Jeff Crook: Dark Thane

Meanwhile, the warehouse in which Glint Ettinhammer and his Klar warriors awaited the signal to attack was largely empty except for a row of crates stacked against the windows of the first level. This arrangement prevented him from seeing into the courtyard, an inconvenience that he could not help but notice. Above him, two dozen Daergar archers crouched along the metal catwalk beneath the open windows of the second level. He didn’t like having those untrustworthy brigands above him, but there was little he could do. They dared not try to move the crates from the first floor windows lest they be spotted by the Theiwar guarding the transportation shaft.

Glint was suspicious; worse, he was worried. The entry into this place had been far too easy. He had trouble believing that Theiwar careful enough to block every alley with a spell would overlook such an obvious hole in their defenses. Tarn had divided his own forces for the plan, and was now blind to the movements of his enemy; plus he was separated from his friends. Glint was heartily sorry that he had not advised a more careful reconnaissance of the terrain. Impatience had clouded his thinking.

The Klar thane’s nerves were on edge. After he had waited what he thought was plenty of time for the others to get into attack position, Glint couldn’t sit still any longer. “I’m going up to have a look,” he said to the Klar captain at his side. “If the signal comes while I am upstairs, you lead the charge. I’ll he right behind you.”

“Yes, my thane!” the captain said, excited to be given such an honor.

Slipping swiftly and relatively silently along the wall, Glint had just reached the stair leading up to the catwalk when he heard Tarn’s shouted cry. The words were faint, muffled by distance and by the walls that stood between them, but the old Klar warrior knew what it meant. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Daergar stand and point their weapons down on those beneath them. Both sets of doors banged open. Theiwar and Hylar warriors poured through.

Glint crouched in the shadows for a moment. His warriors clustered together on the floor, shields raised against Daergar crossbow bolts that fell like winged hail among them. Theiwar sorcerers stood in the courtyard, casting their spells through the doors, felling warrior after warrior with bolts of energy and magical sleep. After that one strangled cry, no further sound or sign of his king had reached his ears. The door to the street stood open only a few yards away. His soldiers were being cut down before his eyes, the Daergar traitors were howling with laughter as they ceased their fire to allow the Hylar and Theiwar warriors the pleasure of mopping up the survivors.

That is when Glint leaped into the open doorway and with one blow of his huge mace felled both Hylar warriors standing guard outside. He turned back, laughing into the surprised faces of those within the warehouse. “Klar! To me!” he roared.

Roused by their thane, the Klar came alive. Glint held the door open against a dozen foes until his soldiers hacked a way through to him. Together they poured into the empty street, where they immediately fled like gully dwarves in a dozen different directions to baffle pursuit. In the twinkling of an eye, the street was once again empty save for a few confused and stunned Hylar who had stumbled out too late to give chase.

Mog Bonecutter awoke with flames leaping around him, his bed afire. Ogduan Bloodspike stood at the foot of the burning bed, the torch still in his hands, his mouth stretched open in a peal of hideous laughter. Mog yanked the flaming sheets off the bed and flung them aside, but to his horror saw that the remainder of their small chamber, dug from the ruins of Hybardin, was already engulfed in flames. The exquisite upside-down fresco sputtered and popped, the ancient faces of the dwarves at their forges melting into madhouse smiles. Thick black smoke hung halfway to the floor and poured through the uneven entrance to the chamber.

Mog snatched the Hammer of Kharas from the wall above the bed, then leaped over a rising column of flames, landing on his bare feet already running. “You crazy old fool!” he screamed. But Ogduan had already fled shrieking and giggling from the chamber. Mog had been waiting for weeks for the insane old Klar to try to kill him, but he never imagined he’d burn down his own house at the same time!

Mog escaped the burning ruins wearing only a loincloth, the Hammer of Kharas swinging in his fist. The jagged ruins cut and bruised his feet as he leaped and bounded down the hillside in pursuit of his marooned comrade on the Isle of the Dead. Behind him, flames belched out of the cavern like fire from a dragon’s mouth, illuminating the shattered ruins of Hybardin down to the water’s edge.

For a moment, Mog lost sight of his quarry, then spotted the old dwarf crawling down a wrecked staircase only twenty yards below, a battered box clutched to his chest. He set off again, down a slope of scree that reached down to the shoreline. Slipping and sliding in the loose stones, Mog reached the narrow, pebbly beach just as Ogduan rolled down the last few steps, still laughing hysterically, his box flying from his hands to land in the black water of the Urkhan Sea.

Mog caught up to him before the old Klar could regain his footing. Stepping on Ogduan’s leg to hold him still, he lifted the Hammer of Kharas over his head and swung. But the ancient weapon, glistening with moisture, slipped from his grasp and went sailing off into the rocks beyond.

Heedless of its loss, Mog knelt on Ogduan’s chest and began to throttle him, his fingers squeezing around his windpipe to choke off the life of the one who had rescued him from drowning only to attempt to murder him with fire. Ogduan continued to laugh as long as he could draw breath, even as his face turned purple and his lips swelled with blood.

“Hello on shore!” someone cried. “Is there anyone there?”

Releasing his grip, a startled Mog spun and raced to the water’s edge, flailing out until the cold, black Urkhan Sea was up to his waist. “Here! Here!” he cried joyfully. “Is someone there?”

“There!” he heard someone shout. “Row for that point beneath the flames.”

A long sea boat hove into view, one of the old merchant craft that had once plied the waters of the Urkhan Sea. Towed by miles-long cables, these vessels had carried supplies and passengers between the five cities of Thorbardin. Oarlocks had been fitted to the boat, since the cables had long ago broken and sunk to the bottom of the sea. Now, a dozen Klar warriors guided the boat into shore, while a score more scowled at one another in the hold.

Mog gripped the edge of the boat and walked along with it the last few feet to shore, his joy as boundless as his surprise, a thousand questions getting in the way of one another and momentarily leaving him unable to voice even a single word. A young Klar captain commanded the craft from the bow. With his boat safely beached, he stepped forward.

Now it was his turn to be rendered speechless. After a few moments of stammering, he managed to cry, “Captain Mog? Mog Bonecutter?”

“Bloodfist? By the gods! What are you doing sailing out here on the Urkhan Sea?” Mog asked in turn. “Surely not looking for me?”

“No, we thought you dead these two months.”

“Two months? Has it only been two months?” Mog asked in bewilderment. How could he have healed of his injuries in only two months? Nay, one month! He’d woken fully healed a month ago. But these questions were immediately driven from his mind by Captain Bloodfist’s next words.

“I was out recruiting among the feral Klar and headed for home when we spotted your fire,” he said.

“Not my fire!” Mog said, turning and looking at Ogduan. The old Klar had struggled to his feet and stood at the edge of the ruins rubbing his neck. “Why, that old fool tried to burn down his own house with me in it!”