The Half Dwarf Prince: 02 - The Dwarf War

by J. M. Fosberg

  “Get back!” he shouted as he charged into the room. His belt absorbed all of the initial attacks, but he knew it could absorb only so much. He could already feel it heating up through his pants. He threw his axe to the right and ran to the left. There were at least a dozen men and most of them were wizards, but he didn’t take the time to count them all. He heard the man behind him die as his axe hit him. He called the first axe back to him as he slammed his other axe through the magical shield of the wizard in front of him. The wizard died, and he heard the grunt of a man behind him. His axe had crashed into the man’s back. That had been lucky. He called the axe up from the man’s back to his hand as he moved toward another wizard; his belt absorbed more fire and black tendrils. A bolt of lightning slammed into his armor from the side. He grunted as he was knocked to the side, but he was unharmed—his armor saved him. He was happy he wasn’t wearing metal armor this time. All of the wizards started using lightning, thinking it was somehow what his magic wasn’t stopping, then he saw the confusion on one of the wizard’s faces when his lightning was also absorbed into Grundel’s belt. His axe cut through that man, and he followed that swing with one from the axe in his left hand, coming down on a wizard who was trying to magically travel away, but his body was still substantial enough to be cut in half by his axe.

  Captain Douglas came into the room a few seconds after Grundel and went the other direction. He stabbed one of the wizards in the face. He then threw his dagger at another and it buried into the wizard’s chest as he started to disappear. Another of the Black Dragons charged at him. Douglas drew his sword. The man must not have been a wizard, because a wizard wouldn’t be trying to get close. The man was quick. Douglas ducked under the man’s initial slash, getting a cut to his leg. But he stayed on his feet, swinging his sword out with one hand as the man rolled away. Douglas felt his sword make contact and then turned toward the man. The assassin was trying to get to his feet awkwardly, and Douglas thrust his blade into his back. Just as he did so, he was hit with a ball of light from the side. He slammed into the wall and then everything was dark.

  Grundel threw one of his axes at a wizard who tried to travel away. He cut down the assassin in front of him with another. His belt started to absorb a ball of fire, but the belt reached its maximum capacity, and part of the fire continued into his chest. He was knocked backward and tripped over one of the fallen bodies behind him. As he got to his feet he was hit by another ball of fire, but he leaned into it. He knew he’d be burned, but the armor stopped most of it. He threw his axe and drew his knives, one from his boot and one from his belt. He threw the boot knife, which cut through the shield of a wizard who had stopped trying to travel away when he had seen Grundel hit with the ball of fire. When the knife buried into the man’s stomach, he burst into flame. The wizard next to him was distracted for just a second, and that was long enough for him to catch Grundel’s second knife in the neck. Grundel charged the next man. He had thrown all of his weapons. His last thought was about how he should never do that again, and then he was slamming into the last wizard. The wizard smashed through the window and Grundel’s momentum sent him tumbling right after him. He held on to the wizard. He felt himself start to become insubstantial, but this wizard wasn’t Anwar. He couldn’t travel fast enough, and Grundel rode him through the sky, slamming into the ground. He felt the man's body crunch underneath him. He rolled, and the world was spinning. When he opened his eyes a soldier was bent down next to him. He couldn’t understand what he was saying because his head was still reeling.

  “What?” he asked weakly as he started to get his breath back.

  “Are you okay, Your Highness?” the man asked.

  Grundel rolled to his back. He definitely broke something, but he wasn’t sure what because pain was coming from everywhere. “Get in there and check on Captain Douglas. He was in the room I flew out of,” Grundel said. The man ran off with a couple of other soldiers, and another soldier knelt next to him. “Help me up,” Grundel said.

  “Your Highness, maybe we should wait for a caretaker,” the man answered.

  “Help me up,” Grundel repeated. The man nodded to another soldier and they each wrapped an arm under one of his and helped him to his feet. “Tell them to throw one of my axes down.”

