The Fate of the Dwarves

XXXII

The Outer Lands,

The Black Abyss,

Early Summer, 6492nd Solar Cycle

Ireheart was burning to give the command to attack, but it was not his place, even if the duel between famulus and master had now ended. Slin’s action had been against all the rules but had certainly decided the outcome. He had no objection to what the fourthling had done.

Tungdil reached Bloodthirster and was pulling it out of the muddy swamp with both hands when suddenly the warriors of the vraccasium-clad dwarf turned invisible. “Armies! Attack!” ordered the one-eyed dwarf. “Attack and kill!”

The dwarf-army charged forward, racing to where the opponents had been. All were uneasy, knowing they might be struck by blades they could sense but not see.

The ubariu, humans and undergroundlings moved swiftly in.

Lot-Ionan’s fingers sent blue energy flashes at the master, but the badly injured dwarf raised his right hand for long enough to catch the beams in the smoke diamond of his gauntlet; the gem glowed, but that was all that happened.

Ireheart saw their own magus grow paler by the moment and heard him call out to Coira. Confound it, so things are getting hard for him? She nodded reluctantly and pointed her left arm at the enemy. Lot-Ionan did the same. They must be wanting to combine forces on this.

The first of the transformed enemies must have reached the ranks of the army where fighting could now be seen. Their terror-inducing scythe-like weapons were coming into their own, the cutting edge slicing through soldiers, mowing them down, severing flesh, sinew and bone in one lethal semicircle after another. Heaps of mutilated warriors piled up all around. The invisible creatures worked their way through the army as if it were a cornfield at harvest time. Those struck not by blade but by spiked shaft were thrown off their feet and tossed, mortally wounded, through the air, landing among their own comrades. The enemy could not be seen.

The effect on the army was obvious.

On all four fronts the advance halted, many warriors turning tail in terror as they heard the whirr of approaching scythes.

The second battalion of opponents, armed with axes and swords, seemed to have formed small groups and were rampaging through the army lines, making inroads through the throng. None survived their blows.

How can these fiends be tackled? Ireheart saw that the warriors next to Coira were being hurled through the air. Holy forge-fire! One of the invisible enemies must be approaching the maga! Lot-Ionan was still immersed in fabricating his spell as she stopped what she was doing and sprang aside with a shout.

Ireheart ran over to defend Coira, puzzling over how he could make their opponents visible again.

The battle raged around them, the warriors desperately trying to defend themselves against their invisible adversaries but only succeeding in laying a few of them low. Hard to locate and harder still to fight. Worse still, it took an incredible number of blows to bring them down; as well as their invisibility they had their armor and shields for protection.

Ireheart had lost sight of Tungdil while trying to help the maga. Coira possessed the power to defend herself but was retreating from the fray, shrieking in terror. Hers was no warrior spirit.

Lot-Ionan, meanwhile, had sent his magic force against the fallen master-the rays were met once again by a freshly erected barrier! Flames licked around the sides of a bright red dome before dying out.

“Stupid fool! See what you’ve done through your cowardice!” The magus cursed Coira, who had tripped over the hem of her dress, tumbling to the boggy ground. The accident fortuitously saved her from the invisible sweep of the scythes, for to her right and left dwarves were felled mercilessly, injured and mutilated. Blood and severed limbs abounded.

Ireheart had almost reached her but could not believe how Lot-Ionan was behaving-ignoring Coira instead of helping her up. He was making for the magic barrier behind which Tungdil’s former master was already pulling the crossbow bolt out of his head. The wound closed up as soon as the tip of the bolt had left the skull and he jumped to his feet as if nothing had happened. He could not be slain with ordinary weapons.

“Vraccas, we need your assistance!” Ireheart saw more dwarves cut to ribbons while others plunged frantically into the swamp; blood and mud splashed up. He stared at the ground and noted the huge footprints of his opponents.

“I’ve got you,” he growled, taking a running leap to aim a blow at where he supposed the creature’s neck to be. He brought down the crow’s beak with all his might. The spike shattered something and a loud cry rang out. Thudding into metal, the dwarf held on to the shaft of his weapon as firmly as he could while his adversary bucked and tossed under him like an unbroken horse trying to throw off a rider.

