The Heir of Kayolin

FOUR

Willim the Black teleported to the commanding rampart in the city’s main gate and quickly located General Darkstone. The wizard simply watched as his commander ordered his companies through the gate and had them form up within the city for the next phase of the attack, the charge toward the palace across the great square.

Only when the troops were well organized, moving smoothly into position, did the wizard summon his general with a curt gesture.

“Yes, my master?” asked Darkstone, hurrying to kneel before the magic-user.

“Have your men bring me the hearts of two slain enemies. They must be warm and freshly bleeding. Then proceed with your attack.”

“Yes, my lord,” promised the general. He quickly dispatched a pair of aides to perform the task before returning to his regiment on the square. Less than a minute later, the aides returned with the grisly trophies.

Willim dismissed the dwarves but clasped the two hearts, one in each hand. Closing his eyes, he squeezed the organs, silently casting his powerful spell of summoning. Blood dripped from his fingers, but it was consumed by magic before it could strike the ground.

Soon the wizard felt the embrace of black wings and noted the looming presence of his minion, an even blacker shade against the darkness of the sunless world. The monster rose before him, maw gaping, eyes flaring with crimson hunger.

“Go!” commanded Willim the Black. “Strike at the very bottom of the city! Spread terror there, and bring that fear back to me!”

With no sound, the minion bowed, flapping its huge bat wings and flexing its sharp, hooked claws. The magic user could sense its pleasure at the command, and Willim watched, breathing hard from the exertion of the summoning-and from his own excitement-as the minion sank through the stone floor of the city.

He knew that it understood the command, and that it would obey.

The streets of Anvil’s Echo, the lowest levels of Norbardin, were crowded with the wretched and the poor. Narrow passages twisted between looming, sediment-stained walls, as water-and less identifiable liquids-sluiced through gutters. Dark, shadowy holes lined the walls, in most cases without any doors. A stink of rot and effluence pervaded the air in those close confines, but thousands of residents bustled their way around the “Echo” with no apparent difficulty.

For they were-except for the all-but-exterminated gully dwarves-the lowest of Thorbardin’s low. They scraped and scrimped, working as coal-haulers and boiler-scrapers, street-sweepers and debris-rakers, earning but a few miserable coppers a day if they were lucky. They dwelled, often two or three families at a time, in tiny, cramped, poorly ventilated hovels that were little more than caves.

But there were advantages to being so far away from the attentions of the powerful. For one thing, the king’s enforcers didn’t spend much time among the miserable poor of Anvil’s Echo. Perhaps it was because there was so little wealth to be mined from those hapless folk. Or maybe the rich and powerful avoided the shadowy, sewage-stinking alleys because of the miasma that seeped through the air. No doubt, at least part of the guard’s aversion to the Echo was the fact that more than one of the bearded fanatics who so readily enforced the regime’s repressive policies had been found with his throat slit, lying in one of those back alleys. Invariably, by the time the body was discovered by another party of guards, the slain enforcer’s belongings, including weapons, boots, and clothing, had all been claimed by one or another of the thieving dwellers of that most miserable of Norbardin’s neighborhoods.

There, unlike the rest of the great city, some female dwarves dared to challenge the monarch’s repressive rules. The bold dwarf maids, though few in number, operated their own stalls and stores, always in darkened alcoves off the main roads of Anvil’s Echo. On those streets, some of the women of Norbardin went about uncloaked, faces bare in proud defiance of the king’s harsh decrees. They walked without escort, talked loudly, even dared to argue with those males who were foolish enough to challenge them. In fact, Anvil’s Echo, though filthy and poverty stricken, was closer in nature to the dwarf cities of the past than were any of Norbardin’s higher and more prosperous neighborhoods.

And there, as elsewhere in the city, the population was purely dwarf, so the inhabitants worked hard, drank even harder, and took their frustrations out upon each other. Brawling and thuggery were common in Anvil’s Echo, and the strong routinely lorded it over the weak. Rough overseers, sometimes wielding whips or cudgels, held their laborers to their looms or forges or stitching, while those suffering workers cowered and cringed and sought to earn a few lousy coppers for a hard day’s work.

