by Markus Heitz
Girgandor nodded and issued the order. There was little point in protesting. Only the commander was able to release the weapon’s diamond-edged power. For all intents and purposes, no other Fifthling tribe member could wield it.
It’ll be what I inherited from my own father.
Balyndar pulled his hood up. He had lost most of his originally-brown hair when the fire swept over him. His beard would have to regrow, too. He went over to the tower lift, travelled down on the open platform, then limped across the courtyard to his official quarters. While he was recovering from his wounds, the weight of the mythical axe had been too much for him so he had stored it under lock and key in his chambers. It was too important an item to use merely as a walking support.
His painful injuries forced him to move slowly and this gave him time to dwell on the news that was spreading like wildfire: the High King had apparently found Tungdil Goldhand. Balyndar tended to think of this as the discovery of “yet another Tungdil Goldhand.” How many of them can the earth spit out?
It was said that this Tungdil’s face was partially distorted by burn scars. And his demeanour was quite different. The other one had come back with a warlike bearing, sporting dark runes on his black tionium armour.
Balyndar thought back to the discussion with Ireheart. They had talked it all through a cycle ago: was that weirdly armoured figure the real Tungdil? No one could say for certain.
Not even me. Many chose not to speak of what most had guessed. Namely that Balyndar was the Scholar’s own child, born in the Grey Mountains and accepted as the son of the king. Would I be aware of a bond between us? He means nothing to me.
Balyndar had lost his father once before—or could it be that this one was truly his father? Best not to ponder too long on the whole thing.
It was a wonderful thought that the true lost dwarf hero of Girdlegard had returned, but the Children of the Smith had to deal with the task ahead without the benefit of their champion’s help. Balyndar had got on with life for cycle after cycle without his father. He did not need him. Not in this orbit or any other.
My task is to hold the gates. He had reached his room now. He went over to the cupboard built into the stone wall and took Keenfire out of its fastening. And that’s exactly what I’m doing.
Balyndar gripped the sigurdacia wood handle just below the axe head and went back into the open air. His mother’s communication had warned him against getting too excited about the prospect of meeting his progenitor. The way he was feeling at the moment, there was little danger of that. And anyway, the new Tungdil seemed to have gone undercover again. He had apparently set off after a longish stay at the courier station in Gauragar, without even taking his leave of Ireheart. He’d left a note saying he was going to travel round Girdlegard for a time to let his soul rest and to enable him to gauge the extent of the damage his homeland had suffered.
The High King had sent soldiers out to track Tungdil down so that he would not be left without protection. Protection or surveillance? Balyndar had no idea whether or not this search had been successful. There was still doubt attached to Tungdil’s return and his intentions. He might be another duplicate version from Phondrasôn on a spying mission for some army about to emerge out of the pernicious depths.
Samusin is having a little game with us. Balyndar had reached the tower and activated the lift. In his view the ghaist was a whole lot more of a danger at present than a Tungdil who was said to have foresworn the use of weapons.
Girgandor came straight over to his side and accompanied him along the parapet walk, offering an arm, which he was glad to accept. “The piles of hardened slag are a problem. Difficult to clear away. Next time we should only use boiling water and burning petroleum,” he reported as they walked.
“As far as I know, we’ve often used molten slag in the past for our defences.”
“The composition must have been slightly different. Not the usual waste products from the forges. This time it baked itself onto the ground and fused with the enemy corpses.” Girgandor stopped to look out between the crenellations. “The sharp frost has turned the result as hard as steel.” He indicated the road.
Dwarf workers were hacking at the layer with mattocks, hammers and axes, laboriously revealing small sections of road surface. Stone splinters, fragments of bone and lumps of flesh were being scattered. Shovel by shovel the refuse was carried away in wheelbarrows and carts to be burned in the furnaces. As they worked they were singing in chorus. The lyrics were hard to understand but it was not a song of praise.
“We can count our blessings it’s not summer. It would stink to high heaven, worse than a putrefying orcish demon.” Girgandor led Balyndar over to the platform.
“You’re right there.” The commander climbed over the wall with difficulty, helped by the masons and smiths on the work platform. “Have we lost any more of the wounded?”
“We’re still at a total of one hundred and eighty injured and seventy-four dead.” Girgandor wanted to come with him, but Balyndar motioned him away. “Why can’t I come?”
“If I die or fall, there’s got to be someone to take over.” He grinned and signalled for the platform to be let down.
“Vraccas forbid.”
Balyndar took up a wide stance to be less vulnerable to the wind if the planks started to rock. He was not sure how strong the wooden railing was. The whole contraption moved slowly down towards the level of the granite gates until they reached the place where the strange object was. An engraved piece of iron the length of a finger had been rammed into the stone.
How did that happen? The gates of the Stone Gateway were of the hardest stone imaginable. Even the largest of boulders fired from afar could make no impression and would shatter into pieces. The ten bolts the dwarf smiths had fashioned on the other side ensured no one could open the gates or use spells to force them. Vraccas endowed his Children with the ability to produce true miracles with their mastery of stone and metal-working skills.
Balyndar could not believe his eyes.
