The Chaos Dwarf stumbled back and Gobo thrust his sword forward. The dwarf was incredibly fast, but he was off balance and Gobo’s sword plunged through the steel skin and into his chest.
Jerrie ran to the left of Dobo and Gobo. He had chosen the only Chaos Dwarf with two swords. He knew that they had been blessed with unnatural speed. On an even plane, Jerrie was faster with his blades than anyone he had ever come across. With his magical glove, he was unmatchable. He had the best chance of offsetting the speed of the two weapons. The Chaos Dwarf did a double thrust that anyone else would have been unable to avoid. If he went left, the blade coming at him there would catch him. If he went right, the blade coming in there would catch him. If he tried to jump or roll, the dwarf would just adjust the direction of his thrust, and he was moving too quickly to stop before he was impaled. He did none of those things. He slid forward, bringing his arms up in front of him. With his old bracers, he would have just been happy to avoid being impaled, but with his magically enchanted bracers, the swords glanced away, creating the space for him to get in close. He came to his feet and and tried to drive his dagger up into the Chaos Dwarf’s chest. The dwarf was quick and was able to avoid the fatal wound. His dagger went into the dwarf’s shoulder instead. The Chaos Dwarf didn’t even flinch; he just slammed his shoulder into Jerrie, throwing him back. Jerrie allowed his momentum to propel him backward. He rolled up to his feet and turned the sword coming at his chest away with one of his daggers as he spun away from the attack.
The dwarf’s other sword was coming at his legs fast. He brought his dagger around, extending it into a short sword just in time to block the attack. The strength and momentum of the attack slammed his own sword into his leg be he avoided the blade that would have taken it. He stumbled to the side. The force of the blow had made the leg numb, but it was still holding his weight. The dwarf thrust with one sword. He was expecting Jerrie to try to roll around it and was already starting to turn. He was going to spin around catching Jerrie with the other sword as he moved right into the attack.
Jerrie didn’t do what the dwarf expected though. Instead he stepped into the thrust, dropping his weight and defecting the sword up high with the bracer on his arm. He continued moving forward. With the dwarf off balance and with his nearest weapon up high, Jerrie drove his sword through the dwarf’s neck. He changed the sword back to a dagger with a mental command, leaving the Chaos Dwarf with a huge hole in his neck. The dwarf brought his sword that had been knocked high down and across with a final demonstration of strength.
Jerrie was caught off guard. The dwarf should have been dead but the unnatural blessing of the Chaos God gave him the ability to last just a little bit longer. He couldn’t avoid the blow, and was barely able to get his arms up in front of him. The bracers blocked the blow, but they worked both ways. Jerrie tried to deflect blows with the enchanted bracers not block them. The bracers threw the Chaos Dwarf’s sword army flying fast in the other direction, the dwarf following it. Jerrie’s arms were sent flying away from the incredibly powerful blow. He was thrown backward so hard that he bounced off of one of the Tiefes Loch dwarves behind him before they both slammed into the wall. Jerrie didn’t hear the cracking sound his head made bouncing off the wall.
Grundel threw his axe into the Chaos Dwarves formation. The Chaos dwarf in front of him brought his hammer up, deflecting the axe into the dwarf next to him. Grundel charged forward. He was bringing his axe down for the dwarf with the hammer, but he had to change directions at the last moment to block the sword coming in from his right. He blocked the sword, but the dwarf with the hammer was already swinging. He got his axe out in front of him in time to deflect the hammer but the force of the blow sent his axe flying from his hands. He couldn’t call either of his axes to him without having contact with one of them. The dwarf with the hammer stood between him and the dwarf who had caught his first axe in the chest.
Grundel pulled his dagger out of his belt. The Chaos Dwarf laughed. Grundel thrust with the dagger. The Chaos Dwarf didn’t even try to defend, expecting the dagger to bounce harmlessly of his Delvidge-enchanted steel skin. Firebringer punched through. The Chaos Dwarf roared in surprise and anger. Grundel pushed forward, driving the Chaos Dwarf back, tripping him over the body of his fallen brethren behind him. Grundel rode the dwarf to the ground as he burst into flame. Grundel rolled away from the burning dwarf. He slid Firebringer back into his belt as he pulled his axe free of the dwarf’s body. He called to his other axe. In front of him two Chaos Dwarves charged. He brought his axes up, but the dwarves never made it to him. Crossbow bolts flew past him on both sides, driving into the faces of both dwarves. Crossbow bolts couldn’t penetrate the armor of the Dwarves of Chaos. That meant that these weren’t normal crossbows.
