The Phantom Dwarf

by J. M. Fosberg

  “Good morning, Your Highness. We have been quite worried about you. The entire city will be delighted to know you are safely returned.”

  King Patria allowed the corner of his lip turn up into a half smile. “Thank you, Master Brennin. I am happy to be back. I have missed your council greatly.”

  “You are too kind, Your Highness. I have drawn you a bath and set out clothing for the day. Is there anything else you might require at the moment?” Master Brennin asked.

  “Not yet. I will need your assistance and council once I am more settled.”

  “Of course, Your Highness. I will be standing ready.”

  “Thank you, Master Brennin.”

  “It is my pleasure,” Master Brennin answered, and the king believed he sincerely meant it when he said it.

  Master Brennin led them through the palace past the king’s hall to the king’s chamber. Inside the king found a steaming bath of soapy water. He stripped off his traveling clothes.

  “Your Highness, you are wounded,” Master Brennin said, grabbing hold of the king in a way only he would dare, and even he would only dare to be so familiar in private.

  “I took a bolt in the arm. It was poisoned. It took a couple of days to recover, but I am healing,” Patria explained.

  Master Brennin examined the wound. “Your Highness, you are not healing. The poison was Rot Root. The fact that you survived the sickness speaks to your constitution, but if the sickness doesn’t kill you, you’re not healed. Your Highness, the black lines around the wound are poison. Look here, the wound is already festering.”

  Patria looked down at his arm. The cut was an angry red, and he noticed the thin black lines branching off of the wound. He hadn’t noticed them before.

  “Your Highness, we must treat this immediately. If we do not, the festering will spread. If it spreads, you will be a lucky man if you lose your arm. There is an antidote that can be made, but the ingredients will be difficult to track down. I will begin working on it right away. You should keep it covered. If it is discovered, there would be no stopping the rumors,” Master Brennin explained.

  “Thank you, Master Brennin. If anyone can sort this out, it is you. I trust you to take care of me.”

  “Always, Your Highness.”

  Master Brennin left the room, and Patria continued to disrobe. The water burned his skin as he lowered himself into the tub, but the moment the hot water touched his wounded arm a searing pain forced his whole body to spasm. He pulled his arm out of the water, clenching his teeth so hard he thought they might break. When the initial shock and pain subsided, he slowly lowered his arm back into the water, resisting the urge to retract the arm until the sharp pain eased to a burning sensation.

  He lay back, soaking in the water, pain battling relaxing muscles for control of his mind. As the pain subsided to tolerable, the relaxation began to win out. He laid his head back and, for the first time since he had left with the dwarves, he let his mind relax.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Judgment Passed

  Grizzle stood in front of a crowd of dwarves. Most of the dwarves had stopped setting camp to come witness the trial that was about to take place. In front of him stood Crissy. She had steel shackles around her wrist. The shackles were attached to a short thick chain attached to a post driven into the ground. She had not spoken a word since the incident. Kraft, Frau, Grundel, and Fuhrung stood to his right.

  Standing off to the side were Jerrie, Rundo, and Evelyn. The other dwarves had circled around, and Grizzle found himself carrying the full weight of his responsibilities. Now he stared down at the woman who had doomed the dwarven race. She had surely cost them an unimaginable number of lives and taken at least one with her own hands.

  “No dwarf king has sentenced anyone to death for more than two hundred years. You have one chance to convince me not to be the king who breaks that streak.” He stared at her for a moment. “Let me promise you that if you stay silent, you will die.”

  Grizzle stared at her, waiting. For a moment, he believed she was going to remain silent. His anger began to boil, and he was about to sentence her, when she finally opened her mouth. Grizzle didn’t miss the glance toward Jerrie before she spoke.

  “My brother was thirteen years old when he entered the Guild of Necromancy. A year after that, he began his apprenticeship with Phelim. He worked with Phelim for six years, learning to summon spirits and control the dead. Phelim was careless though, and my brother summoned a beast he could not control. The demon killed him and more than a dozen others at the guild before Phelim came and stopped it. When my brother died, I swore that one day I would make Phelim pay for his carelessness. When you all came to Portwein and I learned of your plan, I knew the time had come. I hate what I have done to you all, but the weight of my actions rests equally with Phelim, and that I can live with and I am willing to die for.”

