Finally, the king had ordered a special talisman forged for his loyal general, a shield made from platinum and steel, blessed by all the priests of Reorx. It was unbreakable and shone like a beacon of righteousness whenever danger threatened the throne.
The fiery blessing of Reorx was strong in the king, and it gave to Ragat a sense of purpose that had been lacking in his earlier campaigns. A member of a gruff race of tough individuals who placed little weight on sentiment, Ragat Kingsaver had embraced his monarch’s values, his creed, and his personality with all of his warlike heart. His shield was the physical proof of that loyalty, that love. He would gladly lay his life down for his king.
The general’s troops were garrisoned on the lower level of the royal palace itself. His two thousand dwarves were the elite of Jungor Stonespringer’s army, veterans of the battles that had brought the king to power; rewarded well for their service; loyal, like him, to the last drop of blood to the king and his noble, god-blessed cause. Right at that moment they were proving their mettle-rallying, arming themselves, pouring from their barracks, forming into companies and regiments under prodding by sergeants and captains.
Ragat could see from his vantage that the three main gates on the south side of the city, the portals connecting Norbardin to the environs of the Urkhan Sea, had all been breached by a swift and aggressive attack. He was at a loss to understand how all three bastions could have fallen so quickly and simultaneously. He wondered what had happened, and though he suspected sorcery he knew that there was nothing he could do about that, not anymore. Instead, he had to act fast and contain the damage.
“Sergeant Major!” he barked as the dwarves of his division formed up before the royal palace.
“Yes, General!” said Barx Standfist, the veteran centurion who had served with Ragat on every campaign over the past three decades. Standfist, already wearing his plate armor, with his mustache and beard waxed stiffly, stood at attention just a few steps away. The general couldn’t repress a smile at the display of his old sergeant’s readiness.
“I want every reserve company in Norbardin mustered at once. Have them report to the training yard on the other side of the palace. Then put out the word to the quartermasters. We will need a new draft of recruits; have them start the processing immediately.”
“Aye, sir. At once,” replied the veteran sergeant major. Instead of starting away at once, however, he cleared his throat, shuffling his feet.
“Yes?” asked the general, knowing from experience that the old veteran wouldn’t waste time with delay or idle conversation.
“Every one of the south gates fell,” Standfist said. “Do you think … well, might it have been treachery?” he growled.
Ragat could only shrug. “Either that or wizardry. No, I can’t think of any other explanation. But now is not the time to worry about spilled milk. Go!”
“Aye, sir. I’ll start the mustering right away.”
With that, the loyal subcommander departed. Ragat turned to study the battle that was spreading across the terraces of the great plaza.
Clearly, the unknown enemy was attacking with three distinct columns. One of the formations seemed to be made up of Klar berserkers. Their whooping and howling, the gleeful, almost musical, sounds of their wild fighting carried clearly to Ragat’s ears. The Klar were advancing rapidly into the plaza, but already some of the impetus of their charge was seeping away as the notoriously unreliable troops stopped to loot the shops and stalls or wandered into the side streets and alleys leading to the taverns of one of Norbardin’s seedier neighborhoods. Ragat knew the Klar would not be the worst threat, at least not right then.
The force to the right was coming up against a solid formation of the royal guard. The guard formed a line of shields linked together almost like a wall. Ragat suspected that the surviving troops of the initial garrisons had banded together under an intrepid captain and, rather than dispersing themselves against the great numbers of the enemy, had concentrated their strength in that fashion. To Ragat’s practiced eye, the shield wall looked like a good tactic, and the garrison dwarves seemed to have a reasonable chance of holding firm.
That left the middle prong of the enemy attack as the main threat. Ragat could see that it was the most numerous of the three columns and included a mix of several troop types: he noted crossbows launching lethal volleys of missiles, burly axemen charging in a wedge, and infantry advancing in a line, also with linked shields.
