Fate of Thorbardin dh-3

by Douglas Niles

  The general was poring over maps of the city that one of his men had found in a nearby scribe’s shop when he felt the familiar tingling of nearby teleportation. He looked up to find Willim the Black standing in front of him, wearing a bloody uniform. Slowly that gore-streaked garment faded into the wizard’s black robe, and Darkstone understood that it had been a guise, an illusion.

  “The trap is nearly ready,” the wizard crowed. “I myself have given them the final, false lead. The fool of a king will lead his troops onto the road in the next hour. When he does so, it will be time for you to move!”

  “Aye, Master-with pleasure!” Darkstone growled, truly eager to join the battle, to avenge the losses that had been eating at his conscience since the first assault against the outer gate. “We are ready to move!”

  “Good! You know what to do!”

  And with that, the wizard was gone.

  It was only a few minutes later that Darkstone received the report that confirmed Willim’s trap. A stealthy scout, a former thief who dressed all in black and slipped easily through the shadowy byways of Norbardin’s seedier neighborhoods, came to him with news.

  “General, the False King’s army has marched onto the road leading to the Urkhan Sea. The fools have taken almost all of their troops down that single road. If we move now, we can cut them off from behind and trap them against the lake!”

  “Splendid!” Darkstone declared, clenching his fist. All around, his bored and well-rested troops watched him, waiting for the next command. “On your feet, men,” he declared. “Weapons ready. We move out at once!”

  The troops wasted no time in obeying. Under the immediate command of Chap Bitters and several other loyal captains, the force was divided into four equal-sized columns. Each followed a different road, but they all would converge on the great plaza of Norbardin. Moving silently, jogging along at a good speed, they killed any citizens they encountered along the way to guarantee that they retained the element of surprise.

  Finally they came to the end of the roads, where each avenue spilled into the wide plaza. There Darkstone stopped to take stock of the situation. He’d heard the reports, but he couldn’t believe his eyes: There, right before him, were the two Firespitters, the enemy’s most lethal and deadly weapons.

  And the fools had left no troops behind to defend them!

  TWENTY

  FUEL FOR THE FIRES OF WAR

  The teleportation magic, as always, left Gretchan feeling dizzy and disoriented. She grabbed hold of the bars of the cage to steady herself and blinked and looked around. Feeling sick, she braced herself and breathed deeply until the unrest in her seething stomach slowly settled.

  As soon as she had her wits about her, she looked around more widely, seeking any information she could detect through her senses. Her first impression was one of vast, immense space and absolute darkness. She wondered, momentarily, if the wizard might have brought her to some vague and empty place, such as the Abyss or a plane of nothingness in some ambiguous location between the physical worlds of the universe.

  Then she heard the scuff of a footstep on what sounded like loose rocks. Gravel skittered away, and her own feet, through the bottom bars of the cage, discerned an irregular but solid surface. Finally, as her eyes began to adjust to darkness even more extreme than that in the wizard’s lair, she was able to see that Willim was nearby, right next to the cage, and that Facet was not much farther away, just a little beyond the wizard and apparently standing on a lower surface. The younger female held the case of potions she had packed before departing the lair.

  Gretchan’s cherished possession, the Staff of Reorx, was still held in the wizard’s two hands. The light on the anvil had been totally extinguished, but she could see the shape of the long pole as he stood still studying something … what? It was impossible to know, with his eyeless face, but she had the keen impression that he was inspecting their surroundings very carefully.

  As she looked around, Gretchan realized she must be on some kind of hilltop. The ground below her was rough and rocky and sloped away in all directions, as if her cage had been placed right on the summit of a cone-shaped elevation. A glance overhead convinced her that she was still underground, however; there was no hint of a sky, not even the diffuse glow that starlight inevitably cast through even the heaviest haze of clouds.

