The Tomb of the Dark Paladin (19 page)

"I did not bring them here!" shouted the dwarf, pointing his staff at the elf. Ederick stepped in and gently pushed the staff out of the way.

"What do you mean, elf?" asked Bart. "Are dwarves not free people?"

"Free?" the elf scoffed. "High Elves rule over all!"

"The dwarves are subjects of an Elvish king?" asked Bart, amazed.

"All on Hastor are subject to the Divine King, even human filth."

"The elves are subjects of the Divine King," added Aethelryd darkly. "We dwarves are slaves."

"What other place is there for a dwarf?" asked the elf, his voice laden with scorn. 

"Slaves?" whispered the knight.

"Easy, Sir Ederick. We are on an alien world with alien customs, so we are. We cannot insert ourselves here when the fate of Llars is at stake."

The knight said nothing, but it was clear to the bard that the thought of leaving this behind did not sit well with him.

"You want to get back to Llars?" asked the dwarf. "I think I can help you."

The elf's eyes flared with the words of the dwarf, bathed them all in silvery light.

"What's he doing?" demanded the knight, his shield before him. 

"The light will not harm you, knight," offered the dwarf as the light dissipated. "But what comes next surely will. The Divine King sees through his eyes."

"It seems our side has been chosen for us, Bart," said the knight, lowering his shield. "We cannot stay to await the arrival of a company of Elvish fighters or, worse, Elvish mages."

"How can you help us, Aethelryd?" asked Bart.

"I can take you to a sacred place," said the dwarf quietly, his eyes intent upon the elves. "It is the ancient portal that brought my ancestors here from Llars."

"Sacrilege!" screamed the elf. "You cannot go there, it is forbidden!"

"The Pathway Arch," said the bard in awe. "So that's how your ancestors disappeared from Llars."

"Surely the elves are on their way," said the dwarf. "We cannot tarry!"

"What about them?" asked the knight. "It is unwise to let an enemy return to the field of battle."

"Yet we cannot take them with us," said the bard. "We should leave them here, bound to a tree."

"Fool," laughed the elf evilly. "You have doomed the House of Gar, you and your kin are now but ghosts to my eyes. I will personally oversee the slaughter of your children!"

The dwarf stiffened and walked closer to the elf. He leaned down and looked the elf in his silvery eyes. "You'll not oversee anything." Then he slammed a dagger into the elf's throat and ripped it to the side, a torrent of blood from the elf's throat. The light dimmed slowly from the shocked eyes and the elf slumped over, dead. 

Ederick grabbed the dwarf by the his coat and dragged him away from the elf. "What did you do? You cannot kill a prisoner!"

The dwarf slammed his staff into Ederick's chest sending a shock wave of magic through the knights body. Ederick stumbled backward, angry.

"I'll do what I need to, knight!"

Ederick seemed ready to charge the dwarf but Bart intervened. 

"This is not our fight, Ederick!" The bard turned back to the dwarf. "What do you want in return for bringing us to the arch?"

"There is a powerful artifact set in the capstone of the arch. It is a crown that once belonged to my people. It will inspire the dwarves to throw off the shackles of the High Elves, and it will give us the power to beat their magic."

"You need our help in acquiring this crown, so you do," said the bard.

"So I do. The ancients created a spell of protection over it that can only be broken by the magic of the Earth and of the Air. Once the spell is broken, only the strength of Zuhr can remove it from the capstone."

Ederick gave the bard an awed look. He knew the knight was reading Zuhr's will into all of this. What other choice did they have?

"We'll want to be leaving now," said the dwarf looking high into the sky. 

"Dragon!" said the bard, looking up at the dark object on the horizon as it blotted out the stars. 

"Not a dragon," said the dwarf. "Worse, much worse."

"What could be worse than a dragon?" asked the knight.

"A High Elvish airship carrying a hundred of the Divine Kings warriors!" said the dwarf urgently. Then the dwarf turned and started up the hill. "Come on!"

