With a scream, Aiphatòn thrust Carmondai away and the sword pulled itself out of his wound. A stream of red blood came gushing out, followed by black. The anger lines increased and Aiphatòn aimed the rune-spear at his elderly adversary. The symbols glowed emerald clear as if they were filled with the same hatred. “No one takes her from me!”
A stream of green light shot out of the spear’s tip. Seizing Bloodthirster in both hands, Carmondai parried the magic attack. Ireheart saw the bloodied weapon glow. Carmondai gave a cry but the deflected beam turned one of the orcs to ashes instead. The others grunted and ran for cover. Ireheart tried to get up. The cold water of the stream helped but his head spun when he attempted it, forcing him to sink back.
Aiphatòn twirled the spear and brandished it at Carmondai. “How often will you succeed?” he said angrily—then froze. The runes flickered and died.
Irïanora was standing behind the shintoìt, dagger in her hand. She had stabbed him in the nape of his neck. “I do not belong to you,” she hissed, wrenching the long blade out to plunge it repeatedly into Aiphatòn’s back, past the protective tionium plates on his skin. She left the dagger in him and stepped back. “May you be released from the spell so that I can be free.”
The älf fell at Carmondai’s feet without a word, black blood pulsing out. “You must not harm her,” he struggled to tell Carmondai. “Look after her. And …” Aiphatòn dropped, his eyes black and broken.
They have defeated him! Ireheart did not know how long he had left for rejoicing. The orcs attacked as soon as they had recovered from their shock. Ireheart knew they stood no chance against the two älfar.
“You should just have left.” With skilful thrusts of his blade Carmondai felled them all. Bloodthirster was scornful of their protective armour. Irïanora had picked up the rune spear but she had not had to intervene.
The victorious älf came over to Ireheart looking dangerous rather than elderly or fragile. “And now let’s see to you.”
“Don’t you dare drown me! Give me a weapon, at least. I want to have the illusion of dying in battle.”
But Carmondai grabbed him by the right foot and heaved him out of the stream as Ireheart spluttered and cursed. “You must get away if you want to live. Get on your pony and head back along your own tracks. And pray to your Vraccas that the fever doesn’t finish you off.” He got him up onto his pony using a lot more consideration than Aiphatòn had employed.
It was hard for Ireheart to hold himself in the saddle. He was expecting some trick, a shout perhaps, to alert the other orcs, who would not be far away. Only slowly did he realise he had nothing of this kind to fear. “You are helping me?” He saw the branding marks on the älfar visage. “You could so easily kill me!”
“What would I gain from that?” Carmondai was smiling. “I killed Aiphatòn because he left me no alternative. His mind was irretrievably anchored in a baseless emotion.”
Pale as wax, Irïanora crouched at the edge of the stream to wash her face and to drink. She glanced at Carmondai, relief visible in her expression. She used the spear as a support. “My thanks,” she said. “It was a cîanoi spell that bewitched him and bound me to him. It was nothing to do with the botoican.” The blonde älf-woman got to her feet. “I would never have escaped. He watched me all the time.”
Carmondai nodded at her in a fatherly way. “We must be off. Orcs are not good company.” He fixed his black eyes on the High King. “Tell Tungdil I will deliver an episode once a cycle at the Stone Gateway. As long as I have the strength to keep writing, I’ll let him know everything I learn about the Outer Lands. That is all you will ever see of me from now.”
Ireheart nodded, biting his lip against the pain. Carmondai led the pony round to head south. Ireheart’s inner fire had ceased but the wound was very painful.
“You’re more valuable alive, Boïndil Doubleblade. You are a gift for any story-teller and the deeds you do in future will be celebrated when dwarves sing round the fire.” Carmondai indicated the body of Aiphatòn. “A tragic death is still a death.” He slapped Boïndil’s pony on the rump and it trotted off. “Don’t give in to death. You are still too young.”
Too young? Ireheart had to grin despite himself. Look who’s talking.
