The rest of the company had set to work expanding and fortifying their space. By knocking out the walls connecting the coal storage building to several neighboring structures, they had created a large hideaway in which to gather and wait. All the external doors except their initial entrance were fortified and guarded around the clock.

  By the time some forty-eight hours had passed, General Darkstone had assembled more than a thousand loyal Theiwar. For the time being, they kept a low profile, concealed in the bank of warehouses along the darkest streets of Norbardin's industrial quarter.

  Most of the citizens in the area had been frightened away, and those who weren't and could be found were given a quick choice: either join Darkstone's force or die.

  Most of them, of course, volunteered.

  At the same time, the general's spies brought him steady reports about the enemy's progress. The fall of the palace was reported to him, though it did not come as a surprise: Darkstone knew that the battered structure was ill suited for defense.

  More significant were the reports that Willim's troops were massing to make a stand on the Urkhan Road. Though they had suffered tremendous casualties thus far, the general knew that his troops, added to the black wizard's, meant they still had a sizable force at their disposal.

  Then he looked up to see that, in a breath of magic, his master had come to him.

  "Welcome, sire," Darkstone said, bowing deeply. He didn't know whether he would be allowed to live through to the end of his report, but he was not ashamed of his recent activities. And when he explained about all the recruiting he had done, boasting of the nearly twelve hundred loyal soldiers collected there in secret, poised on the enemy's flank and, as yet, undiscovered by the invaders, Willim the Black was not displeased.

  "It is as if you have read my mind," the wizard said with uncharacteristic praise. "I have been preparing a bit of a surprise for our enemies. First, I will lead them away from here, into a perfect trap. I am certain that, flushed with victory as they are, they will follow me ..."

  Then, Blade Darkstone would have a great ambush ready--an ambush that would either win the war or leave a scar of blood and despair across the breadth of the new king's realm.

  Gretchan sat in her cage and watched the two black-robed females talking in low tones, looking frequently in her direction. Sadie, Facet, and the imprisoned cleric were alone in the vast cavern of the wizard's lair, Willim having teleported away to an unknown location several minutes earlier.

  The priestess stared at her staff, resting on the wizard's worktable, well out of her reach. To her, that sacred artifact seemed almost to thrum with power. The anvil on the head retained a faint glow, which was very unusual when she wasn't holding onto it. She remembered how the device had seemed to absorb the dissolving essence of the fire dragon, and she couldn't help but wonder how the presence of so much uncontained power could affect the thing.

  The black wizard's worktable, as usual, was covered by a scattered assortment of vials and jars, dishes and boxes filled with components too vile and mysterious for the cleric to identify. Among them lay scrolls, some rolled into tubes, while others were spread flat for reading. In her rare glimpses, Gretchan had seen that some of the pages contained various arcane symbols, none of which made sense to her. But she knew enough about the ways of wizards to understand that the scrolls contained written versions of his spells, some of them undoubtedly very powerful. Through the medium of a scroll, even a wizard who was not powerful enough to learn a specific casting could obtain the means of using certain elaborate magics, by carefully reading the words aloud.

  Among all the detritus on the table, rising higher than anything else, stood the bell jar that had caught the cleric's eyes long before. A lone blue spark drifted around in that jar like a wistful firefly, seeming to fly without pattern or purpose. Gretchan had noticed the elder apprentice, Sadie, paying a great deal of attention to that jar, frequently glancing at it with a frown of concern or worry on her face. Once, when neither of the other wizards was looking, she had gone over to it and placed a tender hand on the glass, almost stroking it affectionately.

