High Iron Page 19

  He was a typical ragged kobold of Crotchet’s manor, barely wrapped in dirty clothes and clearly ill-fed. I would have given him food, or clothing, had I had any to spare. As it was all I could think to do, to at least put him at ease, was to open my hands to him: No threat here. I backed away from him and sat down, myself.

  “So are you being punished by being housed with a kobold,” Hostenback called over, “or is it being punished by being housed with you?”

  “Fine question,” I said. “She didn’t want him with you, for some reason.”

  “That she didn’t.”

  “Have you seen this before? Kobolds locked up down here?”

  He nodded.

  “Not unusual. It only lasts for a day or two, and then we see them doing their chores again. Just light punishment, I suppose.”

  “ ‘Light.’ She almost tore his ear off.”

  “I’m sure that happens too,” he said.

  When food came there was an extra lump of arangrang for the new prisoner. The two jailers chatted with him a bit; he seemed understandably glum. From the tone of their voices they seemed to be encouraging him to keep his chin up. Later in the afternoon they returned, one with keys and the other with a short sword. The one with the sword made a point of waving it at me as the other opened the door to my cell.

  “You can take him, Shearer,” Ferlingas said. It was in jest. “Never mind that knife of his.”

  “I assume they are clever enough to call for help and keep me down here,” I said.

  My erstwhile cellmate left, the door slammed back, and the dwarves and I resumed . . . doing nothing.

  Chapter Twelve

  I had just learned that the kobolds who brought us our food were named Dororg and Rarakan when we were indeed rescued. It was my fifth night in the place. As it happened, that day was the first in which I had resigned myself to a long captivity. I had finally accepted that something terrible must have happened to Britta and Herrar and the Stenhall dwarves.

  That evening, after dinner, I had exchanged names with the kobolds by calling myself “Rafa Shearer” and then nodding to them. The first said Dororg; I gestured to the other and repeated the word to see if he was telling me his name, or their word for kobold. He said:

  “Rarakan.”

  Dororg and Rarakan. I could tell them apart when they were standing next to each other; Dororg was shorter and broader. I had also noticed that, although both were mainly dark brown—no surprise with a kobold—Dororg had a bit of dark gray fur beneath his eyes, and below his chin. Rarakan’s face was more a solid color.

  I then pointed to myself and to the dwarves in turn, and said:

  “Rafa; shenken.”

  —and then pointed to the two of them.

  “Kororen,” Dororg said. Somewhat close to “kobold,” it turned out; our word might have come from theirs.

  And finally I wanted one more word, one more lesson. It might have been the word for good, or brave, but I’d decided those were too difficult to convey. Instead I lifted my arm, brought in my wrist, and made my biceps bulge to the extent I could. Britta, and big Bollard, would have laughed at the attempt, I’m sure. But I clenched my teeth and growled a bit and pointed to the muscle.

  “Strong,” I said.

  They were amused; they laughed in yelps. But they told me the word:

  “Akag.”

  “Akag,” I repeated. I then nodded to them. “Akag kororen.” Strong kobolds.

  “Koror akag,” Dororg corrected me. “Kororen akagen.” So kororen was plural, the noun came first, and there had to be agreement with the adjective.

  Rarakan, for his part, flexed his own biceps—rather more impressive than mine, pound for pound—and they left.

  The kobolds had finished bringing us our evening food. The dwarves and I ate and then settled down for another night. Of course, “settling down” was a generous description, since all we could do was sit or lie down on hard rock. At any rate, we all lay still. Perhaps the dwarves were still waiting on a rescue; I had given up.

  Long before I noticed anything different on this night, compared to the preceding ones, the dwarves roused themselves. I heard scuffs as they came to attention. They sat up straight, and cocked their heads to listen. They muttered to each other quietly. Finally I head Hostenback speak:

  “There is work going on.”

  “What sort of work?” I asked.

  “Earth work. We felt it. Now we can hear it.”

