"OK, Nomscul, I get the point." Flint was fully awake now. He grabbed the Aghar's bony shoulders to keep him from jumping up and down. "How many were — are you sure it isn't just a patrol?"
Nomscul slammed his hands on his hip bones and sniffed, tossing his head at the insult to his intelligence.
Flint reluctantly rolled away from Perian and pushed himself off the bed. Turning his back, he yanked his pants up to his stomach, stuffing his long blue-green tunic into the drawstring waist.
The mountain dwarf was waking up more slowly. "It can't be the Theiwar troops — it's too early," she protested, stabbing the sleep from her eyes with her fists. "It's only been a couple of days since the attack in the Big Sky Room;
Pitrick couldn't possibly have organized the troops that quickly!"
"Tell that to Pitrick and his army," Flint grumbled, stuffing his boots onto his feet. "I just hope Basalt's had enough time to fortify Hillhome. We're coming, whether they're ready or not."
"We can march? Can we?" pleaded Nomscul, thrusting his chest out and stomping about the room to demonstrate his readiness.
Flint ignored the shaman as he finished dressing, his mind on the march ahead of them. He strapped on the Tharkan Axe, his gift from Perian the night before. His fingers lin gered over the cool steel blade, while his mind traveled back to the previous evening. Sighing, he slapped some day-old water on his face.
"Tell every gully dwarf in the place that the time has come for the big march. They must get their weapons, their shields, supplies, everything," the king ordered Nomscul.
"Gather up the sludge bombs and meet Queen Perian in the grotto. I'm going there directly to have a look outside my self." Nodding furiously, Nomscul dashed from the cavern in the direction of the Big Sky Room.
But Perian shook her head as she crawled over Flint's side of the bed and began to dress hastily. "I'm coming with you."
Flint turned to her in exasperation. "One of us has to stay here and see that they get organized!" he objected. "How do we know they won't bring their knives and spoons instead of their swords and shields?"
"We don't," said Perian. "But you won't know which of the thane's forces we face, or how to combat them. I served in his guard — "
"I remember," Flint interrupted.
"— I'll recognize the units, their strengths and their weak nesses. I know the thane's officers! If anyone stays back here, it should be you!"
Flint gruffly assented. He led them down the sloping Up per Tubes, finally finding the entrance to the stairway into the grotto.
They scrambled down the stairway, Flint taking the steps two at a time. Both of them paused to look at the bench by the pool, still covered with the containers of food and their plates from the night before.
"Come on," Flint said at last, following the pool to its far thest corner from the stairway, where a large but low-to the-ground crack in the granite wall allowed access. A deep channel had been cut in the sandy ground there, and pre sumably it and the crack had been formed by an old stream bed; now the water left the pool by another, newer channel ten feet beyond the old one.
"This is it." Flint took up Perian's hand and slipped into the jagged fissure, leading the way. Before long they had to walk in a crouch, as the top of the crack loomed close over head. Flint counted his steps out of habit from his old dungeon-crawling days, and on step ninety-three, they came abruptly into sunlight on a small crest cloaked in pines. The crack was cut slightly at an angle and surrounded by trees, thus it was almost unnoticeable to the untrained eye.
Accustomed to living underground, Perian squinted in pain at the sudden light, made worse by reflections off of early snow. Even Flint blinked at the brightness, having grown used to the darkness below in less than a week. A cold breeze wafted past his face, and the old, familiar sensa tion invigorated him.
"I have been to the surface less than a dozen times, but it has never looked beautiful to me before today," Perian con fessed, shielding her eyes with an upraised arm. "The light hurts my eyes, but I'll grow accustomed soon, because I'm half Hylar." She laughed. "After years of Pitrick's threats, I never thought I would be happy about that."
