Fate of Thorbardin

TWENTY

The teleportation magic, as always, left Gretchan feeling dizzy and disoriented. She grabbed hold of the bars of the cage to steady herself and blinked and looked around. Feeling sick, she braced herself and breathed deeply until the unrest in her seething stomach slowly settled.

As soon as she had her wits about her, she looked around more widely, seeking any information she could detect through her senses. Her first impression was one of vast, immense space and absolute darkness. She wondered, momentarily, if the wizard might have brought her to some vague and empty place, such as the Abyss or a plane of nothingness in some ambiguous location between the physical worlds of the universe.

Then she heard the scuff of a footstep on what sounded like loose rocks. Gravel skittered away, and her own feet, through the bottom bars of the cage, discerned an irregular but solid surface. Finally, as her eyes began to adjust to darkness even more extreme than that in the wizard’s lair, she was able to see that Willim was nearby, right next to the cage, and that Facet was not much farther away, just a little beyond the wizard and apparently standing on a lower surface. The younger female held the case of potions she had packed before departing the lair.

Gretchan’s cherished possession, the Staff of Reorx, was still held in the wizard’s two hands. The light on the anvil had been totally extinguished, but she could see the shape of the long pole as he stood still studying something … what? It was impossible to know, with his eyeless face, but she had the keen impression that he was inspecting their surroundings very carefully.

As she looked around, Gretchan realized she must be on some kind of hilltop. The ground below her was rough and rocky and sloped away in all directions, as if her cage had been placed right on the summit of a cone-shaped elevation. A glance overhead convinced her that she was still underground, however; there was no hint of a sky, not even the diffuse glow that starlight inevitably cast through even the heaviest haze of clouds.

Like all dwarves, she had keen vision in almost total darkness, and as she strained to see some kind of ceiling overhead, she began to discern a rocky vault far, far above her. She sniffed, tasting and smelling the air, seeking more clues, and gradually she became aware of a cold humidity. There must be a lot of water there or very nearby for the air to feel so moist. Could it be that the liquid nearly filled the whole, vast cavern?

The Urkhan Sea!

That would explain the vastness of the chamber, the moisture in the air, and the high ceiling. But how could she be on a hilltop or high peak? The sea was surrounded by sheer cliffs, and by the ruins of the great cities of Thorbardin. Those cities had been abandoned since the damage inflicted, primarily by fire dragons, during the Chaos War. But those cities had been built upon cliffs, their open faces, toward the lake, rising in a series of terraces and steps. They were not rugged hills.

Only then did she remember Willim’s words as he had appeared in the lair and snatched her away.

“What is the Isle of the Dead?” she asked, the sound of her voice hollow and loud in the wide space. As if to confirm the vastness of the cavern, she didn’t even hear the faintest of echoes following her words.

“Ah, you were paying attention,” the wizard said as if praising a wise student. “Surely a well-read woman such as yourself knows of the Life-Tree of the Hylar?”

He placed her staff on the ground, well away from her reach, and as he turned back to her, she noticed that the anvil on the head of the artifact once again began to glow, faint and pale but still visible to the priestess in the vault of darkness.

“Of course I do. It was the most splendid city in all the realms of the dwarves, more magnificent than Garnet Thax or any place else in Thorbardin or even in the most ancient of dwarf homes. It was carved from a pillar of stone that rose from the middle of the Urkhan Sea and extended more than a hundred levels from the water all the way up to the ceiling of the cavern.”

“Correct. And have your studies informed you of what happened to the Life-Tree?”

“Yes, my mother told me. It collapsed during the Chaos War, crumbled away into the water because it was so weakened by the fire dragons who bored right through the supporting structures of the bedrock.”

“Yes, indeed. It collapsed. But it didn’t vanish into the water. Instead, the base of the pillar became an island-an island of barren stone.”

“An island of death …” Gretchan concluded.

“Well, yes. For a while, anyway. For years after the war, pieces of rock were continually breaking off from the ceiling and falling down onto this place. It was merely a matter of odds that made it almost certainly fatal to anyone who tried to spend more than a day or two here. Hence its name. But in the more recent years, the last of the loose rocks seemed to have fallen. So we’re really quite … well, mostly safe out here.”

