The Dwarven Wars

by Leah Cutter

  Denise wrinkled her nose at the stench coming from the abandoned house. She knew it wasn’t real. The smell of rotten fish and molding wood had to be some trick of the fairies. Though garbage was piled up around the base of the house: torn plastic bags, moldering piles of drywall, faded candy wrappers, and broken orange buckets.

  Sad red paint covered the shingles of the house. Faded and peeling plastic outlined the black windows. Denise felt as though eyes glared at her through them. A plain piece of plywood covered what had been the door, painted over with black, spiky graffiti.

  No trees dared grow near the abandoned place. Pale grass, dried by the previous summer’s sun, clumped along the back. Broken bits of brick, glass, and concrete covered the ground in the front. What looked like a vague animal trail wound its way to the door, as well as around to the back.

  Denise wasn’t sure what she should do now that she was here. Heavy clouds filled the sky, about to rain down like her own tears. Stiff winds blew from the ocean to her left.

  Should she go knock on the door? Surely the fairies didn’t actually use that to go in and out. It looked nailed shut.

  Then again, fairies were good with illusions. What if there wasn’t actually a piece of wood there? But an opening?

  Denise shivered and zipped her raincoat higher under her chin.

  Well, here went nothing.

  “Hello?” Denise called out. “Hello?”

  No reply.

  Figured. Stupid fairies.

  “My name’s…I am the mother,” Denise said, glad she’d caught herself in time. Nora would never forgive her if she actually gave the fairies her real name.

  “My son is the Tinker,” she said after a moment. “My daughter is the Maker. I need your help.”

  Was she just imagining things, or had the air suddenly taken on a questioning feel?

  No real response came. But the smell of rotten garbage suddenly lessened and the fresh odor of the ocean filled the clearing. The winds blew a little less harshly as well.

  Encouraged, Denise continued. “My son is missing. My daughter assures me that he isn’t dead. But we need to find him.”

  Yes. The air around her had changed. The threat of rain lessened. Denise still longed for hot cocoa in front of the fireplace with her children beside her, but suddenly, everything felt a lot less dire.

  That is, until a creature rose out of the grass.

  God, she’d forgotten how ugly the fairies were, with the bony ridge that ran down the center of their foreheads, their alien golden eyes, their tattered wings and scarred bodies.

  “I am called Racanta,” said the fairy who flew over to Denise. She—it was definitely a she—had white and red paint in what Denise would call tribal stripes all across her torso. A leather skirt formed out of layered strips covered her from her waist to just above her knee. Her teeth were jagged and pointed, like a wild animal’s. According to Denise’s children, that meant the fairy belonged to the warrior caste.

  Racanta’s left arm stopped being flesh mid-humerus. The rest of her arm looked like a metal piston that would enable the warrior to extend her arm, giving her a longer reach.

  Denise wasn’t sure what would drive anyone to put unnecessary metal parts into their body. Then again, she didn’t understand many of the tattoos and piercings that she saw young people wearing these days.

  “Hello, Racanta,” Denise said. “You can call me the mother.” She had to be careful, she knew. Fairies were tricksy and would take every advantage she gave them. She could only tell them to call her by a name, could never claim it as her own, or they’d have power over her.

  “You said the Tinker is missing?” Racanta asked. Red tinged her golden eyes, making them look bloodshot.

  “He is,” Denise said. “I haven’t seen him in over twenty-four hours. He had a special appointment yesterday with someone. I don’t know who.”

  Racanta nodded, considering. “I will go fetch Sebastian,” she told Denise.

  “Thank you,” Denise said. Relief made her sag a little. While she was still planning on going down to the police department and filling out a missing person’s report, she put more faith in the fairies actually finding Dale. They had a vested interest in his continued survival.

  Racanta flew directly through the plywood covering the door. Ha! Denise had been right. It wasn’t real.

  Was there anything else that wasn’t real in the clearing? The house? The grass? How about her current situation? Was Dale not missing, just hidden?

  Before Denise’s worries could spiral down further, a stream of fairies flowed through the illusory wood covering the door.

  She recognized Cornelius right away. He had gray hair that he wore long and straight to his shoulders, with the barest hint of a curl at the ends. Today he wore a gray and white striped vest, with a golden chain draped between the two vest pockets. His shirt was the brightest white, almost glowing. Gray trousers covered his legs, with the faintest white pinstripe running down them.

  His gray wings looked more jagged than she remembered them. Had he been injured? And had his wings not healed?

  Huh. She didn’t think that was possible. Couldn’t they use magic or something to heal themselves?

  The other fairies were warriors. Three arranged themselves in a rough circle, hovering above where Denise stood. The others darted off in every direction.

  They all seemed agitated. If Denise didn’t know better, she’d think they were afraid.

  “So the Tinker is missing,” Cornelius said as he flew up to Denise. He landed in front of her and looked up.

  Denise blinked, taken back. She remembered Cornelius and how he’d liked to talk. It surprised her that he’d just come up and dived straight into the matter, instead of starting with a long, rambling preamble.

  “He is missing,” Denise confirmed.

  “And you would like us to find him,” Cornelius said.

