by Markus Heitz
"I thought I would find the villains here," he rasped, his voice giving way to a cough. A bright red globule of saliva spattered onto the face of a bцgnil whose tongue shot out hungrily and licked it away. "I sent my servants here to ambush you. I wanted to have the pleasure of destroying you myself."
An orc leaped forward, whipping out his sword. "Let me do it for you, Master," he said slavishly.
"Silence, ingrate!" The magus stretched a hand. There was a flash of light and flames shot out of his fingers, setting the orc ablaze. The beast staggered backward, stumbling in agony until at last he lay still. "Out of my way," commanded Nфd'onn. "If you crowd me, I can't destroy them without destroying you." His pale face was almost entirely obscured by a cowl, with only a chink of white skin visible through the folds of cloth.
"I'll do what I can," Andфkai whispered to Tungdil. "The rest of you run." She pushed her fair hair back from her severe visage, seized her sword, and prepared to strike. All of a sudden she stopped.
Tungdil sensed her hesitation. "What's wrong?"
She seemed puzzled. "I can't see his staff. Nфd'onn would never be parted with it, no more than I would go anywhere without my sword. It must be an illusion."
"Ye gods! It's Rodario!" hissed Furgas, trying not to blow his friend's cover by looking too relieved.
Tungdil stared in disbelief. The impresario's transformation was as complete as it had been on the stage, but now he was playing to an audience who would kill him and eat him if his performance was anything less than faultless. How does he do it?
"As for you," the sham magus rasped at the company, "you shall suffer. But first I shall be merciful: You may advance to the forge and touch the hallowed door. Only then will my servants rip you to pieces. Is that not exquisitely cruel?" The beasts cheered excitedly.
This time the crowd parted on the other side of the company, allowing them to proceed through a narrow corridor toward the locked door. The sham magus followed behind them, swaying, coughing, and whipping his followers into a frenzy as he threatened the company with increasingly diabolical fates.
They were ten paces from the door when the impresario swayed more vigorously than usual and stumbled.
"Stop!" Tungdil grabbed Narmora and Furgas before they could rush to his aid. "You'll give the game away for all of us."
The costumed Rodario struggled upright. A helmet rolled out from beneath his robes and his left leg seemed suddenly a good deal shorter. Without the makeshift stilt that had allowed him to tower majestically at the real magus's height, the fakery was obvious. It took the beasts a few moments to fathom the situation.
"That's not Nфd'onn!" An orc rushed toward him, brandishing his sword, as the company closed ranks around the hobbling Rodario and the battle recommenced.
"What have you done with the torch?" demanded Tungdil.
Clutching his side, the impresario coughed up another mouthful of blood; this time he was wounded and not just relying on his props. Even so, he managed a smile as he held up a small lantern. The wick was burning brightly. "No self- respecting magus would dream of carrying a torch."
Their courage restored, they fought their way more determinedly than ever toward the door, while the orcs pushed aside their smaller colleagues and attacked with full force. They were determined to put an end to the indefatigable men and dwarves.
Every member of the company was struck by an ax, sword, or mace. Some of the wounds were more serious than others, but the dwarves stood their ground. Tungdil focused on deciphering the runic password that would gain them entry to the forge. For once his knowledge failed him.
"I can't read the runes," he cried despairingly to Andфkai. "It must be a riddle."
"How awfully inconvenient," gasped Rodario. He clutched the door, trying to hold himself up as his legs gave way. "I don't expect my death to trouble you greatly, but remember this: Girdlegard has lost a luminary of the stage." He closed his eyes and slumped to the ground, suffocating the lantern as he fell. The flame flickered dangerously.
"No!" murmured Gandogar, who had been watching the dying actor out of the corner of his eye. "We can't let the flame go out!" As he turned to save the lantern, an enormous orc seized his chance and waded in. With a terrible shout he thrust his notched sword toward the king's back.
"Your Majesty!" Goпmgar realized midshout that the warning would come too late. Without thinking, he threw himself-shield first and head ducked-into the path of the blade.
With a high-pitched ring the sword struck the edge of the shield, forcing it down. The dwarf's head and neck appeared above the rim.
