by Markus Heitz
"My secret?" groaned Tungdil. "I didn't know I had one." He still hadn't convinced himself to eat the cheese. It was all a bit too much.
"It's time you learned the truth, then. You weren't stolen by kobolds. The long-uns made that up so you-"
"Long-uns?"
"It's dwarfish for men-just a little joke. In any event, the magus didn't want to burden you with the story until it was time." Boлndal handed him the water canteen. "So there you have it: You're a fourthling."
Tungdil thought about Girdlegard's geography. "I can't be. The fourthling kingdom is miles away."
"There was a good reason for the distance," Boлndal said soberly. "You're the son of the fourthling king-illegitimate, mind. The birth was kept a secret and you were entrusted to the care of friends. When the queen found out, she was furious. No bastard child of her husband's was going to lay claim to the throne while she was around to stop it. She wanted you dead."
"Are you going to eat that cheese?" Boпndil interrupted. "It'll fall into the fire if you don't get on with it soon." Tungdil handed him the skewer wordlessly and the warrior wolfed it down. "Much appreciated."
Boлndal resumed his account. "Your adopted family took pity on you and carried you off. They took you to Lot-Ionan for one simple reason: No one would ever think of looking in a magus's household for a dwarf."
"You do realize that dwarves have no truck with the long-uns' wizardry, don't you?" Boпndil said suspiciously.
"Quiet!" his brother shushed him. "Just let me finish." He turned back to Tungdil. "So now you know why you grew up in Ionandar, miles from your kinsfolk. When the assembly of dwarves heard of your existence, it was obliged to summon you in accordance with our laws and consider your claim to the throne."
Tungdil held the canteen to his lips and took a long draft. "I don't mean to be rude," he murmured weakly, "but it can't be true. Lot-Ionan would have told me."
"He intended to tell you on your return." Boлndal produced a letter from his pack. It was written in the magus's hand. "He gave me this, in case you didn't believe us."
Tungdil unfurled the parchment, fingers trembling, and scanned the lines. The story was true, down to the last detail.
All I wanted was to meet a few of my kinsfolk, not be crowned king of all dwarves. "I'm sorry," he said, "but I can't do it. I'll gladly accompany you to Ogre's Death, but the other contender should be crowned." He laughed wryly. "How could I rule over anyone? No one will ever accept me as a dwarf. They'll think I'm a-"
Suddenly a morsel of stinking cheese was thrust under his nose. "Stop grousing," snapped Boпndil. "It's a long way to Ogre's Death. We'll make a dwarf of you yet." The molten cheese wobbled threateningly. "You may as well start now." He still had a faintly crazed look in his eyes. "Go on, taste it!"
Tungdil pulled the warm cheese from the stick and popped it in his mouth. It tasted revolting. His fingers would reek for orbits, not to mention his breath. "I can't do it," he said firmly. "I promised to deliver the pouch to Gorйn."
"You don't have to come right away," Boпndil said magnanimously. "It's not far from here to Greenglade village. We'll go with you."
His brother nodded. "And you don't have to worry about the magus; he's given us his blessing already."
"What if you were to return without me?"
The brothers exchanged a look.
"Well," Boлndal said thoughtfully, "I expect they'd crown Gandogar, but no one would ever accept him as the rightful king." He fixed his brother with a meaningful stare.
"Exactly," Boпndil put in quickly. "There'd be all kinds of arguments and whatnot. Some of the chieftains might even…well, they wouldn't take orders from him, so before you know it, there'd be terrible feuds and…" He gazed into the flames for inspiration, then rushed on. "It could all end in war! The clans and the folks would fight each other, and you'd be to blame!" He sat back with a satisfied expression on his face.
Tungdil didn't know what to make of it all. Too much had happened since that morning. Having never raised his ax in anger, he had slain two orcs in succession and now his kinsfolk were trying to bundle him onto the throne. He needed time to reflect. "I'll think it over," he promised them, curling up beside the fire and closing his eyes wearily.
