The Dwarf Kingdoms (Book 5) (21 page)

“If you are not a coward, show your true form,” said Zaleuc impatiently. “I have already promised that I would not harm you.”

The insult stung Elerian in a way that surprised him. A fey mood suddenly came over him, overcoming his commonsense. Stripping away his illusion, he stood on his branch in his true form, a light gleaming in his gray eyes that made the Uruc step back.

“I suspected as much,” said Zaleuc softly. A cunning, calculating look suddenly entered his dark eyes. “Why does an Eirian take up with Dwarves?” he asked slyly. “They are a mean spirited, greedy people little suited to associate with you kind.”

“What I choose to do is my own business,” replied Elerian coldly.

“Of course it is,” replied the Uruc mildly. The sly look on his face suddenly deepened as he continued to speak. “Still, this war has nothing to do with you, and knowing the little people as I do, I suspect that they have not treated you well. They are an unfriendly, miserly race who look with disfavor on anyone who is not of their kind.”

“Has he been spying on me?” wondered Elerian uncomfortably to himself. “His words mirror my own thoughts all too closely.”

“I see by your silence that you agree,” said the Uruc sympathetically. A subtle change came over his features. His dark eyes now seemed warm and friendly to Elerian, his lips fuller, and his vulpine features less artful. “You will find that the Urucs do not treat their friends in such an inhospitable manner,” said the Goblin in a disingenuous voice. “Abandon the little people and wealth, safety, whatever you wish can be yours.” Slowly, the Uruc reached for a heavy purse that hung at his belt. Opening it, he revealed varicolored, faceted gems pooled among gleaming gold coins. “A pack filled with a similar treasure will I give you if you will but slip away into the forest and leave this place. I give you my word that you will not be pursued.”

“Does he somehow know about Anthea?” Elerian wondered to himself, alarmed at the manner in which the Uruc seemed to divine his innermost thoughts and desires. With a treasure such as the Goblin offered, he could return to Tarsius and wed her with the blessing of Orianus. “He is clever beyond words, tempting me where I am weakest,” thought Elerian to himself. “I could never betray Ascilius, but even with his blessing I could not accept this Goblin’s gold. An act so faithless would corrupt me little by little, like a worm gnawing away at the heart of an apple, until all inside of it is spoiled or hollowed out.”

“Even if I could trust you to keep your word, I could never abandon my friends, for it goes against the loyalty which I prize above all else and which is so foreign to your own foul nature,” said Elerian coldly. “You came to parley, therefore I will let you go this time, but if I see you again, I will slay you out of hand,” he promised grimly.

His face contorted by anger, the Uruc shed the illusion which had softened his features. The pointed ears, the red-flecked eyes, and the sharp, gleaming teeth of his kind all became visible once more. Suddenly raising his long right hand, the Uruc cast a destruction spell up at Elerian. Reacting instantly, Elerian lifted his own right hand, watching with his third eye as his silver ring of power absorbed the crimson orb which had flown up at him from the Goblin’s fingertips. Zaleuc seemed not at all surprised when his spell failed, having cast it more in anger than with any hope of slaying Elerian.

“Mark my words, your precious friends will cast you out like a stray dog in the end,” he said in a spiteful voice before suddenly disappearing into the forest behind him.

“Good riddance,” thought Elerian to himself as he turned and walked sure footedly along the upper pathways of the forest toward the Goblin camp that lay to the east. He remained on the alert for treachery from Zaleuc, whether in the form of an ambush or a trap, but the forest remained empty and safe as a tame woodlot on some comfortable farm. By the time he reached the edge of the wood, the sun was low in the sky behind him and the shadows were lengthening.

The moment that he climbed down the rough barked trunk of a stout chestnut tree, Elerian was accosted by Ascilius who, for some time now, had been impatiently patrolling the margin of the forest where he thought it most likely that Elerian would appear.

“Where have you been for such a long time?” he asked angrily. “I was beginning to fear that I would have to organize a search party for you.”

“I have been looking through the forest which I found to be surprisingly empty,” said Elerian cheerfully. “I have also spoken to the Goblin commander whom I found to be an especially unpleasant fellow. He advised me to desert you and your folk, offering me a sizable amount of treasure as an incentive.”

“You should have taken his gold and departed,” replied Ascilius dourly. “The next few days are liable to be exceptionally dangerous and unpleasant, and it may be that none of us will ever see the walls of Iulius.” Turning abruptly away, he set out at a smart pace for the burned out Goblin camp. With a sigh, Elerian followed him, gliding over the ground with no more noise than a shadow would make.

