Still, the elderly Theiwar were trembling as they made their way into the back room, looking at each other’s wide eyes and ashen faces.
“Do you think Abercrumb suspects anything?” asked Peat, his voice tremulous.
“Of course not!” Sadie snapped. “How could he have the slightest idea what we are up to? I don’t think there’s a Hylar in Thorbardin who even imagines that a dimension door is possible, much less than I am able to cast one. Still, I don’t like him visiting all the time. I think he has friends in the court. He’s too nosy-and too close-for comfort.”
“What are we going to do about this? About him? About everything?” moaned Peat, sitting on a work stool and wringing his hands.
“Well, we’re not going to panic, for one thing,” Sadie said firmly. “Now, stop groaning and let’s talk this over.”
Peat drew a ragged breath, and they began to talk. Had anyone else seen the refugees coming through the shop? They hoped not. Did anyone else suspect they had a fortune in gems in a secret lockbox? They really hoped not. Had they attracted the attention of the king or, even more terrifying, Willim the Black? They really, really hoped not. Sadie reassured Peat, and Peat reassured Sadie, and they started to make a plan.
All the same, they were both startled when, a few hours later, another knock sounded from the front door. It was much quieter than Abercrumb’s, but both Guilders just about jumped out of their skin when they heard the tapping. Still, Peat made his way to the door, opened it, and found another dwarf standing there. He was dressed in a fine silk cloak, and he looked surreptitiously up and down the street, which was at last empty and quiet.
“Hurry-come in!” said Sadie, following her husband closely and all but yanking the dwarf into the shop. “What do you want?”
“Well, I … it’s kind of a secret,” the dwarf said. He appeared to be a swarthy Daergar, but the gold chains adorning his neck and the sparkling buttons and cufflinks on his tunic suggested a personage who was very well off financially. “I have, that is, I had a neighbor, Horth Dunstone. A Hylar merchant. Perhaps you know him?”
The two Theiwar looked at each other, eyes wide. “You had a neighbor, you said,” Sadie repeated. “What happened to him?”
“Well, I know he was anxious, desperate even, to get himself and his family out of Thorbardin. He told me, in the strictest confidence, that you were going to help him.” The Daergar looked at them imploringly, but neither of the Guilders made any reply.
“So now, well, I was wondering … do you think you could do the same thing for me?”
EIGHT
THE FIRE OF THE FORGE
Jungor Stonespringer stood on the highest rampart of his palace’s prayer tower-the same platform where the Theiwar assassin had tried to kill him, and where the assassin had paid for the treacherous attack with his own life. It was while examining the body of the foiled murderer that the king had first realized the truth about his enemy. Not just the fact that the assassin had been a Theiwar, but that he wore the garment of a black-robed mage.
The king knew beyond any doubt that it was Willim the Black who had created, who led the rebellion. Beyond the identity of his slain agent, the proof could be found in the spells used against the royal troops, including the violent explosions of fire and lightning, the lethal blasts of thunderous meteor showers, and the searing magic missiles that had scourged the ranks of his loyal soldiers. No other but the eyeless Theiwar wizard was capable of such powerful enchantments, of dispatching such magically skilled agents.
Not to mention the foul black minion.
The king had been driven to his lofty redoubt, a platform carved around the circumference of a stout stone pillar that extended all the way to the ceiling dome over Norbardin. Indeed, the elevation was such that he was poised more than a hundred feet above the level of the great plaza, while the ceiling of the top of the cavernous chamber was only twenty or thirty feet higher than his head. The pillar itself was hollow, with the prayer platform and other ramparts lower on the shaft accessible by a wide, spiraling stairway. Firing platforms stood at many levels within the tower walls. Narrow slits in the thick stone walls allowed defenders to shoot from those platforms in all directions, while offering good protection to any return fire from attackers below.
It was clear to Jungor that his forces were losing the battle, even though fighting still raged around all of the palace environs. The royal troops were trying to enter the palace, but many-perhaps a thousand-remained trapped outside the main gate, where they fought with the desperation of cornered animals against the rebels that closed in from three sides. With commendable courage, General Ragat was trying to organize the defenders, brandishing his own silver shield as a proud badge of his status, his courage.