  And then I, too, heard muffled sounds in the earth behind the rear wall of the dwarves’ cell. Soon the scrapes of shovels became clear.

  I stood, and so did all the dwarves. I looked out the window and saw nothing. I hoped that Britta and whichever dwarves were not digging were well concealed, and not merely out of my view.

  The shovel scrapes grew louder, and then I myself could feel the digging.

  A moment later, the wall tumbled down. A heavy-footed form stepped out.

  “Greetings, all. Some light.”

  A match flared and then a lantern illuminated the cells. It was Maghran. He gripped a shovel and was covered in dirt. Behind him now emerged Herrar and Inman. They sized up the prisoners, and each dashed to one of them.

  “You return,” Hostenback said to Herrar.

  “At length. Maghran and Inman, of Stenhall.” This was the extent of her introduction.

  Hrond then dropped out of the hole in the wall. Only Britta was missing.

  I noticed something:

  “Hrond,” I said. “Your musketoon?”

  “Outside,” he said. “Didn’t want to shove it along before me through that dirt. Inman left his gun out there also.”

  “Just sitting out there? Hidden, I hope.”

  He nodded. “And we don’t intend to be in here very long.”

  Herrar meanwhile pulled a pair of heavy pincers from her pack. Inman produced an iron pry bar and set to Hostenback’s metal cuffs.

  And then Britta climbed out of the tunnel. She set Hrond’s gun by the wall, gazed around, saw me, and shook her head at the bars between us.

  “More digging,” she said.

  “You joined them in that tunnel?” I asked her.

  “Better than staying out there,” she said. “And we all needed to push dirt.” She was as soiled as the dwarves.

  Meanwhile Inman gave up using the pry bar on Hostenback’s shackles.

  “This is too large,” he said. “Nothing to fit into.”

  “Then open their door,” she said. She was squeezing the pincers she held on a link of the chain that bound Ferlingas, but that also seemed to be slow work.

  “We will need the keys to these shackles,” she said. “As reluctant as I am to admit it. If I had all my tools you’d be free already.”

  “Do you know where the keys are?” Maghran asked.

  “The kobolds keep them,” she answered. “So open that door. We’ll go find them.”

  Inman moved toward the barred door on the dwarves’ cell and braced the pry bar between it and the wall. He hauled on it; this produced creaks but nothing more. Hrond joined him, then, and they pulled together. They strained. I thought the bar might snap, but the door gave first, and its bolt popped out of the wall socket. The two dwarves stepped out. Hrond had his musketoon with him.

  At that moment Dororg and Rarakan came running down the other end of the hall, to my right, toward the commotion. They froze, right in front of my cell. They might have retreated, but Hrond swung the gun up to aim at them.

  “Don’t shoot!” I yelled at him. I reached out through my bars with both arms to put my hands in front of them.

  “Might these two have the keys?” he said.

  That was a kobold word which I had not, of course, learned. I looked at them, however, and made a key motion with my fingers before the lock of my own cell. Rarakan nodded and left. Dororg seemed to understand he was staying behind as a hostage, still covered by the musketoon.

  “Would the first really care if I blasted
this one?” Hrond asked. “I’m not sure this will guarantee his return.”

  “He’ll come back,” I said.

  Ferlingas called over to Hrond:

  “This human friend of yours is a friend to these kobolds. Talks to them. I’m sure it will be back with keys.”

  As he said this, Inman stepped back into the cell toward Hostenback. He crossed to the wall and smashed the pry bar into the blocks over the mounted end of the chain.

  “They’re coming with keys,” Hostenback protested.

  “I’ll believe that when I see it.”

  “What, you mean for me to carry that chain with me when I’m out of here?”

  Inman answered without turning away from his work. “I’ll explain to strangers that you’re an upstanding gentleman, until we get it off.”

  Herrar, meanwhile, winced at one final press on her pincers, and the link of Ferlingas’s chain broke. She moved on to Shanter while Ferlingas stretched his right arm around freely for the first time in weeks.

  Britta came to my bars.

