Chapter 23
The Last Bastion

“Damn your filthy cowardice!” Pitrick exploded at the two sergeants who stood before him.

At first, things had seemed to develop fairly well. His regiments had formed with parade-ground precision, and their advance had proceeded with apparently irresistible momentum. It seemed certain that the hill dwarves would be overwhelmed by the first rush!

His eagerness for battle had increased with a conclusion he had gradually drawn over the preceeding day’s forced encampment. He had brooded and cursed and schemed, still tormented by Perian’s existence, out of his reach. But the more he thought, the more he believed that she would be here, in Hillhome, once again within his grasp.

After all, had she not dwelled in Mudhole with the very hill dwarf who, to Pitrick, embodied the pestilential stubborness of Hillhome? And would not Flint Fireforge be certain to race to his village’s defense? It therefore seemed very likely that Perian would be here, too, and this added heat to Pitrick’s hatred, made him more determined than ever to wipe out the town and all its inhabitants.

But the first wave of his assault had been thrown back, and now these two craven warriors stood before him, stammering their pathetic excuses.

“Do you mean to tell me that you were beaten by hill dwarves!” the hunchback continued, turning his savage, penetrating gaze on each of the frightened mountain dwarves in turn. Good, he thought. They face the odds of battle willingly enough, but when I speak to them, they are still afraid.

Pitrick paced back and forth before the cringing derro. He limped awkwardly on his throbbing foot, and the pain momentarily distracted him from the matter at hand. He shook his head to clear it.

The Theiwar commander trembled with rage. Angrily he looked at his shaking hands, too unsteady to bear a weapon or cast a spell. Every nerve in his body screamed that he should kill these two failures before him, vent his fury upon their miserable lives.

But he could not do that. Pitrick faced the fact that this battle would not be so easily won. Slowly, he brought his anger under control, until he could speak normally. Then he turned back to the pair of veterans who had led his first attack against the breastwork.

Around him, the bonfires set by the hill dwarves had mostly burned themselves out. The darkness, thick and protecting, settled around his army again, broken only by the hot piles of red coals. Many derro stood in small groups, gathering around their sergeants, waiting for further commands. Others tended their comrades who had been overcome by the vile gas. The night was a blanket of protection and security back here, away from the defenders.

Before them, however, in the ditch along the fortification, the great, oily bundles of hay still smoldered, glowing with painful brightness in the cool night. The bales had been soaked with oil, Pitrick recognized, and their ignition had been a cruelly successful trick. But, very soon now, the hill dwarves would pay for their cleverness.

The stench of the black smoke wafted past his nostrils. He grimaced at the cloud, which still blocked the center of the hill dwarf defenses. No matter, he would break them to the left and to the right. He would destroy them!

His ambitions called his mind back to the two black-plated derro who stood before him. They watched his face anxiously, contorted as it was by his all-consuming rage. Hesitantly, one of them opened his mouth.

“But, Excellency,” stammered the grizzled battle veteran. “They fight like demons, madly possessed! They have weapons and discipline. You, yourself, have smelled the noxious gasses they cast—and they hide behind that wall, out of our reach!”

“And the fires!” chimed in his comrade. “The savants were totally blinded—and the rest of the troops suffered great pain!”

“You fools! I will tolerate no further delay! Attack again!” Pitrick sputtered, his voice a shrill scream.

“But—” A sergeant opened his mouth to object, then shut it when he saw the look in his commander’s eyes.

“No delay,” Pitrick said, his voice dropping to a sinister hiss. Unconsciously, his hand grasped the five-headed iron amulet than hung at his chest. Blue light seeped between his fingers, and the eyes of his sergeants grew wide with terror. The light seethed like thick smoke in a growing cloud around him, slowly reaching toward the cringing figures of his warriors.

Pitrick’s vision vanished in the red blur of his hatred. He clenched his teeth, his breath coming in hissing gasps, as he again struggled to retain his self-control.

