After a while Grundel noticed that the dwarves of Tiefes Loch were mostly silent. They had segregated themselves, and they sat around their fires talking quietly amongst themselves. He hadn’t expected them to be cheerful, really, but the level of their disengagement was more then he had expected. He saw Verrator sitting at the Tiefes Loch fire nearest the fire of the queen. Verrator was staring at him with a look of pure hatred. This didn’t disturb Grundel, though. The dwarves of Tiefes Loch had been more and more disengaged over the years. Their prejudices had grown, and they had become more and more isolated. Grundel knew that when the fighting was done none of the dwarves of Tiefes Loch would stick around to serve in a mountain ruled by a queen.
Grundel returned to the queen’s fire. She was talking cheerfully with Fuhrung about something, but every once in a while she would look across the fire at him. The looks she gave him were short, barely more then a glance, but each one felt like she was looking into his soul and exposing more of him. After one of these glances Jerrie bumped him with his elbow.
“What was that?” he asked.
“What was what?” Grundel answered, looking around to see what Jerrie had seen.
Jerrie nodded his head toward Frau. “That look, that whole thing that just happened between you and the queen. What was that?”
“What look? What are you talking about?” Grundel deflected, but his heart raced in his chest. So it hadn’t been his imagination, then. He wasn’t sure that was a good thing. It would be easier if the queen showed no interest in him at all.
Jerrie actually laughed at him. “You’re going to play that game. are you? Okay, pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
Grundel whispered so no one else would hear. “There is nothing going on between me and Frau. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t be with her. She is the queen. I am only half dwarf. That human blood almost cost my father his throne. You think I would go through that again?”
He stood up and walked over to Bumbo. He rubbed the little pony’s muzzle. He wished Rundo were back. Rundo was always able to distract him. He hadn’t realized it before, but Rundo had quickly become the closest friend he had ever had. Since he had left with Rundo and the others to try to save the life of Anwar’s wife in the fairy forest, he had spent most of every day with the halfling until now.
“He’ll be back soon,” he told Bumbo.
“Worried about your friend?” he heard Frau say from behind him. He turned around to look at her.
“He’s not worried, so neither am I. If anything was wrong that pony would know it, and would be running as fast as it could toward Rundo,” he answered honestly. He really wasn’t worried about his friend. He just missed him. He realized that just thinking about Rundo had made it easier to talk to her without all the weirdness between them.
“And you would be off as fast as you could to go after him, I imagine.”
The declaration rang true in his own mind as he realized she was right. If Bumbo took off back the way they had come, he would leap on the back of the nearest horse and run right after him. That realization led to another. He was more like his father then he had thought. He had played the part of duty back in Evermount when his sacrifice was easy. He had never really cared about being king, and giving that up was easy to do for the good of his father and dwarves. Abandoning Rundo was something he wouldn’t be able to do regardless of his responsibilities to the dwarves and the obligation he had to his queen. When it came to loyalty, he and his father both put personal loyalties over duty.
His silence must have confirmed her assumption. “I hope that one day our own relationship will be as strong as yours and the halfling’s.” She didn’t wait for a response, but walked back and sat by the fire again.
He saw Jerrie watching him from where he sat. Grundel didn’t feel like talking or singing so he just lay down right there next to Bumbo. He rubbed his arm for a minute. The stitches itched like crazy. He closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep thinking about when Frau had rubbed them. Maybe there had been more to that touch . . .
They spent three more days on the road. Things were mostly uneventful. The dwarves of Tiefes Loch continued to stay to themselves, Jerrie didn’t say anything about the momentary looks that he and the queen continued to share, and the whole situation continued to be uncomfortable. In the late afternoon of that third day, they came through a small wooded area, and Grundel saw the two things he had been waiting to see. Not more than a mile from where he stood was the base of Shinestone. They had been able to see the peaks ever since they had come out of the woods, but this was the first time they had an unobstructed view of the mountain.
Much closer to him, standing in the middle of the road, was Rundo.
