Dark Thane

A cry from the gate brought them round. The gate opened a crack to allow a party of scouts through. Several bore strange wounds, burns and scores that were caused by no sword or steel arrowhead forged by dwarves. One was shown straight through to the king to give his report. He bowed, clutching his side to ease a cramp. His chest heaved like a bellows.

"Theiwar battle mages have seized the transportation shaft south of the fortress," he said. "Their magic is taking a terrible toll. We can't get near them."

The four experienced leaders glanced at one another, all sharing the same thought. Jungor had anticipated that they might seek help from the feral Klar and thus had moved to block their path. Tarn and Crystal shared a grim glance. Otaxx nodded solemnly while stroking his beard. Glint growled in frustration. "Everything we think of, he's a step ahead of us."

"Jungor began this game months ago, I now see," Tarn said. "I underestimated his ambition. The groundquake was a coincidence, but he has used the confusion and chaos it caused to his advantage. If only I had been paying closer attention instead of lollygagging!" Once more, his violet eyes met the cool gray eyes of his wife. Silent words passed between them.

"I need to stay here," Crystal suddenly said. Tarn sighed in relief. He could think of no safer guardian for his son, and felt grateful that his wife, a formidable warrior who wanted to fight the coming battle as badly as any of them, had read his mind; she would stay behind and protect their child.

"I hadn't considered the Theiwar," Tarn continued grimly. "After forty years, I had grown accustomed to discounting their weakened magic. I should have remembered our lessons from the Chaos War, when Theiwar battle mages decimated our ranks with their fireballs."

"When wizard practices his art, archer loose thy feathered dart!" Glint quoted from ancient dwarven wisdom. "What we need are dozens of archers to go against wizards. But you have too few here, I fear, my king." The courtyard was filled with foot soldiers. The only archers in the fortress were posted on the walls, and these could not be spared from the defense.

"There's a Daergar enclave on the second level near the transportation shaft," Tarn said. "If we could break them out of their siege, they could join us in an attack against the Theiwar. The Daergar have plenty of archers. They do not consider it a cowardly weapon, unlike some."

Tarn turned to the general. "Otaxx, you take a third of our forces and move to within sight of the transportation shaft on this level," he said. "But approach no closer and do not threaten them immediately. Fortify your position. They will think you plan to hold them there. Meanwhile, Thane Ettinhammer and I will take another third of our dwarves and descend to the second level by way of the stairs. When you see the Theiwar dissolve in disorder, you'll know we are threatening their rear. Launch your assault then. The last third will remain here under command of Crystal Heathstone.

Otaxx nodded, beginning to order his troops. Tarn addressed the company. "Kill only those you must, take captives when you can," he implored, his voice rising above the din. "These are your neighbors, your own kin that you are fighting, and when this is over, you will have to live with them again." But even as he said it, he knew his words were pebbles tossed down a well.

34

Tarn and Glint waited in the dark alley, soldiers crowding around them. Orin Bellowsmoke, younger brother of Thane Shahar Bellowsmoke, knelt at Tarn's side, repeatedly stabbing a dagger into the dirt between the cobblestones at his feet. The two limbs of his crossbow jutted up behind his back, and a battered quarrel box hung by a thin leather cord from his shoulder.

All the alleys on either side of the street were similarly packed with anxious soldiers. Nearly a third of their number was made up of newly liberated Daergar, eager for a chance to strike a blow against the forces of Jungor Stonesinger, who had bottled them up in their small enclave and besieged their thane in the Anvil's Echo. Tarn had promised to help them lift that siege, and so they eagerly followed him.

Orin Bellowsmoke was about as untrustworthy a Daergar as had ever lived, but Tarn needed all the allies he could muster. This Daergar was a creature of Norbardin's dungeons, having spent a good part of the past thirty years occupying them for one crime or another. The "enclave" that Tarn and his forces had rescued was really nothing more than a band of cutthroats, murderers, and thieves loyal to Orin Bellowsmoke because his brother, the thane, could offer them some protection from Tarn's law. But every one of them could pin a cockroach to a wall from a hundred paces. Some of them poisoned their arrows. Tarn pushed this knowledge to the back of his mind along with a hundred other issues he had neither the time nor the luxury to ponder.