“Jungor began this game months ago, I now see,” Tarn said. “I underestimated his ambition. The groundquake was a coincidence, but he has used the confusion and chaos it caused to his advantage. If only I had been paying closer attention instead of lollygagging!” Once more, his violet eyes met the cool gray eyes of his wife. Silent words passed between them.
“I need to stay here,” Crystal suddenly said. Tarn sighed in relief. He could think of no safer guardian for his son, and felt grateful that his wife, a formidable warrior who wanted to fight the coming battle as badly as any of them, had read his mind; she would stay behind and protect their child.
“I hadn’t considered the Theiwar,” Tarn continued grimly. “After forty years, I had grown accustomed to discounting their weakened magic. I should have remembered our lessons from the Chaos War, when Theiwar battle mages decimated our ranks with their fireballs.”
“When wizard practices his art, archer loose thy feathered dart!” Glint quoted from ancient dwarven wisdom. “What we need are dozens of archers to go against wizards. But you have too few here, I fear, my king.” The courtyard was filled with foot soldiers. The only archers in the fortress were posted on the walls, and these could not be spared from the defense.
“There’s a Daergar enclave on the second level near the transportation shaft,” Tarn said. “If we could break them out of their siege, they could join us in an attack against the Theiwar. The Daergar have plenty of archers. They do not consider it a cowardly weapon, unlike some.”
Tarn turned to the general. “Otaxx, you take a third of our forces and move to within sight of the transportation shaft on this level,” he said. “But approach no closer and do not threaten them immediately. Fortify your position. They will think you plan to hold them there. Meanwhile, Thane Ettinhammer and I will take another third of our dwarves and descend to the second level by way of the stairs. When you see the Theiwar dissolve in disorder, you’ll know we are threatening their rear. Launch your assault then. The last third will remain here under command of Crystal Heathstone.
Otaxx nodded, beginning to order his troops. Tarn addressed the company. “Kill only those you must, take captives when you can,” he implored, his voice rising above the din. “These are your neighbors, your own kin that you are fighting, and when this is over, you will have to live with them again.” But even as he said it, he knew his words were pebbles tossed down a well.
34
Tarn and Glint waited in the dark alley, soldiers crowding around them. Orin Bellowsmoke, younger brother of Thane Shahar Bellowsmoke, knelt at Tarn’s side, repeatedly stabbing a dagger into the dirt between the cobblestones at his feet. The two limbs of his crossbow jutted up behind his back, and a battered quarrel box hung by a thin leather cord from his shoulder.
All the alleys on either side of the street were similarly packed with anxious soldiers. Nearly a third of their number was made up of newly liberated Daergar, eager for a chance to strike a blow against the forces of Jungor Stonesinger, who had bottled them up in their small enclave and besieged their thane in the Anvil’s Echo. Tarn had promised to help them lift that siege, and so they eagerly followed him.
Orin Bellowsmoke was about as untrustworthy a Daergar as had ever lived, but Tarn needed all the allies he could muster. This Daergar was a creature of Norbardin’s dungeons, having spent a good part of the past thirty years occupying them for one crime or another. The “enclave” that Tarn and his forces had rescued was really nothing more than a band of cutthroats, murderers, and thieves loyal to Orin Bellowsmoke because his brother, the thane, could offer them some protection from Tarn’s law. But every one of them could pin a cockroach to a wall from a hundred paces. Some of them poisoned their arrows. Tarn pushed this knowledge to the back of his mind along with a hundred other issues he had neither the time nor the luxury to ponder.
Word had reached him that Jungor’s forces had secured the first level dungeons. That meant the draconian assassin was now in Jungor’s hands. Tarn couldn’t be sure if Jungor had taken the dungeons for this purpose, but he had come to learn that nothing the Hylar thane did was by accident. Tarn’s last resort for dealing with Jungor was now no longer even an option. Feeling desperate, he wished now he had not thrown it away so carelessly.
But Jungor had foolishly divided his forces into numerous small sieges scattered throughout the three levels of Norbardin. If he could attack these one at a time but in rapid succession, he could defeat them all with a smaller force than Jungor’s combined army. But success depended on three things—speed, access to at least one transportation shaft, and the arrival of the feral Klar. Without the feral Klar, he wouldn’t have enough reinforcements. Without the transportation shaft, he couldn’t move large forces rapidly from level to level. He’d be forced to send his forces down the numerous small stairs that led from level to level. And the stairs, being narrow and steep, were marvelous places for ambush and disaster.
With each delay, Jungor had the opportunity to intuit his strategy and respond by massing his force for a single decisive onslaught. Tarn couldn’t allow that to happen. Speed was imperative, too much delay spelled doom. And now the street leading to the transportation shaft was blocked by some kind of invisible wall of force. The Theiwar had indeed grown powerful in their magical abilities in the past months. Tarn sent scouts into all the alleys ahead to see if they could find a way around the invisible wall.
Glint Ettinhammer ground his teeth in frustration. He knew the futility of assaulting the Theiwar’s magical defenses, but at the same time he hated all this slinking about. He preferred a straight battle, nose-to-nose with his enemy, and longed to crush some skulls. He didn’t share Tarn’s desire for minimal bloodshed, nor did he have the patience to take captives. The king probably planned to pardon their captives when all this was over, anyway. It was simpler and easier to come to grips with your enemy as quickly and directly as possible, then kill him. That way you didn’t have to fight him twice.
The Klar thane’s warriors were as restless as he was, and they did not enjoy sharing the cramped alley with a bunch of Daergar brigands, either. Old feuds between their clans threatened to boil over at any moment. Only their shared danger kept them from slitting each other’s throats.
Glint cracked his knuckles impatiently. Tarn smiled and shook his head, putting a finger to his lips even as he leaned around the corner of the building to make sure their force had not been spotted by the Theiwar garrison less than a hundred years away. A low murmur erupted at the other end of the alley. Glint stood and glowered over the heads of the soldiers packed like gully dwarves into the cramped passage. The soldiers grumbled as they were forced to make way for a returning scout. Tarn eagerly awaited his arrival. Glint tested his mace’s weight for perhaps the hundredth time.
The short, pasty Daergar crouched at his master’s side, quickly delivering his report. Orin nodded, then turned to Tarn. “All the alleys are blocked or guarded, but he has found another way,” he said.
“It’s about time!” Glint growled.
The Daergar scout led them via twisting alleys and through empty courtyards about a hundred yards farther north of the transportation shaft, out of sight of the Theiwar guards. Next, he took them by a cross street to a road that ran parallel to the one they had just left. Then, he started south again. Glint jerked him to a stop.
Orin Bellowsmoke snarled, “What’s the matter with you?”