“We attack now, Excellency!” stammered one of the sergeants. They turned, stumbling in their eagerness to escape their maddened leader.

Pitrick took a pace after them, still tempted to sizzle one of them into nothingness as a lesson against the consequences of failure. But that single step sent throbbing arrows of agony darting up his leg, and he winced, forgetting for the moment his recalcitrant subcommanders.

By the dark powers, his foot hurt! He screeched his agony, a sound of fury that frightened those troops within earshot. Then Pitrick limped after the two sergeants. He would find the savants, speak to them himself. Then they would know the folly of retreat!

He located, after long and painful minutes of walking, the six robed figures of his spellcasting savants. They squatted on the muddy ground of the field, pressing cold compresses of slushy grass to their seared eyes.

“Fools! Idiots! Morons!” he shrieked, walking among them and kicking the startled derro to their feet. “You can’t stop now! The enemy strikes us a blow, then we must strike him back—harder!”

“But, Master,” screeched one, groveling on his knees and holding his eyes downcast. “Our eyes … we can barely see!”

“Damn your eyes if you don’t get up and attack!” sneered the hunchback. “Come with me! We will lay them low with fire and sorcery! Stand up, you blathering idiots—we must lead the attack!”

Slowly, reluctantly, the savants rose. They followed Pitrick as he limped forward, forcing his way over the muddy ground, closer to the hill dwarf redoubt.

As Pitrick marched, the pain in his foot became worse, a driving, pounding awareness that threatened to overwhelm every other sensation. But the hunchback used that pain, turning it into a kind of brutal example to show his men the true measure of their race. He marched harder and faster, intentionally punishing himself, sneering at the weakness of those around him.

His own vision suffered from the flaring fires across the field, but he forced himself to look past those, toward the enemy on top of the low, sloping wall. He saw a long rank of motley hill dwarves there, and growled inwardly at the thought that these puny specimens had repulsed an attack of the vaunted House Guard.

They would not do so again.

As he approached, Pitrick saw the struggle that was raging on top of the wall. The Theiwar were advancing in small groups, rushing up the sloping wall, only to meet the sharp weapons of the resolute hill dwarves when they reached the top. Each attack broke as the derro died atop the wall, survivors forced backward to fall, roll, or run to the ditch at the bottom.

“Now,” Pitrick snapped, his shrill voice calling for the savants’ undivided attention. “I will show you how to attack! Without mercy—without hesitation!”

He grasped the iron amulet and looked along the top of the redoubt, trying to identify the hill dwarf leader. The battle raging between the charging Theiwar and the staunch hill dwarves made it difficult to see. Once again he watched some of his elite troops thrown back, pushed physically from the top of the wall by the tenacious enemy.

Still, he only needed to find their captain. Then he would cast a single, very potent spell, and all cohesion would vanish from his enemy’s formation.

Suddenly he froze, his eyes locked on a long-haired dwarf near the center of the enemy position. He blinked, but then he looked again, growing more and more certain of his identification. He saw that it was a frawl, and that she chopped about her with an axe, savagely skillful. Her auburn tresses burst free to swirl past her face.

Perian Cyprium!

“She is here!” Pitrick cried aloud, uncaring of the surprised looks from the savants behind him. Instantly he raised his hand, pointing his index finger right at her. He could almost taste the effect of the fireball spell on this frawl he had come to both desire and hate so much.

But something stayed his hand. The savants waited expectantly as he stared at her. The yearning for her was once again surging through his pain-racked body.

Pitrick reached a decision. He would not burn her—yet. A fireball seemed too fast, too impersonal a way for Perian to die. Far better she saw that it was he who took her, and that death should come slowly … afterward. There was even the chance she would yet come to appreciate him, and for a moment his mind thrilled to the image of Perian, on her knees, begging for mercy. A part of his mind began to imagine his response. Suddenly, violently, his attention turned back to the battle.

