by Markus Heitz
As fire erupted, the crackling of bursting wood could be heard above the screams of the beleaguered creatures. At that moment the clouds parted and the rain stopped. It was as if the gods were sending them propitious weather. But all of a sudden a second barrier appeared twenty paces further on. The projectiles bounced off it harmlessly.
“Shields!” bellowed Ireheart to the forces behind him, reaching for his own.
The first of the deflected missiles started to strike the dwarves, who had quickly brought up their shields to protect their heads. They hid until the lethal hail of projectiles had ceased. The catapult crews on the battlements had reacted swiftly and stopped firing to prevent hitting their own ranks, but some of the missiles had been in mid-flight.
Ireheart felt a light blow and then a stronger one that tumbled him out of the saddle. He rolled over, keeping under his shield. This proved the saving of him when, a moment later, something soft thudded into the shield, causing a burst of flame. He flung his burning shield away and bounded away from the fire. Had the bag of petroleum touched his body he would have perished in the flames.
Ireheart saw Goda smiling happily at the sun, lifting her bugle to her lips to play a rapid succession of notes whose significance he did not understand.
All around the battlements of Evildam dazzling light flared out.
He could see the soldiers hefting vast burnished metal mirrors into place. The sun was reflected hundreds of times, dancing over the ground and focusing on the largest of the enemy siege towers where the beasts were getting ready to fire catapults. These beams of light pierced the magic barrier without hindrance.
Confused, the monsters shut their eyes. Ireheart saw them waving their arms about and then the first of them caught fire!
Ireheart was amazed. The mirrors are catching the power of the mighty orb and are relaying it a hundredfold in strength! Even damp wood was catching fire; then, suddenly, the petroleum for the beasts’ fire arrows ignited, sending up a burst of flame. The base of the siege tower was engulfed by the blaze.
Goda whooped with excitement and Kiras hugged her. Ireheart felt proud that his wife had come up with such a trick. She’s a little scholar herself. Not only a maga, he thought, hurrying to join Tungdil and Balyndar.
The mirrors were adjusted anew to attack the next tower with their dazzling rays. The force of the beam was enough to make all the beasts there quickly evacuate the construction. They could guess what would happen if they stood their ground when the first of the rays started to converge: The whole erection would turn into a blazing inferno, burying many of their number under the burning rubble as it collapsed.
Ireheart’s initial optimism that they might carry the day became a stout conviction. But not yet utter unshakeable certainty.
Lot-Ionan was at the barrier, forcing it to disintegrate once more, but this time the fortress catapult crews held back, fearing the shield might re-form further along, thus causing death and injury to their own soldiers when shots were deflected.
Ireheart attended to his wounded warriors and calculated how many casualties the dwarves had suffered. Some lay on the ground, bleeding, others, with dented helmets and body armor, stayed bravely on their feet.
Tungdil sprang off his pony. “Forward!” he yelled frenetically, brandishing Bloodthirster. “Mow them down!” Then he stormed off, ax gripped in both hands.
The dwarf-army followed him, taking courage from their war-cry chorus, which resounded off the walls of the fortress.
The beasts were rushing into battle formation, obviously in panic.
Reinforcements arriving from the ravine did nothing to calm the enemy’s frenzied endeavors. The recently arrived monsters were infected by their comrades’ nervousness, prompting their furious officers to lash out at their own troops with their long whips, almost as if they were fighting the foe.
The dwarves were now less than a hundred paces from the enemy front rank; suddenly the kordrion’s monstrous head showed itself above the edge of the ravine.
Ireheart immediately recognized it as the one that Tungdil had attacked on his re-emergence from the Black Abyss. The scars and missing eye were obvious.
Swiftly, he placed wax plugs in his ears, as did the others, the surrounding roar of battle immediately being muffled as if coming from a distance.
The kordrion opened its mouth to bellow, and came further up out of the cleft in the rocks.
Ireheart grinned. None of the dwarves had halted. The roar still sounded frightening but it was no longer able to paralyze them, a lack of reaction that clearly disturbed the monsters more than anything.
