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 inform 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 collected 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, remained 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 beneath 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 Passroad.
The heavy pace of the march served to keep the Aghar warm, however, and the hardy gully dwarves showed a remarkable resilience to the cold.
They had crested a low rise, Flint again in the lead, when he heard sounds before him and hastened his steps to reach the summit. In moments he stood atop the low hill and saw a wide, snow-filled valley stretching before him. The brown strip running through the valley was unmistakably the Passroad. On the far side of the road the valley floor dropped steeply away, a long, descending slope that finally reached Stonehammer Lake, below and perhaps another mile distant. But what Flint saw on the Passroad made him groan audibly.
“We’re too late,” he mumbled, dazed, then turned to Perian. “I thought you said they’d stay camped until dark.”
The mountain dwarf was standing next to him. She colored, and her voice was taut with bitterness. “Pitrick must have decided to take advantage of the cover the storm provided.”
“I’m afraid so.” Flint could only look helplessly at the scene in the valley below.
Three colors of plumes—red, black, and gray—waved in martial precision, as the thane’s guards moved past them far below, perhaps two miles ahead. The three companies of mountain dwarves maintained distinct formations, but the whole column was a tight, disciplined military grouping.
The gully dwarves would never be able to catch them now, no matter how hard Flint drove them. Admitting defeat was bitter medicine. It took all of Flint’s willpower not to collapse dejectedly in the snow. They had come too late and lost a third of their army in the first day. How had he ever been so foolish as to think they could win?
Perian elbowed him. “What’s that?” she asked.
“What?” He was barely paying attention.
“Look—something’s moving in the snow down there!” she said, pointing in the general direction of the amassed mountain dwarf troops. “Your eyes are better in this light than mine—tell me what that fuzzy blob is that’s on this side of the road near the base of the mountain?”
“What?” Flint, despite his dejection, had his interest piqued. He, too, squinted down the distant, snowy fields toward the road. He saw a length of rippling snow, a shimmering movement. Was that a leg I just saw? he wondered, baffled. Was that a pack of snow-covered animals moving down the slope?
Slowly the mass of movement became visible as many small, individual forms. Flint saw a tightly packed group of creatures, each snowy white on top. The snow, he finally realized, was carried atop each of the creatures upon a shield carried over his head.
“It the Wedgies!” Nomscul shrieked suddenly. Jumping up and down in his excitement, he slipped on the snow and toppled to the ground. “It old trick,” he said offhandedly, picking himself up. “They hide under shields and creep at enemy!”
“But they’ll be slaughtered out there alone and we’re too far away to help them quickly!” Flint exclaimed, clenching and unclenching his fists in helpless frustration.
“Wait.” Perian put a calming hand on Flint’s arm, never taking her eyes from the events below. “The Wedgies have a chance. The derro don’t seem to notice them yet, what with the snow covering them and the glare.”
S
tunned, king and queen looked on from a distance with two-thirds of their troops, as the Creeping Wedgies, now a rippling mass of shield- and snow-covered Aghar, continued to eke slowly forward. The Wedgies reached the Passroad just as the last company of Theiwar marched by, sporting gray plumes, some thirty feet behind the black-plumed rank. Total disorganization suddenly swept through the gray plumes, as the Wedgies infiltrated them.
Fully erupting from the snowy surface like jack-in-the-boxes came a multitude of white, diminutive figures. Their appearance in the middle of the Theiwar company had thrown the unit into disarray, but swords rose and fell, and crimson stains appeared on the distant snow.
In confusion, the last company stopped and fell back from the other two regiments, who continued on, unaware of the distraction.
“It’s the Silver Swords,” observed Perian bitterly, “the thane’s light infantry. If they can gather their ranks, the Wedgies will be cut down.”
“We’ve got to try to help them!” Flint cried, though he knew it would be hard to reach them in time. He started to run down the slope toward the distant road. “Come on, gullies! Charge!”
