"Ah, Slickblade. I assume this means that Tarn Bellow-granite is dead?" The thane shot his sister a look of cruel triumph, pleased to see Garimeth's face tighten, her lips trembling slightly as she made an effort to control herself.
"Sadly, my lord, no."
"My son lives?" demanded Garimeth.
"Aye, for the time being." The assassin's voice was devoid of emotion. "I tried to follow him, and I believe he has come here, to the city of the Hylar."
"Then find him now and kill him!" screamed Darkend.
"I am making every effort, my thane. The half-breed stole a boat from Daerforge with gulley dwarf assistance, and used it to make his way here. I believe that he is somewhere in the vicinity, perhaps skulking around on this very shore.
"Wait." The thane turned to Garimeth. "Where would he go first? Would he come here to the waterfront?"
"I don't know," she lied, certain that Tarn would in fact move mountains to make his way back to the city of his birth at this time of crisis.
"Don't trust her, lord. She deceives you!"
"Be aware that your own trust may be misplaced," she retorted, with a meaningful look at Slickblade.
She could tell by a foray into her brother's mind that he didn't believe her about Tarn, but he couldn't see any way to prove that she was lying either. Slickblade melted away into the shadows, but by then Darkend was distracted by the upcoming battle plans, and Tarn was temporarily forgotten.
The fire dragon rose up on wings dripping flame and spark, scalding dozens of dark dwarves who were too slow to get out of the monster's path. With the daemon warrior riding between its shoulders, the dragon ascended, circled once, then flew into the side of Hybardin's stony pillar. The fiery beast showed no hesitation as it swept against the solid rock.
Immediately some of that stone tumbled away, and Darkend cursed bitterly as dozens more of his force were crushed by the rockfall. Other remnants of the dark dwarf army scattered in confusion. Before they could reform the monstrous attacker was out of sight. Behind, however, it left a wide cave, remarkably smooth-floored, which curved at a gentle angle upward toward the high levels of Hybardin.
After reforming their scattered troops into ranks and companies, the two dark dwarf thanes and Garimeth led the army into the newly bored passage.
The final attack had begun.
Interlude of Chaos
Zarak Timid rode Primus into the stone, and the bedrock of Hybardin parted before him like waters breaking before the prow of a sleek ship. Wings of fire seared through the layers of sediment, rock sizzled into dust, and smoke billowed in a great cloud as the mighty serpent forged ahead, digging, driving, boring upward into the great Hylar city.
Primus brayed into the bedrock, and the daemon warrior laughed, relishing the power and the destruction, all the while, fondly thinking of the dwarven female who had sent him such relentless and powerful appeals. She was intriguing, that one, undeniably intriguing and tempting. What was it that made her so different, so appealing? He didn't know, but he realized keen pleasure in working her will. There was one who was worthy, who brandished the unusual power to motivate him. In her name gladly would he destroy.
Despite his glee, the daemon warrior took care to keep the grade of the ascending spiral shallow enough for the footbound creatures to follow, for this was as the dwarven female had wished it. Weapons held ready, cries of war echoing from a thousand throats, the horde of Daergar and Theiwar marched in Zarak Thuul's wake, led by that entrancing female. In other places the shadow-wights wafted upward in their own way, following the surface of broken rubble, clinging to pipes and shafts and debris as they slithered over faces of bare rock.
Soon the daemon warrior and his fire dragon burst from solid rock into an inhabited upper level of the Hylar city. Some of the more foolish dwarves stayed to fight, and they died in cinder and ash without putting a single blade to Zarak Thuul or his mighty mount. The others turned and fled, vanishing into the maze of their city's Level Three.
Now Zarak Thuul and Primus flew down the wide avenues, crashing through walls and buildings, igniting fires that burst from the rock itself and soon filled all this level with a thick, choking smoke. Back and forth they flew, scorching their way through the maze, exulting in the powers of raw destruction and pure, unadulterated chaos. The killings were plenty, the dwarves burning and dying in numbers gratifying to behold.
Sometimes, for the sheer pleasure of power, Zarak Thuul dismounted from his blazing steed and swelled his body into monstrous size, striding through the streets in the guise of a great, skeletal dragon. In this form, devoid of flesh but grinning with razor-sharp fangs, the daemon warrior brought death to any who opposed him.
Then the blazing dragon and his master continued on, boring again into the rock, climbing higher and higher in the Life-Tree. As a worm might bore through the rotten wood in the trunk of some forest giant, Zarak Thuul and his dragon ascended upward into the highest reaches of the Hylar city.
And like that worm, the fire dragon was an agent of weakness and decay, twin factors that in any tree must eventually bring about its fall.
Chapter Twenty-two
Darkest Night
Great gears squealed in protest as the lift lurched to a sudden stop. The massive links of the support chain stretched taut as their tempered steel groaned under a slowly increasing strain. The world itself seemed to shake in a series of rumbles and tremors that brought dust and pebbles cascading down the long tube of the transport shaft.
"It's jammed!" Axel snarled, kicking at the bars of the cage. He turned to shout into the darkness overhead. "Get this thing moving, by Reorx, or I'll come up there and do it myself!"
"Patience, my friend," Baker Whitegranite said quietly, laying his hand on the agitated dwarf's sturdy shoulder. The thane blinked, trying to focus his blurred vision on the face of his fellow Hylar.
"But what if she's up there-if she needs me?" demanded the venerable warrior. "Damn it all, we've got to keep moving!"
"I know. I'm worried too. I have a son somewhere in this mess," Baker said quietly.
"I'm sorry. You're right," said Axel in sudden chagrin.
Before Baker could reply, the scream of straining metal rose to a shriek around them as the lift jolted free, once more rumbling upward toward the darkness of Level Six. Capper Whetstone and the rest of the thane's bodyguards looked relieved. The loyal Hylar had been most uncomfortable when their leader insisted on being on the last transport lift leaving Level Five.
The respite lasted only a few seconds, however. Once again the cage screeched to a halt, pinned in the girders that had been gradually twisted by the wrenching forces of Chaos.
Apparently drained, Axel slumped onto a bench in the corner of the cage. He looked at Baker, his expression pleading, and the thane was deeply moved upon seeing the defeat and deep furrows of age so clearly etched into his friend's face.
"And how do we know she's alive?" Axel asked for the tenth time. "She could have been killed by Daergar or buried in a landslide. We'd still remember her. It's only the shadow-wights that sap the memory!"
Baker had already acknowledged these suppositions, but he refused to give in to despair. "We don't know she's dead, and until we do I'm going to believe she's still fighting somewhere, still down there-perhaps fighting a rearguard action or trying to move her company up higher into the Life-Tree."
He didn't speak further, but in the dark silence both of them keenly relived the frantic scene below. They had taken stairs down to Level Four in order to seek information on the enemy advance. In the stairwell they had met panicked survivors who had been racing upward. They had reported that Level Four had been overrun before they fled. Those survivors, some of whom were now huddled on the lift with them, had told of the fire dragon bursting onto the level and moving swiftly through the streets of smiths and forges, setting fires that seemed to burn the very stone itself. That flaming monster had eventually disappeared, but the survivors believed it was boring a hole farther upward, extending the assault route toward Level Five and beyond.