“If cantankerousness could be exchanged for treasure, Dwarves would all be as rich as kings,” he thought wryly to himself. “No, thank you, Elerian, for your loyalty, will I hear tonight.” A hard gleam suddenly lit his clear gray eyes. “I would say it is my duty as a good friend to lift Ascilius from this melancholy frame of mind,” he thought to himself, his mood lightening again as he began to consider what sort of prank he might play on the Dwarf.

A troop numbering at least six hundred waited restively in the Goblin camp, all of the Dwarves already arranged into a column and impatient to be on their way, for everyone else had already departed. Around the small company, the battlefield was deserted and eerily quiet, the acrid smell of burnt flesh and hair still lingering in the air, drifting up from the gray ash heaps that were all that remained of the pyres where the dead had been burnt.

“We should have left this place hours ago,” said Ascilius shortly to Elerian as he took his place at the head of the column. After blowing a short, imperative blast on his horn, he set off at a quick trot, Elerian running by his right shoulder, and the column of Dwarves following behind them.

Ignoring the disapproval that seemed to rise like a dark cloud from Ascilius and his company of Dwarves, Elerian concentrated instead on the road before him. Covered with large, closely fitted flagstones, it was wide enough for two wagons to pass abreast, with a wide, grass covered shoulder on both sides and ditches dug along the outside edge of each shoulder for drainage. A line of enormous ash trees grew on the shoulders on both sides of the road, shading it with their thickly leaved, far reaching branches. Each eighth of a mile was marked by a tall, graceful stone pillar topped by a mage light in an iron cage formed in the shape of twisting oak leaves. Elerian guessed that they had been constructed to act as guides during periods of fog, heavy rain, or snow. Most of the columns had been partially or completely toppled. The few that were still intact were covered with foul words and evil symbols scratched or painted into their fluted sides.

Ascilius eyes gleamed with anger and frustration as he took in the destruction.

“I had never imagined that any race could so delight in acts of destruction,” he said heatedly to Elerian. “These columns could have served a useful purpose even for Goblins and still they destroyed or defaced them.”

“It is their nature,” said Elerian quietly, thinking of all the destruction that the race of Goblins had inflicted on the Middle Realm. “Sights fantastical, horrid, cruel, or ruinous must appear to their eyes as things that are beautiful or shapely appear to ours. I fear there can never be any common ground save death between us and them.”

“I am of the same mind as you on that last point,” said Ascilius grimly. “Goblins and their allies are most agreeable when they are dead, a state to which I plan to reduce as many of them as I can for as long as I can still wield a weapon.”

“I fear that you may have your wish as soon as it grows dark,” replied Elerian somberly as he looked at the shadows gathering under the trees that grew thickly on both sides of the road. The wood was devoid of undergrowth, making it difficult for an enemy to approach the highway unseen during the day, but once night fell that would change.

“I wonder if Ascilius has some plan to deal with the Goblins if they attack the wagons under cover of darkness?” wondered Elerian to himself. He looked sidelong at his companion running by his left side and decided immediately that silence would serve him best for now, for the Dwarf’s craggy face was drawn into forbidding lines that did not invite questions.

After a little over an hour of running in silence, Elerian heard the clop of hooves ahead of him and the rumble of iron-shod wheels against stone. Not long after that, he had his first sight of the Dwarf wagons traveling two abreast in a column that he knew must be miles long. Lamps had already been lit on the sides of the wagons, casting a cheerful yellow glow across the road which illuminated the armed guards walking alertly on either side of the line of wagons. Scattered among the guards were a few dentire who constantly tested the air with their noses, questing for the slightest scent of any enemy forces that might be skulking in the forest.

After dispersing his company among the other guards, Ascilius continued on down the column of wagons, running on the right shoulder of the road. As he followed behind Ascilius, Elerian looked closely at the Dwarves driving the wagons. He saw no women or children among them and assumed that they were riding inside the covered vehicles. Without exception, the rough-hewn faces of the drivers were set and grim, utterly devoid of fear or panic even though they were out in the open with a remorseless enemy following them, waiting for an opportunity to strike.

“Unlikeable they may be in some ways,” mused Elerian to himself, “but Dwarves are as hard and steadfast as the stone that forms their cities. I cannot imagine a more implacable enemy.”

When he and Ascilius reached the head of the column of wagons, Elerian saw Eonis riding next to the driver of the lead wagon. From the grim, somber look on his face, the Dwarf king expected an attack at any moment.

“What news?” he called out anxiously to Ascilius.

