Douglas Niles - Fate of Thorbardin

The diversion worked splendidly. For half an hour, the Kayolin troops on the ground of the plaza and the Theiwar troops on the battle platforms maintained a spirited exchange of missile fire, though with few casualties on either side. The drummers did their job as well, raising a thunderous and rhythmic din. Brandon could only hope that the defending commander was sending some of his reinforcements to that flank in anticipation of a major assault.

Finally, the time was right for the main push. Fister Morewood ordered his legion forward, and the dwarves surged against the right flank of the mighty gatehouse, boots pounding the stone floor as they rushed from concealment behind walls, ditches, small buildings, and other obstacles. Carrying ladders, advancing under the covering fire of their own archers, they raced to the base of the wall and tried to force their way up the ladders. Hundreds of defending troops met them on the lower parapets, and hundreds of steel blades clashed against shield or met flesh in a savage melee.

Meanwhile, the crews of the Firespitters, augmented by a hundred extra dwarves who helped to haul each machine, moved the devices forward with as much alacrity as possible. As they drew near to the walls, the lethal weapons came under resolute fire, but the archers of the Second Legion were numerous enough to keep the defenders’ heads down for the most part. Shields had been propped up on the crucial positions of the war machines’ controls, providing at least partial cover to the crew from the missile fire that, as expected, rained down from the enemy battlements.

When the Firespitters reached the base of the wall, their crew chiefs opened up with full gouts of oily flame. The billowing, incendiary clouds swept across the lower levels of the defensive platforms, slowly spreading out to each side.

Specially armored infantry, wearing fire-retardant leather uniforms, heavy gloves, and masks, swarmed up ladders and claimed the still-smoldering platform that had been swept free of living defenders by the lethal flames. More dwarves followed as the battlefield cooled until a steady stream of Kayolin warriors charged up and over the wall, spreading out, attacking savagely, and cleaning the outnumbered defenders out of every corner of the great gatehouse.

One detachment, led by Fister Morewood himself, scrambled up to the interior of the great gates and released the barriers to a great cheer. They swung open slowly, and the dwarves of Kayolin spilled through the gatehouse and onto the lake road, where all reports indicated that the rest of Willim’s army awaited them.

“General! I’m almost out of oil!” called the crew chief on the first machine. “Do you want us to push forward with the army?”

“No,” Brandon called back, eyeing the passage onto the road. He knew that the Tharkadan Legion troops were still in the plaza, and those thousand dwarves would be capable of defending the war machines against any surprise attack.

“Stay here and refuel. We’ll send for you if we need you!”

With that command, he took up his axe, which had not been blooded in that fight, and followed his troops onto the long, wide road to the Urkhan Sea.

Tor Bellowgranite was having the time of his young life. Accompanied by the powerful, enthusiastic dog left in his care by Gretchan, he made his way south through the lofty, rugged terrain of the Kharolis Mountains. For several days, the pair had strolled through a stunning wilderness of forests, lakes, and mountain peaks. They didn’t see another soul, which certainly suited Tor’s desires.

Every step of the way, Kondike bounded ahead of the young dwarf, but the dog never ventured out of his sight. His deep bark seemed proof against any of nature’s threats, as witnessed by the way he chased a hungry bear away from their camp on the pair’s second night in the wild. Tor, who had a bow and arrows with him in addition to a short sword, was relieved that he didn’t have to shoot the hulking, shaggy creature. He suspected that even a well-aimed arrow would have only served to make it angry.

And the dog was good company too, plopping down on the ground nearby whenever Tor sat down to rest or lay down to sleep. Kondike always welcomed a scratch on the head or shoulder, showing his appreciation with the heavy thumping of his tail against the ground. He even proved to be something of a hunter, several times returning to Tor with a fat rabbit or, once even, a goose clamped in his powerful jaws.

Mindful of the presence of adult dwarves, all of whom he regarded as, if not enemies, potential authority figures who would certainly compel him to return home, Tor led Kondike on paths away from the main road to Thorbardin. That suited them both, for their route took them through alpine meadows and high, sparse forests.

It was in one of the woodlands that Tor, who was quite a good shot, killed a deer, and the two wayfarers enjoyed a sumptuous feast of warm, fresh meat. Sizzling the fresh steaks over the coals of his fire, the young dwarf felt as though, for the first time, he was truly master of his world.

All the time Cloudseeker Peak towered over them, and with each passing hour and every passing day, Tor knew that he drawing closer and closer to his destination: the great dwarven nation of Krynn.

It was the place where he had been born.

King Bellowgranite watched the Kayolin troops march down the dark road, and he almost immediately felt abandoned and restless. He didn’t like the sensation of sitting and doing nothing while the dwarves from the northern realm did all the real fighting. He went to inspect the palace and was deeply saddened to note the destruction that had wrecked the once-splendid edifice. General Watchler, whose company of Redshirts had been left to garrison the place, invited him to stay there and occupy his old royal quarters, but Tarn didn’t have the stomach for that, and besides, he still felt that restlessness.

In part, he realized, it was because he missed Crystal, more than he had ever imagined he would. He kept reviewing, in the privacy of his own thoughts, the quarrel that had sent her away, and each time he thought of something he should have said or done differently. Sure, she was a stubborn woman-what dwarf wasn’t? — and she had clearly been misguided when she claimed that the hill dwarves should have been included in the campaign.

But Tarn could have made his case much more diplomatically. Indeed, if including the hill dwarves was so important to her, perhaps he could have even yielded the point. So the hill dwarves would have been superfluous in the campaign. Did he really think that they would have charged in there seeking to plunder the treasures of Thorbardin? He only had to look around, at the waste and the damage and the ruin that had been wrought in the place during the more than twelve years since his exile, to realize the absurdity of that belief.

Thorbardin wasn’t a source of treasure to anyone, not anymore. Indeed, it would take massive expenditures, and great amounts of work, to restore the nation to the glory it had possessed even a few decades before.

And even that was nothing compared to Thorbardin as it had been in its heyday, before the Chaos War, when the Life-Tree of the Hylar had sprouted proudly from the middle of the Urkhan Sea, rising all the way to the ceiling of the great cavern, bedecked with lights and noise and laughter. It was heartbreaking to think of the wonders that had been and that were no longer and could never be again.

He was thus wrapped in a cloud of gloom as he emerged from the palace, accompanied by a pair of bodyguards who, sensing their liege’s mood, stayed well behind the brooding king. Tarn made his way toward the legion’s camp, on the plaza of Norbardin before the city’s main gate and the Urkhan Road, lost in his dark thoughts. He looked at the massive gatehouse, carried at such a cost in blood, and wondered how Brandon’s troops were faring against the concentration of enemy troops reported to be waiting there.