Words turned to shouts, to a babble of noise. Fists flew. Men and women tussled, knocked each other down.

Worried, Monkberry yanked on Sunbright's hand and said, "Son, get up! Come quickly!"

Knucklebones hoisted Sunbright by the hand. He seemed half-dead, or frozen, slow as a crippled snake. Standing, he tottered, grabbed his forehead and squeezed. The thief bawled, "Wake up! What's wrong with you?"

"Drag him!" Monkberry yelled. Knucklebones helped, but Sunbright's feet plodded clumsily, as if made of wood. No one helped or came near them. Open prairie beckoned, a slate-black sky overhead, but a red glow lighting the east. The mother repeated, "Hurry!"

"Why? What's-Ow!"

A fist-sized stone bounced off Knucklebones's back. Another stone sailed by and thumped on gra.s.s.

Risking a glance, Knucklebones saw tribesfolk flocking to a rock pile at the hillock. Men, women, and children hurled rocks. Another struck Knucklebones on the back of the thigh, and she grunted. One knocked Monkberry to her knees. Several hit Sunbright with painful thuds, but though the shaman staggered, he made no sound.

Desperate, the thief yanked Monkberry up, dragged mother and son. Stones whistled. Then one clipped Sunbright's scalp so he crashed like a falling tree, almost trapped Knucklebones under his great frame.

The elf-woman wept for frustration as stones pelted the ground like hail. Monkberry struggled to rise. Clambering, the thief tried to shield both with her small body. More stones. .h.i.t Sunbright, and one banged Knucklebone's forehead. Woozy, she fought to keep conscious. To collapse was to die.

Another stone struck her shoulder, lamed her arm. She cried unashamedly with fury and sorrow.

"Hold!" boomed a voice. "The next to throw dies!"

Like a pa.s.sing storm, the stones stopped. Feet thudded all around. Meaty hands like bear paws grabbed Knucklebones, Sunbright, and Monkberry, and towed them toward the dawn. The shaman's toes dragged in the gra.s.s, marking a double trail from the dappled stones.

Their rescuers were Drigor and his seven dwarves. The old leader leveled a crossbow at the tribe, and loosed a sizzling bolt that shattered on rocks to drive them back. Barbarians jeered, "Coward!

Betrayer!" But gradually the taunts and curses died as the dogged dwarves carried all three victims far out of range, then out of sight. Four dwarves carried Sunbright spread-eagled like a sacrifice.

Monkberry was toted across two shoulders like a log.

With help, Knucklebones found her feet, though her head throbbed. Laying a small hand on a dwarf's shoulder, she murmured, "Thank you again. Again we owe you our lives."

"Chalk it against the next life. You'll never repay in this one." Drigor's dwarven humor came straight-faced. "Cappi, swing north. We'll circle the camp."

"Where are we bound?" asked Knucklebones, glad someone else took charge.

"Barren Mountains."

Knucklebones swooned at the thought of all that marching, but bit her lip and trudged, supported by a dwarf she realized was female. She hadn't seen the dwarves since they arrived. After the rescue in the forest, Sunbright had told them what little he knew of the surrounding land. Drigor had said, "We shall be back," and the lot marched off. Knucklebones hated to think of the consequences if they hadn't returned.

"What's wrong with Sunbright?" she asked. "Why so slow, as if dead drunk?"

"I have seen it before, in dwarves and humans." Drigor marched at the head, parting gra.s.s like a boat. He carried the famous warhammer, stout enough to fell an ox, in his hand. "These barbarians follow hearts as much as heads, and your friend has lost heart. His tribe has cast him out, but kept his soul. He is empty, dead inside. A tree uprooted. Do you understand?"

"I-I think so." Pain and fear and despair made Knucklebones sob, just once, then she swallowed the lump in her throat and said, "Cut off from his people, he loses part of himself."

"Most of himself" Drigor corrected. "So with dwarves."

Knucklebones murmured, "So with all of us . .." * * * * *

Ground down by exhaustion, fear, and worry, Knucklebones collapsed hours later. It mattered little to the dwarves. Drigor draped her across his backpack like a dead deer and marched on. Dusk was near when he called a halt.

A tilted canteen and rough hand gently washed Knucklebones's face. She spluttered awake, grabbed for her knife, but the rough hand pinned hers, and a guttural voice cooed, "Rest. . . ." The dwarven woman stepped back to give the thief room.