By the time he concluded his survey of the battlefield, the front rank of the royal force was already advancing, lightly armed skirmishers forming a line that bristled with the steel tips of short, deadly spears. Ragat raced down the stairs and out the palace gate, where he found the company commander. The general waved him forward, using both hands to signal the charge. Immediately, the spearmen charged into the square, their battle cry-“For Reorx and Stonespringer!”-roaring from five hundred throats.
Even as the first rank charged, the other regiments of the division tightened behind the spearmen. One by one, they girded themselves, standing shoulder to shoulder, and they started across the plaza. In a matter of a few minutes, Ragat could see the front rank of the attackers brace and halt, staggered by the sudden counterattack.
As the rest of the division marched forward, the momentum of the battle shifted, and the attack was broken.
Then the rest of the royal garrison spilled out of the palace. When Ragat sent those fresh troops surging into the fight, he knew that the city of Norbardin would not fall, not on that day.
FIVE
THE CHARGE OF THE BLACK CROSS
Willim looked over the battlefield with steadily mounting frustration. The Theiwar commander stood atop a captured gate tower, a vantage with a view across the entire Center Gate of the city’s main defensive line. The troops of the rebel forces held the gate, the towers to either side of that wide portal, and the minifortresses carved into the bedrock of the cavern in support of those gate towers. From each fortress, a narrow, lofty bridge arched toward Norbardin’s wealthiest districts. Below, the wide plaza, usually a scene of vigorous commerce, spread out as a ravaged battlefield, marked by upturned carts, wrecked stalls, and many dying and dead dwarves.
For hours that fight had raged back and forth across the square. The energy of the Klar charge had been dispersed on the right flank as the undisciplined troops had broken away from their companies to plunder and drink. Roaring laughter and bawdy songs rose, incongruously, from many of the taverns and ale stalls on the fringe of the square.
Willim knew there was no point in even trying to rally those troops until the plundering and the carousing and their aftereffects had passed.
In the center and to the right, the more disciplined formations of Hylar, Theiwar, and Daergar troops had battled themselves to exhaustion against the firm stand of the Royal Division. Casualties had been heavy on both sides, and a lull had settled over that area as both offensive and defensive troops sought the rest, water, and food that was necessary before they could resume the fighting.
With a muttered curse, Willim teleported to General Darkstone’s headquarters, hastily established on the second floor of a masonry shop at the edge of the square. From there, the veteran commander could observe the royal palace nearly a mile away.
“Why aren’t you pressing the attack?” demanded the black wizard, materializing next to the general, who didn’t flinch at his sudden appearance.
“We carried the outer defenses in the first rush, my lord,” General Darkstone reported stolidly. “But the city defenders rallied surprisingly well. They have met each of our probes with fierce counterattacks. We cut them down by the dozens, but they bring up replacements by the hundreds. Now, in the center, we have two full divisions standing against us.”
“Then kill them by the hundreds or the thousands!” Willim snapped, gesturing irritably.
Darkstone, no fool, bit his tongue rather than make an impertinent reply. Instead, he stared as though thinking be
fore nodding tersely.” He cleared his throat awkwardly. “We hear them still invoking the king’s name, Master. It would seem that the assassination attempt was not successful.”
“No!” barked the wizard, though it was news to him-bad news. Gypsum and Facet had failed? How could that have happened? Even as he pondered the prospect, he pictured Facet slain, maybe captured, and felt a surprising pang of heartache at the thought she might be dead. Why did she affect him so? What sort of bewitchment did she possess?
“What about the Black Cross?” Willim pointed at the deadly regiment of Daergar heavy infantry, currently idle in the rear ranks of the center column.
“Yes, I’m holding them in reserve, sir. In the event of an enemy breakthrough, we’ll need them to plug the gap.”
“An enemy breakthrough?” snapped the black robe wizard. “It is we who will do the breaking through! Send them now to the attack. And that’s an order!”
“Aye, aye, sir,” replied Blade Darkstone evenly. Though he disagreed with the command, he knew it would be unwise to say so. Instead, he ordered a signal flag raised, and the Black Cross regiment started moving forward.