  Denise had to remind herself that just because the fairies were small in stature—they barely came up to her waist—didn’t mean they were weak. Or children.

  “I would like you to look for him,” Denise said firmly. “Keep an eye out as you’re scouting.” She suspected they would do more than that, now that they knew Dale was missing. However, her children had educated her well in customs of the fairies. She knew better than to actually ask for their help.

  Any aid the fairies gave her would come at a great cost. And even if she thought she’d only promised a little thing, the fairies might be able to twist her words until they owned her soul.

  Cornelius pressed his lips together, considering. He nodded, holding his hands behind his back. “I’m not sure there’s much we can do,” he said.

  “Don’t you care that the Tinker is missing?” Denise asked, stung.

  “Of course we care,” Cornelius said. “But we’re leaving. The Old One won’t let us stay.”

  “Is he attacking you?” Denise asked. She knew that the fairies had aligned themselves with Nora and Dale against Brett, the Old One. Were they now at war because of that?

  Cornelius looked for a moment as if he wouldn’t answer, but finally, he did. “Yes, the Old One attacks us. Kills good fairies. Brave warriors. Thirty-eight in the last battle.”

  Denise couldn’t help but recoil. “Really?” she asked. She’d had no idea.

  Then again, most humans didn’t even realize that there were fairies living in the caves along the Oregon coast.

  “If the Old One wished, he could have killed all of us by now,” Cornelius told her quietly. “I believe the attacks have been minimal to this point. He just wants us gone.”

  “I’m sorry,” Denise said. And she was. She felt vaguely guilty that the fairies were dying because of how they’d come to the aid of Denise and Nora.

  “Thank you for your sympathy,” Cornelius told her stiffly.

  Denise bit her lips together before she offered to help. The fairies would take her at her word and she might not be able to get out of promising
more than she wanted.

  Still…

  “I understand that you can’t look for my son when you’re under attack like this,” Denise said finally. “But if you do see him, please send him home.”

  “Home to the fairy kingdom?” Cornelius asked with a sly grin.

  Denise realized abruptly that the older fairy was actually just teasing her. “To his human home, please,” she said.

  Three of the warriors who’d accompanied Cornelius suddenly came flying back, their urgency apparent in their speed.

  “I must go now,” Cornelius said. “It’s not safe here.”

  “Thank you for meeting with me,” Denise said. She suspected the fairies would keep an eye out for Dale, but she also finally realized that Cornelius hadn’t been lying when he’d said there wasn’t much they could do.

  “It isn’t safe for you either,” Cornelius told Denise sternly. “You shouldn’t come back here.”

  “I won’t,” Denise said. She still stayed where she was, watching the fairies stream back into the abandoned house.

  The air grew chill. The sense of desolation multiplied.

  Denise was on her own.

  Chapter 4

  Dale woke suddenly. He groaned. He tried to swallow, but it felt like he was swallowing broken glass. He choked, coughing, his body wracked with pain. He pushed himself up, hacking roughly.

  When the spasm died, Dale finally opened his eyes and looked around.

  Crap.

  It was morning and he was still on the same bluff where he’d met Brett the afternoon before. He glanced at his watch. It still worked, and told him that it was after nine AM.

  Dale looked out over the ocean, then back along the crest of land. Brett had sent a shocking bolt of magic through Dale the day before, enabling him to see everything magical.

  Though the effect was slighter now, Dale found he could still see.

  Pale gray sheets hung in the air, scattered up and down the coast line. They hung at different elevations and angles, like a surrealist painting of a fairy laundry day. Nora had described the sheets to him—they were thin strips of magical power. In places where there were a lot of creatures using magic, the sheets were few. Out here, on this abandoned cliff, the sheets filled the gray sky.

  Damn. They were so distracting. Shimmering with iridescent color and wavering slightly.

  Dale deliberately coughed, trying to bring some moisture to his mouth to swallow. He was so dry, as if the magic had wrung every ounce of water from him, and then some.

  The magic…ah hell. He reached into the back pocket of his jeans. Yeap. His phone was totally fried. Magic tended to obliterate anything electronic. That was why his watch still worked—it was old-fashioned, strictly mechanical. And why his phone was a nice plastic paperweight.

  He grimaced, though he tried to tell himself his phone being out of order was probably for the best. He’d have to get a new one later. Then listen to the death threats that Nora had probably left for him when he’d gone missing.

  Groaning again, Dale tried to get to his feet. He stumbled twice before he finally heaved himself upright. Every muscle ached, as if he’d been put into a dryer and tumbled around all night. He wasn’t sure why he hurt so much. Was it because he wasn’t actually magical? Because a normal human body got messed up when overloaded with so much magic?

  He hadn’t hurt like this when he’d held Nora’s magic. Then again, he’d primarily held it in his hands. It hadn’t gone through his whole system.

  On shaky legs, Dale tottered back toward the road. He found himself ducking to miss one of the lower sheets of magical power floating over the trail. Damn it! He really didn’t want to touch one. He had no idea what the effect would be.

  He found himself shivering now that he was moving, the overcast day chilling him to his bones.