“We go, too!” A wave of gully dwarves started down the gentle, snowbound slope.
The king kept his eyes glued to the battle as he advanced. Suddenly he saw a change. The Aghar of the Creeping Wedgie had turned and bolted from the road, disappearing on the far side of the thoroughfare, over the slope that led down to Stonehammer Lake.
“Good, they’re saving themselves!” Flint cried. “They didn’t have a chance of stopping the mountain dwarves, anyway.”
“But, look!” pointed Perian. “They’re giving chase! Perhaps the Wedgies have accomplished something after all.”
Before Flint’s astonished eyes, the Silver Swords, now far behind the two other ranks of derro who had continued blithely up the road, abruptly started down the slope after the Aghar. None of the mountain dwarves, hampered by their vision, seemed aware of Flint, Perian, and their troops thrashing their way down the snowy slope above.
“Shush!” Flint ordered his giggling, whooping charges in a harsh whisper. The retreating Aghar had disappeared by now down the steeper slope beyond the road, and the pursuing Theiwar had all followed.
After fifteen minutes of frantic plowing, Flint and his followers set foot on the Passroad. Without even stopping for a breath, they rushed across and down the next slope after the Creeping Wedgies and the Silver Swords, unconcerned about detection now.
Their charge gained momentum as they slid down the steep bank toward the remaining Wedgies, who were gathered now with their backs to the lake. The Theiwar had formed a contracting half-circle around them, and they were tightening it swiftly.
Overconfident, the Theiwar lunged in for the kill, and a number of the Aghar dropped lifeless into the snow. But others of the fleet-footed Aghar managed to dart away and pop up behind the heavily encumbered mountain dwarves. Fighting dwarves swirled chaotically about the field. Shocking crimson blotches appeared on the white snow.
Minutes later, when Flint and the rest of his troops reached the lakeshore, the situation had reversed: the mountain dwarves were enclosed in a semicircle of howling, growling gully dwarves.
“Get lompchuters!” Without waiting for a command from Flint, Nomscul quickly formed his Agharpults. Flint charged forward, suddenly aware of gully dwarves soaring above him, crashing into the Theiwar beyond. Pooter screamed past, knocking three of the enemy into the river before he lost altitude and plunged into the water with a splash.
The rest of the Aghar smashed head-on into the line of Theiwar at the riverbank, ignoring the weaponry and armor of their foes in a courageous effort to follow their king into battle. Steel weapons cut cruel wounds into the loyal Aghar. Flint snapped the neck of a Theiwar captain and he looked around for another target, reaching this time for his magnificent Tharkan Axe.
Suddenly he felt the very ground shift under his feet. Apparently just an overhanging shelf of snow and ice, it broke off from the shore with a sharp crack under the extreme weight of the combatants. Hill, gully, and mountain dwarves were thrown into the deep, wintry waters of Stonehammer Lake. The ice floe drifted away from shore, breaking into smaller pieces that bobbed in the gentle current.
“Whee!”
“Yippee!”
“Go swimming again!”
The gully dwarves splashed and swam through the icy water like delighted children, dog-paddling toward the bank, then slowly scrambling out.
Not so the Theiwar. Weighted down by their chain shirts, inherently distrustful of water and unable to swim, the derro struggled in the water, never deigning to call for help, until each white head sank, one by one.
In moments, all that could be seen of the battle on the shore and lake were soggy Aghar, climbing from the current and pleading with their king for permission to take another dip.
And a vastness of vacant black steel helmets lapping at the shoreline, gray plume-side down.
Chapter 21
Eye of the Storm
Only an occasional beam of sunlight filtered through the thick canopy of dark pine boughs. Still, the forest floor seemed an uncomfortably bright place to the dwarves of the Theiwar army. They made camp before full daylight, fortunately finding a dense patch of woods where the pale-skinned, underground-dwelling derro could all but avoid the direct rays of the sun.
