by Vox Day
He kneeled down beside her and took her face in his well-callused hand. He was mildly surprised to see fear in her eyes rather than the bestial defiance he’d come to expect of her kind. “Can you understand me? Can you talk?”
She blinked and nodded.
“Where is your village? How many of you live there?”
Her answer confused him. “You are… you are men?”
Now it was his turn to nod. And if her first words had confused him, her next ones had him rocking back on his heels in astonishment.
“I am not sigskifting! I am like you!”
Lodi
The flash of a pickaxe. The grunt of a dwarf being struck. The screams of the wounded. Movement. Motion. Watching his foe’s chest, trying to read his next action, then either striking first, blocking, or seeking to evade. The smell of blood. The acrid stink of bladders being released in fear, and the stronger, more pungent odor of bowels being released in death. It was all so familiar to Lodi, and to his body, that he might have been battling cave goblins in the foundations of Iron Mountain, or men before the massive crowds of the Amorran arena. As he brought his axe down across the unarmored collarbone of one of the strange scaled dwarf-things, nearly cleaving it to the chest, he felt something tear in his wounded shoulder and knew he would be paying for it afterwards. But for now, he felt no pain, for his blood was up and the battle-fever was upon him.
“Kingsguard!” he shouted so that his unarmored companions would know where he was. It made no sense, but old habits die hard and the cry served as well as any other. The station dwarves had been on the verge of being overwhelmed when Lodi and the others arrived, and the unexpected shock of their charge had initially driven the strange attackers back.
“Kingsguard!” Boru shouted back from somewhere to his right. Lodi began moving towards him, as the older dwarf’s plate armor was proving to be a godsend. That, and his massive two-blade, which he swept back and forth before him, that sent the creatures reeling in fear even when they were not struck and permitted the other dwarves to advance into the space that was created. A few of them had developed a deadly technique where one dwarf would engage a scaled monster, his neighbor would crouch down to hook the dwarf-thing’s heel with his pick-head, then pull back hard on the handle. When the creature lost its balance and went down, the first dwarf would step forward and crush its head with the flat of his pick as his companion defended him.
Between that murderously efficient technique and their two armored axe-dwarves, Lodi’s impromptu company finally managed to force the enemy into retreat. There was a strange, wailing call, and then the freakish dwarf-things abruptly disengaged, throwing down their crude metal weapons, jostling, and knocking each other down in their panicked rush to flee. The fallen and the slow were quickly dispatched, and Lodi had to forcibly dissuade a few of the more hot-tempered young dwarves who would have foolishly followed the routed enemy down into the tunnel through which they’d fled.
Lodi studied the hole from which the strange creatures had emerged. It was small, but it didn’t look properly bored. It looked smooth, almost as if the stone had been melted rather than drilled. But what in the name of Skála Otek, the Rockfather, could possibly create such a neatly formed tunnel?
“They’re going to want to seal that up, I should think,” Boru commented as he joined Lodi in front of the hole and ran his hand around the edges. “You ever seen anything like that?”
“Not our problem.” He looked at Boru. The dwarf’s armor was liberally splashed with red blood from the crest of his helm to the toes of his steel boots. He realized he probably didn’t look much better, and the blood was going to wash off of Boru’s plate a damn sight easier than it was out of the heavy wool jacket that he wore under his chain mail. “What the peklo were those things? They had scales!”
“They’re called draktakha. It’s said they are devils made by Hublok Otek. We’d heard reports, although this is the first time they’ve been seen this close to the surface.”
The speaker was a bald dwarf with a singed beard, a blackened face, and more than a little blood splattered across his forearms and chest. He started to hold out his hands to them in greeting, then belatedly tried to wipe them off on his trousers, and finally gave it up as a hopeless cause and bowed instead. “I’m Vismi, son of Bismi. I’m the mayor of Hotstone Cavern, and I can’t thank you enough for what the two of you and your companions here did for our clan.”
