Flint the King

Chapter 20

"Wake up to swords! Wake up to swords!"

The tumbling mass of Aghar spilled into the royal bed chambers, crawling over and clawing at each other with dirty fingernails in their desperation to be the first to inform their king and queen of the news.

"What's going on?" mumbled Flint, his arm encircling

Perian on their mossy bed in the Thrown Room. It was the morning of the fifth day after Pitrick's attack. He and Perian had made their way back from the grotto to the comfort of the moss bed not long before Nomscul arrived. "Stop that!" the hill dwarf ordered, waking up finally.

For a moment Nomscul ceased his bouncing on the edge of the bed nearest Flint, an act that was sending clumps of dried moss flying. "Mountain dwarves marching! Two of them! They go to war, take swords and stuff! Gully dwarves great spies! We see all and tell all right soon!"

"OK, Nomscul, I get the point." Flint was fully awake now. He grabbed the Aghar's bony shoulders to keep him from jumping up and down. "How many were — are you sure it isn't just a patrol?"

Nomscul slammed his hands on his hip bones and sniffed, tossing his head at the insult to his intelligence.

Flint reluctantly rolled away from Perian and pushed himself off the bed. Turning his back, he yanked his pants up to his stomach, stuffing his long blue-green tunic into the drawstring waist.

The mountain dwarf was waking up more slowly. "It can't be the Theiwar troops — it's too early," she protested, stabbing the sleep from her eyes with her fists. "It's only been a couple of days since the attack in the Big Sky Room;

Pitrick couldn't possibly have organized the troops that quickly!"

"Tell that to Pitrick and his army," Flint grumbled, stuffing his boots onto his feet. "I just hope Basalt's had enough time to fortify Hillhome. We're coming, whether they're ready or not."

"We can march? Can we?" pleaded Nomscul, thrusting his chest out and stomping about the room to demonstrate his readiness.

Flint ignored the shaman as he finished dressing, his mind on the march ahead of them. He strapped on the Tharkan Axe, his gift from Perian the night before. His fingers lin gered over the cool steel blade, while his mind traveled back to the previous evening. Sighing, he slapped some day-old water on his face.

"Tell every gully dwarf in the place that the time has come for the big march. They must get their weapons, their shields, supplies, everything," the king ordered Nomscul.

"Gather up the sludge bombs and meet Queen Perian in the grotto. I'm going there directly to have a look outside my self." Nodding furiously, Nomscul dashed from the cavern in the direction of the Big Sky Room.

But Perian shook her head as she crawled over Flint's side of the bed and began to dress hastily. "I'm coming with you."

Flint turned to her in exasperation. "One of us has to stay here and see that they get organized!" he objected. "How do we know they won't bring their knives and spoons instead of their swords and shields?"

"We don't," said Perian. "But you won't know which of the thane's forces we face, or how to combat them. I served in his guard — "

"I remember," Flint interrupted.

"— I'll recognize the units, their strengths and their weak nesses. I know the thane's officers! If anyone stays back here, it should be you!"

Flint gruffly assented. He led them down the sloping Up per Tubes, finally finding the entrance to the stairway into the grotto.

They scrambled down the stairway, Flint taking the steps two at a time. Both of them paused to look at the bench by the pool, still covered with the containers of food and their plates from the night before.

"Come on," Flint said at last, following the pool to its far thest corner from the stairway, where a large but low-to the-ground crack in the granite wall allowed access. A deep channel had been cut in the sandy ground there, and pre sumably it and the crack had been formed by an old stream bed; now the water left the pool by another, newer channel ten feet beyond the old one.

"This is it." Flint took up Perian's hand and slipped into the jagged fissure, leading the way. Before long they had to walk in a crouch, as the top of the crack loomed close over head. Flint counted his steps out of habit from his old dungeon-crawling days, and on step ninety-three, they came abruptly into sunlight on a small crest cloaked in pines. The crack was cut slightly at an angle and surrounded by trees, thus it was almost unnoticeable to the untrained eye.