The outbreak of civil war, as Willim’s rebel forces swarmed over the three main gates leading into Norbardin, was barely noticed there in the deepest depths of the city. The sound of the violence was a distant distraction, and the dwellers of Anvil’s Echo had little care for who won or lost. One thing was for sure: whichever side prevailed, their miserable lot and their endless work would go on.

But all that labor came to a halt, along both sides of one narrow street, when the stones of the pavement began to shift and shimmer, as though a puddle of black oil leaked up from below. Passersby gasped and sprang away from the fast-growing murk, their cries of alarm bringing people out of the shops and down from both ends of the long roadway. Dwarves gathered in a circle, whispering and muttering then edging backward as the darkness coalesced into something very solid. Like a pillar of shifting black smoke, it rose from the ground, climbing and writhing until it was taller than any dwarf.

And it continued to grow and climb and writhe.

“What is it?” called one foreman, pushing his way through the throng.

“It ain’t natural, that’s for sure,” one old fellow retorted, taking another step backward.

“It’s some kind of creature!” warned a dwarf maid, an edge of hysteria to her voice.

“Ah, calm yerself,” barked the foreman. He took another step forward but, despite his bravado, couldn’t bring himself to draw any closer to the black form.

That black shape of murk loomed high above the damp rock of the Echo’s nearby main thoroughfare, and even the largest and most brash of the bullies quailed.

The minion of Willim the Black was a bat-winged monster, with embers like Abyssal fires for eyes. Those fiery coals glowed with an infernal light.

The circle of dwarves widened and edged back.

Finally, when the creature spread its black wings and uttered an otherworldly roar, panic seized the crowd of dwarves. They turned as one and started to run, tripping and falling over each other. The weak and the slow screamed and fell as the stronger and faster elbowed them out of the way. The minion struck, stomping among the fleeing dwarves, slaying randomly right and left with slashing blows of its taloned hands. Terrified dwarves fled both ways along the narrow street, crying out in terror, spilling onto the main thoroughfare and gathering more and more of the population into their flight.

And the panic spread, and the people screamed, fleeing.

Peat Guilder could hear the commotion of war from the front room of his shop. The clash of steel against steel, the shouts of battle cries, the wailing and screaming of the grievously wounded-they echoed down the street from the great plaza. Even with the front door closed tight, he couldn’t drown out the din. Every once in a while, he felt certain that the fighting was getting closer to the shop, but then it would recede again.

Sadie was in the back room, still laboring over the tricky scribing of the mysterious scroll she had been working on. A few hours earlier, Peat had asked her how the work was coming, and she’d just about bitten his head off. No fool, he had left her alone since then. Finally he couldn’t take it anymore and went to the door to the back room.

“What are you working on there, anyway?” he demanded.

Somewhat surprisingly, she looked up at him without her usual angry or irritable expression. “Remember what you said?” she asked.

“What? I say lots of things-most of which you don’t even hear,” he replied.

She ignored the barb. “You said you’d like for us to get out of here, even if it meant leaving this shop, all our possessions, behind.”

“So? I was thinking out loud. What of it? I think out loud all the time.”

“Did you mean it? Would you be willing to live in poverty, start over again, if we could get away?”

He was startled by the question and still trying to formulate a sensible reply when he heard the loud clank of the shop’s front door opening.

“Hello? Is anyone here?”

The voice came from the front of the Two Guilders Novelty and Pharmology Emporium. Peat bustled out of the back room, leaning on his cane, squinting at a prosperous-looking Hylar, stout and middle-aged, accompanied by a frumpy dwarf maid, with two young ones peering from behind their mother’s skirt. The shopkeeper cleared his throat and overcame his surprise-they were the first potential customers he’d seen in several weeks. Even before the war, the king’s stern disapproval of magic had served to keep dwarves away from the shop that specialized in that unsavory field. Those of the Hylar clan, in particular, tended to look askance at the two Guilders.

