Dan Parkinson - The Swordsheath Scroll

The men at the fire gawked, then scrambled for their shields as a perimeter guard shouted, "Dwarves! Those are dwarves! We're under attack! To arms!"

As the men spotted them, the dwarves shouted war cries, deep voices rising in bloodcurdling chants, blending with the rhythm of the drums above.

The sleepy camp came abruptly awake as humans struggled into armor and officers dashed about, trying to assemble a defense. The attack was aimed at the northwest wall of the compound, and armed units headed in that direction, then hesitated as their officers shouted contradictory orders. With unbelievable speed, the dwarves had descended the vertiginous slope and raced across the outer clearing. Now they were at the wall and coming over it-a flowing tide of short, burly figures in bright armor. There were hundreds of them, and more coming behind.

A perimeter guard flung his pike at them in terror, then turned and tried to run, but the dwarves were already all around him. One dodged beneath the guard's sword and lashed out with his own, a whirling, roundhouse swing. The guard screamed and fell, his feet cut out from under him. Another dwarf paused to raise a warhammer and strike downward with it, then ran on.

"Spread and retreat!" a human officer shouted. "Back to the far wall!"

As one, the packed human troops spread out, sword-arm's reach apart, in defense mode. In the field, the tactic was sound. It gave each man room to use his blade and shield, and presented a broader front against the enemy. Within seconds, the human soldiers were spread in a thin double line across the camp compound, retreating slowly as the tide of dwarves bore down on them.

Fighters clashed all along the line. Steel rang against steel. For a few seconds the charge of the dwarves was slowed, but then their deep-voiced chanting rose again, and they pressed forward, shields high, heavy weapons lashing out like snakes' tongues. Blood gushed and flowed in the growing dawn light, and the nearest men could hear the syllables of the roaring chant. "Hammer-hand!" they were saying. "Hammer-hand! Hammer-hand! Hammer-hand!"

Overpowered by the ferocity of the charge, the human line swayed, then broke. "Retreat!" an officer wailed. "Retreat to the wall!"

The human rush to the far wall was barely a retreat. It was more like a scramble, and everywhere around and behind them, fighting dwarves struck and struck again.

"Over the wall!" an officer barked. "This is a trap in here! Get outside! We'll fight them there!"

Of the more than three hundred men in Tharkas Camp that dawning, less than two hundred made it to the south wall of the compound, and still fewer made it to the top of the wall. And those who did stopped there in terror and confusion, some toppling the eight feet to the hard ground as those coming up behind shoved them aside.

There was no refuge outside the wall. At its foot, several guards lay dead. And beyond them were dwarves- long ranks of stubby fighters waiting with raised blades. And beyond these were mounted companies, dwarves perched on short-stirruped saddles atop armored war-horses. For every dwarf within the compound, there looked to be ten or twenty more outside the wall. It was as though the entire dwarven race had come to Tharkas- and come to kill.

As the bleeding, terrified human mob packed the narrow walkway on top of the wall, a dwarven rider stepped his horse ahead of his company. His armor gleamed mirror-bright in the morning light, and a bright, blood-red cloak flowed from his burly shoulders.

Without hesitation, he unslung a great hammer from his shoulder and raised it high over his head. The drums began to sing again, as though speaking the language of that hammer. With a fierce frown, the dwarf swept his arm downward, pointing his hammer at the humans on the wall. Along the front rank of the dwarven army, dozens of dwarves paced forward by twos. Three steps, then they stopped in unison. In each pair, one dwarf knelt and aimed a crossbow. The second set a stone in a webbed sling and began its spin. The drums crescendoed, then went silent. Slings hummed and spat. Crossbows twanged. Fist-sized stones and bronze bolts with steel tips whistled through the air, slammed into flesh, and where there had been many human soldiers jostling one another atop a stone wall, now there were only a few.

With a roar that echoed from the peaks all around, the dwarven ranks surged forward.

As the sun of Krynn rose above the eastern peaks, Derkin Hammerhand and the Ten walked their horses along a line of bright-eyed dwarves and human captives. Fifty-four men of the empire had lived through the assault on Tharkas, fifty-four out of more than three hundred who had been there when it began. None had escaped. Those who tried had been run down and killed by dwarven horsemen.

At the middle of the inspection rank, where the huddled humans stood stripped of their gear and surrounded by armed Daergar warriors in steel masks, Derkin reined in as Calan Silvertoe strode forward to meet him. "Prisoners," the old one-arm growled, indicating the little crowd of humans. "What do you want to do with them?"

"I don't want any prisoners," Derkin said. "Why are they still alive?"

"This bunch wouldn't fight it out," Calan said. "They all threw down their weapons and refused to pick them up again."

"So?"

"Well, when Vin's Daergar moved in on them, they all fell to the ground and started babbling and bawling. They refused to defend themselves."

"So?" Derkin repeated impatiently.

From the dwarves guarding the humans, a sturdy masked figure strode forward. He didn't raise his mask, but Derkin recognized Vin the Shadow. "We didn't know what to do about them," the Daergar said. "I just… well, it isn't much fun to kill people who are groveling at your feet. Even humans. So we waited for you to decide."

"I didn't want any prisoners," Derkin growled.

"No problem." Old Calan Silvertoe grinned. With his one remaining hand he drew a razor-sharp dagger from his boot. "We'll just cut their throats." He turned, happily, and headed for the humans.

"Hold!" Derkin barked. "As long as we have them, let's make some use of them. They can clean up the mess in this compound and bury the dead."

"Oh, all right," Calan agreed. He put away his dagger and turned to face Derkin. "Then can we cut their throats?"

"When everything is cleaned up here, take them up to the main shaft and lock them in," Derkin commanded. "I may think of another use for them later."

"That old shaft?" one of the Ten snorted. "It'll still stink of goblins. Goblin-stench never goes away."

With Tharkas Camp secured, Derkin prowled around for a time, making assignments, detailing guard and patrol plans, and generally putting people to work. And thinking. During his visit to Thorbardin, and in the months afterward while the Chosen Ones camped outside Northgate, trading wares and arming themselves, he had done a lot of thinking… about the ways of the world, and mostly about the ways of his people. Aside from their families and their comforts, he realized now, there were two things that every dwarf loved more than anything else: working and fighting, in that order.

It was their nature… his own and every other dwarf's. Given the chance, a dwarf would work. He would delve caverns, build roads, erect mighty structures, or dig tunnels. He would construct beautiful furniture, forge tools, carve toys, string beads, paint pictures, or carry things to the tops of mountains. He would raise crops, tend herds, and harvest forests. He would hammer and saw, pound and temper, shape and reshape objects. He would taste a stone, then carve it into a pillar, a statue, or a trinket. He would taste metal, then make something useful out of it. He would build monuments or fortresses, or make whistles from reeds. Whatever the work, any typical dwarf would dive into it with energy and enthusiasm… as long as he was doing it because he wanted to.