"Don't be alarmed," Despaxas said softly. "The man isn't of the empire. I would guess he is one of those nomads from the lakeshore camp."

"Well, what's he doing there, with Derkin?"

"Arguing, apparently," the elf said.

Calan snorted. "Two cabins full of sleeping enemies and a mine shaft full of goblins to take care of, and he dawdles with women and takes time out for debate with a passing nomad? What does he think he's doing?"

"I don't know," Despaxas said. "But remember, you're the one who told our chosen 'leader of dwarven forces' to do things his own way."

The Leader

"No, I won't tell you about our mission," Tuft Broadland said for the third time, ignoring Derkin's ferocious frown. "Pass the bread, please."

Derkin broke a piece from the dark loaf on the table and handed the rest across. "You won't tell me what you and your friends are doing in these mountains, but still you expect me to let you wander around loose? You expect me to trust you?"

"After all," the man said, "I did save your life out there a while ago. That last guard would have killed you."

"He wouldn't have known I was there if it hadn't been for you crashing through the brush behind me," Derkin rumbled. "You're about as stealthy as a blind buffalo."

"I tripped," Tuft protested. "I'm not used to tilted places. Where I'm from the ground is flat, as the gods intended ground to be. But be that as it may, that last guard would have skewered you like a sausage on a stick if I hadn't put an arrow through his gullet." He glanced around, and said, "Leave the bow and arrows alone, ladies. They're mine. Help yourselves to the rest, though."

All around them dwarven women were tying up their skirts, braiding their hair, choosing weapons from the pile the man had brought in, and generally getting ready to do battle. A clatter erupted as someone dropped a sword on the hard floor, and Tuft Broadland jumped to his feet, narrowly missing banging his still sore head on a low rafter.

"Quiet, please!" he ordered. "Remember, there are still a lot of empiremen out there. If they wake up too soon, we'll have a problem." Tuft picked up the dropped sword, reversed it, and handed it to a scowling female. "Here, let me show you how to hold this," he offered.

At the table, Derkin finished his bread and washed it down with tepid water. Then he noticed that the pretty one, Helta somebody, was staring at him thoughtfully. As he met her eyes, she shook her head and shrugged. "You certainly don't look much like I expected," she explained.

"You expected me?"

"Well, not exactly," she admitted. "But I've been hoping that someone would come along and rescue us. Only, I had a somewhat different picture of who it would be. I expected someone handsome and charming and elegant, all dressed in shining armor and… and… well, what I mean is, you're kind of a mess. And if you have a charming side, I haven't noticed it yet."

With a growl, Derkin shoved himself away from the table and strode across to peer out through the broken shutters of a window. "Those two cabins out there," he said. "I saw men go into them. Are they all in there?"

"All but the six night guards," Helta said, crowding against him to point. "Those are the only two cabins with wood floors. I guess humans like wooden floors. The guardsmen sleep in that farther one-the largest-and the mine overseers sleep in the nearer one. What are we going to do about them?"

"Kill them," he said distractedly. "Be quiet. I'm trying to think." He rubbed his bearded chin, his brow wrinkling. "Be a lot easier if they were all in the same cabin."

"Well, they're not," Helta said. "They always use those two____________________"

"I said, be quiet," he growled. Then, to himself, he said, "Twelve more armed guards, and a dozen slavers. And not a thing to work with but a handful of women."

"And a Cobar warrior," Tuft Broadland proudly reminded him, wandering past. The man was busily instructing dwarf women in the use of swords, spears, and daggers.

"And a blasted human," Derkin corrected himself. "We could charge the door, I guess, at one cabin. But two?"

A hand tapped his shoulder, and he looked around. It was the gray-haired woman, Nadeen. "She said to tell you to look in the shed," she told him. "She says you might find something useful there."

"She? Who?"

"Helta," Nadeen said. "She asked me to tell you that."

'The shed," he muttered. "All right, I'll look. Whaf s in it?"

"She knows," Nadeen said. "She's been in there."

He glanced past her. A few feet away, Helta stood, pointedly looking in another direction. "Why didn't she tell me herself?" Derkin asked.

"You told her to shut up," Nadeen explained. "I think you hurt her feelings."

Derkin stepped past the woman. "Show me the shed," he said. Helta ignored him. "Oh, rust!" he muttered, then,

Che Sroordsheatb Scroll

"I'm sorry I snapped at you. Please?"

"All right." She turned. "In the future, I'll just ignore your bad manners. Come on."

As the second moon added its light to the first, brightening the glade high on the slopes, Calan Silvertoe asked Despaxas, "What's he doing now? Can you see?"

"I can see," the elf said. "He has all the females out in the compound, unrolling metal cable. They're winding it around one of the buildings."

"What?" Calan snapped, leaning to peer into the milky bowl before he recalled that only the elf could see things in it. "Why are they doing that?"

"I haven't the vaguest idea," Despaxas said.

Both moons were high when the women of Tharkas Camp finished wrapping the guards' cabin. Silently and grimly, with Derkin directing the work by whisper and gesture, they had carried rolls of steel cable from the shed, straightened and spliced them, and wound the resulting length around and around the cabin. Planking covered the single door and the two windows, and the entire building now was wrapped with cable. Derkin completed the task, tightening and securing the lashing with a hand-winch. Then he stepped back, surveyed the result, and nodded. "Well, nobody is coming out of there," he muttered. He glanced at the smaller cabin nearby, wishing he could treat it the same way. But there was no more cable.

"All right," he told the women quietly. "Go get those jugs now, and bring torches."

They were back in moments, carrying a half dozen large clay vessels, a bundle of wrapped torches, and a shielded fire pot from the kitchen. Derkin pulled the cork from one jug and sniffed it. It was good dwarven lamp oil, probably looted by the humans from some Neidar village. With the women following him, he worked his way around the sealed cabin, emptying jug after jug of the oil, soaking the walls. The dry timbers absorbed the oil thirstily. With one jug left, Derkin backed away and turned. "Light the torches," he said. "If s wake-up time."

As torches flared alight, he raised the last jug of lamp oil and threw it high. The vessel landed on the cabin's sturdy roof and shattered, oil streaming from it. From inside the cabin, they heard the sounds of voices, then thumps and shouts as the awakening guards began to realize that they were trapped.

Derkin picked up a torch, but Helta was ahead of him. "Let me," she said. "I've dreamed about this." With fire-glow radiating her pretty face and glinting in fierce, happy eyes, the dwarf girl trotted around the secured building, igniting the soaked walls.

Derkin snapped his fingers, and Nadeen handed him an axe. He turned toward the human, Tuft Broadland, who had been standing back, watching. Tuft's craggy face was somber, his eyes wide with awe. "Gods," he whispered as the flames along the cabin walls spread, becoming a single, rising blaze.