“Um, yes,” he said. “Welcome to Two Guilders. How can I help you?” He gestured to a row of vials and bottles. “A potion to help with sleeping, perhaps, in these troubled times? Or something of a more exotic nature?”

The Hylar family advanced into the shop, allowing the door to slam behind them.

“What is it?” Sadie demanded crossly from the storeroom. “Are you talking to yourself again?”

She, too, hobbled into the shop and gawked in surprise at the sight of the Hylar family standing there. “What do you want?” she demanded as Peat winced at her harsh tone.

“They’re customers!” he hissed. “You do remember customers, don’t you?” He offered a thin smile to the Hylar father, whose gold belt buckle, fine vest, and fur-lined boots were apparent even to Peat’s feeble eyes. The woman wore several diamond bracelets, a glittering necklace, and a pair of gemstone earrings. The customers were clearly well to do.

“I apologize for my wife’s ill manners,” Peat said, glaring at Sadie-who was still staring open mouthed at the Hylar family. “But please,” he said, turning his gaze back to the Hylar, “how can we help you? Perhaps you know that we have an impressive assortment of charms and trinkets, as well as the potions that you see before you.”

Indeed, he felt justifiably proud as he indicated the well-stocked shelves with their array of contents. “We have a number of unique items here-many of them unavailable in any other shop in all Thorbardin,” he said, trying not to sound boastful. “We have elixirs that will ease the temperaments of contentious adversaries and others that will allow you to vanish from sight in a moment, should an unwelcome visitor present himself at your door. With such a potion, I assure you, you won’t be seen unless you want to be seen.”

“Er, yes,” said the Hylar, who Peat felt virtually certain was a fellow businessman, perhaps a vendor of exotic fabrics or rare gems. “Truth is, we’ve never really come in here before-”

“We’ve known about you, of course,” gushed the dwarf maid. “But, well, you know how people talk. We’d never really felt right about all the magic and-”

“Now, hush, dear,” said the Hylar patriarch sternly. “These nice Theiwar don’t need to hear our life story!”

“Well, what would you like to see now that you are here?” Peat said, gritting his teeth impatiently. “In these troubled times, there must be something we can offer.”

“Well, it’s because of the magic, you see,” said the Hylar, introducing himself as a merchant whose name was Horth Dunstone. “That’s why we came to you.”

“There’s no other way to do it, only magic,” said his wife. “Only magic can help us.”

“Help you to do what?” asked Peat gently.

“Well, there’s the war. Times are hard. My business has already suffered. My children, well, all of us, our lives are in danger. As is everyone else’s of course. But we really hoped you could help.”

“Again, help you in what fashion?” Peat felt his fixed smile starting to slip. “Do you need to hide, to protect yourselves?” His voice dropped conspiratorially. “Do you have an enemy you want to hex? To sicken, perhaps, or to blind-temporarily, of course.”

The Hylar’s eyes widened at the litany of possibilities, and he gulped nervously. Finally, he seemed to shake off his fears, clearing his throat as he recovered his nerve. “Well, it’s just this. Can you help us to get out of Thorbardin?” the merchant asked bluntly. “Just get us, our whole family, as far away from here as possible?”

Taken aback, Peat blinked. “Well, I’m afraid not,” he said with a shrug of genuine disappointment. “I mean, we could help you conceal yourselves, and if the gates were open, you might be able to slip through. But as I’m sure you know, the king has sealed us against the world. There’s no way to-”

“Wait!” It was Sadie, cutting him off with a sharp word. Peat was too puzzled to be annoyed, which would have been his usual reaction to such an interruption from his wife. He looked at her curiously, wondering what she had in mind.

“It might be possible,” Sadie said. “It would be complicated … it would be very, very expensive-”

“Oh, that’s quite all right. I can afford to pay!” Horth Dunstone offered quickly.