He concentrated on keeping tight hold of the reins, remembering to breathe and watching that his heart kept beating—he must keep the bellows feeding his life’s inner furnace.
Never provoke an unarmed orc or a drunk one—it’s no fun at all.
Dwarf saying
XXX
Girdlegard
Grey Mountains
Kingdom of the Fifthling dwarves
Stone Gateway
6497th solar cycle, summer
Ireheart opened his eyes to find he was staring up at a tarpaulin wagon roof. The straw mattress he was lying on cushioned the bumps as the cart rumbled on.
“The High King has rested sufficiently.” It was Tungdil’s voice. “Excellent. Just in time for our re-entry to Girdlegard.”
Ireheart turned his head and saw his friend lying next to him. “Are you ill, too? The battle did not spare you, my Scholar friend.” Ireheart lifted the sheet off his hairy chest and took in the bandage covering his wound. He still felt hot, but his head was clear now. Like a newborn baby.
“Indeed. I got a spear through the leg and I lost blood and muscle.” Tungdil beamed with delight as he stretched out his hand in welcome. “But we’ve made it. We’ve survived, my High King.”
“So we have. By Vraccas, so we jolly have!” Ireheart could remember nothing about the journey so he asked his friend to fill him in.
“Beligata and some scouts followed the orcs’ trail but they kept their distance. Just as they were about to set off to free you, you rode up, half-dead.” Tungdil laughed softly. “They almost had to break your fingers, you were holding the pony’s neck so tightly. You nearly throttled the poor creature.”
“And then?”
“They brought you back and got a healer for you. The orcs pursued them to start with but changed their minds once Balyndar showed up. They didn’t like the look of Keenfire.”
“Huzzah! I’d like to have seen that.” Ireheart laughed to himself. His friend helped him drink from a ladle of water. “Aiphatòn is dead,” he told Tungdil.
“Really?”
“Carmondai and the black-eye girl did for him,” Ireheart said, before giving a quick recap of events by the stream. “I’m to tell you he’ll deposit the next chronicle for you, a new one every cycle. Everything he knows and learns about the Outer Lands.” He drank some more. “Couple of scholars, you two, aren’t you?”
“He may be thinking that way.” Tungdil was thoughtful. “Beligata slipped back into the wood after you’d said something in your delirium about the spear and Bloodthirster. But she couldn’t find Aiphatòn ’s body. The trail left by the two älfar soon faded.”
But he was definitely dead … wasn’t he? “The orcs must have eaten the body.”
“You’re quite sure about his having been killed?”
There was no doubt in Ireheart’s mind. “He died right in front of me. Carmondai stabbed him through the hole in his armour plating and the älf-woman stuck her dagger in his neck and then again into his heart from behind. No one can survive wounds like that. He lay dead on the ground right in front of me and I saw his eyes cloud over.” He looked up at the flapping canopy. “I felt strangely sorry for him.”
“Yes, I am sorry for him and I won’t hide the fact. He was on a campaign to eradicate his own race and then he falls foul of a spell and dies at the hands of one of his own kind, killed by his own father’s weapon.” Tungdil took out a piece of blood-spattered paper. “Carmondai secreted this message in your clothing. We found it when we took your armour off. The historian explains what happened to him after the events in that village.”
“What did happen?” Ireheart struggled to sit up. “Don’t keep me in suspense, Scholar.”
“I’ll tell you
by and by. You need rest, High King.”
“I need a beer, I think.”
“I’d fancy one, too, but they didn’t bring any. Balyndis thought we should wait till we’re with the Fifthlings before we start celebrating.” Tungdil checked the bandage on his own leg.
“Then at least tell me how you dealt with the ghaist.”
“Good question. But it’s a long story. In brief, let me just say I used dwarf warfare on him.” He grinned. “I meant what I said: you must take it easy. The healers say the fever could still finish you off if you’re not careful.”
“What the hell do they know?” grumbled Ireheart. “Perhaps it was something you gave me, not the injury at all.”
“You’ll have to explain what you mean.”