Knucklebones was chagrined and disgusted that she'd fainted, then awakened so slowly. Yet moving her head sent a jolt through her whole body, made her groan aloud. A fist-sized lump throbbed above her eye patch. For a second, panic made her stomach flip. Had the stone hit her one eye, she'd be blind. Breathing slowly, she let the fear go, and forgave herself for weakness. Careful with her tender head, she looked about.

They sat high on a mountainside, higher than the tallest elms of the forest. Sinking sun on autumn leaves made a forest-fire glow. To the east the prairie burned gold, but the long shadow of night rushed across it like a storm cloud. She lay on an irregular shelf of rock. Monkberry lay nearby, head pillowed on someone's white leather pack. A fire crackled in a crevice, and meat skewered on sticks sizzled and dripped. Dwarves perched on rocks like gargoyles and stolidly munched their meal.

Behind them, an overhang formed a shallow cave. Sunbright sat with his back against rock, eyes closed, unmoving.

Close to tears, the thief took in the wide-sweeping vista, the quiet camp with crackling fire, the stunning sunset. In the time she'd been asleep, the world turned from a violent, self-consumed h.e.l.l to a haven of peace. Part of her wished to stop the sun, to stay like this forever.

But another part blazed with anger at the barbarians' blind, stubborn stupidity. Fear and despair had bred a cold rage. Crawling to wobbly feet, she clutched her head and croaked to Drigor, "What- Ow!-what are your plans?"

The dwarf bit a bone in half with yellow teeth, and sucked marrow before saying, "We shall explore."

Knucklebones peered at the gathering gloom. The mountain chain rose like stairs to snowy peaks in the distance. "All these mountains?" she asked.

Drigor pitched bones on the fire, nodded.

"What about us?"

A shrug. "You may come with us, if you can keep up," the dwarf said. "Or stay here."

Knucklebones stifled a groan. Here was a lovely spot, but she was no mountain goat. Teetering on her wobbly legs, she staggered to Sunbright, and creaked down beside him. "Sunbright? Are you awake?"

He nodded without opening his eyes. He was pale as a corpse, and as still. A cracked scab marred his neck where a stone had struck. He bore many bruises, but his silence most bothered the thief.

"Are you all right? Open your eyes."

He did, but stared at the twilight without seeing. Knucklebones was reminded of Wulgreth of the Dire Woods, with eyes dead as stone. Staring into those hopeless eyes, she couldn't think what to ask.

"Um, the dwarves ... Do you have any hope of ... where to go?"

The shaman only shook his head, like a scarecrow in the wind.

Suddenly chilled, Knucklebones shuddered, and drew her leather vest tight across her bosom.

They'd been driven from camp with nothing but her elven blade and Harvester of Blood. High overhead, stars sparkled, forecasting a chilly night.

"We can't... I... Sunbright, what can we do?"

The shaman reached a dirty, blood-stained hand to rub his temple, but had no answer. When she repeated her request, he sighed, "I don't know, Knuckle'. I've nothing behind me, and nothing ahead.

I'm worthless."

"You're worth something to me!" she yelled. The thief's cold anger sought an outlet, but blaming Sunbright for their troubles would make her no better than the fickle tribesfolk. Swallowing her fury, she growled, "We can't just sit in a crack in a mountainside."

Sunbright waved at half a world. "Pick a direction," he said, then closed his eyes again.

His heart was truly gone, Knucklebones saw. His tribe held it hostage down there on the prairie.

Bitterly she recalled how sad and lonely and homesick he'd sought his tribe, how happy he'd been to find them, even when abused and accused and harried and carped at. And now, with that link broken, he was broken too. Perhaps, in time, he'd recover, find another goal in life, but perhaps not. What was that legendary bird, she wondered, that when captured and caged always died? Could Sunbright survive being cut off forever from his tribe, any more than a finger could survive being severed from the hand?

"Hallooooo!"

The caroling call rose from below like a lark's warble. The sound perked up the dwarves, who dropped food to grab crossbows and axes. Whispering, skidding on hobnail boots, they scuttled into corners and crevices as if melting into the rock. In seconds, the shelf was bare except for Knucklebones and Sunbright, and the sleeping Monkberry.

