Delver Magic II: Throne of Vengeance, Jeff Inlo [graded readers .TXT] 📗

through the dark, the feathers whistling through time and space. The razor sharp tip plunged in to the force commander’s neck, just above his armored breast plate.

The dwarf did not fall immediately. He fought against the gripping hands of death. He pulled the shaft from his body and threw it with disgust. He could not see the wound but he knew it was mortal. He glared back at the source of the strike, fiery hate raged in his eyes. He spat in Holli’s direction before he crumpled to the ground.

At first, the surfaced dwarves held their formation in the face of their commander’s death, but many were raw recruits of the separatist movement. Like the humans on the wall, they had never faced true battle. Without a force commander, they shuffled about their positions. They looked to the sealed tunnel. Diggers were finally breaking around Enin’s force field. Hope of reinforcements held them in place. They waited impatiently for support and for guidance.

Holli pressed upon their growing uncertainty. She ordered the archers around her to send a single volley of arrows at the dwarves. There was an immediate response.

The twang of bowstrings was nearly simultaneous. Dozens of arrows cut through the night, harbingers of death for the dwarf invaders. Some of the shafts bore the carved inscription of “Dwarf”. Many of the tips were coated with poison.

Holli methodically surveyed the damage. Most arrows plunged into the ground. Others slammed against dwarf armor, the shafts shattering as the tips flattened against iron chest plates or helmets. A handful, however, found their mark and five dwarves dropped with fatal or serious wounds. She was pleased.

She stroked their confidence. “Good shooting, excellent shooting.”

The dwarves below began to break. They scattered with little thought to direction. Some came to the wall and Holli ordered another volley. More dwarves fell. The archers cheered.

Holli nodded in approval. Over a dozen dwarves were down. The survivors ran without formation, no longer a threat. They would be taken out by other archers on rooftops or by Sy’s men.

The thought of the ground forces compelled her to consider the battle as a whole. She looked to the towers. Signals of dwarf movement were becoming more frequent. Based on this information, she calculated only seven or eight surfacing points, more good news for she expected over a dozen. At the beginning, the dwarf forces would be clustered together, easier targets for her archers. She needed to move to other areas to check on their progress. Before she left, she handed command over to the senior guard soldier.

“Keep them firing at the surface point. Try to hold them down there as long as possible. They won’t stop coming up. There’s probably hundreds down there. Slow them as much as you can and don’t let your people get discouraged.”

She yelled her final directions for all to hear.

“There is a long night ahead. Keep your fire focused on that surfacing point. Don’t all fire at once. Remember your training. Shoot in groups of five, reload and wait for your turn to fire again. A constant barrage is better than intermittent larger ones, so keep the arrows flying. Pick your targets and try to make every arrow count. Don’t be fooled. They’ll eventually realize your position and they will come after you. If they attack the wall, break to safety and fire again. I’ll be back as soon as possible.”

#

Sy did not have to speak a single command to keep his men in the ready. His ground troops were the finest of Burbon. The elite. They knew their task, knew every hand signal of the group leaders. They waited within dark warehouses, in narrow alleys, and at crucial crossroads. They read the signal torches in the towers and knew of the dwarf positions before the battle commenced. The strategy of the elf guard and their own captain remained imprinted in their every thought. They held to their broadswords and shields as if these weapons were but extensions of their own arms. They waited with patience, without fear.

The first of the ground forces to go into action was granted a reprieve when Enin sealed the initial dwarf surfacing point. They would get another chance, but they would have to wait. They pulled back, returned to a dark alley as the situation was signaled to other commanders.

The second dwarf tunnel opened up near the eastern tower directly across from Holli’s original position. Ground forces under the command of Ray Coale immediately readied for the first engagement. Coale’s men, numbering twenty, waited in an abandoned warehouse as Coale signaled the enemy position and his intentions to the other group leaders in the vicinity. He would distract the dwarves from this tunnel and lead them to a crossfire of slingers and archers three blocks to the west.

The dwarf tunnel appeared just one block from the warehouse’s main door. The street lamps burned bright and the dwarves surfaced in clear sight. Coale counted off the dwarves as they rose from the tunnel. He watched carefully as they took their formation. They moved slowly, but deliberately. A dwarf force commander rattled off angry orders. As the dwarf leader called for a formation, the first thirty dwarves formed a three pointed wedge. They wore heavy armor. Coale could only imagine the strength needed to carry such weight in battle. The dwarves carried weapons of raw power, weapons such as axes and maces. A few held broadswords and mauls, but he saw no bows, long or cross.

With the formation in place, the first dwarf assault group moved forward. They stepped slowly almost clumsily, and in that, Coale’s confidence grew.