Accustomed to living underground, Perian squinted in pain at the sudden light, made worse by reflections off of early snow. Even Flint blinked at the brightness, having grown used to the darkness below in less than a week. A cold breeze wafted past his face, and the old, familiar sensa tion invigorated him.

"I have been to the surface less than a dozen times, but it has never looked beautiful to me before today," Perian con fessed, shielding her eyes with an upraised arm. "The light hurts my eyes, but I'll grow accustomed soon, because I'm half Hylar." She laughed. "After years of Pitrick's threats, I never thought I would be happy about that."

Flint patted her encouragingly on the shoulder; he had the feeling that a lot of things would change today. The hill dwarf knew that they had emerged in the Kharolis range about a half-day northeast of the tunnel by which he had en tered Thorbardin. Climbing up the crest to get a better view, he looked down at a mountain stream that he presumed had its origins in the grotto. Flint shielded his eyes and looked to the east. The sky was crystal-clear, and he could see the shimmering shore of Stonehammer Lake about a day's march away. Looking down the mountain to the west, he could not locate the Passroad, nor see signs of mountain dwarf troops.

"This stream flows down one of the side valleys toward the lake, which meets up with the Passroad," Flint said. "We should come in sight of the road if we follow the stream down."

They moved through an open forest, following the gentle descent of the valley. In less than ten minutes they came around a shoulder of the ridge; across barren, snow-dotted slopes they saw the Passroad, a thick brown tendril snaking its way through the foothills north of Thorbardin.

The road was empty for as far to the west as the eye could see.

Arms crossed, Flint chewed his lip. "Have we delayed so long that they've already passed from sight ahead of us?" he asked, his voice ragged with concern.

"I don't think so." Perian shook her head, not taking her eyes from the general vicinity of the road. "My guess is that they've camped somewhere for the day, out of the sun. They probably haven't moved too far off the road." She scanned the horizon, stopping to examine the edge of a thicket of pines just a little to the west. "See there?" she asked, point ing. "Under those trees? It's nearly at the edge of my vision — they could almost be ants!" She concentrated. "No,

I'm sure I saw a red plume waving. It's the Bloody Blades."

Flint shivered involuntarily at the name. "What are the Bloody Blades?"

Perian pursed her lips while she thought. "The House

Guard. The Blades are just one regiment of three, each con taining two hundred soldiers. The other regiments are the

Silver Swords and the Black Bolts. The three regiments al ways fight together as a synchronized force, complementing their strengths and weaknesses. They form units of heavy infantry, light infantry, and crossbows."

"Could you try not to sound so proud of them?" Flint grumbled.

Perian looked only mildly embarrassed. "Old habits," she said.

Flint whistled through his teeth. "Six hundred dwarves.

And against 'em we have a couple hundred Aghar," he groaned. "Why don't we just hand Hillhome over?"

"It could be worse," Perian said, trying to sound encour aging. "The thane has thousands of troops at his disposal, but only the House Guard bear fealty to him alone. The rest defend all of Thorbardin, not just the Theiwar."

"That's a comfort," Flint said sarcastically, digging a hole in a snowbank with the toe of his boot.

"You're forgetting Basalt," Perian reminded him softly.

"I'm not," the old hill dwarf said, shaking his gray head.

"But we're pinning a lot of hopes on that young 'un."

"Well, we've got to get moving," she said gently. "We'll get ahead of them by a day while the House Guard bivouacs out of the sun."

Flint nodded, shaking off his melancholia. Following the stream uphill, the pair of dwarves made their way back up to the crack in the granite. There they found Nomscul.

"You were supposed to organize the troops," Flint scolded him.

"Rest wait in there, all straight," Nomscul announced, pointing into the tunnel, "like Nomscul tell them." Sud denly, gully dwarves began popping from the opening -

Fester, Cainker, Oooz, Garf, Pooter, and all the rest. They came out in a steady torrent, carrying every manner of weapon: the one hundred fifty Agharpulters with daggers slipped into their robe belts; one hundred Creeping Wedgies with shields tucked under their arms.

