Fate of Thorbardin

TWENTY-ONE

Crystal looked around in awe. She almost had to pinch herself to remember she was returning to the place that had been her home for most of her adult life. Beginning with the shattered ruin of the gatehouse, she had felt a growing apprehension. When she and Tarn had left Norbardin, the place had been a splendid tribute to her husband’s wisdom and foresight, a truly great city that had risen from the terrible wreckage of the Chaos War. Moving through the smoky and soot-stained halls of what had once been an immaculate barracks and into the streets, though, she felt horror and dismay.

She barely recognized a thing.

“This is terrible,” she whispered, half to herself and half to Slate Fireforge. “So much destruction … so much damage.”

“All from the civil war, do you think?” asked the Neidar commander.

“It must be,” she said, pointing to a row of houses, an entire block where the front walls had all been smashed inward. The dwellings revealed were empty, pathetic little cubicles, from which everything of value had long been removed; whatever remained was covered with a thick layer of dust. “That didn’t happen in the last fortnight, certainly.”

“No, it didn’t.” Slate pointed to a once-grand edifice, a broken structure rising at the end of the street they were on. It blocked their view of the central plaza, but from there they could see that the surrounding wall was shattered in many places, and the once-splendid building beyond the wall showed gaping holes in the roof. A crooked, shattered spire of a broken tower rising only a short distance beyond. “What was that?”

“That was Tarn’s-was our-palace,” she said in dismay. “It was a beautiful building, surrounded by ornate columns. That wall was high and straight, with a beautifully carved parapet surrounding it. We had colored banners hanging all along the rampart, with tall spires on the corners. There was a marketplace on each side of the palace, and the merchants thrived at all hours; there were always customers, of course. The palace gate was never closed, and people came and went with complete freedom.”

She drew a breath, trying to stem the emotions, the grief and sadness, that threatened to choke her voice. In a moment she went on, retrieving the happy memories.

“And the keep-it had a high roof, supported by flying buttresses. It had a slate roof, not because it needed one, but because it looked so beautiful. Now it looks like it was smashed by a meteor shower.”

The gaping hill dwarves continued to advance. They spotted a dwarf watching them from a niche in the broken wall. The fellow was wearing a bright red shirt, and he raised a crossbow as the front of the Neidar column drew close.

“Halt!” he ordered. “And name yourselves!”

“Or what?” Slate retorted belligerently. “You’ll fire your lone arrow at nearly two thousand dwarves?”

“If the alternative is surrendering this palace to the enemies of King Bellowgranite, then yes, I will!” the sentry replied boldly.

“Then there is no need to shoot,” Crystal said, stepping in front of Slate. “For I am the king’s wife, and I bring a force of hill dwarves to aid him in his campaign.”

“Hill dwarves? Here to help the king? Well, that’s different, then-and some good news indeed. Come forward.”

As the Neidar advanced, more than a hundred other dwarves, all wearing that distinctive red tunic, popped into view along the jagged top of the wall. Each wielded a heavy crossbow, and though the sentry held his at ease after Crystal spoke, it looked as if he would not have hesitated to let loose a lethal volley.

“Of course, I might have met you with more than a single arrow,” the archer said with a twinkle in his eye.

Another dwarf in red, older and bearing himself with immense dignity, stepped through the gap in the wall to meet them. He was unarmed, saved for a short sword, but he had the unmistakable air of a warrior, a commander, about him.

“I’m General Watchler,” he said, “of the Kayolin Army. Did you say you are here to assist the king’s cause?”

“Yes!” Crystal said, sensing the tension in the general’s question. “We see that the Tricolor Hammer did its job. But how fares the campaign against Willim the Black?”

“Poorly, up until now,” Watchler replied. “But you just might be the folks to turn the tide. Come here and let me show you what I mean.”

Gus was having a hard time keeping up, the hill dwarves were moving so quickly. He jogged along, chasing the last of the warriors, wishing he were up front close beside Crystal or Slate or someone who could stop and tell him what was going on. Maybe he really had toughened up, as Crystal had said, but climbing was hard. He didn’t really understand why they had climbed up the steep trail and filed along the high ledge next to the deep, steep-walled crevasse.