And their own riposte soon followed. Lot-Ionan fired two bright blue beams at the kordrion, striking him in the neck. Flames erupted, and the creature’s gray flesh blistered from the heat, burning black. The skin burst open and bluish black blood splattered down onto the beasts beneath.
The kordrion charged, screaming, out of the chasm, trampling its own monster-soldiers under its claws. It pushed up, spreading its massive wings, but was hit by a second wave of magic—this time from Goda. A crackling yellow flash of lightning bored its way into the creature’s flank, leaving a hole the size of a mill wheel.
With a yell, the kordrion catapulted itself aloft with powerful movements of its wings, heading high into the sky, spilling its blood on the ground below. It made no attempt to bombard the magus or the maga with white fire; the pain and shock had been too sudden. It had never met an attack of this nature.
The dwarves cheered when they saw their greatest adversary take flight. But if they expected this setback to discourage the monsters they were disappointed. Having overcome their initial panic they now clashed with the dwarves in full combat, shields held in front of themselves in battle formation.
Again Lot-Ionan showed why he was rightly feared by all the inhabitants of Girdlegard: He spread his arms wide as if trying to encompass a wall and gave a high-pitched whistle.
A terrible gust of wind arose and whirled off to meet the monsters’ phalanx. For a length of forty paces the fighting beasts were scattered by the blast, thrown into the air and hurled backwards to be spiked on the raised weapons of their own fighters, before the ranks behind in their turn were blown into the air. The magus kept up this mighty gale until a swathe thirty paces wide had been cleared.
And it was into this gap that Tungdil led the dwarf-army. “I’ll take the left.” He raced off and let Bloodthirster do its worst among the remaining ranks of the enemy.
Ireheart grinned and broadened his chest proudly. “Follow me!” he bawled, hammering his weapon into the repulsive head of a monster that looked like a gugul on long legs. A mass of jelly spattered out and the beast fell over. “For Girdlegard!” came their cry.
The army split into sections, driving the weakened enemy before it. Axes sliced and crashed through shields, armor and trunks, shattering weapons and bones, sending opponents bleeding to the sodden ground.
The children of the Smith were letting nothing stop their onslaught; they clambered over corpses, battering and slaying anything in their path. Ireheart had Goda at his side and she increased the enemy’s confusion with a few strokes of magic; Coïra and Lot-Ionan were with Tungdil and Balyndar was nearby. Ireheart expected Slîn must be behind somewhere, sending out death with his crossbow bolts.
Ireheart surrendered to his battle-fury, yelling and laughing like a madman, wielding his crow’s beak with irresistible force.
The weapon’s spike cracked open every type of armor plating, smashing every shield and bone it touched; the blunt side hammered helmets, ribs and kneecaps flat and rendered faces a jellied pulp. Finally Ireheart’s rampaging was halted somewhat by the amount of enemy blood clouding his vision. He had to stop and wipe his face with his beard.
That was when he realized he had led his section of the army right through to the last ranks of the foe. There was no more resistance to face.
Ireheart swung his crow’s beak up in triumph and trumpeted a wil
d resounding “Vraccas,” taken up by the voices of all the dwarves at his side. He turned to see how Tungdil was doing.
At that moment the figure of a lone dwarf emerged from the ravine. His vraccasium armor glowed golden red in the sunlight.
His appearance brought everything to a halt, smothering their joy at their initial victory as surely as if a bucket of manure had been emptied on their heads.
Ireheart found himself compelled to stare at the dwarf and forgot the commands he had been about to give. The others reacted similarly on seeing their weird new opponent. He was imposing in spite of being so small in comparison with the beasts, and an aura of dark power enveloped him, notwithstanding the brightness of his armor.
The dwarf raised an arm and, at his signal, monsters marched out of the abyss behind him, all fully a head taller than the largest ubariu.
The monsters wore heavy gray metal armor topped with dark animal skins and helmets sporting the horns of wild beasts, with visors in the shape of ugly masks to hide their faces. In one hand they bore mighty swords or huge axes, while in the other they held long shields as protection against arrows.
