The Fate of the Dwarves

III

The Outer Lands,

The Black Abyss,

Fortress Evildam,

Winter, 6491st Solar Cycle

Boindil sat in the lamplight with a broad grin on his face, watching his friend stuffing himself with food. “So they didn’t give you anything proper to eat on the other side?” he joked. “No one does rock-barley and gugul mince like Goda. Am I right, Scholar?”

They had withdrawn from the noisy company and were sitting in Boindil’s personal chambers. The walls were hung with weaponry and shields and one side of the room was covered with various maps of Girdlegard. The table they were sitting at had a detailed plan of the fortress displayed under a sheet of glass. The room spoke of attention to detail, strategy and combat readiness, such as befitted a general.

Tungdil had taken off his tionium armor and was wearing a dark beige garment decorated with runes and symbols; his brown beard was still trimmed short, as always, but now it was thicker and showed a distinctly silvery streak on the right side. His long brown hair was dressed close to the scalp with oil and hung down loose at the back. He stopped chewing. “You keep staring at me.”

“Can you blame me?” laughed Ireheart, reaching for his tankard of beer. “I haven’t seen you for two hundred and fifty cycles!”

“And now you want to know everything in a single evening by dint of staring yet more wrinkles into my face?” Tungdil countered with a smile. He took his own tankard to drink to Ireheart’s health, then noticed what was in it. “Is that water?” he said in disgust, pushing the mug away. “Is there no brandy here for a warrior? Are all your soldiers drunkards, then? And why didn’t they give me black beer like you?”

Boindil put his drink down in surprise. “Last time we met you were being more careful with alcohol.”

“More careful?” Tungdil looked confused, then his brow cleared. “Ah, I know what you mean.” He took a long draft from his friend’s tankard, not replacing it on the table until the last drop had been drained. He slammed it down on the table, wiped the foam from his lips and gave a resounding belch. “That’s better.” He grinned broadly.

Boindil observed his friend, winked and broke into laughter. “That’s the way! While we’re at it, tell me: What do you think of my daughters and sons? Goda introduced you just now.”

“The spitting image of their father. And that’s meant as praise,” Tungdil replied with a laugh. “No, seriously: You can be proud of them. I’m sorry I can’t remember what they’re all called, but one of each seems to have inherited their mother’s magical gift. That’s quite something! And the two sturdily built boys will be fine warriors. I saw them using a combat style that’s a mixture of ubariu and dwarf fighting techniques. That makes them unique!”

He had the air of being uncomfortably affected as he continued. “Forgive me mentioning it, but the three others are not true to type… quite different…”

Ireheart was affronted. “What do you mean?”

Tungdil seemed to search for the right words. “I’m sorry to say so, but they’re all…” and he frowned, “… they’re all better craftsmen than you! Their stonework is excellent.” Then he exploded with a mischievous gale of laughter.

Boindil joined in, mightily relieved. “Yes, have your little jokes, go ahead.” He looked happily at his friend. “I can’t tell you how glad I am that you are back with us. I nearly didn’t believe it was really you. You looked… so somber and dark, standing there in your armor at the head of the monsters’ army. As if you were… one of them.” He waited tensely to see how his friend would take that.

Tungdil looked down and touched his golden eye patch with his left hand. “A lot has happened, Ireheart,” he answered, his voice deep, and altered now. The mirth had disappeared and shadows returned to his countenance. “Much has happened to me, and it has changed me.” He regarded his one-time fighting companion. “I must ask you to make allowances for everything you may find strange in my behavior. You will have your doubts…”

“Me?” Boindil laughed outright and called to one of the soldiers to bring a jug of beer. After a moment’s thought he changed the command: He asked for a small barrel of beer and a bottle of the best brandy. The dwarves have a saying: Memories and worries need beer. “How could I…”

“You will doubt me, Ireheart,” Tungdil whispered mysteriously. “And I was at the head of that army you saw me with.”

Boindil did not know what to say, so he just stared back at his companion.

Tungdil took a deep breath as if the memories were causing him physical pain.

