Then, abruptly and oddly, the weather changed. On a day that had begun clear and sunny, with a northerly breeze carrying promise of spring, it changed. Dark, heavy-looking clouds appeared in the west, and the wind changed to the same direction. By midday, the dark clouds were overhead, blocking the sunlight, turning the day to twilight. Then the wind died to stillness. The dense cover of clouds seemed to settle atop the high peaks, creeping lower and lower as the hours passed. After a time, the ring of stone-drills was stilled, and the delvers came down from above.
"The fog is dense up there," the chief of delvers told Derkin. "We can't see to work."
By the last murky light of evening, the dark clouds floated just overhead, low enough that a sling-stone, flung by a curious dwarf, could reach them. The stone disappeared into murk, then reappeared as it fell. The air was still, and heavy with chill vapors.
Hour by hour, the strange clouds lowered. Beyond the flickering illumination of the dwarves' fires, the night was as dark as any night anyone could remember.
By midnight, the cloud cover had settled to the ground, and dense mist was all around. Even the Daergar were blind in such conditions.
Derkin was awakened from brief sleep by Tap Tolec and the rest of the Ten. They carried hooded candles, but the mists outside had crept inside, and the candlelight was muted and eerie.
"We don't like this weather," Tap said when Derkin was awake. "There's something wrong about it."
Rubbing sleep from his eyes, Derkin glared at his friend. "You woke me up to talk about the weather? I can't do anything about the weather. What do you want?"
"It isn't right," Tap insisted. "We've all seen spring storms in these climes, but this isn't one of them."
'Then maybe it's a late winter storm."
"It isn't that, either," Tap insisted. "Put your boots on and come outside. Something's wrong."
"You and your Theiwar intuition," Derkin growled. But he pulled on his boots, wrapped his cloak around him, picked up his hammer, and followed Tap along one of the last hallways in the shrinking palace. Like his sleeping cubicle, the hall was murky with chill vapors. Tap pushed a door open and stepped outside, Derkin and the others following. It was very dark, and very still. The fitful light of the hooded candles carried no more than a few feet.
"It's dark and foggy." Derkin shrugged. "So what?"
"Just wait a minute," Tap said. "Wait and watch."
A minute passed, and then another, and suddenly there was flickering light around them. It was gone in an instant. Tap said, "There. Thaf s whaf s worrying us."
"Lightning?" Derkin puzzled. "Since when are you afraid of-"
"Sh!" Tap hushed him. "Listen."
Patiently, Derkin stood and listened. The others did likewise.
After a full minute, Tap Tolec said, "That's what I mean."
"What?" Derkin demanded. "I didn't hear anything."
"Neither did we," the First explained. "It's been like this for an hour now. Lightning, but no thunder."
Again there was brief, flaring light in the fog, and again it was followed by only silence. Derkin had a sudden intuition of his own and shuddered. "Magic," he muttered. "If s some kind of magic."
"Thaf s what we think, too," Talon Oakbeard said. "But who's doing it? And what's it for?"
"Find a drummer," Derkin ordered. "Alert everyone. It will be morning soon. Maybe this fog will lift then. When it does, I want everyone ready… for whatever is going on out there. Armor, gear, and weapons. And perimeter defense positions, as soon as we can see well enough to move around. If magic is being worked, there's usually a reason." Taking one of the candles, he strode back to his quarters and got dressed.
The candle's muted glow gleamed on the polished breastplate he strapped on, and glistened on his mirror-like horned helm. The kilt he wore was of studded leather, and his cloak was once again bright scarlet. For the taking of Klanath, dark tones had seemed appropriate to the Chosen Ones. But after the city had been taken, they soon reverted to their bright colors. The somber shades then had become depressing.
"If s our nature," Derkin mused to himself, slinging his shield and hammer at his shoulders. "Dwarven nature. We express ourselves with color, the way elves do with their songs."
The fog did not lift with the coming of morning. It simply rolled back as though it had never been there. One moment, the world was a gray, closed-in place. The next moment there was a final, flickering flash of that strange lightning, and the mist began to recede, rolling away on all sides, opening an ever-wider field of vision. Under cold, high clouds in a leaden sky, dwarves scurried everywhere, hurrying from their sleeping shelters and night posts to their assigned places on the perimeters of what had been Klanath.
And as the fogs rolled into the distance all around, Derkin Lawgiver and everyone else could see what the mist had been sent to cover. All around the dwarven encampment were ranks and legions of human soldiers. There were thousands of them, horse battalions and footmen, pikemen and lancers, companies of archers and bolt-men-a full, mighty army in position to attack from all sides. And above each unit were the banners of Daltigoth, of the Empire of Ergoth, of the troops of the Emperor Quivalin Soth V.
Derkin turned full around, trying to count an enemy beyond counting, looking for escape routes that were not there. "Rust!" he muttered. "We're outnumbered. And we're surrounded!"
Part V
Master of the Mountains
21
The Emperor's Road
For long moments tbe two forces-tbe Chosen Ones and the emperor's army-simply stared at one another. Then trumpets sounded, and a small group of human horsemen separated from the massed line below the peak. Carrying a banner on a tall staff, they rode forward at a walk until they were halfway across the space between their regiment and the nearest company of dwarves. There they stopped and sat waiting.
Derkin Lawgiver studied them for a moment, then turned to Tap Tolec. "My horse," he said.
Mounted, and flanked by the Ten on their own mounts, Derkin pranced his horse through his line, and rode out to where the humans waited. When he came near, the man in the lead raised his visor and held up one hand. "Are you the leader of these dwarves?" he demanded.
"So they tell me," Derkin responded. "Who are you, and what do you want?"
"My name is Coffell," the man intoned. "Sergeant-Major in the service of His Imperial Majesty's mounted lancers. On behalf of His Imperial Majesty, I offer you the clemency of the empire, provided all your people lay down their arms and surrender immediately."
"What does this clemency amount to?" Derkin asked.
The man raised his head slightly, sneering. "If you surrender without a fight, you will not be killed," he said. "Instead, it shall be your privilege to serve His Imperial Majesty in appropriate labors."
"You mean as slaves." Derkin returned the sneer. "Most of us have already tried that. We didn't like it. Did Sakar Kane send you people? Is he with you?"
For a moment the man hesitated, then he leaned aside to whisper to the man beside him. This second rider wheeled his horse and trotted back to his own line. Watching carefully, Derkin saw him approach a large, dark-cloaked man on a powerful-looking black horse. A moment later, the messenger raced back, to whisper something to Coffell.
The sergeant-major turned to Derkin again. "I am empowered to tell you that the man called Sakar Kane is no longer in either the service or the good graces of His Imperial Majesty," he said. "He has disappeared."