Grundel threw his axe a few more times as they approached. Bergmann had his sword in his hand. They were almost upon the defending men when one of the arrows snuck through a crack in the shield wall and slammed into his shoulder. He stumbled back. A hand caught hold of the collar of his armor. He was pulled forward and found his feet. He looked over and found that the hand that had steadied him was Stoneheart’s half-blood abomination.
He could separate himself from the pain that this body felt, but after a few steps he felt the body begin to waiver. He opened himself to the body for a moment. He pushed the arrow through his shoulder, and then broke off the shaft. He reached over his shoulder and pulled the head of the arrow through. The body was poisoned. He hoped it would not die, but knowing he was poisoned did not cause him any true distress. This was not his body after all. If this body failed him, he would just take another. He forced the body to continue moving forward, and he couldn’t help but be drawn in by Stoneheart’s son’s prowess when he stepped out in front of the shield wall. It was a foolish move, but he was so big already he wasn’t as covered by it in the first place. He turned one of his axes flat in front of his chest, deflecting an arrow, and then he was in the midst of his enemies. He spun, letting his axes go out wide. Arms came free of bodies and a head toppled free of its shoulders. After two full circles, Grundel brought the axe in his right hand up. The men in front of him looked up and prepared to defend against the downward slash of the axe, but the axe in his left hand came across instead. Two men fell to the ground at his feet. The landed on their knees, their stomachs emptying out onto the ground, a mess of bloody tendrils trying to escape as the insufficient little fingers tried to keep them in. He stepped passed them.
Bergmann saw a crossbowman to Grundel’s side start to raise his crossbow. Before he even realized what he was doing, he had thrown his sword. The blade slammed into the offender’s arm. He fired, but his bolt flew harmlessly off its mark and the man fell to the ground, trying to stop the blood that was now pouring from the deep gash in his arm. The dwarf inside of him had taken advantage of his distraction. He had waited, poised as a threatened snake, and shot up to save Grundel. Bergmann had lost control for only a second, but that second was all it took to stop Grundel Stoneheart from receiving a poisoned dart. Poison was not nearly as effective on dwarves as it was on humans, but the bolt that had taken this body had buried in its flesh and had been heavily coated with whatever poison was used. He tried to maintain control of the body, but it was no longer responding. In a moment, the body was on the ground. He could hear the mind of the dwarf, hoping for death. He laughed inwardly, promising the dwarf that his body would be fine. The dwarf tried to push back, but Bergmann was no longer distracted, and the dwarf’s mind had no chance of regaining control.
Grundel and the dwarves around him finished off the last of the assassins. He watched as the dwarves gathered up the wounded. Grundel personally picked up the body he was inhabiting and carried him down the hill.
“We need to get them all to the city. Those men were either Black Dragons or they were equipped by them. The arrows were poisoned. Dwarven constitution should hold the poison off long enough for us to get them to help, but they will need to be healed,” the dwarf healer explained.
They had taken a little more than a dozen casualties. They still had nearly a hundred soldiers, but carrying the dozen wounded would slow them down. “Send five dwarves ahead to Patria. Have them send a healer and a cart to carry the wounded back. We will follow behind as fast as we can.”
“I will lead them back,” Grundel stated. “I will be able to get through the soldiers of Patria more easily and get help coming faster. I will go to my uncle and my mother directly. I should be able to return before the sun is up.”
Grizzle nodded his approval. “Choose four dwarves to go with you and leave as soon as you are ready. We can take care of things here.”
Grundel selected four guards he knew and they were moving toward Patria before litters could be assembled for the wounded.
Chapter Thirty-one
Assassins and Phantoms
Bergmann remained in the body that lay on the bed inside the palace of Patria. The body being wounded had actually worked to his advantage. Instead of being left outside the city, he was now inside the palace. He still wasn’t able to overhear much, but no one had any problem speaking freely around a dwarf who was poisoned and incapacitated. He had overheard two men talking about preparing horses for King Stoneheart to take into the Einode desert.