They waited in silence until the door opened and the drink was served to them. Wordlessly, they each drained their next tankard, then Tungdil forced himself to speak.

“I have done deeds, Ireheart, that no one would believe. No one who knew the Tungdil I once was. But to survive in the places I have been, searching for a way out of the demonic world, I had to do these things.” His voice was hoarse and he was staring straight through Boindil, through to another world. “There are creatures, my friend, which can inflict the most terrible tortures on their victims. To get them subject to my will I had to be even worse.” He touched the runes on his tunic. “Believe me, I was worse than them.” He reached for the bottle.

Boindil looked his friend over; he appeared strange, very strange. “Do you want to tell me about it?” he said finally, pouring himself a brandy. “Or…”

Tungdil shook his head. “In good time. I have lived too long in the darkness. Allow me to adjust to the light of your friendship.” He cleared his throat. They drank a toast to each other. “So, what’s new in Girdlegard?”

“Did you hear nothing on the other side?”

“No. There was no communication as long as the shield was in place.” Tungdil started to drink more quickly now, and when he emptied the tankard he refilled it more generously each time. “You spoke of Lot-Ionan. Walking through the corridors here in the fortress I’ve picked up the odd snippet. Sounds worrying.” He poured himself some more beer. “They spoke of a Dragon in the west, the kordrion in the north and the alfar taking over in the east. How much of this is true?”

“All of it, Scholar,” sighed Boindil. “Girdlegard is no longer a safe haven.” He stood up and went over to a small table where more rolled-up maps lay. He selected one and spread it out in front of his friend. “Lot-Ionan has lost his reason. That’s what they all say. He has overrun my homeland, the Blue Mountain Range, taking it from the secondlings. He’s driven them out with his magic arts. Any refusing to leave were killed outright. He’s collected famuli around himself and, if you ask me, he’s preparing for war.”

Tungdil stared at the lines on the map. “Against the kordrion?”

“No. Against the Dragon Lohasbrand, who has taken over in the Red Mountains, after driving out the firstlings. As far as we know there’s only a handful of that tribe holding the pass in the west to fight off the monsters from outside.” Boindil pointed to Tabain and Weyurn. “They have to pay tribute to the Dragon. The Scaly One has found humans willing to be vassal-rulers under him. They call themselves Lohasbranders. They rule as if they are noblemen and have regiments of orcs doing their fighting.” Boindil pulled at his beard. “Yes, the pig-faces have got much smarter, or at least the ones the Dragon brought into Girdlegard. It doesn’t make life any easier.”

“By all that’s infamous!” Tungdil exclaimed, thumping his fist down onto the table so violently that the bottle and tankards jumped.

Ireheart’s eyes narrowed. “Infamous? How do you mean?”

Tungdil waved this aside. “Carry on,” he said grimly.

“In the east the alfar have erected their towns again…”

“The alfar are back?”

Boindil nodded. “But they’re different ones. They came in through the High Pass after Lot-Ionan had banished the secondlings. They’re led by an old acquaintance of ours: Aiphaton. Do you remember him?”

“I do. And I’d never have thought he would imperil Girdlegard.”

Ireheart nodded. “It took us all by surprise when he led the black-eyes back to their old haunts and waged war on the elves and the others who had helped the pointy-ears in the old days. Well, you can’t really call it waging war. There were only about forty of the pointy-ears left at that stage.”

“The Elves were wiped out…?”

“No. Most of them were slaughtered, but the rest disappeared. Nobody knows where they went. There are various rumors about their end. I don’t know all of the stories. But you won’t see any elves in Girdlegard.” Boindil scratched his nose. “The thirdlings have made an alliance with Aiphaton and they rule in the east over most of what used to be called Idoslane. The alfar hold sway in the former human kingdoms of Gauragar and Urgon in the north and east.” He noticed that Tungdil’s gaze seemed to go straight through the map. “Is this all too much for you?”

“Go on. I can take more pain than you think,” his friend replied angrily.

“So it’s just the north.” Ireheart tapped the map. “Here, the Gray Range. Queen Balyndis… You know who she is?”

Tungdil nodded absently as though she were a matter of no concern to him.

