The Dwarf Kingdoms (Book 5) (17 page)

“My hope springs from my heart not from any foresight, Ascilius,” replied Elerian quietly. “Today’s events remain a mystery to me, for what little prescience I have comes and goes as it wills.”

“That is a shame, for your forewarnings have been on the mark thus far,” said Ascilius regretfully. “Had you some encouraging news to tell me, it would have been a comfort to me.”

They both lapsed into silence then, walking swiftly through the deserted city until they finally entered the great hall before the back gate. There, Elerian saw thousands of armed Dwarves who had assembled to storm the dike if Ascilius succeeded in wresting it away from the Goblins. A small company of three hundred Dwarves stood apart from the rest, all of them volunteers eager to take part in the initial assault on the dike. They were dressed in chain mail down to their knees and wore small round steel caps on their heads. For weapons, they carried either axes or hammers, and all of them had shields on one arm. Better than half of the small troop was composed of Dwarves from Ennodius, for Ascilius's exploits had won their respect, and they were eager to follow him again. Elerian saw that Falco also stood among them and that Durio was there, too, with Tonare sitting by his feet. Next to Durio were two young Dwarves so nearly alike that it was hard to tell them apart. Elerian learned later that they were the sons of Eonis. Of Herias, Elerian saw no sign.

“He seems quite adept at vanishing when there is fighting to be done,” thought Elerian dryly to himself.

“Is all in readiness, Durio?” Ascilius asked in his deep voice when they reached his side.

“The only thing left undecided is who will lead the sally through the hidden tunnel,” replied Durio.

“That was never in question,” replied Ascilius with a frown. “I will lead it, of course.”

“That would not be wise,” objected Durio. “I should lead it, for I have the most experience.”

“You are too old,” objected Ascilius, his frown deepening. “This is a task for a younger Dwarf.”

“Exactly right,” chimed in Falco. “I should lead the attack. You ancients would need to stop for a nap before clearing half the dike.”

As he weathered the barrage of abuse which immediately followed from Ascilius and Durio, Falco solemnly winked his left eye at Elerian who was standing behind Ascilius. Elerian smiled back, his approval for the young Dwarf rising even higher.

“A Dwarf with a sense of humor,” he thought to himself. “That is the greatest wonder that I have seen in this entire city.”

The argument between the three Dwarves continued a bit longer, but Ascilius eventually had his way. With the leadership issue resolved, he began to issue his orders

“Falco, you will come with me,” he said firmly. “Durio, you will command the troops here in the hall. If we succeed in gaining control of the dike, you must open the gates and come at once to our aid.”

An expectant hush fell over the hall as Ascilius turned away from Durio to examine the blank wall to the right of the inner gate. The silence began to lengthen uncomfortably as Ascilius continued to walk back and forth before the huge expanse of wall before him. Elerian, who followed Ascilius like a second shadow, began to hear muttering with his sharp ears and the impatient shifting of booted feet on the stone floor of the hall.

“What is wrong, Ascilius?” he asked quietly.

“I have forgotten exactly where the dratted door to the tunnel is,” replied the Dwarf in a soft, irritated voice. “It was never opened again after I completed the passageway, and my uncle refused to have anything about its location set down in writing. It should be right here, but my opening spells are not revealing any door.”

Behind them, the silence in the hall grew increasingly awkward.

“He cannot find the door,” someone called out loudly. Elerian could not be sure, but the voice sounded very like that of Herias. “We should abandon this mad venture and think of some other plan to save our lives,” continued the heckler.

“I must do something,” thought Elerian to himself as the sound of muttering in the hall grew louder. Beads of sweat now dotted Ascilius’s broad brow as he grew increasingly anxious. Standing with his back to the Dwarves behind him, Elerian extended his right hand and called his crystal orb.

“Send it back,” gasped Ascilius when he saw the sphere appear on Elerian’s palm. “No good will come of this!”

Ignoring the Dwarf, Elerian cast his thought back through the past. The orb suddenly cleared, showing a younger Ascilius illuminated by a golden mage light as he stood before an open door in a great wall. A hundred paces to the left of the door stood the inner gate to the city.

“Send that cursed thing away,” repeated Ascilius anxiously. “I know where the door is now.”

Elerian formed the spell that would return the sphere to its resting place, but before he could cast it, Ascilius vanished from the orb, replaced by the image of a long, slender finger, freshly cut off and resting on a black satin pillow. A drop of crimson blood still oozed from its severed end, glistening like some horrible jewel in the early morning sunshine that illuminated the interior of the sphere.

