Mhurren did not intend to repeat the mistakes of chieftains before him. There would be no siege against the Anvil. Instead, he meant to storm the stronghold before dawn.
“Bring the Vaasan here,” he told his Skull Guards. One of the warriors dipped his spear and jogged off into the smoke and darkness. A few minutes later, he returned with the Warlock Knight Terov. The human wore his battle armor of black plate with the ram’s head helm, but he seemed to handle the weight of the steel well. Several Vaasan knights accompanied their lord-likely to protect him from any sudden misunderstandings with his Bloody Skull allies.
The human glanced up at the walls, measuring the likelihood of an arrow from the ramparts, and then turned his back on the defenders contemptuously. “Well done, Warchief Mhurren,” he said. “You have boxed the badger in its den. Will you smoke him out, or do you have something else in mind?”
“We have not yet tested our new Vaasan mail,” Mhurren answered. He had kept his own armor, which included heavy plates worked in the form of snarling demon faces over the mail he routinely wore, simply because he didn’t want his warriors to think he’d become too close to the Vaasans. But eight hundred of his best spearmen had traded their leather jerkins and crude scale shirts for the strong Vaasan hauberks, helms, and greaves. Since the Glister-folk had not defended their palisade or town, Mhurren hadn’t yet had the opportunity to see how it stood up in battle-but he knew good steel, and Terov hadn’t stinted on his promise. “I will take the Anvil before sunrise.”
Terov nodded. “Your warriors came here for a fight, and they haven’t had one yet. Better to give them one before they decide they’re content with burning the town.”
“You understand us well,” Mhurren answered grudgingly.
“How can I help?”
Mhurren pointed at the gatehouse. “First, I want them blinded. Use your magic to conjure a fog or smoke before the gate, so that Guld and his ogres can get close without being feathered with arrows. Then, when I signal, I want your manticores and wyverns to rake the defenders from the walltop to the north, there.”
The Warlock Knight nodded. “What of the giants?”
“With my Bloody Skulls. Guld might force the gate, but the north wall is the attack that will carry.”
“As you say, then. I will conjure you a fog. Send your orders to our monster handlers, and they will see to it that the flyers do as you command.” Terov glanced once more at the battlements and strode away with his guards in tow.
Mhurren growled in approval and turned away from the stronghold. “Messengers!” he called. Young warriors not quite grown enough to stand shield-to-shield in the tribe’s muster leaped to their feet, ready for their duties. Mhurren quickly gave his commands, made each messenger repeat his orders twice, and sent them on their way-most to Bloody Skull warbands, two to Guld the ogre, two to Kraashk of the Red Claws, others to the Vaasans’ monsters. Then he settled down to wait. He would do nothing until he received word back that his orders had been delivered.
One by one, his messengers returned. In the town below he began to hear the sounds of movement amid the roaring and crackle of the flames, the heavy tramp of armored feet, and the shouts of harsh voices. Sharp whipcracks echoed through the darkness as leaders and priests beat and bludgeoned overeager pillagers away from the meager prizes they had already found and brought them back into battle order.
“Dawn approaches,” Sutha said. Mhurren glanced eastward. Pearly gray streaks were beginning to lighten the sky. Sunrise was not more than an hour away.
“No matter.” He looked over to his drummers and said, “Beat the first signal.”
The drummers seized their mallets and struck a long, slow roll on their massive instruments. Each wardrum was a good five feet across, its voice so deep and powerful that it could carry for miles in the right conditions. In Glister’s narrow vale the high stone cliffs surrounding the town caught the heavy thoom-thooooom beats and threw them back until it seemed the whole town quivered in response. Then Mhurren slashed his hand, and the drummers fell silent.
From somewhere off to his right, he heard a human voice calling out some sort of invocation. A single torch came hurling out from the shadows of the buildings in that direction, clattering to the ground a short distance in front of the gatehouse. For a moment the torch simply guttered there on the ground, and Mhurren’s brow furrowed as he wondered if that paltry gesture was all that Terov could provide in the way of magic. But then the torch began to smoke, to smoke heavily, and in the space of a few heartbeats it began to produce immense, thick, yellow-gray billows that heaped up over the spot where it lay, quickly hiding it. Two more torches arced through the night and landed on the hillside by the foot of the wall and began to smoke as well. In moments the whole wall facing Mhurren was obscured by the growing cloud. Cries of consternation rose from the dwarves and humans defending the wall.
“Now for Guld’s part,” Mhurren said. “The second signal, now!”
Again the drummers began their ominous beat and scores of great, bellowing roars erupted in response. The Skullsmasher ogres rushed out into the open from where they had waited, swarming up the path to the gatehouse. Each ogre stood almost ten feet tall, with long, powerful arms and short, crooked legs. Many carried huge hide shields larger than a full-grown man or orc, and these led the way for their fellows. None of the Skullsmashers wore much armor, trusting instead to their size and thick hides to protect them from arrows and spears. In the middle of the ogre assault, a dozen of the hulking beasts carried a crude ram-a tree trunk thirty feet long. They vanished into the smoke, and a moment later the first great thudding boom! echoed from the Anvil’s gate. Stray arrows hissed out of the smoke, some finding ogre flesh, others simply disappearing into the night.
“Get ready,” Mhurren told his Skull Guards. Then he shouted to his drummers, “The third signal, now!”
The wardrums shifted from their slow, heavy beat to a fast, frantic double-time as a second drummer joined in at each, striking furiously. Mhurren leaped out and began to run toward the wall, his guards following him. From the dark streets north of the Anvil, hundreds of Bloody Skull orcs poured out in a black river, slipping and scrambling as they swarmed up the steep hillside toward the fortress wall. Five hill giants strode ponderously alongside the orcs. If Mhurren had timed it right, the ogre assault on the gate had drawn off many of the defenders, while on the south side of the Anvil-where its tower stood-the Red Claws showered the ramparts with arrows, giving a demonstration of their own and leaving the walls in front of the Blood Skulls with a perilously thin garrison. Those who remained raised more shouts of alarm and began to loose arrows as fast as they could at the oncoming horde, and the orcs answered with a wild sea of battle cries, shouts, and screams of murderous rage.
A wild arrow whistled out of the darkness; Mhurren caught it on his shield and kept going. Nearby, one of his Skull Guards suddenly screeched and dropped kicking to the ground, shot through the eye by a lucky or skilled archer. The defenders began to drop heavy stones from the battlements; even if they found no orc directly underneath, the stones bounced and rolled down the steep hillside with enough force to snap the legs or crush the ribs of those warriors who didn’t see them coming.