Grundel stood back and watched as they filled the chamber that would fuel the device. They poured the liquid fuel over the wood before loading it into the steel box. The gnomes spent another hour setting in the device, and rechecking everything. By the time Lutin announced that they were ready, Grundel could see the army marching toward Tiefes Loch.
* * *
Commander Boris stood at the bottom of the steps, watching the dwarf army approach. The dwarves stopped more than a mile north of Tiefes Loch. Commander Boris drew his sword when he noticed the Chaos Dwarf coming down the steps. His lieutenant was standing a few feet away. He was the one who had given Jerrie a hard time. He was a bit of a hot head, but he was fiercely loyal. He drew his sword the second he saw his commander draw his. The Chaos Dwarf came down the steps.
“I don’t think you can hit them from here. You humans are always getting so jumpy,” the dwarf covered in steel and black marks of Chaos said.
“You haven’t put down your sword since the first time I saw you,” Lieutenant Fedele said.
The Chaos Dwarf spun around angrily. Commander Boris swung his sword as hard as he could. His sword bit into weaker metal around the dwarf’s neck but it didn’t go through. The Chaos Dwarf spun around, bringing his sword up. Commander Boris stepped back. He tripped backward over a rock. The sword would have taken off his head; instead it took off his left hand. He had thrown his arms up as he was falling without thinking. The dwarf’s sword went through his arm as if it hadn’t even been there.
Lieutenant Fedele leapt forward grabbing ahold of Commander Boris’s sword that was still hanging out of the Chaos Dwarf’s neck. His weight pulling down on the hilt of the sword forced the blade up. The Chaos Dwarf’s neck ripped open, and the dwarf fell forward, landing next to Commander Boris.
The dwarf’s head was nearly severed but he still tried to stand. Lieutenant Fedele jumped onto his back, swinging the sword down and severing the dwarf’s head. Dwarves shouted up on the landing. When he turned, he saw a group of dwarfs bringing crossbows up to their shoulders. He leapt onto Commander Boris as a barrage of bolts rained down on them. He took two bolts in his back and one in his leg.
Commander Boris rolled the lieutenant off him. One of the bolts was protruding from his chest. He was dead. He pulled the bolt through the lieutenant’s body. He wrapped his sword belt around his arm. He slid the bolt in between the belt and his arm. His arm hadn’t started bleeding right away, but it was bleeding uncontrollably now. He turned the bolt until the belt squeezed his arm so tight that the blood stopped coming. The pain was unbearable and it took everything he had not to give in when everything started to fade. He held the bolt in place and ran to the nearest barrier. The soldier there was already blowing the horn. That was the signal for his soldiers to turn and take their positions on the other side of the obstacles. The soldiers nearest him began firing their bows at the dwarves on the first landing. A couple of dwarves fell. The others made it up the stairs to the next landing and out of range of the soldiers on the ground.
* * *
Grundel heard the horn that signaled the soldiers of Portwein had turned on the dwarves of Tiefes Loch. He turned to Lutin. “Let’s see if this thing works.”
The gnomes opened the metal box. Steel ran along flint and sparks flew into the opening. Fire roared inside the chamber and the gnomes closed the door. The gnomes began turning a wheel on the outside of the chamber.
“What is that?” Jerrie asked.
“It forces air into the chamber, increasing the pressure,” Lutin said.
“Ah, then let me do that. Your arms are too little,” Dobo said, stepping forward and grabbing the nob on the wheel. He began spinning the wheel faster and faster.
“I knew it wouldn’t work,” Gobo said when the head of the device didn’t move.
Seconds after the dwarf said the words the device creaked, and then the head began spinning. Within seconds, the head of the device was spinning in a blur. The gnomes adjusted the supports and the device moved forward. The heads made contact with stone and head-sized chunks of stone flew off of the mountain. Once the device made contact, it began digging into the stone.
The gnomes flipped a lever and the device began spraying the water out of the front onto the heads. It pulled itself forward off of the supports. The gnomes loaded a cart with a barrel and followed behind the device. A hose came out of the device and they followed behind as the device continued to dig. Within minutes, they had all of the soldiers coming off of the line to for a line from the cart to the device. They were already more than a hundred paces into the mountain. They couldn’t keep up with the device. It would slow down as the gnomes loaded more wood into the chamber and they brought more barrels of water up. In less than half an hour, the device broke through into an open chamber. The device stopped when it had nothing to dig into. The head of the device was hanging in the chamber, but the bulk of the device was still in the tunnel that it had just created.