“Shields out!” he barked to those on the left. “Raise your pikes!” he commanded the spear-carrying dwarves on the right. “Stand fast there,” he encouraged the swordsmen in the middle.
For some minutes, it looked as if they might be able to hold the gate. While the line was stabilized, General Ragat came through a portal and scrambled up a stairway to a higher platform, where he could benefit from a better view of the frenzied fighting. Even more of the king’s troops surged across the courtyard and out the gates, reinforcing the brave pocket of defenders and blocking the retreat of those with faltering courage.
Then: butchery and disaster! Willim the Black was there, standing on a broken cart behind the rank of his troops. The Black Robe pointed at the knot of defenders and cast a terrible spell. Even from on high, the king could see the tiny pebble of brightness, like a marble of pure, hot flame, that floated in almost leisurely fashion toward the heart of the battle, past the rebel troops and into the middle of the defending ranks.
The king could only watch with horror as a searing, brilliant fireball exploded in the middle of that tightly packed mass of his loyalists. He heard the screams and, in moments, smelled the seared flesh as the powerful wizard urged his rebels forward into the charred and blackened swath where so many of Stonespringer’s soldiers had died.
Led by the few survivors of the Black Cross company, the attackers pushed through the gate, carrying the battle into the courtyards directly below the prayer tower. A desultory volley of crossbow bolts flew from the arrow slits on the walls of that tower, the missiles plunging haphazardly into the throng of dwarves fighting their way through the palace gates. More of the king’s troops lined the outer walls, but there, too, the rebels scrambled upward. Magical fireballs-not so terrible as Willim the Black’s apocalyptic incineration, but still deadly-blossomed here and there as nimble Klar and Hylar climbed ropes and lifted ladders, allowing them to seize the positions scoured by fire.
The king could see that the most deadly threat to the defenders was the hulking black minion, the magical creature summoned by the enemy wizard. The evil being seemed to be impervious to normal weapons, and its talons and fists punched through the royal troops wherever they dared to stand and face it down. Brave dwarves were smashed to the ground, their armored helmets, breastplates, and shields crushed and deformed by the marauding beast. Others were cast into the air, their torn and bleeding bodies becoming missiles in their own right, smashing into their former comrades, disrupting ranks, and terrorizing those troops who were already starting to waver in the face of the horror.
Everywhere across the half mile of plaza he could see, deep into the streets of Norbardin where they led way from the great square, and around the palace walls, dead and dying dwarves sprawled. It was a panorama of blood and severed limbs, and above it all could be heard the pathetic moaning of those warriors too badly injured to crawl away to safety, though unable, at least yet, to escape into the stillness of death. The battle seemed to have no form or focus anymore: it was just random groups of dwarves trying to slaughter other scattered dwarves. One pocket of rebels was surrounded inside the wall, but they cut down every one of the king’s soldiers who tried to approach them. Beyond the palace, loyal warriors fought individually and
in pairs, often taking on ten or twenty of the attackers, fighting on long after any hope of victory, or survival, was gone.
The king groaned in despair. He saw General Ragat mustering some of the elite Royal Division at the gates to the keep, within the palace walls. The loyal dwarves were fighting furiously, with the rebels inching closer on all sides. It seemed only a matter of moments before they’d be overwhelmed and the attackers would surge into the palace proper.
Then everything Jungor Stonespringer had worked for, the purity of the dwarf peoples, the restoration of the true law of Reorx, his own primacy, would end.
The king’s heart was proud almost to bursting at the valiant courage of his loyal troops. The dwarves of Norbardin stood bravely in the face of the horrific onslaught, but they had insufficient weapons and inadequate tactics to counter the threat of such powerful spells. They had no solution to the depredations of the black minion. How had Reorx failed him when the nation was so nearly cleansed of unholy influence? When righteousness, as decreed by Jungor Stonespringer, was so close to prevailing?
“My master! My lord! Strike them all down!” the monarch screamed from his prayer tower. “Slay them! Kill them! Let the stones feast on their blood!”