Chapter Thirteen
Preparations and Assassins
Rundo had been walking for two days when he realized he didn’t have to. He was barely gaining on the dwarves and he would barely catch up to them before they made it to Shinestone. That is, if he caught them in time. They were moving a lot faster then he had anticipated.
He stripped down and linked with Messah. A second later he was a huge hawk. He had wrapped his clothes in his belt, so now all he had to do was get one of his talons through the belt. It took a couple of awkward moments, but he figured it out. A couple hard flaps of his wings and he was in the air. He passed over the dwarves, so high that he would just be a dot in the sky to them. He could see them clearly, though.
He continued on. He reached Shinestone just in time to watch the tail end of a line of orcs file into an entrance on the ground level. He flew around the mountain looking for anything that might help them. He found four other entrances. They had all been collapsed, but once they got past the rubble they could enter there. The orcs would likely be preparing their defenses only at the one entrance. But if the dwarves had to work through rubble to enter, the orcs would have time to move forces to defend that entrance. That is, unless there was a way to move the rubble more quickly . . .
Rundo flew back to the last line of trees before the open fields that surrounded the mountain. He had gained the better part of a day on Grundel and the others. When he landed, he got dressed again before lifting the earth up to form a small burrow, barely noticeable to anyone who might walk past it. He didn’t make a fire, as he didn’t want to attract attention.
The next day he watched the mountain. There were always orcs outside the entrance, on watch. Other than that, there was no movement. The sun was high in the sky when the dwarves finally arrived. He stood on the road and waited.
Bumbo came galloping past the dwarves in front. Rundo rubbed his pony’s muzzle affectionately. He was staring at Grundel, though. Grundel was standing on the bench of his wagon, staring over the heads of the other dwarves with a big, stupid smile on his face. The queen took the reins and nodded him off the wagon. Rundo lost sight of the huge dwarf for a second and then he was towering over the dwarves who had stopped a dozen paces in front of Rundo with their weapons drawn. Grundel ran around them and lifted Rundo off the ground.
“I told ’em you’d make it, but none of ’em was believing me. How did you get ahead of us?”
Rundo laughed as Grundel put him down. He noticed that Grundel and Grizzle would both speak quite a bit less properly when they were excited. “There are a lot of things for me to tell you. Let’s wait until you get settled in.”
The queen came over then. “Master Rundo, I am glad you made it back to us. I hope you found what you were looking for. Your friend here barely made the trip without you. He spent all of his time with that pony of yours.”
Grundel and Rundo looked at each other and laughed. Frau sent the dwarves into motion setting camp. Now that they were here, they would need to establish a plan.
While the other dwarves rested, the queen and her advisors worked on the plan. She brought Verrator, the dwarf in charge of the contingents from Tiefes Loch and Borfin, to represent the Haufen dwarves. In reality Fuhrung could have spoken for them, b
ut he was technically a representative of Shinestone now. Most of the dwarves here were intending to live as dwarves of Shinestone when the fighting was done, with the exception of the dwarves from Tiefes Loch, but until that time they were still dwarves of wherever they had come from. They all still had to answer to Frau, but it helped to have one of their own representing them when decisions were being made. It gave them some buy-in.
Rundo and Jerrie were there as well. Jerrie knew about the Black Dragons, and Rundo said he had been scouting the mountain.
“Let’s start with what we know about our enemy. Jerrie, since you are the one with the most knowledge, I would like you to tell us what you know,” Frau said when everyone was gathered around her.
Jerrie stepped up in front of Grundel. “What I learned in Ambar is that one of the leaders of the Black Dragons is holed up in the mountain with a clan of orcs. The number of orcs changed depending on where you heard the story, but it was anywhere from ten thousand to sixty thousand. No one really knew, so those were guesses. The rumor was that they were all orcs that had escaped the battle at Evermount, which, from what I have heard, would mean it was closer to the smaller number. We have already seen orcs on the road, though, so we can expect that their numbers have grown. I would plan for sixty, and anything less would be a win. From what I gathered, there are around ten Black Dragon wizards in the mountain, or at least there were when we left Ambar. There is no way to know if they are still in there or if he has summoned more wizards to his side. I would guess that when they realize the battle is lost the Black Dragons will magically travel out of harm’s way. If possible, Grundel, Rundo, and I should battle the wizards. We are prepared to do so. I’m not saying not to cut them in half if you get a chance, but don’t go chasing after them without protection.”
