by Markus Heitz
“This is definitely in breach of the agreement,” said Salfalur. “I know those two; they’re secondlings!”
“Not any more,” chimed in Boïndil, twirling his axes impatiently. He was clearly spoiling for a fight. “We’re freelings now.”
Gemmil appeared on the parapet. “They’re with me.”
On Gemmil’s signal, the rampart filled with dwarves carrying shields, clubs, axes, and other weapons. Some of them deposited rocks on the edge of the parapet, ready to hurl them at the thirdlings in the event of an attack.
“A few of my warriors from Trovegold,” explained Gemmil. “The battalions from Gemtrove and the other cities are guarding the stronghold. Ten thousand dwarves, six gates, twin ramparts, nine towers, and a bridge lie between you and Xamtys’s halls.”
“You’ll have me to reckon with as well,” said a crimson-cloaked Narmora, stepping up to the parapet.
“And me,” called Rodario grandly, trying to look as imposing as possible. He was wearing a magnificent new robe for the occasion. “My name is Rodario the Fablemaker, apprenticed to the mighty Narmora the Unnerving, and second only to the maga in skill and power.”
Tungdil swung his ax above his head. “King Lorimbas, the choice is yours: Attack, and expose your warriors to dwarven bombardment and the wrath of a maga and her famulus, against whose magic no mortal army can prevail, or show us the weapon and explain how it works.”
The king scanned the ranks of the defenders. “The weapon isn’t here,” he said, scowling. “Our first priority is to take possession of our territory and secure our position.”
“Fine, but you and your warriors will have to wait until you’ve convinced us that the weapon really works. I hope for your sake that it doesn’t take long—it’s cold outside.” He pointed to the right. “There’s a cave over there. It should be big enough for half your army. The others will have to make do with blankets.”
“Psst, scholar,” whispered Boïndil. “How are we going to know if the weapon really works?”
Tungdil grinned. “Did you see the look on Lorimbas’s face? I thought Salfalur was going to scale the gates and tear me to pieces!”
Boïndil looked at him blankly. “So what?”
“In other words,” whispered Boëndal, “Lorimbas and Salfalur are furious with us for seeing through their scam.” He smiled, relieved that their decision to follow Tungdil had been rewarded. “You were right, scholar. Lorimbas lied to the other rulers. The weapon doesn’t exist.”
Tungdil took little satisfaction in his victory, knowing that the news augured badly for Girdlegard as a whole. “Narmora is our only hope. She’ll have to delay the avatars while we raise an army of innocents to fight them. The dwarven rulers and other monarchs must be informed.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourselves,” shouted Lorimbas from below. “I’ll have the weapon for you in two orbits. Prepare yourselves for a surprise.”
“We’re happy to wait—if waiting will save our homeland,” Tungdil called back. He lowered his voice so that only his friends could hear. “They’re bound to attack. They’re going to use the time to find a way of breaking our defenses. Tell the sentries to be vigilant. We need to brace ourselves for an assault.”
Boïndil banged his axes together. “I’m not afraid of them. I don’t like the notion of spilling dwarven blood, but what choice do we have? Vraccas forgive us for raising our axes against his creation, but the thirdlings have brought it on themselves.”
“Clansfolk!” Lorimbas’s voice cut through the mountain air. “Thirdling clansfolk who have strayed from the Black Range, deserters like Sanda Flameheart who left the thirdling ranks, your crimes will be forgiven. Turn back to the thirdlings before it’s too late.”
“More lies, Lorimbas?” called Tungdil. “Your trickery won’t work.” Out of the corner of his eye he watched as Sanda glanced nervously from Gemmil to Myr, but her face betrayed no emotion. He couldn’t help recalling Myr’s warning. “Fine, Lorimbas, you’ve got two orbits. I can’t wait to see the secret weapon that can destroy a band of demigods.”
He backed away from the parapet until he was out of sight, with Narmora and the others following suit. He didn’t know whether to feel satisfied that his strategy had proven successful, or dismayed that his worst suspicions had been confirmed. All along he had been secretly hoping that Lorimbas would surprise him by unveiling a mighty weapon capable of saving Girdlegard from destruction.