  Beyond the table stood a large cabinet closed and locked. But Facet and Willim had opened it several times during Gretchan's captivity, and she had noticed that it contained rows and rows of bottles in a variety of sizes and shapes and colors. Some were so large, they looked like wine jugs, and they were opaque, as if made of clay. Others were tiny vials of clear, delicate glass, with liquids that were colorless and watery or dark and thick as syrup. She had guessed that it was the wizard's potion cabinet, and she knew enough about sorcery to know that such dangerous elixirs could offer the one who drank them any of a wide variety of powerful, albeit temporary, powers. She'd heard of potions that allowed the imbiber to fly or to become invisible or to move at a speed far faster than any mortal could attain. Others were known to bewitch the drinker into viewing the one who had offered the drink as a great friend, a person to be trusted and favored in every way possible. There were even more sinister and vile applications, up to and including lethal poison. In fact, it had been the wizard's intent to test one such potion on Gus, an incident which had led to the gully dwarf's fortuitous escape from Thorbardin, when he had drunk a potion of teleportation instead of poison.

  Gretchan couldn't offer any comments or start a conversation with the other dwarf maids because, before he had departed, Willim the Black had once again muffled her with a spell of silence. In fact, he had even ordered Facet, the younger apprentice, to bring the priestess food and water. Gretchan had unquestionably been drained and exhausted by the confrontation with the fire dragon, and after quenching her hunger and thirst, she had, for the first time since her capture, fallen into a deep sleep.

  When she awakened, Sadie had been absent and Facet had been servicing her master in a very personal way, much to the dark wizard's loud and groaning delight. Stomach turning, Gretchan had turned her back and tried to ignore the activity, which was punctuated by Willim's cruel cries of ecstasy and, eventually, the whimpering submission of the young, beautiful apprentice. Not long after that, Sadie had returned via teleportation. The wizard had spoken to them both quietly before departing.

  Gretchan spotted Facet looking in her direction. The priestess raised a hand and beckoned her to come closer, taking care to move slowly, to mask any threat that might be implied by her gesture. The two black-robed females whispered together again, both of them glancing over at her, and finally they rose and, side by side, and walked slowly and cautiously over to Gretchan, stopping several paces back from the bars of the cage.

  Gretchan gestured to her mouth then spread her hands and reached out, a clear gesture of beseeching. Let me talk to you, she mouthed silently.

  She could see the hesitation and fear on both the wrinkled face of the elder Sadie and the beautiful but haunted visage of Facet. Once again she was struck by the contrast in appearance between the two, the only wizards she had observed in Willim's company and service. Sadie was wary and guarded, her eyes deeply set in her skull, her expression cautious and, in some unknowable way, sad. Facet was brazen and haughty, meeting Gretchan's look with a glare of frank hostility. With her crimson lips and alabaster, sculpted face, she was almost indescribably beautiful. Yet her eyes remained hooded with a look not so much of sadness, like Sadie's, but of constant, lurking fear.

  The priestess spread her hands, palms up, in the universal gesture of peaceful intent. The apprentice younger whispered something to the elder, and finally the older one approached the cage and snapped her fingers.

  Immediately Gretchan heard all the sounds of her own body, the things she had so often taken for granted. As the breath rasped through her nose, her pulse thrumming audibly again, she nodded and said, "Thank you."

  "Beware," cautioned Sadie. "If he returns, this will not go well ... for any of us."

  "I know. But I'm so grateful. I was afraid I'd go mad, being cooped up in that silence. It's a powerful spell," she added, nodding appreciatively at Sadie.

  The old dwarf maid snorted skeptically. "It's basic magic. Real power ... well, that's what you demonstrated when you vanquished the fire dragon like that. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes."

  Remembering that the two apprentices had teleported away as the dragon arrived, Gretchan looked at her quizzically. "I didn't know you saw it. I thought you had gone somewhere safer."

  Sadie smiled unapologetically. "We were on the far side of the city. We expected you to die and, well ..."

  "We wanted to watch," Facet said sharply. She scowled, clearly disappointed by the cleric's survival. "How did you defeat the monster, anyway?" Facet demanded. "We thought the Chaos creature was immortal!"

  "I didn't vanquish the creature," Gretchan said. "All the glory goes to Reorx, Master of the Forge and Father God of All Dwarves," she added pointedly, reminding her captors of the shared kinship of their ancestry. "I was merely his tool, and a prisoner at that, as you well know."

  "I do know," Sadie said, nodding. "About being a prisoner as well."

