“It’s enormously powerful,” Franek said. “It never took me longer than a few moments.”
“We can hold him off that long,” said the fifthling determinedly, nodding at Tungdil. The one-eyed dwarf barged the door.
A loud hissing sound ensued as the runes above the entrance flared, showering Tungdil with sparks, but his tionium armor absorbed the spell as if it had been harmless rays of light. The wood splintered and the door burst open.
Tungdil stood on the threshold with his weapon raised above his head, checking in all directions to see if it was safe. “There’s no one here,” he called back.
The others hurried over and Balyndar remained at the doorway, facing out, Keenfire in his hands.
It was a small chamber, really more like a sauna. Steps led to a vertical shaft protected with a grille; the walls were decorated with a mosaic portrait of Lot-Ionan’s face.
The magus has changed a lot, thought Ireheart. Compared with how he used to look he had gone bald, and he had three reddish-silver tufts of hair on his chin. The eyebrows were bushier, too. His features had become crueler and more demonic, as if the bones had been rearranged. But it was unmistakably the face of the Scholar’s one-time foster-father.
“Coïra needs to stand over the shaft,” said Franek. “Her weight will cause the grating to sink five paces down, bringing her directly to the magic force field. She’ll need to use a spell to bring herself up again.”
Slîn and Balyndar were at the door. “Why don’t the steps go right down into the source?”
“Lot-Ionan wanted it like this. I don’t know what his motives were.” He saw Ireheart’s suspicious expression. “Well, let me go first if you think it’s a trap.”
“Oh, I can see you’d like that,” Ireheart laughed. “Scholar, what do we do here?”
Tungdil gestured to Coïra to come over to the shaft. “If anything happens to her, kill Franek,” was the only instruction he gave.
“That’s easy. I can do that,” Boïndil replied.
The queen was taken down the steps by Rodario and Mallenia and, as they withdrew, she sank down, the grating lowering itself with a click.
“I shan’t bother to remove my clothing this time,” she said. “You will have other opportunities to admire me naked.”
“I can hear something being wound tight,” said Slîn, listening to the mechanism.
“Take care!” Rodario called to Mallenia. “I don’t like it. How do we get her up again?”
The Ido girl took off her belt and asked for Rodario’s as well. She swiftly tied them together and tested the knot. “If Coïra jumps she can reach this and we can pull her up.” She knelt and looked down. “Dark as the grave,” she said quietly.
“Horrid thing to say.” Rodario knelt also. The clicking still continued indicating that the grating had not reached the bottom. “Has it started yet?”
A blue shimmering light surrounding the maga showed that the source was bestowing its power.
They waited in silence. The tension in the chamber had them all sweating, except for Tungdil, who was the very embodiment of calm, as if he were in possession of a secret certainty that they would all leave the Blue Mountains alive with Lot-Ionan their captive.
Ireheart kept switching his attention between the source and the door. “I hate this,” he grunted, wiping his sweating hands yet again on his undershirt. “Oh, how I hate this. I’d rather be in a battle for a whole orbit.”
In the corridor all was quiet. Not a sound, no shouts, and no Lot-Ionan.
“Where do we go to find him?” Tungdil demanded of Franek.
The famulus shrugged. “He could be anywhere, but I reckon he won’t be far. I’m surprised he hasn’t turned up yet to see what’s…”
“Quiet,” ordered Balyndar. “Someone’s coming!”
Rodario could see that Coïra was undergoing contortions in the blue light, as if in intense pain. She crouched down, cowering and holding tight to the walls, swaying and moaning. This was not at all how he remembered events at the source near Lakepride. “Coïra, are you all right?”
No answer.
“We ought to get her out of there,” he decided, letting the end of the improvised rope down. “Catch!”
Ireheart stood behind Balyndar and Tungdil, taking care not to touch his friend’s armor as he peered out between them.
A young woman in a dark-blue figure-hugging dress raced toward the chamber, her long dark hair streaming out behind her.