But the stones, the mountain, the world itself gave no reply.
Jungor wept as he beheld the fate of the loyal dwarves who served him, but it was starkly, appallingly clear that such bravery by trained and untrained alike would be no match for the lethally armed and thoroughly obsessed mercenaries of the rebel armies.
He spotted good Ragat Kingsaver stalking among his men, exhorting the defenders to greater efforts, and the monarch watched in awe as a few dozen wounded garrison troops stood shoulder to shoulder to try to halt the attack of one hundred Klar berserkers. For the moment the keep would hold, but a whole company of Hylar spilled over the palace wall and burst into the main storerooms. Within minutes smoke billowed from the smashed doorways as a year’s worth of food supplies were ignited.
“Ragat, my general,” the king said softly, his voice more of a moan than a cry. “Would that you could save me again!”
Ragat Kingsaver’s arm felt as heavy as lead. His vision was blurred, obscured by his own sweat and by the spattered blood of the many dwarves he had slain during the endless battle. Still, he pressed forward to take his place in the line, cutting down a leering Klar that charged toward him with an upraised axe. The royal soldiers took heart from their leader’s example, and in a frenzy of swordplay, they drove back the latest press of attackers. For a moment, the skirmish settled into almost a lull as the nearby rebels fell back from the courageous veterans guarding the door of the royal keep.
It was then that Ragat felt the prickling of alarm in his scalp and spun away from the line of battle, staring upward. He spotted Jungor Stonespringer high above and met his king’s eye for a moment. He sensed the despair, the need in that desperate gaze and suddenly knew that he was in the wrong place. The gates would stand without him.
The king himself was endangered
“Hold courage, sire!” he called. “I’m coming to you!”
The loyal general darted into the palace and raced up the spiraling stairs, past the royal quarters, all the way up to the prayer tower. He passed the archers who were steadfastly shooting and reloading at the arrow slits along the tower walls, quickly bursting onto the rampart.
King Stonespringer gazed at him, the golden orb of his artificial eye gleaming incongruously against the sooty, sweat-stained parchment of his skin. Ragat wanted to embrace his liege, to offer him comfort, support, and love-but he remembered himself and his place, so he threw himself to the floor before his despairing lord.
“Sire!” he cried. “Take heart! The enemy grows weary, and we may yet prevail!”
“Rise, my general,” said the king with a strange calm. “Come with me to the edge of the rampart. Join me in prayer.”
“Yes, my liege, of course,” the loyal warrior, his heart breaking, replied. He was no stranger to prayer, but he didn’t believe it would help them in their hour of desperation. He followed his king to the edge of the tower’s platform but then couldn’t keep himself from gesturing mutely at the scene of violence and chaos reigning below. Hylar skirmishers charged from the burning storehouses, carrying the fight into the very barracks of the First Division’s quarters. Everywhere the attackers were making headway, charging through the chambers and courtyards of the royal palace.
“But, perhaps, my lord, your own prayers may prove sufficient. I might suggest that I should be better employed trying to command the troops?”
Stonespringer shook his head. “There is no victory for us in this battle, not by force of arms. But pray with me, as I beseech the Master of the Forge. It may be that we will find our best hope with him.”
“As you wish, my lord,” said Ragat Kingsaver resignedly. He felt a terrible sadness as he rose to his feet, hoisted his silver shield to his shoulder, and followed the king to the rampart at the edge of the prayer tower.
He could not stop himself from glancing down from the great height, and his eyes were inexorably drawn to the sight of the black minion as the monster came to rest upon the rampart above the palace gates. That was when the creature itself looked up, its red eyes flaring as they seemed to lock on the two dwarf leaders on the lofty platform.
“O Master! Lord of the Forge, Fire of the Hearth-Great God of Thorbardin and of all faithful dwarves!” beseeched the king, his voice a shrill wail that somehow carried over the crashing din of battle. “Show us thy will! Strike down our enemies, for they are thine own enemies as well! They are faithless dwarves, full of wickedness and bile!”
