by Markus Heitz
Balba heaved one of the rocks onto the battlement wall, ready to cast it down on the attacker. She quickly scratched her initials into the stone, grinning with excitement.
Fifty paces in front of the gates the thing halted in the middle of the roadway, having advanced with such speed. It showed itself to the defenders of the castle. The surrounding veil of dust was carried off by the heat rising from the blazing moat. The image that appeared was a mixture of monster and machine.
From the hips up it was like the other monsters, a bastard hybrid of orc and älf or worse, and covered with a solid armor plating of tionium. There was not a single glimpse of bare skin to be had. Everything was protected by the plates of resistant material from any attack with arrow or missile. Only the face within the open visor showed the armor contained life.
But where legs would normally be there was a large black block, two paces high, two paces wide, and three paces long.
The sides of the block were rounded and the shiny black surface was sloped so that liquids—blood, water or whatever—would run off quickly. Balba saw the surface had openings and flaps hiding any manner of deathly surprises. Round about there were sharp spikes of tionium as long as your forearm. On the bottom of the block were the large wheels used to propel the hybrid along so swiftly using some invisible power-source inside the block.
“A fighting chariot without any horses,” judged one of the soldiers. “What the hell have they thought up here?”
“Nothing good,” replied Balba. The sight of the thing was making the hairs stand up on the back of her neck.
“Give me the diamond and you shall live,” it called out in a clear voice. “My brothers and sisters will soon be here. These walls will not hold us back.”
“You shall have your answer,” the commander called down, lifting his hand and dropping it sharply as a signal.
Four spear-throwing war-machines hurled their death-bringing loads toward the creature; clouds of black weaponry swished through the evening air.
The missiles would certainly have hit their target, had the creature not suddenly rolled backwards. The thick covering on the front opened up to form a shield against the spears that reached it. The wooden shafts broke and the tips splintered, bent out of shape on the rigid tionium. They made not the slightest indentation in the armor. The archers hurriedly reloaded.
“Aim for the wheels. We’ll get it this time round.” The commander turned to the stone catapults. “Ready to fire!” he called. “When I…”
Then all the lights in Paland went out. Candles, torches, the fire in the moat—it was all extinguished in a trice. Blackness swallowed the twilight. Everything lay in total darkness, with not even a star daring to show its face.
“Fire!” called the commander. The sounds of the mechanism being released and the ropes unwinding could be heard. And soon there was the rumble of the missiles hitting home.
Balba was not convinced she would ever hear this creature’s death cry.
Bright green runes blazed out in front of the gate, then there was a powerful bolt of lightning and the gates themselves were blown open, blasted off their hinges with such force that shards cascaded against the far wall of the fortress.
At least now the torches were not refusing their light. So the defenders in the courtyard could see exactly what death looked like, just before it struck.
The huge block had traveled over the moat and now raced through the courtyard. To the right and the left blades of tionium shot out, two paces long, slicing the armored soldiers in half. The sight of these truncated soldiers so appalled their comrades that they stood rooted to the spot.
At the front an iron protective apron had opened up and anyone standing in the way of the machine was forced into the blades or was caught under the jagged edges of the wheels. None survived. Conventional arrows raining down on the vehicle and on the creature itself had no effect.
Balba shook off the paralyzing fear. “Your commander is right: the wheels are the weak point,” she called, racing down the steps. “Do you hear me? Shove iron rods in through the wheels and it’ll be forced to stop. Get chains. We can overturn it.”
In all the noise and shouting only a few of the soldiers could hear the brave dwarf-woman’s advice, but they tried their best to follow her commands.
Just before the entrance to the diamond vault, they overtook the vehicle, which was emitting strange noises. It was clicking and ticking, hissing and steaming behind its tionium plating.
“Bring the chains,” called Balba to the men. The soldiers did not hesitate to obey her orders. They had grasped her meaning. Balba grabbed hold as well, dragging a hook and getting ready to sling it. “Hook it in the…”
A loud rumbling sound made her turn her head to look back at the blasted gateway.
A second monster was forcing its way through. Its creator had placed a huge armor contraption round it. Fists of tionium were battering against the walls, tearing out great parts of the fabric and hurling the rocks at the castle’s defenders. The brave soldiers from Weyurn were losing their lives in scores against the superior power of this attacker that was kicking at them as if they were vermin. A cage-like globe rolled through their open ranks, coming to the aid of the monster at the entrance to the vault.
Balba stopped, her heart in her mouth and her courage melting like lead in a furnace. A third of Tion’s creatures, this time with forearms of metal and glass, was climbing up the southern battlements. It swung its hands round and sent bolts of green lightning toward the soldiers. Their protective iron armor glowed and the men vaporized to nothing in the deadly light-beams. The commander himself was among the fallen. The rest gave up and ran off screaming. From one thousand maybe four hundred men were still alive.
Balba understood that without a magus there was no hope of combating these hybrid monsters. The combination of superior machinery, the strength of the creatures and the unrestrained power of magic could not be matched by any force they could offer.
