by Markus Heitz
“I can’t read the runes,” he cried despairingly to Andôkai. “It must be a riddle.”
“How awfully inconvenient,” gasped Rodario. He clutched the door, trying to hold himself up as his legs gave way. “I don’t expect my death to trouble you greatly, but remember this: Girdlegard has lost a luminary of the stage.” He closed his eyes and slumped to the ground, suffocating the lantern as he fell. The flame flickered dangerously.
“No!” murmured Gandogar, who had been watching the dying actor out of the corner of his eye. “We can’t let the flame go out!” As he turned to save the lantern, an enormous orc seized his chance and waded in. With a terrible shout he thrust his notched sword toward the king’s back.
“Your Majesty!” Goïmgar realized midshout that the warning would come too late. Without thinking, he threw himself — shield first and head ducked — into the path of the blade.
With a high-pitched ring the sword struck the edge of the shield, forcing it down. The dwarf’s head and neck appeared above the rim.
The orc bared its teeth, expelling a foul rush of breath, which swept through Goïmgar’s beard. The beast’s long blade settled on the shield, using its contours to draw a perfect line from right to left.
Goïmgar thrust his blade forward, but it was no match for the orcish sword. His stumpy weapon shattered, shards of metal jangling to the floor, and the sword continued, cleaving through skin, flesh, sinew, and bone.
As the artisan’s head fell to the right, his twitching body toppled left, brushing against Balyndis, who let out a furious howl and swung her ax with fresh savagery.
Gandogar turned in time to see Goïmgar die in his stead. Even as the head hit the floor, the flame died, a thin wisp of smoke snaking its way to the ceiling. “May Tion take you!” Gandogar raised his ax and split the murderer from skull to chest.
With two of their number dead and the dragon fire extinguished, the company struggled against the heaviness in their arms. Their resistance was weakening.
“Did you get us this far in order to destroy us, Vraccas?”
Tungdil shouted accusingly as he drove his ax between the jaws of an orc.
At that moment there was a welcome grinding noise and the right-hand panel of the door swung open.
The deep tones of a bugle rang out, echoing the melody that Boïndil had sounded at the beginning of their attack. Stocky figures streamed through the doors and threw themselves on the beasts. Their axes and hammers raged mercilessly among the hordes.
It took Tungdil a good few moments to realize that their rescuers were dwarves.
One of their number, a warrior whose polished armor outshone everything save the diamonds on his belt, nodded toward the open door.
“Hurry, we can’t hold them back for long,” he bellowed, his deep voice sending shivers down Tungdil’s spine.
He was more used to seeing the warrior’s features cast in vraccasium and gold, but he had encountered the visage often enough during their long march through the fifthling kingdom to know exactly who he was: Giselbert Ironeye, father of Giselbert’s folk.
“I thought you were…”
“We’ll talk later,” the ancient dwarf told him. “Just get your company inside.”
Tungdil gave the order, Furgas hoisted Rodario to his shoulders, and Gandogar carried Goïmgar’s corpse. As soon as the group was safely in the forge, Giselbert’s dwarves abandoned their attack and slammed the door behind them. A moment later there was a furious hammering and pounding, but blind rage alone was not enough to breach the door.
“Welcome,” Giselbert said solemnly. “Whoever you may be, I hope your coming is a good omen.”
There were ten of them in all: ashen-faced dwarves with absent eyes that made them seem vaguely trancelike. Each was clad in lavishly splendid mail and their beards reached to their belts. Determination, a Vraccas-given trait of their race, was stamped on every face.
“My warriors and I have been fighting Tion’s minions since the fall of my kingdom eleven hundred cycles ago,” said Giselbert, who seemed the most venerable, the most majestic of them all. “We are the last of the fifthlings, killed by the älfar and resurrected by the Perished Land. As you can see, we chose not to serve it.”
Tungdil shot a quick glance at Bavragor, who was covered from head to toe in every imaginable shade of green. Orc and bögnil blood was dripping from his hands and splashing to the floor.
“It takes a lot to kill an undead dwarf, but most of our companions were eventually slain. The rest of us retreated to the furnace, our folk’s most treasured relic.” He held Tungdil’s gaze.
