A pony, already saddled, awaited him at the gate and he mounted among cheers from his men. Looking at his mother he pulled Keenfire out and brandished it high in the air. “We are the Children of the Smith!”
“We are the Children of the Smith!” The echo came from a hundred throats, and the soldiers clanged and clattered their weapons against their armour, the noise resounding from the walls.
Bugle blasts, drum rolls and cries of Vraccas accompanied the troop as the vanguard moved off.
Balyndar knew he could trust Ocâstia. She would be steadfast and she would protect the stronghold against any attack. We could not have found anyone better.
Ocâstia had put the map and the book of machinery plans on the ledge next to her and was watching as the last of the dwarves left the stronghold.
The granite doors closed seamlessly shut. The bolts crashed noisily back into position, definitively securing the entrance. So off they’ve gone. She wiped her tears away, her left hand playing with the game figurine Rognor had given her.
“You must be the sorânïan they’re all talking about.” The elf-voice sounded spiteful. “A proper little heroine.”
Turning her head, she saw an elf in silver-dyed leather armour, wearing a polished golden helmet with elaborate decoration and a bright red cloak. He was striding along the corridor towards her. “And you, presumably, are the captain the Naishïon has sent that the dwarves deselected before you even reached the Grey Mountains,” she replied.
“That’s fighting talk.” He came to a halt, the wind playing with the red material of his cloak. “I am Menahîn, sent by and good friend of Ataimînas.”
“You imply that you know him personally.”
Menahîn smiled arrogantly. “Correct.” And a boastful one at that.
“And that’ll be why you’re about to tell me that you must insist on my ceding command of the stronghold and informing the dwarves accordingly.” She was watching the last of the torches in the column fade into the dark on the road. That means I am now in office.
“That is indeed exactly what I was about to say. Let’s stop wasting time.” Menahîn looked at her disdainfully. “A sorânïan might be all very well when it comes to torturing men, women and children who can’t defend themselves, but a female officer would be useless when it comes to combat.”
“Why do you think I had anything to do with torturing anyone?”
“I only have to look at you.” He gave a fleeting scornful glance at her map and book. “Gifts to match your tears?”
“Instructions for using the machines”—she indicated the catapults behind him—“and a list of the traps the dwarves have set up.” She pointed over her shoulder with her thumb. “Very ingenious, the Children of Vraccas.”
As Menahîn tried to pick them up, she placed her hand firmly on the items.
“How dare you?” he snapped. “I shall inform Ataimînas of your conduct.”
Ocâstia leaned back, watching how his cloak was caught by the wind. “Terribly impracticable, you know, cloaks, when we’re patrolling the walkway. Up here in the mountains, the wind comes in sudden gusts.” She grasped the corner of his cloak and tossed it up over his helmet. “Like this. Suddenly you can’t see a thing, can you, so you might miss a potential attack.”
“What do you think you are playing at?” Menahîn yanked the cloak, but the material had got stuck on his helmet.
“What was it you were saying just now?” Ocâstia delivered a kick to the back of the elf’s knee, making him lose his balance. She gave him a push.
Menahîn crashed into the battlements, his hands meeting thin air.
He stumbled over the low wall and plunged down into the courtyard, his body shattering on the granite ground. His cloak was still stuck on his helmet.
She looked down. “Oh, how terrible!” she cried, the wind pulling at her long hair. “A sharp gust of wind! It took his cloak like a sail and over he went!” She pulled herself back, not able to suppress her laughter. It would not fit with the horrified attitude she had to portray.
She strolled along to the lift to go down, not forgetting to take book and map with her. I made a solemn oath to Balyndar, she thought, contentedly. I shall keep my word.
Somewhere in the Outer Lands
I never thought it would take this long. Tungdil sat at the entrance to their hidden shelter, observing, as usual. He refused to entertain the idea that Hargorin and Gosalyn might have met with an accident. An army of the size we need will take some preparing, for sure. I expect Ireheart is erring on the side of caution.