“What about the heavy infantry?” muttered Willim darkly.
The old commander repressed a sigh, saluting firmly. “Master, that part of the Black Cross I was also holding in reserve. However, they are ready,” he reported.
Willim gestured impatiently at the tight, neat ranks of the Daergar heavy infantry unit. They covered a front some two hundred yards wide, with sword- and shield-bearing heavy troops in the front, a rank of spearmen behind, another line of heavy troops in the third rank, and the elite crossbow teams in the very back of the formation. “Send them in!”
General Darkstone gave the signal.
The main complex of fortifications was firmly in the control of General Darkstone’s forces, and the other gatehouses were also in the hands of the attackers, who blocked all routes of access between Norbardin and the Urkhan Sea. But the royal garrison troops of the First Division had marched into the middle of the great square and formed a line that the rebels had not been able to crack.
Willim cast a fireball to open the attack, sending the churning sphere of flame through the very center of the royal ranks. A hundred dwarves died on the spot, but before Darkstone’s skirmishers could rush into the gap, a full complement of reinforcements charged up and over the still-smoldering bodies of their slain comrades to again tighten the formation and hold the line.
Willim and his general watched as the Black Cross and the heavy infantry moved into position for a full-on assault against the royal defenders.
“Those are General Ragat’s men,” Darkstone declared, watching the royal troops as they stoically prepared their defenses. “I’d know that drill anywhere.”
“What does it matter who commands them?” snapped Willim. “I want them pushed out of the way!”
“It’s the commander what makes all the difference,” Darkstone retorted, in a tone that sounded very much like insolence to the short-tempered wizard. “Any other general, and they’d have routed away when that fire blew out their center.”
Willim stared at the flanks of the Royal Division, where a motley lot of citizens, no doubt the king’s pathetic conscripts, were rushing forward to support the veteran troops. The recent arrivals, a veritable mob, were armed with pitchforks, hammers, picks, and a few swords and spears. If anything, they would weaken the defense.
Willim spotted Captain Veinslitter in the middle of the Black Cross regiment. The Daergar leader wore a silver helm that was festooned with a crimson plume, and he was looking up at the rampart, toward his general and the wizard. Feeling those eyes upon him, Willim nodded, and General Darkstone ordered the climactic attack forward.
With a roar of battle lust, the Daergar attacked. They advanced in a rush, sword tips extended past the line of shields. Even at full speed, their discipline held-there was no wavering in the straightness of the line, no gap opening between one fleet dwarf and his slower comrade. Like an advancing wall of steel, the Black Cross bore down on the ill-equipped and virtually unarmored troops of the king’s militia.
The roar of the charge swelled into a thunder as a thousand throats chanted “Black-Black-Black!” in steadily hastening cadence. They were calling out the name of their own unit, but Willim the Black allowed himself to reflect on the irony that it was his name as well. Plus it was the stark and chilling color of the order of magic he had cherished all his life. The power of the Black Robes: soon it would rule Thorbardin!
Shortly, the rebels’ shield wall smashed into the first of the defending troops. The hammers and pitchforks of the royal contingent broke against the steel shields, and the untrained troops dropped by the score. Yet they showed a fanatical willingness to die and fell back only when the Black Cross veterans put their shoulders down and pressed ahead in murderous fashion. The line of battle surged, shouts and screams rising from the wounded, and finally the irregulars started to roll back, pushed and trampled.
The line of the Daergar veterans wavered once or twice as some pockets of resistance proved more stubborn than others, but it made a steady advance. The hobnailed boots of the heavy infantry stomped over the bleeding bodies of the enemy wounded and slain, and the dwarves put their weight against the heavy steel shields, pressing ahead. Their swords, every blade streaked with blood, hacked and gouged at the mass of defenders.
“They show some courage, Master,” General Darkstone allowed as more and more of the militia troops hurled themselves into the fray to assist the royal guards.
“Then let them be courageous fools!” snapped Willim. “I want their blood to flow like a river down the streets!”
