The Dwarves Omnibus

by Markus Heitz

  The fine granite dust got into the dwarves’ airways and lungs and made it impossible for them to breathe properly. The cliff shook under them, cracking and roaring. The mountain screamed its distress out loud, outraged at the destruction.

  “The bastard,” spluttered Manon as he rushed past Tungdil and Boïndil to try to catch the dwarf who had brought the roof of the cave thundering down. “I’ll kill the bastard!”

  Tungdil did not doubt the earnestness of Manon’s words. The thirdling had lost two of his men for no good reason.

  “No, Manon!” he wanted to call out, but from his dust-stopped throat he could only produce a croak in protest. The only way to stop a murder now was to run after the two of them himself.

  In the tunnel they ran into the air was clear; no clouds of dirt obscured their view. They hastened after one another as if they were threaded like pearls on a string: the dwarf first, then Manon and last of all, Tungdil, losing ground all the time. He was out of condition and had no energy left.

  “Stop,” he groaned, spitting out saliva that could well have served as mortar. “Manon, wait for me! He could be leading you into a trap.” He set off again in pursuit, with the rest of the troop and Boïndil following behind. “What a hothead!”

  As they reached the cave where they had first seen the orc bones they caught sight of Manon disappearing down another tunnel they had not noticed before.

  The chase continued.

  Tungdil had a terrible stitch in his side. He gasped and his breath whistled like an old kettle; even the older Ireheart, who had bidden farewell to battles and other exertions now at his advanced age, had more stamina than he did. “Run on ahead,” he panted, falling back to a walking pace. “I’ll be along shortly. I don’t want to hold you up.”

  “No need, Scholar,” said Boïndil, pointing to a fork in the tunnel.

  There Manon lay, his drawn sword in his left hand. He sported a bad cut just below the eye. Ireheart and Tungdil bent down to help him while the warriors provided cover. Of the dwarf they had been chasing there was no trace.

  Tungdil checked the jugular vein. “He’s not dead,” he reported with a huge sigh of relief.

  Boïndil was holding up a stone the size of a small egg that had the thirdling’s blood dripping from it. “They got him with a slingshot!”

  “Begone!” A voice echoed round the tunnel. “There is nothing here for you to find.” They could make out something the size of a dwarf, wearing nothing but a loincloth and a chain mail shirt. In its right hand the figure held a large hammer aloft. The smoke from its torch made it hard to distinguish facial features.

  Tungdil stood up and made his way to the front of the band, while two of the warriors saw to Manon. “Who are you? And why did you bring down the cave—?”

  Behind the figure a huge shadow filled the entire cave. Cogwheels grated and whirred loudly, mechanical parts screeched. The thing was getting closer.

  “Get away from here!” the figure called to them, dropping the torch and hurling the hammer at them.

  One of the warriors fielded the missile, catching it on his shield, which deflected it to crash against the low stone roof.

  The events of the cave were repeated: great fragments of false granite fell onto the rock floor, and the passageway split open with a gaping hole several paces wide.

  “Back! It’s too dangerous to try anything here.” In frustration, Tungdil clenched his fists. This time he stood no chance of discovering the secret of the Outer Lands.

  Boïndil and three warriors grabbed the unconscious Manon and ran for their lives. Not all of them escaped the fatal rain of stones. Two more were buried under the false granite and the rest managed by the skin of their teeth, coughing and gasping, to reach the cave of bones. Behind them the tunnel collapsed and belched out a fountain of deadly dust that covered the dwarves.

  And that was not all.

  The mountain shook in rage as if angry at what was happening within; it seemed to want to punish those who were inside it. Above their heads they could hear cracking and twisting noises, as splinters of rock started to fall.

  “What have we done to make Vraccas so angry? This chamber won’t hold much longer,” guessed Ireheart, worried about his friend. “Can you go on?” he asked the gasping Tungdil.

  “I’ll have to,” he groaned, fighting for breath as he struggled to his feet. “I never wanted to die like this.” He thought about the strange shape he had seen behind the figure of the dwarf. “What was that thing he had with him?”

