Azoun swallowed and clenched his teeth. 'Let's get it over with, Vangy.' The king had complete faith in his friend. Still, the gruesome stories he'd heard about mages mistakenly teleporting into stones or trees, or ending up hundreds of yards above the ground after the spell, made Azoun nervous.
Again Vangerdahast fell into a rapid, rumbling chant. A brilliant yellow light flashed into existence around the king and the wizard. Azoun looked down, but before he could note the fact that the deck was suddenly visible through his ghostlike feet, the world disappeared. The only sound of the king's passing was the hollow thud of air rushing to fill the space where he'd stood only a moment before.
White. Blinding, empty white.
That was all Azoun saw for what seemed like minutes. Then the world and all its colors returned. The king rubbed his eyes and looked around. Low, grass-covered hills surrounded him on every side.
'I'm sure if I do that one hundred times, I'll never get used to it,' Azoun said softly. He staggered forward a step, then stopped to regain his balance.
Vangerdahast chuckled. 'Rather like the way I feel about sea travel, I'd imagine.'
Unlike the king, he was not troubled by magical travel. In fact, the royal magician seemed energized by the experience, as if the spell had somehow granted him a little extra strength. 'The dwarves' camp is-' The wizard paused, then pointed east. 'In that direction, I believe.'
Azoun was still staggering slightly when he topped the rise. Though he felt weakened by the teleportation, he still climbed the slope with greater speed than Vangerdahast could manage. Being the first one up the hill, Azoun saw the crossbows before his friend.
'Stand where you are,' a red-bearded dwarf growled, leveling his weapon menacingly at the king. He spoke in Common, a universal trade language in Faerun, but his words were tinged with a heavy accent.
'Aye,' added his companion, who was shorter than the first and much, much fatter. 'You'll not be sneaking around our camp, human.' His accent was even more pronounced than the other dwarf's.
'Just a minute,' the Cormyrian king said evenly, holding his hands away from his sword. 'We're here to see Torg.'
Vangerdahast trudged up next to the king. The dwarves shifted their crossbows to target the wizard. 'Don't be foolish,' the mage snapped, dismissing the guards with a wave of his hand. 'This is King Azoun of-'
'Pryderi mac Dylan, you absolute dunderhead, put that thrice-damned crossbow down!'
Both dwarven sentries, Azoun, and Vangerdahast looked up sharply at the loud, bellowing command. A scowling dwarf, waving his hands wildly around his head, stormed up the hill behind the crossbowmen. Neither the Cormyrian king nor his advisor were fluent enough in Dwarvish to understand exactly what was being said, but they got the general idea from the other dwarves' reactions.
The red-bearded dwarf lowered his weapon and dropped to one knee. After he'd pulled his fellow sentry to the ground, he said, 'Ironlord, I didn't-'
The scowling dwarf reached the top of the hill. He stood, hands on hips, for a moment, then cuffed the red- haired sentry on the back of the head. 'I warned you there'd be royalty about, you oaf,' he grumbled in Dwarvish. 'Can't you recognize a king when you see one?'
Azoun and Vangerdahast exchanged brief, concerned glances. The dwarf the others called 'Ironlord' wore a steel breastplate covered by a black cloth surcoat. A brilliant red phoenix clutching a warhammer spread over the surcoat's front. The dwarf's thick black beard only partially obscured that symbol, for the hair was bound with thin golden chain into two neat forks. The forked beard made the ironlord look a little ominous, and his hard, closely set eyes only heightened the effect.
This was obviously Torg, ironlord of Earthfast.
'Your Lordship,' Azoun began in rough, broken Dwarvish. 'I am King Azoun of Cormyr, and this is Vangerdahast, royal mage of my court, commander of the army's War Wizards.'
The dwarf smiled broadly and studied the king with his dark, steely eyes. 'Welcome, Your Highness. You speak passable Dwarvish for a human,' Torg said in perfect Common. 'My apologies for this … scene.' He glowered at the kneeling sentries.
