Small blue glowing crystals set into the walls gave some illumination. The tower had no windows.
After climbing a hundred steps they arrived in an anteroom in which they found four dead älfar. Their ribcages had been torn open. Their shredded leather armor had offered no protection against the magic attack.
“We’re getting closer,” Balyndar whispered excitedly, taking a firmer hold on Keenfire.
Tungdil marched through the hall and strode over to the far side of the tower.
They had located the throne room that the Dsôn Aklán had wanted for themselves, rather than surrendering it to Aiphatòn. The room was dark, ten paces high, with filigree metal columns supporting the ceiling, although these seemed too thin and fragile to be able to bear the weight of all the upper floors.
Between the pillars ropes were tied from which floor-length banners were suspended, guiding the visitor’s gaze to the great throne that stood on a raised platform. Seven steps led up to the throne itself, which was constructed out of tionium and palandium, thus combining the two elements that represented good and evil.
Seven more dead älfar lay on the floor, displaying scorch marks and burns on their bodies; their weapons had melted or burst under the influence of some mighty power.
Balyndar was about to ask a question but there came a sudden crackle and through the swathes of material they perceived a dazzling flash. A loud scream rang out, followed by a second voice laughing. Then a clank sounded as a weapon of some kind hit the floor.
Tungdil ground his teeth. “You know what that means,” he whispered to the maga and fifthling. “We need to distract his attention. Coïra, you wrestle him to the ground when he’s whipped himself into a frenzy against us.” His one brown eye fixed its gaze on her. “Do not kill him!” he emphasized. “Forget revenge. He’s our last chance, the only means we have to save the realm from a fate worse than anything ten dragons could come up with.” He gave Balyndar the sign to proceed.
The maga waited until they disappeared behind the first hanging lengths of material, then she followed. Her arms were half raised, so her fingers would be ready to draw the necessary shapes in the air. Her heart was beating faster than normal and sweat coursed down her spine. She was frightened. The sheltered life of a princess had been no preparation for these tasks.
She had, of course, always wanted to be given an opportunity to use her magic skills to destroy Lohasbrand, to turn his orc army to dust and to rain down punishments on his vassals. But to meet a magus in battle was another kettle of fish entirely: A completely new challenge.
Coïra had never had the chance to compete against another magician. Her mother, due to her imprisonment, had been unable to teach her any of the required skills, so she had gathered much of her knowledge from Wey’s historical archive, and whenever she had needed to ask something she had been forced to couch her queries in generalized terms so as not to arouse the suspicions of the soldiers guarding her mother.
All this and memories of the dangerous journey they had endured, taxing her beyond endurance much of the time—all this flew through her mind, making it hard for her to prepare confidently for what would be a baptism of fire.
Then she heard Balyndar call, followed by a hiss and an explosion heralded by a lilac flash. The shock waves blew the banners aside, allowing her to see that the dwarves had confronted the magus!
Balyndar was again protected by his sphere, while the magus sustained a magic ray attacking the shield; lightning flashes issued from his onyx-headed walking staff, shooting toward Tungdil, whose armor runes were fully ablaze. Then the wind created by the force of the explosion dropped, and the flags and banners fell back into place, concealing events from her once more.
Coïra was afraid. To create a double spell and to keep both going simultaneously, surely that was not possible! Lot-Ionan’s powers must be enormous.
She pulled herself together. “I can’t abandon them,” the young woman told herself, and she ran off to join the dwarves. So far Lot-Ionan had no idea there was a maga present who might represent a danger. This was presumably a considerable advantage. “Be with me, Mother,” she prayed as she drew the first of the hanging fabric screens aside.
She did not see the älf standing diagonally behind the curtain until it was too late; she had been concentrating on the magus.
It was Sisaroth! He was bleeding from wounds on his neck, shoulder, and left arm; the right leg appeared only as a piece of burned and blackened meat surrounded by scraps of armor.
But he did not hesitate.
He immediately stabbed at her with his two-handed sword, piercing her abdomen.
The pain made the spell on her lips fade away. As she attempted it a second time, Sisaroth twisted his sword round and wrenched it upwards through her. The blade left an appalling wound in her fragile body: Blood and other fluids gushed and her intestines tumbled out. The maga fell, feeling him withdraw his sword.
“What a surprise! An unhoped for pleasure,” said the älf with satisfaction. “My heart rejoices to be able to avenge my sister’s death!” He knelt down and drew out his double-edged dagger. “Your death bears the name of Sisaroth,” he whispered into her right ear as he placed the knife at her throat. “Your soul is lost forever, sorceress.” With obvious enjoyment he pressed the weapon slowly through her skin into the flesh, relishing the fear in her widening eyes as she whimpered and moaned. “I would love to stay to see your spirit leave,” he whispered as tenderly as a lover as he pulled the dagger carefully out of her throat. Then he got up and limped off, past the dying woman, over to the doorway.
Coïra lay on the basalt flagstones gasping for breath, wondering why she felt so little pain. She tried a healing incantation. But her injured lung did not permit her to pronounce a single word.