“We failed to make this calculation,” Lutin said.
Grundel stepped forward and pushed on the back of the device with all of his strength. It barely moved. “Run back and tell Dobo and Gobo to come down here.” Grundel was bending forward. He was more than a foot taller than the tunnel they had created. The tunnel had been created for a normal-sized dwarf. Dobo and Gobo came running down the tunnel without any issues.
“Ah, we’re stuck,” one of them said. Grundel couldn’t tell which it was.
“The head is through. I can’t move it alone,” Grundel said.
“Let’s do this then,” one of them said.
The three of them put their backs against the device and dug their heels in. The device slid forward slowly. It took them a couple of minutes before they finally pushed the device forward far enough for them to get through into Tiefes Loch. If there were dwarves in the smith when the head of the device came through, they were gone now.
“Tell Jerrie to blow the horn,” Grundel told one of the soldiers. The soldier ran up the newly created tunnel.
Jerrie put the dwarf horn to his lips and blew as hard as he could. He continued to blow the horn until he heard the soldiers of Portwein start blowing their horns. Within minutes, enough horns were blowing that there was no way the dwarves couldn’t hear the signal.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The War of Tiefes Loch Begins
“I can’t believe it worked,” Kraft said as the horns began to sound.
“The gnomes actually did it,” Flucht said.
“Kraft, Flucht, you’re with me. Frau, lead King Patria and his soldiers around to the new entrance.” Grizzle gave the commands and they all went to motion. They had come up with two plans. The first was if the gnomes actually succeeded in making another entrance. The second was the attack if the gnomes couldn’t get through. If the device hadn’t worked, Grizzle and Kraft would have led the dwarves of Tiefes Loch and Haufen straight through the main entrance of Tiefes Loch. Frau and King Patria would have taken the smaller entrance higher up on the mountain. Now they were going to get to execute the other plan, the better plan.
Frau took off to the south around the mountain while Grizzle led the majority of the dwarf army straight for the steps of Tiefes Loch.
* * *
Commander Boris bunkered down behind the wall of logs. Another volley of the dwarf’s crossbow bolts rained down on them. The soldiers had done a good job of making the obstacles defensible from the outside. Hundreds of crossbow bolts had reigned down and as far as he could tell only one soldier other than Lieutenant Fedele had been hit. The soldier who had been hit had been rushing to one of the barriers during the initial volley. He never made it.
The next volley of bolts wasn’t coming down on them, but it was going over their heads into the field behind them. Boris looked back and saw the bolts land just short of the dwarf army’s front line. What happened next shocked him.
Grizzle called the armies to a halt. He began giving commands. “Raise arms.�
� The front rank of the army was all crossbowmen. They were just out of range of the crossbowmen on the lower landings. The dwarves on the landing didn’t even try to take cover. If the dwarves below them were out of their range, there was no way they could shoot up and get close. “Take aim.” Grizzle looked down the line. All crossbows were raised, including Big Finish.
Big Finish was the crossbow that the wizard Anwar had enchanted for King Kraft. There were nearly one hundred other enchanted crossbows down the line. None of them were nearly as special as Big Finish but they would fire farther and punch through armor that a normal crossbow couldn’t. They also could penetrate magical shields, not that they would have to worry about that, fighting an army of dwarves.
“Fire!” The first volley went into the air. Most of the bolts fell way short, bouncing harmlessly off of the mountain far below the first landing a hundred feet above the soldiers of Portwein. The enchanted crossbows were intermingled with the regular crossbows, so that the dwarves couldn’t locate them. The bolts from those bows did not fall short and the unsuspecting dwarves of Tiefes Loch tried to dive for cover at the last second the enchanted bolts bombarded them. The bolt from Big Finish was easy enough to identify. It slammed into the front of the wall. The wall exploded, throwing a dozen dwarves in different directions, while exposing the others.
