by Markus Heitz
“We didn’t bribe Bruron; we paid him.” Romo poked the letter with his boot, watching as the parchment sank into the brown, soggy dung. “You must be very proud of your kingdom, Prince Mallen. I suppose your cavalry is strong enough to deal with the orcs—provided you’ve got enough mercenaries watching your borders.”
“Is that a threat?”
“A threat?” echoed Romo, feigning surprise. “My uncle merely said to tell you—”
Mallen didn’t wait to hear the rest. Dropping the leather holder into the mud, he kicked his heels into the horse’s flanks and rode away. He had said everything he wanted to say.
The cavalrymen, noticing their monarch’s displeasure, took their leave from the dwarf without ceremony. Their places were taken by the traders and citizens of Richemark, who trampled the dung-soaked parchment underfoot.
Romo watched Mallen’s departure with a contemptuous grunt. He’ll see the consequences of his obstinacy soon enough. The dwarf was pleased that the passers-by were careful not to crowd him; they were nervous of dwarves, and his demeanor did nothing to calm their fears.
Mallen’s refusal to ally himself with the thirdlings meant that Romo was obliged to continue his journey in a northeasterly direction. He could be sure that his advances would be looked on more sympathetically there.
A group of children ventured closer, stopping a few paces away and staring at him with open curiosity.
“Are you a dwarf as well?” asked the eldest among them. “Why do you look so funny?”
“For the same reason you look so ugly,” he growled. Then he realized the implications of the child’s words. “Of course I’m a dwarf, a very special dwarf—a warrior, if you must know.” He smiled a crooked smile. “Are more of my kind in town?”
The children jumped up and down, nodding eagerly.
“What a wonderful coincidence. Can you tell me where I might find them?” He took a coin from his leather purse and threw it to the tallest boy. His right hand closed around the metal haft of his morning star. He intended to end his business in Richemark on a high.
IV
Southern Entrance to the Fifthling Kingdom,
Girdlegard,
Spring, 6235th Solar Cycle
It hasn’t changed since last time,” said Boïndil, gazing at the crumbling ramparts and fallen towers that were all that remained of the stronghold’s glory. He, Tungdil, Balyndis, and a group of twenty handpicked warriors were marching ahead to survey the land. The gateway to the fifthling kingdom lay before them, tall as a house and tantalizingly close. The doors had been smashed to pieces. Boïndil looked back at the steep path leading down the mountainside. The remaining dwarves were about a mile away, working their way to the top with their belongings and supplies. “They’re moving too fast,” he muttered. “They need to be more careful with Boëndal’s stretcher—and they shouldn’t be making so much noise.” He dispatched a warrior to pass on the message.
Tungdil left the little group, ducked behind the weathered ruins, and darted toward the gateway, moving as quietly as he could. Mindful of the possible dangers, he had taken his ax from his belt and was ready to strike at a moment’s notice. A few paces from the gateway, he stopped and crouched behind a pile of rubble.
“Hey, that wasn’t the deal,” growled Ireheart, setting off after him. “What are you playing at, scholar? The first ten orcs belong to me.” He ducked down, charging from rock to rock and sheltering behind the ruined ramparts, now almost fully visible beneath the melting snow. Balyndis and the others ran after him, rattling and clunking like an army of tinkers.
Tungdil rolled his eyes. “You couldn’t be more obvious if you were singing dwarven war songs,” he hissed irritably. “I’ve a good mind to make you take off your chain mail.” He focused his attention on the dark gateway leading into the mountain; everything was still.
The silence was broken by dripping water. All around them, stalactites were melting, and not far from the gateway, a waterfall, free at last from its icy prison, was cascading down the slope. Spray rose into the air, lingering in a haze of iridescent mist.
“I’d sooner shave off my beard than take off my chain mail,” protested Boïndil. “I’m naked without it.” He flared his nostrils, sniffing the air for orcs. “Not a whiff of them—or their rancid armor.” He turned to Tungdil and Balyndis. “Remember the orcs in the smelting works?” His eyes lit up with the memory. “They were packed in so tightly, just waiting to be killed. I couldn’t swing my axes without disemboweling a dozen of them by accident. Do you think—”
“Quiet!” ordered Tungdil, conscious that Balyndis was looking at him.