  Like all dwarves, she had keen vision in almost total darkness, and as she strained to see some kind of ceiling overhead, she began to discern a rocky vault far, far above her. She sniffed, tasting and smelling the air, seeking more clues, and gradually she became aware of a cold humidity. There must be a lot of water there or very nearby for the air to feel so moist. Could it be that the liquid nearly filled the whole, vast cavern?

  The Urkhan Sea!

  That would explain the vastness of the chamber, the moisture in the air, and the high ceiling. But how could she be on a hilltop or high peak? The sea was surrounded by sheer cliffs, and by the ruins of the great cities of Thorbardin. Those cities had been abandoned since the damage inflicted, primarily by fire dragons, during the Chaos War. But those cities had been built upon cliffs, their open faces, toward the lake, rising in a series of terraces and steps. They were not rugged hills.

  Only then did she remember Willim’s words as he had appeared in the lair and snatched her away.

  “What is the Isle of the Dead?” she asked, the sound of her voice hollow and loud in the wide space. As if to confirm the vastness of the cavern, she didn’t even hear the faintest of echoes following her words.

  “Ah, you were paying attention,” the wizard said as if praising a wise student. “Surely a well-read woman such as yourself knows of the Life-Tree of the Hylar?”

  He placed her staff on the ground, well away from her reach, and as he turned back to her, she noticed that the anvil on the head of the artifact once again began to glow, faint and pale but still visible to the priestess in the vault of darkness.

  “Of course I do. It was the most splendid city in all the realms of the dwarves, more magnificent than Garnet Thax or any place else in Thorbardin or even in the most ancient of dwarf homes. It was carved from a pillar of stone that rose from the middle of the Urkhan Sea and extended more than a hundred levels from the water all the way up to the ceiling of the cavern.”

  “Correct. And have your studies informed you of what happened to the Life-Tree?”

  “Yes, my mother told me. It collapsed during the Chaos War, crumbled away into the water because it was so weakened by the fire dragons who bored right through the supporting structures of the bedrock.”

  “Yes, indeed. It collapsed. But it didn’t vanish into the water. Instead, the base of the pillar became an island-an island of barren stone.”

  “An island of death …” Gretchan concluded.

  “Well, yes. For a while, anyway. For years after the war, pieces of rock were continually breaking off from the ceiling and falling down onto this place. It was merely a matter of odds that made it almost certainly fatal to anyone who tried to spend more than a day or two here. Hence its name. But in the more recent years, the last of the loose rocks seemed to have fallen. So we’re really quite … well, mostly safe out here.”

  “Why did you bring me here?” she challenged him, seeing his scarred face more clearly as he strutted just beyond the bars. “What are you going to do with me?”

  “With you?” Willim’s voice was an evil chuckle. “Perhaps I want to do something to you. You’re a very attractive female, after all. And I’m a male, normal in some respects at least. I have needs and you have the means of satisfying them.”

  Gretchan felt a growing sickness in the pit of her stomach. She glanced at Facet’s pale face, her red lips clenched in anger as she stood behind and below the wizard. Her eyes shot daggers at Gretchan, while the cleric wondered if there weren’t some way she could turn the apprentice’s jealousy to her advantage.

  As if sensing the young female’s attention, Willim turned and addressed he
r curtly. “Take the case of potions into the space below, and store it for me.”

  “Yes, Master,” Facet said softly. She turned to obey but still flashed Gretchan a look of fierce resentment that made the cleric all the more determined to try to exploit such a weakness in one of her captors.

  Her musings on that track were interrupted by another arrival as Sadie materialized nearby. She held a sack, presumably the bag of holding with the wizard’s spellbooks and scrolls, in one hand, and she clutched something to her frail chest with the other. When she moved to set it down, Gretchan-and Willim-recognized it as the bell jar containing the lone blue spark of light.

  “I did not give you permission to bring that,” the wizard said coldly.

  “I didn’t ask,” Sadie replied, meeting his eyeless face with an impassive gaze. “But I sensed that we are departing the lair, perhaps for good. I was not about to leave Peat behind.”

