by Tj Dixon
“What’s wrong, Nairon?” Grunti asks softly and I realise I am crying. I look up and smile sadly at him.
“Do you still want a baby?” I ask. He looks at me for a few moments and then shakes his head.
“Not like this.”
Chapter 11 (Multiple)
(Peter)
“So what do I need to do?” I ask Grunti.
“Just lie down there on the floor. Face upwards.” Grunti tells me. We are alone in a small workshop in his house. There are scary looking red metal tools all around the edge of the room and the centre is just empty black stone floor. I lie down as instructed and find the floor is just as cold as I expected.
“Stop shivering.” Grunti tells me sounding rather annoyed.
“But this room’s freezing and I’ve nothing on the top half of my body!” I protest.
“The room’s cold to prevent impurities affecting your new arms, which I spent the last two days making. Just deal with it.” Grunti says as he waves my new right arm in front of my face.
“Will it hurt?” I ask nervously.
“You’ll hardly feel it. Now I’m going to freeze your shoulders.”
“But they’re already frozen!”
“Just stay still.” Grunti says and grasps my shoulders firmly. His grip hurts but that is nothing compared to the pain a moment later. I cry out in agony as he freezes my shoulder. Then the pain is gone and I can feel my right arm and hand again. They feel just like my old ones. I look down and see my arm looks no different to the skin on my shoulder, which is no longer frozen.
I feel Grunti grip my left shoulder and I brace myself for the pain. It’s just as bad as the first time and no amount of mental preparation could ever prepare me for it. Then the pain is gone and I have two new arms. Like my right arm my left blends perfectly into the skin at my shoulder. It isn’t just the appearance. I can’t even feel where my real body stops and this new artificial arm starts. I look at my hands and flex my fingers. They feel completely real.
“Job’s, done. Now get out of here.” Grunti tells me gruffly.
“Thank you!” I tell him with a bow and then gladly leave the freezing workshop. I put on my shirt in his living room.
“My son did a good job.” Odin tells me proudly as he looks at my new arms. “I suspect he didn’t tell you everything you’re supposed to when you give someone a new limb. Unlike real arms those arms will never grow, but they’ll adjust to any growth in your body at the merge location. So if your shoulder grows they’ll spread out a bit there to ensure the merge remains intact.
“They’re very resistant to physical and elemental attacks but they still produce pain. They have great strength, but when using their full strength it is easy to accidentally break things. It must be worse for a weakling human, since your strength is so much less than even normal dwarven strength. To use their full strength you need to apply a small amount of magic in the hand.
“Magic that requires skin to skin contact should still work even though your arms are not truly a part of you, because Grunti infused them with your soul. They may be tough but they are not invulnerable. Any damage incurred will not warrant a refund and the job is now officially complete and final. Good luck and goodbye human.”
“Thank you and goodbye.” I say, grateful for the information but feeling a bit of information overload. Especially after having just had my arms replaced! I then hurry outside and back to our little home.
I’ll need to do something about my left sleeve. Naturally I didn’t want an empty sleeve hanging around so I cut it off, but now my arm feels exposed and a bit cold. It is weird how an artificial arm can actually feel cold though. It may not be real, but for all intents and purposes it may as well be.
“Welcome back.” Lucy tells me as I swing the door open. Grunti was really disappointed that Lucy didn’t stay to watch, but Lucy was too worried she might distract him. He wouldn’t let anyone else go with me either, but it’s not like I really needed anyone else there. Everyone else has been training together the whole time so it would have been a waste of their time to just wait with me. It looks like they must still be training now. I think I’d actually have been a bit embarrassed if Lucy or Kai had been there. “Those arms look good. How do they feel?”
“They feel just like real arms.” I admit with a smile.
“Well, try not to get them damaged. I can’t heal artificial arms.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be careful. It sounds like they’re pretty tough too.”
“There’s nothing in existence that can’t be broken though.” Lucy warns me.
“I’m not going to break them. I’m grateful I have arms again. The last thing I want to do is break them.”
“So now we just need to wait for Blake to remove my curse. It seems he’s been too busy with council work, but a job’s a job and we’ve already paid him. It shouldn’t be long now.” Lucy tells me, looking very happy. I’m glad we took the detour to come here.
“Any news on the traitor, or the enemy outside Nirvali?” I ask.
“Like anyone would tell us about that.” Lucy laughs.
“I just feel a bit guilty leaving with that still hanging over Nirvali.”