  Grizzle fought the anger that had built in him. He forced himself to get his emotions under control before he spoke. “What about the dwarf in the hall? What had he done to earn your vengeance?”

  Crissy stole another glance over at Jerrie. Grizzle waited for her response but if never came. After her stolen glance, her eyes remained cold, and she faced forward, looking at no one. He was forced to check his emotions again but when he spoke his words still had a bite to them. “I was not there, and I have not heard the whole story, but based on what you have said, the fault seems to be with your brother. Your brother tried to exceed his ability, and it cost him his life. Not only that, but it sounds like he went out of his way to avoid doing this in the presence of his master. If this is true, then Phelim was innocent and the full weight of your actions lies with you. The Gods will curse you for what you have done, and I pray your spirit never finds peace. If silence is your decision, then silence you will have.” With those words, Grizzle lifted his hammer off of his back and turned to Grundel. He handed the hammer to his son and held out his hand. Grundel lifted one of his double-bladed axes off of his back and handed it to his father.

  King Stoneheart walked toward Crissy. To her credit, she did not cower. She stood facing the front. Grizzle nodded toward a big stone sticking up out of the ground about thirty paces away. One of the dwarves standing behind Crissy took her by the arm and led her over to stand in front of the stone.

  Grizzle stood next to Crissy. He looked her in the eyes. “You have forced me to this. Dwarves do not have executioners. Our lives are much longer than yours, so we do not throw them away lightly. I am the one passing judgment, so I will be the one to carry it out. Do you have anything to say before I claim your life?”

  Crissy dropped down to both knees before the dwarf forced her down. She laid her head on the stone and stretched out her neck. Grizzle stared down at the woman. He had taken lives in battle, humans, dwarves, and orcs, but he had never killed a woman, and he had never killed anyone like this. She was unarmed, and she was not a threat any longer. He knew that her punishment was just and that he had no other choice. He could have someone else carry out the sentence that he had given, but that would not change anything. He stared down at the woman, hating her for what he was being forced to do. He raised the axe above his head.

  “May your spirit never find peace,” he cursed her and brought the axe down.

  He had crafted the weapon himself and it was one of the finest weapons in all of Gegend, but that was before the magic. Even a weak dwarven weapon would have found a human neck to offer little resistance, but with his son’s axe he never even felt the woman’s body as the axe went through. He heard the cracking and scraping sound of steel on stone. The axe stopped and rested in the center of a crack in the stone. Blood had not filled the crater. The head hall fallen away too fast, and the blood did not immediately release. The body fell to the ground. Grizzle watched as blood finally began shooting from the neck. It shot out in spurts. The body had not realized it was dead yet and seemed to notice something was wrong, as if it was trying to hurry to get more blood where t
here was none. The blood pooled on the dirt in front of him, the dry soil absorbing the red sticky liquid greedily. Just before the bloody mess touched the tip of his boot he stepped back and looked away from the body.

  With this grim detail out of the way, he turned to the item that was most important. He looked over to Kraft, Frau, Grundel, Jerrie, and Rundo. “We will meet around my fire when the sun is setting. We need to figure out what our next move is before we are out of moves to make.”

  They all nodded their agreement. He could see the pain in Jerrie’s face. They would both carry the pain of this day for the rest of their lives. He couldn’t dwell on it now though; this woman had taken enough of their time. It was time he focused on salvaging what was left of his dwarves. The dwarves of all four kingdoms would feel the repercussions of this if they were not able to stop Bergmann. How he reacted would determine how hard they felt it. More than that, how they reacted could decide the fate of his race altogether.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The Forgotten Dwarves

  Grizzle Stoneheart sat in front of a small cook fire. On the log next to him sat his son Grundel. Kraft sat on a stone across the fire from him. Jerrie sat on the ground next to Kraft. Frau, Fuhrung, Jerrie, and Rundo all seated themselves as well. He looked around the fire at them. “Phelim was the strongest necromancer in Gegend at containing and controlling spirits, and even he wasn’t sure he would be able to contain Bergmann’s Phantom. With him gone, we must decide on a new plan. I am open to suggestions.”

