Slyce scuttled away from the battle and in moments found himself inside the largest place he had ever seen or even imagined. There was more fighting going on here, so he continued to run up a ramp that led away from the big flat space where ogres and humans chased each other around.
Some more fighters started to come up that ramp, ogres marching shoulder to shoulder as if they were chasing him. Slyce scampered farther and farther up, around the wide circles of the ramp, higher and higher into the ogre city. He came to yet another place where there was a big fight going on, but he saw some gates that were open. There were bodies around those gates, but nobody seemed to be paying attention right now. He ducked on through and continued higher.
At least here in the upper part of the city there didn’t seem to be any fighting at the moment. There were sure lots of ogres, he noticed. All the humans seemed to be hiding, and the big brutes were running this way and that, many of them carrying sharp weapons.
For once, Slyce was grateful that he was a very small gully dwarf, since he had no difficulty hiding in the shadows when the ogres came rushing past. Still he headed higher until he was at the very top level of this huge place. Here he ran away from the ramp when he heard more ogres coming up from below. Now he was on a wide street, with a ledge and a deep drop on one side, and many fancy buildings on the other side.
There was nowhere else to climb, so he decided to stop and find a hiding place. He saw a big statue of a proud bull ogre wearing a cape and a crown. That stone image would conceal him from the street, and the gully dwarf squatted behind it, wide eyes staring this way and that.
Big doors opened right across the street from him, and to his surprise he saw a person he recognized, all tied up in chains. It was that big Arktos woman-Bruni! — and she marched past with a bunch of ogres on all sides of her. She was being taken with another human, a blond-bearded man, down the street, to the ramp down to the next lower level. A fierce ogress led the way, and she carried the same golden axe that the humans had brought with them from Brackenrock.
They looked terribly frightening. Slyce didn’t know what to do, so he simply kept his head down. After they went away, he scuttled across the street into a dark alley that looked like an even better hiding place. Here he curled up against the wall, a little ball of misery, and fell asleep.
“That was Dinekki!” Kerrick said.
“What? Who?” demanded Moreen.
“It sounds crazy, but she’s that bat that was flying around here! She was chirping in my ear. I had to listen carefully before I could understand her. She told me that she found Strongwind and talked to him, and he told her something that might help us out!”
He saw the fluttering brown creature swirling about, then watched as it darted away along the Terrace Level promenade. “Let’s go!”
“Where?” The chiefwoman was still angry and frustrated. “Explain this to me!”
“No time-come this way,” the elf said impatiently. “Follow me!”
Moreen, Barq One-Tooth, Tildy, and a hundred or more armed slaves followed him as he gestured and took off at a trot. The battle on this level of the city had broken into small pockets as the humans had scattered and the ogres clustered around the gates to the higher levels. A few patrols of heavily armed grenadiers could be spotted here and there, attacking the slaves where they found them, but for the most part they seemed content to let the force ascending from below handle the main fight.
The bat wove and bobbed through the air, leading them along, finally circling frantically at an intersection. When the elf got close Dinekki flew off down a side street, and Kerrick led his group of fighters down the lane and into the courtyard of a large building fronting a wall of the city’s bedrock.
“This is Thraid Dimmarkull’s apartment,” Tildy explained. “It’s the place where Strongwind was posted for the past few weeks.”
The door was a splintered mess on the ground, and Kerrick entered the anteroom in a rush. The first thing he noticed was the rear end of an ogre, who was kneeling next to one of the lady’s trunks, rummaging inside. A small pile of valuables, including a lamp, a wine pitcher, and several goblets of gleaming gold, lay on the floor beside the brute, who was obviously looting.
Barq One-Tooth strode forward and split the surprised ogre’s skull before he could even begin to fumble for his sword. Meanwhile, Tildy quickly looked in the slave quarters of the apartment. “Brinda, Wandcourt?” she called.
Two humans, gray haired and obviously frightened, came out into the room. Each carried a knife, but they looked around in confusion at the mass of people pouring in through the door.
“What’s going on? Is the king dead?”
“Not yet,” Tildy said, “but what happened here? Where is the Lady Thraid?”
The male slave pointed mutely toward one of the rooms. They all took one glance in that chamber, the bedroom, and saw the remains of a gruesome murder. The lady’s body lay on the bed in a pool of dried blood.
Tildy clucked in sympathy. “She was a trivial creature, but she deserved better than this.”
The female slave, Brinda, looked at Kerrick intently. “Are you … an elf?” she asked.
“Yes,” he replied, “but I’ve thrown my lot in with the humans. Do you want to join us?”
She patted her knife, sliding it through her belt and stepping closer. “Yes, I do,” she said, staring at him with a strange expression.
The bat fluttered around his head, and he followed it into the parlor and pulled the bearskin off the wall. The outline of the door was faint but visible, and when he twisted the bracket of the lamp sconce the secret door rolled smoothly open.
“Get some lamps,” he ordered, “and follow me as quietly as possible.”
Moreen came right behind him, with Tildy next, then Barq One-Tooth, followed by the throng of armed men and the two slaves of Thraid Dimmarkull. Taking a lamp that someone handed him, Kerrick darted through the door and started up the stairs that spiraled within.
For a long time they climbed urgently. When Kerrick looked behind he saw a dozen lights bobbing through the darkened passage curving below and knew that the file of rebels remained close behind him. There were many more than he could see, as they curled into the distance, masked by the curving walls of this stairway.
Finally the elf reached a landing and held the light up to reveal another door, similar to the one at the bottom. Cautioning the humans to silence, he found the catch and slowly pulled the portal open.
A quick glance showed that he had not reached a palace hall, as he had hoped, but a narrow alley shrouded in shadow. That was better than a busy street, he thought and quickly slipped out the opening.
“Where’s Tildy?” he whispered.
She came forward, and together they crept down the alley, looking toward the lights of the promenade. “Do you know where we are?” he asked.
“I think so. Yes, that statue out there is right outside of the palace. If we go down this lane and turn left, we’ll be a dozen steps away from the king’s front door.”
“Well, that’ll do,” he said softly. In a hushed voice he outlined a simple plan. They would charge out, swiftly and silently at first. As soon as they were discovered they would abandon stealth and put all their efforts into haste.
“With luck, we can take the king by surprise. If we can capture him alive, then we’ll have something to bargain with.”
“That’s as good an insane plan as any I’ve ever heard,” said Tildy, with a wink.
The file of slaves had nearly filled the alley by then, and still more were still backed up in the secret stairway.
“No time like the present,” he muttered. “Let’s go!”
He drew his sword, took one last look at his file of anxious warriors, and started toward the promenade and the king’s palace at a full sprint.