Ireheart was surprised there was not more of a reaction to the name Balyndis, but he carried on with his report. “She holds the Stone Gate with her remaining fifthlings and takes arms against the kordrion and his brood. It’s a long struggle, though, because the beast keeps reproducing. No one understands how that works, because there’s only this one adult.”

“Yes, well, that’s something you wouldn’t know: They don’t need a female,” Tungdil explained. “They can all lay eggs, so that makes them a real plague. On the other side, too. Unless you get them under your own control.” He leaned back in his chair, his hands behind his head. His eye was focused on the ceiling. “It’s incredible. I come home after two hundred and fifty cycles, exhausted from the constant battles I’ve had to fight. I’m desperate to find a quiet corner. But there’s more turmoil here than there ever was on the other side of the magic shield.” He kicked the underside of the table and this time the tankards and bottle toppled over. Boindil tried to stop the spilled brandy affecting the lines drawn on the map. “So there’s nobody in the whole of Girdlegard man enough? What about the long-uns? Does it have to be me again? Have I got to raise in anger the weapon I heartily wished to chuck into the depths of Weyurn’s lakes?”

Ireheart gave an embarrassed little cough. “I forgot to mention that Weyurn isn’t a land of lakes and islands anymore. When Lohasbrand came to Girdlegard he dug a massive passage and all the water escaped through the tunnels. The Dragon must have caused other leaks as well…”

With a wild roar Tungdil sprang up from his chair, grabbed hold of the corner of the heavy table and flung it, one-handed, across the room to hit a wall seven paces away. The solid wood broke as easily as if it had been rotten timber.

Boindil watched his friend open-mouthed. No normal dwarf, however strong, would have been capable of that feat.

Tungdil gave a groan and put his head in his hands, sinking back down onto his seat and cursing in a language that Boindil did not understand. Runes on Tungdil’s tunic started to glow softly.

The guards came rushing in at the clamor and turned to their general. He waved them back out. There would be talk.

“D’you see?” groaned Tungdil through his hands. “That’s what I meant when I said there would be doubts. You’re wondering how I managed to chuck a heavy table around like a sack of feathers.”

“I suppose… you’re right there, Scholar!” the dwarf agreed. You did it with one hand! That’s quite something.” He made an effort to appear jolly. “You wouldn’t have been able to do that in the old days. That would have improved our chances with the pig-faces: Orc shot-put!”

Tungdil took his hands away from his face and looked at his friend. Round the golden eye patch thin black veins were disappearing into the skin. The word alfar came into Ireheart’s head. “I can’t explain,” said Tungdil tiredly. “Not yet. I need you to trust me.” He stretched out his hand. “Will you do that? I swear I will not abuse your trust and I shall not disappoint you; I swear it by all we have shared in the past!”

Boindil took his hand after hesitating a moment. He assumed it would be the best way to help his one-time comrade-in-arms. If Tungdil could be sure he had a dwarf by his side whom he could trust he’d be certain to find his feet faster and soon be his old self again. What happened to you? “By all we have shared,” he repeated the formula. “Ah, I’m sure Boendal would be delighted to see you again.”

“Boendal?”

“My twin brother!” exclaimed Ireheart in surprise. First Balyndis, now Boendal.

Tungdil hit himself on the forehead. “I’m sorry; my memory is still swimming in the dark.” He stood up, picking up the tankards that had survived their flight through the room. He filled them with black beer, handing one to Boindil and keeping the other for himself. “When will I see him?”

“See who?” asked a baffled Ireheart.

“Boendal, of course,” he replied, happily. “Now that you mention him I can picture his face.”

“Tungdil, my brother is long dead.” Ireheart’s lips narrowed. What horrors have you gone through that you could have forgotten all that? How much has your mind suffered? Is it to do with that scar on your head?

Tungdil stared at the floor. “Forgive me. It’s…” He sighed.

“What about Sirka? Have you forgotten her as well?” Ireheart could see by the expression on his face that Tungdil had no idea who he was talking about. He took him by the shoulders. “Scholar, she was one of the undergroundlings! She was your great love! You mean to say you could forget something like that?” He stared in his friend’s one eye, searching for an explanation, an excuse, an answer. The eyelid closed before the brown eye could divulge any secrets.