“Why did you bring me here?” she challenged him, seeing his scarred face more clearly as he strutted just beyond the bars. “What are you going to do with me?”

“With you?” Willim’s voice was an evil chuckle. “Perhaps I want to do something to you. You’re a very attractive female, after all. And I’m a male, normal in some respects at least. I have needs and you have the means of satisfying them.”

Gretchan felt a growing sickness in the pit of her stomach. She glanced at Facet’s pale face, her red lips clenched in anger as she stood behind and below the wizard. Her eyes shot daggers at Gretchan, while the cleric wondered if there weren’t some way she could turn the apprentice’s jealousy to her advantage.

As if sensing the young female’s attention, Willim turned and addressed her curtly. “Take the case of potions into the space below, and store it for me.”

“Yes, Master,” Facet said softly. She turned to obey but still flashed Gretchan a look of fierce resentment that made the cleric all the more determined to try to exploit such a weakness in one of her captors.

Her musings on that track were interrupted by another arrival as Sadie materialized nearby. She held a sack, presumably the bag of holding with the wizard’s spellbooks and scrolls, in one hand, and she clutched something to her frail chest with the other. When she moved to set it down, Gretchan-and Willim-recognized it as the bell jar containing the lone blue spark of light.

“I did not give you permission to bring that,” the wizard said coldly.

“I didn’t ask,” Sadie replied, meeting his eyeless face with an impassive gaze. “But I sensed that we are departing the lair, perhaps for good. I was not about to leave Peat behind.”

The wizard snorted but didn’t argue. Finally, he uttered a short, cold laugh. “Very well. It’s not like you have the power to change him back to his true form; only I can do that. Really, it’s good that you brought him here. It simply guarantees that my power over you will remain secure.”

Facet returned to the hilltop without the case. She did, however, carry a glass of red wine in her hand. Apparently tired of being left out of the conversation, she stepped forward and kneeled at the wizard’s feet. “Your power over me remains absolute, Master,” she offered. “Make your wishes known, and I shall obey.”

“This I know, my pet,” Willim said absently, stepping around her to regard Sadie with his eyeless face.

“Would you like me to give you a drink?’ she asked, offering the glass she held in both hands.

“Not now,” Willim declared, lost in thought.

“Do you want me to kill the priestess?” Facet asked suddenly. “I failed you once at that task, but I would not fail again.”

“No, of course you wouldn’t,” the wizard snapped. “Not when I have imprisoned her in a cage and stolen her most precious possession and most powerful weapon. But I do not want her slain, not yet. You see, I have a use for her. It pleases me to keep her alive.”

“What use?” Gretchan demanded, realizing that Facet had asked the same question at the same time.

Willim seemed to find the echoing duet amusing, for he threw back his head and laughed aloud.

“Very well,” he said. “I’ll answer your questions.” He planted his fists on his hips, and turned his scarred, stitched visage toward Gretchan. “You, my dear priestess, are here to serve as bait. And this”-he nudged the Staff of Reorx with his toe-“might just be the weapon that can bring about the end of our world.”

The plaza of Norbardin was, if not crowded, at least populated with some evidence of commerce and celebration. A few vendors had taken advantage of Tarn’s return to bring out their carts and set up stalls-acts that would have been risky under the lawless regime of Willim the Black since his leather-clad enforcers had a habit of plundering food and drink and other goods from honest merchants without feeling any obligation to pay for the same.

More than a few paying customers had emerged from the shattered city’s silent quarters, gathering around the stalls, especially those selling food and drink, and discussing the stunning changes wrought in the city, and the kingdom, over the past few days. They had watched in awe as the Firespitter had spewed liquid hell into the gatehouse, and they had cheered as the Kayolin dwarves had stormed the ramparts and finally opened the great gates.

Then they had remained there, congregating in a festive mood as the Kayolin, and later Tharkadan, troops had vanished down the long tunnel of the Urkhan Road.

The impromptu gatherings were rudely shattered as General Darkstone’s four columns burst from four different streets with perfect coordination. They ignored the ruined edifice of the royal palace, where some of the invading troops had set up stations, and raced right across the plaza, where the panicked citizenry immediately scattered toward the streets and buildings around the plaza’s fringe.

