Dark Thane

"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