“Hill dwarves, charge!” Flint raised the Tharkan Axe above his head as he shouted, and then stopped in surprise as a cool white light suddenly sprang from the axe, washing over the field. It spilled brightly across the derro ranks, and the mountain dwarves, to a harrn, turned their faces from the painful brightness. Flint stared at the axe for a moment, surprised by the rush of power. Around him the hill dwarves raised a hoarse cheer.
“To victory!” bellowed Tybalt.
With a ragged roar that almost matched their enemy’s challenge in volume, the hill dwarves swarmed down and into the side of the mountain dwarf force. Flint saw Hildy, her face a mask of grim determination, race down the earthwork. His brother Bernhard and his sister Fidelia were also charging with the frenzied mob, though he didn’t know exactly where they were.
“For the Great Betrayal!” howled Turq Hearthstone. The big hill dwarf flew past Flint and crushed a derro skull with his heavy iron hammer.
The charge came so quickly, and was such a stunning surprise, that the advancing Theiwar quickly broke in confusion. Desperately, in ones and twos and threes, the mountain dwarves met the rushing hill dwarves. A confused melee erupted as weapons clanged against shields and dwarves cried out in the tumult.
Overhead flew the bodies of many brave, tightly bundled gully dwarves. The Agharpults were being launched with remarkably accuracy after the days of training, and the Aghar were crashing effectively into the tight rows of Theiwar soldiers.
Flint was surrounded by the mysterious circle of light as he led the onslaught of his kin. He wielded the Tharkan Axe with brutal force, striking to his right and his left as he waded into the Theiwar army. His blade smashed a dent into the black steel of a mountain dwarf’s breastplate, felling the fighter in one blow. He parried a barrage of assailants, dropping two more with crushing blows that split their helmets and shattered their skulls.
A derro screamed and ducked away, his eyes seared by the brightness of the blade. Others squinted and rushed forward, faces twisted by hatred. But they had trouble facing the light, and Flint killed those that did not turn and flee.
The great din of battle rang in his ears, a constant dissonant clash of metal against metal, mixed more and more with the shrill screams and dull groans of the wounded. Flint saw a dazzling array of bristly-headed derro around him, their faces a constantly shifting pattern of cruelty, hatred, and fear.
He caught a glimpse of Fidelia, wearing an old shirt of leather armor and wielding a long pitchfork with deadly effect, pinning a squirming derro to the ground by driving the makeshift weapon through his stomach.
Around him he felt the weight of the hill dwarves cracking the precision of the mountain dwarves’ ranks. In the growing confusion Flint surged ever forward, dragging, as if by the force of his will, those hill dwarves who fought beside him.
He heard Tybalt’s throaty roar as the constable slashed to the right and left with a huge two-handed sword. Almost unconscious of the sound, Flint, too, howled a battle cry and jumped forward to drive another Theiwar back. Flint noticed that his axe glowed as brightly as ever, and now the steel haft had begun to grow warm under his palms. The blood of dead mountain dwarves darkened the blade.
He came upon Garf, one of the Agharpult missiles, sitting on top of an unconscious mountain dwarf and rubbing his head.
“Hard shirt!” complained the Aghar. He thumped the metal breastplate of the warrior to show where he had landed after being fired from his weapon.
“Hard head!” Flint pointed out, patting the courageous gully dwarf on the back and indicating the fallen Theiwar.
Suddenly Garf’s eyes widened in surprise. “No!” Flint cried, seeing the bloody tip of a sword emerge from the Aghar’s chest. Stabbed from behind, Garf fell and Flint stared into the wide, maddened eyes of the sneering derro who had slain him.
Those eyes widened farther as Flint leaped forward, driving the still-glowing axe through the mountain dwarf’s forehead. The enemy fell across the body of his small victim, and Flint blinked back tears of anguish and anger.
Then a mountain dwarf surged at him, and Flint barely had time to parry the blow. He left Garf’s body as he slashed and then backed away, thrown off-balance by the savagery of the axe-wielding Theiwar’s assault.
