“Which is why we’re planning on this,” Ellen said, her spirits recovering. “They’ll think that they’re getting a trove of dragon steel, think that they know how to float a fort but they’ll be wrong!”
Hemin chortled in agreement. “It’s a good plan, worthy of master Rabel.”
Rabel shook his head, pointing to Ellen. “She thought of it.”
Hemin gave him a knowing look. “Of course, master Rabel, and you’ve taught her nothing.”
Rabel could only answer the zwerg’s statement with silence, then said “What if we could use the magnetism to melt the metal?”
Hemin’s eyebrows rose in surprise at the notion. After a moment, he nodded. “It could be done, I think.”
“ Could take the magnetism from the twelve slabs we’re leaving,” Rabel added. “That way they’ll take longer to create floating forts.”
“Indeed,” Hemin said, the corners of his lips turning upwards.
#
Hemin brought the wagon to a halt when Granno held up his hand. They were at the base of the fort. Rabel could see the glint of a number of the magnetic slabs in the light of Granno’s torch. Rabel jumped down from the wagon, held up his hands for Ellen and caught her easily, lowering her to the ground at his side.
“How many can you see?” Rabel asked as he moved to join the zwerg chief.
“I count eighteen,” Granno told him. “Some of the tops are buried, however.”
“Can we get twelve of them out?” Ellen asked, peering up at the massive earth above her. She turned to Rabel in amazement. “Did we really lift that?”
“We had help,” Rabel reminded her. Then he smiled. “But, yes, little one, we did.”
Ellen’s jaw dropped. She could remember the effort, the fear, the pain, the power but only now, having travelled the length of the fallen fort and looking up at the huge metal slabs did she truly grasp what they had done.
“Ophidian and Geros be praised,” Ellen said, kneeling quickly and bowing to the two gods.
“Indeed,” Granno agreed, sketching a quick bow.
“They had help,” Rabel growled, nodding to Ellen who rose to her feet and joined him. “And tonight, we do not.”
“But it’s going to be much easier this time,” Ellen said. Rabel raised an eyebrow demandingly. “We’ve only got to take the charges from twenty-four of the magnets —”
“That’s the same amount that we took the last time,” Rabel reminded her. “And we did that over the course of two days, if you remember.”
“Oh,” Ellen said, looking downcast. “But we only have to pull the magic and feed it to the ground.” She pointed. “We’ll be returning it to Geros.”
“Actually, I’m planning on using the force to melt the slabs,” Rabel said.
“How?”
Rabel smiled at her. “Watch closely.” He moved toward the very bottom of the carved end of earth into which the slabs had been placed. He rubbed his hands together and placed one at the bottom of one of the magnetic steel slabs and the other on another of the metal slabs.
Ellen and the zwerg watched worriedly as Rabel began muttering the spell that Geros had taught them. Her ears perked up when she noticed the changes in the words he used and she found herself nodding in agreement with the changes — they should work.
Rabel grunted as if kicked and Ellen surprised a worried cry as sparks engulfed his hands and flowed up his arms. Carefully, Rabel drew back, sparks jumping from the two slabs onto him. With a triumphant roar, he moved forward and put his hands on the sides of the slab in the middle. The sparks flew from him and engulfed the metal slab which soon grew bright red with heat. Rabel pulled his hands away quickly and moved backwards, waving to Granno.
“That’s the first one!” he said. Granno nodded and ordered the zwerg forward to attack the bright hot steel with their picks and hammers. They cried eagerly as the metal broke at their efforts and they pulled large chunks away with gloved hands, bearing them to the prepared carts.
Rabel, satisfied with the result, moved to another trio of slabs and repeated the process, pulling the magnetic force out of two and feeding it back into a third as heat. Another team of zwerg tackled the result.
“My turn,” Ellen said as Rabel staggered backwards, wobbling on his feet and looking beat.