It was a small bit of information, but it confirmed that Stoneheart was going after the Forgotten Kingdom. Bergmann would find a way to go with them. He would do whatever it took to stop Stoneheart. He would stay in this body as long as he could, but if he became unable to stay with Stoneheart he would destroy this body and take another. It was in his benefit to stay in each body as long as he could, but in the end, all of these bodies were just tools. When a tool lost its usefulness, it had to be replaced. He stayed in this weakened body, picking at the scraps of conversation for hours and then Grizzle and Grundel walked into the room that had become an infirmary for the dwarves wounded on the trip to Patria.
“Jerrie is bringing him to the palace today. If he can’t take us to the Forgotten Kingdom, we have to hope he can take us to an Einode tribe that will have an idea of where the kingdom is,” Grizzle was saying as he walked into the room.
“How many of us are going?” Grundel asked.
Grizzle thought for a moment. “You, Jerrie, and Rundo for sure. I wish Dobo and Gobo were here, but there isn’t time to wait. Kraft needs to go to Haufen, and your mother needs to go to Evermount. Frau will go back to Shinestone and prepare to retake the kingdom there. We will need to take a couple of other dwarves.”
“I’m going,” came the raspy voice of a wounded dwarf coming out of his poison coma.
Grundel went to his bed. “You saved my life.” He looked at his father. “He was already poisoned and weak when he threw his sword at the bowman who was leveling his bow at me. I would probably be laying in one of these beds if it weren’t for him.”
Grizzle put a hand on the dwarf’s shoulder. “We will be leaving as soon as our guide can be ready. I do not think you will be ready to travel in time. You have given more than enough for this task.”
Bergmann tried to respond, but the body fell back into unconsciousness. Now he knew Grizzle was going to need dwarves to go with him as a guard and he planned to be one of them.
Grizzle and Grundel left the room. Bergmann decided it was time he gave up on this body. He let go. Before, when he had tried to escape, he had tried to leave the body as if it was a room. There were no doors though. Now he knew that the body was not a coffer that contained him. The bodies he took were simply that. He latched onto the bodies and controlled them like he would a horse. He didn’t have to try to escape. Trying to escape the body was like trying to jump off of a horse with your feet stuck in the stirrups.
He left the body where it was and let himself float free. He moved into the halls of the palace, searching. The first person he came across was a woman who was making her way toward the room that was being used as an infirmary. She was carrying a tray of tinctures and herbal remedies. He followed her back toward the room and watched as she opened the mouth of the body he had been inhabiting and poured a small vial of some remedy into the dwarf’s mouth. She turned the dwarf’s head back and watched to ensure that his body swallowed. He slammed into the woman. He had only taken dwarves up until now, but he knew from the pieces he had pulled from the necromancer’s mind that he could inhabit the body of a human as well. He grabbed hold of the woman and tightened his grip on her mind. She fought like an angry stallion, but he easily broke her and pushed her mind out of the way. He was in control. He could feel her panic and fear, but he ignored it.
He led the woman’s body over to the tray of remedies. He grabbed the vials off of the tray and began pouring them all down the throat of the dwarf
he had been controlling. He couldn’t let the dwarf live. If the dwarf woke, he would be able to tell them that he had been controlled by the phantom and that was not something Bergmann was ready to let everyone know yet. The longer he could keep everyone from knowing he was among them, the more distrust he could build between the others. He grabbed another vial and poured it into the dwarf’s mouth.
The dwarf began to breathe heavily for a moment and then the he stopped breathing altogether. Bergmann waited for a moment to ensure that the dwarf was dead; it was, after all, what the dwarf had been begging for since he had taken it over back in Tiefes Loch. He led the woman’s body down the hall. He could feel her sadness at what had been done to the dwarf, but he had no interest in taking the time to torture this woman. She was insignificant, and she was a tool that he had used. He used the woman’s body to push open the huge windows in the hall. The woman stood on the ledge of the window and leapt.
