dozen more of the brutish warriors.
“Rib Chewer!” cried the half-giant, summoning his goblin warg rider. He pointed at the melee, where the last of the pikemen were frantically trying to form squares or circles to hold the swarming knights at bay. It already seemed a losing cause.
“Attack the knights! Break up that charge!” ordered the army commander. “We need time!”
“Yes, lord!” cried the venerable captain. He raced away atop his wolf, howling for the attention of his men.
Soon a tide of savage cavalry was loping toward the front of the half-giant’s army.
Once more the terrible weapons on the ridgetop roared, fire flashing through the clouds of smoke. Ankhar remembered his command to the Thorn Knight and turned to repeat the order. But Hoarst had disappeared.
Dram was pacing up and down behind the line of bombards, encouraging his gunners and occasionally running forward far enough to watch the shots land. As he scurried back to the ammunition wagons, amidst the swirling smoke a flash of white caught his eye, and he veered toward the familiar, alabaster figure.
“Lady Coryn!” he exclaimed, recognizing the white-robed wizard as she materialized to the rear of the cannons. She was holding her hands to her ears, and her face-like Dram’s and everyone else’s-was streaked with soot and sweat. Her robe, somehow, remained as white as a blanket of new-fallen snow. “What are you doing up here?”
“Looking for trouble,” she replied after lowering her hands. “I have a feeling you’ve attracted Ankhar’s undivided attention.”
The mountain dwarf grinned. “Yeah, they’re doing the job, aren’t they,” he said proudly, standing beside her as he watched the nearest bombards-the only two he could see because of the thick smoke-get loaded for their next shot.
“Very impressive,” Coryn said.
Dram had good cause to be pleased. The tubes were all holding up well. His armorers periodically tightened the clamps on the steel straps holding them together, and none had shown signs of failure. If anything, the steady firing was turning out to be harder on the wagons supporting the bombards than on the weapons themselves.
“Cover your ears!” he warned, doing the same as the fuses were ignited.
Moments later the massive weapons belched their lethal balls into the sky. At the same time, the heavy wagons jerked backward, as they had with each shot, rolling several dozen feet before stopping against the heavy chains that anchored them. Dozens of hill dwarves swarmed around each wagon, turning the great wheels by hand, laboriously pushing them forward into firing position.
“Chief!” It was Sulfie, dashing through the smoke, looking for Dram.
“Over here!” he bellowed.
The diminutive gnome came trotting up to him, out of breath. She was covered from head to foot in soot and grime, looking as if she had tumbled into a coal pit. But her eyes were bright with excitement, and she flashed incongruously white teeth as she smiled momentarily.
“Hello, Lady,” she said to Coryn. “Welcome to the battery!”
“Hi, Sulfie. You and your brothers have made quite a contribution,” the white wizard replied.
“Yes,” the gnome said, her expression showing melancholy for a moment. “I wish Carbo and Pete could be here to see this.”
But then she remembered her news and frowned seriously. “We lost a wheel on Number Two!” she reported. “Broke it on the recoil.”
“Damn!” snapped the dwarf. Dram nodded to Coryn. “I’d better go have a look, see if we can get it up and firing again.”
“Good luck,” she said. “I’ve got things to do. See you later… maybe.”
The dwarf nodded and took off at a jog. For the first time, he became conscious of his own fatigue-he was sweating like a blacksmith on a summer day-and when he reached the disabled bombard, he had to stop and lean against the frame for a few moments just to catch his breath. The smoke clogged his lungs, and he felt grit on his tongue and in his nostrils.
He saw immediately that the rear axle of the heavy wagon had snapped in two, leaving the bed sagging to the ground and the barrel canted upward toward the sky. “I’ve got some spare axles,” he told the crew captain. “You work on getting this thing jacked up, and I’ll send a replacement up from the supply park.”
Although he was reluctant to leave the scene, he didn’t trust anyone else to make sure the proper piece was sent forward, so he departed at a trot. The replacement wagons, as well as spare powder and ammunition, were parked beside the newly made road, several hundred yards down the back side of the ridge, since there hadn’t been enough room for all of them on the summit. It would take only a few moments, he hoped, to bring the spare part forward.
He moved quickly and after a moment had moved from the stinking, stinging cloud into a mountainside meadow of bright flowers, a splashing brook, and-most amazingly-fresh air. But he couldn’t pause to enjoy it, and moments later he was huffing and puffing around the last switchback. He located the wagon with the spare axles in a flash, and he quickly got the attention of several teamsters.
“Get this up to the ridge,” he ordered. “Take it right to Number Two.”
“Gotcha, Chief,” replied the wagon drivers-humans who had been farming on the Vingaard Plain, but they had signed up to make good money working at the Compound. They quickly headed for the pasture to collect a team of draft horses.
Satisfied, Dram turned back up the hill. He could only move at a walk, and beside the brook he decided to stop, kneel down, and take a refreshing drink of cool water.
It was a drink that would save his life.
Coryn felt a tingling sense of alarm. Something was terribly wrong, and that something involved magic. She spoke a word and immediately disappeared from sight. Cloaked by invisibility, she strode behind the thundering bombards, peering through the smoke with her magical acuity. She didn’t know the nature of the threat, but every one of her senses told her to beware.
She enchanted herself with spells allowing her to detect magic and also to see invisible objects or beings. She knew the damage these great weapons were doing to the enemy army, and she did not think that Ankhar or his Thorn Knight would allow this assault to proceed unchallenged. But what could they do? How would they strike?
A breeze came up, incongruous and even refreshing; the gentle wind served to clear some of the smoke away, though each new volley spewed fresh, stinking, sulfur-tainted fog into the air. But for a moment she could see all the bombards at once as the five active weapons were rolled into place for another shot. She could see, too, a team of hill dwarves frantically working the screw of a huge mechanical jack, lifting up the bed of the disabled bombard.
The white wizard saw someone coming directly toward her-it was the little gnome, Sulfie-and Coryn nimbly moved her invisible form out of her path. Sulfie was hurrying to one of the massive ammunition wagons, where casks of the black powder were stored, to be brought forward as needed to the bombards. Coryn watched her go then stiffened.
Something else was moving toward that wagon!
Her magical sense was tingling, though she couldn’t make out the details. It was a shapeless thing, like a blob in the air-not exactly invisible. Abruptly that cloud took shape, and she saw the Gray Robe of a Thorn Knight appearing. He had traveled up here under the concealment of magic, rendering himself by potion or spell into a gaseous cloud of ephemeral vapor that cloaked him until he arrived at the site of the thundering battery.
The Gray Robe’s hand was already raised, and he cast a single, lethal spell before Coryn could react. A tiny pebble of light appeared at his fingertips, a little marble-sized glob of fire that drifted, unerringly, toward the powder wagon and its great stack of casks. Sulfie was up on that wagon, barking orders to several hill dwarves as they manhandled the large kegs of black powder.
“No!” cried the White Robe. She raised her own hand, her lips shaping a spell that would strike the Thorn Knight down-but in that same instant the man disappeared, teleporting himself away from there.
In the next breath, his fireball spell exploded.
Jaymes was watching the progress of the battle with satisfaction. He sat astride his roan with several signalmen; the Freemen of his bodyguard were also mounted and arrayed protectively around him. They were atop
