Douglas Niles - Fate of Thorbardin

As if in response to his very thoughts, a dwarf soldier appeared, wearing the patch of the Second Legion. Tarn didn’t recognize the soldier, but he was running down the ramp from the gatehouse with an unmistakable air of urgency. He spotted the king and his entourage of guards and immediately changed course to intercept him.

“King Bellowgranite!” he called. “Your Majesty!”

“Yes, man, what is it?” Tarn demanded.

“It’s a message from General Bluestone! He’s marched into a trap! The wizard has altered the tunnel to include an ambuscade! The Kayolin troops are under attack from two sides! He begs you to bring up your legion at once-before it’s too late.”

“I knew I’d be needed!” Tarn muttered almost gratefully as he saw Mason Axeblade running over to him from the legion headquarters.

“What’s the commotion?” asked the loyal captain.

“Bluestone’s army is under attack. We need to go to him at once!” Tarn insisted. He turned to the messenger, noting that the fellow was smeared with blood. “Isn’t that right, son?”

“I’m afraid so,” the dwarf gasped. “The situation is in crisis. Please, come at once!”

Axeblade looked for a moment as if he wanted to argue or waste time asking questions. One look at his king’s fierce face dissuaded him, and Tarn didn’t have to repeat his order.

“All right, dwarves of the Tharkadan Legion!” Mason Axeblade cried, addressing the captains who were gathered at his command post and all the other dwarves within earshot. “We’re needed on the Urkhan Road! Gird yourselves and make ready to march. We charge to the rescue of Kayolin!”

Darkstone’s spies had continued to watch the enemy’s movements during the day after Willim the Black had outlined the plan for his commander. The general had kept his restive troops silent and hidden for all that time, gathering even more stragglers whenever he could surreptitiously draw them into his ranks. The troops numbered more than two thousand, and every one of them had lost valued comrades to the enemy invasion. Each man, like the general himself, was thirsting for vengeance and eager to go to war.

The general was poring over maps of the city that one of his men had found in a nearby scribe’s shop when he felt the familiar tingling of nearby teleportation. He looked up to find Willim the Black standing in front of him, wearing a bloody uniform. Slowly that gore-streaked garment faded into the wizard’s black robe, and Darkstone understood that it had been a guise, an illusion.

“The trap is nearly ready,” the wizard crowed. “I myself have given them the final, false lead. The fool of a king will lead his troops onto the road in the next hour. When he does so, it will be time for you to move!”

“Aye, Master-with pleasure!” Darkstone growled, truly eager to join the battle, to avenge the losses that had been eating at his conscience since the first assault against the outer gate. “We are ready to move!”

“Good! You know what to do!”

And with that, the wizard was gone.

It was only a few minutes later that Darkstone received the report that confirmed Willim’s trap. A stealthy scout, a former thief who dressed all in black and slipped easily through the shadowy byways of Norbardin’s seedier neighborhoods, came to him with news.

“General, the False King’s army has marched onto the road leading to the Urkhan Sea. The fools have taken almost all of their troops down that single road. If we move now, we can cut them off from behind and trap them against the lake!”

“Splendid!” Darkstone declared, clenching his fist. All around, his bored and well-rested troops watched him, waiting for the next command. “On your feet, men,” he declared. “Weapons ready. We move out at once!”

The troops wasted no time in obeying. Under the immediate command of Chap Bitters and several other loyal captains, the force was divided into four equal-sized columns. Each followed a different road, but they all would converge on the great plaza of Norbardin. Moving silently, jogging along at a good speed, they killed any citizens they encountered along the way to guarantee that they retained the element of surprise.

Finally they came to the end of the roads, where each avenue spilled into the wide plaza. There Darkstone stopped to take stock of the situation. He’d heard the reports, but he couldn’t believe his eyes: There, right before him, were the two Firespitters, the enemy’s most lethal and deadly weapons.

And the fools had left no troops behind to defend them!

The teleportation magic, as always, left Gretchan feeling dizzy and disoriented. She grabbed hold of the bars of the cage to steady herself and blinked and looked around. Feeling sick, she braced herself and breathed deeply until the unrest in her seething stomach slowly settled.

As soon as she had her wits about her, she looked around more widely, seeking any information she could detect through her senses. Her first impression was one of vast, immense space and absolute darkness. She wondered, momentarily, if the wizard might have brought her to some vague and empty place, such as the Abyss or a plane of nothingness in some ambiguous location between the physical worlds of the universe.

Then she heard the scuff of a footstep on what sounded like loose rocks. Gravel skittered away, and her own feet, through the bottom bars of the cage, discerned an irregular but solid surface. Finally, as her eyes began to adjust to darkness even more extreme than that in the wizard’s lair, she was able to see that Willim was nearby, right next to the cage, and that Facet was not much farther away, just a little beyond the wizard and apparently standing on a lower surface. The younger female held the case of potions she had packed before departing the lair.

Gretchan’s cherished possession, the Staff of Reorx, was still held in the wizard’s two hands. The light on the anvil had been totally extinguished, but she could see the shape of the long pole as he stood still studying something … what? It was impossible to know, with his eyeless face, but she had the keen impression that he was inspecting their surroundings very carefully.

As she looked around, Gretchan realized she must be on some kind of hilltop. The ground below her was rough and rocky and sloped away in all directions, as if her cage had been placed right on the summit of a cone-shaped elevation. A glance overhead convinced her that she was still underground, however; there was no hint of a sky, not even the diffuse glow that starlight inevitably cast through even the heaviest haze of clouds.

Like all dwarves, she had keen vision in almost total darkness, and as she strained to see some kind of ceiling overhead, she began to discern a rocky vault far, far above her. She sniffed, tasting and smelling the air, seeking more clues, and gradually she became aware of a cold humidity. There must be a lot of water there or very nearby for the air to feel so moist. Could it be that the liquid nearly filled the whole, vast cavern?

The Urkhan Sea!

That would explain the vastness of the chamber, the moisture in the air, and the high ceiling. But how could she be on a hilltop or high peak? The sea was surrounded by sheer cliffs, and by the ruins of the great cities of Thorbardin. Those cities had been abandoned since the damage inflicted, primarily by fire dragons, during the Chaos War. But those cities had been built upon cliffs, their open faces, toward the lake, rising in a series of terraces and steps. They were not rugged hills.

Only then did she remember Willim’s words as he had appeared in the lair and snatched her away.

“What is the Isle of the Dead?” she asked, the sound of her voice hollow and loud in the wide space. As if to confirm the vastness of the cavern, she didn’t even hear the faintest of echoes following her words.