Dobo brought the hammer he had retrieved down into the shoulder of one of the unnatural dwarves. He had done this early and his hammer hadn’t been very effective. When this hammer came down it crushed the shoulder, dropping the dwarf’s arm uselessly to his side. He brought the hammer up to block the strike that only one of these dwarves who were immune to pain could still deliver after a blow like that. Gobo’s sword came out, cutting into the dwarf’s chest. Gobo stepped around the falling dwarf to the next in line when crossbow bolts went flying by into the face of the dwarf.
“He was mine,” Dobo said, turning to confront the shooter as more bolts flew by him.
Grundel turned around, and there she was. Frau had led a group of dwarves from Shinestone up through the mountain and found them. The dwarves fired their enchanted crossbows at the last of the Chaos Dwarves. The shield wall of the Delvidge followers had been defeated and the other soldiers of Tiefes Loch were overrunning them. Grundel was making his way to his queen when he saw Jerrie. Frau followed his eyes and they both rushed to his side. Blood was pooling under his head.
“We can save him, Prince Stoneheart,” Putsch said.
Chapter Thirty
An Unexpected Ending
The dwarves of Tiefes Loch and Haufen poured onto the landing. The dwarves of Tiefes Loch who came rushing out of the entrance went over the wall. The shield wall of the dwarves of Bordin made its first step into the tunnels of Tiefes Loch. The dwarves on the shield wall of Shinestone and Haufen didn’t bother trying to strike through the gaps in the Tiefes Loch shield wall. They held their wall as the dwarves behind them fired their enchanted crossbows. The magical crossbows punched through the shields and armor of the dwarves of Tiefes Loch. The dwarves holding the shield wall continued to move forward, walking over the fallen dwarves. With no more Chaos Dwarves in the area, the dwarves of Tiefes Loch couldn’t match the weapons of the dwarves of Bordin.
All of a sudden the dwarves behind the shield wall erupted into shouts. Grizzle had just thrown his hammer into the Tiefes Loch shield wall when he heard what they were saying.
“General Moglin is dead. Bergmann is dead. We are saved.” They were passing the head of the general forward as proof. There were a couple of dwarves who turned on the others when they heard it, but they were quickly overtaken.
The dwarves in the front of the shield wall stepped back and dropped their weapons. Grizzle watched as his son walked up through the enemy army toward him. “You killed Bergmann?” Kraft asked.
“He’s dead, but we didn’t really kill him,” Grundel explained.
“What does that mean?” Kraft asked.
“He sacrificed his soul in order to get revenge,” Grundel said.
“He wouldn’t,” Frau said from behind him.
Grundel turned around. “He did. The mark of chaos appeared on the ground where his body was.”
“He did really did it,” Kraft said.
“That’s a problem for another day. Right now we need to deal with the rest of the Dwarves of Chaos,” Grizzle said.
“The dwarves of Tiefes Loch used one of the Chaos Dwarf’s swords to start cutting the weapons free of the other dead Chaos Dwarves. They are hunting the remaining Chaos Dwarves now,
and now they have weapons that will work on them,” Frau explained.
Kraft looked at Dobo. “About those weapons, was that one too much for you?”
“He must have needed a hand with his hammer,” Grundel said.
Dobo looked down at the hammer that still had the severed hand merged with the handle. He rested the base of the handle on the ground. Gobo put the flat of the blade against the side of the hammer’s handle. He slid the blade down and it cut through the hand. The thumb remained on the side of the handle and Gobo slid the blade of the sword down on that side, removing the thumb and leaving only the hammer’s handle.
Grizzle noticed the sword. “What happened to your weapons?”
“Moglin cut my axe in half with his sword, so I took his sword after we killed him. We killed Vorlauk Moglin,” Gobo said.
Grizzle put his hand on Gobo’s shoulder. “That’s not who he was anymore.”
“Kin is kin, no matter how evil they are,” Dobo said.