She had been true to her word and joined the expedition—not as his fiancée, but as a friend. At her side was Glaïmbar Sharpax, to whom she would soon be melded.
Tungdil didn’t know how to behave around her. In the space of an orbit, he had gone from being a lover to a friend, but his tortured heart refused to accept the change. “I’ll go first,” he said.
Stooping low, he darted off and stopped to the side of the gateway, pressing his ear to the wall and listening for sounds from within. Hearing nothing, he slipped inside and disappeared into the gloom.
Boïndil jiggled his axes impatiently. “I can’t stand it!” he spluttered. His inner furnace was overheating, stoked by his fiery spirit and concern for his brother’s life. “We should be seizing the Dragon Fire furnace and making my brother well. I’m going straight to the fifthling smithy, and no one can stop me—not you or a hundred orcs!” Throwing caution to the wind, he jumped up and ran through the gateway. Balyndis, swearing softly, hurried after him, followed by the others.
The tread of their boots on the rock sounded different in the tunnel. Balyndis found herself imagining that she was running across the roof of a cavern, but she pushed the thought aside.
A moment later, she and the others almost barreled into Tungdil, who had come to a halt at the end of the tunnel. “Forget what I said about keeping down the noise,” he said testily. “They’re bound to have heard us by now.” He gripped Keenfire with both hands. “It’s time to find out whether Tion’s beasts are still squatting in our stronghold or whether they’ve found themselves another home.”
“That’s more like it,” said Boïndil cheerily. “Dwarves don’t hold with sneaking and skulking; it’s cowardly and underhanded.” He flashed them a ferocious grin. “Show me where the runts are hiding—I’m dying for a fight.”
“How unusual,” said Balyndis, cross with him for breaking rank.
They set off through the passageways, Tungdil, Balyndis, and Boïndil, who knew the stronghold from their previous visit, leading the way. The likenesses of dead fifthling chieftains greeted them, axes hefted, from gleaming palandium panels on the walls.
They soon found evidence of orcish activity: a trail of dirt and muddy prints—some booted, others unshod—leading toward the exit. It seemed the beasts had marched through the stronghold on their way to the Blacksaddle.
On reaching a many-columned pentagonal chamber, they took the passageway to the Dragon Fire furnace.
Tungdil’s memories came flooding back. He heard Gandogar’s booming voice taunting Nôd’onn’s hordes, he saw images of his dead friends, and he braced himself for grunting orcs and squawking bögnilim—but the halls were deathly still.
“Botheration! It’s empty as an ogre’s skull,” cursed Boïndil as they reached the smelting works adjoining the furnace. The fires had gone out beneath the blast furnaces, the chamber was cold, and the air stank of excrement and orc. “They’ve abandoned the halls,” said Boïndil, striding toward the door. “What are you waiting for? To the Dragon Fire furnace! What’s the betting it’s still alight?”
Tungdil realized it was useless to reprimand his reckless friend. Consumed with worry about his brother, Boïndil was at the mercy of his temper. Finding some orcs would give him an outlet for his anger, and stop him harming the rest of the group.
Boïndil was driven
by hatred for Tion’s creation, which made him a fearsome warrior—and a danger to others and himself. Unless he vented his rage, the flames of his furnace would burn higher and higher until he threw himself on whoever had the misfortune to be in his way. His fiery nature was a blessing and a curse.
They entered the Dragon Fire furnace, and immediately noticed a change in temperature.
Twenty hearths and eighty anvils were arranged around the central furnace. The vast room was filled with an odor so foul that the dwarves, covering their noses, tried not to gag. Decaying corpses lay strewn across the floor—orcs, bögnilim, a handful of älfar, and even three trolls. This was the work of Bavragor Hammersmith and the undead fifthlings who had given their lives so that Tungdil and the others could escape.
“By the beard of Beroïn, what a battle it must have been!” murmured Boïndil respectfully. “I never thought the merry minstrel had it in him.”