  “Do you think the kobold will have keys for your cell, too?”

  “I would guess so.”

  And then Rarakan returned, back down the hallway to my right, with a bright ring of keys.

  “Open those shackles,” Hrond ordered, and held out his wrist as an example as he nodded toward the dwarves’ cell.

  “Don’t worry, Aiman,” Herrar called over to me. “We won’t forget you. Although perhaps we should.”

  “I let down my guard,” I said. “Did my capture cause your delay somehow?”

  “No,” she said. “There have been forces of Caranniam walking the city at night. That’s why we held off.”

  “But they’re not out there now?”

  “Not tonight. We think they have left with a dunter force to haul some of those supplies which were to have gone on the train.”

  “That same stockpile I saw.”

  “Yes.”

  “One of you watched the city at night?”

  “Britta.”

  I looked at her and shook my head.

  “The palest one here, most likely to be seen,” I said.

  “I covered my hair,” she said. “I was almost completely shrouded.”

  “How were they hauling?”

  “With oxen. Just as you saw, weeks ago.”

  “They moved the cannons?”

  “Cannons, barrels, more muskets. Much material,” she said.

  As we spoke Rarakan moved through the cell and keyed open all the shackles, except for those of Hostenback. Inman had chiseled that one free of the wall.

  Herrar now came to my cell, tested the door, and then yanked it open with a single pull.

  “You did not try that?” she asked.

  “I don’t believe I ever did,” I answered.

  She shook her head.

  And then a tremendous explosion some blocks away cracked through the air and shook the fortress. Dust fell from the ceiling as the dwarves braced themselves. The explosion took some moments, like a long roll of thunder ripping down the sky into the distance.

  Herrar seemed to have been expecting it. She stood firm while the blast roared and echoed.

  “That’s our diversion,” she said. “Move.”

  “Let me get my chain off,” Hostenback said.

  “We have no time,” Herrar said. “Get through that tunnel, all of you.”

  “I can’t wear this,” he objected.

  “We’ll be back at White Mount soon, we’ll remove it there,” she said. “We have to move. If you get left behind, we’re not returning.”

  Hostenback raised his arm again to display his chain, and began to object once more, but shouts down the hall cut him off.

  Auntie Fang appeared with a raised pistol.

  We all ducked. What went through my mind was that I would be the largest target of all of us down there. I got face down on the floor.

  Fang fired. The boom cracked down the hall, but I heard the bullet clang off one of the bars. I wasn’t sure whom she had aimed at.

  “Those slobbering kobolds sounded an alarm!” Maghran shouted.

  “The kobolds are right here!” I answered.

  Hostenback took advantage of the confusion to snatch the entire key chain from Rarakan.

  Meanwhile Fang looked at her pistol with her scowling eyes and seemed at a loss. I did not see that she had any other weapon, and even with a sword or knife I doubt she would have rushed us.

  She turned and shouted toward where she had come from. Now her pudgy nephew (as we fashioned him) arrived. He held two more pistols.

  I turned toward the escape tunnel to see Herrar disappear into it. The others followed in a rush: first the captives Hostenback, Ferlingas, and Tam Shanter. Then Maghran, Inman, and Hrond. The seven of them all darted in like one long and dirty rabbit.

  The Stenhall dwarves had done the captives the courtesy of allowing them out first, but they hadn’t waited for me or Britta. We looked back at Fang and the other dunter, who were fumbling with the pistols; it seemed that Fang wanted to take the shots herself.

  “Go!” I yelled, and I pushed Britta into the hole. I followed. Another shot banged as I stepped in. The bullet slammed into the earth behind me.

  The last thing I saw in there was Rarakan and Dororg standing together in the dwarves’ erstwhile cell, dumbfounded.

  The tunnel was not long, heading straight out into the earthwork surrounding the fortress. When Britta and I slid out, the dwarves had already taken off down the road. I felt that shock waves from the explosion and the pistol shots still coursed through the air; it must have just been my head ringing.

  I ran next to Britta, down the street.

