Douglas Niles - Fate of Thorbardin

Sparks flew here and there as warriors scuffed whetstones across their blades, bringing their steel to razor sharpness. Given the constricted nature of the trail, the army had to advance in segments, but the leading element of the First Legion-the troops who would lead the way-were already gathering into columns at the base of the mountain trail.

“My scouts have been up on the ridges all night,” Tankard Hacksaw reported to Brandon. “Each company had plenty of torches; they were to light a flare if there was any chance of an ambush. We’d see it from down here for sure.”

The Kayolin commander nodded, looking around at the dark, silent summits to either side of them. “Good sign, that. Then the real fighting will come if-” He corrected himself with a confidence he still did not entirely feel. “When we breach the gate.”

“I’ll be right behind you,” Tankard pledged.

Brandon shook his head and put his hand on his loyal lieutenant’s shoulder. “No, old friend. I want you up there with me but at least two hundred paces back. I’ll stand with Bardic Stonehammer when he wields the artifact, but if the worst happens and I fall, it’ll be your job to take over command of the assault.”

Tankard looked as if he wanted to argue, but after a moment, he gritted his teeth and nodded. “As you command,” was all he said.

“Good man,” Brandon replied.

Even as they spoke, Bardic approached, bearing the long bundle wrapped in the supple leather cover made from a single cow’s hide. The big smith’s bald head was not protected by any metal cap, and a sheen of sweat gleamed on the smooth surface of his scalp.

“Shall we take a look at the key to Thorbardin’s gate?” he asked.

Brandon had seen the Tricolor Hammer just once, when he first returned to Pax Tharkas with his army. At that time, the artifact had seemed like some arcane memento, something to be displayed in a royal museum or king’s hall. It had seemed pristine, precious, but not especially powerful or dangerous.

But as Bardic unveiled the hallowed artifact, there was no mistaking the fact that it was a weapon . The three stones forming the head of the hammer were each bright enough that they almost seemed luminescent. The Redstone was at the top of the hammerhead, with the blue in the middle and the green at the bottom. The colors were distinct, but the lines between the three stones had vanished, as if the wedges had melted or fused together.

The haft, a bar of solid steel, extended through the widest part of the head and out the top. At that end, the smith had capped the hammer with a tiny silver anvil, a perfect match of the little icon that topped Gretchan’s staff.

“Would you like to feel its heft?” Bardic asked.

Brandon nodded and took the hammer by the handle. He lifted it, feeling the solid weight of the mighty stone head. It was a good weight, and as he took a few practice swings, it seemed to glide forward with the energy of his blow, as if the hammer itself were eager to move, to strike … to smash.

“It’s beautiful and terrifying at the same time,” Brandon said, surprised to realize he was whispering.

He felt a warm hand on his shoulder and realized that Gretchan had come up to stand beside him. Her eyes were focused on the artifact, and they seemed to shine in reflection of the three colors. Her staff was in her other hand, and Brandon didn’t know if it was real or his imagination, but the anvil on the head of the shaft of wood seemed to glow with a silvery shimmer brighter even than the moonlight that still washed the mountain valley. Reverently he handed the weapon back to the smith, who accepted it in the same awed way. His eyes gleamed, reflecting the light of the three-colored stone.

“I’ll go up there alone,” Bardic said matter-of-factly. “You’ll need to give me plenty of room to swing it.”

“I will but I’ll be close by with the Bluestone Axe,” Brandon replied. He turned to face Gretchan soberly. “Tankard will be two hundred paces behind us with the vanguard of his legion,” he said, trying once again to make the argument that had failed him the evening before. “You should stand with him. That way, if anything happens-”

“I’ll be too far away to do anything other than recover your remains,” she said simply. “I haven’t changed my mind. I’m going to be close by your side.”

He felt a lump in his throat and was too moved even to be irritated by her stubbornness. “All right,” he replied. “Are you ready to go?”

She was. They all were.

The advance column of the army moved out, dwarves marching two by two behind Bardic, Brandon, and Gretchan. The Kayolin commander started out with the Bluestone Axe in a sling on his back, but he found himself desiring the sturdy feel of the weapon in his hands. Quickly he freed it from its strap and continued along, holding the smooth haft in both of his hands, grateful for the comforting presence of his trusty blade.

The two hundred dwarves who followed directly behind him were all volunteers, all sturdy veterans of the First Legion. They wore steel breastplates, helmets, and greaves, but otherwise were garbed in leather. Each carried his weapon of choice, including swords, spears, and axes in their number. None bore a shield since, in the close-quarters combat they anticipated, even a small buckler could prove to be more of a hindrance than an advantage. They were the shock troops, the men who would advance into the first breach and hold the position for the rest of the army.

They followed the hammer, the general, and the priestess up the trail grimly, as silently as an army could move. The plans had been made and repeated to all the night before, so there was no need for discussion. They would go in quickly and violently, Brandon had explained, streaming into the gatehouse as reinforcements made their way up the sinuous trail behind. When the bulk of the First Legion had made it through the gate, they would advance, leaving the Second and Tharkadan Legions to follow along.

The sun would linger long behind the eastern ridge in that deep cut of the mountains, but the sky had brightened to a pale orange horizon and finally to a faint shade of blue as the assault force marched steadily up the trail. Brandon and Gretchan reached the place where they had stopped on the previous day’s scouting mission, but that morning they continued on without hesitation. The climb was steep, and it should have been arduous, but Brandon felt his energy, his anticipation, and his determination only increasing as they continued upward. Every once in a while, he heard Gretchan murmur a soft prayer, and he knew that she was calling upon their immortal god, Reorx of the Forge, for strength. He hoped fervently that the Master of All Dwarves was listening.

He cast a glance upward, knowing that Tankard’s scouts were stationed on the heights to either side. That was a reassuring thought as they passed beneath overhanging shoulders of cracked rock or under cornices of ice and snow that looked ready to break free, to fall and sweep the dwarves off the mountainside like a person might swat at a bunch of ants.

Finally the shadowy terminus of the trail loomed before them, much wider and taller than it had looked from below. Even so, it seemed like a very narrow and constricted passage, when Brandon considered that for centuries it had been the main point of access and egress to the great underground realm. The path ended in a solid plug of stone, the gate that merged seamlessly with the wall of the cliff on all sides of it.

Only the perfectly smooth face of that huge plug suggested that it was something other than a piece of the natural mountainside. It was impossible to discern any more details of the entryway until Gretchan held up her staff and cast the bright light of Reorx across the gate. That revealed the outline of the entryway. The ceiling arched some twelve feet above the ground and the sides of the portal were a similar distance apart. Brandon felt strangely relieved by the vast size of it, as it meant that Bardic would have all the room he needed to swing the hammer with all of his might.