Dragons of War (22 page)

His legs were tiring. Exhaustion was near. He gave a despairing cry and tried to redouble his efforts. He leaped the steps, three or four at a time, just matching the lurkers behind him.

But his despairing cry had set off a chorus from a few levels above. Lanterns were shining down. Voices bellowed in triumph. He ran the stairs, legs extending prodigiously in front and behind. He ran to the dwarves.

At the landings he increased his lead by a few steps, on the stairs the lurkers pulled back his head. Level by level they gained.

The dwarves could not be far now, he called out again. And then a lurker caught his heel. He lost his balance and stumbled. They were on him in the next moment. His breath was knocked out of him, they piled on and they lifted him and started to tear him apart limb from limb. He screamed and fought them but they were far too strong for him.

His scream brought an answering chorus of cries from just above, and the dwarves, with steel in their hands, slew a couple of the lurkers and the rest fled screaming in rage and frustration.

Relkin lay huddled on the steps for a long moment, struggling just to breathe. His arms felt as if they'd almost been torn from their sockets, which was true enough.

Rough dwarfish hands reached down and lifted him up. Someone cuffed him across the back of the head. He took a jeep breath. He was struck again and cursed roundly by several of the others.

He spun and kicked the dwarf behind him in the stomach.

It doubled up with a gasp, and he turned to try and escape them and get past on the upward side. He almost got there, but a club swung and struck him on the side of the head, and he was unconscious before he even hit the stone steps.

With his head throbbing, Relkin awoke to the sound of a noisy clatter, as if any empty barrel were being run over cobbles. He opened his eyes, and cautiously raised a hand to the injured area. There was a swelling along the top of his cheekbone. Struggling to sit up, he probed at the swelling and moved his jaws. There was stiffness, but not the lancing pain of a broken bone. His ear was tender and crusted with blood.

He lay on a pile of straw in what seemed to be a broken-down stall, in a stables. The walls gaped open, slats were missing, and he could see through to the other stalls. There were lamps, curiously ornate in design, hanging from corner posts at either end of a wooden wall about eighty feet long. A wheel was set against the wall. Piles of rope lay neatly coiled farther on.

He sat up fully, and immediately lay down again as a wall of nausea threatened to overwhelm him. He took several deep breaths. Someone ran past the stall in which he lay. He glanced up, saw a dwarf carrying a heavy sack, shuffling as fast as he could.

More dwarves ran past, shouting back at someone behind them. Suddenly there was the clangor of a bell farther away.

Then Relkin discovered that he was chained by one ankle to a ring sunk in the ground. Idly, he tugged at it. It was not loose in any way. A massive padlock secured the chain.

Another wave of sickness passed through him. Gritting his teeth, he rode it out.

He tried to remember where he'd been before this. It didn't come easily.

His speculations ceased as two dwarves, clad in brown, burst into the stable and pulled him to his feet. They jabbered to each other as one used a large key to open the lock.

Then they pulled him out of the stall and pushed him ahead of them. He stumbled out into a wide passage.

Other dwarves came by, a family group, two plump adults and four plump children. Behind them came three slaves, men of uncertain age bowed under chests and heavy sacks. They were virtually naked and covered in the scars left by the whip.

Relkin shivered. The dwarves pushed him along with curses. The dwarf family hurried on ahead. The painfully thin slaves staggering behind them. This would be his life, too, if he didn't find some way out of this.

No obvious escape presented itself, however, as he emerged in another even broader place, where dwarves climbed into rickshas while their chests and sacks were piled behind them. Then the slaves got between the staves of the rickshas and began to pull. The dwarves screamed abusively to urge the slaves on, and most plied a whip in much the same manner one would upon a horse or donkey.

In the most beautifully made ricksha, an open carriage with fretwork in pale wood and gold inlay, sat the two regal-looking dwarves Relkin had been brought to before.

They clapped their hands and barked harsh commands to the two lower-class dwarves who were hustling Relkin along. They pushed him between the staves and chained his wrists to the handles. Then they removed the ankle chain.

