Ignoring the kender's prodding hoopak, the ogre raised his club to crush the dwarf.
Chess flailed at the ogre's back, then blinked as something fell across his arm… a metal hook, attached to a rope. He dropped his hoopak and grabbed the rope. After throwing it around the ogre's massive ankle, the kender set the hook to the rope in one motion. Finally, Chess straightened and pulled down on the rope as hard as he could.
Overhead, the soarwagon's sensitive vanes reacted to the tug. They instantly realigned themselves, and the craft nosed up, seeking the sky.
Loam's club descended as his feet went out from under him. The blow rang against stone a foot from Chane's head, and the dwarf looked up, trying to see clearly. Just above the bridge, a flailing ogre dangled upside down from Bobbin's supply line, while overhead the soarwagon shivered and trembled, fighting for altitude. The gnome's voice was a screech: 'Get that creature off my line! He's too heavy!'
Chestal Thicketsway picked up his hoopak and dug into his pouch desperately. The only thing that came to hand was a small glass ball, something he had picked up on the old, frozen battlefield in the Valley of
Waykeep.
He set it in the hoopak's sling-pocket and sighted at the hook holding the rope to the ogre's ankle. 'Maybe I can shoot him loose,' he called reassuringly.
The glass ball flew, ricocheted off Loam's foot, and zoomed upward to imbed itself in the wicker of Bobbin's cab. In the air above Chess, something voiceless seemed to say, 'Ah. Much better.'
The kender stared up and around. 'Zap? Was that you?
Enraged and frothing, Loam dropped his club, curled his body upward, and began clawing at the rope that held him. The ogre's huge hand grasped it, then hand over hand, he pulled himself upright and began to climb.
Chess cupped his hands and shouted, 'Watch out, Bobbin! The ogre's coming up your rope! I missed my shot!'
'Drat and threadbind,' the gnome's irritated voice answered. 'If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself, I suppose. Now where did I put that wrench? Ah, here it is.'
The struggling, bucking soarwagon had edged away from the bridge and was beginning, little by little, to fall toward the gorge. Bobbin worked feverishly, loosing first one lug and then the next, then drew back as his winch mount broke loose, taking a piece of the soarwagon with it. Ogre, supply line, and winch plummeted away, into the mists of the great gorge.
The soarwagon, suddenly free of the creature's weight, shot upward like a winged arrow. High above it did a tight barrel roll, looped about, and headed out over the breaks, toward the plains.
Chess danced on tiptoes, shouting, 'Come back! You've got Zap!' But it was far too late for his words to be heard.
Wingover cut and slashed his way through a gaggle of panicked goblins at the foot of the bridge, the stench of goblin blood a miasma around him.
His battle howl still echoing from the stone walls of the breaks, he clove through them, wading in dark gore. Stab, slash, and cut, his blade was a dancing tongue of death, his shield a dark battering ram. Goblins fell, and goblins fled. A pain like searing fire lanced through Wingover's shoulder and down his shield arm. He lunged forward and spun around.
An armored hobgoblin faced Wingover, its sword red with blood and poised to strike again. The human tried to raise his shield, but couldn't. He dodged aside instead, barely escaping the thrust. The hobgoblin hissed, feinted, and thrust again. Wingover felt the cut on his thigh as his own blade descended, leaving a deep dent in the creature's helmet.
A random thought teased Wingover: the hobgoblin was hiding. It waited and got behind me.
Again the hobgoblin struck. Wingover managed to deflect the cut with his shield, and lunged forward, blade extended. The point ground against metal breastplate and slid away, and Wingover felt blood dripping down his cheek. He realized dimly that he wasn't standing any more. He sat spread-legged and dazed, and the hobgoblin's wide mouth split in a sharp-toothed leer. Raising its sword above its head, the creature charged, then stiffened and gurgled as Wingover's blade slid between its breastplate and its buckler.
Slowly, shaking his head to clear the mists, the man got to his feet and pulled his sword free. Someone was beside him, helping him. It was Jilian, her eyes wide and excited. Wingover staggered, then stood. All around was stench and carnage… and silence. Nothing moved, and the only sound was an odd, distant singing as of great winds building aloft.
The air felt still and heavy. Where is the sunlight, the wilderness man wondered vaguely. Why is it so dark?
Feeling dizzy from shock, Wingover raised his head. Heavy clouds were forming above — dense, swirling clouds to the east, above the Plains of
Dergoth; dark ropes of cloud sweeping outward from the slopes of Sky's
End. Odd, he thought. Odd weather. But his wounds put thoughts of the clouds aside. He was hurt, he knew. But how hurt? Jilian tugged at him and pointed.
Beyond the bridge, someone was coming. Shadows from the swirling clouds interefered, then Wingover saw clearly. Kolanda Darkmoor. The Commander.
Barebreasted, her woman's body contrasted strangely with the hideous helmet and the weapons she carried. Goblins ran beside her. Five of them that he could see, betterarmed than the ones he had fought on the bridge.
More disciplined. Crack troops.
Partway up the bridge, Chane met them. Wingover had to lay down his sword to remove the dwarven helm from its sling at his back. It was smeared with blood — his own, he knew.
He handed it to Chane Feldstone. 'Here's your ancestor's hat,' he said gruffly. 'Jewel and all. I hope it's worth it.'
Chane turned the helm in his hands, studying it.
'Well, don't just stand there,' Wingover gritted. 'Use it.'
'You're hurt,' the dwarf said.
'It's nothing much. I'll be all right. But we don't have time to discuss it. Use the helmet!'
Chane pushed back the cat-eared hood of his black cloak, and Chess gaped at him. Somehow, he hadn't noticed how much the dwarf had changed. The dwarf's swept-back beard, his intense, wide-set eyes were the same, but
Chane was different now. Somehow the kender couldn't see him now as an amusing dwarf in a bunny suit. He might almost have been someone else entirely. Chess wondered if the old warrior, Grallen, had looked like this.
The dwarf set the helm on his head. It fit as though it had been made for him, and seemed as though none other had ever been intended to wear it. Grallen's helm settled over Chane's head, and the green stone above the noseguard began to glow.
Chane seemed to stiffen. His eyes closed, and when he spoke his voice had changed.
'I, Grallen,' he said, 'son of King Duncan, rode forth on the morning of the last battle in the great charge of the Hylar dwarves. From the
Northgate of Thorbardin we had come, then westward to where the roving companies encamped, then across Sky's End to the Plains of Dergoth, to join the main force of Hylar. My troop assaulted the mountain home of the wizard there. My brothers fought with courage and valor; many fell with honor at my side.'
They stared at him in wonder. Even Jilian had backed away, her eyes wide.
'Yet when the tide of battle turned in our favor,' Chane recited, 'and I confronted the wizard in his lair, he smiled, and a great magic rushed from his being: a flame of power and horror that broke through stone and steel.
'Thus in his rage and despair, he destroyed both his allies and his enemies.
'Thus did I die, and thus now I am doomed to live in the remains of the fortress, now known as Skullcap Mountain, until the day when someone will take my helm and return it to the land of my fathers so that I may find rest.'
Clouds seethed and churned overhead, darkening the land. Whining winds aloft echoed in the chasm below. Chane stood a moment longer as one entranced, then shuddered and opened his eyes. 'Grallen,' he said.
