Chapter Fifteen
More Chaos
General Moglin stopped outside the door to King Bergmann’s chamber. He reached up his fist and knocked. “King Bergmann, it is General Moglin. I have some news.”
The door opened and the king walked back into the room. General Moglin followed, closing the door to the room behind him. The king turned around in the center of the room. “What is the news? Do we have her?”
“Our dwarves are dead, King Bergmann. I do not know what happened, but I felt each of them die.”
“What about the traitor?” the king asked.
“I can still feel him. He is still in the city. He was there when the others died.”
The dwarf king sat silent in thought for a moment before responding. “So either the Black Dragons have her or she is with the traitor.”
“I believe those are the most likely possibilities,” General Moglin replied.
“Send three of the Chaos Dwarves with a twenty of our best soldiers. I want Stoneheart’s queen. We need to take her now while she is vulnerable. Once she is back in one of the dwarven kingdoms, we will have lost the opportunity.” The king was shouting by the time he finished.
“I will send the dwarves on their way to Patria within the hour,” General Moglin said and turned for the door.
“General Moglin,” King Bergmann said calmly. “Ensure these dwarves know that if they fail their families will pay for their incompetence.”
“I will make sure they know,” he said and turned again.
“Oh, and General Moglin?”
He turned and faced his king again. “Yes, King Bergmann.”
“I want the traitor. Kill him if they have to or bring him back if they can, but one way or another, I want that traitor.” His tone was calm and menacing and Moglin understood his anger.
“Yes, King Bergmann,” he said and this time he made it to the door without being stopped.
Once outside, he thought about what the king wanted. He said three Chaos Dwarves and twenty soldiers, but Moglin wasn’t sure that was enough. Flucht’s companions had proven themselves quite capable, and if they had fought off the Black Dragons as well as the Chaos Dwarves, he might just be sending another group of soldiers to their deaths, not to mention their families.
King Bergmann didn’t make idol threats. General Moglin knew that if these dwarves didn’t return with the queen and a dead Flucht Longblade that their families would be executed for their failure. He decided to send an extra Chaos Dwarf and ten more soldiers. He hoped that would be enough. He might just be adding more executions, but he didn’t believe that three and twenty would be enough. He headed down to the barracks where the Chaos Dwarves were staying. They had been assigned a special part of Tiefes Loch to train and live. Many of them were still trying to learn how to do simple task now that their hands had melded with weapons. They didn’t sleep or eat and many of them were already starting to lose their minds.
He found the dwarf he was looking for. “Captain Leiter!”
The Chaos Dwarf turned around. He had a double-bladed axe where each of his hands used to be. He was one of the most capable fighters Moglin had ever known. He also was one of the most feared dwarves in Tiefes Loch and all of the other Chaos Dwarves looked up to him. Moglin knew if he couldn’t go himself Leiter was the most likely to be successful. He also didn’t have a family, which meant there was one less family to be executed if they did fail.
General Moglin watched as the short, even by dwarf standards, Captain Leiter walked over to him. He had his thick black beard braided in two splits at the center of his chin. He had very broad shoulders. He was one of the widest dwarves Moglin had ever seen despite his height. “Yes, General Moglin.”
“You are going to take three other Chaos Dwarves with you to Patria. The others failed. You need to find the Human Queen of Evermount. Bring her back here. You also need to find the traitor Flucht Longblade. Bring him back if you can. If not, just kill him. You are going to take thirty regular soldiers with you. If you fail, the king will execute the families of everyone who goes. You can take whatever Chaos Dwarves you want. You will be leaving in an hour so choose who you want and be ready then. I am going to get your soldiers.”
“We’ll be waiting for you when you get back, General.”
Moglin made his way up to the next level, where the regular soldiers were staying. He found one of the captains. “Captain Ublich.”
“Yes, General,” the captain said nervously. Many of the regular dwarves were uncomfortable around the Dwarves of Chaos.
“I need thirty of your best dwarves ready to move in half an hour.”
“Where should they assemble?” the captain asked.