  They shouted up to the window, and a second later one of Grundel’s axes was tossed out. Grundel walked slowly toward the axe, leaning on the two men. His legs weren’t broken, at least, but something was definitely wrong with his left arm and he was sure he broke some ribs. He bent down and picked up his axe. “Let’s go,” he told the two guards supporting him. He called upon the magic of the axe. It carried him into the air and back through the window he had come out of, taking him to his other axe. Captain Douglas was lying unconscious against the wall with his skin burned and a lot of hair burned off one side of his head. “Is he alive?” Grundel asked, nodding toward the man.

  “He is breathing, Your Highness, but he won’t wake up,” one of the soldiers next to the captain said.

  “Get him back to the palace,” Grundel told them, and two men picked the captain up, each holding one of the man’s arms over his shoulders and the other wrapped around the captain’s back. Grundel retrieved his daggers. One lay in a pile of ash. Firebringer had literally burned the wizard to ash, bones and all. He put the daggers away and lifted one of his axes over his head, sliding it onto his back. Pain shot through his side. He was just starting to recover from his stomach wound and now this. The pain in his stomach was there much stronger, too. But he could hear fighting in the building and he forced himself to keep going. He would have time to recover when this was over, but he couldn’t leave his friends to fight alone while he stood around.

  Jerrie walked to the door at the end of the hall. They had checked every room and found no one. He had seen the glow of magic in a couple of them, but that was something to think about later. He threw open the door and ran into the room with Rundo on his heels. He was assaulted by dozens of black tendrils. They all deflected at the last second, but one of them hit his left arm and he dropped that knife. He ran towards the first wizard he saw, and more dark tendrils of magic deflected into the wall, with a few of them absorbed by Rundo’s belt as they bounced toward him.

  Jerrie threw his knife at the wizard in front of him and rolled to the side, pulling another knife from the back of his belt as he returned to his feet. The wizard in front of him jumped back in shock, but Jerrie was quicker. His knife sliced across the man’s throat, and he was already turning to the next man when the first reached up to try to stop the blood that was already spraying from the severed artery. Then Jerrie was thrown forward as a magical attack hit him in the back. He wasn’t sure what kind of spell it had been, but his armor saved him. He rolled forward and managed to cut someone’s leg as he went past. He came to his feet and found an assassin already on him. The man’s dagger already coming for him, he trusted in his armor and stabbed out with his own knife. The dagger slammed into Jerrie’s chest, and it would have been a killing blow, but the magically enchanted leather stopped it. His own dagger slid between ribs, puncturing a lung. The man went down. He was still alive, but he was out of the fight.

  When Jerrie turned around he saw Rundo release both of his daggers at two wizards. Neither penetrated the wizards’ armor, but he had caused the men to move back toward the others in the corner of the room. Jerrie threw the dagger in his hand, picking up his first dagger as he passed it. He was running toward the group of Black Dragons. He already saw two of them attempting to travel, but before they could, the corner wall collapsed and the roof above them collapsed on top of them. The last six men in the room died under piles of stone. Jerrie stopped and looked around, expecting the rest of the room to collapse, but it held. When he turned around he saw Grundel come limping into the room, looking very beaten up. Now that he wasn’t moving, he didn’t feel so great himself. His back and neck were already tightening up from the blast he had taken in the back, and he k
new he already had a bruise on his chest.

  Grundel looked around the room and nodded. They all went downstairs to check on Dobo and Gobo, but the dwarves had killed all of the assassins down there. All in all, the whole thing had lasted less than half an hour.

  “Jerrie, if you would, go through the building and gather up anything that would be useful. Take a squad with you to help you carry whatever you find. The rest of us will wait outside. When you are done, we need to destroy this place.”

  Jerrie went through each room looking for the gentle glow that would tell him an item was magical. He had to see the item to know if it was magical. He told the soldiers to help him search and bring him anything that looked interesting. He knew that he had likely missed some of the best items, but they simply didn’t have the time to search the place thoroughly. The wizards would have hidden their most prized possessions very well. The soldiers carried out the items as he identified them. It was an hour later when he finally walked out of the building. Grundel looked like he was near collapse.

