The Dwarves (23 page)

Suddenly a morsel of stinking cheese was thrust under his nose. “Stop grousing,” snapped Boïndil. “It’s a long way to Ogre’s
Death. We’ll make a dwarf of you yet.” The molten cheese wobbled threateningly. “You may as well start now.” He still had
a faintly crazed look in his eyes. “Go on, taste it!”

Tungdil pulled the warm cheese from the stick and popped it in his mouth. It tasted revolting. His fingers would reek for
orbits, not to mention his breath. “I can’t do it,” he said firmly. “I promised to deliver the pouch to Gorén.”

“You don’t have to come right away,” Boïndil said magnanimously. “It’s not far from here to Greenglade village. We’ll go with
you.”

His brother nodded. “And you don’t have to worry about the magus; he’s given us his blessing already.”

“What if you were to return without me?”

The brothers exchanged a look.

“Well,” Boëndal said thoughtfully, “I expect they’d crown Gandogar, but no one would ever accept him as the rightful king.”
He fixed his brother with a meaningful stare.

“Exactly,” Boïndil put in quickly. “There’d be all kinds of arguments and whatnot. Some of the chieftains might even… well,
they wouldn’t take orders from him, so before you know it, there’d be terrible feuds and…” He gazed into the flames for inspiration,
then rushed on. “It could all end in war! The clans and the folks would fight each other, and you’d be to blame!” He sat back
with a satisfied expression on his face.

Tungdil didn’t know what to make of it all. Too much had happened since that morning. Having never raised his ax in anger,
he had slain two orcs in succession and now his kins-folk were trying to bundle him onto the throne. He needed time to reflect.
“I’ll think it over,” he promised them, curling up beside the fire and closing his eyes wearily.

Boïndil cleared his throat and began to sing. It was a dwarven ballad with deep mysterious syllables that charmed the ear,
telling of the time before time began…

Desirous of life, the deities fashioned themselves.

Vraccas the Smith was forged from fire, rock, and steel.

Palandiell the Bountiful rose from the earth.

The winds gave birth to Samusin the Rash.

Elria the Helpful, creator and destroyer, emerged from the water.

And darkness fused with light in Tion the Two-Faced.

Such are the five deities, the…

For Tungdil, the song ended there. It was the first time in his life that he had heard a dwarven ballad sung by his kin and
the sound was so soothing that it lulled him to sleep.

T
ungdil awoke with the smell of cheese in his nostrils and his mind made up: He would go with the twins to the secondling kingdom.
His doubts had been conquered by a desire to meet more of his kin.

“Just so you know, I haven’t changed my mind about being high king,” he told them. “I’m doing this only because I want to
see my kinsfolk.”

“It’s all the same to us,” Boëndal said equably. “The main thing is you’ve decided to come.” He and his brother packed their
bags and they set off briskly. “The sooner we get to Greenglade, the sooner we’ll be home. Eight hundred miles are a good
long way.”

“We’ll accompany you to the edge of the village and no farther,” snapped Boïndil. “We want nothing to do with that elf maiden.
It’s bad enough having to walk through an elfish forest, let alone visit an elf house or whatever they build for themselves.”
He made a show of spitting into the bushes.

“What did the elf maiden ever do to you?” Tungdil ran his hand over Gorén’s bag; there was no avoiding the fact that some
of the artifacts were no longer in their original state. The encounter with the orc’s sword had done them no favors, which
made him doubly certain that the beast had deserved its fate. “Six hundred miles!” he muttered crossly. “Six hundred miles
through Gauragar, through Lios Nudin, past beasts and other dangers without the artifacts coming to any harm, only for a confounded
orc to ruin everything. Another three or four hours and I could have handed them over, safe and sound!” He hoped the wizard
would be understanding.

Boïndil’s mind was still on the elves. “Oh,
she
didn’t have to do anything! Her race has caused enough trouble as it is,” he blurted out angrily. “Those self-satisfied,
arrogant pointy-ears are enough to —”

Overcome with fury, he whipped out his axes and fell upon a sapling, swinging at it with unbridled rage.

Boëndal, an impassive expression on his face, lowered his packs, pushed his long plait over his shoulder, and waited for the
outburst to end.

