Douglas Niles - Fate of Thorbardin

“Well, I think you’ll get your wish,” the hill dwarf maid replied, gesturing to a town that was just coming into view around a bend in the forest road. “Because we’ll be in Hillhome in about ten more minutes.”

General Darkstone finally emerged from the damp, constricted drainage tunnel. The drain pipe from the ancient sewer had brought him there, but just as the tube began to drop vertically into the depths below Thorbardin, he was able to wrench aside a rusty iron grate and escape. Squirming through the narrow aperture, he rolled onto his back and breathed deeply of the city’s dank but comparatively fresh air.

Mud and slime covered him from his boots to the gummy strands of his hair and beard, but he pushed himself to his feet and gave himself a shake, not unlike a dog emerging from a swamp. He stood on a narrow street, at the edge of a sewer drain. The ceiling was low overhead, filmy with mold and dripping water, and the buildings along either side of the twisting road were packed close together. Each was protected by a stout door. He didn’t see any windows.

Taking stock of his surroundings, he realized he had come into Anvil’s Echo, the lowest of Norbardin’s hierarchy of levels. It was a place where the poorest dwarves lived, the slums where a careless drunk could easily get his throat slit or his pocket picked, in no particular order. He was startled as a voice, firm but not hostile, emerged from the mouth of a narrow alley.

“Here, stranger, you look like you got down here the hard way. Any idea what’s going on up there?”

He turned with surprise to see a small platoon of Theiwar warriors, dressed in the black leather of Willim’s forces. They were a mixed lot, armed with crossbows, swords, and a few axes, and they gathered behind the dwarf, wearing a sergeant’s epaulets, who had addressed him. That one had an ancient scar slanting across his face, and his beard was long, gray, and wildly untamed.

“Thorbardin is attacked from without,” Darkstone said bluntly. “Invaders have cracked open the great gate. Their troops are pouring into the city as we speak.”

“Damn!” the sergeant replied. “It’s worse than I thought.”

“What word has filtered down here?” Darkstone asked.

“Well, we heard that a whole company has been burned to death, not two hundred feet over our head. My orders are to stay down here and watch for trouble in the Echo, but I’ve a mind to take my men up to the main level and put them to good work.” He squinted, plainly appraising the mud-slicked stranger. “I’ll go ahead and volunteer you into my band; you look like you could swing a sword rightly.”

Darkstone almost chuckled. He found himself liking the grizzled, scarred sergeant; the fact that the fellow was willing to march headlong toward the center of the fight was the first encouraging sign he’d noted that day. He straightened up, threw back his shoulders, and mustered all the force of his command into his voice.

“Sergeant!” he barked. “What’s your name?”

The dwarf blinked but then snapped to attention. “Chap Bitters, sir!” he shot back. “First Sergeant of the Third Theibardin Regiment!”

“Good man. I am General Darkstone.” He looked around as the name registered. Chap Bitters blinked in astonishment. “You are hereby promoted to captain. Bring as many of your men as you can gather in five minutes; we’re moving to the plaza!”

“Aye, General. Yes, sir!” Bitters turned and shouted at the dozen men in his small platoon. “You heard the honorable general! Fetch your fellows from whatever holes they’re hiding in. Report to the north shaft in five minutes!”

The dwarves scattered with commendable alacrity, and by the time they’d rejoined the captain and the general at the entrance to the north shaft-which was a wide, spiraling stairway leading up to the rest of Norbardin’s levels-they had collected more than a hundred other dwarves.

“Half the regiment, I’d say, sir,” Bitters reported with not a little pride.

“Good,” Darkstone acknowledged. “Now fall in and move up!”

They tromped up to the plaza in a serpentine column and a few minutes later emerged into a warehouse quarter where wide, straight streets passed between square buildings. The structures were two stories high, and the stone ceiling covered each street at the same height as the top of the warehouses.

In peacetime, it would have been a district bustling with pedestrians and commerce, but they found a city changed in ways that the Daergar general found hard to imagine.

Most notable was the lingering smoke and the many charred, burned bodies of soldiers they found scattered in the streets. Some of the corpses were still smoking, though it seemed as though the main fight had moved on. They heard some sounds of a clash coming from somewhere up ahead, but there was no sign of the major force that must have inflicted such terrible casualties.

“Keep your men here; have them hide in one of these warehouses,” Darkstone ordered Captain Bitters. “Then come with me. We’ll do a little reconnaissance.”

“Aye, sir,” agreed the Theiwar with the old scar. “You heard the general,” he barked to his men. “Find one of these places where there’s room for the whole lot of you to stay out of sight.”

In a few moments, several of the Theiwar had pried open a large door to find a mostly empty space inside. Several mounds of coal along the back wall, along with a layer of black dust covering everything, suggested the commodity that was usually stored there. For the moment, fortunately, the stockpile was low, and the hundred-plus dwarves of Bitters’s company were able to make themselves comfortable and, more important, stay out of sight of the street.

The men pulled the door closed as Darkstone and the captain started up the street. The two officers clung to the shadows near the dark buildings, moving stealthily, slowly advancing in the direction of the sounds of battle.

Hearing the approach of a large body of warriors, the pair melted into a shadowy alcove and watched the cross street a dozen paces in front of them. They spied a file of dwarves dressed in red shirts, carrying shiny, unbloodied swords at the ready, double-time past. There were several hundred men, and they moved along one of the main avenues leading from the north gatehouse into the main center of Norbardin.

“It’s clear they’ve come into the city in force,” Dark-stone said in a low voice. However brave his surviving troops at the gatehouse had been, they could not have stood for long against such overwhelming numbers.

The two officers waited a minute or two until the sounds of the marching dwarves had faded into the distance. Then they emerged to continue their scouting. They crossed the main avenue and continued down another side street; like the one where the company had hidden, it too was devoid of traffic or other activity.

“Where are all the dwarves?” Captain Bitters wondered, his voice a hoarse whisper.

“Hiding, most likely,” replied Darkstone. “Probably waiting to see how this all comes out.”

Once more they arrived at a main thoroughfare, and there they found a number of bodies, mostly Theiwar wearing the black tunics of Willim’s troops. Some had been felled with swords and arrows, but in one place there was a wide circle of soot on the pavement with half a dozen charred and blackened bodies captured in the ring of fire.

“Did they come in with a dragon, General?” asked Captain Bitters, more angry than afraid.

“Worse than that, I think,” Darkstone declared, choking on his words.

He couldn’t speak as he walked past the terribly burned dwarves. Most of them were dead, and the few who still managed to open a wild, staring eye or to twitch a charred, stinking limb would perish soon enough.