Flint patted her encouragingly on the shoulder; he had the feeling that a lot of things would change today. The hill dwarf knew that they had emerged in the Kharolis range about a half-day northeast of the tunnel by which he had en tered Thorbardin. Climbing up the crest to get a better view, he looked down at a mountain stream that he presumed had its origins in the grotto. Flint shielded his eyes and looked to the east. The sky was crystal-clear, and he could see the shimmering shore of Stonehammer Lake about a day's march away. Looking down the mountain to the west, he could not locate the Passroad, nor see signs of mountain dwarf troops.
"This stream flows down one of the side valleys toward the lake, which meets up with the Passroad," Flint said. "We should come in sight of the road if we follow the stream down."
They moved through an open forest, following the gentle descent of the valley. In less than ten minutes they came around a shoulder of the ridge; across barren, snow-dotted slopes they saw the Passroad, a thick brown tendril snaking its way through the foothills north of Thorbardin.
The road was empty for as far to the west as the eye could see.
Arms crossed, Flint chewed his lip. "Have we delayed so long that they've already passed from sight ahead of us?" he asked, his voice ragged with concern.
"I don't think so." Perian shook her head, not taking her eyes from the general vicinity of the road. "My guess is that they've camped somewhere for the day, out of the sun. They probably haven't moved too far off the road." She scanned the horizon, stopping to examine the edge of a thicket of pines just a little to the west. "See there?" she asked, point ing. "Under those trees? It's nearly at the edge of my vision — they could almost be ants!" She concentrated. "No,
I'm sure I saw a red plume waving. It's the Bloody Blades."
Flint shivered involuntarily at the name. "What are the Bloody Blades?"
Perian pursed her lips while she thought. "The House
Guard. The Blades are just one regiment of three, each con taining two hundred soldiers. The other regiments are the
Silver Swords and the Black Bolts. The three regiments al ways fight together as a synchronized force, complementing their strengths and weaknesses. They form units of heavy infantry, light infantry, and crossbows."
"Could you try not to sound so proud of them?" Flint grumbled.
Perian looked only mildly embarrassed. "Old habits," she said.
Flint whistled through his teeth. "Six hundred dwarves.
And against 'em we have a couple hundred Aghar," he groaned. "Why don't we just hand Hillhome over?"
"It could be worse," Perian said, trying to sound encour aging. "The thane has thousands of troops at his disposal, but only the House Guard bear fealty to him alone. The rest defend all of Thorbardin, not just the Theiwar."
"That's a comfort," Flint said sarcastically, digging a hole in a snowbank with the toe of his boot.
"You're forgetting Basalt," Perian reminded him softly.
"I'm not," the old hill dwarf said, shaking his gray head.
"But we're pinning a lot of hopes on that young 'un."
"Well, we've got to get moving," she said gently. "We'll get ahead of them by a day while the House Guard bivouacs out of the sun."
Flint nodded, shaking off his melancholia. Following the stream uphill, the pair of dwarves made their way back up to the crack in the granite. There they found Nomscul.
"You were supposed to organize the troops," Flint scolded him.
"Rest wait in there, all straight," Nomscul announced, pointing into the tunnel, "like Nomscul tell them." Sud denly, gully dwarves began popping from the opening -
Fester, Cainker, Oooz, Garf, Pooter, and all the rest. They came out in a steady torrent, carrying every manner of weapon: the one hundred fifty Agharpulters with daggers slipped into their robe belts; one h
undred Creeping Wedgies with shields tucked under their arms.
The Aghar milled about the tunnel entrance, a steadily growing mob. Flint and Perian circled them like sheepdogs, trying to keep the group together as their comrades emerged.
Last but not least came the Sludge Bombers, carrying their jugs and bottles and big pots of explosive venom. Flint had cautioned them repeatedly about the need to handle the containers of sludge delicately, so they tiptoed, swinging the jugs any which way as they joined their friends in the sun light on the mountainside.
"Hold those carefully — carefully!" Flint bellowed. "And where are the litters to carry the sludge bombs?" he asked.
Four gully dwarves trooped out of the crack just then, holding the handles of two makeshift litters, old leather vests each stretched across stout limbs. The biggest jugs of sludge, several measuring a foot across, had been set upon the litters for gentle transport.
