by Thomas Head
The last of the stores began to smolder.
“Rot my eyes… Run boys! Get some water on that fire!”
But as the flames sprouted, the men just stood on the bank. Transfixed. They were staring out into the river. Cullfor ran toward them, the field seeming to stretch like in a dream. Halflings were fleeing now out into the fields. Others were running his way.
Midway down the slope, he saw a familiar figure. Well ahead of everyone, the swineherd was holding a brace of piglets in his arms. His eyes were panicked. Several of his sisters were following.
“Bardo, what the devil is going on!”
He froze, startled. Just as suddenly, recognition washed over him.
“Cullfor! Run, young fellow.” He began waving him up the hill. “Ye need to scoot!”
“Why! What for?”
In the next instant, a tight cluster of thumps resounded all around. Cullfor ducked, spinning in every direction to pinpoint the noise. Shock tingled through his core when he noticed the arrows that flowered the ground all around him. One stuck from the frosty mud, just inches from his boot.
Back downhill, the women were screaming.
Cullfor growled in anger, turning to see them alongside the pigger, face-down. White fledged arrows were jutting from their backs. Endless training reminded him to think, to locate the archers before he moved. But his head was burning in anger. He ran to kneel amid the writhing wounded. Grimacing, he retrieved the dirk from his boot and snapped off the protruding shafts. There were nine of them, an enormous task as they crawled or stood to run, only to drop again in agony.
Cullfor kept scampering to help, shaking his head to a chorus of pained, pitiful noises that ranged from yelps to screams. Then he growled at them to clutch each other.
“Hold firm on the wounds, girls!”
It proved impossible. Having to abandon them to their misery, he looked toward the village. His uncle was nowhere amid the smoke and confusion. Still crouching, he moved toward it, low and irregular to stay in the smoke.
Then he paused.
Atop the river, the wooden head of a beast was surging through the smoke. It was a strange longship. Massive but sleek, the great dwarven war machine revealed its full length as it lunged between the barges. Dwarven archers were wading in the vessel’s shadow.
Cullfor fixed a narrowing eye on them, knowing he had brought this nightmare to this beautiful land. He shook his head, and spat. As the boat slowed between the docks, the dwarves pounded on the hull and the oars withdrew as if slurped. Bands of the stout little warriors leapt over shields that hung on the gunwale. Flanked by the archers, they stomped ashore carrying the long Yrklandic axes of King’s Cutters.
A few of Gintypool’s halflings-at-arms had gathered into a band. They kept their tight wall, their shield wall, like a good warband, but most carried only knives or sickles.
Cullfor drew a tight breath, running.
“Run, you damn fools! Run like you hear the devil’s hoofs behind you!”
His voice was lost in an echo of growls. He paused and breathed, summoning the calm he needed to “hold” he air between the dwarves and the halflings. He held out his hand, pointing with his thumb. He could feel the fabric of life itself, pooling from just under his naval then flowing into his arm. But as it poured out of his thumb, a sudden wash of smoke tumbled over their forms. He could not see them as the sounds of yowling and crying rose and cut short. There were long oohing noises. With a turn of fire-driven wind, everything cleared.
Still standing there, he saw the nightmare he feared. Dark blood lurched from the halflings as they were axed down, scooting away. They were begging for their lives. When the dwarven invaders finished the butchery, they fanned out enter homes, bursting into the pub and the church.
When they emerged, they carried nothing.
They are looking for me… then by damn they will find me.
He began running toward them, yelling for their attention. But none turned to him. Closer now, smoke billowed toward him without end, blistering his senses. He dodged Laney, the poor girl crying and naked as she dug obsessively in his herbs. Her mother wailed as she scooped her up, hurrying into the ankle-deep mud of the fields. He stood and moved the force of his magic behind them. Arrows began to stud the ground around them.
He saw one of the archers, very near.
Suddenly, Cullfor’s toes wrenched the edge of the courtyard. He tripped, skipping at first. Then the impact of the pavingstones slammed him. He rolled over, wheezing.