  “I don’t know. Whatever it was, he would have set it on us if the tunnel hadn’t collapsed.” Boïndil shook the dust out of his beard, which had turned gray. “You’re the scholar, Tungdil. Have you ever seen anything like that before?”

  On the opposite side of the cave, parts of the walls were starting to burst, with stone shrapnel flying hundreds of feet through the air. One of the warriors was hit in the face. Blood shot out of the wound on his cheek.

  Tungdil did not answer, but gave the signal for them to set off. Things were no longer clear at all.

  They hurried back through the fog-filled tunnel, while the stone under their feet shook and would not come to rest. Tungdil was convinced that the rock was furious at the intrusion: the insides of the mountain had been vandalized, and its caves destroyed.

  But they escaped the anger of the mountain, finally reached the Northern Pass and made their way home through the frost and fog. Hoar frost formed on their helmets, their chain mail, their shields, and their beards, turning the dwarfs completely white.

  When they arrived back at the gate, they were expected.

  II

  Girdlegard,

  Kingdom of Gauragar,

  Spring, 6241st Solar Cycle

  Make way! Make way for the King of the Players!” shouted the herald in his multi-colored garb, one hand beating the drum he carried on a strap round his neck. Then he raised the trumpet to blow the fanfare, a tune vaguely reminiscent of Gauragar’s royal anthem. He strode noisily through the crowd; eager to see what the approaching high-born personage might look like, people fell back to let the herald pass.

  Following the herald came an arrogant figure wearing what were surely priceless robes; he wore a conspicuous blue hat sporting three feathers and held a silver-headed cane in his hand. A goatee beard suited his aristocratic visage well and the long dark brown hair rested on the collar of his mantle. He waved to all sides majestically; to emphasize the royal gesture he had fastened a white silk cloth to the ring on his middle finger and it fluttered like a miniature standard.

  “May the gods love you and protect you, people of Storm Valley!” He walked to this side and that, and even risked a smile to a young woman. “Especially you, my lovely child. If the gods do not comply, call for me and I will gladly take on the duty myself.” The girl blushed and some in the crowd around her laughed out loud.

  Arriving at the center of the marketplace, he jumped up onto the rim of the fountain.

  “Now, come, honored spectators! Come and see for yourselves in my traveling collection of curiosities the most wonderful adventures ever witnessed in Girdlegard. It will be as if you had been there in person,” he enticed them. He ran round the low circular wall of the fountain, the buckles on his shoes clinking as he did so. “The battle with the orcs, the fight against the eoîl and the avatars, the cruelty of the unslayable siblings that governed Dsôn Balsur—you will see it all with your very own eyes. Heroes, villains, Death and Love. I, the renowned Rodario, whom once they called Rodario the Incredible and Lover of the Maga Andôkai, shall tell you of grand deeds. I have tales to tell of why Andôkai was also known as the Tempestuous One.” A few laughed at this innuendo. “And I fought side by side with Tungdil Goldhand in combat with the eoîl,” and here he swished his cane through the air in imitation, “until the mist-shape lay dead at our feet!” He stood up at his full height and stretched out his arms. “For I, myself, cherished spectators, have lived through these very
events. Can there be another such who could recount in more detail, with more verisimilitude? Who could report to you with greater honesty than I?” Blue and gray flames shot from his fingertips, to the shock and surprise of the bystanders. “This was merely a foretaste,” he promised, looking at a young boy. “You will have to cover your eyes during the show, little man, to stop them jumping out of your skull,” he said in a conspiratorial undertone.

  The boy went pale and crept closer to his mother, who laughed and ran her fingers through his hair. Rodario fired off another batch of flames against a darkening sky which was indicating the approach of a spring storm. A few thunderclaps and some lightning would not harm the atmosphere in the great marquee one little bit. “Listen! The first twenty spectators to arrive will receive a free cup of wine, and also a glass jar with a breath of eoîl fog. Watch it and wonder! But never dare to remove the cork, else otherwise…” He left the threat hanging unspoken in the air, and restricted himself to displaying a mysterious warning expression.

