ground, gold that they could then carry back to the so-called civilized lands and use to buy better lives. That did not diminish Warchief Mhurren’s pleasure at Glister’s pillage. His nostrils flared wide as he tasted the hot reek-wood, grain, straw, and wool burning in the ruin of the town, and the sweet smell of burning flesh too. That was livestock, of course; the townsfolk had abandoned the town to the Bloody Skulls and their allies. A few screams echoing through the muddy, smoke-filled streets suggested that not all of the town’s inhabitants had fled in time, but that sport wouldn’t keep Mhurren’s warriors entertained for long.
“A good beginning,” Sutha said to him. She stood behind him, dressed in chain mail with the symbol of Luthic, the Cave Mother, hanging on a chain around her neck. The Skull Guards surrounded them both, watching for any danger. Mhurren had reluctantly left Yevelda at Bloodskull Keep. He couldn’t have left the two of them alone while he went off to war, or he was sure that he would have returned home to find one or both of them dead. And Sutha’s priestess-magic was unquestionably useful on the battlefield. “The weaklings fled at the mere sight of us!”
Mhurren shook his head. “They were wise to give up the palisade and the town. We outnumber the humans and filthy dwarves ten to one. We would have slaughtered them all in an hour.”
He pointed to the unconquered stronghold at the top of the steep-sided hill on which the town stood. It was a crude stone fort known as the Anvil. Little more than a thick fieldstone wall enclosing the hilltop, it had a strongly defended gate and a single squat tower. “That is where they will stand and fight. Other tribes before us have plundered the town, but none have taken the Anvil. Glister is not destroyed until it falls.” He grinned at the challenge of it and shook his spear. “Come on, Bloodskulls! I want to hear for myself the bleating of the sheep in their little stone pen.”
He led the way beneath the open gate of the palisade and up through the town’s rough, muddy streets. Glister stood on a rocky prominence in the center of a steep-sided valley in the shadow of the Galena Mountains. The buildings were thick-walled bunkhouses and storehouses of fieldstone and turf, with a few ramshackle wooden buildings scattered here and there. Those accounted for most of the fires, since the stone-and-turf buildings did not burn well at all-one more measure of defense in a town whose location was decided by defense instead of comfort. Mhurren doubted whether there was much worth looting in the parts of the town that had been abandoned to the Bloody Skull horde, but for the moment he was content to let his warriors and their allies have their fun. Soon enough there would be real work at hand.
He heard heavy footsteps and snarling curses approaching from a side street and suppressed a growl of annoyance. The one-eyed priest Tangar stormed up to him, his fangs bared in fury. “We are betrayed!” the servant of Gruumsh roared. “Where are the old, the weak, the women, the children? They have escaped us! The Vaasan warned them of our attack!”
Mhurren scowled, careful not to allow his canines to show. As much as the priest irritated him, he couldn’t risk an open break with Tangar and his followers. “I did not think to surprise them, Tangar,” he answered with more patience than he felt. “We have many spears. Of course the rock-diggers and goat-herders heard of our march. But do not fear-they did not run far.” The scouts told Mhurren that a number of the Glister-folk had fled along the trails leading south to Melvaunt and Hulburg, but Mhurren’s new Red Claw allies were watching those paths. Those humans who hoped to carry their families or their gold to safety would be easy prey for the wolf riders. He pointed up at the fortress with his spear. “Most of the Glister-folk hide behind the walls of the Anvil with their gold and their women. No, they did not run far at all.”
He came to a broken storehouse at the upper end of the town, not more than eighty yards or so from the Anvil’s gatehouse. From there he had a good view of the challenge ahead. A narrow path led up to the sturdy iron- riveted timber gates. The walls of the stronghold were not very tall-twenty feet or so, it seemed-but, other than the path leading to the gatehouse, it was a steep scramble up a bare and open slope to reach the foot of the walls, and Mhurren could see the dark shapes of bowmen and spearmen hiding behind the crenellations, waiting to repel an assault. No doubt the Glister-folk had food and water enough to withstand a siege of a month or more. The humans and dwarves who lived in this remote place had waited out more than one orc or ogre tribe, hiding behind their walls until the besieging forces grew hungry, or bored, or turned against each other.
