by Markus Heitz
But the stone was growing more and more defects; each year there would be yet another fissure. When that happened you could hear the cracking sound echo from the fortress walls. All the soldiers were aware of it.
“I can’t say how much more it can take,” Goda told him quietly, her brows knitted in concern. “It could give any moment or it could last for many cycles yet.”
Ireheart sighed and nodded to the guards passing on their rounds. “How do you mean?” he growled, rubbing the shaved sides of his head. Then he adjusted the plait of dark hair that hung down the length of his back. It was showing just as much silver now as the beard. “Can’t you be more specific?”
“I can only repeat what I always say when you ask that, husband: I don’t know.” She didn’t take his unfriendly tone amiss because she knew it stemmed from worrying. Over two hundred and fifty cycles of worrying. “Perhaps Lot-Ionan could have given you a better answer.”
Ireheart’s laugh was short, humorless and harsh. “I know what he’d give me if we met now. I expect it would be an extermination spell right between the eyes.” He picked up and shouldered his crow’s beak, the one his twin brother Boe¯ndal Hookhand had once carried into battle. He made his way along the walkway. He used his twin’s long-handled weapon in honor of his memory: it had a heavy flat hammer head on the one side and a curved spike on the other, the length of your arm. No armor could withstand a crow’s beak wielded by a dwarf.
Goda followed him. Time to do the rounds.
“Did you ever think we would spend so long here in the Outer Lands?” he asked her pensively.
“No more than I thought things in Girdlegard could change like they have,” she replied. Goda was surprised by her companion’s thoughtful mood. The two of them had forged the iron band together many cycles before.
Their love had provided them with seven children, two girls and five sons. The artifact had not objected to its keeper no longer being a virgin, as long as her soul was still pure. Goda had retained this innocence of spirit. Nothing dark had entered her mind. She had remained free of deceit, trickery and power lust.
The fact that she had abandoned Lot-Ionan made this very clear. Many others had followed him. She had gained a powerful enemy by leaving his influence. “Don’t you think it’s time to go back and support them? You know they’ve been waiting for you. Waiting for the last great dwarf hero from the glorious cycles.”
“Go back and leave you alone, when the artifact may burst at any moment? Give up command of the fortress?” Ireheart shook his head violently. “Never! If monsters and fiends come pouring out of the Black Abyss I’ve got to be here to hold them back, together with you and our children and my warriors.” He put his arm round her shoulder. “If this evil were to flood over into Girdlegard there would be no hope at all anymore. For no one, whatever race they belong to.”
“Why forbid Bo
ndalin to go back to our people? He could go in your place,” she urged him gently. “At least it would give the Children of the Smith a signal…”
“Bondalin is too good a fighter to spare,” he interrupted her. “I need him to train the troops.” Ireheart’s eyes grew hard. “None of my sons and daughters shall leave my side until we’ve closed up the Black Abyss for all time and filled it up with molten steel.”
Goda sighed. “Not one of your best circuits, Ireheart.”
He stopped, placed his crow’s beak on the ground and took her hands in his. “Forgive me, wife. But seeing the shield collapse like that, and then seeing how long it took to repair itself, it’s really got me worried. I can easily be unfair when I’m troubled.” He gave a faint smile to ask for forgiveness. She smiled in her turn.
They marched to the tower and went down in the lift that worked with a system of counterweights and winches.
One hundred heavily armed ubariu warriors were waiting for them at the fortress gates.
Ireheart scanned the faces. Even after all those cycles they were still foreign to him. It had never felt right to forge friendships with a people who looked for all the world like orcs. Only bigger.
Their eyes shone bright red like little suns. In contrast to Tion’s creatures, the ubariu kept themselves very clean and their character was different, too, because they had turned their back on evil and on random cruelty to others—at least that was what the undergroundlings claimed. The undergroundlings were the dwarves of the Outer Lands…
And even if there had never been cause for doubt, Ireheart’s nature would never allow him to lay aside his scruples and accept them as equals, as friends. For himself, in contrast to how his wife and children felt, they would never be more than allies.
Goda gave him a little push and he pulled himself together. He knew his reservations were unjustified, but he couldn’t help it. Vraccas had hammered a hatred of orcs and all of Tion’s creatures into the Girdlegard dwarves. The ubariu had the misfortune to look like Evil—and yet there was no way out of working together to guard the Black Abyss.
Ireheart gave the gate keeper a signal.
Shouts were heard, strong arms moved chains and pulley ropes, setting the heavy cogs in motion to open the main door. With a screech of iron the massive gate, eleven paces by seven, rose up to make a gap through which the column could march out toward the artifact.
