by Markus Heitz
He nodded and stormed ahead. Those few words of Sirka’s echoed round his head and threatened to distract him from the task at hand. He pulled himself together and ducked to avoid the grasp of the machine’s snapping fingers, feeling the draught as the blow narrowly missed. He attacked with Keenfire.
To his inordinate relief the ax head flamed into life, gathering power to strike the foe.
The blade hit home above the iron ankle. Lightning flashes blazed and the runes on the armor shone dark green. A jerk went through the machine and a new noise erupted inside like the twanging of a breaking bow string.
“It’s still alive, Scholar!” Ireheart screamed from behind. “The thing in the glass case. It’s still there. And I think it’s laughing!”
Furious now, Tungdil drew back his weapon, there was dark green blood, nearly black, sticking to it. At least Keenfire was able to injure it. Then he saw the elf runes on the monster’s right breast. The word he read was deaths.
“Take care,” Sirka warned, but it was a second too late.
The flat iron hand hit him and catapulted him away. He lost his helmet and his belt came loose, tangling itself round his boots. Caught upside-down like a bound gugul he could see the monster stomping toward him, sharp iron nails underneath its boots, with fragments of bone and armor from previous encounters hung between them.
“Come here and I’ll slit your tin can open!” he taunted the colossus, raising his ax.
Then Sirka was there, dragging him along by his belt. Their giant adversary followed them-and stepped into the trap.
Hardly had Tungdil and Sirka passed than the rope was tautened and the ends fastened round a rock.
It caught the monster’s iron foot; its pace slackened. The rope burst apart but the beast had lost its balance. It managed to bring its arms forward to break the fall and to prevent itself falling onto its porthole.
“Now!” bellowed Ireheart sprinting off and using his momentum to swing the crow’s beak upwards with tremendous force.
The blunt end hit the thick porthole in front of the monster’s face. Clunk! Four cracks appeared in the curved pane of glass. The three iron balls of Goda’s night star completed the destruction. Shards fell down on her and Ireheart.
Sirka had freed Tungdil from his involuntary bondage. “Everything all right? Or have I dragged the skin off your bones?”
“No, you have stolen my heart.” This time he was the one who planted a kiss, then he sprang up to help Boindil, looking on in fury as the machine struggled up.
“Stay where you are, infernal bucket!” raged Ireheart, whacking the iron arms, in an attempt to break them, in spite of being underneath. “You have killed your last dwarf!” He struck an elbow joint.
The combination of the creature’s massive weight and this well-aimed blow caused the material to yield. One of the holding bolts snapped, and the forearm broke off. The machine toppled and could not right itself.
“You’re mad! Get out from under there!” called Tungdil.
But Ireheart was too far gone in his battle-lust to hear. “I’ll smash your ugly nose and the rest of you to boot!” he promised the beast, thumping his crow’s beak into its face. Blood sprayed out and the deformed features disappeared in a sea of black. The whole machine shuddered as if sharing the pain the creature within was suffering. “Ha! Now it’s…”
The left arm gave way and the three-pace-long torso fell with a thud. Its fate was sealed.
Tungdil saw his friend disappear under the massive black armor. His cry of horror was drowned out by the terrible clanking and rattling, a noise that eclipsed any other sound in the tunnels. He did not dare look down to check for blood. “We’ll have to hoist it up, to…”
“That was close,” they heard Boindil laugh. His helmet appeared on top of the armored monster, then he was up and standing on it swinging his crow’s beak. “Ha! That’s what Vraccas likes to see!” he called happily. “Now the unslayables have lost two of their beasts.”
He stamped on the creature’s metal back. “It wasn’t actually the magister’s weak point they told us about. But it wasn’t bad, was it?”
Tungdil gestured him to come down. “Get off there before the altitude gets to your brain and you attempt more stupid suicidal stuff.” He hid his relief behind the seemingly harsh words.
“Coming, Scholar.” Ireheart stroked his weapon. “Crow’s beak and I are in just the mood to take on another of these monsters.” He looked down between his feet. “There’s something like a lock here. Shall we break it open? It’ll take us to the cogwheel innards, for sure.”
