The Emerald Storm (39 page)

“But he could have killed all of us.”

Hadrian nodded. “She’s your daughter. If I thought she was alive, trust me, Royce and I would be on it, even if that meant heading back into the Ba Ran Islands, but…well. I’m really sorry. I wish I could have done more.” He looked down at the hat in his hands. “I wished I could have done a lot more.”

Wyatt odded.

“We can still save Tur Del Fur,” Hadrian told him. “And we wouldn’t have that chance without you. If we succeed, she won’t have died in vain.”

Wyatt turned to look at Hadrian. He opened his mouth then stopped and looked away again.

“I know,” Hadrian said, once more fidgeting with Wesley’s hat. “I know.”

Greig and Banner were pleased to see them. Nights living on the little Dacca ship were getting cold and provisions dangerously low. They had already resorted to selling nets and sails to buy food in town. They made a hasty sale of the Dacca ship. The Tenkin vessel was far faster and already loaded.

Wyatt aimed the bow homeward, catching the strong autumn trade winds. The closer they came to home, the colder it got. The southern currents that helped warm Calis did not reach Delgos, and soon the wind turned biting. A brief rainstorm left a thin coat of ice on the sheets and deck rails.

Wyatt continued at the helm, and refused to sleep until he was near collapse. Hadrian concluded that, failing to save Allie, Wyatt placed his absolution in saving Delgos instead. In a way, he was certain they all did. Many good people had died along the trip—they each felt the need to make their sacrifice mean something. Even Royce, suffering once more from seasickness, managed to climb to the top of the mainsail where he replaced the Ghazel banner with Mister Wesley’s hat.

They explained the events of the previous weeks to Grieg and Banner as well as Merrick’s plan and the need to reach Drumindor before the full moon. Each night they watched the moon rise larger on the face of the sea—the lunar god indifferent to their race against time. Fortune and the wind were with them. Wyatt captured every breath, granting them excellent speed. Royce spotted red sails off the port aft twice, but they remained on the horizon and each time vanished quietly in their wake.

Shorthanded, and with Royce seasick, Hadrian volunteered for mast work. Derning spent the days teaching him the ropes. He would never be very good at it. He was too big for such work, and yet he managed to grasp the basics. After a few days he was able to handle most of the maneuvers without instruction. At night, Poe cooked while Hadrian sat practicing knots and watching the stars.

Instead of hugging the coast up to Wesbaden, they took a risk and sailed due west off the tip of Calis directly across Dagastan Bay. The gamble almost proved to be a disaster as they ran into a terrible storm producing mountainous waves. Wyatt expertly guided the little sloop, riding the raging swells with half canvas set, never leaving the wheel. Seeing the helmsman’s rain-lashed face exposed in a flash of lightning, Hadrian seriously began to wonder if Wyatt had gone mad. By morning, the sky had cleared and they could all see Wesley’s hat still blowing in the wind.

The gamble paid off. Two days ahead of the harvest moon they rounded the Horn of Delgos and entered Terlando Bay.

As they approached the harbor, the Port Authority stopped them. They did not care for the style of the ship or the black sails—Wesley’s hat notwithstanding. Held directly under the terrifying smoking spouts of Drumindor, dock officers boarded and searched the vessel thoroughly before allowing them to pass below the bridge between the twin stone towers. Even then, they were given an escort to berth fifty-eight, slip twenty-two of the West Harbor. Being familiar with the city and the Port Authority, Wyatt volunteered to notify the officials of the impending invasion and warn them to search for signs of sabotage.

“I’m off mates,” Derning announced once they had the ship berthed. The topman had a small bundle over his shoulder.

“What about the ship and the stores?” Grieg asked. “We’ll want to sell it—you’ll get a share.”

“Keep it—I have business did nottend to.”

“But what if we can’t get…” Grieg gave up as Derning trotted away into the narrow streets. “That seemed a bit abrupt—man’s in a hurry to go somewhere.”

“Or just glad to be back in civilization,” Banner mentioned.

