Sire. The outsiders are massing more and more in the foothills. They will be coming soon.”
“Soon?” Twist Cutshank’s voice mocked him. “Soon? What does ‘soon’ mean? This morning? Today? Next month?”
Slide stifled a sigh of disgust. How did the chieftain of the Theiwar expect him to read the minds of humans? “Today, maybe,” he answered. “There are at least a hundred fires out there now. They’ll have to move soon or starve.”
“A hundred fires?” He heard the stomp of heavy boots and knew that the chieftain and others wanted to see for themselves. “All together?”
“No, they’re scattered over many miles. But they’ve discovered now that they can’t pass the gorge, and the cliffs of Shalomar block them to the south, so they are massing below the pass. Like they always do, except now there are many more.”
As Twist Cutshank emerged onto the shelf, adjusting his mesh faceplate over craggy, sullen features, Slide moved aside for him, as people usually did. Twist Cutshank was not tall — he stood barely more than four feet high — but he was massive, with huge shoulders and almost no neck at all. His arms were as thick and knotty as the boles of mountain pines, and at least as long as his stubby, powerful legs.
“Fugitives,” he rumbled, then shielded his eyes against the morning sun to peer into the distance. “Rust!” he said. “There must be thousands of them!”
“I told you,” Slide Tolec muttered, then raised his voice. “They’ll be coming soon, up the valley.”
That was the one certainty, here in the eastern border lands of Kal-Thax. Intruders, when they came, would push westward across the foothills and into the wide, climbing valley that pointed toward the crest of Cloudseeker Mountain. It was the route they always followed. The way to Kal-Thax from the east was like a funnel. Across the plains of eastern Ergoth, migrants held to the narrowing “corridor” of wild lands, avoiding the northerly routes which led to the human city of Xak Tsaroth, where thieves and slavers waited to take their toll, and avoiding the ice barrens to the south. From the wilds, they slipped into the settled regions and were harried there by knights and companies of armed wardens, protecting the villages.
Reaching the foothills, the wanderers quickly found that the Grand Gorge was impassable to humans, and the Cliffs of Shalomar were unscalable by humans. So they set their eyes on the three crags atop Cloudseeker — those massive, upright fangs of stone that the dwarves called the Windweavers — and entered the narrowing valley that was their only route. And there, for more years than even the dwarves could remember, they were attacked and driven away or killed.
It was the only thing that every thane, tribe, and band of dwarves in Kal-Thax agreed on: Kal-Thax was closed to outside races and must remain so.
The “funnel” led directly into the territory of the Theiwar and was the reason that the Theiwar had become the first thane — or organized, land-holding nation — in Kal-Thax. Originally just small tribes of Einar, the Theiwar were cliff-dwelling people and had found fine profits in waylaying the humans and others who occasionally wandered into these mountains. Ambush, slaughter, and looting of outsiders had become a major industry in times past, and Thane Theiwar had profited from it.
Most travelers from the bog-lands and the plains never realized they had entered Kal-Thax until they were many miles up the rugged path among the foothills, and none realized that the path toward the three crags was a trap. Just below Galefang, the largest of the Windweavers, the path veered southward between high walls, directly into the canyon below the Theiwar caves. By the dozens and the hundreds, strangers had died there, and the Theiwar had looted and disposed of their bodies.
But it was different now. This time the intruders were a massive force, and the Theiwar did not have the field to themselves. The Daewar had come, arrogant as always, bypassing the Theiwar encampment without so much as a by-your-leave for trespassing on Theiwar grounds, and now were encamped right out on the promontory — a shoulder of the mountain, in the middle of the pass — as though to take charge of all defenses. A few miles beyond the Daewar camp, Slide knew, were hordes of grim, squinting Daergar, hiding their faces from the bright sunlight that hurt their dark-seeker eyes. They had come from their dimly lit tunnels and their precious mines to join in the defense of Kal-Thax. Here and there also were bands of the wild, erratic Klar, brandishing their bludgeons and waiting for the chance to bash a few human skulls.
In all, it was a grim and deadly array of dwarven fighters, none of the groups on very good terms with any of the others, but all determined that outsiders would not enter the mountain realm.
Slide wondered, though silently, what kind of fighting force they all might be if they could for once get together and act in unison. It was a foolish notion. Never in all the centuries since the Theiwar — and then the Daewar and Daergar and, to some extent, even the Klar — had become organized thanes, never had they acted in unison on any issue except the pact to keep aliens out.
In the distance to the east, the smoke of the human camps was trailing away on the breeze, and Slide, peering through his mesh faceplate, saw the beginnings of movement there. It was what he had expected. Someone in the foothills had taken charge, and now the humans — some of them at least — were on the move, heading up the pass.
He squinted, and Brule Vaportongue edged up beside him, his face hidden by the Daergar mask he wore. Brule was half Daergar and shunned the daylight.
“What do you see?” Brule asked. “Are they coming?”
“They’re coming.” Slide nodded. “By evening, the Daewar out there will be up to their eyeballs in humans.”
“The gold-molders have placed themselves to take the first assault,” Brule rasped. “So let them take it. We can attack from the flank, after they’ve slowed them down.”
To one side, Glome the Assassin turned and spat, “Shut up over there. We have better things to think about than fighting humans.” He turned back to Twist Cutshank, and all the rest turned to listen.
“The time is here to deal with the Daewar,” Glome told the chieftain. “My spies have been on the slopes of Sky’s End, as I told you. The citadel there is poorly guarded. The gold-molders are spending all their time delving into the mountain behind their fortifications. The spies believe they are expanding their city, deeper into the mountain.”
“They can still fight,” Twist Cutshank rumbled. “Don’t forget the beating we took last time we tried an attack, Glome.”
“That?” Glome growled. “That was no attack. That was a fiasco. Your old chieftain, Crouch Redfire, was an idiot, trying to raid Daebardin when Olim Goldbuckle and all his troops were there.”
“So what makes it different now?” Twist glared. “A Daewar patrol on the defense line?”
Glome pointed southward, toward the Daewar camp. “Patrol? That is no mere patrol out there. I got close and looked around. That is Goldbuckle himself, with Gem Bluesleeve and most of his army. That isn’t a hundred or so Daewar out there. That is a thousand or more — right out in the open, on Theiwar territory.”
“So what are you suggesting?” Twist stared at Glome. “That we withdraw and go loot Daebardin while their prince is away?”
“More than that,” Glome said. “First let them get bloodied by the humans. Let the Daewar take the brunt of today’s assault — and tomorrow’s, if there is one. Then, when Goldbuckle is weak, we can easily finish him off. After that, nothing stands between us and the treasures of Daebardin.”
“Treasures none of us have ever seen,” Twist pointed out. “We’re not even sure they
“Of course they have treasures!” Glome snapped. “Look at them! Every Daewar you ever saw wears a fortune in armor alone. And if they didn’t have treasure, why would they have been delving all these years over on Sky’s End? The rubble heaps below their citadel are enormous! They must be building an entire city under that mountain. Why would they do that, except to fortify, to protect vast treasures?”
“I’d like to see that undermountain city,” Twist Cutshank admitted. “Treasures, huh? Maybe so.”
“That place must be huge by now,” Glome nodded. “A fortress for a king, possibly?”
“King? There are no kings in Kal-Thax!”
“But maybe Olim Goldbuckle wants to be one,” Glome purred. “Have you thought about that? About the possibility of bowing before a bloody Daewar? Maybe