“It’s withstanding the hammers?” he asked his companions, who were all dressed in the thickest of coats and wearing scarves and gloves to counteract the effects of the dangerous temperatures.
“Resisting every tool in the box, captain,” said a female worker.
He touched the small piece of iron but it did not feel in any way out of the ordinary. He could see it had penetrated the stone as if the granite had been soft at the time and had then hardened again around it.
“This is not normal,” Balyndar commented, taking Keenfire in his hands. “Mind out. Make sure you don’t fall.”
He took aim carefully and struck the diamond-encrusted edge against the thin iron peg from the side. He had expected resistance or a bang or a flash—but there was only a flicker from the gemstones and then the iron snapped off. A tiny segment remained on the surface, thin as a fingernail.
He would not be able to remove it from the gate using Keenfire. And if he made a gash in the granite, that would serve the enemy as a marker just as well as the original peg. Balyndar was pretty sure the last piece could not be removed. “Let that bit stay till I’ve worked out how best to deal with it,” he told the dwarves. He picked up the snapped-off peg section. “For now just paint over it so it doesn’t show up.”
They nodded. He gave the signal for the platform to be hauled up.
Girgandor was waiting for him and Balyndar let him know the results. “I’ll send this piece to Coïra.”
“As soon as she’s been found.” His deputy and two other guards assisted him along the parapet walkway. “She’s still out, trying to find a magic source in Girdlegard.”
Balyndar stowed the fragment in his coat pocket. “I’ll keep it till then. As soon as the maga …” He stopped. His brown eyes registered a tubular metal object lying next to the remains of a catapult. It did not look like it belonged with the mechanism. “What’s that thing?”
Girgandor sent a warrior over to bring back
the object. The bronze casing had been singed and damaged. When it was handed to Balyndar, he was surprised to see runes similar to those on the helmets the ghaists were wearing.
A trap! His first instinct was to hurl it over the battlements, but he held back. If it were a magic artefact meant to cause damage, surely it would have done so by now.
“Well, well, a souvenir from our visitor. It must have come off when Keenfire destroyed him.” He tilted the tube this way and that. “Either it’s empty or what’s inside is very light.”
“A message.” Girgandor studied the container carefully and motioned some shield-bearers over. “Do you think that could have been their mission? To get a message to us?”
Balyndar shook his head. “Hardly, or the ghaist would’ve handed it to me instead of fighting.”
The ghaist that had escaped remained at large. It must still be inside the mountains, making its way relentlessly to the destination named by its master. Or mistress. Perhaps carrying the same message?
Girgandor pulled his gauntlet tighter on to his right hand. “For whom, then?”
Balyndar shook the container, turning it this way and that until it opened with a click.
A parchment scroll in an unfamiliar hand came to the fore. It was grey and smooth as glass, unsuitable for any ink, so the runes it bore had been scratched on to its surface.
Girgandor said, “That’s the common script of Girdlegard.”
Balyndar held the scroll so only he could read the contents. “I’ll read it out. So stop craning your necks,” he announced. That way I can omit anything that may be only intended for my mother’s eyes.
To the powerful masters of the land behind the gate,
You have taken a demon to live amongst you. I have been trying for some time to destroy it but it has escaped my clutches.
There are two options.
The first is the easier: you throw the demon’s dead body over the gate and nothing further will occur.
The second path is hard, painful and involves many deaths on your side: I shall send my armies, constantly, by day and night, at will, until I have gained entrance to your land and can bring the demon down.
If you force me to take the second path, I shall destroy your land when I have entered it. This I promise.
The message was signed with a rune Balyndar could not read.
For the space of a few eye-blinks there was silence on the parapet.
“The child.” Balyndar knew the others were already racking their brains to figure out how they could speed up the final arrangements for improving the defences to ready the fortress for the next onslaught. There was no reason not to believe what the message said. “So now we know where the second one was heading.”
“I wonder,” Girgandor pondered, “how the writer knows we aren’t the powerful ones he wants to negotiate with. The ghaist headed straight for the tunnel as if it already knew the way into Girdlegard.”
Balyndar shared his comrade’s view. “Maybe it has some magic way of knowing about events in Girdlegard, or maybe there are still spies in our midst, from back when evil ruled here.”
“Or it’s just guessing,” objected someone else.
“The queen and the High King must be told immediately.” Balyndar pressed the message and its container into the hands of the nearest guard. “Take this to a courier. Everyone has to be warned: Girdlegard and all the dwarf kingdoms.”
“We shall stand guard,” Girgandor said proudly. “We shan’t run out of ammunition, just as he won’t run out of low-grade battle-fodder. Let him send the next hundred thousand—we’ll greet them with our firestorm.”
“The attacks might happen at any of the gates.” Balyndar admitted this was unlikely, given the amount of time it would take for such numbers to make their way round the mountains. But anyone who can drum up armies of this size, well, who’s to say. “And they should all be warned about the girl. Belogar was right all along.”
“But that might be a falsehood,” said one of the others. “Evil may be trying to force a wedge between our peoples and break our friendship pact.”
