The Half Dwarf Prince Trilogy

by J. M. Fosberg

  Public executions were not a common occurrence in Patria. It was one of the many lessons he had taken from his cousin’s father before he had passed. “Do not give your people a taste for blood, because once they start asking for it, they will never stop,” King Patrick had told him. He held public executions only for people who committed crimes against the state. The last time had been nearly a year ago, when a man had broken into the city treasury. The man had been captured on his way out. The king wouldn’t have held a public execution for that—it was a failed robbery, and he would have simply put the man in the dungeons; but the man had killed one of the palace guards trying to escape.

  Now he had to impose the same punishment on the woman he loved. He had told his wife that she was not the woman he married. He had told himself he was only doing his duty. When her parents had come to him last night, begging him to spare her life, it had taken everything in him to hold back the tears. They were one of the most powerful families in the city. Regardless of what he said or even tried to convince himself of, he knew that he loved this woman. He had married her because he loved her. Sure, it had been his duty to marry someone of importance and leave an heir to the throne, continuing the Patria line, but he and Priscilla had loved each other. The hardest thing for him to swallow was that he knew deep down that, in her own twisted way, she really had done this for him.

  He stood on the platform with members of the palace guard at the steps on each side, in front and behind him. He watched as his wife was led up those stairs in shackles. Anna, Jerrie, and Grundel stood on the platform behind him. The two dwarves stood at the bottom of each of the stairways, ready to come running to the aid of their queen. His soldiers had orders not to stop any of the members of his cousin’s group. The halfling was standing on the roof of the building directly behind the platform with his archers. He had said that someone should be up high where they could see.

  People were booing the queen as she was forced up the steps. They brought her across the stage to stand next to him.

  “What will it be then?” he asked stonily. He had to hide behind his duty to get through this.

  “Don’t do this, Paul, I am your wife.” It was the first time she had ever used his name in front of others.

  “Which will it be?” he asked again. She started crying. “The axe will be quickest,” he told her. She just continued to cry. She had been bold last night, but now, at the moment of her death, that boldness was defeated by fear. “The axe,” he told the executioner, who was actually just one of the soldiers from the palace guard, who had accepted the duty when Paul had taken the throne.

  The block was brought out. The block was just a piece of wood that, when the person laid their head over it, exposed the neck and provided something solid beneath it to make sure that the execution was done cleanly. Paul had read about executions in which the executioner hacked at the neck of a person three or four times before he was finally able to remove the head from the shoulders; in most of those cases, the execution had been done with the victim kneeling and bending their head forward. That left nothing to support the head, and when the sword slammed into the back of their neck, they were knocked to the ground. He wouldn’t accept something gruesome like that being done in Patria. If people had to be executed in Patria it would be done quickly. Even his gallows were set up to drop the person and break their neck, not like the gallows in Portwein, where they let a person strangle to death. These thoughts gave him little comfort as he held out his hand to the executioner.

  “Give me the axe,” he told the man.

  The man hesitated.

  “The queen has requested that I carry out the sentence personally. I will not deny her last wish if it is something I am in a position to give her.”

  The executioner handed the king the axe. It wasn’t like a battle-axe, where the axe was forged with anchor points to the hilt that allowed less metal to be used, making it lighter. The head of this axe was long and connected to the handle all the way down. It would be a terrible weapon in a fight because it was so top-heavy, but the extra weight helped ensure that the blade did its job. He turned toward the crowd, holding up one hand. The people quieted. They wouldn’t all be able to hear, but what he said would pass back in the crowd. It would be reinterpreted dozens of times, but the general message would remain the same.

  “Queen Priscilla Patria attempted to take the life of my cousin, Princess Anna Patria, and my nephew, Prince Grundel Patria Stoneheart, the current heir to the throne. The law is clear that the only acceptable punishment for attempts on the life of any member of the Patria line is death. This morning that punishment will be carried out.” He turned to the queen. “Do you have any last words?”

  “You will see that I was right. I hope this day haunts you for the rest of your life,” she said, holding to defiance in her final moment.

  “I can promise you that it will,” he told her before nodding to the soldier, who snapped a thin collar around her neck and pulled her down over the block. The collar connected to hooks on each side of the block, which prevented the person being executed from moving their neck at the last second. King Paul looked down at his wife’s exposed neck. He raised the heavy axe over his head and brought it down hard. His aim was true. He watched his wife’s lifeless body fall to the ground at his feet as blood pooled around them. He handed the axe to the executioner. A single tear ran down his face as he walked down the steps of the platform. He didn’t even hear the condolences of the people as he walked past them. The soldiers kept the crowd back, and he walked to the palace in a trance.

  Grundel sat in his mother’s room. The morning’s events had been difficult. The king had done what he felt needed to be done, but Grundel felt partially responsible. They were all in the main room of his mother’s apartment when there was a knock at the door. Jerrie opened it, and Master Brennin entered the room.

  “Your Highness, the king would like to speak with you,” he said to Grundel. Grundel stood, and Rundo and Jerrie moved to follow. “He would like to speak to his nephew alone,” Brennin said, in a tone that made it clear that this was not negotiable.