The attackers moved with focus and speed, heading for the most important objective in all Thorbardin: the two Firespitters, currently being cleaned and reloaded just outside the gates of the roadway to the Urkhan Sea.

Chap Bitters was the first to reach one of the machines, which was defended by only a company of light infantry and its regular crew. The chief of that crew leaped down from his seat and pulled out a long sword, but the Theiwar captain stabbed him through the heart in the first instant of contact. The rest of Bitters’s men swarmed around the base of the massive iron contraption. The crew tried to put up a spirited fight, but they had been taken by surprise and, thoroughly outnumbered, had no hope of resisting the attack.

Darkstone himself followed the column that attacked the second Firespitter. That one was farther away, and thus, its crew had a little more warning of the attack. A few brave dwarves started to move the huge machine into a pivot, trying vainly to bring it around to face the charging Theiwar, but it quickly became apparent that the thing was too ungainly for rapid redeployment. Witnessing the fate of the Kayolin dwarves who tried to defend the first Firespitter, the crew of the second then wisely abandoned the machine and sprinted through the gates leading toward the Urkhan Road.

A third column of Theiwar moved to screen off the palace, where a few dozen occupying troops, men wearing bright red shirts, had started to sortie from the gates. Faced by five hundred angry, steady veterans, those dwarves quickly fell back to the relative safety of the palace, piling benches, blocks of stone, and other obstacles in the gaping gateway.

“D’ye want us to clean out the rats in the palace?” one of his captains asked General Darkstone.

The Daergar commander shook his head. “No, I want to keep our force concentrated. See if you can find me a prisoner-I want to find out what the enemy’s up to.”

As the captain hurried to comply, Darkstone handed out assignments to other Theiwar, those who had experience with things such as smithing, steam fitting, and other trades; they were asked to study the Firespitters, to determine if they thought they could operate the lethal war machines. He made it very clear that he didn’t expect them to respond in the negative.

Soon, one bleeding Hylar, his right arm half amputated by the blow of sword, was dragged up to Darkstone and roughly tossed to the ground before the general.

“Where is Tarn Bellowgranite?” demanded the Daergar commander.

In response, the prisoner spit a gob that narrowly missed Darkstone’s boot.

“Cut off his other arm!” barked the general, reaching down to brutally twist the wounded limb. His words and actions brought a scream from the stricken dwarf, and the fellow flopped onto his back, his face breaking out in a sheen of sweat.

“No!” cried the prisoner. “I’ll tell you!”

“I thought you might,” Darkstone acknowledged coldly. “Now speak quickly.”

“He took his legion to the lake, down the Urkhan Road,” the wounded Hylar explained in a burst. “A messenger came from the Kayolin dwarves-told him that there was a Theiwar garrison down there. They were said to be ambushing the Kayolins, and the king hurried to their assistance!”

“How amusing,” Darkstone said, pleased with the news. “And what of the other roads?”

He knew that the East Road and West Road were two other tunnels, not so wide as the Urkhan Road there at the main gate, but parallel routes that connected the city to the lakeshore. He had sent units up all three roads when attacking the city some months earlier, as commander of Willim’s forces during the civil war against Jungor Stonespringer.

“They haven’t been explored, sir. Not that I’ve heard anyway.”

“And the main body. The rest of those Kayolin scum? Where did they go?”

“They also marched down the Urkhan Road,” the prisoner reported, looking helplessly around at his captors. “Brandon Bluestone is leading them against the Theiwar he heard were down there.”

“Perfect!” Darkstone declared with a bark of laughter. Willim the Black’s trap could not have worked better.

“Please, lord,” said the prisoner, gasping in pain, swaying on his knees from the lack of blood. “Can you not find some treatment for my wound in return for the information I have provided?”

“Oh, you’ve earned a reward, all right,” the general said contemptuously. He looked at the Theiwar swordsman standing behind the kneeling prisoner. “See that he doesn’t feel any more pain,” he ordered.

Darkstone turned to inspect his two iron-bellied prizes and was so entranced with their amazing potential that he didn’t even hear the dwarf’s head bounce off the stone floor.

“That’s the gate to Thorbardin!” Crystal Heathstone declared. “But it didn’t look like this when we left!”