They sifted through the bodies, hoping to give a proper burial to their friends, but nothing remained except chain mail and cloth; the valiant warriors had been overpowered and torn to pieces.
“Look!” said Balyndis, pointing her ax at the main furnace. “It’s still burning!”
Tungdil breathed out in relief. With Dragon Fire, his worries about forging weaponry, armor, and other equipment for the kingdom were instantly solved. “Fan the flames! Giselbert’s kingdom belongs to the dwarves!”
The dwarves shoveled coal onto the furnace, taking care not to extinguish the flickering flames. Then they pulled on the chains connected to the giant bellows and breathed new life into Dragon Fire’s heart. Tungdil sent Boïndil and nine others to relay the good news to the rest of the company and guide them through the passageways.
In the meantime, Balyndis set about opening the vents to the flue. The fifthlings had sabotaged the mechanism to stop the orcs following Tungdil and the others through the chimney. She looked up at the ceiling, eighty paces above. A stone staircase led to the flue, which was blocked by a pair of solid metal plates.
“I’ll need a bit of time, but I can fix it,” she said, raising her voice so that Tungdil, who was standing nearby, would have to respond. “The chain came down because they destroyed the main sprocket. I’ll have the mechanism working in less than an orbit.”
Tungdil nodded but didn’t turn round. “It shouldn’t take long to clear up the forge. The bodies can go in the furnace—we’ll find a use for the melted armor.” He bent down and discovered tongs, hammers, chisels, files, and other tools hidden beneath the rotting remains. “We’ll soon have the smithy ringing with the sound of our hammers. The fifthling kingdom has been waiting for hundreds of cycles to hear the music of the forge.”
Glancing round to check no one was watching, Balyndis strode over to Tungdil and grabbed him by the arm. “Tungdil Goldhand, what did I do to deserve this?” she demanded, her brown eyes smoldering as fiercely as the furnace.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said, scanning the hall intently, as if he were planning the details of the clean-up operation. Balyndis’s powerful fingers, accustomed to toiling at the anvil, refused to let him go.
“Are you ignoring me as a punishment? You shouldn’t treat me this way—I’m your friend!”
“My friend?” erupted Tungdil. “We were in love, Balyndis, we wanted to be joined by the iron band! And then you decided to pledge yourself to a stranger, just because he’s a Sharpscythe or a Bluntax or whatever…” He broke off and looked at her hopefully. “You haven’t finished with him, have you?”
She closed her eyes. “No, Tungdil. It’s the law. I have to obey my clan.”
“Even at the cost of your happiness?” My happiness, he corrected himself.
“Yes,” she said simply. “There’s nothing more sacred, nothing we prize more highly than tradition. Tradition has kept our society together for thousands of cycles; it allows us to live in harmony; it keeps our clans alive. Sometimes it means we have to make sacrifices, but it’s all for the greater good. You’ll understand when you’ve lived in a dwarven kingdom for a while; at least I hope you will.” She let go of his arm and went to stroke his cheek, but he jerked away.
“Don’t do this to me,” he said bitterly. “You’re making it worse.” Too choked to talk, he turned away and hurried out of the forge, where he bumped into Boïndil, who was leading the procession to the furnace. The four dwarves carrying his frozen brother were just behind.
Glad of anything that might distract him from his thoughts, Tungdil set about sorting the dwarves into groups and sending them into the passageways to scour the stronghold for hidden orcs.
Over the course of the journey, Boëndal’s stretcher had been strapped to a pony or, when the terrain was uneven, carried by his fellow dwarves. They walked the stretcher to the middle of the room and set it down by the furnace. The flames were becoming brighter and fiercer all the time.
“What now?” enquired Boïndil, eying his brother’s pale face. “Do you think he’ll wake up?”
Tungdil laid a hand on Boëndal’s brow. It felt cold and dry. “No change yet, but the furnace isn’t up to temperature—we’ll wait a bit longer for the pure white flames.”
“And then what?” demanded Boïndil. He reached for his brother’s hand and clasped it tight. “We could fill a tankard with glowing coal, add some beer, and pour it down his throat,” he said hopefully.
