The Swordsheath Scroll

22

By last light of evening, the lancers came, a unified attack aimed at three separate points in the dwarven defense. From the south, northwest, and northeast they charged-armored men on armored horses, lowering their lances as they closed on the stolid ranks of dwarven shields. As the gap narrowed between lancers and dwarves, trumpets blared, and long lines of foot soldiers poured across the frozen ground, following where the horses went.

The dwarves at the assault points stood as though rooted in the rocky soil as the lancers bore down on them. Steel tips with the momentum of charging steeds behind them aligned on steel shields held only by dwarves. Then, at the last possible instant, the shields fell away. Each dwarven defender at those points fell backward, flat on the ground with his shield on top of him.

The lance tips met only cold air in passing, and thundering hooves clattered and faltered as wild-eyed horses tried to avoid the strange footing of horizontal shields. Here and there a shield was battered downward by hooves, but far more horses pivoted and spun, or launched themselves into ill-timed jumps to clear the frightening footing. A few lancers were thrown from their saddles, and some found themselves charging back the way they had come, directly into their own footmen. Most, though, passed over the fallen dwarves and into the encampment itself. Behind them, dwarves rolled and rose, got their feet beneath them and their shields up, and drew their blades.

Several hundred human lancers now milled and wheeled inside the dwarven line, as the line closed behind them. A few found targets for their lances, but the sport lasted only seconds. With a thunder of hooves, the lancers were hit-from all sides, it seemed, by charging dwarven cavalry. Each horse carried a dwarf on each side. Each dwarf wielded a weapon and a fighting shield. With deadly efficiency, the dwarven war-horses tore through the disarrayed lancers, wheeling to charge again and again.

Armored by plate and chain of dwarven steel and protected by the same shields that protected their riders, each horse was a thundering juggernaut among the lightly armored lancers. Men and their mounts fell right and left as dwarwen blades and hammers lashed out from both sides of each war-horse, slashing and crushing whatever they could reach.

None of the lancers who had breached the dwarven perimeter returned to his ranks. Some, in their final moments, might have thrown down their weapons and surrendered, given the chance. But dwarves had died in the lancers' charge, and Derkin's signal when the trap was sprung was a down-turned thumb. No mercy, and no quarter. It was Derkin's fourth law, pure and simple: if dwarves were attacked, dwarves would retaliate. If dwarves died, their attackers would also die.

Throughout the slaughter of the lancers, Derkin had held back, simply sitting his mount with Helta behind him, watching the combat and hearing the singing of the drums. Now, as the last lancer fell, he looked at the dark sky and tasted the raw, cold wind that came with evening. He knew what he must do next. Hundreds of his people were dead and more were wounded. Through sheer, stubborn courage and wily tactics, they had accounted for three humans for every fallen dwarf, but were still surrounded and badly outnumbered. If the humans pressed their attack again tomorrow, the Chosen Ones would perish. It was inevitable.

'The enemy is withdrawing for the night," Derkin told Tap Tolec. "All this day we have defended. Now we must attack. Bring me our master delvers, and ask Vin the Shadow to attend me."

Tulien Gart drew near, leading a tired horse. The man was battered and bloody, his thigh gouged by a lance tip, but he stood with dignity before the dwarven leader. "I didn't think you could turn that charge," he admitted. "Humans could never have done it. Humans wouldn't have had the courage to fall under those horses, as your people did."

'They might have," Derkin said, "if they had ever been slaves." He climbed down from his horse and helped Helta down. "Take Commander Gart to shelter," he told her. "Bind his wounds and make a place for him at the fire. There is a cold wind tonight."

When the delvers were assembled along with Vin the Shadow and several of his Daergar companions, Derkin gathered them around him. "Is the stone-drilling complete up on the peak?" he asked the chief of delvers.

"It is ready, Lawgiver." The dwarf nodded, his blond beard bobbing in the firelight. "It needs only to be pried."

Derkin turned to Vin. "We have prepared the face of that peak above the Klanath Pits," he said, "to fill the pits with an avalanche. That was to have completed our work here, after the last cut stones were hauled away. But now I need that avalanche to occur tonight. Most of the delvers are of Daewar descent. They cannot climb such slopes at night. Do you have people who can?"

Vin had removed his mask, and his large eyes glowed in the firelight as his foxlike face twisted into a tight grin. "There's plenty of light for us," he said. "Just explain what has to be done."

"The delvers have drilled pry-holes all along a fault high on that peak." Derkin pointed. "They can tell you what to look for, and how to break out the stone. And they can give you their climbing slings and prybars."

