The king could see that the most deadly threat to the defenders was the hulking black minion, the magical creature summoned by the enemy wizard. The evil being seemed to be impervious to normal weapons, and its talons and fists punched through the royal troops wherever they dared to stand and face it down. Brave dwarves were smashed to the ground, their armored helmets, breastplates, and shields crushed and deformed by the marauding beast. Others were cast into the air, their torn and bleeding bodies becoming missiles in their own right, smashing into their former comrades, disrupting ranks, and terrorizing those troops who were already starting to waver in the face of the horror.
Everywhere across the half mile of plaza he could see, deep into the streets of Norbardin where they led way from the great square, and around the palace walls, dead and dying dwarves sprawled. It was a panorama of blood and severed limbs, and above it all could be heard the pathetic moaning of those warriors too badly injured to crawl away to safety, though unable, at least yet, to escape into the stillness of death. The battle seemed to have no form or focus anymore: it was just random groups of dwarves trying to slaughter other scattered dwarves. One pocket of rebels was surrounded inside the wall, but they cut down every one of the king’s soldiers who tried to approach them. Beyond the palace, loyal warriors fought individually and in pairs, often taking on ten or twenty of the attackers, fighting on long after any hope of victory, or survival, was gone.
The king groaned in despair. He saw General Ragat mustering some of the elite Royal Division at the gates to the keep, within the palace walls. The loyal dwarves were fighting furiously, with the rebels inching closer on all sides. It seemed only a matter of moments before they’d be overwhelmed and the attackers would surge into the palace proper.
Then everything Jungor Stonespringer had worked for, the purity of the dwarf peoples, the restoration of the true law of Reorx, his own primacy, would end.
The king’s heart was proud almost to bursting at the valiant courage of his loyal troops. The dwarves of Norbardin stood bravely in the face of the horrific onslaught, but they had insufficient weapons and inadequate tactics to counter the threat of such powerful spells. They had no solution to the depredations of the black minion. How had Reorx failed him when the nation was so nearly cleansed of unholy influence? When righteousness, as decreed by Jungor Stonespringer, was so close to prevailing?
“My master! My lord! Strike them all down!” the monarch screamed from his prayer tower. “Slay them! Kill them! Let the stones feast on their blood!”
But the stones, the mountain, the world itself gave no reply.
Jungor wept as he beheld the fate of the loyal dwarves who served him, but it was starkly, appallingly clear that such bravery by trained and untrained alike would be no match for the lethally armed and thoroughly obsessed mercenaries of the rebel armies.
He spotted good Ragat Kingsaver stalking among his men, exhorting the defenders to greater efforts, and the monarch watched in awe as a few dozen wounded garrison troops stood shoulder to shoulder to try to halt the attack of one hundred Klar berserkers. For the moment the keep would hold, but a whole company of Hylar spilled over the palace wall and burst into the main storerooms. Within minutes smoke billowed from the smashed doorways as a year’s worth of food supplies were ignited.
“Ragat, my general,” the king said softly, his voice more of a moan than a cry. “Would that you could save me again!”
Ragat Kingsaver’s arm felt as heavy as lead. His vision was blurred, obscured by his own sweat and by the spattered blood of the many dwarves he had slain during the endless battle. Still, he pressed forward to take his place in the line, cutting down a leering Klar that charged toward him with an upraised axe. The royal soldiers took heart from their leader’s example, and in a frenzy of swordplay, they drove back the latest press of attackers. For a moment, the skirmish settled into almost a lull as the nearby rebels fell back from the courageous veterans guarding the door of the royal keep.
It was then that Ragat felt the prickling of alarm in his scalp and spun away from the line of battle, staring upward. He spotted Jungor Stonespringer high above and met his king’s eye for a moment. He sensed the despair, the need in that desperate gaze and suddenly knew that he was in the wrong place. The gates would stand without him.
The king himself was endangered
“Hold courage, sire!” he called. “I’m coming to you!”
The loyal general darted into the palace and raced up the spiraling stairs, past the royal quarters, all the way up to the prayer tower. He passed the archers who were steadfastly shooting and reloading at the arrow slits along the tower walls, quickly bursting onto the rampart.
King Stonespringer gazed at him, the golden orb of his artificial eye gleaming incongruously against the sooty, sweat-stained parchment of his skin. Ragat wanted to embrace his liege, to offer him comfort, support, and love-but he remembered himself and his place, so he threw himself to the floor before his despairing lord.
“Sire!” he cried. “Take heart! The enemy grows weary, and we may yet prevail!”
“Rise, my general,” said the king with a strange calm. “Come with me to the edge of the rampart. Join me in prayer.”
“Yes, my liege, of course,” the loyal warrior, his heart breaking, replied. He was no stranger to prayer, but he didn’t believe it would help them in their hour of desperation. He followed his king to the edge of the tower’s platform but then couldn’t keep himself from gesturing mutely at the scene of violence and chaos reigning below. Hylar skirmishers charged from the burning storehouses, carrying the fight into the very barracks of the First Division’s quarters. Everywhere the attackers were making headway, charging through the chambers and courtyards of the royal palace.
“But, perhaps, my lord, your own prayers may prove sufficient. I might suggest that I should be better employed trying to command the troops?”
Stonespringer shook his head. “There is no victory for us in this battle, not by force of arms. But pray with me, as I beseech the Master of the Forge. It may be that we will find our best hope with him.”
“As you wish, my lord,” said Ragat Kingsaver resignedly. He felt a terrible sadness as he rose to his feet, hoisted his silver shield to his shoulder, and followed the king to the rampart at the edge of the prayer tower.
He could not stop himself from glancing down from the great height, and his eyes were inexorably drawn to the sight of the black minion as the monster came to rest upon the rampart above the palace gates. That was when the creature itself looked up, its red eyes flaring as they seemed to lock on the two dwarf leaders on the lofty platform.
“O Master! Lord of the Forge, Fire of the Hearth-Great God of Thorbardin and of all faithful dwarves!” beseeched the king, his voice a shrill wail that somehow carried over the crashing din of battle. “Show us thy will! Strike down our enemies, for they are thine own enemies as well! They are faithless dwarves, full of wickedness and bile!”
The minion launched itself into flight, black wings pushing through the air. Jaws gaping, it soared upward, over the battle and the palace, climbing higher and higher as it swept toward the lofty prayer tower. The monster extended its taloned hands, reaching out toward the small, unprotected figure that was the king of Thorbardin, whose sole eye had been momentarily closed in prayer. But as the words to his prayer died on his lips, Jungor Stonespringer opened that lone seeing orb and froze in terror.