Boпndil cleared his throat and began to sing. It was a dwarven ballad with deep mysterious syllables that charmed the ear, telling of the time before time began… Desirous of life, the deities fashioned themselves. Vraccas the Smith was forged from fire, rock, and steel. Palandiell the Bountiful rose from the earth. The winds gave birth to Samusin the Rash. Elria the Helpful, creator and destroyer, emerged from the water. And darkness fused with light in Tion the Two-Faced. Such are the five deities, the… For Tungdil, the song ended there. It was the first time in his life that he had heard a dwarven ballad sung by his kin and the sound was so soothing that it lulled him to sleep.
Tungdil awoke with the smell of cheese in his nostrils and his mind made up: He would go with the twins to the secondling kingdom. His doubts had been conquered by a desire to meet more of his kin.
"Just so you know, I haven't changed my mind about being high king," he told them. "I'm doing this only because I want to see my kinsfolk."
"It's all the same to us," Boлndal said equably. "The main thing is you've decided to come." He and his brother packed their bags and they set off briskly. "The sooner we get to Greenglade, the sooner we'll be home. Eight hundred miles are a good long way."
"We'll accompany you to the edge of the village and no farther," snapped Boпndil. "We want nothing to do with that elf maiden. It's bad enough having to walk through an elfish forest, let alone visit an elf house or whatever they build for themselves." He made a show of spitting into the bushes.
"What did the elf maiden ever do to you?" Tungdil ran his hand over Gorйn's bag; there was no avoiding the fact that some of the artifacts were no longer in their original state. The encounter with the orc's sword had done them no favors, which made him doubly certain that the beast had deserved its fate. "Six hundred miles!" he muttered crossly. "Six hundred miles through Gauragar, through Lios Nudin, past beasts and other dangers without the artifacts coming to any harm, only for a confounded orc to ruin everything. Another three or four hours and I could have handed them over, safe and sound!" He hoped the wizard would be understanding.
Boпndil's mind was still on the elves. "Oh, she didn't have to do anything! Her race has caused enough trouble as it is," he blurted out angrily. "Those self-satisfied, arrogant pointy-ears are enough to-"
Overcome with fury, he whipped out his axes and fell upon a sapling, swinging at it with unbridled rage.
Boлndal, an impassive expression on his face, lowered his packs, pushed his long plait over his shoulder, and waited for the outburst to end.
"He does this sometimes," he explained to the dumbfounded Tungdil. "His inner furnace burns stronger than most. Sometimes it flares up and he can't contain his anger. It's why we call him Ireheart."
"His inner furnace?"
"Vraccas alone can explain it. Anyway, take my advice and keep out of his way. It's fatal to challenge him when he gets like this." Boлndal sighed. "He'll be all right again once his furnace has cooled."
Boпndil finished hacking the sapling to pieces. "Bloody pointy-ears! I feel better now." Without a word of apology, he wiped the sap and splinters from his blades and carried on. "We need to find a proper name for you," he grumbled. "Bolofar is no better than Belly fluff, Sillystuff, or Starchy ruff; it's plain daft! We'll come up with something on the way." He glanced at Tungdil. "What are your talents?"
"Er, reading…"
"Book-learning!" Boлndal burst out laughing. "I should have guessed you were a scholar! But we can't call you Pagemuncher or Bookeater. Dwarves should be proud of their names!"
"Reading's important. It-"
"Oh, books are very useful when it comes to fighting orcs. You could have killed the whole band of them with the right bit of poetry!"
&nb
sp; Boпndil looked at Tungdil and frowned. "No one could call you a warrior, but you've certainly got the build for it. Your hands are nice and strong-with a bit of practice, it might come right."
Tungdil sighed. "I like metalwork."
"That's not exactly unusual for a dwarf. How about-" Boлndal trailed off and sniffed the air attentively. His brother did the same. "Something's burning," he told them, alarmed. "Wood and… scorched flesh! It must be a raid." Boпndil pulled out both axes and broke into a jog. The other two followed.