“We have seen no sign of the enemy,” replied Ascilius as he ran easily alongside the wagon, his weighty footfalls the antithesis of Elerian’s light tread behind him.

“They are waiting for the sun to set,” replied Eonis in a resigned voice. “When night wraps its dark cloak around them, they will slink from the forest and cause what mischief they can in an effort to delay us. I wish that these were the old days and that we had a company of Elves with us to keep them away.”

“I never thought to hear a Dwarf wishing for the company of Elves,” whispered Elerian, leaning over Ascilius’s right shoulder.

“We will have to make do with what we have,” replied Ascilius, at the same time planting a hard elbow in Elerian’s ribs to silence him, for his dark mood had made him unreceptive to humor of any sort.

The unfriendly thrust to his side proved to be the last straw for Elerian. The frustration he had felt toward the Dwarf race all that day boiled over in an instant. Without giving the matter any thought, he stepped back and called his invisibility ring to his right hand. Then, raising his right hand, he cast an illusion spell that landed on Ascilius’s broad back. Eonis’s dark eyes grew round as saucers when the great spider that he had battled in his chambers, its eyes lit with a lurid crimson glow, suddenly crawled up over the back of Ascilius’s neck, planting itself squarely on his helmeted head.

THE AMBUSH

Eonis’s driver, who was deathly afraid of spiders, immediately vacated his seat at the sight of the fearsome apparition standing on Ascilius’s head, leaving the ponies drawing the wagon to guide themselves. Eonis, however, was made of sterner stuff. With a fierce war cry, he raised his staff and brought it down squarely on Ascilius’s crown, the steel shod end of the stave ringing loudly against Ascilius’s helmet. As Ascilius fell onto his hands and knees from the force of the blow, Elerian had his illusory spider scuttle onto the middle of Ascilius’s broad back.

“What! Still not dead?” shouted Eonis. With the vigor of a Dwarf half his age, he leaped off his wagon which had already come to a stop, for the well-trained ponies pulling it had ceased to move when they felt the reins slacken against their halter bits. Raising his staff, he rained down blows on poor Ascilius’s back in an attempt to slay his illusory enemy, but Elerian had his apparition leap nimbly from side to side so that it seemed to avoid every stroke of the king’s staff. His wits still addled by the first blow, Ascilius finally escaped by crawling under the bed of the wagon.

Laughing so hard that he could hardly control his illusion, Elerian had his magical spider leap from Ascilius’s back and scuttle past the king. Guiding it with his right hand, Elerian caused the illusion to spring onto the right shoulder of one of two identical young Dwarves who had run up to aid the king. The Dwarf’s companion immediately swung a meaty fist at the spider. At the last moment, Elerian made his illusion to leap to the ground, and unable to stop the impetus of his blow, the Dwarf’s fist smacked heavily against the jaw of his companion who staggered back. Recovering himself, he gave a cry of rage and leaped upon his attacker, bearing him down to the ground. Forgetting all about the spider, the two Dwarves rolled about on the shoulder of the road, shouting threats and pummeling each other vigorously. Delighted with the mischief that he had caused thus far, Elerian had his spider leap onto their struggling forms. With a horrified cry, Eonis rushed forward.

“I will save you boys,” he cried as he swung lustily at the false spider with his polished staff. At the unexpected and violent attack on their persons, the combatants immediately left off fighting each other. Desperate cries of, “Ow! Ouch! Stop father!” rose up into the air, interspersed with the thump of Eonis’s staff.

With tears of laughter running down his face, Elerian finally had his illusion scurry off into the forest. Immediately, Eonis raised his staff high into the air in triumph at the retreat of his illusory enemy, and all up and down the line of wagons cheers rang out from the Dwarves who had climbed down from their seats to watch their king battle Elerian’s spider, for once the first wagon had ceased to move, the entire train had come to a stop.

As Eonis’s twin sons rose painfully to their feet, Ascilius crawled out from under the wagon. Still laughing silently, Elerian watched as Ascilius, still somewhat cross-eyed from the blow on the head that Eonis had dealt him, stood up and looked suspiciously around him. Slowly his face darkened with anger, and his powerful hands began unconsciously clenching and unclenching as if he was throttling some invisible enemy.

“He has noticed my absence,” thought Elerian, unrepentant mirth lighting up his gray eyes.

Turning to the wagon behind him, Ascilius rummaged inside of it for a moment before emerging with a stout quarterstaff clenched in his right hand. Ignoring the other Dwarves, he began carefully searching the shoulder of the road and the edge of the nearby forest, stopping often to listen intently.

