13
First Blood
From the tower of his fortress, Sakar Kane matched his Third Horse Battalion fan out along the road toward Redrock Cleft, as dawn flagged the sky ahead of them. It had taken all night to reach the battalion and recall them from their outpost stronghold south of Tharkas Pass, and Lord Kane was not pleased that he had to do so. Still, the signal from Redrock had been clear and authoritative. Wild tribesmen had ambushed the emperor's reinforcement column in the foothills beyond the cleft, then had withdrawn to their camp.
Only a few miles north, the signals said. Mounted troops could overtake them there, surely within a day or two. The Prince of Klanath had hesitated only a moment. The Third Battalion was growing restive and sullen after long seasons of fruitless patrol in the brutal mountains south of Tharkas. A bit of action now would be good for them. Besides, if he caught and punished the wild tribesmen, General Giarna would owe him a favor. Sakar Kane had no love for the so-called "boy general," but it was well known that Giarna was a favorite of the emperor. Even the sinister Dreyus, the man they said was Quivalin Soth's closest advisor, seemed to find no fault with Giarna. It would be a good thing, Sakar Kane knew, to have Giarna indebted to him.
The eastern sky was bright by the time the trailing elements of the Third Battalion disappeared into the cleft, tiny in the distance. Lord Kane turned away to enter his chambers, then stopped and tipped his head. What was that noise he had heard? Something faint and far away, just a touch of sound on the morning breeze coming down from the mountains.
He listened, and it came again, vague and fitful, as erratic as the cool breeze that carried it. He stepped to the parapet and looked downward. Below was the inner court of the fortress, and beyond it the walled battlements that faced the bustling little city. On the battlements-and on the more distant city wall-guards patrolled in pairs. He could tell by their casual pacing that, unlike him, they had heard nothing unusual.
Then he heard the distant sound again and shook his head in irritation. Thunder, he thought. Echoes of distant thunder, far away in the mountains. Somewhere beyond Tharkas Pass.
Oddly, though, there were no storm clouds in the clear morning sky-at least none that he could see from his tower.
The old mining camp of Tharkas lay shadowed and almost silent as dawn light appeared above the tall peaks around it. Once destroyed by dwarves, at the time of the slaves' revolt, the camp had been rebuilt as an outpost of Klanath. Though austere, it was amply equipped and fortified to serve as the headquarters of Lord Kane's mounted battalion, the Third. But now most of the battalion was gone, recalled through the great pass for maneuvers of some kind. Only cooks, servants, orderlies, and two companies of footmen remained, and most of them were asleep. They had been awake most of the night, helping the mounted forces saddle their beasts, don their armor, prepare their weapons, and pack their gear. It had been past midnight when the battalion trotted away, entering the pass by the light of twin moons.
A single cookfire was beginning to blaze in the compound, and sleepy perimeter guards were making their dawn rounds, stifling yawns, when thunder erupted around them-an intricate, rhythmic, pulsing thunder that seemed to come from everywhere and sent chills into the bones of those who heard it.
At the cookfire, men jumped to their feet, turning this way and that, trying to see where the sound came from. Then one of them shouted, "Look!" and pointed. On the nearest slope, where the old mine shafts stood boarded and blind, hundreds of short, armored figures were on the move. Quick and surefooted on the steep slope, which would have been almost impassable for humans, the horde of figures raced downward, shields and weapons flashing in the dawn.
The men at the fire gawked, then scrambled for their shields as a perimeter guard shouted, "Dwarves! Those are dwarves! We're under attack! To arms!"
As the men spotted them, the dwarves shouted war cries, deep voices rising in bloodcurdling chants, blending with the rhythm of the drums above.
The sleepy camp came abruptly awake as humans struggled into armor and officers dashed about, trying to assemble a defense. The attack was aimed at the northwest wall of the compound, and armed units headed in that direction, then hesitated as their officers shouted contradictory orders. With unbelievable speed, the dwarves had descended the vertiginous slope and raced across the outer clearing. Now they were at the wall and coming over it-a flowing tide of short, burly figures in bright armor. There were hundreds of them, and more coming behind.
A perimeter guard flung his pike at them in terror, then turned and tried to run, but the dwarves were already all around him. One dodged beneath the guard's sword and lashed out with his own, a whirling, roundhouse swing. The guard screamed and fell, his feet cut out from under him. Another dwarf paused to raise a warhammer and strike downward with it, then ran on.
"Spread and retreat!" a human officer shouted. "Back to the far wall!"
As one, the packed human troops spread out, sword-arm's reach apart, in defense mode. In the field, the tactic was sound. It gave each man room to use his blade and shield, and presented a broader front against the enemy. Within seconds, the human soldiers were spread in a thin double line across the camp compound, retreating slowly as the tide of dwarves bore down on them.
Fighters clashed all along the line. Steel rang against steel. For a few seconds the charge of the dwarves was slowed, but then their deep-voiced chanting rose again, and they pressed forward, shields high, heavy weapons lashing out like snakes' tongues. Blood gushed and flowed in the growing dawn light, and the nearest men could hear the syllables of the roaring chant. "Hammer-hand!" they were saying. "Hammer-hand! Hammer-hand! Hammer-hand!"
Overpowered by the ferocity of the charge, the human line swayed, then broke. "Retreat!" an officer wailed. "Retreat to the wall!"
The human rush to the far wall was barely a retreat. It was more like a scramble, and everywhere around and behind them, fighting dwarves struck and struck again.
"Over the wall!" an officer barked. "This is a trap in here! Get outside! We'll fight them there!"
Of the more than three hundred men in Tharkas Camp that dawning, less than two hundred made it to the south wall of the compound, and still fewer made it to the top of the wall. And those who did stopped there in terror and confusion, some toppling the eight feet to the hard ground as those coming up behind shoved them aside.
There was no refuge outside the wall. At its foot, several guards lay dead. And beyond them were dwarves- long ranks of stubby fighters waiting with raised blades. And beyond these were mounted companies, dwarves perched on short-stirruped saddles atop armored war-horses. For every dwarf within the compound, there looked to be ten or twenty more outside the wall. It was as though the entire dwarven race had come to Tharkas- and come to kill.
As the bleeding, terrified human mob packed the narrow walkway on top of the wall, a dwarven rider stepped his horse ahead of his company. His armor gleamed mirror-bright in the morning light, and a bright, blood-red cloak flowed from his burly shoulders.
Without hesitation, he unslung a great hammer from his shoulder and raised it high over his head. The drums began to sing again, as though speaking the language of that hammer. With a fierce frown, the dwarf swept his arm downward, pointing his hammer at the humans on the wall. Along the front rank of the dwarven army, dozens of dwarves paced forward by twos. Three steps, then they stopped in unison. In each pair, one dwarf knelt and aimed a crossbow. The second set a stone in a webbed sling and began its spin. The drums crescendoed, then went silent. Slings hummed and spat. Crossbows twanged. Fist-sized stones and bronze bolts with steel tips whistled through the air, slammed into flesh, and where there had been many human soldiers jostling one another atop a stone wall, now there were only a few.