Mhurren did not intend to repeat the mistakes of chieftains before him. There would be no siege against the Anvil. Instead, he meant to storm the stronghold before dawn.
“Bring the Vaasan here,” he told his Skull Guards. One of the warriors dipped his spear and jogged off into the smoke and darkness. A few minutes later, he returned with the Warlock Knight Terov. The human wore his battle armor of black plate with the ram’s head helm, but he seemed to handle the weight of the steel well. Several Vaasan knights accompanied their lord-likely to protect him from any sudden misunderstandings with his Bloody Skull allies.
The human glanced up at the walls, measuring the likelihood of an arrow from the ramparts, and then turned his back on the defenders contemptuously. “Well done, Warchief Mhurren,” he said. “You have boxed the badger in its den. Will you smoke him out, or do you have something else in mind?”
“We have not yet tested our new Vaasan mail,” Mhurren answered. He had kept his own armor, which included heavy plates worked in the form of snarling demon faces over the mail he routinely wore, simply because he didn’t want his warriors to think he’d become too close to the Vaasans. But eight hundred of his best spearmen had traded their leather jerkins and crude scale shirts for the strong Vaasan hauberks, helms, and greaves. Since the Glister-folk had not defended their palisade or town, Mhurren hadn’t yet had the opportunity to see how it stood up in battle-but he knew good steel, and Terov hadn’t stinted on his promise. “I will take the Anvil before sunrise.”
Terov nodded. “Your warriors came here for a fight, and they haven’t had one yet. Better to give them one before they decide they’re content with burning the town.”
“You understand us well,” Mhurren answered grudgingly.
“How can I help?”
Mhurren pointed at the gatehouse. “First, I want them blinded. Use your magic to conjure a fog or smoke before the gate, so that Guld and his ogres can get close without being feathered with arrows. Then, when I signal, I want your manticores and wyverns to rake the defenders from the walltop to the north, there.”
The Warlock Knight nodded. “What of the giants?”
“With my Bloody Skulls. Guld might force the gate, but the north wall is the attack that will carry.”
“As you say, then. I will conjure you a fog. Send your orders to our monster handlers, and they will see to it that the flyers do as you command.” Terov glanced once more at the battlements and strode away with his guards in tow.
Mhurren growled in approval and turned away from the stronghold. “Messengers!” he called. Young warriors not quite grown enough to stand shield-to-shield in the tribe’s muster leaped to their feet, ready for their duties. Mhurren quickly gave his commands, made each messenger repeat his orders twice, and sent them on their way- most to Bloody Skull warbands, two to Guld the ogre, two to Kraashk of the Red Claws, others to the Vaasans’ monsters. Then he settled down to wait. He would do nothing until he received word back that his orders had been delivered.
One by one, his messengers returned. In the town below he began to hear the sounds of movement amid the roaring and crackle of the flames, the heavy tramp of armored feet, and the shouts of harsh voices. Sharp whipcracks echoed through the darkness as leaders and priests beat and bludgeoned overeager pillagers away from the meager prizes they had already found and brought them back into battle order.
“Dawn approaches,” Sutha said. Mhurren glanced eastward. Pearly gray streaks were beginning to lighten the sky. Sunrise was not more than an hour away.
“No matter.” He looked over to his drummers and said, “Beat the first signal.”
The drummers seized their mallets and struck a long, slow roll on their massive instruments. Each wardrum was a good five feet across, its voice so deep and powerful that it could carry for miles in the right conditions. In Glister’s narrow vale the high stone cliffs surrounding the town caught the heavy thoom-thooooom beats and threw them back until it seemed the whole town quivered in response. Then Mhurren slashed his hand, and the drummers fell silent.
From somewhere off to his right, he heard a human voice calling out some sort of invocation. A single torch came hurling out from the shadows of the buildings in that direction, clattering to the ground a short distance in front of the gatehouse. For a moment the torch simply guttered there on the ground, and Mhurren’s brow furrowed as he wondered if that paltry gesture was all that Terov could provide in the way of magic. But then the torch began to smoke, to smoke heavily, and in the space of a few heartbeats it began to produce immense, thick, yellow-gray
