The War Of The Lance (8 page)

The dwarf looked me over in silence, then snorted as if he'd heard a bad joke. “You want
me to be afraid there, dead boy? I'll tell you somethin'. In the war, my commander got
'imself killed by a draconian, sivak type. They're the big silver ones what change their
shapes when they kill someone, so they look like what they just killed. You heard 'bout
'em?”

I remembered sivaks very well from the war. “Yes.”

“I saw the killin', but I wasn't in a way to do anythin' 'bout it right then and there.
Had to travel with 'im for two days, pretendin' he was my friend, all the time knowin' he
was gonna turn on me and my buddies and kill us off or take us to an ambush. Got some help
in time, though, and we cut that reptile boy down to gully dwarf meat. You may be a dead
boy, but after that sivak, nothin' much ever gets to me.”

The dwarf clapped his hands together, then went to get his axe. “'Sides, like I said, you
probably leadin' me right to Garith. Gonna be like a family reunion.” He lifted the axe to
gaze down the blade. “I been dyin' to see the boy. Like as not, he'll be dyin' too - after
he sees me.”

***** Evening came at last. We stopped once more for Orun

to rest, then moved on as the sun went down. I told Orun about my "cousins, my uncle, my
life, and my death. He walked silently as he listened, asking few questions. I talked
until I knew of nothing more to say.

At dusk, my awareness of my murderer's location arose in my consciousness as comfortably
as if it had never left. He was still heading for Twisting Creek, but we were much closer
to him now. He'd make it to town before morning, but we'd not be far behind him. His speed
picked up as the evening deepened, and so did mine - and I was faster, even with Orun.

By noon the next day, we were just two hours outside of Twisting Creek. There we stopped
at an abandoned farmhouse, one I knew had belonged to a couple who had moved away during
the war. The log-and-stone home was overgrown with vines and had been boarded up, but it
still appeared to be in good shape. It took only moments to break inside. There Orun slept
until early evening. I knew we could afford the break. I wanted Orun in good shape when we
found the Theiwar. Orun awoke “ready to do business.”

“Wish I knew what spells he's been collectin',” Orun said for the third time later that
evening. The whetstone in his hand made a soft grinding sound as he touched up the blade
of his axe. “Garith could turn invisible, hypnotize folks with colors, and make light
shine. And make poison gas, which he probably used on them hobs. But he knew lots more
than that.” He held up his axe and examined it in the dim light coming through the cracks
in the shuttered windows. “Damn, I'm lookin' forward to seein' him.”

Orun ransacked the house while I waited for my supernatural senses to focus. He found a
moth-eaten gray cloak and dropped it on my lap, as well as a stained pair of trousers and
a shirt. I needed something besides my old clothes to wear in town. It wouldn't do to have
everyone know who I was - including the Theiwar, right at first. By the way his big nose
wrinkled up, I knew the clothes had to stink of mold and mildew. I probably stank worse,
but I couldn't tell, since I never breathed.

It grew darker outside. Energy poured into me like a cold river. When I faced in the
direction of town, I could tell that my murderer was just a short walk away.

“I see him,” I said.

Orun nodded, wrapping up his feet with a dry cloth strip. “Like I said,” he replied,
tugging on his boots next, “Theiwar hate sunlight. Probably stayed at an inn or in a
cellar, hidin' from that sun and heavin' 'is guts out, waitin' for the night. Reorx
Almighty, they hate that sun.”

We left at nightfall. Orun had wrapped an extra layer of moldy cloth under his armor to
add a little protection from the daggers he said Garith was fond of using. He knew it
wouldn't stop a crossbow bolt, though, and I'd earlier told him about the poison I'd seen.
Black wax was difficult to use, so it wasn't likely that Garith would have his bolts
already poisoned. Still, we couldn't count on anything. He'd slain a dozen hobgoblins in
one evening, probably without breaking into a sweat.

It was a clear night. The stars were out early. A warm wind rolled through town ahead of
us. I remembered the last night I had known like that, how peaceful it had been, how
everything had gone along fine right up to the end.

“Gonna miss you in a way,” said Orun. His axe was tied to his belt. He walked with a
broad, quick stride, matching my pace.

The comment caught me off guard. “How is that?”

“Well, you know all you are here for is for findin' your killer man. When it's over, you
go, too.”