The ground lay beneath a blanket of snow, and the sticky, straight trunks of the trees seemed to merge overhead into a solid blanket of needles and snow-covered branches. The dampness and chill of the camp seemed a small price to pay for its chief virtue: that same thick canopy that provided a blessed escape from the light.
Many of the Theiwar veterans now tried to rest, having scraped the snow away from the small patches of ground that served as beds. A damp chill sank into their bones from the still, cold air.
One of the dwarves made no attempt to sleep, however: Pitrick paced between several large trunks, following the tracks of his previous pacing, where he had worn the snow down to bare ground. His hands were clasped behind him, and the throbbing pain in his foot put him into a foul temper. Perversely, he would not sit and rest that foot, even though the dwarves would be on the march again as soon as night fell.
“Where are they? Where’s Grikk and his party?” he demanded, turning to look at a nearby derro, not expecting an answer. “They should have reported back by now!”
The hunchback peered anxiously between the trunks. “They’ve deserted—that’s what they’ve done!” He sneered at the imagined treachery. “I send them to find the Silver Swords, and instead the miserable cowards have likely fled back to Thorbardin! They’ll pay for this! By all that’s mighty, I’ll see Grikk flayed alive, slow-roasted! I’ll see—”
“Excellency?” A sergeant approached him tentatively.
“Eh? What?”
“Grikk’s coming, sir. Returned from the search.”
“What?” Pitrick blinked, confused by his own tantrum. “Very well—send him to me at once.”
The scout, Grikk, a grizzled veteran with a patch over one eye and a beardless cheek that had been permanently scarred by a Hylar blade, clumped up to the adviser. “We searched the valley along this whole shore of the lake, Excellency. There is no sign of the Swords—at least, nothing that we could see.”
“Then go back and look again!”
“I’m sorry, sir.” Grikk drew himself to his full height, his unpatched eye staring into his commander’s face. “But we can’t. We were blinded out there—I lost one of my scouts in the lake, simply because he couldn’t see a drop-off under his feet!”
Pitrick saw that Grikk’s exposed eye was puffy and bloodshot. He knew that the sun reflecting off the snow created an impossible brightness. Frustration gnawed at him. His body shook with tension, and he made little effort to bring himself under control.
“Excellency,” Grikk said. “Perhaps we could go back and search tonight. It would only mean delaying the att
ack on Hillhome for one day.”
Pitrick’s thoughts immediately turned to that nest of insolent hill dwarves, little more than a mile away. His decision was easy.
“No!” he cried. “Tonight we attack Hillhome! Nothing can be allowed to delay our vengeance!” He stared through the woods, in the direction of the village filled with those loathsome enemies, the hill dwarves.
“When the sun rises tomorrow, it must shine upon Hillhome’s ruined remains.”
When they finally crested a low ridge and Hillhome lay before them, Flint and Perian anxiously looked for signs of smoke or massive destruction. To their relief, they found neither. Instead, they saw that a large earthwork had been erected along the south border of the town—right across the Passroad, Flint noted with satisfaction.
“So that’s Hillhome,” Perian breathed, picturing a young Flint in that setting. She squeezed his hand reassuringly. “It would appear they’re expecting an army.”
Flint let his arm fall around her shoulder for a moment, pride making his eyes sparkle. “The young harrn pulled it off. Basalt actually did it. We did it.
“Double time, you bug-eating, belching bunch of Aghar!” Flint bellowed, using their favorite pet names, and they started down the long ridge.
At the bottom of the slope, the gully dwarves, sensing the importance of the moment, marched in the precise military formation Flint had dubbed the “mob of chaos.” Its success could be said to be achieved when the majority of the gully dwarves were moving rather quickly in approximately the same direction.
This was easily accomplished now because the Aghar were universally fascinated by the small community before them. They climbed over each other and pushed one another in their haste to enter Hillhome.
For all of the Aghar, this was their first experience with a hill dwarf community, or any above-ground community for that matter. As they approached Hillhome, they stared to the right and left, awestruck by the architectural marvels around them.
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