  His brown-eyed gaze swept over the throng, who were hanging on his every word. As always, he had been able to win over the crowd by a mixture of personal charm and free offers. In every place he visited he would look around for a familiar face; but as always in these last five cycles that face was still missing.

  Finally he noticed a beautiful woman in the second row watching him. This cheered his mood considerably and combatted his disappointment.

  She looked to be about twenty, tall and attractive. Everything was in the right place for a woman, though a little more substance in the décolleté would not have come amiss. She wore her long blond hair down; her face was narrow and full of expression; her green eyes were following him intently. He would have judged her to be of noble birth, had she not been so simply attired and had it not been for the laundry bundle in her arms.

  Her visage showed a strange longing; it was less a matter of desire for himself as a man, more a question of sharp interest in what he was doing. Rodario was well acquainted with this effect. He had stood at the doors of a theater four cycles earlier with the same expression on his face, with no other thought in his mind than the need to appear on stage. And he had achieved his dream.

  He took it as a sign from the gods. Following his instincts, he jumped down from the fountain edge and landed directly in front of her. Then he made her a deep bow and, thanks to amazing dexterity and meticulous preparation, conjured up a black paper flower as if from nowhere.

  “Bring this flower this evening and you shall see the show for free,” he told her with a smile, raising one eyebrow and treating her to his famous stare no female yet had been able to withstand. “Tell me your name, my Storm Valley beauty.”

  After a moment’s hesitation she accepted the paper flower. Then a young man pushed his way through in front of her, tore the gift from her hand and trampled it underfoot. “Keep your flattery to yourself,” he threatened.

  “Sir, it is not courteous to interrupt the entertainment in this way,” Rodario responded smoothly.

  “It’s not entertainment, you clown! You were flirting with my wife,” the man retorted angrily, shoving his balled fist into Rodario’s face. “Try that again and it’ll be a black eye you get, and not a black paper flower.”

  “No?” Rodario bent forward swiftly, pretending to pull something out of the young man’s ear. To the delight of the watching crowd he extracted a second paper flower. “You see? You already had one.” He handed the flower to the young woman. “Here, madam, with your husband’s compliments. He is a lucky man to have such flowers growing in his head. It must be the futility, I mean the fertility, of his earwax that does it, methinks.”

  Furiously the man snatched at the flower before his wife could grasp the stem. He hurled it into the dirt. “Enough!” he shouted. “You will pay for this!”

  Rodario even pretended to extract something out of the man’s open mouth. He waved a coin in the air. “But why? You are so rich already. There is gold in your gullet.”

  Now the crowd was laughing heartily at the performance: they shouted and whistled. The young man was the focus of their ridicule. For his honor’s sake he had to put a stop to this mockery.

  “I’ll stick the money in your powdered arse,” he yelled, attacking.

  Rodario avoided the wild blow and poked his walking cane neatly between the young man’s legs, bringing him down against the wall of the fountain. His own momentum swept the man into the water. Children roared with laughter and applauded, and all the grown-ups were joining in the fun by now.

  Spluttering, the victim stood up and shook himself. Rodario helpfully held out his cane.

  “Out you come now and let us forget our little quarrel,” he offered. “I’ll stand you a drink; what do you say?”

  The humiliated husband wiped the water out of his eyes. He did not look any happier. Uttering a loud cry he launched himself at the showman, who again proved the niftier on his feet.

  The man landed in the dust, which immediately caked his wet clothing. He clenched his fists, his fingers scrabbling in the dirt. “Wait, I’ll kill you, you jumped-up…”

  Rodario bent down and fiddled behind the man’s ear, producing another flower. “See, the water has made the seeds sprout.” The crowd rocked with laughter and Rodario tossed the third flower to the pretty young wife. “Now that’s enough, my good man.” He stood up straight. “I don’t want you getting hurt just because you lost your temper.”