Flint and Perian began to organize the three hundred-odd members of the army, such as it was, on the mountainside.
"Assemble your units!" Flint barked. "Nomscul, you lead the Agharpults over here; Oooz, get the Sludge Bombers over there; and Fester, put the Creeping Wedgies here, in the middle."
To their credit, the Aghar tried to follow the commands of their king. Several minutes of raw chaos ensued as the gully dwarves charged into a single pile of squirming Aghar, where only an occasional arm, leg, or face could be spotted.
Somehow the pile resolved itself into three milling groups, more or less organized by the categories Flint had detailed.
Their king felt compelled to offer up some inspiring words. "Stand at attention for some last instructions!" he bellowed.
Again, they tried to stand at attention, but their habit of facing every which way diminished the military precision of the maneuver. Flint only sighed. "Gully dwarves of Mud hole!" he began sternly, trying to get as many of them to face him as possible. "We embark today upon a great excurs -
Oooz, get back here! — a great excursion, to face in combat an enemy implacable and bold, savage and — what is it,
Nomscul?"
The shaman was hopping in agitation, waving his hand in the air and clenching his lips together as if to forcibly pre vent himself from speaking without royal permission. "King talk too much," explained Nomscul. "We march now?"
Flint's face flushed, and he aimed a glare at Nomscul that would have transfixed any halfway intelligent subject.
Fortunately — for himself, at any rate — Nomscul was only halfway intelligent and simply mistook his monarch's stare for a warm smile of congratulations.
"In a moment," Flint growled in exasperation. He turned back to the troops, saw their stupidly eager expressions.
"Look, gang, we've got quite a march ahead of us; we'll stop before dark near Stonehammer Lake, then I figure we'll make it to Hillhome midday tomorrow. It's vitally impor tant that we stick together as a group — Basalt and all of Hillhome are probably waiting this very minute for us to come and help them. Please try to act like soldiers. Do it for your king and queen."
"Two chairs for King Flunk and Queen Furryend!" Nom scul shouted. The troops responded with resounding screeches and caterwauls.
"Let's go, before they get tangled up again," Perian sug gested in a loud whisper, watching them wander from their units.
"Gully dwarves, march!" cried Flint, waving his arm in a circle over his head.
The king of the gully dwarves led his troops, three hun dred strong, down the mountainside, heading for the
Passroad east of the House Guard encampment below. This would allow him, with luck and speed, to move his force onto the road somewhere ahead of the thane's troops.
The organizing into units represented a masterpiece of military precision when compared to the march of the gully dwarves that ensued. In muttered conversation with Perian,
Flint could only compare it to the ridiculous task of herding chickens, though after the fourth or fifth effort at chasing down a wayward column of Aghar and returning them to the fold, he amended his comments to the effect that his comparison did a grave disservice to poultry.
To make matters worse, dark, angry clouds rolled in and it began to snow. At first the storm came as great, feathery
Hakes, gently wafting earthward. Except for the disruption caused by gully dwarves breaking file to catch particularly choice snowflakes with their tongues, the light precipitation caused no problem for the hardy Aghar.
But then the wind rose and the big, friendly flakes grew small and hard, turning into hail. Blustering out of the north, the weather drove stinging needles of ice into their faces, considerably slowing down the progress of the Aghar force. And as the day progressed, the dwarves became more widely scattered, forcing Flint and Perian to cover three or four times as much ground as their charges, constantly run ning back and forth along the column.
Still moving into the teeth of the storm, they finally de scended into a small valley that gave them protection from the worst of the wind.
"I think we'd better stop for a short rest," urged Perian.
"Why don't you go ahead and look for a place big enough to hold all of us?" suggested Flint. "I'll collect the Aghar and bring them up."
Perian headed away toward a grove of tall pines that was barely visible through the storm. Nomscul came up quickly with his comrades of the Agharpult, and Flint directed them toward the grove. Next came Oooz with the Sludge
Bombers, and he urged them in the same direction.