With a high-pitched shriek steam gushed out of a vent next to Ireheart.
“No, let’s get on.” Tungdil did not like the sound at all. His own people’s steam machines had valves to release a build-up of pressure. He did not know if this contraption had the same. “If the boiler blows I don’t want to be next to it.”
“Got you.” He stepped over the iron hip, walked down the leg and jumped off the foot, brown eyes gleaming with a mixture of war-rage and triumphant delight: a dangerous combination of light-headed boldness and unshakeable self-confidence. “Do you know what? We’ll have another of these down before the day is out.”
“You are incorrigible,” said Tungdil and left it at that. “Come on.”
“Of course I’m incorrigible. But hesitation never gets you anywhere.” He winked at Goda, who was gazing at him admiringly. She was proud he was her trainer and had completely forgotten the argument they had had in the barn.
Together they walked along the passage until they reached a fork. Tungdil mentally arranged the elf runes in the most likely order: your deaths have. Two more creatures were needed and they would have the riddle solved.
“And now?” Dergard wiped the sweat from his brow. He was the one least able to cope with the sultry heat, and these Toboribor caves were extremely hot, affected by the steaming simmering pools they found everywhere they went. The dwarves were not enjoying it much, either. It smelt too strongly of orc. Tungdil indicated a passageway where cooler air was emerging. “That one.” He took the lead.
With every stride they took it got colder. Damp settled on their chain mail and the chilliness-welcome at first-soon had Dergard shivering.
“It’s like a crypt.” He spoke his thoughts out loud. “I don’t like it here.”
“Who do you think is enjoying this?” retorted Ireheart. “Just because I am a child of the Smith doesn’t mean I feel happy in this pig-sty. Caves aren’t all the same, you know, magus.”
Tungdil had reached a cavern and realized that Dergard had not been far off the truth with his suggestion. “Quiet, he hissed back over his shoulder. A vague feeling of unease warned him against entering, but there was no choice. The diamond could be anywhere. “Come on, but quietly.”
This cave was a good fifty paces long and broad and the walls curved above them in a dome at least forty paces high. Exactly in the middle a dark stalactite hung down; it was the length of two grown human men and the girth of an ancient tree.
The stalactite’s tip pointed down to a woman with long black hair lying on an altar of basalt, her hands folded on her stomach and her eyes closed. Her black silk robes draped to the right and left of the bier partially obscured the alfar rune ornaments on the stone.
Under her crossed hands lay two long slender swords that Tungdil recognized at once. The unslayable siblings had used similar weapons to attack the eoil in the battle on the tower.
A bluish light was emanating from the diamond on her breast. From time to time a silver flicker illuminated the signs and the countenance of the recumbent figure.
They had found the unslayable sister… and the stolen diamond.
On the floor round about them lay the skeletons of orcs: the remains of five hundred or more. The cut marks on the bones made no other interpretation possible: they had died by the same sharp blade.
“By Samusin!” whispered Dergard in fascination, unable to take his eyes
off the alfar woman. “How exquisite she is.” Even lying there like this, still and stiff, she had more grace, more elegance, more beauty than the elf princess Rejalin.
Tungdil and the other dwarves could not endure the sight of her features. It was like asking them to look into a dazzling reflection of a bar of gold. Or to go right up to a glowing furnace. They could have done none of these.
At last even Dergard had to lower his eyes. But the fascination had not left him. Blind to any danger, he approached the altar, lifting his trembling hands in his desire to touch the dark goddess. The brittle orc bones scrunched and crumbled under his feet.
“Leave the Creating Spirit alone.” A voice as clear as a mountain spring sounded suddenly on all sides. “She has been tired for so very long.”
Dergard stood stock still and looked to the right and left without seeing a soul. “I don’t want to hurt her,” he called in ecstatic tones. “Only… to be near to her. To kneel and gaze upon her.”
“Can the pointy-ears have deprived our magus of his senses, Scholar?” asked Boindil in dismay.