Tungdil turned his head away. “I am sorry,” he repeated in a hoarse whisper. With a jerk he shook off his friend’s hands and walked over toward the door. “We’ll speak again in the morning, if that’s all right. I need more time…” His boots crushed the fragments of the shattered table.

Ireheart got the impression that he was about to say more, but he opened the door and left without saying another word. “By Vraccas, what has happened to him?” he repeated under his breath, as he searched in the mess of splintered wood for the map of Girdlegard.

The map was useless, the brandy having destroyed the painstaking work of the cartographer; names and contours were blurred and illegible.

Boindil put his head on one side and looked at the heading: Girdlegard. The alcohol and the swelling of the paper had turned the word, with a bit of imagination, into Lostland.

“How true,” he muttered, casting the map to the floor again. An opaque turquoise jewel caught his eye. He’d noticed it on his friend’s belt buckle. It must have come off when he had pulled his table-throwing stunt.

Ireheart picked it up and started after Tungdil to hand it back. It was valuable. Gem cutting was not one of his strong points but he knew enough to be able to estimate the jewel’s value. Smoke diamonds were extremely rare.

“I’m getting forgetful, too. I didn’t tell him about the fourthlings. Or the freelings.” Two more reasons to disturb his friend again before he went to sleep.

It all still seemed like a joke on the part of Vraccas that the realm of the fourthlings, smallest of the dwarves and presumably least well versed in the arts of fighting, should have managed to repel all invaders. The thirdlings had waged campaign after campaign against them but had been unsuccessful. The freelings had been able to resist conquest, too.

“He’ll be surprised to hear that,” he told himself as he pushed open the door to Tungdil’s chamber after knocking several times. “Ho there, Scholar! I’ve got something of yours here. You’ve been throwing expensive diamonds around, did you know?”

Tungdil was standing with his back to the door and did not seem to have noticed him come in. He had removed his tunic, thus unintentionally giving Boindil a full view of his bare back.

The skin was criss-crossed with scars.

Some were small puncture marks, others were long, reaching round to the front, narrow and broad, some of them jagged, some smooth, some caused by weapons, others made by teeth or claws. The scars had destroyed the tattooed runes and images.

Boindil took a deep breath. His own body bore witness to sword fights and battles but what he saw here was uniquely terrible. He knew his friend to be a skilled fighter, so could not imagine what foe he must have faced to have these injuries. What would a warrior have to fear from combat with the kordrion?

Tungdil had still not noticed him. His head was bowed and he seemed to be staring down at his own chest. Then he threw a bloodied cloth into a bowl of water; he stifled a groan, and then a glow appeared before him.

Boindil put the jewel soundlessly onto the chamber floor and withdrew swiftly from the scene.

He had disturbed his friend and witnessed something no one was intended to see. The dwarf left those quarters of the fortress and tried to combat the doubts in his mind by humming a tune. But he could not wave his qualms away, being particularly troubled by the appearance of those black veins around the missing eye. An insistent niggling suspicion made him want to lift that eye patch. What was it hiding?

Goda and Boindil were sitting in the assembly room where the officers normally held their strategy meetings and discussed the guards’ patrol rotas. A scale model of the Black Abyss and the fortress was displayed on the table; every detail was repeated here in miniature, enabling exact inspection routes to be specified.

“We shan’t need that anymore.” Ireheart touched the glass globe that had represented the barrier. He lifted it off and placed it aside. Then he carefully removed the model of the artifact as well. He stared at the rocks, deep in thought.

“You waiting for the kordrion to show up?” Goda teased him. “The model still matches reality in that respect: No sign of the monsters so far.”

“I was wondering whether we can risk carrying out our old plan,” he replied, running his hand over the edges of the Black Abyss. “We break off the edges here and fill it all up with low-grade iron and other metals. Then nothing else can get out to attack Girdlegard or the Outer Lands. A plug to keep in the evil.” He glanced over to his wife. “What do you think? Would it be possible with your magic to get the abyss to cave in? But I know your famuli aren’t ready yet to give the support you need.”

