“This road doesn’t lead to the transportation shaft,” the Klar thane said.
“Of course it doesn’t, stupid Klar!” the Daergar scout spat “If it did, it would be guarded. But they are only watching the streets and alleys, while their back door stands open.”
“Stop speaking in riddles and tell us what you mean,” Tarn demanded.
“What lies to the west of the transportation shaft?”
“Nothing. A few warehouses.” Glint said.
“Three warehouses with back doors facing this road and front doors facing the transportation shaft,” the scout said.
“Surely the doors will be locked,” Tarn said.
“Locks!” the Daergar snorted, shaking his head.
“If memory serves, those warehouses have three floors, and each floor has several windows,” Glint ventured, a smile growing on his painted white face. “Windows from which archers could provide covering fire while we rush the Theiwar position.”
The Daergar scout nodded.
“I’m beginning to see the value of your plan,” Tarn said. “But we must move swiftly and silently. When we arrive, I will lead the way through the middle warehouse. Thane Ettinhammer will take the right-hand warehouse and Orin Bellowsmoke the left. Archers should fill the windows and be ready to fire upon my command.”
His orders were swiftly relayed to the warriors and their officers. Daergar archers divided themselves among the three columns. When everything was ready, they set off at a quick march. Within minutes, they had reached their objective without being noticed. Orin Bellowsmoke and several of his companions made quick work of the locks. Huge double-valved doors swung wide to admit the three columns of dwarf warriors.
Stacks of crates rose from floor to ceiling, forming a narrow passage down which Tarn and his warriors cautiously advanced. An identical set of double doors stood at the opposite side of the warehouse, leading out into the transportation shaft courtyard. Near the entrance, stairs led up to catwalks that crisscrossed above them. The Daergar archers swiftly ascended and made their way to the second and third-story windows, their hobnailed boots ringing on the metal walks. At the lowest level, all the windows were blocked by crates, but the higher windows provided a clear field of fire for the Daergar archers.
The Daergar archers lining the catwalk above Tarn’s head watched for danger. Crouching behind the door, the king waited until he felt his two other commanders had had enough time to move into their positions in the other warehouses. Then he looked up, checking with the Daergar at the windows. The scout who had led them to this point rose up on his knees and peered out of the window for a moment, scanning the courtyard beyond. Then he looked down at the king and nodded. All was ready.
As Tarn reached for the door, it opened of its own accord, pulled wide by a Theiwar warrior among the force waiting beyond it to surprise them. Above him, the Daergar turned their crossbows against their allies, two score deadly shafts poised to wreak havoc among the warriors packed in the narrow lane between impassible stacks of crates. At the same time, the rear doors swung wide. Hylar and Theiwar soldiers poured in, sealing the trap.
Snarling a curse, Tarn spun, ready to hack a way through to the transportation shaft. The sounds of battle would bring Otaxx’s attack on the third level, and that might be enough to draw off the Theiwar sorcerers and allow his dwarves to escape. “It’s a trap!” the king roared and lifted his sword. But as he led the charge into the courtyard, his battlecry died in his throat, his muscles froze. Eerie words of magic seemed to surround him, binding him in invisible cords until he was no longer able to move. Around him, his soldiers were cut down by arrows or struck senseless by Theiwar spells. A strangled cry of frustration and rage burst from his lips as his sword fell from his fingers.
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.
35
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!