The minion launched itself into flight, black wings pushing through the air. Jaws gaping, it soared upward, over the battle and the palace, climbing higher and higher as it swept toward the lofty prayer tower. The monster extended its taloned hands, reaching out toward the small, unprotected figure that was the king of Thorbardin, whose sole eye had been momentarily closed in prayer. But as the words to his prayer died on his lips, Jungor Stonespringer opened that lone seeing orb and froze in terror.
“Run, sire-to the tower!” cried Ragat next to him, already full of fear but bravely stepping in front of his liege. With rising panic, he realized that Jungor Stonespringer couldn’t seem to budge. His feet might as well have been nailed to the floor as he stared into the gaping maw of the wizard’s black minion. The creature’s vast, batlike wings pulsed with almost contemptuous ease as it rose from the square, soaring higher and higher toward the king. The monarch struggled to open his mouth, to flex a muscle, to say something, but he was paralyzed by the approaching image of his own death.
Fortunately for the ruler, his commanding general still had his wits and his courage. Ragat Kingsaver, his bald head gleaming with a sheen of sweat, stood in front of his liege on the high platform, blocking him from the coming threat. He held his gleaming shield-the Kingsaver Shield-up so high that he could barely see over it.
Knees flexed for balance, the loyal warrior leaned forward with a fierce look, bracing himself to take the brunt of the minion’s attack. The winged creature flew closer, climbing higher so he was above the prayer platform. The beast was nearly scraping the ceiling dome over the city’s cavern. Then, jaws gaping, it dived toward the tower, uttering a ground-shaking, bellowing roar from its widespread maw.
The monster struck the magical shield, the silver barrier that had been blessed by Reorx himself, and Ragat met that charge with the full strength of his body, knowing full well that it was the last act of his life.
But the clash didn’t knock him backward, didn’t even upset his footing. The minion smashed against the shield and, shockingly, was jarred backward. Howling, the monster rebounded and hovered in the air, reaching around the barrier, trying to slash with claws that couldn’t quite reach the courageous Kingsaver.
The minion howled and tore at the shield, and Ragat, feeling a surge of bravado, charged forward, slammi
ng the silvery disk against the black torso. The Kingsaver Shield struck the black minion full in the chest, and the monster flew backward, shrieking a deafening cry. The result was a searing flash of light, a silent blast of brilliance so intense that the king himself howled in horror, clasping his hands over his one good eye. The whole of underground Norbardin was illuminated, outlined like a city on the surface of the world under a bright, noonday sun.
Ragat sensed it then: The light was Reorx, and the god finally had made his displeasure known!
The flash of light shimmered through the cavern, an electrical blast so brilliant that every dwarf who was in the great chamber was effectively blinded. Those who happened to be looking right at the blast would need days to recover their vision; even those who simply saw the reflection were stunned and reeling, unable to see normally.
The light washed over the city, silent and irresistible, pulsing under doors, through shutters, and into trenches and battle redoubts. It seared into the eyes of the warriors and frightened the cowering citizenry with its power. Children cried out in terror, and their parents could only clasp them to their breasts and try to still their own trembling limbs.
Smoke erupted from the minion’s charred, black skin where the shield had struck it. The creature writhed and shivered, still shrieking. Its body seemed to be consumed, blackness turning to brilliant light that was not obscured even by the smoke churning upward from its chest. Its limbs shriveled, its wings dissolved, and its body fell away from the high tower.
In the very middle of the battle, the minion quickly faded away, leaving only a smudge of black smoke lingering in the air. Dumbfounded, Ragat watched the thing fall, peering over the rim of the shield-for he, almost alone in all the city, had been spared the brilliant light since his face had been hidden behind the barrier of the Kingsaver Shield.
Sadie and Peat were apprehensive about activating the dimension door again, but the wealthy-looking Daergar, Inkar Dale, had promised to bring them a chest full of platinum coins and a necklace of perfect-and in underground Thorbardin, exceptionally rare-pearls. In the end, their avarice had overcome their caution, and they had instructed Inkar to return as soon as he could gather suitable payment.
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