Coale shifted his concentration from the surfacing point to the moving formation. More dwarves continued to evacuate from the hole, but Coale would not concern himself with these. He signaled the next closest ground team to divert this second enemy formation. The first would belong to him. He gave his first order just above a whisper.

“Loose circles. Keep them at bay, engage long enough to get their interest, then pull back at my command. Nothing fancy, no heroes means no casualties. Let the long range defenders earn their keep. We’ll sure as blazes be earning ours.”

He moved out first with a staunch yell. He took to the open street and his men filled in behind him. They did as he asked, forming four loose circles, each of five men. They spread out knowing their greatest advantage was not their height, but their maneuverability.

Coale, a large man, towered over the approaching dwarves. He held out his sword with menace. His own bulk matched the stockiness of the dwarves, yet his greater height gave him overall size superiority. He motioned for the dwarves to attack, if they dared.

They did so with fervor.

The charge of the dwarves was almost laughable. They moved with all the speed and grace of an anchored cargo ship. Yet, no soldier could deny their uncanny strength or their unyielding will to conquer the enemy.

Under Coale’s immediate direction, the circle formations spread wide and moved with the dwarf assault. Soldiers backpedaled slowly, allowing the dwarves to close only slightly. Three of the four circle formations each drew a bead on one of the three wedge points. The fourth waited in the rear as support.

Coale displayed caution with his antagonism. He allowed the dwarf force commander to believe he was willing to engage, but he was also moving with care. He gave ground slowly, showing no sign of his true intentions. The dwarves continued to pursue even as he led them to the place of their destruction.

As the invaders drew close, the soldiers at the forward points of the circles jabbed out with their swords. Those in the rear called out advances as the soldiers on the side perimeters stepped up and back to disorient the enemy’s perspective of distance.

Coale kept a constant flow of backward movement, slow enough to keep the dwarves interested, fast enough to keep from full engagement. A few times, he allowed the invaders close enough to make a single strike. Blows from axes that landed upon his shield split the metal with long gashes. The power of the attacking dwarf vibrated through his own arm and shook his entire body. In such instances, he revealed no surprise, only a bizarre grin which enticed the dwarves into further pursuit.

As the conflict slowly yielded to a large open square, Coale suddenly ordered a fast retreat. The circle formations of his own men quickly dissipated as the soldiers took off to the four corners of the square.

The dwarves were left swinging at air as they could not pursue with the same speed. The dwarf commander eyed his surroundings and saw open streets in four separate directions. He quickly ordered the wedge to break into a square. He took the center as he attempted to surmise Coale’s next move. He could not believe his eyes.

Coale’s men took hold of long lines hanging from building corners. They pulled upon them with furious desire. Thick nets dropped from above and blocked all points of escape for the dwarves. Just as the last net hit the ground, arrows and rocks fell like rain from the sky.

The square formation broke as dwarves ran for cover that did not exist. Some hoped to cut the nets with their axes, but they moved so slow they fell victim before they could reach their target. Those that survived the volley of arrows, felt the sting of swords from Coale’s men. Again, just as Holli’s first ranged attack met with complete success, the first ground engagement proved one-sided with the dwarves on the losing end.

#

Sy read the signals of these initial successes just as his own contingent was about to enter the battle. The eighth and final surfacing point appeared four blocks from his position. He could not have asked for better placement, and he wondered how the dwarves could have made such a tactical error. He could only assume the dwarves hastily completed their tunnels without scouting. If they had, they would have never chosen this point for surfacing, and he would not allow this blunder to go unpunished. In response to the dwarf miscalculation, he moved his attack group immediately, even as the first dwarves emerged.

The tunnel opened upon the street just in front of a sturdy barricade. Two separate lines of heavy tree trunks blocked all northern passage. Sharpened ends pointed down to dwarf level, waited like the fanged smile of a dragon. When the first dwarf commander struck to the surface, she cursed this dilemma. She did not expect the humans to prepare such bulwarks. Her forces could break them, but it would slow them and they were already bottlenecked in the tunnel.

Sy double-timed his men up from the south as he blessed his own luck. Two bands of archers and one group of slingers waited upon the rooftops directly over the dwarf tunnel. They waited for his signal, without giving away their own position to the enemy. They moved into place silently overhead, using the shadows for cover, and though the dwarves could see through this darkness, they did not think to look skyward.

This was a definite ambush point, a place Sy had hoped to bring the enemy, a place like many others around Burbon where the battle would be fought to their own advantage. The dwarves had stumbled upon it now by their own choosing. If Sy could keep them here, the dwarf army would suffer greatly.

His first battle command was to light two waiting hay carts ablaze. His men sent the flaming wagons directly at the tunnel entrance. The dwarves struck at the carriages, breaking them into splinters, but the burning hay dropped upon them like scorching rain. The darkness overhead scattered and the entire dwarf