“Sound the fallback!” he shouted to the bugler, and, to his savants: “Prepare your spells!”

The brass notes of the horn sounded across the field, and the derro atop the earthwork quickly fell back to the relative safety of the ditch at the bottom of the wall.

At the same time his eyes flickered to Perian again. Later, he told himself. Later I will have her. I will find her and, by magic or might, claim her.

“Now!” cried Pitrick. “Destroy them!”

His hand clasped the medallion. Blue light spilled forth, illuminating the hunchbacked derro with a chilling outline as he launched his spell.

Violent magic exploded.

Basalt stood atop the redoubt on the right side of the position, raising his axe, bashing the mountain dwarves, standing firm. The battle had lasted less than an hour so far, yet it felt as though his life had always consisted of this same muscle-aching combat, the ringing cacophony of pain and death.

At first, terror had consumed him, and every blow he struck had been a matter of insuring his own personal survival. But, with each victory over an individual derro, his confidence had grown, and with it his rage. Now he struck with cold, deadly anger, slaying to avenge his father, Moldoon, and all the other unnamed dwarves that he knew were dying around him.

Perian fought nearby, astonishing the young hill dwarf with her skill and tenacity. She shouted hoarsely at her former comrades. The black-armored mountain dwarves who recognized their former captain hesitated for but a moment before they tried to close with her. But their hesitation was crucial. Swinging her axe with bone-crushing force, she managed to fend off all their attacks.

Basalt saw a mountain dwarf gain the top of the rampart between himself and Perian. The warrior raised his bloody axe and turned toward the frawl. Basalt twisted to his rear and swept the Theiwar from the breastwork with the savage cut of his axe.

“Fine work!” said Perian with a grin. Her face, flushed with exertion, showed a glow of exhilaration at the intensity of the fight.

Suddenly a bugle sounded, and the mountain dwarves fell back from the breastwork. We stopped them again! Basalt cried inwardly with relief. But Perian spotted six figures moving forward through the ranks of the thanes troops. Then, beside them she saw the dark, twisted figure of her worst nemesis—it could only be Pitrick. She stared, momentarily uncertain of the threat, but then she saw the wash of blue light and her panic galvanized her into desperate action.

“Get down!” Perian cried, throwing herself flat on the rampart.

“What?” grunted Basalt, even as he, too, flattened himself to the earth.

He squinted into the night, seeing a tiny globule of flame drift slowly through the air. It danced forward, toward the redoubt, to a place just to the right of Basalt’s and Perian’s position. Basalt thought that the tiny ball was rather pretty, though that instantly struck him as incongruous.

But nothing could have prepared him for the horror that happened next.

The dot of fire drifted onto the top of the breastwork among a huddled group of dwarves. Then it instantaneously erupted into a huge, globelike inferno of death. Basalt felt the heat from the nearby explosion singe his skin and hair. He heard screams of terror and pain, yet saw nothing for precious moments against the brightness of the fireball.

But then the fire faded, and he stared in dull shock at the charred bodies of the hill and gully dwarves who had been unfortunate enough to be within the fireball’s killing zone. The stench of burned flesh carried past him on the breeze, sickening him. He could not bring himself to believe that those blackened, stiff shapes had ever been living dwarves. The corpses looked like statues carved from charcoal.

Then Basalt saw more sparks, more light, explode from the dark-robed dwarves. The hill dwarf looked up in shock as crackling bolts of energy hissed and exploded over his head. With horror he saw a pair of hill dwarves—lifelong neighbors—fall lifeless, slain instantly by the strike of the magic. Screams erupted from the line, and Basalt sensed panic arising in his own heart.

The savants chanted a new sound, and hail erupted from the clear skies overhead to pummel those on the breastwork. Basalt clapped his hands over his head and pressed his face into the dirt, waiting for this nightmare to end.