  Fuhrung was the first to speak. “I hate to say this, but for now it seems our best option is to abandon Tiefes Loch. If he wanted the mountain so badly, let him spend eternity trapped there. The Bergmanns were foul, sorry excuses for dwarfs, but they had one thing right. Our race has been slowly dying off for centuries. There was a time when the kingdoms were all full. Now there are were areas in each of the other three kingdoms that remain uninhabited. Let the dwarves from Tiefes Loch replenish the other three kingdoms. This will allow them to be mixed with dwarves who were raised in the dwarven way and learn the traditions that the Bergmanns have denied them. This will give us time to find a way to deal with the Phantom of Bergmann, and if one day we discover a way to destroy him, we can reinhabit Tiefes Loch.”

  Grizzle shook his head. “Your idea is sound, but we cannot just leave the phantom to Tiefes Loch. I do not know much, but I know that Bergmann will be able to escape the mountain eventually. We have to find a way to destroy him.”

  Kraft stared at Grizzle. He paid no attention to any of the others. “It is time for you to go to the First Kingdom, King Stoneheart.”

  All of the dwarves looked at Kraft in disbelief. Jerrie had no idea what they were talking about. “What is the First Kingdom?”

  Grizzle never took his eyes off of Kraft. “The First Kingdom are the caves where the first dwarves of Gegend lived. This story is very old, and it is not common knowledge. It is only passed down to the kings. Rumors of the First Kingdom are common among the dwarves but few truly know its location or what happened there. Even the story that is passed down from king to king tells very little of what really happened. The Stonehearts were the original kings there. When my ancestors decided that a new kingdom needed to be created, they turned the leadership of the kingdom over to another dwarf. The details of what happened are unknown. What we know is that when king led the dwarves out of the kingdom, they were attacked. They defended and sent for help from the kingdom. The new king closed the kingdom and sent no aid. The dwarves finally fended off the enemy, but their losses were great. The king went to the entrance of the cave to confront the king he had left in his stead, but the dwarves inside would not open the cave to him. The king called out to Bordin and cursed his kin.”

  He cleared his throat. “Bordin answered his call, and the cave was sealed. The dwarves inside were trapped, and their spirits were never to be accepted by Bordin until they paid their debt. What King Kraft is proposing is that we return to the First Kingdom and ask the spirits of the kin traitors of that time to help us rid us of the one we face now.”

  Grundel stared at his father for a moment before speaking. He had never seen his father’s face as serious as it was right this moment. “We don’t even know if they can help, and even if they can, we don’t know if they will.”

  “They do not have a choice,” Kraft explained. “If another king were to call on their help, they may be able to settle their debt and let their spirits rest, but their spirits are bonded to the curse. They are bound by the same curse to answer the call of a Stoneheart. If King Grizzle demands the spirits help us, they will have no choice but to do everything they can to help.”

  Grizzle nodded. “We do not know if they can help.”

  Kraft spoke into the fire this time. “We know that there is a dwarf king’s spirit in that cave. The necromancer said that it was a dwarf king’s spirit we were facing. If you call on the dwarves of the First Kingdom, you will not only have a dwarf king’s spirit, but the spirits of an entire dwarven kingdom, and they have been spirits in the mortal realm for much longer then Bergmann.”

  Grizzle looked at Kraft and then around the fire. “I don’t like it, but I don’t have a better idea. Can anyone think of anything else?”

  The night was very silent all of a sudden, as if somehow the whole camp had gone silent at once. The only sounds were the crackling sounds of the fire as sparks escaped into the air.

