The Revenge of the Dwarves (20 page)

Lia stopped in her tracks. “Excuse me, sir. Who has gone down?”

“Two boys I just sent down,” murmured Ove without lifting his eyes from the plans. “We haven’t got much time. King Bruron wants to get started with the building. We need the last secrets of the vaults found quickly. And since you were on a break I sent down two young lads who were free.” He turned a page and made a mark on the site plan.

“It’s dangerous down there. I’ll go and find them.” She forced herself to smile and hurried down the cellar steps.

That was all she needed: children at work. She wasn’t worried about any of the other people she worked with because they could not move in the cramped conditions underground. Young lithe bodies, on the other hand, were competition.

Lia could see the boys working their way forward outside where the domed roof had once been. They were chattering, talking about their wages and about how they hoped to find treasure buried by past occupants of the palace.

“Hey, you boys,” she called, slithering through the narrowest of spaces like an eel. “Off with you! This is my cellar!”

“You wish!” laughed one of them.

“Master Ove sent us down here,” called the other one. “Go and complain to him if you don’t like the idea of us finding the treasure before you do.”

Lia forced her way through under one of the fallen blocks of stone. It rocked worryingly while she was still underneath it. “There is no treasure to find,” she said. “It’s not safe here for you. The chamber hasn’t settled.”

“We’ve done this a lot,” come the high-spirited response. “And anyway…”

Some of the rubble collapsed and clouds of dust rose up so she could not see. She coughed and cursed at the same time. “Are you all right?” she called, rubbing her eyes.

“Well I never! There’s someone down here! An old man with a long beard!”

Lia tried to move more quickly. It had happened. Now there were things she must prevent. “Where are you?”

“Idiot!” snarled the other boy at his friend. “You pushed against that pillar and you nearly had me buried in dirt. And
that thing
is not a man,” there was the sound of wooden boards clattering “—it’s a
statue
.”

“That wasn’t me. It fell in on its own,” came the defense. Now Lia could see both of the squabbling boys.

They were standing in a small cave-like space, no bigger than a store cupboard. It had somehow been formed when beams and pillars had twisted and collapsed. Between all the rubble lay a statue with its face uppermost. It was so
true to life that Lia was not surprised the boy had thought it was real.

“So
that’s
where you are!” She slipped under one of the supports without touching it, then stood up. Slowly she approached the two treasure-seekers, her eyes sliding over the statue’s form. Everything was in place. Every fine detail of the clothing, each single beard hair, every fold and wrinkle in the old face could be recognized.

“It’s as if they’d turned someone into stone,” whispered the taller of the boys with respect. “It’s amazing.”

“It’ll bring us a good bit of extra money. One of those rich guys will want it for his garden or in his study, I bet. A good day’s work!” nodded his friend, giving a skeptical glance at the distance the statue would have to be heaved up. “We’ll have to dig a way to the top and get a hoist set up. We won’t be able to pull it through the rubble.” He threw Lia a warning look. “The statue is ours. Got that?”

She was furious that she’d taken that lunch break. If only she’d got back to work a little bit sooner she wouldn’t have run into trouble with these two kids at all. “Of course you found it. But it won’t get you any money. It’s already the property of Tomba Drinkfass,” she said, inventing a name. “He gave the statue to Nudin originally.”

“Even better,” said the taller of the two. “We’ll get a reward for finding it.”

“Yes,
we
will,” the other one stressed, pointing to his friend and himself. “You won’t.”

Lia had a quick think about how to make the best of the situation. She could go along with this and wait for her chance, follow the statue to its new owner and take it then.
That would demand time and effort. And there’d be quite a to-do once any of Porista’s older citizens got wind of what had been found. Or she could…

“Samusin is my witness I won’t say a word about the statue. Or about you.” She spoke slowly before swiftly plunging her dagger into the throat of the boy at her left.

She cut his throat and then thrust her weapon into the other boy’s chest. Eyes wide open in surprise, he sank onto the statue’s base, blood gurgling. He stared at his murderess in complete astonishment at what she had done.

His friend grew weaker by the second and crumpled onto the floor, expiring soon afterwards. The blood from his slit throat no longer spurted out of the open gash, but overflowed much as a stew might boil over in an unwatched pot.

Lia watched them both die. The sacrifice was essential. For the greater good, more important than two young lives. Perhaps thousands would be saved. She dragged the two bodies, still warm and convulsing, into a small hollow under some debris and pushed away the supporting beams over where they lay.

Then she started on her way back, counting her steps so that she would be able to locate the statue again. Still gasping for air and sobbing she returned to the building supervisors and told them a terrible accident had happened.

“The cellar walls are soft as wax,” she reported, bursting into tears again. “It would be madness to go back in there.”

Ove and Tamàs conferred briefly, then stopped the works for the day out of respect for the two children who had died. On the next day, they decided, the bodies should be fetched up and then the cellar area filled in.

L
ia returned to the building site that night with Franek and ten helpers.

They carried poles, pickaxes, pulleys, rope and cable winches with them. A cart with two horses waited in a side road to transport their prize away. They had placed watchers in strategic places to warn them if anyone should approach. They had to work quickly. And they had to succeed, whatever the cost, whatever lives might be lost.

On the surface Lia paced out the distance she had calculated. Then she placed a marker on the flagstone. “It must be right under here,” she said to her companions. The men set to work.

Franek and Lia helped to shovel the debris to one side while the hole the men were digging grew steadily bigger. They had to take great care that none of the surface material broke off and fell back in.

“And to think I was ready to give up,” said Lia, thrilled that the treasure would soon be salvaged.