  The wizard snorted but didn’t argue. Finally, he uttered a short, cold laugh. “Very well. It’s not like you have the power to change him back to his true form; only I can do that. Really, it’s good that you brought him here. It simply guarantees that my power over you will remain secure.”

  Facet returned to the hilltop without the case. She did, however, carry a glass of red wine in her hand. Apparently tired of being left out of the conversation, she stepped forward and kneeled at the wizard’s feet. “Your power over me remains absolute, Master,” she offered. “Make your wishes known, and I shall obey.”

  “This I know, my pet,” Willim said absently, stepping around her to regard Sadie with his eyeless face.

  “Would you like me to give you a drink?’ she asked, offering the glass she held in both hands.

  “Not now,” Willim declared, lost in thought.

  “Do you want me to kill the priestess?” Facet asked suddenly. “I failed you once at that task, but I would not fail again.”

  “No, of course you wouldn’t,” the wizard snapped. “Not when I have imprisoned her in a cage and stolen her most precious possession and most powerful weapon. But I do not want her slain, not yet. You see, I have a use for her. It pleases me to keep her alive.”

  “What use?” Gretchan demanded, realizing that Facet had asked the same question at the same time.

  Willim seemed to find the echoing duet amusing, for he threw back his head and laughed aloud.

  “Very well,” he said. “I’ll answer your questions.” He planted his fists on his hips, and turned his scarred, stitched visage toward Gretchan. “You, my dear priestess, are here to serve as bait. And this”-he nudged the Staff of Reorx with his toe-“might just be the weapon that can bring about the end of our world.”

  The plaza of Norbardin was, if not crowded, at least populated with some evidence of commerce and celebration. A few vendors had taken advantage of Tarn’s return to bring out their carts and set up stalls-acts that would have been risky under the lawless regime of Willim the Black since his leather-clad enforcers had a habit of plundering food and drink and other goods from honest merchants without feeling any obligation to pay for the same.

  More than a few paying customers had emerged from the shattered city’s silent quarters, gathering around the stalls, especially those selling food and drink, and discussing the stunning changes wrought in the city, and the kingdom, over the past few days. They had watched in awe as the Firespitter had spewed liquid hell into the gatehouse, and they had cheered as the Kayolin dwarves had stormed the ramparts and finally opened the great gates.

  Then they had remained there, congregating in a festive mood as the Kayolin, and later Tharkadan, troops had vanished down the long tunnel of the Urkhan Road.

  The impromptu gatherings were rudely shattered as General Darkstone’s four columns burst from four different streets with perfect coordination. They ignored the ruined edifice of the royal palace, where some of the invading troops had set up stations, and raced right across the plaza, where the panicked citizenry immediately scattered toward the streets and buildings around the plaza’s fringe.

  The attackers moved with focus and speed, heading for the most important objective in all Thorbardin: the two Firespitters, currently being cleaned and reloaded just outside the gates of the roadway to the Urkhan Sea.

  Chap Bitters was the first to reach one of the machines, which was defended by only a company of light infantry and its regular crew. The chief of that crew leaped down from his seat and pulled out a long sword, but the Theiwar captain stabbed him through the heart in the first instant of contact. The rest of Bitters’s men swarmed around the base of the massive iron contraption. The crew tried to put up a spirited fight, but they had been taken by surprise and, thoroughly outnumbered, had no hope of resisting the attack.

  Darkstone himself followed the column that attacked the second Firespitter. That one was farther away, and thus, its crew had a little more warning of the attack. A few brave dwarves started to move the huge machine into a pivot, trying vainly to bring it around to face the charging Theiwar, but it quickly became apparent that the thing was too ungainly for rapid redeployment. Witnessing the fate of the Kayolin dwarves who tried to defend the first Firespitter, the crew of the second then wisely abandoned the machine and sprinted through the gates leading toward the Urkhan Road.