He had followed loyally, though, as the Neidar army moved through a large, battered room that smelled of smoke and soot and blood. He had gaped at a huge stone door that had been shattered as if by a giant fist. He even spotted many bodies, wearing black leather armor, of dwarves who had apparently been crushed under the weight of the collapsing doors. Many other shapes, black and weirdly twisted like some kind of strange carvings, intrigued him until he looked closer, and with a yelp of alarm, he jumped away.

“Those things bodies!” he exclaimed, wondering what kind of horrible thing had happened to those dwarves that would make them look like half-burned firewood.

Still, he kept pushing forward, ignoring the fatigue and the cramps in his legs and knees that made him really want to sit down for a spell. Instead, he tried to keep the hill dwarves in view, realizing that they were constantly getting ahead of him and his two female tagalongs-very far ahead of them.

Next they had proceeded down a long tunnel, a roadway that descended from the mountain gateway toward an unknown destination, with the little Aghar, his legs and lungs pumping, plunging after the main body. It wasn’t until the hill dwarves broke into a run and spilled out of the tunnel and Gus emerged after them into a wide cavern that he skidded to a stop and stared in surprise and wonder at the scene spread out before him.

It was the city! It was dotted with buildings, crossed with a regular network of streets. Some of the structures reached all the way to the ceiling, but enough of them were lower in height that he could see most of the way across the place. The roads were wide and straight, and one huge structure was in plain view; Gus recognized the former palace of King Jungor Stonespringer in the center of the city.

“Hey!” he cried in delight to no one in particular. “We got to Thorbardin! This big-time city! Called Norbardin!”

He watched the tail of the hill dwarf column as it vanished around a corner of the wide avenue before him. Looking over his shoulder, he spotted two tiny specks and decided it was a good time to sit and wait for his girls, who had fallen behind their hero and leader. Smugly he realized that he’d been able to outrun at least them!

There was a bench nearby, set up on a little balcony right where the road departed from the tunnel and entered the city proper. From there, a downward-sloping ramp provided a route to the city streets, but he didn’t feel the need to go down there, not just yet.

Instead, he settled himself there with a sigh of comfortable pleasure. The place was higher than most of the buildings, and as such, it offered an excellent view of the subterranean cavern. At one point, it had been an outdoor serving area for a traveler’s inn, though Gus noticed the door to the inn was spiked shut and, to judge from the dust over everything, the place hadn’t been open for business for quite some time. Gus didn’t mind, actually, since, from what he remembered of Thorbardin, if the inn had been open, either the proprietor or some of the customers would have, at the very least, picked up any gully dwarf who dared to sit down there and pitched him right back onto the street.

Or over the balcony, he reflected with a gulp, stepping up to the railing to see that the floor of the city proper was a very, very long way-at least two feet-below him. Certainly the fall was far enough to kill him, if he should be so careless as to stumble. He sat back down on the bench.

“Hey, you bluphsplunging doofar! Why you run away?” demanded Slooshy, finally catching him and coming to sit on one side of him.

A panting Berta came right behind and firmly sat on his other side. “Yeah! Berta wants come too!”

“You girls shut up now. Gus watching Thorbardin. Gus back home! You can stay, or you can go,” he added pointedly. “Gus not care.”

“Oh yeah? Well Berta not care neither! Berta goin’ back to Patharkas!”

Slooshy snorted. “Not too soon, Berta go back Patharkas! Go now!”

But Gus wasn’t listening. His eyes were drawn to a spectacular scene across the city. He saw billowing balls of flame and thick clouds of oily smoke rising into the air.

“Girls hush mouths!” he barked, his tone so unusually commanding that his two companions obeyed. “Look!” he said, pointing at the conflagration. “We watchin’ the war!”

The three Aghar stared, open mouthed, as the scene unfolded.

