The Reign Of Istar (21 page)

It was as he approached another of these bridges, where the stream had dropped through a
deep chute some fifty feet below, that his long pursuit reached its climax. A trio of
tall, straight pine logs had been lashed together to form a crossing. Horgan's instincts
tingled, his senses heightened.

The dwarf saw footsteps leading to one side of the path, before the bridge. Turning to
investigate, he peered between a pair of sharp boulders. The trail of the ogre led to the
mouth of a narrow cave, less than a hundred feet away, and disappeared within.

Shrewd, thought Horgan Oxthrall, studying the shadowed niche. The vertical slash in the
rock stood perhaps nine or ten feet high, but only half that in width. The ogre might lurk
anywhere inside, perhaps armed with a crossbow or spear. Either weapon, hurled at the
dwarf, could end the fight before it began.

Then, to his surprise, Horgan saw movement within the cave. A dark form loomed in the
entrance. Tension surged through Horgan's body. His right hand clenched the smooth shaft
of his axe, while his left reached behind to pull his shield from his back.

The hulking shape moved forward, abandoning its sheltering darkness. Horgan saw it, felt
the ancient racial hatred that lay so deeply within the dwarven character. An urge to
attack the ogre swept through the dwarf with frightening intensity. The monster's great
mouth dropped open; the thick gray lips moved grotesquely. Horgan noticed that the creature had three
great teeth jutting from its lower jaw - an extra tusk near the center of its lower lip.

“Gobasch fight.”

The words - crude Common spoken in a deep, guttural voice - shocked Horgan. He had
pictured his opponent as a dull beast, incapable of communication or articulation. The
dwarf stared at the ogre, too surprised to reply.

The creature loomed over Horgan. The ogre's barrel torso rested upon legs as thick as
gnarled oak roots. The face, despite its trio of sharp tusks, did not look bestial. Arms,
bulging with straps of sinew, rippled downward to hamlike fists that swung nearly to the
ogre's knees. He wore a jerkin of stiff, dirty leather and, in his right hand, held a
battered long sword. The ogre's eyes were small but surprisingly bright, and they
glittered at the dwarf with frank appraisal.

Horgan claims that he felt no fear of his opponent's size. (Indeed, Excellency, nimble
dwarves with their diminutive stature had historically outmatched much larger ogres in
hand-to-hand combat. Too, there is no reason to suspect that he would be less than candid
in his private journal.)

Then the dwarf astonished himself by feeling a grudging awareness of respect. The ogre had
emerged from concealment - where he could have lurked in ambush - to confront his enemy in
a fair fight.

“Unless you want to surrender to the rightful authority of Rankil, High Thane of the
Khalkists,” the dwarf told the ogre, after a few moments of mutual assessment, “you don't
have any choice except fight me.”

The ogre snorted scornfully. “Gobasch not quit - Gobasch KILL!”

Despite his bluster, the ogre did not advance. Gobasch raised his sword and Horgan saw
that the weapon was longer by several feet than the dwarf's entire body. The blade was
mere bronze, marked with many nicks and grooves. The ogre held the weapon across his body,
ready to parry but not to attack.

Horgan hesitated. He recalled feeling pity for the homeless creature before him, driven
here by the same humans who had harassed the dwarves. At the time, Horgan felt ashamed of
the impulse.

For several seconds the two creatures, mortal adversaries by race and heritage, remained frozen. Horgan sensed that the ogre desired
escape more than battle. Horgan himself was oddly reluctant to fight. He couldn't
understand why.

Then, in a flash, he recalled the bitter memory of his cowardice at Thoradin Bridge. His
face flushed with shame and anger. Clenching his axe, he raised it and took a step
forward, his shield couched carefully at his chest.

Gobasch raised his great sword.

Suddenly, by mutual consent, both combatants halted. Another sound intruded into their
tightly focused concentration.

“Horses!” grunted Horgan, as he heard the unmistakable clattering of hooves upon rock.

“Men!” Gobasch snarled, his voice louder than Horgan's but still hushed.

With a flash of irritation, Horgan realized that the ogre's observation was more acute -
it was the humans, not their poor, dumb mounts, who mattered.