“He does this sometimes,” he explained to the dumbfounded Tungdil. “His inner furnace burns stronger than most. Sometimes
it flares up and he can’t contain his anger. It’s why we call him Ireheart.”

“His inner furnace?”

“Vraccas alone can explain it. Anyway, take my advice and keep out of his way. It’s fatal to challenge him when he gets like
this.” Boëndal sighed. “He’ll be all right again once his furnace has cooled.”

Boïndil finished hacking the sapling to pieces. “Bloody pointy-ears! I feel better now.” Without a word of apology, he wiped
the sap and splinters from his blades and carried on. “We need to find a proper name for you,” he grumbled. “Bolofar is no
better than Bellyfluff, Sillystuff, or Starchyruff; it’s plain daft! We’ll come up with something on the way.” He glanced
at Tungdil. “What are your talents?”

“Er, reading…”

“ Book-learning!” Boëndal burst out laughing. “I should have guessed you were a scholar! But we can’t call you Pagemuncher
or Bookeater. Dwarves should be proud of their names!”

“Reading’s important. It —”

“Oh, books are very useful when it comes to fighting orcs. You could have killed the whole band of them with the right bit
of poetry!”

Boïndil looked at Tungdil and frowned. “No one could call you a warrior, but you’ve certainly got the build for it. Your hands
are nice and strong — with a bit of practice, it might come right.”

Tungdil sighed. “I like metalwork.”

“That’s not exactly unusual for a dwarf. How about —” Boëndal trailed off and sniffed the air attentively. His brother did
the same. “Something’s burning,” he told them, alarmed. “Wood and… scorched flesh! It must be a raid.” Boïndil pulled out
both axes and broke into a jog. The other two followed.

The trees grew farther apart as the path rounded a corner and emerged into a clearing. Until recently, the spot had been home
to a settlement, but the elf maiden’s haven at the heart of the forest had been ravaged by flames. Charred ruins hinted at
the former elegance of the many-platformed dwellings that were set about the boles of the tallest trees. The carved arches,
smooth wooden beams, and panels embellished with elven runes and gold leaf were so perfectly at one with the forest that they
seemed to have grown with the wood.

But most of the gold was missing and the beauty of the glade had been savagely destroyed. For the second time on Tungdil’s
journey, the orcs had got there first. He tried in vain to recapture something of the leafy harmony, but the desecration was
complete. “By Vraccas,” he gulped. “We’d better see whether —”

“Absolutely,” Boïndil said cheerily. “With any luck, we’ll find a few runts. You’ve got to hand it to them: We couldn’t have
done a better job ourselves!”

“It’s what you’d call rigorous,” his brother said admiringly, gripping the haft of his hammer. As true children of the Smith,
the twins were unruffled by the wreckage around them; it wasn’t in their nature to feel pity for elves.

Tungdil felt differently. Wandering through the smoldering ruins, he lifted up planks and peered under girders in the hope
of finding Gorén alive. Instead he found corpse after corpse, some of them horribly mutilated. At the sight of the carnage,
memories of Goodwater came flooding back and he stepped away from the bodies, closing his eyes to the horror. The images stayed
with him, more gruesome than ever in his mind.

Pull yourself together,
he told himself firmly.
How are you going to recognize Gorén if you find him? Where would a wizard hide if he survived?
Tungdil’s gaze settled on the largest dwelling, which had come off slightly better than the rest. “Keep an eye out for any
trouble,” he called to the others. “I need to find out what’s happened to Gorén.”

“I’ve changed my mind,” Boïndil shouted jauntily to his brother. “Forget what I said earlier about not going in. We might
find some orcs.”

While the twins began patrolling the ruins, Tungdil climbed the sagging staircase toward the front door. The charred steps
groaned beneath his feet, but at last he reached the first platform and walked across the blackened planks.

The house was pentagonal in form, with the bole of the tree at its center. Linking the rooms was a corridor that encircled
the trunk, its inner wall comprised of bark. Rope bridges led out to the sturdier branches where colored lanterns swung mournfully
in the breeze.

Leaves were already floating to the ground, as if the tree were mourning the elves who had lived among its branches for so
many cycles.

Tungdil gazed at the fluttering foliage, then tore himself away and searched the rooms. There was no sign of Gorén or any
survivors, but the library had been spared the worst of the damage and he came upon a sealed envelope addressed to Lot-Ionan
and some objects wrapped in a shawl.