The orc bared its teeth, expelling a foul rush of breath, which swept through Goпmgar's beard. The beast's long blade settled on the shield, using its contours to draw a perfect line from right to left.
Goпmgar thrust his blade forward, but it was no match for the orcish sword. His stumpy weapon shattered, shards of metal jangling to the floor, and the sword continued, cleaving through skin, flesh, sinew, and bone.
As the artisan's head fell to the right, his twitching body toppled left, brushing against Balyndis, who let out a furious howl and swung her ax with fresh savagery.
Gandogar turned in time to see Goпmgar die in his stead. Even as the head hit the floor, the flame died, a thin wisp of smoke snaking its way to the ceiling. "May Tion take you!" Gandogar raised his ax and split the murderer from skull to chest.
With two of their number dead and the dragon fire extinguished, the company struggled against the heaviness in their arms. Their resistance was weakening.
"Did you get us this far in order to destroy us, Vraccas?"
Tungdil shouted accusingly as he drove his ax between the jaws of an ore.
At that moment there was a welcome grinding noise and the right-hand panel of the door swung open.
The deep tones of a bugle rang out, echoing the melody that Boпndil had sounded at the beginning of their attack. Stocky figures streamed through the doors and threw themselves on the beasts. Their axes and hammers raged mercilessly among the hordes.
It took Tungdil a good few moments to realize that their rescuers were dwarves.
One of their number, a warrior whose polished armor outshone everything save the diamonds on his belt, nodded toward the open door.
"Hurry, we can't hold them back for long," he bellowed, his deep voice sending shivers down Tungdil's spine.
He was more used to seeing the warrior's features cast in vraccasium and gold, but he had encountered the visage often enough during their long march through the fifthling kingdom to know exactly who he was: Giselbert Ironeye, father of Giselbert's folk.
"I thought you were…"
"We'll talk later," the ancient dwarf told him. "Just get your company inside."
Tungdil gave the order, Furgas hoisted Rodario to his shoulders, and Gandogar carried Goпmgar's corpse. As soon as the group was safely in the forge, Giselbert's dwarves abandoned their attack and slammed the door behind them. A moment later there was a furious hammering and pounding, but blind rage alone was not enough to breach the door.
"Welcome," Giselbert said solemnly. "Whoever you may be, I hope your coming is a good omen."
There were ten of them in all: ashen-faced dwarves with absent eyes that made them seem vaguely trancelike. Each was clad in lavishly splendid mail and their beards reached to their belts. Determination, a Vraccas-given trait of their race, was stamped on every face.
"My warriors and I have been fighting Tion's minions since the fall of my kingdom eleven hundred cycles ago," said Giselbert, who seemed the most venerable, the most majestic of them all. "We are the last of the fifthlings, killed by the дlfar and resurrected by the Perished Land. As you can see, we chose not to serve it."
Tungdil shot a quick glance at Bavragor, who was covered from head to toe in every imaginable shade of green. Orc and bцgnil blood was dripping from his hands and splashing to the floor.
"It takes a lot to kill an undead dwarf, but most of our
companions were eventually slain. The rest of us retreated to the furnace, our folk's most treasured relic." He held Tungdil's gaze.
"And you're sure you don't hate other dwarves and want to murder every living creature?"
Giselbert shook his head. "We taught ourselves not to. In eleven hundred cycles you can learn to stifle the pestilent hatred." His eyes shifted to the door. "The creatures used to content themselves with guarding the entrance, but during the last few orbits they've laid siege to the doors. I daresay the change has something to do with you."
"Very likely." Tungdil ran through the introductions and gave a hasty account of the threat facing Girdlegard and the reason for their coming. "But it's all been in vain. We were supposed to light the furnace with dragon fire, but the flame went out while we were fighting by the door."
Giselbert clapped a hand on his shoulder and a kindly smile spread across the creases and wrinkles of his ancient face. "You are wrong to give up hope. The fire is burning as fiercely as ever." He stopped and listened. "The furnace has always been under our protection. Vraccas must have known we would need it one day." He and his companions stepped aside to reveal the rest of the chamber.