Carefully the dwarf backed away from the ogre, determined to investigate the new intrusion
without giving this monster a fatal opening. But Gobasch sought the shelter of his dark
cave again, vanishing into the shadowy entrance. Horgan imagined that he could see those
two tiny, bright eyes glittering outward at him and the valley.

Instantly the dwarf whirled, crouched low, and scanned the trail below him. In another
moment he saw them: three humans on horses, moving up the valley at a walk. They wore
silver helmets and breastplates, and the one in the lead wore a bright red cloak. A
matching plume trailed from his helm. The pair who rode behind were clad in billowing
capes of green and bore no badge of rank upon their heads.

Horgan cast another glance at the cave. All was still within. Boldly, he raised his axe
and shield and stepped onto the pathway. He had advanced to the beginning of the crude log
bridge before the riders, on the other side of the stream, saw him.

“Hold,” cried the human in the crimson cloak, raising his hand. His two comrades reined in
and regarded Horgan suspiciously. His tunic, emblazoned with the hammer sign of the high
thane, clearly marked him as an official, and this apparently did not please the humans.

But it was the tall man, the one who had commanded the halt, who spoke first. Horgan
identified him by the gold-hilted short sword resting, for now, in the man's scabbard, as
a centurion of Istar.

“Greetings, dwarf,” the centurion said, making the word sound like an insult - to Horgan's
ears, at least. The man shouted to be heard over the sound of the stream surging through
the gorge fifty feet below and between them.

Horgan studied the human silently. He rode a huge horse, a bay that pranced and pawed the
earth in apparent agitation at the delay.

“You have crossed the borders of our realm,” Horgan Oxthrall shouted back, curtly. “This
is the land of High Thane Rankil of Khalkist, and you are trespassers. In his name, I bid
you depart!” He fingered the axe easily, just to show them that he was not afraid to back
up his words with action.

“We cannot depart,” replied the human loudly, his tone still firm. Horgan figured the
fellow was having a hard time trying to sound persuasive when he had to shout in order to
be heard. “Our mission is a holy one!” the centurion concluded.

Horgan blinked, momentarily nonplussed by the reply. Then his anger took over. “Nothing of
Istar can be holy!” He sneered.

“It's worth gold!” added the officer, though his face flushed angrily. The two other
riders dismounted casually, stood next to their horses, and talked quietly to each other.
Horgan concentrated on the centurion.

“Istarian arrogance!” Horgan snapped bitterly, his voice ripe with scorn.

“Watch your tone, dwarf!” ordered the officer in warning. “The power of Ultimate Goodness
shall not be mocked!”

“Get yourself back down the valley, and you'll hear no words to offend your ears - or the
ears of your precious priestking!”

“The KINGPRIEST has offered a bounty for the slaying of the evil races. Earlier today, we
spotted an ogre moving along this trail. We are god-bound to kill him and carry his skull
to the high throne of Istar!”

Horgan's mind churned. Istar! How well he remembered the legions marching into the heart of the Khalkists a quarter century earlier
- and on just such a spurious quest! Then it had been the dwarven insistence on the
worship of Reorx, their traditional god all across the race of Ansalon, that had pitted
Istar against their race.

In the arrogant eyes of the Kingpriest, Reorx, as a neutral god, was no better than a
deity of evil. How many humans had perished as a result of that arrogance? Horgan didn't
know. (We do, however, Your Grace; the figure was somewhere around thirty-two to
thirty-four thousand men.)

Horgan's dwarven blood rose to his face as he considered the scope of the Kingpriest's
newest arrogance. The would-be emperor of all the world dared to send bands of his agents
into dwarven lands to pursue his edicts!

“Any enemy found here is the rightful prey of High Thane Rankil - be it human, ogre, or
any other trespassers!” Horgan shouted.

“Your impudence will cost you, runt!” growled the human officer. His hand flexed and, in a
fluid motion, he drew a long sword of gleaming steel from beneath his crimson cloak. The
great bay reared eagerly.

Horgan immediately looked for the other two humans, who had been chatting idly beside
their horses. This instinctive alertness saved his life for, with astonishing quickness,
one of the standing humans twisted free from his green cloak and raised a weapon - a
crossbow!

