“Me? Afraid?” The stone of the battlements crumbled to powder beneath Corgar’s tightening fingers. “These braggart insults become you little, mortal. Especially when you are incapable of backing them with your own strength. Do you intend to pit me against your Rudioban comrade? Did you bring an immortal to do your work for you?”
The small man shook his head and took a step forward. Corgar drew back like a threatened dog, crouching a little behind the ramparts. He snarled at this, aware of the gazes of the other goblins upon him, and drew himself to his full height again. He wanted to hurl broken stones at the head of that mortal but dared not forget himself so blindly.
“I need no friends to do the work that has been purposed for me,” said the Chronicler, and his voice was clear and deep. “Step down from those high walls, Corgar, and face me. Fight me in single combat, and he who carries the day will be Master of Gaheris.”
He should laugh. Corgar, feeling his servants watching him, knew he should laugh in the face of such a foolish proposition. He should laugh and accept the challenge, then pound this mortal nothing into dust. He should break him and enchain him as he had done with all the powerful warriors of Gaheris, and when the little man’s shame was absolute, he should tear off his head.
They were waiting. All his warriors who looked to him as they might look to their king. They waited for that mocking laugh they knew must come.
Somehow Corgar could not find the breath for it. Instead, he growled, “So be it, mortal. If you are so eager to venture into Death’s realm.”
“Oh no,” said the Chronicler softly so that the goblin could not hear. “I’ve seen Death’s realm, and I have no intention of returning.”
Corgar disappeared from the wall above. In the moments before the gate opened, Leta moved forward and placed a hand on the Chronicler’s shoulder. He felt it there but did not turn to her. His face set into such lines that anyone who looked upon him would have seen the lineage of earls from which he was sprung—earls and fighting men and masters of great lands. Yet his body was still that of a dwarf, and he looked no more than a child when he stepped toward the gates to meet the monster emerging from within. Corgar’s hand could have crushed his whole head without apparent strain.
Yet it was the goblin who trembled as he took the field beyond Gaheris’s walls. In one hand he bore his knife, still stained with the blood of the goblin guard he’d slashed. In his other, he carried a club fixed with spikes after the fashion of goblin-kind. He wore no armor, for what was the need? His hide could break the blade of any mortal weapon set against him. Indeed, most immortal weapons as well.
“All right, small man,” he snarled as he approached. His gaze flickered momentarily to Leta standing beyond, but he did not allow it to linger there. Time enough for such dealings when the pest was duly squashed. “I hereby lay claim to the mastery of this land once and for all.”
The Chronicler drew his sword.
Corgar saw it and knew it, and he breathed out a curse. “Halisa!”
2
IT WAS THE SWORD OF PROPHECY and of power. It was the sword that slew dragons and drove darkness before it like dawn chasing the night. It was far too big a weapon for the Smallman’s hands, yet he grasped it and held it high and was made stronger for bearing it.
“Fight me, Corgar!” he cried and approached the goblin with the assured pace of a lion. He was not the rejected son he had always been; he was the Netherworld walker, liberator of nations, final death of the Flame at Night.
He was weaker than any man in Gaheris. Yet, bearing Halisa, he was mightier by far.
Corgar roared and charged, his club upraised, his knife swinging like the lash of a whip. Just as the mortal weapons had broken against his skin, now his goblin weapons shattered as they connected with the bright blade of Etanun’s gift. Stone shards strewed the ground around the Smallman’s feet, and Corgar stood weaponless before him.
His future flashed before his eyes. He saw his queen upon her ugly throne, saw her face as he told her of his failure. He saw the darkness of underground caverns, where goblin eyes might be shielded from the sun, where beauty was a lost dream.
His awful eyes lifted beyond the sword and the Smallman to the girl, the girl he had intended to kill if necessary, standing with stern face, her shoulders back. And she met his gaze and did not flinch, for she was no longer afraid of him.
He heard himself asking her, “Was I meant to be more?”
With a howl that would rattle stones from mountains, he hurled himself at the Smallman. He felt the sword bite into his left arm, but his right shot out and grabbed the mortal by the shoulder and lifted him from his feet. Still there was no terror in that frail, dust-bound face, only ferocity and faith rolled into one. Halisa swung and Corgar screamed as it sliced through his right arm, through bone and all, freeing the Smallman from his grip.