He felt the woman’s panic just before her body slammed into the ground. He heard the cry for the guards. A woman had come around a corner and was screaming a blood-curdling scream. Bergmann had no blood, however, and no interest in what was going to happen. He made his way back in to the palace and began searching for Grizzle.
He found him at the same time the guards did. “Your Highness, Mistress Vanessa has died.”
“What?” Patria asked.
“It appears that she jumped from a window on the fourth story, Your Highness. She was found on the cobbles under the window,” the guard explained.
“The fourth story? That’s where the dwarves she was taking care of are.” Patria looked at Grizzle and Grundel. “We need to go check on them.”
Bergmann followed as they made their way up to the infirmary. Grizzle moved to the dwarf’s bed. “He’s dead.”
“It has to be him,” Grundel stated.
“There are too many coincidences now to ignore,” Grizzle agreed.
“Are you talking about the phantom? He is here in Patria?” Patria asked.
“Yes. The things that have been happening are too similar to what Bergmann was doing in Tiefes Loch to ignore them,” Grizzle explained and then turned to Grundel. “We are not going to take any other dwarves with us. If Dobo and Gobo were here, I would trust them, but I cannot be sure that any of the others are not being controlled by Bergmann. We will take Rundo and Jerrie. Jerrie just went down to the city. He heard that he could find the Einode in a bar down by the docks, some place called the Sand Shark. He just left a little while ago.”
Bergmann didn’t even wait to see what else they were going to say. He went through the window, his essence falling toward the ground. He didn’t need to use doors or windows, but he still hadn’t become comfortable just floating through walls.
He didn’t know the way through the city, but Stoneheart had said the place was down by the docks. He could figure out where the water was. He moved at a pace no physical form could match. Once he was down by the water, he followed the road. He was looking for Jerrie, but someone else caught his attention. Two men were sneaking through the shadows. The men were obviously trained. These could only be Black Dragon assassins. It was getting dark, but it was not yet night. They were able to move from shadow to shadow nearly unnoticed. Bergmann moved ahead of them looking for who it was they were following. Two blocks ahead of them was Jerrie. They were good. They were moving far enough behind that they had to have at least another team following from another angle. It would be too easy to lose their quarry if he made an unexpected turn. The assassins stopped as Jerrie turned into a bar.
Bergmann slammed into the assassin nearest him. The man’s mind fought back well. He had trained his mind to act independently of his body, but Bergmann was still able to overpower him. He could feel the man’s mind slamming into him once he had control. This man would not surrender control as easily as the others had. He knew if he chose to remain in this body he would feel a constant barrage of mental attacks. He had no intention of remaining in this body.
He turned toward the man to the left who was already making his way closer to the bar. Bergmann drew a throwing dagger from inside his vest. The body moved with practiced ease as he released the dagger and it tumbled through the air and buried in the side of the man’s head. He stumbled to the side, falling to the ground in the shadows.
Bergmann pulled off the black jacket that signified the man as Black Dragon. He was wearing a plain white shirt underneath. He walked into the bar that Jerrie had gone into. As he walked through the portal, he noticed the movement of a shadow near the window to his right.
The bar was nearly empty. There were two men at the bar. The barkeep was a fat woman who was closer to forty than thirty. Her hair was starting to take thin streaks of gray. She looked up when he entered, but then looked away. She seemed to know when it was not in her best interest to notice someone. To the right, Jerrie stood at a table talking to a man who had spent enough time in the sun to turn his dark olive skin leathery.
They both turned to look at him. When they did, two men tumbled through the window with impressive silence. One of them slammed some kind of small black object into the back of the Einode’s head. The man’s head fell forward, dropping to the table with a thud. Jerrie had his weapons out in a flash. Bergmann had to admit the man was fast. Luckily, the two assassins were real Black Dragon assassins and not the untrained thugs who had been impersonating Black Dragons. Jerrie quickly turned, putting his back to the wall so that none of them were behind him. The other two assassins quickly attacked, but Jerrie was able to fend them off. Within a couple of engagements, he had both men on the defensive. He quickly searched the man’s mind and found that he had poisoned darts in his boot. He pulled the small tube free. The first dart came out of the tube and slammed into Jerrie’s shoulder.
