Dan Parkinson - Hammer and Axe

In all, it had been a successful day in the defense of Thorbardin. But it was only the first day, and there was still an army out there on the Promontory, an army that numbered at least six thousand organized human raiders and more than a hundred wizards.

“We have won a day,” Willen Ironmaul told Barek Stone. “But we have not won a war. Today they played with illusions and had a look at some of our defenses. Tomorrow they will get serious.”

On the sloping rampart below the main ledge, there were shouts and a scuffle. Guards raised lanterns, and those on the ledge saw a struggling group coming toward them—a dozen or more burly Theiwar dragging a white-robed human among them, pushing and prodding him. The man was muttering things, and now and then several dwarves floated upward a foot or two, then descended angrily, swearing in true Theiwar fashion. For a moment, two or three Theiwar seemed to glow with an eerie light. Then another grew bat wings and sprouted fangs which curved down over his beard.

“Stop that!” a Theiwar snapped, delivering a well-placed kick at the man’s shin. The human howled, muttered something, and the kicker’s head became, momentarily, that of a rabbit. Another Theiwar reached up, grabbed the man’s beard, and bent him down to slap him across the cheek with a hard hand. “You heard us,” the dwarf said. “Stop that!”

The man glared around at the dwarves, muttered something else, and seemed to disappear. His captors clung stubbornly to empty air and continued their struggling journey “It’s all right,” one called. “He isn’t gone. He just invisibled himself. He’s done that several times.”

Damon Omenborn hurried down the rampart to stop them before they reached the gate. “Where did you get this one?” he asked.

“Slip caught him out in the breaks,” a captor said, indicating a long-armed young Theiwar who was clinging grimly to some unseen part of the unseen captive.

“He’s still here,” Slip Codel assured the big Hylar. “Here, I’ll show you.” He reached up, groping in empty air, then with two fingers he pried open invisible eyelids. Between his fingers, a glaring eye appeared. “I don’t think magickers can invisible their eyes,” the young Theiwar explained. “If they’re open, you can always see them.”

“Interesting.” Damon noted that by squinting he could vaguely see the outline of the wizard. The invisibility was, after all, only magic, and Damon had learned that the more obstinately he refused to accept magic, the less effective it seemed to be.

“Who are you?” he asked the glaring eye between Slip Codel’s fingers.

“None of your business,” an angry voice growled. “Delatas sepit mikti . . .”

“Chapak! ” Damon finished, pointing a strong finger at the eye.

The unseen mage squealed, thrashed, and became abruptly visible, standing in the midst of a swarm of bees.

“Hold him!” Damon said. “Ignore the bees; they aren’t real!”

The Theiwar kept their grips on the struggling, howling man. “Wow!” Slip said. “Did you do that, Damon?”

“No, he did. But he intended to do it to me.”

“ Ka—kapach!” the wizard stuttered, flailing against the bees swarming around him. The bees continued to swarm, stinging him mercilessly. “H-h-help!” he cried. “P-plea-please . . . help!”

“Help how?” Damon asked casually.

“S-s-say ‘Ka-k-k-ah-k-kapach!’”

“Will you behave yourself?”

“I w-w-will! I-I s-sw-swear! Ow!”

“Kapach,” Damon said. Instantly, the bees were gone, though red welts were rising all over the man.

“You should take up another trade,” Damon noted. “You aren’t very good at magic.” He pointed out across the dark Promontory with its myriad distant fires. “Who’s in charge out there?”

“K-Kisti-Kistilan,” the wizard said. His stutter was becoming more pronounced.

“Is he the one in the floating chair?”

“Th-that’s-uh-that’s him.”

“What does he want?”

“He w-wants this p-puh-place,” the unhappy wizard said. His face was beginning to swell grotesquely from bee stings. “The r-r-rest of us w-uh-want the S-st-stone of Th-uh-thr-three-threes. Kis-Kistilan w-wants uh-Th-Thorbardin.”

“None of you can have either one,” Damon assured him.

“You c-can’t st-s-uh-s-stand against m-m-magic!” the man snapped. “You-y-you’re foo-f-fools to th-th-think you c-ca-c-uh-can.”

“Are we?” The Hylar pointed at the man again. “Delatas sepit mikti . . .”

“N-n-no!” the wizard shrieked.

Damon grinned at him, then lowered his hand.

“H-how . . . how did y-you, uh, l-l-learn that?” the man quavered, stammering uncontrollably.

“I learned it from you just a moment ago. I have an excellent memory.”

With the coming of dark, most of the forces on the outer line had withdrawn to the nearer perimeter to rest and have their supper. The humans, as night-blind as any Daewar or Hylar, were not likely to move until morning. But here the dwarven commanders had failed to reckon on the wizards. An hour before first moonrise, trumpets sounded on the near slopes, and attack forces of human mercenaries charged the outer dwarven camps, following patches of eerie light that lit the ground ahead of them as moonlight through openings in the clouds might light a stormy night.

Only intense discipline saved the Golden Hammer—farthest out on the main trail slope—from annihilation. Several hundred Sackmen warriors, guided by the skills of wizards, came out of darkness and fell upon the Daewar brigade with howls of triumph and the clashing of metal blades.

Had the surprised Daewar been any other non-Hylar unit, they would have been massacred. But at the first hint of attack, even before Lodar Yellowkilt could call orders, the Daewar footmen had leapt into circle formation, forming a solid, double ring of steel shields and steel blades. Some of the Sackmen got through the first ring as dwarves fell before hand-darts and singing long swords, but none got through the second ring. For long minutes, the fighting was furious, steel ringing on steel, the war cries of the mercenaries a wild counterpoint to the chanting of the fighting dwarves as their blades snaked out from behind their shields and came back dripping red.

The outer ring was breached once, and then again, and yet again, but each time, dwarves from the inner ring moved up to fill the gaps. Within the circle, dwarven slings hummed as slingers sailed round after round of iron shot into the press of humans. And at the center of his troops, Lodar Yellowkilt stood atop a water keg, deflecting arrows and darts with shield, helm, and bracelets as he squinted at the line of combat lit by magical glare. He saw an intense push by humans forming just beyond the south side of his ring and shouted, “Downtrail quadrant, break and charge!”

Just as the humans at that point rushed the circle of dwarves, the circle bulged outward toward them, ranked shields parted suddenly, and a chanting flood of dwarves charged out, shields high, directly into the face of the attack. The two charges met and bored into each other, then the humans withdrew. Slingers pelted them from behind as they ran.

In the broken gullies south of the main trail slope, the human surprise attack was not as successful. These were old hunting grounds of the wild Theiwar, and the Theiwar holding the sector now were well acquainted with them. It was here that a hundred or so invaders learned what some of their ancestors had learned in times past: the specialty of the Theiwar was ambush.

The humans, roughly a hundred mercenaries and two or three wizards, charged into the breaks, aiming at the peaceful cook-fires just ahead. By the time they saw that the fires were unattended, it was too late to turn back. Slim Theiwar blades and dark-iron Theiwar hammers ran red with blood on that night, and very few of the attackers escaped.