The Revenge of the Dwarves (89 page)

It hardly dared to move. Its whole body was tingling. Its nostrils widened to catch new scents. For the first time you could smell the land on the other side without the stupid filter: flesh, iron, dust, stone—the smells of excitingly different things in your nose. Freedom! Booty! Meat! And untold treasure!

Looking back where the entrance to the underground empire of the Strongest One and the Kordrion lay, the creature knew it had to make its report as quickly as anything, but… It turned its narrow head again, its long pointed ears erect. Why not take another look before anyone else turned up? What was the world out there going to look like without that shimmer effect? Might there be some rich pickings to secure for personal use?

You’ll have to inspect it properly, or your report won’t be accurate. There was a big chance they’d call you a liar if your description wasn’t specific enough. Liars got treated the same way as the ones who stepped out of line. A
very
good reason for not racing off to the Strongest’s abyss, quite apart from the rich-pickings possibility.

Carefully, one step at a time. Here’s the edge of the rocks now, and you’re out in the sunshine.

Any hope of a bit of secret pillaging died a death. You’d never be able to scale those fortress walls. You’d need the Strongest’s help there. The Kordrion’s, too. Tough… Without the shimmering those square towers were making the dreams of rich pickings and fresh meat fade. The stonemason’s art up there—you wouldn’t get that type of thing back home.

But the creature’s approach had been noted. Vast numbers of
weapons were heard rattling. Shouts came from the battlements. Then the dread sound of alarm horns.

This was scary. Duck down!

Trying to get a good look at all the colors and the patterns on the banners, the creature turned tail and made for the rocks—but a hefty blow back hurled it to the ground. The sword slipped out of its grasp.

It could scarcely breathe. It spat and saw its own green blood! But then the pain flooded through from the wound on its back.

Yowling and whimpering by turns, it reached behind, clutching at a thin wooden shaft.

From the right hand side something came hissing, striking the creature in the face and destroying the upper jaw and adding to the torture. The howls grew louder and stopped, suddenly, when a dozen arrows whirred in from all directions.

One arm had been pierced and anchored to the flank, but the creature dragged itself steadfastly on, groaning and spluttering. The Strongest One must get the report and avenge the death. Let the storm break!

Once back in the shadow of the rocks, past the place where the air normally shimmered, everything felt better. Now the report would be made!

All at once the smell in the air changed.

In spite of all the blood and the mashed nose, you could sense it clearly: it was the smell you got just before a thunderstorm. Invisible energy was gathering, crackling all around.

Shrieking in terror, the creature clutched at the floor of dust and ground-up bones, trying to get a hold to drag itself forward…

The magic sphere flared into being once more, cutting the creature in half at the hips.

One last ghastly scream escaped its throat before it died; the legs convulsed for a time before falling still.

P
raise and thanks to Vraccas! The shield is up again!” Boïndil Doubleblade, known by friends and enemies alike as Ireheart on account of the rage that overwhelmed him in combat, had observed the fate of the thin-armed creature. Putting the telescope down on the stone parapet, he watched the glittering shield that enclosed the Black Abyss. “The artifact seems to be running out of power.” He turned a quizzical gaze on Goda. “Can you tell me anything about that?”

He was standing with his beloved consort on the north tower of Evildam, which had defended these parts for the past two hundred and twenty-one cycles.

Built by dwarves, undergroundlings, ubariu and humans, the four walls of the fortress formed a square thirty paces high and at the widest points over fifteen paces thick, round the Black Abyss. The structure was simple in form but masterful in execution. The cooperation of the various participators had ensured the creation of something unique, even if the dwarf contribution had been the greatest part. Ireheart was proud of it and the runes on the towers praised Vraccas, Ubar and Palandiell.

Catapults installed on the broad walkways, on the towers and on the levels beneath the roofed platforms could launch stones, arrows and spears when needed; there were enough missiles in store to contend even with an attack outnumbering them by many hundreds to one. Two thousand warriors manned the defenses of Evildam, ready to take up arms and fight back dark armies.

But for two hundred and twenty-one cycles this had never been necessary.

The creature that lay bleeding was the first ever to leave the prison: a dark cleft half a mile long and a hundred paces wide was a blemish on the surrounding landscape and marked where evil would emerge if the magic barrier and the fortress allowed it.

Goda turned to her warrior husband—a sturdy secondling dwarf with such a reputation and so much combat experience behind him that he had been appointed commander of the fortress. She tilted her head to one side; dark blond hair poked out from under her cap.

“Are you
afraid
the shield won’t hold, or are you
hoping
it won’t?” In contrast to Ireheart, who was sporting a chain mail shirt reinforced with iron plates, she wore a long light gray dress, simple and unadorned apart from the gold thread embroidering the belt. Goda wasn’t even carrying a dagger, showing plainly that she had laid aside conventional fighting. Her arsenal was a magic one.

