The Dwarves (77 page)

The impresario’s eyes fluttered open. “Thank you, Estimable Maga,” he gasped, gritting his teeth as the alcohol stung his
raw flesh. “Had I known, I would have begged the orc to strike me on the mouth so you could kiss me back to life.”

“If you were a warrior, things might have been different between us,” she said, responding remarkably favorably to the flirtation.

“A good actor can be many things, even a warrior.”

“But it’s only an act.”

“I’m a warrior in spirit. Isn’t that enough?”

“Maybe,” she said, “but your weapon has fought for so many causes in every kingdom that I couldn’t rely on you not to swap
sides.” Her blue eyes looked at him smilingly as she patted his cheek. “Save your charm for the women who adore you.”

Giselbert pointed to a quiet corner of the smithy. “Lie down and get some rest. The doors won’t fall; we’ll see to it that
they don’t. It’s important that you recover your strength before we get going with Keenfire. There are some matters we need
to attend to before we can forge the blade.”

“Such as… ?”

The ancient monarch chuckled when he saw the look of alarm on Tungdil’s face. “It can wait until you’re rested. I’m sorry
we can’t offer you any sustenance, but you’ll be safe here, at least.”

The travelers were too tired to do anything but follow his advice; even Boïndil was so spent that he forgot to be suspicious
of their undead hosts. In any case, no one could claim that the revenants weren’t putting their lives to good use.

Tungdil went to join Gandogar, who was sitting in silence beside Goïmgar’s corpse. The fourthling king had removed his battered
helmet, his brown hair resting on his mighty shoulders. “He died trying to save me,” he said somberly. “He threw himself in
front of that orc, even though he must have known the brute would kill him.” He glanced at Tungdil. “I didn’t think he had
it in him. I was pleased when you picked Goïmgar because he seemed too much the artisan and too little the dwarf. I misjudged
him. He was a dwarf, all right.”

Tungdil placed the pouch of diamonds in Gandogar’s hands. “You’re our diamond cutter now. You must finish his task for him.”

“Gladly, although I can’t promise to emulate his skill. Goïmgar was a far better artisan than I am.”

Tungdil paused before broaching a rather delicate subject. “There’s something I need to tell you, Gandogar.” He quickly told
him of Gundrabur’s plan and Bislipur’s trickery, and finished by producing Sverd’s collar as proof.

The king recognized the choker at once. “By the beard of Goïmdil, I wish these accusations were unfounded, but the loathsome
collar speaks for itself. Sverd was in thrall to his master; he could never have acted alone.” He shook his head incredulously.
“How could Bislipur be so blind? How could
I
be so blind?”

“So you don’t want to wage war on the elves?”

“Absolutely not! Isn’t Girdlegard in enough trouble already?” He took a deep breath. “Honestly, Tungdil, nothing could be
farther from my thoughts. Gundrabur was right after all. We’ve been through so much since the start of this mission that the
thought of another war… No, an alliance is what we need.” He stopped and frowned. “I’m not saying we have to be best friends
with the elves or anything. The way they betrayed the fifthlings was —”

“We weren’t betrayed by elves,” interrupted a fifthling who had approached in time to hear the end of their exchange. His
thick black beard hung in decorative cords that reached to his chest.

“Your folk was betrayed by the pointy-ears,” the king insisted. “I saw the evidence myself.”

“Evidence provided by Bislipur,” Tungdil reminded him.

The stranger gave them a wan smile. “My name is Glandallin Hammerstrike of the clan of the Striking Hammers.” He turned to
Gandogar. “I witnessed the terrible demise of our kingdom, and I saw the traitor who opened our gates.”

“Yes,” Gandogar said stubbornly. “A backstabbing elf.”

“It was a dwarf.” He paused as the others, including Balyndis, who had joined them, stared in disbelief. “Glamdolin Strongarm
was the traitor who spoke the incantation and opened our gates.”

“But why?”

“It was the opportunity he had been waiting for. That dreadful morning he pretended to succumb to the fever that the älfar
had spread among our folk. The battle was fierce and no one gave him a second thought. He skulked down to the gates and cleared
the way for Tion’s hordes. It was his doing that the älfar found their way into our underground halls and took us by surprise.”

