count of one, two, three, hoisted the rack to a vertical position, so the condemned dwarf had a good view of the entire crowd.
No sooner were the braces snapped shut on his limbs than other hill dwarves rushed forward with tinder-bits of twigs and some dry straw-that they hastily spread on the ground around him. More wood was passed forward, stout logs that would burn long and hot. Brandon tugged desperately at his manacles and tried to kick his legs free, but he was firmly trapped. Struggling to speak despite the gag that still choked him, he vowed not to let the barbarous hill dwarves witness his fear. He wished he would die swiftly.
So engrossed was he in his own miserable drama that he didn’t immediately notice the commotion erupting on the other side of the square. The hill dwarves who had been carrying logs toward the rack abruptly dropped their loads and sprinted away from the platform. Neidar began to shout, drawing weapons, surging away from Brandon. Only then did he hear the clash of steel and realize some sort of battle was under way.
A phalanx of armed and armored dwarves was streaming into the plaza, charging in tight lines down the city’s main street. The hill dwarves, utterly taken by surprise, fell back initially before the disciplined attackers. Brandon cheered mutely as he saw the bully Rune go down, felled by an attacker’s hammer blow to the head. The newcomers were wild eyed, Brandon noted, with long beards tucked into their belts. They wore black armor and carried shields of the same color and were armed with a mixture of axes and swords-and a few crossbows too, Brandon saw, as a rank of archers raised their weapons and fired a volley of bolts into the hill dwarves still gathered around the central platform.
“Rally to me, Neidar!” Harn Poleaxe cried, leaping down into their midst. He waved a mighty sword over his head, his roaring voice cutting through the chaos. Hill dwarves cheered, and those who had weapons readied them, coalescing around the big warrior.
“Charge!” Poleaxe cried, and immediately the hill dwarves followed his lead as he rushed toward the armored dwarves who had swarmed into town.
The two forces came together in the middle of the square, blades clanging against breastplates, boots pounding on the pavement. Shouts invoking the name of Reorx rose from throats on both sides. Screaming maids and children fled, while more hill dwarves, some strapping on helmets or breastplates, rushed toward the fight from the surrounding streets.
The attackers maintained their steady advance with impressive discipline, Brandon noted. Shoulder to shoulder, they formed a wedge and used their heavy shields to push the defenders back, sometimes sweeping them right off their feet. They came on with full-throated, almost joyous battle cries, staring with crazed, bulging eyes, swinging their weapons with brutal fury. Brandon recognized the newcomers as members of the clan Klar, but they were more disciplined, more organized, than any Klar he knew of.
The fallen were trampled as the attacking dwarves gradually steamrolled their way across the square. Their shields edge to edge formed a wall of steel that allowed only slight gaps wide enough for a sword or axe to come stabbing out from the phalanx. Many Neidar fell, wounded or killed, and the rest were slowly forced back. Soon the attacking force reached the raised platform, and the last fighting swirled around the dais, hill dwarves standing their ground around Poleaxe’s great chair. Swords and axes bashed against armor, and the cries of the wounded and dying mingled with shouted commands and hoarse battle cries.
On that chair, Brandon remembered with a jolt of excitement-and trepidation-lay the Bluestone and its emerald twin. Desperately he resumed his struggle to move, but the chains fastened to the manacles only allowed him to thrash impotently. Who were those attackers, he wondered? Fellow mountain dwarves, of course. But where did they come from, and why?
He could do nothing to free himself. The battle surrounded the immobilized prisoner, who was ignored by combatants on both sides. A pair of hill dwarves, wielding short swords, fell back until they were planted right in front of him, staunchly contesting a trio of attackers who bashed their sword blades with heavy axes. One Neidar made a lunge, momentarily forcing the trio to retreat, but when the other Neidar tried to slip past Brandon, the captive was able to stretch out his foot a little and trip the hill dwarf into the pile of tinder under the rack.
An attacking dwarf brought his axe down hard, and the fallen Neidar’s head rolled from his shoulders. That Klar suddenly noticed Brandon and pulled off his gag.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“An enemy of your enemy!” gasped Brandon. “How about a chop against these brackets?”
