by Markus Heitz
She bent her gray head in greeting. “Forgive me for addressing you, but… Is it true what I’ve heard? That you are going to the Outer Lands?”
“It is no secret.”
“I am Saphira Ironbite.” She hesitated and cast her eyes down. “May I request a favor?”
“You want him to bring you a souvenir?” mocked the dwarf-twin.
“Bring me my son, if you find him,” she blurted out, grasping Tungdil’s hand in desperation. “I beg you, look out for him! His name is Gremdulin Ironbite of the Iron Biters clan. He is of your height and wears a helmet with a golden moon on the front…”
“I thought no scouts had gone out?” Tungdil’s curiosity was roused. He was skeptical now. He would not have been surprised if Glaïmbar were sending him into a trap, perhaps from delayed revenge for his having carried Balyndis off so far away from all the dwarven customs.
“He was not a scout, he was a guard at the gate,” she responded quietly, fighting with her emotions. “His friends told me he heard a suspicious noise and went off to investigate.”
“At the gate itself?” Boïndil broke in.
“No, the noise had come from above. A loose stone rolling or something.” There were tears in her eyes. “That’s the last they saw of him.”
Tungdil was touched, but not unduly affected. He did not even know the dwarf they were talking of. “When was this?”
“Half a sun cycle ago,” she sobbed. “Tion’s monsters have him, I am sure. Tungdil Goldhand, if any dwarf can free him, it is you.” She kissed his hand. “I beg you, for the sake of Vraccas. Save him if you can.” She wept, sinking down on her knees at his feet.
Boïndil regretted his harsh words, so swiftly spoken. He had wrongly assumed she was approaching his friend with some trivial request. “We shall keep our eyes peeled, good Saphira. Forgive me.”
Tungdil helped her up. “Don’t kneel to me. There is no need to beg for help. I will do what any dwarf would do.”
She smiled at him and wiped the tears from her wrinkled cheeks. “May Vraccas bless you, Tungdil Goldhand.” She drew a golden amulet from her pocket and hung it round his neck. “This belongs to my son. He will know that I have sent you. And if you cannot find him, keep it still, for having tried. He would be proud to know a hero was wearing it.”
The pendant showed a silver moon in front of golden mountains. “I thank you. How is it that the king did not send to search for your son?”
Fire sparked in her eyes. “He had them searching half a cycle long. They found his shield up by a deep ravine and they presumed that he had fallen there.”
“What makes you so sure that this is not the case?” Boïndil stared at her. “Not, of course, that I wish him dead.”
“A mother feels it when her own child dies.” She gave a faint smile. “He is not dead. I know he lives and is in need of help.”
Tungdil gave a start when he heard her words, as if pierced by an älfar arrow. He turned away. “Trust her feeling,” was all he said to Boïndil. Then he left the chamber, turning once more at the doorway. “We shall bring you back your son. Dead or alive.”
Next morning the small band left the safety of the dwarf lands and marched to the Northern Pass, where biting winds awaited. The icy gusts sang many-voiced along the edges of the cliffs. Tungdil wondered if the wind was mocking them or issuing a warning.
“The wind is good. It will blow away the mist,” said Boïndil, muttering into the scarf he had wrapped around his face. He peered out, even if it felt as if his eyes might turn to balls of ice in the cold.
“Out here it will,” corrected Tungdil. “As soon as we reach the tunnels we’ll meet the wretched fog. I’m sure of it.” He fell silent for a while and looked up at the walls. “I wonder what the monsters want with Gremdulin.”
“They’ll want the password from him,” Boïndil guessed. “The snout-faces are getting cleverer. But it won’t help them. Only the king and two of his closest men know the words that will unlock the bolts.”
“They are welcome to that.” Tungdil pointed to the cliffs. “Can you think of a creature that doesn’t fly and still can survive on rocks like that? And if it’s orcs, why didn’t more of them climb up along there, take over the ramparts and let down ropes for the others?” His brown gaze swept searching over the grass that bore patches of snow in places. “Boïndil, something’s not right here.”
