The Dwarves d-1

by Markus Heitz

  Lot-Ionan, the words of a counterspell frozen on his lips, gaped with the others in horror at the wreckage. The table, their precious focus object, had been destroyed.

  He was still staring at the sparkling green fragments when a blue fireball whooshed overhead, on course for the treacherous magus. Before it could reach its target, Turgur's fiery projectile was torn apart by a counterspell.

  "For Girdlegard," Maira shouted. "Stop the traitor!"

  The sound of her voice startled Lot-Ionan into action. Pushing aside his fears for his realm and his disappointment at Nudin's betrayal, he focused on the challenge ahead. He knew the others were depending on his support, but in all his 287 cycles he had never once used his powers to kill or harm.

  They assailed the traitor with fireballs and lightning bolts, then joined forces for a combined attack.

  Flames and projectiles bombarded Nudin's shield and he disappeared amid the inferno. Sabora toppled the pillars on either side of him, bringing a section of ceiling crashing to the ground. Dust swirled around them, obscuring their view.

  None of them dared to check on Andфkai; all energies were focused on Nudin.

  "Let's take a look." Maira summoned a gust, propelling the dust through the open roof. As the clouds dispersed, they found themselves looking into thin air-Nudin the Knowledge-Lusty was gone, but there was nothing to suggest that he had been destroyed.

  "He can't have survived," wheezed Turgur. "It's impossible. He must have-" His eyes widened in horror as he looked at his hand. The skin was wrinkling, its surface filling with age spots that blackened and turned into sores. A hastily invoked countercharm did nothing to stop the rot. The festering infection spread along his arm, eating into his chest, then his legs.

  Sabora rushed to his aid. Without flinching she laid a hand on the putrefying skin. This time her healing powers failed her.

  With nothing to hold his flesh together, Turgur slid to the floor. He tried to speak, but his rotten tongue twitched helplessly in his mouth. The fair-faced magus had been robbed of his beauty; a moment later, he forfeited his life. A deathly canker had eaten him alive.

  Lot-Ionan struggled to contain his growing dread. Nudin commanded powers the like of which had never been seen. The Perished Land had taught him terrifying secrets.

  Stepping out from behind a pillar, the false magus appeared at Maira's side. She shrank away.

  "You had your chance," he rasped, drawing a few paces closer and stopping by the fallen Andфkai. "I asked you to help me and you refused. Much good will it do you. I'll show you what-"

  At that moment, Andфkai, who had been lying seemingly dead on the floor, shot up and drew her sword. The blade sang through the air and pierced Nudin's chest.

  "Take that, you traitor!" she thundered, raking the sword upward. The metal tore through the left side of his rib cage and continued through his collarbone, hewing his shoulder. Nudin staggered and fell.

  As he went down, he raised his staff and hurled it with all his might. The tip buried itself in Andфkai's chest. She gave a low moan and toppled backward, fingers clutching at the malachite splinters that littered the floor. Then she was still.

  "Andфkai!" In an instant, Sabora was at her side, laying hands on the wound.

  The sight of the traitor lying in a pool of blood allowed Lot-Ionan and Maira to draw breath. They knelt alongside the injured Andфkai, but their magic could do nothing to help her.

  "We're not strong enough," said Sabora, scrambling to her feet. "Our powers have been depleted by the ritual and the battle. Try to stop the bleeding while I go for help. A rested famulus with a knowledge of healing might save her yet."

  She took two paces toward the door and froze midstep. Her face took on a bluish tinge that spread rapidly through her body.

  "Sabora?" Lot-Ionan reached out to touch her. A stab of cold rushed through his arm, freezing his fingertips to her skin. Sabora had turned to ice.

  "Andфkai the Tempestuous lies still, Turgur the Fair-Faced has lost his looks, and Sabora the Softly-Spoken will forever keep her peace. What will become of Lot-Ionan the Forbearing, I wonder?" a voice rasped behind him.

  Nudin? Lot-Ionan howled furiously, tugging his hand way from the maga's frozen arm and skinning his fingertips. His sorrow at the fate of his beloved Sabora turned to violent rage. "You'll pay for this, Nudin. You won't cheat death again!" A terrible curse on his lips, he whirled round to face the traitor. Nudin's staff was pointing straight at him. His robes were bloodied, but there was no sign of the grisly wound inflicted by Andфkai's sword; a rip in his cloak was the only evidence of the blade's gory passage.