Azoun tried to return the ironlord's smile. 'It's certainly understandable,' he offered, pointing back down the hill. 'We appeared out of nowhere. They were only doing their-'
Torg cocked his head to one side. 'Appeared, you say? Out of nowhere? What happened to the blasted escort I sent to meet you at the shore?' He raised one hand up to his black beard and pulled a gold chain tight around one fork.
'They didn't show up,' Vangerdahast replied. 'We waited quite a while, but no one came.'
The dwarf's face darkened in anger again. He turned abruptly to the kneeling sentries and snapped, 'Gather up a patrol and find the escort I sent out.' After a pause, he added, 'Bring them to me when you find them.' The guards rushed to the task.
Vangerdahast decided then that he was going to have to brush up on the spell that allowed him to comprehend strange languages. Torg's habit of slipping in and out of Dwarvish made the wizard uneasy. Since it was his job to keep Azoun safe while away from the ship, Vangerdahast knew he'd feel more secure if he could understand what everyone said at all times.
Torg exhaled sharply, as if he were expelling his anger. The ironlord then faced his guests. 'Please allow me to escort you through the camp personally.' He spun on the heels of his thick-soled boots and marched down the hill.
Azoun and Vangerdahast quickly fell into step behind the dwarf. Torg's short legs didn't hinder his speed, the humans soon learned. The dwarven king set a good pace as he stomped toward the camp. Walking behind Torg, Azoun noted that, apart from the gleaming metal of his armor and sword, the dwarf was decked out entirely in red and black. Blood and thunder, he concluded silently.
For his part, Vangerdahast was studying the layout of the dwarven camp. The hill the wizard marched down led to a large, grass-covered plain. Uniform, brown tents spread in straight lines across the open area. The precision of the lines astounded the wizard, who had assumed the camp would be like most human camps: relatively chaotic sprawls held together only by proximity.
Before the two kings and the wizard reached the first tent, they saw the army. Hundreds upon hundreds of short, stocky dwarven soldiers marched in precise ranks. The bright sunlight glinted off their polished armor and the blades of their weapons. Azoun noted with some surprise that the dwarves were carrying polearms.
'You make them drill in full armor?' Azoun asked Torg as they got near a formation. He knew from experience that the hot, early summer sun would be devastating on the armor-clad soldiers.
The ironlord stopped and looked at Azoun, puzzlement showing on his face. 'How do you expect them to fight in armor if they don't train in armor?'
'But the sun. The heat will-'
Torg snorted. 'It may well be sunny on the day of the first battle. The men will be glad we did this then.' The dwarf shaded his eyes and looked up into the sky. 'I hate the sun myself. Too damned bright.' He turned to Vangerdahast. 'Of course, we don't get this much sunlight underground. Another good reason to drill the troops in it.'
Surveying the army for a moment, the wizard scratched his head and said, 'This is the first dwarven army I've seen with polearms.' He motioned to the marching troops. 'Why are you training with pikes?'
A wicked gleam flickered in Torg's dark eyes, which neither Azoun nor Vangerdahast missed. 'Do you remember the human general I mentioned in my letters?' Without waiting for a reply, Torg said to Azoun, 'The human was very familiar with Your Highness's treatise on the use of polearms in warfare. Recommended it so highly, in fact, I read the book myself. Quite enlightening.'
Azoun bowed slightly, a little embarrassed by the unexpected praise. 'You intend to use the pikes against the Tuigan?'
'Of course.'
'But the Tuigan are archers,' Vangerdahast exclaimed. 'Pikes won't do you any good if they stay two hundred yards away and fire arrows at you.' He gestured at the drilling troops. 'You'll be slaughtered.'
Torg laughed and dismissed the wizard's comments with a wave of his hand. 'Yamun Khahan has never faced dwarven troops before, and I'm sure his warriors' arrows haven't been tested against plate armor forged in Earthfast.' The ironlord put his short, round fingers to his mouth and whistled. 'And we have ranged weapons of our own.'
