Oretheo Spikes continued to call out commands, but he knew that he needn’t have bothered. This group knew their jobs and did them well.
Thirty feet up from the floor in the middle of the large entry cavern, in a wide, round room cleverly carved to give optimal views-and thus, optimal lines for shooting-Nigel Thunderstorm leaned on his heavy ballista, thinking of what delicacy he might prepare for his Ma, Nigella, when she arrived in Gauntlgrym. And aye, she would soon enough be here, the dwarf master chef was certain, for Nigella still resided in Citadel Felbarr, whereas Nigel had gone to live in Adbar. King Emerus understood the grandeur of this place, and he’d allow as many from Citadel Felbarr as desired to come here to settle.
“What ho?” cried another of the dwarves in that stalagmite guard station, a strapping young lass named Carrinda Castleduck, who braided her long yellow hair under her chin in a “beard” that would make a grumpy old metal-pounder proud. “Oh, by the hairy-arsed gods!”
“What do ye know?” asked Ogden Nugget, the third in the room, and he and Nigel scrambled over beside Carrinda to gaze out over the battlement.
“Demon beasties! And what a horde!” came a cry from the lower level of the tower even as the three artillery dwarves began to register the monsters crawling out of the pond, so clear to see under the magical illumination of the enchantments thrown about the pond by the dwarf clerics.
“Line her level!” Nigel cried, running to the missile rack set against the opposite end of the chamber. He first lifted a thick-ended bolt, the shaft filled with oil that could be set aflame, but put it back and pulled forth a black metal tri-spear instead.
Carrinda and Ogden had already turned the ballista, which was set on a circular base that could swing it in a full circle, before Nigel had the tri-spear in place.
“Put ’er down a fat fist,” Nigel instructed, one eye closed, the other looking through the crosshair sight set atop the weapon. He held up a hand when the tip lowered just enough, accounting for the expected drop to the pond-one they had measured many times-and nodded.
“Ah, but just a pinky-finger to me left,” he begged, for he had a particular target in mind. This was their first shot, after all, and Nigel wanted it to count. Staring through the sight, the dwarf gave a rather eager chuckle and nod, noting the top crown of an avian behemoth.
Nigel yanked the lever and the ballista let fly, the spear arcing out beautifully and breaking into three separate missiles.
The spear on the right disappeared into the water with a splash, and perhaps hit something just below the surface, given the strange way it didn’t immediately sink. The missile on the left drove into the hip of a vrock, drawing a great screech from the beast. And the third, the center spear, impaled the target, another vrock, right through its massive chest.
Unlike its counterpart, that one didn’t cry out, but simply flew over backward into the water.
“Huzzah!” Carrinda cried, turning back to Nigel-and finding him already back at the caisson, drawing forth another tri-spear.
“Find another group!” she told her partner, and she grabbed the crank at the side of the ballista and began drawing the heavy wire once more.
The stalagmite shook then, as the side-slinger catapult mounted in the lower level let fly, and then again as the conventional catapult out on the balcony joined in.
“Find the biggest!” Carrinda ordered. “Aye, but we’re the prime bombers, so let’s make ’em count!”
The barrage pounded the lake and the demons coming forth, spears and stones and burning pitch flying in from many guard towers, while those artillery batteries set in the castle wall focused their devastation on the back of the horde pressing the shield dwarves.
How wonderful the light was, Oretheo Spikes realized, seeing that it clearly marked out the targets.
But with that thought, the Wilddwarf leader saw a bigger problem. Across the way there was no such clarity, and there, into the wider cavern, went the biggest of the monsters coming forth-the biggest and the smartest, no doubt.
And from those shadows, he saw a group strike, huge four-armed glabrezu demons appearing as if out of nowhere to assault one of the stalagmite guard positions. That tower was lost in short order. The demons had been clever in their assault, using the mound to shield themselves from any other batteries that might have struck out at them.
The focusing mirrors were not yet in place in the stalactite and stalagmite towers, and without them, the shadows would greatly limit the artillery.
The dwarf shook his head. Though this side of the pond already seemed as if it would hold, and so this monstrous horde would find no easy entrance into Gauntlgrym, he had no desire to surrender the rest of this cavern, particularly not with nearly eight hundred of his fellows out there across the pond.
“All right, boys,” he told the spear-wielding dwarves at his side, dwarves furiously stabbing as monsters tried to reach over the shield line, “our brothers’ll be pouring out o’ the throne room in a heartbeat, not to doubt. Ye gather ’em and make yerself a wedge and push to the bridge. Ye take the pond bank, one wall to th’ other, and nothing gets out on this side!”
“Ye goin’ somewhere?” one of the dwarves asked, and Oretheo Spikes smiled with resignation.
“Aye,” he replied. “And don’t ye let none forget me!”
He hopped up and tapped the two shield dwarves directly in front of him on the shoulder. “On me word,” he instructed, and they grunted, shoulder-blocked back the press of manes, and nodded.
Oretheo turned to the wall and called up to the nearby batteries. “Ye open me a line to the bridge!”
“The bridge?” one dwarf yelled back. “Bah, but th’ other side’s crawlin’ with the damned things.”
“Aye,” Oretheo Spikes agreed, and he hunched up his shoulders, shook his head wildly, banged his axe against his shield, and laughed boisterously.
“Open it!” he roared.
That command echoed up and down the line on the wall and many of the batteries concentrated their fire then on the monsters between Oretheo’s position and the entrance to the bridge.
“Clear the closest,” he told the spear-wielders, and as soon as they began to drive the most immediate monsters off, he yelled, “Shields!”
The shield wall parted and out leaped Oretheo Spikes, chopping and twirling, and sprinting for the bridge. Others wanted to follow, of course, but the shield dwarves knew their place and immediately sealed the line once more, leaving Oretheo Spikes out there alone.
“Cover him! Oretheo!” dwarves yelled and from above came a volley of crossbow bolts, ballista spears, and a pair of beautifully placed catapult throws that blew free the ground in front of the running Wilddwarf leader.
Oretheo Spikes made the base of the bridge, but monsters rushed around the large buttresses in close pursuit.
And so many more hulking monsters loomed in the shadows across the way.
“Clangeddin’s strength to ye,” more than one of the dwarves at the wall muttered, and there was little more to say.
“Nothing clear to hit!” Ogden Nugget cried, leaning out the long window and looking down from their position.
Carrinda and Nigel shared his frustration, for they could hear the raucous battle not far from their tower, where a large square of dwarves, a brigade or more, had begun a sweep toward the pond. But demons had come from the shadows in a coordinated manner, and the square found itself surrounded on all four sides, with nearly two hundred battle dwarves fighting for their lives.
But the line was too tight and too mingled for ballistae and catapults to help.
Ogden pounded his fist on the stone sill and turned back.
“Let it go, friend,” Nigel offered. “Take what we can. .” He stopped short as Ogden’s eyes popped open wide in shock. Nigel figured it out and spun to see the ugly, bloated human face of a chasme only a hand’s breadth away as the monster landed on the sill.