High Iron Page 15

  “Almost never,” Maghran said. “Outsiders seem to think that these riches we excavate just fall into our laps.

  “But these walls, which the cobber showed Twill, had yellow specks like snowfall. And above them, the ceiling of the cave was studded with diamonds. And those were not cut, of course, not as you see them in rings, but nonetheless the raw stones shimmered in the torchlight.

  “ ‘All this is yours, Twill,’ the cobber said. ‘And you are the only dwarf who knows this place. You may come back and take it all out.’

  “ ‘I can’t believe I never saw it before,’ Twill said. ‘So close. But it may take me years.”

  “ ‘It is enough digging for a lifetime,’ the imp agreed.

  “Twill was beside himself with joy. He followed the little cobber out, via a different path. The cobber got ahead of him, and Twill was left on his own.

  “The path out was ten times, twenty times as long. There were many tunnels. Some went up, some down. Others twisted around like a tower staircase. Some went through rock, others through packed soil which had tree roots visible along the walls. Some were cold, but some were apparently so deep in the earth that Twill began to sweat. And then he kept sweating. He was stranded for hours, and then for days. He became so weary that he stopped to sleep. He did this several times as days passed. This rest allowed him to keep walking, but then thirst, of course, began to overwhelm him. He was parched; his very joints inside his body felt sticky to him for lack of water. He began to fear for his life, and was near to giving up—when he came back upon the crack where he had placed the shaved coins. He took them out and put in two whole ones. From there he was out of the mine in minutes.

  “He never found his prize cavern again, of course, and he never again cut corners with the cobbers. He did so with us, other dwarves, but never again with them.”

  Soon we unrolled our bedding and slept. Britta and Inman stayed up first as watch. The night passed quietly, as Jed took a turn at watch in the middle and then I arose well before dawn. At light we moved on.

  After some hours, the land began to change. It had a few more rolls to it, and that was one way we knew we were nearing Red Gorge City. As the afternoon progressed the low hills played tricks on us; after each one we thought we would be able to see the dunter sprawl. This went on too long, but then as we came to the top of one easy incline we saw an expanse before us that included agricultural fields and, in the distance, the city. And I could indeed see a smoky haze over it.

  “Lower yourselves,” Maghran said, but we were already doing so.

  “I will call this an arrival,” he continued. “Which one of you will lead that horse back?”

  He was right; we could not keep it with us this close to the city.

  “Britta?” I asked.

  “I did it the last time.”

  “Jed, then,” I said.

  “Very well. I’ll move south to the first trees I come to. You’ll tell me the plan?”

  “I’ll come find you tonight or tomorrow night,” I said. “You have food with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Stay safe. Flee if you must. East, if you do.”

  “I won’t flee; if need be I can simply hide myself behind the horse.”

  He nodded, took the bridle, and hurried back to our rear.

  “From here on out,” Maghran said, “we move only at night. We just need a proper place to conceal ourselves.”

  “Before us, or behind us?” I asked.

  “We can press ahead some small distance, at least,” he said. “We want to be able to walk all the way in the dark, with enough night left to do some work, so we shouldn’t be any farther away than this.”

  “Would we be better off having only a few of us continue, Maghran? I would be one of them—I’m not begging off from the rescue—but two or three of us would be less likely to be noticed.”

  “Of course,when we move in,” he said. “But I think we can get closer, all of us, first. Let us find a place, when the sun is down.”

  We stepped back down that little incline and huddled low to wait for darkness. We kept our eyes open for dunters or any other passersby.

  “For all we know, we might see the entire expeditionary army returning,” Hrond said.

  “We are too far south for that,” Maghran answered. “They would come in to the northeast of us.”

  We stayed low in the grass on that hillside for the rest of the light of day. This passed quickly. We crept forward to the crest, for a survey; nothing had changed. We saw no dunters. In one of the fields, though, at a distance, we did see kobolds at work.

  As Britta and I looked toward the city, she asked:

  “I wonder how many dunters will have gone? Will this place be empty?”

  “Between the army out by us,” I said, “and the mass of them by the tracks, there may not be many left here. Plenty of kobolds, but maybe few dunters.”

  “You’re right,” she said. “This city may be full of nothing but female dunters, now.”

  “Although that army out by Emmervale may include plenty of females, for all we know,” I said. “I’m not sure I could tell them apart. Even close up.”

  Night fell. Rahune was high and now nearly full, and quick Rahira was catching up.

  The fields around us had been quiet all along, and we moved forward. Britta and I, with Maghran next to us, went first. Herrar, Inman, and Hrond came behind. We traveled in the direction of the city, though there was little to guide us. We were still too far out to see any fires or lamps which might have burned, and there were no such lights any closer to us either.

  We looked for a place to conceal ourselves. We crept through one bean field and saw a rambling, low shack materialize in the dark ahead of us.

  “Good thing they can’t stand dogs,” Britta whispered. “We’d have been set upon by now, if this were Emmervale.”

  “Certainly no Emmervale,” I answered. We continued stalking through the plants.

  We came within fifty paces of the shack. It was dead quiet and showed no lamps or candles at all. I took it to be occupied, just because the bean plants had not been planted right up to its edge.

