Suddenly he saw a change. The Aghar of the Creeping
Wedgie had turned and bolted from the road, disappearing on the far side of the thoroughfare, over the slope that led down to Stonehammer Lake.
'Good, they're saving themselves!' Flint cried. 'They didn't have a chance of stopping the mountain dwarves, anyway.'
'But, look!' pointed Perian. 'They're giving chase! Per haps the Wedgies have accomplished something after all.'
Before Flint's astonished eyes, the Silver Swords, now far behind the two other ranks of derro who had continued blithely up the road, abruptly started down the slope after the Aghar. None of the mountain dwarves, hampered by their vision, seemed aware of Flint, Perian, and their troops thrashing their way down the snowy slope above.
'Shush!' Flint ordered his giggling, whooping charges in a harsh whisper. The retreating Aghar had disappeared by now down the steeper slope beyond the road, and the pur suing Theiwar had all followed.
After fifteen minutes of frantic plowing, Flint and his fol lowers set foot on the Passroad. Without even stopping for a breath, they rushed across and down the next slope after the Creeping Wedgies and the Silver Swords, unconcerned about detection now.
Their charge gained momentum as they slid down the steep bank toward the remaining Wedgies, who were gath ered now with their backs to the lake. The Theiwar had formed a contracting half-circle around them, and they were tightening it swiftly.
Overconfident, the Theiwar lunged in for the kill, and a number of the Aghar dropped lifeless into the snow. But others of the fleet-footed Aghar managed to dart away and pop up behind the heavily encumbered mountain dwarves.
Fighting dwarves swirled chaotically about the field. Shock ing crimson blotches appeared on the white snow.
Minutes later, when Flint and the rest of his troops reached the lakeshore, the situation had reversed: the mountain dwarves were enclosed in a semicircle of howling, growling gully dwarves.
'Get lompchuters!' Without waiting for a command from
Flint, Nomscul quickly formed his Agharpults. Flint charged forward, suddenly aware of gully dwarves soaring above him, crashing into the Theiwar beyond. Pooter screamed past, knocking three of the enemy into the river before he lost altitude and plunged into the water with a splash.
The rest of the Aghar smashed head-on into the line of Theiwar at the riverbank, ignoring the weaponry and ar mor of their foes in a courageous effort to follow their king into battle. Steel weapons cut cruel wounds into the loyal
Aghar. Flint snapped the neck of a Theiwar captain and he looked around for another target, reaching this time for his magnificent Tharkan Axe.
Suddenly he felt the very ground shift under his feet. Ap parently just an overhanging shelf of snow and ice, it broke off from the shore with a sharp crack under the extreme weight of the combatants. Hill, gully, and mountain dwarves were thrown into the deep, wintry waters of Stone hammer Lake. The ice floe drifted away from shore, break ing into smaller pieces that bobbed in the gentle current.
'Whee!'
'Yippee!'
'Go swimming again!'
The gully dwarves splashed and swam through the icy water like delighted children, dog-paddling toward the bank, then slowly scrambling out.
Not so the Theiwar. Weighted down by their chain shirts, inherently distrustful of water and unable to swim, the der ro struggled in the water, never deigning to call for help, un til each white head sank, one by one.
In moments, all that could be seen of the battle on the shore and lake were soggy Aghar, climbing from the current and pleading with their king for permission to take another dip.
And a vastness of vacant black steel helmets lapping at the shoreline, gray plume-side down.
Chapter 21
Only an occasional beam of sunlight filtered through the thick canopy of dark pine boughs. Still, the for est floor seemed an uncomfortably bright place to the dwarves of the Theiwar army. They made camp before full daylight, fortunately finding a dense patch of woods where the pale-skinned, underground-dwelling derro could all but avoid the direct rays of the sun.
The ground lay beneath a blanket of snow, and the sticky, straight trunks of the trees seemed to merge overhead into a solid blanket of needles and snow-covered branches. The dampness and chill of the camp seemed a small price to pay for its chief virtue: that same thick canopy that provided a blessed escape from the light.
Many of the Theiwar veterans now tried to rest, having scraped the snow away from the small patches of ground that served as beds. A damp chill sank into their bones from the still, cold air.
One of the dwarves made no attempt to sleep, however:
Pitrick paced between several large trunks, following the tracks of his previous pacing, where he had worn the snow down to bare ground. His hands were clasped behind him, and the throbbing pain in his foot put him into a foul tem per. Perversely, he would not sit and rest that foot, even though the dwarves would be on the march again as soon as night fell.
'Where are they? Where's Grikk and his party?' he de manded, turning to look at a nearby derro, not expecting an answer. 'They should have reported back by now!'
The hunchback peered anxiously between the trunks.
'They've deserted — that's what they've done!' He sneered at the imagined treachery. 'I send them to find the Silver
Swords, and instead the miserable cowards have likely fled back to Thorbardin! They'll pay for this! By all that's mighty, I'll see Grikk flayed alive, slow-roasted! I'll see — '
'Excellency'' A sergeant approached him tentatively.
'Eh? What?'
'Grikk's coming, sir. Returned from the search.'
'What?' Pitrick blinked, confused by his own tantrum.
'Very well — send him to me at once.'
The scout, Grikk, a grizzled veteran with a patch over one eye and a beardless cheek that had been permanently scarred by a Hylar blade, clumped up to the adviser. 'We searched the valley along this whole shore of the lake, Excel lency. There is no sign of the Swords — at least, nothing that we could see.'
'Then go back and look again!'
'I'm sorry, sir.' Grikk drew himself to his full height, his unpatched eye staring into his commander's face. 'But we can't. We were blinded out there — I lost one of my scouts in the lake, simply because he couldn't see a drop-off under his feet!'
Pitrick saw that Grikk's exposed eye was puffy and bloodshot. He knew that the sun reflecting off the snow cre ated an impossible brightness. Frustration gnawed at him.
His body shook with tension, and he made little effort to bring himself under control.
'Excellency,' Grikk said. 'Perhaps we could go back and search tonight. It would only mean delaying the attack on
Hillhome for one day.'
Pitrick's thoughts immediately turned to that nest of inso lent hill dwarves, little more than a mile away. His decision was easy.
'No!' he cried. 'Tonight we attack Hillhome! Nothing can be allowed to delay our vengeance!' He stared through the woods, in the direction of the village filled with those loathsome enemies, the hill dwarves.