He heard Hildy cry out beside him, but he couldn’t break away from the aggressive derro. A small handaxe flew past Flint’s head, embedding itself into the derro’s skull. A hill dwarf suddenly stood beside Flint, and he turned to nod his thanks at his brother Bernhard. He turned to help Hildy, only to see that she had dropped her opponent with a sharp stab of her sword.
But the derro pressed all around, and he felt himself backing up to keep from being surrounded. Bernhard and Hildy fought beside him, desperately holding the renewed derro attack at bay. From somewhere, a swordblade bit into Flint’s forearm, and he shouted in pain. Two more derro lunged, their faces twisted by cruel grins.
Before Flint could raise his axe, another form stepped between them. He saw Bernhard drop one mountain dwarf with a sharp blow to the neck, but then his brother’s weapon stuck in the armor plate of his victim. Desperately Bernhard struggled to pull the axeblade free, but the other derro was too quick.
Flint stared in horror as Theiwar steel sliced into his brother’s throat. Blood—more blood than Flint could have imagined—spilled down Bernhard’s chest. The hill dwarf spun, giving Flint a look of uncomprehending surprise, and then he slumped to the ground.
“Bastard!” growled Hildy, lunging at the still-grinning derro. The mountain dwarf raised his blade, deflecting her attack, but he could not guard against two at once. Flint, his whole body trembling with rage, attacked. The Tharkan Axe flashed, and the Theiwar’s head flew from his shoulders.
Through his shock, Flint sensed a change in the tangled melee; the elite mountain dwarf fighters were recovering their equilibrium.
“Back!” ordered Flint. “Back to the wall!”
The order was unnecessary because the defenders of Hillhome were being forced back to the breastwork through no choice of their own. Soon, as the mountain dwarves pushed their renewed attack, it was all Flint could do to prevent their fallback from becoming a rout.
The hill dwarves desperately scrambled back up the wall and into their redoubt, but the mountain dwarves followed their advantage aggressively.
“Hold at the top!” shouted Flint, turning and bashing one more of the mountain dwarves. Once again his axe crushed metal armor, killing the foe without penetrating the rigid barrier of his steel plate. His victim tumbled back down the breastwork, knocking two of his fellows over as he fell. Flint noticed that the still-glowing Tharkan Axe was growing uncomfortably warm to the touch, and the blood of his enemies now sizzled on its blade.
Along the crest of the wall, Tybalt and other hill dwarves stopped their retreat. Gasping and panting from the exertion of the combat, the defenders nevertheless stood firm.
The Theiwar, exhausted from their long charge, still disorganized by the disruptive attack, suddenly fell back from the wall to catch their breath and regroup. Flint sensed the near-collapse of the hill dwarves around him and knew that the respite had come none too soon.
Then he looked over his shoulder and saw disaster.
Chapter 23
The Last Bastion
“Damn your filthy cowardice!” Pitrick exploded at the two sergeants who stood before him.
At first, things had seemed to develop fairly well. His regiments had formed with parade-ground precision, and their advance had proceeded with apparently irresistible momentum. It seemed certain that the hill dwarves would be overwhelmed by the first rush!
His eagerness for battle had increased with a conclusion he had gradually drawn over the preceeding day’s forced encampment. He had brooded and cursed and schemed, still tormented by Perian’s existence, out of his reach. But the more he thought, the more he believed that she would be here, in Hillhome, once again within his grasp.
After al
l, had she not dwelled in Mudhole with the very hill dwarf who, to Pitrick, embodied the pestilential stubborness of Hillhome? And would not Flint Fireforge be certain to race to his village’s defense? It therefore seemed very likely that Perian would be here, too, and this added heat to Pitrick’s hatred, made him more determined than ever to wipe out the town and all its inhabitants.
But the first wave of his assault had been thrown back, and now these two craven warriors stood before him, stammering their pathetic excuses.
“Do you mean to tell me that you were beaten by hill dwarves!” the hunchback continued, turning his savage, penetrating gaze on each of the frightened mountain dwarves in turn. Good, he thought. They face the odds of battle willingly enough, but when I speak to them, they are still afraid.