I had suspected as much, but it didn't bother me. Dying a second time seemed like such a
small trade for seeing my killer go first.

“Just lemme know when you see 'im,” Orun added. I wanted to laugh, but it wasn't in me.
“You'll know.” As we entered the broad dirt streets of Twisting

Creek, several people walked by us, giving me looks of disgust at the condition of my
clothing and probably my smell. None of them even glanced at Orun. Dwarven merchants came
here all the time from Kaolyn.

We passed rows of families sitting on the sides of the road, children chasing each other
or fighting. Almost as many people in town had no home as those who did, thanks to the
war. I recognized many of them, but none of them seemed to know me in the darkness.

“You followin' your man?” Orun asked quietly. “He's not far.” Orun sniffed and smiled. My
senses led me on through town toward the other

side. I had a strange feeling of dread when I realized I was walking in the direction of
my uncle's farm.

We rounded the blacksmith's shop and stable. I looked up and saw a small manor house on a
low hill, only a few hundred yards away. It was lit by yellow globes of glass set along
the sides of the house and up the front walkway. The long rail fence I remembered
repairing in life surrounded it and the farm buildings behind.

There,“ I said, stopping. ”He's in there.“ Orun stopped, too, and squinted. ”Nice place.“
I nodded slowly as I started off again. ”My uncle's.“ Orun glanced at me, face hard. ”He's
in there with

your kin?" I said nothing. My uncle was a good man. He had his

flaws, but if he was hurt, it would be one more thing I would owe the Theiwar when we met.

We turned at the half-circle wagon path that led up to the doors of the manor. Balls of
yellow crystal set on posts lit the way. My uncle had imported them from the city of
Solanthus - glass spheres with magical light in them that never went out. Always the best,
he liked to say. Always get the best.

No one was outdoors as we approached. The place hadn't changed a bit since I was here last.

Orun pushed back his oilskin cloak and undid the strap on his axe.

I needed nothing but my hands.

We mounted the steps, slowing down, and reached the door. I hesitated, sensing my prey so
strongly I felt I could touch him.

He was inside on the right. That would be my uncle's private study, to the side of the
entry hall. Maybe he was holding everyone hostage, or he'd broken in and was borrowing a
few things for his own use.

I wondered if, when I met him, I'd ask him why he'd killed me before I killed him.

I raised my hand and knocked hard, three times, and listened to the echo. Then we waited.

The lock clicked. The front door heaved, then pulled open. It was our elderly manservant,
Roggis. His face went white when he saw me, his eyes growing big and round.

“Evredd!” he gasped. “Blessed gods, what happened?”

“I'm home,” I said softly as I pushed past the old man and went in, Orun at my heels. The
entry hall was brightly lit. The great curved stairs to the second-floor bedrooms ascended
from either side of the room.

Something inside me tore free. I wanted to see my killer's face, NOW. The study door was
closed, but I was there in a moment, with the door handle in my hand, pulling it open.

The cabinet- and bookshelf-lined study was before me. Yellow light

fell from the globes hanging from the ceiling. Only one person was in the room, sitting at
the center table's far end with a pile of ledgers in front of him. He was big,
fleshy-faced, with a hooked nose and a receding hairline. He looked up with irritation as
the door swung open.

My MURDERER, sang the cold in my blood. My uncle, said my eyes. “Can't you - ” he began,
before he actually saw me. He leaped

back from his chair, knocking it over. His face went slack with terror. He grabbed for
something on a stool beside him.

“Uncle,” I said. I couldn't believe it, but I knew it. HE had killed me. “What - ”

My uncle swung around. He held a heavy wooden device in his hands. He pulled the trigger.
A dwarven-made crossbow. The bowstring snapped.

The crossbow bolt slammed into my chest with the force of a mule's

kick, tearing through my right lung and breaking a rib. The impact knocked me back several
steps, almost into Orun, before I caught myself.

The bolt didn't hurt a bit.

I ran and lunged across the table for my uncle, my fingers out like claws.

He flung the crossbow at me, missing, and dodged back. My fingers

locked on his clothes, ripping them. I tried to get to his throat. There was faint popping
noise in the air, a flash of light. My uncle

was gone. In his place stood a waist-high dwarf, clad in filthy black clothing.

