Part 6 (1/2)
Best their ghosts haunt your nights until all turns black before your rheumy eyes”
”Berate if you will, woman I only speak fro, I suppose”
Deep in the Iron Mountains, Drigor and Cholena, his sometimes wife, worked at a stone bench littered with crude axe heads and blades The weapons had been puddled in antique ht reflected from copper and brass holders, the dwarven artisans worked with craggy hands to etch the old designs deeper: entwined dragons, bold kings, noble steeds, and fierce sailing vessels
They polished or darkened the swirls and whorls, and brought a glittering luster to all They argued as they talked, an argument years old
”We must defend our homeland,” Cholena chided ”The Sons of Baltar have inhabited these or interrupted, ”but not forever, not since the first dwarf sprang froashum I've lived here all my life, three centuries, but my father, Yasur, caion If my father could leave his homeland-”
A scream cut him off Not a screaes, but a screarabbed aspear, clumped in tarry boots, and thundered doide tunnel toward the foundry
Lights sputtered like sparks froe Above the screams of the on's
”Where is the bright-haired one? Where is my enemy? I s or and Cholena burst into a scene from hell The cavernous foundry, lit by red and yellow fires fro heaps of charcoal, was cra mass of black tentacles A dozen dwarves were snared in hundreds of sli eyes
The slither and rustle of these thousand ar, like the crash of surf in a stor ten, twenty, even thirty feet in the air Tentacles coiled around thes, circling their necks, as if the plantlike assassin had a mind and a will
Centermost in the room, in a hollow the roots avoided, a tall scarecrow of stone shook misshapen fists and screamed ”I'll destroy you all! I'll rip the flesh from your bones, then crack them and suck the marrow! I'll rend your children before your eyes unless you tell or went for roots, Cholena for theupside down They kicked and writhed, yanked at the vines around their necks with powerful, orn hands, but couldn't squeeze even a finger under the tendrils Only the solidsuffocated, and Drigor saw they couldn't hold their breath forever Slinging his keen-edged mattock over his head, he scraped the blade within a hair's breadth of a stone wall, and sheared through a dozen dark roots The devilish web sagged, and Cappi's boot thuely the old dwarf yanked his co
Deft slashes of a worn knife freed Cappi fro dwarf sucked air like a bellows, and retched froor leaped, chopped, tore ed Pullor free The dwarf's face hite, and Cappi had to bang on his chest to get hi at the jungle growth toward Oredola trapped farther on The stink was terrible, for the sli dead and rotten raked froed on the stench, spat, but kept cutting
By reddish hell-light he saw scuttling movement and cursed freely The black roots he'd sheared curled in the air Not alive, but not dead, they clung again to the wall, and spawned new vines from bare rock Cappi yelled as vines twisted around his boot, and he had to sto Pullor clear
They'd never defeat this spell, Drigor could see, but he cleaved valiantly, and called, ”Hang on, Oredola! I'!”
All the time, the monster screeched madness ”Where is ht-blond barbarian! These caves will be your boneyard!”