  “Is that thing a house?” Britta asked.

  “Or a barn, maybe? I don’t know. A farm house? It seems to have a yard.”

  “Very sad farmers, if so.”

  We lay still, watching it.

  “If it’s empty, it would be ideal,” she said.

  “But how do we know? I doubt the dunters are in the habit of staying up late into the night reading by candlelight.”

  We kept watch on the structure for a time. Maghran and the other dwarves had heard our talk but had not commented, which I took to mean that they agreed with us.

  Then, from a doorway on the side, we saw a figure emerge. It was a kobold. We all lowered ourselves. We crawled away, without speaking, to search for a safer spot.

  Again we picked our way forward over the dark dunter fields. In that night, it seemed as if we were barely even in our own world; for one thing, the dunters and kobolds were clearly in the habit of fertilizing their fields with whatever foul refuse was at hand. The stench was that of a latrine.

  We eventually came to another shack, much like the first. Again we watched it, and again we decided to move on, although at this one we saw no movement whatsoever, not even a servant kobold. The place just looked too much like a residence, rather than a barn.

  We next passed a pig shelter. We would not have been too proud to stay in it, but again we were concerned we would be discovered inside.

  Finally we came upon a nearly ruined wooden building which seemed to be a disused equipment shed. The southern wall of it was leaning inward, and one entire end had apparently been dismantled for the lumber. It looked about to collapse.

  “Perfect,” Maghran said.

  “You might need to shore this thing up,” I whispered to him.

  “We certainly could. You’ve picked the right companions if that becomes neces
sary.”

  We entered. It was a dirt-floored abandoned shed, nothing more. There were scraps of wood here and there. I also thought I saw the shapes of rats scurrying away as we came in, but I did not look too hard. We dropped our packs, and weapons, and sat down.

  “Shall we plan?” I asked.

  “We have to hide ourselves all day long,” Herrar answered. “We’ll have plenty of time to plan then. For now I will sleep.”

  Britta and I unrolled our blankets next to each other, along one wall, and the dwarves lay down across from us.

  “Do you think Jed is safe?” she asked.

  “Safer than we are,” I answered.

  Hrond and Maghran stood watch, and the rest of us slept.

  We woke at dawn. Light came in through the myriad cracks in the slat walls, and powdered dust rose and drifted in the beams as we moved about. Herrar dug into her pack and passed around some fine elven food. It would have made for a wonderful breakfast had we not been hiding in a crumbling shack an easy walk from Red Gorge City. We ate silently.

  “And now,” Herrar eventually said. “How we extract my companions.”

  “Did you get a thorough look at the structure, when you were taken there?” Maghran asked.

  “None at all. I was hooded when I was brought in. In my time there I gathered it was the manor of a warlord. It was clearly a fortified dwelling as well as a dungeon.”

  “We should see it, then, before we all move,” Maghran said. “Master Shearer, we should send in a scouting party.”

  “I agree,” I said. “But how will we find it, if Herrar herself did not see it?”

  “They hooded me on my way in, but not on my way out,” she answered. “They had me bound up in a cart, when I left, and I could not look back; but I saw the route. And we headed south, so I can tell you what you will see from here. You remember the main road, or track, that leads into the city, which we saw last night.”

  “Yes.”

  “This will turn to the west at a cluster of heaps of slag. You shall still follow it until you reach a ruined tower. It is stone, but covered with smoke stains and burns. From there to the north again, and over a low bridge above a stream. The road will weave slightly to the left and right, twice each, with low, poor structures, much like this one, on either side. Then, before the manor, there is nothing; the land is bare. They apparently kept the area clear for sight and line of fire. It was the only such clearing I saw, north of the slag heaps.”

  “This sounds like a veritable midsummer foray around the meadows of Emmervale,” I said.

  The dwarves, of course, did not acknowledge this.

  “So, Master Shearer, we need a scouting party.”

  “Yes.”

  “And we would like it to be you. I understand that men would seldom be seen in Red Gorge, but dwarves would absolutely never set foot there.”

  “I see,” I said. “You know, Maghran, I would call that situation a scout, rather than a scouting party.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Your first description led me astray a bit.”

  “Yes, but you see our logic?”

  “I suppose I do.”

  “How do you wish to head in? Disguised as our erstwhile companion baron, perhaps?”

  “I am still not convinced by that idea, Maghran.”

  “Very well. But you will travel in, reconnoiter, and then tell us what you find.”

  “Yes.”

  “If you do not want to try to pass yourself off as the baron, then I suppose you would want to go on foot.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “This will make you a very good friend to dwarves,” Herrar said.

  “Even if I don’t return, you mean? At least I’ll be able to take solace from that?”

  We passed the afternoon in the shed, often with our eyes up to cracks and gaps in the walls. We saw no dunters. On three occasions we saw kobolds at a distance; in every case they seemed intent on their work, either carrying tools or struggling under loads on their backs. The farms around us were disturbingly quiet. Even birds seemed to avoid the place. We did see a feral pig rooting around nearby, once.

  At one point I found myself sitting next to Maghran, both of us occasionally glancing through the wall, waiting out the afternoon.