Tur Del Fur welcomed sailors like no other port. Brightly painted buildings with exuberant decorations received them to a city filled with music and mirth. Most of the shops and taverns butted up against the docks where loud signs fought for attention:
The Drunken Sailor—join the crew! Fresh beef & poultry! Pipes, Britches & Hats! Ladies of the Bay, (we wring the salt out!)

For recently paid sailors who may have been at sea for two or more years, they screamed paradise. The only oddity remained the size and shapes of the buildings. Whimsical western decorations could not completely hide the underlying history of this once dwarven city. Above every door and threshold was the sign:
“Watch your head.”

Seagulls cried overhead, crisscrossing a brilliant blue sky. Water lapped the sides of ships that creaked and moaned like living beasts stretching after a long run.

Hadrian stepped onto the dock alongside Royce. “Feels like you’re gonna fall over doesn’t it?”

“To answer your question from before…No, I don’t think we should be sailors. I’d be happy never to see a ship again.”

“At least you don’t have to worry about land sickness.”

“Still feels like the ground is pitching beneath me.”

The five of them bought fresh cooked fish from dock vendors and ate on the pier. They listened to the shanty tunes spilling out of the taverns and smelled the pungent fishy reek of the harbor. By the time Wyatt returned to the ship, he was red-faced angry.

“They are going through with the venting! They refused to listen to anything I said,” he shouted, trotting up the quay.

“What about the invasion?” Hadrian asked. “Didn’t you tell them about that?”

“They didn’t believe me! Even Livet Glim, the port controller—and we were once mates! I shared a bunk with him for two years and the bloody bastard refuses to—as he puts it—‘Turn the entire port on its ear because one person thinks there might be an attack.’ He says they haven’t heard anything from any other ships, and they won’t do a thing unless the armada is confirmed by other captains.”

“It will be too late by then.”

“I tried to tell them that, but they went on about how they
had
to regulate the pressure on the full moon. I went to every official in the city, but no one would listen. After a while I think they became suspicious that
I
was up to something and I stopped when they threatened to lock me up. I’m sorry.”

“Maybe if we all went?”

Wyatt shook his head. “It won’t do any good. Can you believe this? After all we’ve been through, we get here and it won’t change a single thing. Unless…” He looked directly at Hadrian.

“Unless what?” Poe asked.

Hadrian sighed and looked at Royce who nodded.

“What am I missing?” Poe asked.

“Drumindor was built by dwarves thousands of years ago,” Hadrian explained. “Those huge towers are packed with stone gears and hundreds of switches and levers. The Tur Del Fur Port Authority only knows what a handful of them actually does. They know how to vent the pressure and blow the spouts, and that’s about it.”

“We know how to shut it off,” Royce said.

“Shut it off?” Poe asked. “How do you shut off a volcano?”

“Not the volcano, the system,” Hadrian went on. “There’s a master switch that locks the whole gearing system. Once dropped, the fortress doesn’t build pressure anymore, the volcano just vents itself. It won’t be able to stop the invasion, but it won’t explode either.”

“How does that help?”

“If nothing else, it will prevent the instant destrucon of this city. When the black sails appear people might have time to evacuate, maybe even put up a defense. Once the system is shut down Royce and I can crawl through the portals to find out what Merrick did. If we can get it fixed in time, we can raise the master switch and barbeque an armada of very surprised goblins.”

“Can we help?” Banner asked.

“Not this time,” Hadrian told him. “Can you four handle this ship alone?”

Wyatt nodded. “It will be tough with no topmen but we’ll work something out.”

“Good, then you get out of here before the fleet comes in. You were a good assistant Poe, stick with Wyatt and you’ll be a captain one day. This one we have to do alone.”

Legend held that dwarves existed centuries before man walked the face of the world. Back in an age when they and the elves fought for supremacy of Elan, dwarves were a powerful and honorable nation governed by their own kings with their own laws and traditions. It was a golden age of great feats, wondrous achievements, and marvelous heroes. Then the elves won the war.