To his astonishment, both lower-class dwarves climbed onto the back of the ricksha and sat down on a backboard. He was supposed to haul four of them, plus heavy chests filled with their possessions!

The regal dwarves yelled at him suddenly in Verio. The one in the purple velvet robes took up a long coachman's whip.

"Slave, pull, pull hard, pull now or else whip!"

They did speak Verio!

"You cannot do this to me. You have no right!" Relkin felt the anger surge in him. When the legion found out about this, they'd sack this place and burn it out.

"Silence. You are slave. Pull, pull hard or else whip!"

"I will not. Damn you, I am a free man, I am not a slave!"

Both dwarves screamed in sudden fury.

Relkin remembered the ricksha men in ancient Ourdh. Was this to be his fate? Virtually a draft animal, consigned to pulling a carriage through the underground realm of the dwarves for ten or twenty years until he was too worn-out to be of any further use?

The dwarf in the purple suddenly struck him with the whip, a stinging sensation leapt across his shoulder.

He screamed at them in rage and stood in his tracks. He resolved that he would not pull the cart. He would not be their slave. He would not allow this to happen to him.

The whip cracked down upon his back, and he jumped with the sting. Again it came, and then again. There was blood running down his neck.

He would not do this! He was resolved. Even if they beat him to death, he would never haul four fat dwarves around like a beast of burden.

The dwarves were shouting, the whip was being applied freely now. Relkin felt blood trickling down his back. He sighed somewhere deep inside. It seemed the damned dwarves were just going to beat him to death then and there. His acquaintance with dwarves had been very brief, for which he was heartily glad. He fell to his knees, his hands above him, still locked in place. The dwarves screamed invectives and kept the lashes raining down on him. If they wanted to kill him, they would. There was nothing he could do now.

Dimly, he wondered why old Caymo had never intervened. Perhaps old Caymo hadn't heard the prayers of his worshiper. Perhaps, Relkin concluded sadly, old Caymo didn't exist anymore. The days of the dancing god of pleasure and commerce had truly ended long ago. Either that or Relkin was just so bad at worship and prayer that Caymo had never heard him. He wondered if the Great Mother would accept him into Heaven after all.

There was a sudden tremendous noise, and the dwarves all shrieked in unison. A great light flashed about them for a moment and then faded. Relkin became aware of a kind of golden glow coming from his right.

The whip had stopped. The dwarves were silent. Relkin stared, shook his head, and stared again, unsure whether to believe his eyes.

The elf maid was back, but now as a prisoner, caught between two other figures who looked as if they had stepped right out of ancient legend.

By their golden armor, their stern beautiful faces rimmed with silver curls, he knew that they were elf lords. Their helmets were of an antique design with small silver wings jutting forth above the ears. At their waists they wore swords, and in their right hands they bore heavy spears tipped with steel.

The elf maiden pointed to the dwarves and made a long, loud complaint. The moment she finished, the dwarves erupted with loud protestations of their own.

The elf lords listened for quite a while to the dwarves, who seemed capable of continuing their complaints forever. Then the elves suddenly raised their spears and gave a loud cry in unison.

To Relkin's amazement, the dwarves fell silent.

The elf lords spoke, and not in the tongue of the dwarves but in the ancient tongue of their kind, the mother language of all languages, and Relkin understood them quite clearly and was amazed further.

"In the first part," they began, "it is found that the young man will not be yours. He is to be freed at once."

Relkin heard and felt his heart beat more strongly in his chest. This was going in the right direction. The dwarves gave a low moan of disappointment.

"Furthermore, know ye that this man is marked by the Sinni. Ye may not interfere with his destiny."

The dwarves fell silent.

"In the second part, in the matter of the complaint by the maiden Debeneni, it is found that you did cheat her of the payment due her."

The dwarves hissed.

"In the third part, in the matter of the Law of the King of the Forest, Dethelgolin the Great, you are found guilty of unlicensed slave taking."

The dwarves were pale, trembling, but remained silent.

"Free him," the golden elves pointed to Relkin.

One of the low dwarves climbed down and sullenly freed Relkin from the staves.

Relkin measured the fellow's chin.