"Will an avalanche help us get back to Kal-Thax?" Vin asked.

"It might." Derkin shrugged. "The wind is cold tonight. Our spotters say that some of the humans have made their fires down in the pits, out of the wind. It is possible that their leader, Dreyus, is there. Without him, the rest might decide to turn around and go away, rather than lose more men tomorrow for no reason."

"Then let's hope Dreyus is warming himself out of the wind," Vin replied, still grinning. "If he is, we'll bury him there."

"Reorx protect you, Vin the Shadow," Derkin said. "When you have done your task, take your climbers on up, over the peak. If we survive tomorrow, we will see you at Stoneforge. If we don't come, tell our people there of the four laws." He clapped the Daergar roughly on the shoulder, then turned and strode away, the Ten following.

"Do you really think Dreyus will be in the pits?" Tap Tolec asked doubtfully as they toured the perimeter, gazing at the hundreds of human fires encircling them.

"Who knows?" Derkin shrugged. "If Tulien Gart is right, Dreyus may not even feel the wind's chill. But we did set out to bury the Klanath pits, and I wouldn't want to leave that task undone. Besides, it is a matter of law. All this day we have been attacked. Whatever happens tomorrow, we must retaliate tonight. And I know of no better way."

As evening dragged into the middle hours of night, Derkin's scouts and foragers roamed the field between the dwarven encampment and the surrounding army, searching for weak points, for possible avenues of escape. They found none, and their reports only verified what Derkin already knew. If the humans continued their attack tomorrow, his entire army was doomed. They could not escape, and they could not hold out through another day on this barren, defenseless flat.

Near midnight, the Lawgiver entered the ruined palace one last time. He found Helta Graywood and sat with her for a few moments beside a dwindling fire.

"We would have been married when we returned to Kal-Thax," he said. "It is what I was waiting for. I wanted to marry you on dwarven ground, in a land secured for dwarves."

"Are we going to die tomorrow, Derkin?" she asked quietly.

"There is a chance-just a slight chance-that the humans might withdraw," he said. "But if they don't…"

He let his voice trail off, not wanting to finish the statement.

Helta took his hand in both of hers. "As of this moment, you are my husband," she said. "I wish us long life, if that can be. But if it cannot, at least we will end life as one."

Suddenly the ground seemed to shake, and a rolling thunder sounded through the walls. Still hand in hand, they hurried outside. The cold night wind had shredded the clouds overhead, and there was starlight. Beyond the human encampments to the south, and high above them, an entire mountain slope was in gigantic motion. Down and down, gathering momentum with each foot, millions of tons of shattered stone poured down the steep slope, flattening and burying everything in a half-mile-wide path of utter destruction. Within seconds, the avalanche rolled onto the lower slope, a huge wall of moving, churning stone racing toward the firelit pits of Klanath. Even above the thunder, the dwarves could hear humans screaming.

The bounding stones hit the mine pits, filled and covered them, and rolled on for another hundred yards, tearing through rank after rank of human encampments. And as the thunder died, great clouds of dust arose, riding on the wind.

Vin the Shadow had done his work. He and another fifty or sixty Daergar miners had completed the task the delvers had begun. The pits of Klanath were no more.

But even as he watched the dust clouds rise, Derkin Lawgiver knew that Dreyus had survived. Somehow he sensed that the strange, evil man-who might be another embodiment of the emperor Quivalin Soth V-had not been in the path of the avalanche. Dreyus was still alive, and tomorrow his army would finish what it had begun today.

With eyes as bleak and cold as the night wind, Derkin turned to Tap Tolec. "Awaken the camp," he said. "We move at once."

"But there's no way out," Talon Oakbeard muttered. "We're still surrounded."

"We go there." Derkin pointed at the still-billowing dust. "There, with our backs to the mountain, we can make them pay more dearly for each of us they kill."

Darkness and speed now were the dwarves' final allies. Before the soldiers east and west of the landslide's fan could close in, Derkin's entire camp had been moved. Leaving the barren clearing around the ruined palace behind them, they transferred themselves and everything they could ride, herd, or carry into the field of tumble-stone beneath the steep, sheared peak.

But as his people dug in there, in the final hour of darkness, Derkin remembered a debt of honor. At the edge of the avalanche fan, Tulien Gart was struggling with a balky horse, trying to follow the dwarves into the maze of scattered stone. Ordering the Ten to stay and organize their defenses, Derkin hurried down the slope toward the man. As he approached, he held out his hand. "You have done all you can for us, human," he said. "Dreyus lives, and if you stay here you will die. Get on that horse and follow the dust cloud. In the darkness and confusion, one rider might get through."

