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In the final four miles of approach, with Skullcap fully
and horribly visible ahead, Kolanda Darkmoor had
fanned her goblin troops out in three long lines. They
had swept the plains for a sign of anyone having passed
as she waited for the reports to come back. Within hours,
a front several miles long had been combed. It was clear
that no one had passed this way recently.
Thoughtfully, then, Kolanda looked back the way she
had come. Due west, the bulk of Sky's End rose somber
against the sky. To the south, just visible across the miles,
was the massive mountain wall of Thorbardin, the great
north gate tiny above a sheer cliff of huge proportion.
Northgate was almost never used now because of its
nearly impossible access -- even by the dwarves who
lived beyond it.
Her eyes, shadowed within the grotesque horned
mask that was the faceplate of her helmet, rested on
Northgate for a time. Then they roved downward, seek-
ing something she knew was there but had never seen --
the thing her career with the Highlord's forces was based
upon, the thing that would assure her the power she
craved when the Highlords began their campaigns. That
thing was the secret way into Thorbardin.
Command of Thorbardin was to be Kolanda
Darkmoor's reward -- provided she remained in the good
graces of the Highlord of Neraka. She would have com-
mand of defeated and occupied Thorbardin, and first
share of the treasures of the realm
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