  "Oh?" Gretchan prodded, grateful to have the conversation and curious as to what she might learn. "Who made you a prisoner?"

  "Why, Willim, of course," the elder apprentice declared as if surprised at the question. Her eyes flickered to the side, toward the laboratory table, and Gretchan remembered the bell jar, the blue spark, and Sadie's constant attention to that mysterious light.

  "Is that a prison? A glass cage?' she asked.

  Sadie stared at her again, frankly. "Yes. I was there too until very recently. Willim thought my husband and I were betraying him, and in his rage he was ... not kind to us."

  Gretchan nodded sympathetically then turned her eyes to Facet, who was watching them, her face an unreadable mask. "And you? Were you his prisoner as well?"

  "I am here by my own choice!" she asserted fiercely. "My master has taught me very much. He is training me, and I am learning from him. I serve him, and he shares the deepest secrets of the Order of the Black Robes with me."

  "I have noticed that he doesn't seem to treat you very well, however," Gretchan declared gently. "And it seems he forces you to do some ... unsavory ... things."

  For the first time, the pale female's face colored. Facet tossed back her hair and lifted her chin proudly. "I use all the tools at my disposal," she said coldly and with a little too much bravado.

  The priestess nodded, maintaining her sympathetic tone. "I understand. We all live in a man's world. We must all do what we can to get along."

  "Why are you even talking to us?" Facet blurted. "Surely you remember that it was I who tried to kill you in the woods, on your way to Pax Tharkas?" She sneered. "You were a fool, traveling by yourself, sleeping with a big fire."

  "Oh, I remember. You scared the daylights out of me. And you were skilled with your magic--you almost killed me. But if I am such a fool, doesn't that make you a greater fool for your failure?"

  Gretchan again saw fear flicker across the young woman's face. "I ... I was already punished, severely, for my failure," she said sullenly. "You will not survive me again."

  "I apologize for my words and am sorry you were punished," the cleric said. "Of course I had to defend myself, but I can attest that you tried very hard to do your job. Your master must be very cruel, indeed."

  "You didn't answer my question. Why are you talking to us?" Facet demanded again, her tone thick with suspicion.

  The cleric shrugged, choosing her words carefully. "I'm lonely, for one thing. I'm used to being surrounded by people. And I'm a talker and a writer by nature. To be locked up in a cage and especially muffled under a spell of silence ... well, it's almost enough to drive me mad."

  The discussion ended with a sudden gasp from Facet, who quickly spun away from the cage and dropped to her knees. Sadie, more slowly, turned and bowed as the wizard materialized abruptly in the space in front of his table. He was frowning, agitated, and at first didn't even take note of his accomplices or their reactions. He smashed a fist down against the stone surface then paced angrily away in the direction of the chasm.

  "My master, is there news?" asked Sadie, shooting Gretchan a look of warning.

  Instead of answering, he took up the cleric's staff and stalked over to the cage where Gretchan, taking care to utter no sound, sat watching him. With a snap of his fingers he dispelled the magic of the silence spell, doing so with such distracted haste that he apparently didn't notice the magic had already been neutralized.

  "You must be ready to travel," he said. "Have you eaten and drunk your fill?" "Yes," she replied calmly.

  "Good. Now get ready, all of you!" he barked in a tone of command. "We're going to the Isle of the Dead. Facet, gather a case of potions--a large case, for we may be gone for a while. You and I shall go at once, taking our prisoner.

  "Sadie," he continued. "I want you to collect my spellbooks and the scrolls. Bring them all; use a bag of holding to contain them. Follow us as soon as you can." Willim himself took Gretchan's staff from his worktable, holding it in both hands and pausing for a moment as if to savor the touch of the powerful artifact.

  Gretchan watched in silent apprehension as the two apprentices set about their tasks, obeying their master's commands. She saw Sadie looking around with alarm and felt a stab of sympathy for the elder female, who obviously didn't want to leave the jar with the blue spark behind.

  Facet looked at Sadie only once, but when she did, her dark eyes were pinpoints of seething, jealous rage.