Large round stones of ice hammered his body, smashing against his skin, numbing his hands, pounding a savage cadence of pain into his skull. He cried out with agony as a large ice ball cracked his elbow, and when another pounded him brutally in the kidney. Holding his breath and gritting his teeth, Basalt struggled to maintain consciousness, knowing that he could not stand another minute of this punishment.

The unnatural storm ceased as suddenly as it had started. For a moment a low, rumbling stillness fell over the field—not exactly silence, for many Aghar and hill dwarves groaned in pain along the ice-hammered redoubt. Basalt winced as he struggled to his knees, seeing other dwarves slowly climbing to their feet. We’ve got to hold them off, he told himself.

“Wait!” hissed Perian, pushing him back down.

Now the hill dwarf heard the sharp clunk of heavy crossbow fire. Metal bolts raked the top of the breastwork where many battered, exhausted hill dwarves gasped for breath. A few, like Perian and Basalt, had dropped to the ground in time. Most still stood, fully exposed to the lethal volley.

“To the brewery!” shouted Flint, Tybalt, Hildy, and every one else who knew the plan. The stone walls of that structure would provide a last bastion of security, though they all realized that it meant leaving the town in the hands of their rapacious enemy.

Flint stopped in the center of town, watching the hill dwarves stream past. Small bands of gully dwarves scrambled along with the larger brethren. Perian and Tybalt joined him while Hildy and Basalt went to organize the defense of the brewery.

“Damn!” the constable cursed. “I thought we were going to hold them!”

“We tried,” said Flint. “Now it’s up to the stone walls of the brewery. We’ve got to stop them there!”

“Basalt all right?” Tybalt asked Perian. The blossoming fireballs and hissing magic missiles had been clearly visible to the other hill dwarf defenders.

“Fine—he’s getting the defenses organized at the brewery,” she replied. “The magic really raked us on the right, though. I’m afraid we lost two score or more.” She turned to Flint as Tybalt started off to join the defenders at the brewery.

“That many, maybe a few more, fell on the other side,” said Flint, trying to keep his voice level. The picture of Garf’s surprised look and Bernhard’s valiant charge lingered in his mind.

Perian’s soft smile showed that she understood. “And you, with that axe! I could see you clear across the wall, swinging it like you were blazing a trail.”

“Wasn’t I?” Flint asked, grimly.

“Yes. But so many of our own have fallen, too,” Perian observed quietly as most of the rest of their force moved past.

The last few hill dwarves trotted by. Up the road, Pitrick’s marching Theiwar could be heard plainly, still an interval away but resolutely advancing through the defenseless town.

“Let’s get to cover,” Flint suggested.

“Wait,” said Perian. “I want to check for more of the Wedgies—I saw Fester leading a group into the village.”

“There’s no time!” Flint objected, groaning. Yet he knew they could not leave their charges in the village, exposed to the Theiwar attackers, if there was any chance of getting them to safety.

“I’ll just be a minute,” Perian said. “Keep the gate open for me.”

Swallowing his further objections, since they would just waste time, Flint said, “Hurry!” Then he watched as she darted between a pair of buildings toward the direction taken by Fester. With an anxious look up the road, he was mildly relieved to see no sign yet of the advancing mountain dwarves. Flint broke into a run, and soon rounded the curve in the road that took him toward the brewery.

The stone wall of that enclave now loomed ahead, the last battlement of the defenders of Hillhome. But a strong bastion it might prove to be; only one gate provided access to the courtyard within that wall, which was six to eight feet thick at its base. The brewery consisted of three buildings: a barn, the vat house, and an office and storage building. Each of these three structures was placed inside the compound, against one of the courtyards four walls.

At the gate he found Ruberik and Tybalt, together with a dozen armed hill dwarves. This group waited in the street, holding the gate open while they tried to ascertain that all the defenders had passed inside.