She let the hook fall and ran off, in contrast to the fleeing humans, out through the northern gate. Later she was to learn that all Weyurn’s soldiers had been annihilated.
X
Girdlegard,
The North of the Kingdom of Gauragar,
Summer, 6241st Solar Cycle
Boïndil stomped off after the undergroundling and made no attempt to conceal his displeasure. “We’re putting ourselves voluntarily into their hands. They attacked our people! It’s not good.”
“They will give us a hearing. If we can reach an agreement, that’s always going to be better than more attacks,” said Tungdil.
“And he still hasn’t told us what his name is.” Boïndil found another reason for his bad mood. “Oh yes, and they’re friends with the snout-faces.”
“Just wait and see,” advised Tungdil, who had by now had enough of these complaints. Goda was walking next to her master and not getting involved, but judging by her face he reckoned she would have preferred Boïndil to be less argumentative.
All three were tense as they followed the dwarf-stranger. No one knew what to expect from the coming meeting with their distant relatives from the Outer Lands.
Tungdil watched how the undergroundling moved. His walk was smoother than a Girdlegard dwarf’s rolling gait: he set his feet down in a straight line, not a little way apart like them. He kept his upper body straight and hardly made a sound as his boots touched the ground. In contrast to Ireheart. The undergroundling was so good at moving silently that he might have learned his skill from the älfar.
They marched till sundown, when they found themselves at the foot of three hills in a gentle wooded valley, in the middle of which a bubbling stream arose.
The undergroundling led them straight over to the water, called out some incomprehensible words and sat down at the edge of the spring. He drank from his hand. “Sûndalon will be here soon,” he said.
Ireheart rammed the head of his crow’s beak into the soft moss-covered ea
rth and listened. “How peaceful it is,” he murmured. “Might just as well be one of the elves’ sacred places. The only thing missing is the big white stone.”
The undergroundling looked up. “A white stone? With the broka?”
Tungdil remembered that this was the undergroundling’s word for elves. It seemed he and his folk were already acquainted with them. “Yes.” He described the stone, its appearance and the secrecy the elves had tried to maintain. “Does that sound familiar?”
“Yes,” nodded the undergroundling, giving him a sympathetic look. “We had broka and their stones in our land, too.” He drank some more water and washed his face, without smudging the sign on his forehead.
“What does that mean?” grunted Boïndil impatiently.
“What do you think?” The undergroundling looked annoyed now. “That we had to destroy them before they destroyed us.”
Ireheart looked at Tungdil and gulped. “Did you hear that, Scholar?”
“Loud and clear.” Tungdil sat down on the moss and leaned back against a tree. It was high time they met up with the leader of the undergroundlings. His friend and Goda both sat down next to him.
“What do you reckon? Think they like jokes?” Ireheart considered the undergroundling. “Perhaps that will lighten the atmosphere a bit.”
“But not the asking-the-way joke,” Goda rolled her eyes. “If you must, then try the one about the elf and the dwarf and the forest.”
“Yes, you’re right. The asking-the-way they might not appreciate.” He placed his fingers round the handle of his weapon. “They’re so difficult.”
“Just because they won’t laugh at your jokes? Well, that’s certainly a good reason for mistrusting a whole people,” said Tungdil lightly. “That can be your new motto: Laugh, or I’ll thump you. You could get it engraved on the side of your crow’s beak.”
Goda laughed out loud.
“Forty push-ups for you, apprentice.” Boïndil’s pride was hurt.
“No sense of humor, master?”
He pretended to be offended. “Not when the joke’s on me.” He pointed to the ground. “Forty, if you please. And right down. I want to see moss on your nose.”
Protesting, Goda stood up and did what he had ordered.
Tungdil shook his head in disapproval, but Ireheart showed his teeth.
“Get your face right down into the moss,” he reminded her after the first thirty push-ups. He was enjoying watching the play of her muscles in the upper arms. Nowadays this was a sight he was finding altogether more attractive.
The undergroundling had kindled a large fire and took no notice of the three dwarves. Flames shot up high into the night sky, sending out a clear signal.
As if from nowhere there they were: two dozen silent figures standing between the trees, in light brown and black leather armor, leather breeches and boots. Their heads were protected by helmets, none quite like the next. The faces were all hidden. Each shut visor bore a demon visage engraved on the surface. The effect was uncanny and intimidating.
In their hands or on their belts Tungdil caught sight of short blackened iron batons one pace in length. At the end of each baton flashed a slim blade and a hook. It seemed the undergroundlings did not share the dwarves’ preference for heavy weaponry.
“Show yourselves,” said the dwarf who had led them to the valley. They all opened their visors.
Tungdil watched the beardless serious faces and noted that some of them were women. This aroused his curiosity. They did not seem to have the plumpness of dwarf-women that he knew; their form was taller and slimmer—more like human females.
One of the undergroundlings, at first sight just the same as the others, stepped forward. “I am Sûndalon. You want something from me?” He rammed his staff into the mossy woodland floor, lifted the helmet from off his short light blond hair and waited.