  Gretchan felt no sympathy for the younger wizard, who only caused her a cold, penetrating fear.

  "We've confirmed the prisoner's report and located the main body of Willim's army," Fister Morewood reported breathlessly, speaking to Brandon and ignoring Otaxx and King Bellowgranite, who kept clearing his throat ostentatiously. With a gesture, Brandon directed his lieutenant to address his words to the monarch.

  "Uh, sorry, my liege. The enemy seems to be falling back to the Urkhan Sea," the Second Legion commander reported. "But they're putting up a pretty stiff fight in the gatehouse. The fort blocks our path, but we've confirmed that there's a wide avenue that runs from the city's main gate down to the water."

  "That's right," Tarn said. "It's nearly a hundred feet wide and perhaps four miles long. It ends at a wharf at the edge of the lake."

  "We've interrogated a number of prisoners," Morewood explained. "All claim that Willim has more than a thousand men on the Urkhan Road, gathered in that tunnel. They're waiting for his command, so it may be that we can catch them by surprise if we move quickly."

  "What kind of fight are they mounting at the gatehouse?" asked the king.

  "I sent a probe that way, and they were attacked by at least two hundred archers. When I sent a reconnaissance against the gates with a heavy ram, they found it securely fastened and well defended. My men have come to a dead stop."

  "Get the army in motion, then!" declared Tarn. "Send the Tharkadan Legion after them, and bring up your Kayolin troops in reserve!"

  Brandon was as anxious to get after the black wizard's army as anyone else, but a cautionary note sounded in the back of his mind. He couldn't leave the plan unchallenged.

  "King Bellowgranite, why would Willim position his army in a tunnel? It makes no sense! He denies himself any room to maneuver, and as soon as we carry this gatehouse he'd be vulnerable to our attack."

  "Well, perhaps he feels he can hold the gatehouse indefinitely," the monarch suggested. "His men are fierce fighters, as you know."

  "Yes, I realize that. But the potential for disaster is too great. It may cost us a lot of casualties, but we will carry the outer fortification, no matter how long it takes. Do you think he doubts our determination, after we forged the Tricolor Hammer and fought our way into his kingdom?"

  "Probably not. But in that tunnel, he only has to defend a narrow front. We can't bring the bulk of our army to bear against him." Tarn frowned, brooding on the situation.

  "No, but we can match him man for man. And with the Firespitters, any defense in a descending tunnel would turn into a deathtrap! He must know that and have some devious strategy in mind."

  "But surely he didn't know about the Firespitters when he made his plan. It seems to me that he simply failed to take them into consideration."

  Brandon drew a deep breath and tried a new tack. "Sire," he said. "We need to attack. But even if the main bulk of the enemy troops are on this Urkhan Road, the city of Norbardin is far from secure. I suggest we leave one legion here, to finish clearing the streets, sweeping the buildings. There are whole quarters of Norbardin, including Anvil's Echo, that we haven't even begun to explore."

  "No!" barked the king. "You've seen the welcome I received from the citizens! They wouldn't be celebrating like that if they were still worried about Willim's army. Obviously, he's abandoned the city and is massing one last defense elsewhere. We need to strike fast, to take advantage of the crucial intelligence we've gained at such a cost."

  "But, sire--"

  Tarn's tone softened as he reached out to touch Brandon with affection and obvious respect. "Look, I understand your concern. And we all owe you a great debt; if you hadn't made the long march from Kayolin, the Dwarf Home Army wouldn't even exist. But there'll be time enough for a thorough search when the main body of his army is destroyed. Now it seems clear that we have that army on the run! I want to send every man we have after Willim's soldiers and not stop till the last of his swordsmen has fallen or surrendered. If he retreats all the way to the Isle of the Dead, then we must take to the boats and follow him."

  Brandon felt a stir of misgiving, but he himself was too eager to get on with the fight to argue any further. So instead, he merely nodded and said, "Yes, Your Majesty. As you command."

  "How do you propose to take the gatehouse, sir?" asked Morewood.

 

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