“Then come back tomorrow,” Sadie said. “We’ll have an answer for you then.”

Peat was staring at his wife, so utterly astounded that he didn’t even say farewell to his precious customers as they bowed politely and made their way out the door.

“The king has spoken! Rally to me, brave Hylar! Hold the wall!”

Ragat Kingsaver, General Commander of the First Division of the Royal Guard, shouted the commands from the roof of his barracks, a fortified structure just inside the main gate of the king’s fortress. After scrambling around for several hours in the initial confusion of the attack, he was fully girded for battle: his armor vest protecting him, his boots buckled securely. He slapped the hilt of his sword as he stalked back and forth, looking around coolly, making the best plan possible for the defense of Norbardin.

Ragat’s bald head was unadorned by a helmet, as was his custom, and his beardless face-almost unique in all the king’s army-made sure that he stood out prominently on any battlefield. Beyond that, the gleaming silver circlet of his shield formed a bright focal point that caught the eye of enemy and ally alike. The Kingsaver Shield, bestowed upon Ragat by the king himself, was one of the most fabled artifacts in Norbardin, and his loyal troops believed the legend whispered about it: that his army could not be defeated, so long as the general still possessed his enchanted shield.

The general had been a warrior all of his adult life. In his younger years, he had been a drunken, even dissolute, bully, ever willing to shed blood, to meet violence with violence, to take that which he desired by the dint of his will or, when necessary, the point of his blade. He had been an outlaw, had been sought for punishment by the agents of the former king, Tarn Bellowgranite, when the great civil war erupted in Thorbardin so many years earlier. Naturally, Ragat had joined the side of Jungor Stonespringer … not because of any fondness for the upstart, but simply because he was the enemy of Ragat’s enemy.

Yet a strange thing had happened to him during that war. The words of Stonespringer, emerging from the dwarf’s mouth as if they were drops of gold spraying from Reorx’s own forge, had touched Ragat deeply, inspiring a new seriousness, which, matched by his well-known combat skills, had helped him become a sergeant. He easily made captain not long thereafter. Listening to the aspiring ruler’s wise words, his entreaties toward faith and discipline in the name of Reorx, Ragat had found himself moved and ashamed of his own past, his weaknesses. In the wake of hearing that first speech, Ragat had resolved to cast aside his wicked ways and meet his new ruler’s high expectations.

His skills as a fighter had propelled him upward through the ranks of the new king’s army. During a crucial battle, all of Jungor’s bodyguards had been injured or slain, and Ragat himself had stood before his commander, killing any who dared approach.

For his stand, he had been awarded the title of “General Ragat Kingsaver,” and he had fought at his lord’s side for the rest of the short, violent war. When Jungor Stonespringer won the throne of Thorbardin, he rewarded Ragat with command of all the royal troops. He had even offered him a woman as a prize, the beautiful daughter of one of the king’s enemies. Ragat hadn’t been particularly interested in the woman, and when she had taken her own life, Stonespringer had been more distressed than his loyal subordinate.

Finally, the king had ordered a special talisman forged for his loyal general, a shield made from platinum and steel, blessed by all the priests of Reorx. It was unbreakable and shone like a beacon of righteousness whenever danger threatened the throne.

The fiery blessing of Reorx was strong in the king, and it gave to Ragat a sense of purpose that had been lacking in his earlier campaigns. A member of a gruff race of tough individuals who placed little weight on sentiment, Ragat Kingsaver had embraced his monarch’s values, his creed, and his personality with all of his warlike heart. His shield was the physical proof of that loyalty, that love. He would gladly lay his life down for his king.

The general’s troops were garrisoned on the lower level of the royal palace itself. His two thousand dwarves were the elite of Jungor Stonespringer’s army, veterans of the battles that had brought the king to power; rewarded well for their service; loyal, like him, to the last drop of blood to the king and his noble, god-blessed cause. Right at that moment they were proving their mettle-rallying, arming themselves, pouring from their barracks, forming into companies and regiments under prodding by sergeants and captains.