But Ireheart was having none of that. Refusing to loosen his grip, he hung suspended with his feet a pace and a half above the ground, swinging wildly and cackling with laughter. “Rear and buck all you like! It’s no use! You won’t get rid of me!” He quickly drew his knife out with one hand, clamping it between his teeth. Then he pulled himself up with both hands along the shaft of his crow’s beak until he reached the ax head, then plunged his knife into the wound until the blood ran free. “How do you like that, long legs?” he growled, rootling around in the flesh until he got through to a bone, where he anchored the knife.

“Off to Tion with you!” Ireheart clung onto the dagger in order to gain leverage to extract the crow’s beak, which he wielded in an upward swing.

There was a clang as the spike met and pierced metal. The bucking motion ceased and the dwarf was pitched forward and down as the invisible warrior crashed down at Coira’s feet. Ireheart picked himself up and stood on the creature’s neck, hands around the crow’s beak. “Ho! That was none too easy,” he called out to the maga, as he pulled his weapon out of the body of the fallen foe. Visible now in death, its enormous dimensions could be fully seen.

Ireheart stepped over the head and hopped down to where the maga was standing on the soft ground. “Girdlegard needs you!” he urged her, proffering his bloodied gloved hand. “Get over your fear and concentrate on your magic powers or things will end badly.” He pointed to the barrier. “Help Lot-Ionan!”

Coira’s eyes fluttered; she was in a panic, not even daring to grasp the dwarf’s hand. “I can’t,” she whispered. “I’m too frightened.”

With a hissing sound the swamp started to boil and bubble. Jets spurted up twenty paces high all over the battlefield, deluging the warriors. The impact knocked many of them over and the soft mud covered their armor, helmets, eyes… It also covered the invisible giant hordes! The coat of dirt made them instantly detectable and the dwarves made immediate use of this fact.

That will have been Goda’s work! thought Ireheart, proud as could be.

Coira was still staring at him blankly, refusing to budge, so he turned and ran to the barrier. Stupid human women! Out of the corner of his eye he saw Balyndar, Tungdil and Lot-Ionan hurrying over to her.

Ireheart grinned. The quartet would surely prove too much for the dwarf in the posh armor. “You’ve been a master, now you’ll be an ex-master,” he smirked.

One by one they too arrived at the barrier, through which they spied the master and the last of his followers.

“Go on,” Ireheart urged the magus. “Get the barrier down so we can do for him!”

Lot-Ionan paid no attention. His fingers were making shapes in the air.

Tungdil stepped up to the barrier and banged on it with Bloodthirster. It pinged like glass. “Our duel is not yet over. Your fighters are being defeated, as you can see. Would it not spur you on to see me dead even if you have lost them all?”

“He who bears many names,” the nearest enemy fighter spoke up, “announces that the battle is not over. But until then,” and suddenly the barrier moved to encompass Tungdil, locking him in, “he will fight you and punish you.” Then he lifted his black bugle and blew a blast on it. Numerous holes in the instrument allowed him to play a range of notes, as if on a flute.

“No!” called Ireheart, smashing his crow’s beak into the shield. It hummed but did not disintegrate. “Let me in!”

Balyndar grabbed him by the shoulder and forced him to look at the ravine. “What do we do now?”

Ireheart pulled himself out of Balyndar’s grip. “Don’t you touch me…” Then he noticed what all the others were staring at.

Another kordrion had appeared in the cleft. The head was smaller than the fully grown version-but then one head after another popped up. The beast revealed itself to the armies of Girdlegard.

“A kordrion with four heads,” groaned Ireheart.

Tungdil had taken up the fight with his former master while the shimmering protective shield expanded in size once more. The dwarves and Lot-Ionan had to step back.

Ireheart cursed and looked at the magus, who was still casting spells but having no success on his own. “Goda!” he called. “Goda, we need you!”

“Disappear!” Balyndar struck the magic hemisphere, but Keenfire had no effect. It bounced off and nearly injured its owner with the spike.

