by Dragon Lance
He handed the far-seer to his father, pointing out the speck. Willen gazed through the lenses, then handed the device to Barek.
“One wizard has put himself above the rest,” Damon said. “He is in charge, then.” He turned to his father and the captain general. “If you had four armies and only one was real, which army would you lead?”
“The real one,” Willen Ironmaul said.
“Let’s test your theory,” Barek said to Damon. “It’s time we bring out the discobels.”
Damon nodded.
“I agree,” Willen said. “Let’s find out if the real army has a real wizard in charge.”
At the captain general’s command, drums sounded, and, a short distance down each sloping ramp, dwarves went to work with cables and winches. Slowly, from behind each main guard tower, there appeared a huge contrivance of lashed and braced timbers as tall as the towers themselves. Lumbering on great iron wheels, the two discobels rolled into view, and dwarves clambered up their sides, carrying tools. Winches aloft sang, and high on each tower a long, outthrust arm as thick as the bole of a mountain cedar swung back and back, creaking as cable-springs took the strain of its inertia.
When each arm was drawn back, a quarter of the way around the timber tower, stone anchors were set at the bases of the structures. More dwarves scampered upward, carrying steel-edged iron disks, each three feet across and eight inches thick at its center, tapering outward to the edge, which was a narrow band of tempered steel with sharp teeth three inches long. The things looked like giant, circular saw blades.
Carefully, dwarven tenders set the disks into curved slots at the end of each long, drawn-back arm, then scampered down from the structure, leaving only the throwing crews aloft.
Barek Stone gazed out across the littered field, gauging distances. “Three-fourths of a mile,” he called. “Full elevation.”
“Do these things have that kind of range?” Damon asked his father.
“Not quite,” Willen admitted. “Only about a thousand yards. But Barek knows what he’s doing.”
Damon gazed across the distance and nodded. “Ah,” he said. “The stone and the water?”
“Exactly,” Willen replied.
“The army on the right,” Barek called to the dwarves high on the towers. “The one with the dark speck floating above!”
“We can’t hit that little speck!” someone shouted back. “Rust, Barek! We may be good, but we aren’t that good!”
“Not the speck!” the captain general shouted. “Just hit the army! Aim for the middle, where the humans are thickest.”
“We’ll see what we can do,” the operator above responded. Cables strained, and winches creaked as the lashed arms of the discobel towers were adjusted for maximum elevation, and stop-blocks were set for aim. “Ready!” the voice from above said.
“Then do it!” Barek roared.
With twin crashes like echoing thunder, the discobels came alive. Released arms screamed around in half-arcs, crashed against their stop-blocks, and entire towers of lashed timber shuddered and rumbled. Twin disks soared away, high into the pale sky, then curved downward in the distance.
“They’re falling short!” someone said.
“The stone and the water,” Damon repeated.
At maximum range, the big disks slashed downward. They hit the ground two-thirds of the way toward the army of humans, raising great clouds of dust, and soared again, twin ricochets like two flat stones thrown across the surface of a lake.
In a second, the two disks reached the front ranks of the human horde and smashed through them, spinning and cleaving, slicing through everything in their paths. Men and horses fell – and parts of men and horses. Like howling, spinning reapers, the saw-edged disks clove twin trails of carnage through a hundred yards of mercenaries, cutting off heads in the front ranks, shearing torsos farther back, slicing off legs and feet beyond … then hit the ground and skipped again, taking down more men as they went.
Above the army, the floating speck bobbled as the wizard stood upright on his throne, dancing and waving in fury.
“Nice shots,” Barek Stone rumbled. “Now train that seer on the dead ones. Watch them.”
The army seethed and swirled in panic, but where blood pooled around the hundreds of dead, nothing happened. The dead lay there, trampled by their comrades, and did not shimmer or fade.
“That’s it,” Damon announced. “That is the army we must face. All those other warriors are only illusions.” He raised his glass to watch the floating wizard and shouted, “Guards! Mirrors!”
All along the ramparts, guards reversed their shields, turning the backs of them outward as the air beyond Southgate crackled and flared.
Bolts of sorcerous energy directed at the discobel towers and the dwarves on the main ledge hit the bright mirrors and bounced away. Bolts of lightning shot from the mirrors outward, across the open plain, to dance among the mercenaries gathered there. Smoke erupted, and blazing men ran in all directions, searing and dropping as they ran. The remaining duplicate army, east of the main group, flashed and disappeared.
“That’s a trick I learned from my pet wizard,” Damon told his father.
Chapter 18
WIZARD’S WINGS
Days had passed since Quist Redfeather’s imprisonment in the walled place the dwarves called the Valley of the Thanes, and he had begun to wonder whether the dwarves had forgotten that he was there. The packs and kegs of supplies they had left for him beside a sealed gate were the only signs he had that anybody even knew about him. He had been alone since the night he had watched a burly, angry dwarf use a mage’s own magic to change the mage into a horse.