How Tungdil wished he had translated the runes in the inscriptions on the doors of the throne room in Dson Balsur. Perhaps it would have helped here. But he did not speak the alfar tongue. “I fear so,” he replied under his breath.
“Shall we drag him away?” suggested Goda.
“No, stick together. And do nothing to provoke Dergard.” He was afraid the magus would use magic to defend himself.
Dergard moved two paces closer to the altar. He lifted his gaze. The diamond illuminated the immaculate features, the sight of which burned itself into his brain. The magus was sobbing like a small child; he sank to his knees and crawled over toward the unslayable one through the mass of orc bones, unaffected by this ghastly detritus.
“Do not approach the Creating Spirit.” The voice whipped him back.
“But I must,” begged the awestruck Dergard, frightened at the thought of withdrawing.
They heard cogwheels clicking into action, the clanking of iron, the rattling of a drive mechanism and then a hissing sound. Out of a dark corner of the cavern swept a white cloud of vapor that wandered around randomly. Tungdil thought of the mist demons that had taken over Nudin.
“I shall not let you disturb her,” said the elfish voice, with a terrifying hiss. The next in the series of machines made by the sick genius Furgas now approached, its many wheels turning the orc remains to dust.
Tungdil saw a mixture of vehicle and heavily armored beast: below the hip it disappeared into a box-like construction on wheels. The elf rune he was looking for was on the front plating: faces.
It had lifted the visor and yellow eyes watched Dergard from above: “Get out of here!”
“If it weren’t so viciously dangerous, you’d have to give Furgas a medal for inventiveness,” whispered Ireheart.
His words were picked up. The machine lifted its head suddenly and looked toward the cave entrance. “You have come to disturb the Creating Spirit.” An armored hand shot up to slam the visor down. “I cannot permit that.”
The vehicle picked up speed and came toward the dwarves through the sea of bones.
“Spread out!” Tungdil had seen the machine’s long tionium assault spikes, and the sharp wheels that would slice any victim lying on the ground. The trick with the rope was not going to work with this one.
Spotting that the dwarves were splitting into two groups, the machine operated a mechanism that let down two long blades right and left.
Ireheart grinned. “Not all the constructions are perfect. Those blades are set too high. We can easily…” With a loud clicking noise the blades were lowered down to mid-dwarf height.
“I should have kept my mouth shut.” Ireheart was furious.
Then the monster machine started after them. Before long it had struck one brave warrior on the hip. The combination of the vehicle’s speed and the blades’ sharpness was enough to cut through chain mail and bone. Screaming and spurting blood, he collapsed onto the orc remains while the chase went on.
Three more dwarves were cut to pieces. The rest of the group swerved out of reach, pushing into a narrow cleft where the beast could not pass.
Tungdil made use of the distraction. With some of the other dwarves and Ireheart, Sirka and Goda, he ran through the cave, stopping at the altar on which the unslayable one lay. Their target was the diamond lying unguarded there.
“Ireheart, you get the diamond,” Tungdil commanded. “I’m going to decapitate the alfar woman.”
“Why not the other way round? I’d like to cut her head off.”
“Because only Keenfire can put an end to the life of an unslayable.”
Goda looked over her shoulder. “It’s seen us and is coming this way.” She slowed her pace and was about to confront the machine.
“No, keep going!” Ireheart grabbed her by the shoulder. “Behind the altar-it’ll be safer there. Or it’ll roll right over you.” Running headlong he launched himself and leaped onto the alfar. If he wasn’t going to get to take her head off at least he wanted to injure her.
A beam of green light hit him on the groin; the magic hurled him backwards and his crow’s beak flew through the air, striking Sirka on the forehead. She sank to the ground, unconscious.
Goda whirled around to face the new attacker, but only found a very familiar face.
Dergard was crouching by the altar with one hand raised. “You must not disturb her, didn’t you hear?” he hissed. “Don’t you dare try again!”