Goda stroked Boindil’s back. “I might be able to do it, but it would take all the energy I have. I’d have no magic left. And the amount of molten metal we would need would be massive! Where would we get it all from?”

“The ubariu would supply it. They’d bring it from all the corners of their realm if it meant ridding themselves of the threat from the Black Abyss.” Boindil went over to the small table and poured out a cup of water for them both. “I’m afraid the monsters would dig through stone. They’ve waited more than two hundred and fifty cycles and they’re confronting us with an army such as they had on the orbit when the barrier was first erected. Without the shield they would have overrun us.”

Goda sat down. “You don’t think your own fortress could withstand the hordes?”

“In the long run?” Boindil shook his head. Tungdil’s hints had sent shivers down his spine. “It doesn’t bear thinking what will come crawling out of the abyss if we don’t act soon. The kordrion would not be the worst of our worries.”

“Who says the worst thing isn’t already here among us?” she said in a low voice. She had not intended to speak the thought out loud, but her tongue was too quick. She looked down at the cup in her hand.

Ireheart had heard her words, of course. “You have suspicions about Tungdil?”

“I don’t believe it’s the genuine Tungdil we’ve welcomed here inside our walls,” she responded firmly.

“It is him,” Boindil insisted resolutely, but he avoided her eyes.

“How do you know that? How can you be sure? Because you drank together yesterday?” Goda sighed. “I wish for your sake that it is our Tungdil and not an illusion sent by some dark power to trick us. But I think his behavior is so different…”

Boindil gave a mirthless laugh. “He’s spent many man-generations in a world devoid of anything except killing, pain and violence. Do you think he would come back to us with a broad grin on his face and cracking jokes all the time? That would have made me suspicious,” he defended his friend. “If it had been me I’d probably have gone completely mad.” He looked at her. “Tungdil faced the kordrion all on his own! He did it for us!”

“It could have been agreed in advance,” she objected.

“The beast lost an eye and its side was ripped open! It didn’t look pleased!”

“But if there was a greater purpose? Like the conquest of Evildam? The kordrion has eyes enough to spare.”

He snorted and waved his arms in the air. “Goda, you turn round everything I say with this… conspiracy phantom theory.” Boindil clucked his tongue, at a loss for words. “You are a maga. Why not cast one of your spells to check him out?” He stared at the model in fury and tried to organize his own thoughts. He was angry that Goda was, in effect, raking up his own doubts instead of calming his fears. And he had been so convinced about having his old friend back.

“I already did. When I introduced him to our children,” she said, to his amazement. “And I…”

There was a knock at the door and a fully armored Tungdil appeared on the threshold. He saw at a glance they had been quarreling, however much they tried to hide the fact by their smiles.

“I’m too early, aren’t I? Didn’t we arrange to meet up?” he asked, entering the room. He took a seat on the other side of the table and looked at Goda, giving her a steely look, as though he had listened in to what she had been saying about him; then he turned to Ireheart, his voice warm. “Nice model,” he said, praising the reproduction and winking. “Are there lots of little monsters in there, too?”

Boindil laughed, relieved. “We’ve got a few pennants somewhere. But we’ll have to find them first. Who’d have thought we’d be needing them so soon?” He gave his friend a quick run-through of the plan to seal up the ravine once and for all, so that nothing could ever escape again, large or small.

Goda kept out of the discussion and contented herself with observing Tungdil. She wanted to provoke him into betraying himself. In her view this was not the old celebrated hero but a piece of refined trickery, a clone of Tungdil. It was her responsibility to unmask the deception. But her steady gaze bounced back off him like a sword blade from a good suit of armor.

“The shafts and caves immediately below the abyss are deep and convoluted,” Tungdil explained. “There’s not enough metal in the whole of Girdlegard and the Outer Lands together to fill them up. But plugging the top of the ravine makes sense. That can’t be attempted, however, until you’ve destroyed the army they’ve got lying in wait down there.”