Through the days, the tall, dour Cobar had wandered the little valley, seeking a way out. Then, giving up on that – a dwarf might climb such walls, but no human ever would – he simply explored to pass the time. He found a place where neat, tended graves marked the burial grounds of the dwarves and wandered through it, wondering. Each short, carefully covered grave was placed in careful symmetry with all the others, and each was marked by a piece of cut stone inscribed with runes that Quist couldn’t read. Despite his anger at the dwarves who had tricked him and imprisoned him in this place, he had no desire to desecrate the graves he found there. Such an act might have occurred to a Sackman or Rik raider, or some other such savage, but not to the proud Cobar. Though the runes told him nothing of who was buried there, they still indicated that each small grave was the resting place of someone who had been cared about … someone who had mattered to those who buried him.
Strangely, it struck Quist as a Cobarlike thing to do, this marking of the graves of the cherished dead. His own people respected their dead, and so, it seemed, did the dwarves. In at least that way, he thought, the dwarves were far more human than many humans he had met – such as those from the northern deserts and those who ruled Xak Tsaroth – especially those who ruled Xak Tsaroth.
What would the High Overlord do to Quist’s family when he failed to return from his mission? The Cobar didn’t know, but it pained him to think about it. Whatever their fate, he would devote his life to getting even.
At times riding the big red horse he called Enchanter – appropriately, since until recently it had been a human wizard – and sometimes afoot, the Cobar roamed the lonely little valley and waited for someone to come, or something to happen. And now it had. With first light of morning he had awakened to see a small yellow banner fluttering on a stick near the wall where his first supplies had been left. The banner marked a fresh stack of supplies, and atop the stack lay all of his weapons – oiled, polished, and unharmed.
He wondered what it meant. Did the dwarves intend to release him soon? Had they already given him a way to freedom that he simply could not see? Or – the thought occurred to him – was something happening beyond the valley that might cause him jeopardy? Were they giving him the chance to defend himself?
The idea wasn’t surprising. In the time he had spent with Da
mon, Quist had noticed a strange sort of honor in the big dwarf.
Could dwarves have honor? He turned the question over in his mind. Dwarves were not human, but in many of their private ways they were like humans. Could not a people who thought and reasoned as well as humans – and who honored their dead – also understand chivalry?
Whatever the reason, Quist had his weapons back, and throughout the day he roamed the little valley, often looking upward toward the high ramparts of the sheer walls. The day did seem different from the days before. The drums – the dwarven drums, which seemed never still in this land – were extraordinarily busy. Obviously something of note was going on. And once, distantly, on an errant breeze, Quist thought he heard the sound of human trumpets. Twice at least during the day, the air above the valley shimmered and crackled with the taste of magics unleashed.
And he noticed, more and more through the day, that Enchanter followed him around closely, seeming always to be at his heels and often raising a handsome equine head to gaze aloft at the rim of the valley and the open sky above.
The horse seemed to sense things that Quist could not sense. The animal was skittish and nervous. Once, when it sidled against him, he pushed it away, growling, “Quit that! You don’t know anything! You’re just a horse!”
The horse turned its head to stare at him with big, thoughtful eyes, then shook its head violently and whinnied. It almost seemed to be trying to talk, and Quist grinned at it, stroking its neck. “Just can’t speak a spell, can you,” he said. “That’s probably the only thing that keeps you from transforming yourself back into a wizard, and if you did that I’d have to kill you, because if I didn’t, you’d probably try to kill me.”
Again the horse gazed at him thoughtfully. It turned then and ambled away as though forgetting about him. But for an hour afterward, as evening shadows drifted across the valley, he could see the animal stamping around, tossing its head, and he often heard the strange whinnying sound, as though it were trying to talk.
It was nearly dark, and Quist was just building a small fire, when Enchanter came back. In the gloom, the horse stood over him, then lowered its head and nudged him with its nose. He glanced up. “What do you want now? I’m busy!”
He went back to his fire, blowing his kindling alight, and the horse nudged him again, almost pushing him into the fire.
The Cobar stood, frowned, and started to scold the animal, then stopped. Somehow, in the near darkness, it looked different than it had before. He stepped aside, just as his fire caught and gave him light to see. Quist gasped, jumped back, and gripped the hilt of his blade. The horse had wings! Somehow, it had managed to grow a pair of wide, red-feathered wings that unfolded gracefully as he stared, then folded back along its sides.
“You’re still a wizard,” Quist snapped. “You managed a spell!”
The horse nodded, its big eyes studying him.
“You could grow wings, but you couldn’t turn yourself into a human again?”
The horse shook its head sorrowfully.
“Are you going to try to kill me?” The Cobar half drew his blade, crouching.
The horse shook its head determinedly and pawed at the ground.
“Then what do you want?” Quist demanded.
The horse half-turned and sidled toward him, lowering its near wing almost to the ground. When it was only a step away, it curtsied gracefully, extending one foreleg and bending the other, offering him its back. The motion was unmistakable to any horseman.
“You want me to ride you,” Quist muttered.
The horse nodded.
The Cobar hesitated for a second, then with a bound he leapt aboard the horse, his legs tightening around its girth beneath the wings. He drew his sword, raising it over the flowing mane before him. “All right,” he said. “But we aren’t going to hurt each other, are we?”