The trees grew farther apart as the path rounded a corner and emerged into a clearing. Until recently, the spot had been home to a settlement, but the elf maiden's haven at the heart of the forest had been ravaged by flames. Charred ruins hinted at the former elegance of the many-platformed dwellings that were set about the boles of the tallest trees. The carved arches, smooth wooden beams, and panels embellished with elven runes and gold leaf were so perfectly at one with the forest that they seemed to have grown with the wood.
But most of the gold was missing and the beauty of the glade had been savagely destroyed. For the second time on Tungdil's journey, the orcs had got there first. He tried in vain to recapture something of the leafy harmony, but the desecration was complete. "By Vraccas," he gulped. "We'd better see whether-"
"Absolutely," Boпndil said cheerily. "With any luck, we'll find a few runts. You've got to hand it to them: We couldn't have done a better job ourselves!"
"It's what you'd call rigorous," his brother said admiringly, gripping the haft of his hammer. As true children of the Smith, the twins were unruffled by the wreckage around them; it wasn't in their nature to feel pity for elves.
Tungdil felt differently. Wandering through the smoldering ruins, he lifted up planks and peered under girders in the hope of finding Gorйn alive. Instead he found corpse after corpse, some of them horribly mutilated. At the sight of the carnage, memories of Goodwater came flooding back and he stepped away from the bodies, closing his eyes to the horror. The images stayed with him, more gruesome than ever in his mind.
Pull yourself together, he told himself firmly. How are you going to recognize Gorйn if you find him? Where would a wizard hide if he survived? Tungdil's gaze settled on the largest dwelling, which had come off slightly better than the rest.
"Keep an eye out for any trouble," he called to the others. "I need to find out what's happened to Gorйn."
"I've changed my mind," Boпndil shouted jauntily to his brother. "Forget what I said earlier about not going in. We might find some orcs."
While the twins began patrolling the ruins, Tungdil climbed the sagging staircase toward the front door. The charred steps groaned beneath his feet, but at last he reached the first platform and walked across the blackened planks.
The house was pentagonal in form, with the bole of the tree at its center. Linking the rooms was a corridor that encircled the trunk, its inner wall comprised of bark. Rope bridges led out to the sturdier branches where colored lanterns swung mournfully in the breeze.
Leaves were already floating to the ground, as if the tree were mourning the elves who had lived among its branches for so many cycles.
Tungdil gazed at the fluttering foliage, then tore himself away and searched the rooms. There was no sign of Gorйn or any survivors, but the library had been spared the worst of the damage and he came upon a sealed envelope addressed to Lot-Ionan and some objects wrapped in a shawl.
He picked up the envelope and hesitated. Surely these are exceptional circumstances by any standard? He broke the seal, scanned the contents, and sighed. Yet another errand for me to run! In the letter, Gorйn thanked Lot-Ionan for the loan of some books. The wizard had evidently intended to return them by courier, which meant Tungdil had landed himself another job.
There was a second letter, written in scholarly script and therefore indecipherable to anyone but a high-ranking wizard. He packed it away with the other items and continued his search.
A shudder ran through the platform. It started as a slight tremor, but in no time the planks were shaking violently. The wooden dwelling groaned and creaked furiously; then the commotion stopped as suddenly as it had begun. The dwarf took it as a sign that it was time for him to leave.
He hurried into the corridor and stopped in surprise. The tree was moving, its leafless branches squeezing and crushing the groaning timber of the house. The trunk gave a ligneous grunt and swayed to the left. A gnarled bough swung toward him.
"Hey! You've got the wrong dwarf! I'm not the one who killed the sapling!"
The tree took no heed of his protests and swiped at him again. Tungdil ducked, the cudgel-like branch smashing into the paneled wall behind him. He darted to the steps, but found himself engulfed in a sea of white. In his confusion he thought for a moment that it was snowing; then he saw that the haze was made up of petals that were swirling around the tree. The flowers and trees of the forest were hurling their blossoms at him, the glade's shattered harmony turning to violent hatred.
The house shook again, this time cracking some of the joists and sending debris crashing to the ground. Tungdil clattered down the steps to safety.