He picked up the envelope and hesitated.
Surely these are exceptional circumstances by any standard?
He broke the seal, scanned the contents, and sighed.
Yet another errand for me to run!
In the letter, Gorén thanked Lot-Ionan for the loan of some books. The wizard had evidently intended to return them by courier,
which meant Tungdil had landed himself another job.

There was a second letter, written in scholarly script and therefore indecipherable to anyone but a high-ranking wizard. He
packed it away with the other items and continued his search.

A shudder ran through the platform. It started as a slight tremor, but in no time the planks were shaking violently. The wooden
dwelling groaned and creaked furiously; then the commotion stopped as suddenly as it had begun. The dwarf took it as a sign
that it was time for him to leave.

He hurried into the corridor and stopped in surprise. The tree was moving, its leafless branches squeezing and crushing the
groaning timber of the house. The trunk gave a ligneous grunt and swayed to the left. A gnarled bough swung toward him.

“Hey! You’ve got the wrong dwarf! I’m not the one who killed the sapling!”

The tree took no heed of his protests and swiped at him again. Tungdil ducked, the cudgel-like branch smashing into the paneled
wall behind him. He darted to the steps, but found himself engulfed in a sea of white. In his confusion he thought for a moment
that it was snowing; then he saw that the haze was made up of petals that were swirling around the tree. The flowers and trees
of the forest were hurling their blossoms at him, the glade’s shattered harmony turning to violent hatred.

The house shook again, this time cracking some of the joists and sending debris crashing to the ground. Tungdil clattered
down the steps to safety.

The twins were no less surprised than he was. Weapons at the ready, they were eyeing the glade suspiciously.

“It’s nasty elfish magic!” shouted Boïndil above the din of rustling leaves. “They’ve turned the trees against us.”

“We’d better get out of here,” Tungdil called to them. “The trees mean to punish anyone who —” He broke off as a Palandiell
beech loosed a shower of withered leaves, exposing the gruesome secret hidden among its naked boughs.

They had found the elf maiden. Her delicate white visage, previously obscured by a thick screen of leaves, stood out against
the murky bark. From the neck down she was a skeleton, stripped entirely of flesh but glistening wetly with crimson blood.
Long metal nails pinned her slender limbs to the trunk.

The sight was too much, even for the otherwise imperturbable twins. “Vraccas almighty,” exclaimed Boëndal, “what kind of mischief
is this?”

“That settles it,” his brother decided. “We’re leaving before the same thing happens to us.”

“Not yet,” Tungdil told them. “I need to keep looking for Gorén.” The horror exercised a strange attraction on him and he
walked on, obliging his companions to follow. “The wizard’s body might be somewhere round here too.”

On closer inspection, it looked as though the elf maiden’s bones had been gnawed. Her murderers had finished the job by driving
a nail through her mouth, pinning the back of her skull to the bole of the tree. In place of her beautiful elven eyes were
two empty sockets.

“They pinned her to the tree and ate her alive,” said Boïndil. “It’s a bit too fancy for runts. They eat their victims on
the spot and suck out their marrow.”

Tungdil swallowed and took another look. Even in death, the elf’s face had retained its beauty. For all his inborn antipathy
toward her and her race, he was sorry she had ended so gruesomely.

Boëndal rounded the tree and discovered further corpses as well as a trail of curved black prints. “They’re hoof marks, but
they’ve been burned into the soil. What do you make of that, scholar?”

Tungdil remembered the two riders who had parleyed with the orcish war bands on the night before Goodwater was destroyed.
“Shadow mares,” he murmured. “They strike sparks as they walk. The älfar ride them.” It explained why the elf maiden had suffered
so cruelly before she died: The älfar took pleasure in torturing their cousins.

“Älfar?” Boïndil’s eyes flashed with enthusiasm. “It’s about time we came up against something more challenging than those
dim-witted orcs! How about it, brother? I say we blunt our axes on Tion’s dark elves!”

Tungdil, his gaze still riveted on the skeleton, was beset by awful visions of the mistress of Greenglade writhing and screaming
on the tree while shadow mares ripped the flesh from her bones. The urge to vomit became uncontrollable and he covered his
mouth with his hand, unwilling to forfeit the last shreds of credibility in front of the twins.