Filled with unease, Elerian cast his spell and the orb vanished, but the ghastly image that he had seen inside it remained fixed in his mind as he followed Ascilius farther to his right along the wall of the chamber.

“What does it portend?” wondered Elerian to himself. “Did the sphere merely show me some random image or did it show me some grim scene from my own future? I begin to believe that Ascilius is right when he says I ought not to use a device which has revealed so many grim portents.”

Just then, Ascilius stopped and turned to his left. Facing the wall of the chamber, he raised his right hand. As his third eye opened, Elerian pushed aside thoughts of his sphere. With his magical sight, he saw a small golden orb fly from Ascilius’s fingers. When the sphere struck the wall in front of the Dwarf, a silvery line of argentum appeared in the stone, outlining a door six feet high and four wide. Closing his third eye, Elerian saw the door swing inward, revealing a narrow, rough walled tunnel only a little larger than the door.

 Raising Fulmen high in his right hand, Ascilius turned and shouted, “Follow me!” to his waiting company. Then, turning back to the entryway, he lit a small mage light before running into the narrow passageway that he had exposed, Elerian following close behind him. Voicing grim war cries, his small band of volunteers rushed toward the tunnel entrance after him.

A SURPRISE ATTACK

“It was all I could do to persuade my uncle to pay for even this abbreviated, rude passageway,” said Ascilius ruefully to Elerian over his right shoulder as they ran down the roughly hewn tunnel. “He is judged uncommonly tight with his gold even by Dwarf standards.”

“There is no need to apologize,” Elerian replied, his gray eyes gleaming with laughter as he recalled Eonis’s attempts to secure the gold coin that had appeared in his sitting room. “I have already witnessed firsthand his frugal tendencies.”

“I thought as much,” said Ascilius, “Perhaps you can tell me about it tonight over a round of beer,” he suggested.

“Willingly,” replied Elerian. “I look forward to telling a pleasant tale under the stars. I have had quite enough of cold stone and darkness.”

Just then, they came to the end of the tunnel, and they both fell silent. Ascilius removed the lock spell on the door and carefully drew back the two lock pins that were meant to secure the passageway if the spell was somehow broken. After extinguishing his mage light, he slowly swung the door swung inward a few inches. Rays of dim light immediately flooded the tunnel. Looking through the narrow crack that Ascilius had opened up, Elerian saw a little hollow about six feet deep that was screened by a wall of rock on all sides. The depression was still cloaked in shadow, for the sun had just begun to rise over the crest of the ridge on Elerian’s right.

Reaching over Ascilius’s broad shoulder with his right arm, Elerian cast an illusion spell. A golden orb of light, visible only to his magical third eye, sprang from the fingers of his right hand, blossoming and spreading into a faint golden haze that spread over the hollow like a domed roof. A thin thread of gold tethered the haze to Elerian’s right hand, feeding the spell the power it needed to maintain itself.

“It is done,” whispered Elerian into Ascilius’s right ear.

One at a time, they slipped past the door and walked cautiously over to the left side of the hollow. Elerian was just tall enough to look over the rim of the stony wall in front of him, but Ascilius was forced to draw himself up with his powerful hands and arms in order to see over the edge. Only his eyes, dark and fierce beneath their bushy brows, and the top of his head showed over the lip of the barrier.

“It must be a constant difficulty to be so short,” Elerian could not help remarking to his companion in a soft whisper, his gray eyes exhibiting a familiar gleam.

“My height, like that of all Dwarves, is ideal,” remarked Ascilius sharply without turning his head. “If you would like to experience it yourself, I would be more than happy to rid you of your excess inches with a few well placed blows of my hammer on the top of your head.”

Elerian sighed and shook his head. “The fighting has not even begun and already your bloodthirsty, Dwarfish nature has come to the forefront, threatening violence even to someone as peaceable as myself.”

“I think irritating would describe you better,” replied Ascilius without turning his head, his eyes remaining fixed on the deceptively peaceful scene beneath him.

All was quiet on the summit of the dike. The mutare stationed there looked bored, slouching at their posts and idly scratching at the skin beneath their thick fur with taloned fingers. Mordi armed with whips prowled restlessly among them, black hoods already pulled over their heads to protect their faces and eyes from the rising sun. The encampment pitched near the foot of the dike was quiet too, for the Goblins had already taken refuge from the waxing sun by entering their tents. Beneath the spreading limbs of the trees that surrounded the encampment, countless mutare dozed in the shade, huddled like animals on the leaf-covered ground. Some of the fierceness faded from Ascilius’s eyes as he took in the size of the Goblin camp which seemed so much greater from this short distance than it had from the upper slopes of Celsus.

