Douglas Niles - Fate of Thorbardin

A third column of Theiwar moved to screen off the palace, where a few dozen occupying troops, men wearing bright red shirts, had started to sortie from the gates. Faced by five hundred angry, steady veterans, those dwarves quickly fell back to the relative safety of the palace, piling benches, blocks of stone, and other obstacles in the gaping gateway.

“D’ye want us to clean out the rats in the palace?” one of his captains asked General Darkstone.

The Daergar commander shook his head. “No, I want to keep our force concentrated. See if you can find me a prisoner-I want to find out what the enemy’s up to.”

As the captain hurried to comply, Darkstone handed out assignments to other Theiwar, those who had experience with things such as smithing, steam fitting, and other trades; they were asked to study the Firespitters, to determine if they thought they could operate the lethal war machines. He made it very clear that he didn’t expect them to respond in the negative.

Soon, one bleeding Hylar, his right arm half amputated by the blow of sword, was dragged up to Darkstone and roughly tossed to the ground before the general.

“Where is Tarn Bellowgranite?” demanded the Daergar commander.

In response, the prisoner spit a gob that narrowly missed Darkstone’s boot.

“Cut off his other arm!” barked the general, reaching down to brutally twist the wounded limb. His words and actions brought a scream from the stricken dwarf, and the fellow flopped onto his back, his face breaking out in a sheen of sweat.

“No!” cried the prisoner. “I’ll tell you!”

“I thought you might,” Darkstone acknowledged coldly. “Now speak quickly.”

“He took his legion to the lake, down the Urkhan Road,” the wounded Hylar explained in a burst. “A messenger came from the Kayolin dwarves-told him that there was a Theiwar garrison down there. They were said to be ambushing the Kayolins, and the king hurried to their assistance!”

“How amusing,” Darkstone said, pleased with the news. “And what of the other roads?”

He knew that the East Road and West Road were two other tunnels, not so wide as the Urkhan Road there at the main gate, but parallel routes that connected the city to the lakeshore. He had sent units up all three roads when attacking the city some months earlier, as commander of Willim’s forces during the civil war against Jungor Stonespringer.

“They haven’t been explored, sir. Not that I’ve heard anyway.”

“And the main body. The rest of those Kayolin scum? Where did they go?”

“They also marched down the Urkhan Road,” the prisoner reported, looking helplessly around at his captors. “Brandon Bluestone is leading them against the Theiwar he heard were down there.”

“Perfect!” Darkstone declared with a bark of laughter. Willim the Black’s trap could not have worked better.

“Please, lord,” said the prisoner, gasping in pain, swaying on his knees from the lack of blood. “Can you not find some treatment for my wound in return for the information I have provided?”

“Oh, you’ve earned a reward, all right,” the general said contemptuously. He looked at the Theiwar swordsman standing behind the kneeling prisoner. “See that he doesn’t feel any more pain,” he ordered.

Darkstone turned to inspect his two iron-bellied prizes and was so entranced with their amazing potential that he didn’t even hear the dwarf’s head bounce off the stone floor.

“That’s the gate to Thorbardin!” Crystal Heathstone declared. “But it didn’t look like this when we left!”

The hill dwarves, after a forced march of several days, had come up to the valley at the foot of Cloudseeker Peak. The column had swelled to some fifteen hundred warriors, all of them eager to have a crack at the land of their ancient mountain dwarf foes. Crystal, who had spent much of her life living in the undermountain kingdom, had led them on the shortest route to the gate. But as she gazed upward at the face of the mountain, she didn’t even recognize the place.

A jagged crack scored its way down the mountainside, at least five hundred feet from top to bottom. The trail leading up to the gate still twisted along the lower slope of the peak then vanished into the shadow of the massive gap. From below, they couldn’t see where the trail led, but they were hopeful that it would provide access; after all, they were passing through the debris of a large army camp, and there was no sign of Tarn Bellowgranite’s force. They had to have gone somewhere!

“Let’s go, then. This looks like the front door, or the back door, to Thorbardin,” Slate declared.

“Yep!” Gus proclaimed loudly. “Let’s go! Up to Thorbardin, fight wizard’s dwarves!”

Crystal knelt and addressed the gully dwarf directly. “You’re coming in there with us, Gus; you know you are. And we all know that you’re very brave. But right now I’d like you to march at the back of our army until I’m sure what lies ahead. You can see how narrow the trail is, and well, we wouldn’t want to take a chance on something happening to you.”

“But-!”

“I’m afraid I must insist,” Crystal said with a hitherto unnoticed-by Gus, at least-sternness.

Sulking, the Aghar and his two girlfriends slumped at the side of the road, watching the Neidar warriors push past. Slate Fireforge wasted no time in starting up the trail, leading the long column that was forced to narrow and squeeze along the precipitous pathway. Crystal followed close behind him, and the rest of the hill dwarves came after.

Marching two by two, the Neidar advanced up the steep trail, crossing back and forth on the switchbacks, the formation creeping like a long snake until the leaders reached the gap in the mountainside. Even from below, Gus perceived that the roadway continued into the cliff, as if the force that had smashed open the mountain had been controlled by some power that had made certain the blast would create a passage into Thorbardin.

So they entered the mountain kingdom and pressed on through the obvious detritus of battle and war. And the three gully dwarves, panting and puffing from the steep climb, hurried along behind.

Brandon stood at the edge of the water. The Urkhan Road ended at a broad wharf with a series of docks where long, metal-hulled boats could be berthed. There were many boats there, his men had reported, but every one of them had been holed, and they all rested on the bottom of the shallow lake.

“Can they be repaired?” he asked.

“Aye, General,” replied a captain of one of the scout companies, the dwarf whose men had been the first on the scene. “But it’ll take a smithy with some metal plate and a good forge. And it’ll take time. Do you want me to get started on that chore?”

“Make some preparations,” he said absently. He didn’t know that he needed boats, but considering that it was the end of the road for the Kayolin Army’s advance, he wanted to be ready for the possibility.

All around him, troops of the entire Kayolin force, including both legions, stood at the edge of the water or lined the sides of the long, wide Urkhan Road. Looking around glumly at their fallen faces, Brandon was forced to accept the inescapable conclusion that he had been duped by the prisoners he and his men had interrogated.

At least half a dozen captured Theiwar had sworn that Willim the Black and his army had come down that road and intended to make a last stand before the lake. Yet his scouts had searched thoroughly as they advanced, and there was no sign of even a small company of Willim’s troops, much less the bulk of his army. The prisoners had been lying.

“We’ve come on a wild goose chase,” he admitted to Otaxx Shortbeard, who had been detached from service to the king in order to help Brandon seek his daughter. “I didn’t really expect to find Willim or Gretchan here, but I can’t believe there’s nothing! No point to it at all.”