The quarry, a vast hole, was nothing like the älfar domiciles in Girdlegard or the palaces of Phondrasôn. There was a demonic vibe here, as if evil had dug itself into the heart of the earth and died, leaving a plague-ridden miasma poisoning everything within range.
Perhaps this is the birthplace of the demon that once rampaged through Girdlegard.
It had taken Tungdil and Beligata some time to locate a spot in the mine where they could watch what was happening without being spotted by the sentries. The botoican—wherever he might be—seemed to have become suspicious after the events in the settlement. He sent groups of ten or twelve monsters on patrol round the circumference of the crater at irregular intervals. Every hundred paces there were watchtowers manned by beasts.
There was no going back for Tungdil and Beligata. So they did what neither the botoican nor the älfar would have expected: they dug themselves in, using stolen tools, making a cave about ten paces below the top of the quarry. Not much imagination had gone into camouflaging the entrance, just a pile of old rags and some dirt. They increased the size of their shelter by working on it ceaselessly every day.
They took care to make as little noise as possible. One of them would stand guard, making notes on developments now that the army was here. Whatever the two of them needed in the way of food they stole from the delivery wagons as they arrived.
Tungdil could see that the original excavation of this mine must have taken place a long time ago. Many cycles previously, at least a hundred, this had been a coalmine. Now there were horizontal galleries. Perhaps people had altered their focus and started instead to search for gold or gemstones.
Where terraces had been created, there were vertical shafts from which steam and smoke welled up. Sometimes the wind would waft the fumes over to the dwarves. Sometimes there was a smell of rotten eggs, or red-hot metal or bitter vapours that stung their eyes and made them feel sick.
The beasts and humans labouring in the mine did not seem to be affected. They were subjected to the cruel will of the botoican as they worked tirelessly to extract coal from the old shafts.
Various forges had been erected in the open air, sending up flames and smoke. At night it was an impressive spectacle with fires blazing in furnaces that were seventy paces tall. They were smelting ore, the raw material for the weapons that were being manufactured in the nearby smithies. Ramps and flights of steps had been cut into the sides of the mine, and there were pulleys fastened to beams by ropes. Tents and primitive sheds served as shelters for the workers. Tungdil reckoned there were currently around a hundred thousand miscellaneous creatures at work here.
But the botoican would certainly have more subjects waiting in the vicinity. Columns of supply vehicles were constantly trundling through bringing food and meat. They also brought building materials and more slaves; these were not under direct mind-control but were disciplined by others with whips. Most of the slaves were set to work in the mine galleries and shafts.
“Anything new?” Beligata came to Tungdil’s side.
“The sorcerer seems to want to be sparing with the use of his magic powers.” He pointed south where orcs with whips were herding a hundred human slaves through into the mineshafts, and forcing them to push empty tubs along. “He’s not hypnotising any of the new ones.”
“What can be behind it all?” She shuffled in next to him, her clothing smelling as intense as his own.
“He might be storing up his energy with the intention of tackling a very resistant opponent.” Tungdil made more notes about the most recent bunch of slaves.
Beligata brushed sand from her shoulder. “How long have we been here in this hole?”
He smiled. “Nearly a full cycle. Asking that every three orbits doesn’t change anything.”
The gallery they were sitting in started to vibrate slightly, and stones and pebbles fell from the roof. This was something that often happened; it was as if the ground itself was protesting against the ghaist’s master, and was trying to shake the invaders out. The tremors did not last longer than ten breaths and the dwarves’ shelter had never suffered any damage. Nor had the terraces.
“Our troops should have got here by now.” Beligata flashed him an angry look. “You should have sent me. I’m not a cripple like Hargorin or weak like Gosalyn.”
“That’s why you’re with me.” Tungdil patted her encouragingly on the back. “They’ll come. Soon.”