  Before Lot-Ionan could react, he was seized by an insidious paralysis. The heat seemed to vanish from his body, chilling him to the core, while his skin tightened so excruciatingly that tears rolled down his rigid cheeks. Only his eyes were free to move.

  "Can't you see it's using you, Nudin?" Maira tried to rise from Andфkai's side, but slipped on the fragments of malachite and swayed. Nudin saw his chance. On his command, the splinters rose up like an uneven carpet of thorns. He hurled a curse at her.

  Maira deflected the black bolt, but staggered and fell among the shards. The jagged crystals cut through her robes, slashing her skin and inflicting grievous wounds.

  "Nudin, I'm begging you-" she whispered urgently.

  "No one has the right to ask anything of me!" He stood over her and brought the staff down heavily with both hands. Maira let out a tortured scream as the onyx smashed into her face. There was a flash of black lightning. "From now on, I listen to no one."

  Possessed of a crazed fury, he battered her head until the skull gave way with a sickening crack. Nothing was left of Maira's once-dignified countenance.

  Panting for breath, Nudin drew himself up, triumph flashing wildly in his eyes. He looked at the bodies strewn around him.

  "You've got only yourselves to blame," he shouted angrily, as if to justify his actions. "You wanted it to end this way, not me." He ran a hand over his face and found sticky smears of blood. Disgusted, he wiped them away with his gown. "It was your choice," he said more quietly, "not mine."

  Unable to do anything but weep, Lot-Ionan cried tears of despair. The magi had been betrayed and destroyed by one of their own, a man whom they had counted as their friend.

  The traitor dropped his guard. Lowering himself onto a chair, he tilted his head back and gazed up at the stars.

  "My name is Nфd'onn the Doublefold," he told the glittering pinpricks of light. "Nudin the Knowledge-Lusty is no more. He departed with the council, never to return." He gripped his staff. "I am two and yet one," he murmured pensively, lumbering to his feet. Lot-Ionan followed him with his gaze as he strode toward the door.

  "You too will die, my old, misguided friend," the treacherous magus prophesied. "Your whole being will soon be fossilized; you'll be nothing but stone." He fixed him with bloodshot eyes, a look of untold weariness and disappointment on his face. "You should have sided with me and not that backstabbing Turgur. Still, for old times' sake I won't deny you a proper view." His swollen fingers took hold of Lot-Ionan and he embraced him briefly, hauling him round to face Sabora. "Now you can watch her while you're dying. It won't be long before she follows. Farewell, Lot-Ionan. It's time I got on with saving Girdlegard-single-handedly, since the rest of you won't help."

  He stepped out of Lot-Ionan's line of sight, and the doors slammed shut. Alone in the chamber and beside himself with grief, the magus of Ionandar surveyed his dead friends. The sight of Sabora, frozen and motionless, was enough to break his heart.

  Will the gods stand by and watch the ruin of Girdlegard? Do something, I implore you! Rage, helplessness, hatred, and sorrow welled within him until despair took hold of his being and nothing could check his tears.

  At length the curse relieved him of his torment. The salty rivulets petrified on his marble cheeks, forming a lasting memorial to his anguish, while his breathing faltered and his heart turned to stone. If deat
h had not claimed the kindly magus before daybreak, the sight of Sabora melting in the merciless sunshine would surely have killed him.

  When everything was still in the chamber, a colossal warrior forced himself through one of the windows, stepped over the bodies, and knelt beside Andфkai. The palace echoed with his bestial howls. Enchanted Realm of Lios Nudin, Girdlegard, Early Summer, 6234th Solar Cycle Tungdil was making swift progress. His boots devoured the miles, carrying him on a northwesterly course ever closer to Greenglade. The shortest route to his new destination took him through the enchanted realm of Lios Nudin, home to Nudin the Knowledge-Lusty.

  It was unsettling to think that the distance separating him from the Perished Land was dwindling with every step. The southern frontier extended almost as far as Lios Nudin, although Greenglade was a good hundred miles clear of the danger. Nonetheless, if the girdle was to fall, Gorйn would be obliged to move elsewhere.