The Neidar troops had formed into two wings, and somehow Gus understood, even without knowing the plan, that half the hill dwarves were commanded by Slate Fireforge, the other half by Axel Carbondale. The troops flowed around the shattered edifice of the palace, which Gus recognized as the place where, fortuitously-long, long past it seemed-he had found the Redstone.

And speaking of “red,” he counted many soldiers wearing shirts of that same color and remembered that the red ones had come all the way from Kayolin. The two armies were fighting together, just like Crystal and Gretchan had wanted!

All his attention was on the Neidar as, with whoops of war that carried distantly, the two wings of the hill dwarf army broke into a charge and swept toward the gatehouse where the two fire-breathing machines were creating their oily, seething inferno.

The battle was on!

And the gully dwarves had perfect seats.

General Darkstone paced along the wide platform atop Norbardin’s main gatehouse. It was the same spot from which he had commanded Willim’s first attack against the city during the civil war, when his offensive was directed against Norbardin itself. His orientation of battle was reversed, centered around the two Firespitters, with his men directing their destruction into the tightly constricted tunnel of the Urkhan Road.

“More fire!” he ordered when the crew operating one of the war machines seemed to be slowing down. “Bury them in flames!”

“I’m trying, General!” replied the Theiwar who operated the controls. He was still trying to master the fine mechanical points of the Firespitter, though he had done a good job with the initial onslaught. “The furnace has gone out. It needs to be rekindled!”

“Well, hop to it, man!” roared the general. “I want to smell Tarn Bellowgranite’s beard toasting in the flames!”

“Aye, sir!” Theiwar frantically swarmed around the machine, some of them burning their hands on the hot metal as they tried to reload coal into the furnace dangling under the smoldering spout.

Darkstone watched in satisfaction as the second Firespitter, still operational, shot another plume of fire down the tunnel of the Urkhan Road. The enemy dwarves inside the tunnel had stopped screaming, for the time being, but he knew they were trapped-and, he hoped, doomed.

He still remembered the cold anger he’d felt upon finding his men burned to a crisp, incinerated by that cursed, unholy weapon. He had no regrets about using it upon its makers, though; in fact, it seemed a perfect fate for the fiends who had come up with the idea. And to think, the exiled king had been foolish enough to march his whole legion into Willim the Black’s trap!

He looked down at the mouth of the roadway, where frantic Theiwar still swarmed over the disabled Firespitter. Two were shoveling coal into the hungry furnace, though in their haste they were dropping more of the fuel onto the ground than into the hopper. Another was twisting a dial on the side of the boiler then screamed as a searing blast of steam erupted from a vent to catch him full in the face. He fell, writhing and moaning, clutching his blistered cheeks, but another dwarf bravely stepped in, manipulated the valve, and cut off the flow of steam.

“When are you gonna have that thing ready?” the general demanded, feeling a stab of satisfaction as the crew chief glanced at him in alarm. “Fix it or I’ll find someone else who can!”

He didn’t hear the panicked soldier’s reply. Someone else was running up the nearby stairs, calling for his attention. “General! We’re attacked from behind! Look!”

“What?” he roared, turning to confront the messenger. He didn’t need to ask for the alarm to be repeated, however, for the proof was plain to see in the vast plaza between the gatehouse and the shattered palace.

Two long lines of dwarves had appeared there, seemingly materializing out of nowhere. They were charging at a run, racing across the plaza, converging directly on the gatehouse and the Theiwar position.

“Who in blazes are they?” he asked incredulously as the messenger stopped before him and knelt.

“As incredible as it sounds, it would seem they’re hill dwarves, sir. At least, that was the best guess of our scout, who got a look at their leather capes and their faces.”

Darkstone hadn’t seen a hill dwarf in more than twenty years, but he remembered the leathery skin, the weathered faces and hands that distinguished those clans who chose to live on the surface, the result of being exposed to aboveground weather. It was not a difficult identification to make, for there was no weather in Thorbardin.

But how had hill dwarves come to be there?

