Black wizards - Douglas Niles [156]
Waving axes and swords over their heads, the duergar pounded their stubby legs across the rocky slope, momentum carrying them up the hill like a tidal wave.
"Now!" cried O'Roarke. As planned, the men of Doncastle all along the south edge of the hilltop kicked loose the piles of boulders they had prepared overnight. The huge stones thumped and rumbled down the hill.
The dead of the sea took no notice of the rocks, except for those struck by the tumbling missiles. Corpses were spattered by heavy boulders, or knocked down and crippled by smaller rocks. Skeletons went down like tenpins, and many rolling corpses added to the confusion as they tumbled into their fellows below.
But this side of the hill was neither as steep nor as rocky as the other side. Daryth and the rest of the fighters pushed as many rocks as they could, but the all-consuming landslide that had tumbled onto the Scarlet Guard the previous day did not recur.
Soon the boulders were gone, and the duergar roared forward in all their fury. They were close enough now for the men of Doncastle to see their wildly staring eyes, their bristling beards, and dark, scowling brows. When their stubby legs finally carried them to the men of Doncastle, their axes and shortswords were met with spears.
Instantly the din rose to hurricane proportions, as the battles cries of the duergar mingled with the hoarse challenges of the humans, the screams of the wounded, and the crashing of weapon against weapon and shield.
Daryth stood upon a wide, flat rock with Pawldo. Eyeless sockets stared blindly upward as the skeletons reached their clawlike hands toward the defenders in an effort to rip them down. The Calishite slashed and gashed with his silver scimitar. He cut the head from a soggy corpse and, with one vicious down-strike, cut a skeleton into two halves that fell, twitching, to either side of the rock.
Pawldo stood at his back, driving back a white, fleshy thing that tried to crawl onto the boulder. He stabbed it twice with no effect, but then kicked it in the head, gagging as his foot sank into the thing's mushy face.
A skeletal hand reached out, grasping Daryth's ankle. The Calishite stumbled and slipped toward the edge of the rock, but Pawldo's blade cut cleanly through the creature's wrist, drawing sparks from the rock as the severed hand still clung to the Calishite's leg. Daryth staggered back, twisting to catch his balance. He saw Pontswain's face behind him still gaping in shock. The lord had yet to draw his sword.
The howling of the dark dwarves rose to a frenzy, and Daryth saw with rising panic that they had broken through the line of rebels. Screeching insanely, twoscore duergar raced for the hilltop.
But Hugh O'Roarke bellowed, his red beard and hair seeming to blaze like fire, as he led a dozen men to the breach. He wielded a great broadsword in two hands, roaring a challenge every time he killed a duergar. He roared very frequently, and soon the survivors fell back to their own troops. The outlaw lord charged forward and the gap was filled.
But still they came out of the mist as if they had no end.
* * * * *
"When will they come? I'm getting bored! Robyn, go down and talk to them – tell them we want to get this battle started! "Newt scowled at the ogres, standing in a row at the bottom of the hill. Beside the brutes, the sahuagin slithered and seethed across the moor. The fish-men looked not like individuals, but like the giant, scaly surface of some unimaginable beast, so tightly were they packed.
Tristan, Robyn, Alexei, and Finellen stood at the crest, with Newt and the invisible Yazilliclick sitting on the ground before them. Canthus stood, tense and bristling, at the prince's side. They all watched the attack begin. On the other side, they could hear the battle raging between the duergar and the men of Doncastle. The prince wanted desperately to see what was happening over there, but he could not be everywhere at once. He had left O'Roarke in command,