For an instant, Gart hesitated. Then he nodded. He could do no more here. The dwarf was repaying a debt of gratitude. Derkin was offering him his life. Pulling his horse away from the rocks, Tulien Gart bowed, a bow of true respect. "Farewell, Derkin Lawgiver," he said. "May whatever gods you choose protect you." He mounted then and rode away in the starlit darkness, heading east, following the drifting cloud of dust.

Derkin turned and hesitated. He sensed that he was not alone, but saw no one. Then a starlit face appeared from nothingness, and he sighed. Helta had followed him. "You still have that elf's invisible cloak," he rasped. "I thought I told you to…"

Running feet scuffed the ground, and excited whispers reached his ears. "It's the leader! Get him!"

"Derkin!" Helta shouted. "Watch out!"

But it was too late. Something heavy crashed against the temple of his helm, and the world went dark as the ground rose to meet him.

Stunned, unable to move or even gasp, Derkin saw torchlight flare, and there were humans all around. A patrol of soldiers, searching the field. A sling hummed and spat, a soldier screeched, and the torch fell and went out. In the darkness, Derkin felt something being spread over him. Then the voices came again-guttural, human voices. "Why, it's only a dwarf girl!" one said. "This is no 'leader/ Cooby."

"I swear he was here," another said. "At least, I thought I saw him."

"Well, there's no one here now except her. Whoop! Catch her! Don't let her get away!"

"It's all right. I have her. Ow! Give me a hand here! She's as strong as an ox!"

His mind screaming silently, Derkin could only listen as the humans carried Helta away. Seconds passed, and he felt himself beginning to recover, but already the sounds were fading into distance, and there was nothing he could do.

But then the fading footsteps halted, and a man's voice shouted, "Oh, gods, no!"

Other voices drowned his, shouting and screaming. There were several distinct thuds, and various crashing, clattering noises. With a thrust of iron will, Derkin forced his fingers to move, then his hands, arms, and legs. He rolled over, staggered upright, and the invisible cloak fell away from him. The world seemed to pitch and sway around him, but he forced his vision to steady itself as he saw movement. He squinted in the starlight, then gaped.

Helta Graywood came to him out of the starlit darkness, chattering and caressing. "You're alive!" she said. "Oh, I was so afraid."

He stared past her at the two towering, lurching creatures behind her.

Helta glanced around. "Goath and Ganat were watching," she said. "They saved me."

"Pretty one Derkin's mate," one of the ogres rumbled, sounding almost apologetic. "Nice little dwarf. Humans act bad to her."

"Won't bother her anymore, though," the other added. "We bashed 'em."

First light of dawn brought moments of confusion to Dreyus's forces. The dwarven encampment out on the flats was gone, but it didn't take long to find where they had gone. In the night, a huge avalanche had crashed down on the central section of the army's southern cordon. Where there had been great mine pits, now there was only a sloping field of rubble. And at least one battalion of soldiers camped there was gone as though it had never existed. But the dwarves were found. They had taken shelter among the fallen stones.

Just out of range of crossbows, javelins, and slings, Dreyus and his commanders assembled on the flats, looking up at the remaining dwarves.

"Sire, we have lost nearly two thousand men in a day and a night in this place," one of the senior commanders noted. "These dwarves cannot win, of course. They are trapped where they are, with that cliff at their backs and our units all around. But there are still thousands of dwarves here, and they fight fiercely. We will lose more men today. With the road closed beyond repair, is this place worth such a price to His Imperial Majesty?"

"My voice is the emperor's voice," Dreyus rasped. "Those dwarves have tampered with the destiny of the empire. They must die. No quarter, and no prisoners. We will put an end to them here."

Up on the rockfall slope, several dwarves appeared atop a wedge of stone, barely sixty yards from Dreyus and his officers. Dreyus recognized Derkin and snarled. The dwarf stood in plain view, fists on his hips, looking this way and that as though counting the human army… as though gloating at the obvious losses they had sustained.

"I want them all to die, here and now," Dreyus hissed. "And I want that one'sliead, to send back to Daltigoth."

"Yes, Sire." The senior commander saluted. "We will regroup, then. Their new position requires some changes in tactic."

"A delay?" Dreyus glared at the man. "How long?"

"Not past noon, Sire," the officer said. "A few hours to realign our troops. Then we can move on the dwarves."

"I want an end to this today!" Dreyus declared.

The officer conferred with his lieutenants for a moment, then saluted Dreyus again. "It shall be as you order, Sire."