“Send them down to the Chaos barracks,” General Moglin answered, and then he turned and walked out of the barracks.
When he arrived at the Chaos Barracks, he found King Bergmann there waiting. A group of dwarves was led into the main room by two of the Dwarves of Chaos. When the king saw him, he came walking over. “General Moglin, good. I assume the other dwarves will be here shortly.”
“They will, King Bergmann.”
“Good. I have something I want them to see. I understand you increased the number of dwarves being sent,” the king stated in a way that expected an explanation.
“I did, King Bergmann. I thought that—”
King Bergmann cut him off. “There is no need for an explanation. I trust your judgment. If you don’t think our soldiers are capable enough then send more.”
General Moglin knew the king was just taking a stab at him. If he tried to counter, the king would just take another one. He wisely kept his mouth shut. General Moglin wasn’t sure what had happened, but ever since he became the king, Bergmann has become more and more cruel. He had a need to exert his power over others that he had never needed before. He stood and watched as dwarves continued to be escorted into the large room. By the time the regular dwarf soldiers had arrived, there were eight dwarf women, three dwarf men, and two young dwarf males. They were the fathers, mothers, and sons of the Chaos Dwarves who had gone to retrieve the Queen. General Moglin knew that the king was going to have them executed in front of the dwarves going out to complete the mission that the previous dwarves had failed. It was a warning they didn’t need, but would get anyway.
The king turned and faced the dwarves who were about to go out on this mission. “Dwarves, you have your mission. You will bring back Queen Stoneheart from Patria, and you will kill the traitor Flucht Longblade. If you fail in either of these missions, this will be the fate of every dwarf who carries your name.” He turned and nodded to the two Chaos Dwarves he had been talking to when General Moglin had entered the room. The dwarves buried their swords in the stomachs of the male dwarves. The dwarves fell to the ground, grasping at their stomachs, and doing their best not to cry out in pain. The female dwarves were impaled the same way. A couple of them cried out in pain at as the blade entered their bodies. They fell to the ground and tried to die honorably.
The two younger males, who couldn’t have been more than twenty or thirty years old, stood their ground. The first puffed out his chest and took the sword in the stomach without flinching. He stayed on his feet for a couple of heartbeats after the blade came back out of his body. He fell to his knees, staring into the eyes of King Bergman as blood and fluid poured out of his wound. The smell of punctured intestine filled the room. It was a foul smell that would make anyone’s stomach turn, but no one dared react to it.
The last dwarf stood waiting nervously for the sword. When the Chaos Dwarf drove the blade into his stomach, the young dwarf pulled it hilt deep, and smashed his forehead into the Chaos Dwarf’s face. The young dwarf’s face split open as it made contact with the steel skin of the Chaos Dwarf. He fell to his knees with blood pouring down his face and out of his stomach. He looked over at the king. “May you burn in the bowls of Bordin forever,” he said and then spit a bloody glob of spit into the king’s face.
Bergman drew his sword and removed the young dwarf’s head.
Moglin watched in disgust. The king was losing control. He had lost his composure too. Moglin looked at the other dwarves who lay on the ground, waiting for death to remove the searing pain from their stomachs. Moglin hoped that these dwarves were successful, because if they weren’t, he didn’t think Tiefes Loch could handle this happening to the families of thirty-four dwarves. The kingdom was already very tense and an event like that would likely cause it to implode.
King Bergmann walked out of the room. Moglin walked down the line of dying dwarves and pushed his sword through each of their chests. The point had been made. There was no reason to cause these dwarves to suffer any further. He turned and faced the dwarves who were about to leave.
“The King has made his point. You understand the consequences if you fail. Go bring back the queen, kill the traitor. Captain Leiter will be in charge. He will take it from here.” Captain Leiter began breaking the dwarves up into groups. He was assigning ten regular dwarves to each of the Dwarves of Chaos.
General Moglin left the room, trying to figure out how to keep Tiefes Loch from imploding. They were going to war against the other dwarven kingdoms and their king was becoming more and more unstable.