Tungdil shook his head. “I can’t make sense of the riddle, but I promise you this: We’ll ransack the fifthlings’ archives until we find a solution.” He got up and signaled for the physicians to attend to Boëndal. “Come on,” he said, thumping Boïndil’s broad back. “There’s work to be done.”
The two dwarves left the forge, leaving Balyndis to stare after them sadly.
The following orbits saw the peaceable takeover of the kingdom continue apace.
The secondling masons lost no time in beginning the restoration work on the badly damaged chambers and corridors, with everyone lending a hand when it came to transporting the stone.
The firstling smiths fired up the blast furnaces and forged metal strips and bands to reinforce the gateways and doors. Their constant hammering echoed through the underground halls, reminding the mountain of the activity within it, six thousand cycles before.
In the early stages of the project, there wasn’t any call for diamond cutting or gem polishing, so the fourthlings helped wherever they were needed and set about exploring every passageway, chamber, nook, and cranny of the kingdom.
But no matter how hard they searched, there was still no sign of a tablet or document containing the key to Dragon Fire’s power. And so the orbits passed, and Boëndal continued to lie by the fire, his inner furnace cold and weak.
Tungdil and the others were barely aware of the passing time. New treasures were discovered every orbit, and the fifthlings’ craftsmanship became a source of continual delight. The firstlings, who had hitherto considered themselves experts in the art of working gold and other precious metals, readily admitted that the smiths of Giselbert possessed skills in excess of their own.
After orbits of searching, Tungdil decided that nothing in the halls and chambers would help them to revive the frozen dwarf. He gathered an advance party of warriors and set off in the direction of the Stone Gateway, hoping to find something there.
If he were honest, it was also a way of escaping Balyndis, who was torturing him with her beautiful smile, her loveable manner, and her irresistible curves.
The idea of Balyndis living side by side with Glaïmbar Sharpax, her Iron Beating kinsman, was enough to make his spirit plummet deeper than the darkest mine. Worse still, it encouraged his thoughts in untoward directions, and he found himself wishing that Glaïmbar would die.
He allowed his mind to ponder the prospect. His death would solve everything, wouldn’t it? said a voice in his ear. If Balyndis were widowed, no one would object to her taking a suitor, whoever he was.
Tungdil bristled. If Balyndis took a new
suitor, it would obviously be him.
Everyone would be happier, whispered the demon inside his head.
Tungdil, shocked at himself, banished the voice.
He was so withdrawn and miserable that Boïndil, who had insisted on joining the expedition, couldn’t help but notice.
“I suppose there’s a downside to being a dwarf,” commented the secondling when they stopped to rest their legs. They were sitting on the rocky banks of an underground stream, far enough away from the band of fifty dwarves for their conversation to go unheard. It gave Boïndil the courage to speak freely. “I’m no scholar,” he said, puffing vigorously on his pipe until the tobacco caught light. “I don’t have a knack with words, but I can listen; it doesn’t take much brains.” He crossed his arms and leaned back against the rock, waiting. “It’s time we talked.”
“About what?”
“Whatever’s bothering you.” He prodded Tungdil’s chain mail with the stem of his pipe. “I can shout her name until you tell me,” he threatened.
Sighing loudly, Tungdil cut himself a slice of dried mushroom to go with his cheese. “It’s not fair,” he said succinctly. Then his pent-up anguish came out in a torrent of words. “I thought we could still be friends,” he said finally. “I wasn’t expecting it to be so hard.” His appetite gone, he put down the mushroom and took a long draft of brandy instead.
“I’d go easy on the drinking,” warned Boïndil, still puffing noisily on his pipe. “You wouldn’t be the first to drown yourself in brandy. I don’t like seeing you like this—especially when me and Boëndal are to blame.”
“How do you figure that?” asked Tungdil, running a hand over his beard to wipe away the drops.
“Remember all the things we talked about on the long march to Ogre’s Death?” his friend said earnestly. “You asked about our customs, but I guess we forgot the most important ones—or maybe we should have explained them better. It’s all about family, clan, and folk. The laws are there to keep order, to protect us, to keep us safe. Without them, everything, er…”