“A new adventure, Scholar,” grinned Boïndil. “Like the old days.”
“No,” replied Tungdil, shaking his head. Then he took a mouthful of brandy from his leather flask. “Not like the old days. It will never be like the old days. Too many of our comrades have died.” Hastening his pace, he took over the head of the contingent.
“Was Tungdil Goldhand always… like that?” asked Manon cautiously. He had moved up to march at Boïndil’s side.
“What do you mean?” thundered the dwarf-twin.
“Don’t get me wrong. He will be a good leader for us, but… the men are surprised at him. We have heard tales of his deeds. We had heard of his appearance.” He looked over at Tungdil carefully. It was hard for him to voice the concerns his troops had spoken of. “The way he looks—it’s not like the hero they imagined. And there are rumors going round about the way he behaved at the high king’s feast. They say he is drunk all the time.” Manon let his gaze fall. “My men think these rumors are not unfounded.”
They are not alone in that, thought Boïndil to himself. “Call them to order,” he growled. “They shouldn’t be spreading gossip like washerwomen. You will soon see that Tungdil is a hero still.” He could only hope his words were true. Silently he wished for strength for his friend, so that he could again be the dwarf he once had been. A dwarf like Vraccas had intended.
Manon nodded and returned to his place in the troop.
After more than half an orbit they entered a passage, which filled up with fog when they had hardly gone a hundred paces.
Boïndil nodded. “This is the right place. I remember it exactly.” He sniffed at the murky air. “That’s the one: damp, cold, revolting.”
“Only the orcs missing,” said Tungdil quietly and he motioned to his companions to draw their weapons. “Take care. In this pea-souper you won’t see the enemy until he’s right in front of you. And be quiet. The more noise we make, the more you’re telling them about your whereabouts.”
They crept along in the fog. It brought back memories for Tungdil and Boïndil. “There were three of the snout-faces,” whispered Ireheart. “Two we finished off, but one escaped, remember?”
Indeed, how could he have forgotten that sight of mutilated dwarf corpses? The orc that got away had laid about himself horrifically, mowing down their comrades. “Be quiet!”
“Perhaps that orc is still around?” murmured Boïndil, and drew back: his companion’s breath was heavy and sour with alcohol. “Oh, you know what? Maybe I do feel like a fight, after all.”
“Boïndil! Just keep quiet, for once!”
“All right. I won’t say another word. Until we find the orc, that is.” He wielded his war hammer in a trial move. He had missed this sense of excitement.
They made their tortuous way through the mist that was dampening their beards and hair; drops of moisture had collected on their armor. The dwarves pricked up their ears to listen for sounds in the gray murk; you could detect nothing but the steps of the dwarf directly ahead, or the one behind you. The monsters were not showing themselves, which was not making progress any easier.
“When’s this fog going to stop? I’d rather face an attack and use my crow’s beak to slash through. I can’t stand this creeping around,” Boïndil complained.
“Have you seen an orc?” asked the wraithlike figure of Tungdil bad-temperedly.
“No, why?”
“Then why are you talking about it?”
Ireheart fell silent again and he heard Tungdil take another draft from his flask; there was a smell of brandy.
After endless walk
ing they discovered they had reached a cave. They felt their away round the walls. Tungdil located the rune and then they found a tunnel leading deeper into the Outer Lands. Nobody dared raise his voice. Now they were really in a place no dwarf had been before.
Suddenly, round a turning, the fog thinned as if a wet gray curtain had been torn away and discarded.
The quiet made them nervous. The dwarves would have been keen to hear the slightest sound, any sound to indicate life here in the tunnels—it didn’t matter if it came from friend or foe.
“This is a ruddy labyrinth.” Manon spoke. “There are more and more forks to the path.”
“I know,” replied Tungdil. “And someone has been here before us.” He pointed to scratches on the rock wall that no one else had noticed. “It’s an orc rune from Girdlegard. It stands for gr. We’ve been following the marks for some time.”