He was joined by Narmora, who seemed to guess what he was thinking. “What are we going to do now?” she asked. “We can’t fight a battle on two fronts.” Her dark, almost fathomless, eyes gazed toward the west. “After orbits of calm, the past few nights have been worse than ever. Judging by the fire on the horizon, the avatars are dangerously close.” She was glad that she hadn’t brought her daughter with her. There could be no doubt that Dorsa would be safer with Rosild in the palace than with her parents in the western range, but it didn’t make the separation any easier to bear.
“Can you stop the avatars?” asked Tungdil.
She gave a wry laugh. “What can anyone do against eleven miniature deities?” She looked crushed. “Andôkai studied for over a hundred cycles and never attained the skill and knowledge she sought. I was her apprentice for half a cycle.” She lowered her voice. “No one knows how to stop them. We know nothing about them, except that they’re lethal. Nôd’onn was right, Tungdil. He warned us about the avatars, and we killed him. The only magus with the power to destroy the avatars is dead.” She took a deep breath. “We won’t have many peaceful orbits like this. We shouldn’t spoil it with gloomy thoughts.” She turned to leave. “I’ll tell Furgas to load the catapults.”
“Tell the sentries in West Ironhald to inform us of any developments,” he said. “I only hope we can resolve things with Lorimbas before the avatars reach the border and Xamtys and her clansfolk are burned to death.”
Narmora nodded and took her leave.
“She cured Furgas even though she said she couldn’t,” Myr said thoughtfully. “Her powers must be increasing, don’t you think?”
“I hope she can handle it. We need her to be strong in spirit.” Tungdil took her in his arms. “What will become of us, Myr? Will we be killed by Lorimbas or Salfalur, or reduced to ashes by a band of demigods? Is this the end of our adventure?”
She stroked his cheeks. “I’m a medic, not a seer. I can’t foretell the future, but I’ll always be right behind you. After what happened last time, I won’t be letting you out of my sight. You could have died because of me, and nothing is going to stop me being there if you need me—not Salfalur, not the avatars, nothing.” She looked at the dwarves thronging back to the warmth of East Ironhald. “I’ll make sure my medicine bag is properly stocked. I’ll need it, if Lorimbas attacks.”
“They won’t breach the gates.”
“What if they don’t have to?”
She glanced across at Sanda, who was giving orders to the guards behind the fortified wall.
“She’ll ruin everything,” murmured Myr. “Someone needs to keep an eye on her, and it had better be me.”
The two orbits were over in no time.
Tungdil, Narmora, and the twins took up position on the ramparts and waited for Lorimbas to spin them another story or launch an attack. “Any idea what they’ve been doing?” Tungdil asked a sentry.
“Singing—standing right here, and singing. Songs about battles, songs about the other dwarves, most of them highly offensive… They wouldn’t shut up.” It was clear from his tone that the lyrics had incensed him. “We couldn’t sleep because of the noise. But the main thing is, they couldn’t bring down the gates with their voices.”
“They’ve started again,” said Boëndal, pointing to the crowds of thirdlings emerging from the cave. “They’re singing their hearts out.”
The thirdling warriors lined up in rows, the front row as long as the gates were wide. Still singing, they marched toward the mouth of the gully with Lori
mbas at their head. He came to a halt some thirty paces from the gates.
“I thought you were going to show us the weapon, Lorimbas,” called Tungdil sarcastically. “Don’t say you forgot!”
“There never was a weapon, Tungdil Goldhand, you traitor,” bellowed the thirdling king. “Know this before you die. Your wise dwarven friends, the oh-so-clever humans, and the snotty-nosed elves fell for our ruse. The avatars don’t exist.”
“So now you’re pretending we were never in danger,” scoffed Tungdil, signaling to Gemmil’s warriors to heft their weapons. “I can’t fault your resourcefulness. What have you lined up next?”
“Your destruction. Right now four thousand warriors are marching on West Ironhald. They’ll storm your defenses from the west, while I lead the rest of my army to victory from the east. No dwarf, no maga, and no god can stop my conquest of the dwarven kingdoms. My spies have served me well.”