Ireheart clambered to his feet, cursing. Apart from pins and needles all over and a few grazes on his hands he was all right. “You wait so long for a magus and when one finally arrives he’s nothing but trouble.” He looked to see how Sirka was. “She’s alive, Scholar. You deal with the human.”
But the machine rolled onwards like a demented fiery bull, lowering the spear in its hand. The blade edges shimmered in the diamond’s bluish light.
XV
Girdlegard,
Kingdom of Idolslane,
The Caves of Toboribor,
Late Summer, 6241st Solar Cycle
Tungdil confronted Dergard, thrusting Goda back. “Go and help your master,” he told her. Then he made a feigned attack on the young magus, reckoning Keenfire would afford the protection he needed.
Dergard moved fast. From his fingertips he shot a light-ray toward Tungdil, but Keenfire attracted and then absorbed the magic beam’s energy: its inlaid patterns lit up and the diamonds were transformed into brilliant miniature stars.
Tundil was unscathed; he felt the sigurdacia wood of the ax handle grow warm, that was all. Without further ado he struck the magus on the temple with the flat of the ax blade and Dergard passed out and sank to the ground.
“Look out, Scholar!” shouted Ireheart from behind. “Get down!”
Tungdil launched himself into a backwards dive.
The hybrid creature’s long blade whirred past his face, missing him by the breadth of a beard-hair. The sharp metal edge clanged against the base of the altar and shattered. A roar of frustration was heard.
But the machine’s powerful array of wheels continued onwards, rolling over the unconscious Dergard and slicing him to pieces. Limbs were severed, and all that remained of the head was a shredded mass. Only the gods themselves could have revived him.
“I am going to kill you!” The monster hurled a spear at Ireheart, who had clambered onto the altar. The dwarf sprang back and with Goda dived under cover at the far end of the stone bier.
“I’ll distract it,” Tungdil called over his shoulder. “You two know what to do.” He felt Dergard’s death had been his fault. He had knocked the magus out and, unconscious, he had been easy prey.
The monster drew another spear stored lengthways on the vehicle’s side. “Your ax is nothing to me,” it said, slowly advancing. You cannot even reach me, groundling.”
Tungdil ducked down to grab a loose blade fragment; he weighed it carefull
y, then cast it with all his strength at his adversary. The machine swiveled and struck him on the left shoulder with a jagged-edged knife. His own throw had not even damaged the machine’s armor plating.
The creature laughed and sped onwards while Tungdil moved back from the altar to give himself more freedom of movement. “You will not defeat me,” he vowed to the creature.
Now Goda tried her luck. She sprinted along the other side of the altar and jumped up in an attempt to get the diamond.
The fiendish creature turned its head and launched a spear in her direction. “Get away from the Creator Spirit!”
Goda was taken by surprise. The sharp point cut through her chain mail links and armor, piercing the collarbone and shoulder joint and forcing her to the floor. The weapon shaft protruded from her back.
Tungdil could not let himself think about her fate because the machine-monster was nearly upon him. He crouched down, did a shoulder roll to escape the lethal touch of the wheels and vicious blades, then jumped back on his feet.
With a mighty leap, he launched himself onto the broad platform of the vehicle. Above him towered the armored back of the creature.
Raising his arms he whacked Keenfire with tremendous force against the place he assumed the creature’s spine to be. If this blow were not a death-dealer, his own life would shortly be over.
But the ax did not fail him. It tore into the tionium, hacking at the flesh and gouging through to the vertebrae giving off a dazzling glow as it did so, the diamonds pulsating as if they contained a heart.
The monster gave an ear-splitting screech, cringing and collapsing, its long arms convulsively grabbing at the dwarf on its back. “Get off me!”
“No!” Tungdil had already landed a second ax blow, despite difficulty in keeping his balance on the swaying metal deck. The next swipe was less powerful but hit the same spot, maximizing the injury.
With a bestial roar the creature waved its arms wildly and struck Tungdil on the chest. He flew through the air, landing with a thump on the ground, but without losing his grip on the ax handle. Dazed, he struggled to his feet and, as if through a veil, saw the creature lurching toward him again at high speed.
