Harn didn’t have to wait for long. He sensed the monster almost instantly because of the chill that brushed against his skin even before he saw the minion. In the darkness, his first visual clue was the pair of red eyes, glowing like embers, that flashed open just a few feet before his face. The Neidar gradually discerned that the monster was hovering in air, just beyond the top of the precipice, and that it regarded the hill dwarf commander with a curious expression. Those black, batlike wings flapped slowly, a leisurely cadence that was surely not enough, by itself, to float the massive creature in the air.
“You have made your plans,” the creature stated in its eerily dry voice, so suggestive of wind rustling through the limbs of winter-barren trees.
“I have. My army is eager and ready to strike on the morrow. I personally will lead the first charge and you will see that the gates fall before me. Is that not correct?” he said.
The creature responded with an elaborate and somewhat disconcerting shrug. “That may not be necessary after all,” it replied.
“Those gates are supposed to be ten feet thick!” objected Harn Poleaxe, who was not used to being challenged. “We have no siege engines, no war machines. If, I tell you, the gates are closed, we won’t be able to get in! They must be taken down! You must do as I say!”
“I must do nothing!” replied the monster. Its voice did not increase in volume, but its fiery eyes flared furiously.
“I–I apologize for my discourtesy,” Poleaxe said immediately, feeling his bowels turn to water in the face of that horrific rebuke. “But how can we carry the fortress against those gates?” he asked somewhat plaintively.
“I flew over that place just moments ago,” replied the creature. “The gates are open now, as they have been every night for the past month. You may be able to carry the entrance by storm even before the mountain dwarves know you are upon them.”
“If you say so, I will try,” pledged Harn. “But what if that doesn’t work?”
“You must attack as soon as you can. Do not rely entirely upon me.”
Poleaxe knew they still had a long way to go; they would have to negotiate several twists and turns and something of an uphill grade before reaching their objective. “We will be in position to attack some time in the middle of the afternoon,” he calculated.
“Very well. Do so. And if you are outside of the fortress when night falls, I will emerge with the darkness to smite them. But remember, you must attack as soon as possible.”
“I shall, my… my lord,” Harn replied. He might have been daunted by the task before him, but as the monster flexed its wings, Poleaxe felt a new invigoration. He watched the beast, but it did not leave. Instead, he came to him and wrapped him in an embrace of shadows. The hill dwarf tingled to a strange sensation, a piercing joy as the intangible essence of the thing seeped directly through his skin.
Moments later, it was gone, but it was with him as well. Tingling with energy, possessed, finally, by the full power of his dark master, Harn leaped to his feet. He drained the last swallows from his jug and knew that he and his men were ready.
There could be no turning aside, not anymore. Harn Poleaxe, and the black creature within him, would lead the charge.
“Where are we?” asked Brandon as he followed Gretchan up a narrow, winding staircase that spiraled up through a shaft so confining that his shoulders brushed the walls and he had to duck every time they reached another of the ubiquitous, and solidly built, arches.
“We’re climbing the East Tower,” she replied, pausing to breathe heavily. “This is a secret stairway, not the main route. That’s why the ceiling is so low,” she noted somewhat apologetically. “But I thought you’d prefer it to Main Street.”
“I do,” Brandon agreed, gasping for breath. He, too, was exhausted by the climb and welcomed the respite, however brief. Looking over his shoulder, he saw that Gus and Kondike were also weary and panting. The gully dwarf had plopped down on a step, while the dog, tongue hanging out and flanks heaving, watched his mistress attentively.
“Seems like a long way up,” the Hylar remarked sourly. He was still coming to grips with the ease with which she had smashed his cell door after his long days languishing in the filthy cell.
“Take heart-we’re almost halfway there,” she replied.
“Halfway! That’s encouraging. Aren’t we allowing ourselves to be trapped, caught like a bear in a tree, so to speak, if we keep climbing higher?” He even found himself wondering if he could really trust her but quickly acknowledged that he didn’t have any other choice, at least not right at the moment.
She shrugged, which didn’t do a lot for his confidence. “Maybe, but I don’t think so,” she said. “I’m betting we’re going to find a way into the Tharkadan Wall. There’s a whole network of catwalks and tunnels up in the top of that space where I think we can hide.”
“You’re holding all the cards,” Brandon admitted. “Lead on.”
They resumed the climb, hoisting themselves up two steps at a time, trying to avoid noise and conversation as they continued to the top of the tower. The stairway wound back and forth, a series of flights in a column without windows. Occasionally they passed wooden doorways, but Gretchan ignored each of those in her steady progress up.
Finally the dwarf maid paused at a landing, she and Brandon catching their breath as they waited for Gus, red faced and puffing, to join them. When he did, she opened a nearby door. They entered a huge, square room lit by sunlight streaming through narrow windows on two of the walls.
“Daylight,” Brandon said, feeling something akin to deep pleasure. “I’d forgotten what it looks like.”
“Daylight not so great,” Gus scoffed. He stomped off to one of the windows, crossing his arms over his chest while he looked out.
“What’s eating him?” Brandon wondered aloud.
Gretchan smiled. “I think he’s jealous of a certain big kisser dwarf.”
“Big kisser-oh,” the Kayolin dwarf replied, blushing slightly as he stared at the Aghar’s back.
“Gus did a certain amount of uh, spying down there in the dungeon,” she explained.
“Why did you leave me in there?” he challenged.
“Did you ever think that it was maybe to keep you safe?” she shot back heatedly. “After all, every time you were out on your own, you ended up in some kind of trouble!”
He blinked, surprised at her vehemence and her answer. “That’s the curse of the Bluestone luck,” he retorted, wishing he had a stronger comeback.
“Maybe it’s not just luck!” she snapped. “Maybe it’s the choices you make! Did you ever think of that?”
“I-damn it, no!” he admitted angrily.
“Anyway,” she said, seeming to force herself to calm down. “Do you want to go back or come with me?”
“Like I said,” Brandon replied through clenched teeth, “lead on.”
He wondered where they were going. When he looked around, he saw a massive chain rising up from a hole in the floor in the center of the room. Each link was roughly as long as he was tall, with the metal bands themselves as thick around as his muscle-bound thigh. The chain rose up at an angle then nestled into a groove around the outer rim of a giant wheel. The wheel appeared to serve as a gear, and the chain extended straight from the top of the wheel to a hole leading into the Tharkadan Wall itself.
“That’s part of the ancient trap,” Gretchan said, taking note of Brandon’s astonishment. “It’s anchored to the bedrock outside the fortress itself. So even if the towers and the wall are destroyed, the rocks can fall and the pass can be sealed.”
“And from what you tell me, Tarn Bellowgranite has spent all the years of his exile loading that trap so that it can be used again if the pass is threatened,” Brandon said, shaking his head in disbelief.
“Yes,” Gretchan replied. She sighed. “But not just that. I think he wants to open the pass to trade caravans and commerce as well. That would be a more useful renewal of its legacy, if you ask me. Though there are no guarantees it will come to pass.”