Douglas Niles - Secret of Pax Tharkas

“Come on, Kondike!” he urged, finding his balance and setting off at a clip.

“Gus!” It was Berta, crawling out of a nearby hole above the catwalk. She dropped down onto the platform, causing it to sway again, and Gus grabbed onto the railing.

“Berta! What you do in this bluphsplunging place? Go home! Be safe,” he barked authoritatively. In truth he was as frightened for her as he was for himself, he realized.

“I no go!” she snapped, planting her fists on her hips. “I come look you. Two days I look you! Where go Highbulp Gus, I say? Now I find you here!” She rolled her eyes. “I no go!”

“Well, come with me, then,” he said in exasperation. “But don’t look down. I gotta find my friend Gretchan and her friend the big kisser. They need help!”

“Who Gretchan?” demanded the female Aghar, narrowing her eyes suspiciously, even as she obligingly jogged along beside her fellow gully dwarf. “What big kisser?”

The walkway was made of wooden boards with a railing to either side. Looking to his left, Gus spotted the big chain extending horizontally above another catwalk. Below the chain was a stone shelf, a notch in the far edge of the wall before the long drop to the floor of the hollow wall. Gus couldn’t see Gretchan and Brandon, but he sure heard a lot of footsteps and stomping around; Gus decided they must be somewhere near that chain.

“She go there probably, I think,” he said, pointing at the heavy links. He spotted a place where the chain passed through another hole in the wall, vanishing into shadowy darkness. “I go there too!” he declared. “You come? I don’t promise but maybe fun!”

“Wait! How?” Berta demanded. “You crazy doofar? You gonna fly?”

“I make big jump!” Gus boasted, sounding more confident than he really felt.

He eyed the gap, not sure if he could make the leap. He’d have to jump over to the chain then lower himself down to the catwalk so he could follow the chain into the next dark tunnel. If he didn’t catch the chain, he might take a bad fall; the catwalk or stone ledge wouldn’t be so bad, but the floor itself was a long way down. At least two feet, Gus guessed.

“I go now!” he said, perched on the edge of the walkway. “Coming or not?”

“No!” Berta screamed. “You get splattered!”

“I gotta try help Gretchan!” he insisted.

Gathering his courage, he vaulted from the catwalk, just managing to cover the distance and grab onto the chain before lowering himself to the walkway below him. “Whew!” he said, glancing over his shoulder at Berta, who had her hands over her eyes but was peeking through her fingers. “Boy, I really brave!” Removing her hands, she smiled proudly.

The entry through the hole in the wall was only about two long steps away from him, and he started toward it at a run.

Except that he had forgotten about the dog. Kondike stood anxiously on the upper catwalk, barking, bouncing back and forth from foot to foot. Before Gus could think of any way to stop him, the big dog came after the gully dwarf, launching himself into space, stretching toward the curving links of the chain.

But, unlike the dwarves, the dog didn’t have hands to grasp the chain. He clawed at a link, tumbled on his back onto the catwalk, and rolled over the edge.

Otaxx Shortbeard strode along the battlement atop the Tharkadan Wall. The platform was more than a hundred feet above the ground, and he had a clear view of the approaching Neidar column-and of the mountain dwarves who had rallied to the defense.

Hundreds of his people, Hylar and Klar and the occasional Daewar who, like himself, had refused to follow the Mad Prophet, manned the top of the wall. The warriors wore their armor, including breastplates and helmets, and in many cases they carried shields as well. Two fighters stood at every notch in the crenellated rampart, peering down at the attackers, occasionally raising a shield or ducking behind the stone wall to deflect the aim of the sporadic arrows being launched by the Neidar.

Behind the front rank of warriors was a long single rank of mountain dwarf archers armed with short bows. They were the younger males and the females, who were not as brawny as their armored comrades but could send a veritable shower of arrows raining down from the wall-and would do so as soon as Otaxx gave the command.

Beyond the archers were the auxiliaries, mainly children and elders, whose job was to bring up fresh supplies of arrows and to establish caches of other ammunition. Some of those dwarves had kindled fires, while others readied kettles in which they would heat oil or water to dump on the enemy once they reached the base of the wall so far below. Still others hauled small boulders, establishing those weapons in neat piles just behind the battlements. The rocks couldn’t be hurled as far as the arrows, but when the enemy was just below, they could be rained down with devastating impact.

“The gates?” demanded Otaxx when he saw Tarn Bellowgranite approaching. “I don’t hear them closing yet.”

“They’re not,” replied the thane, shaking his head reluctantly. “Garn has a plan: he wants to let the Neidar into the Tharkadan Wall.”

“And crush them all with the trap?” guessed the old Daewar at once. He whistled. “Dangerous, but it might work.”

“Aye. And if it does, we’ll be free of the Neidar menace for good,” Tarn acknowledged, sounding as though he were trying to convince himself as much as his general.

By that time, the first rank of the hill dwarves had reached within a hundred paces of the wall. The road column had spread out into a front more than a hundred dwarves wide. At a signal from the leader, who was distinguished by a massive helmet topped by black and white feathers, they rushed forward at a sprint, howling the glory of Reorx and their hatred of the mountain clans at the top of their lungs.

Long ago Otaxx had ordered markers to be installed beside the road, at every twenty paces, for just such a showdown. Because of those white posts, the bowmen knew the exact range to their target.

“Archers, fire!” the general barked. “Range is one hundred paces.”

The first volley flew like a swarm of locusts, dark shafts filling the sky, showering down upon the leading ranks of the hill dwarf attackers. Dozens fell-it looked to the general as if every Neidar in the first rank, save the hulking captain brandishing his great sword in the center of the line, was slain by the initial volley. But the next ranks continued to surge forward.

The archers reloaded quickly and fired again and again, each bowman-or woman-shooting as fast as individual skill allowed. The missiles continued to pepper the assaulting formation, sending dwarf after dwarf to the ground, writhing or dying, but still the furious charge continued. The surviving Neidar roared their fury, a wave of sound that rose up and over the wall. They came on, the column pressing together in the very shadow of the high wall, for it was too wide for all of them to pass through the gate at once.

The burly mountain dwarves picked up rocks and hurled them into the mass of targets packed so tightly that it was hard for any missile to miss. Skulls were crushed, shoulders and breastbones shattered, spines snapped, and limbs broken under the onslaught, which in a few seconds left nearly a hundred hill dwarves battered and bleeding on the road.

But the momentum of the attack was barely dented, and the first of the attackers were racing through the lofty, wide-open gate.

“Keep up the barrage,” Otaxx ordered his men. “Take down as many as you can before they get to the gates!”

He turned and addressed the thane of Pax Tharkas. “It’s time to take the fight inside,” he said and ran to the door in the tower, ready to command the battle erupting inside the Tharkadan Wall.