Ireheart counted a hundred of them. One hundred particularly large challenges.
They came to a halt behind the dwarf and, at a shouted command, rammed the points of their shields down into the earth so that it shook at the impact. Then a second unit came marching out of the abyss, similarly armored, taking up position behind the front line. These beasts were holding scythe-like weapons; the shafts were reinforced with iron bands and the top ends were equipped with spikes the length of a finger.
The dwarf in vraccasium armor waited until the clash and clank had ceased, then took his two hammers and slammed them into one another, creating a cacophonous metallic noise, loud and extraordinarily unpleasant. Ireheart shook his head to deal with it. Wax plugs were no help. He looked at Tungdil, who had also led his troops in the first phase of the battle to victory. Thus roughly eight thousand fighting-fit children of the Smith were confronting two hundred opponents. This should be pure slaughter. But the size of their adversaries was no clue to their skill in combat.
One of the giant soldiers stepped up next to his master. “He who bears many names demands to know,” his voice echoed over the battlefield, “where the thief is who stole his armor. Who betrayed him. Who tried to kill him as a coward kills.”
At that, Goda put her bugle to her lips and gave the guards on the battlements a new command. At once the mirrored rays focused on the unknown dwarf, aiming to cook him inside his own armor!
Balyndar had fought his way through the enemy ranks at Tungdil’s side. He would never have considered himself a clumsy or unwieldy fighter, but that was the way he came across next to the agility of the one-eyed dwarf. While the fifthling was still busy dealing with extricating Keenfire out of enemy flesh after one deadly strike, Tungdil had already sliced up two opponents and was hurling himself on the third. Bloodthirster was a frightening weapon and was giving all honor to its name.
Balyndar had tried his level best but was unable to keep up.
Coïra and Lot-Ionan, preserving their strength, were leaving all the vanquishing up to the dwarves. The fifthling thought this strategy eminently sensible.
Their victory had been shockingly easy and they had allowed themselves a few moments’ respite before marching onwards to the Black Abyss.
Balyndar tried to locate Slîn but could see no sign of him. The threat the fourthling had made against him was not going to stop him doing what he and Goda had planned. Girdlegard had to be made safe for the next thousand cycles and that would only happen if every source of danger were eradicated. Every single one!
He noted that it had grown quieter but then a painfully loud cry assaulted his ears, making him start. Balyndar turned and saw the dwarf in red-gold armor in front of new adversaries. Quickly he pushed through to reach Tungdil’s side. Lot-Ionan and Coïra joined them.
He could see the maga was frightened. This would be her first real experience of warfare, and that encounter with Sisaroth had left her with mental scars that had yet to heal. All the blood, the stink from steaming torn guts, the debris and the shouts were all hard to bear for the young woman.
Balyndar reckoned she would soon withdraw to seek safety in the fortress. So he touched her gently on the elbow and smiled at her encouragingly. It did not occur to him that he was no reassuring sight with his filthy smeared face and Keenfire dripping blood.
Coïra’s smile was more of a grimace, and he noticed that her leather armor bore traces of vomit.
There was movement on the other side of the battlefield. One of the gigantic warriors had stepped up next to the dwarf in vraccasium armor. “He who bears many names,” so echoed the voice, “demands to know where the thief is who stole his armor. Who betrayed him. Who tried to kill him as a coward kills.”
Tungdil lifted his visor and opened his mouth to reply, but a bugle sounded.
The mirrors focused the beams and targeted the unknown dwarf, whose armor glowed in response.
“Excellent!” cheered Balyndar. Magic would be no help here, as the monsters had recently found out behind their seemingly impregnable barrier. “He’ll be stewed like a rabbit in a pot.”
“What infernal idiocy,” Tungdil exclaimed, shouting out his orders. The dwarves were to gather into a single army, with himself, Lot-Ionan, Coïra and Balyndar at the head of it.
