war, these people were worth defending, because, in the end, in the annals future historians would pen, that would be the measure of Silverymoon; that generosity would be the greatness of the place, would be what set Silverymoon apart from so many other petty kingdoms.
But what was happening to her city? Alustriel wondered, and she came to understand the cancer that was growing amidst her own ranks. She would go back to Silverymoon and purge that disease, she determined, but not now.
Now she needed rest. She had done her part, to the best of her abilities, and, perhaps at the price of her own life, she realized as another pain shot through her wounded side.
Her colleagues would lament her death, would call it a waste,
considering the minor scale of this war for Mithril Hall.
Alustriel knew better, knew how she, like her city, would be ultimately judged.
She managed to bring the chariot crashing down to a wide ledge, and she tumbled out as the fiery dweomer dissipated into nothingness.
The Lady of Silverymoon sat there against the stone, in the cold, looking down on the distant scramble far below her. She was out of the fight, but she had done her part.
She knew she could die with no guilt weighing on her heart.
* * * * *
Berg'inyon Baenre rode through the ranks of lizard mounted drow, holding high his twin bloodstained swords. The dark elves rallied behind their leader, filtered from obelisk to obelisk, cutting the battlefield in half and more. The mobility and speed of the larger horses favored the knights, but the dark elves' cunning tactics were quick to steal that advantage.
To their credit, the knights were killing drow at a ratio of one to one, a remarkable feat considering the larger drow numbers and the skill of their enemies. Even so, the ranks of knights were being diminished.
Hope came in the form of a fat wizard riding a half-horse, half-frog beastie and leading the remnants of the defenders of the southern face, hundreds of men, riding and running—from battle and into battle.
Berg'inyon's force was fast pushed across the breadth of Keeper's Dale, back toward the northern wall, and the defending knights rode free once more.
But in came the pursuit from the south, the vast force of drow and humanoid monsters. In came those dark elf wizards who had survived Alustriel's conflagration in the thick copse.
The ranks of the defenders quickly sorted out, with Berkthgar's hardy warriors rallying behind their mighty leader and Besnell's knights linking with the force that had stood firm in Keeper's Dale. Likewise did the Longriders fall into line behind Regweld, and the Riders of Nesme—both of the survivors— joined their brethren from the west.
Magic flashed and metal clanged and man and beast screamed in agony. The mist thickened with sweat, and the stone floor of the valley darkened with blood.
The defenders would have liked to form a solid line of defense, but to do so would leave them terribly vulnerable to the wizards, so they had followed savage Berkthgar's lead, had plunged into the enemy force headlong, accepting the sheer chaos.
Berg'inyon ran his mount halfway up the northern wall, high above the valley, to survey the glorious carnage. The weapon master cared nothing for his dead comrades, including many dark elves, whose broken bodies littered the valley floor.
This fight would be won easily, Berg'inyon thought, and the western door to Mithril Hall would be his.
All glory for House Baenre.
*****
When Stumpet Rakingclaw came up from the Undercity to Mithril Hall's western door, she was dismayed— not by the reports of the vicious fighting out in Keeper's Dale, but by the fact that the dwarven guards had not gone out to aid the valiant defenders.
Their orders had been explicit: they were to remain inside the complex, to defend the tighter tunnels, and then, if the secret door was found by the enemy and the defenders were pushed back, the dwarves were prepared to drop those tunnels near the door. Those orders, given by General Dagna, Bruenor's second in command, had not foreseen the battle of Keeper's Dale.
Bruenor had appointed Stumpet as High Cleric of Mithril Hall, and had done so publicly and with much fanfare, so that there would be no confusion concerning rank once battle was joined. That decision, that public ceremony, gave Stumpet the power she needed now, allowed her to change the orders, and the five hundred dwarves assigned to guard the western door, who had watched with horror the carnage from afar, were all too happy to hear the new command.
There came a rumbling beneath the ground in all of Keeper's Dale, the grating of stone against stone. On the northern side of
the valley, Berg'inyon held tight to his sticky-footed mount and hoped the thing wouldn't be shaken from the wall. He listened closely to the echoes, discerning the pattern, then looked to the southeastern corner of the valley.
A glorious, stinging light flashed there as the western door of Mithril Hall slid open.
Berg'inyon's heart skipped a beat. The dwarves had opened the way!
Out they came, hundreds of bearded folk, rushing to their allies' aid, singing and banging their axes and hammers against their shining shields, pouring from the door that was secret no more. They came up to, and beyond, Berkthgar's line, their tight battle groups slicing holes in the ranks of goblin and kobold and drow alike, pushing deeper into the throng.
'Fools!' the Baenre weapon master whispered, for even if a thousand, or two thousand dwarves came into Keeper's Dale, the course of the battle would not be changed. They had come out because their morals demanded it, Berg'inyon knew. They had opened their door and abandoned their best defenses because their ears could not tolerate the screams of men dying in their defense.
How weak these surface dwellers were, the sinister drow thought, for in Menzoberranzan courage and compassion were never confused.
The furious dwarves came into the battle hard, driving through drow and goblins with abandon. Stumpet Rakingclaw, fresh from her exploits in the Undercity, led their charge. She was out of light pellets but called to her god now, enacting enchantments to brighten Keeper's Dale. The dark elves quickly countered every spell, as the dwarf expected, but Stumpet figured that every drow concentrating on a globe of darkness was out of the fight, at least momentarily. The magic of Moradin, Dumathoin, and Clanggedon flowed freely through the priestess. She felt as though she was a pure conduit, the connection to the surface for the dwarven gods.
The dwarves rallied around her loud prayers as she screamed to her gods with all her heart. Other defenders rallied around the dwarves, and suddenly they were gaining back lost ground. Suddenly the idea of a single line of defense was not so ridiculous.
High on the wall across the way, Berg'inyon chuckled at the futility of it all. This was a temporary surge, he knew, and the defenders of the western door had come together in one final, futile push. All the defense and all the defenders, and Berg'inyon's force still outnumbered them several times over.
The weapon master coaxed his mount back down the wall, gathered his elite troops about him, and determined how to turn back the momentum. When Keeper's Dale fell, so, too, would the western door.
Chapter 26 SNARL AGAINST SNARL
The main corridors leading to the lower door of Mithril Hall had been dropped and sealed, but that had been expected by the invading army. Even with the largest concentration of drow slowed to a crawl out in the tunnels beyond the door, the dwarven complex was hard pressed. And although no reports had come to Uthegental about the fighting outside the mountain, the mighty weapon master could well imagine the carnage on the slopes, with dwarves and weakling humans dying by the score. Both doors of Mithril Hall were likely breached by now, Uthegental believed, with Berg'inyon's lizard riders flooding the higher tunnels.
That notion bothered the weapon master of Barrison del'Armgo more than a little. If Berg'inyon was in
