“What do you see?” Brule asked. “Are they coming?”
“They’re coming.” Slide nodded. “By evening, the Daewar out there will be up to their eyeballs in humans.”
“The gold-molders have placed themselves to take the first assault,” Brule rasped. “So let them take it. We can attack from the flank, after they’ve slowed them down.”
To one side, Glome the Assassin turned and spat, “Shut up over there. We have better things to think about than fighting humans.” He turned back to Twist Cutshank, and all the rest turned to listen.
“The time is here to deal with the Daewar,” Glome told the chieftain. “My spies have been on the slopes of Sky’s End, as I told you. The citadel there is poorly guarded. The gold-molders are spending all their time delving into the mountain behind their fortifications. The spies believe they are expanding their city, deeper into the mountain.”
“They can still fight,” Twist Cutshank rumbled. “Don’t forget the beating we took last time we tried an attack, Glome.”
“That?” Glome growled. “That was no attack. That was a fiasco. Your old chieftain, Crouch Redfire, was an idiot, trying to raid Daebardin when Olim Goldbuckle and all his troops were there.”
“So what makes it different now?” Twist glared. “A Daewar patrol on the defense line?”
Glome pointed southward, toward the Daewar camp. “Patrol? That is no mere patrol out there. I got close and looked around. That is Goldbuckle himself, with Gem Bluesleeve and most of his army. That isn’t a hundred or so Daewar out there. That is a thousand or more — right out in the open, on Theiwar territory.”
“So what are you suggesting?” Twist stared at Glome. “That we withdraw and go loot Daebardin while their prince is away?”
“More than that,” Glome said. “First let them get bloodied by the humans. Let the Daewar take the brunt of today’s assault — and tomorrow’s, if there is one. Then, when Goldbuckle is weak, we can easily finish him off. After that, nothing stands between us and the treasures of Daebardin.”
“Treasures none of us have ever seen,” Twist pointed out. “We’re not even sure they have treasures.”
“Of course they have treasures!” Glome snapped. “Look at them! Every Daewar you ever saw wears a fortune in armor alone. And if they didn’t have treasure, why would they have been delving all these years over on Sky’s End? The rubble heaps below their citadel are enormous! They must be building an entire city under that mountain. Why would they do that, except to fortify, to protect vast treasures?”
“I’d like to see that undermountain city,” Twist Cutshank admitted. “Treasures, huh? Maybe so.”
“That place must be huge by now,” Glome nodded. “A fortress for a king, possibly?”
“King? There are no kings in Kal-Thax!”
“But maybe Olim Goldbuckle wants to be one,” Glome purred. “Have you thought about that? About the possibility of bowing before a bloody Daewar? Maybe that is why the gold-molders dig. Maybe when they have their fortress completed they intend to conquer all the thanes. Would you enjoy having that rusty gold-molder’s foot on your neck, Twist Cutshank?” Glome turned, looking at the others. There were dozens of Theiwar on the ledge now. “Would any Theiwar willingly bow to a Daewar king?” he asked. “I say Olim Goldbuckle intends to be king of Kal-Thax, and if we want to stop him, we must strike first!”
It was a powerful argument, and none could deny it. Slide Tolec’s brows lowered, though, as another thought crossed his mind. Maybe someone in Kal-Thax did want to become king. But was it the prince of the Daewar? Or was it, just possibly, someone else?
Twist Cutshank was gazing at Glome. “Are you suggesting we betray a defense, Glome?” he asked. “That would be breaking the pact.”
“We won’t let humans in,” Glome explained. “We’ll just let the Daewar do all the fighting.”
“And if the humans get past them?”
“Then we will turn them back. But either way, this may be our chance to be rid of Olim Goldbuckle.”
“What of the Daergar?”
“What of them?” Glome snorted. “Vog Ironface knows the Daewar threat as well as we do. The Daergar will join us when they see what we are doing.”
Slide Tolec had his doubts about that. The treaty of the thanes was a sacred thing, and the Daergar supported it loyally. It was in their best interests. Should outsiders settle within the mountains of Kal-Thax, the first prizes they would seek would be the Daergar mines.
Still, there was a bond of sorts between the Theiwar and the Daergar. Many times in the past, they had fought each other. But the rise of the powerful, populous Daewar to the north, in their stronghold on Sky’s End, had brought a tenuous peace between Theiwar and Daergar. Each recognized a more dangerous enemy, and hostility between the cliff-cave people and the dark-dwellers was set aside for an uneasy alliance, and for trade. The Theiwar mined the steel-hardening black stone of Cloudseeker’s lower slopes, and in return acquired the swift, dark-metal Daergar weapons, which most of them preferred over anything the Theiwar crafters could forge.
Twist Cutshank squinted out across the bright, high lands, toward the climbing foothills to the east. The smoke had diminished in the distance, but now everyone could see the movement of massed humans pouring over the far crests. Even at such a distance, sunlight glinted on the steel and bronze of weapons. After a time, the Theiwar chieftain hissed, “There are horsemen leading them!”
Slide Tolec’s eyes watered as he tried to make out details in the distance. There were horsemen there — hundreds of them, it seemed, and they were of a type he had seen before. “Cobar!” he said. “The raiders from the northern plains.”
“Very well,” Twist Cutshank decided. “It shall be as Glome says. Instead of flanking the Daewar positions, we hold back. Let the gold-molders take the full brunt of the attack. Maybe the humans will deal with the Daewar for us … but if any get through, then we and the Daergar must turn them back.”
13
Olim Goldbuckle knew very well the threat that Kal-Thax faced in this season of massive migrations. For a month, his Daewar scouts had surveyed the border slopes as more and more humans — and not a few ogres and goblins — arrived there, some fleeing the dragon war in the east, others taking advantage of the chaos to seek new lands or treasures.
The Daewar prince had huddled with his advisors as the reports came in, assessing what was happening in the human realms beyond Kal-Thax and what it meant for the dwarves. It seemed that displaced people by the thousands or tens of thousands were spilling across the wide, unguardable eastern borders of the human realm of Ergoth and migrating westward toward the sparsely settled southern hills which bordered on the mountain barrier of Kal-Thax. Many of them, the dwarves assumed, would be caught by the patrols of the overlords of the human city of Xak Tsaroth and sold into slavery — either there, or transported to the distant barbarian lands of Istar by trade caravans.
But others — especially the wily Cobar, Sandrunners, and Sackmen of the northern plains — would know about Xak Tsaroth and avoid it, swinging southward through the hills. The Daewar spies confirmed this. By far the most dangerous of the human masses streaming across Ergoth — harried and herded by the knights and by companies of armed citizens — were those closing in on the funnel pass east of Cloudseeker Peak.
Traditionally that was Theiwar territory, and the Theiwar had dealt with outsiders penetrating the borders there. At times they were aided by the Daergar, protecting their mining areas. But now, Olim Goldbuckle knew, the force of the human numbers was far more than the primitive Theiwar — or even the dour, crafty Daergar — could counter.
“The humans must be stopped before they reach Cloudseeker,” the prince of the Daewar told his captain, Gem Bluesleeve. “We are bound by the pact of Kal-Thax to assist our neighbors in the defense of the realm.”