Lodi waved his hand and Boru made a dismissive sound. He understood the dwarf’s appreciation, but gratitude was hardly necessary. It wasn’t as if the draktakha or whatever the strange creatures were truly called, would have invited them in for mushrooms and moss tea after slaughtering the cavern clan.
“I’m afraid you may have lost a few,” the mayor said. “Why don’t you see to your wounded and let us know what we can do for you.”
“We left about twenty pasla and pasladha up in the tunnel, about five hundred yards back. Can you send a group of your zenha out to them and bring them here?”
“Is that where you came from? A stopped train?”
Boru nodded. “We was marching up when we heard the ruckus. Figured it was no place for the females and young ’uns. We left ten dwarves there to guard them.”
“Well, I’m damn glad you showed when you did.” Vismi glanced over where some of the dwarves from the train were dragging a body out from under a pair of dead draktakha. “And I’m sorry about those you lost. See to your own; I’ll send my own wife out after the families.”
Lodi nodded. He figured there was no point in explaining that he didn’t even know most of the names of his own fallen. He and Boru walked back towards where two dwarves from the train were standing over their dead companion. They were both bloody, one was wounded, and they both had tears in their eyes.
“It’s our brother, Hari,” the wounded dwarf said. “We was just going back to see our folks. How are we going to tell them? What do we-”
His voice trembled and broke off as he looked down at the ground, away from his fallen brother.
“You tell them the truth.” Boru put his hand on the young dwarf’s shoulder. “He died saving dwarves, dwarf wives, and children. He died a hero and Zeme Otek will welcome him into the earth with honor.”
Lodi walked past the grieving brothers, patting each one on the back as he did so. There were fewer corpses along the route where they’d chased the cursed creatures, but once he reached the place where they’d thrown the attackers back, he saw how brutal the battle had been. They must have slain over sixty of the scaly things, and dozens of dwarves had fallen as well, though most of them were Hotstoners. He saw Thori and Yori; they were both alive but Yori was cradling his left arm even though he didn’t seem to be bleeding.
“What happened?”
Yori’s face was pale and he was wincing with the pain, but there was fierce pride in his eyes as he raised his head and recognized Lodi. “Otekzatra thing caught my forearm with one of those stupid bars. I saw it coming and tried to block it with my pick, but I was too late.”
“I killed the bastard, though.” Thori said proudly. “We was keeping it tight, just like you said. But his arm… that’s why we didn’t follow you when you went chasing after them.”
“You got there soon enough,” Lodi reassured Yori. “Too late is when they knock you on the head. You’ll heal.”
He started to move on to check on the others, but turned back when a thought occurred to him. “Say, lads?”
“Yeah, Lodi?”
“You may want to gather up those picks. Scratched or no, you’ll be able to sell them for three, maybe four times what you were asking. After I tell the king what you all did here, with your picks, half the rich mizera at Iron Mountain are going to want one.”
The twins looked at each other, then broke into simultaneous smiles. “You may have a beard for business after all, Lodi Dunmorinson,” Thori said.
“If the king don’t have nothing for you, come find us,�
� Yori added. “We’ll give you a job.”
Lodi laughed and turned away. But what he saw next quickly wiped the amusement from his face. A single dwarf lay dead not far from the severed halves of the draktakh Lodi had cut in half just after it broke through the Hotstone line. It was Orin Sperrylite, and his black beard was soaked and matted with the blood that had spilled down his tunic all the way to his crotch. His eyes were open and staring up at the stalactites on the ceiling overhead.
Lodi frowned, kneeled down, and gently lifted Orin’s beard. As he suspected, the young dwarf’s throat had been ripped open, most likely by a draktakh’s curved claw. Cursing under his breath, he closed Orin’s eyes, whispering a short, silent prayer to the First Fathers as he did so.
Accept him, Zeme Otek.
Cover him, Skála Otek.
Console him, Roztok Otek.
Release him, Pozar Otek.