“Oh, I’m not afraid of what’s out there in the Black Abyss! It can’t be any worse than what’s abroad in Girdlegard,” he growled, pretending to be offended as he stroked the thick black beard which had its share of silvergray. It was a sign of his advanced age. But really he was in the prime of life. Ireheart gave his wife a sad little smile. “And I’ve never given up hope since the day
he
went to the other side.” He turned his head back to gaze at the entrance to the Black Abyss, over behind the shield. “That’s why I’m waiting here. By Vraccas, if I could only glimpse him behind that shield, I’d be off like a shot to help! With all the strength at my disposal.” He slammed both fists down on the top of the wall.

Goda looked over at the artifact with its impenetrable sphere enclosing the abyss. The artifact stood at the entrance to the Black Abyss and was composed of four interlocking vertical iron
rings which formed a kind of cone with a diameter of twenty paces. The metal circles showed runes, signs, notches and marks; horizontal reinforcements connected to the central point where there was a fixture decorated with symbols. And it was there that its power was to be found: it drew its strength from a diamond in which enormous amounts of magic energy were stored.

But the stone was growing more and more defects; each year there would be yet another fissure. When that happened you could hear the cracking sound echo from the fortress walls. All the soldiers were aware of it.

“I can’t say how much more it can take,” Goda told him quietly, her brows knitted in concern. “It could give any moment or it could last for many cycles yet.”

Ireheart sighed and nodded to the guards passing on their rounds. “How do you mean?” he growled, rubbing the shaved sides of his head. Then he adjusted the plait of dark hair that hung down the length of his back. It was showing just as much silver now as the beard. “Can’t you be more specific?”

“I can only repeat what I always say when you ask that, husband: I don’t know.” She didn’t take his unfriendly tone amiss because she knew it stemmed from worrying. Over two hundred and fifty cycles of worrying. “Perhaps Lot-Ionan could have given you a better answer.”

Ireheart’s laugh was short, humorless and harsh. “I know what he’d give me if we met now. I expect it would be an extermination spell right between the eyes.” He picked up and shouldered his crow’s beak, the one his twin brother Boe¯ndal Hookhand had once carried into battle. He made his way along the walkway. He used his twin’s long-handled weapon in honor of his memory: it had a heavy flat hammer head on the one side and a curved spike on the other, the length of your arm. No armor could withstand a crow’s beak wielded by a dwarf.

Goda followed him. Time to do the rounds.

“Did you ever think we would spend so long here in the Outer Lands?” he asked her pensively.

“No more than I thought things in Girdlegard could change like they have,” she replied. Goda was surprised by her companion’s thoughtful mood. The two of them had forged the iron band together many cycles before.

Their love had provided them with seven children, two girls and five sons. The artifact had not objected to its keeper no longer being a virgin, as long as her soul was still pure. Goda had retained this innocence of spirit. Nothing dark had entered her mind. She had remained free of deceit, trickery and power lust.

The fact that she had abandoned Lot-Ionan made this very clear. Many others had followed him. She had gained a powerful enemy by leaving his influence. “Don’t you think it’s time to go back and support them? You know they’ve been waiting for you. Waiting for the last great dwarf hero from the glorious cycles.”

“Go back and leave you alone, when the artifact may burst at any moment? Give up command of the fortress?” Ireheart shook his head violently. “Never! If monsters and fiends come pouring out of the Black Abyss I’ve got to be here to hold them back, together with you and our children and my warriors.” He put his arm round her shoulder. “If this evil were to flood over into Girdlegard there would be no hope at all anymore. For no one, whatever race they belong to.”

“Why forbid Bo

“Bo
ndalin is too good a fighter to spare,” he interrupted her. “I need him to train the troops.” Ireheart’s eyes grew hard.
“None of my sons and daughters shall leave my side until we’ve closed up the Black Abyss for all time and filled it up with molten steel.”

Goda sighed. “Not one of your best circuits, Ireheart.”

He stopped, placed his crow’s beak on the ground and took her hands in his. “Forgive me, wife. But seeing the shield collapse like that, and then seeing how long it took to repair itself, it’s really got me worried. I can easily be unfair when I’m troubled.” He gave a faint smile to ask for forgiveness. She smiled in her turn.

They marched to the tower and went down in the lift that worked with a system of counterweights and winches.

One hundred heavily armed ubariu warriors were waiting for them at the fortress gates.

Ireheart scanned the faces. Even after all those cycles they were still foreign to him. It had never felt right to forge friendships with a people who looked for all the world like orcs. Only bigger.

Their eyes shone bright red like little suns. In contrast to Tion’s creatures, the ubariu kept themselves very clean and their character was different, too, because they had turned their back on evil and on random cruelty to others—at least that was what the undergroundlings claimed. The undergroundlings were the dwarves of the Outer Lands…

And even if there had never been cause for doubt, Ireheart’s nature would never allow him to lay aside his scruples and accept them as equals, as friends. For himself, in contrast to how his wife and children felt, they would never be more than allies.