“And you’re sure you don’t hate other dwarves and want to murder every living creature?”
Giselbert shook his head. “We taught ourselves not to. In eleven hundred cycles you can learn to stifle the pestilent hatred.” His eyes shifted to the door. “The creatures used to content themselves with guarding the entrance, but during the last few orbits they’ve laid siege to the doors. I daresay the change has something to do with you.”
“Very likely.” Tungdil ran through the introductions and gave a hasty account of the threat facing Girdlegard and the reason for their coming. “But it’s all been in vain. We were supposed to light the furnace with dragon fire, but the flame went out while we were fighting by the door.”
Giselbert clapped a hand on his shoulder and a kindly smile spread across the creases and wrinkles of his ancient face. “You are wrong to give up hope. The fire is burning as fiercely as ever.” He stopped and listened. “The furnace has always been under our protection. Vraccas must have known we would need it one day.” He and his companions stepped aside to reveal the rest of the chamber.
The hall, fifty paces long by thirty wide, boasted twenty abandoned hearths, lined up in two rows, and four times as many anvils, arranged around an enormous furnace ablaze with fierce white flames.
Countless pillars supported the ceiling eighty paces above and the walls were filled with neat rows of tools: hammers, tongs, chisels, files, and all manner of implements needed for the blacksmith’s craft. Fine sand covered the floor and the upper reaches of the chamber were coated in a thick layer of soot. A stone stairway led to the flue.
The bellows and grindstones were attached to metal chains that ran through a system of rollers and pulleys to the ceiling, where they looped through the rock. Tungdil was instantly reminded of the lifting apparatus in the underground network.
He found himself imagining the smithy in its heyday when Girdlegard’s finest weapons and most splendid armor had been forged by Giselbert’s dwarves. He breathed out in relief and prayed to Vraccas to excuse his lack of faith. “That’s the best news we’ve had since Ogre’s Death,” he said cheerfully. We’re nearly there. And to think I’d resigned myself to failure…
“He’s alive!” exclaimed Furgas. “His heart is beating! Rodario’s alive!”
“Let me take a look at him.” Andôkai swept back her hair, knelt beside the wounded impresario, and inspected his wound. “He’s had a blow to the head and a slight gouge to the side. It’s nothing too serious,” she announced, cleaning the afflicted area with Bavragor’s brandy to stave off infection.
The impresario’s eyes fluttered open. “Thank you, Estimable Maga,” he gasped, gritting his teeth as the alcohol stung his raw flesh. “Had I known, I would have begged the orc to strike me on the mouth so you could kiss me back to life.”
“If you were a warrior, things might have been different between us,” she said, responding remarkably favorably to the flirtation.
“A good actor can be many things, even a warrior.”
“But it’s only an act.”
“I’m a warrior in spirit. Isn’t that enough?”
“Maybe,” she said, “but your weapon has fought for so many causes in every kingdom that I couldn’t rely on you not to swap sides.” Her blue eyes looked at him smilingly as she patted his cheek. “Save your charm for the women who adore you.”
; Giselbert pointed to a quiet corner of the smithy. “Lie down and get some rest. The doors won’t fall; we’ll see to it that they don’t. It’s important that you recover your strength before we get going with Keenfire. There are some matters we need to attend to before we can forge the blade.”
“Such as… ?”
The ancient monarch chuckled when he saw the look of alarm on Tungdil’s face. “It can wait until you’re rested. I’m sorry we can’t offer you any sustenance, but you’ll be safe here, at least.”
The travelers were too tired to do anything but follow his advice; even Boïndil was so spent that he forgot to be suspicious of their undead hosts. In any case, no one could claim that the revenants weren’t putting their lives to good use.
Tungdil went to join Gandogar, who was sitting in silence beside Goïmgar’s corpse. The fourthling king had removed his battered helmet, his brown hair resting on his mighty shoulders. “He died trying to save me,” he said somberly. “He threw himself in front of that orc, even though he must have known the brute would kill him.” He glanced at Tungdil. “I didn’t think he had it in him. I was pleased when you picked Goïmgar because he seemed too much the artisan and too little the dwarf. I misjudged him. He was a dwarf, all right.”