The strength of the dwarves was shattered forever and the emergence of men destroyed what remained. Although never enslaved like the remnants of the elves, men distrusted and shunned the sons of Drome. Fearful of a unified dwarven kingdom, humans forced the dwarves out of their homeland of Delgos into a shadowy existence of nomadic persecution. Despite their skills in crafts, humans scattered them whenever they gathered in groups too large for comfort. For their own survival, dwarves learned to hide. Those that could adopted human ways and attempted to fit in. Their culture obliterated by centuries of careful erasure, little survived of their former glory except what stone could tell. Few dwarves, and even less humans, possessed the imagination to recall a day when they ruled half the world—unless, like Royce and Hadrian, they were staring up at Drumindor.

The light of the setting sun bathed the granite rock, making it shine like silver. Sheer walls towered hundreds of feet, rising out of the bedrock of the burning mountain’s back. The twin towers stood joined by the thin line of what appeared from that distance to be a wafer thin bridge. The tops of the towers smoldered quietly, leaking thin plumes of dark smoke out of every vent, creating a thin gray cloud that hovered overhead. Up close the scope and mammoth size was breathtaking.

They had one night and the following day to accomplish the same magic trick they had performed eight years earlier. It was dark by the time they purchased the necessary supplies, slipped through the city of Tur Del Fur, and hiked up into the countryside, following goat paths into the foothills that eventually led to the base of the great fortress itself.

“Is this where it was?” Royce asked, stopping and studying the base of the tower.

“How should I know?” Hadrian replied as his eyes coursed up the length of the south tower. Up close, it blocked everything else out, a solid wall of black rising against the light of the moon. “I can never understand why such small people build such gigantic things.”

“Maybe they’re compensating,” Royce said, dropping several lengths of rope.

“Damn it, Royce. It’s been eight years since we did this. I was in better shape then. I was younger and, if I recall, I vowed I would never do it again.”

“That’s why you shouldn’t make vows. The moment you do, fate starts conspiring to shove them down your throat.”

Hadrian sighed, staring upward. “That’s one tall tower.”

“And if the dwarves were still here maintaining it, it would be impregnable. Lucky for us, they’ve let it rot. You should be happy—the last eight years will only have eroded it further. It should be easier.”

“It’s granite, Royce. Granite doesn’t erode much in eight years.”

Royce said nothing as he continued to lay oils of rope, checking the knots in the harnesses, and slipping on his hand-claws.

“Do you recall that I nearly fell last time?” Hadrian asked.

“So, don’t step there this time.”

“Do you remember what the nice lady in the jungle village told you? One light will go out?”

“We either climb this, or let the place blow. We let the place blow and Merrick wins. Merrick wins, he gets away and you never find Degan Gaunt.”

“I never thought you cared all that much if I ever found Gaunt.” Hadrian looked up at the tower again. “At least not
that
much.”

“Honestly? I don’t care at all. This whole quest of yours is stupid. So you find Gaunt—then what? You follow him around being his bodyguard for the rest of your life? What if he’s like Ballentyne? Wouldn’t that be fun? Granted, it will be exciting, as I’m sure anyone with a sword will want to kill him, but who cares? There’s no reward, no point to it. You feel guilt—I kinda get that. You ran out on your father and you can’t say you’re sorry anymore. So for that, you’ll spend your life following this guy around being his butler? You’re better than that.”

“I think there was a compliment in there somewhere—so thanks. But if you’re not doing this to help me find Gaunt, why are you?”

Royce paused and from a bag he drew out Wesley’s hat. He must have fetched it down before they left the ship. “He stuck his neck out for me three times. The last one got him killed. There’s no way this fortress is blowing up.”

Even in the dark, Royce found hand and footholds that Hadrian could never have spotted in the full light of day. Like a spider, he scaled the side of the tower until he came to the base of the first niche. There, he set his first anchor and dropped a rope to Hadrian. By the time Hadrian reached the foothold of that niche, Royce was already nailing in the next pin and sending down another coil. They continued this way, finding minute edges where several thousand years of erosion revealed the maker’s seams in the rock. Centuries-old crevices and cracks allowed Royce to climb what was once slick, smooth stone.

Two hours later, the trees below appeared like tiny bushes and the cold, wintry winds buffeted them like barn swallows. They were only a third of the way up.

“It’s time,” Royce shouted over the howl of the wind. He anchored a pin, tied a rope to it, and climbed back down.

Hadrian groaned. “I hate this part!”