“There’s only so much we can do. We’re not gods.”
“I know.” I say, but I still feel uncomfortable leaving things the way they are.
(General Karina)
I warned the council that we should take the fight to the enemy. Now it’s too late. The enemy are attacking five different domes all at once. The council warned me to expect an attack, which was strange enough in and of itself, but five domes at once… Clearly the enemy have help from the inside and either the council knew about it, or I’m a bloody elf!
Thankfully I was ready for an attack against any of the domes, except the 51st dome, which the Royal Guard are responsible for. As a result the local forces should be able to hold out briefly. The enemy are just humans, but there are a lot of them. The real problem though, is that I was planning to send reinforcements from the linked domes and it is domes six to ten that are under attack.
The sixth, seventh and eighth domes are only connected to other domes that are under attack and even the fifth and tenth domes are only connected to one dome that isn’t under attack. I always thought those domes were weak points so at least I had more forces there than in the other outer domes but I was still counting on local reinforcements.
I also can’t ignore the possibility that as soon as I send reinforcements from the fourth and eleventh domes that they are going to be attacked. So my choice is to start by evacuating the civilians from all the domes that are under attack and to send most of my forces from the inner domes, which will take a while. That means the local forces have to hold out.
It is very tempting to ignore the prohibition of dimensional magic, but the enemy surely have much more experience at it than we do, so we would only give them another advantage by revealing the other domes exact location. Instead I have ordered the natural port block reinforced to maximum. This should prevent the enemy porting even to locations they already know.
“General Karina.”
“High Smithy Lord Thor. I’m very busy right now as I’m sure you can tell so I don’t have time.”
“But I thought you might want advance warning. Anyway, didn’t the council tell you I was a traitor?” He says with a grin. His last words turn me cold. I look up at him in shock.
“A traitor?” I ask and silently prepare a petrification spell. I don’t even consider using the twin swords on my back. I armed myself in case I need to defend myself from the enemy, but against Thor I would be dead by the time I finished drawing them.
“Yes. I always wanted to see who would win in a real battle of strategy. I had hoped they would tell you, so it would be a better fight. I even gave you a couple of days to prepare but, oh well. The next domes that will be attacked are the first, second and fifth.” He says and before I can attack he has ported away.
He p
orted straight through the maximum strength port block as if it wasn’t there. I don’t have time to worry about that though. He didn’t seem to be but he may have been lying. He was the High Smithy Lord so I have to assume he is capable of hiding a lie even from me. Unfortunately he was probably telling the truth and if he was we are well and truly in the dragon’s gaze with stolen treasure in our hands.
“All outer domes to be evacuated of civilians! Twenty first and twenty second companies to the fifth dome at once! Thirty first and thirty second to the second dome. Thirty third and thirty fourth to the fifth dome.” I send the mental orders and hear my captains respond almost calmly. Obviously they are as stressed as a drake’s arse, but I am proud they are coping so well under the circumstances. Never before has Nirvali faced such a serious threat. I want to join my forces, but a general’s most important job is to direct her forces not to personally enter the fray.
(Captain Glorin)
I wish again that I wasn’t in charge of the sixth dome even as I throw my flames at the humans. A captain’s job may be to direct her forces but I have no choice. I lost half my mages to the enemies’ first attack. We burnt their poison fog before it could reach the civilian population but we didn’t even notice it until the dwarves on the outer perimeter had been enveloped. They were instantly killed the moment it touched their skin.
Now there are far too few of us left and it sounds like the seventh dome is even worse. They weren’t caught by surprise like us, but the enemy seem to have sent more forces there and we had less there than any of the other domes they targeted. It connects to all the domes that are under attack so it should have been easiest to reinforce. I doubt they’ll hold out long enough to evacuate our dome, but I can only pray their dome is evacuated in time.
That’s why I am standing in the middle of the street throwing fire magic at the enemy with Sergeant Lain whilst a couple of dwarves from her platoon shield us from the enemies’ lightning attacks. At least the enemy aren’t using life magic. It really is nothing more than a power lugging matching. There’s no way a dwarf would lose to one human, but it isn’t even close to one on one.
“What’s that sound?” Sergeant Lain asks me urgently. I listen and hear what she means. It is a quiet but eerie wail. It reminds me of death. That is the only way I can describe it.
“Not sure, but it can’t be good. Seems to be coming from the breach in the outer wall. They must be planning something.”
“What do we do?”