When he looked up, he saw a berserker. The dwarf was smirking. Under the helm’s eye-rings, a single orb pivoted downward. The man raised his elongated axe. In the same instant, Cullfor hopped to his feet, thrusting his arm forward. The dwarf lurched, his head rocking back. As he brought the axe down, he collapsed. His jaw was dislocated, freezing his face into the look of a silent howl. The axe fell beside him. Gasping for air, Cullfor grabbed the axe and bashed across the throat twice before he spat, recognizing a chunk of his tongue in spittle.
Blood was sheeting out of his mouth as he heard a cry behind him. He spun—another dwarf was running at him, growling, just a split second away. He reached forward, and the dwarf crimped. But his momentum carried him. The dwarf lunged into him, sideways and balled-up. The blow sent them both to the ground. As they grunted and rolled, both gained their footing. But the dwarf dropped the instant he stood.
Cullfor nodded, seeing he had splintered the dwarf’s nose nearly in two under the amphibious-looking helmet—nearly removing one his eyes as well. He stepped on the dwarf’s neck to cut a long moan short. Then he felt more blood coming from his mouth. His chin and chest was red.
An arrow whisked by his chin.
Cullfor ducked and ran. The archers were appearing from everywhere now, their helmeted eyes turning to him. But they did not fire.
Ahead, an older dwarf was approaching. He was smaller than the others, with a more ornate helm. The man wore a cape, clasped together with an unmistakable golden clip. It was rimmed with odd, random clusters of stars that encircled a strange symbol, which looked look like a pointed, upside-down fleur de li. There was no doubting it now; these dwarves were Merry Cutters, sent by Jorigaer, the Dwarf-King. And the rumors about them seemed true as well. These former warrior-workers had the disciple of veteran campaigners. With something like a salute, the old dwarf ordered the bowmen to lower their weapons.
Then he nodded toward the axe at Cullfor’s feet.
Oh you poor, simple bastard, Cullfor thought.
The man halted, waiting. Cullfor licked his teeth and spat on the man’s foot.
As the dwarf looked down in disgust, Cullfor threw out his hand. The blunted forces of his magic narrowed and he pulled his thumb back. The force met the dwarf’s eye, puckering it. The old warrior wheeled back in pain, managing to raise his axe. But Cullfor pointed his other thumb to the dwarf’s knee. There was an immense crack. The long-beard dropped forward, bent unnaturally, growling with strange curses as Cullfor lifted him some ten feet into the air.
Grunting with the effort, Cullfor moved the dwarf in a wide arc as he began to shield the air around him, arrows zipping by him again. He felt, more than saw, the arrows pounding the old dwarf’s body.
Then a hot punched ripped into the back of his thigh. He had been hit. But how? Fire spread from the wound, locking the leg in place, but he did not fall. He couldn’t. The leg was rigid, shaking.
Once more, the arrows ceased. Baring his teeth, Cullfor turned, dumping the lifeless old dwarf behind him. A dozen dwarves were approaching from his right. Three more emerged from the vessel, hefting shields from the gunwale. He could see an axe that had been dropped, and he grunted, understanding that he could not even bend to collect it. Everything became slow, and he knew: this was it. The inglorious it. He could shield himself for a while. But how long? And how had his veil been penetrated?
The three from the ship said something. They were focused and grim, stepping over bodies as t
hey closed in. It was almost laughable that they moved to surround him. Cullfor became intensely aware of the river. The sparkling, pleasant sound of it. The high, thin tickle of the morning sun. Life was a nasty, magical thing and he had made of it what it he could.
Without warning, a noise reverberated from his uncle’s cottage.
Cullfor hobbled just to get turned. Then he realized that the blue spots that began radiating across his vision were not from his magic, but from his pain. There was another noise from his uncle’s cottage. It was useless to remind himself not to look directly at it, because the noise resounded yet a third time.
Then his uncle, the great Fie Wyrmkiller, rushed, bursting from the door in his long underpants.
“Oh hell’s depths, Uncle. No…”
The enormous old man chuffed like a lion, mad with fever. He ran toward the livery of dwarven warriors, his locks bouncing with his odd gait. The dwarves turned to the odd spectacle, laughing as they drew their bows.