  Grundel nodded to the others and followed the man out of the room. He didn’t bother asking what the king wanted. He knew by now that Master Brennin would have told him if the king had told him to, and he hadn’t, so he wouldn’t.

  They passed through the general audience chamber and stopped at the door to the king’s personal audience chamber. One of the two guards opened the door. They walked into the room, but the king wasn’t there, and Brennin kept walking to the door on the far side of the room. He knocked on that door.

  “Come in,” the king said from inside the room.

  Brennin opened the door and motioned for him to enter. Grundel walked into the room and Master Brennin closed the door behind him, leaving him alone with the king in his personal chambers. Grundel looked around the room.

  In the center of the far wall was a very large bed with deep purple blankets and too many pillows. There were a half dozen dressers in the room, all made of a dark wood that Grundel was not familiar with. It was likely very expensive. Most of the drawers were open, and there was a large pile of clothing on the floor with jewelry boxes on top of it. In the corner of the room the king sat in a big cushioned chair.

  “You ready to go after those Black Dragons?” he asked.

  Grundel saw that his face was red and his eyes were very puffy. He had been crying. “I am, Your Highness.”

  “Good. Today we will purge my city of evil. Before I give my men their orders, I want to ask how you will fight the wizards.”

  “We have special armor that protects us from magic, Your Highness. On top of that, everyone in my group has weapons that penetrate the magical defenses of a wizard. It would take a lot of strikes to get through one of those magical shields with plain steel,” Grundel explained.

  “I want you to lead this attack, then. I don’t care what time you do it, but I want it done today. I want the
Black Dragons’ guild house cleared. When you are finished I want the building destroyed. Those are my only orders. The rest is up to you. Master Brennin will inform Captain Douglas that he is to provide you with whatever you need. Take as many men as you need,” the king told him.

  Grundel stood there for a minute. “I will take care of it, Your Highness. I am truly sorry for your loss.”

  He looked up at Grundel. “This was not your fault, nephew. The queen’s actions decided her fate. You were just the one she acted against. Go clean up our city. I am fine; I just need some time.”

  Grundel didn’t respond; the king was already staring at the ground again. He turned and walked out of the room. Master Brennin was waiting in the next room for him.

  “Should I send for Captain Douglas, Your Highness?”

  “Yes, Master Brennin, send him to my apartment. You can go get him now. I can find my way back. I will be waiting for him and with the others,” Grundel said.

  Half an hour later Grundel was standing in his room with Captain Douglas, Jerrie, Rundo, Dobo, Gobo, and Master Brennin. Master Brennin had brought him a map of the city and showed him where the Black Dragons’ guild house was. It was a big two-story building eight blocks from the palace. .

  “Captain, your men will be in charge of setting up security around the building. No one is to get in or out. We won’t be able to get all of the wizards—they will stay and fight initially, but once they start dying, some of them will run. They can travel with magic, which means they will disappear and reappear somewhere else, and your men will never see them. When we go into the building, Jerrie, Rundo, Dobo, Gobo, and I will go in first and gain a foothold. Once that happens we will have your men come in. We will break up into groups, with ten soldiers in each group. Captain Douglas, you will be with me; Jerrie and Rundo will be the second group; and Dobo and Gobo will be the last group. Make sure your men know to stay behind us. We have protection against the wizards. They way we will fight is simple. When we find wizards we will fight them, and your men will be responsible for fighting the assassins. Any questions?”

  No one said anything.

  “Okay, Captain Douglas, get your men ready. We will meet you at the palace gate in one hour,” Grundel said.

  When the captain was gone, Grundel approached Master Brennin. His mother had told him a number of times to ask his advice whenever possible.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  “Trying to put aside the fact that you are attacking the Black Dragons, I think your plan is good. You are a strong leader. You are confident and people want to follow you,” Brennin said.

  “Thanks, Master Brennin. I would like you to stay here with my mother,” he told the man. He didn’t think the old man would be able to protect her at all, but he felt he might be able to comfort her while he went out to attack one of the guild houses of the most feared group of people in all of the five cities.

  “Of course, Your Highness,” Brennin responded.

  An hour later Grundel was leading a hundred men down the streets of Patria. People called out to him from everywhere. His mother was right; they had learned who he was quickly. He had thought his dwarven heritage might make them not accept him, but it didn’t seem to bother them. He was Anna Patria’s son, and that is all that mattered to them.

  Grundel stopped in front of the large two-story building. It was made of stone like the rest of the city, but the stones were all black. The building stood out, and he could see why there were no buildings next to it. The building itself seemed to make the whole area around it feel wrong somehow. Soldiers were spreading out around the building. Archers were taking their places, aiming at the windows of the second story. Grundel looked to Captain Douglas, who nodded.

  Grundel looked back at the building and threw his axe. It flew end over end, bursting through the wooden door, and he charged after it with his other axe in hand, his friends following behind him.

  He burst through the door and a ball of fire flew toward him. It had barely been sucked into his belt buckle when a dagger flew over his shoulder. He wasn’t sure if the look of shock on the wizard’s face was because his attack had been thwarted, because Rundo’s dagger had broken through his shield, or both. He might not even have had a shield up yet, but Grundel doubted that. Wizards were terribly paranoid.