"Do not strike the dwarf!" said the golden ones.

Relkin put a hand to his throat, pointed to the dwarves, made the sign of the evil eye, and backed away.

The dwarf nearest him raised his knife with a snarl. The golden glow grew momentarily much brighter, and the two elves hefted their spears. The dwarf fell back with an oath and retreated to the rear of the carriage. Relkin stood beside the elves.

Close up the golden elves were distinctly unhuman. Their ears were pointed, delicate with long lobes. Their eyes were aslant and larger than those of any man. They betrayed no emotion whatsoever when they gazed upon him with those golden irises.

Relkin muttered some thanks. He exchanged glances with the elf maiden, but he detected no human emotion there, either. Then she looked away and did not look back.

"Your destiny does not lie here," said one of them.

He stared for a moment. "Then where does it lie?" he said.

"There is a rose garden in the land of Arneis. You will stand in that garden."

"A rose garden in Arneis," repeated Relkin, and he shivered, for he recalled the words of the fortune-teller in Dalhousie. Some calamity lay ahead of him, that seemed pretty damned certain.

"The ways of destiny are the province of the Sinni. This is from their insight."

He looked up. The Sinni? Were they watching?

"Why do you look up?"

"Are the Sinni here?"

"No. Why should they be? We are here."

"Well, yes, but—"

"Come. There is work to be done, and then you must rejoin your comrades."

Relkin gestured to the four dwarves.

"What about them? Are they to go unpunished?"

"They are to be punished."

"How?"

"Watch."

Relkin turned back and saw that the dwarves were sitting still, as if frozen. They didn't even seem to be breathing.

"What has happened?"

"They will not move for one hundred years."

"One hundred years?"

The elven lords had turned and were going up the passage.

The urge was irresistible. He took two steps and tweaked the nose of the dwarf in purple robes.

"Leave the dwarves alone!" said the golden ones.

"Where are we going?"

"We must calm the dragon."

"Dragon?"

"There is a great dragon loose in the city of the dwarves. Its raises havoc."

"By the breath, let me guess."

"It is your dragon, Relkin of Quosh."

"Where is he?"

"We must hurry. The dwarves are an endangered species. We try to conserve their numbers. The dragon is about to slaughter them."

"Where?"

"Come, we will take you."

He gestured to the elf maiden, who walked between the elves.

"Why did she aid them?"

"They promised her fine jewels. She is young and headstrong. She will go with us to the Chancery of the King of the Forest to be judged. You need not concern yourself with retribution."

The one on the right, who had perhaps the firmest chin and the smallest nose, came close to him, reached out, and attached a golden chain to Relkin's belt.

"What's that for?" Relkin caught it up in his hand. It was smoother than silk, about five feet long. The elf tugged on it and pulled Relkin toward him. The elf maiden had been freed and sent on her way. She did not look back. Relkin stood between the elf lords.

"Run," they said.

"Where?"

"Run."

"I'm still getting over my last run, don't expect too much."

"Run."

He began to run. He felt dreadfully weak, his head throbbed with every step. The elves ran alongside him with a smooth, seemingly effortless stride. They hardly seemed to breathe. Then Relkin noticed that all three of them were accelerating as a unit, as if bound together by invisible threads. They were speeding now far more quickly than a man could run, as fast as the fastest horse, now faster than that. He continued to run, to stagger along, but they hurtled through the dimly lit passageways of the underground city at an increasingly rapid rate until Relkin's eyes bulged as they zipped around corners and darted through crevices.

Their journey took less than a minute, and then they emerged in the gate chamber inside the Gate of Madrubab. Relkin saw at once that the situation was explosive.

It was a big place, big enough for a battledragon to wield a sword with full effectiveness. The dragon stood in the open gate. A tremendous mass of dwarves and dwarf carriages pulled by dogs, slaves and small ponies, was crammed in the chamber from wall to wall, hemmed in by the dragon and the gleaming steel of Ecator.

These dwarves had been in flight from the invasion of the dragon, but he had caught up to them here at the gate, where they were locked in a tangle of carts and carriages, sedans and rickshas.