I

held his torn shirt in my hands. His mushroom-white face showed only a dirty blond beard,
watery blue eyes that bulged out like goose eggs, and

a black-toothed mouth that was open like a wound. He was the ugliest dwarf I'd ever seen,
and he gave out a shriek that would have sent me to

my grave if I hadn't already been there. My uncle ... a destroyed man . . .

The Theiwar had used an illusion spell to disguise himself. I knew then

what must have happened to my uncle, and why he had seemed to have changed lately. And who
had really killed my cousins. Likely, they'd

begun to suspect something. GARITH'S GONNA LIVE LIKE A HUUU-MAN NOW, the

hobgoblin had said. “Garith!” shouted Orun from the door. The dwarf shut it behind

him, cutting off Roggis's cries in the hall outside. Panicked, the Theiwar ran under the
table to escape me. I shoved

myself off the table and snatched at a heavy wooden chair, swinging it up and over and
down into the tabletop. The chair shattered; the table split in

half and collapsed. Books and papers poured across the floor - and a bag full of rotting
gray ears spilled with them. Some of the ears were gnawed.

I stepped back. The Theiwar had vanished.

“Garith!” roared Orun, his axe high. “You a dead boy, too, now! You a dead little white
rat, you hear me!”

I caught something from the comer of my eye. The Theiwar had reappeared in a comer of the
room, far from Orun and me. His hands leaped out of hidden pockets in his black clothing.

“ORKISKA SHAKATAN SEKIS!” he called out in a hoarse, high voice, holding something like a
cloth and a glass rod and rubbing them together. He was aiming them at me.

“Reorx damn us!” shouted Orun, as I leaped for the Theiwar. “Evredd, he's - ”

There was more light then than I'd ever seen in my life or afterwards. My body was
suspended in the air, buoyed up by a writhing white ribbon of power that poured from the
Theiwar's hands. For the first

time since I'd died, I felt true pain. It was unearthly, burning into every muscle, every
nerve, every inch of skin, and I couldn't even scream.

Then it was gone. I crashed to the floor. Smoke billowed from the smoldering rags I wore.
My soot-stained limbs jerked madly as if I were the marionette of a bad puppeteer.

I flopped over on my stomach. The Theiwar was climbing a free- standing wall cabinet like
a spider. Orun threw his axe. The weapon struck something in the air just before it
reached the Theiwar and bounced away with a clanging noise, falling next to my head.

“Damn you, Garith!” Orun cried, snatching his axe up. "Damn you

and your magic! You a DEAD boy!" My limbs began to move the way I wanted them to

go, and I staggered to my feet. The Theiwar was on top of the cabinet. He pointed a short
white finger down at us. “N'ZKOOL AKREK GRAFKUN - MIWARSH!” he shrieked, in triumph.

Greenish yellow fog blasted from his finger. A windstorm filled the room. The overhead
lights were dimmed by the thick mist.

Orun started to shout, but his voice ended abruptly with a shocked gasp, then a loud,
hacking cough. I could barely see him through the green fog. He clutched at his throat
with both hands, the axe thumping into the floor. He gave a strangled cry, teeth clenched
shut, his lungs filling with poisoned air.

I went for the cabinet. My hands gripped a shelf at the height of my head, and I pulled
back hard. The dish-filled cabinet rocked; plates clattered flat. The Theiwar cursed and
dropped to his knees, fingers grabbing for purchase on the top. I heaved against the shelf
again and saw the cabinet lean toward me, then continue coming. I shoved it aside. It
slammed into the floor away from the choking dwarf.

As suddenly as it had appeared, the greenish fog blew away as if caught by a high wind.
Orun's hacking cough

and hoarse cries echoed in the now silent room. The Theiwar fell to the floor across the
room. Rolling,

he came up on his feet. He saw me coming around the fallen cabinet, and he tried to flee
for the closed door. He jerked a long crystal vial from his belt. His bulging eyes were as
big as moons when I tackled him.

My dead hands locked around his little body. You could hear him for miles, screaming like
a spitted rodent with a giant's lung power. He punched and kicked in hysteria. I jabbed
one hand through the hail of blows and got my long, cold fingers into the flesh at his
throat, sinking in the grip. Gasping, he stabbed at my arm with the vial, shattering it
with the first blow and opening up bloodless gashes that went down to the dull white bone.