  Three assassins came running into the room from a side door just as his axe returned to him. Rundo’s dagger shot past him followed by Dobo and Gobo. The first dagger slammed into the chest of the assassin in the middle. The second stopped when it hit the assassin on the right—he had some kind of armor under his clothing. But that would not stop the two charging dwarves. Dobo threw his hammer at the assassin’s head just before he reached him. The man ducked, swinging his sword up to deflect the war hammer at the same time, but Dobo hadn’t been trying to hit the man, he just wanted his arm up. Dobo crossed his arms in front of his chest and the spikes on his bracers drove into the man’s chest, puncturing everything as he bore the man back into the wall. He ripped his arms free of the man’s body and retrieved his hammer.

  Gobo charged in with his axe out. The assassin threw a dagger at his face before drawing his sword. Gobo already had his axe in front of him, and he turned the head slightly to deflect the dagger. He swung his axe in a downward slash. The assassin was able to get his sword up and deflect the blow enough to move out from under it, but Gobo was already spinning his axe, catching up with the momentum of his body. The Black Dragon tried to get his sword up, and he did get his weapon out in front of him, but the weight of Gobo’s blow was too much and the axe slammed into his chest. It didn’t cut through, though; it just threw the man back into the wall. Gobo followed the man, drawing out his enchanted dagger.

  “Wait!” Grundel shouted. Gobo looked back at him. “Save the armor,” he told the dwarf. Gobo turned back to the man and buried the dagger in the man’s face.

  They all spread out in the room. “Jerrie, search the bodies,” Grundel said, moving to the man Gobo had just killed. He pulled back the torn black shirt with the white dragon embroidered on its front. The man wore a thin shirt of leather. It didn’t appear to be anything more than the leathers a man would wear as padding under his armor, but Grundel knew better. He stripped it off of the man’s body. He walked back to the door and called to Captain Douglas, who came into the room with thirty men following him. “Here, put this on,” Grundel told him, holding out the leather shirt.

  The Captain took the shirt with a look of confusion. “It should protect you from magic,” Grundel told him. That motivated him, and he slid his chainmail off and quickly put the shirt on. He picked his armor back up, but Grundel stopped him. “The shirt will do it; leave the mail.” Captain Douglas set his armor down hesitantly.

  “Here, take this too,” Jerrie said, handing the captain a long curved knife. “If you get into it with a wizard, use that.” The Captain took the knife and slid it through his belt. He turned back to his men, sending a squad to each of the groups.

  Grundel didn’t tell his men to do anything; they all knew what to do. Dobo and Gobo both had their main weapons in one hand and their magical knives in their other hand. When the squad of soldiers came to them, they took off through the door the three assassins had come through. Jerrie and Rundo started up the steps. Grundel let their group go up, and then he followed with his group. There wouldn’t likely be many wizards on this floor, and Dobo and Gobo could handle the assassins easily enough.

  Jerrie and Rundo were bombarded with magic the second they made it to the top of the stairs. There were two wizards standing in the hall to the left, and Jerrie and Rundo ran toward them. Rundo’s belt had absorbed the black tendrils of the first attack. Jerrie was running down the hall ahead of Rundo, and the ball of fire that came at him deflected at the last second, slamming into the wall on his right instead. Rundo threw his magical blades at two of the assassins that stood defensively in front of the wizards; both of them began falling with holes in their sk
ulls, and Rundo’s daggers had returned to their sheaths before the men had hit the ground. Jerrie had a dagger in each hand, and he bent to lunge at the last assassin. When the man reacted, Jerrie leapt into the air, flipping over his head and leaving him exposed for Rundo to stab in the chest. Jerrie landed in front of one of the wizards. A black tendril shot out at him. His belt attempted to deflect it, but he was so close that the tendril still caught his arm. He couldn’t reach the wizard with his other arm. The wizard smiled into his face, and Jerrie called on the magic of his knife. The knife was all of a sudden a sword stabbing into the wizard’s face. Jerrie fell to the ground, his arm burning. He turned on the other wizard with Rundo now beside him. The wizard pushed out another black tendril, having seen that it had worked somewhat effectively for the other wizard, but Rundo was closest, and the tendrils were completely absorbed as Rundo leapt through the air, bringing his dagger down into the man’s neck. Jerrie watched as Rundo rode the man to the ground.

  When they turned around, they saw that the soldiers had two assassins trapped between them. The assassins ran into the room to the left. Jerrie and Rundo ran back down the hall. “Don’t let anyone get past you,” Jerrie said, following the men into the room. One of the assassins threw a dagger at Jerrie, and he dodged to the side. One of Rundo’s daggers shot at the other man. The man was able to dodge the knife and just barely got grazed on his shoulder. Rundo reached out a hand, stopping Jerrie from advancing. Jerrie trusted his judgment and froze with his knives at the ready. Rundo reached out, linking with the air around him, and pushed. The two assassins were suddenly and forcefully thrown through the window. Jerrie and Rundo ran to the window and looked out. The assassins had landed a few feet from the base of the building, and soldiers were cheering, looking up at the two of them in the window.