  A third column of Theiwar moved to screen off the palace, where a few dozen occupying troops, men wearing bright red shirts, had started to sortie from the gates. Faced by five hundred angry, steady veterans, those dwarves quickly fell back to the relative safety of the palace, piling benches, blocks of stone, and other obstacles in the gaping gateway.

  “D’ye want us to clean out the rats in the palace?” one of his captains asked General Darkstone.

  The Daergar commander shook his head. “No, I want to keep our force concentrated. See if you can find me a prisoner-I want to find out what the enemy’s up to.”

  As the captain hurried to comply, Darkstone handed out assignments to other Theiwar, those who had experience with things such as smithing, steam fitting, and other trades; they were asked to study the Firespitters, to determine if they thought they could operate the lethal war machines. He made it very clear that he didn’t expect them to respond in the negative.

  Soon, one bleeding Hylar, his right arm half amputated by the blow of sword, was dragged up to Darkstone and roughly tossed to the ground before the general.

  “Where is Tarn Bellowgranite?” demanded the Daergar commander.

  In response, the prisoner spit a gob that narrowly missed Darkstone’s boot.

  “Cut off his other arm!” barked the general, reaching down to brutally twist the wounded limb. His words and actions brought a scream from the stricken dwarf, and the fellow flopped onto his back, his face breaking out in a sheen of sweat.

  “No!” cried the prisoner. “I’ll tell you!”

  “I thought you might,” Darkstone acknowledged coldly. “Now speak quickly.”

  “He took his legion to the lake, down the Urkhan Road,” the wounded Hylar explained in a burst. “A messenger came from the Kayolin dwarves-told him that there was a Theiwar garrison down there. They were said to be ambushing the Kayolins, and the king hurried to their assistance!”

  “How amusing,” Darkstone said, pleased with the news. “And what of the other roads?”

  He knew that the East Road and West Road were two other tunnels, not so wide as the Urkhan Road there at the main gate, but parallel routes that connected the city to the lakeshore. He had sent units up all three roads when attacking the city some months earlier, as commander of Willim’s forces during the civil war against Jungor Stonespringer.

  “They haven’t been explored, sir. Not that I’ve heard anyway.”

  “And the main body. The rest of those Kayolin scum? Where did they go?”

  “They also marched down the Urkhan Road,” the prisoner reported, looking helplessly around at his captors. “Brandon Bluestone is leading them against the Theiwar he heard were down t
here.”

  “Perfect!” Darkstone declared with a bark of laughter. Willim the Black’s trap could not have worked better.

  “Please, lord,” said the prisoner, gasping in pain, swaying on his knees from the lack of blood. “Can you not find some treatment for my wound in return for the information I have provided?”

  “Oh, you’ve earned a reward, all right,” the general said contemptuously. He looked at the Theiwar swordsman standing behind the kneeling prisoner. “See that he doesn’t feel any more pain,” he ordered.

  Darkstone turned to inspect his two iron-bellied prizes and was so entranced with their amazing potential that he didn’t even hear the dwarf’s head bounce off the stone floor.

  “That’s the gate to Thorbardin!” Crystal Heathstone declared. “But it didn’t look like this when we left!”

  The hill dwarves, after a forced march of several days, had come up to the valley at the foot of Cloudseeker Peak. The column had swelled to some fifteen hundred warriors, all of them eager to have a crack at the land of their ancient mountain dwarf foes. Crystal, who had spent much of her life living in the undermountain kingdom, had led them on the shortest route to the gate. But as she gazed upward at the face of the mountain, she didn’t even recognize the place.

  A jagged crack scored its way down the mountainside, at least five hundred feet from top to bottom. The trail leading up to the gate still twisted along the lower slope of the peak then vanished into the shadow of the massive gap. From below, they couldn’t see where the trail led, but they were hopeful that it would provide access; after all, they were passing through the debris of a large army camp, and there was no sign of Tarn Bellowgranite’s force. They had to have gone somewhere!