Shaking his head with frustration, knowing that the younger dwarf must have been struck down practically within reach of him, Lodi rose to his feet again. He leaned down to pick up Orin’s pickaxe, and was surprised to see there was blood on one tip. He snorted ruefully. Hadn’t he told the thieving gragtosser to bash, not stab? The unlucky lad may not have fought as well as he tossed, but he had shed zlotakh blood, and that made him worthy of the last line of the prayer, the one only addressed to the War Father on behalf of warriors fallen in battle.
Honor him, Válka Otek.
He heard the rush of several dwarves approaching and saw it was Raldri, followed closely by Raldrizena and Myf.
“Lodi!” the young dwarf cried. “Are you hurt?”
Lodi stared at him, incredulous, until he realized how he must have looked to them, covered in draktakh blood as he was. “I’m fine, lad. Orin didn’t make it through, though.”
“Oh, no!” Raldrizena cried. Myf didn’t make a sound, but she raised her hand to her mouth and her eyes were suddenly bright with tears. Two of them traced a path down on either side of her nose, until she wiped them away and looked at Lodi with a concerned expression on her face.
“Are you really all right? Lodi, you look… dreadful.”
“It ain’t mine.” He shrugged. “Seems they bleed a lot when you chop them in two.”
She noticed the two halves of the draktakh for the first time, as her eyes suddenly widened and she gagged three times before mastering herself. It took her a moment to recover. “Did you do that? What is it?”
“The Rock Father knows, but I sure don’t.” He looked at Raldri. “Orin had a fat coinsack on him. Best you take it off him. He don’t need it now.”
“I’m not a graverobber!”
“I ain’t saying you is. But if you don’t take it, strangers who never knew him will.”
Raldri hesitated, then, at his wife’s urging, he kneeled down beside their former traveling companion. Before he turned away, Lodi noted with approval that the young dwarf had shut his eyes and seemed to be saying something, though if it was addressed to Orin or the First Fathers, he couldn’t tell. In truth, he didn’t care, he was just glad to know the younger generation still seemed to have a sense of decency about themselves.
“Come with me,” he told Myf. “Let’s see if we can find you somewhere that ain’t burnt where they can put you up. I want to find some water so I can get cleaned up.”
He led her away from the bloody remains of battle and past the smoldering buildings into the town proper. The circle in the heart of the cavern was full of dwarves, most of whom were either in shock or wailing with grief. Twenty or so corpses had been arranged side by side in the center; as they watched, another young dwarf with a red beard was carried in by two older, red-bearded dwarves that looked as if they might be his father and his uncle. Myf looked away as they laid him carefully down by his fallen companions, the pain etched into the older dwarves’ faces was simply too much for her to bear.
Then there was a piercing scream and a pretty young divci, distraught, tried to throw herself on the dead young dwarf. One of the older dwarves intercepted her and buried her face in his chest to muffle her heart-rending shrieks. Gods, Lodi thought. It wasn’t the battle itself that was so bad. For the most part, you were too busy to do much more than react and try to bash them before they could bash you. By far the worst part of it was the aftermath, and the sight of hearts breaking one after the other.
“Zemtek, how could you let this happen?” he heard Myf whisper.
“Zeme Otek didn’t have nothing to do with it. Better you ask Válka Otek.”
“Why were they attacking this cavern?”
“Let’s go ask him.” Lodi pointed to the mayor. “Maybe he knows something by now.”
But Vismi Bismisson knew no more than he had before. He did, however, lead them to a ice-cold rock pool where Lodi was able to climb in and wash off the worst of the now-sticky blood before it hardened, and he even promised Lodi some dry clothes. He also located the town’s two tavernkeepers, who readily agreed to put up all of the unexpected newcomers in their establishments without charging them for either room or board.
Once he saw Myf safely ensconced in a room with Raldrizena and several other pasla, Lodi joined Boru, the twins, and about ten other dwarves in the larger of the two taverns. Raldri joined them and used one of Orin’s gold coins to buy them all three rounds of ale, and even those who hadn’t met him mournfully raised their tankards to salute his courage and his generosity once, twice, and then again thrice.
“He must have gone down in the initial charge,” Lodi, maudlin in his cups, muttered to Boru.
