"Come on," he urged them breathlessly. "There's another twenty of these runts waiting outside. It would be a shame not to kill them."

They closed ranks again. For all his hatred of orcs, Tungdil secretly hoped that the surviving beasts had seized their chance and fled. His weary arms were reluctant to lift much higher than his belt.

Spinning in formation, they whirled out of the tunnel and into the darkness outside. The stars cast a silvery shimmer over the waiting orcs. A hundred pairs of green eyes glinted menacingly in the moonlight. The beasts were growling and snarling under their breath.

"I thought you said twenty?" Tungdil muttered accusingly, his heart quailing at the sight.

"Like I told you, some challenges are bigger than others," Boпndil assured him, glossing over his mistake. "This is one of the bigger ones."

"Should we go right or left?" asked Tungdil, who was keen to establish their strategy.

"Straight through the middle. If they start slaying one another by accident, we'll have a better chance of making it unscathed. I'll deal with their chieftain, and when we're out the other side, we'll attack the flanks and hew down the rest."

"Tungdil is new to this, remember," his brother put in. "The high king told us to bring him back to Ogre's Death, not to purge the countryside of runts."

Tungdil was profoundly relieved. He hadn't wanted to say anything for fear of disappointing the twins, but Boлndal was less reckless than his brother and his sharp eyes had noted his exhaustion.

"Oh, all right, then," conceded Boпndil a little indignantly. "We'll go straight through the middle and forget about the flanks."

The plan established, they decided to act, not wanting to give the orcish archers an opportunity to use their bows. At first their tactic worked perfectly and they were mowing their way toward freedom at a tremendous rate when the enemy received unexpected support.

The ranks thinned around them as the orcs backed away, clearing a path.

"Hey! Come back here, you pug-faced monsters!" bellowed Ireheart, venting his frustration at the retreating beasts. "I'm not finished with you yet!"

The orcs continued to back away from them, and a lone man stepped forward instead. Tungdil knew the bloated figure from the apparition that had conversed with the famulus. The dark green robes cloaking the swollen body belonged to Lot-Ionan's killer.

The wizard looked doubly repulsive in the flesh. Blood trickled down his cheeks and his skin hung in flabby folds, occluding his features. He smelled as if he had been rolling in a pile of rotting rubbish.

"You've done well to get this far, but enough is enough," he purred. Fixing his gaze on Tungdil, he extended a bloated hand. "Give me the artifacts and the books you stole from Greenglade. After that, you can go."

Tungdil gripped his ax stubbornly. "These items belong to my master and I'll be damned if I'm giving them to you."

Nфd'onn chuckled. "How terribly valiant of you." He took a step toward them. "The artifacts belong to me. I'm in no mood for a discussion." The end of his staff struck the ground and he leveled the onyx-encrusted tip at Tungdil.

No sooner had he done so than the knapsack and the leather bag jerked away from Tungdil, struggling against him and trying to wrest themselves from his grip. He hung on to the straps as best he could, but his efforts were no match for the wizard's sorcery. The leather ripped and slipped from his fingers. He brought his foot down on one of the drawstrings just in time.

"I'll destroy the pouch and everything in it," he threatened, raising his ax.

"Be my guest. It would save me some work." Nфd'onn held his right arm on high, splayed his fingers, then clenched them into a fist.

The bags left the ground with such force that Tungdil could do nothing to stop them. Their flight ended when they dropped into the arms of an enormous orc, who clutched them to his chest with a grunt.

The magus was seized by a coughing fit. Blood leaked from his nostrils and he wiped it hastily away. "Go back to your kingdom, dwarves, and tell your ruler that I require his land. He can give it to me willingly, or my allies will take it by force. The choice is his." He gestured in Tungdil's direction. "Take him with you. I don't need him."

The two brothers said nothing. Gripping their weapons with steely determination, they were biding their time for an opportunity to attack. When the requisite diversion presented itself, they would hurl themselves on Nфd'onn and cut him to ribbons, but it was no good attacking while they were under the surveillance of the wizard and his hordes.

Suddenly there was confusion in the ranks. Beasts were pushing and shoving, and angry words were exchanged; then a particularly strapping specimen drew his sword against his neighbor and, snarling furiously, buried it up to the hilt in his gut. Within the space of a few heartbeats, the orcs were slaughtering one another.

Ireheart squared his shoulders, a sure sign that he was preparing to attack. His brown eyes were fixed on Nфd'onn's knees.

"Tungdil, you chop up his staff," he ordered in dwarfish. "The fatso won't stand a chance against the three of us." As always, he showed not a flicker of self-doubt.

"Ordinary weapons won't harm him." Tungdil glanced out of the corner of his eye at the iron-clad beast who was guarding the knapsack and the artifacts. "Our priority is to get the bags. Nфd'onn seems determined to destroy them, so they're obviously important."

Ireheart nodded. "You know what to do, Tungdil. On my signal…" The dwarves were preparing to leap into action when someone got there first.

From the crest of a nearby hill, a bolt of lightning flashed toward the magus and struck him in the side. Gasping, he dropped his staff and crumpled to the right.

The next bolt sped toward the orcs, reducing ten of their number to charred metal and flesh. The remaining beasts snarled in confusion, looking for the source of the attack. Spotting the figure at the top of the hill, they closed ranks and charged.

Nфd'onn raised his head and stretched out his right palm; the staff sprang into the air and flew into his hand.

This was the opportunity that the dwarves had been waiting for. Shrieking, Ireheart bore down on him, planting his axes into his legs, while Boлndal swung his crow's beak above his head and rammed it into Nфd'onn's broad back. He raked the blade upward, and the magus slumped to the ground.

The wizard's orcish protectors were too distracted by the arrival of the powerful new adversary to notice his plight. As they raced up the hill, black clouds formed above them, and a roll of thunder announced the coming storm.

The first orcs were paces away from their target when the tempest was unleashed. Lightning crackled to earth, striking the front line of orcs and splitting their skins like sausages in boiling water. The dazzling flashes blinded those farther back, and the assault on the summit faltered and stopped altogether.

A wind whipped up, raging among the beasts and knocking them over like skittles. Pitching into one another, the orcs were hurled against trees or dragged to their deaths by the gusts.

Meanwhile, Boлndal had skewered the magus on his crow's beak and was pinning him to the ground. Ireheart leaped to his brother's aid, raining four fearsome blows on the magus's neck and cleaving his vertebrae. Nфd'onn's head rolled across the grass, and foul-smelling black blood spilled from the gushing stump.

Ireheart opened his breeches and was about to sprinkle the corpse with dwarven water, but was stopped by his brother. "The artifacts!" Boлndal reminded him sternly, pulling him away.

A moment earlier, Tungdil had summoned his remaining strength for an all-out assault on the orc who was guarding his bags. He let his instinct, combined with his recently acquired knowledge, guide his ax. The beast fell sooner than he expected, the speed of his victory taking him by surprise. I can hold my own without the twins, he thought, gratified, quickly grabbing the bags.