“The vat house windows are blocked,” reported Tybalt. “There’s a hundred of us in there, with swords, spears and pitchforks—and also, the Wedgies. I don’t think the derro’ll be coming in that way.”

“Is everyone inside now?” asked Flint.

“This is most of us,” said Ruberik as a dozen more hill dwarves, led by Turq Hearthstone, sprinted around a corner and joined the group at the gate.

“I didn’t see anyone back there,” Turq gasped. “I think everyone’s gotten away—at least, everyone who could still walk,” he added grimly.

“I’ll stand at the gate,” said Flint. “We can hold it open for another minute. At least until we can see them coming.” Hurry, Perian, he urged silently. “Can you go into the vat house?” Flint asked Tybalt and Ruberik. “See how Basalt and Hildy are faring. We’ve got to be ready for an attack from behind.”

The two Fireforge brothers nodded at Flint. Each of them clasped one of his hands and for a moment they stood together in silence. “You and Basalt have given Hillhome a chance,” Ruberik said quietly to Flint. “And whatever the outcome, we’re all grateful for that.”

Flint cleared his throat awkwardly and winked. “What do you mean, ‘whatever the outcome’?” His brothers smiled at his forced joviality, then turned to pass through the gate.

Looking up at the high stone wall, Flint thought that his village just might have a chance. True, they would be surrounded, cut off from escape or food supply. But the mountain dwarves would have difficulty attacking them. If they could hold the Theiwar off for a while—though how long such a while might be, he had no idea—they might outlast their dark-dwelling foe.

Then Flint turned and looked up the street. He heard sounds of the enemy approaching, but as yet he could see nothing in the distant darkness.

Where was Perian?

Darting around the corner of an old warehouse, Perian looked up and down the side street. When she saw no sign of Aghar, she didn’t know whether to be relieved or worried.

Then she heard a sound coming from the open door of a darkened greengrocer’s shop. Crouching, she slipped across the street and looked into the store.

“Hi, Queen Furryend! Get food for fort!” Fester beamed at her, looking up from her efforts at collecting bacon, pickles, and other provisions. The Aghar’s mouth was outlined in white sugar—apparently some of her supplies would be transported internally—but her apron bulged with food. Other gully dwarves moved forward from the shadows at the rear of the store, laden with pork, cheese, bread, and melons.

“Good, Fester—that’s great! But you’ve got to hurry, now! Are there more of you near here?”

Fester nodded her head. “More get hungry and get food.”

“Good! Now, run to the fort as fast as you can!” Perian barked the command sharply.

Fester looked momentarily puzzled, but then dashed for the door. The other Aghar, nearly a dozen in all, raced behind the “weighty lady.”

Perian followed them from the store, looking anxiously up the side street. She heard the tromp of heavy footsteps to the west, though the derro were still some distance away. With relief, she saw Fester and her companions disappear in the direction of the brewery.

Were there any more stragglers? She looked around, her sensitive eyes seeing well in the darkness; she spotted no Aghar. The sounds of armored dwarves on the march came closer on Main Street, but still there were no derro on this side avenue.

Pivoting smoothly, she turned toward the brewery. The structure was visible at the limits of her vision, its tall, featureless wall offering protection. The gate lay just around the corner, and there she would find Flint. A quick, low dash, and she would reach the shelter of that fortress before the attacking Theiwar.

A blue wash of light spilled through the street, and Perian knew that Pitrick was near.

“Come!” The lone word echoed through the night out of nowhere. She heard the savant’s voice as she tried to break into a run, but something in the power of his voice—in the power of his word—held her step.

Perian whirled to face him, ready to shriek her hatred and revulsion. Instead, she took a step toward him. Gaping in astonishment, she looked down at her feet even as she took another step toward the repulsive hunchback.

“I knew I’d find you!” he crowed.

Perian tried to articulate a challenge, or to raise her axe in defense. But her mouth clamped shut, beyond her control, while her arms hung slack at her sides. She felt, but could not stop, her axe slipping from her numb fingers. The weapon dropped to the ground.