“Raise arms.” The next rank of dwarves raised their crossbows. “Take aim.” The dwarves of Tiefes Loch began retreating into the mountain. “Fire!” The second volley of bolts caught a lot of the dwarves running for the main entrance. Kraft didn’t fire this time.
“Forward, March!” The dwarves began marching forward. The soldiers of Portwein moved away from the steps, taking cover behind other barriers as the dwarves began making their way up the steps.
* * *
There were two tunnels leading out of the smith. Dobo and Gobo stood in one; Grundel and Jerrie held the other. The soldiers were coming through into the smith.
A dozen dwarves were coming down the tunnel toward Grundel. When they saw him, they froze. “Prince Stoneheart?” the dwarf in front asked.
Grundel looked at the dwarf curiously. “I am Grundel Stoneheart.”
“We’re saved,” the dwarf shouted.
“What?” Grundel asked.
“You came to save us,” the dwarf said. The dwarves behind him were cheering.
“You want us to attack Tiefes Loch?” Grundel asked.
“Of course. We have been imprisoned here for centuries. The Bergmann kings have brainwashed enough soldiers to imprison the rest of us. Now with the abominations, we are even more trapped than we were before. The son is worse than the father. Since Gruedor became the king, he has started executing dwarves for everything. We are prisoners here. We hate Delvidge. We’ll lead you to the king. You have to save us. The soldiers will fight as long as General Moglin is alive. If you can kill General Moglin and King Bergmann, you can get the army to stop fighting.”
“Where is King Bergmann?” Grundel asked.
“I am Putsch Aufstand. We will take you to him. He won’t be leading the defense. He will sit in the King’s Hall, waiting for General Moglin to bring him reports,” the dwarf explained.
Grundel turned around. “Dobo, Gobo, come with us. Lieutenant, stay here and wait for the others. Tell them we are going to kill the king.”
“Yes, Your Highness.” The soldier brought his fist to his chest.
Grundel turned back to the blacksmiths of Tiefes Loch. “Take us to the King’s Hall.”
Flucht charged up the stairs. Grizzle and Kraft charged after him. The dwarves followed after them. They reached the landing of the main entrance. A half dozen Chaos Dwarves came charging out of the entrance. Flucht parried the maul of the first of the Chaos Dwarves. The Chaos Dwarf’s momentum sent him rushing toward Grizzle.
Grizzle was rushing up the stairs after Flucht when the Chaos Dwarf came rushing at him. Grizzle’s hammer, blessed by Bordin, slammed into the armor blessed by Delvidge. The Chaos Dwarf was knocked over the edge.
* * *
Kraft fired Big Finish into the main entrance of Tiefes Loch. He was already cranking the crossbow when the first exploded. He fired the second bolt at the entrance. Stone and dwarves flew in every direction. As the entrance of Tiefes Loch collapsed, he drew Heartstopper. Anwar had imbued the sword with electricity.
Flucht stepped forward as the next of the Chaos Dwarves came at him. Both of his swords came at him. Flucht knocked the first aside, dodging the second as he tackled the dwarf just in time. As they hit the ground, the entrance exploded and the other Chaos Dwarves went flying over his head. He rolled off of the Chaos Dwarf under him. As he was coming to his feet, there was another explosion that knocked him back to the ground. Two other Chaos Dwarves had been knocked down without going over the edge of the landing. Flucht stood facing the dwarf he had tackled. He blocked and brought his sword down. The other dwarf brought both of his swords up and blocked. Then they were both on their knees. It was all Flucht could do to keep from falling over. Kraft’s sword was protruding from the other dwarf’s chest. Flucht couldn’t break away. The magic pulsed along their blades and into him. The sword disappeared, the dwarf fell away and Flucht tried to get his feet. He was nearly immune to pain, but that had been extremely unpleasant. He was slow getting to his feet. Grundel fought with one of the remaining Chaos Dwarves. The other charged in from the side. Kraft brought his sword up and blocked the axe, coming in at Grundel’s side.
The shock might not have made it to a normal dwarf if the hilt was wrapped in leather, but the Chaos Dwarves were wrapped in metal and their weapons were a part of their bodies. Heartstopper was the perfect weapon to fight the steel-skinned dwarves. The dwarf retracted his axe immediately when he was shocked upon contact. Kraft went on the offense. He thrust Heartstopper at the Chaos Dwarf’s chest. The dwarf parried with the shaft of his axe, accepting the shock now. He couldn’t help his body jerking when he was shocked, but he didn’t shy away from it. He followed up his parry with a thrust of his axe. Kraft deflected the blow, sending another surge of electricity through the dwarf’s arms.
