“Thank you, Balom,” Emily said and kissed him on the cheek. The dwarf beamed with pleasure because he couldn’t resist a pretty face. “Now, I'll bring you your nephew!” she added.
“What!” Adam snatched at her arm. “You’re crazy! You can’t go out there. You’ve seen the enemy. You’ve taken your armour off…” he ended weakly, in a state of shock.
“Exactly!” Emily smiled and walked out of the door, down the stone, spiral staircase to the courtyard.
“Don’t worry, Adam.” Deductio put his arm around the boy’s shoulder. “Emily will be all right.” There was something so reassuring in Deductio’s words that Adam allowed himself to be led with the others to their observation post on the tower. From there, they all watched Emily in her blue jeans and red shirt, knife in hand, walk alone across the bridge towards the enemy and their infernal machine.
Emily was so sure about what she was doing that even the sight of the shouting, swearing, gesturing goblins didn’t bother her. She looked at the enemy rather like she would have looked at slugs or snails, with distaste, but not with fear, meaning that she walked head high, without hesitation towards the machine.
The girl’s state was the exact opposite of her brother’s. Adam stared with knotted stomach as Emily drew nearer Palustric. He watched the goblins turn in confusion for orders, and he heard Fray give them. In a sickened daze, he registered the enemy shouts and saw the first arrows winging towards his sister. Even as he supposed her death, he saw the air around Emily wobble and distort, like a heat haze over a road on a hot summer’s day. The arrows, spears and stones just seemed to pass through his sister as if she didn’t exist. Adam’s mind couldn’t take in the information his eyes provided.
“What’s going on?” he asked Deductio. The wizard only nodded and smiled.
“Is it magic?” he asked Sapiens.
“Nay,” replied the wise wizard, “it’s just the opposite.”
Adam rubbed his eyes. He watched Emily climb up onto the machine and hack at the ropes binding their friend, even if it was like watching a reflection in a pool disturbed by a lobbed stone. She seemed to ripple across to the other side of the machine and back again. As if in slow motion, he saw Fray and his hounds, with other hobgoblins clatter onto the bridge, and his heart sank.
Emily helped Palustric down from the machine and put her left arm under his. They turned towards the towers and ambled back; far too slowly, for Adam’s liking. Fray unleashed his hounds, which bounded past the machine towards them. Even from as far away as the top of the tower could be seen the bared, white fangs of the snarling beasts. Adam turned away, so he didn’t see the hounds leap completely through Emily and Palustric, skid and slither on the stone in angry confusion, before turning and leaping uselessly through them again and again. When he looked back, Fray and other hobgoblins were stabbing and hacking his sister and the dwarf to pieces—except that their blows seemed to be slicing through thin air. Emily and Palustric walked unconcernedly arm-in-arm along the bridge as if on a Sunday afternoon stroll.
Adam turned to Balom the Black. “I think I’m going completely out of my mind,” he said. “Is what’s happening real, or am I dreaming?”
“Then we share the same dream,” Balom boomed, “but so long as Palustric gets back safely—”
“Lar?”
“I haven't a saying for this, Master!” His squinting eyes were puzzled.
Emily and Palustric walked through the Twin Towers gateway with the cheers of the defenders ringing in their ears. Fray and his hobgoblins didn’t come too close to the walls, the first few elven arrows enough to keep them at bay.
Palustric was the centre of attention. To have him safe and in one piece was more than they could have hoped for. He told his story, though, in truth, he didn’t have much to tell: a tale of ill-treatment and discomfort in goblin hands. Indeed, his sunken cheeks and baggy eyes told the tale for him. He went off to clean up, eat wholesome food and rest so that their attention moved to Emily.
“I saw arrows pass through you as if you were made of air, or, at least, I thought…that is…well, I don’t know what I thought!” Adam’s face was the very portrait of confusion because his brain still couldn’t accept what his eyes had seen. Besides, Sapiens had told him that there had been no magic; therefore, the impossible had happened, which he knew was impossible!
