The Last Thane

Chapter Twenty-three
Chaos Falling

For long minutes Tarn lay on the smooth rock of the shore, struggling to draw air through the raw, constricted passage of his throat. He knew he was in dangerous surroundings. But even if a company of dark dwarves had come along screaming for his blood, the half-breed would have been unable to so much as look for a hiding place. The lingering horror of his immersion in water-the nearness of death-had drained him. The fight to survive had utterly exhausted him. And even when he found the strength to lift his head, there was nothing within his range of sight to encourage him.

Around him the gully dwarves chattered and explored, though there was an uncharacteristic hush to their voices. Regal sniffed something, then called some of his comrades to help him move a large boulder. The industrious Aghar toppled the large rock to the side, but after several minutes of rooting around in the muddy crater they trudged glumly back to Tarn.

"Nuthin!" groused one.

"No food, not a bite," said another.

"No beer," Regal added mournfully.

Finally able to sit up and look around, Tarn tried to get a fix on their surroundings. He was startled to realize he was totally lost. Though he knew the Hybardin waterfront like he knew the hilt of his sword, he was now unable to recognize a single landmark. A pile of broken rock rose like a mountain before him, and to either side he saw a splintered wreckage of slabs, beams, fabric, and other debris. Looking straight up, he could see the bottom of the great stalactite that was the Life-Tree suspended overhead, though whether they could reach it or not was another question entirely. And even so, could they somehow work their way into higher regions of the city? It was inconceivable that the lift still functioned.

From his low vantage he was able to see enough to make several assumptions with a fair level of confidence. It seemed that all of Level One and Level Two of Hybardin had been buried beneath rockfalls. Obviously the Chaos horde had struck far more savagely here than in Daerforge. It was impossible to imagine that anyone could have lived through such a horrific devastation. Belicia Felixia Slateshoulders had been here, and Tarn faced the reality that she must certainly be dead.

Despair dragged his head down onto his arms. For a while he lay like a corpse, unthinking, uncaring, aware only of the black wave of hopelessness that swept over him. Very gradually he became conscious of an insistent tugging, something that had him by the elbow and was trying to lift him from the ground.

"Leave me alone!" he growled.

"Come on! Look up!" replied a voice that he remembered as Regal's. "We try to get to Hybardin-not stop now!"

Tarn whirled on the Aghar, his face twisted into a snarl.

"What Hybardin?" he demanded. "Look around, you imbecile! Can't you see that my city doesn't even exist anymore? Now do what I told you: leave me alone!"

"No!" insisted Regal, with surprising stubbornness. "You look around! City's up there!" The gully dwarf pointed a blunt finger at the dangling massif overhead. "Let's go see, okay? Kinda boring down here."

"Not boring no more," noted another little Aghar, who was squatting just above. The fellow pointed to the side. "Here come some guys."

Fighting through his despair, Tarn wriggled around to follow the direction of the second gully dwarf's stare. His heart pounded at the sight of several dozen Daergar poking through the rubble along the shore of the lake. They were a long way away, but coming in his direction.

Instantly the half-breed's malaise vanished as he realized that the gully dwarves, who had risked so much to get him here, would be easy prey for the villainous dark dwarves. Cursing his selfish melancholy, he looked around for some avenue of escape. Immediately he saw a large, flat slab of rock tilted up against the steep slope of the rubble.

"Get behind that!" Tarn whispered urgently. "Stay low and quiet!"

He realized that his latter commands were superfluous as the Aghar once again demonstrated their natural instincts for stealth. The score or so of his shipmates were already out of sight as Tarn crawled behind them into the low shelter, fairly certain that the Daergar patrol had not spotted them.

"Now climb!" he urged. "Get as high as you can!"

The makeshift wall served as good cover, and Tarn found that he could stand upright behind it and crawl upward towards the top of a rubble-strewn slope. For minutes there was no sound except for the gasping and panting of scrambling dwarves. The incline was very steep, and in many places Tarn and the Aghar had to pull themselves up with their hands and scramble on their knees to negotiate the grade. As they climbed still higher, Tarn was able to see great companies of dark dwarves marching up a neighboring mound of stone. Groups of shadowy creatures visible just beyond. It did not seem to the half-breed as though the Chaos creatures were menacing the Daergar and Theiwar formations. Indeed, he saw with despair that the two forces were actually advancing in concert.

"Look, there!" hissed Regal.

Tarn witnessed the black daemon straddling its fiery mount as the dragon spread its wings and flared into the air. The half-breed watched in fascination as the monster flew directly into the side of the overhanging rock, boring a hole right into the bedrock.

"Let's keep going," Tarn said. "And try to stay out of sight!"

For once the infamously curious gully dwarves agreed with his warning, and the party continued its surreptitious climb.

By now the half-breed could see that this pile of rubble ended dozens of feet below the overhanging terminus of the Life-Tree. From the top they were high enough to see that the whole lower reach of Hybardin was nothing more than a wasteland. Everywhere the ruins were crowded with dark dwarves and Chaos shadows. In one place Tarn saw a great column of enemy dwarves moving into the wide tunnel the fire dragon had excavated on the bottom of the Life-Tree. He caught a glimpse of a bronze helm at the head of the file of black armor.

Looking around, Tarn saw that more of the dark dwarf companies were spreading out along the waterline. They were poking and probing through the rubble, undoubtedly searching for survivors or treasure. Once more he turned his attention above and saw a gaping black hole in the underside of smooth rock, perhaps thirty feet overhead. Probably that was the remains of some transport shaft to Level Three, but there was simply no way to reach it-even from the highest pinnacle of rock on their little summit.

"Look! Now they comin' up our hill!" snorted a gully dwarf indignantly.

Tarn saw that the Daergar had spotted them and at least a hundred of the dark dwarves were beginning to converge at the base of the mound. The Daergar took their time, spreading out to form a ring around the conical hill. Then they began a slow and methodical climb toward the dwarves trapped at the summit.

"What we do now?" wondered Regal, with what Tarn thought was an impressive lack of panic in his voice.

"We can start by rolling rocks down on them," the half-breed said, "while I try to think of something a little more long-term."

The Aghar pitched into this new game with enthusiasm, and soon great chunks of jagged stone were bouncing, rolling, and ricocheting down the steep slope. Several of these hit individual Daergar, and the overall effect was a dramatic slow down of the climbers. But Tarn could see that their position would become hopeless within a few minutes.

"Gotta big one!" cried Regal, as several of his mates helped him to tumble a great boulder down the slope. While the Aghar shrieked and jeered, cursing dark dwarves scrambled to the sides to get out of the way of the deadly missile. A few of them were too slow, but that only seemed to solidify the grim purpose of the survivors as they once again resumed their implacable ascent.

"Psst! Tarn! Up here!"

At first the half-breed attributed the words to his fevered imagination, for it sounded exactly like the voice of his Belicia Felixia.

"Tarn!"

When she called again, he forced himself to look.

Now he discerned movement in the base of the tunnel leading upward into Hybardin. He saw several dwarves squirreled away in the far corners, and dimly realized that they were clinging to the rungs of a ladder mounted directly into a stone. With a flash of hope he saw that they were lowering ropes, three or four lines that dropped among the Aghar atop the hill.

And finally he recognized her, eyes shining as she looked at him from the dimness of the shadowy tunnel.

Belicia Felixia Slateshoulders was not only alive, she was hovering overhead like a messenger from Reorx, a vision of hope, promise, and rescue.