“The Hylar is dead!” he shouted. “See! He is dead! He who made you betray the old ways is gone, and the pact is broken!”
While Glome’s followers crowded around him, wide-eyed, the thousands from the digs crowded them, pressing forward to see what was going on, yet holding back from the dripping blades of the rebels.
“I have saved you all from the outsider!” Glome shouted. “I, Glome, have freed you! The covenant is done! Kal-Thax is restored to its rightful owners!”
The crowds surged as more new arrivals pressed in, stunned faces gawking at the scene before them. Glome thought he saw awe and respect in those faces, and he began to gloat. He had done it! He had won! “See me!” he shouted. “I am Glome! I am Theiwar, and I am Daewar, and I am Daergar, and I am Klar! I am your savior! I have killed the Hylar! Kneel before me! Kneel and call me king!”
Still holding the lifeless, blood-drenched body of the Hylar chieftain above his head, Glome turned slowly, letting them all see. He turned and hesitated. Slide Tolec stood before him, staring at him with stunned eyes. “Kneel before me, Slide Tolec of the Theiwar!” Glome demanded. “Kneel, and I may have mercy upon you.”
“Glome,” the Theiwar said. “Glome, what have you done?”
“I have killed the Hylar,” Glome repeated. “The false covenant is broken.”
“Broken?” Slide shook his head, slowly. “You have broken nothing, Glome, except a pledge. You were Theiwar once. I am Theiwar, and I gave my pledge. You have broken it.”
Behind him, Glome heard another voice, hollow and angry. “And mine!” Glome turned to stare at the featureless mask of Vog Ironface.
“And mine!” another voice called, from where a large crowd of Daewar had gathered. “I gave the bond of the forge, murderer. The pledge of Olim Goldbuckle.”
Now crowding toward the assassin were a large group of wild Klar, with Bole Trune in the lead, brandishing a heavy club.
“People of Kal-Thax!” Glome shouted, desperation in his voice. “Your leaders have betrayed you! The outlander Hylar led them in false directions! Cast them aside and support me! I will be your king!”
Many in the crowd hesitated, unsure of what to do, their sheer numbers blocking those who pressed toward Glome and his band. Then from the lake’s edge a dusty Daewar delver, his working hammer still in his hand, shouted, “Look! Look at the water!”
Those near him turned. From the stacked bodies at Glome’s feet, blood had flowed downward to the water’s edge — Daewar blood mingling with Theiwar blood, Theiwar with Daergar, Daergar with Klar, and all of them with Hylar — and as the runnels of gore reached the lapping water of Urkhan’s Sea, the water turned pink, then red, the stain spreading outward from the bank.
Nearly a hundred yards it spread, then the waters there seemed to roil upward, like a rising tide. The surface broke, and a figure arose from it, to stand as though suspended just above its surface. A tattered, pained figure with white hair and whiskers outlining a sad, ancient face. As though walking on the ground, though its feet were inches above the lake’s surface, the apparition made its way toward the shore as dwarves scattered and backed away ahead of it. When it was at the shoreline, it sagged tiredly, leaning upon its twin-tined spear, and raised a hand, palm forward. Its fingers opened and exposed a fourteen-pointed amulet.
In a voice that was like the winds in the tunnels, it said, “The covenant was forged by fire and tempered by water. Now it is sealed by blood.” The phantom lowered its hand and straightened. Raising its spear, it pointed the tines directly at Glome, who stood transfixed, still holding the dead Hylar chieftain above his head. “You, Glome. Do you know now that you have completed the thing you thought to undo? Until this hour, Thorbardin was only a promise. Now Thorbardin lives.”
The figure turned away and was gone. All along the shoreline, eyes wide with awe stared where it had been, then turned. Growls erupted here and there in the crowd and became a roar of anger as mobs of dwarves — all kinds of dwarves, armed with hammers, chisels, stones, or whatever was at hand — surged toward the cluster of rebels surrounding Glome.
With a cry, Glome dropped the body of Colin Stonetooth and retreated, pushing through his pressed followers, heading for the dimness of the tunnel that led to the first warren. “Hold them back,” he screamed at his followers. “Defend! I order you to defend!”
Confused and frightened, the rebels milled about, some facing the oncoming horde, some trying to run. For a moment, it seemed they would hold where they were, wielding swords and lances against the motley tools of the mob. But a path opened through the mob, and a solid mass of Daewar warriors charged through. Gem Bluesleeve’s Golden Hammer had arrived from New Daebardin.
The rebels turned, separated, and fled in panic, thousands of howling dwarves on their heels.
In dark shadows near the warren tunnel, Glome the Assassin lay hidden as the chase went by, then crept upward to the cleft where the tunnel began. Behind him, diminishing in various directions, were the sounds of conflict — of his rebels being run down by an enraged mob. But that didn’t really matter to him. All he wanted was a place to hide, a means of escape. He was almost at the cleft when a lone figure stepped from the shadows to face him.
“I know you, Glome,” Slide Tolec said coldly. “I knew where you would be.”
Slide knew Glome too well to give him a chance to strike. Even before the assassin could raise his sword, the Theiwar chieftain lunged at him, and the axe he swung nearly cut Glome in two.
Some of the rebels made it as far as the Theiwar digs before they were cut down. Others fell at the lake’s edge, and others beneath the jutting cliffs that blocked the northwest shore. A hundred or more of them, rallied by the best among them, made a stand at a place that had no name and were methodically cut to pieces there by Daewar footmen, Daergar swordsmen, Theiwar blades, and Klar stone axes.
Two former Daewar, hunted down in the first warren later, were disarmed and chained by Gem Bluesleeve’s guard. From somewhere, delvers brought little silver bat-bells and hung them from the prisoners’ chains. From a distance, the Daewar watched as a rampaging tractor worm located the source of the sound and smashed at it until the bells no longer sounded.
Olim Goldbuckle himself went to the road tunnel to meet the returning Hylar, and Willen Ironmaul and Tera Sharn saw a thing there that no living dwarf had ever seen. The prince of the Daewar of Kal-Thax had tears on his cheeks as he told them what had occurred.
On a bright winter morning, the bodies of Colin Stonetooth and the Ten were carried in solemn procession along the great corridor that was the source of winds, and the winds seemed to hush their whispers as the drums of the Hylar beat a requiem.
They were buried with great honor in the deep, walled canyon that the Theiwar had always called Deadfall. But as Olim Goldbuckle called upon Reorx and all the other gods to recognize and honor those being buried there, he gave the place a new name.
From that day forward, the place would be known as the Valley of the Thanes.
And high above, all around the crests of the great walls of the valley, lifeless figures dangled from iron spikes. The bodies of Glome and his followers had been taken out of Thorbardin and given to Cale Greeneye and his Neidar adventurers. It was Cale’s tribute to his father, that the bodies of his murderers be hung where their lifeless eyes could look down upon what they had done, and from where — when their bones decayed and fell from the spikes — they would be lost among the rubble of the cliffs.