In the next instant, he threw back his shoulders, reassessing the situation. Things were not good, but they were not automatically disastrous. It didn’t matter how the hill dwarves had come there; they were certainly there, and hostile, and that was all he needed to know.

“You men!” he roared to a group of companies preparing to charge down the Urkhan Road. “Turn around! We’re being attacked from behind!”

Immediately the Theiwar reversed the direction of their advance, streaming out of the gatehouse, hurrying to form a line in the face of the onrushing hill dwarves. Darkstone could see at once that they wouldn’t be enough to stem the tide; the attackers would sweep around both ends of their line, even if they managed to form up cohesively in time.

“Captain Bitters!” he roared, calling to the loyal officer who commanded his reserve, some five hundred well-rested, well-equipped Theiwar, all of them anxious for blood and vengeance. The reserve was only for emergencies, but they were in the midst of one, Darkstone decided.

Bitters, with his men, was waiting stolidly in the wide entry to the gatehouse. He looked up at his name, a grin spreading.

Darkstone pointed to the charging Neidar. “There’s your enemy! Make ’em pay!”

“Aye, General!” cried the captain. With a few choice curses and many a well-placed kick, he got his unit turned around and sent his men streaming out of the gatehouse. Barely a minute later, they smashed into the wave of hill dwarves, and the general looked down at thousands of dwarves battling furiously in the fight of their lives.

Would the reserve be enough to win the day? Only time would tell.

Brandon raced up the Urkhan Road, past long files of Kayolin dwarves who were waiting for orders, grimly resting along the sides of the avenue. There was no point in sending them forward, he knew; if the enemy shot the Firespitters down the tunnel, packing more troops near the gatehouse was only an invitation to slaughter.

His most urgent question-Why had the Tharkadan Legion followed the Kayolin dwarves onto the road? — could at last be addressed as he all but bumped into Tarn Bellowgranite, coming toward him barely a half mile down from the gatehouse.

“Sire!” Brandon gasped in astonishment. “What are you doing here?”

“I heard the Theiwar were down this road, that you’d been ambushed and suffered horrible losses!” the king declared defensively. “I moved the legion in here to support you!”

“You were tricked!” the Kayolin general snarled, forgetting in his fury any deference to his listener’s royalty. “It was a trap!”

“Well, I know that now!” Tarn snapped back. “But what are we going to do about it?”

“I’m trying to figure that out right now,” Brandon said, speaking through clenched teeth. “Sire, please. Wait here, and I’ll see what the situation is up there!”

He left the chagrined monarch at a sprint and quickly found Fister Morewood. The stalwart captain was nursing a badly burned arm; the limb was bleeding through the gauze wrapped around it. Fister looked to the side in shame as Brandon approached.

“I’m sorry, sir,” he began. “I thought the king-”

“I know,” Brandon cut him off. “But what’s happening?”

“The Theiwar came out of hiding in the city somewhere. They have seized the Firespitters and turned them against us. We lost a hundred men in the first attack and a hundred more when we tried to engage them. General, they have turned the whole road into a firestorm!”

Brandon grimaced. He could easily picture how the lethal weapons might control a narrow avenue such as the Urkhan Road; the enemy held the high ground after all and could pour the heavy, burning oil right down the throats of the trapped Dwarf Home Army. What could they do about it?

“The scouts, the men who climbed the ladders onto the burning balcony when we first stormed the gatehouse,” Brandon blurted, thinking aloud. “They were wearing armor that resisted the fire and masks. There were more than a hundred of them, weren’t there? Are they trapped in here with us?”

Fister’s face twisted in shame and grief. “Aye, General, they are. Only, half of them perished in the first counterattack. Their suits protect them if they move into a hot area, but they can’t withstand the direct force of a Firespitter’s attack.”

“All right. Still, they’re the best hope we have. Lead me to their captain.”

Five minutes later Brandon was speaking earnestly to a young Hylar, Dane Forestall. His unusual appearance was marked by very short hair, and a neatly trimmed beard-grooming that made perfect sense for one who might have to walk through fire.