Rabel drew breath to admonish her but stopped, shaking his head and motioning her toward a set of dragon steel slabs. Ellen had to stretch her arms as wide as she could to get her fingertips to reach the two steel slabs. Rabel’s words came to her and she repeated them quickly, her eyes closed, concentrating and imagining the fierce crackle of the magnetic force — like lightning — surging through her fingertips and up her shoulders. She opened her eyes as the first tendrils of power thrilled up her arms and she smiled as the lightnings sparked around her. With a cry of triumph, she placed her hands on the untouched middle slab, her face breaking into a grin as she called the energies to melt the metal. She jumped back and waved at the others when she saw that the slab had turned bright red, just as Rabel’s. The zwerg shouted their praise and set to work with a will.
In short order, between Rabel and Ellen, they had pulled the magnetism from all the metal and the zwerg had hacked twelve of the eighteen slabs to small, portable pieces.
“Now you two rest while we clean up the stone to hide our work,” Granno said, indicating the outcroppings of stone that had previously held the melted dragon steel slabs in place on the rock.
Neither Ellen nor Rabel needed urging, kneeling on the ground and drinking warm tea. The zwerg were quickly done and set off for the cavern where the lower set of dragon steel magnets lay buried — and where they could access the cave entrances to their underground world.
It took another twenty minutes to get there, set up another hasty camp, and open the doors to the Silver Earth kingdom.
After that, Ellen and Rabel repeated their efforts, heating twelve of the dragon steel slabs enough that the zwerg could easily slice them up and demagnetizing the remaining six. Granno sent the loaded wagons underground, retaining one for Rabel, Ellen, and the tools the zwerg retained.
In thirty minutes they were reunited with Queen Diam and the miners in their excavation of the ruined fort.
“We have a problem,” Diam told them as soon they met.
#
Two arrows flew in from the night into the guardpost. Gisom and Alfren looked at each other in surprise — the arrows had hit neither of them. In fact, they had landed far behind them. Their surprise was short-lived as the arrows burst into flame and silhouetted them perfectly against the light. Two more arrows flew in. They didn’t miss their marks. Another pair of arrows followed immediately. Each hit the falling bodies before they fell to the ground, lifeless.
“Very good,” Major Morris said to his archers. He turned to the hand-picked squad of scouts and gestured them forward. The squad split into two, one half going to the right, the other to the left, soon lost in the shadows left by the spluttering arrows. Minutes passed and then one of the flaming arrows rose from the ground, was waved in arc and extinguished along with the other arrow. The signal.
“Move out,” Morris ordered, standing up and leading his troops forward. It had been easy. The entrance was secured.
His archers waited at the entrance, nodded to their fellow soldiers and fell back to the rear of the formation, ready to lend aid as needed. Morris examined the entrance, motioned a pair of his scouts forwards — scouts chosen for their mining experience — and waited once more. He stood and waved for a messenger who approached quietly.
“Tell the general we’ve got the entrance,” Morris said. “Tell him that we’ll send word when we’re inside.”
The messenger nodded, saluted and took off into the night.
“Hopefully that’ll keep him,” Morris muttered to himself. The thought of general Filbert rushin
g forward with the bulk of his men to mill around — loudly — outside the zwerg’s entrance was terrifying.
If they could get enough men inside with the alarm being raised, they’d have a chance. Otherwise… he was certain that the zwerg, guarding hordes of gold, must be well-versed in defending their underground home.
He glanced nervously toward the entrance, fearful lest his men report the entrance locked and barred against them. He had put Jansen and Merdoch just behind the two miners — two big burly men who’d seen war and murder close up for many years now. Once the miners had the opening, Jansen and Merdoch were to storm through and wait the rest of Morris’s troops. If any two could hold their own against an army of zwerg, it was they.
#
Adelin paused at the second set of gates. The southern entrance was merely a side entrance in the Silver Earth kingdom but it was protected not just by the outside guard and the listening post but also by two stout sets of gates. When the guards were trooped, the gates would be opened one pair at a time until the guards were relieved and replaced. And then the gates would both be shut and barred, leaving the guards locked outside of the kingdom and the kingdom safe.