  On the far side of the Blacksaddle he came across a messenger post. Knowing that Lot-Ionan would be worried about his whereabouts, he composed another short letter in which he informed the magus of where he was going and what had come to pass. He paid for the courier with the last of his precious gold coins.

  The weather was treating him kindly. The sun shone benevolently from the sky, a light wind kept him pleasantly cool, and on the few occasions when the warmth threatened to overwhelm him, he retreated to the shade of a tree and waited for the midday heat to pass. His legs were much stronger now than at the start of his journey and he was barely aware of the weight of his mail. The walk was doing him good.

  The landscape of Lios Nudin made little impression on the dwarf. It was mainly flat with a few rolling hills, referred to locally as "highlands." For the most part, fields and meadows stretched as far as the eye could see, dotted with grazing cows and vast numbers of sheep, herded by attentive dogs. Woodland was rare and tended to be sparse, although the trees were of a venerable age. Having succeeded in taking root, they had every intention of standing their ground.

  With the exception of Porista, which lay a considerable distance to the north of his route, there were few settlements of note in Lios Nudin, Lamtasar and Seinach being the largest with thirty thousand inhabitants apiece.

  However, the proliferation of smaller villages and hamlets made it easy for Tungdil to find work as a smith and he offered his services in return for extra rations of cured meat, bread, and cheese. It was no good asking ordinary country folk to pay him in gold.

  For four orbits he had been following the same road on a westerly bearing toward the border, where he would cross back into Gauragar and take a diagonal path northward to Greenglade.

  With any luck Gorйn won't have quarreled with his elven mistress and moved away. In his gloomiest moments Tungdil envisaged himself traipsing after Lot-Ionan's famulus forever, doomed to carry the blasted artifacts until he died. At least the journey was furnishing him with plenty of new experiences and even life on the surface no longer seemed quite such a trial.

  Weeks had passed since the attack on Goodwater and the memory of the violence was fading, allowing him to take pleasure in his surroundings. He savored the different smells of the countryside and chatted to the peasants, reveling in their stories and their curious accents and dialects. Girdlegard dazzled him with her infinite variety.

  At times he felt lonely and longed for the comfort of Lot-Ionan's vaults, where everything was reassuringly familiar. Nothing made him feel safer than narrow passageways and low ceilings and he missed his books and his chats with junior apprentices. Most of all, though, he missed Sunja and Frala, whose scarf was still tied to his belt.

  Yet deep down he also nourished the hope that his kinsfolk, intrigued by the news of an abandoned dwarf, had sent word to Lot-Ionan and requested to see him. Every orbit he prayed to Vraccas that the magus's letter wouldn't be ignored.

  It was afternoon when he noticed that the landscape was becoming more wooded. The gaps between the trunks diminished until at last he was in an airy sunlit wood. This was the beginning of the Eternal Forest and he had almost reached his goal.

  On consulting his map, he found he was fifty miles west of Lios Nudin and a hundred miles southwest of the Perished Land-safe enough, in other words. It would take a real stroke of bad luck to meet orcs in these parts.

  A branch snapped loudly.

  Tungdil's recent exposure to country noises persuaded him that the sound was more than just a cracking twig. A creature of sizable proportions was lurking in the wood. Reaching for the haft of his ax, he peered in the direction of the noise.

  Another branch snapped.

  "Who goes there?"

  The shouted question startled the stag that had been nosing among the trees for the lushest grass. Its white rump bobbed up and down, then vanished from view.

  Tungdil shook his head at himself. What did you expect it to be? he chuckled. As he wandered through the forest, a sense of calm and serenity settled over him. There was something incredibly peaceful about the trees and it rubbed off on his mood. Even the birdsong was fresher and more joyful, the forest-dwellers greeting him like an old friend whose visit was long overdue.

  The dusty road gave way to a grass track that meandered through the woods like a green ribbon unfurled by nature. Every step felt luxuriously soft and springy and even the hot sun, which had reached an oppressive intensity in recent orbits, seemed pleasant beneath the dappled leaves. A light breeze chased away the muggy summer air and Tungdil felt he could walk forever.