Cholena didn't knohat this flinty ht or troll-but few creatures could stand a thrust of dwarven steel Charging head on, stifling a war cry rather than warn the fiend, Cholena bunched her arht and hard The fiend turned froed blade jarred its spine just above the cockeyed hips
Yet the round blade only knocked loose a shale chip Red blood flowed froer than a dwarf's hand Cholena was shocked at the toughness of the hide, and how easily the blade had skipped off Frantic, Cholena sta spear to strike again at the s it open could she hope to kill the fiend
But the flintin its blue, staring eyes ”You dare? You would harain vengeance? You would haltCholena sain tornadoes issue from the unmatched hands of the fiend Then she was blinded by the hundred-, killing winds roared over the dwarf, tearing away her eyes, ripping loose her hair, then the scalp fro zephyrs like a basket of knives stripped the unfortunate dwarf to shreds in seconds, until hair and flesh and bones and then chips of bone were scoured to splinters and blown in a gory trail across the floor of the foundry The spear was flung away to clatter in a corner Drigor looked up at the first shrill of wind, and howled like the tornado hied Oredola free of the death-dealing vines, was cutting his way to the next dwarves, so enwrapped he couldn't tell their identity Whirling winds filled the cavern with noise and destruction
Backlash froic vines renched fro, flailing tentacles that spattered into sliments or else wrapped around their creator like seaweed around a shi+pwreck
Drigor howled in outrage, and chaed rief the old dwarf analyzed the enemy, and saw that thefrom stone, and now they'd touched the re Vines sprouted across the monster's back, on its bald head, on the backs of its knobby legs Withinfiend was festooned with vines thick as hedgehog quills It screaibbered as it raked the vines from its skin with obsidian claws
Elsewhere the vines curled and writhed and thickened, but a large hole had been blown in the jungle growth, and several dwarves wriggled free They hit the ground running, sprinting on stu in vines, and kicked or hacked at roots until even his faan to fail Freed dwarves and others ca to chop and flail The vine-wrapped monster screeched, blathered nonsense, and sputtered like a rabid wildcat
Finally, in an eye-s spell and vanished The only things re were a blackened patch of cave floor, the reek of charred vines, and a forest of slithering vines that fell still, then withered and died By the time the dwarves had cut the last three dwarves free, the vines were dried stalks, no thicker than burned hay
But the three victiing eyes in blue faces Many dwarves, unused to showing emotion, broke down and wept at the loss to their tribe
While soor rested his round and leaned on the shaft Death co ones made hiiven hiers Red firelight glistened on tears dripping fros of a rief was interrupted, for one young dwarf blubbered, ”This is the fault of those huht death to our house!” Others agreed, anger and resentor cut them off ”The upperfolk could not know this monster pursued We would have read their faces, heard fear catch in their throats They are ignorant of this fiend's quest for revenge, and I owe the big man a boon”
”Owe?” Cappi's voice rasped froulation ”You'd return a favor to a human? After your tribe has suffered?”
”I would,” stated Drigor ”For in times of crisis the trivial burns away and irease burns off iron in the forge, as winter winds scour dirt to bedrock” Iht pictures of Cholena ripped to flinders before his eyes ”This visitation is an omen”
”Omen?” echoed a dozen
”Just before the attack, I talked with Cholena about how these rooms have sheltered our tribe for centuries Centuries, but not forever She bade me stay Then the Gods sent us a test I survived while Cholena was killed An oest of all”
”I don't understand,” squeaked Pullor ”You blao where? For what purpose?”
Drigor just shook his head, and with aching arms shouldered his beslimed mattock ”I don't presume to know the Gods' will, nor the heart of a woo forth and seek what needs to be found And to warn the barbarian, Sunbright Steelshanks of the Raven Clan of the Rengarth Barbarians, that a deathdealer coht and Knucklebones watched the dawn light flare on the horizon
Edged by the saw-toothed peaks of the Abbey Mountains, brilliant light filled the sky and washed the clouds golden, so the tundra-dweller and thief sahy the Netherese worshi+ped the sun, and paid a pre of choirs in teardens, the cry of vendors of oysters and shoes and sharpening echoing frohter of children at galorious and happy place- providing the visitor could ignorearmies, oppressive taxes, wasteful practices, and the blind and stupid disregard and neglect of any non-Netherese ”undermen”
The Street of the Faithful Protector sported a statue of Tyche where it branched from a roundabout
The Goddess-ht kneas tall and ith a clinging gown The statue was etched froht scintillated across the surface like a rainbow One outthrust arm of the Goddess arched down the street as if to point their way
It arm, so Knucklebones wore only leathers and knucklebone pendant and knife, with a rucksack slung over one shoulder Sunbright wore a shi+rt of washed-out yellow and tall boots, and lugged weapons, satchels, and their blanket rolls so he looked like an itinerant peddler As they passed along the street of square white stone buildings with particolored doors, the big man asked casually, ”Do they erect statues to the God of thieves in the enclaves?”
”They try,” Knucklebones said as she counted houses, alert for a red and green door ”They erect statues to Shar with big purple agates for eyes, but thieves steal the eyes, leaving her blind It's a funny tribute”
”The only one of your Gods that makes sense to e Or Vaprak the Destroyer, God of ogres To brave the tundra, you need a tough God
Clingy-Robe back there would freeze her melons off in my country”