Moments after the first impact, the second rank of the Black Cross halted, dwarves cocking back their arms, holding their short, stout javelins at shoulder height. At a command from Veinslitter, they launched the weapons in a dense volley. Each spear was tipped with a razor-sharp, barbed tip of the strongest steel, backed by the weight of a heavy shaft, and when the rain of missiles came down, the lethal points tore through whatever paltry shield or armor lay in its path and the flesh, bones, and bodies beneath.
Hundreds of the defenders fell, pierced through, many writhing in agony amid spreading pools of blood. Others, stabbed in the heart or the skull, lay still, killed instantly. Some twisted the weapons free from gory wounds, even as the cruel barbs tore painfully at the victims’ flesh. A very bold and lucky few, having eluded the barrage, picked up the javelins and tried to hurl them back at the attackers. But most of the return missiles missed their marks, bouncing off the armor and shields of the regulars, clattering to the ground with more noise than effect.
Still the shield wall pressed forward, advancing steadily over the bodies of the hapless defenders. Captain Veinslitter strode forward step by step with the first rank, shouting exhortations, clapping his men on the shoulders as he stalked behind the line, wielding his own blade whenever a tiny niche allowed him to lunge directly at a foe.
The royal guards and the undisciplined, conscripted citizens were undeniably outmatched by the steady, well-equipped veterans of the Black Cross. But for some reason that Willim didn’t readily understand, the defenders refused to break, to surrender, or to flee.
He watched as one white-bearded old fellow charged forward with a pitchfork, jabbing it futilely against the shield wall until he was cut down by a stab to the abdomen. As he fell, he thrust his weapon one more time, and one of the Black Cross dwarves stumbled, taking a tine in the hinge gap of his armor around his knee.
At the same time, another pair of dwarves, wearing only stiff leather smithy tunics, raised hammers and hurled themselves against the shield wall. Even from his lofty vantage, Willim could hear the resounding bang of the heavy mallets against the metal shields. One of the smiths went down, cut almost in two by a sideways slash, but the other brought his hammer down heavily on the swordsman’s wrist, breaking bone and forcing the veteran to drop his sw
ord. The injured infantryman backed out of the line, his place quickly taken by a comrade, but too many Black Cross dwarves were being similarly attacked and forced to yield their positions on the shield wall.
“Why do they stand?” he demanded of General Darkstone. “We’re killing a score of them for every one of our men wounded!”
“I know,” growled the commander unhelpfully. “But our numbers are limited. Look.”
He pointed toward the wall around King Stonespringer’s fortified palace. Willim saw the gate open, spilling hundreds more irregulars onto the plaza. Some of them weren’t even armed, but still they howled and charged, hurling themselves with suicidal frenzy into the mass of dwarves battling the Black Cross. They picked up weapons from the dead and wounded, eagerly surging forward to join the battle against the rebels.
At the same time, more of the irregulars were advancing from the side streets, swarming into the square with little semblance of order or formation. Some came at the Black Cross ranks from the side or even from behind.
Fortunately, the veteran Captain Veinslitter recognized the fresh threat, pivoting his troops on the right flank to meet the new danger. At the same time his crossbowmen fired at the dwarves surging toward the rear of the Black Cross. So effective was that volley that a hundred of the enemy fell, and the few survivors among them were so intimidated by the deadly crossbows that they pulled back. Under their captain’s steady, shouted orders, the Black Cross resumed its slow, deliberate advance.
“They are penetrating too far,” Darkstone declared grimly. “They’re in danger of getting cut off.”
“No!” retorted Willim. “Keep charging-break them! Smash through to the palace!”
The general nodded and, when Veinslitter looked up, simply gestured the captain to continue pressing the attack. The Daergar captain touched his silver helm and cheered the Black Cross regiment forward with renewed determination. Every few steps they had to pause and launch a volley of crossbow bolts against the militiamen who were milling around near the streets that spilled onto the plaza from nearby neighborhoods.
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