“What can we do? Carry on fighting and praying.” I say and smile as a human goes up in ash. His shield finally failed under my attack. It seems that human males like dwarven males are black. I always wondered what they looked like, but I wish I hadn’t found out like this.
“What is that?” Sergeant Lain gasps in shock. I follow her gaze and swear.
“Vengeful spirits. We need to banish them quickly or we’ll be finished.” I say and close my eyes. I sense the spirits and summon a cleansing flame. The spirit is instantly gone. That just leaves a few hundred more spirits to deal with and the humans are still just as much of a problem as they were before.
“The evacuation of the seventh dome is complete.” I hear a tired voice in my mind that brings relief before chilling me to the bone. “The seventh company is falling back, but we are down to less than two dozen mages and our officers have all been lost.”
So we’ll need to deal with the enemy that were attacking the seventh dome at the same time as the humans who were attacking us and the vengeful spirits. I can only hope that we can hold out long enough that one of my mages can give the same report about our dome that I just heard from the seventh.
“The fifth dome is under attack!”
“The second dome is under attack!”
“The first dome is under attack!”
Oh dear…
(Grunti)
“Was there meant to be a test today?” Dad asks nervously as the evacuation sirens sound. They test them every now and again but I don’t recall hearing anything about a test today.
“I don’t think so. It seems like people are starting to leave their homes too.” I say as I tap the left wrist of my armour. I adapted draw, draw, talk, talk kun to draw small images onto my wrist of a few of my favourite dwarven girls wherever they happen to be. “In fact people are starting to panic. There is definitely something going on out there.”
“If this is real then we have a problem. We can’t just leave Nairon here, but we can’t reveal her to everyone.” Dad says chewing on his fingernails. The last time I saw him do that was when he applied for the title of Smithy Lord. I was only fifteen years old at the time.
“I’ll take Nairon to safety. Nobody will see me if I use my boots’ enchantment. You leave the dome with everyone else.” I tell dad and then look beside me at Nairon with a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to let anyone harm you.”
“Good luck son.” Dad says sounding more serious than I’ve ever heard him.
“Good luck too dad, and take care. Now I must be going. At least we’d already finished dinner.” I say and stand to face Nairon. She is already standing and looks so cute. I admire her for a moment before taking her by her legs and back. Carrying her like that I dash out the house with my boots set to full speed. I reach my secret tunnel and only then turn to take a proper look at what is going on in the dome.
“What is that?” Nairon whispers but I think it is more to herself than to me.
“Just a big golem.” I tell her. Whilst true, big doesn’t even begin to describe it. It must be bigger than the main forge. Most golems are humanoid too, which this certainly isn’t. I’d say it looks a bit like a ten headed centipede formed of some kind of green crystal. It is destroying homes and seems intent on killing everyone around it. There are a lot of dwarven girls desperately fighting it. I can’t bear to see them killed. “I’ll just be a moment. Don’t go anywhere.”
“Where are you going?” Nairon asks worriedly.
“To destroy the golem of course.” I tell her and then I’m off. My speed allows me to reach it almost instantly and to dodge its sharp legs and the acid that comes out of its mouths, melting the ground and everything else in its way.
I try to smash a leg with earth magic, but it is too tough. The dwarven girls are trying to melt it with fire and that doesn’t seem to work, so I skip fire magic. I summon a diamond hammer and bring it down on one leg with every ounce of strength in me. The leg shatters but it takes a moment to recover and I am almost skewered by three more legs. I manage to dodge but I am breathing hard now. Even so the thought of girls dying is enough to strengthen my resolve and keep me moving.
I imagine Nairon in a suggestive pose and bring the hammer down with full force again onto the next leg. As the leg shatters I dodge the golems counter attack. Yes, girls are my strength. I can do this if I think of Nairon watching and all the cute girls that I need to save.
I see a red haired dwarven girl about to get skewered as her shield fails. She isn’t even wearing armour. She is instead wearing a cloth bikini of all things. With no time for gentler options I just run at her and push her out of the way. We end up in a heap on the floor with my head on her belly, but she’s alive and that’s all that matters. Actually this feels really nice, but there’s no time to enjoy it. I jump to my feet and dash back towards another leg, without even time to say hello to her.
(Peter)
It seems I needn’t have worried about leaving the situation unresolved. The dwarves seem to be handling the huge winding golem that is tearing apart the centre of the dome. Dwarves have filled the streets in a mad rush to escape the dome and for the first time ever our street is packed with dwarves.