Cullfor limped to his uncle, shielding him with his magic. But as they fired, something strange happened. He halted. A cold sensation slapped over his skin. The arrows had not even slowed. Every shot had thudded into its mark.
Fie Wyrmkiller, hedge-hogged with arrows, remained upright. He just stood, seeming to digest his situation.
Ever the gentleman warrior, he straightened his back.
“Well thundering hell, boy!” he grunted. “Isn’t this a spot?”
Then he continued coming.
Cullfor hobbled to meet him. When their eyes met, Fie blinked. At first, his uncle’s deep green gaze did not take him in with any sort of welcome. Then the old man straightened his back. He touched Cullfor’s shoulder, and he smiled.
This man… This man had been a father to him. This man had once saved him from a dragon. This man had fought elves, goblins, and a dwarven king. This man, he simply looked at him. And he said nothing. And as they embraced, his uncle’s cold breath went through his shoulder. Their knees were grinding together.
They began to fall backwards.
Cullfor grunted and heaved, trying to twist before they splashed onto the stones. But his leg gave way. In the next breath, his head was wedged between the paving stones and his uncle’s great folds of muscle. He was turned awkwardly. The arrow in his thigh was joined now by the heads of four others that protruded from his lord.
He was stuck.
“No, my sweet uncle. This is a spot.”
While the final breath left the massive uncle, an enormous clap of laughter rose, and Cullfor could see the dwarves staring as they chuckled. The smoke was rolling behind them. As a few more bent down to gawk, one said something that made the others laugh again. Then they went silent. One of them, the largest, shook his head no. He said something that caused a great deal of debate.
Then the dwarves began stepping away.
Cullfor convulsed, perplexed: as they made their way toward the ship, none of them carried plunder. They had taken no women. Nor farm muscle. Had they not come to assassinate him? It would not have been the first attempt. But now they were leaving. Yet they were not fleeing—their actions were steady and assured while they assumed stations along each side of the hull. None of it made sense.
The pain in his head began growing in surges.
Cullfor shut his eyes.
“Yeave, Yeave,” resounded, echoing back from the hills.
He opened an eye and forced himself to remain conscious, studying the vessel, remembering the faces. There was a large canvas bulge in the middle, approximately twenty feet long. It appeared to be… dragon-shaped.
He watched the vessel it surged backwards into the current. As it lunged beyond the river’s oxbow, dwarves were still crawling aboard. They were still debating something, but they were following the largest dwarf’s orders with perfect timing.
Cullfor felt his wounded leg growing cold. He looked around him. They took nothing. They left nothing, save the scant few he managed to down. All around him were dead halflings, frozen in their animate poses.
There had only been forty of them.
Chapter 59
“The ease of a life is not borne of easy things.”
—Halfling philosophy
__________
Cullfor faded and came to, very slowly. He was unsure if he had if he died, or if he were in a nightmare. Some part of his mind kept flashing to images of hell, and though his conscious mind had wakened just enough to realize he was merely hurt, not dead, there was other, distant chatter in his head that made him uncertain how long that would be the case. Stuck under his massive uncle, he only knew that he was fading again. And he was still unable to move.
He shoved upwards, straining until the edge of his vision started to fuzz again, then he shivered and shook his head. It was useless—it took all the effort in the world, and nothing came of it but more exhaustion.
He stared at the clouds a moment, every gasp bringing less air. He was growing more aware now of being alive. He held that notion in his head like a bubble of sanity-giving air. In time, he tried to scoot and could not, and he understood he might be worse than stuck. He might have lost the use of his legs.
“Aural!” he bellowed, but a giant invisible fist seemed to squeeze his lower back. He was not even certain any noise had come out.
“Aural.”
The lady’s halfling handmaiden did not respond, but the pain had brought air. He gasped while he was able, panting. Nausea was starting to balloon in his chest, which felt somehow positive. His reddening eyes scanned the courtyard. There was no one to help him. He saw only thinner and thinner plumes of smoke pouring over the contorted frames. Crows were at work on the wetter parts.
