“Very well, my lord. But-”
Harn Poleaxe raised his hand, his eyes narrowing as he smiled slyly. “You want to know how will we breach the main gates?” he guessed.
“Aye-uh,” Castlesmasher allowed. “How, indeed?”
“I have a plan for that, but I can’t reveal it, not yet. Just have your men prepared to move out with the dawn,” Poleaxe explained breezily, watching as the two lieutenants again exchanged surprised, and slightly worried, glances. He held out the jug that, only rarely, did he let out of his hand. “Here, my brave dwarves. Share a toast with me to our ultimate victory.”
In fact, Harn was reluctant to reveal the identity of the creature just yet. For one thing, he himself didn’t know its precise nature, and he didn’t want his men to be apprehensive. He well knew the traditional dwarf bias against the magical and supernatural. He feared the possibly damaging effect on morale if the troops knew he was relying on such a creature to spearhead the attack. Once the battle was joined, however, he was confident that bloodlust would compel the Neidar to follow him gloriously into battle.
As he had thought, the unexpected offer of dwarf spirits was enough to distract his men from their questions. Each took a healthy swig before Carpus held the jug out and Harn snatched it back.
Lord Poleaxe took a deep drink himself then stretched and yawned, making it clear the meeting was over. As each of the two Neidar would be returning to a different camp, on elevations separated by deep ravines, Harn wasn’t worried about them getting together to speculate through the night.
And, indeed, he needed to be alone to complete the last portion of his own battle plan. After Carbondale and Castlesmasher had made their farewells and disappeared from sight, Harn Poleaxe arose and walked through the perimeter of his camp. He made his way out onto a slender promontory with sheer cliffs falling away to either side. At the far end of the promontory, he came upon a large boulder and settled himself on a ledge where he had a view over the tumbling ridges of the tangled mountain range. Drinking steadily, he felt his senses growing keener, more perceptive. A thrill ran through him, manifested as a physical shiver. He scratched contentedly, pulling away a large scab from his forehead and ignoring the blood that ran into his eyebrows.
Far in the distance, where its blocky shape was outlined by a few flickering torches, Poleaxe got a glimpse of one of Pax Tharkas’s two massive towers. The red and white moons were both high and nearly full, but scudding clouds moved quickly past them, mostly leaving the mountaintop vantage masked by shadow.
Harn didn’t have to wait for long. He sensed the monster almost instantly because of the chill that brushed against his skin even before he saw the minion. In the darkness, his first visual clue was the pair of red eyes, glowing like embers, that flashed open just a few feet before his face. The Neidar gradually discerned that the monster was hovering in air, just beyond the top of the precipice, and that it regarded the hill dwarf commander with a curious expression. Those black, batlike wings flapped slowly, a leisurely cadence that was surely not enough, by itself, to float the massive creature in the air.
“You have made your plans,” the creature stated in its eerily dry voice, so suggestive of wind rustling through the limbs of winter-barren trees.
“I have. My army is eager and ready to strike on the morrow. I personally will lead the first charge and you will see that the gates fall before me. Is that not correct?” he said.
The creature responded with an elaborate and somewhat disconcerting shrug. “That may not be necessary after all,” it replied.
“Those gates are supposed to be ten feet thick!” objected Harn Poleaxe, who was not used to being challenged. “We have no siege engines, no war machines. If, I tell you, the gates are closed, we won’t be able to get in! They must be taken down! You must do as I say!”
“I must do nothing!” replied the monster. Its voice did not increase in volume, but its fiery eyes flared furiously.
“I–I apologize for my discourtesy,” Poleaxe said immediately, feeling his bowels turn to water in the face of that horrific rebuke. “But how can we carry the fortress against those gates?” he asked somewhat plaintively.
“I flew over that place just moments ago,” replied the creature. “The gates are open now, as they have been every night for the past month. You may be able to carry the entrance by storm even before the mountain dwarves know you are upon them.”
“If you say so, I will try,” pledged Harn. “But what if that doesn’t work?”
“You must attack as soon as you can. Do not rely entirely upon me.”
Poleaxe knew they still had a long way to go; they would have to negotiate several twists and turns and something of an uphill grade before reaching their objective. “We will be in position to attack some time in the middle of the afternoon,” he calculated.
“Very well. Do so. And if you are outside of the fortress when night falls, I will emerge with the darkness to smite them. But remember, you must attack as soon as possible.”
“I shall, my… my lord,” Harn replied. He might have been daunted by the task before him, but as the monster flexed its wings, Poleaxe felt a new invigoration. He watched the beast, but it did not leave. Instead, he came to him and wrapped him in an embrace of shadows. The hill dwarf tingled to a strange sensation, a piercing joy as the intangible essence of the thing seeped directly through his skin.
Moments later, it was gone, but it was with him as well. Tingling with energy, possessed, finally, by the full power of his dark master, Harn leaped to his feet. He drained the last swallows from his jug and knew that he and his men were ready.
There could be no turning aside, not anymore. Harn Poleaxe, and the black creature within him, would lead the charge.
“Where are we?” asked Brandon as he followed Gretchan up a narrow, winding staircase that spiraled up through a shaft so confining that his shoulders brushed the walls and he had to duck every time they reached another of the ubiquitous, and solidly built, arches.
“We’re climbing the East Tower,” she replied, pausing to breathe heavily. “This is a secret stairway, not the main route. That’s why the ceiling is so low,” she noted somewhat apologetically. “But I thought you’d prefer it to Main Street.”
“I do,” Brandon agreed, gasping for breath. He, too, was exhausted by the climb and welcomed the respite, however brief. Looking over his shoulder, he saw that Gus and Kondike were also weary and panting. The gully dwarf had plopped down on a step, while the dog, tongue hanging out and flanks heaving, watched his mistress attentively.
“Seems like a long way up,” the Hylar remarked sourly. He was still coming to grips with the ease with which she had smashed his cell door after his long days languishing in the filthy cell.
“Take heart-we’re almost halfway there,” she replied.
“Halfway! That’s encouraging. Aren’t we allowing ourselves to be trapped, caught like a bear in a tree, so to speak, if we keep climbing higher?” He even found himself wondering if he could really trust her but quickly acknowledged that he didn’t have any other choice, at least not right at the moment.
She shrugged, which didn’t do a lot for his confidence. “Maybe, but I don’t think so,” she said. “I’m betting we’re going to find a way into the Tharkadan Wall. There’s a whole network of catwalks and tunnels up in the top of that space where I think we can hide.”
“You’re holding all the cards,” Brandon admitted. “Lead on.”
They resumed the climb, hoisting themselves up two steps at a time, trying to avoid noise and conversation as they continued to the top of the tower. The stairway wound back and forth, a series of flights in a column without windows. Occasionally they passed wooden doorways, but Gretchan ignored each of those in her steady progress up.
Finally the dwarf maid paused at a landing, she and Brandon catching their breath as they waited for Gus, red faced and puffing, to join them. When he did, she opened a nearby door. They entered a huge, square room lit by sunlight streaming through narrow windows on two of the walls.
“Daylight,” Brandon said, feeling something akin to deep pleasure. “I’d forgotten what it looks like.”
“Daylight not so great,” Gus scoffed. He stomped off to one of the windows, crossing his arms over his chest while he looked out.
“What’s eating him?” Brandon wondered aloud.
Gretchan smiled. “I think he’s jealous of a certain big kisser dwarf.”
“Big kisser-oh,” the Kayolin dwarf replied, blushing slightly as he stared at the Aghar’s back.
