Douglas Niles: Fate of Thorbardin

“And good drilling, Tank,” said Brandon Bluestone, coming down the narrow cavern behind the small company. “You’ve got them fighting like they’re guided by one brain.”

“They are, Captain,” Hacksaw said with a hearty chuckle. “It’s my brain!”

The two dwarves stood for a moment, catching their breath, studying the broken, bleeding monster before them. Though each was a bearded dwarf girded for war, they were a study in contrasts. Brandon was tall, open-faced, and handsome, with flowing brown hair and a broad, if slightly cruel, smile. He carried a mighty battle-axe in his right hand; his grip was a foot below the head of the weapon for perfect balance.

Tankard, on the other hand, was short, and almost was wide as he was tall. His hair and beard were black, shot through with gray, and he grinned with the sheer joy of a warrior who loves to fight. His captain’s praise only made him smile all the more broadly.

But the jocularity was short-lived as Tankard stared over the shoulders of his men into the unseen depths of the winding tunnel. “How goes it with Morewood and the Second Company?” he asked.

“They’re making good progress too,” Brandon replied. “A little slower than you-they’ve passed a lot of side alcoves, and every one of ’em had a couple of horax lurking. It’s the standard ambush tactic; they don’t seem to realize that we’ve caught on to them. But we’re closing in on the hive from both directions.”

Captain Bluestone’s tone was grim, purposeful. He had stalked those deep tunnels only a few months earlier, alone and terrified, desperate to rescue his beloved Gretchan Pax from the webbing of a horax tangler. He had found her, and more, but with the blessing of Reorx, they had escaped with their lives, pursued by a hissing, clacking horde of the monstrous arachnoids. Now he had returned with a small army of his fellows, and it was his determined intention that it would be the horax who would be fleeing-those that were fortunate enough to survive the onslaught of dwarves.

“What about the Firespitter?” Tankard Hacksaw asked bluntly. The weapon was a new invention, and none of them knew how well it would work. It was large and ungainly, an iron tank that rolled forward on four small wheels, with a furnace under the nozzle and a large, insulated tank of oil forming the main body of the device. It was certainly hard to move it through the underground caverns, but the veteran dwarves knew that the Firespitter might be decisive if it could be brought to bear against their insectoid enemies.

“The crew is having trouble with some of the bottlenecks in the cave; they’re having to do a lot of excavating in order to bring the thing up. So we might have to hold the line for a while before we can really burn the bastards out.”

“And how much farther until we get to the hive?”

Brandon shrugged. “I was running for my life the last time I came up from here, so I wasn’t paying much attention to landmarks. Still, I’d guess we’re within a mile of the queen’s nest.”

“Good. Oh, and Captain, these awlspikes are working just like advertised,” the sergeant noted, gesturing to the long, sharpened steel poles carried by each of the men.

“Good. I thought they would,” Brandon noted. “The barbed heads on a normal pike or spear get caught on the horax armor-too often the weapon gets pulled right out of a dwarf’s hands. But these sharpened tips come out as easy as they go in. Made to order for bug killing.”

“Let’s stop yapping and go kill us some bugs, then,” growled Tank.

“Move out,” Brandon agreed. He watched in satisfaction as Sergeant Hacksaw directed his formation forward. The trio of dwarves who formed the vanguard was trailed by a single file numbering more than two dozen comrades, and as the cavern widened, Tank ordered one after another of the reserves into the front rank. Five dwarves wide, with each soldier bearing a tall shield and long awlspike, the company proceeded deeper into the subterranean darkness underneath the nation of Kayolin.

The horax had long been a threat to that realm of dwarves, for they had dwelled in the deep caverns since the dawn of time. Ever hungry and uncaring of life, they hunted and killed whenever they could. In an age long past, the dwarves had erected walls to keep them from penetrating into Kayolin’s mines and delvings, but recent sabotage-sponsored, Brandon had discovered, by the dwarves’ former ruler himself-had allowed the horrific species to surge anew. It was the mission of their two-pronged offensive, commanded by Brandon and closing in on the horax hive from opposite directions, to end the threat once and for all.

They passed a narrow cavern branching off to one side, and before Brandon could remind him, Hacksaw took note of the danger, posting two dwarves to guard against a sudden flank attack. Several more stood in reserve of that pair while the main shield wall moved on. Brandon hung back momentarily to scan the secondary route.

The giant insects had shown a surprising grasp of tactics, including diversion and ambush, but in the bloody month of the campaign to date, the dwarves had grown versed in the horax style of battle. Thus, Brand was not surprised to see movement in the side cavern, even though the enemy gave off no sound to reveal its presence. He knew that augured a possible sudden attack, but he expected his dwarves would have to face only a few of the bug-monsters in the flank assault.

True to his expectations, four horax materialized quickly but in utter silence, rushing from the twisting cavern with antennae quivering and mandibles spread wide, eager to crush dwarf flesh. Their hooked, taloned feet allowed them to cling to nearly smooth surfaces of stone, and so two of them charged along the walls and one advanced, upside down, clinging to the ceiling of the cave.

But the dwarves were prepared, and the giant insects clashed hard against the shields, jarring one of the dwarves back a step but unable to strike a vulnerable limb. Instead, it was the dwarves who drew blood, each of the two driving his sharpened steel spike into the head of an attacking horax.

The monsters exploded into noise, smashing mandibles in forceful snaps , hissing in the shrill wail that reminded Brandon of crickets-very, very large crickets-on a hot summer’s night. The dwarves grunted and cursed, driving forward, lunging repeatedly with their awlspikes. Their comrades moved up behind, ready to help, but the pair in the first rank prevailed, striking again and again until all four horax were slain, their segmented bodies lying still in spreading pools of dark ichor.

As soon as that threat was neutralized, the dwarves advanced behind the first rank. The two who had just won the skirmish moved to the back of the file, replaced by a pair of well-rested warriors. The whole company continued to push deeper into the cavern.

The corridor expanded into a large, oval chamber, and the lead dwarves stepped to the sides, allowing their trailing comrades to merge into the first line. With drilled precision, the company quickly formed a semicircular front of shields and spikes, a dozen dwarves strong. The right shoulder of the rightmost dwarf touched the chamber wall, a position mirrored by the warrior on the left. From behind the rank, Brandon studied the large space, discerning three passages leading deeper under the mountain on the sides and far wall of the chamber.

Tankard, in the middle of the shield wall, glanced over his shoulder, and Brandon held up a hand with the silent order: Wait . For more than a minute, the dwarves did just that, watchful and alert, making no sound beyond the slight rasp of steady respiration.

The first warning was a faint hiss, like a rush of water in the distance, muffled by foliage. There was no clear source for the sound; it seemed to come from everywhere at once. It swelled gradually, then defined itself into a series of clicks and scrapes and scratches, the individual footfalls of many, many twelve-legged horax.