Creeping forward on bare feet, the thief scattered the meager fire with a stick. Darkness enfolded them. The call came again, a singing, like a babbling brook. "Hallooo! We wish to talk!"

No dwarves answered, or even poked up their noses. Unsure, Knucklebones minced to the edge of the shelf. Her cat's-eye vision made out broken rocks, scrub and gorse in cracks, and a line of black, stunted trees a long stone's throw down. No people. For lack of a better plan, she went along. "Come ahead! Empty-handed!"

Something left the tree line. Three white blobs. Faces. A few paces later, Knucklebones made out dark, slim forms, a smooth, high-stepping walk like deer, black, curved lines behind heads of black hair.

Why, she marveled, did they come?

When the trio closed to scale the last slope to the shelf, Knucklebones barked, "I said empty- handed! Two dozen crossbows can sweep this rock!"

In answer, six white palms rose. Still, the surefooted trio scaled the rock. So graceful and strong, they made Knucklebones feel crippled and clumsy. She backed from the edge and almost turned her ankle in the fire pit.

Standing on gray-white rock, framed against black sky, three elves waited patiently with hands in the air. Knucklebones imagined that they were the same elves who'd tried to kill her many times these past days. Wild black hair banded with headbands, smooth faces without war paint, boiled black armor and green shirts, and small slippers. Ornate swords swung at their hips. At their back hung quivers of black arrows and short, curved bows.

Hoping the dwarves were still present, not slipped over the next mountain, Knucklebones demanded, "What do you wish?"

"We come in peace," said the middle, an elf woman, one of two. They were all the same height, within inches. "We sue for peace."

"Peace? With whom?"

"You. The dwarves. The horse-tailed clan on the gra.s.slands," the elf said. "We know their shaman is here."

"How do you know-Oh!" Knucklebones jumped as Sunbright stepped up. Absorbed in the terrible beauty of the elves, the music of their voices, their aura of ancient dignity, she'd failed to hear him.

His voice was flat as he said, "Sunbright Steelshanks am I, but no longer shaman of the Rengarth."

The elves looked at one another. The middle one said, "We need you to negotiate a truce with your people. Orcs swarm into our forest from north and east, more every day, vast hordes. We cannot fight barbarians and orcs too. You must tell them-"

"I can tell them nothing," Sunbright interrupted. "They will not listen."

Again the elves exchanged glances, and Knucklebones thought a sigh of exasperation escaped the spokesperson, as if dealing with thick-witted humans were a ch.o.r.e.

"They must listen," the elf woman said. "You must talk to them. Failure to talk will have dire consequences for all our peoples. Mortal consequences."

Chapter 16.

Everywhere on the outskirts of the Netherese Empire, fire and sword and steel reigned supreme.

Zenith was attacked by pirates swarming from the Marsh of Simplicity and sacked, the gates breached and torn down, the marketplace and city hall burned. Near Earsome, orcs ma.s.sacred religious pilgrims and heaved their bodies into Kraal Brook until the rapids overflowed their banks. The muscular mining community of Bandor Village was overrun by bandits that burned scaffolds and sluices and hoppers, but worse, introduced a throat-rotting plague that claimed four thousand lives.

Angardt Barbarians took revenge on Thiefsward, long suspected of cheating them, and crucified the city elders and dozens more on the high wooden gates. Kobolds and goblins dragged ballistae and catapults and siege towers from Blister and laid siege to Frothwater. The noise awoke a jacinth dragon, rarest of beasts, that swooped upon the remnants of both armies. Trolls rose from the ground near Coniferia and burned their own forests, so smoke blackened the sky for days and ash smothered winter crops. Even Seventon, birthplace of the Empire of Netheril, was overrun by orcs of the Eastern Forest.

More than the people, the land suffered. Already strained by the life-drain of the Phaerimm, the fields of the empire felt the axe, the torch, the scythe, and the spade. Rampaging armies burned ripe grain, chopped down orchards, slashed vineyards, slaughtered cattle and hogs and fowl. Half the harvest was lost. Food shortages became so acute even the highborn Neth looked up from their gaming tables and decided to take action.

What they saw were not petty raids, but concerted action by many scattered factions of humans and monsters. Most wore the b.l.o.o.d.y red hand of the One King. The empire roused their army: young, battle-hardened, scarred veterans under officers with twenty or more years' experience, fitted with the finest armor and honed steel.

