grasp.
After all, had she not dwelled in Mudhole with the very hill dwarf who, to Pitrick, embodied the pestilential stub borness of Hillhome? And would not Flint Fireforge be cer tain 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, stam mering 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 mo mentarily 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 at tack against the breastwork.
Around him, the bonfires set by the hill dwarves had mostly burned themselves out. The darkness, thick and pro tecting, 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 com mands. Others tended their comrades who had been over come 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 ser geants. 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 conse quences of failure. But that single step sent throbbing ar rows 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 ag ony, a sound of fury that frightened those troops within ear shot. 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 Pit rick 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, in tentionally 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 rag ing 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, sur vivors forced backward to fall, roll, or run to the ditch at the bottom.
'Now,' Pitrick snapped, his shrill voice calling for the sa vants' 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 bat tle 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 van ish 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 iden tification. 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 sur prised 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 ex pectantly 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.