“Do not waste your time, Ascilius,” advised Eonis who had mistaken the object of Ascilius’s search. “The creature which attacked us has fled deep into the forest. It must have followed me from Galenus, but I do not think that it will tempt my wrath a third time,” he concluded fiercely.

“One can never be too certain,” replied Ascilius in a preoccupied voice as he poked the end of his staff into the shadows behind the trees. The Dwarf was now standing barely six feet away from Elerian who was hugging his chest to stifle his laughter. From this distance, he could clearly see flickers of red in the depths of Ascilius’s dark eyes.

“He must have decided that I am somehow responsible for the spider,” thought Elerian to himself. “He has no proof, of course, other than my absence, but from the look in his eyes and that staff that he now carries, I do not think he will be inclined to listen to any argument I might make in favor of my innocence.” Deciding that, for the time being at least, he might be safer in the forest with the Goblins, Elerian stepped silently back into the wood behind him.

At the margin of the forest, Ascilius abruptly stopped in his tracks when a long, drawn out wolf howl suddenly disturbed the quiet of the evening, rising up from deep in the forest to the west.

“If that is a canigrae, then it may be that the Goblins have begun to gather for an attack,” said Eonis anxiously to Ascilius.

“Let us go on then,” replied Ascilius as he reluctantly discarded his staff and picked up his fallen shield and hammer. “If the Goblins attack us before we circle the wagons, many will die at their hands, and our retreat to Iulius will be delayed.”

Hastily, Eonis returned to his seat on his wagon, and the Dwarf caravan began to move again, Ascilius running to the right of Eonis along with the king’s two sons. From the margin of the forest, Elerian watched Ascilius go, but he made no move to follow. Like the Dwarves, he had also heard the wolf howl in the distance, the menacing sound at once turning his mood from lighthearted to serious.

“That sound ought to be investigated,” he thought to himself. “If it came from a canigrae, as Eonis suspected, then it would be advantageous to have some advance knowledge of the Goblins’ movements.”

Climbing high into a nearby oak tree, Elerian placed his sword, shield, and all his other gear, with the exception of his two knives, at the junction of a great branch and the trunk of the tree. After descending quietly to the ground, he darted across the road through a narrow gap between two wagons, disappearing into the forest on the far side. The ponies pulling the wagon on his left scented him, raising their heads and snorting through flared nostrils, but the Dwarf driving the wagon to which they were hitched took no notice of his swift, invisible passage.

At the same moment that Elerian crossed the road, at the head of the column of wagons, Eonis abruptly spoke to Ascilius after a puzzled look around.

“I say, Ascilius, where is your companion?”

“He often wanders off,” replied Ascilius brusquely, for the mere thought of Elerian renewed his anger and sharpened the pain of the bruises he had sustained from Eonis’s staff.

“You may have seen the last of him if he has decided to enter the forest,” warned Eonis, his voice full of pessimism.

“He will return,” replied Ascilius in an unconcerned voice, for he was certain that Elerian was nearby, wearing his invisibility ring and laughing at the results of his prank.

“Wait until I get my hands on him,” thought Ascilius grimly to himself “I shall pummel him properly this time no matter what excuse he offers.”

As Ascilius mulled over the punishment that he would mete out to Elerian, the object of his anger was advancing ever deeper into the forest to the west of the road. Elerian was visible now, having sent away his silver ring, for the invisibility spell it cast when he wore it acted as a beacon of golden light in the dark for anyone who possessed mage sight. Each of his quick footfalls was as light as a falling leaf so that he seemed almost to drift over the ground as he moved noiselessly through the trees. A human would have been blinded by the inky darkness that permeated the groves around him, but his gray eyes saw every detail of the gray and black world that surrounded him, as if it was lit by bright moonlight. Behind him, Elerian could still hear the distant clop of the ponies' hooves and the rumble of wagon wheels, but as he went deeper into the forest, the sounds faded until he heard only the soft rustle the leaves overhead, stirred by the gentle breeze. At any other time, he would have dallied in these woods, for the trees were huge, ancient, and no doubt full of secrets if he could only persuade them to talk to him.

After traveling deep into the forest without seeing or hearing anything that might threaten the Dwarves, Elerian swung gradually to his right, traveling in a great circle that took him back toward the forest road. He was approaching its western shoulder when he suddenly noticed the slender figure of a Mordi crouched in the shadow of a huge oak not far ahead of him. A black ox horn bound with iron hoops hung from his right shoulder, but he appeared to be unarmed except for a knife. He was peering intently around the oak in front of him, spying on the empty road which Elerian could now see through the gaps between the trees at the margin of the wood.