“It’s difficult, Adam,” Emily said, “but I’ll try to explain. You see, life is like a film in the cinema. It’s made up of a lot of illusions. What we believe is what we see. Pride knows that better than anyone else: that’s what he plays on. The only person Pride can’t deceive is a simple person: the person armed with the truth and courage that only truth provides. That person sees reality and not an illusion. Are you with me so far?” She looked around at Adam, Balom, Lar and Tann and saw that they were all having trouble understanding. On the other hand, Xylor and Montor were nodding and smiling, while the four wizards were chatting among themselves, because they understood everything in the world, anyway. Emily sighed at this thought—how wonderful to have so much knowledge! She tried again. “What happened out there was that I challenged Pride on his preferred ground. The wizards gave me the truth and courage to cut Palustric loose. This was the last thing Pride expected, and he couldn’t cope with it. His world of illusions went into tilt. So, his soldiers couldn’t harm me; let’s say that they weren’t in the same reality. Clear?” She smiled happily at her brother.
Adam frowned. It was no use; he didn’t have a clue. He struggled to make sense of what his sister was saying, “Do you mean that the goblins and all can’t hurt us?”
“I wish that were true,” Emily said. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to fight them.”
“Well, I don’t understand then.” Adam shook his head.
Emily smiled at him again, a very sweet smile. “Don’t worry, Adam, I know you will one day.”
Deductio caught Adam’s eye and nodded reassuringly. “You will,” he promised.
Adam scratched his head in his usual way. “Well, in any case, the important thing is that Palustric is safely back here.”
“None of us is safe,” Sapiens said quietly.
“Ah!” Lar squeaked suddenly, startling everyone, “Truth is a torch which flickers in the fog, without dispelling it, is it not so, Mistress?”
Emily, the wizards and the two elves laughed. “You have understood, Lar.” Veritas’s kind eyes looked gently at the pixy. “Now all your sayings will hold much more sense for you, is it not so, Lar?”
The little, greenish face spread into a huge grin. “Ay, ’tis just so, oh truthful one.”
“Pfffffh!” Adam blew out his cheeks in exasperation and stomped across to the window. It seemed that he was the only person who didn’t understand anything: first, arrows which passed through people and, now, a pixy who talked mysteriously about torches in fog. He couldn’t take any more!
38
Just as he reached the window, agonised screams from the walls above filled the room. Xylor joined him at the window but leapt back, dragging Adam with him. “The Spitfire!” he cried as smoke wafted into the room and more screams reached them. Suddenly, there came loud hammering at the door, and when they opened it, a band of excited dwarves burst in. They all waved their arms and shouted at the same time. One black-faced dwarf, his clothes charred and still smouldering, was pushed forward as living proof. In all the shouting, Adam heard the word dragon repeated several times. At the same time, he heard the beating of huge wings outside. Just in time, he turned to see Lentor circling the tower and blowing fire at the battlements above, from where the occasional arrow bounced harmlessly off his armoured scales.
“Oh, no!” Adam groaned and thought out loud. “Lentor! If only I’d known, I’d never have told you the solution to the riddle, then you wouldn’t be here now. You’ve come for the Key! Now what?”
As if in answer to his murmured question, for the second time in the space of a day, he saw a wizard transform
into a falcon: this time, it was Deductio. With a screech, the falcon took off and passed Adam at the window like an arrow. Out into the open, the falcon wheeled and, in an instant, transformed into another dragon, whose great talons latched on to Lentor and dragged him screeching down to the river bank.
There the two dragons faced each other. Even from high on the battlements, they could sense Lentor’s great fury and hatred. Deductio’s strangely dragon-like, hissing voice drifted up to them too: “So, you seek the Key? You shall not have it till you have defeated me in riddling:
“In the morning he has four legs,
At midday, he has two
And in the evening, he has three!”
“What is it, Lentor? Tell me if you can!”
“Oh, no! Here we go again,” Adam thought. “At least that’ll keep Lentor quiet. I've no idea, myself. I’ll work on it, though!” He looked down and saw the two dragons glaring at each other in hostile silence. Lentor was working on it, too.
“Thank goodness we’ve got the wizards on our side,” Emily said, who had joined him at the window. She was wearing her white armour again. “Lentor had already killed about twenty of our men. He would have roasted the lot of us if Deductio hadn’t been here.”