Tungdil and his companions stood up and he introduced them all. “We must talk about the diamond,” he said, speaking freely. “We know now that it belongs to you, but through broka magic it has become much more powerful. We can’t just simply hand it over.”
Sûndalon reached to his belt and took out a pouch. He opened it and tipped the contents out: glittering fragments and scintillating dust spilled onto the moss. “That is all that is left of the stones that we and the ubariu have captured. They were all forgeries.”
This did not make Tungdil feel more at ease. Now it was even more likely the genuine stone would fall into the hands of the unslayable siblings. And what they might be capable of doing with its magic power did not bear thinking about.
“We demand the return of our property,” said Sûndalon. “It was stolen from us by a broka. It has taken five star courses for us to complete our preparations and to have the opportunity to regain it at last.”
“Why don’t you just cut yourselves a new one and leave us in peace?” Ireheart suggested, holding his crow’s beak weapon lightly in his hands. Lightly, but ready for use. Goda held her night star ready as well.
“Because only that diamond has the quality we need,” was Sûndalon’s sharp reply. “It would be like having a key that fits but won’t turn in its lock.” He looked at Tungdil. “If the news we’ve gathered is true there are still three in the hands of your people and one has disappeared? Give us those three and we swear we’ll protect them against all threats.”
“You didn’t manage to keep yours safe the first time,” Boïndil rubbed it in.
“And you can’t do it at all,” Sûndalon retorted. “You can’t protect them from us or from the ubariu or from these monsters.”
“If you could explain why it’s so important, perhaps we could be persuaded to let you have it.” Tungdil attempted enticement.
To his disappointment the undergroundling shook his head. “If we could explain it freely we wouldn’t have kept ourselves hidden in your homeland for so long. Our land and our town are helpless without the diamond. Our enemies are strong and would attack us at once if they were aware of our weakness.”
Tungdil took a careful step forward. “We are dwarves, as you are. We would never betray you to your foes.” He knew that his statement contained a trace of untruth. He suspected that some of the thirdlings were certainly capable of malice and deceit, but Sûndalon did not have to know this. “And anyway, the kings and queens know that it’s the undergroundlings, together with the orcs, trying to get the diamonds. You might as well talk about it. Your raids are no secret, Sûndalon.”
“He is right,” said the undergroundling who had brought them to the valley. “Tell him about the trouble we are in and then let’s talk to the kings and queens.”
“No,” said Sûndalon harshly. “What happens in this land is not our concern.”
“But they don’t understand the danger they’re in. The broka have put up white stones,” continued the undergroundling. “It’s starting here like it did with us, Sûndalon. We could help avert the worst if we warn the dwarves and the humans.”
Sûndalon fell silent and thought hard.
“I don’t know how you feel about it but baldy-patch is starting to worry me,” whispered Boïndil. “What’s all this about the white stones? Does he mean what we saw when we were with the pointy-ears?”
“Saw? You touched it, remember?” Tungdil said quietly. “Who knows what it’s done to you.”
Ireheart went pale.
The nameless undergroundling turned to them. “Don’t trust the broka now, neither their words, nor their deeds, nor their smiles. They have been staring too long at the sun and aspire to become like it. They have become blind to everything else.” His tone was insistent. “It will start with deaths and nobody will know by whose hand the victims died. Then towns and villages will burn and there will be no survivors. Your people will suffer losses and will lie dead in the tunnels because the water is poisoned…”
“By Vraccas!” Ireheart exclaimed, horrified. “Do you hear that? They’re describing what’s happening in Girdlegard…”
He stopped, lifting up his crow’s beak. “Was it you that did that and now you’re all for peace because it’ll make it easier for you to get the diamond?” He lowered his head aggressively between his hunched shoulders. “I swear by the dwarves that have died that I shall take revenge on you if it was you that did this!”
“No, it was not us,” said Sûndalon. “Agreed. You shall learn the history of the diamond. Perhaps then you will believe us.” He sat down and started to relate…
The stone originated in the deepest mine of Drestadon. The finder paid for it with his eyesight because it was so dazzlingly bright. It was only possible to view and to cut the diamond when it was covered with a thick black cloth.
The gemstone-cutter needed seven star-courses to give the diamond its true form. The work took the flesh from his fingertips; his back became permanently bent and his eyes as weak as those of an old, old man. Finally he finished cutting and polishing the stone.
We took it to the ubariu rune master and he realized why the god Ubar had sent us the diamond.
The rune master prepared for war. He gathered an army and marched with it to the Black Abyss. Arising from the lightless depths and dark crannies evil had issued unceasingly to plague us. Ever since the stars started running, evil’s progeny had surged out from thence to attack us.
But there was also an age-old iron artifact, of no apparent use. It had long lost any power it once had wielded.
The runes it bore promised to close the Black Abyss for ever—if the Star of the Mountains ever returned to it.
The rune master led us and the ubariu into the midst of our enemies. There ensued a terrible battle waged against creatures more bestial than any you may have known in Girdlegard, but yet blessed with a form of outstanding beauty. Some found their way here: creatures you know as älfar. We call them sintoìtar—they crawled out of the Black Valley over the mountains and came here.