“Where’s the fat one?” hissed Boïndil suspiciously, scanning the enemy ranks. “I can’t see him anywhere. What’s happened to the others? There were five thousand of them not so long ago. A thousand are missing at least.”
“You’re right. Something funny is going on.” Tungdil turned back to Lorimbas. “If the avatars don’t exist, how do you explain the fire burning on the horizon, night after night? Can you do magic, Lorimbas?”
The thirdling king chuckled. “Oh yes, I can do magic, even without your maga’s powers. I can conjure dwarves to the Outer Lands and harness the power of sulfur to make gullible dwarves like you quake in their boots at the sight of my mighty conflagration.”
“But how did you…”
“A real hero would have explored the Blacksaddle and uncovered its secrets,” Lorimbas taunted him. “You were in our stronghold, and you never suspected how valuable it was. We’ve got our own system of tunnels, built by our ancestors many cycles ago. From the Blacksaddle, we can attack in all directions. I heard you were expecting trouble from the west, so I invented a threat.”
“You’re lying, Lorimbas.”
“The whole of Girdlegard is shaking like a leaf because I set off a few fireworks in the Outer Lands,” crowed Lorimbas.
“What about the comet? No catapult in Girdlegard has the power to—”
“The comet was real, all right. A happy coincidence for us. It landed in the Outer Lands and left a big crater. Some of my spies saw it fall. They didn’t spot an avatar, unless he was made of lava.” He slapped his thigh and shrieked with laughter. “To think you took the comet as a sign that Nôd’onn was right! You would have done anything I said to protect yourself from the imaginary threat.”
“You made the dwarves leave their kingdoms,” murmured Tungdil.
“What happens next is up to you. Either open the gates and leave with your lives—or wait for us to cut you down. My warriors will show no mercy.”
Narmora stared at the thirdling king. All lies… I lost my child, Andôkai died by my hand, and Furgas was in a coma, all because of his scheming… Her eyes darkened to fathomless hollows and she lifted her arms, causing the dwarves around her to shrink away. “Lorimbas Steelheart, you will die for your treachery,” she called menacingly.
“Not as soon as you think, witch,” he retorted, raising his horn to his lips. A moment later, the ground caved in, causing the fortified wall to collapse.
The defending dwarves crashed to the ground. Most of those on the parapets were crushed by stone blocks the size of a fully grown dwarf or buried under falling debris.
No sooner had the final block come to rest than the thirdlings surged forward, clambering over the rubble and throwing themselves on the startled defenders whose leaders had fallen with the gates.
Worse was to come.
Amid the commotion, Trovegold’s warriors heard picks and hammers breaking through the frozen ground behind them. Soon they were confronted with the missing thirdlings, as one thousand warriors led by the ferocious Salfalur emerged from a hastily built tunnel and attacked from the rear.
The first battle began.
By dusk, the bodies of three thousand defenders lay strewn between the first two gates, and the thirdlings were singing victory songs to Lorimbur.
Tungdil and the twins had managed to drag the wounded Narmora from the rubble and carry her through the second gate before the thirdlings noticed. Gemmil, Sanda, and nine hundred badly shaken warriors had also survived the assault.
Eyes closed, Narmora was concentrating on healing her wounds. The skin grew back faster than water rising in a well. She leaped to her feet. “I’m going to make that treacherous thirdling pay for his—”
“No, Narmora,” said Tungdil. “We’re abandoning the first five gates. I don’t want to lose more of our warriors to the thirdlings’ underhanded tactics. Save your strength for defending the stronghold.”
Narmora was about to reply when Myr ran up. “Come quickly, maga,” she called. “You’ll never guess what the sentries have found on the western border.”
“More warriors for me to tend?”
“Just one,” said Myr. “It’s Djern, Estimable Maga. At least, I think it is…”
“Great,” snorted Boïndil. “First Andôkai, now Narmora. Where the heck are these Djerns coming from?”
“More to the point, who are they being sent by?” muttered Tungdil. “You’re a genius, Boïndil!”
“Thank you.” The secondling paused. “Er, why?”
The little group hurried after Myr, who was racing across the bridge to the stronghold.