Chapter Sixteen
News Comes to Shinestone
Rundo landed on the landing just outside the main entrance to Shinestone. The dwarf guards there all knew about Rundo and Evelyn now so they didn’t have to worry about catching a bolt from a startled guard. He returned to his natural form and put his clothes on. Nudity didn’t bother him anymore, but it didn’t mean he didn’t still notice Evelyn’s. He watched her get dressed as he put his own clothes on. When they were both dressed, Rundo strapped on his belt, and double-checked that the letter was still in the pouch. He felt his pony Bumbo and his hawk Messah’s excitement at his presence. He was linked subconsciously with them through a druidic bond. He needed to spend some time with them. He had been traveling so much they had spent a lot of time here alone. He reached out to them through the link with feelings of affection and excitement. He then led Evelyn down into the mountain of Shinestone.
Grizzle was sitting with Kraft, Frau, and Jabaal when Rundo came in. He stood when he saw his old friend. “Rundo, is everything ok? What happened?”
“We have her. Everything is ok. Well, more than ok, really. I need to deliver a message to King Patria,” Rundo said, holding up the letter.
“He’s downstairs. How is Anna?”
“She is good. She is back in the palace. She is well guarded. No one can get to her. We did find someone else though,” Rundo explained.
“Who?” Grizzle asked.
“She told me that I have to wait until King Patria reads her letter before I tell anyone anything.”
Grizzle opened the door and sent the dwarf waiting outside the meeting hall to go get King Patria.
It took the better part of an hour for the dwarf to find the human king and bring him back to the hall. King Patria walked in the room. “King Stoneheart, King Kraft, Queen Patria, what can I do for you?”
Grizzle waved a hand in Rundo’s direction. “Rundo has a message from your cousin, King Patria. Whatever it is, he was directed not to speak to any of us about it until you read it.”
Rundo handed him the message and he opened the letter. He read it twice to be sure he had read it correctly and then he just stood there, staring at it in disbelief. He finally looked up from the letter to Rundo, who had just come from Patria. “You saw him?”
Rundo nodded his head. “I did, Your Highness.”
“And they are sure?”
“Your sister was the one to declare it. Captain Thompson and Master Brennin both confirmed it,” Rundo explained.
“Confirmed what?” Grizzle was normally very patient, but this was something that had to do with his wife, who had just been rescued, and he didn’t know what it was.
King Patria looked over to the dwarf leaders. “My cousin Jacob is alive. He helped them save Anna. He is a wizard now. Anna wants me to return to Patria to make the official declaration and participate in all of the ceremonies.”
Grizzle stared at him for a minute. “How is that possible? He froze to death.”
“Apparently when he froze it awakened some kind of magic inside of him that kept him alive. He lost his memory and was raised by a wizard,” King Patria explained, looking back at the letter to confirm what he was saying was true. He handed it to Grizzle to read over.
“We will put a team together to take you to Patria. When do you want to leave?” Grizzle asked.
King Patria looked at the dwarves and then back at Rundo, who had just come from the city. “I’d like to leave in the morning. You don’t have to send anyone with me though. I will take a company of my men back to Patria with me. I will leave the rest of my men here with you. General Douglas will remain to lead my men. He will have orders to follow you wherever you go. Tiefes Loch is our enemy as well as yours. We will do what we can to help you defeat them.”
“I’d like to send a couple of dwarves with you, just so we have more dwarves when they have to come back,” Grizzle said.
King Patria nodded in agreement. “Of course. You can send whomever you want back with us. The dwarves of Bordin will always be welcome in Patria, I just didn’t want to take dwarves away from you as you are preparing for a war.”
Grizzle looked to Rundo. “Will you be going back to Patria?”
Rundo nodded. “I think we will go with King Patria. Messah and Bumbo need some attention. I have been away from them too much.”
Grizzle nodded. “In the meantime, why don’t you tell us all what has happened in Patria since you all left?”