“We’re on the tracks of the pig-face that escaped us that time!” Boïndil nodded to Manon as if to say, You see? This is a fine leader we have. “Wonder where it’s taking us?”
Tungdil shrugged his shoulders and moved on. The runes he found now were less carefully scratched, and soon they petered out altogether. Tungdil led the troop along the passage, leaving his own marks on the wall as he went.
“A cave,” he said after the last turning. He pointed. In front of them slanting light filtered through, shining on the bones that covered the floor. They entered the chamber cautiously.
“Ho, so somebody doesn’t like orcs,” said Ireheart, looking at the remains scattered around. He crouched down to examine his finds. “They’ve been dissected. The kind of monster that pulls an orc apart is my kind of monster,” he joked. He spat on the bones. “They’ve been here for some time, it looks like.”
“This may be why there’ve been no more attacks on the gate,” chipped in Manon, picking up a thigh bone and checking out the knife marks on it.
“There are too many orcs. Nothing could eat all of them,” said Boïndil doubtfully.
Manon looked at the huge cavern and held his hand out in a beam of light. “What if it’s a really big monster? A dragon?”
“I don’t think so,” contradicted Tungdil. “We would have seen tracks: marks on the rock, discarded scales, broken teeth.” He had located the way out.
“And a dragon could never have got through the narrow passageways.”
“There used to be smaller dragons in the old days,” objected Manon.
“I know. I’ve seen the books and the drawings. I’ve studied them all.” Tungdil wanted to show the thirdling that he was indeed the educated dwarf here. “That is why I am dismissing the possibility of a dragon.” He turned and walked on.
The others followed him to the next tunnel and then they got to a further cave that had a stream running through it. The dwarves spread out. It was clear from the tracks on the ground that there had been an encampment here. And a very big one, at that.
The number of fires that had been lit here in the past indicated to Boïndil that perhaps two thousand people had made camp here. “They were here for quite some time,” he said, looking at the marks. “And they haven’t been gone long.” He ran his gloved hands through the ash. “Cold, but fairly fresh.”
“The question is, were they orcs or something else entirely for whom our deadly enemies are food?” Tungdil pointed over to the opening of a wide naturally formed tunnel. “That way. Let’s see if we can find more clues as to where they’ve gone.”
They moved on, weapons at the ready, and muscles tensed. Just because a creature had developed a taste for orc flesh did not mean that a dwarf would be considered a friend.
The tunnel ended at a heap of stones blocking their path.
Tungdil looked up, then at the stones in front of him. “These boulders haven’t fallen from the roof. They’ve been piled here on purpose to close off the tunnel.” He looked at Boïndil. “Maybe the army camping here did this to cover its retreat.”
“Or perhaps they were trying to stop more monsters coming through,” suggested Manon.
“It’s all very peculiar,” was Ireheart’s view. “Easier in the old days, wasn’t it, Scholar? The pig-faces came, we wiped them out, all done, finished.” He sat down on a rock ledge, and slipped off his helmet, scratching his head; it was one of the few days he wore his hair unbraided, and it looked strange on him. “Now we’re right back at square one.”
“Except we know now that someone has a fancy for orc flesh,” Manon chipped in. “I’m sticking to my dragon theory. We’re in the Outer Lands here…”
“No. There are no more dragons. Or they’re never seen nowadays.” Tungdil sat down, too, and ordered the troops to take a rest; they all relaxed and had something to eat. “No dragon would take the trouble to collect its prey together in this way.” His clothing stuck to him; he was dripping with sweat. He was not used to the exertion of a long march any more.
“Those beasts are clever. They would never put orc-snout flesh in their mouths,” laughed Boïndil, as he bit into his bread and stinking cheese. All of a sudden his gaze fastened on the heap of stones behind Tungdil. “What’s that? Isn’t there something catching the light?” Boïndil jumped to his feet and began to pull away the rubble. He called five of the warriors over and got them to dig. He was too tired.
It took quite some time before the hidden object was revealed. Rubble kept slipping back down over where they were working whenever they removed a sizeable boulder, and there was dust everywhere by now. Finally Tungdil was handed a flattened helmet. A helmet with a golden moon on the front; black bloodied hairs stuck still to the rim.
