When the lead humans were less than a hundred yards away, slowing for assembly, Olim Goldbuckle stepped forward and raised an imperious hand. “You have crossed into the land of Kal-Thax!” he called. “Entry here is forbidden! Turn around and go away!”
For a moment there was no answer, then a Cobar horseman with owl feathers adorning his helmet stepped his mount forward. “I claim that one’s armor!” he shouted, pointing at Olim. “See how pretty he looks, like a shiny little toy person! And that cloak, with the flower designs, I’ll take it, too!”
Laughter arose from the ranks of his followers, and others took up the cry, looking along the line of dwarves, picking out and claiming various weapons, bits of armor, and personal gear, shouting taunts and derision. Stolidly, the prince of the Daewar stood his ground until the noise died away. Then he called, “You have had your warning! Kal-Thax is closed to you! There is nothing here for you except defeat and death!”
Something in the dwarf’s tone made Owl Feathers hesitate. He had never fought dwarves before. They didn’t look very dangerous to him, but he had heard they could be full of surprises. Turning, he gave quick orders to the nearest riders and waited while they were passed along. Then he raised his sword, glanced each way along the line of his men, and slashed it forward.
Even on the steep grade, the Cobar horses were quick. From a standstill, they surged into a pounding charge in a spearpoint formation that flashed toward the center of the Daewar line. Fifty yards now separated them, then forty and thirty, and abruptly all of the Cobar riders sheathed their swords and unslung their riding lances as they bore down on the waiting dwarves. Behind them, the charging human footmen were a howling mob, brandishing their weapons as they ran.
The Cobar charge closed to twenty yards, then fifteen, and the riders raised their lances. Short, sturdy spears with iron heads, the lances came up, held level, then shot forward as the riders flung them in unison directly at each pair of dwarven guards ahead of them. And as the spears flew, the riders hauled on their reins, wheeled their horses, and raced off at right angles to right and left, veering back to circle around the mobs of charging footmen.
Thrown spears clanged and thudded against dwarven shields, a ringing tattoo of metal on metal that echoed from the cliffs and the distant peaks. Most were deflected, but here and there a spear got through and a Daewar guardsman reeled backward, impaled.
“Slings!” Gem Bluesleeve shouted. From the long Daewar line, deadly stones shot out, driven by humming slings, but the targets they found were not the mounted raiders. Instead, they crashed into the leading wave of footmen, mowing them down as a scythe mows standing grain. The riders were away by then, circling around behind the footmen to drive them forward into the dwarven lines.
One wave of sling-stones did its work, then another, and then the Daewar found themselves hand to hand with thousands of howling, slashing humans, some attacking fiercely, some just trying to get through, away from the mounted demons behind them.
The Daewar line wavered from the sheer force of the attack. But minute by minute it held, and then the tide of battle began to turn. The Daewar line surged outward, each pair defending and countering, moving carefully over the fallen bodies of human attackers — and of dwarves. As the line bowed forward it opened, and Gem Bluesleeve’s elite “Golden Hammer” company charged through, a solid, moving wall of shields, thudding hammers, and flashing blades.
Swift and deadly, moving as a single being, the Golden Hammer drove through the mass of human attackers, scattering them in panic. Then the dwarven battle force turned, circled, and drove through again, and yet again as the Daewar on the holding line pressed relentlessly forward in their wake.
It was too much for even the fiercest of the marauders. They couldn’t get past the ranked shields to attack, they couldn’t block them because of the weapons snaking out to draw blood or crush bone at each thrust, and they couldn’t throw weight of numbers at them in screaming charges. Each time some tried, the dwarves went in under the weapons of the taller humans and bore them down, screaming.
Olim Goldbuckle and his personal guard were everywhere in the conflict — attacking, repelling, and organizing new tactics. In a swirl of fighting, milling confusion, the dwarven units seemed almost aloof to the panic around them. With methodical, determined dwarven logic they pressed and pounded, slashed and cut until what had been a massed assault was a broken, scattered battle, humans blindly fighting and trying to get away all along a mile-wide field.
Olim Goldbuckle found himself abruptly unoccupied as the latest gang of humans fled in panic, and signaled to Gem Bluesleeve, who polished off a barbarian, gave quick orders to his company, then hurried to join his prince.
Olim had climbed to the top of a boulder and was surveying the field. Carnage was everywhere, and some scattered fighting still went on, but Olim was looking for something else. “Where are the horsemen?” he snapped as Gem reached the boulder.
Gem looked around. He hadn’t seen a horseman since the fighting started. He climbed up beside his prince. Far south, near the steeps, companies of Daergar in iron masks were methodically attacking bands of humans who had fled in that direction, turning them away from the rising lands. Gem looked to the north and muttered an oath. There was no one on that side — only a few fleeing bands of humans with his own people in pursuit. “Where are the Theiwar?” he hissed. “They should be over there on our forward flank. That side of the pass is wide open!”
Olim shaded his eyes. “Have they betrayed us? Have they let the outsiders through and betrayed the Pact of Kal-Thax?”
He had barely spoken when shouts erupted on the near lines, where pairs of Daewar turned to point westward, up the rise.
Coming over the crest were human riders — hundreds of them, with the owl-feathered barbarian in the lead.
Gem cupped his hands. “Turn!” he roared. “Turn and defend!”
Swiftly the Daewar line reversed itself, regrouping in the two-at-ten-yards pattern to meet the charging riders.
The horsemen thundered toward them, but not as riders attacking in a charge. Instead, they seemed to be fleeing from something. Then, above and behind them, Theiwar warriors came over the crest. There was blood on their dark swords, and on their dark-steel armor, and through their mesh face-plates clamored their battle cries.
“They ambushed them!” Gem gasped. “The gods’-rejected Theiwar! They let those people through the lines, then ambushed them!”
“I don’t believe it,” Olim rumbled. “Twist Cutshank is stupid, but he isn’t that stupid!”
“See for yourself, Sire. They are pressing their attack.”
“Pressing, yes,” Olim growled. “Right down on our lines. Defend! Defend!”
“Nets and cables!” Gem shouted, signaling. Jumping to the ground, he ran to help.
Like a ragged juggernaut, the Cobar swept down on the thin Daewar line. Sling-stones stopped a few, and thrown nets attached to anchored cables brought down a few more, but the human riders had the slope to their advantage. Slashing and ripping, they went through and over the Daewar line … and didn’t even slow down. Once in the clear, most of them kept on going. For now, they had had enough of dwarves.
One, though, hauled rein on the slope just below Olim’s boulder, turned, and screamed a cry of hatred. Owl feathers rippling in the wind above his helmet, the Cobar leader heeled his mount, raised his sword in both hands, and charged the Daewar prince.