“I took your antidote just before I rode in to battle. I thought it would suppress the rages I was going through. Maybe it burned me up.” Ireheart was breathing freely now that he had cleared this off his chest.
“It was over four cycles ago that I gave it to you. You took your time.” Tungdil’s comment did not sound judgemental. “It’s possible that fever might be one of the reactions to the medication. I can’t exclude the possibility. The distilled älf blood that you had previously taken is one of the most dangerous substances the Triplets ever thought up. But”—he nodded to his friend—“it’s over at last. If you want a drink now there’ll be a good reason.”
“And that would be?”
“Thirst.” Tungdil grinned.
Ireheart laughed out loud. After another mouthful of water he cleared his throat. “Scholar?”
“Yes?”
“I don’t want to be High King any longer.”
Now it was Tungdil’s turn to laugh. “Everyone knows it’s not to your taste. But they admire your bravery in agreeing to take it on. If you had not taken the lead as you did, none of this would have been possible.”
Ireheart clapped his hands in amusement. “I like that. So they’ve just been waiting for me to call it a day?”
“Put it this way: they won’t be surprised if you give the office up. But they won’t mind if you carry on, either.”
“What I want is for you to be High King,” Ireheart said with determination.
“You sound like a stroppy child. You can’t order me to be king of the kings.”
“Maybe not.” Ireheart was not pleased to hear this. We haven’t got anyone better. He’s destroyed the ghaist and the whole of the rag-tag army, so his fame has only increased recently. “But who would you suggest? Who is qualified to take over? For goodness’ sake, don’t say Frandibar. I can’t stand the fellow. I do think it should be you.”
Tungdil grinned. “I’m a scholar and I have different plans. The adventures of recent cycles have been more than enough. I wanted to give my soul time to recuperate; I still need to recover from my time in Phondrasôn. I also want to get my knowledge up to date.”
“Other things. I see. And what would they be?” Ireheart rolled his eyes. “There can’t be anything more important than being High King. That’s why the title is High King.”
“Sha’taï.”
The little one. Ireheart grimaced. “I was trying not to think about her.”
“Balyndis said something very wise …”
“I know, I know: the girl is frightened,” Ireheart interrupted his friend. “She’s using her powers to gain popularity, so she can get the whole of Girdlegard prepared to die for her sake if need be.”
“Exactly. It might be enough if we make sure Sha’taï understands that we don’t represent any threat to her and that she is completely safe.” Tungdil wiped the sweat droplets from his face. “We must make her remove the influence she has placed on the rulers. Without making her frightened.”
“Yes, and then?” Ireheart rubbed his temples where the hair was shaved short. Soon I’ll be a simple warrior again. Though still king of the Secondlings. “She is still a botoican. As soon as she feels threatened or as soon as something happens she doesn’t like—what will happen then?” He did not want to be more explicit. The best protection for Girdlegard would come with her death.
“Exile. Imprisonment. Let’s hope the worst never happens.” Tungdil was excluding the possibility of having her killed. “We’ll talk to her first and try to find out more about her.” He tapped Ireheart on the head. “What a good thing that we dwarves are not susceptible to her influence.”
“Maybe we’re the ones she’s most scared of,” he joked. “Tell me, are you sure there’s only water to drink in the wagon?” He stared crossly at the small barrel.
His friend looked at him as if thunderstruck. “There could be a lot in what you say.”
“There you have it, Scholar!” Ireheart laughed. He noticed the vraccasium ring on Tungdil’s little finger. “So you’ll be bringing that back to Balyndis. Do you think you two will get back together?”
“We’ll have to see.”
“Or did anything happen between you and Beligata in all that time you were alone together? Anything you want to tell me about?” He smirked.
Instead of an answer Tungdil raised his hand for silence. He listened out, then vaulted over, pulling the tub over them both. The cold bath made Ireheart curse roundly until a spike forced its way through the wood stopping a finger’s width from his nose.
The wagon halted. There were loud shouts and shrieks, and ponies were whinnying. Alarm horns sounded.
