Following their line of flight, Korinn leaned out over the parapet, but he couldn't see the gemstone dragons once they had dropped down beneath the cloud of dust created by the avalanche. Even after the cloud of dust began to settle, he couldn't tell for certain just what the Masters intended. For the moment, they seemed to be devoting their full attention to restoring order among their troops and preparing for a new assault. Companies of soldiers had been gathered into precise columns and stood ready, although Korinn could not imagine what they proposed to do next. The ramp was closed to them, unless they were reckless enough to swarm over the wreckage of the center loop while the dwarves sent a deadly hail of stones and arrows down upon their heads.
Many long, anxious moments passed while the invaders reorganized. Their new tactics seemed to defy reason: they were not gathered on the road at the base of the ramp but in two large groups well to either side. A pair of alien dragons moved behind each of the two large companies of soldiers. Standing at the parapet of their high walls, the dwarves were utterly silent as they watched and waited in apprehension. Then the Masters stood up on their hind legs, their long, proud necks held high and their wings spread out behind their backs for balance. Facing the wall of the escarpment, they lifted their forelegs in a gesture that was clearly a part of some invocation of magic.
The jewel-like armor of the strange dragons began to glow, two like ruby, one with the clear light of crystal, and the last with the deep green of emerald. Then, with a sudden flash of light, brief but so intense that Korinn had to look away, they disappeared. The light faded away slowly from that first blinding glare, but then the light surrounding each of the gemstone dragons reached upward toward the city in a long, graceful curve like the arc of a rainbow. The companies of soldiers began to hurry forward in orderly columns, forming into long, narrow lines of two abreast as they stepped into the streams of light.
An instant later, they began to stream out of the far ends of the arcs of light before the walls of the city. During the first moments, the invaders spread out across the open fields unopposed, swinging grappling hooks at the ends of looped ropes to the top of the wall. The dwarves began to recover from their surprise, raining down arrows and stones and cutting away the ropes even as the enemy was climbing the walls of Dengar. But the dwarves were in a desperate position from the outset, since they had hardly expected to have the battle at their very walls so soon. Many of the dwarven soldiers were still away from the wall at the hidden defenses designed to keep the invaders off the ramp.
And yet the assault had only just begun. Many of the invaders were not even vaguely like men, but rather strange beings who could leap up the ropes faster than the dwarves could cut them down, or strange, hulking warriors whose natural armor could resist almost any arrow or battle-axe. In addition, there were swift, slender swordsmen who towered over the dwarves, with arms so long that it was difficult to penetrate within their reach to slay them. And then the Masters arrived, sweeping down from the mountains in great waves.
Korinn fought desperately to hold his own on the wall over the gate, standing with a dozen soldiers to drive back the hordes intent upon sweeping over the wall and opening the gate. He could no longer spot his brother, who was off somewhere trying to muster reinforcements to man the walls. For his own part, Korinn thought it was already too late to hold the wall, perhaps even too late for the defenders along die wall to retreat back to the passage to the lower city. Still he fought on with grim fury, sweeping his ax from side to side to snap the ropes of the hooks that were being flung over the parapet, then turning to engage in fierce battle with some alien warrior.
Suddenly the attackers fell back from the gate wall so abruptly that Korinn and his fellow defenders glanced about in surprise, so caught up the fierceness of the battle that for a moment they did not understand what had happened. Korinn turned sharply and saw that one of the largest of the gemstone dragons, a jade, was approaching the gate of the city, snapping its broad wings in quick, powerful strokes as it landed at the top of the ramp. The dragon waited for a long moment, folding away its wings while it was joined by the terrible creatures ihat served as its bodyguards, slender creatures not unlike wyverns. They were quick, darting flyers but could also stalk swiftly on their long hind legs, bearing broad-headed spears in their claws.
Rising to its hind legs, the jade dragon suddenly hurtled itself forward toward the gate. Korinn and his dwarven companions leapt aside. The parapet over the gate had suddenly become a very unsafe place to be, and consequently they failed to see the jade dragon's actually attack. A tremendous blow crashed like thunder against the timbers of the gate. The crossbars snapped, and the portals were nearly broken free from their hinges. The walls of the city shook from the impact, and the parapet above the gate cracked and collapsed in a shower of splintered stone.
Two more gemstone dragons arrived, and they rose to their hind legs to take hold of the shattered portals and force them open, sweeping aside the broken stone of the crumbled parapet. The jade dragon forced its way through into the gate yard, intent upon tearing open the inner gate as well. It had only just stepped through the gate when the floor suddenly broke open, dropping the creature into a deep pit filled with sharp spikes.
The pits had been built with the intention of trapping enemies on the central bridge, but both of the pits were more than large enough to contain a dragon. Dorinn had ordered the supports holding the retractable platforms to be deliberately weakened. The jade dragon disappeared into the darkness of the pits and fell screaming upon the spikes far below.
Some of the dwarves cheered, but the celebration was halfhearted at best. They had managed to slay one of the Masters almost by chance, but the upper dity would fall in a matter of minutes. Korinn did not wait to see how the remaining gemstone dragons would respond, hurrying the remaining defenders off the wall back toward the city. Now that the gate parapet had fallen, they could easily find themselves trapped, with no way to retreat back to the main wall. Glancing briefly over his shoulder, Korinn had the impression that the Masters were everywhere, at least a score of them crawling over the front of the escarpment and physically tearing away the defenses along the wall so that their forces could pour into the city.
Then the sounds of battle died away, and Korinn paused at the doorway of the wall tower to stare. The Masters had stopped short in their destruction, lifting their long necks to stare toward the north. They roared in fury and frustration, a final, futile challenge before they reluctantly drew back from the walls of Dengar to face a new challenge. Moments later the first of wave upon wave of dragons hurtled down from the north and east, red, black, and gold dragons of their own world rushing into battle with swift strokes of their wings.
Holding aloft their shields and weapons, the defenders of Dengar shouted encouragement to their unexpected allies. For the first time in the history of their race, dwarves cheered and laughed to see dragons descending upon their city, and wept with joy to see as if for the first time the grace and beauty of those warriors of the wind.
CHAPTER TEN
Less than a score of gemstone dragons were gathered either above or below the escarpment of the city of Dengar, and yet i hey seemed determined to stand their ground, even though whole companies of dragons, several hundred strong, were approaching swiftly from the north and east. At least the assault on the walls of the city had faltered while the invading army was left without direction, unable to decide on their own whether to continue with their assault or stand by their Masters.