"What would you have done in his place?" asked the bard.

"I'm really not sure."

"He did what needed doing, so he did. In the end nothing matters but our own quest. Come on!"

Ederick moved the bodies of the elves behind a large boulder and covered them with the loose gravel on the ground. Bart bounded up the hill after the fast moving dwarf and was relieved that Ederick followed after, leaving the elves behind. 

"How do they get a ship to fly?" asked the knight as they clambered into the cave. 

"It is the power of the Air Sigil, knight. The elves are very, very, skilled in its use. The Divine King is extraordinarily powerful, he claims to be God. He demands the worship of his subjects, and form time to time slaves are sacrificed in his name."

"You hope to free your people from slavery," said the knight. Bart knew that the knight's honor would not refuse the dwarf under such circumstances, and he knew the knight would forgive the dwarf for his treatment of the prisoners.

"I will free them from slavery, with your help."

"You have my help," returned the knight, Bart nodded his agreement.

The bard and the knight stood just inside the cave entrance and watched the airship drift closer; it was like nothing Bart had ever seen. He closed his eyes and let himself see through the eyes of the magic. The ship was like a massive triangle, its bottom was flatter than the belly of any sea faring vessel. Its decks were lined with elves, their silvery eyes glowing in his magical sight. One elf stood on the prow of the ship, his eyes looking this way and that, sending bubbles of magic out before him. One of those bubbles came dangerously close to the cave mouth and the bard released his hold on the Tides, they were looking for him with magic. 

"We had better get deeper into the cave so they don't see us, so we had." The two men followed the dwarf deeper into the cave. 

The dwarf led them to the rear of the cave and tapped his staff against the wall. Bart heard a rumbling sound, then a section of the wall slid back. Lights flared to life along the corridor of a long passageway that lead deeper into the mountain and downward.

They walked in silence for hours, finally reaching a large chamber. Bart had no idea how much time had passed since the two landed on Hastor, but he was beginning to feel very tired.

"We need to rest," said the bard. The dwarf eyed the two men then nodded. They rested for an hour and moved out again, deeper and deeper into the mountain.

"Why haven't we seen any more elves?" asked the knight.

"For all their boasting, the elves fear the deep parts of Hastor. There are terrible things that lurk in the deep places, let us hope we do not find any of them."

"They will not follow?"

"They will follow. But they will bring large numbers and they will move slowly. We must maintain our lead." 

Bart did not relish the idea of a pitched battle in the tight confines of the passageways. They could not stand against the numbers that surely hunted them and there was nowhere to run. They continued on, stopping only for an hour here or an hour there, for what seemed like days to the bard. Finally, they reached their destination. They exited a large chamber and stood on a ledge overlooking a yawning chasm. On the far side of the chasm was an arch made of silveryl and fireore, its inscriptions twinkled in the magical light.

"I get the feeling that this chasm is the least of our worries," said the knight. He kept looking back the way they had come; Bart knew he was trying to figure out a way to defend against the horde of approaching elves.

"I can get us across the cavern, so I can."

Then an arrow sailed through the air and struck the shield strapped to the knight's back. "They're here!"

"An advance scouting party," said the dwarf. "There should be no more than four."

"For now," Bart said as he turned to face the oncoming elves, but the knight waved him off.

"I'll slow them down, Bart. You and the dwarf need to get to work!"

"Aye, Zuhr be with you!"

With his shield raised Ederick charged through the opening, a battle cry on his lips. Bart could hear the arrows striking the knight's shield and the shrill calls of the elves. He reached out to the Tides and drew in the power of the Air, and lifted the dwarf into the air. Then he lifted himself and propelled them both across the chasm. He was grateful for the knight's attack on the elves, for they made great arrow targets as they went. As they drifted farther across the great opening, a hailstorm of stones descended on them from above. The bard tried to create a shield of air to deflect the stones but he could not stop them. The pain from being struck by the rocks was incredible and the bard nearly lost control of the Tides.

