be a trap for them once Glome’s army held the citadel.
If any among the invaders suspected that Glome the Assassin had reasons of his own for this venture — that he in fact intended to make himself king of all Kal-Thax — they were wise enough not to mention the idea.
So now they gathered on the night-dark slope of Sky’s End, thousands of armed Theiwar, Daergar, and a smattering of erratic, fanatical Klar, and just below them were the ramparts of the old citadel of the Daewar.
“I see no guards,” Slide Tolec muttered. “Where are they? There are always guards.”
“And always lights at night,” someone else noted. “The gold people are night-blind. But I see no lights.”
It was true. On the slope below, the spired citadel stood in darkness, silhouetted against the moonlit rubble- fields beyond. Only moon-shadows moved on its ramparts, darknesses among the patterns of red and white moonlight, sliding slowly inward as the moons Solinari and Lunitari crept higher in the spangled sky.
“Is it a trap?” one of the Daergar captains asked. “Do they somehow know we are here?”
“They know nothing,” Glome snapped. “The Daewar are tricky, but they don’t read minds or see in the dark. We have moved only by night since we assembled at the pits six days ago.”
“Then where are their guards?” the Daergar growled, his voice muffled by the slitted iron mask he wore. Some of the Daergar removed their masks at night, when the light did not pain them, but some chose to wear them even then, and the effect was disconcerting when they spoke — a voice coming from a faceless ovoid of dark metal whose only feature was a narrow slit in front of the hidden eyes.
“It doesn’t matter where they are,” Glome said. “Visible or not, they will be dead soon enough. Are the trundles prepared?”
“They’ve been in place since just after sunset,” Slide Tolec reminded him. “And they have been loaded for an hour. You can see them as well as we can.”
The trundles were Glome’s own plan — long, pegged-down nets that spanned a quarter mile of slopes above the Daewar citadel. The nets had been carried all the way from Theibardin and were set in place after darkness fell. Once they were in place, teams of dwarves had begun filling them with stones weighing forty to sixty pounds each. Hundreds of tons of stone now bulged the nets, and the keeper cables were as taut as iron bars.
“Then give the signal,” Glome commanded. “We are ready.”
“Hold!” someone called. “Look!”
Below the trundle nets, there was movement on the slope. At first it was furtive, hidden by shadows. Then into the moonlight ran a crowd of dwarves, leaping and shouting, heading downhill toward the silent Daewar citadel. There were a dozen or more of them — ragged, wild-haired creatures waving various weapons as they ran. Their cries were shouts of hatred, wild war cries that echoed from the slopes.
“Rust and tarnish!” Glome swore. “Those Klar … what do they think they’re doing?”
“Who knows what Klar think?” a Daergar warrior rumbled from behind his featureless mask. “But they will ruin everything.”
“No, they won’t,” Glome decided. “Slide! The signal!”
Slide Tolec put a short trumpet to his lips and blew a blast, then another. All up and down the net line, dwarves raised heavy axes above the keeper cables, and when Slide’s trumpet sounded again, they sliced downward. With a crash that grew like thunder, the nets collapsed and tons of stone plunged down the slope, picking up momentum with each yard. The dust that rose above the landslide was a dense cloud, billowing upward in the garish light of the moons. Beyond it, the thunder of falling, crashing stone drowned out the screams of the dozen or so Klar trapped ahead of the fall.
Again Slide Tolec sounded his trumpet, and the battle cries of thousands of Theiwar and Daergar rose above the tumult of falling stone crashing down upon the Daewar citadel. A torrent of dark shapes on the mountainside, Glome’s army charged down the rock-scoured slopes, following after the chaos they had unleashed.
Parts of the citadel still stood, broken spires thrusting skyward in the moonlit dust, but there were great holes in the structure where walls had fallen under the torrent of stone, and the Theiwar, Daergar, and remaining Klar poured through them, fanning out to occupy the old stronghold of the Daewar. Shouts of “Kill the Daewar!” rang and echoed, then died away in confused silence. Somewhere a querulous voice called, “Where are they? There’s no one here!”