“You raised an excellent question, and I don’t think Lorimbas will have an answer for it—which is worrying… Very worrying.” He exchanged glances with Myr, who seemed to share his concern.
Djern, or rather, what was left of Djern, was lying on the floor.
His armor looked old and battered, with countless scratches, scorch marks, and dings. It was obvious from the broken-off swords, lances, and spikes embedded in his mail that his journey had been fraught with danger. He was smeared all over with bright yellow blood, and he hadn’t stirred since their arrival.
“Hmm,” said Boïndil, scratching his beard. “Can anyone speak Djerush?”
All eyes were turned on Narmora.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “The maga didn’t teach me his language. She took the secret with her when she died.”
“Where’s my mistress?” rasped a strange voice inside her head.
“Listen!” exclaimed Boïndil. “Did you hear him growling? Come on, buckethead, speak a language we understand!” Fearlessly, he took a few steps toward him. “You’d better not be an impostor.” He leaned over and peered at the visor. “Balyndis would know from the metalwork…” His stubby fingers reached for the beak of the visor. “I’ll take a peek at his face.”
“Tell him to stop,” said the voice to Narmora, who finally realized that Djern was talking to her. “You’ve changed, half älf. There’s something inside you—something that belonged to Nôd’onn.”
“Ha, listen to him growl,” said Boïndil, laughing. “Don’t you dare bite me,” he warned the armored giant, menacing him with the blunt edge of his ax. “I’ll wallop your metal skull so hard you’ll—”
“That’s enough, Boïndil,” snapped Narmora. “I’ve… I know what he’s saying after all.” Her lips moved effortlessly, forming strange syllables that came to her of their own accord. It must be the malachite, she thought.
“It’s not the malachite, it’s the energy within it,” said Nudin, appearing at Djern’s side. “It’s more powerful than you think.” Suddenly he was gone.
I must be hallucinating, thought Narmora, blaming it on the fall from the parapet. I’m probably still concussed. “Your mistress is dead, Djern,” she told the giant, hoping that the others hadn’t noticed her distraction. “She was murdered by a giant, a giant wearing your armor. Can you tell me what happened?”
“Are you the new maga?”
“Why won’t he get up?” asked Boïndil impatiently, pro
dding him in the chest with the haft of his ax. “Maybe he’s asleep. Are you sure he’s not snoring, Narmora?”
“Be quiet,” his brother shushed him, tugging him away. “Do you want him to eat you alive?”
“He’s not armed, is he? What’s a half-dead giant going to do to a warrior like me?”
“If he doesn’t stop prodding me, I’ll rip through his chain mail and tear him in two,” Djern told Narmora. “Answer my question: Are you the new maga?”
“It wasn’t my choice.” She paused. “The late maga’s legacy will abide in me forever. They call me Narmora the Unnerving.”
“You were her famula and you worship her god. Narmora the Unnerving will be my new mistress.”
“She sent you to the Outer Lands. What did you see?”
“My strength is fading, mistress. I need your help.”
“Did Andôkai have an incantation or a—”
“I don’t need magic, mistress,” he said, lifting his head a little.
“Hoorah!” whooped Boïndil, edging closer. “Old buckethead is alive! Assuming it’s really him…”
“Boïndil!” chorused the others disapprovingly. He shrugged moodily and kept quiet, although no one believed for a moment that the silence would last.
“I need your blood, mistress.”
“My blood?”
“The blood of a maga is more nourishing than my prey. It will give me power—and bind me to you.”
“Everyone out,” said Narmora, trying to hide her agitation. “I need to heal Djern’s wounds. The incantation is powerful—I don’t want anyone getting hurt.” The others traipsed out reluctantly, dragging the protesting Boïndil with them. As soon as Narmora was alone with Djern, she kneeled beside him, heart thumping in her chest, and rolled up the sleeve of her robe.
Djern raised a hand to his visor and flipped it open. It was all Narmora could do not to run away. Like Balyndis, she was filled with terror at the sight of his face. She held out her wrist.
“It will hurt, mistress,” he told her. Without warning, his head sped forward and he sank his teeth into her arm, slitting the flesh from wrist to elbow. His lipless mouth sucked the wound.