Grundel looked at the brothers who had been his grandfather’s most dependable fighters, the dwarves who had taught him to fight, and who had told him stories of his father when he couldn’t be there. “What do you mean kin? General Moglin was from Tiefes Loch and you are from Evermount. How can he be your kin?”
Dobo and Gobo looked at Grizzle. “It’s your secret he told them.”
Gobo looked at Grundel, who had been like a nephew. “We were hidden in Evermount by our mother. She was from Evermount. Bergen was her last name. Our father was Fliehen Moglin. He was General Moglin’s older brother. Our mother brought us to your grandfather. She asked him to make sure we were taken care of. When he asked where she was going, she told him who our father was, but that he could not reveal that or we would be in danger. She told him that she had a promise to keep and left us in Evermount.”
“That explains a lot,” one of the dwarf soldiers said, stepping forward.
Everyone turned to face him. “I am Arnolf Freund. I knew your father. A little more than a century ago, one of the trade caravans came from Evermount to Tiefes Loch. Fliehen was the General of the Tiefes Loch army. When the dwarves of other kingdoms came, the rest of the kingdom was forced into hiding to prevent the other kingdoms from finding out that the Bergmann line had forced Tiefes Loch into Delvidge. None of us ever knew what happened, but Fliehen left Tiefes Loch. King Bergmann sent a group of soldiers after him. He was never seen by any of us again.”
“What about our mother?” Gobo asked.
“I never heard anything about her. What I told you is all I know. The Bergmanns were very secretive.”
Dobo and Gobo nodded in acceptance.
“Where is Jerrie?” Grizzle asked.
“He was thrown into a wall. His head slammed against the wall. He’s not in good shape, but he is alive. The dwarves of Tiefes Loch have him right now. They say they can save him.” Grundel looked around. “Where’s Flucht?”
“He died a warrior’s death,” Kraft said.
They all stared at each other for a minute, letting it all sink in.
“You saved us,” the dwarf Arnolf said. “The dwarves of Tiefes Loch have been imprisoned for a long time. Most of the dwarves here don’t even know what it means to be a dwarf. Most of the dwarves of Tiefes Loch have never even heard the teachings of Bordin. King Stoneheart led us back to Bordin.”
“I am the King of Evermount. A new king will have to be put in charge of Tiefes Loch, but that will not be decided today. Let’s finish clearing out the rest of Delvidge’s dwarves. We will figure out the rest when we have to. Flucht Longblade saved you. He came to us. For centuries the Bergmanns have controlled the dwarves of Tiefes Loch. Flucht Longblade is the one who escaped and brought help,” Grizzle said.
Chapter Thirty-One
A Kingdom Saved
“Is it over?” Commander Boris asked as Grizzle, Grundel, Kraft, Frau, Dobo, and Gobo walked down to the bottom of the stairs.
“This fight is.” Grizzle looked down at Boris’s arm. “Are you ok?”
“The bleeding has stopped. I drank some poppy. It hurts a lot, but I’ll survive.”
Grizzle nodded and they walked down around the base of the mountain until they were under the upper landing. There they found dozens of dwarf bodies. Some Chaos Dwarves, some not. Among the dead, they found Flucht Longblade. Grundel bent down and rolled him off of the other Chaos Dwarf.
“That’s Gespann,” Gobo said.
“He fought them both,” Kraft said. Everyone turned to look at him. “Gusten is up on the landing. I saw him grab hold of Gespann and leap over the ledge just as I made the landing. He killed a couple other of the Chaos Dwarves on the way up and some other soldiers before he fought the brothers.”
“Look!” Frau said, pointing to Flucht’s chest as they rolled him over. The black tattoos that had adorned his chest were now inlaid gold.
“Bordin has taken the first of his children back from Delvidge,” Grizzle said. It was the only explanation.
They retrieved the body of Flucht. Grizzle wasn’t sure were Tiefes Loch buried their kings, but he planned to start a new catacomb of heroes. Flucht’s body would be the first. The Bergmann Catacomb would be sealed. Their line had ended today. “Take him inside and get him cleaned up. I want his armor to shine,” Grizzle told the dwarves of Tiefes Loch that were following them.