Adelin was one those tasked with understanding the gates and keeping them in good repair. Each pair of gates were barred by a huge metal bar that fit into two grooves — one on each door. The bar on each gate was pinned to one door and swung up and down. By a clever bit of work, there was a little outcropping on the near gate — the one with the pin that held the bar — that allowed a single person to push the bar up and open the gates. When the gates were pulled closed on the other side — hard enough — the motion would joggle the bar over the outcropping and let it fall into place, barring the gates once more.
Adelin had already made certain that the first set of gates had been properly secured but now she was about to open the second set. She listened carefully but heard nothing, so she lifted the bar up and pushed it over the outcropping. Before she could even open the gates, they were flung open, pushing Adelin to the side and two large humans rushed through.
Each were twice her height. One of them turned back to the opening and the night to shout loudly while the other spun and drew his sword, swinging it to take off her head.
But Adelin was shorter than he’d expected. She was shorter because she had trained for a long time. Trained to prove that no soldier — zwerg or human — was better than her. She dropped to the ground, kicking her feet against the stool she placed the warm mugs on, causing them to clatter and break loudly, even while she pulled her dirk from its sheath and reached over her back to grab her sword.
“Foes! Foes at the southern gate!” Adelin shouted with all her strength as she rolled out of the blade of the glaring human. “Alarm! Alarm!”
She threw her dirk toward the human who ducked it easily, leering at her lack of skill. But she hadn’t been aiming for him — she’d been aiming for the bell at the back of the gate.
And she hit it. Clang!
She was on her feet and scurrying back toward the second gate — the last gate to guard her home — when she heard other bells ringing. She turned to face her two attackers knowing that the alarm was spreading.
The two men growled at her. More men, some with blinding torches, came rushing up to join them.
Torches! Adelin thought. She glanced upwards. There was rope hanging down, as planned. She sidled toward it, parrying the swords that hammered at her even as she realized that there were too many, that she could not prevail.
But Kavim and Granno had planned for such emergencies. They had chosen their soldiers — even those in reserve — carefully.
She would have only one chance. She kept half her thoughts on the swords beating on her and planned her path.
When the opening occurred she took it immediately, ducking under the two fierce men, jumping around the two others nearest, leaping, landing with one foot on the upturned tool and leaping higher, throwing her sword away even as the soldiers turned to follow her path and reached to pull her back to the ground.
But Adelin caught the rope and let the full weight of her armored body drag it down.
She was dead when her body hit the ground, stabbed through twice by the swords of Jansen and Merdoch.
As her eyes dimmed she was rewarded with a brilliant flare and a fierce heat — and then she knew no more as the oil that had been pulled down by her rope mixed with the soldiers’ torches and turned the entire entrance into a flaming cauldron.
Chapter Six
Lissy woke to the sound of the doors to the treasury bursting open. In the distance she heard bells and cries of alarm.
“Princess, come on!” the guard cried. “We’re being attacked!”
“Go,” Lissy said, moving to the side of the dragon’s head. “We’ll follow.”
The guard looked in, took in the sight of the sleeping dragon, and his eyes widened in fear.
“I have to wake him up,” Lissy said, waving the guard away. “I’ll be safe with a dragon to guard me.”
Loud shouts distracted the guard and he looked away as a huge BOOM! Filled the hallways. “I’ll tell Kavim,” he promised, rushing off toward the source of the sound.
#
“You see!” General Filbert cried triumphantly as he waved a hand toward the smoke and debris that churned out of the entrance to the zwerg underground. “Enough gunpowder and you can solve any problem!” He waved toward Major Morris. “Now have your men charge, Major.”