Ragat could see from his vantage that the three main gates on the south side of the city, the portals connecting Norbardin to the environs of the Urkhan Sea, had all been breached by a swift and aggressive attack. He was at a loss to understand how all three bastions could have fallen so quickly and simultaneously. He wondered what had happened, and though he suspected sorcery he knew that there was nothing he could do about that, not anymore. Instead, he had to act fast and contain the damage.

“Sergeant Major!” he barked as the dwarves of his division formed up before the royal palace.

“Yes, General!” said Barx Standfist, the veteran centurion who had served with Ragat on every campaign over the past three decades. Standfist, already wearing his plate armor, with his mustache and beard waxed stiffly, stood at attention just a few steps away. The general couldn’t repress a smile at the display of his old sergeant’s readiness.

“I want every reserve company in Norbardin mustered at once. Have them report to the training yard on the other side of the palace. Then put out the word to the quartermasters. We will need a new draft of recruits; have them start the processing immediately.”

“Aye, sir. At once,” replied the veteran sergeant major. Instead of starting away at once, however, he cleared his throat, shuffling his feet.

“Yes?” asked the general, knowing from experience that the old veteran wouldn’t waste time with delay or idle conversation.

“Every one of the south gates fell,” Standfist said. “Do you think … well, might it have been treachery?” he growled.

Ragat could only shrug. “Either that or wizardry. No, I can’t think of any other explanation. But now is not the time to worry about spilled milk. Go!”

“Aye, sir. I’ll start the mustering right away.”

With that, the loyal subcommander departed. Ragat turned to study the battle that was spreading across the terraces of the great plaza.

Clearly, the unknown enemy was attacking with three distinct columns. One of the formations seemed to be made up of Klar berserkers. Their whooping and howling, the gleeful, almost musical, sounds of their wild fighting carried clearly to Ragat’s ears. The Klar were advancing rapidly into the plaza, but already some of the impetus of their charge was seeping away as the notoriously unreliable troops stopped to loot the shops and stalls or wandered into the side streets and alleys leading to the taverns of one of Norbardin’s seedier neighborhoods. Ragat knew the Klar would not be the worst threat, at least not right then.

The force to the right was coming up against a solid formation of the royal guard. The guard formed a line of shields linked together almost like a wall. Ragat suspected that the surviving troops of the initial garrisons had banded together under an intrepid captain and, rather than dispersing themselves against the great numbers of the enemy, had concentrated their strength in that fashion. To Ragat’s practiced eye, the shield wall looked like a good tactic, and the garrison dwarves seemed to have a reasonable chance of holding firm.

That left the middle prong of the enemy attack as the main threat. Ragat could see that it was the most numerous of the three columns and included a mix of several troop types: he noted crossbows launching lethal volleys of missiles, burly axemen charging in a wedge, and infantry advancing in a line, also with linked shields.

By the time he concluded his survey of the battlefield, the front rank of the royal force was already advancing, lightly armed skirmishers forming a line that bristled with the steel tips of short, deadly spears. Ragat raced down the stairs and out the palace gate, where he found the company commander. The general waved him forward, using both hands to signal the charge. Immediately, the spearmen charged into the square, their battle cry-“For Reorx and Stonespringer!”-roaring from five hundred throats.

Even as the first rank charged, the other regiments of the division tightened behind the spearmen. One by one, they girded themselves, standing shoulder to shoulder, and they started across the plaza. In a matter of a few minutes, Ragat could see the front rank of the attackers brace and halt, staggered by the sudden counterattack.

As the rest of the division marched forward, the momentum of the battle shifted, and the attack was broken.

Then the rest of the royal garrison spilled out of the palace. When Ragat sent those fresh troops surging into the fight, he knew that the city of Norbardin would not fall, not on that day.