Ruberik finally raised his weapon, taking aim at the sec ond of the great pots. This one was much closer than his first target. With another sharp thunk, the weapon fired and the bolt shattered the jar, releasing another cloud of the noxious sludge smoke.
The derro were less than a hundred feet away. Now Flint and Ruberik could see the wrinkles in their grotesque faces, the links of their chain armor.
Flint turned to the Aghar gathered to either side of him self. "Sludge Bombers, throw!" he cried.
"Eat sludge!" Ooz cried as he tossed his vial up and out ward. It crashed to the ground among the first rank of derro troops and broke, releasing a smaller cloud of the stinking black smoke.
With a volley of exuberant cries, the Aghar in the center of the line pitched their sloshing missiles. The jars were small and the hurlers enthusiastic. As they had practiced, each gully dwarf cocked back his arm and then flung the jar as far as he could in the general direction of the attacking derro. Some could not help but tumble forward from the momentum of their toss.
Several of the vials plopped right on the front of the earthen barrier before rolling into the ditch at the bottom, between the attackers and defenders. Most of the bottles sailed a couple of dozen feet, and some had the forward thrust to soar through the air and burst among the feet of the first rank of approaching Theiwar.
Instantly a thick, black cloud rose from the exploded ves sels. The smoke burst upward from the force of its explosive release, then it hung thickly in the air, a moist, oily blanket of vapor. Some of this smoke rolled up and over the breast work, and Flint caught a whiff of it before he could duck out of the way. Instantly he doubled over, gagging and choking.
He tripped and rolled to the bottom of the sloping wall, the
Tharkan Axe bouncing heavily against his thigh. There he lay, helplessly, retching.
"King not like sludge bomb," Ooz said, looking sadly down from the redoubt. Some of the smoke had drifted around his boots, rising to tickle his face, but the gully dwarf merely wiped his nose and blinked a few times.
Flint crawled from the last vestiges of the mist that had seeped over the wall. He shook his head a few times to clear it, praying that the derro found the sludge bomb effects as obnoxious as he did.
Indeed, most of the smoke had spilled against the re doubt, and rolled back into the onrushing wave of the
Theiwar. It crept like a living thing along the ground, clutching at skin, pouring into boots and clothes, forcing its way into every available crevice.
Flint's reaction to a small whiff of the sludge bomb, in fact, was mild when compared to the extreme effect of the gas upon the Theiwar. The derro caught the full brunt of the oily, noxious mist. The vapor was so heavy that it spread in a cloud barely higher than the head of a tall dwarf, flowing like liquid across the battlefield.
The first rank in the center of the charging Theiwar dropped like felled pigeons. The next rank staggered and stopped as the sludge gas enveloped it; the dwarves stum bled and fell, senseless, coughing and retching.
The gas dissipated the farther it spread, and its intensity diminished. But it reduced any Theiwar luckless enough to be caught within its oily folds to paroxysms and gagging. As
Flint had intended, the noxious mist spread into a wedge in the center of the Theiwar formation. By the time the king climbed back up to the redoubt — now clear of the heavy gas — he could see that the thane's forces had been split in two by the creeping stench.
Many of the derro stopped, looking around anxiously.
Others behind them stumbled to a halt. Through the dark ness, Flint saw the neat formation of the Theiwar dissolve into a collection of surprised, confused soldiers. The charge had been effectively delayed.
"Flint — over here!" He heard Perian's urgent cry, and saw her running in his direction. He quickly raced along the wall to meet her.
"Pitrick's savants!" she said, pointing to a half-dozen der ro that had worked their way forward from the far rank.
"We're going to get hit by magic in a minute or two."
Flint saw the savants, clearly illuminated by a nearby bonfire. Their hair seemed bleached almost to white, but it flashed red as the fire flared upward. They wore long dark robes that seemed strangely incongruous among the gleam ing black armor of their fellows.
Flint considered the savants. "Here come the fireworks."
"I've got an idea," Ruberik mused. "The torches are ready.
What do you say we wait till the derro get a little closer, and then give them something to look at?" He gestured to the oil soaked bales of straw before the breastwork. Privately, Flint hoped that the idea he had had during the calm of the after noon would prove as effective as he'd imagined, now that it was the dark of night amid the raging chaos of battle. "That's a great idea!" Perian exclaimed, clapping Flint's brother on the back. Ruberik blushed.
"Let's hope it works," said Flint.
"Of course it'll work," Perian replied, her tone surpris ingly jaunty. For the first time, Flint became aware of just how much of a warrior this frawl was. "When that light flares up in front of them, they'll be blinded for a long time.
They'll find that more frightening than facing cold steel and close range!"
Flint looked at her quietly for a moment, noticing again the curl of her auburn hair, the smooth softness of her cheek. By Reorx, he wished this battle was done with! She sensed his look and turned, surprising him with a soft blush.
Then they heard derro sergeants barking commands, and saw the derro ranks gather again. The foot soldiers surged forward behind the spellcasting savants, the whole mass of derro approaching the ditch at the foot of the earthwork.
"Torches, now!" Flint shouted.
Dozens of hill dwarves raced to the top of the wall, pitch ing their blazing torches down the other side, onto the bales of hay that had been thoroughly soaked with lamp oil and placed along the edge of the ditch.
With a loud rush of air, each oil-soaked bale erupted into a high column of flame, an explosion of bright yellow light in the darkness.
With howls of agony, the savants clutched their eyes and stumbled backward. They rolled on the ground, shrieking and moaning, their wide, full-pupiled eyes temporarily blinded.
The savants closest to the blaze had been most seriously affected. But the warriors behind them blinked in uncom fortable surprise, forced to turn away from the painful glare. Once again Flint heard the sergeants cursing and growling, and the derro started slowly toward the middle of the hill dwarf line.
"I've got to get back to my post at center!" he called, and
Perian ran back to her own position by Basalt. "Good luck!"
The towering columns of fire marked the entire periphery of the semicircular redoubt. In the center, the black sludge smoke still obscured the field, preventing any derro ad vance. To Flint's left, the mountain dwarves hesitated in dis array and confusion, but to his right, where the savants had led the way, the Theiwar officers whipped their savage troops forward.
Flint scrutinized the lightly held right flank. Perian and
Basalt had a thin force — barely one hundred hill dwarves, and half that many Aghar. But all they had to do was hold, since the steep river bank beyond the breastwork blocked the derro advance.to that side. The wall of the earthwork it self would then force the Theiwar to attack upward, and give the defenders a significant advantage.
The first rank of black-armored mountain dwarves reached the ditch at the foot of the redoubt. The Theiwar ranks quickly scrambled through the shallow trench. The glowing piles of the haybales, mostly' consumed by now, collapsed into cinders, but even so the derro were forced to march around the hot coals. They were armed with two handed battle-axes, but they held the weapons in one hand, using the other to help them scramble up the steep breast work.