“We’ll check the edges of the shield today,” Ireheart told Pfalgur, the ubari standing next to him. “I wouldn’t put it past these beasts to have a dug an escape tunnel. You go one way, we’ll take the other. I’ll start at the artifact. You get along.”
“Understood, general,” the ubari’s deep voice responded, passing on the orders.
They traversed the basin which held the Back Abyss. The sides were smooth and black as colored glass, and steep paths led off to the right and to the left, ending at the protective sphere.
Ireheart turned right toward the artifact; the ubari led his troops in the other direction.
While Goda used her telescope to inspect in minute detail both the diamond and the structure, which was enclosed in the same kind of energy dome as the abyss itself, Ireheart went over to the corpse of the abyss creature. On his side of the barrier lay the ugly thin legs that didn’t look capable of ever having moved along properly in those heavy boots. On the other side Ireheart could vaguely make out its upper body, pierced with arrows. Greenish blood had formed puddles and little rivulets.
“Freak,” he said under his breath, kicking the creature’s left leg. “Your moment of freedom only brought you death.” Ireheart looked up and stared into the chasm. “Did you come on your own when you saw the shield was failing?” he asked quietly, as if the creature could hear him.
“Boïndil!” he heard Goda call, her voice excited.
Something wrong with the diamond? He was just about to turn round to speak to her when he thought he noticed a movement in the darkness.
Ireheart stopped and stared without blinking.
The strength of the magic barrier was making his moustache hairs stand on end. Or was it a feeling of unease?
“Boïndil, come on!” his wife attempted to get his attention again. “I’ve got something to…”
Ireheart raised his right hand to show he had heard her but that he needed quiet. His brown eyes searched the twilight for vague figures.
Once more he noticed a slight scurrying movement—something going from one rock to the next. There it came again. And yet another!
There was no doubt in his mind that more monsters were creeping up. Had they sensed the poor state of the barrier? Did they have the advantage here with their animal instincts?
“I want…” he called over his shoulder. Surprise cut off his words. Wasn’t that a dwarf helmet?
“This confounded distortion!” he called out, taking a step forward. “Tungdil!” he yelled, full of expectation, standing dangerously close to the sphere so that he could hear the humming sound it made, varying in pitch. “Vraccas, don’t let my eyes be deceiving me,” he prayed. He nearly
laid his hand on the energy screen; Ireheart gulped in distress; his throat had never felt so constricted before.
Then a huge blue claw as broad as three castle gates appeared out of the shadows, and gave a thundering blow to the sphere, producing a dull echo. The ground shook.
Ireheart jumped back with a curse, hitting out with his weapon as a reflex. The steel head of the crow’s beak crashed against the barrier, but ineffectually. “The Kordrion is back!” he bellowed, noting with grim satisfaction that the alarm trumpets on the battlements immediately sounded a warning to the soldiers to man the catapults. All those drills he made them do were paying off.
The pale claw curled, its long talons scraping along the inner side of the shield, creating bright yellow sparks. Then the Kordrion retreated and a wall of white fire rolled in, slapping up against the barrier like a wave and washing all around.
Ireheart retreated, dazzled, stumbling backwards to the artifact. “It won’t hold for long,” he shouted to Goda. “The beasts know it and they’re gathering.”
“The diamond!” she called back. “It’s crumbling!”
“What? Not now, in Vraccas’ name!” At last he could see again: behind the force wall stood a range of monsters brandishing weapons! “Oh, you fiendish…”
Most were like the creature that had been cut in half; but there were others, significantly broader in the beam, much stronger and of intimidating appearance. No terror dream could have come up with better.
“By Vraccas,” Ireheart breathed, bereft. His friend had not come, after all. He issued brisk orders to the ubariu, telling them to spread out in front of the artifact to protect Goda. The warriors formed a wall of bodies, iron and shields, their lances pointing forward like so many defensive tentacles. Ireheart turned to Goda and saw that she was touching the shimmering sphere. “What’s happening?” he called.
She was deathly pale. “A piece… of the diamond has come away,” she stammered. “I can’t hold it…”
There was a loud crack, like the noise of ice breaking. They all stared at the jewel. It had suddenly gone a darker color and there was a distinct fissure on its surface. The barrier fizzed and flickered. Layer upon layer was flaking off the edges of the diamond and falling to the ground. It was nearing the end.
