Dan Parkinson - The Swordsheath Scroll

The commander sincerely hoped that Lord Kane would keep his promise. Yet the dwarf was right. Sakar Kane was not a man he himself would trust. As Hammerhand approached his waiting guards, Gart turned his mount and rode away, back to his escort. By the time the dwarves had disappeared behind their wall, the emissaries were filing northward, down the pass.

Calan Silvertoe was aghast when he heard of the pledge Derkin had given. "You aren't really going to call in the sentinels," he demanded. "You'll leave us blind."

"It was a fair request," Derkin said. "By our own declaration, our watchers are four miles beyond our boundary. They are trespassing." He turned to his nearest drummer. "Recall the sentinels," he ordered.

The drums began to speak, but still Calan ranted. "You're making a mistake!" he shouted, his nose inches from Derkin's. "You can't trust humans!"

"If I expect Lord Kane to keep his pledge, then I must keep mine," the Hylar said flatly. "Besides, there's no reason for him to betray us. Winter is coming. This pass would be of no use to him until spring, even if he held it."

With the old one-arm and the Ten trailing after him, the Master of Tharkas Pass strode through his encampment. Everywhere were sullen, irritable dwarves. Thousands of them, and everywhere Derkin looked he saw the signs of their discontent. There were broken noses, blackened eyes, bandaged knuckles, and various, assorted bruises. For a few weeks they had been idle, and they looked as though they had been in a pitched battle.

"Boredom," Derkin muttered. "Our worst enemy is simple boredom. It is our nature." Turning to his escorts, he ordered, "Get the Chosen Ones packed and ready to travel. I want this pass cleared as soon as all the sentinels are in."

"Where are we going?" Calan asked, bewildered.

"Home," Derkin rasped. "Home to Stoneforge, where there is work to do. If we remain here much longer, we'll be killing one another."

"And leave the pass unguarded?" Calan Silvertoe and Tap Tolec asked in unison.

"I'll remain here, with the Red-and-Grays," Derkin decided. "We'll stay until first snow. After that, the pass will guard itself until spring. Send for Vin the Shadow. He can take command for the trek to Stoneforge. I'll catch up along the way."

"You're being foolish, Derkin," Calan told him.

"I'm doing what I must," Derkin growled, gazing around at his people, with their accumulated boredom scars. "A few more days of doing nothing, and the Chosen Ones will be no better than those idiots in Thorbardin!"

Even before Tulien Gart had returned from Tharkas Pass, watchers on Lord Kane's battlements spotted movement high on the peaks above Klanath. With dwarven-crafted far-seeing tubes, they saw dwarves in the heights emerging from hiding, clambering away along impossible slopes.

"My message has done its work," Sakar Kane gloated when he heard the report. "The dwarves have had spies watching us, but now they are being pulled away." He strode across his great room and slammed the door open. "Captain of the guard!" he shouted.

When the captain of his household guard appeared, Kane said, "Ready the engines, Morden. We move on Tharkas Pass."

"It worked then?" Morden's scarred face split in a toothy grin. 'The dwarves believed in the truce?"

"I knew they would," Kane said with a sneer. "I knew itr-when that fool Gart described their leader to me. A Hylar dwarf, he said. It is well known that many of the Hylar are inflicted with those idiotic principles of chivalry and honor that our own Orders of Knighthood hold so dear. That is why I chose Tulien Gart to carry my message. He himself is something of a fool where chivalry is concerned… and he truly believes that I mean to keep my pledge to those dinks."

"Commander Gart is going to have a fit when he sees our siege engines rolling into the pass." Morden grinned.

"I seem to recall that the scar on your cheek came from Gart's blade," Kane said. "Does it ever pain you?"

"Its memory does," Morden answered. "One day I may repay the favor."

"As you please," Kane said. "Tulien Gart is of no further use to me."

Only six hundred dwarves remained in Tharkas Pass when great, lashed-timber siege engines rolled out of morning mist and were hauled into line a hundred yards from Derkin's Wall. Hammerhand had sent the Chosen Ones southward, toward Stoneforge. All that remained were Derkin himself, the Ten, the Red and Gray Company, and roughly fifty others who had volunteered to stay.

Now three full battalions of human soldiers and a thousand footmen drafted from the streets of Klanath emerged from the mists, towing tall engines of death, and methodically arranged themselves in siege-and-attack formation as dwarves crowded onto the wall in fury and disbelief.

"I told you so!" Calan Silvertoe shouted at Derkin Hammerhand. "I told you not to trust the humans!"

"I believed that man spoke the truth," Derkin said bleakly.

"He may have, but his prince didn't," Tap Tolec observed.

The sound of sledges rang in the pass as a dozen tall catapults were anchored into the stone, while ox-drawn carts came carrying the stones to feed them. Atop the dwarven wall, slings began to hum, and crossbows thudded. Here and there among the humans, men fell, but only a few. The range was too great for either sling-balls or bolts.

Without preamble, the first catapult was loaded, aligned, and released. Two hundred pounds of stone whistled through the air and crashed into the wall's battlements. Where it hit, stone shards flew and a dozen dwarves fell.

"Clear the wall!" Derkin roared. "Everyone down! Use the wall for shelter!"

Dwarves scurried past Derkin and the Ten, streaming down the ramps as those in the pass behind closed in, massing themselves behind the wall. Another catapult stone smashed into the wall, just below the battlements, and broke into a dozen pieces. Where it had struck was only a shallow dent, and Derkin thanked the gods for his people's habit of building sturdy structures. The catapults could punish the reinforced wall, but they would not tear it down.

Archers had positioned themselves between the siege engines, and now arrows flew around the few dwarves remaining atop the wall. Most flew past harmlessly, and some shattered against the stone, but several had to be deflected with shields. "Get down!" Tap Tolec begged Derkin. "It's you they're aiming at!"

"To rust with them," Derkin snapped. "Look, there beyond that second engine. It's Lord Kane himself!" Grabbing a crossbow from one of the Ten, he drew it, fitted a metal bolt into its slot, aimed carefully, and fired. A horseman directly behind the Prince of Klanath fell, pierced through the throat.

"I missed," Derkin rasped. "Give me another…"

"Hammerhand!" Tap Tolec roared. "Look out!" But it was too late. A huge stone, propelled by a catapult, whined over the wall, directly into the little cluster of dwarves there. The last thing Derkin Hammerhand saw was a flash of hurtling stone, and then only darkness.

Among the attackers, Sakar Kane raised his fist. "There," he shouted. "Their leader is dead! Now kill the rest!"

Captain Morden squinted at the wall, then turned. 'They are protected, Sire," he said. "Our stones bounce off that structure."

"Then raise your line of fire!" Kane snapped. "Aim for the sky, above the wall. Let the stones fly high and fall on those behind."

"Aye, Sire," Morden grinned. "That should do it."

"When we've dropped enough rocks on them," the Prince of Klanath added, "send footmen with grapples. I don't want a living dwarf left when we're finished here."

Cold winds sang through the valleys, low clouds hid the rising peaks, and spitting snow had begun to dust the marchers on the Stoneforge trail when those in the rear of the great caravan heard running hoofbeats overtaking them. A single rider came into sight around a precipitous bend, and those who had turned to look saw the colors of Hammerhand's personal guard, the Ten.