Dan Parkinson - Hammer and Axe

The drummer beat a quick tattoo on his vibrar, the deep, haunting rhythm rolling upward along the slopes. There was a moment’s hesitation, then a response. “The chief of chiefs gives permission,” the Hylar drummer translated.

“Volunteers!” Lodar called. Instantly, the entire Golden Hammer stepped forward, volunteering.

“Very well.” Lodar nodded. “Full strength.” He pointed. “Those horsemen will charge us,” he said. “Wait for my signal, then form two companies. First company line countercharge, down and defend, then reverse. Second company hold fast. Hammer and anvil.”

“They have lances,” a squad leader pointed out.

“They have no lances,” Lodar said bluntly. “That is only wizardry. They are not there.”

“Aye.” The squad leader grinned. “Like that other bunch those crazy Klar routed.”

Trumpets blared, and a hundred horsemen separated from the human front, trotting as they spread into a long line, each six feet from the next. Lodar Yellowkilt traced the pattern of Reorx on his armored breast and hoped that what he had told the squadman was true. His troops were convinced now that the enemies ahead were nothing more than figments of sorcery.

Lodar hoped earnestly that they were.

The human cavalry line came at a trot, then a canter, and then full gallop as steel-tipped lances leveled out ahead of them. In a moment they had crossed half the field and were midway between their own forces and the dwarven line.

“By the plan!” Lodar shouted. “Charge!”

Shields high and hammers ready, half the Golden Hammer ran toward the charging horsemen, spreading into a spearhead formation, a tight, solid V of racing dwarves.

The human riders, caught off-guard by the unexpected countercharge, hesitated for an instant, and the line became ragged. But then they were galloping again, lances lowering toward the short, stocky targets of the dwarves. Hooves thundering, dwarven boots thumping an echo, the two formations clashed at midfield. Here a lance pierced dwarven armor, there a Daewar ducked beneath a thrust and broke the front legs of a horse with a single hammer blow. Then, abruptly, all the dwarves dropped to the ground, falling backward, their shields over them. Horses thundered over and around them, lances spearing downward, men falling as hammers lashed out from beneath shields, cutting their mounts from under them.

A long second passed, and the charge had swept by, thundering onward toward the second unit of the Golden Hammer, still holding the line. Where the forces had met was a jumble of bodies—men, horses, and dwarves everywhere. But among the dwarves, most raised their shields, jumped to their feet, and turned.

Lodar gritted his teeth in pain, looking at the broken lance head jutting from his breastplate. “It isn’t real,” he told himself fiercely. “It had better not be real.”

All around him, other maimed and pierced dwarves were telling themselves the same thing. And suddenly, lances faded, holes in armor closed, blood stopped flowing. And high on the mountainside beyond, drums sang of what sentinels saw. This army, like the one to the west, was only a figment.

But figment or not, the horsemen were still charging toward the second company of the Golden Hammer. “To the anvil!” Lodar ordered. “Crush formation!”

A solid phalanx of angry Daewar at his back, Lodar Yellowkilt headed after the human horsemen.

Still seventy strong, the horse charge hit the “anvil” of Daergar defense like a scythe hitting wheat. . . and bounced off like a scythe hitting stone.

With shields braced by stout bats of wood, heeled into solid stone, the Daewar met the horse charge in the way they had learned a century before. Real or not, lances or no, a horse charge cannot break steel shields set in stone. The humans hit the line, lances breaking, and many were thrown from their saddles by the impact. Some horses went over the shields, where their saddles were emptied by sling-balls and hammer blows. Others veered aside, bumping and jostling each other. “Fall back!” a human shouted. “Regroup!”

But it was too late. Like steel-swathed, gold-bearded wrath, the first company of the Golden Hammer hit the riders from behind, crushing them against the “anvil” of the braced line. Everywhere steel clanged on steel, men screamed, horses floundered, and the solid, deep-throated chant of the Golden Hammer echoed: “Re-orx! Re-orx! Re-orx!” Dwarves fell, then stood to fight again. Men fell and did not.

Far out on the field, wizards guiding the replicate army ran here and there in confusion and frustration. The army began to disperse, large groups heading off to find cover, wizards following, bickering among themselves.

In a place where spring thaws had eroded the land along a tiny stream into a maze of high-banked gulches, Slip Codel had been hiding, waiting for a chance to ambush someone. The young Theiwar had become separated from his assigned group, and then had been cut off by the advance of the mercenaries from the east.

Now he crouched low, behind a leaning slab of stone on a tall bank, as hundreds of humans raced past him, some riding and some on foot. Slip watched them pass, many of them within arm’s length of his hiding place, and itched to ambush them. But he was alone, and they were many. After a few minutes, they had all passed, and Slip started to rise. Then he crouched again as a strange-looking man raced around a shoulder of rock and stopped, out of breath and panting. The man was unarmed and wore nothing more than a long dirty robe of white material. With a hiss of anger, he peered at the clefts where the other humans had gone and raised a hand. “Dek seratis,” he said. “Dek manit —”

Whatever else he meant to say went unsaid. Slip Codel’s hammer rapped him on the skull, and the human slumped to the ground.

Slip dropped down beside him and walked around the inert form of the fallen man. The man was still breathing. Slip raised his hammer again, then changed his mind. Slinging his hammer, he crouched beside the man, lifted him across strong shoulders, and stood. With the unconscious human dragging the ground fore and aft, Slip headed for the slopes of Thorbardin. It might be, he felt, that somebody there would like to talk to this human about what was going on.

On the walled ledge outside Southgate, Willen Ironmaul and Damon Omenborn saw the destruction of the horse charge and knew that Lodar Yellowkilt had guessed correctly. They had identified the second conjured army.

Damon, peering through a far-seer devised by Hylar glaziers—magnifying lenses mounted within a brass tube—saw something now that he had not seen before. Far out on the Promontory, where two full identical armies yet remained, a speck hung in the air above one of the hordes. Twisting the ribbed bands of the device, he adjusted the lenses for greater magnification. The speck grew and became a man sitting in a chair . . . a chair suspended from nothing, simply floating above the humans massed below.

He handed the far-seer to his father, pointing out the speck. Willen gazed through the lenses, then handed the device to Barek.

“One wizard has put himself above the rest,” Damon said. “He is in charge, then.” He turned to his father and the captain general. “If you had four armies and only one was real, which army would you lead?”

“The real one,” Willen Ironmaul said.

“Let’s test your theory,” Barek said to Damon. “It’s time we bring out the discobels.”

Damon nodded.

“I agree,” Willen said. “Let’s find out if the real army has a real wizard in charge.”

At the captain general’s command, drums sounded, and, a short distance down each sloping ramp, dwarves went to work with cables and winches. Slowly, from behind each main guard tower, there appeared a huge contrivance of lashed and braced timbers as tall as the towers themselves. Lumbering on great iron wheels, the two discobels rolled into view, and dwarves clambered up their sides, carrying tools. Winches aloft sang, and high on each tower a long, outthrust arm as thick as the bole of a mountain cedar swung back and back, creaking as cable-springs took the strain of its inertia.