But the empire had grown complacent in decades past, had cut back the army to save money, and the current forces were stretched to the limit. Sometimes they conquered, sometimes they were overwhelmed. Yet the raids increased, and in the wake of marauders flowed other horrors: wyverns, tanar'ri, plagues, elementals, dragon-kin, swarms of magebane and kalin, and more.

Then, a call for truce.

Messengers of the One King, unarmed and carrying a banner with a bright red hand, approached Ioulaum, oldest of cities, and delivered a dispatch. The One King would meet a negotiator for the empire atop Widowmaker Mountain at the next new moon. But the king insisted on choosing the envoy. He would address only the strongest, most brilliant, most capable archwizard of the entire empire.

Lady Polaris.

Widowmaker Mountain stood alone in a vast plain of dead gra.s.sland rapidly turning desert. Nine airboats skimmed the air in approach: wooden peapod hulls topped by horizontal masts and metal foils to catch the sun's rays. For this occasion, each boat was painted black and white, the amba.s.sador's colors, and black banners marked by an ornate white P snapped in the wind. Six boats took station around the mountaintop, which was artificially flattened and the size of a large pasture, while three boats touched down. The small navy crew dropped gangplanks, and twenty of the empire's soldiers in black and white tunics and shining helmets stepped out smartly, ornamental silver-headed maces held diagonally across their b.r.e.a.s.t.s. More soldiers tramped from the other two ships to form a line of protection halfway around the top. After them came a dozen minor officials and clerks, all in black and white. Six mages then departed the ship and trotted the perimeter of the mountaintop. Finding no traps, magical or mechanical, they skipped to the ship to report.

Finally, out marched Lady Polaris.

The archwizard upheld her reputation as a crown jewel of the empire. Silver-haired, golden- skinned, serene and poised, so achingly beautiful men beholding her thought they dreamed. Her rich black robe shimmered like the northern night sky, silver embroidered thread glistened, silver fur that hemmed it riffled in the wind. From her shoulders hung a black cape fastened at her shoulder by a diamond brooch large as a child's fist. If anyone could sweet-talk a human king into submission, the envoys knew, it was Polaris. More majestic than a queen, she swept across the barren rock toward her opposite.

By comparison, the One King was unimpressive. Exposed to direct autumn sunlight, his skin was sallow, almost as yellow as a hornet's stripes. His black hair hung like rotten straw, his silver crown needed polishing, the big red hand on his faded tunic needed repainting. His attendants were only a dozen st.u.r.dy orcs in gray wool, carrying pikes, whereas a king should boast hundreds in his entourage.

King and party stood on bare rock: no table, no treaty, no gifts, no tea service.

Lady Polaris withheld a sniff from the sickly, greasy king. This corpse animated armies beyond counting? Well, who knew what the lowborn thought, any more than cows? Her mission was clear.

Size up this One King, promise anything while studying his weaknesses, and learn how the empire might destroy him and his patchwork army.

So Polaris plied etiquette, cooing, "Your Majesty, good day. May I congratulate you on the success of your enterprises? You've gained the attention of the most-high of the Netherese Empire. Very few enemies can boast so."

"Lady Polaris." The voice was dry, as if the mouth contained no saliva. As if the king were dead as a stuffed bear. "You do me honor. How was your trip?"

"My trip?" Polaris went along with the empty pleasantries, saying, "Fair. Airboats are a smooth ride, but there are air pockets. One needs to wear a lap belt, which wrinkles the clothing. How is your majesty's health?"

"Fair," the king croaked. "Considering I rose from the dead."

Polaris swallowed the odd comment, pressed on, "So we heard. You ruled some city to the east, suffered a disagreement with a red dragon, goes the tale. But you recovered nicely. So glad."

"Nothing like a sojourn in h.e.l.l to make one appreciate life," rambled the king. "How are your lands? Your estates?"

"My lands prosper," the archwizard lied n.o.bly. "I employ only the most clever stewards to oversee them. Losses to, uh, vagabonds are minimal. As to my estates, my chamberlains strive impeccably. My many homes are a pinnacle of taste and comfort that others only aspire to."

"Chamberlains . . ." mused the king. His black-eyed, stony face hid his thoughts. "Yes. Even in my distant land, my household mentions your country home, Castle Delia, and how ably it runs. At one time, you employed a woman named Sysquemalyn. Recall her?"