The other two assassins backed off. They circled, parrying his attacks. Jerrie started to slow. Bergmann pulled the small tube out of the other boot. Inside, there were three more darts. The first dart slammed into the nearest assassin’s back. He risked a glance behind him. It cost him one of Jerrie’s daggers across his throat. The other assassin, knowing he was outmatched, turned, attempting to put Jerrie between him and the assassin he believed to be in league with him.
Jerrie continued to turn away, keeping both men in front of him. Bergmann fired another dart. To the other assassin’s credit, he deflected it. When he realized he had no help coming, he dove out of the window into the coming darkness.
Bergmann moved toward the stumbling Jerrie. The current patrons of the bar were now making their safe escape. Jerrie moved toward him, slashing wildly with his daggers. He was still much quicker than the most capable of fighters, but his attacks did not have the crispness that he had seen in them before the poison began to take control.
He let Jerrie stumble around the bar until he fell to the floor, unable to control his body any longer. Bergmann waited a few moments to ensure Jerrie hadn’t been overdramatizing the effects of the poison. Now that he was sure the poison had taken its toll, he picked up Jerrie’s body. He carried him over to the bar. “You’re closed,” he told the woman at the bar.
“I was just about to lock up,” she said in a high-pitched voice that sounded as if it should have come out of a woman half her size. She showed no hint of the fear he was sure she held. She went to the door and closed it, dropping the bar in place. “Could I offer you a room, sir?”
“Grab the other one and help me get them up the stairs.”
The woman showed that her girth was not all from indolence. She lifted the dark man on to her shoulder and carried him up the stairs. She opened the door to the first room, dropped the Einode man on the bed, and produced a key from a pocket in the front of her shirt. “I am sure that your repayment will cover the rooms I will be leaving empty during your stay.”
It was more of a demand than a request. He forced the face of the man to smile. “Of course,” he said and then closed the door.
Chapter Thirty-two<
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Pain
Jerrie woke the sound of a man screaming in pain. The Einode was tied up. His hands were tied to the bedpost, and his feet were tied to metal rings outside the fireplace. The smell of burning flesh filled the room as the Black Dragon ran the tip of the red-hot fire poker across the Einode man’s stomach. The man screamed again.
“Where is the old dwarf kingdom?” the Black Dragon asked.
“Already I told you. Lost it is,” the man cried out. Tears were running down his face.
“You will tell me everything you know. The longer you wait, the more pain you will feel.” Bergmann pulled the poker out of the fireplace. The man began to whimper and then screamed as the poker was thrust into his armpit.
“If he knew, he would have told you,” Jerrie said, his voice sounding raspy. His throat was sore. It must have been the after effect of whatever poison had been used on him. He felt groggy, but he was regaining his strength. He tried to stand and realized his hands were tied and he was tethered to the bed as well.
The Black Dragon turned to him and smiled. He turned and walked over to Jerrie, pressing the poker into the inside of Jerrie’s thigh. Jerrie gritted his teeth at the pain. It took everything he had not to scream. The man put the poker back into the fire.
“What do you want?” Jerrie asked.
“I want to know where the Forgotten Kingdom is,” the man answered.
“It lost in the Einode. Where it is, no one knows. All stay away from the dark east. There the spirits are. The spirits takes any who go to the dark east. Lost it is, but our ancestors promised to protect it. The debt must be paid.” The man’s spirit seemed to strengthen as he spoke. Whatever the man was talking about had obviously reminded him of something. Jerrie watched as the man went from agonizing defeat to grim determination in the space of a sentence.
The Phantom Dwarf Page 16
