided the boatmen, Hylar and Daergar alike, whom she deemed overly careless in loading her crates on the large craft. No damage was done, and Tarn watched his mother's spirits brighten once she'd had the chance to utter a few choice insults.

  Her farewell to her only son had been formal, though her wish that he come to visit was undoubtedly sincere. Still, she clearly had other matters on her mind, so Tarn's presence at her departure seemed a mere afterthought. He doubted that she felt any of the emptiness, the sense of alienation, that now overwhelmed Tarn as the boat lurched away and he turned to amble along the crowded wharf.

  Above, the overhang of the Life-Tree swept outward and up, lofting the great city of the Hylar into the cavernous heights of Thorbardin's vast, central chamber. Though he had grown up in this city, Tarn was still able to feel a sense of amazement. Hybardin had been carved over the course of twenty five centuries, one room or passageway at a time, into this great pillar of rock. The island at the base of the pillar was completely encircled by docks, wharves, warehouses, and the machinery buildings anchoring the great pulleys and gears that ran the ferries. He could clearly hear the clanking of steel mechanisms as the chain linking Hybardin to the great manufacturing center of Daerforge lurched in constant motion, pulling the broad ferry over the still waters of the Urkhan Sea. He watched until the flatboat had almost disappeared into the distance.

  A great barge had just tied up to the wharf, the cargo vessel having been hauled to Hybardin by the same chain that was now carrying his mother's ferry back to the east. Loud crashes sounded as dockworkers lifted out bars of Daergar steel and stacked them to the side. The raw metal shafts would be sent to Hylar craftsmen, who would form the strong metal into blades and spearheads valued across Krynn. Now the air echoed with harsh curses as the Daergar foreman, no doubt irritated by the light from an overhead lantern, berated his team of workers.

  The actual dockside laborers were Klar, Tarn saw, hardy dwarves of the tribe that, according to legend, had been maddened by their experiences during the Cataclysm. The entire clan had been trapped in lightless tunnels with insufficient air, food, and water. Those of the Klar who eventually clawed their way to freedom had proven the strongest of the band, but they-and all their ancestors-had dwelled at the brink of madness ever since. Tarn felt a twinge of sympathy as he saw a Klar worker, towering a head taller than his Daergar overseer, confront his brutal and belligerent superior with a look of dark, glowering hatred. The Daergar raised his whip and shouted an unintelligible insult, and the sullen Klar went quickly back to work.

  Now, as he wrestled through the crowds mingling in a narrow lane that encircled a decorative fountain, Tarn found himself scorning the Hylar propensity for frivolous waste. Surely the waterfront would be better served by removing that fountain and widening the road.

  Determined not to yield his space, Tarn angrily shouldered aside a plump Hylar merchant. That dwarf, his fingers bright with gem-studded rings and his neck ringed by heavy gold chains, turned to rebuke the insolent youngster, but something in the look of the half-breed's violet eyes caused the merchant to hold his tongue.

  Again the roadway widened as Tarn reached the next section of docks, where another heavy chain extended across the water to the south, connecting the Life-Tree to the Sixth Road, one of the main avenues of food supply, not only to Hybardin but to all the dwarven cities on the Urkhan Sea.

  Tarn watched a crew of working Daewar, dwarves who preferred bright illumination for their activities, and soon his eyes adjusted to the glare of their lanterns. He reflected that his sight was probably the one advantage he had inherited from the cursed match that had brought his parents together. While he was not bothered by light, and unlike the Daergar and Theiwar he could even walk the surface of Krynn in relative comfort under bright sunlight, his vision in full darkness was as adept as any dark dwarf's.

  He thought, as he spit into the waters of the lake, that it was precious little consolation in exhange for the fact that nowhere in Thorbardin could he really feel at home. Turning, he cut across the dock and climbed one of the four broad stairways connecting the waterfront to the city's
second level. This was a broad, flat plaza focused around the great lift station in the center where the metal cage descended from the hanging mountain overhead to provide a link to Level Three and all of the Life-Tree above.

  He continued on across the plaza, a bustling marketplace where dwarven merchants from all the cities of Thorbardin hawked their wares. Food and drink, clothing and jewelry, and even small tools and minor weapons such as knives and daggers, were all offered by vendors who claimed stalls amid the tangled lanes that twisted among the shops.