“Why? Do you call it idiocy because it wasn’t you who thought it up?” Balyndar was proud that Goda had come up with the trick with the mirrors.
“She ought to have asked me,” snarled Tungdil, sounding as dangerous as a wild animal. “This is exactly what I didn’t want to have happen.” He pointed to the dwarf. “Now he will use all his energy to make us pay.”
“Your instruction was that no one should confront him,” Balyndar began, wanting to excuse Goda’s action.
The one brown eye flashed in fury and Balyndar could see it change color as Tungdil glared at him! Uncanny green clouds and spirals whirled and black spidery lines shot out across the skin under the golden eye patch. “Trying to kill him: Would you not call that confronting him? It certainly is in my book.”
Balyndar was still reeling from shock. He had never seen weird black lines like these except on an älf: Never on a dwarf before. “Proof, at last,” he murmured, watching Keenfire’s diamonds sparkle. “My conscience will be clear.”
The vraccasium-clad dwarf clashed his hammers one against the other, and hardly had the noise rung out than the burnished shields on the battlements disintegrated. The soldiers who had been holding them and directing the light were suddenly blasted with sharp fragments and fell in chaotic disarray. Loud cries of fear and agony rang out.
“That,” Tungdil told Balyndar darkly, “was only the beginning. An initial flash of lightning before the storm proper.” He nodded to Lot-Ionan and stepped forward.
As the two sections of the dwarf-army came together, the one-eyed dwarf and magus moved away, heading toward the enemy.
Balyndar followed, pulling Coïra along by the sleeve; from the other side he could see Goda and Ireheart approach. Of Slîn there was still no sign.
The monster warrior who had served the enemy dwarf as a mouthpiece raised his voice once more: “He who bears many names laughs at your pathetic attempt to harm him. For the present he will be lenient and not impose harsher punishment. He will spare the fortress and all the lands on this and the other side of the mountains. If the thief is surrendered…”
“Save your breath,” Tungdil retorted. “You will neither pardon nor be lenient. You are here to kill.” He held Bloodthirster out. “Once, this weapon spared your life. It will not happen a second time.”
Ireheart watched the ranks of enemy warriors. They must carry special powers or why else would they confront our vastly superior numbers? Or perhaps they were extremely stupid. “What do you know about these soldiers?” he said under his breath to Tungdil.
&nb
sp; “No idea,” his friend replied, without turning his head. “But even in those relatively small numbers they’ll be dangerous. Or he wouldn’t have brought them out.”
“He who bears many names will make this offer only once. Everything that subsequently happens will be your own fault,” the spokesman called out, while his master stood motionless at his side, hammers held loosely in his hands.
The undergroundlings appeared at the army’s flank and saw that they had arrived too late for the first battle. Kiras, their leader, called them to a halt. A few thousand more adversaries to confront the fighters from the ravine.
Is that all there’s going to be? Ireheart kept expecting another wave of Tion’s monsters to surge up out of the Black Abyss, maybe another kordrion, a dragon or two, anything that would stand at the side of these pitiful two hundred creatures for the inevitable battle. He was getting ever more concerned that no extra troops were appearing on the other side. “When’s it going to start?” he whispered. “Scholar, how long do we wait?”
Tungdil took two paces forward. “Here stands a famulus to challenge his master!” he called. “Let us see who prevails. After that, the armies can meet in battle if they still care to.”
Thundering and clanking, the contingent of humans appeared and the ubariu army crested the wall of rock. They, too, took up their formations. Thus the pincer movement was complete and the last two hundred and one enemies were surrounded.
Ireheart found the tension unbearable. “How can he remain so calm?” he asked.
“Goldhand or the other one?” responded Balyndar.
“The other one.” Ireheart scanned the gathered forces of humans, ubariu, undergroundlings and dwarves. “Even I would be a bit nervous faced with this lot.”
“Not if you had a pact with your supposed enemy,” Balyndar remarked, glancing at Goda. “It could be that we are the victims of the most scurrilous, duplicitous plot in the history of Girdlegard.”