“Get back!” commanded Ireheart. “Get back to the fort! We stand no chance here.” He took Goda’s hand and ran with her. In recent cycles he had grown to know the difference between courage and the insanity that used to overtake him in battle. His sons, too, had needed to learn the same lesson. The madness wasn’t something he was proud of handing on to them.
The large ubariu warriors kept pace, even though they could easily have covered the distance much more swiftly than the dwarves. Goda, who found it well nigh impossible to tear herself away from the artifact, was dragged along by her colleagues.
With a brilliant flash and an ear-splitting detonation the diamond burst asunder; the strength of the explosion brought the whole structure down. Parts of the vertical iron circles broke off and flew through the air to bury themselves in the ground several paces off. Goda saw the ends were glowing. There must have been incredible heat involved.
At the same time—the barrier at the Black Abyss fell.
The maga could clearly see the army of beasts—there was no immovable power to hold them back now. The wind carried an unbelievable stink over to her, a mixture of excrement, stale blood and sour milk. Grayish white clouds of dust and bone meal flurried up like mist in front of the somber rockface. Figures appeared out of the fog.
Behind the army the pale dragon-like head of the Kordrion reared up out of the chasm, horns and spikes erect. The four gray upper eyes were assessing the walls of the fortress as if to judge what force might be used against it and its followers. The two, lower, blue eyes beneath the long bony muzzle were fixed on the ubariu and the fleeing dwarves.
“Vraccas!” exclaimed Goda, who was gathering her magic powers ready for defense. She had spotted a helmet among the first row of smaller monsters—a helmet as worn by children of the Smith.
Then a dwarf stepped forward, head to foot in dark armor made of tionium; glimmering inlay patterns glowed in turn. The creatures all drew back in respect.
In his right hand he held a weapon that was a legend in Girdlegard and in the Outer Lands alike: black as the blackest shadow and longer than a human arm. On one side the blade was thicker and had long thin teeth like a comb, and on the other side it thinned out like a sword.
“Bloodthirster,” breathed Goda and stopped in her tracks.
Ireheart was brought to a halt. He turned—and froze. Words failed him.
The dwarf in the night-colored armor raised his left hand to lift his visor. A familiar face with a golden eye patch could be seen, but the features were hard and marked with bitterness. His cold, cruel smile promised death. Then he held his weapon aloft and looked to the right and to the left. The creatures responded with shouts.
“Vraccas defend us: he has returned!” whispered Goda in horror. “Returned as the Commander of Evil!”
At that moment discordant trumpets blared out from the abyss, echoing off the bare rock. The Kordrion opened its muzzle to utter a furious roar.
Contents
Front Cover Image
Welcome
Dedication
Map
Epigraph
Prologue
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Dramatis Personae
Acknowledgments
Extras
Meet the Author
A Preview of THE FATE OF THE DWARVES
By Markus Heitz
Copyright
BY MARKUS HEITZ
The Dwarves
The War of the Dwarves
The Revenge of the Dwarves
Copyright
Copyright © 2005 by Piper Verlag GmbH, Munich
English translation copyright © 2011 by Sheelagh Alabaster
Excerpt from The Fate of the Dwarves English translation copyright © 2011 by Sheelagh Alabaster
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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Dedicated
to all the friends of the “small folk.”
You have earned this!
“Word goeth that ye dwerffes be greyt relayters of riddles and wit. One of ye most famous is sedd to be the tayle wheyre an orc asketh a dwerff ye way and ye dwerff answereth.
Ye tayle goeth lyke this: One aurbit orbit an orc was strollyng along a road, its eyes fixed on ye path, but still not knowyng whych way to tayke.
It so happened that a dwerff was standing at that very crossroads seeing what was to be seen. Ye dwerff bore an axe of pure vraccasium, his chayne mayle tunic was strong and fynely wrought, fit to withstand ye arrows, swords and blaydes of all kinds.
And it was clear from his stature that he fain must be one of ye fiercest and most valiant warriors among all ye tribes of ye dwerffes. His beard was brayded and oiled. Tiny pieces of gold were to be seen thredded into sed beard, whych was twisted around with fyne silver wyre to keep it in form. A very master among dwerffes, to speak true, with his hair and his weapons and his armour!
And so the orc comes and sees the dwarf…
And then the dwarf comes…
And ye orc comes up to him and asks ye twerf dwerff whych road where long to tayke”
—Taken from “Descryptions of ye Ffolk of Girdlegyrd: Manneris and Karacterystycks” In the Great Archive of Viransiénsis, drawn up by Tanduweyt, collected by M.A. Het, Magister Folkloricum, in the 4300th solar cycle, a fragment, much of the document having been destroyed in fire.