“The army you’ve led to us,” Goda interrupted.

“I was its leader. It would have come to you anyway. That’s different.” Tungdil was remaining remarkably calm, Ireheart thought, remembering his violent reaction the night before. “I have spent cycle after cycle making a name for myself among the monsters of the abyss so that they would trust me and accept me as one of their own. That was the only way eventually to get to be their leader. A leader even the kordrion obeyed. For I knew full well the orbit would arrive when the barrier would fall and I wanted to be in the first ranks. As a thirdling, an ordinary child of the Smith, they would have torn me to shreds. And they nearly did at the beginning.” With every phrase his words sounded darker and more threatening until he cleared his throat and removed the menace from his voice. “I let them believe I would lead them against you. It won’t be long before they recover from their surprise and they’ll be mounting another attack, more hate-filled than before.”

“Evildam will be able to repel them,” Ireheart said with all the conviction he could muster.

“It won’t be enough, my friend. I know what’s in store.” Tungdil looked from Goda to Ireheart and back again. “You need an army, a huge army, able to swarm down into the upper chambers and tunnels, fighting the beasts in their lairs, while the preparations are in hand up here to fill in the ravine. And a magus. You’ll need a powerful magus.” He looked at Goda. “There’s no other way.”

She had noted the change in his tone. “So you’re not going to help us?”

“What makes you assume that?” spluttered Boindil. “Of course he will!”

“She’s right,” said Tungdil calmly, placing his gauntleted hands together as if in prayer, or as if he were keeping some tiny creature captive between his palms. “I’ve fought all my battles and have no further desire to be a warrior.”

Ireheart’s mouth dropped open. “You’re joking, Scholar!” he exclaimed. “Don’t take me for a fool! Don’t joke about something like this! So many people have waited for you, putting all their hopes in you to drive injustice out of Girdlegard. Humans, elves-wherever they might be-and dwarves. Your own folk await you!”

“I know,” Tungdil countered. “But I made no promises to anyone about returning to save them. I was able to thwart an initial attack on your fortress and have warned you about the extent of the threat you face. Now you know what you have to do. I shall do no more.”

“It was a different story last night!” Ireheart was near despair. “You said yourself…”

“… that I had returned home to find peace and quiet.” Tungdil finished the phrase, resentment in his tone. “That was all. And I said I needed more time, to-”

“Which home did you mean, Tungdil Goldhand?” Goda intervened, ready with her next test. “Tell me: Where is your home? Back in the vaults of Lot-Ionan? That’s long gone. Or do you long to return to the freelings in their underground realm, besieged by the thirdlings? Or do you want to go back to Balyndis, your first love? Or perhaps you feel like going to the undergroundlings to spend your twilight cycles?” She gestured toward the window. “Isn’t it rather the case that you are at home in the land whose tunnels lead to the Black Abyss? By far the longest part of your life has been spent there. That fits the picture of a homeland best, don’t you agree?” She stood up. “It would be all the same to me if you were just to disappear.”

“Goda!” her husband bellowed, horrified, but she went on regardless.

“Perhaps you don’t dare accept that you have doubts about him, Boindil. But I am paying close attention to the doubts I have. What use to us is this Tungdil in his wonderful armor if he’s not prepared to act?” she said aggressively. “By Vraccas, this can’t be Tungdil!” Goda cast contemptuous looks at the one-eyed dwarf. “The Scholar would have done anything and everything in his power to put an end to the misery afflicting Girdlegard. If those had been your first words I would never have become suspicious.” She leveled her index finger in his direction. “You are not Tungdil, so get back to the Black Abyss where you came from before you undermine the morale of our troops. I’d rather have them thinking that you went away again in secret and that one orbit you will return a second time!”

She turned away, shaking Boindil’s hand off. Then she left the room.

Ireheart watched Tungdil, who appeared to be unmoved by the accusations. There were no protests, no objections. “Say something, Scholar!” he begged. “For the sake of our creator, the Divine Smith! Say something to dispute Goda’s words-something to let me believe in you. To let us all believe in you! You have no idea what effect it will have on the remaining dwarves and humans if you withdraw in this way.”

