“What you say is true, Aranor,” replied Gannor, “still they be ever damned to hang back on the fringes, nervously eyeing the brave and the bold. Never will they step up and be counted. Never will they defend that which they deem to be Just.”
“Aye, Gannor, cowards are they all,” mused Aranor. “Yet by that same token they will never fall in a cause thrust upon them by a Liege Lord, Just or not.”
Another great squawking, squabbling cloud flew up and milled about in the slanting light of rising day ere settling back.
“Damn,” growled Gannor, shifting in his saddle, leather creaking, “these birds be not what it is that preys on my mind. Instead it be the Dwarves: mighty warriors. For every one we fell, nearly two of ours are slain.”
“Not only mighty, Gannor,” responded Aranor, “but clever and cunning as well. No matter our tactics, they have anticipated them, and set into motion counter moves that nullify our strengths and magnify our weaknesses.”
“ ’Tis this straight-walled vale,” spat Gannor, gesturing to both sides. “Were we out upon the plains, then would these Dwarves feel our strength. Then would the tide of battle shift to us.”
“Aye,” agreed Aranor. “This be a narrow lieu indeed. ’Tis hard to flank their formations, hard to round on them from the rear, hard to cleave through their center when their backs are ’gainst stone rises, and their sides be warded by the unyielding rock as well.”
“And their pole arms are grounded in the vale slope, and their crossbow quarrels fly through the air like sleet,” finished Gannor. “Too, they have some mighty champions.”
“That one with the shield of broken light,” muttered Aranor.
“And the flashing warhammer,” added Gannor. And then after a pause: “Their King be no slouch wi’ an axe, either.”
“Damn! Damn! Damn!” exclaimed Aranor. “How can such puissant warriors be consumed by greed?”
Ere Gannor could voice an opinion, Reachmarshals Vaeran and Richter rode forth from the silver trees and joined the King and his cousin. Battle lay before them, and they sat ahorse and sighted up the vale and reviewed the plans they had laid the night before.
And ravens and crows and vultures, feathers ruddy with gore, squabbled and squawked and rent flesh, their heads and beaks plunging deep within gaping carcasses, plucking forth dangling gobbets of torn meat, gulping down tidbits oozing with dark blood, their gimlet eyes ever on the alert for predators, ready to flee at the first sign of danger, especially danger in the form of those two-legged ravagers who for some unfathomable reason, a reason beyond understanding, had slaughtered and then left behind this plethora of ripe juicy flesh.
“Kruk!” cursed Baran, “if my reckoning be right, we slay nearly two of the thieves for each warrior of ours that falls.” The DelfLord tested the sharpened edge of his axe with his thumb and turned to his brother. Thork stood with a grit stone, roughing the leather-wrapped half of his warhammer. “On the face of it,” Baran continued, “that would seem to give us advantage, yet their numbers and ours are such that as we slaughter them and they slaughter us our ranks will dwindle down till there be just two of them left alive to fight a last battle with but one of us; and after that final conflict, War’s end will find no one left alive.”
“Damn Riders!” exclaimed Thork. “Yet heed me, Baran: these brigands can count as well as we, hence I deem that after but one more battle, they will withdraw from the field, running home with their tails between their legs.”
“Aye, brother of mine,” responded Baran, “I think you have the right of it, for the numbers of their dead are great indeed. Yet they come from a Race that breeds like lemmings, and in but a few short years their bratlings will swarm upon their hearths. We on the other hand are slow to bear young, and so our own losses cut to the quick. And even though two of them fall to each of our one, in the long run it is we who suffer the greater damage.
“There is this, as welclass="underline" even should they run, still they will hold in their clutch that which is rightfully ours, locked away in the vaults below their keep.”
Thork pondered Baran’s last statement a moment. “Then, brother, I say that we gather our kindred-from the Quartzen Hills, from Mineholt North, from the Red Hills, from the Sky Mountains, and from mighty Kraggen-cor-and march upon these looters in numbers too great to deny, and take back that which they stole.”
“Aye, we will, should it come to that,” said Baran after a pause.
In that moment, the door to the work chamber opened and a Châk herald stepped to Baran’s side. “My Lord, the Riders gather at the foot of the vale.”
Baran raised an eye to Thork, and the Prince nodded, setting his glitterbright shield upon his left arm, taking warhammer in hand.
“Then let us fare forth unto the killing field and reap the bloody harvest,” said Baran grimly, fitting his metal helmet in place, steel wings flaring up and back, buckling the chin strap, catching up his axe by the helve.
Out from the chamber they strode, making their way to the great assembly hall behind the outer gates. And there massed were nearly twenty-one hundred Châkka. And when Baran trod into the wide chamber there came a great roar of voices, and the dinning clack of axe and hammer upon buckler. And DelfLord Baran stepped in among the ranks, and held up his hands for quiet. When silence fell at last, he spoke, raising his voice so that all could hear:
“A band of thieves and looters struts before our gates and seeks to burst in. Yet they shall not gain entrance, for we shall repel these robbers at our door. We shall stand upon our ground come what may. Know this: that we are in the right. Fight with honor the foe with no honor.” Baran swept an axe from the grip of a warrior at hand, and crossing it with his own he held the two weapons on high, and they were like unto the black and silver standard above. “Vengeance for Brak and Blackstone!” he cried.
Vengeance for Brak and Blackstone! rolled forth a mighty shout from the assembled warriors.
And at a signal from the DelfLord, behind them the great inner gates of Kachar ground shut, sealing off the passages to the interior, while before them the outer gates swung open, admitting the glancing golden light of the morning.
Out marched the Châkka, relentless and silent, the tread of their boots hard upon the stone of the foregate courtyard-axes, hammers, pole arms, crossbows, quarrels, shields, chain, helms-arms and armor glittering ruddily in the bright Sun.
And as they marched outward, great clouds of squawking scavengers rose up into the morn, fleeing in raucous panic before these grim destroyers.
And down at vale’s foot sat the might of the Harlingar, ahorse, line upon line of mounted warriors, spears bristling to the sky.
The Vanadurin Host watched as the Dwarven Army tramped out from the gate, scattering shrieking gorcrow and silent vulture unto the skies, the birds wheeling like swirling dark leaves before a twisting wind.
Out marched the Dwarves, across the head of the valley, coming to a halt in a long curved formation: concave, many Dwarves deep.
“I like this not,” growled Gannor. “The enemy stands along a great cupped bend, inviting us to ride within, to smash through their center, as is our wont. Yet heed: though they have tried to conceal it, most of their archers stand along the wings; the crossfire will be murderous. . doubly so from Dwarven crossbow.”
Aranor looked long. “Hai, you are right, Gannor. This be the first time we have seen the jaws of the trap ere they spring it.”
“My Lord,” queried Marshal Roth, “how know we that this be a true trap? Mayhap they have another trick in mind, and merely show us this formation to draw us into the genuine scheme of their cunning.”