The hill dwarves, after a forced march of several days, had come up to the valley at the foot of Cloudseeker Peak. The column had swelled to some fifteen hundred warriors, all of them eager to have a crack at the land of their ancient mountain dwarf foes. Crystal, who had spent much of her life living in the undermountain kingdom, had led them on the shortest route to the gate. But as she gazed upward at the face of the mountain, she didn’t even recognize the place.

A jagged crack scored its way down the mountainside, at least five hundred feet from top to bottom. The trail leading up to the gate still twisted along the lower slope of the peak then vanished into the shadow of the massive gap. From below, they couldn’t see where the trail led, but they were hopeful that it would provide access; after all, they were passing through the debris of a large army camp, and there was no sign of Tarn Bellowgranite’s force. They had to have gone somewhere!

“Let’s go, then. This looks like the front door, or the back door, to Thorbardin,” Slate declared.

“Yep!” Gus proclaimed loudly. “Let’s go! Up to Thorbardin, fight wizard’s dwarves!”

Crystal knelt and addressed the gully dwarf directly. “You’re coming in there with us, Gus; you know you are. And we all know that you’re very brave. But right now I’d like you to march at the back of our army until I’m sure what lies ahead. You can see how narrow the trail is, and well, we wouldn’t want to take a chance on something happening to you.”

“But-!”

“I’m afraid I must insist,” Crystal said with a hitherto unnoticed-by Gus, at least-sternness.

Sulking, the Aghar and his two girlfriends slumped at the side of the road, watching the Neidar warriors push past. Slate Fireforge wasted no time in starting up the trail, leading the long column that was forced to narrow and squeeze along the precipitous pathway. Crystal followed close behind him, and the rest of the hill dwarves came after.

Marching two by two, the Neidar advanced up the steep trail, crossing back and forth on the switchbacks, the formation creeping like a long snake until the leaders reached the gap in the mountainside. Even from below, Gus perceived that the roadway continued into the cliff, as if the force that had smashed open the mountain had been controlled by some power that had made certain the blast would create a passage into Thorbardin.

So they entered the mountain kingdom and pressed on through the obvious detritus of battle and war. And the three gully dwarves, panting and puffing from the steep climb, hurried along behind.

Brandon stood at the edge of the water. The Urkhan Road ended at a broad wharf with a series of docks where long, metal-hulled boats could be berthed. There were many boats there, his men had reported, but every one of them had been holed, and they all rested on the bottom of the shallow lake.

“Can they be repaired?” he asked.

“Aye, General,” replied a captain of one of the scout companies, the dwarf whose men had been the first on the scene. “But it’ll take a smithy with some metal plate and a good forge. And it’ll take time. Do you want me to get started on that chore?”

“Make some preparations,” he said absently. He didn’t know that he needed boats, but considering that it was the end of the road for the Kayolin Army’s advance, he wanted to be ready for the possibility.

All around him, troops of the entire Kayolin force, including both legions, stood at the edge of the water or lined the sides of the long, wide Urkhan Road. Looking around glumly at their fallen faces, Brandon was forced to accept the inescapable conclusion that he had been duped by the prisoners he and his men had interrogated.

At least half a dozen captured Theiwar had sworn that Willim the Black and his army had come down that road and intended to make a last stand before the lake. Yet his scouts had searched thoroughly as they advanced, and there was no sign of even a small company of Willim’s troops, much less the bulk of his army. The prisoners had been lying.

“We’ve come on a wild goose chase,” he admitted to Otaxx Shortbeard, who had been detached from service to the king in order to help Brandon seek his daughter. “I didn’t really expect to find Willim or Gretchan here, but I can’t believe there’s nothing! No point to it at all.”

“There must have been a point, though,” the old campaigner suggested grimly. “Even if the purpose is not our own, we were sent here because someone wanted us here.”

“Just to waste our time?” he wondered aloud. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Otaxx agreed.

Fister Morewood, looking perplexed, came up to join them at the water’s edge. “Not a damned sign of a Theiwar anywhere along this road,” he reported. “Anything down here?”

“Not a bit,” Brandon replied. “Where do we go from here?”

“I’m thinking we’d better get out of this road, this tunnel, before we get some unpleasant information,” Morewood suggested.