“But I don’t see…”

“He was a thirdling,” Glandallin said flatly. “A child of Lorimbur, a dwarf killer, who inveigled himself into our folk and
masked his true intentions so cunningly that we suspected nothing. He waited until we were fatally weakened, then struck the
final blow. He died by my ax but was raised by the Perished Land to incant the secret runes. After our deaths we captured
him and questioned him. Glamdolin was beheaded, never to rise again.”

“I hope you’re writing this down for me,” Rodario whispered to Furgas. “We’ll make our fortunes with this play!”

“So the elves had nothing to do with it!” said Tungdil, delighted that the path was clear for an alliance.
Bislipur’s treacherous scheme has come to naught.

T
hey buried Goïmgar’s body in a corner of the forge, erected a pile of stones to mark the grave, and dedicated his soul to
Vraccas. As soon as they felt sufficiently rested, they began their preparations for forging the mighty ax. “ ‘The blade must
be made of the purest, hardest steel, with diamonds encrusting the bit and an alloy of every known precious metal filling
the inlay and the runes. The spurs should be hewn from stone and the grip sculpted from wood of the sigurdaisy tree,’ ” recited
Tungdil, reading from the manuscript that would serve as their guide.

They stacked the gold, silver, palandium, and vraccasium neatly on the table along with the pouch of diamonds and the sigurdaisy
wood for the haft. The fifthlings furnished them with iron ore for the blade and stone for the spurs.

Tungdil realized with alarm what it was they were missing. “We didn’t bring any tionium,” he said, scolding himself for his
laxness. “You don’t have any, I suppose?”

There was a short silence. “Not in the forge,” said Glandallin. “We were never especially fond of Tion’s metal, so there wasn’t
much call for it.”

Narmora unhooked an amulet from her neck and laid it on the table. “It’s pure tionium. My mother gave it to me to ward off
the forces of good. Since I’ve allied myself with them, there’s not much point in wearing it. I just hope there’s enough for
you to use.”

Tungdil gave her a grateful look. His doubts and reservations about the half älf had been canceled out by her deeds. “Girdlegard
is in your debt twice over. No matter how expertly we fashion the weapon, Keenfire would be powerless without tionium — or
without the underground-lings’ foe.”

“It’s the least I can do, given the amount of suffering my mother’s race has caused,” she demurred.

He glanced at the glowing furnace. “Shall we begin?”

“I’m afraid it’s not that simple,” said Giselbert. “The furnace is alight, but the temperature isn’t high enough. Usually,
we’d use the bellows to breathe life into Dragon Fire, but the equipment has rusted and we haven’t been able to get it to
work.”

“Thank goodness for that!” Furgas leaped to his feet. “What with Narmora being the savior of Girdlegard, I was beginning to
think I was just a hanger-on.” He chuckled good-humoredly and the others joined in. “I hope you’re ready for a demonstration
of my expertise.”

He was rewarded with a kiss from Narmora, who picked up her ax to practice wards, attacks, and strikes with Boïndil. Andôkai
sat watching them, while Djerůn, motionless as usual, crouched beside her. For some reason Tungdil was half expecting the
helmet to give off a purple glow.

“You’re wondering what’s behind the visor, aren’t you?” said Narmora, recovering her breath. She pressed the canteen of water
thirstily to her lips.

He turned to her. “Is there something I should know?”

Narmora leaned against the wall of polished rock, still panting with exertion. Boïndil was a hard taskmaster and the combat
sessions left her exhausted. “When I was little, my mother told me stories about a terrifying being, the king among Tion’s
and Samusin’s creatures, the predator of predators, the hunter who hunted his own kind, destroying the weak and fighting the
strong to make them stronger — or to kill them if their ascendancy was undeserved.” Narmora dabbed the sweat from her brow.
“She said that his eyes shone with violet light and that weaker beings fled for their lives at the sight of him. All the beasts
are terrified of Samusin’s son. She used to scare the living daylights out of me with those stories.” She grinned, then averted
her gaze, careful not to glance in the giant’s direction. “And back then I didn’t know that they were true.”

The explanation didn’t take Tungdil entirely by surprise. Samusin was Andôkai’s chosen deity, and she would doubtless feel
honored to be traveling with a creature who was said to be his son. Whether or not Djerůn was more than just a servant to
the maga was a question that Tungdil was reluctant to ponder. “No wonder the bögnilim bolted.”