“Maybe not,” Adam said proudly, but Emily gave him such a look that he at once felt ashamed of his boastfulness: “Em, we’re changing, aren’t we?” he said, abashed.
“Yes,” she took his hand and squeezed it, “we are – I don’t think we’ll ever be quite the same again.”
That night, the defenders in the towers slept uneasily. With the dawn, the guards reported that Lentor and Deductio were on their fifth riddle.
“On their fifth!” Adam gasped. “I still haven’t worked out the first!”
“Don’t you know that one, Adam?” Emily said, “I do!”
“You do?”
“Yes, it’s Man, first when he’s an infant on all fours, finally, when he’s old with a walking stick.”
“Brilliant!” Adam said. “Well done!”
“Not really,” Emily smiled. “You see, it's a famous riddle, the Sphinx asked Oedipus—”
Adam looked at his sister with appreciation. He’d always been close to her, but she had hidden depths. He’d always thought she took no notice of learning, and now there was this new, modest version of Emily, too—he liked her this way.
The other news was that the enemy was very active on the opposite bank. By mid-morning, the reason was clear. The foe began to cross the river on hundreds of rafts. The fateful moment had arrived to fight the battle. In counsel, Adam persuaded the ten leaders that it was better to fight on the open ground than to lose their strength undergoing a long siege, even if they were outnumbered. They had two advantages, he said: they could choose their ground and formation, and no-one had finer armour or weapons than the dwarves. He decided that only the mountain elves with Sapiens should remain in the towers, while the dwarves would try to drive the enemy back under the towers so that the elfin archers could shoot down on them. The pixies and brownies were to take the flanks, moving quickly on their dogs to harry the enemy with slingshots. Valens would lead the central column of dwarves, Adam the right, Emily and Balom, the left.
Emily gaped in amazement at her brother. Only yesterday he didn’t seem to have a clue how to be a Supreme Commander; now he was convincing even the wizards that he knew what to do!
Xylor and his forest elves opened the battle, loosing arrows into the goblins as their rafts approached the river bank, and many goblins took no further part in the battle. But their numbers were enormous; like a black tide, they swamped over the bank and against the Dwarfish axe-men.
The dark-skinned hobgoblins in their iron armour, swinging poison-spiked maces on chains were so strong that the dwarves were forced steadily backwards. The hobgoblins wore domed, riveted helms with side-plates that protected but also covered most of their hideous faces. Yellow fangs lined a wide mouth around a thick red tongue. In battle, they frothed at the mouth at the joy of killing, and their broad flat nostrils flared open, while their eyes were small, red slits that burned like embers in a grate.
The battle raged all day and did not go according to that morning’s plan. At first, with their speed, the pixies and brownies on their dogs had great success. Using their slings, they drove the spriggans, on the goblin flanks, back into the river, where the forest elves picked them off with arrows. No spriggans survived the battle, but the pixies could make no impression on the goblin flanks. When the enemy sent the Elves of Adversity in support, they had to retreat because the elfin arrows picked off too many dogs.
At the centre of the battlefield, the hobgoblins and goblins pressed the dwarves hard. The steady retreat would have been a rout if it hadn’t been for the quality of the dwarfish armour. The stoutest Dwarfish resistance was around Valens, where the hobgoblins could make no inroads. Sensing this, Fray led an assault on the left. Here, with his four hell-hounds, he came face to face with Balom the Black. Gleefully, the foul hobgoblin captain unleashed his savage beasts on the dwarf. Balom’s axe smashed between the eyes of the leading hound, but he had no time to repeat the blow. In an instant, he disappeared below the other snarling fangs.
Horrified, Emily spun Blitz round so that the mighty stallion reared up, crashing his hooves down time and again on the dodging hounds. Palustric, who had been fighting near his uncle, finished off a goblin and rushed to meet Fray. Laughing horribly, the hobgoblin swung his mace around his head with his knotted, ape-like arm. With his first blow, Fray dashed the battle-axe from Palustric’s grip. With his second blow, he sent the dwarf crashing to the ground. But for the skill of the dwarfish smiths in the making of his armour, the poisoned spikes would have already pierced Palustric’s flesh. Fray leapt forward for the kill, but blinded by his bloodlust, his desire to finish the dwarf that had escaped their fiendish machine. He didn’t see the flash of Emily’s sword. Arcing down from Blitz’s back, the keen, Dwarfish blade sliced into the small gap between the cheek-plate of Fray’s helm and his breastplate. Black blood spurted from his neck, and with a surprised, agonised cry, Fray turned his hate-filled, red eyes up to Emily, who coldly watched the burning embers spend their life-flame.