Tungdil placed the pouch of diamonds in Gandogar’s hands. “You’re our diamond cutter now. You must finish his task for him.”
“Gladly, although I can’t promise to emulate his skill. Goïmgar was a far better artisan than I am.”
Tungdil paused before broaching a rather delicate subject. “There’s something I need to tell you, Gandogar.” He quickly told him of Gundrabur’s plan and Bislipur’s trickery, and finished by producing Sverd’s collar as proof.
The king recognized the choker at once. “By the beard of Goïmdil, I wish these accusations were unfounded, but the loathsome collar speaks for itself. Sverd was in thrall to his master; he could never have acted alone.” He shook his head incredulously. “How could Bislipur be so blind? How could I be so blind?”
“So you don’t want to wage war on the elves?”
“Absolutely not! Isn’t Girdlegard in enough trouble already?” He took a deep breath. “Honestly, Tungdil, nothing could be farther from my thoughts. Gundrabur was right after all. We’ve been through so much since the start of this mission that the thought of another war… No, an alliance is what we need.” He stopped and frowned. “I’m not saying we have to be best friends with the elves or anything. The way they betrayed the fifthlings was —”
“We weren’t betrayed by elves,” interrupted a fifthling who had approached in time to hear the end of their exchange. His thick black beard hung in decorative cords that reached to his chest.
“Your folk was betrayed by the pointy-ears,” the king insisted. “I saw the evidence myself.”
“Evidence provided by Bislipur,” Tungdil reminded him.
The stranger gave them a wan smile. “My name is Glandallin Hammerstrike of the clan of the Striking Hammers.” He turned to Gandogar. “I witnessed the terrible demise of our kingdom, and I saw the traitor who opened our gates.”
“Yes,” Gandogar said stubbornly. “A backstabbing elf.”
“It was a dwarf.” He paused as the others, including Balyndis, who had joined them, stared in disbelief. “Glamdolin Strongarm was the traitor who spoke the incantation and opened our gates.”
“But why?”
“It was the opportunity he had been waiting for. That dreadful morning he pretended to succumb to the fever that the älfar had spread among our folk. The battle was fierce and no one gave him a second thought. He skulked down to the gates and cleared the way for Tion’s hordes. It was his doing that the älfar found their way into our underground halls and took us by surprise.”
“But I don’t see…”
“He was a thirdling,” Glandallin said flatly. “A child of Lorimbur, a dwarf killer, who inveigled himself into our folk and masked his true intentions so cunningly that we suspected nothing. He waited until we were fatally weakened, then struck the final blow. He died by my ax but was raised by the Perished Land to incant the secret runes. After our deaths we captured him and questioned him. Glamdolin was beheaded, never to rise again.”
“I hope you’re writing this down for me,” Rodario whispered to Furgas. “We’ll make our fortunes with this play!”
“So the elves had nothing to do with it!” said Tungdil, delighted that the path was clear for an alliance. Bislipur’s treacherous scheme has come to naught.
They buried Goïmgar’s body in a corner of the forge, erected a pile of stones to mark the grave, and dedicated his soul to Vraccas. As soon as they felt sufficiently rested, they began their preparations for forging the mighty ax. “ ‘The blade must be made of the purest, hardest steel, with diamonds encrusting the bit and an alloy of every known precious metal filling the inlay and the runes. The spurs should be hewn from stone and the grip sculpted from wood of the sigurdaisy tree,’ ” recited Tungdil, reading from the manuscript that would serve as their guide.
They stacked the gold, silver, palandium, and vraccasium neatly on the table along with the pouch of diamonds and the sigurdaisy wood for the haft. The fifthlings furnished them with iron ore for the blade and stone for the spurs.
Tungdil realized with alarm what it was they were missing. “We didn’t bring any tionium,” he said, scolding himself for his laxness. “You don’t have any, I suppose?”
