Douglas Niles - Circle at center

Now this giant lay here, clear proof that the danger was greater than just that offered by the Crusaders-for in the cruel, slicing cuts Karkald felt certain he was looking at the work of Delvers.

“In here!”

It was the faerie called Kaycee, who had flown along as the gnomes and the two dwarves had marched out of the city. Now she called from inside the tunnel, and moments later came flying woozily out. She plopped into the ditch and retched noisily.

“It’s the ox… what’s left of it,” offered Nistel, who had gone ahead to investigate. “Mostly bones, I should say.” The gnome, too, looked a little queasy as he emerged into the fading light.

“What could have done this?” Darann asked, moving closer to the motionless giant. She leaned toward his face, brushed away the blood with a tentative hand. “He’s alive!”

“Bring him over here, to the grass,” Karkald directed the gnomes. The little fellows, who seemed to welcome his assumption of authority, hastened to obey. In a few minutes the giant was stretched out, compresses laid against his many wounds. Most of these, fortunately, proved shallow. As Darann gave him some water, and washed his face, his eyelids flickered and then, with a start, he sat up.

“Little murderers!” he howled, raising his fists as gnomes scampered in all directions.

“Wait!” declared Karkald, his sternness matching the giant’s outrage. “We are not the people who did this to you!”

The giant scowled and squinted, rubbing one of the wounds on his scalp. “No,” he admitted. “They were ugly runts, no eyes in their faces! And one of them had jaws of metal-’twas his bite did this.” The fellow displayed a nasty wound in his forearm. “There was hundreds of ’em, teeming like rats, they were.”

“Did you fight them off?” Karkald asked, amazed.

The giant shook his head ruefully. “Not the like. It seemed like there was no hope. We’d fought our way out of the tunnel, just before the Lighten Hour… must have been this morn. But the little wretches came after, pulled Bess out of her traces.” The fellow’s voice caught, a mixture of pain and rage, and his great hands clenched into fists. “They were eatin’ her while she was still kickin’! She bellowed for me, and I tried to get to her. But they was too many.”

“You fought bravely,” Karkald said. “Your wounds show that.”

“And then they just left me… like the sun was getting brighter, and then run back into the tunnel.”

“They are Delvers, blind dwarves of the First Circle who live for killing and cruelty. They have indeed come to Nayve,” Karkald declared grimly. He looked up, saw that the sun had receded far into the heavens. “Probably they wait only for nightfall before attacking.”

“And here they come!” squeaked Kaycee, buzzing out of the tunnel where she had ventured to keep watch. “Get ready!”

“Gnomes-form a line here, across the tunnel mouth!” shouted Karkald. The little people hastened to obey, but the dwarf’s heart sank at the prospect of these untrained troops facing a Delver assault. Still, there was nothing left to do.

Or perhaps one thing. He shouted to Darann, who was moving into the gnome line. “Take word back to the inn-tell Natac that the Delvers are coming! He’s got to be ready on his flank!”

“Send one of the gnomes!” she objected, with a meaningful nod into the tunnel. She had armed herself with a wooden shaft sharpened to a keen point, and she rose head and shoulders above their doughty comrades.

Karkald didn’t have time to argue. “Kaycee-get to the inn and warn them about the Delvers!”

With a nod the faerie buzzed off. By the time she disappeared, the tromp of marching feet formed a cadence coming from the tunnel. The Delvers emerged from the inky darkness into the twilight in a whirling front of slashing swords and cutting axes. Each of the Unmirrored was clad in metal armor and stood shoulder to shoulder with his mates. A few of the gnomes poked with their pitchforks or whacked with their staves, but the weapons bounced off steel-plated shoulders and heads.

And then the Delver weapons met flesh. Gnomes shrieked and screamed as dozens of wounds were scored along the line. Some were cut down in the first contact. Others dropped their weapons and turned to flee. Still more fell slowly back from that inexorable crush.

As soon as the Unmirrored had emerged from the cave they began to spread out, rear ranks moving to the right or left of the first row. Soon the mass was a hundred paces wide, and advancing into the open. The rest of the gnomes could do nothing but turn to flee, running into the night.

And the Blind Ones followed.

S he was near!

Zystyl’s wide nostrils quivered in anticipation. More than a scent, the arcane perceived a presence on a visceral level, in a place that superseded the keen depths of his four senses. There was a sweet aura, proof that he had found the same Seer female who had eluded him in the First Circle.

Now she was running with the gnomes, the runts who had offered such pathetic resistance. Still, the victory had been a delight-the Delvers had immersed themselves in the stench of a real bloodletting. The taste of gnomish flesh still lingered in Zystyl’s mouth, an oily residue which, after the long intervals on march rations, he found vaguely sickening.

But that was forgotten as the arcane now led his warriors after the retreating gnomes. The dwarves followed the sounds of their retreating foes, the Blind Ones rolling easily over the ground.

And somewhere before him was that Seer called Darann. He remembered the taste of her sweat when his tongue had stroked her cheek, the softness of her warm flesh in the grip of his strong fingers.

He had followed her to a new world, and here at last he would have her.

Sir Christopher launched his next attack under the full cover of darkness, once more sending waves of elves and goblins against the inn, while most of his giants again pressed the onslaught against the bridge. Natac watched the first maneuvers from the balcony of the Blue Swan, and saw a small group of enemy giants rushing out of the night. They carried a heavy tree trunk, and raced toward the front doors of the inn.

The warrior raced down to the ground floor, hurrying to the entrance, where he watched through the crack in the broken front door. As the horde emerged from the darkness, another volley of arrows lanced out from the Blue Swan’s high parapet. Now Deltan directed his missiles with lethal accuracy, and they found targets in centaur chests, giants’ throats, and the bodies of goblins and elves. A dozen or more of the attackers fell. But still the Crusaders rushed forward, and Natac threw his own shoulder against the door just in time to meet the shock of the onslaught.

The barrier shuddered and broke under the impact of a heavy ram. The Tlaxcalan tumbled out of the way, struggling to draw his sword and climb to his feet. The first giant, with the end of a big log under his arm, plunged through the doorway and spotted Natac. With a bellow that almost deafened the warrior, the hulking creature lashed out with a huge fist. Natac’s sword snicked outward and up, slicing across three knuckles. When the brute recoiled, the blade lashed out again as Natac stabbed the giant right in the heart.

By then another burly Crusader had entered the room, this one bearing a club. An elf charged forward, jabbing with a wooden staff, but the giant brought his club down on his victim’s skull, killing him in an instant. Natac turned, but he was too far away to intervene as the giant started toward the next room. But then another elf stood in his path, this one-like Natac-stabbing with a deadly steel longsword. The giant fell back, bright red blood spurting from his gashed thigh. By the time his comrades pulled him out of the room, the elves had lifted the door and once again barricaded it in place.