Major Morris ordered his men forward. He was still appalled at the loss of life of the first group of scouts, burned to char in an instant as they tried to gain entrance into the caves below. He had quickly organized parties to shovel dirt over the flames and the burnt skeletons, building a path toward the charred but still standing inner gates.
“Send a man back when you’ve secured the area, and I’ll send the wagons forward,” General Filbert shouted to Morris’s retreating form. He waved his troops forward genially until all that was left was the rearguard and the wagoneers, then he rubbed his hands gleefully. “We’re going to be rich!”
Of course, he didn’t mean the men. They would have to go. But fortunately there was a war on and Major Morris had proved himself to be most unsatisfactory. Such a man would be well-treated by being placed at the head of any assault, along with his men, until they were all — sadly — lost. War, the general reflected, did have such a marvelous way of solving such tedious problems.
#
“What problem?” Rabel asked as he glanced around the camp and the excavation into the turret.
Diam motioned for Alicen to come forward.
“We found him,” Alicen reported.
“And?” Rabel prompted.
“His eyes are a-light but he doesn’t talk,” Alicen explained.
“We’re wondering if he’s dead,” Diam said.
“From what we can see, his backside is crushed, flattened under the weight of rock,” Alicen continued. “If he were a zwerg or a human, I would swear that he had died of his injuries —”
“He’s an immortal,” Rabel said in a small voice. “He can’t —” he broke off, shaking his head.
“There’s more,” Diam said, nodding to Alicen.
“There are others,” Alicen said. “We can hear breathing but no sounds.”
“Injured,” Rabel guessed. “He would have protected him with his body.”
“Why would he do that?” Alicen asked in surprise.
“He’s an immortal,” Rabel said. “He believes in life. That’s why we’re here.”
“Let me go,” Ellen said. The others looked at her. She turned her gaze to Rabel. “I’ve met him. I’m small and —” she held up a hand, thumb and forefinger nearly touching and spark lit between them “— I have some power.”
“You wouldn’t fit,” Diam said before Rabel could p
rotest. She turned to Ellen. “Are you willing to let him die, if you must?”
Ellen gulped in surprise. She glanced to Rabel, then said to the queen, “Only if I must.”
Diam waved to Alicen, gesturing toward Ellen. “Take her, then.”
“What about the others?” Rabel asked when the girl and miner were out of earshot.
“Ibb’s body is keeping the rubble off of them,” Diam said sadly. “If he is no longer alive, my people can dig past him and maybe free the others.”
“But if he is?”
“Things will be harder,” Diam said. “From what I’m told, it will take some work to build a scaffolding to take the weight off of his body. And we don’t know if the rubble behind him won’t collapse on the others when we do.”
#
Ellen followed Acelin nervously though she refused to show it. She didn’t mind caves or dust but the stones around her were all wrong — they wanted to go up into the sky, not lay on their sides on the ground. Acelin pointed at various dislodged stones and stepped over them carefully, Ellen following her steps. She brought a small light to the tip of her finger to help her see better, earning a surprised and then resigned look from Acelin in front.
They walked maybe twenty feet “down” the fallen turret until Acelin threw up a hand, bringing them to a halt.
“It is just up ahead,” Acelin said in a small voice. “This is where the turret joined the wall — this is a weak spot and weaker now that the fort has fallen onto its side.”
Ellen nodded. Acelin indicated the shapes of several zwerg miners working slowly and carefully to remove rubble and loose bricks. She recognized Aenor and Ricon among them and gave them smiles of appreciation.
“Is there room enough for me to touch him?” Ellen asked.
“You are small enough, if you’re careful,” Alicen said, nodding. “Everyone! Make room for our Ellen, please.”
Ellen went forward carefully, watching as the zwerg pointed to where she should step and when she should duck under an archway. It was more difficult to navigate the transition from the stairs of the turret to the entrance to the hallway, itself on its side — the walls were now the floor and ceiling while its floor and ceiling were the new walls.
Twin Soul Series Omnibus 2: Books 6-10 Page 28