  Enraged, the man got to his feet, wiped his filthy face and stomped off; his wet shoes squelched and leaked as he walked away. As he went past he grabbed his wife by the wrist and pulled her away.

  The unhappy glance she gave Rodario was the loudest silent cry for help he had ever witnessed. The gap in the crowd closed up again after them, and the showman lost sight of the couple.

  “There, you see what happens if you cross a hero,” he triumphed, grinning. He bowed. “Come to the show this evening and let me enchant you all. Until then, fare you well.” Like the noblest of courtiers, he whirled his hat around and indicated with a motion of the shoulder that the performance, for now, was over.

  The audience applauded again and returned to their market-day tasks.

  Rodario grinned at his herald. “Well cried, cryer. Do a couple more rounds through the back streets and make lots of noise. Let’s make sure the whole world knows who’s in Storm Valley tonight.”

  His man returned the grin: “After a session like that word will get around faster than a fart in the wind.”

  “Not a happy choice of simile, but accurate enough in the circumstances,” said Rodario as he went over to a market stall selling wine. He got himself a beaker, tasted it and nodded. “Exquisite little drop. Worthy of an emperor. Send me a barrel of this to the road that leads south out of here. That’s where we’ve put up our tents,” he told the wine merchant, handing him a heap of Bruron’s coins. “Will that cover it?”

  “Of course, sir,” The man bent over the money to count it. With these show folk you could never quite be sure. He even took the trouble to scratch at the surface of one of the coins with a knife to check whether perhaps it was merely lead coated with silver. Satisfied, he shoveled the money into his pocket.

  Rodario grinned, leaning back against the makeshift bar—a plank balanced on two wine barrels. “Don’t you trust me?”

  “No,” replied the vintner in a friendly enough manner. “You wanted to try the wine before you ordered the barrel, didn’t you?” He filled Rodario’s beaker again. “There, that cup and the next for free as a bonus.”

  “Too kind, my good man,” laughed the showman and he looked around, secretly hoping he might catch sight of the pretty girl again. “If you saw my little contretemps just now, have you any idea who my opponent might be?” he enquired, and called a lad over who was peddling delicacies from a tray; he was offering freshly baked black bread with cream, ham and a layer of melted cheese. Rodario knew he must eat something or the wine would have a deva
stating effect. He didn’t want to turn up that evening the worse for wear, let alone to fall off the stage drunk and incapable when he faced his audience. He’d seen that happen to others. He bought himself one of the savory snacks in exchange for a quarter. He contemplated his purchase and thought of his good friend who had so loved these flatbreads.

  “Sure I know who it is.” The vintner topped up the jug from the barrel and thus prevented Rodario’s thoughts becoming too melancholy. “Nolik, son of Leslang, the richest man in Storm Valley. The two of them own a quarry that supplies the finest marble in Gauragar. King Bruron is a personal friend of theirs.”

  “And yet the man has no breeding.” Rodario took a bite. “He gets his wife to work as a washerwoman?”

  The wine seller took a quick look around before answering. “Nolik is a bad man. No idea how he won Tassia’s heart. Can’t have been honestly.”

  “Who will ever understand women? Perhaps his inner virtues are as gold compared to his behavior?” Rodario rolled his eyes. “This savory flatbread is de-li-cious,” he praised, his mouth full, as he juggled the snack from one hand to the other, “but it’s still too hot!” He gulped some wine to quench the burning and sighed happily.

  The other man laughed so loud that the folk around them turned their heads. “Nolik and inner values? No, definitely not.” Quietly he added, “Tassia’s family owed his father money. Need I say more?”

  “No.” Rodario chewed his last morsel, picked up the jug and the beaker and moved on. “Don’t forget my wine!” He raised his two prizes in the air. “You’ll have these back this evening if the barrel gets delivered,” he placated the man.

  Rodario loved to wander through a busy throng of people; this was life. He had had enough of death, heroic deeds or not. He was a showman: a skilled mimic and an excellent lover—better than any other in Girdlegard. And for both areas of expertise he needed real people around him to appreciate his god-given gifts.