as the hill dwarves pressed closer to the lift to watch the fight, they seemed more curious than angry.
Harn charged in a bull rush, and the Kayolin dwarf parried and blocked, skipping nimbly to the side and falling back. He avoided the corners of the square platform, knowing he’d be trapped if he let Poleaxe force him into one of them. The big Neidar came at him again, swinging his sword over his head and bashing it down with the full weight of his brawny muscles and his white-hot rage. It took all of Brandon’s strength to hold his axe up, canting the blade at an angle to deflect the enemy’s blows. He couldn’t hope to stop Harn’s blow, but at least he could knock it aside.
Dusk had fallen outside, but the pitch of battles inside the tower only mounted in fury. The Neidar had nearly attained their victory as the last of the small pockets of mountain dwarf defenders fought to little effect outside the doors leading into the towers. One by one the garrison’s warriors were escaping through those doors.
Harn shrieked and foamed in growing frustration as Brandon continued to dodge and weave away from him. The Neidar watching the duel were muttering their disappointment in their champion as the Kayolin dwarf used his venerable axe to bash aside another series of crushing blows. Out of the corner of his eye, Brandon noticed many hill dwarves making their way toward the great gate and the growing darkness outside, casting nervous glances upward as they hurried to depart.
Apparently Harn Poleaxe, too, noticed the beginnings of a withdrawal, for he abruptly turned to face the warriors retreating. “Get back here, you cowards!” he roared.
And Brandon saw his chance. Harn’s attention was distracted for only a split second, but that was enough time for the Kayolin dwarf to strike. He lunged and drove the blade of his axe down through the shoulder plate of Poleaxe’s metal armor. The weapon cut through skin, sliced the bone of the hill dwarf’s ribs and shoulder, and penetrated the flesh and lung below.
With a wheezing gasp, Harn Poleaxe stumbled away, dropping to his knees while Brandon wrenched his deadly axe free of the ghastly wound. The hill dwarf coughed, and blood spumed out of his mouth. Eyes staring, he looked at Brandon in disbelief. He tried to speak, and more blood spilled. Swaying on his knees, he dropped to his face and lay motionless in a growing pool of sticky crimson.
Exhausted, panting, holding his bloody axe with the blade pointed down, the mountain dwarf felt no sense of victory-only a weary relief. He slumped to his own knee, trying to catch his breath, hearing the distressed muttering of the surrounding hill dwarves. He wondered if they were going to attack him; he didn’t really care if they did. But his ears pricked up; they weren’t talking about him and Poleaxe. They were muttering in fear.
Only then did he raise his eyes to see the cause of their fright. Harn’s lifeless body was twitching unnaturally, bulging and squirming at the back, the legs, the head. It was as if the Neidar’s flesh were a sack containing some writhing creature-a creature that wanted very much to get out.
Abruptly the body burst open, spattering blood and bone and flesh in an explosive spray. Immediately a great shape, winged and black as night, rose from the ravaged corpse like an apparition, looming above the dead Neidar. It fixed a monstrous gaze on Brandon and opened eyes that glowed like the very fires of the Abyss.
Gretchan had worriedly watched Brandon’s descent. She couldn’t hear his words over the clash of swords and the shouts and cries of the battling dwarves, but she could see he wasn’t being attacked immediately and seemed to be attracting more and more listeners. She was awed by his courage but even more so by his goodness toward a former enemy. She’d never known that kind of dwarf before, and she shook her head in amazement.
She had started back along the catwalk when the door to the tower opened, admitting Tarn Bellowgranite, Otaxx Shortbeard, and Garn Bloodfist to the open-sided platform where the control lever for the Tharkadan trap was cocked and ready.
Garn immediately started for that lever.
She rushed to stop him. “You can’t do this!” she cried.
“Don’t try your sorcery, witch, or I’ll have you killed!” The Klar sneered.
“I can’t stop you with magic,” she admitted truthfully, addressing the thane and the general even as the Klar captain moved to block her path. “You have to stop this madness for your own reasons, with your own hearts! Thane Bellowgranite, is this the legacy you want to leave to history? A catastrophic massacre of your own race? A taint on your reputation and on dwarf hearts that will be worse than the wounds left by the Cataclysm?”