“Those confounded pig-faces,” Ireheart bellowed, reaching for the crow’s beak.
“No, these are bolts from our own catapults!” Tungdil pointed. “I’m going outside to take a look. You, get yourself under the wagon.”
The tarpaulin was pulled aside. Beligata appeared, her chain mail shirt in tatters and a scratch on her shoulder. A wound like that must have come from a sharp weapon. “I’m to collect the High King,” she said, jumping in beside them, ready to toss Ireheart over her shoulder. Tungdil assisted her and wrapped a blanket round him. “We’re to get to the back of the column until the situation becomes clear.”
“What’s happening out there?” Despite the discomfort, Ireheart managed to get hold of his crow’s beak.
“The Fifthling stronghold is firing at us.” Beligata panted under the weight as she carried Ireheart off the wagon. “Balyndis and her son are trying to find out the reason.”
“I’ll wager it’s to do with that wretched child! We need to kill that girl, Scholar.” Ireheart looked at Tungdil, hoping for approval.
But his friend had gone.
Tungdil limped along as quickly as his injured leg would permit. I must keep Balyndis safe!
The Fifthling stronghold was bombarding the dwarves with missiles. The advance guard and the main body of the column were in catapult range. Burning leather pouches of petroleum were raining down, burning dwarves and ponies to death. Then the slits below the walkway opened, emitting bolts and spears as individual projectiles and waves.
Small blasts caused sections of the slopes next to the Stone Gateway to crumble and roll on to the road, covering the army with rubble and boulders. The debris formed a wall behind them that made it impossible for the troops to withdraw. There was equally no point in storming the granite portal.
We’re stuck. Tungdil dived for cover under abandoned wagons each time he saw bolts coming his way. Pennants showed that Balyndis and Balyndar were less than a hundred paces from the gate surrounded by two hundred sturdy warriors.
They will be trying to get near enough to speak the secret code to open it. Tungdil grabbed himself a riderless pony and set out after them. I’ve got to help them.
The fortress truly was an extraordinary sight: a masterpiece of dwarf engineering, a stronghold flanked by impregnable towers. It spoke clearly to any invader: Give up in despair!
Phondrasôn had clouded my memory of the place. Tungdil remembered hearing what enormous strength and firepower the fortress represented. Now he was struck by the fact there were so few people up on the walkway operating the
machines. They’re just running hither and thither to make it look like there’s more of them. The lack of manpower on the walls aided the two hundred soldiers approaching the gate at full gallop. Not a shot was directed at them: their speed made them difficult targets.
But it was too soon to feel relief. Tungdil saw an armoured figure looking down from the battlements and shouting in rage. They’ve seen my brave dwarves coming.
A long barrel appeared on the battlements, its opening aimed diagonally downwards. The first burning clay container was released in the direction of Balyndis and her troops. The riders noticed it hurtling towards them and they sprang apart before it struck. But the aim had been true and further attempts saw the agonizing end of dozens of dwarves as the clay smashed, spreading blazing petroleum. Black smoke rose stinking to the skies.
Balyndis, Balyndar and their companions did not give up. The hail of fire ended, to be replaced by spears from the launchers. Many more dwarves were killed by the steel-tipped shafts. Tungdil was horrified to see the pony Balyndis was riding get hit. The queen fell with her horse, sliding and slithering on the stony ground all the way over to the portal. No, Vraccas, not her!
He urged his own mount on, keeping an eye on potential danger from above where death could pour down in liquid form from the gutters. Boiling water, pitch, red-hot slack or Vraccas fire would deter even the hardiest of attackers.
At long last he reached the group; they had all dismounted by this time. He jumped down and ran to Balyndis. It was clear she had suffered broken limbs and was unconscious. Dwarves gathered round her, forming a protective dome with their shields.
“Take her away from the gateway,” Tungdil ordered. “She is in danger of burning pitch here.” He turned to Balyndar and told him to open the gate.
“Leave my mother where she is,” Balyndar called, countermanding the order. He glared at his father. “I am in charge here. It is not up to you to issue orders.”