Tungdil got up, walked around the table and stood in front of his friend for three long moments, then placed his left hand on Boindil’s shoulder. Then he went out through the door to the corridor.

“That’s not an answer!” Ireheart cried out angrily. “Come back here and give me an answer.” He followed, rapidly catching up with Tungdil and grasping him by the shoulder, trying to force him to turn around. But he was not able to move the dwarf.

Boindil felt his fingers tingling, and then a shock that knocked him off his feet, hurling him back against the wall. He fell to the stone floor with a groan.

Stars and sparks were dancing in front of his eyes, and he could make out his friend’s face leaning over him in concern. “I’ll fetch a healer,” came the voice, distorted now. “You should not have done that, my hot-blooded friend. But never fear, you’ll soon be fine again.”

As that final sentence echoed in his ears, Boindil lost consciousness.

Tungdil made his way to his chamber.

The upheaval caused by Boindil’s collapse had settled now. The healer who had been summoned assumed the commander of the fortress had suffered a simple fainting fit. Perhaps too much celebrating the night before.

Even if the odd person thought there was more to it than that, nobody saw any connection with Tungdil. Not openly, at least. And when he came round, Ireheart had not said anything that could throw suspicion on anyone in Evildam.

As he turned a corner, Tungdil came face to face with a dwarf-woman.

Judging from the slim young face she was not yet many cycles of age, though the skin was as tanned as that of a shepherd. She wore a beige tunic embroidered with thorn wreaths, the front only loosely fastened, showing the white shirt beneath decorated in a similar manner. Tungdil’s gaze slid over the figure; he saw a shaved head and light blue eyes.

“You are Tungdil Goldhand?” she asked, unsure of herself.

“And you must be one of the undergroundlings,” he said. “Taller than a dwarf-woman and smaller than a human.”

She nodded and came a step closer. “I am Kiras.” She lifted her face so that the light from the lamp illuminated it. “They say that I look very like a forebear of mine,” she said, expectantly. Her eyes were fixed on Tungdil’s eye. “I’m wearing a garment made to be like hers. For you.”

Tungdil furrowed his brow. “What’s that to me?”

“Can’t you guess?” Kiras’s hopeful expression changed. “I had been so looking forward to giving you a surprise. If you can’t take her in your arms now you are back, I hoped I would be able to soothe your pain. I am one of Sirka’s descendants.” She gave him a radiant smile.

“That’s all I need,” muttered Tungdil bad-temperedly. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings or to insult your bloodline, Kiras, but I can’t remember her. I don’t remember what she looked like and I don’t remember loving her. Much of what I experienced in Girdlegard in the past has been wiped from my mind.” He looked at her intently, as if the sight of her could bring back his memories. “No,” he said finally. “No, I still can’t see her even if I look at you.”

Kiras gulped, her huge disappointment obvious. “Then let me still bid you welcome in her name, Tungdil,” she said, moving to embrace him. “It doesn’t matter whether you remember or not. I am her message to you. The love you shared…”

But the warrior drew back, evading her arms as if she carried a fatal contagion.

“No, Kiras, don’t,” he commanded darkly, his voice dimming the light in the corridor. “I don’t want you to touch me.”

The young undergroundling stood facing him, bewildered and shocked. She let her arms drop to her sides. “You are rejecting not only me, but Sirka herself in me!”

“Forget me. And pray to your god that you carry more of her in you. My inheritance is death.” He stared at her, then walked round her to his rooms as if she were a piece of furniture in his way.

“But… I have a letter she wrote to you!” She reached to take a sealed parchment from her belt, holding it in an outstretched hand.

“Then burn it, or do whatever you like,” he suggested, without turning round.

Kiras looked at him as he walked along the corridor. “This can’t be happening,” she whispered in disbelief. Slowly she lowered the hand holding the ancient letter. The lamps regained their former brilliance as he moved away into the distance.

“Didn’t I warn you?” Goda had witnessed the incident from the shadows, the meeting between the undergroundling and the hero of the dwarves having been no coincidence. It was but one of many tests that would follow.

