Douglas Niles - Fate of Thorbardin

“I think you toughened up, walking all that way from Pax Tharkas,” Crystal suggested.

“Hmm, yeah?” Gus said, liking the sound of that. “Gus plenty tough!”

Slate was an easygoing commander, and Gus found that the Neidar captain was even willing to talk to him when the gully dwarf made his way to the very lead position of the long, sinuous marching formation.

“You lotta times make war?” Gus asked, impressed with the way Slate’s men followed his orders and seemed so willing to help him out.

“Not so much,” Slate said. “The only other time was a mistake, when Harn Poleaxe convinced us to march on Pax Tharkas. Still, this kind of business sort of runs in the family.”

“Runs? You runs to war alla time?”

“No,” Slate laughed. “I mean my ancestors have always sort of been the adventuring type. My great-uncle was Flint Fireforge. Maybe you heard of him? He was one of the Heroes of the Lance. He went all the way to Palanthas and even rode a dragon in the war against the Dark Queen.”

Gus shuddered. He didn’t know which sounded worse: riding a dragon or making war against a Dark Queen. Either way, he was sort of relieved they were merely marching under the mountain and going to fight against a fearsome, spell-casting wizard. But he sensed that Slate was proud of his uncle, so he didn’t say anything insulting.

They were interrupted by a large cheer that rose from the dwarves behind them, and they turned to see Axel Carbondale marching out of a side valley, leading a force of, well, more than two dwarves. (Gus heard Axel boast that he had brought “four hundred swords” to join the expedition. Since he didn’t see any swords marching by themselves, he figured that each sword had also brought along a dwarf to wield itself.)

By late afternoon it was a weary band of hill dwarves who finally paused to make camp after the sun had set behind the western mountains. The Neidar made bivouac in the forested valley beside a mirror-still lake. Archers had been preceding the army all day, and they had already fanned out along the marshy shore. A steady supply of geese was being carried to the cookfires that started to blaze all over.

Gus sent his girls to find a good place for him to sleep. “No big rock to hide us this time!” he warned direly, well remembering the first night of the march, when his companions’ incompetence had caused them to become separated from the Dwarf Home Army.

Then he settled down to enjoy the evening. He was pleased when Crystal Heathstone came by to see how he had handled the long march.

“Plenty good,” Gus replied honestly. Before she wandered back to the army commanders, he remembered something he’d been planning to tell her.

“You know, new king gonna put Aghar back on thanes,” Gus boasted. “Get a real big stone chair and everything.”

“It’s a nice idea, and it should happen. But who told you that?” the Neidar female wondered.

The very memory provoked a blissful sigh from Gus. “Gretchan Pax say so.” He frowned, trying to recall details. “Well, she say she talk to king, want king to give Aghar a thane. Or big new highbulp at least.”

“I used to live in Thorbardin,” Crystal noted. “The Aghar always used to have a seat on the council of thanes.”

“Yeah, but bad King Stonespringer, he take away. Him kill Aghar thane; want kill all Aghar.”

“Well, it just so happens that I know King Bellowgranite,” Crystal said with a sly smile. “And if my word has any weight with him-together with Gretchan’s-you can be sure that the Aghar will once again be seated at that council.”

Gus drifted off to a blissful sleep, dreaming of a crown and a very big chair and all the food he could possibly eat. Of course, at the army camp, there wasn’t nearly as much beer to drink as there had been in Hillhome, but even that had its advantages as, the next morning, the Neidar and their Aghar companions awakened early. Free of any headaches or churning stomachs and eager to resume the march, they didn’t even take the time for cookfires as they prepared to set out again upon the road to Thorbardin.

The North Gate, Gus heard someone say, was only two days’ march away.

Brandon had been able only to stare in horror and awe as the fire dragon had swept toward Gretchan, exposed as she had been in the cage on the lofty palace spire. He called her name, but with the monster’s sudden appearance, his voice froze in his throat. His fingers clenched around the hilt of his axe so tightly that they grew numb, but there was nothing he, nor even his epic weapon, could do against the impossibly mighty beast.

All around him the dwarves of his own army, as well as Willim’s defenders within the palace, had been paralyzed by fear at the monster’s appearance. Warriors who had stared death in the face on a dozen battlefields, who had led charges against unassailable ramparts, who had stood and faced enemy armies numbering ten or twenty times their own, had quailed and wailed and dropped facedown onto the ground, desperately crawling under anything remotely resembling cover.

The Kayolin general stood alone, watching in awful fascination as the beast first threatened then recoiled from the brave dwarf maid and her mighty staff. He sensed the wyrm’s struggles against the immortal power of Reorx and held his breath as the monster slowly dissolved into the black vapor that, obviously, was sucked into the staff itself by the Master of the Forge.

And he howled in triumph when the serpent finally disappeared. His elation surging, he raced along the parapet atop the palace wall, seeking a way across to the keep. But his elation lasted mere seconds-until he had seen Willim the Black return. He watched as the wizard snatched the staff away from the stunned, exhausted priestess.

Finally Brandon had cried out in unquenchable rage as the powerful magic-user had placed a hand on the cage and worked a spell of teleportation, removing the cage, the priestess, the staff, and the wizard himself from sight.

“Come back here and fight, you bastard!” howled the Kayolin dwarf. It was a fruitless cry, and the black wizard made no reappearance; so Brandon turned his rage on the enemy troops who were only then starting to emerge from their hiding places. Some clearly had no stomach for further battle and were turning to flee. Others looked around, hesitatingly, seeking an officer or sergeant to issue some sort of command.

Brandon leaped from the rampart down to the floor of the courtyard, a drop of a dozen feet, and he didn’t even feel the impact. Instead, he sprang from his crouch, instantly on the attack. His axe slashed, chopping the heads from two Theiwar who were trying to crawl up from under a slab of rock. He whirled, his senses a blur of hatred and fury, to see more black-clad defenders emerging from the shattered, gaping door of the keep.

He set upon them in a frenzy, his aim unerringly true and lethal. The Bluestone Axe fought like a living thing, hungry for Theiwar blood. He chopped and slashed and spun through a circle, lopping off limbs, slashing faces, splitting skulls. When the axe couldn’t reach an enemy’s flesh, it destroyed his weapon, smashing swords, slicing the heads off of spears, even blocking arrows with lightning-quick parries.

The enemy troops, already shaken by the appearance of the fire dragon and thoroughly outnumbered in their defense of the palace, recoiled in horror from the fury of Brandon’s attack. Some fell before him, stumbling in panic, and he killed them before they could rise. Others, quailing but trying to master their fear, faced him and fought, and those he killed with outright glee.

He gave no quarter: If a Theiwar turned his back to run, Brandon sliced open his spine. When three of them cowered together in an alcove, protecting themselves with tall steel shields, Brandon chopped the shields into splinters then hacked the trio of enemy dwarves into bloody cutlets. He charged through the keep’s entry hall, scattering a full platoon of Theiwar pikemen who tried to defend the door to the throne room. Leaving a dozen dead in his wake, he rushed into that great chamber, hoping against all rational hope that he might discover Gretchan or at least Willim within.