The horse looked around at him as though he had insulted it, then crouched, sprang, and extended great, beating wings. The ground fell away below, and they flew in a climbing spiral toward the rim of the valley above.
The towering mass of Cloudseeker Peak rose into view, then the Promontory beyond, and Quist whistled. Out there on the great meadow were hundreds of fires – an entire army encamped beneath the stars. And all along the south face of the peak – and on the lower slopes below – were torches and lamps.
The horse rose higher, circling as Quist realized what he was seeing. The dwarves were under siege. An army was at their doorstep, and there had been fighting. Enchanter set his wings and swooped above the south face of the mountain, diving to within fifty yards of the great portal there before climbing away. Quist saw a massive gateway, ranked by hundreds of dwarves in full armor. Some of them pointed upward and shouted, but Enchanter veered to the right and headed out over the broken lands toward the Promontory. The campfires of an army spread before and below, and Quist squinted, then hissed in revulsion as some of the figures around them became clear. “Sackmen!” he muttered. “Sackmen and Rik raiders! Mercenaries!”
Near the center of the great encampment Enchanter set his wings and dived toward a fire apart from all the rest. Around it, many figures stood and sat. A dark-hatted one was speaking, gesturing and waving angrily while the rest listened. Quist realized that none of them carried weapons. Wizards? he wondered.
Still high in the sky, the flying horse wheeled and raced away, back the way they had come. Before Quist realized it, they were over the Valley of the Thanes again, and descending. “No!” he shouted. “We just got out of there! Don’t go back!” But the horse continued to descend, and the valley walls closed around them. At the bottom, Enchanter touched down lightly, and Quist jumped off, waving his sword. “Why did you bring me back here?”
As though in response, the horse folded its wings and ambled toward the little fire the man had left. When it reached the fire, it turned, looked at him, then extended a big delicate hoof, pointing. Beside the fire lay Quist’s shield, dagger-belt, bow, and quiver, just where he had left them. “Oh,” the Cobar said. “Well, thank you for remembering my things.”
*
The day had gone well for the Holgar, all things considered. Blood had been shed, but most of it was human blood. Not counting the bogus “armies” which the dwarves stubbornly considered only mirages – once they had identified them – hundreds of mercenaries had fallen before the discobel disks, and quite a few more in a Daergar attack on the outskirts of their encampment after dark. By the best estimates of all the commanders, dwarven losses during the entire day were about fifty.
And in late evening, word had come to Willen Ironmaul that Northgate was complete, its immense plug installed and in operation. He immediately ordered Northgate closed. Setting the massive plug in place would free additional thousands of guards and workers to help meet the attack on Southgate. Even now, most of the population of Gatekeep, behind Northgate, was streaming southward through the subterranean realm, donning armor as they came.
One disturbing thing still bothered Willen. With word that Northgate was complete, Cale Greeneye came to him. “We have brought the country people to safety here,” the Neidar said. “But we will not stay. We do not belong here, Willen, beneath this weight of stone, any more than you and the other Holgar belong out in the open spaces.”
Willen gazed at his brother-in-law thoughtfully. They had both been Calnar in another time, and they had both been Hylar in the migration across Ansalon. But even then, Cale Greeneye had been different. A person of the mountains and the open skies, he had never been comfortable in the subterranean abodes of the Holgar, and over the years a great many others, of many tribes, had joined him. They had become a different people, the Neidar. Just as the Holgar thanes – Hylar, Daewar, Theiwar, Daergar, and many Klar – were people of the stone, the Neidar were people of the sun. As the Holgar were people of the hammer, so the Neidar were people of the axe.
“Some of us, those with families, will remain here,” Cale said. “But the rest are leaving. We ha
ve done what we can within Thorbardin. From this point, we would only be in the way.”
Willen nodded and extended a hand. “Take the horses, then, Cale,” he said. “Take them and make good use of them.”
Some time later, Willen heard that the Neidar had left Thorbardin, and Northgate had closed behind them.
There was still the concern about magical assault – that wizards might somehow circumvent the sealed plug at either gate – but spotters with far-seeing lens tubes had been at work all day, up near the crag, counting mages. It was a fair guess that at least for now the entire assault on Thorbardin – wizards and all – was concentrated on Southgate. So only a small company of guards and operators remained at Northgate.
In all, it had been a successful day in the defense of Thorbardin. But it was only the first day, and there was still an army out there on the Promontory, an army that numbered at least six thousand organized human raiders and more than a hundred wizards.
“We have won a day,” Willen Ironmaul told Barek Stone. “But we have not won a war. Today they played with illusions and had a look at some of our defenses. Tomorrow they will get serious.”
On the sloping rampart below the main ledge, there were shouts and a scuffle. Guards raised lanterns, and those on the ledge saw a struggling group coming toward them – a dozen or more burly Theiwar dragging a white-robed human among them, pushing and prodding him. The man was muttering things, and now and then several dwarves floated upward a foot or two, then descended angrily, swearing in true Theiwar fashion. For a moment, two or three Theiwar seemed to glow with an eerie light. Then another grew bat wings and sprouted fangs which curved down over his beard.