Again that blue light surged, and she saw its reflection in Pitrick’s eyes. He leered at her, all but licking his lips, as she stumbled forward another step. Perian thought of the walled fort, of Flint waiting for her at the gate. The knowledge halted her advance as she resolutely planted her feet, ignoring the compelling power of Pitrick’s spell.

But the derro raised his hand and curtly gestured her forward. Once again she took a step toward him, fighting the impulse with every ounce of her will, but helpless against the grip of his power. Perian stared at the hideous figure, cocky in his deformed stance, the grotesque hump pressing him into his forward-stooping posture. His huge eyes gleamed at her, glowing like dire beacons in the night.

Flint! She wanted to cry his name, to fall into his arms, but instead there was only the grinning apparition of Pitrick before her, growing larger with each inevitable footstep. The hunchback planted his fists on his hips, sneering confidently as Perian stumbled closer still. In moments she would be within his reach; he seemed to take a perverse pleasure in bringing her toward him, while he remained immobile, waiting.

Her attention riveted to that hateful face, Perian felt as though she and Pitrick were the only beings in the world—a world that had become very forlorn indeed. Blue light seeped from his amulet, and it was the only light she knew. Blindly, helplessly, she stepped toward him again, and once more.

A few more paces would take her to his side. She struggled to speak, to cry out, but her mouth remained slack, her arms frozen at her sides. Only her feet moved in that slow, doomful cadence.

“Come, spiteful wench. Come, and feel the touch of your master! Come, and meet your death!” Pitrick threw back his head and laughed into the night.

Perian took a final step and then stood before him. Waves of despair tormented her soul. Pitrick reached forward with a clenched, clawlike hand, raising his fingers toward her face.

He touched her cheek.

Pain flashed through her skin as he made contact. His caress was like a shot of vile sickness, far worse than the clean wound of a steel blade. Sheets of agony wracked her body, bringing hot tears to her eyes.

And, finally, the pain broke the thrall of his magic. With a groan, Perian crumpled to her knees, clasping a hand to the cheek he had touched. She twisted away from Pitrick. She was free.

“You disgust me!” she spat, leaping back to her feet.

Pitrick stepped backward in momentary surprise. At the same time, blue magic erupted from his amulet, but the light diffused through the night, out of its master’s control.

“Stop!” he cried, groping for his axe.

But Perian, too, was beyond his control now. She felt for her own weapon, remembering that her axe had fallen from her hands. The march of the advancing derro sounded around her, and she knew that the Theiwar would soon come to their commander’s rescue.

Desperately, her fingers reached toward her belt and closed about the hilt of the small knife—her only weapon. She raised it and slashed wildly, feeling a grim satisfaction as the blade drove into Pitrick’s hastily raised forearm. He screamed and slumped backward, tearing the blade from her grip.

Perian jerked away and saw the charging forms of black-armored mountain dwarves in the darkness beyond Pitrick. Some animal instinct in her wanted to stay, to keep striking him until he was dead, but her rational side told her there wasn’t time.

She turned and sprinted toward the brewery, hearing the savant’s hysterical shrieks of hatred. She did not see him reach for his amulet, though the blue light flared before she could dart around the corner. Lightning crackled through the night.

“Hurry!” Flint cried, overcome with relief as Perian stumbled toward him. The Theiwar troops advanced down the road behind her, but he swept her into his arms and together they tumbled through the gate. Other hill dwarves slammed the heavy portals shut and dropped the bars to lock them.

“You made it!” he grinned, gasping for breath and rolling over to look at Perian. “I was so worried!”

She smiled weakly and took his hand in hers. He was surprised to see that it was covered with blood. Then his eyes widened in horror as he saw the deep wounds, blistered by hot magic, in her back and along her left side.

“Perian!” he cried in disbelief.

Her smile slowly faded.