“How can he leave me like that?” Kiras asked angrily.

Goda watched the dwarf go, then put an arm around the undergroundling’s shoulders to console her. Because it is not the real Tungdil. Everyone will see that soon.

Tungdil returned to his rooms, pulled off his gauntlets and placed them on a wooden chest. When he went to unfasten his armor, one of the runes, the one on his right breast, started to glow in warning.

“There’s probably a very good reason why you didn’t announce yourself when I came in,” he said, facing forward. “You could make up for that mistake now. Because if you don’t,” and Tungdil laid his right hand on the grip of Bloodthirster, “I might assume you have come here with unfriendly intentions.” He did not turn around, but just listened to the sounds and trusted in his armor.

There was a person standing behind him, likewise in armor. Metal clanked and a weapon was being drawn. “You are correct in your assumption,” said the deep sonorous voice of an ubari. “But only if you refuse me answers to my questions.”

This time Tungdil turned and looked at the warrior sitting next to the desk, waiting.

It was the ubariu’s leader, who had escorted him, Boindil and Goda back to the fortress from the artifact. Now he stood three paces from him, extra-long sword with its reinforced tip held diagonally in front of his body, the blade pointing down. His red eyes were focused on Tungdil attentively. He was nearly twice the height of the dwarf and the muscles in his upper arms were rippling with tension.

“What questions might an ubari have to put to me, Yagur?” Tungdil asked simply. “Or have you been told to put them under someone else’s orders. Her orders, perhaps?”

Yagur did not respond to the insinuation. “I know the legends about you and the general, Tungdil Goldhand. Nothing is further from my mind than to insult you with a lack of respect on my part,” he began carefully. “But I am not the only one who has doubts about you.”

“And you thought if you hid in my room and threatened me with a sword that I’d be happy to tell you anything you wanted to know?” observed the dwarf, his one brown eye flashing with malice. “You’re due a surprise there, Yagur.” Slowly he lessened his grip on the weapon at his side. “What will you do if I stay silent? Try to bribe me? Beg me to talk?”

The ubari warrior lowered his head and took a step forward. “I can loosen tongues,” he threatened.

“Believe me when I tell you that you won’t get a chance to interrogate me against my will.” Tungdil nodded toward the door. “Go and tell Goda whatever you like. I don’t care if you lie to her. I won’t tell on you.” He opened the fastening on his weapons belt and laid it aside. Bloodthirster came to rest beside the gauntlets.

Yagur approached him. “If that’s the way you want it,” he said bitterly. His broad hand stretched out, pointing the sword at the dwarf’s throat. “Don’t try to resist. I’ll take you somewhere we can talk without being disturbed.”

“I don’t think so.” Tungdil did not move back, but allowed the ubari to clutch him by the collar. He suddenly placed his right hand on the warrior’s hand, holding it fast. With his other hand he aimed a blow at the attacker’s forearm. There was a crunching sound as the elbow fractured and the arm was ripped off. Blood poured out of the ugly stump.

Before Yagur could recover from the shock, Tungdil had dropped the limb, drawn the ubari’s own dagger and plunged it into his neck. The huge fighter could do no more than utter a rattle, collapsing onto the flagstones and letting his sword fall.

“You’ll have to speak more clearly, Yagur. I can’t understand what you’re saying.” Tungdil stared pitilessly at the dying creature.

The door burst open and three more masked and heavily armed ubariu forced their way into the chamber.

The dwarf drew his head down into his shoulders, a cruel smile playing around his mouth. Thin black veins appeared from nowhere, radiating out from the eye patch and covering his whole face as if with a spider’s web. “Let me guess: You are here to ask me questions,” he said with malice. Two runes on his armor started to glow, throwing their golden light onto the attackers. “Let’s hear them. But beware of my answers!”

The ubari stopped where they stood-then the alarm sounded. The trumpets gave the dreaded warning that signified the approach of monsters storming out of the Black Abyss to finish what the first wave had not achieved.

Tungdil straightened his shoulders, boundless arrogance in his expression. “You have a choice: Do you wish to die here in my chamber or out there on the battlefield?”