  “We are very fortunate to have found Herrar,” I said.

  “Indeed. She is invaluable to White Mount.”

  “Had the dwarves of Stenhall met with her, recently? Before her latest attempt, I mean?”

  He shook his head. “Not in years. Our two branches of our people have had little contact for some time.”

  “I knew you kept yourselves remote from Emmervale. I didn’t know you didn’t even keep company with other dwarves.”

  “We are content in our halls. And if you think we are withdrawn now, we may disappear completely in the years to come, Aiman.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because of those things there.” He nodded toward Britta’s musket, which was leaned up against a wall.

  “The gun? What do you mean? You make them as well as anyone.”

  “That is true, but everyone is making them better. When firearms first appeared, in my father’s time, perhaps my grandfather’s time, they were so unreliable that they hardly made a difference in conflicts. But they keep getting more and more accurate. More and more dependable. We have relied on our bravery and our skill to preserve us, in battle. But soon anyone will be able to shoot accurately at a range of—who knows, perhaps one end of your considerable pasturage to the other, Aiman. Any dunter whelp with one eye and a musket will become our equal. We don’t want any part of that.”

  Twilight eventually fell. As it grew darker outside I stood and peered out the doorway. We were now close enough that some fires were visible in the city. I took deep breaths. I felt I must be insane to wander out alone into the dunter capital. I had told my father I would be careful, and now I was about to do the least-careful thing I possibly could.

  “I suppose it’s time,” I told Britta.

  “Good luck,” she said. “Just get a quick glimpse and return. Don’t press your luck the way you and Jed did out by the railway.”

  I moved along the farm track in the darkness, keeping to one side so as not to be right in the middle of it. For over an hour, I would say, the countryside was much the same: shacks, and quiet, and the stenches of uncleaned and undrained barnyards.

  My first view of Red Gorge was shanties, the dwellings of the dunters. I thought of these, at first, as outlying hovels, but as I walked further I realized that this was the bulk of the city. The shanties did not give way to larger houses. Eventually I would see workshops, and railways, and the rambling fortresses of warlords, but for some distance as I walked it was nothing but flimsy wooden houses.

  I do not mean to say that I strolled down these streets and took everything in at my leisure. At the first shack I had stopped, crouched low in a ditch at the side of the road, and just listened. I heard no movements near me, nor much of anything farther away for that matter. For the rest of my walk I would creep ahead one shack, or one dirt yard, at a time. The streets generally had ditches off to the sides, and I used them. They were occasionally strewn with piles of dung, and ashes, and rotting food, but I kept to them as much as I could.

  Next to most of the buildings, even the lowliest shanties in some cases, were rough sheds that I took to be tool storage or poultry houses, at first; then I realized they were kobold huts.

  I picked my way along, alone but for a few dogs and pigs that roamed the streets. At first I was concerned about the dogs, but they were clearly half-starved curs more afraid of me than I them. The pigs ignored me as they nosed through piles of refuse in the ditches, or along the sides of the street. Several times I saw them flush out rats as they snorted.

  I came to Herrar’s promised slag heaps, and turned left. I passed many more shacks and sheds, and then came upon the ruined tower. I wondered if enough of it were intact f
or it to be used as a watch station. Would I be better off skulking by it at some distance, or right along its base? If I moved along its base I might better avoid any dunter above who was scanning the streets, but I’d also be more likely to be surprised by any dunter stepping out of a doorway. How could I know? But the tower looked too burnt to be in use. I crept by it, apparently unseen.

  Next I saw what I took to be a fortified manor house. It was not the one where Herrar had been captive, if her description of the route was accurate. But it seemed similar; a high-walled building standing alone about twenty yards away from the street.

  And within were lights, the first I had seen. It was clearly occupied, although of course I did not know if the residents were dunters or their kobold caretakers. I could have stood and watched it for some time longer, but I remembered Britta’s admonishment and moved on.

  About at this point I became, I must say, very confident in my scouting trip. I felt invisible and invincible. I was the first person from Emmervale to set foot in Red Gorge City since we had begun our lives outside Stenhall, and probably for many years before that as well, and it was surprising to me that the jaunt was so easy. We could have been creeping around the city for years, had we known, spying on their progress (such as it was).

  I crossed over the stream, moved past the weaves of the street, and was then upon Herrar’s prison.

  It was a building similar to the first fortified house I’d seen, but larger. The manor, if such a rude pile of rock could be called that, stood atop a low earthwork platform. Sharpened logs protruded from the slope of the platform; several of these were decorated, as it were, with skulls. The skulls were of dunters. It was clear, despite their recent campaign against us, that the dunters did not enjoy peaceful relations even among themselves.

  The earthwork was overgrown with vines and scrub. Some attempt had been made to trim this growth, in order to deny concealment to enemies.

  The manor’s walls were made of massive tree trunks interspersed with black and gray boulders. In a few spots boulders had come loose and tumbled down; these had been repaired very roughly, with horizontal beams spiked onto the tree trunks in order to contain the fill. All the wood in the walls—the trunks and beams—had been coated with something black, some sort of tar I supposed.