“Most creatures would run away from him, beasts of Tion or not.” Narmora got up to resume her drills.

He watched as Balyndis kindled one of the hearths with ordinary flames. After stripping off her mail and leather jerkin, she
donned a leather apron that covered her chest and her midriff, although her undergarments left a good deal of flesh on show.
He made his way over to see what she was doing. “What are you up to?”

“Making steel,” she said, signaling for him to tie her apron at the back. Standing behind her, he caught his first proper
glimpse of female skin. It was pink and covered in wispy down. There hadn’t been much opportunity for washing of late, so
she had a strong smell about her, but it wasn’t unpleasant — not clean, exactly, but still quite arousing. “The blast furnaces
are on the other side of the door, so I’m having to smelt the metal by other means. It’s a trick of the trade.”

Balyndis’s apron strings were safely knotted, but Tungdil found himself clasping her sturdy hips. Her skin felt smooth and
warm. He stroked the fine hairs.

“Come here so you can see what I’m doing.” He did as he was told. “First we have to get rid of the impurities, which is why
I’m placing the ore in a shallow pan. The heat will burn them off. Unfortunately, it means we can produce only small quantities
of steel at a time, but it should be enough for a blade.” She stood there, waiting patiently for the temperature to rise and
the iron to melt. “Surely you’ve done this before?”

“No,” he said regretfully. “I was only a blacksmith.”

“How many strikes for a horseshoe nail?”

“Seven, if I concentrate. Nine, if I don’t.”

“Not bad,” she said with a smile that made his cheeks flush redder than the molten ore. “It takes me seven strikes too.”

“How many for an ax?”

“Seven, if I concentrate; nine, if I don’t. Orbits, that is, not strikes. Since time is of the essence right now, I’ll work
straight through and it should be done in five orbits, without the quality suffering at all.” She drew his attention to Giselbert,
who was waving at them from the doors. “I think he wants to show you something.”

Tungdil raised his hand to indicate that he was coming. “It’s hard to believe that he and the others are older than anything
we’ve ever encountered, save the mountains themselves.”

“And to think that they’re revenants as well. It’s so sad that their souls were stolen by the Perished Land. I wish there
was something we could do to get them back.”

“Only Vraccas can restore their souls, but you’re right, it must be awful for them.” He hurried over to the anxious Giselbert.

“The beasts are preparing to attack.”

Tungdil studied the heavy metal doors. They were reinforced with steel bindings and protected with Vraccas’s runes. “I thought
you said the forge was safe?”

“It was — until you gave them a reason to breach the doors. They know you’re here and they know you’re forging a weapon that
will bring about their doom. Their priorities have changed.” He pointed to a peephole and Tungdil peered through.

In the course of a single orbit the ragged hordes had become an orderly army under the älfar’s command.

A short distance from the doors was a growing pile of pillars and stalactites, torn down and stacked by a unit of ogres. Beyond
that, further divisions of beasts were putting the finishing touches on what looked like hoists.

“You’re right; it looks serious. I’ll have to warn the others. What do we have in the way of defenses?”

Giselbert raised his ax.

“Is that all?”

The fifthling raised another ax and gave a wry smile. “It’s not enough, I know. We —”

He was interrupted by muffled shrieks and jangling armor; ogres bellowed, orcs snarled anxiously, bögnilim yelped in terror.

What’s going on out there?
Tungdil pressed his face to the peephole just as the fires went out in the encampment. Dwarf-sized warriors with pale faces
poured out of the darkness, swarming among the beasts and cleaving through their ranks. They seemed to be deliberately beheading
their opponents so that none could be raised from the dead.

The attack was over in moments. The flames were rekindled and the invaders disappeared without a trace.

The spirits of the dead dwarves!
He thought back to the pale figures and their mysterious warning. Tion’s hordes had colonized their realm against their wishes,
and the vengeful ghosts had made them pay. “What do you know about dwarven ghosts?”

“Ghosts? Nothing… but I’m glad they’ve decided to help.”

Tungdil hurried to tell the others of the imminent attack. Everyone not involved in forging Keenfire was put to work hewing
boulders to barricade the doors.

All that mattered for the moment was keeping the beasts at bay. Later they would have to figure out a way of getting themselves
and the weapon out of the forge.