"It was Helta who saved you," Talon said. "Most of us were knocked off the wall by that stone. We were all stunned, I guess. I think I was crawling around trying to see who else was alive and trying to remember what had happened. And there were people everywhere, all packed together, close behind the wall. Then I heard somebody say that you were dead, and all of a sudden Helta was there, with another woman. They were pushing people aside, and I saw your red cloak. Tap Tolec came and helped them. I started toward you, too, but just then a catapult stone fell from the sky. It brushed Tap, knocked him aside, and fell right on top of the woman with Helta."
Pain slitting his eyes, Derkin looked up at the girl's face. A huge tear welled from her eye, disappearing into the mud poultice on her cheek. "Nadeen," she said. "The stone fell and crushed her."
"Then more stones fell," Talon muttered. "The humans must have lofted their shots nearly straight up. Those stones began falling like rain, and there was no protection from them. I remember…" He sniffed, his voice breaking, then cleared his throat and went on. "Everybody was trying to hug the wall, climbing over one another. I was helping Tap get to his feet when I looked around, and there you were, fifty yards up the pass. Helta had you by one arm. She was dragging you, pulling you away from the raining stones. It was…" His voice broke again. "We went after you, Tap and I, and Brass Darkwood. Brass didn't make it. A few others followed, and some of us got saddles onto a few horses. We all climbed on… we could hear the stones still falling behind us. All those people… but there was nothing we could do. Nothing but try to get away."
"How many got away?" Derkin asked, his voice a harsh rasp.
"Those you see here," Talon said, stifling a sob of anger. "Just us, and Tap. We bound his arm, then he took one of the horses and went to catch up with Vin and the rest. He's probably found them by now."
"Just these?" Derkin whispered, looking around. "Only these escaped?"
"No one else." Talon shook his head miserably. "We were just beyond the cedars when I heard the stoning let up. I hung back for a minute to see. Those… those men came over that wall like a flood. Then they drew swords and began killing everyone who was still moving."
Derkin looked around the little camp again, his eyes stricken with grief. "Only these," he whispered. "All the Red-and-Grays… and Nadeen and… and Calan Silver-toe? What of Calan?"
"A stone," Helta said. "I saw it hit him."
"And you…?" Derkin looked up at her, then reached up and eased back the mud poultice with gentle fingers. He winced and eased it back into place. Something, maybe a shard of stone-had left its mark on Helta Gray-wood. The prettiest girl Derkin had ever seen would never again be beautiful. The hideous, torn wound across her little cheek would leave an ugly scar for the rest of her life.
"Lord Kane," Derkin whispered. "Lord Kane betrayed his pledge."
Sounds came on the wind then-the sounds of thousands of marching dwarves. A few minutes later Vin the Shadow and Tap Tolec were kneeling beside Derkin, deep concern in their eyes.
"Hammerhand will be all right," Helta Graywood said. "His helmet saved him."
"His helmet and his woman," Talon Oakbeard murmured.
Wincing at the ache in his head, Derkin sat upright, then struggled to his feet. For a moment he staggered drunkenly. But then he steadied himself and planted his hands on his hips.
"Lord Kane pledged a truce," he rasped. "Lord Kane has broken his pledge." For long moments, Derkin stood, deep in thought, as more and more of his people gathered around him. Then he raised his head, and his voice. "Let there be these laws among the Chosen Ones," he said. 'Three laws for ourselves, and one for our enemies. Let no dwarf of the Chosen speak falsely to any other of the Chosen. Let no dwarf of the Chosen act unjustly toward any other of the Chosen. Let no dwarf of the Chosen take from any other of the Chosen anything that is not willingly given."
"Let it be so," dozens of voices around him responded, while others farther away echoed them.
"Those are our three laws then," Tap Tolec asserted. "Good laws. Don't lie, don't cheat, don't steal. And the fourth law, Hammerhand? The one for our enemies?
"Let our enemies know, from this time forward," Derkin proclaimed, "that we will retaliate. For betrayal, for murder, for trespass… When the people of Kal-Thax are wronged, we shall always retaliate."
"And how are our enemies to know that?" someone asked.
"By example," Derkin said. "We will give them an example."
Hammerhand left two thousand people in the mountain glade-the injured, the frail and infirm, all of the women and children, and enough warriors to guard and care for them. With the rest of his army, he headed north under leaden skies that veiled the mountain terrain with winter's first flurries. Gone now were the brilliant colors of the regiments, the bright fabrics, the burnished armor. With resins and ash, with mineral spirits and crushed firestone, they had concocted dyes and paints. Now the entire army was garbed in blacks, browns, and grays-the colors of anger, of determination, and of mourning.
At Tharkas Pass they found no one living-only the mutilated, frozen bodies of the dwarves who had fallen there. Working in stone-faced silence, the dwarves buried their dead. Under a sheer stone cliff a short distance south of the still-standing wall, they laid the corpses out in dignified rows and ranks and removed their helms while Derkin called upon Reorx-and any other gods worthy of the name-to accept these honored dead with the respect they deserved.
When the brief ceremony was done, expert stonecutters and delvers clambered up the cliff's face. Fifty feet above the floor of the pass, they broke and shattered the stone so that it fell in a rain of rubble, covering and burying the bodies below.
Then Derkin replaced his helm, straightened his armor, and mounted his horse. It took three hours for the entire army to pass through the narrow gate in the wall. Daylight was beginning to fade, the clouds were dark and low, and each gust of wind whining in the pass carried fitful flurries of snow. When they were all through the gate, they closed it and headed north.
Derkin was not surprised that the humans had left the pass, and left the wall standing. Winter was coming on, and humans feared the mountain winters. Undoubtedly Lord Kane felt he had rid himself of dwarves and could wait for spring to open the pass.
All along the way, Derkin conferred with his unit leaders and with those who had served as sentinels above Klanath. Just at full dusk, they came out of the pass on a wide, sloping shelf overlooking the city directly ahead. Usually, this shelf below the pass was a busy place. Here stood Klanath's slaughtering pens, butcher stalls and tanneries, and the mills that ground the grain of those in the city. But now, as the dwarves had anticipated, the slope was deserted. It was nightfall, of a blustery winter day, and all who could would be behind closed doors, staying close to their hearths.
The usual perimeter guards would be in place, of course, and the strong guard forces of Lord Kane's compound. But out here on Slaughterhouse Shelf, there was nothing worth guarding on such a night.