  At least his car was still there, a tan station wagon with rust spots around the wheel hubs and across the back. Sure, it was a piece of junk, but Dale knew just how to baby it to keep it running.

  Something sparkled in the tall grass growing just off the road, beside the passenger door. It wasn’t like the other magical things Dale had seen.

  He paused, then made himself walk over to it. He knew that the sight he’d been granted would fade. He’d bet that within twenty-four hours the world would look normal again.

  So he really needed to learn and see everything he could before then.

  He found a small knot of grass at the center of the sparkling spot. Huh. Kind of like Nora’s magic. But there was something else. That magic kept distracting him. Dale found it difficult to look down to the ground underneath it, or just beyond it.

  Finally, Dale saw what the magic hid: a carefully dug rut in the ground.

  What would a normal human see when they walked by this spot? Probably nothing. But something, some level of magic, would hold their attention.

  And they’d probably trip and fall without realizing why. Maybe even sprain an ankle.

  Who would cast such a trap? And why? He looked up and down the road, then finally, back over the grass. He realized that the distraction lay at the beginning of an animal trail. The slight path went from the road through the grass and ran parallel to the regular path he’d followed.

  Was the distraction there to make animals stumble and fall? Or the fairies? Dale wasn’t sure. And he really couldn’t take the time to figure it out right now. He had to get home before his mom decided she’d kill him.

  Driving wasn’t fun. Those damn sheets of magic were so distracting! Dale finally understood why Nora could drive, but really didn’t like to. He was looking forward to the effect fading.

  When Dale drove up to the house, he realized immediately that Mom’s car wasn’t there. Shit. Where had she gone? Was she at the police station? Checking the hospitals for him?

  They didn’t have a landline at the house: too much expense when they all had cell phones. However, that meant he was going to have to drive into town to get to a phone. First, though, he’d go into the house and leave a note for his mom, letting her know that he was okay.

  As soon as he stepped out of the car, he saw more sparkling magical spots lining the driveway. What the hell?

  Dale walked over to where the concrete met the tall grass, looking carefully. Again, the grass was folded and knotted, and seemed similar to the knots Nora used with her magic.

  There were more than just distraction traps lining the cement driveway, hidden in the browning fall grass. The one that glowed the strongest felt to Dale like a bright, shiny arrow pointing at their house saying, “This way!” There was another that he knew would confuse him if he touched it. And then there were the ones that would slow someone down if they walked through it.

  If Dale or his mom tried to leave the house in a hurry, cutting across the grass, they wouldn’t be able to run if they passed through one of those things. Or they’d forget what they were running from. Or maybe they’d just turn around and run in the other direction.

  As Dale followed the line of traps, he realized that they circled the house. Who had put them there? And how the hell could he disarm them?

  Suddenly, Dale remember why Brett had shared his magical vision the day before. He looked again at the strangely-familiar knotted grass.

  Kostya had taught Nora how to do that folding in the first place.

  Kostya the dwarf.

  What Brett had showed Dale the day before was a large ship out on the water, filled to overflowing with dwarven warriors bearing axes, shields, pikes, and swords.

  The dwarves were coming to the New World.

  And they intended to war against the fairies.

  Cornelius waited just at the top of the grand staircase that wound down from the abandoned house on the cliff to the fairy kingdom below. For a long while, the staircase had been rarely used. The warriors had other ways in and out of the kingdom.

  Now, it was one of many escape routes that was always kept clear. The dust that had gathered on the b
road wooden stairs and the brass bannister had been blown away by the constant passing of flying fairies.

  The inside of the house still stank of mold and stale machine oil. Prized clockwork, once used to test all humans who came into the house had been dismantled, the parts desperately needed in the rest of the kingdom below.

  Most of the warriors had gone before Cornelius, flitting down the winding staircase. The three that remained grew agitated. They believed that it would be safer for him down below.

  The fools didn’t realize that there wasn’t anywhere safe. Not anymore.

  When Racanta finally cleared the area and flew into the house, Cornelius called her over.

  “Did you hear what the mother asked?” Cornelius said.

  Racanta nodded. “The Tinker is missing.”

  “Do you think the Old One took him?” Cornelius said. She was second in command, after Thirza. She would know more than the others regarding the Old One’s movements.

  Racanta shook her head. “That doesn’t seem likely. Though in the last raid, we did manage to damage the Old One. Who knows what he mght have done if he was in pain?”

  “That was my thought,” Cornelius said. “Go to his house in the town. See if you can find any traces of the Tinker there.”

  “And if I find him?” Racanta asked, tilting her head to the side and studying him intently.

  “You should bring him to safety,” Cornelius said firmly.

  The warrior gave him a toothy grin and took off.

  There. Now it wasn’t on his head. He could honestly tell the mother that he hadn’t directed his warriors to kidnap the Tinker.

  They would just make sure the boy was safe. In the place they felt was safest.

  Deep underground.

  Edeline wished she could see a clear edge to the Old One’s territory. Shouldn’t she feel it, deep in her bones, once they passed beyond it? It didn’t follow the human state lines: they’d already crossed a great river and pushed into what the humans called Washington state, but they still hadn’t passed into safety.