Off to the humans' left, just beyond the east slope of the rockfall, a clamor broke out. For long minutes, the peak's sheared face echoed the sounds of furious combat, then a company of lancers and several hundred footmen came racing around the fan, shouting and pointing back. "Dwarves!" a leader shouted. "A thousand or more of them! They hit us from behind!"

The Chosen Ones, up in the rocks, had heard the clamor, too, and tried to see what was happening. A hundred or more of them crept to observation points looking eastward, just as a large party of dwarves piled into the rocks from that point. They were strangers, but where they had been, the rocky ground was littered with fallen humans.

Without ceremony, the newcomers scurried into the stonefall, and one of them, a stocky, gold-bearded young dwarf, shouted, "Where is Hammerhand?"

Derkin and the Ten hurried around a pile of stone. "I'm here," he answered. "Who are you?" He stopped, and blinked. "Luster? By Reorx's rosy red rear! It's Luster Red-leather!"

"Of course it is." The Daewar grinned. "And these are friends of mine." He indicated a burly, dark-bearded young Hylar beside him. "This is Culom Vand. He's Dun-barth Ironthumb's son. He and I sort of take turns leading this crowd. We've been looking for you since last fall. Then, a week ago, Culom had an odd dream."

"I dreamed of drumcall," the young Hylar said. "And there was a voice that said we should go to Tharkas Pass."

"So we did," Luster said. "Do you know that whole pass is full of cut stone? There's enough to build a city. Anyway, we came through the pass, and here you are."

"Why were you looking for me?" Derkin frowned. "Has the Council of Thorbardin changed its mind? If so, they're a little late."

"Well, not exactly. But the chieftains have had some second thoughts, after that business at Sithelbec."

"Sithelbec?"

"Oh, I guess you don't know about that. There was a great battle there, between the empire's forces and the elves. We went there, with Dunbarth, to help the elves. Afterward, Dunbarth and my father had some tough conversation with old Swing Basto."

Derkin glance curiously at the Daewar. "Basto? The Theiwar chieftain at Thorbardin?"

"The same," Luster confirmed. "It turns out those renegade Theiwar he was always defending had been up to their ears in that war over there, aiding the empire. Basto claims he knew nothing about it, but my father doesn't believe him. And speaking of war, you have a nice one going on here. May we join you?"

"You already have," Derkin pointed out. "But you may wish you hadn't. We don't have much chance of surviving the day."

Culom Vand had climbed to a high place. He was shading his eyes, surveying the massive human army spread out before the stonefall. "I see what you mean," he said. "Who are those people?"

"The emperor's army," Derkin said.

"The whole army?" Luster Redleather muttered, then pursed his lips in a low whistle. "Wow! We did barge into something, didn't we?" He raised his sword, looking critically at its wide blade. "Well, Hammerhand, since we're here, I guess we've just joined your army."

"Lawgiver," Tap Tolec growled. "His name is Derkin Lawgiver. Hammerhand was before, in Kal-Thax."

Throughout a bleak morning, the Chosen Ones and their unexpected reinforcements dug in among the fresh-fallen rubble and watched the movements of the emperor's legions out on the flat. Every dwarf in Derkin's army knew that this place would be their last stand, and that there was no hope for them. Even with the arrival of eight hundred warriors from Thorbardin, they could not win. But still they watched in fascination as the panorama of one of the world's greatest armies, positioning itself for a final, deadly assault, was played out before them.

"There will be no more horse charges," Derkin told those around him. "You see, the horse companies are being moved to the rear and the sides. They can't use horses in a field of boulders, any more than we can. But they've closed any possible retreat for us."

"I wish now we'd kept Lord Kane's catapults," Tap said. "We could use them here."

When the sun was high, the vast shifting of legions and battalions was at an end. Great combined companies of footmen in heavy armor now formed the front ranks of the human formation. There were thousands of them, row upon row and rank upon rank. Derkin didn't need Tulien Gart to tell him what the humans intended. They would come afoot, protected somewhat by their armor. Some would fall, but for each one down there would be ten more behind. Wave after wave of them would come up into the rocks, and they would keep coming. Nothing the dwarves could do would stop them now.

Trumpets sounded, and the first wave of the attack began. The thousands of armored footmen started for the avalanche fan. Marching shoulder to armored shoulder, they seemed to be in no great hurry. There was no charge, no rush. The footmen simply began walking, heading into the tumblestone field. Above them, dwarves waited, their weapons at the ready.

"Make them pay for this day," Derkin Lawgiver ordered his people. "Make them remember the dwarves of Kal-Thax… and of Thorbardin."