The giant bugler sounded another range of notes and, in response, the kordrion hissed and charged the nearest ubariu soldiers, breathing a sea of white fire over them. Spewing out flames in three directions at once, the four-headed creature was inflicting carnage on the troops. At a further signal it unfolded its wings, took off and landed in the very heart of the ubariu, crushing many of the valiant warriors; two of the creature’s heads snapped and bit at them while the other two sent out the deadly white fire.

“Come, on, wizard!” Ireheart bellowed at Lot-Ionan. “We need to get that trumpet thing.”

Meanwhile, the bout between Tungdil and his master was progressing; they were well matched. Neither was gaining the upper hand, each succeeding in inflicting cuts and dents on the armor of the other. The runes stayed still. Ireheart did not know why.

Goda turned up, breathing heavily. “I can only do one last spell,” she admitted.

“And that’s just the one I need,” said Lot-Ionan, facing forward without even glancing at her. “Do you know the Sarifanie words?”

“Remember, you taught me that one shortly before I quit,” she replied. “It is not good magic.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Ireheart fumed at her. “Not now, Goda! Help him to break down the barrier or the kordrion will destroy one army after another!” He waved his weapon, noticing how the blood had dried on it.

The dwarf-woman was obviously extremely reluctant but she stepped up next to her former mentor and put her left hand in his right. Each of them pointed at the barrier with the forefinger of their free hand, then shut their eyes.

At that moment Tungdil was stunned by a hammer blow to the head that hurled him right over to the edge of the barrier, barely a hand’s breadth away from Ireheart. His helmet had fallen off and blood was coursing down from a cut on the forehead.

What…? Eyes wide in horror Ireheart stared at his friend’s face: It was covered in black lines, just like an enraged alf, the lines spreading out from the golden eye patch. Ireheart half expected the whole face to shatter into pieces like broken pottery.

Tungdil shook himself and warded off the next blow, striking the master in the face with the jagged edge of Bloodthirster. The sharp tips stabbed through the skin to the bone beneath, lodging fast.

The dwarf in the vraccasium armor hit out blindly and Tungdil grabbed his hand, broke the wrist and snatched the hammer. Then he swerved aside. Smashing it down on Bloodthirster’s blade, he drove the sharpened tips further into his opponent’s face.

The master fell on his back and tried to crawl away from Tungdil, blood pouring from the neck wound and staining the ground.

A further signal was sounded on the enemy bugle.

Dropping its pursuit of the decimated ubariu, the four-headed kordrion launched itself onto the group of humans, wings flapping. They did not even try to offer resistance, but took flight at once.

The catapults on the battlements had started up. Losses among their own troops should shots go astray were regrettable but a four-headed kordrion could not be allowed to survive. Clouds of arrows and spears darkened the battlefield as battle raged against the beast.

Ireheart paid no attention to the battle. He wanted to be with his friend, and it was his friend under the magic dome. I have to get in there!

The final monster warrior drew his sword, about to intercede in the duel.

Tungdil kept his cool and raised the hammer. With all his might he slammed the hammer down-once, twice, three times-onto Bloodthirster, driving the blade right through the skull of the convulsing enemy, until the head was split in two. The sharp movements of arms and legs ceased; the limbs flopped back and were still. The famulus had taken the life of his master.

“Huzzah!” yelled Ireheart, beside himself. “He’s done it!”

Smiling grimly, Tungdil pulled Bloodthirster out of the carcass and aimed the tip of it at the final enemy, whose approaching steps were slowing now.

A loud high sound, like a storm whistling through a canyon, reverberated around them and the barrier flickered and disappeared.

“Scholar, leave Long Legs to me!” bellowed Ireheart, charging with his weapon raised high at the enemy. The monster, having been unable to save his leader’s life, raised the fateful bugle to his lips once more, forcing Ireheart to an action dwarves only contemplate if they are carrying a second weapon on their person: He hurled the crow’s beak.

The weapon hummed across toward the opponent, its spike striking him just as he was about to sound the first note, penetrating his helmet and destroying his brain. The giant fell, bugle clattering to the ground and bursting into tiny pieces.

“Ha!” rejoiced Ireheart, fists in the air, as he turned toward his friends. “Did you see that…” His jaw dropped.