Flucht’s sword came in from the side, driving through the Chaos Dwarf’s chest. Kraft pulled his sword up short so that the shock of contact wouldn’t transfer into Flucht.
Grizzle caught the sword of the Chaos Dwarf just under the head of Gorgan’s Hammer. They froze in a battle of strength, each trying to push the weapon in the opposite direction and off balance the other. The Chaos Dwarf was imbued with unnatural strength, and he began to push Grizzle’s hammer out wide. Grizzle stopped pushing, ducking under the Chaos Dwarf’s sword and allowing the strength of his push to increase his momentum as he spun around. He brought his hammer around at the knee of the Chaos Dwarf. The dwarf leaped over the hammer, bringing his sword down as he came back down. Grizzle rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding the sword before it clanged off of the stone. He didn’t try to swing his hammer; instead he just thrust it forward into the dwarf’s shin. He came up to his feet. His dwarves were finally catching up with them, and two of them came rushing in to his aide. The Chaos Dwarf brought his sword across in a slash so hard that it drove the Evermount dwarves sword back into his chest and cut through his chainmail. The dwarf fell to the ground. The other dwarf was already swinging a heavy battle axe at the Chaos Dwarf. The Chaos Dwarf deflected the blow so hard that the axe was knocked out of the hands of the dwarf, but Grizzle’s hammer came in right behind the axe, crushing the dwarf’s shoulder and dropping him to his knees.
The Chaos Dwarf ignored the destroyed shoulder, bringing his sword across his body with his other arm. Grizzle caught the sword with the back of his hammer. He kicked the dwarf forward and then stood on his back. He pulled up with his hammer. The sword would have been ripped from any other dwarf’s hand, but the sword was a part of this dwarf’s body and Grizzle pulled hard. The Chaos Dwarf’s own sword cut through the steel skin of his neck and then Grizzle fell backward as the sword ri
pped through the neck, severing its head.
“That’s one way to do it,” Kraft said, holding his hand out to help Grizzle up. The rest of the dwarves had caught up just in time for the dwarves at the landing above them to start firing down on them. Grizzle and Kraft threw themselves against the mountain.
Flucht ran up the steps of Tiefes Loch. Crossbow bolts reigned down behind him. He reached the landing alone. The dwarves on the landing had made the mistake of identifying the Chaos Dwarf running up the stairs as one of their own. Flucht made the landing and turned on the dwarves, firing the crossbows down on Bordin’s dwarves. The dwarf soldiers were caught completely unaware. Flucht had cut through the first two dwarves before any of the others even realized they were in danger. Flucht swung his sword across to the left and removed the head of another dwarf. The fourth dwarf turned to face him just as his sword came back across. The dwarf fell back to the stone; Flucht’s sword had removed both of his arms. Flucht spun around as two other Chaos Dwarves came charging out of the entrance. He knew them both well. The two brothers came at him fast. Flucht was a match for almost any pair of dwarves, including Dwarves of Chaos, but he was outmatched here. Either of these two dwarves alone he would most likely have the upper hand, but paired against him the advantage was easily theirs.
He started to step to the side as if he were going to put them in line. The one in the lead stepped out wide to contain him, but Flucht knew what his reaction would be. He hadn’t actually intended to move out wide. When the first dwarf stepped to the side he leapt forward, thrusting his sword at the other as quickly as he could. The second Chaos Dwarf was Gespann; the scar under his left eye ran all the way down to his chin. Flucht had aimed the tip of his sword at the center of Gespann’s chest. Gespann spun away, but Flucht’s feint had worked and Gespann’s reaction was too late. His sword cut through steel skin and his ribs.
Gusten, the older brother, reacted quickly. He came in fast, attacking at Flucht’s legs. Flucht couldn’t get his sword down fast enough to block. He dove over the sword. Gusten changed directions at the last moment. Flucht rolled to his feet and realized that his left leg wouldn’t hold his weight.
The Half Dwarf Prince Trilogy Page 56
