Douglas Niles - Fate of Thorbardin

He heard a groan and found one Theiwar whose legs were charred and ruined. But his eyes were bright and alert, and he uttered a hoarse curse as Darkstone knelt beside him.

“What happened here?” asked the general.

“A machine, sir! They attacked us with a great, fire-breathing machine. They pointed it at us, and it spat the huge fireball that killed half my platoon. It spit fire all the way down the street. I tried to fight them, sir-I–I really did! But I couldn’t!”

“No one could, son. I’m proud of you,” Darkstone said, touching the man’s cheek where his beard had been burned away. Another look at that charred torso and legs confirmed that the soldier was doomed; no one could recover from a wound like that. The general looked at him with frank compassion. “I wish there was something I could do for you.”

“My-my knife, General,” croaked the dying soldier. “Could you put it in my hand?”

The commander found the weapon, which had a blackened, half-melted hilt but a keen, undamaged blade, lying just out of the dwarf’s reach. “Here it is, lad,” he said, handing him the weapon then rising and turning so he didn’t see what the fellow did with the instrument.

Then he heard the sound of the cut and the spurt of arterial blood.

The Daergar general clenched his jaw and stalked onward, deadly resolve churning in his belly, his heart, and his mind. The fire cannon was the most terrible weapon he had ever seen, and the knowledge that it had been designed by dwarves and used against dwarves almost made him physically sick.

The hill dwarves were happy to welcome Gus, Slooshy, and Berta into their village as soon as Crystal explained how the Aghar had saved her from the mad Klar. They were further delighted to find out that Gus himself had been the gully dwarf who had spared them from the lethal barrage of the Tharkadan trap. (Under the circumstances, he decided it was not really necessary to tell them that it had all been a big accident.)

Slate Fireforge had become the leader of the town, and he recognized Crystal and Gus and was quick to declare the afternoon and evening to be the occasion for a great celebration of Crystal Heathstone’s homecoming. He welcomed the esteemed guests.

“Berta not wanta be ‘steemed,” Gus’s girlfriend whispered loudly as the plans were being announced. “But they got food for us?”

Indeed, they did have food: the hill dwarves feted the gully dwarves with fresh bread; a large, smoked ham; and a whole bushel of apples and grapes. The food was placed on a table, and they ate sitting on really comfortable seats. They found themselves looking across a plaza that was growing crowded with hill dwarves as more and more of the Neidar streamed into town from the surrounding villages, almost as if a magical summons had gone out to inform them of the impromptu celebration.

For a while, Gus was too busy eating to really pay attention to anything else, but after a couple of hours, even his very expandable belly was starting to feel comfortably full. It was then that he started listening to the earnest conversation going on between Crystal Heathstone, Slate Fireforge, and a few other hill dwarf elders.

They were talking about the Big War, the same war that Gretchan was going to. Gus leaned in and tried to understand what the other dwarves were saying.

“Tarn Bellowgranite has marched on Thorbardin?” Slate Fireforge expressed surprise at the news. “Why didn’t he call on our help? Like we pledged in the treaty?”

Crystal shook her head, saddened. “I’m afraid it’s the old fears, the old prejudices again. Brandon Bluestone came down from the north with four thousand dwarves of Kayolin, and apparently Tarn felt that would be enough to get the job done.”

“Aye. And he didn’t want to share the spoils with any Neidar, unless I miss my guess,” said another big hill dwarf-one who Crystal had welcomed by the name of Axel Carbondale. Gus knew that Axel had come from a different town, and in fact he looked vaguely familiar. At last it came to him: Axel had also been with the hill dwarves in the battle of Pax Tharkas.

“Is that the case?” Slate asked bluntly.

“I suppose it is,” Crystal was forced to agree. “My husband is a very stubborn dwarf. And I’m afraid, sometimes, that he’s getting even worse in his old age. In the end, I disagree with him. I think we should all come together. That’s why I decided to come home, on my own. I came to tell you what Tarn is doing and to ask if you’d be willing to help him.”

Suddenly she turned and flashed Gus a smile that, once again, reminded him very much of Gretchan. “I almost didn’t make it back home, and I wouldn’t have if not for Gus here.”

The little gully dwarf beamed and helped himself to another thick slice of ham.

“So the old fool is willing to risk defeat?” Axel growled. “Just because he’s too proud to ask for Neidar help? I say we let him face the defeat he deserves!”

That statement drew a few rumbles of assent from the gathered throng, but Gus saw that Slate, though listening carefully, wore a noncommittal expression on his face.

Crystal apparently noticed that too since she turned and put a hand on the Hillhome leader’s arm. “Slate, is that what you think too? That Tarn and the exiles should go down to defeat because they failed to ask for your help?”

There was a long silence, during which even the conversations among the dwarves at the more distant feasting tables settled down to whispers, waiting for Slate’s reply. Finally, Slate Fireforge shook his head. He stood up, his broad shoulders and lush mane of brown hair making him look larger than life.

“I say we should march to Tarn Bellowgranite’s aid. I say we should ally ourselves with our cousins from Kayolin, cousins who have marched much, much farther than we would have to go in order to join this brave campaign.”

He cleared his throat, as if embarrassed by his strong statements. But he raised his face and looked around the crowded plaza, at all the celebratory dwarves, with an expression of stern determination. He climbed onto his bench, stepped up onto the table, and from there climbed atop a huge keg. From that vantage, he could gaze all across the wide town square.

“Since when do we depend on mountain dwarves for wisdom?” he asked, his voice booming through Hillhome. He turned and addressed the dwarves on the other side of him and all around. “Since when do we depend on mountain dwarves to make our decisions or to decide our future? Hear me, brave Neidar!

“We have here the chance to right ten generations’ worth of wrongs!” Slate Fireforge declared from atop the sturdy keg. “I say we seize that chance, we gird ourselves, and we march to Thorbardin!”

“And I agree!” Axel Carbondale said, pushing himself to his feet. “The time for feuding is done. Let us work together and claim the future for all dwarves!”

His bold statement roused a few cheers, but those cheers quickly swelled into a roar of acclamation as the plan for the campaign swept like wildfire through the large crowd of hill dwarves thronging the central square of Hillhome.

Willim the Black paced back and forth before Gretchan’s cage with his hands crossed behind his back and his scarred lips pressed together in an expression of concentration. Notwithstanding his grotesque visage and hunched posture, for the moment he seemed to have an aura more like a lecturing professor than a megalo-maniacal magic-user.

The priestess watched him warily. She was shackled inside the cage and remained muted by the spell of silence. She had watched the wizard and his two female assistants for a long time, alert for any chance to escape. But no such opportunity had presented itself, and she could do little but listen.