The Aghar milled about the tunnel entrance, a steadily growing mob. Flint and Perian circled them like sheepdogs, trying to keep the group together as their comrades emerged.

Last but not least came the Sludge Bombers, carrying their jugs and bottles and big pots of explosive venom. Flint had cautioned them repeatedly about the need to handle the containers of sludge delicately, so they tiptoed, swinging the jugs any which way as they joined their friends in the sun light on the mountainside.

"Hold those carefully — carefully!" Flint bellowed. "And where are the litters to carry the sludge bombs?" he asked.

Four gully dwarves trooped out of the crack just then, holding the handles of two makeshift litters, old leather vests each stretched across stout limbs. The biggest jugs of sludge, several measuring a foot across, had been set upon the litters for gentle transport.

Flint and Perian began to organize the three hundred-odd members of the army, such as it was, on the mountainside.

"Assemble your units!" Flint barked. "Nomscul, you lead the Agharpults over here; Oooz, get the Sludge Bombers over there; and Fester, put the Creeping Wedgies here, in the middle."

To their credit, the Aghar tried to follow the commands of their king. Several minutes of raw chaos ensued as the gully dwarves charged into a single pile of squirming Aghar, where only an occasional arm, leg, or face could be spotted.

Somehow the pile resolved itself into three milling groups, more or less organized by the categories Flint had detailed.

Their king felt compelled to offer up some inspiring words. "Stand at attention for some last instructions!" he bellowed.

Again, they tried to stand at attention, but their habit of facing every which way diminished the military precision of the maneuver. Flint only sighed. "Gully dwarves of Mud hole!" he began sternly, trying to get as many of them to face him as possible. "We embark today upon a great excurs -

Oooz, get back here! — a great excursion, to face in combat an enemy implacable and bold, savage and — what is it,

Nomscul?"

The shaman was hopping in agitation, waving his hand in the air and clenching his lips together as if to forcibly pre vent himself from speaking without royal permission. "King talk too much," explained Nomscul. "We march now?"

Flint's face flushed, and he aimed a glare at Nomscul that would have transfixed any halfway intelligent subject.

Fortunately — for himself, at any rate — Nomscul was only halfway intelligent and simply mistook his monarch's stare for a warm smile of congratulations.

"In a moment," Flint growled in exasperation. He turned back to the troops, saw their stupidly eager expressions.

"Look, gang, we've got quite a march ahead of us; we'll stop before dark near Stonehammer Lake, then I figure we'll make it to Hillhome midday tomorrow. It's vitally impor tant that we stick together as a group — Basalt and all of Hillhome are probably waiting this very minute for us to come and help them. Please try to act like soldiers. Do it for your king and queen."

"Two chairs for King Flunk and Queen Furryend!" Nom scul shouted. The troops responded with resounding screeches and caterwauls.

"Let's go, before they get tangled up again," Perian sug gested in a loud whisper, watching them wander from their units.

"Gully dwarves, march!" cried Flint, waving his arm in a circle over his head.

The king of the gully dwarves led his troops, three hun dred strong, down the mountainside, heading for the

Passroad east of the House Guard encampment below. This would allow him, with luck and speed, to move his force onto the road somewhere ahead of the thane's troops.

The organizing into units represented a masterpiece of military precision when compared to the march of the gully dwarves that ensued. In muttered conversation with Perian,

Flint could only compare it to the ridiculous task of herding chickens, though after the fourth or fifth effort at chasing down a wayward column of Aghar and returning them to the fold, he amended his comments to the effect that his comparison did a grave disservice to poultry.

To make matters worse, dark, angry clouds rolled in and it began to snow. At first the storm came as great, feathery

Hakes, gently wafting earthward. Except for the disruption caused by gully dwarves breaking file to catch particularly choice snowflakes with their tongues, the light precipitation caused no problem for the hardy Aghar.

But then the wind rose and the big, friendly flakes grew small and hard, turning into hail. Blustering out of the north, the weather drove stinging needles of ice into their faces, considerably slowing down the progress of the Aghar force. And as the day progressed, the dwarves became more widely scattered, forcing Flint and Perian to cover three or four times as much ground as their charges, constantly run ning back and forth along the column.