Her joy triumphed over her guilty conscience about the murder of the two young boys. She had told Franek what she had done, hoping the confession would make her feel better, but it had not worked. At least he had agreed that she had done the right thing. She would have to leave Porista once and for all. If the bodies were found she would be accused of the murders.

“Samusin is on our side again,” he nodded, watching the men shifting away the loose earth and hacking through the vaulted cellar roof.

“Don’t speak too soon,” said Lia. “Let’s not thank the
god of retribution until we’ve got the statue safely out of Porista.”

With a crack, a section of the tunnel roof gave way; two of the men fell though to the cellars, yelling out as they dropped down.

Franek looked round in alarm, checking with their watchers. Nobody seemed to have heard the noise. “Quick! Get them out of there!” Five others jumped down with lanterns in their hands.

“Get the statue first,” called Lia after them anxiously, stepping a couple of paces back from the hole in case another section should cave in. “Then get the injured out.”

The others worked at the entrance to make the opening wider while another group put the pulleys and the hoist together. They tossed ropes down to fasten round the stone figure.

Soon the statue was winched up, rising in the dark to the surface. It was covered in a fine coating of dust and there was a huge red stain—the blood of the young boys who had paid for their find with their lives. It looked as if it were the statue that was bleeding.

“Bring the cart over here,” ordered Franek, lifting a lamp and giving the prearranged signal. Soon the wheels were turning, muffled with cloths to avoid making any sound; the horses’ hooves had been wrapped in hessian as well.

Lia was getting more and more uneasy. “Come on up; hurry!” she called down into the vaults. “Let’s get out of here.”

The rope snagged, the pole bent under the weight, but did not break. The men climbed out of the hole and heaved
the heavy statue onto the sacking that had been put on the wagon in readiness.

“The guards!” came a shout from across the site, echoing back to Franek and Lia.

“Stupid idiot!” Franek cursed their watchman, who had meant well with his warning, but had certainly risked alerting Bruron’s soldiers. They saw pinpricks of light—torches coming nearer. “Take the rags off,” he told the others and leaped up onto the wagon. “They’ve seen us now—the noise won’t make it any worse.”

Lia followed him and jumped up to crouch beside the statue. The whip cracked and the wheels rattled along.

“Halt!” They heard the challenge from the guards. “Stop in the name of King Bruron!” There were no more niceties—arrows were already flying in their direction, most of them falling short, but two buried themselves in the wood of the wagon, one hit the statue and broke, and one caught Lia in the leg. She cried out.

By the light of the torches they could see the guards falling on the men who had helped them with the statue. Anyone who put up a defense was killed outright—the rest were taken prisoner. Bruron had issued a strict new law five cycles ago, protecting people’s property and condemning to death anyone suspected of pilfering. The fact that they had emptied the vaults belonging to a man who was dead made no difference.

Out of the darkness of the side streets four mounted guards came galloping up; they had heard the noise and it was simple for them to overtake the wagon.

“Stop!” the first rider shouted to Franek. “I can…”

Her friend turned, whip in hand, and caught the soldier full in the face. His eyeball burst under the force of the slashing leather and he fell from the saddle. The next rider had to swerve to avoid him, and lost ground.

One of the guards made a bold leap straight onto the cart and hit Lia in the face with his balled fist to silence her, then climbed over the statue to get at Franek.

“Look out!” she croaked in warning, swallowing her own blood. Groaning, she drew her dagger and crawled across the swaying cart to reach the guard.

Another rode past them, heading for the gate to get the sentries to stop the unscrupulous thieves escaping with their plunder.

Franek had seen him. He hurled his sword at the man when he was three arms’ lengths away from him, catching him in the side. At full gallop he fell to the ground, rolled over and over, and was crushed under the back wheel of the wagon.

Just as the last of them was attacking Franek from behind, Lia thrust her dagger into his upper arm.

She had been aiming for his neck, but the wagon was rocking so violently it was impossible for her, especially with the injury to her leg, to be more accurate. She swayed, falling on her opponent and dragging him down with her. Together they fell over the statue and tumbled off the speeding wagon.

This time Lia was out of luck.

She landed under the heavily armored man and broke his fall with her own body. As her head crashed against the cobblestones of Porista’s streets, she felt her skull crack and a sharp pain in her breast. Warmth surrounded her head; then she was weightless, outside her body.

“Lia!” she heard her friend calling—she could just hear his voice above the noise of the hooves and the wheels.

“Keep going,” she said, speaking with difficulty, and knowing that he would be unable to hear her. “We have taken the first step, Samusin,” she whispered up to the stars. “For that I gladly surrender my life, O god of retribution.” Lia tried to smile before death turned her face to stone. She could not.

The guard who was lying half conscious a few steps away sat up slowly and reached for his bugle to warn the sentries at the gate. But the bugle was not hanging at his belt. He found it buried in the girl’s breast. As they had fallen from the wagon it had pierced her flesh and bone and shattered. Blood was pouring out of it as if it were an upturned funnel. He would not be placing it to his lips again.

“Curses,” he muttered angrily as he staggered to his feet. The thief had got away with his booty. And if he had seen aright back there on the wagon, the prize that had been stolen was something very special: it was the magus Lot-Ionan, turned to stone.

Girdlegard
,

Black Mountain Range
,

Realm of the Thirdlings
,

Late Spring, 6241st Solar Cycle

K
ing Malbalor White-Eye from the clan of the Bone Breakers in the thirdling folk of Lorimbur read through the message brought him by the envoy of Queen Xamtys.
It spoke of a machine and of dwarf runes promising death. There was to be an assembly, and the rulers and freeling city kings were to travel to the Gray Range.