  Tarn cursed as something tumbled into the back of his legs. Looking down, he saw that a rotund gully dwarf had tripped over something to sprawl headlong, and his momentum had nearly toppled the bigger, sturdier half-breed.

  "Be careful, you oaf!" snapped Tarn, aiming a kick of his heavy boot at the clumsy Aghar's head.

  "Watch you step!" protested the gully dwarf, nimbly dodging the blow that would have knocked him senseless. Tarn stumbled, barely catching his balance before he fell, while the filthy little dwarf stood firmly and glared up at him. " here first!"

  Knowing better than to waste his time in fruitless argument, Tarn turned his back, only to see the pudgy Aghar, moving very quickly for such an awkward-looking fellow, dart around him and wander over to a stand where a bristly haired Theiwar was selling marinated mushrooms. In spite of himself, Tarn chuckled. The gullies were pathetic and irritating, but it was hard for him not to feel a certain kinship to these, the rudest and lowest of Thorbardin's dwarves. After all, like himself, the Aghar had no true home in the great kingdom. Instead they had to make do with whatever the rest of dwarvenkind was willing to give them.

  The gully dwarf made a great show of sniffing disdainfully at the shriveled balls of fungus, then ducked a backhanded blow that the vendor aimed at his head, disappearing below the front of the stall. When a Hylar lady, her reddish-gold hair bound in twin braids, stopped to inspect the wares, the Theiwar turned his attention to a possible paying customer. Still enjoying himself, Tarn watched and waited.

  The gully dwarf made his move.

  A grubby hand reached over the lip of the table and snatched a particularly succulent mushroom. Immediately the little fellow streaked away, knocking aside shoppers, diving between the legs of a startled Klar.

  "That's it, you little thief!" screamed the Theiwar, his already squinting features screwed into a map of fury. The dark dwarf touched his left hand to a ring that he wore on his right forefinger, and pointed that digit at the fleeing Aghar.

  "Stop!" he shrieked, and the word was far more than a statement of command. Standing a few feet away, Tarn felt queasy, and the hackles on his neck rose as they always did in the presence of magic.

  The gully dwarf stopped. With a look of dumb amazement, he stared at his feet, which were planted as though anchored to the ground. He twisted around and regarded the Theiwar with stark terror as the vendor came around the side of his stall, drawing a long dagger. Grinning savagely, the dark dwarf ran a finger along the edge of his blade, relishing the Aghar's terror as he walked nonchalantly forward.

  "Let's see how nimble-fingered you are when you've lost your hand, you wretched little-oof!"

  The Theiwar fell backward, the air driven from his lungs by Tarn's sternly planted elbow. Getting up from the ground, the fungus merchant snarled in apoplectic anger, his fury now directed at this new target.

  "I'm sorry. Did I bump you?" asked the half-breed innocently, extending a hand and then withdrawing it as the Theiwar's knife whipped past his fingers.

  "You bastard, you'll pay for that 'shroom, or I'll take it out of your hide! And maybe I'll take it anyway," the dark dwarf blustered. Once more his left finger touched the ring, though his pointing was made awkward by the fact that he still clutched the dagger in his right hand.

  Tarn's own slender short sword was in his hand, swinging upward faster than the squinting Theiwar's eyes could follow. With a single sharp clang the two weapons came together. The dark dwarf's knife spun away and Tarn's blade came to rest at the base of the ring finger.

  "Put that ring in your pocket, unless you want me to do it for you." Tarn spoke calmly but the keen edge of his blade brushed the Theiwar's skin and drew a trickle of blood.

  "Who was that? A friend of yours?" sneered the Theiwar, though he slowly complied with Tarn's request.

  "No friend," the half-breed said with a dismissive shrug. "But no enemy either."

  Apparently deciding that any further bravado would carry untoward risks, the Theiwar sniffed loudly, turned his back, and stomped into his stall. He squawked in outrage when he discovered that his wares had been greatly diminished during the brief altercation; several other gully dwarves, casually ambling through the crowd, were busy licking traces of marinade from their lips and stringy beards. Though he glowered darkly after Tarn, the Theiwar fungus merchant made no further move as the half-breed ambled out of sight.