* * *
The next couple of days were spent just getting Tiefes Loch cleaned up and trying to figure out how to get the kingdom running. It didn’t take Grizzle long to see that the dwarves of Tiefes Loch looked to the army for leadership. The army had ruled over them for so long they expected the soldiers to tell them what to do and enforce the laws.
He appointed Arnolf Freund as the General of the Army. Tiefes Loch needed to change, but Grizzle knew that those changes would have to be made slowly. General Freund was invaluable at helping initiate those changes. The first thing that Grizzle did was reopen the chapel. Dwarves needed a place where they could get close to Bordin. They started having dwarves in the chapel teaching about Bordin multiple times a day. The dwarves of Tiefes Loch were beaten down. They had lost their pride and confidence. It would take a long time for these dwarves to find their identities. They needed to see what it was to be a dwarf. Dwarves from the other kingdoms would have to be moved to Tiefes Loch to kick start the kingdom. There were plenty of dwarves in Tiefes Loch to supplement the dwarves that came here. They had counted the dwarves of Tiefes Loch and found that there were nearly as many here as there were in Evermount and Haufen combined.
On the third day after Tiefes Loch was taken, there was a celebration. Kraft had collapsed the main entrance of Tiefes Loch with Big Finish during the invasion. They had decided to leave that entrance collapsed. To make it to the upper landing, you had to pass the lower landing, where the main entrance had been. On that landing they made the monument.
They had spent the last three days melting down the Chaos Dwarves’ bodies. The metal wouldn’t melt at normal temperatures and they had to increase the temperature in the furnaces so much that the dwarves couldn’t get close enough to remove the melted metal. They had to create extra-long handles to remove the crucibles.
The long straight tunnel that the gnome’s device had cut in the mountain made it possible to move the monument out of the mountain. Grizzle stood at the base of Tiefes Loch, watching as the 150-foot long sword casted from the steel skin of the Chaos Dwarves was raised up on the landing. The sword was a huge replica of Flucht’s sword. Word had spread through Tiefes Loch and it had been the dwarves of Tiefes Loch who had used his sword as the design for the monument. The black lines of Chaos in the armor had separated in the furnace, leaving just the steel. Watching the sword be raised over Tiefes Loch gave Grizzle hope for the kingdom that had been lost for so long.
* * *
Jerrie woke up on a very hard mattress. He felt like the back of his head was on fire. He reached up with his right hand and felt the cool smooth surface of a steel pl
ate. He pulled his hand away quickly. After a second, he reached back up. The plate was curved and formed to his head. Whatever was securing the plate to his skull must have been hidden under the skin that was now healing around the edges of the plate. If the skin was healing over the steel plate, he must have been unconscious for a days at least. He tried to remember what had happened. Slowly it began to come back to him and then he remembered the hammer of the dying Chaos Dwarf flying toward him.
He laid there for a while, letting his memories come back and trying to fight through the pain. His head was hurting so much that it hurt to open his eyes. He was squinting when Grundel came in.
“You’re awake,” Grundel shouted, his loud booming voice pounding into his head. He must have flinched because Grundel lowered his voice. “How do you feel?”
“Terrible. My head is pounding. What did they do to me?” Jerrie asked.
“The back of your skull was crushed. The bones were mush. Bergmann and his soldiers constantly abused the dwarves here, so they learned how to heal a lot of wounds. You are not the only one in Tiefes Loch with a steel plate screwed into your skull. They said that it would hurt badly for a couple more days, and it will slowly hurt less over the next couple of weeks. The Patria soldiers brought a bunch of poppy with them. They only had a handful of soldiers get wounded fighting through the mountain looking for us, so they had a lot left.”
Grundel poured a powder into a cup and filled it with water. He then stirred the cup and handed it to Jerrie. “The soldiers said that this will help with the pain, but it’s going to make you want to go back to sleep.”
Jerrie took the glass and drank it all. He didn’t really want to sleep but he would gladly take sleep over this pain. “How many did we lose?”
“The soldiers of Portwein lost two, but Commander Boris believes they will have to fight their way back into their own city. Patria lost fourteen soldiers. Shinestone lost two, Haufen lost twenty-one, and Evermount lost nineteen. The dwarves of Tiefes Loch lost 613. Most of their losses came from them fighting themselves.”
The Half Dwarf Prince Trilogy Page 58