Frau looked curiously at each of the three, but did not ask the question in front of the others. Instead she turned to Rundo.
“Rundo, I hear you have been scouting out the mountain while you waited for us. What do you have to offer?”
“From what I have seen, there are five entrances into the mountain. I’m sure, knowing dwarves, that there are other hidden passages or doors, but there were five major openings in the mountain. Four of those have been sealed, leaving only the main entrance.”
Verrator cut him off. “Thank you for your absolutely useless information, halfling, as if the dwarves of Shinestone couldn’t have told us as much.”
Rundo just smiled, not even looking at the angry dwarf. “As I was saying, the other four major openings in the mountain have been sealed. Even if they were opened, two of them would not be an option because they open onto what appear to be large gardens on the side of the mountain. There aren’t any easy paths to move an army. The third has a path, but it would be single file up the path and into the entrance. The fourth is nearly as large as the main entrance. It has a wide path. On the far side of this entrance is a flat spot on the mountain with a fence. It appears to be an area where livestock was kept. If you decide to use this entrance, I can reopen it in less than a minute and clear out the tunnel that leads to it.”
“What are you going to do, halfling, steal the entrance? No one could clear that much rubble in a minute,” said Verrator. Rundo didn’t respond; he just looked into the dwarf’s eyes and smiled. He wouldn’t have been surprised if smoke had actually come out of his ears.
“Thank you, Rundo. When we are finished I would like to hear how you plan to clear the rubble, but for now, Grundel vouches for you, so I will take your word for it.” She turned on Verrator. “Well, Verrator, since you can’t keep your mouth shut, why don’t you tell us your plan to take back our mountain from the orcs who could outnumber us by as much as sixty to one?”
Verrator stared angrily. “I say we use the halfling’s plan. If he can get us in. If not, we can dig our way in. The orcs will have a chance to send their armies into the tunnels but it will split them up. Then we can attack from two sides. The dwarves from Tiefes Loch can lead the attack straight through the defenses at the main entrance. The rest of you can fight your way down to us. It will put more dwarves in the tunnels at one time. The more dwarves we can get in the mountain, the faster we can take down the orcs. Inside dwarven tunnels, I’ll take sixty-to-one odds on orcs. We’ll make a wall and walk right through the tunnels of Shinestone. If the halfling can open the big entrance in under a minute, I say he opens the small one, too, so we get a single file of dwarves coming in from that direction, too.”
Everyone stared at him dumbfounded. The last thing anyone had expected was for him to agree with the halfling. Frau looked at him and then at Rundo.
“Could you do it? Could you open them both?”
“I can. It will not take long,” he answered.
She stared at him for a long time then. “Not that I don’t trust you, Rundo, but I am about to commit the lives of a thousand dwarves to a plan based on your say so. Would you mind explaining how you are going to clear thousands of pounds of stone out of that entrance in such a short time? It would take a team of dwarves a couple hours.”
Rundo looked around the circle of dwarves who were all staring at him. He connected with the aura of the ground and it rose up to his call, forming a ten-foot earth golem in front of him.
It took a minute for everyone to get over their initial surprise. Verrator had even drawn his sword.
Frau was the first to respond. “You’re going to have that thing move all the rock?” she asked.
Rundo released the golem and it fell to the ground in a pile of dirt and rock. “No, I am going to turn the rubble blocking the entrance into one of those things and have it charge down the tunnel smashing orc skulls. Frau smiled, the other dwarves cheered, and Jerrie slapped him on the back. Grundel just stood there staring at Verrator with a look that said “I told you so.”