Terrified, she glanced over her shoulder; she had not seen the dwarves at the chamber entrance. An arrow jutted out of her shoulder. A greeting from the älfar archers.
“The little sorceress is injured. Good!” murmured Boïndil. So she must have used up all her magic at the first encounter, and needs to get it recharged. She would be an easy victim. “Will you let me have her?” he asked Tungdil and Balyndar.
Bumina saw them and stopped short. “Dwarves? By Samusin, how did you get in here?”
Franek came up behind the dwarves and addressed Bumina. “You didn’t expect this, did you?” he said with malicious glee. “Oh dear, did the älfar hurt you?” He pulled out his dagger. “That’s nothing to what I’m going to do to you! You destroyed my town! The trap had your signature all over it.”
“Lot-Ionan made me do it.” Bumina studied the dwarves and tried to gauge what they would do. She raised her arms. “Get out of the way and let me into the source.”
Tungdil and Balyndar both raised their weapons at the same time.
Rodario called down the shaft, but there was still no answer from the queen. Uttering a curse, he jumped down, directing his fall as best he could by bracing hands and feet against the walls. He landed by Coïra, who had collapsed; he, too, was covered in a white light, but he felt nothing.
“What is it?” he said, helping her up.
“The source is incredibly… powerful,” she groaned. “I’m not used to it and it really hurts! It’s drenching me with power, more than I’ve ever known.” Her next sentence was a muffled groan and her fingers clutched at Rodario’s collar. “I can’t concentrate on finding the right spell to get out of here,” she stammered. “Help me…” Her body became rigid and then repeatedly convulsed unnaturally.
Rodario took her girdle and told Mallenia to throw down the improvised rope. He tied the belts together, fastened them to Coïra’s hands and threw the other end back up. “Pull her up!” he shouted, crouching down to lift her onto his shoulders. “I’ll support her from below.”
The rope tightened and soon the young woman was being pulled gradually out of the sphere of magic influence.
The clicking ceased, and the grille slid sideways under Rodario’s feet!
The dwarves up at the doorway knew nothing of this.
Franek was still laughing at Bumina. “If you really had any magic power you would have cast a spell at us.”
“You haven’t used magic either, so I can only assume your reservoir is as empty as mine.”
Ireheart looked over his shoulder. Coïra was being heaved up out of the shaft by Mallenia. The queen thanked her, gasping for air, and then stood up. She no longer looked as drained as she had done and there was a new spark in her eyes. “But now we have a maga strong enough to magic the two of you into the ground.”
Tungdil turned quickly round and nodded at Franek, who could hardly wait to get down into the source. “Your turn now.” Without warning he plunged Bloodthirster twice into the stomach of the famulus. “Go to Samusin or to whichever god you want.”
Franek collapsed onto the stone flags, gurgling horribly, still moving his lips inaudibly. His fingernails scratched at his killer’s tionium shin protectors. By the time his head hit the floor he was dead.
Ireheart was not distressed but he was surprised. Another deed the old Tungdil would not have carried out.
“He told us about your secret path,” Tungdil said to Bumina. “That’s how we got in.” He lifted Bloodthirster, red and dripping. “Wher
e is Lot-Ionan? Don’t even think about running away.”
The famula recoiled. She turned and started to run, but Tungdil hurled his weapon at her with a furious roar. It hit her on the back, exactly where the arrow had struck. Screaming, she fell to the ground, felled by the impact.
With one bound Tungdil was by her side, brutally tearing Bloodthirster out of her flesh; he used his boot to turn her over, then placed the weapon’s sharp tip at her throat. “I’ll count to three and if I don’t get told where to find him you will die,” he snarled. The deep voice sent shivers up Ireheart’s spine. “One…!”
“Die and lose your soul!” Bumina whimpered.
“It’s no good trying to protect your master. You’ll be harming yourself, not him. Two!” He increased the pressure he was exerting, and the blade penetrated her flesh.
“Gone! He’s gone!!”