Rundo told them about the attack in the woods on the way there and meeting the gnomes. He then told them about going after Anna and how the wizard was escaping when the man they had all believed was a beggar had caught the Black Dragon Wizard. He explained that the Dwarves of Chaos had been there and that Flucht had been very helpful throughout the whole thing. He had earned their trust. He finished with Anna’s declaration that the beggar was actually her long lost brother and how Anna had sent him to tell all of them.
Grizzle sat there quietly, listening to every detail. When Rundo finished he looked up. “The Dwarves of Chaos were there?”
“Yes Flucht, Grundel, and Jabaal were able to defeat them. According to Anna, it sounded like they had just arrived and were going to take her to Tiefes Loch as a prisoner,” Rundo explained.
Grizzle looked at Kraft, who nodded a silent agreement that they were both thinking the same thing. Grizzle looked to Frau. “What do you think?”
Frau looked at the two dwarf kings and then over to Rundo. “If they know she is in Patria and have already sent dwarves to take her, they won’t give up. They know she is exposed there. If they can get her or Grundel, they will gain an advantage. We can’t let them get either of them, and the three of us can’t risk going and getting taken ourselves. We need to send others to help protect them until we can get them back here.”
“That was what we were thinking as well,” Kraft said. “I am glad that you didn’t decide to rush in and protect them yourself. In our position, that is no longer something we can do. We have to make the hard decisions, and usually the hard decision is to let someone else do something for you. Do you have any recommendations for who we should send?”
Frau looked at Kraft and then at Grizzle. “If you can do without them, I can’t think of any dwarves who are more capable then Dobo and Gobo.”
Grizzle laughed. “That’s because there are no dwarves who are more capable than Dobo and Gobo. Yes, I will send Dobo and Gobo with Rundo. They have already been to Patria, and it would take a very large force to defeat Grundel, Flucht, Jerrie, Rundo, Dobo, and Gobo, and that’s not counting the soldiers King Patria is going to have posted or Anna’s brother who is apparently a fairly powerful wizard. I don’t see how Tiefes Loch could get a large
enough force into Patria without being noticed.”
King Patria stepped forward. “I assure you, even if they are able to sneak into the city they will not be able to make it into the palace. Now that I know of the threat, I will increase patrols through the city and double the guards in and around the palace. Once everything is order in Patria, I will come back and meet up with you. I want to be with you when you move on Tiefes Loch.”
“Thank you, Isaac. If go get your men ready, I will have Dobo and Gobo ready when you return,” Grizzle said. Isaac nodded and left the room.
“I think we will go get something to eat before we take off again,” Rundo said.
Grizzle and Jabaal both laughed. “I’m surprised you didn’t do that before you came. Go eat. We can get everything ready,” Grizzle said.
“I hope we can find some freshly fried cave mushrooms,” Rundo said as he turned for the door.
“Rundo,” Grizzle said.
Grizzle turned back to the king of dwarves. “Yeah, Grizz?”
Grizzle stood and walked toward Rundo. He wrapped his arms around his little friend. “Thank you. You were always there for me, and now you are taking care of my family. I know you want to go off with the druids and work on your abilities. It means a lot that you have stuck around.”
Rundo smiled. “Does this mean I can get your kitchen to fry me up some of those mushrooms?”
Grizzle stepped back, smiling. “Have them make you whatever you want. The kitchen should be full. The guards are about to go on rotation so they will be cooking dinner for the off coming shift.”
“You know where to find me when they’re ready to go,” Rundo said, and then he turned and left with Evelyn in tow.
Chapter Seventeen
Party in Patria
Grundel stood in the courtyard between the palace and the palace main gate. He wore a cream-colored long-sleeved shirt over his magically enchanted leather armor. The shirt had three buttons at the top that closed the shirt up to his neck. Around his neck were thick ruffles. The shirt was fairly comfortable except for the ruffles around his neck. His axes were crossed in the sheaths on his back, located in the vest. He wore leather pants that had been stained a dark brown and he was sitting on the back of a huge white stallion.
The Half Dwarf Prince Trilogy Page 50