“How do you know?” She flicked a pebble. It rolled out of the entrance. No one would notice.
“Because it’s summer now. The mountain passes are open and the rivers are no longer raging torrents and are easier to cross. There was no point in setting out in winter or the early part of the year.” He was trying to soothe her impatience before she had a chance to infect him with it. “Tell me, how would you plan an attack on this quarry? Bear in mind they’ve got sentries everywhere. Of course they’d notice an army approaching. So I don’t want any silly answers like Set fire to the mine. Send an avalanche.”
That made Beligata laugh. “But it would work if they didn’t see our warriors arriving.”
“No it wouldn’t. The beasts have an excellent sense of smell.”
“So why don’t they know we’re here?”
“Because”—Tungdil took a piece of her clothing between his thumb and forefinger—“we smell just as rank as they do.”
Beligata grinned, and this time the scar on her cheek did not react. “I’d use a third of my forces to simulate an attack, making a lot of noise. That would concentrate the enemy in one place. The slopes here would be full of beasts surging up. Our soldiers would only have to prevent the beasts getting up over the rim.” She then pointed to the other side, indicating a terrace level below theirs. “Then I’d send the rest of my army over there, with crossbows and catapults. They could take out the ones at the bottom of the crater. Further up, the sides are too wide and it’d all be out of range. Doing that would deprive them of their reinforcements and remove at least a third of them without any hand-to-hand combat at all.” She looked down at the main workshop areas at the base of the quarry where the smelting, the pouring of molten metal and the hammering was constant. “A fire could spread nicely down there.”
Tungdil laughed. “You can’t resist it, can you?”
“I like fire. And it makes sense.”
“Carry on.” She’s good. Can’t just be learned, this way of thinking. “My soldiers up at the top of the quarry would have killed about a quarter of the beasts. They’d be needing back-up now. The more beasts are killed, the more furiously the rest’ll fight.”
“And the botoican will be urging them on,” Tungdil pointed out.
“I suggest we have our archers move round the crater on both sides, shooting at the mass of beasts. Meanwhile our engineers can prepare the edge behind our troops. They withdraw at our signal and we demolish the edge of the quarry, sending it down as a landslide, burying the beasts and sending them straight into the fires by the furnaces.” Beligata had not hesitated at all; she had spoken calmly and with deliberation.
Let’s see if I can catch you out. “Sounds good. It reminds me of the Tenûbi manoeuvre.”
“Not really comparable. The …” The dark-haired dwarf-woman fell silent, embarrassed.
Tungdil continued with his note-taking as if nothing had happened. “I’m missing quite a lot of what occurred in Girdlegard in the last two hundred and fifty cycles. There are masses I still have to read up on before I’m up to speed. But a few things stand out when it comes to the Thirdlings.” He smiled at her. “After all, I’m one of them myself.”
“But I’m a Freeling,” Beligata protested.
“You belong to the Thirdling tribe, as I understand it.” Tungdil kept studying activity in the crater as minutely as always, even while he was speaking to her. “I spent a great deal of time in Phondrasôn with all kinds of monsters. You can only know about the Tenûbi manoeuvre if you’ve played Tharc. It’s a strategy game exclusive to the älfar. You are a very good tactician and you have a quick temper, and you can be cold and cruel when it is not appropriate.”
Beligata said nothing. Her breathing became faster.
“That’s not intended as an insult. It’s an observation. The scar on your cheek that glows green and the skin that won’t heal”—he still had his eyes fixed on the work in the mine—“is not a tattoo that went wrong. There is poison in your body. Poison for which there is no antidote, but one that won’t kill you.” He turned to face her. “Instead it changes you.”
“No, it doesn’t,” she muttered. “Not anymore.”
“What excuse do you normally use when people ask you about the scar?”
“I tell them it was a poisoned arrow.”
Tungdil pursed his lips. “Stick with the tattoo story, even though Thirdlings tend not to go in much for skin decoration.”