Flint waited behind for Fester as the last of the sludge bomb team disappeared after Perian. The Creeping Wedgies had been bringing up the rear, but even for the Aghar they seemed unusually far behind. Flint's concern grew as several more minutes passed.
Full darkness had settled, giving the late autumn wind a sharper bite, yet there was still no sign of Fester and the
Creeping Wedgies. Flint peered fruitlessly into the darkness, seeking any sign of movement, but all he saw was the frigid expanse of blowing, drifting snow. There was no denying the fact, now: Fester and the Wedgies were lost, or even dead, buried in the snowfall.
Flint thought about backtracking, but he sensed that the task would be futile. Instead, he turned and plowed his way through the snow toward the grove. He would have to in form Perian of the grave news that before they had even met the enemy their army had been tragically reduced by a third.
Only with difficulty did he locate the copse of trees, so completely did the weather cloak them. Finally he stumbled into a small clearing, surrounded by dense pines, giving the area shelter.
Perian sat atop a snow-covered log near a small, unfrozen pool of water. "Where's Fester and the Wedgies?" she asked at once, noting the look of concern on Flint's face.
"They're lost — or worse," he said glumly. "And I'm afraid we'd be running the risk of weakening ourselves still further if we set out to look for them in this snow."
"We'll just have to hope that they find their way to us,"
Perian said, thinking fondly of Fester, her "weighty lady."
The other Aghar seemed not to notice the disappearance of their comrades. They focused instead on gaining the most comfortable sleeping spaces in the damp, snowy grove.
Calculating that the derro soldiers would stay in their own camp only until darkness, Flint and Perian decided to take a chance and wait for more than an hour. Still there was no sign of the missing Wedgies. In that hour, though, the storm began to abate. The wind that had made traveling difficult was now blowing the storm clouds away. Though visibility was not great, they could see a vista of complete whiteness. The peaks and ridgelines gleamed under their pristine frosting, and the whole region was revealed as one of astounding natural beauty. A small, frozen waterfall hung suspended like a great icicle at the head of the valley of their camp.
"We've got to get moving," urged Flint after the hour had passed. "Break time is over." He stepped among the bundles of gully dwarves, discovering that his subjects had collecte
d in groups of four to six. Sharing body warmth, albeit with a great deal of pushing, shoving, pinching, and biting, the
Aghar had managed to remain warm.
Blinking, stretching, and enjoying an afternoon nosepick, the Aghar gathered in ragged bunches at the edge of the clearing. Here the pool of water, fed by a hot spring, re mained clear of snow.
"Come on, you gullies!" Flint bellowed at them, trying to get their attention. "Fall in — no! I mean, line up!"
But it was too late. For once the gully dwarves responded to a command with alacrity, dropping into the pond like a mass of scattered tenpins.
"Great Reorx! Get out of there this minute!" roared the king from the edge of the pool. Suddenly the snow bank be neath his feet gave way and he, too, plummeted into the warm water.
For a few moments Flint stood stock-still in the waist deep water. Realizing that the eyes of his subjects were fixed upon him, he desperately stifled his terror. With supreme willpower he held his tongue, fearing that once he began to scream, he would never be able to stop. Slowly, with great deliberation, he dragged himself out of the pool. He pulled the hem of his tunic out of his pants and wrung the water from it, only to find his clothing already freezing.
"This is going to be a long campaign, even if it's over this afternoon," he groaned to Perian, who was dabbing at his face and soaked clothing with one of the rag bandages from a supply pack.
Slowly, after more frolicking and splashing, the Aghar hauled themselves from the pool and finally stood, dripping and shivering. "We've got to get them moving before they freeze to death," Perian urged, trying vainly to dry their heads.
The deep snow encouraged the Aghar to remain in file.
Flint and Perian took turns forcing a trail through the soft powder. When they became exhausted from the grueling task, some of the more trustworthy gully dwarves rotated the duty, though their trails tended to zigzag more often than not. Throughout the long afternoon the file of Aghar waded through the snow, skirting the highest elevations along the route Flint judged the most likely shortcut to the
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