Thus, it was not hunger, nor thirst, nor lust that disturbed his slumber in the great chamber of his palace. There was no daytime, no night, in Thorbardin, but like most subterranean dwarves, the king was a creature of habit and schedule. He was amid the depths of his sleeping interval when he started awake, suddenly aware that something was very wrong.
Immediately, he sat upright. His lone eye flashed as he glared around his cold, barren chamber.
“What is it, my lord Reorx?” Jungor Stonespringer whispered into the darkness.
He addressed his god aloud, though he didn’t expect a verbal response. But he listened with his ears, with his heart, with every fiber of his being. And he heard the following truth:
Danger walked the streets of Thorbardin, reported his god. It came in the guise of bloodshed, treachery, and violence, and his own people were the source of the threat.
He had taken the step of canceling the obscene, disgraceful Festival of the Forge, and there were many who were not happy with their king’s absolute sense of morality. There were stirrings of unrest. As always, those who disagreed with Jungor Stonespringer would have a simple choice: they would modify their thinking, or they would die.
Stonespringer’s agents and spies provided a steady, if not entirely comprehensive, window into the schemes and activities of his many citizens. His most trusted general, Ragat Kingsaver, had a smaller network-just a few watchful regulars-but over the past years, they had proven even more reliable as monitors of subversive activities. It was one of Ragat’s best agents, a Hylar silversmith, who had recently reported strange behavior among some Theiwar residents. Ragat, ever an independent thinker, had suggested the rumors might indicate a rebellion developing outside the city of Norbardin. Jungor Stonespringer had listened well but disagreed, suspecting that the most likely source of trouble lay within the crowded neighborhoods and slums of the great capital city.
In preparation, the king had posted his numerous garrison troops accordingly, ready to respond to any provocation in the city’s great square, teeming streets, or-the most likely source of unruly behavior-the squalid slum called Anvil’s Echo, lowest of Norbardin’s many low neighborhoods.
The king was certain the attack, when it came, would come from within. He had only one known enemy in Thorbardin who was based beyond the city’s walls, and that was the mad wizard Willim the Black. But Willim was isolated in his deep laboratory, and the king was certain the wizard lacked the capacity for anything more than a brief, bothersome raid. Stonespringer’s spies, who lurked everywhere, in every inhabited city and town, reported no evidence of any substantial rebel force about to gather.
No, the danger Jungor Stonespringer perceived, the trouble that had disrupted his sleep, must certainly come from within his own populace. Knowing he had little to fear, he laid his head back on his thin pillow, closed his eyes, and once again slept untroubled.
It was called the Isle of the Dead, but once it had been known as the Life-Tree, the great column-city of the Hylar dwarves and the greatest of the many wonders of Thorbardin. Critically weakened during the savage depredations of the Chaos War, the great pillar had finally collapsed, leaving a massive stalactite hanging from the ceiling of the Urkhan Sea and a rubble-strewn island rising in a jagged cone from those still, black waters.
For many years that island had been abandoned, left to the ghosts of the thousands who had perished there. It was menaced by frequent collapses as loose rocks broke free from the suspending pinnacle above to shatter on the broken terrain below. The regular bombardment was utterly lethal to anyone who dared to dwell upon the island’s surface. All who traveled the environs of the sea became familiar with the sounds of crashing stone; the impact caused an echo to reverberate for many minutes-seemingly permanently-as the sound lingered, repeating back and forth over the stillness of the sea.
The great cities that had once lined the shores of the sea were for the most part abandoned, left to become bleak ghettos and slums, barely supporting the few refugees who eked out survival in the deepest cellars and dungeons of those once-populous places. Teams of feral Klar dwarves also still roamed the perimeter of the lake, but even those impetuous, wild savages avoided the Isle of the Dead.
Willim the Black, however, had visited the island many times during the past decade, usually in a guise such as a gaseous form that rendered him invulnerable to the pummeling of an unfortunately timed rock collapse. His inspections had revealed a vital truth to him: in recent years, the number of rocks plunging from the lofty stalactite had slowed and virtually ceased. Most likely, the loose rocks had all broken free and fallen, while the inverted pillar that remained was solid and securely held to the vast cavern’s ceiling. In any event, though the dwarves remained superstitiously fearful of the island, it was no longer the killing zone it had been twenty or even ten years earlier.
Thus the abandoned island was the perfect place for a secret army to gather and drill, and for months Willim had been using it for just that purpose. His teleporting spell brought him to the very summit of the cone-shaped island’s central mountain, and there, as he had expected, he found his top commanders waiting for him.
“Greetings, my master,” said General Blade Darkstone. The Daergar warrior, with his braided beard tucked into his steel-linked belt, towered over the black-robed wizard, and the breadth of his shoulders was at least twice that of Willim’s. Nevertheless, the commander bowed most humbly as the black robe mage popped into view.
“Greetings, General,” Willim replied. Using the unmasking power of his magic vision, he inspected his military leader and was pleased with what he saw.
General Darkstone was a dwarf who craved vengeance, desiring to strike out at King Stonespringer with every fiber of his being. Willim knew that the general’s family had been taken by the monarch in the early years of his reign; his wife and children had been killed-all except for a lovely daughter, who had been claimed by the king and offered to one of his lackeys, Ragat Kingsaver, as a trinket for his pleasure. Darkstone’s beautiful young daughter had killed herself before Ragat had been able to take her to his bed. In their rebellion, the grieving father would at last have his vengeance.
“Soon his blood will wet your sword,” the wizard said softly, clapping the burly Daergar on the shoulder with an almost gentle touch.
“May Reorx make it so,” the general replied, his voice thick with emotion. “And I thank you, Master,” he added, once again bowing very low.
So, too, did the others on the flattened hilltop. Even in the absolute darkness of the vast Urkhan cavern, Willim could see and relish the size and quality, the utter obeisance, of his army.
General Darkstone’s Theiwar lieutenants, commanders of heavy infantry, crossbow, and scout companies, stood behind the general with clenched fists and wide, warlike grins, already imbibing the fierce joy of the imminent battle. Nearby, Captain Forelock, leader of the Klar berserkers, stared so wildly around that it looked as though his eyes were darting in two different directions. He all but drooled at the prospect of the coming conflict, caressing the long haft of his warhammer as if it were an object of love-which, no doubt, it was. Captain Veinslitter, leader of the Black Cross Regiment of Daergar heavy infantry, clapped his brawny fist to his chest, while Captain Harlan, keen-eyed leader of the Hylar skirmishers, merely greeted his master with a studied bow.
One other warrior, not a dwarf but an ally of the dwarf army, lurked at the fringe of the circle and waited to catch the eye of his master. The other dwarves could not see that other one, but they sensed its sinister presence and gave it a wide berth.