“He is here to give a signal with that horn,” thought Elerian to himself as he called his silver ring to his left hand, instantly turning himself invisible when it appeared on his finger. Frozen in place, he looked all around him, listening intently, for where there was one Goblin, there might be more. Satisfied the Mordi was alone, Elerian drifted closer to the Goblin, making no noise even though the ground was littered with fallen leaves and twigs. When he was close enough, he reached out and seized the Wood Goblin by his long black hair with his left hand, drawing his head roughly back. Standing behind the Mordi, Elerian brought the keen edge of Rasor up to the Wood Goblin’s throat with his right hand. The Mordi was both startled and frightened at being seized by an invisible enemy, but feeling the sharp, cold blade of Elerian’s knife against his skin, he did not struggle.

“What are you doing here?” whispered Elerian softly into the Wood Goblin’s sharply pointed right ear, at the same time pressing the edge of his knife a little harder against the Mordi’s throat so that the sharp blade started a little trickle of blood flowing down the creature’s pale neck. 

“Minding my own business,” replied the Goblin angrily. “Let me go whoever you are or you will regret it.” 

“How far away is your army?” asked Elerian, unfazed by the Mordi’s threat. 

“Very close,” said the Mordi menacingly. In the same moment, he blindly grabbed at Elerian’s knife hand with his right hand. Whether by luck or design, he closed his slender, clawed fingers around Elerian's right wrist. Pulling Elerian’s hand away from his throat with a wiry strength, he sank his pointed teeth deep into the base of Elerian’s thumb, where it joined his palm. Despite the stabbing pain that shot through his right hand, Elerian did not let go his hold on either the Goblin's hair or his knife. Using his left hand and the strength of his left shoulder and legs, he slammed the Mordi’s head into the rough bark of the tree they were standing behind. The heavy blow loosened the grip of the Goblin’s teeth on Elerian’s hand, but the supple Mordi then twisted around like a snake, raking the taloned fingers of his left hand blindly through the air in an attempt to injure his invisible assailant. The Goblin’s razor sharp nails passed uncomfortably close to Elerian's face before scraping across the leather shirt that protected his chest. Not willing to risk his eyes a second time, Elerian drove Rasor’s slender blade through the Goblin’s lower jaw and up into his brain, silencing and slaying the Mordi with one deadly thrust.

After lowering the Wood Goblin’s limp body to the ground, Elerian released the creature’s hair and stepped back, questing all around him with all of his senses. The forest around him remained quiet, its shadowy recesses empty of life. Satisfied that there were no other Goblins nearby, Elerian turned his attention to his hand which now felt as if it was on fire. Blood, black and glistening in the starlight, ran freely from the deep punctures left by the Goblin's fangs.

Touching his wound with the fingertips of his left hand, Elerian sent a healing spell into the injury, watching with his magical eye as a cloak of golden light spread over his injuries. Under the healing influence of the spell, the pain in his hand quickly subsided and the blood ceased to flow. When he finally removed his fingers long minutes later, his wounds were healed over with new, pink skin.

Determined to discover the Wood Goblin’s purpose in watching the road, Elerian then walked lightly through the trees, stopping in their shadow at the margin of the Dwarf road. On the far side of the highway, he saw a large meadow covered with short turf. On his left, where the glade bordered the forest were the charred ruins of an extensive inn.

“This must have been a way station for the Dwarves in better times,” thought Elerian to himself. Just then, he heard the rumble of wagon wheels and the soft whicker of a pony. Traveling in the pool of yellow light cast by its lanterns, the first of the Dwarf wagons appeared on the road. Turning right onto a driveway which must have once led to the inn, it rolled across the meadow followed by a steady stream of other wagons.

“Ascilius must plan to spend the night here in this glade,” thought Elerian to himself as the caravan began to arrange itself into a circle. It seemed the perfect time and place for an ambush, but where was the enemy?

“Let me attempt to find out,” thought Elerian to himself as he retreated soundlessly into the wood behind him. Overhead, blocked out by the thick canopy, dark clouds were blowing in out of the west, obscuring the stars and thickening the darkness beneath the trees. The light breeze that rustled the leaves over Elerian’s head took on a damp smell.

“It will rain sometime before morning,” thought Elerian uneasily to himself, for the rain and clouds would obscure the friendly sun, the bright enemy of Goblin kind. Abruptly, he stopped in mid-step as his acute hearing detected the faint sound of low growls and harsh voices from the depths of the wood ahead of him.