“Aural. Where in damnation are you!”
The slide-and-peek on his lord’s door rattled opened and at last he could feel living eyes on him.
“Cullfor?”
He twisted his neck until he could see her bare, upside-down feet rooted in the cobblestone ceiling of the sky.
“Yes, woman. Hurry.”
The handmaiden exploded outside and pushed the enormous human off him with embarrassing ease. Then she put her hand in front of her chest. Cold shock crumpled her face. Fie Wyrmkiller lay strangely bent, backward atop his own arm. A film was beginning to glaze the eyes.
Cullfor tried to get up, but his leg jerked straight. There was a massive pain, like a bolt of magma shooting from his knees to his neck. Then he felt colder.
In the next instant, she squatted over him.
“Not the time for that, girl.”
“Shush ye filthy mouth.”
She hiked up her dress, ripping at her undergarments until she had a strap of some length. She did not respond to his instinctual, pained clutches except to spin. Now with her back to him, she sat on his stomach. She reached out and pulled one of his arms between her legs. For a moment, she worked something through her teeth. She ripped more fabric, twisting it around her finger.
Then something sunk into the flesh of his groin. His fist balled. He tried to keep silent, but his breath escaped in a shaky, loud squall.
Flushed, she looked back now. There was a taut moment, and he knew what she was about to do.
“Please, no. Holy lord, girl. Wait just a damned—”
Suddenly, the shaft slid out of his thigh. The pain slammed him. His vision filled with red, then splotchy blackness, and suddenly he began to shiver, his breathing like hiccups now. That moment stretched into a murder of eons before he drew a real breath. Then, when the shaking slowed, a wave of agony pressed through his body, washing away the denser hurt.
“Cover your naked arse, girl.”
She stood, and turned again. Her face was hard.
“Get up,” she said.
He could not. Not right away.
“Piss off,” he said
After a moment she folded her arms. “Who are you, wizard?” she growled.
“What!”
“You heard men. Tell me who you are
!”
He understood what she was doing, trying to get him to muster the pride anyone with dwarven heritage feels when he thinks of his place in history, and he, on some level, obliged her: He was Cullie Stonebreaker, but he was only the son of Halvgar Stonebreaker by name, as his human uncle had only just recently admitted. His real father had been an elvish hunting guide for his father, a fellow of whom his mind retained no memories whatsoever. A mute elf named Batt. But the things in his head would not come out.
“Never mind all that,” he rasped. “We have to tell her before she sees.”
She nodded. But when he tried to stand, she had to help him.
Then she shook her head no.
“I cannot be asked this,” she said.
That was Aural for you, he reminded himself. She possessed the odd talent of being the strongest and the weakest person he ever knew. Even when they were kids. He kissed her forehead and began hobbling painfully to the door.
When he peered inside, he could see nothing. He walked in. It was vaguely insulting to smell his uncle in here, and it was almost too much to see the preparations for Auntie Dhal’s birthday feast. Dozens of platters, kegs and steins were stacked on the table while big woolen labia and comical carved penises were festooned across the walls.
Without warning, she emerged from her room.
Cullfor halted.
Dhal was a thick woman. She had a mannish jawline and friendly, smart-looking eyes that questioned everything. Her hair was too gray for her age, which normally made her seem austere, regal. Now she seemed deathly frail.
“Gone to God, then?” she whispered pitifully.
Cullfor blinked. He felt the world spin a little. He understood that she knew, but he did not want her to look outside because when she stared at him, and he recognized the look. It was the special, shocked liberty of the living dead—she would take her own life if she saw his body too soon.
As he stepped toward her, blood began dripping from his leg. She froze him with a look, trembling as she lifted their lord’s ancestral weapon, a two-stone behemoth. She was bent over, still staring, and as she began nestling the gnarly pummel between the sturdy planks of the floor, her now serious eyes stayed on him. She positioned the tip of the blade under her breastbone, already tearing her dress, already sinking into her flesh.