“You’re right,” Brandon agreed. “Can you start the legions marching back to the plaza? I’ll be along shortly. I want to study this lakeshore a little more.”

“Sure thing,” the legion commander agreed. “Just don’t dawdle.”

The Kayolin dwarf turned and started up the road, a grade that climbed gently away from the water. “All right, you lazy lugs!” he barked to the hundreds of Kayolin dwarves waiting within earshot. “Strap on your helmets and put down your flasks! We’re marching back to the city. Now move out!”

Brandon couldn’t help but smile at the good-natured grumbling of the weary soldiers who, nonetheless, began to follow orders and start back up the four-mile-long road they had just marched down.

But his good humor quickly vanished as he remembered Gretchan’s predicament and considered the fact that he might have brought his men on a wasted mission.

Or was it a trap? He didn’t see how it could be. Sure, the men on the road were vulnerable to attack from the city, but the Tharkadan Legion held the gatehouse and was maintaining a garrison in the square. No army could reach the Kayolin troops, not so long as Tarn Bellowgranite and his legion were posted astride that key route.

Otaxx seemed to be deeply troubled by his own thoughts. He kept looking out over the water, as if the mystery might be solved by something floating on the Urkhan Sea.

“I’m going to head back up to the city,” Brandon said to the old campaigner. “But I’d like you to stay down here and keep an eye on things. Would you do that?”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Shortbeard agreed. “Although this whole place smells like a gully dwarf latrine.”

“I’ll leave a company of scouts here as well. I’m going to ask some of these men to try and set up a smithy, see if they can start repairs on the boats. Can you supervise them?”

“Sure. Good luck to you, and I’ll let you know if there’s anything amiss.”

“Thanks.”

Still Brandon didn’t leave, not just yet. Instead, he found himself staring out over the water. Somewhere out there, he knew, was the rocky pile called the Isle of the Dead-once the site of the greatest city in all dwarvendom. He tried to spot it, but the lake was too big, the darkness too intense, for his vision to penetrate that far. Remembering tales of the Urkhan Sea as once it had been, before the Chaos War, he pictured glittering cities lining the rocky shore of the vast, underground lake, lights shining from thousands of windows. Boat traffic had been common back then, which explained the existence of wharves such as the one they stood on and the many others that were positioned all around the shore.

Of course, there was no commerce there anymore; there was not much of anything actually. It saddened him to think of that great age, when Thorbardin had flourished so, and to compare it to the sorry state of the nation as it currently existed. So much of it could be blamed on the Chaos War, he knew, and dwarves never hesitated to do that.

But much of the blame lies with us, ourselves.

He didn’t like to admit that-no dwarf did-but he knew it was true.

Finally, Brandon’s eyes alighted on the captain who had informed him about the boats, and he went over and told him to keep an eye on the wharf as well as set up a temporary forge to repair the boats. He was relieved, at least, that Otaxx would be there to oversee things. Something about that place made him think it needed watching.

Frustrated, melancholy, and very worried about his priestess, Brandon started up the road. He trudged wearily, feeling the hunger, the fatigue, the stultifying exhaustion of so many days of almost constant battle. The victories seemed like tiny, intangible things at such moments, while the challenges still facing him and his army seemed almost insurmountable.

Deeply wrapped in that gloom, he didn’t even notice the commotion ahead of him, not until a breathless courier jogged into view. The dwarf’s face was streaked with sweat, and even more alarming, he smelled of soot and fire.

“What is it?” demanded Brandon. “What’s the news?”

“The Theiwar have attacked from the rear. They’ve captured the Firespitters, General,” the dwarf reported. The veteran warrior’s face was streaked with blood too, Brandon noticed once he saw him up close. The whites of his eyes were like two beacons shining from a murky night, and they shone with a message of real alarm.

“What about the Tharkadan Legion?” the Kayolin general demanded.

“They’re right up here in the tunnel with us, sir. I hear they got the same reports we did, and the king didn’t want to sit around picking his nose-no offense intended, sir-while we were busy killing Theiwar. So it’s all of us, the whole of the Dwarf Home Army. The enemy has us trapped on this road. And they’re pouring fire in from the high end!”