  “What did they blow up?” I asked her.

  “They found a small arms warehouse. They were hoping it might set off a secondary explosion, from the powder, and it must have.”

  “Is that sort of diversion smart? Won’t it just draw dunters?”

  “We thought there would be an alarm as we left. I still think there will be. So we hoped this would distract them.”

  We trotted through the dark.

  “A warehouse,” I said. “How long did they have to spend searching for that?”

  “Not long at all. We were lucky enough to hear a few gun shots in the night, and we followed them, and there it was.”

  “You came in for that?”

  “Two nights ago, yes.”

  “You’ve been busy. And Jed?”

  “We didn’t see him again. I assume he moved north, and he’s waiting for us up there. Or searching for us. You’re all right?”

  “I could do with a pot of stew and clean water, but yes.”

  She was carrying my bag and handed it to me as we ran out. The dwarves were all ahead of us. We sprinted straight down the side of the street.

  A dwarf sprint is a thing to behold. They move quickly enough, but it requires a furious amount of pumping of their short legs. I was glad Jed was not with us, for he likely would have shown off his pace by overtaking them with half their strides.

  Britta told me now:

  “I am hoping that the dunters took still more of their able-bodied with them when they moved out with those supplies. It would make this city even quieter.”

  The street was much the same as the ones I had seen south of Crotchet’s fortress: surrounded by rough houses that seemed nearly empty, and kobold shacks, and abandoned structures and lots. I was hoping the sprawl would start to look like outskirts, soon, but we still had blocks of battered Red Gorge City before us.

  “This place looks much more lovely at night,” I said.

  “The light does it no favors.”

  “We’re just running the whole way out?”

  “That’s the plan. We hope that blast draws all the attention.”

  We continued up the street, Britta and I following the seven bobbing dwarf heads. We could not tell, yet, if the explosion of the dwarves had actually drawn any dun
ters or kobolds who might otherwise have seen us; and of course we did not pass any organized fire companies rushing tankers down the streets. Our several nights of skulking about Red Gorge City had been possible because it was so unthinkable to the dunters that such a party would try such a thing. I was sure that after this escape, and the explosion, the city would now be guarded. For a moment, though, we were still able to run through it unchallenged.

  I did notice some eyes on us. A head appeared at a window here, a door cracked opened over there. But all seemed to be kobolds, as far as I could make out as we dashed past. Down alleys, I might have seen a form of another or two of the dog-men. But no one emerged to block us, or chase us. If they noticed, and realized that we were outsiders, it seemed none was eager to wake up its master and point us out. The dunters could get the kobolds to work for them if they drove them with whips, and rationed food, but these methods would not turn servants into useful guards.

  But then suddenly the dwarves drew up short, ahead of us.

  “Off the road!” Maghran snapped in a gravelly low shout.

  The seven of them dropped to their left, into a ditch, and we followed. Not far up the road was a group of dunters, perhaps fifteen or twenty. They carried lanterns, so we could see their forms, and they were well-armed. They held long muskets and were swinging them back and forth slowly as they walked. They pointed them variously before them, and off to the sides, and behind.

  “We can’t just hide here,” Maghran said. “They’re searching. We go back, or through one of these walls.” Next to the ditch was a long wall of a shanty, with others on either side.

  “Do they all have guns?” Herrar asked. She rose up a bit to look.

  It was a foolish move. Light from the dunters’ lanterns must have glinted off the circlet she wore. They instantly shouted, brought other lights to the front, and ran toward us.

  “Many guns,” she said.

  Tam Shanter and Ferlingas immediately trampled us and ran down the line of the ditch back toward where we had come. Herrar and the other dwarves, except Hrond, clambered out of the ditch and slammed themselves into the wooden wall of the structure behind us. Hrond held his ground, aiming his musketoon at the oncoming group. I don’t know what good he thought his single shot would do before the dunters overtook us. I was torn between following Tam and Ferlingas, and trying to help the other dwarves breach that wall; I think Britta was, too.