The next couple hours were spent going over particulars. The dwarves of Tiefes Loch would clear from the main entrance. They only had two hundred dwarves, but there were three things Tiefes Loch dwarves were known for: their prejudice, their arrogance, and their fighting. If you were going to have dwarves go charging into the orcs’ defenses they weren’t a bad choice. The dwarves from Haufen would file into the smaller entrance. It would likely be the least protected since it was the least likely place to try to attack from. There was a good chance that they could get most of their three hundred dwarves into the tunnels before the orcs even realized they were there. The four hundred dwarves from Evermount and the hundred from Shinestone would follow Grundel’s golem down into the mountain from the larger entrance higher up. Rundo had said that he would go up with Frau and Grundel and, when they were ready, he could go open the smaller entrance for the Haufen dwarves then come open the bigger entrance for them. When Verrator asked how he was going to accomplish that he had just smiled. “Some surprises have to be saved for the battlefield,” he’d said. No one argued the point. After his demonstration with the golem they were all convinced that he could do what he said, which was important since the whole plan rested on him getting the dwarves into the mountain quickly. The final surprise was that Verrator had demanded to be able to go with Frau. He wasn’t really asking and she didn’t really care enough to deal with it, so she conceded. With the plan set, each of the representatives went to prepare their respective clans. They would start their attack just before first light.
It was still early morning, a couple of hours before they were supposed to start moving toward the mountain. Most of the camp was getting a couple hours of sleep before the fighting started. Rundo was lying on his back with his head against a log. All of a sudden three men appeared next to Grundel. Without even thinking he let his magically enchanted knife fly at the one in the center he had been holding the other two’s hands, which meant he was the wizard who could travel. The grunt of the wizard woke Jerrie and Grundel. Rundo saw the confusion on the wizard’s face as he realized the blade had punched through his magical shield.
Jerrie had gone to
sleep a few feet away from Grundel. He woke up to the sound of a thud and a gasp of pain. They were both sounds he recognized, and even as he opened his eyes his hand went to his blades. The wizard was falling, there was an assassin going after Grundel, and the other man was already swinging his sword at his neck. He couldn’t get out of the way in time and he wouldn’t be able to get his knife out quickly enough. He abandoned the knife on his left hip, bringing his left arm up just in time. The blade bounced of the metal bracer under his shirt on his left wrist and glanced away just over his right shoulder. The assassin was surprised, but he didn’t slow down. Before Jerrie could take advantage of the missed strike the blade was already coming in at his right shoulder. He rolled away drawing his other knife placed his feet so that he came up facing his attacker. The swordsman was good—he was already on him. Jerrie just barely ducked out of the way of the thrust aimed at his neck. The back-handed slash that followed nearly caught his ear, but he had moved forward to avoid that attack as well, and the knife in his right hand ran across the front of the assassin’s right thigh as Jerrie rolled away again. The assassin tried to follow, but the gash was deep and he couldn’t put his weight on it. He stumbled forward and the knife in Jerrie’s left hand came free. The swordsman tried to turn his sword up in front of him, and might have actually been able to deflect the knife if he hadn’t dropped his sword so low when he stumbled. The knife buried in his chest.
Grundel woke up to the sound of someone gasping nearby. When he opened his eyes a sword was coming down at him. He rolled to his left, barely avoiding the blade, and the sword slammed into the dirt where he had just been asleep. He kicked out with his right foot. It was a desperate move but it worked. He connected with the man’s shin, forcing him to stumble back or have his knee buckle. As Grundel came to his feet, the assassin’s body lurched forward. Grundel’s axe was quick. The man was reacting to the pain of the knife in his back, and his attempt to avoid the axe came too late. Grundel’s axe cut clean through his neck, sending his head off to the left as his body fell to the right. Grundel looked over just in time to see Jerrie’s knife slam into the other assassin’s chest. Frau and Fuhrung had fallen asleep a little farther away from the fire and were just getting to their feet as the last assassin fell to the ground in front of Jerrie. After retrieving his own knife, Jerrie went and pulled a ring off the wizard’s finger, he pulled Rundo’s knife free, and tossed it over at Rundo’s feet.
The Half Dwarf Prince Trilogy Page 13