Goda had sunk to her knees in front of Lot-Ionan; their hands were still joined. She was convulsed in pain, her face a grimace, and her breath coming in rapid gasps.

Lot-Ionan’s other arm was pointing forward, with a lilac ball of energy floating above his palm emitting rays of light in sudden jets. Then the color turned to deep green.

“I knew the dwarves would be able to manage without me,” he said, laughing. “I saved my magic for now.”

Balyndar was about to fall on the magus, but suddenly all the discarded weapons rose up out of the swamp and aimed themselves at him.

“Nobody comes near me unless I permit them to.” Lot-Ionan looked at the kordrion. “A useful animal. It is keeping the army occupied for me so I’ll have less killing to do before I go back to Girdlegard. My dream of reigning supreme is coming true.” He made a bow to Tungdil. “Thanks to you, foster-son. Without you I should never have achieved all this.”

“There you are,” Balyndar crowed. “He is a traitor!”

“No. Quite the opposite,” continued the magus. Lightning flashed out of the sphere, hitting Tungdil’s armor. Not a single rune shimmered in defensive warning. The energy struck his breast and hurled him backwards, where he fell next to the corpse of his former master. “He meant what he said. Only I don’t hold with making bargains and pacts with creatures who are not worthy of my discourse. However, he gave me the opportunity to concern myself more closely with the protective spells on the armor.” Lot-Ionan smirked. “Very helpfully.”

“I’m going to cut you right out of your stupid hood.” Ireheart took a threatening step forward.

“Take one more step and your wife will be blown into tiny pieces,” the magus warned him calmly.

Ireheart stopped short. “What are you waiting for then? Why don’t you go ahead and kill us both now?”

“I may need you again.” Lot-Ionan followed the kordrion’s movements as it rampaged through the undergroundlings’ ranks, killing its victims with swift bites. “On the other hand it should be sufficient if I just have you stuffed.”

The swords floating in front of Balyndar advanced. He managed to deflect three blades, but then the next ones dug into his flesh, stabbing him in the body, arms and legs. Only neck and head remained whole. He tipped over into the swamp, moaning, and lost consciousness.

“Enough!” thundered a clear voice. “I can stop you, Lot-Ionan. Your days as an insane magus are over at last!”

Ireheart was flabbergasted to see Rodario on the battlefield. In his right hand he was holding a smoke diamond… the very smoke diamond Ireheart had once handed back to Tungdil after it had been dropped in Evildam!

“This artifact will seal your destruction!” The actor spoke clearly, enunciating his words and projecting his voice as if this were the climax of a tragedy on stage. As he approached the small group he said, “I know its power and shall use it without a second thought, no matter how you may have served us in the past.” He held the stone out in front of himself as if it were a shield.

Lot-Ionan raised his eyebrows then laughed outright. “An actor, am I right? Looks like Rodario and talks like him. An excellent performance. But completely useless.” He sent a magic beam that focused precisely on the stone.

The smoke diamond flared up in Rodario’s fingers and crumbled instantly to black powder.

“By Samusin! I could have sworn it was going to be really important,” said a disappointed Rodario.

“No, it wasn’t,” gloated the magus. “Let us bring this to an end, before…”

Half a dozen red flashes shot out, crackling behind him. Lot-Ionan was forced forward and stumbled over Goda; she tore herself free and drew her dagger to stab the magus in the throat, but his sphere of energy halted her action by thrusting itself against her forehead. She collapsed without a word.

“Goda!” Ireheart raced forward, forgetting that his crow’s beak was still stuck in the enemy he had been fighting.

Covered in filth, Coira was less than ten paces away from them waving her hands for another spell. Finally she had been able to overcome her paralyzing terror.

Lot-Ionan stayed on his knees, also working on a spell.

There was a humming sound and a crossbow bolt slammed through the magus’s back into his heart. Slin had scored once more, but Lot-Ionan was still alive, the danger that he might loose a final violent magic strike still remaining.

Shrieking with fury, Ireheart raced over, snatching up Keenfire as he passed. Whirling it above his head he followed through with a horizontal blow to Lot-Ionan’s throat.