The hall, fifty paces long by thirty wide, boasted twenty abandoned hearths, lined up in two rows, and four times as many anvils, arranged around an enormous furnace ablaze with fierce white flames.
Countless pillars supported the ceiling eighty paces above and the walls were filled with neat rows of tools: hammers, tongs, chisels, files, and all manner of implements needed for the blacksmith's craft. Fine sand covered the floor and the upper reaches of the chamber were coated in a thick layer of soot. A stone stairway led to the flue.
The bellows and grindstones were attached to metal chains that ran through a system of rollers and pulleys to the ceiling, where they looped through the rock. Tungdil was instantly reminded of the lifting apparatus in the underground network.
He found himself imagining the smithy in its heyday when Girdlegard's finest weapons and most splendid armor had been forged by Giselbert's dwarves. He breathed out in relief and prayed to Vraccas to excuse his lack of faith. "That's the best news we've had since Ogre's Death," he said cheerfully. We're nearly there. And to think I'd resigned myself to failure…
"He's alive!" exclaimed Furgas. "His heart is beating! Rodario's alive!"
"Let me take a look at him." Andфkai swept back her hair, knelt beside the wounded impresario, and inspected his wound. "He's had a blow to the head and a slight gouge to the side. It's nothing too serious," she announced, cleaning the afflicted area with Bavragor's brandy to stave off infection.
The impresario's eyes fluttered open. "Thank you, Estimable Maga," he gasped, gritting his teeth as the alcohol stung his raw flesh. "Had I known, I would have begged the orc to strike me on the mouth so you could kiss me back to life."
"If you were a warrior, things might have been different between us," she said, responding remarkably favorably to the flirtation.
"A good actor can be many things, even a warrior."
"But it's only an act."
"I'm a warrior in spirit. Isn't that enough?"
"Maybe," she said, "but your weapon has fought for so many causes in every kingdom that I couldn't rely on you not to swap sides." Her blue eyes looked at him smilingly as she patted his cheek. "Save your charm for the women who adore you."
Giselbert pointed to a quiet corner of the smithy. "Lie down and get some rest. The doors won't fall; we'll see to it that they don't. It's important that you recover your strength before we get going with Keenfire. There are some matters we need to attend to before we can forge the blade."
"Such as…?"
The ancient monarch chuckled when he saw the look of alarm on Tungdil's face. "It can wait until you're rested. I'm sorry we can't offer you any sustenance, but you'll be safe here, at least."
The travelers were too tired to do anything but follow his advice; even Boпndil was so spent that he forgot to be suspicious of their undead hosts. In any case, no one could claim that the revenants weren't putting their lives to good use.
Tungdil went to join Gandogar, who was sitting in silence beside Goпmgar's corpse. The fourthling king had removed his battered helmet, his brown hair resting on his mighty shoulders. "He died trying to save me," he said somberly. "He threw himself in front of that orc, even though he must have known the brute would kill him." He glanced at Tungdil. "I didn't think he had it in him. I was pleased when you picked Goпmgar because he seemed too much the artisan and too little the dwarf. I misjudged him. He was a dwarf, all right."
Tungdil placed the pouch of diamonds in Gandogar's hands. "You're our diamond cutter now. You must finish his task for him."
"Gladly, although I can't promise to emulate his skill. Goпmgar was a far better artisan than I am."
Tungdil paused before broaching a rather delicate subject. "There's something I need to tell you, Gandogar." He quickly told him of Gundrabur's plan and Bislipur's trickery, and finished by producing Sverd's collar as proof.
The king recognized the choker at once. "By the beard of Goпmdil, I wish these accusations were unfounded, but the loathsome collar speaks for itself. Sverd was in thrall to his master; he could never have acted alone." He shook his head incredulously. "How could Bislipur be so blind? How could I be so blind?"
"So you don't want to wage war on the elves?"
"Absolutely not! Isn't Girdlegard in enough trouble already?" He took a deep breath. "Honestly, Tungdil, nothing could be farther from my thoughts. Gundrabur was right after all. We've been through so much since the start of this mission that the thought of another war…No, an alliance is what we need." He stopped and frowned. "I'm not saying we have to be best friends with the elves or anything. The way they betrayed the fifthlings was-"
"We weren't betrayed by elves," interrupted a fifthling who had approached in time to hear the end of their exchange. His thick black beard hung in decorative cords that reached to his chest.