For more than an hour, in angry silence, the invaders searched level after level of the Daewar’s mountainside city. They found nothing. The place was completely deserted. Not so much as a rug or piece of furniture remained.
It was by tracing the tracks of the ore carts back into the stone of Sky’s End, that they found the sealed gate where the fresh delving of the Daewar had begun. It was a circular slab of solid granite, twelve feet in diameter, set into the neck of a tunnel.
“The delvings.” Glome the Assassin decided. “They have completed their new city under the mountain and withdrawn to it.” He pointed at the granite slab. “Bring it down,” he commanded. “The Daewar are on the other side.”
They brought out their tools and set to work. Outside, beyond the wrecked walls of the old citadel of Daebardin, daylight came and went and came again as determined dwarves chipped away at the edges of the plug gate. Finally, though, it was loose and they attacked it with prybars. After a moment, the thing teetered outward and fell as dwarves scampered aside, then drew their weapons and poured through the opening.
Beyond should have been an underground city, a city filled with Daewar and Daewar treasures. Instead, there was only a tunnel — a huge, track-floored tunnel that receded southward toward the heart of Sky’s End.
A cluster of dark-blade-wielding Daergar turned to stare with blank, iron faces at the leader of the Theiwar. “So they are here?” one of them hissed. “Where, Theiwar?”
“Deeper,” Glome decided. “The Daewar prince said they were delving deep. We must follow this tunnel. Their new city is ahead somewhere.”
“It had better be,” a Daergar rumbled.
Mile after mile the tunnel ran, deeper and deeper into the stone core of the mountain. Almost featureless, except for widened caverns at regular intervals, where the telltale marks of pulled spikes — where cart-track had been pulled up — spread into double pairs. Here, in the Daewar’s delvings, the ore carts had been able to pass, laden carts rumbling outward, empties heading back into the mountain. With something like awe, the Theiwar studied these marks, as they studied the precise chiseling of the walls where stone had been removed a few feet at a time to bore the tunnel.
The huge tunnel, driving straight into the heart of a mountain, was impressive. It was not a thing beyond their understanding — many Theiwar were fair tunnelers — but it was a feat far larger than anything they had ever attempted, and the farther they went the more they realized the enormity of what the Daewar had done. If this mighty tunnel were no more than a road leading to their underground city, then what must the city be like?
After a few miles, dome’s army began to shrink as individuals and small groups, mostly Theiwar, held back, waited for the rest to pass, then quietly turned and went back the way they had come. It had occurred to many of them that if there were a city at the end of this road there must be far more Daewar than anyone had thought. The idea of attacking a tribe that outnumbered them, on its own ground, gave many a Theiwar second thoughts about the whole venture.
Few of the Daergar turned back. Driven by the intense, single-minded stubbornness of natural miners, the Daergar would go on, and some of the wild, erratic Klar with them.
Far into Sky’s End, Slide Tolec noticed that the Theiwar were far less numerous than they had been, and he edged aside, looking back along the great tunnel. Pretending to adjust his boots, he knelt beside a wall while the mixed army — still several thousand strong — marched past him.
When they had all gone by, he stood and glanced around. For a second he thought he was alone, then a shadow moved nearby, and a familiar voice said, “You, too, Slide Tolec?”
Brule Vaportongue stepped from shadows into the dim light of Slide’s oil-wick. “You have realized it, too, then?”
“Realized what?” Slide snapped the words. The half-Daergar dark-seeker had startled him, and he resented it.
“That it is time to leave this place.” Brule shrugged. “No Daewar fortune awaits us here. Only death. This road is not the entrance to a city. It is exactly what it seems. A road. The Daewar built it, and the Daewar have gone where it leads, and Glome the Assassin is going to his death.”
“You fear the Daewar?” Slide sneered.