Still moving into the teeth of the storm, they finally de scended into a small valley that gave them protection from the worst of the wind.

"I think we'd better stop for a short rest," urged Perian.

"Why don't you go ahead and look for a place big enough to hold all of us?" suggested Flint. "I'll collect the Aghar and bring them up."

Perian headed away toward a grove of tall pines that was barely visible through the storm. Nomscul came up quickly with his comrades of the Agharpult, and Flint directed them toward the grove. Next came Oooz with the Sludge

Bombers, and he urged them in the same direction.

Flint waited behind for Fester as the last of the sludge bomb team disappeared after Perian. The Creeping Wedgies had been bringing up the rear, but even for the Aghar they seemed unusually far behind. Flint's concern grew as several more minutes passed.

Full darkness had settled, giving the late autumn wind a sharper bite, yet there was still no sign of Fester and the

Creeping Wedgies. Flint peered fruitlessly into the darkness, seeking any sign of movement, but all he saw was the frigid expanse of blowing, drifting snow. There was no denying the fact, now: Fester and the Wedgies were lost, or even dead, buried in the snowfall.

Flint thought about backtracking, but he sensed that the task would be futile. Instead, he turned and plowed his way through the snow toward the grove. He would have to in form Perian of the grave news that before they had even met the enemy their army had been tragically reduced by a third.

Only with difficulty did he locate the copse of trees, so completely did the weather cloak them. Finally he stumbled into a small clearing, surrounded by dense pines, giving the area shelter.

Perian sat atop a snow-covered log near a small, unfrozen pool of water. "Where's Fester and the Wedgies?" she asked at once, noting the look of concern on Flint's face.

"They're lost — or worse," he said glumly. "And I'm afraid we'd be running the risk of weakening ourselves still further if we set out to look for them in this snow."

"We'll just have to hope that they find their way to us,"

Perian said, thinking fondly of Fester, her "weighty lady."

The other Aghar seemed not to notice the disappearance of their comrades. They focused instead on gaining the most comfortable sleeping spaces in the damp, snowy grove.

Calculating that the derro soldiers would stay in their own camp only until darkness, Flint and Perian decided to take a chance and wait for more than an hour. Still there was no sign of the missing Wedgies. In that hour, though, the storm began to abate. The wind that had made traveling difficult was now blowing the storm clouds away. Though visibility was not great, they could see a vista of complete whiteness. The peaks and ridgelines gleamed under their pristine frosting, and the whole region was revealed as one of astounding natural beauty. A small, frozen waterfall hung suspended like a great icicle at the head of the valley of their camp.

"We've got to get moving," urged Flint after the hour had passed. "Break time is over." He stepped among the bundles of gully dwarves, discovering that his subjects had collected in groups of four to six. Sharing body warmth, albeit with a great deal of pushing, shoving, pinching, and biting, the

Aghar had managed to remain warm.

Blinking, stretching, and enjoying an afternoon nosepick, the Aghar gathered in ragged bunches at the edge of the clearing. Here the pool of water, fed by a hot spring, re mained clear of snow.

"Come on, you gullies!" Flint bellowed at them, trying to get their attention. "Fall in — no! I mean, line up!"

But it was too late. For once the gully dwarves responded to a command with alacrity, dropping into the pond like a mass of scattered tenpins.

"Great Reorx! Get out of there this minute!" roared the king from the edge of the pool. Suddenly the snow bank be neath his feet gave way and he, too, plummeted into the warm water.

For a few moments Flint stood stock-still in the waist deep water. Realizing that the eyes of his subjects were fixed upon him, he desperately stifled his terror. With supreme willpower he held his tongue, fearing that once he began to scream, he would never be able to stop. Slowly, with great deliberation, he dragged himself out of the pool. He pulled the hem of his tunic out of his pants and wrung the water from it, only to find his clothing already freezing.