“I have sixty men left, sir,” the captain said, meeting Brandon’s eyes. “Every one of us is willing to die for you and for the king. But what do you expect us to do?”

“First, you can give up one of those suits and a mask. I’d like to go with you,” Brandon declared.

He waved away the captain’s objections, and a few minutes later, after removing his metal breastplate and helmet, Brandon donned a bulky shirt of leather and a helm of the same material. There were gloves to match, though they were not exactly supple and, in fact, made his fingers resemble sausages. They just barely allowed him to grip his axe, but they would have to do. The mask, made of several layers of padded silk, he slid into place.

“All right,” he said to Dane Forestall, his voice muffled a bit by the thick mask. “You and your men follow me. We’re not going to charge right into the spout of the thing, but we’ve got to be ready to seize any chance.”

Impressed by the general’s courage and silent resolve, the men of Forestall’s company fell into line behind Brandon. They moved forward, closer to the massive, open gates leading into the city, and soon thick, choking smoke surrounded them. Too many bodies to count lay in grisly fashion along the floor; they were men of the Dwarf Home Army caught in the first lethal onslaught. The advancing warriors had to step around the charred, blackened corpses. Brandon’s only spot of hope was the fact that the smoke was so thick that, perhaps, the enemy wouldn’t see their approach until it was too late.

As they drew nearer to the wide portal, Brandon was puzzled to hear sounds of violent conflict. He heard a piercing scream, and the distinct clash of steel meeting steel. Peering ahead through the thinning murk, he saw the hulking, sinister bulk of the two Firespitters. Many dwarves swarmed around the bases of the machines, but through a gap in the smoke, he ascertained that neither crew chief’s seat was occupied.

That meant they had an opening, maybe only a few seconds of opportunity, before the Firespitters could be used again.

“Charge!” he barked, raising his axe, the weapon feeling strange and unwieldy through the heavy gloves.

The dwarves of Forestall’s company charged after him as Brandon rushed out of the gates. He homed in on a large, soot-stained Theiwar as the black-clad dwarf looked up in shock to see the Bluestone Axe plunging toward his forehead.

It was the last thing that dwarf would ever see.

Seconds later the Kayolin dwarves were swarming around the Firespitters.

Everywhere the Theiwar were beset by assailants, with sunburned troops clad in fur and leather shouting the name of Reorx as they chopped and slashed at the outnumbered defenders. The fresh recruits to the war seemed to be everywhere at once, killing and fighting with frenzied violence.

Hill dwarves!

There was no time to wonder how hill dwarves had come to be there. Brandon grabbed one of his own soldiers by the arm. “Go back down the road. Tell Fister Morewood to make haste in this direction with everyone who can still walk. Go!”

As the messenger sprinted back into the tunnel, Brandon led the charge up one stairway at the side of the great gate. Two Theiwar tried to block his path, and they both fell to a single, wild sideways slash of the Bluestone Axe. But the clumsy gloves almost caused him to drop the weapon, so he paused just long enough to pull them off. At the same time he tore the hood and mask away from his face and, thus unencumbered, sprang higher up the stairs.

From somewhere he heard crazed shouting, the battle cries of a soldier bent on killing and destruction. Dimly, he realized that the sounds were pouring out of his own mouth.

At the top of the gate, Brandon found a brace of guards protecting an officer, and he knew he had cornered the enemy commander.

“General Darkstone!” one of the guards shouted. “Get to safety, sir. We’ll handle this one!”

Those were his last words as the Bluestone Axe sliced a great gash sideways across his belly. Gore spilled from the wound as the Theiwar toppled. One of his comrades stepped up to meet the same fate.

“Ah,” said the dwarf called General Darkstone. He nodded, knowingly, at the potent axe in Brandon’s hands. “I believe you must be General Bluestone. It is fitting, is it not, that we should face each other?”

“It is fitting,” Brandon agreed. He felt a stirring of respect for the Daergar who faced him with dignity and pride. But that respect wouldn’t keep him from killing the dwarf if he had the chance.

