The Swordsheath Scroll

But the tide of the assault was overwhelming. Dwarves fought the clanking humans on the lower slope of the fan, then fell back and turned to fight again, higher up in the rubble. Slowly, inexorably, the dwarves were sought out, pushed back, and compacted by the sheer weight of numbers.

Men died and dwarves died as the uncaring cliffs above echoed the clatter and clash of furious combat.

Derkin and the Ten were everywhere, reinforcing a defense here, defending a withdrawal there, setting up impromptu ambushes and counterattacks. Once into the maze of fallen rock, the humans were sometimes out of contact with their officers, and dozens of small, scattered bands of them wandered here and there, sometimes going the wrong way… and paying for their confusion with their lives. But the dwarven drums were singing constantly, orchestrating the strategies and movements of Derkin's disciplined dwarves. For an hour, and then another, it seemed the dwarves might hold their position among the rocks. Yet even as Derkin realized that they were holding, his drums told him of another wave of attackers entering the landslide fan.

As the sun of Kry

Directly behind him a deep voice responded, "For Thorbardin. Everbardin, be open to this one." Hearing the voice, Derkin knew who was fighting behind him. It was the Hylar, Culom Vand, the son of Dunbarth Ironthumb.

Derkin deflected a vicious, two-handed slash with his shield and returned the blow. His hammer left a deep dent in the breastplate of a human and staggered him backward, but his foes kept up their attack. Behind him, the Lawgiver heard a gasp and the sound of pierced lungs. But then steel rang on steel again, and he knew that Culom Vand was still there, and that it was an attacker who had fallen.

Two blades came at him together, one high and one low. He ducked, caught the lower one on his shield, and braced himself for the overhead blow. But it didn't fall, and he saw the shadow of Culom's shield above him.

He recovered, thrust, and said hoarsely, "Thanks."

Behind him, Culom said, "My father really does want to talk to you… preferably alive."

Then, abruptly, above the din, the drums echoed a new call. A soldier glanced away for an instant, and Derkin's hammer crushed the man's helmet into his skull.

Behind him, Culom said, "That's the song I heard in my dream, before we came to the pass. What does it mean?"

Derkin ducked under a sword slash, braced his feet, and butted his nearest foe with his shield. The man doubled over the shield, and Derkin straightened, lifted the soldier, and flung him backward against the second one. Both of them fell, and Derkin raised his head, listening. Then his eyes widened. "It means reinforcements!" he shouted. "Let's get out of this place!"

"I'm with you," Culom rasped, pushing his own adversary back a step. Then, as armored men rushed the pair from both sides, the dwarves dropped to the ground, slashing at human ankles. With a resounding clatter, three soldiers collided above them, and sprawled against the stones. "Climb," Derkin ordered. Making a stirrup of his hands, he hoisted Culom to the top of the nearest standing stone, and the Hylar pulled him up an instant later. Beneath them, dazed soldiers were just getting to their hands and knees as Tap Tolec and Talon Oakbeard rushed into the crevice to methodically brain them.

The drums were beating a wild tattoo, and trumpets blared in the distance. Atop the standing stone, Derkin Lawgiver stared, openmouthed. Out on the barrens, beyond the landslide, there was melee everywhere. Human horse units wheeled and circled frantically, footmen scrambled in all directions, and a half-hundred pitched battles were underway.

And beyond, coming up from the forest, were elves. By the hundreds and thousands, they streamed onto the wasteland slopes, leaping and bounding, their deadly arrows flying ahead of them like swarms of angry wasps. Moon-blond hair flowing in the wind, beardless faces serene and intent, the elves had fallen on Dreyus's army from behind, and were methodically cutting it to pieces. And among them, riding and slashing like lithe, feral beasts with bright feathers in their hair, were hundreds of mounted Cobar warriors.

Scampering to the highest place he could find, Derkin raised his hammer high above his head, then swept it downward toward the open slopes. "Attack!" he roared.

Before the scattered, surprised soldiers of the emperor could reform to respond to the elves' attack, they found themselves hit from behind by thousands of howling, chanting dwarves pouring out of the landslide fan. Some of the soldiers responded bravely; some heard a confusion of orders and ran in circles. Some simply ran.

There were no strategies now, no pla

"I already noticed," Derkin growled. "You might have come a little earlier, though."

"We'd have been here two days ago if Redrock Cleft had still been open for our Cobar friends." The elf smiled, a smile that was childlike in its slyness. "But they had to go around."

"That's what you always wanted, wasn't it?" Derkin glared at him. "From the very first, you've used me-and my people-to block the emperor's path to the east."

"We all use one another." Despaxas shrugged. "To use and be used, by choice, is the way of friendship. It's the stuff of alliances. The alternative is domination by emperors, and slavery."

A random arrow, with the markings of Daltigoth, whisked toward Derkin. Without seeming to take his eyes off Despaxas, the dwarf deflected the quarrel with his shield. Just beyond Despaxas, a buckskin-clad Wild-ru

All around them, the pitched battle raged.

Talon Oakbeard came then, mounted on his favorite horse and leading other mounts. Derkin's was there, its saddle already occupied. Helta Graywood eased back to make space for Derkin in the saddle, and he climbed aboard.

Derkin looked down, but Despaxas was gone. The elf had said all he had to say, apparently.

Other dwarven horse companies were mounted now, and sweeping here and there through human ranks, dwarves slashing fiercely from both sides of each saddle. Derkin picked out a promising fight and joined in.

Within an hour, the fighting had thi