A fireball seemed too fast, too impersonal a way for Perian to die. Far better she saw that it was he who took her, and that death should come slowly… afterward. There was even the chance she would yet come to appreciate him, and for a moment his mind thrilled to the image of Perian, on her knees, begging for mercy. A part of his mind began to imagine his response. Suddenly, violently, his attention turned back to the battle.
'Sound the fallback!' he shouted to the bugler, and, to his savants: 'Prepare your spells!'
The brass notes of the horn sounded across the field, and the derro atop the earthwork quickly fell back to the rela tive safety of the ditch at the bottom of the wall.
At the same time his eyes flickered to Perian again. Later, he told himself. Later I will have her. I will find her and, by magic or might, claim her.
'Now!' cried Pitrick. 'Destroy them!'
His hand clasped the medallion. Blue light spilled forth, illuminating the hunchbacked derro with a chilling outline as he launched his spell.
Violent magic exploded.
Basalt stood atop the redoubt on the right side of the posi tion, raising his axe, bashing the mountain dwarves, stand ing firm. The battle had lasted less than an hour so far, yet it felt as though his life had always consisted of this same muscle-aching combat, the ringing cacophony of pain and death.
At first, terror had consumed him, and every blow he struck had been a matter of insuring his own personal sur vival. But, with each victory over an individual derro, his confidence had grown, and with it his rage. Now he struck with cold, deadly anger, slaying to avenge his father, Mol doon, and all the other unnamed dwarves that he knew were dying around him.
Perian fought nearby, astonishing the young hill dwarf with her skill and tenacity. She shouted hoarsely at her former comrades. The black-armored mountain dwarves who recognized their former captain hesitated for but a mo ment before they tried to close with her. But their hesitation was crucial. Swinging her axe with bone- crushing force, she managed to fend off all their attacks.
Basalt saw a mountain dwarf gain the top of the rampart between himself and Perian. The warrior raised his bloody axe and turned toward the frawl. Basalt twisted to his rear and swept the Theiwar from the breastwork with the savage cut of his axe.
'Fine work!' said Perian with a grin. Her face, flushed with exertion, showed a glow of exhilaration at the intensity of the fight.
Suddenly a bugle sounded, and the mountain dwarves fell back from the breastwork. We stopped them again! Ba salt cried inwardly with relief. But Perian spotted six figures moving forward through the ranks of the thane's troops.
Then, beside them she saw the dark, twisted figure of her worst nemesis — it could only be Pitrick. She stared, mo mentarily uncertain of the threat, but then she saw the wash of blue light and her panic galvanized her into desperate action.
'Get down!' Perian cried, throwing herself flat on the rampart.
'What?' grunted Basalt, even as he, too, flattened himself to the earth.
He squinted into the night, seeing a tiny globule of flame drift slowly through the air. It danced forward, toward the redoubt, to a place just to the right of Basalt's and Perian's position. Basalt thought that the tiny ball was rather pretty, though that instantly struck him as incongruous.
But nothing could have prepared him for the horror that happened next.
The dot of fire drifted onto the top of the breastwork among a huddled group of dwarves. Then it instantane ously erupted into a huge, globelike inferno of death. Basalt felt the heat from the nearby explosion singe his skin and hair. He heard screams of terror and pain, yet saw nothing for precious moments against the brightness of the fireball.
But then the fire faded, and he stared in dull shock at the charred bodies of the hill and gully dwarves who had been unfortunate enough to be within the fireball's killing zone.
The stench of burned flesh carried past him on the breeze, sickening him. He could not bring himself to believe that those blackened, stiff shapes had ever been living dwarves.
The corpses looked like statues carved from charcoal.
Then Basalt saw more sparks, more light, explode from the dark-robed dwarves. The hill dwarf looked up in shock as crackling bolts of energy hissed and exploded over his head. With horror he saw a pair of hill dwarves — lifelong neighbors — fall lifeless, slain instantly by the strike of the magic. Screams erupted from the line, and Basalt sensed panic arising in his own heart.
The savants chanted a new sound, and hail erupted from the clear skies overhead to pummel those on the breast work. Basalt clapped his hands over his head and pressed his face into the dirt, waiting for this nightmare to end.
Large round stones of ice hammered his body, smashing against his skin, numbing his hands, pounding a savage ca dence of pain into his skull. He cried out with agony as a large ice ball cracked his elbow, and when another pounded him brutally in the kidney. Holding his breath and gritting his teeth, Basalt struggled to maintain consciousness, know ing that he could not stand another minute of this punish ment.
The unnatural storm ceased as suddenly as it had started.
For a moment a low, rumbling stillness fell over the field — not exactly silence, for many Aghar and hill dwarves groaned in pain along the ice-hammered redoubt. Basalt winced as he struggled to his knees, seeing other dwarves slowly climbing to their feet. We've got to hold them off, he told himself.
'Wait!' hissed Perian, pushing him back down.
Now the hill dwarf heard the sharp clunk of heavy cross bow fire. Metal bolts raked the top of the breastwork where many battered, exhausted hill dwarves gasped for breath. A few, like Perian and Basalt, had dropped to the ground in time. Most still stood, fully exposed to the lethal volley.
'To the brewery!' shouted Flint, Tybalt, Hildy, and ev eryone else who knew the plan. The stone walls of that structure would provide a last bastion of security, though they all realized that it meant leaving the town in the hands of their rapacious enemy.
Flint stopped in the center of town, watching the hill dwarves stream past. Small bands of gully dwarves scram bled along with the larger brethren. Perian and Tybalt joined him while Hildy and Basalt went to organize the de fense of the brewery.
'Damn!' the constable cursed. 'I thought we were going to hold them!'
'We tried,' said Flint. 'Now it's up to the stone walls of the brewery. We've got to stop them there!'
'Basalt all right?' Tybalt asked Perian. The blossoming fireballs and hissing magic missiles had been clearly visible to the other hill dwarf defenders.
'Fine — he's getting the defenses organized at the brewery,' she replied. 'The magic really raked us on the right, though.
I'm afraid we lost two score or more.' She turned to Flint as
Tybalt started off to join the defenders at the brewery.
'That many, maybe a few more, fell on the other side,' said Flint, trying to keep his voice level. The picture of
Garf's surprised look and Bernhard's valiant charge lingered in his mind.
Perian's soft smile showed that she understood. 'And you, with that axe! I could see you clear across the wall, swinging it like you were blazing a trail.'
'Wasn't I?' Flint asked, grimly.
'Yes. But so many of our own have fallen, too,' Perian ob served quietly as most of the rest of their force moved past.
The last few hill dwarves trotted by. Up the road, Pitrick's marching Theiwar could be heard plainly, still an interval away but resolutely advancing through the defenseless town.
'Let's get to cover,' Flint suggested.
'Wait,' said Perian. 'I want to check for more of the
Wedgies — I saw Fester leading a group into the village.'
'There's no time!' Flint objected, groaning. Yet he knew they could not leave their charges in the village,