At the sight of their fallen leader, the hobgoblins lost heart and, turning, ran in disorder towards the river. Palustric, though dazed, was on his feet. Frantically, he pulled the heavy bodies of the hounds from his uncle and, tears in his eyes, gently took the helmet from the elderly dwarf’s head, which he cradled against his chest. In the fading daylight, Palustric kissed his uncle for the last time.
Over on the right flank, it was the dwarves who were in full retreat. On Oakman, despite his own valour with the sword, Adam believed that the battle was being lost right at the end of the day. All around him, dwarves’ bodies littered the ground. He was exhausted after a long day’s fighting, in which there had hardly been any time to rest.
The dwarves around him finally broke rank, fleeing in the face of another goblin assault. Adam, left alone on Oakman, was surrounded by so many goblins that it would be only a matter of time before he was dragged off his horse and hacked to death. So, Adam thought, now is the time! He reached for the Dwarfish horn that Balom had given him, hanging at his belt. The moment had come. He raised it to his lips and blew with all his might. A long, deep vibrating note of great beauty came from the horn, causing the goblins pressing around him to drop their swords and cover their tufted ears with their hands.
Adam let the horn fall to his side and looked around. Nothing had changed. The goblins were scrambling around on the ground for their swords to hack at him again. Adam was bitterly disappointed. He had only blown the horn in a moment of grave danger as Balom had instructed him. He hadn’t known what to expect, but he hadn’t expected nothing. He urged Oakman forward and started stabbing and parrying with his sword again. At least, he would take as many of the goblins with him if he had to die. He didn’t want to die. He was too young! He was only th
irteen, after all! The thought drove him into a frenzy of hacking and parrying as if he weren’t tired at all. Some minutes passed, in which he fought desperately for his life when, suddenly, he became aware of great agitation among the goblins. Some were grabbing their comrades and pointing up at the sky.
A black triangle, growing ever larger, was coming from the east. Adam, who was momentarily no longer under attack, gazed up, too. He wasn’t sure what the triangle was, but it was coming his way very quickly. Soon enough, he realised that the triangle was a vast formation of birds. As they drew closer, their cry Kveck, kveck became deafening. Only to be matched by the ringing cheers of the dwarves, who were re-grouping behind Adam.
With cruel talons thrust out in front of them, hundreds of eagle owls plunged from the sky. They tore the helms from the frantic goblins and swooped again for their eyes. The goblins slashed futilely at the air with their swords, but soon they fled in desperation, shedding armour and throwing themselves in the river to get away from the vengeful birds.
Adam took the horn in his hand, looking at the metal birds with the same flat face and ear tufts as the owls swooping in the dusk around him. He remembered Balom’s lesson in Dwarfish history. With a great cheer, Adam stood up in his stirrups and shook the horn aloft in one hand and his sword in the other: “Victory!” he shouted at the top of his voice out of the sheer joy of still being alive.
39
And victory it was! But at a cost: apart from Balom, Xylor and Tann and, most surprisingly, the wizard, Valens, all lay dead on the battlefield. The exhausted victors buried the dead by torchlight, tramping silently along the river, past Lentor’s huge body (riddled to death), back to the Twin Towers.
They sat in sombre mood around the usual candlelit table, reduced from ten to six, plus Palustric. Emily had used the word victory, but Sapiens shook her grey head. “It’s not so much a victory,” she said, “as time gained before the next inevitable clash. Things are always the same: the wheel whirls and the world changes, but, in reality, it never changes. Take the elves, for instance; they were already a dwindling folk. Today many forest elves have lost their lives. We have lost our brother, Valens, while the goblins grow ever stronger.”
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