The Tides were slipping from the bard's control and the two began to descend prematurely. Then he sensed the dwarf reaching out to the Tides, and mercifully the hailstorm ceased. He didn't know what the dwarf did, but he was sure it was something he could not have done with the Air Sigil. A blast of air from below propelled the pair up, and Bart had to force it back with his magic. But the blast pushed them off course and they were coming dangerously close to formation of deadly stalactites. Again he sensed the Tides gathering about the dwarf and suddenly the the stalactites exploded into a cloud of harmless dust. The bard steered them back on course and they neared the ledge on the far side of the cavern. 

Just as the bard thought they might reach the safety of the other side, a rumbling from above told him that a number of the other great stalactites were coming loose from the ceiling. Then one fell, narrowly missing their bubble of air. Then another and another. One fragment of a stalactite dagger slashed his shoulder is it fell and the bard felt blood dripping down his shoulder. Then the dwarf leaped from the protection of the air bubble and dropped safely to the landing by the gleaming Pathway Arch. 

He reached up and grabbed the weakening bard's leg and pulled him onto the landing. Bart let his spell drop and knelt down breathing heavily. After a moment, he tried to stand and leaned on the Pathway Arch for support. The moment his flesh touched the gleaming inscriptions he felt a surge of power fill his body and his mind was assaulted with visions of far off places and leering faces. He recoiled, pulling his hand away as though bitten by a viper; but his magic had been restored! 

He looked at the dwarf in awe. "The Pathway Arch is a miraculous device."

"Do you know how to use it?" asked the bard hopefully.

"No, but the inscriptions are clear. We need the strength of man to break the crown free of is capstone."

The Pathway Arch was a thing of pure beauty. Its silveryl and fireore pillars gleamed silver and gold and its inscriptions twinkled like stars in the night sky. Bart looked up at the crown resting at the top of the arch and was awed. It was a steel crown inlaid with black onyx and dark sapphires, but there were no other decorations. It was ugly and cold and Bart sensed evil in its heart.

"You should not use this thing," he said with trepidation. "It is a thing of great evil, so it is."

"Evil it may be, bard, but its power is undeniable. It will help me lead my kin out of slavery from the elves."

Bart did not know how to answer the dwarf. It was clear that this was a thing of great power, and he instinctively knew that it would somehow give the dwarf the help he needed, but he wondered what the cost would be in the end. Were there any means that did not justify ending slavery? He shook his head, it was not his fight. 

"What do I need to do?"

"You must lend me your magic that I may shatter the spell. Use my staff as a focal point for your magic, for it is imbued with power already."

Bart nodded and filled himself with the power of the Tides and he sensed the dwarf doing the same. He grasped the shaft of the dwarf's staff and used the power of the Air Sigil to push the magic into the dwarf's staff. Finally, he sensed that the staff would take no more and he let go. The dwarf picked up the staff and swung it with all his might against the empty space in the center of the arch. A powerful whoosh of air from the arch nearly pushed the two over the ledge, but they held firm. The inscriptions that ran up and down the pillars, and across the top of the arch, flared to life and bathed the two men in light. When it was done, the center of the arch looked more like a window into a starry night sky. 

"I do not have the power to lift you high enough to reach the crown."

"I could try it myself," offered the bard.

"You'll not be able to do this alone. The ancients crafted this arch so that it took the Air Sigil of the High Elves, the Earth Sigil of the dwarves, and the strength of humans, to operate it. You will not be able to do it alone."

Ederick! The bard had forgotten that his friend was fighting off a number of Elvish warriors. He looked anxiously across the chasm and saw with relief that the knight was ok. Ederick stood on the landing glancing back up the passageway where there were surely more elves coming. The bard used the power of the Tides to envelop the knight in a shroud of air and lifted him from the ground. The knight continued to watch the passage where the bodies of dead elves now lay, hoping there were not more coming. Bart brought the knight safely across the chasm and the three stood before the arch. "When the bard lifts you in the air, you should be able to pull the crown from its opening."