They were halfway across the main court before their momentum slowed and the gully dwarves in front had a chance to look around. When they did, they saw surprised human warriors everywhere they looked.
“Talls!” one of them shrieked. “Ever’body run like crazy!”
Gully dwarves went everywhere, spreading like a ripple of chaos as they went. Men shouted, draft horses reared and pawed the air, a team of oxen bolted and a wagonload of hot oil vats overturned, scalding people right and left.
Graywing finally managed to get his horse’s attention by sawing at the reins, and gaped at the spreading havoc all round. In all his years, he had never seen anything like it.
Behind him Thayla gasped. “Mercy!” she exclaimed. “I’m afraid Lord Vulpin isn’t going to like this at all.”
“Lord Vulpin?” Graywing started, then stopped as a deep, angry voice rang over the chaos of the courtyard. Just ahead and above, on the ramparts between the main gate battlements, a big, dark figure stood-a large man encased in dark steel armor, plumed helm and flowing cloak. The man was pointing directly at them, and shouting.
“He has the girl!” Lord Vulpin roared. “Get him!”
Despite the chaos of the courtyard, armed men heard the command and drew their weapons, closing in on Graywing.
“Mercy!” the girl chirped.
“Mercy is where you find it,” Graywing growled. Hauling at the reins, he kneed the horse into a belly-down turn and headed back toward the sheltered alcove beneath the tower.
With attention diverted from them, the gully dwarves of Bulp sought shelter, and took it where they found it. Dozens of them plunged into gutters and sumps, seeking the storm sewers below. Others took refuge in the larders, the armories, and in every crack or crevice of the old fort’s foundations. Within moments, Tarmish was completely infested by Aghar, as thoroughly as though they had been living there for years.
In the shadowed alcove, Graywing set the girl down, then wheeled the horse and charged the open portal just as a platoon of foot soldiers reached it. He hit them like a summer storm, a thundering fury of singing sword blade, flashing hooves and Cobar battle cry. Through their ranks he swept, then turned and hit them again before they could recover. Once more through the ranks, and the area outside the alcove was free of belligerents. There were still soldiers there, but those that remained were down and not likely to get up again.
Once more within the alcove, Graywing swung down from his horse. “That should hold them for a few minutes,” he muttered. He found the girl cringing in the shadow of a doorway. “Is there another way out of here?” he demanded.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m a prisoner … or I was, anyway. Who are you?”
“Graywing,” he said. “Who are you?”
“Thayla. Thayla Mesinda.” Wide, unreadable blue eyes gazed up at him, and he felt as though he might drown there. “Are we trapped here?”
“I’m afraid we are. But I’ll think of something.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” she said. “I have a hero, you know. His name is Bron.”
“Bron?”
“He’s a gully dwarf. He’s here to rescue me from all this.”
“A gully dwarf?” He gaped at her, thinking he must have misunderstood. “Gully dwarves aren’t heroes, girl. Gully dwarves aren’t much of anything. They’re just … just gully dwarves.”
“This one is different,” Thayla assured him. Then her eyes widened. “Look out!”
Graywing spun around. A green-clad Salacian mercenary had crept into the alcove, and was drawing his longbow. The steel-pointed arrow was aimed straight at Graywing’s heart, point blank from three paces away.
Before the draw was completed, though, the man’s throat was full of flashing dagger. The bow and arrow slipped from numb fingers and the man pitched forward, facedown in his own blood.
“You should try watching your back, now and then,” Dartimien suggested wryly, stepping from the stairwell. “You can’t count on me to save you every time.” The Cat stepped past Graywing then, brushing him aside as though he wasn’t there. He executed a courtly bow to Thayla Mesinda and when she returned the curtsy he grinned and took her small hand. “Hello,” he purred. “I’m Dartimien, and you’re beautiful. I assume you have been waiting for me all your life.”
“Now, hold on!” Graywing snapped, and the girl gasped, looking past him.
A pair of soft-footed Tarmite axemen had crept into the alcove, and now launched themselves from the shadows, broadaxes aloft.
The first one had Graywing cold … until he tripped over a knee-high iron shield and crashed facedown on the pavement. Like a panther, Graywing was on him, dispatching him with a whistling swordstroke. The second Tarmite ducked aside, swung back his battle-axe … and toppled like a tree. From behind the iron shield, a broadsword had appeared, flashing in a roundhouse swing that took the Tarmite across his shins. The toppling man began a scream, which ended abruptly as one of Dartimien’s daggers found its mark.
Then the two warriors’ jaws dropped open in unison. From behind the shield, a young gully dwarf emerged, dragging a bloody sword that was far too big for him. “Pretty good bashin’ tool,” he said, indicating the broadsword. Several other gully dwarves, peering at him from the stairway, nodded their wide-eyed agreement.
“You? You did this?” Graywing goggled at fallen Tarmites, and the little person with the shield and sword.
“Dunno,” Bron said, raising the big sword. He stared at it in fascination. “Must have.”
“Look at that!” Dartimien pointed at the second fallen Tarmite. “Look at his legs … his feet!”
The gully dwarf’s swing had amputated both of the man’s feet. The severed feet still stood where they had been.
“Oh, yuck!” Thayla shivered.
“Forget feet,” Graywing growled. “You,” he pointed a stern finger at the puzzled gully dwarf. “You had the Fang of Orm. I saw it. Where is it?”
Bron looked around, vaguely puzzled, then he shrugged. “Beats me,” he said.
From beyond the alcove, a bull voice roared, “I want that girl! Now!”
“Here they come,” Dartimien pointed.
Just beyond the alcove, shielded footmen were advancing quickly in a solid rank, closing on the tower arch.
Graywing braced himself for combat, and a flashing dagger from Dartimien’s hand found a gap in the shield rank. A man there fell, but soon others took his place. Bron gaped at the advancing humans, and quickly disappeared behind his big, iron shield. In the shadows of the stairway, small feet scampered as gully dwarves hiding there scurried for the cover of a storm drain.
The stone that fell from the sky then was the size of a fat shoat. It crashed among the advancing footmen, smashing some of them, and showering the rest with shards of stone as it exploded loudly against the pavement. A few yards away another huge stone fell, then came several more, here and there in the courtyard.
Men shouted and screamed, and their voices were drowned out by a thousand battle cries just beyond the high walls. More stones fell, lofted by catapults and trebuchets beyond the walls, and thrown spears whistled through the sky and clattered down among them.
Bron poked his head out to see what was going on, then headed for the storm drain, carrying his shield and dragging his sword. He looked like a two-legged turtle with a long, steel tail. “Run like crazy!” he shouted.
“Best advice I’ve heard lately,” Dartimien muttered. He reached for Thayla’s hand, but missed it. Graywing was already lifting the girl, flinging her across his shoulder. Graywing ran off. With an oath, the Cat followed.
The Gelnian army had begun its assault on the fortress of Tarmish, and the open courtyard and its alcoves were not healthy places to be.