Balyndar nodded at the dwarf who had spoken. “That could be true, my friend.” He turned and hobbled off along the walkway. “Or else the child might indeed be a demon and we should chuck its dead body over the wall and save our land from further threats.” Where will the second ghaist turn up? “Hurry the ‘dragon’-masters along. I want them here.”
He was diverted by the thought of his newest development for the defence of the Stone Gateway. The enemy would be terrified. The cunning Fifthlings had devised a weapon based on a child’s toy that could be deployed if the wind was in the right direction: a kite.
Normally kites would fly along in the breeze on a string, but the dwarves had adapted them and increased their size tenfold, to be able to take a heavy payload. Made from a combination of silk and willow wands, they could take off, their silken tails fluttering, and remain held up in the sky by ropes and a winding mechanism.
By means of a second string and a contraption with a brass ring, leather sacks of Vraccas fire could be placed over the heads of the enemy. Then either the line could be cut, causing the sack to plummet down, or a burning fuse could work its way along the bag’s seam and the contents would spew out after a carefully calculated time. They flew high enough to be safe from shots from the enemy and they could drop unquenchable fire anywhere along the approach road to the gates. The dragon-kites needed wind but there was plenty of that in the mountains.
I want them here. Even if Balyndar had put his dark thoughts about the abandoned child of the Outer Lands into words, he would not be able to kill Sha’taï just like that. The monarchs must take her captive and interrogate her.
“Girgandor!”
His deputy hurried over. “Sir! New orders?”
“Only one: at the double.” Balyndar clapped him on the shoulder. “Everything. At the double.”
Girdlegard
Black Mountains
Kingdom of the Thirdling dwarves
Eastern Gate
6492nd solar cycle, winter
Winter doesn’t get them down. They’re still here. Rognor Mortalblow could not believe it. “With each new orbit I think: I’ll get up and look over the wall and they’ll be gone. But not a bit of it.” He looked around. “I would have lost the wager. There’s four new tents now.”
The temporary elf settlement at the gates to the Black Mountains now housed two thousand souls, young and old. Despite the snow lying on their roofs, the semi-circular tents were holding up; smoke rose through the openings from the numerous fires with which they heated their accommodation.
Bolîngor Bladecatcher of the Iron Fists clan came over, well wrapped up in mantle and furs. He brushed the breakfast crumbs out of his chestnut-coloured beard. He was in charge of the archers on the north side of the stronghold and was regarded as a warrior with exceptional eyesight. He had a broad stripe tattooed across his face in recognition of his skill.
“Five.” Bolîngor pointed south. “There on the ledge.”
“I don’t know what I should hope for: that Lorimbur’s spirit chases them away or that it protects them.”
Rognor sheltered by the wall. The gusts tore right through his face mask, the scarf he wore underneath it and his dark blue beard, biting into his very skin. He was used to the cold but this winter seemed to be breaking all records. “The frost wants them gone. It’s a miracle that none of them has frozen to death so far.”
Bolîngor took his telescope and observed the road leading to the stronghold from the east. “And here come the next ones. Four … no, five sledges. That’ll be around thirty extra mouths to feed, I’d say.”
Rognor groaned. This meant the elves would send Chynêa to the gate begging to be allowed through. Whenever there were new arrivals, she would stand in front of the fortress and make the usual speech, appealing to their sense of friendship. “I know it all by heart now.”
Bolîngor put down
the optical device. “Another fifty of them and they’ll block the gate, Chancellor.”
“I know, but we can’t just wipe them out.”
“What if we just pretended?” He could tell by the tone that this wasn’t meant seriously. Or at least not very seriously.
“How would they know the difference?”
“We could cover them in flour and say next time it would be fire we chuck at them. Or water. That’d be good. In these temperatures we’d have perfect little elf statues.”
Both of them shared the joke, laughing without malice.
The dwarves hated having to refuse the elves entry, but conditions had changed. At first it had been a vague idea of the High King’s that something wasn’t quite right. But since the bottle of eye-whitener had been found, the policy was vindicated.
“How many älfar do you think there are out there?” Rognor saw Chynêa approaching the stronghold gate, in her white cap, scarf and fur coat with its turned up collar. Here she comes.
“If only I knew. Vraccas should let the traitors freeze to death or burn in the tents.” Bolîngor pointed the elf-woman out. “Punctual as ever. Shall we go down?”
Rognor could see her gesturing in his direction. “By Vraccas. She must know exactly where I am without being able to see me.” He got up. “This has got to stop.”
He stepped out towards the steps down to ground level in order to talk to her through the grating. “In the next few orbits.”
“I’ll send out for the flour,” Bolîngor called.
Rognor stomped down the steps.
He was annoyed that the elves were proving so obstinate, defying all orders and persisting through fair weather and foul. It’s almost as if Vraccas had given them a touch of our tenacity. They’re as stubborn as we are. It made him grin. Almost as stubborn.
He and Chynêa arrived at the grating at the same time. The wind was howling through the apertures and making her clothing swirl about. The elf-woman had lost weight. Her slender face looked emaciated and her eyes, normally brilliant, were dull. Overwintering outside was taking its toll; all the others were probably suffering in the same way.