With a wicked grin, the mountain dwarf brought his bloody axe blade down, splitting the beam holding his ankle bracelets. Another sideways whack broke the side support, and the square rack tumbled apart, falling to the ground and taking Brandon with it.
“All right. But now you’re on your own, pal,” cried his rescuer, joining his companions as the attack moved on, spreading across the plaza.
Despite being burdened with armor and shields, the Klar moved swiftly. The Neidar had fallen back but were once again rallying around Harn Poleaxe. However, they were scattered by the Klar’s charge, and even their hulking commander stumbled back-though not before Poleaxe felled a pair of Klar with crushing, well-aimed blows.
Meanwhile Brandon was kicking his feet, sliding the loop of chain free from the splintered board. Twisting and pulling with his muscular arms, he broke the rest of the frame apart. He was still secured by four manacles, each with a thick chain attached, but no longer were those cuffs anchored by heavy wood. He jumped free of the pile of debris and firewood, albeit hung with chains and attached brackets and manacles on his wrists and ankles.
He couldn’t get very far that way, he realized. He needed the key.
Rune! He remembered that his old tormentor had locked him into those brackets, and perhaps the hill dwarf still possessed the key. Stumbling forward, dragging his chains, Brandon lunged across the square toward where his foe had fallen. Rune was still there, bleeding from the hard blow to his head but struggling to rise, pushing himself to his hands and knees.
Brandon fell on him with the full pent-up fury of his betrayal. He swung his arm, heavily smacking the hill dwarf on the side of the head with a wildly lashing length of heavy chain. When Rune went down again, Brandon climbed on top of him, reaching under his tunic for the key he wore on the thong around his neck. The Neidar barely twitched, groaning and resisting only feebly as Brandon pulled the key out.
Twisting around and sitting on the immobilized Rune, Brandon quickly worked the bit of metal into the locks on his right and left wrists, freeing his hands. Next came the locks on his ankles, and finally he was able to shed all of his trappings and stand on his feet, once again a free dwarf. Maybe, finally, his luck was changing for the better! Almost as an afterthought, he reached down and smacked Rune one more time. Then he snatched Rune’s sword off the ground, looking to take his place in the fight.
But he quickly saw that, while he had been busily freeing himself, the tide had turned. More and more hill dwarves, some fully equipped with battle gear, had continued to pour into the square, and the reinforcements outnumbered the attackers by at least two to one. The mountain dwarves were gradually falling back, following with discipline the lead of their commander, whom Brandon spotted in the thick of the action shouting out orders-a handsome, blond male with exotic eyes and long, free-flowing hair.
Brandon groaned as the blond Klar, passing the platform where he had just undergone his “trial,” stopped and stared at something. Eyes widening, the Klar leader snatched up the pouches containing the two stones. He opened one, and his teeth flashed a grin.
“Fall back!” the Klar captain brayed. “Tight ranks! Retreat!”
“No!” shouted Brandon, but his voice was drowned out in the melee.
The Klar had secured the pouch around his waist. The mountain dwarves, forming a tight rank, backed out of the square and down the street from which the attack had burst. The Neidar pursued them, but the Klar force was like a bristling hedgehog, spears and swords pointing out from behind shields, lethal to any pursuer who dared to draw close.
“They take the stones! Fall on them! Kill them!” Harn Poleaxe cried, cursing frenziedly. Spittle flew from his lips and his face, distorted by rage, seemed to erupt in several more grotesque warts. Brandon could only stare as the Neidar mob, led by his nemesis, raced past him, mere yards away, without taking the slightest notice of one dwarf rooted in place.
Behind the Neidar fighters, villagers were swiftly moving through the suddenly quiet, abandoned areas, tending to the wounded, pulling cloaks over the faces of the dead. Several Neidar approached Rune, and Brandon stepped quietly away, averting his face. He was not dressed in black armor, so the hill dwarves paid him little attention. He took one longing glance at his axe, where it lay on the table beside Harn’s throne, but there were at