  Soon he became accustomed to the sounds of the glade and the rustling and crackling became more frequent. Deer and wild boar tore through the undergrowth at his approach. There were animals everywhere, and like him, they seemed to sense the peacefulness of the forest and feel at home there.

  I won't get too friendly with the elf maiden until I've learned more about her, he decided. His race and hers were sworn enemies, but Tungdil saw no sense in hating someone who had done him no harm. I'll see how she treats me first.

  A branch snapped again. Judging by the racket, the culprit was a fair-sized animal, most probably a stag. Tungdil peered ahead, hoping to glimpse its magnificent antlers.

  Another branch broke, twigs snapped, and a voice cursed- in orcish.

  The harmony of the forest shattered like a bauble beneath a blacksmith's hammer. Orcs spilled out of the bushes and Tungdil, who moments earlier had been basking in a sense of security, was confronted with the prospect of being eaten alive. A penetrating odor of sweat and rancid fat filled the air.

  The first beast, a particularly hideous specimen, stepped onto the path. He was armed to the teeth and nearly twice the height of Tungdil.

  "Bloody greenery. We'd move faster if we burned the blasted forest down." The ore snatched furiously at a twig that had wedged itself in his armor. He still hadn't seen the dwarf.

  The troopers who followed him out of the bushes were more observant. "Hey, Frushgnarr, take a look at that!"

  The square-jawed head whipped round. Two small deep-set eyes glared at Tungdil as the orc opened his wide mouth in a blood-curdling shout: "A groundling!" He drew his toothed sword. "I love groundlings!"

  "If only the sentiment was mutual." The dwarf strained to see past him and paled. The orcs were still coming, pouring out of the woods. At thirty he stopped counting. There was no hope of evading them this time. Like a true child of the Smith, he would go down fighting and take an orc with him. He would have liked to prove his credentials before he met his Maker, but at least Vraccas would know that his intentions were sound. "Now you're here, I'll have to kill you."

  "You and whose army?" the orc jeered.

  Tungdil lowered his bags. It was maddening to know that he had come so close to completing his mission, but he drew unexpected courage from his frustration.

  "Army? I don't need an army when I've got my ax!" His inborn hatred of the beasts, common to all dwarves, was awakened by the foul creatures' odor. An image of Goodwater, houses burni
ng and villagers slaughtered, flashed before his eyes. The bookish part of his brain shut down and he threw himself, shrieking, upon the nearest ore.

  The beast parried his blow with a shield. "Are you sure you don't need an army?" he grunted scornfully. Snarling, he took a step forward and lunged.

  The dwarf retreated hastily and backed into a tree. At the last second he ducked, the sword whistling past him, almost grazing his head. It buried itself in the bark.

  On seeing the orc's sturdy thigh in front of him, Tungdil swung his ax toward the unprotected flesh. "Take that!" Dark green blood gushed from the wound, streaming down the beast's shin.

  Abandoning his sword in the tree, the orc reached for his dagger to stab the dwarf instead. Tungdil's mail stopped the blade from penetrating, but the impact sent him reeling. Fighting to stay upright, he tripped over his bags and fell.

  "So much for your ax, groundling! Prepare to die!" The orc hurled the dagger at him but missed.

  Tungdil, who had succeeded in tangling himself in the straps of his bags, was still trying to free himself when his opponent decided to retrieve his sword, wrenching it out of the tree.

  The beast limped toward him, snorting with rage and brandishing his blade. It hurtled through the air.

  As the dwarf dove to one side, the bag of artifacts jerked after him, landing on his back just as the blade made contact.

  The famulus's precious possessions absorbed the blow, but the splintering and jangling left Tungdil in no doubt that the artifacts had paid dearly for saving his life. Who knows if they'll ever get to Greenglade? His fury redoubled.

  "I'm not done yet!" Rolling onto his front, he used his momentum to plant his ax in the ore's right thigh, almost severing his leg.

  The beast yelped and fell to the ground beside the dwarf. Tungdil rolled away from him, sprang to his feet, and drove his ax into the creature's throat. He heard the bone crack. "Who says I need an army?" he panted. For the first time in his life he had slain a beast of Tion. He hoped to goodness that Vraccas would be satisfied since it was likely to be his last.