  Rundo watched Jerrie walk out of the building, then he did a quick search to make sure they hadn’t left anyone behind, and then came back to the front door. He linked with the earth of the center stone wall at the back of the front room. He manipulated the aura of that wall. It was difficult, but not nearly as difficult as it had been to collapse the whole tunnel in Shinestone. The wall collapsed and the building started to fall in on itself. He ran out of the building. The soldiers were all backing up. Rundo turned around and linked with the side of the building, collapsing a section of that wall. The building collapsed away from any other buildings. When it was done, there was just a huge pile of black stone littered with destroyed furniture on the side of the cobblestone street.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Recoveries and Preparations

  “You should probably hold on to something, Your Highness. This will be rather unpleasant,” Master Brennin said.

  Grundel put one hand on the table next to him to steady himself. Master Brennin held on to his wrist and then jerked it down. A jolt of pain shot through Grundel’s body as his shoulder snapped back into its socket. Grundel held his composure, but just barely. Sweat ran down his head.

  “You handled that quite impressively, Your Highness. There is a lot of bruising along your sides. Should I check for broken ribs?” Brennin asked.

  “Is there anything you can do for broken ribs?” Grundel asked.

  “Not very much, Your Highness,” Brennin answered honestly.

  “Then there is no point. I know at least a couple on my right side are broken,” Grundel said.

  “I would suggest you keep them wrapped up, Your Highness. It is best to stabilize the bones as they heal.” Grundel just nodded.

  “How is he doing?” Grundel asked, nodding to Captain Douglas, who was lying on a bed across the room.

  “We have treated the burns. He hasn’t woken yet, but it seems that those were his only real injuries. He should make a full recovery unless the blow to his head was more serious than we anticipate, Your Highness,” Brennin said.

  “Yeah, yeah, we are all fine, Your Highness. I can’t believe we didn’t get any of them wizards,” Dobo said.

  Grundel couldn’t help but laugh. The dwarf had stitches sealing a six-inch cut along the top of his head and another couple stitches in a cut on his cheek. “My brother is jealous because no one tried to burn him to a crisp, Prince Grundel,” Gobo said jokingly.

  “Says the dwarf who did half the work,” Dobo countered.

  Gobo flicked his brother in the top of the head, right on his stitches. “Yeah, but I didn’t need some human healer to save me from bleeding to death when it was over,” Gobo said.

  “Ah, ain’t no one needed saving, it’s just a scratch,” Dobo countered. “The humans just get all worried at the slightest drop o’ blood. You ain’t really fighting if you come away without a couple cuts and bruises. We can’t all dance around the fight like you, Brother. Just look at Prince Grundel: he knows how to get in the fight and do some work. The way I hear it, he rode one o’ them wizards off the roof all the way to the ground.”

  Grundel laughed. “It was from a second-story window, not the roof, and I’m not getting in the middle o’ you two. That’s more fight than I can handle.”

  Jerrie sat in a big cushioned chair staring at the glove in his hand. They had taken quite a few items from the building. Grundel had told Jerrie he could keep whatever he wanted. The only thing he had kept was that glove. The rest of the items lay in a pile in the corner of the room. They were going to sort through them and give most of them to the soldiers. Now that they had gone after the Black Dragons, the soldiers would have to be equipped and trained to fight wizards.

  “What does that do?” Grundel asked him.

  Jerrie smiled up at him. Jerrie’s dagger stabbed into the wall, but Grundel hadn’t seen him move.

  “It lets you move that hand without anyone seeing it,” Grundel asked, impressed.

  “No,” Jerrie said looking down at his gloved hand. “It allows me to move this hand so fast that you just don’t see it moving. It increases the speed of the hand, and from what I can tell, it’s around makes me ten times faster then my normal speed of movement.”