A sparkling trail appeared in the ax-head’s wake and a wave of heat wafted back to the dwarf-and then he hit home!

The sharply polished diamonds cleaved the wizard’s neck so that the head flew off in a wide arc. The torso fell to one side and landed in the dirt, stump-side down.

“Vraccas!” cried Ireheart with a gasp, not quite able to take in the significance of his heroic deed. He stared at Lot-Ionan’s head and saw that the lips were still moving and a smile had appeared on the features; then the eyes rolled up into the skull and the sheen of life was extinguished. “What? Did he…?”

Tungdil was suddenly at his side. There was no evidence now in his countenance of those horrific black lines. “Break him open!” he demanded through clenched teeth, his right hand clutching the hole in his own breastplate armor. “Didn’t you hear me?” When the astonished dwarf failed to react, Tungdil grabbed the dagger and brutally slit the dead man’s body from top to bottom.

A green glow flared in the carcass, getting steadily stronger and making the red flesh transparent. Smoke curled up with a smell of burning.

“By all the infamous ones!” Tungdil searched in the steaming guts, arms up to his elbows covered in blood. Then his fist closed and he pulled something out, together with a handful of flesh.

Ireheart could hear hissing inside the gauntleted grip, like the sound of water sizzling on a red-hot stove. “What, by Vraccas, is that?”

“It’s the fragment of malachite,” his friend replied briskly as he got to his feet. “All of you, run to the fortress,” he commanded as he charged off to the ravine.

“What? Why, Scholar, why?”

“Run as far and fast as you can!” shouted Tungdil, charging on down the path to the abyss until he was swallowed up in the shadows. Ireheart attempted to help Goda up but she did not move, so he threw her across his shoulder. “Hey there, actor! Go and get Balyndar!” He snatched his bugle from his belt and gave the dwarves the signal to retreat.

Coira watched the ravine in disbelief. “He has made fools of all of us!”

“What do you mean?” said Ireheart, looking at the kordrion which, though weighed down by a mass of spears and arrows, was still continuing to wreak havoc on the troops in its vicinity. Spreading its wings it climbed the rocks of the Black Abyss, then slid down in an attempt to launch itself into the air above the plain. There seemed no way for them to prevent its escape.

“He has taken the force of the magus with him!” The maga gulped. “There was immense power in that crystal splinter. That was how Lot-Ionan was able to store up all his magic!”

Meanwhile, Rodario had hauled Balyndar out of the swamp and tossed him onto his shoulder like a sack of flour. “You lot and your armor,” he complained. “It just adds to the weight.”

The dwarf-army obeyed Ireheart’s clarion call and the remaining soldiers retreated from the field of battle.

“Yes, but what’s he going to do with it?” protested Boindil in defense of his friend, countering the queen’s accusations. “He has surely proved he is on our side…”

Before Coira could reply there was an enormous crash in the Black Abyss, followed by a quaking of the earth that threw them all off their feet; then came the explosion.

Ireheart twisted round to see what was happening.

Parts of the fortress had collapsed, with great wall sections falling down, taking the men on the battlements to their doom.

The chasm was suffused with a ghostly dark-green incandescent glow. A broad beam shot up vertically toward the sky and then a second detonation occurred, lifting rocks around the ravine’s edges. Finally the earth subsided, bringing the cliffs down with it.

It all happened so quickly that the kordrion had not been able to reach a safe distance. As it flapped wildly to get away it was struck by hurtling debris that half buried it. It disappeared with a screech into the collapsing ravine, turning to ash when it came into contact with the glare.

A third explosion hurled molten rock into the air. It spattered as far as the fleeing armies, creating new victims. Smoke and steam rose up, obscuring the view.

The battlefield was silent now.

“No.” Ireheart stared into the veil of steam and dirt. “Coira, can you get rid of this fog? I have to know what’s happening.” He stood up, groaning, and laid Goda down on her cloak. She was still breathing, so he was less concerned about her than about the welfare of his friend.

The maga did what he had requested and called up a mild breeze to waft away the curtain, even though clouds of dirt and steam still persisted.