He felt reasonably confident that Darkstone felt the same way.

The Daergar raised a sword, an ancient weapon with a silver blade and arcane scrollwork running up and down the metal. Like Brandon, he carried no shield. He settled into a fighter’s crouch and sidestepped to move away from the stairs as the Kayolin general moved onto the high platform.

They were the only two dwarves up there; the other guards had fled. The parapet blocked any view of the fight from those on the plaza or within the gates, but plenty of other dwarf warriors, those on the gatehouse walls or in the two battle towers rising to either side, could see the combatants. Those witnesses, often engaged in their own desperate skirmishes, gradually put up their weapons; hill dwarves and Theiwar came to a gradual halt and stood side by side, watching the duel.

Brandon struck first, swinging the axe in roundhouse fashion from the right, the left, and the right again, advancing carefully with each attack. Darkstone fell back but grudgingly, moving just enough to stay beyond his opponent’s reach. Suddenly, after Brandon’s fourth swing, the Daergar struck back, stabbing with lightning quickness. Twisting his axe, the Kayolin dwarf parried the blow with the handle of his weapon. Then it was his turn to give ground, backing away from a series of stabs and chops, each one coming fast.

When he had retreated almost to the top of the stairs, he paused, flexed his knees, and charged again, wielding the axe with short, controlled chops. Darkstone didn’t retreat, and for ten seconds, the two commanders met in a furious clash of steel. The Bluestone Axe slammed against the Daergar’s blade, but that was no mortal weapon; it withstood the blow. Brandon’s weapon stung in his hands. Darkstone met the same result, a slashing blow ringing off the flat of the axe blade, sending him stumbling backward.

For a moment each dwarf paused, breathing hard, trying to catch his wind. Brandon used the back of his bare hand to wipe the sweat from his eyes while Darkstone pinched the bridge of his nose, shaking his head as if to clear it. Then they were at it again, swinging overhand, chopping and stabbing, dancing away from each other, then charging in with a succession of aggressive blows.

Brandon’s hands stung, and sweat once more streamed into his eyes. He danced away to the side, feinting to the right then hopping to the left and coming in with another series of hacking blows. Darkstone pivoted, desperately blocking those attacks and circling away so he was the one with his back to the stairs. He lunged, sword point extended, his lead foot stomping heavily; then he repeated the attack, forcing Brandon backward with each thrust.

The Kayolin dwarf sensed the parapet’s nearness, and he once again slipped to the side. But he’d miscalculated, misjudging the whereabouts of one of the dead guards, the man he’d cut down on his first charge. His foot slipped in the man’s blood, and there was an audible gasp from the watching dwarves as Brandon fell heavily onto his back.

Darkstone wasted no time in capitalizing on the error, leaping forward and driving his sword down, its keen tip plunging toward Brandon’s chest. But the prone dwarf rolled away with a speed he didn’t know he possessed, and the metal tip of Darkstone’s sword clanged loudly off the flagstone platform.

His axe was badly out of position, but his feet weren’t. Brandon made a sweeping, sideways kick and knocked his foe’s legs out from under him. Darkstone went down with a thud as Brandon swiveled into a sitting position, holding his axe in both hands. He brought the weapon over his head while the Daergar tried to parry.

But the Daergar commander misjudged the moment, and the Bluestone Axe came sweeping down, biting through flesh and bone. Darkstone grunted, dropping the sword from a nerveless hand, a hand that dangled by less than half of a wrist.

Brandon pulled his weapon free and sprang to his feet. His opponent, moving more slowly, hissing from the pain of his deep wound, also managed to stand. But the Daergar no longer had a weapon.

“Surrender, and you will live,” Brandon declared, holding his axe at the ready.

Instead, Darkstone edged away until he was trapped at the edge of the parapet. There the Daergar leaped to the top of the rampart wall. He was fifty feet above the floor.

Then General Darkstone smiled, almost sadly, before offering Brandon a salute with his grisly, half-severed hand and toppling backward off the edge.