  “Like ye wasn’t fast enough already. You was unnatural before—what ye gonna be now?” Dobo said.

  “Maybe you should find yourself a set o’ those, Dobo, then you might not come outta every fight looking like you lost,” Gobo joked.

  Dobo turned around and punched his brother hard in the stomach. “The loser don’t come out o’ the fight, Brother.” Gobo bent over with the wind knocked out of him and everyone laughed.

  “Did we do it?” Captain Douglas asked weakly from his bed. Master Brennin went to his side. The captain turned to look at them, then hissed and turned his head back so he was looking straight up at the ceiling.

  “I must recommend that you do not turn your head, sir. You seem to be mostly healthy, but the burns on your neck will be very painful, especially when you move it,” Master Brennin said.

  “Good to know,” he replied.

  Grundel walked over to the side of his bed. When the captain saw him he sighed in relief. “I am glad to see you are alive, Your Highness. I had a dream after I was knocked unconscious that something terrible happened.”

  “What happened?” Rundo asked.

  “In my dream I saw His Highness grab one of the wizards and leap out of a window,” Captain Douglas said.

  The dwarves burst into laughter. Rundo and Jerrie laughed a bit less dramatically. Grundel just shook his head.

  “You leaped out of a window?” came a voice from the door. Everyone went silent instantly as Grundel’s mother, Anna, walked into the room.

  “It wasn’t like they are making it sound. I charged the last wizard, but I couldn’t let go, and we went out the window together. Captain Douglas was already down, and the other guards in the hall had no way to fight a wizard. I did what had to be done,” Grundel told his mother. He was telling her what happened, but his tone let her know that he was not apologizing.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, realizing that there was no argument to be made.

  “His Highness is in surprisingly good condition given the circumstances, Your Highness. He had a dislocated shoulder, which we already set. He also likely has a couple of broken ribs, but he seems to be doing quite well. I did not see anything that would cause any lasting damage, Your Highness,” Master Brennin told her.

  That was as far as Master Brennin could go to give his approval of Grundel’s actions without being out of line. Master Brennin was much more forward with the Patria family than everyone else, but even he had to maintain a certain amount of propriety. Grundel looked to his mother, and the man’s words seemed to have calmed her.

  “What was the cost, Your Highness?” Captain Douglas asked from the bed.

  Grundel turned back to the man. He walked to the edge of the bed and looked d
own into the man’s eyes. “We lost three men, Captain. One died fighting the assassins downstairs, one fell in the hall with Jerrie and Rundo, and one died in the room with us. He apparently tried to rush in after us, and got hit with one of the tendrils of dark energy. The two men upstairs died almost instantly. The one downstairs took a dagger in the stomach, but he killed the assassin that put it there.”

  “What about the enemy?” King Paul asked as he walked into the room.

  Grundel turned around to face the king. “Our estimate is that we killed sixty Black Dragons. We believe that about twenty-five of those were wizards, Your Highness.”

  “How many do you think got away?” the king asked.

  “None that stayed to fight were able to escape. We are familiar with the general principle of how traveling works, and we killed the few who attempted to escape before they could. We don’t know how many might have escaped without confronting us, Your Highness,” Grundel told him.

  “They will probably avenge it,” the king said.

  “Yes, but we will make sure your men are prepared. The pile of gear in the corner is all magical equipment. Most of it is enchanted armor and weapons. It is not a lot, but it is enough to equip a small unit specifically trained to fight wizards,” Grundel told him.

  The king stared at the gear. “What is that small pile next to it?”

  “Those are other magical items that are of little or no use to the soldiers. It is mostly books or items that you can’t use without being able to use magic in the first place,” Grundel answered.

  “How did you find all of this?” the king asked.

  “Everyone has their own talents,” Grundel said, not giving away who had found the items. The king would find out anyway—the soldiers knew that Jerrie had led the search—but his diverting the subject should keep the king from trying to dig further. The truth was he wasn’t sure how Jerrie was able to find magical items, but he didn’t want others trying to find out either.