Pitrick paced back and forth before the cringing derro. He limped awkwardly on his throbbing foot, and the pain momentarily distracted him from the matter at hand. He shook his head to clear it.
The Theiwar commander trembled with rage. Angrily he looked at his shaking hands, too unsteady to bear a weapon or cast a spell. Every nerve in his body screamed that he should kill these two failures before him, vent his fury upon their miserable lives.
But he could not do that. Pitrick faced the fact that this battle would not be so easily won. Slowly, he brought his anger under control, until he could speak normally. Then he turned back to the pair of veterans who had led his first attack against the breastwork.
Around him, the bonfires set by the hill dwarves had mostly burned themselves out. The darkness, thick and protecting, settled around his army again, broken only by the hot piles of red coals. Many derro stood in small groups, gathering around their sergeants, waiting for further commands. Others tended their comrades who had been overcome by the vile gas. The night was a blanket of protection and security back here, away from the defenders.
Before them, however, in the ditch along the fortification, the great, oily bundles of hay still smoldered, glowing with painful brightness in the cool night. The bales had been soaked with oil, Pitrick recognized, and their ignition had been a cruelly successful trick. But, very soon now, the hill dwarves would pay for their cleverness.
The stench of the black smoke wafted past his nostrils. He grimaced at the cloud, which still blocked the center of the hill dwarf defenses. No matter, he would break them to the left and to the right. He would destroy them!
His ambitions called his mind back to the two black-plated derro who stood before him. They watched his face anxiously, contorted as it was by his all-consuming rage. Hesitantly, one of them opened his mouth.
“But, Excellency,” stammered the grizzled battle veteran. “They fight like demons, madly possessed! They have weapons and discipline. You, yourself, have smelled the noxious gasses they cast—and they hide behind that wall, out of our reach!”
“And the fires!” chimed in his comrade. “The savants were totally blinded—and the rest of the troops suffered great pain!”
“You fools! I will tolerate no further delay! Attack again!” Pitrick sputtered, his voice a shrill scream.
“But—” A sergeant opened his mouth to object, then shut it when he saw the look in his commander’s eyes.
“No delay,” Pitrick said, his voice dropping to a sinister hiss. Unconsciously, his hand grasped the five-headed iron amulet than hung at his chest. Blue light seeped between his fingers, and the eyes of his sergeants grew wide with terror. The light seethed like thick smoke in a growing cloud around him, slowly reaching toward the cringing figures of his warriors.
Pitrick’s vision vanished in the red blur of his hatred. He clenched his teeth, his breath coming in hissing gasps, as he again struggled to retain his self-control.
“We attack now, Excellency!” stammered one of the sergeants. They turned, stumbling in their eagerness to escape their maddened leader.
Pitrick took a pace after them, still tempted to sizzle one of them into nothingness as a lesson against the consequences of failure. But that single step sent throbbing arrows of agony darting up his leg, and he winced, forgetting for the moment his recalcitrant subcommanders.
By the dark powers, his foot hurt! He screeched his agony, a sound of fury that frightened those troops within earshot. Then Pitrick limped after the two sergeants. He would find the savants, speak to them himself. Then they would know the folly of retreat!
He located, after long and painful minutes of walking, the six robed figures of his spellcasting savants. They squatted on the muddy ground of the field, pressing cold compresses of slushy grass to their seared eyes.
“Fools! Idiots! Morons!” he shrieked, walking among them and kicking the startled derro to their feet. “You can’t stop now! The enemy strikes us a blow, then we must strike him back—harder!”
“But, Master,” screeched one, groveling on his knees and holding his eyes downcast. “Our eyes … we can barely see!”
“Damn your eyes if you don’t get up and attack!” sneered the hunchback. “Come with me! We will lay them low with fire and sorcery! Stand up, you blathering idiots—we must lead the attack!”
Slowly, reluctantly, the savants rose. They followed Pitrick as he limped forward, forcing his way over the muddy ground, closer to the hill dwarf redoubt.