"This is going to be a long campaign, even if it's over this afternoon," he groaned to Perian, who was dabbing at his face and soaked clothing with one of the rag bandages from a supply pack.

Slowly, after more frolicking and splashing, the Aghar hauled themselves from the pool and finally stood, dripping and shivering. "We've got to get them moving before they freeze to death," Perian urged, trying vainly to dry their heads.

The deep snow encouraged the Aghar to remain in file.

Flint and Perian took turns forcing a trail through the soft powder. When they became exhausted from the grueling task, some of the more trustworthy gully dwarves rotated the duty, though their trails tended to zigzag more often than not. Throughout the long afternoon the file of Aghar waded through the snow, skirting the highest elevations along the route Flint judged the most likely shortcut to the

Passroad.

The heavy pace of the march served to keep the Aghar warm, however, and the hardy gully dwarves showed a re markable resilience to the cold.

They had crested a low rise, Flint again in the lead, when he heard sounds before him and hastened his steps to reach the summit. In moments he stood atop the low hill and saw a wide, snow-filled valley stretching before him. The brown strip running through the valley was unmistakably the

Passroad. On the far side of the road the valley floor dropped steeply away, a long, descending slope that finally reached Stonehammer Lake, below and perhaps another mile distant. But what Flint saw on the Passroad made him groan audibly.

"We're too late," he mumbled, dazed, then turned to Per ian. "I thought you said they'd stay camped until dark."

The mountain dwarf was standing next to him. She col ored, and her voice was taut with bitterness. "Pitrick must have decided to take advantage of the cover the storm pro vided."

"I'm afraid so." Flint could only look helplessly at the scene in the valley below.

Three colors of plumes — red, black, and gray — waved in martial precision, as the thane's guards moved past them far below, perhaps two miles ahead. The three companies of mountain dwarves maintained distinct formations, but the whole column was a tight, disciplined military grouping.

The gully dwarves would never be able to catch them now, no matter how hard Flint drove them. Admitting de feat was bitter medicine. It took all of Flint's willpower not to collapse dejectedly in the snow. They had come too late and lost a third of their army in the first day. How had he ever been so foolish as to think they could win?

Perian elbowed him. "What's that?" she asked.

"What?" He was barely paying attention.

"Look — something's moving in the snow down there!" she said, pointing in the general direction of the amassed mountain dwarf troops. "Your eyes are better in this light than mine — tell me what that fuzzy blob is that's on this side of the road near the base of the mountain?"

"What?" Flint, despite his dejection, had his interest piqued. He, too, squinted down the distant, snowy fields toward the road. He saw a length of rippling snow, a shim rhering movement. Was that a leg I just saw? he wondered, baffled. Was that a pack of snow-covered animals moving down the slope?

Slowly the mass of movement became visible as many small, individual forms. Flint saw a tightly packed group of creatures, each snowy white on top. The snow, he finally realized, was carried atop each of the creatures upon a shield carried over his head.

"It the Wedgies!" Nomscul shrieked suddenly. Jumping up and down in his excitement, he slipped on the snow and top pled to the ground. "It old trick," he said offhandedly, pick ing himself up. "They hide under shields and creep at enemy!"

"But they'll be slaughtered out there alone and we're too far away to help them quickly!" Flint exclaimed, clenching and unclenching his fists in helpless frustration.

"Wait." Perian put a calming hand on Flint's arm, never taking her eyes from the events below. "The Wedgies have a chance. The derro don't seem to notice them yet, what with the snow covering them and the glare."

Stunned, king and queen looked on from a distance with two-thirds of their troops, as the Creeping Wedgies, now a rippling mass of shield-and snow-covered Aghar, continued to eke slowly forward. The Wedgies reached the Passroad just as the last company of Theiwar marched by, sporting gray plumes, some thirty feet behind the black-plumed rank. Total disorganization suddenly swept through the gray plumes, as the Wedgies infiltrated them.

Fully erupting from the snowy surface like jack-in-the boxes came a multitude of white, diminutive figures. Their appearance in the middle of the Theiwar company had thrown the unit into disarray, but swords rose and fell, and crimson stains appeared on the distant snow.