The scout stepped backward, setting his cleated boot firmly against the slippery surface
of the log bridge. Horgan ducked, raising his shield to cover his face. The bolt from the
small crossbow punched into the circle of protective metal with such force that it knocked
the dwarf onto his back. He struck the logs of the bridge heavily, barely retaining his
balance on the edge of the span.

Horgan's heart leaped into his throat as he teetered over the brink of a fall. Below him
he saw icy water through a barricade of sharp-edged granite boulders. In another instant,
he recovered to crouch low on the bridge.

Feverishly, the crossbowman placed another bolt in the groove of his weapon and began to
crank back the heavy spring. The centurion, still mounted, stared at Horgan with eyes that
bulged white, over lips twisted by fanaticism. Yet he had enough discipline to hold his
horse in check.

For a dizzying second, Horgan writes, he was frozen with fear. He recalled another bridge, a quarter century earlier. There, too, he had
looked into the snorting nostrils of a great beast that had been lashed into the service
of humans. The beast was different now, as was the bridge, but the humans, he saw with
sudden and crystalline clarity, were the same. (This point,. Excellency, seems to have
dawned on Horgan with the brightness of a clear sunrise. Indeed, he goes on and on about
it. I have summarized pages in the above paragraph.)

Perhaps it was this new recognition, or perhaps simply the additional experience of his
years in the thane's service, that imbued him with the will to act.

“For Reorx and Thoradin!” he bellowed, his legs pumping as he rushed across the bridge -
straight at the humans! The steel cleats of his boots chipped into the logs, propelling
him with a quickness that obviously stunned the trio of Istarians.

“Stop him!” cried the centurion, his voice a mixture of alarm and surprise. “Shoot him!”

The crossbowman lowered his weapon, sighting with difficulty on Horgan's chest.
Fortunately for him, the target grew larger with each passing second. Unfortunately -
again, from the bowman's perspective - the target did not behave predictably.

At the end of the bridge Horgan dove forward, tucked his body into a ball, and executed a
forward roll. He heard the CLUNK of the crossbow and the curse of the shooter as his
missile sped over the compact bundle of the dwarf's body.

Completing one somersault, the dwarf bounced to his feet, shield and axe poised and ready
for battle. “Hah!” he shouted, looking up at the snorting bay. The quivering horse reared
away from the strange figure.

“Heathen! Paladine will curse your impudence!” bellowed the centurion, struggling to
control his horse as the steed danced in agitation.

“Flee! Run back to Istar!” bellowed Horgan. He darted past the centurion and lunged at the
two horses held by the second footman. The poor beasts stared in terror at the bounding,
sputtering dwarf. In another instant, they broke and turned to gallop down the trail. The
two footmen hesitated, then ran after them, not wanting to be left to walk through hostile
territory.

“The fires that are evil's reward will be your just end!” The officer shrieked his curse
as he tried to whip his horse through a tight turn. But Horgan circled faster, until he
once again stood before the narrow bridge.

Furious, the centurion urged his steed to the very brink of the gorge, took a vicious cut
at Horgan with his sword. The dwarf dodged underneath the singing steel. Chopping
savagely, Horgan hacked his axe into the rider's leg.

The man screamed in pain and terror as he struggled to keep his balance. The horse skipped
away from the cliff's edge. The wounded man toppled to the ground, landing heavily at the
brink of the precipitous drop.

“You're no better than that ogre!” hissed the centurion. His fingers grasped and tore at
the grass as he slipped toward oblivion. “The gods curse all of you who would thwart the
Kingpriest's justice!”

Horgan watched the human slide over the lip of the cliff, uprooted grass tufted in his
clenched fingers as his feet kicked empty air. The centurion twisted into space, his face
a mask of stark terror. Then, his red cloak billowing around him, the man smashed onto the
boulders of the stream bed. The dye of the robe blended with his blood, flowing downward
through the rapid stream.

(Note, Excellency, if you will forgive my aside, that once again we have this image of
blood flowing downhill to Istar. A foretaste of the Bloodsea, rendered in the hand of an
adventuring dwarf, nine centuries before the Cataclysm! Oh, poetry and prescience!)

Wearily, Horgan clumped back across the bridge. He remembered with a sense of vague
detachment the ogre who had started this fracas.