“Elerian, I am sending everyone back, for we cannot triumph over the host before us,” he said quietly. “Once the door to the tunnel is closed, I want you to climb the ridge behind us. Return to Tarsius and Anthea while you still can.”

“And what will you do?” asked Elerian.

“I will attack the sentries on the dike to distract them while you escape,” replied Ascilius, a note of hopelessness in his deep voice. “I have no desire to return to the city to witness its fall to the Goblins.”

“Ascilius,” Elerian asked gently, “have I ever listened to you before?”

“Not that I recall,” replied Ascilius somewhat peevishly as he called to mind some of the history that he and Elerian shared.  

“Why, then, do you think that I would listen to you now?” asked Elerian curiously.

“Because I am being sensible,” replied Ascilius, an edge of anger appearing in his voice as he dropped back to the ground.

“You are being indecisive, and it does not suit you at all,” said Elerian firmly. Ignoring Ascilius, he opened his third eye again. Using his magical sight to guide him, he extended his illusion to cover the bare, stony slope before him, ending it at the margin of the dike. The golden cloak of light was now barely visible to his mage sight, made pale by the light of the sun which was now rising hot and bright behind the ridge at his back.

“I have extended my illusion to the edge of the earthworks,” said Elerian quietly to Ascilius. “If any of the sentries look up at the slope before us while we are on it, they will see only empty ground, but they will still be able to smell and hear us. Fortunately, the wind is out of the west and will blow our scent up the slope, but everyone must take great care not to make the least noise during their descent down the ridge.”

“You are not daunted at all then by the odds that we face,” said Ascilius quietly as he searched his companion’s cool gray eyes for any sign of fear or indecision.

“We have the sun at our backs, weapons without peer in our hands, and doughty warriors to fight with us,” replied Elerian serenely. “With all these advantages what difference does it make how many enemies we face?”

“I know that your words are calculated to comfort me Elerian,” replied Ascilius grimly, “but you must know in your heart that we will not live to see the sunset if we descend this slope.”

“Then let us make the most of the day before we depart,” replied Elerian, drawing bright Acris from his sheath with a soft whisper of steel on leather.

“You are a fool, as I have told you many times before,” said Ascilius ruefully, “but I cannot bear to think that my courage failed while yours remained steadfast.” His momentary indecision and despair forgotten, Ascilius turned away from Elerian and walked briskly to the tunnel entrance where Falco was waiting patiently behind the door, ready to act as Ascilius’s second in command.

“Falco, pass the word down the line that the slope below us is now masked by an illusion spell,” said Ascilius softly in his deep voice. “The charm will hide us from the sentries on the dike, but a silent approach is of the outmost importance. The last Dwarf to leave the passageway must close the door behind him, for there will be no retreat if we fail to capture the dike.”

“I will inform everyone,” replied Falco, his eyes and voice steady and unafraid.

“Perhaps Elerian is right,” thought Ascilius as he turned away. “With warriors like Falco at our backs, we may yet triumph today.”

With all his preparations made and the fire renewed in his dark eyes, Ascilius climbed out of the little hollow, Elerian following silently after him. Ascilius knew that Elerian's spell protected him, but lacking the mage sight which would have allowed him to see the illusion, he still found it difficult to leave the scanty cover of the hollow and to walk slowly and carefully down the ridge in full view of the sentries on the dike below. At any moment, he expected an alarm to be raised, but all remained quiet. Slightly behind him, Elerian stepped confidently down the slope, for with his third eye, he could see the golden haze of the illusion spell that covered the slope around him. Adding to his confidence was the rising sun which was now well above the ridge top behind him and glaringly bright.

“Ascilius has chosen the ideal moment for his attack,” thought Elerian to himself as he observed the sentries on the dike shading their eyes with a hand whenever they looked to the east. Glancing back over his left shoulder at the Dwarves creeping in single file down the slope behind him, Elerian briefly locked eyes with Falco who was closest to him. His dark eyes were assured and fearless, but the faces of the Dwarves behind him were set and grim, as if they expected to be discovered at any moment.

“This will be a test of their faith in their captain, for they cannot see the spell which conceals them,” thought Elerian to himself as he returned his gaze to the slope before him.