As Pitrick marched, the pain in his foot became worse, a driving, pounding awareness that threatened to overwhelm every other sensation. But the hunchback used that pain, turning it into a kind of brutal example to show his men the true measure of their race. He marched harder and faster, intentionally punishing himself, sneering at the weakness of those around him.
His own vision suffered from the flaring fires across the field, but he forced himself to look past those, toward the enemy on top of the low, sloping wall. He saw a long rank of motley hill dwarves there, and growled inwardly at the thought that these puny specimens had repulsed an attack of the vaunted House Guard.
They would not do so again.
As he approached, Pitrick saw the struggle that was raging on top of the wall. The Theiwar were advancing in small groups, rushing up the sloping wall, only to meet the sharp weapons of the resolute hill dwarves when they reached the top. Each attack broke as the derro died atop the wall, survivors forced backward to fall, roll, or run to the ditch at the bottom.
“Now,” Pitrick snapped, his shrill voice calling for the savants’ undivided attention. “I will show you how to attack! Without mercy—without hesitation!”
He grasped the iron amulet and looked along the top of the redoubt, trying to identify the hill dwarf leader. The battle raging between the charging Theiwar and the staunch hill dwarves made it difficult to see. Once again he watched some of his elite troops thrown back, pushed physically from the top of the wall by the tenacious enemy.
Still, he only needed to find their captain. Then he would cast a single, very potent spell, and all cohesion would vanish from his enemy’s formation.
Suddenly he froze, his eyes locked on a long-haired dwarf near the center of the enemy position. He blinked, but then he looked again, growing more and more certain of his identification. He saw that it was a frawl, and that she chopped about her with an axe, savagely skillful. Her auburn tresses burst free to swirl past her face.
Perian Cyprium!
“She is here!” Pitrick cried aloud, uncaring of the surprised looks from the savants behind him. Instantly he raised his hand, pointing his index finger right at her. He could almost taste the effect of the fireball spell on this frawl he had come to both desire and hate so much.
But something stayed his hand. The savants waited expectantly as he stared at her. The yearning for her was once again surging through his pain-racked body.
Pitrick reached a decision. He would not burn her—yet. A fireball seemed too fast, too impersonal a way for Perian to die. Far better she saw that it was he who took her, and that death should come slowly … afterward. There was even the chance she would yet come to appreciate him, and for a moment his mi
nd thrilled to the image of Perian, on her knees, begging for mercy. A part of his mind began to imagine his response. Suddenly, violently, his attention turned back to the battle.
“Sound the fallback!” he shouted to the bugler, and, to his savants: “Prepare your spells!”
The brass notes of the horn sounded across the field, and the derro atop the earthwork quickly fell back to the relative safety of the ditch at the bottom of the wall.
At the same time his eyes flickered to Perian again. Later, he told himself. Later I will have her. I will find her and, by magic or might, claim her.
“Now!” cried Pitrick. “Destroy them!”
His hand clasped the medallion. Blue light spilled forth, illuminating the hunchbacked derro with a chilling outline as he launched his spell.
Violent magic exploded.
Basalt stood atop the redoubt on the right side of the position, raising his axe, bashing the mountain dwarves, standing firm. The battle had lasted less than an hour so far, yet it felt as though his life had always consisted of this same muscle-aching combat, the ringing cacophony of pain and death.
At first, terror had consumed him, and every blow he struck had been a matter of insuring his own personal survival. But, with each victory over an individual derro, his confidence had grown, and with it his rage. Now he struck with cold, deadly anger, slaying to avenge his father, Moldoon, and all the other unnamed dwarves that he knew were dying around him.
Perian fought nearby, astonishing the young hill dwarf with her skill and tenacity. She shouted hoarsely at her former comrades. The black-armored mountain dwarves who recognized their former captain hesitated for but a moment before they tried to close with her. But their hesitation was crucial. Swinging her axe with bone-crushing force, she managed to fend off all their attacks.
Basalt saw a mountain dwarf gain the top of the rampart between himself and Perian. The warrior raised his bloody axe and turned toward the frawl. Basalt twisted to his rear and swept the Theiwar from the breastwork with the savage cut of his axe.
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