“Three!” Without showing any emotion Tungdil pushed Bloodthirster through her throat. The famula attempted to gasp for air, coughing and spluttering, her hands grasping the deadly weapon instinctively, but the arm of the dwarf was like steel. Bumina fought death—and lost. Her eyes went dull and her life left her.
“We’ll look for him ourselves,” Tungdil announced. “He can’t be far away.”
“Nor can the black-eyes,” said Ireheart, unable to take in what his friend had just done. These humans had deserved to die. But the way he had done it: That was extraordinary. Thorough.
“Help!” they heard Mallenia’s voice. “I need your strong arms!”
Ireheart was about to turn round and help the Ido girl but at that moment he saw älfar charging round the corner. He reckoned there must be about seventeen of them, all wearing black leather armor, with iron plates over the breast. Their weapons were of various kinds, but similar to swords. His battle-lust flared up on the spot. “I’ll be with you in a tick,” he called. “I’ve just got a few black-eyes to flatten!” He raised up his crow’s beak and hurled himself at the enemy with a mighty war cry to Vraccas.
A black shadow overtook him.
“Oh no! Scholar, don’t spoil my fun,” he complained. “You go and help Mallenia! Leave them…”
To me is what he had intended to say, but Bloodthirster crashed horizontally into the side of the first älf, slicing into him as easily as if he had been made of wax. While that enemy was still falling to the ground, Tungdil was already striking the next one, making a hole in his chest before yanking out the dripping steel spike to plunge it into the neck of a third älf. Blood was everywhere.
Ireheart stared at his friend in astonishment. He had never seen him fighting so brutally.
The swiftness of his movements was such that he was faster than the black-eyes he was fighting; the älfar did not know what had hit them. They had never fought dwarves before and had certainly never met an adversary like this. Black blood was raining all around, severed limbs fell, weapons and armor shattered at each of Bloodthirster’s strikes.
Tungdil was screaming like a mad dog on each attack he launched. He mowed his way through the ranks of the älfar, cutting a path. The fallen were blocking Ireheart’s view. When the last of the enemies was slain, he saw Tungdil standing with his back to him at the far end of the corridor. He had blood all over him, dripping from his armor and helmet.
“Vraccas help us!” he heard Balyndar say.
Turning round he saw a very pale fifthling at his right hand. Balyndar had also followed the course of the combat. To be more exact, it had not been combat but slaughter. Faced with Tungdil those älfar were like drunken orcs. And yet Ireheart knew that he himself would never have been able to fight his way from one end of the passage to the other like that. Not nowadays and not without taking some injury.
Coïra had been too busy to watch. She was staring into the darkness of the shaft. In order to be able to get Rodario out with magic she first had to be able to see him.
She lifted her hand and a torch flew into her outstretched fingers. She trained its light down into the dark shaft until she could see the actor. He was clinging to the open grille with both hands, poised perilously above the abyss.
But the grille was moving again, coming up. This would mean Rodario’s fingers would be crushed and he would fall.
This time the maga had no problem finding the right magic formula. Now that she was outside the source she no longer felt confused and overcome with the ecstasy that had robbed her of the power of clear thought.
Invisible powers took hold of the actor and lifted him, pulling him through the narrow gap between wall and grille and floating him up out of the shaft to land between the two women.
Hardly was he back on his feet than Coïra rushed into his arms to embrace him. But she released him at once. “I must see what’s happening outside,” she said, excusing herself.
“A hero,” said Mallenia, giving him a kiss on the cheek. “But you did need a bit of help. I like that.” She grinned and followed the maga out to where the dwarves were.
Rodario rubbed his painful hands, checking the cuts on his palms. “Samusin, god of justice, I thank you,” he prayed. Then he noticed Franek’s dead body and the black blood coating the threshold. Next to him there was a loud click and the grille was back in place.
“Huzzah! May Vraccas be praised! More black-eyes!” Rodario could hear Ireheart’s happy voice. “Scholar, these ones are mine, got it? I can’t let you have all… Scholar! SCHOLAR!” There ensued loud shouts and the clash of weapons. “He’s only gone and done it again!”