“I have tattoos in places you can’t see.” Beligata sighed. “Carmondai knew.”
“And I guessed.” Tungdil had seen enough. As there was nothing new happening in the crater today, he laid aside his paper and writing instruments. “Don’t worry, I shan’t tell anyone. Your secret is safe. You have nothing to fear from me. Neither your transformation nor your training was complete. You are able to resist.”
“It’s why I fled to the Freelings,” Beligata admitted, cursing, one hand pressed to the scar. “The prospect of being an älfar tool no longer seemed desirable.”
Tungdil moved her hand aside and scrutinised the scar. It was longer now and the black vein-like marks were spreading under the skin. “We’ll think of something to make it go away.”
She gave a bitter laugh. “As if I hadn’t tried everything already.”
“It’s not in your power, Beligata. But I know a bit about the black-eyes and the treatments they use.”
He removed his hand from her face. I know their methods all too well.
A low blast on a horn sounded. Torches were lit along all the levels of the old mine. In the flickering light the two dwarves could see a dozen or so shadowy figures flitting between the furnaces and the ladders at the walls.
“It’s slaves making a run for it,” Tungdil guessed. “They don’t stand a chance.”
“No.” Beligata went to the back of the cave. “I’ll get back to my digging.”
“How far have we got?”
“It goes back forty-eight paces from the edge.”
“Take it to fifty paces then head straight up. It’ll be our only chance of getting out. These notes will be no help to Ireheart if we can’t hand them over.”
“Right.” Beligata went back to work.
Tungdil saw the runaway slaves reach the third gallery, where they were caught and killed by two orcs. Their jagged blades cut the humans in pieces. Lumps of meat were chucked down for the beasts to devour in silence.
Beligata’s tactical sense is excellent. The stratagem she chose was exactly what I had thought of doing. Tungdil pulled the rags back over the viewing hole before he lit the lamp. I’ll come up with an idea to deal with Aiphatòn and the ghaist.
By the light of the little flame, he noted down the details of how Beligata had envisaged taking on the army of the botoican.
He heard the sound of bones being snapped open as the beasts sucked out the marrow. The hastily lit fires died down and work continued as normal.
Tungdil finished writing. Who would have thought it?
He stretched his limbs as far as was possible in the constricted cave. Our Beligata is a half-zhadár.
Then something else occurred to him.
Then was a new development: drinks could not be brewed properly. Tungdil had lost the recipe.
Or had it been stolen?
His mind lost its evil and his spirit started to recover. A Child of the Smith has a very stubborn nature!
The old memories came flooding back and gave him cause for thought.
He thought of the love he had rejected. He lost the unscrupulousness, the cruelty and the instincts that had made him an undisputed ruler. His magic powers receded and vanished.
He tried to conceal it, for otherwise the monsters and beasts under his command would have torn him to pieces.
There was no place for weakness in Phondrasôn.
Secret notes for
The Writings of Truth
written under duress by Carmondai
XXIX
Somewhere in the Outer Lands
Once they finished the vertical part of the tunnel, Tungdil and Beligata sat well-camouflaged in their cave shelter from dawn to sunset. Tungdil observed the mine and Beligata watched out for any sign of scouts from the army that they were expecting to arrive from the south.
There had been new developments in the crater recently and Tungdil was still trying to work out their significance. He started to count the beasts and the humans, and, out of sheer curiosity, compared their numbers with the amount of food being delivered.
He came to the surprising conclusion that three times the amount necessary was being brought to the crater with each supply train. More food implies more mouths that need feeding. Tungdil watched the openings to the side galleries. I think we’ve been fooled.
With these new calculations, he had to re-think the situation. The botoican had mustered not one hundred thousand but three hundred thousand, and the troops were concealed in the mines. That could explain why the slaves’ minds were not being manipulated: perhaps the botoican had run out of magic.