The Black Abyss had gone; lava bubbled in its place, the black heart-blood of the mountains sealing up the chasm. Evildam had lost a good third of its walls and, as far as he could make out through the smoke, only a few of the human and ubariu warriors were still alive. The dwarf-fighters, men and women alike, had done better than the others because the kordrion had never reached their ranks.

“He has made the ultimate sacrifice,” he muttered gruffly. “The Scholar knew what would happen and gave his life for us!” Tears filled his eyes. “Vraccas, you have admitted the greatest of your heroes to your eternal forge today.”

“There!” cried Rodario with a happy laugh. “Can you see what I see?”

Ireheart glanced to the left-and gave a shout of joy: Through the smoke and ash a dwarf came swaying and stumbling, clad in battered tionium; he was using Bloodthirster as a crutch and limping over toward them.

“Scholar!” Ireheart rejoiced. “Oh, Vraccas, if I ever strike it rich I’ll offer all my wealth at your shrine! It’ll be worth it! Worth it a thousand times over!”

The armies on the plain and fortress walls had seen Tungdil. The chorus of voices cheering their hero was louder than any shouts of joy Ireheart had heard before. He wept with emotion.

Tungdil was badly burned; lava had cooled and hardened on his chest, and blood was pouring from a gaping wound in his side. But still he had walked smiling out of the inferno and was now waving to the humans, the ubariu, the undergroundlings and his own folk.

“That’s my Scholar,” sobbed Ireheart.

“I knew we’d do it,” said Slin, shaking hands with Ireheart. “A good job we trusted him.”

The dwarves, injured or otherwise, sank to their knees before the high king: Even Ireheart and Slin, who was putting a new bolt in his bow to be on the safe side, bowed to show respect.

The wave spread.

Humans, elves, ubariu and undergroundlings bowed before Tungdil Goldhand as the trumpets blared. Tungdil walked steadily onward until he had nearly reached his friend.

I knew it! Ireheart was the first to get to his feet, intending to give Tungdil a hearty embrace, high king or no.

Suddenly Kiras sprang past him and he felt a jerk at his arm as she raced toward the Scholar. He realized too late that the undergroundling had grabbed Keenfire out of his grasp.

“This is not Tungdil Goldhand! This weapon can’t be fooled like you can.” Kiras shrieked, holding the legendary ax in both hands. “See how the diamonds sparkle! What more proof do we need?” She delivered a strike.

Slin uttered a curse and lifted his weapon, aiming and firing in one smooth movement.

The bolt struck Kiras from behind, finding her heart, but at the same time the ax sliced through the tionium armor, through the ribs and into Tungdil’s heart. They fell dying into each other’s arms, to sink into the swamp.

The trumpeting stopped abruptly and a mass cry of horror resounded on all sides.

“No!” Ireheart ran up. He dragged the undergroundling’s body off Tungdil, levered Keenfire out of the wound and surveyed the horrific injury, which was pouring blood. A conventional healer would be unable to do anything at all.

“Coira,” he yelled, beside himself. “Come here and save him, maga!”

She stepped forward slowly and shook her head sorrowfully. With a voice thick with tears she said, “I can’t. I have nothing left. I used it all to produce the wind you asked for…”

Ireheart lifted his friend’s head and washed away the mud from his face using water from his drinking pouch. “This must not be allowed to happen, ye gods,” he shouted. “You cannot let the hero of Girdlegard and the Outer Lands die!”

“It… was… not… Tungdil,” breathed Kiras, contorting her body and moaning. “The gems on the ax… I had to do it…” Her eyes dimmed.

“IT WAS HIM!” cried Ireheart, staring at Keenfire. The diamonds were still glowing but Boindil knew that the cause was him-a result of the elf curse-not Tungdil. “It was him!” he echoed quietly, weeping at the death of his friend.

Goda opened her eyes.

She had heard everything and had only pretended to be in a swoon so that her husband would not be able to demand that she save the creature’s life.

When she sat up she noticed something sparkling in the cuff of her sleeve.

She reached and pulled out the last of the lost diamond splinters. It had been with her all along!

Goda saw Ireheart hunched over the corpse of the dead dwarf. It would have been so easy for her to keep him alive…