And indeed, he felt direly in need of a lifeline. He’d heard from the Redshirts that General Watchler’s men had fared no better against the interior hallways than had Hacksaw’s. The toll was more than a hundred dead, and though both forces had tried to use battering rams against the stone doors, the men had not been able to protect themselves from the deadly crossbows long enough to use them.
But perhaps their luck was about to change.
It took another hour for the laboring crews to maneuver the first of the massive devices through the shattered gate and into the Theiwar barracks. Tankard’s men worked to clear the benches and other debris out of the way, while the crewmen used levers and pulleys to winch the giant weapon along the ledge and right into the interior of the bloodstained gatehouse.
In the meantime, several lookouts kept an eye on the corridors down which the attackers would have to advance. The balconies overhead were darkened by shadows, but they knew that Theiwar defenders lurked there and that the deadly crossbows could be brought forward again within mere seconds.
Brandon and his officers anxiously watched the progress of the Firespitter as the crew pushed it into position. The weapon was large and unwieldy but not so big that it couldn’t be maneuvered through the tight spaces of a subterranean battlefield. The spout of the machine was a long nozzle, a tube of steel, that extended more than a dozen feet from the round body. A portable furnace was attached to the bottom of the snout, and it was capped with a door that one of the crew-members could open by pulling on a lever at the rear of the machine. When the furnace door was opened and pressurized oil shot down the spout, the coals incinerated the vaporous oil, and the result was the lethal incendiary attack that had proved so effective against the horax.
The mighty weapon would be turned against dwarves, something they never imagined. Brandon was suddenly acutely aware that much, perhaps too much, depended on the success of the Firespitter.
“Open fire as soon as you’re ready,” he instructed the crew chief. That scowling, short-bearded sergeant looked more like a mechanic than a soldier, which was probably appropriate.
“Aye aye, sir,” the chief replied. “Open up the boiler,” he called to one of his men, who turned a valve on a large secondary tank at the rear of the Firespitter. “Bring up the pressure.”
The hissing of steam was audible in the close space. Two hundred or more Kayolin dwarves watched hopefully as the war machine rumbled and slowly came to life.
“Push ‘er forward a dozen feet, no more,” ordered the chief, and six of his crewmen worked levers and ratchets, clicking each wheel in unison. With each click, the Firespitter advanced another foot until the spout with its dangling furnace jutted into the hallway.
Brandon thought, with sudden regret, of all those slain dwarves in there-his dwarves. Their bodies would be burned beyond recognition, he knew. But it would cost even more lives to send in troops to bring out the dead, and that was not a sacrifice he could afford to make.
“Open the hatch,” ordered the chief, and yet another crewman pulled the lever that would expose the burning coal to the vaporized oil. The sergeant glanced over at Brandon one last time, and the general nodded.
“Let ’er rip!” came the command.
Many things seemed to happen at once. Two dwarves turned valves that allowed the pressurized oil to spew out of the reservoir while another cranked up the steam pressure. The crew chief sat in his seat atop the machine and sighted down the barrel while the hissing of the pressurized steam grew to a shrieking crescendo.
Then the mist of oil shot down the long spout of the nozzle, passed over the glowing coals, and burst into flame. A billowing cloud of liquid fire spewed into the hallway, roaring like a fierce windstorm, while a wave of heat blasted back into the mess hall where the dwarves of the First Legion were gathered.
From within that long corridor, Brandon thought he heard screams of pain and fear, sounds of chaos and destruction. Perhaps it was his imagination, but the noises echoed on and on in his ears, and he knew they would haunt his dreams for a long time. Gretchan, he realized, had disappeared; she had apparently gone back out to the gatehouse to avoid witnessing the carnage.
The chief held the valve open for only six or eight seconds, though it seemed like an eternity. Finally he gave the order: “Cut!” And the cessation order was instantly obeyed. The fire died away. The steam was allowed to escape with a rush, and the nimble crewmen, working with clocklike coordination, quickly backed the machine out of the doorway.
“Go, you rascals!” shouted Tankard Hacksaw to his men who had already hoisted a replacement ram. “Beat down that door! Take the war right up to them!”
With a hoarse cry, the Kayolin dwarves charged into the hot, smoky corridor, carrying their heavy ram. They smashed it once, twice, and a third time against the soot-stained, smoldering doors at the far end. No archers sniped at them from the upper, scorched balconies. On the final blow, the twin barriers collapsed inward, tumbling to shatter on the floor, revealing a roomful of terrified, and somewhat singed, Theiwar warriors.
When the rest of the First Legion charged through the breach, the defenders never had a chance.
Facet brooded in a corner of the laboratory, watching Willim and Sadie huddle over a bowl of clear liquid. They were casting a spell of scrying there, she knew, though the spell itself was beyond her limited but growing powers. Still, a day earlier Willim would have made sure that she was at his side when he worked such important magic, so she could watch and admire and learn.
As he worked with Sadie, Facet was all but forgotten.
Abruptly she became aware that Willim had become agitated about something. Sadie recoiled from the bowl of liquid with the magical picture still shimmering on the surface. In another instant, the wizard blinked out of sight.
Immediately Facet rushed forward. She regarded the older dwarf maid through narrowed eyes. “What happened?” she demanded suspiciously.
Sadie looked at her and uttered a short bark of laughter. “Don’t take that tone with me, apprentice!” she sneered.
Facet felt a stab of anger, an emotion so strong that her limbs quivered and her hands clenched into fists. Only with great effort did she restrain herself from attacking the elder sorceress, from scratching her eyes out or worse. For her part, Sadie watched the apprentice with an air of contempt, her fingers curled and ready for a duel of spellcasting.
What kind magic was the old crone capable of using? Suddenly, with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, Facet decided that she didn’t want to find out.
“Who are you?” the younger dwarf maid demanded.
“I’m someone who sees what goes on. Someone who fears our master, like you do,” Sadie said pointedly. She turned and looked at the locked potion cabinet then swung back to look at Facet with a knowing smile. “I’m someone who knows,” she concluded.
Facet could not suppress a shiver of fear. How many times had she stolen desirable potions from the cabinet while Willim had been absent? She had used some of them, especially his charm potion, with impunity, often mixing it into his wine. The subtle effect of the potion, she knew, helped keep the wizard’s darker impulses under control.
Yet each time she had made one of her sly thefts, that bell jar had been sitting there, with those two blue sparks flitting around inside. It had never occurred to Facet that the minuscule bits of light might have been alive … or that they might have been watching her actions.
The older female smiled, a thin, cold expression devoid of humor. But Facet felt as though Sadie had been reading her mind, analyzing everything that the apprentice had been thinking and perhaps feeling.