“So that will be her son we have found,” said Ireheart under his breath.
Tungdil put the helmet in his pack. “It’s his helmet we’ve found. Not him. Don’t make the same mistake as the search party the king sent out. They might have placed the helmet there on purpose, so it gets found and it’s assumed that he’s dead.”
“Why on earth would anyone do that?”
“Exactly. Why? Orcs would never have taken the trouble. It must have been something with a brain,” insisted Tungdil.
Ireheart leaned back and looked at the stone barricade. “Are you thinking of dismantling it to find out?”
Tungdil shook his head. “No. I’m sure that would be a waste of effort. We—”
They all heard the clinking noise that traveled out along the tunnel toward them from the cave; metal had come into contact with stone.
“So we are not alone,” whispered Boïndil, stuffing his food back into his knapsack.
“Let’s go and see,” agreed Tungdil, getting the troop to assemble.
While they crept silently back through the tunnel to the cave they picked up that same sound again. It was nearer now.
Tungdil, Boïndil and Manon took a cautious look out of the tunnel mouth. At first glance there was little to see. The cave was empty and abandoned. Dust circulated in the air, and there in the center of the cave was a pile of rubble that had not been there before.
“A ghost?” Ireheart mouthed to Tungdil.
“Well, we are in the Outer Lands, but I wouldn’t jump to conclusions like that,” he said thoughtfully. “Whatever it is, it’s—”
“Up there!” called Manon, pointing out a dwarf-sized form up by the roof.
“Who can that be?” Tungdil asked him.
Ireheart looked up. “What, by all the gods, is he doing up there?”
To all intents and purposes the dwarf seemed to have hauled himself up on a pulley hoist attached by chain to the top of the rocks. Now he was settled in a leather bucket-seat arrangement, working away with a long iron chisel.
Manon shook his head. “He’s not one of ours. I’ve heard nothing about any other missions, and I haven’t got the faintest idea what he’s up to up there. Or how on earth he got there.”
The stranger positioned the iron bar, pulled a hammer out of his belt and whacked it on the end, pushing the tip of the chisel into the rock. L
arge chunks of rock splintered off, falling noisily to the ground, with granite dust clouding after. Now they knew what had caused the new pile of rubble they had seen.
Boïndil cursed. “Look at the roof,” he called out in alarm. “There are cracks everywhere.”
“Can you do all that with an iron bar?” laughed Manon in disbelief.
“False granite,” explained Ireheart. “I’m a secondling, and even if I was never much good at handling stone, I know my minerals better than a thirdling.” He indicated the place where the clumps of stone had collected. “See how the chunks break open when they fall? Looks like granite, but it’s nowhere near as hard. The older the stone the more porous it gets.”
“That fellow is trying to bring down the whole cave!” Tungdil turned. “Let’s get out of here, or we’ll have no way back!” The others followed him at speed.
The dwarf working overhead had noticed the approach of the uninvited newcomers and was redoubling his efforts. One last mighty blow with the hammer and a boulder the size of a house broke free. It crashed to the floor and sent a great cloud of dust right up to the roof of the cave.
Immediately, the unknown dwarf shimmied down the chain and disappeared in the dry cloud of powdered stone. Only visible as a vague shape, he ran off in front of Tungdil and his troop as they coughed their way through the dust cloud to reach the safety of the side tunnel.
Above them the work of destruction continued. Perhaps the best comparison is with a vaulted roof whose keystone has been kicked out by the actions of a madman. There was no support left in place to take the immense weight of the massive ceiling and to transfer the pressure to the side walls.
More huge stones fell; two of the warriors were buried, crushed under the stone slabs as if they had been soft kashti mushrooms. Their helmets rolled between the legs of the remaining soldiers, tripping one of them up. His comrade was just in time to pull him back onto his feet. Not even the largest monster could have withstood this rockfall; perhaps even a full-grown dragon would have been brought to its knees.
