Then, beside them she saw the dark, twisted figure of her worst nemesis — it could only be Pitrick. She stared, mo mentarily uncertain of the threat, but then she saw the wash of blue light and her panic galvanized her into desperate action.
"Get down!" Perian cried, throwing herself flat on the rampart.
"What?" grunted Basalt, even as he, too, flattened himself to the earth.
He squinted into the night, seeing a tiny globule of flame drift slowly through the air. It danced forward, toward the redoubt, to a place just to the right of Basalt's and Perian's position. Basalt thought that the tiny ball was rather pretty, though that instantly struck him as incongruous.
But nothing could have prepared him for the horror that happened next.
The dot of fire drifted onto the top of the breastwork among a huddled group of dwarves. Then it instantane ously erupted into a huge, globelike inferno of death. Basalt felt the heat from the nearby explosion singe his skin and hair. He heard screams of terror and pain, yet saw nothing for precious moments against the brightness of the fireball.
But then the fire faded, and he stared in dull shock at the charred bodies of the hill and gully dwarves who had been unfortunate enough to be within the fireball's killing zone.
The stench of burned flesh carried past him on the breeze, sickening him. He could not bring himself to believe that those blackened, stiff shapes had ever been living dwarves.
The corpses looked like statues carved from charcoal.
Then Basalt saw more sparks, more light, explode from the dark-robed dwarves. The hill dwarf looked up in shock as crackling bolts of energy hissed and exploded over his head. With horror he saw a pair of hill dwarves — lifelong neighbors — fall lifeless, slain instantly by the strike of the magic. Screams erupted from the line, and Basalt sensed panic arising in his own heart.
The savants chanted a new sound, and hail erupted from the clear skies overhead to pummel those on the breast work. Basalt clapped his hands over his head and pressed his face into the dirt, waiting for this nightmare to end.
Large round stones of ice hammered his body, smashing against his skin, numbing his hands, pounding a savage ca dence of pain into his skull. He cried out with agony as a large ice ball cracked his elbow, and when another pounded him brutally in the kidney. Holding his breath and gritting his teeth, Basalt struggled to maintain consciousness, know ing that he could not stand another minute of this punish ment.
The unnatural storm ceased as suddenly as it had started.
For a moment a low, rumbling stillness fell over the field — not exactly silence, for many Aghar and hill dwarves groaned in pain along the ice-hammered redoubt. Basalt winced as he struggled to his knees, seeing other dwarves slowly climbing to their feet. We've got to hold them off, he told himself.
"Wait!" hissed Perian, pushing him back down.
Now the hill dwarf heard the sharp clunk of heavy cross bow fire. Metal bolts raked the top of the breastwork where many battered, exhausted hill dwarves gasped for breath. A few, like Perian and Basalt, had dropped to the ground in time. Most still stood, fully exposed to the lethal volley.
"To the brewery!" shouted Flint, Tybalt, Hildy, and ev eryone else who knew the plan. The stone walls of that structure would provide a last bastion of security, though they all realized that it meant leaving the town in the hands of their rapacious enemy.
Flint stopped in the center of town, watching the hill dwarves stream past. Small bands of gully dwarves scram bled along with the larger brethren. Perian and Tybalt joined him while Hildy and Basalt went to organize the de fense of the brewery.
"Damn!" the constable cursed. "I thought we were going to hold them!"
"We tried," said Flint. "Now it's up to the stone walls of the brewery. We've got to stop them there!"
"Basalt all right?" Tybalt asked Perian. The blossoming fireballs and hissing magic missiles had been clearly visible to the other hill dwarf defenders.
"Fine — he's getting the defenses organized at the brewery," she replied. "The magic really raked us on the right, though.
I'm afraid we lost two score or more." She turned to Flint as
Tybalt started off to join the defenders at the brewery.
"That many, maybe a few more, fell on the other side," said Flint, trying to keep his voice level. The picture of
Garf's surprised look and Bernhard's valiant charge lingered in his mind.
Perian's soft smile showed that she understood. "And you, with that axe! I could see you clear across the wall, swinging it like you were blazing a trail."
"Wasn't I?" Flint asked, grimly.
"Yes. But so many of our own have fallen, too," Perian ob served quietly as most of the rest of their force moved past.
The last few hill dwarves trotted by. Up the road, Pitrick's marching Theiwar could be heard plainly, still an interval away but resolutely advancing through the defenseless town.
"Let's get to cover," Flint suggested.
"Wait," said Perian. "I want to check for more of the
Wedgies — I saw Fester leading a group into the village."
"There's no time!" Flint objected, groaning. Yet he knew they could not leave their charges in the village, exposed to the Theiwar attackers, if there was any chance of getting them to safety.
"I'll just be a minute," Perian said. "Keep the gate open for me."
Swallowing his further objections, since they would just waste time, Flint said, "Hurry!" Then he watched as she darted between a pair of buildings toward the direction taken by Fester. With an anxious look up the road, he was mildly relieved to see no sign yet of the advancing mountain dwarves. Flint broke into a run, and soon rounded the curve in the road that took him toward the brewery.
The stone wall of that enclave now loomed ahead, the last battlement of the defenders of Hillhome. But a strong bas tion it might prove to be; only one gate provided access to the courtyard within that wall, which was six to eight feet thick at its base. The brewery consisted of three buildings: a barn, the vat house, and an office and storage building.
Each of these three structures was placed inside the com pound, against one of the courtyard's four walls.
At the gate he found Ruberik and Tybalt, together with a dozen armed hill dwarves. This group waited in the street, holding the gate open while they tried to ascertain that all the defenders had passed inside.
"The vat house windows are blocked," reported Tybalt.
"There's a hundred of us in there, with swords, spears and pitchforks — and also, the Wedgies. I don't think the derro'll be coming in that way."
"Is everyone inside now?" asked Flint.
"This is most of us," said Ruberik as a dozen more hill dwarves, led by Turq Hearthstone, sprinted around a corner and joined the group at the gate.
"I didn't see anyone back there," Turq gasped. "I think ev eryone's gotten away — at least, everyone who could still walk," he added grimly.
"I'll stand at the gate," said Flint. "We can hold it open for another minute. At least until we can see them coming."
Hurry, Perian, he urged silently. "Can you go into the vat house?" Flint asked Tybalt and Ruberik. "See how Basalt and Hildy are faring. We've got to be ready for an attack from behind."
The two Fireforge brothers nodded at Flint. Each of them clasped one of his hands and for a moment they stood to gether in silence. "You and Basalt have given Hillhome a chance," Ruberik said quietly to Flint. "And whatever the outcome, we're all grateful for that."
Flint cleared his throat awkwardly and winked. "What do you mean, 'whatever the outcome'?" His brothers smiled at his forced joviality, then turned to pass through the gate.
Looking up at the high stone wall, Flint thought that his village just might have a chance. True, they would be sur rounded, cut off from escape or food supply. But the moun tain dwarves would have difficulty attacking them. If they could hold the Theiwar off for a while — though how long such a while might be, he had no idea — they might outlast their dark-dwelling foe.