There was a short silence. “Not in the forge,” said Glandallin. “We were never especially fond of Tion’s metal, so there wasn’t much call for it.”
Narmora unhooked an amulet from her neck and laid it on the table. “It’s pure tionium. My mother gave it to me to ward off the forces of good. Since I’ve allied myself with them, there’s not much point in wearing it. I just hope there’s enough for you to use.”
Tungdil gave her a grateful look. His doubts and reservations about the half älf had been canceled out by her deeds. “Girdlegard is in your debt twice over. No matter how expertly we fashion the weapon, Keenfire would be powerless without tionium — or without the underground-lings’ foe.”
“It’s the least I can do, given the amount of suffering my mother’s race has caused,” she demurred.
He glanced at the glowing furnace. “Shall we begin?”
“I’m afraid it’s not that simple,” said Giselbert. “The furnace is alight, but the temperature isn’t high enough. Usually, we’d use the bellows to breathe life into Dragon Fire, but the equipment has rusted and we haven’t been able to get it to work.”
“Thank goodness for that!” Furgas leaped to his feet. “What with Narmora being the savior of Girdlegard, I was beginning to think I was just a hanger-on.” He chuckled good-humoredly and the others joined in. “I hope you’re ready for a demonstration of my expertise.”
He was rewarded with a kiss from Narmora, who picked up her ax to practice wards, attacks, and strikes with Boïndil. Andôkai sat watching them, while Djerůn, motionless as usual, crouched beside her. For some reason Tungdil was half expecting the helmet to give off a purple glow.
“You’re wondering what’s behind the visor, aren’t you?” said Narmora, recovering her breath. She pressed the canteen of water thirstily to her lips.
He turned to her. “Is there something I should know?”
Narmora leaned against the wall of polished rock, still panting with exertion. Boïndil was a hard taskmaster and the combat sessions left her exhausted. “When I was little, my mother told me stories about a terrifying being, the king among Tion’s and Samusin’s creatures, the predator of predators, the hunter who hunted his own kind, destroying the weak and fighting the strong to make them stronger — or to kill them if their ascendancy was undeserved.” Narmora dabbed the sweat from her brow. “She said that his eyes shone with violet light and that weaker beings fled for their lives at the sight of him. All the beasts are terrified of Samusin’s son. She used to scare the living daylights out o
f me with those stories.” She grinned, then averted her gaze, careful not to glance in the giant’s direction. “And back then I didn’t know that they were true.”
The explanation didn’t take Tungdil entirely by surprise. Samusin was Andôkai’s chosen deity, and she would doubtless feel honored to be traveling with a creature who was said to be his son. Whether or not Djerůn was more than just a servant to the maga was a question that Tungdil was reluctant to ponder. “No wonder the bögnilim bolted.”
“Most creatures would run away from him, beasts of Tion or not.” Narmora got up to resume her drills.
He watched as Balyndis kindled one of the hearths with ordinary flames. After stripping off her mail and leather jerkin, she donned a leather apron that covered her chest and her midriff, although her undergarments left a good deal of flesh on show. He made his way over to see what she was doing. “What are you up to?”
“Making steel,” she said, signaling for him to tie her apron at the back. Standing behind her, he caught his first proper glimpse of female skin. It was pink and covered in wispy down. There hadn’t been much opportunity for washing of late, so she had a strong smell about her, but it wasn’t unpleasant — not clean, exactly, but still quite arousing. “The blast furnaces are on the other side of the door, so I’m having to smelt the metal by other means. It’s a trick of the trade.”
Balyndis’s apron strings were safely knotted, but Tungdil found himself clasping her sturdy hips. Her skin felt smooth and warm. He stroked the fine hairs.
“Come here so you can see what I’m doing.” He did as he was told. “First we have to get rid of the impurities, which is why I’m placing the ore in a shallow pan. The heat will burn them off. Unfortunately, it means we can produce only small quantities of steel at a time, but it should be enough for a blade.” She stood there, waiting patiently for the temperature to rise and the iron to melt. “Surely you’ve done this before?”
“No,” he said regretfully. “I was only a blacksmith.”
“How many strikes for a horseshoe nail?”