Despite the general apprehension of the Dwarves, all went smoothly until Ascilius reached the edge of the dike and the farthest margin of the illusion charm. At that moment Elerian suddenly heard a loud clatter as a stone disturbed by one of the Dwarves’ boots rattled down the slope behind him. Alerted by the sound, the mutare closest to Ascilius turned a hairy, fierce face toward the Dwarf just as he stepped beyond the edge of Elerian’s illusion spell. Startled and confused by Ascilius’s sudden appearance, the changeling snarled, exposing yellowed fangs. Reverting back to his savage instincts, the mutare dropped his shield and sword before leaping toward Ascilius with furred, taloned fingers extend to tear out his throat. Raising the shield on his left arm, Ascilius stopped and braced himself. A harsh rasping sound filled the air as the changeling’s black claws scraped across unyielding steel. With a thrust of his short, immensely powerful body, Ascilius thrust the heavy changeling back and off his feet. With a fierce shout, he deftly swung the hammer in his right hand, striking the mutare on the crown of his helmeted head. Emitting a bright flash of silver white light, Fulmen crushed bone and steel as if they were no more than soft clay. As the changeling died, Ascilius felt the red heat of battle flow through him, overwhelming every emotion but the need to slay his enemies.

“Death to the Dark King,” he roared as he leaped among the mutare who rushed up to attack him. Striking right and left with hammer and shield, he burst among them like a thunderclap, felling some in their tracks and sending others flying through the air, their hairy bodies crushed and broken. Like a spark in dry tinder, Ascilius’s battle cry ignited the battle lust of the Dwarves behind him. With a great, fierce shout, they rushed past Elerian who had stopped at the margin of the dike. A great clangor of steel on steel rose up as the Dwarves clashed with the mutare who were trying to surround Ascilius. Forming a shield wall around their captain, the Dwarves thrust hammers and axes into their belts before stabbing at the enemy with their short swords and long knives through gaps between the shields. Like an immensely powerful battering ram, the Dwarves, with Ascilius and Falco in the front line, slowly but irresistibly pushed the mutare back, trampling the changelings who fell before them beneath their heavy boots.

When the last Dwarf rushed by him and he was sure the door in the hollow was closed and concealed once more, Elerian ended his illusion spell. On the dike, he heard the Mordi overseers who had retreated behind the mutare desperately sound their horns, calling for help. The sharp snap and crack of their long leather whips filled the air as they plied them savagely across the broad backs of their hairy allies, urging them to push back the Dwarves who were gaining possession of the summit of the dike one hard fought foot at a time.

“Time to do my part,” thought Elerian to himself as he ran lightly onto the dike. In the dark camp on his right, Goblins were pouring out of the black tents, and the harsh braying of horns filled the air, rousing the mutare from their resting places in the forest. The changelings howled savagely when they saw the Dwarves on the dike. Yellow eyes shining with the urge to slay and rend, they surged out from under the trees, many of them leaving their weapons and shields behind in their haste to join the battle. They raced up the side of the earthwork in a disorderly pack, some running on two legs and others bounding on all fours. As they emerged into the sunlight, they were a sight to make the blood run cold: huge and shaggy, clawed and fanged, their savagery surpassing that of any natural creature. Behind them, the Mordi gathered together at the base of the dike, but made no movement to ascend and join in the fighting, preferring, as usual, to let their changeling allies bear the brunt of the fighting.  Alone now, near the center point of the dike, Elerian surveyed the approaching horde with a frown.

“Some of the Dwarves should have remained with me to guard my back,” he thought to himself, for in his eagerness to slay his enemies, even Ascilius appeared to have forgotten all about his companion and the important role assigned to him. Briefly, Elerian considered calling his invisibility ring to his hand, but quickly discarded the idea. Invisible or not, the mutare would smell him out. Shrugging his shoulders, indifferent to the ferocious horde rushing toward him, he turned his back on the approaching changelings and walked lightly to the edge of the dike, pausing behind the tall, outward leaning wooden palisade which guarded its lip. Below him, at the foot of the earthworks, was a trench about twenty feet wide and fifteen feet deep, the bottom of it thickly covered with thin, sharpened stakes, points glistening from a thick, viscous black paste that had been smeared over them.

“Poisoned,” thought Elerian to himself. “Nothing living that falls into that trench will survive for long.”

Setting aside his shield, he began to clear away the wooden palisade before him with two-handed strokes of his sword, Acris slicing through the thick timbers as if they were made of butter. The threads of argentum inlaid in the sword’s sides gleamed brightly with each stroke, but Elerian barely felt the drain on his power.