  Tarn felt a little better after the confrontation. Though the Theiwar, like the Daergar of his mother's clan, were dark dwarves, he despised them. Unlike any of the other clans, the Theiwar were fond of magic and quite willing to employ it to further their ends. In the eyes of any self-respecting mountain dwarf this was clear proof of cowardice. For a moment Tarn wondered, idly, if he should have grabbed the vendor's ring and thrown it into the lake. An attempt to do that, he decided, would probably have taken the fight further than he wanted to go.

  His bright mood lasted only until he came around another box of crates. He saw what at first looked like a pile of rags at his feet, but quickly realized that the rags were bleeding. Prodding with his foot, he rolled a small corpse over to see the plump gully dwarf, his throat neatly cut. The Aghar's eyes bulged in surprise, and his mouth gaped in silent protest. There was no sign of the mushroom. Undoubtedly he had been killed by someone meaner, stronger, or more treacherous, someone who had simply wanted that particular piece of food.

  Tarn sighed heavily, saddened but not surprised by his gruesome discovery. Such was the lot of an Aghar in Thorbardin. Though no Hylar would butcher one of the pathetic creatures for such a trivial prize, there were plenty of dark dwarves around who wouldn't hesitate to draw blood. If someone had seen the killer, there would be little recourse; doubtless even many Hylar would be secretly pleased that one more of the pesky little scavengers had been removed from the city.

  Taking care not to get any blood on his boots, Tarn stepped around the corpse and continued on. He soon encountered a trio of Daergar who looked at him suspiciously, then glanced back at the crates. Tarn spat in their direction and continued on, and the Daergar apparently decided to ignore the insult rather than tangle with a lone dwarf who was so easily offended. One of them hacked and spit loudly toward Tarn's back, and then the trio returned to their task of stacking crates.

  Tarn felt a twinge of envy for the Daergar, who at least had a task to do, some real work. All of his life he had lived in comfort, well-supported by his mother's money and his father's status, a proud member of one of the finest of the Hylar's old noble houses. He had come to be accepted, though admittedly with reservations, by much of Hybardin society, and his exotic good looks had made him a favorite consort of some of the wilder dwarven wenches of his own age, not to mention the older matriarchs and grand dames who every so often sent a lascivious invitation in his direction.

  It was a good life, he tried to tell himself, but by now he realized the truth: It was an easy life, and for many years that had been enough for him. His mother's departure was a reminder that times were changing, and his life was bound to change, too.

  Of course, he could have joined Glade Hornfel's expedition to Solamnia. Though he was only half Hylar, Tarn Bellowgranite would certainly have been welcomed in the thane's army. After all, Tarn was Hornfel's cousin's son, and his fighting prowess was well-known. However, in response to the reluctance of the other clans, Hornfel had declared that he wanted only Hylar in his army. "The pure of blood, for only they will have nobility of soul
," were his exact words. Tarn had found it easy to feel excluded, a reaction that had greatly pleased his mother. As regarded his father's disappointment, Tarn didn't really care. Baker Whitegranite was, to Tarn's way of thinking, the worst kind of dwarf, a man who would rather spend his days cooped up in a library than doing something, anything, that would bespeak a course of action.

  There was one more reason Tarn had wanted to stay behind in Hybardin, and as he came around the wharves to the western side he saw her. He drifted closer, then settled himself onto a small pile of coal where he could get a good view.

  Belicia Felixia Slateshoulders was drilling a group of recruits so young that their beards barely covered their cheeks. She stalked up and down before the would-be warriors, her face locked in a frown, a stout staff in her hands. This rank of Hylar was learning the finer points of holding a shield wall, and Belicia Slateshoulders, a veteran female warrior with sturdy legs, solid hips, and the broad shoulders of a true soldier, wasted no effort in pointing up their numerous failings.

  "You! Crettipus! Hold that shield lower! Do you want to get your legs cut off?" For emphasis Belicia whacked her staff beneath the protective barrier, drawing a howl from poor Crettipus. That hapless recruit scrambled backward, holding his shin and hopping on one foot.

  "And you, Farran!" She barked at the next dwarf. "When your comrade goes down, you have to get your shield over fast or else the next one of you will go down as well."

  She thrust the pole past the stumbling Farran to jab the tip into the solar plexus of a third dwarf. That one went down, gasping, and Belicia strode through the shambles she had made of the shield wall, spinning to smack Farran on the backside.

  "If this was a real fight, Raggat here would have been killed," she snapped. Raggat, the fellow who had been dropped by the blow to the belly, glowered at Farran, who stammered an apology.