“I didn’t see the poor lad,” the older dwarf, considerably less imposing now that he was shed of his armor, admitted. “Didn’t know him, more’s the pity. Earth Father rest him.”
“Why didn’t he push the damn thing off him? I told them all to poke at the bastards, not swing the bloody useless things. When the hell did dwarves stop carrying axes about anyway?”
Boru snorted. “About six months after the Troll King got hisself spitted.”
“They’re too damn soft now! We was all carrying axes, half our dead would still be alive.”
“Soft? No axes, no armor, and not a single lad ran! You ain’t being fair, Lodi. They was a credit to the dwarves, they was!”
“Yeah, they was,” Lodi said as he hunched wearily down on the wooden table between his outspread elbows. “I don’t know, it just sickens my heart. Maybe I ain’t cut out for this sort o’ thing anymore.”
“You and me both, laddie!” Boru rolled his shoulders and groaned. “I’ll be hurting for a sixday and I didn’t take so much as a bruise. Getting old hurts.”
“Not as much as not getting older does.”
Boru laughed and raised his ceramic tankard to knock it against Lodi’s. “Damn, Kingsguard, we may have lost a few, but we beat those bastards with nothing more than a bunch of green young civilians. That’ll be good for a few drinks once we reach the Mountain!”
Lodi frowned. A thought had been niggling at the bottom of his mind ever since he’d seen the draktakha disappearing down the tunnel from which they’d come. It finally formed itself into something he could express in words. “They wasn’t near the line.”
“Who?”
“The draktakha, the scaly things.”
“What about it?”
“If they didn’t cause the trouble with the train rail, what did? And if the trouble ain’t here, they can’t fix it here. And if they can’t fix it here, how we going to get to the Mountain?”
The next day, Lodi slept in. That didn’t prevent him from waking with a headache that briefly made him wonder if someone had hit him with one of those damn iron clubs. He’d just been thinking of going upstairs and turning in when Vismi Bismisson and a group of locals showed up, seemingly determined to pour all the ale in Hotstone down their rescuers’ throats. He didn’t remember staggering upstairs, and he apparently hadn’t bothered undressing, as he was still wearing the brown wool tunic and trousers the mayor had given hi
m the day before.
He found the urinal in the next room in the nick of time, and took longer than he would have imagined possible “draining the goblin”, as his old sergeant put it. He was still standing there stupidly, holding his dwarfhood in his hand, when a bleary-eyed, bushy-bearded Thori stuck his head in and announced that there was a breakfast spread downstairs, and that their presence at the funerals, which would be held at noon, was requested.
Lodi grunted something noncommittal before looking down and wondering if he was going to be done urinating by then. It would have come in handy yesterday, he thought. He could have put out all the damn fires by himself. After finally finishing, then splashing water on his face and running his wet hands through his hair and beard, he wandered downstairs and discovered a decent collection of lizard eggs, blindfish sausage, and flatcakes, all of which he washed down with several hairs of the dog that bit his arse the night before.
He went to find the tavernkeeper, who was kind enough to show where his clothes and armor had been left to dry. The clothes were nearly dry, but the chain mail was tacky, so he borrowed a wire brush and carried it outside, where he could clean it off without making a mess. He was still sitting there, working on some bloody grit in the left shoulder, when a familiar scent made him sit upright in a hurry.
“Good morning, Lodi.” It was Myf, looking considerably fresher than any of the dwarves he’d encountered at breakfast.
“Mornin’, anyhow,” he grunted, returning his attention to his armor. “Don’t know about good.”
“Raldrizena tells me there will be a funeral today. Will you be attending?”
“Aye. Seems the thing to do.”
“It occurs to me you may have reopened your wounds yesterday. Do you want me to look at them?”
He looked up at her, startled. “Gods, no! I’m fine, Myf, you needn’t concern your pretty little head about me. Might want to have a gander at Yori’s arm, though, make sure they splinted it right.”
She nodded obediently, then climbed the steps past him. It took a considerable effort not to turn and watch her enter the tavern, but he managed it and returned to his mail-polishing after making a sound that was half-grumble, half-sigh.