In confusion, the last company stopped and fell back from the other two regiments, who continued on, unaware of the distraction.

"It's the Silver Swords," observed Perian bitterly, "the thane's light infantry. If they can gather their ranks, the Wedgies will be cut down."

"We've got to try to help them!" Flint cried, though he knew it would be hard to reach them in time. He started to run down the slope toward the distant road. "Come on, gul lies! Charge!"

"We go, too!" A wave of gully dwarves started down the gentle, snowbound slope.

The king kept his eyes glued to the battle as he advanced.

Suddenly he saw a change. The Aghar of the Creeping

Wedgie had turned and bolted from the road, disappearing on the far side of the thoroughfare, over the slope that led down to Stonehammer Lake.

"Good, they're saving themselves!" Flint cried. "They didn't have a chance of stopping the mountain dwarves, anyway."

"But, look!" pointed Perian. "They're giving chase! Per haps the Wedgies have accomplished something after all."

Before Flint's astonished eyes, the Silver Swords, now far behind the two other ranks of derro who had continued blithely up the road, abruptly started down the slope after the Aghar. None of the mountain dwarves, hampered by their vision, seemed aware of Flint, Perian, and their troops thrashing their way down the snowy slope above.

"Shush!" Flint ordered his giggling, whooping charges in a harsh whisper. The retreating Aghar had disappeared by now down the steeper slope beyond the road, and the pur suing Theiwar had all followed.

After fifteen minutes of frantic plowing, Flint and his fol lowers set foot on the Passroad. Without even stopping for a breath, they rushed across and down the next slope after the Creeping Wedgies and the Silver Swords, unconcerned about detection now.

Their charge gained momentum as they slid down the steep bank toward the remaining Wedgies, who were gath ered now with their backs to the lake. The Theiwar had formed a contracting half-circle around them, and they were tightening it swiftly.

Overconfident, the Theiwar lunged in for the kill, and a number of the Aghar dropped lifeless into the snow. But others of the fleet-footed Aghar managed to dart away and pop up behind the heavily encumbered mountain dwarves.

Fighting dwarves swirled chaotically about the field. Shock ing crimson blotches appeared on the white snow.

Minutes later, when Flint and the rest of his troops reached the lakeshore, the situation had reversed: the mountain dwarves were enclosed in a semicircle of howling, growling gully dwarves.

"Get lompchuters!" Without waiting for a command from

Flint, Nomscul quickly formed his Agharpults. Flint charged forward, suddenly aware of gully dwarves soaring above him, crashing into the Theiwar beyond. Pooter screamed past, knocking three of the enemy into the river before he lost altitude and plunged into the water with a splash.

The rest of the Aghar smashed head-on into the line of Theiwar at the riverbank, ignoring the weaponry and ar mor of their foes in a courageous effort to follow their king into battle. Steel weapons cut cruel wounds into the loyal

Aghar. Flint snapped the neck of a Theiwar captain and he looked around for another target, reaching this time for his magnificent Tharkan Axe.

Suddenly he felt the very ground shift under his feet. Ap parently just an overhanging shelf of snow and ice, it broke off from the shore with a sharp crack under the extreme weight of the combatants. Hill, gully, and mountain dwarves were thrown into the deep, wintry waters of Stone hammer Lake. The ice floe drifted away from shore, break ing into smaller pieces that bobbed in the gentle current.

"Whee!"

"Yippee!"

"Go swimming again!"

The gully dwarves splashed and swam through the icy water like delighted children, dog-paddling toward the bank, then slowly scrambling out.

Not so the Theiwar. Weighted down by their chain shirts, inherently distrustful of water and unable to swim, the der ro struggled in the water, never deigning to call for help, un til each white head sank, one by one.

In moments, all that could be seen of the battle on the shore and lake were soggy Aghar, climbing from the current and pleading with their king for permission to take another dip.

And a vastness of vacant black steel helmets lapping at the shoreline, gray plume-side down.