Torg reached for his sword. 'Ha! Now they'll pay for that escort party they murdered,' he cried, startling Vangerdahast awake. The birds at the dwarven king's side were also shocked out of their slumber. They flitted around their cage noisily.
Alusair, already wearing her cuirass, stood and strapped her brassards onto her arms. 'Have they attacked yet?' she asked the dwarven messenger.
'Not yet,' he replied, wiping the sweat from his brow. 'They are arrayed in battle formation in the field to the east.'
Azoun turned to Torg. 'Ironlord, it might be best for us to avoid this conflict. Perhaps the orcs will listen to reason and march on.'
'Reason?' Torg snorted. 'Orcs listen to reason, you say? No insult intended, Azoun, but you don't know orcs. They're here to fight.'
'What about the crusade?' Vangerdahast asked, his voice still raspy with sleep. 'The troops that die in this possibly preventable battle are lost to the Alliance of the West. Besides,' the wizard added, appealing to the dwarven king's honor, 'you gave your word that two thousand dwarves from Earthfast would assist us against the Tuigan.'
Torg muttered something vile about wizards into his dark beard, then sighed. 'All right. We'll see what your diplomacy can do. It's your funeral, mage. And remember, the first orc to raise a bow or a sword gets a crossbow bolt between its beady little eyes.'
Vangerdahast straightened his beard and followed the two kings and the princess from the tent. Torg's entourage was quickly joined by a squadron of elite guards. Like the other dwarven soldiers, the bodyguard said nothing as it marched to the eastern edge of the camp. Vangerdahast kept to himself, too, and reviewed the spells he knew that might be useful in an attack. Azoun spoke softly to Alusair, but that conversation died abruptly when the Cormyrian king saw the line of dwarves standing before him.
The army of Earthfast was arranged in neat, perfectly straight rows at the eastern edge of the camp. For hundreds of yards to either side of Azoun, the battle line stretched, three dwarves deep. Silver armor reflected the growing morning sun, and two thousand mailed hands gripped crossbow stocks or swords. Trumpeters and drummers mixed with the troops, ready to sound the attack. Standards marking clans stood above the helmeted heads. These symbols-stylized hammers, anvils, and various weapons-served as rallying points for the soldiers.
The impressive dwarven line silently faced to the east, where the sun rose slowly over the hills. There, silhouetted in sunlight, stood the orcish army.
The two armies were a study in contrasts. Unlike the mailed dwarves, the orcs generally wore only black leather armor. A few had on chain mail or pieces of plate, but most of the slouching creatures garbed themselves in the uniformly bleak, weatherbeaten skins. The orcs all personalized their clothing with swatches of bright cloth taken from a murdered foe or bits of bone or fur from a vanquished beast. Whereas Torg's troops stood at attention in rigidly organized lines, the orcs huddled in groups or even squatted on the ground, waiting for orders. Some held unpolished, chipped swords, and others carried almost every kind of weapon imaginable-flails, maces, axes, spears, even polearms. Their standards were real skulls or crude pictures of bleeding eyes or broken fingers, held aloft on posts.
Alusair spotted drummers lounging amidst the orcish troops and pointed them out to Torg. The dwarven king nodded and relayed an order to his archers that, if possible, the drummers were to be shot first. They were undoubtedly the means of relaying orders in the orcish ranks.
Torg took his helmet from his squire and cradled it under an arm. He pointed to the center of the enemy's line, where a huge skull, probably belonging to a giant, sat atop a pole. 'Their leader, if you can call these savages organized, is probably right there.'
At Azoun's signal, Vangerdahast murmured a spell. When the incantation was complete, the mage put his hands to his mouth and said, 'Leader of the orcs, we wish to parley.' The words, magically boosted in volume by the spell, easily carried over the silent dwarven troops and even the noisy, grumbling orcs. 'I hope they understand Common,' Vangerdahast said after he'd delivered his message.
There was a commotion around the giant skull standard. Across the fifty or so yards that separated the armies, Azoun could see a few orcish soldiers brandishing swords, gesturing wildly at a particularly large soldier. This orc in turn grabbed another soldier by the throat and pushed him toward the dwarven line.
The abused orc staggered to his feet, shouted a curse or two over his shoulder in Orcish, and took a step toward the dwarves. 'No kill,' he shouted in broken Common. 'Me speaker for Vrakk.'
Azoun quietly conferred with Torg and Vangerdahast for a moment. All three men stepped to the fore. The wizard readied a protective spell as Azoun moved past the lines and held out his empty hands. 'I am King Azoun of Cormyr,' he yelled in Common, enunciating each word slowly for the creatures arrayed before him. 'We don't want to fight, but we will if necessary.'
Something Azoun said had an electrifying effect on the orcish troops. The soldier that had been pushed forward rushed back to the large orc, presumably Vrakk. The leather-armored troops broke into loud debate. A few waved their weapons menacingly at the king and some continued to sprawl on the ground, but most argued heatedly with their comrades.
Finally the large orc stepped forward, punching a trooper who stood in his way. He took a dozen steps into the space between the armies and slapped his hands to his hips. 'You Ak-soon,' he growled in horribly belabored Common. After pounding his chest with one long-nailed hand, he added, 'I Vrakk from Zhentil Keep. I here to fight horsemen with you.'
9
Dwarves crowded one side of the pavilion; orcs milled together on the other. At the long, low table, King Azoun, Princess Alusair, and Vangerdahast sat together. Torg and Vrakk glared at one another spitefully over mugs of ale. Though there was a murmur of Orcish rumbling through the room, none of the dwarves and no one at the main table spoke.
Vrakk, leader of the orcs, hefted his silver mug and gulped a mouthful of ale. The brown liquid rolled down the side of his gray-green face and dribbled off of his lower canine teeth, which protruded from his large mouth. 'We fight for Ak-soon,' he said at last. 'Masters at Keep no tell us to fight for dglinkarz.' The orcish leader lifted his piggish snout a bit and sneered at Torg.
The orcs in the tent grunted and snarled their agreement. Many of the sweaty, drooling soldiers repeated the word dglinkarz and nodded. The dwarves already had a hand on their sword hilts, so the orcs didn't notice them almost universally tighten their grips.
Azoun looked to Vangerdahast, who shrugged. The wizard had cast spells enabling himself to understand what the dwarves and orcs said, but the term the orcish leader had used seemed untranslatable. 'Fight for whom?' Vangerdahast said to Vrakk in Common.
The orc narrowed his beady red eyes. 'Dglinkarz,' he snapped, pointing at the dwarven king. With a sweeping gesture, he indicated all the dwarven troops. 'They all dglinkarz.' It was obvious from the tone the orc used that it was a venomous insult.
Torg curled his hand into a fist and held it in front of his mouth. 'I will not stand for this, Azoun,' he growled. 'I will not sit idly by while this beast insults me.'
The Cormyrian king turned sharply to the orcish leader. 'And if I order you to fight alongside the dwarves?'
'If Ak-soon orders,' Vrakk said, 'we follow.' He dropped one elbow to the table, slouched slightly, and scratched the coarse hair on his arm. 'That be law from Zhentil Keep.'
Azoun leaned forward. 'Even if I tell you to fight on the side of-' he paused and glanced at Torg '- dglinkarz?'
Scowling so much that his yellowed lower canines almost jutted to his snout, Vrakk nodded. 'We follow Ak-