Rodario put his hands on his hips, took a deep breath and drew his sword. It was sometimes nice not to be a hero. Unfortunately he considered himself to be one now and heroes had to fight.
He followed the Zhadár; Mallenia, Coïra and Slîn were ahead of him, with Balyndar and Ireheart racing in front. He could not see Tungdil anywhere but he could hear the continuous barrage of battle and screams coming from another passage.
“Why won’t anyone tell me what’s happening?” he complained in his best stage manner, hurrying so as not to miss the finale.
They trotted along through the tunnels of the dwarf realm, always on the lookout in case they encountered Lot-Ionan, the älfar or Vot, the last famulus. Ireheart reckoned they had been doing this for around three orbits now.
However, they had met nothing and nobody.
The älfar slaughtered by Tungdil in his solo assault had not been part of the main force; they seemed to have belonged to a scouting party who had entered the cave system by skirting Vot and Bumina. They were probably trying to kill Bumina before she got to the magic source to replenish her reserves, and they ran straight into our arms. Boïndil grinned. Nice one!
But Ireheart was still mad at Tungdil for having taken on and killed over twenty-five warriors at lightning speed. It had not seemed to cost the other dwarf any noticeable effort, nor had the missing eye limited his performance in any way. Ireheart found himself having to admit that Tungdil was superior to him in combat skills, flexibility and speed. In the old days they had been about equal but after this orbit he was painfully aware that he could no longer compete.
“Off to the right,” he instructed, leading the group into the former throne room.
The pomp and splendor of this hall had long passed, the famuli having conducted experiments that had caused the cave walls and several of the high pillars to collapse. There were holes and burns in the battle scenes showing historical victories of the dwarves; upturned braziers and fallen lamps lay scattered on the ground.
The table for the use of the dwarf-kings and the carved stone dais for the clan leaders had been smashed; the impressive marble throne on which Gundrabur Whitecrown had once sat now lay shattered after some spell had been let loose. A symbol for the loss of dwarf-power.
Ireheart had been hoping to find Lot-Ionan hiding here.
“This isn’t working,” said Rodario, noting the dwarf’s drooping shoulders. “We could be wandering around in these mountains for ages without ever coming acr
oss the magus.”
“But what else can we do?” Slîn asked Coïra. “Didn’t you say you had a special spell?”
“To locate him?” She shook her head.
Mallenia sat down on a section of fallen pillar. She made no attempt to conceal her dissatisfaction. “We need a new plan. Who knows what’s happening back at the Black Abyss or in my country?”
“You don’t have to worry about the älfar. The poison must have worked by now. There won’t be more than a few of them still alive,” Tungdil reassured her. “Any survivors won’t be a danger to us and Aiphatòn will dispatch them all soon.”
“We should have stayed by the source,” complained Balyndar. “Sooner or later Lot-Ionan would have come along.”
“There’s nothing to say we can’t go back there.” Ireheart stretched and heard a crack as the vertebrae altered position. “I’m getting old,” he noted with astonishment. “Anyone would think my bones were made of wood.”
“Back to the source,” ordered Tungdil. “We’ll need to find provisions on the way. Our stomachs are rumbling so loudly that we don’t stand a chance of creeping up on the enemy.”
The group turned, about to leave the throne chamber, but then heard footsteps from the other side of the room.
A young man of not more than thirty cycles entered the hall and spotted the Zhadár, who brought up the rear of their party. He lifted his right arm and sent a dazzling lilac-colored magic beam shooting their way.
Troublemaker and Growler had the presence of mind to dodge behind a stone pillar.
“Thanks, Vraccas,” cheered Ireheart, wheeling around on his heel. “We’ve found Vot!”
“Charming! But actually, he found us,” said Slîn, going down on one knee and lifting his crossbow ready to fire, all in one smooth movement. Before anyone could stop him he had sent a bolt flying at the famulus. “And this is my magic!”
Vot had not seen what was coming and had his arms raised to conjure up a new spell. The missile went straight to his heart but a glowing light showed that he was already starting to heal himself with magic.