Douglas Niles - Fate of Thorbardin

All his attention was on the Neidar as, with whoops of war that carried distantly, the two wings of the hill dwarf army broke into a charge and swept toward the gatehouse where the two fire-breathing machines were creating their oily, seething inferno.

The battle was on!

And the gully dwarves had perfect seats.

General Darkstone paced along the wide platform atop Norbardin’s main gatehouse. It was the same spot from which he had commanded Willim’s first attack against the city during the civil war, when his offensive was directed against Norbardin itself. His orientation of battle was reversed, centered around the two Firespitters, with his men directing their destruction into the tightly constricted tunnel of the Urkhan Road.

“More fire!” he ordered when the crew operating one of the war machines seemed to be slowing down. “Bury them in flames!”

“I’m trying, General!” replied the Theiwar who operated the controls. He was still trying to master the fine mechanical points of the Firespitter, though he had done a good job with the initial onslaught. “The furnace has gone out. It needs to be rekindled!”

“Well, hop to it, man!” roared the general. “I want to smell Tarn Bellowgranite’s beard toasting in the flames!”

“Aye, sir!” Theiwar frantically swarmed around the machine, some of them burning their hands on the hot metal as they tried to reload coal into the furnace dangling under the smoldering spout.

Darkstone watched in satisfaction as the second Firespitter, still operational, shot another plume of fire down the tunnel of the Urkhan Road. The enemy dwarves inside the tunnel had stopped screaming, for the time being, but he knew they were trapped-and, he hoped, doomed.

He still remembered the cold anger he’d felt upon finding his men burned to a crisp, incinerated by that cursed, unholy weapon. He had no regrets about using it upon its makers, though; in fact, it seemed a perfect fate for the fiends who had come up with the idea. And to think, the exiled king had been foolish enough to march his whole legion into Willim the Black’s trap!

He looked down at the mouth of the roadway, where frantic Theiwar still swarmed over the disabled Firespitter. Two were shoveling coal into the hungry furnace, though in their haste they were dropping more of the fuel onto the ground than into the hopper. Another was twisting a dial on the side of the boiler then screamed as a searing blast of steam erupted from a vent to catch him full in the face. He fell, writhing and moaning, clutching his blistered cheeks, but another dwarf bravely stepped in, manipulated the valve, and cut off the flow of steam.

“When are you gonna have that thing ready?” the general demanded, feeling a stab of satisfaction as the crew chief glanced at him in alarm. “Fix it or I’ll find someone else who can!”

He didn’t hear the panicked soldier’s reply. Someone else was running up the nearby stairs, calling for his attention. “General! We’re attacked from behind! Look!”

“What?” he roared, turning to confront the messenger. He didn’t need to ask for the alarm to be repeated, however, for the proof was plain to see in the vast plaza between the gatehouse and the shattered palace.

Two long lines of dwarves had appeared there, seemingly materializing out of nowhere. They were charging at a run, racing across the plaza, converging directly on the gatehouse and the Theiwar position.

“Who in blazes are they?” he asked incredulously as the messenger stopped before him and knelt.

“As incredible as it sounds, it would seem they’re hill dwarves, sir. At least, that was the best guess of our scout, who got a look at their leather capes and their faces.”

Darkstone hadn’t seen a hill dwarf in more than twenty years, but he remembered the leathery skin, the weathered faces and hands that distinguished those clans who chose to live on the surface, the result of being exposed to aboveground weather. It was not a difficult identification to make, for there was no weather in Thorbardin.

But how had hill dwarves come to be there?

In the next instant, he threw back his shoulders, reassessing the situation. Things were not good, but they were not automatically disastrous. It didn’t matter how the hill dwarves had come there; they were certainly there, and hostile, and that was all he needed to know.

“You men!” he roared to a group of companies preparing to charge down the Urkhan Road. “Turn around! We’re being attacked from behind!”

Immediately the Theiwar reversed the direction of their advance, streaming out of the gatehouse, hurrying to form a line in the face of the onrushing hill dwarves. Darkstone could see at once that they wouldn’t be enough to stem the tide; the attackers would sweep around both ends of their line, even if they managed to form up cohesively in time.

“Captain Bitters!” he roared, calling to the loyal officer who commanded his reserve, some five hundred well-rested, well-equipped Theiwar, all of them anxious for blood and vengeance. The reserve was only for emergencies, but they were in the midst of one, Darkstone decided.

Bitters, with his men, was waiting stolidly in the wide entry to the gatehouse. He looked up at his name, a grin spreading.

Darkstone pointed to the charging Neidar. “There’s your enemy! Make ’em pay!”

“Aye, General!” cried the captain. With a few choice curses and many a well-placed kick, he got his unit turned around and sent his men streaming out of the gatehouse. Barely a minute later, they smashed into the wave of hill dwarves, and the general looked down at thousands of dwarves battling furiously in the fight of their lives.

Would the reserve be enough to win the day? Only time would tell.

Brandon raced up the Urkhan Road, past long files of Kayolin dwarves who were waiting for orders, grimly resting along the sides of the avenue. There was no point in sending them forward, he knew; if the enemy shot the Firespitters down the tunnel, packing more troops near the gatehouse was only an invitation to slaughter.

His most urgent question-Why had the Tharkadan Legion followed the Kayolin dwarves onto the road? — could at last be addressed as he all but bumped into Tarn Bellowgranite, coming toward him barely a half mile down from the gatehouse.

“Sire!” Brandon gasped in astonishment. “What are you doing here?”

“I heard the Theiwar were down this road, that you’d been ambushed and suffered horrible losses!” the king declared defensively. “I moved the legion in here to support you!”

“You were tricked!” the Kayolin general snarled, forgetting in his fury any deference to his listener’s royalty. “It was a trap!”

“Well, I know that now!” Tarn snapped back. “But what are we going to do about it?”

“I’m trying to figure that out right now,” Brandon said, speaking through clenched teeth. “Sire, please. Wait here, and I’ll see what the situation is up there!”

He left the chagrined monarch at a sprint and quickly found Fister Morewood. The stalwart captain was nursing a badly burned arm; the limb was bleeding through the gauze wrapped around it. Fister looked to the side in shame as Brandon approached.

“I’m sorry, sir,” he began. “I thought the king-”

“I know,” Brandon cut him off. “But what’s happening?”

“The Theiwar came out of hiding in the city somewhere. They have seized the Firespitters and turned them against us. We lost a hundred men in the first attack and a hundred more when we tried to engage them. General, they have turned the whole road into a firestorm!”

Brandon grimaced. He could easily picture how the lethal weapons might control a narrow avenue such as the Urkhan Road; the enemy held the high ground after all and could pour the heavy, burning oil right down the throats of the trapped Dwarf Home Army. What could they do about it?