The guards had poured into the small chamber outside the jailer’s door. Seeing the open gate, several raced through, the shouts of their fellows encouraging them. “Find the king! Don’t let him escape!” Tarn smiled grimly and tightened his grip on his sword.
Just then, in the passage above, there was an explosive noise—the wooden door guarding the stairs bursting from its hinges. Footsteps pounded, and dwarven voices roared battle cries that shook the stone. Tarn opened the door a crack. The guards—a dozen hard-bitten Hylar warriors—had thrown up the table and benches to form a sort of breastwork across the entrance. They crouched behind it now, gripping crossbows and spears. Six Theiwar hung back with loaded crossbows, anxiously watching the gate. By his black robes and belt of pouches, one of them appeared to be a sorcerer. Tarn eyed this one narrowly, knowing him to be the most dangerous.
“Come out, you dogs, and submit to the king’s justice!” a voice roared from the passage above. Tarn smiled to hear his old friend Glint Ettinhammer, thane of the Klar, who had somehow rushed to his rescue.
“The king is dead,” one of the Hylar guards shouted back. Just then, the four dwarf warriors sent down the prison hall to search for Tarn returned, sliding into the chamber with baffled expressions on their bearded faces.
“Nothing but prisoners. He’s not among them,” one said to the Theiwar sorcerer. The magician gaped in surprise for a moment before his dark eyes narrowed. He turned his pale visage toward the door to the jailer’s room. Tarn stepped back from the door. He picked up the shield, useless for defense to be sure, but an effective distraction if flung into someone’s face.
Outside, the Hylar guard’s words were met with cries of dismay from above. One in particular rose above the rest. “Kill them all then! Traitorous dogs, assassins! No mercy for anyone with the king’s blood on his hands.” Tarn started, wondering whether his ears were deceiving him, or if the dead had joined the living to revenge their king. For surely that was the voice of his old friend Mog Bonecutter, leading the charge.
Tarn jerked open the door, surprising the Theiwar warriors slinking toward it, crossbows at the ready. At his sudden appearance, the sorcerer lifted his hands and began to chant a spell. Tarn flung the shield. The closest warrior ducked the goblin shield, discharging his crossbow into the ceiling in his excitement. The shield careened off the sorcerer’s shoulder, staggering him momentarily, and breaking the intense mental focus so vital to spellcasting. He was forced to begin his spellcasting anew.
Tarn slammed the door shut just as a half-dozen crossbow bolts shuddered and splintered into the wood, then nearly snatched it from its hinges as he swiftly charged out, bellowing, “Thorbardin!” His goblin sword cleaved the closest Theiwar warrior to the spine. His next blow shivered the brittle goblin-forged blade to splinters over the iron helm of one of the Hylar warriors. Momentarily stunned by the impact, the dwarf was powerless to prevent Tarn from yanking the war axe from his belt. Before the other Theiwar could reload their crossbows, Tarn was among them, laying about with the flat of the axe blade, cutting down Hylar and Theiwar alike.
Despite surprise and a valiant effort, the king would quickly have been overcome where it not for the simultaneous assault led by Mog Bonecutter and Glint Ettinhammer. As Tarn slashed a path toward the Theiwar spellcaster, the contingent of Klar rescuers slammed into the hastily erected barrier and cast it aside. For a few brief moments, seasoned Hylar veterans grappled beard to beard with half-mad Klar shock troops, before the rescuer’s momentum and superior numbers overwhelmed the Hylar guards. Those who could broke and ran, sweeping past the remaining Theiwar, who quickly followed them into the dead end of the prison section. Their passage jostled the sorcerer just as he was about to cast another spell. Before he could recover, Tarn felled him with a blow to the jaw; as the sorcerer dropped to the floor, a handful of glistening black powder spilled from his fingers.
A dozen Klar warriors pelted after the guards, Glint Ettinhammer in their lead. Half mad with battle lust, Tarn cast about for another foe. What confronted him chilled his blood—a dwarf wearing the mask of the death skald and bearing a gleaming warhammer in his scarred fists. Feeling the ancient dread of the skald, Tarn backed away from this new enemy, war axe warily lowered. But then the dwarf dropped to one knee and tore aside the mask, revealing the tear-streaked face of his old captain of the guard, dead these two months and thought buried under the ruins of the Isle of the Dead.
“Mog?” Tarn asked, his hackles bristling in horror. “Have you returned to haunt me?”
“I am sorry flesh, my king,” Mog wept with joy. “I live. So long as you have need of my sword, I will smite your enemies, even unto my own death.” These were words from the ritual that Tarn used to induct new members into his personal guard. Hearing them now struck him to the soul.
“My old friend, I did not believe miracles possible anymore,” Tarn said, his voice cracking with emotion.
“There’s still one or two miracles left to this old world,” one of the Klar warriors said with a laugh. He was older than any of the others by more than a century, and Tarn wondered why they had even bothered to bring him along.
At his look of bafflement, Mog answered the king’s unspoken question. “My lord, this is Ogduan Bloodspike, the true death skald of the Isle of the Dead. He saved my life,” he said with a barely suppressed sneer. “How he came to follow us here, I don’t know.”
37
Glint strode down the narrow prison hall toward the sound of fighting. As he passed each cell door, he stopped and peered through the narrow grate. So far, all the cells were empty. But as he turned a corner and saw his warriors cutting down the last of the resisting Hylar guards, he found one cell that still contained an occupant. He stared through the tiny metal grate into the lightless cell. A small, weak voice spoke from the far corner.
“Help me. I am a loyal dwarf wrongfully imprisoned.”
“Loyal to who?” Glint asked as he stepped back. With a single swipe of his war axe, he shattered the rusty lock. He shot back the bolt and pulled the door open on its ancient creaking hinges, then stepped inside.
Flickering light from torches in the hall illuminated the interior of the tiny cell and its miserable occupant. Beaten and battered, his pale skin bruised purple around his lips and eyes, Ferro Dunskull blinked painfully.
“Ah, here’s the traitor now!” Glint said with glee. “How I’ve longed to cleave your scrawny neck.” He strode across the floor of the cell in two steps and jerked the cringing Daergar to his feet.
Ferro slumped against him, mewling in terror and clinging to the Klar thane’s arms. “Please, have mercy on me,” he whined.
Furious, Glint tried to untangle himself. “Stand up, you coward! Stand up and take it like a dwarf. I want to get a clear swing at your neck. Ah!” Glint leaped hack in surprise, his eyes nearly popping from their sockets as he stared at the hilt of a small dagger protruding from between the overlapping plates of his chest armor. “Ah, you dog! You stabbed me!”
Lifting his axe, the Klar thane intended to end the life of this miserable traitor at once, but his weapon felt strangely heavy in his hand. His fingers grew numb and his vision began to narrow and darken. His knees buckled and he sank to the floor, his axe clattering on the stones. “Damn it all to hell!” he swore thickly. “And such a pitifully small dagger.” He toppled back, his great shaggy head smacking the hard stone floor.
Zen picked up the dead thane’s war axe even as his arms lengthened and grew more muscular, his pale skin flushed with a healthy glow. His lank black hair became bushy and red, his beard full and bristling. Prison rags changed to gleaming plate armor. Hefting the axe, he stepped into the hall and closed the cell door just as the Klar warriors were returning from the slaughter. A few bore evidence of the valor of Hylar arms.