"Your folk was betrayed by the pointy-ears," the king insisted. "I saw the evidence myself."
"Evidence provided by Bislipur," Tungdil reminded him.
The stranger gave them a wan smile. "My name is Glandallin Hammerstrike of the clan of the Striking Hammers." He turned to Gandogar. "I witnessed the terrible demise of our kingdom, and I saw the traitor who opened our gates."
"Yes," Gandogar said stubbornly. "A backstabbing elf."
"It was a dwarf." He paused as the others, including Balyndis, who had joined them, stared in disbelief. "Glamdolin Strongarm was the traitor who spoke the incantation and opened our gates."
"But why?"
"It was the opportunity he had been waiting for. That dreadful morning he pretended to succumb to the fever that the дlfar had spread among our folk. The battle was fierce and no one gave him a second thought. He skulked down to the gates and cleared the way for Tion's hordes. It was his doing that the дlfar found their way into our underground halls and took us by surprise."
"But I don't see…"
"He was a thirdling," Glandallin said flatly. "A child of Lorimbur, a dwarf killer, who inveigled himself into our folk and masked his true intentions so cunningly that we suspected nothing. He waited until we were fatally weakened, then struck the final blow. He died by my ax but was raised by the Perished Land to incant the secret runes. After our deaths we captured him and questioned him. Glamdolin was beheaded, never to rise again."
"I hope you're writing this down for me," Rodario whispered to Furgas. "We'll make our fortunes with this play!"
"So the elves had nothing to do with it!" said Tungdil, delighted that the path was clear for an alliance. Bislipur's treacherous scheme has come to naught.
They buried Goпmgar body in a corner of the forge, erected a pile of stones to mark the grave, and dedicated his soul to Vraccas. As soon as they felt sufficiently rested, they began their preparations for forging the mighty ax. "'The blade must be made of the purest, hard
est steel, with diamonds encrusting the bit and an alloy of every known precious metal filling the inlay and the runes. The spurs should be hewn from stone and the grip sculpted from wood of the sigurdaisy tree,'" recited Tungdil, reading from the manuscript that would serve as their guide.
They stacked the gold, silver, palandium, and vraccasium neatly on the table along with the pouch of diamonds and the sigurdaisy wood for the haft. The fifthlings furnished them with iron ore for the blade and stone for the spurs.
Tungdil realized with alarm what it was they were missing. "We didn't bring any tionium," he said, scolding himself for his laxness. "You don't have any, I suppose?"
There was a short silence. "Not in the forge," said Glandallin. "We were never especially fond of Tion's metal, so there wasn't much call for it."
Narmora unhooked an amulet from her neck and laid it on the table. "It's pure tionium. My mother gave it to me to ward off the forces of good. Since I've allied myself with them, there's not much point in wearing it. I just hope there's enough for you to use."
Tungdil gave her a grateful look. His doubts and reservations about the half дlf had been canceled out by her deeds. "Girdlegard is in your debt twice over. No matter how expertly we fashion the weapon, Keenfire would be powerless without tionium-or without the undergroundlings' foe."
"It's the least I can do, given the amount of suffering my mother's race has caused," she demurred.
He glanced at the glowing furnace. "Shall we begin?"
"I'm afraid it's not that simple," said Giselbert. "The furnace is alight, but the temperature isn't high enough. Usually, we'd use the bellows to breathe life into Dragon Fire, but the equipment has rusted and we haven't been able to get it to work."
"Thank goodness for that!" Furgas leaped to his feet. "What with Narmora being the savior of Girdlegard, I was beginning to think I was just a hanger-on." He chuckled good-humoredly and the others joined in. "I hope you're ready for a demonstration of my expertise."
He was rewarded with a kiss from Narmora, who picked up her ax to practice wards, attacks, and strikes with Boпndil. Andфkai sat watching them, while Djerun, motionless as usual, crouched beside her. For some reason Tungdil was half expecting the helmet to give off a purple glow.