At last he could smell the wrong smells, proof that danger was abroad in this dark night. His nose brought to him traces of metal and sweat, the acrid smell of unwashed dwarves. Shapes moved on that stairway, and Ulf wondered if he should shout a warning. But he was so close now-instead, he opted to charge in silence, to maximize the confusion his sudden arrival would have on the intruders.
Racing up the stairs, he smelled the ferrous stench of fresh blood, a great deal of blood to judge from the intensity of the odor. Atop the steps he almost groaned audibly at the sight of a crumpled form lying motionless on the flagstones, pouring lifeblood in a crimson-black flowage down the smooth white stairs.
“Fallon!” he whispered, gently nudging the faithful servant with his nose. The elf’s eyes were open wide, but they saw nothing, and no faint breath rasped through a throat that had been cruelly sliced.
Ulfgang heard a heavy blow, a splintering of wood in the villa, and he raced across the plaza toward the shadowy alcove leading into the house. He saw an eyeless dwarf there, suppressed the instinctive growl that tried to rumble from his chest. Racing toward the enemy, he leapt.
But he did not see the second dwarf, the Delver crouching against the wall of the house. Nor did Ulfgang see the blunt-ended club of metal that whistled toward the sound of his approach.
His skull met the weapon with full force, and the white dog smashed into the ground. Once again metal struck downward, and Ulfgang knew nothing more.
T hey came from the darkness, moving in almost perfect silence. Still, the aged druid continued to listen to their approach. She had been admiring the sprouting plants in her small spice garden when she heard Fallon’s gasp of alarm, and then the shocking, gurgling sound of air bubbling through his slashed throat. Instantly knowing her faithful assistant was dead, Miradel had forced herself to put off her grieving, to think, to make a plan so that she might not meet the same fate.
But she was so old. It was work just to lift her arms, to weave her fingers through remembered patterns of magic. She heard the splintering of her door, a violent sound of crude power and arrogant destruction. The intruders were in the garden, pounding at the front entrance. How could she resist?
She moved toward the garden, following the connecting corridor behind the kitchen. Some remembered sense of power drove her motions, guided her crooked digits through the incantation. Hoping to conceal her location until the last minute, she whispered the words of power under her breath, virtually silent.
Even so, she sensed the intruders halt in their surreptitious movement, knew they were locating her by the faint noise of her breathy speech. But she had reached the garden, saw her objective glimmering in the starlight. She didn’t hesitate-instead, she spoke with growing force, tightened her hands into fists, pulled the threads of magic together until, in another instant, the spell was done. Advancing into the garden, she brought the power with her.
Immediately a roar like the pounding of a waterfall thundered from the basin in the midst of the garden. A figure rose there, a foaming, gray-limbed creature of liquid power. Water compacted into solid form, dropping one wave-tipped foot onto the ground, then another. The being rose far above the frail druid’s head, with two arms of ice-like silver and a face capped by white, frothy hair, marked by a whirlpool mouth and eyes as black as the limitless depths of the Worldsea. Looming like a mountain before her, the watery guardian turned toward the front door.
A moment later Miradel saw small, dark figures rushing around the garden. She backed away, conscious of her frail legs, the tenuous balance of her retreat. The intruders were fanning out to come at her from both sides, wicked metallic warriors with helmets covering their entire faces. Immediately, she knew these were the deadly Unmirrored Dwarves.
The water-creature lashed out, a clublike fist crushing a Delver to the floor, shattering the metal helmet and the skull beneath with a deadly hammer blow. More dwarves attacked, and the great foot kicked brutally, denting metal and crushing flesh and bone. She heard groans, sensed the fear as her attackers shrank back, hesitating.
“Go-drive them back!” Miradel ordered, her voice strong and commanding. The water creature took a step toward the door, and another, reaching to smash another dwarf to the floor.
But then sparks flashed through the darkness, stuttering and trailing to the floor. In the sudden brightness Miradel saw a stout female dwarf, her grotesque face revealed by a partially open helmet, raise a metal club. Red nostrils flared on this Delver, and magic pulsed through her arms and into the coppery shaft. The end of the weapon touched the water-creature, and abruptly the room flared into fiery brilliance. The guardian threw back its head, gurgling a sound of unmistakable pain. A second later, the being dissipated, cold water sloshing chaotically across the floor, running over limp Delvers, splashing past Miradel’s feet.
Quickly, she backed into the main room of the villa. Next she drew on deeper magic, igniting a tuft of tinder by snapping her fingers. Immediately every candle in the house burst into bright flame, and a crackling fire rose from the logs in the hearth. With another whispered word, she pulled the blazing logs out of the fireplace by the power of her magic. Trailing sparks and embers, they rolled into the Delvers, sent several of the invaders shrieking from the villa. Others flailed and thrashed at the flames running hungrily up their leggings.
Falling back to her kitchen, the druid snatched up a knife and slashed, but somehow the nearest dwarf sensed her intentions and dodged out of the way, the blade deflecting off his steel helmet. Others were drawn to the clatter, hands outstretched, wielding cruel hooks that the dwarves hacked into Miradel’s clothes, her hair, even her skin. With a gasp of pain the druid was pulled off her feet. She grunted, trying to scramble away even as she fell to the floor. For a moment she lay stunned, fearing that a brittle bone had broken, watching as two dwarves advanced with a net of black silk. They raised the lattice of thin cord, ready to throw it over her.
From somewhere she found the strength and speed to rise, leaning to the side as the Delvers cast the net. It swept past Miradel and she lashed out, slicing threads, then driving her blade into the neck of the closest dwarf. With a mortal hiss the creature whipped around, slashing with a curved dagger even as his life sluiced from a ripped artery.
But that dwarven blade, wielded in a dying frenzy, found its way between frail ribs. Miradel gasped as her heart was pierced, as strong arms seized her. She kicked, but there was little speed or strength in her struggles. Before she thought to scream, her blood spilled in a circle across the floor, her mind grew dull, and she died.
N atac turned with a start, his eyes narrowing as he stared across the dark, still swath of lake. The lights of Miradel’s villa were barely visible in the distance, twinkling on the hilltop, flaring with routine brilliance. Yet it seemed to him as though some shadow darkened the fires, masked the vitality of that distant place.
“What is it?” Karkald asked in alarm, joining the army commander at the parapet of the defensive tower.
“She’s sad about something… I can feel it,” he said. I wish I was there with you. He lingered over the private thought, knowing it was a luxury he could not afford.
Shaking his head, he tried to return his attention to the command problem facing them: what to do about the increasingly rambunctious goblins. He knew that the problem was real, that the unruly recruits in their great regiments were running wild in sections of Circle at Center, rendering many neighborhoods uninhabitable by the elves who had once lived there.