"They fight like demons, madly possessed! They have weapons and discipline. You, yourself, have smelled the noxious gasses they cast — and they hide behind that wall, out of our reach!"
"And the fires!" chimed in his comrade. "The savants were totally blinded — and the rest of the troops suffered great pain!"
"You fools! I will tolerate no further delay! Attack again!"
Pitrick sputtered, his voice a shrill scream.
"But — " A sergeant opened his mouth to object, then shut it when he saw the look in his commander's eyes.
"No delay," Pitrick said, his voice dropping to a sinister hiss. Unconsciously, his hand grasped the five-headed iron amulet than hung at his chest. Blue light seeped between his fingers, and the eyes of his sergeants grew wide with terror.
The light seethed like thick smoke in a growing cloud around him, slowly reaching toward the cringing figures of his warriors.
Pitrick's vision vanished in the red blur of his hatred. He clenched his teeth, his breath coming in hissing gasps, as he again struggled to retain his self-control.
"We attack now, Excellency!" stammered one of the ser geants. They turned, stumbling in their eagerness to escape their maddened leader.
Pitrick took a pace after them, still tempted to sizzle one of them into nothingness as a lesson against the conse quences of failure. But that single step sent throbbing ar rows of agony darting up his leg, and he winced, forgetting for the moment his recalcitrant subcommanders.
By the dark powers, his foot hurt! He screeched his ag ony, a sound of fury that frightened those troops within ear shot. Then Pitrick limped after the two sergeants. He would find the savants, speak to them himself. Then they would know the folly of retreat!
He located, after long and painful minutes of walking, the six robed figures of his spellcasting savants. They squatted on the muddy ground of the field, pressing cold compresses of slushy grass to their seared eyes.
"Fools! Idiots! Morons!" he shrieked, walking among them and kicking the startled derro to their feet. "You can't stop now! The enemy strikes us a blow, then we must strike him back — harder!"
"But, Master," screeched one, groveling on his knees and holding his eyes downcast. "Our eyes… we can barely see!"
"Damn your eyes if you don't get up and attack!" sneered the hunchback. "Come with me! We will lay them low with fire and sorcery! Stand up, you blathering idiots — we must lead the attack!"
Slowly, reluctantly, the savants rose. They followed Pit rick as he limped forward, forcing his way over the muddy ground, closer to the hill dwarf redoubt.
As Pitrick marched, the pain in his foot became worse, a driving, pounding awareness that threatened to overwhelm every other sensation. But the hunchback used that pain, turning it into a kind of brutal example to show his men the true measure of their race. He marched harder and faster, in tentionally punishing himself, sneering at the weakness of those around him.
His own vision suffered from the flaring fires across the field, but he forced himself to look past those, toward the enemy on top of the low, sloping wall. He saw a long rank of motley hill dwarves there, and growled inwardly at the thought that these puny specimens had repulsed an attack of the vaunted House Guard.
They would not do so again.
As he approached, Pitrick saw the struggle that was rag ing on top of the wall. The Theiwar were advancing in small groups, rushing up the sloping wall, only to meet the sharp weapons of the resolute hill dwarves when they reached the top. Each attack broke as the derro died atop the wall, sur vivors forced backward to fall, roll, or run to the ditch at the bottom.
"Now," Pitrick snapped, his shrill voice calling for the sa vants' undivided attention. "I will show you how to attack!
Without mercy — without hesitation!"
He grasped the iron amulet and looked along the top of the redoubt, trying to identify the hill dwarf leader. The bat tle raging between the charging Theiwar and the staunch hill dwarves made it difficult to see. Once again he watched some of his elite troops thrown back, pushed physically from the top of the wall by the tenacious enemy.
Still, he only needed to find their captain. Then he would cast a single, very potent spell, and all cohesion would van ish from his enemy's formation.
Suddenly he froze, his eyes locked on a long-haired dwarf near the center of the enemy position. He blinked, but then he looked again, growing more and more certain of his iden tification. He saw that it was a frawl, and that she chopped about her with an axe, savagely skillful. Her auburn tresses burst free to swirl past her face.
Perian Cyprium!
"She is here!" Pitrick cried aloud, uncaring of the sur prised looks from the savants behind him. Instantly he raised his hand, pointing his index finger right at her. He could almost taste the effect of the fireball spell on this frawl he had come to both desire and hate so much.
But something stayed his hand. The savants waited ex pectantly as he stared at her. The yearning for her was once again surging through his pain-racked body.
Pitrick reached a decision. He would not burn her — yet.
A fireball seemed too fast, too impersonal a way for Perian to die. Far better she saw that it was he who took her, and that death should come slowly… afterward. There was even the chance she would yet come to appreciate him, and for a moment his mind thrilled to the image of Perian, on her knees, begging for mercy. A part of his mind began to imagine his response. Suddenly, violently, his attention turned back to the battle.
"Sound the fallback!" he shouted to the bugler, and, to his savants: "Prepare your spells!"
The brass notes of the horn sounded across the field, and the derro atop the earthwork quickly fell back to the rela tive safety of the ditch at the bottom of the wall.
At the same time his eyes flickered to Perian again. Later, he told himself. Later I will have her. I will find her and, by magic or might, claim her.
"Now!" cried Pitrick. "Destroy them!"
His hand clasped the medallion. Blue light spilled forth, illuminating the hunchbacked derro with a chilling outline as he launched his spell.
Violent magic exploded.
Basalt stood atop the redoubt on the right side of the posi tion, raising his axe, bashing the mountain dwarves, stand ing firm. The battle had lasted less than an hour so far, yet it felt as though his life had always consisted of this same muscle-aching combat, the ringing cacophony of pain and death.
At first, terror had consumed him, and every blow he struck had been a matter of insuring his own personal sur vival. But, with each victory over an individual derro, his confidence had grown, and with it his rage. Now he struck with cold, deadly anger, slaying to avenge his father, Mol doon, and all the other unnamed dwarves that he knew were dying around him.
Perian fought nearby, astonishing the young hill dwarf with her skill and tenacity. She shouted hoarsely at her former comrades. The black-armored mountain dwarves who recognized their former captain hesitated for but a mo ment before they tried to close with her. But their hesitation was crucial. Swinging her axe with bone-crushing force, she managed to fend off all their attacks.
Basalt saw a mountain dwarf gain the top of the rampart between himself and Perian. The warrior raised his bloody axe and turned toward the frawl. Basalt twisted to his rear and swept the Theiwar from the breastwork with the savage cut of his axe.
"Fine work!" said Perian with a grin. Her face, flushed with exertion, showed a glow of exhilaration at the intensity of the fight.
Suddenly a bugle sounded, and the mountain dwarves fell back from the breastwork. We stopped them again! Ba salt cried inwardly with relief. But Perian spotted six figures moving forward through the ranks of the thane's troops.