“That is not my legacy!” Tarn replied testily. “It is not my choice. We are hard pressed, under attack by foes; you can see that yourself. We must defend ourselves!”
“This is not the way to win!” Gretchan cried. She gestured over the edge of the catwalk to the two small pockets of battle swirling down below. “Look, your garrison has almost completely withdrawn. They’ll be safe in the towers-they could hold those doors for weeks, I’m certain, if they had to. You have, in fact, safely defended Pax Tharkas. You don’t have to go the rest of the way. You don’t need to kill all those hill dwarves.”
“The priestess is right, my liege,” interjected Otaxx, causing Tarn to raise an eyebrow and Garn to curse under his breath. “Each tower is a fortress unto itself. And we command the top of the wall, as well. We can threaten the Neidar with the trap and force them to withdraw, but we don’t need to crush them to every last man.”
Tarn Bellowgranite scratched his beard, considering that reasonable suggestion.
“Don’t tell me you’re going to listen to this witch?” Garn Bloodfist spit at Tarn Bellowgranite’s feet in disbelief. His eyes darted wildly from the thane to Gretchan to the lever that would release the trap.
“My thane, this is a historic opportunity,” he cried. “Never again will our enemies be so completely in your power. We must act-now!”
“The Neidar will be your enemies forever if you do!” Gretchan insisted. “If you kill all those in this army, you’ll be faced by ten times as many, all of them out for blood, next time. You can never wipe them all out, and future generations will dream of blood revenge. This is not the way to peace and unity among the dwarves!”
At that moment, the clamor from down below suddenly dwindled. The reason was the last of the mountain dwarves had withdrawn from the hall, leaving the vast space filled with milling, confused hill dwarves who, for the moment, were unable to reach their enemies. Those enemies sheltered behind stoutly barricaded doors. There was no one left to fight.
“If you won’t act, I will!” cried Garn, lunging to the lever that would release the trap. He seized the shaft and pulled, activating the big flywheel that would tug the cable and pull the pins holding up the trap door. The mechanism of the Tharkadan trap began to groan.
At the same time, a shrill cry keened through the hall below them. Gretchan looked down to see a black shadow, large as a giant and a hundred times more menacing, rise above the floor.
Brandon Bluestone, a bloody axe in his hand, stood alone before it.
Gus had unspooled a long section of cable, winding it off of the big stone wheel. He scaled down the wire while Berta, still grumbling about Gretchan, grudgingly held the line above. Gus swayed back and forth dizzyingly, but he’d almost reached the ledge where Kondike was trapped. The dog barked and wagged his tail eagerly, watching the Aghar descend toward him. If Gus could just reach Kondike’s side, he thought he could wrap the cable around the dog and, with Berta’s help-or maybe even some big dwarves-lift the stranded animal to safety.
Abruptly the hub above him, the great stone from which he had removed the wire, began to spin. He couldn’t know that Garn had pulled the lever, had started the mechanism in motion. He could only see that the massive stone wheel was spinning with increasing speed.
But even though that hub had been connected to the gear itself, bearing the huge weight of the chain, the gear didn’t move. In his effort to save the dog, Gus had unspooled the cable that connected it to the flywheel. The Aghar slid down the vibrating cable, remembering to hold onto the end of it as Kondike gave him a sloppy lick on his face.
But for the first time, he wondered what it was he held in his hand. He looked at the spinning wheel, the disengaged gear, and he knew exactly what had happened.
“Oh, no!” he wailed, slumping next to the big dog. “I broke it!”
The dark creature rose like a black tower above Harn Poleaxe’s ravaged corpse. The monster was taller than a giant, and it exuded menace with its great, arching, black wings and hideously glowing eyes. The huge maw gaped like a cave mouth, studded with jagged fangs like stalagmites and stalactites. Brandon needed all of his strength just to keep his grip on his axe. His knees shook and his guts churned at the sight of the horrific thing.
What remained of Harn Poleaxe was shriveled and ghastly, like a discarded suit of skin. The monster reared above the bloody mess and looked toward Brandon, who felt helpless in the gaze of those horrid red eyes. The