  The tightness in Grizzle’s face slacked just slightly before he spoke. “Then we will go to the First Kingdom. Kraft and Frau will stay behind. You will lead the dwarves of Tiefes Loch to go help the dwarves at Shinestone. With so many dwarves, retaking Shinestone should not be difficult. Once Shinestone is retaken, King Kraft will divide up the Dwarves of Tiefes Loch, and we will reinforce the other three kingdoms as Fuhrung said. I will go to Patria and send my wife back to Evermount. She will handle integrating the Tiefes Loch dwarves into Evermount. Frau and Kraft will be able to handle those issues for their own kingdoms.” He looked over to Fuhrung. “The issue of Tiefes Loch will be shelved for another time.”

  Everyone seemed to accept the plan. Grundel broke the silence. “Where is the First Kingdom?”

  Grizzle stared at his son. “That is the other reason we are going to Patria. The First Kingdom was in the heart of the Einode desert. From what I hear, the desert people know where the First Kingdom is. If we are to go into the desert, Patria will be the best place to find someone who can guide us into the desert to the people who live there. I don’t know much about the desert people, but from what I have heard, they will take some convincing.”

  Jerrie spoke for the first time. “The stories say that the Einodites are violent cannibals. They are more like to eat us than help us.”

  Grizzle turned the corner of his lip up into a face that could hardly be called a smile. “I said they would take some convincing.”

  Rundo laughed, and all eyes turned to him. He realized how mad he must seem and stopped laughing to explain his outburst. “Every time that we get in a position where we think that we could never face anything greater, we go out and find something. I mean, we have faced orc armies, Chaos Dwarves created by a god, even a god himself. Now we are going off into the Einode to ask the Einodites to help us find a dwarf kingdom. The same Einodites who enlist or kill any who come into their fold.”

  After a few seconds, Grundel started to laugh. Grizzle followed. In seconds, they were all laughing. It was lunacy, but none of them cared. With everything going on, they all allowed themselves a few moments reprieve.

  Grizzle and Jerrie were the first to rein in their laughter. They had allowed themselves a moment’s respite, but they were the two with the most weighing on them.

  When everyone had calmed down, Grizzle looked over at Rundo. “Rundo, would you mind leaving ahead of us? I would like my wife and King Patria to be aware of what is going on before we get there. They may even be able to find us someone who can lead us into the Einode.”r />
  “I can take care of that,” Jerrie said before Rundo could answer.

  Everyone looked to Jerrie curiously. “Einodites do not leave the Einode. There is only one man who can come and go into the Einode. He was an Einodites, but now he lives in Patria. The Einodites live almost solely off what the desert can provide, but there are some tools and other things that they get from the city. He goes out into the Einode occasionally to find out what they need and then brings it from Patria the next time he goes out. He is the only chance we have.”

  “Well, if Jerrie is going to take care of that, then I will just have to spend a few moments explaining everything to King Patria and Queen Stoneheart. Once I take care of that, I can spend the rest of the time in the kitchen waiting for you.” Rundo said patting his belly. This brought another chuckle from everyone.

  Rundo got defensive. “I don’t know what you’re laughing about. Once we’re in the Einode, there is no telling what we’ll eat. That is, if we’re not eaten ourselves.”

  Grizzle spoke with finality as he laid out the plan. “We can sort out the rest in Patria. Tomorrow Kraft and Frau will lead the dwarves to Shinestone. Rundo will fly to Patria and start making preparations. Jerrie and Grundel will leave with me and a small guard for Patria tomorrow. Tiefes Loch will be the first kingdom to ever be abandoned by Bordin’s dwarves. After that, we will go find the First Kingdom and the forgotten dwarves.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Preparations

  Rundo stood in the darkness with Evelyn. The camp was quiet and the fires had all died down to gentle glowing beds of coals. The dwarves walking their posts didn’t pay the two of them much mind. The halfling was well known to be a good friend of King and Prince Stoneheart. Dwarves and halflings had long had a working relationship, so the dwarves did not show the same distrust as the other races. Even if they were as distrustful of his race, he had proven himself over and over. The dwarves had brought him in as one of their own, which in this case meant that they ignored him as he walked around the camp in the early morning.