The twins were no less surprised than he was. Weapons at the ready, they were eyeing the glade suspiciously.
"It's nasty elfish magic!" shouted Boпndil above the din of rustling leaves. "They've turned the trees against us."
"We'd better get out of here," Tungdil called to them. "The trees mean to punish anyone who-" He broke off as a Palandiell beech loosed a shower of withered leaves, exposing the gruesome secret hidden among its naked boughs.
They had found the elf maiden. Her delicate white visage, previously obscured by a thick screen of leaves, stood out against the murky bark. From the neck down she was a skeleton, stripped entirely of flesh but glistening wetly with crimson blood. Long metal nails pinned her slender limbs to the trunk.
The sight was too much, even for the otherwise imperturbable twins. "Vraccas almighty," exclaimed Boлndal, "what kind of mischief is this?"
"That settles it," his brother decided. "We're leaving before the same thing happens to us."
"Not yet," Tungdil told them. "I need to keep looking for Gorйn." The horror exercised a strange attraction on him and he walked on, obliging his companions to follow. "The wizard's body might be somewhere round here too."
On closer inspection, it looked as though the elf maiden's bones had been gnawed. Her murderers had finished the job by driving a nail through her mouth, pinning the back of her skull to the bole of the tree. In place of her beautiful elven eyes were two empty sockets.
"They pinned her to the tree and ate her alive," said Boпndil. "It's a bit too fancy for runts. They eat their victims on the spot and suck out their marrow."
Tungdil swallowed and took another look. Even in death, the elf's face had retained its beauty. For all his inborn antipathy toward her and her race, he was sorry she had ended so gruesomely.
Boлndal rounded the tree and discovered further corpses as well as a trail of curved black prints. "They're hoof marks, but they've been burned into the soil. What do you make of that, scholar?"
Tungdil remembered the two riders who had parleyed with the orcish war bands on the night before Goodwater was destroyed. "Shadow mares," he murmured. "They strike sparks as they walk. The дlfar ride them." It explained why the elf maiden had suffered so cruelly before she died: The дlfar took pleasure in torturing their cousins.
"Дlfar?" Boпndil's eyes flashed with enthusiasm. "It's about time we came up against something more challenging than those dim-witted orcs! How about it, brother? I say we blunt our axes on Tion's dark elves!"
Tungdil, his gaze still riveted on the skeleton, was beset by awful visions of the mistress of Greenglade writhing and screaming on the tree while shadow mares ripped the flesh from her bones. The urge to vomit became uncontrollable and he covered his mouth with his hand, unwilling to forfeit the last shreds of credibility in front of the twins.
Tungdil was as good as certain that magic had been involved. "I think we've found Gorйn. He probably conjured the ring of fire to defend himself."
Hands trembling, he searched the dead man's pockets and brought out a small metal tin engraved with Gorйn's name.
"He would have done better with a shield," Boпndil said dryly. "I always said that magic can't be trusted."
His brother's gaze was fixed on the rustling trees that were shedding their leaves furiously in spite of the season. "There's something wrong with this place," he decided. "If we hang around much longer, those trees will tear up their roots and attack us. We're leaving."
"What about Gorйn and the others?" objected Tungdil. "Don't you think we should-"
"What about them? They're dead," Boпndil said breezily.
"Elves, elf lovers, and orcs." Boлndal set off at a march. "They needn't concern us."
As far as the twins were concerned, the matter was settled, so Tungdil fell in behind them, hurrying through the ruined village in the direction from which they had come.
Before they reached the path, he glanced round to bid the wizard and his mistress a silent farewell and apologize for leaving them without a proper burial. It was then that he saw something strange.
An easel, he thought to himself in surprise. In spite of the surrounding wreckage, it was standing upright, as though the painter would be back at any moment. Tungdil felt sadder than ever at the thought of the elf maiden or one of her companions abandoning their work in terror. The unfinished painting was a silent testimony to the moment in which the invaders had arrived.
I wonder what she was painting. "Back in a minute!" he told the others as he clambered over the charred timber, curious to see the elven artwork.