Ireheart threw himself down onto the mud and looked at Mallenia, who was staring at him with shocked eyes, trying to sit up and pull the arrow from her back. He could see she was extremely confused.
“No, stay down!” he called.
But she did not listen to him. She sat up and turned her head to find the arrow sticking out of her. Her fingers were about to clasp it and break off the shaft when a second arrow came whirring through the air, striking her in the throat. She tipped to one side, gurgling. Another crash and a Zhadár screamed.
“Slîn!” Ireheart yelled, incensed. We haven’t come this far and survived all those dangers only to have some stupid cowardly älf pick us off. “Shoot the wretched black-eyes, confound you!”
“I can’t see him,” came a voice at his side. “He’s hidden in the grass.”
“Curses! I shit on Tion and all his creatures!” Ireheart bellowed, feeling his battle-fury take over. But, of course, the unwisest of options when attacked by a hidden bowman was to get up and start running toward him.
With a metallic clink an arrow hit his helmet, knocking it off. Ireheart thought the arrow tip had grazed his skin.
“Slîn!”
“I can’t see where he is!! I can’t see him, damn it!” the fourthling called back in desperation.
Ireheart looked over his shoulder to the edge of the crater. He had been hoping Rodario might somehow have managed to appear, but there was no sign. The actor must have fallen to his death on the back of that terrified plunging horse. Bloody stupid kind of death… His fury grew more heated yet. “Hey, black-eyes! A challenge! How about a duel? You and me?”
“Patience,” came an älf voice. “First I want to eliminate your backup.”
There were two more arrow strikes, this time hitting Slîn and the remaining Zhadár.
“That should do it,” Ireheart heard the älf say. The dwarf saw the älf standing thirty paces away in waist-high grass. It was a relaxed Tirîgon, holding his two-hander propped against his shoulder. “Ready?”
“And how!” snarled Ireheart, getting to his feet. He tossed his black hair braid back and raised his crow’s beak, realizing he was the only one of the party who had not been sho
t. He rushed over to the älf.
Tirîgon did not move, which seemed provocative in the extreme. “I had hoped the kordrion would eat you and the emperor. It seems I must do everything myself. I shall have death take you.”
“You won’t.” Ireheart allowed rage to take possession of him. The world was drenched in a red mist, his head felt hot and his muscles were sheer bursting with the need to plunge the crow’s beak spike into the opponent’s face.
Yet he held back.
He had to use his brain and make sure the älf could not take advantage of his longer reach and the two-handed sword. Strength was good, fury was better, but not until the opponent’s two strong points had been counterbalanced. He was going to try to achieve that by causing him serious damage.
Ireheart had got ten paces closer and increased his pace. “Now I’ll thrash that grin off your face with my weapon!”
Tirîgon was still smiling and unperturbed, his long sword resting against his shoulder. “Tell me, you short-legged piece of scum: What makes you think it was me that shot those arrows?”
No quiver, no arrows, no bow. Too late Ireheart realized his mistake.
XXIX
Girdlegard,
Älfar Realm of Dsôn Balsur,
Dsôn,
Late Spring, 6492nd Solar Cycle
Through the sphere Balyndar caught sight of Lot-Ionan. The magus was exactly as they had so recently seen him portrayed. The sturdy dwarf needed all his strength to keep hold of Keenfire and brace it against the pressure stemming from the magic attack. Tungdil’s armor, as far as Balyndar could see, was doing its job well in protecting its bearer from lightning bolts delivered by the magus.
“Coïra!” Balyndar shouted in warning to the young woman; conscious, however, this would rob them of the element of surprise. He did not know how long he and Keenfire would be able to maintain their defense.
But there was no sign of their maga.
The assault ended and the magic barrier around him died away. “Vraccas!” he called, to give himself courage as he charged toward Lot-Ionan, blade upraised.
The magus stared at the ax, then looked at Tungdil and executed a swift movement. Above the dwarf’s head the ropes anchoring the lengths of fabric gave way and the banners unfurled about Tungdil’s ears. Balyndar understood: Lot-Ionan wanted to confront his attackers one by one.
An extra burst of speed took him nearly up to the magus.
As Lot-Ionan brandished the onyx-headed staff at him an orange-colored beam shot out, striking the stone panels around him and tearing them out of their fixtures. The magus, having understood that his adversaries were immune to direct magic attack, forced the young dwarf ten paces into the air directly in the path of the falling stone.
And Balyndar was falling now.
He struck out with Keenfire and hit one of the horizontal flag supports. The ax head hooked itself over and he swung to and fro on the banner as if on a rope. Serious injury or death would result from a fall from this height.
Balyndar looked down at Coïra and froze in horror. The wound he saw in her body had to be fatal, surely, but how had it occurred? Too late he remembered that Lot-Ionan had been fighting an älf when they arrived. The älf must have used the chance to escape and have attacked the maga.
However distraught he was about Coïra, he had to act.
Gathering the material in his hands, he locked both arms around it and used the flag to slide safely down to ground level.
On the way down he witnessed Tungdil and Lot-Ionan talking together! He could not hear what they were saying because he was too far away, but they were standing face to face, neither attacking the other. What did it mean?
Tungdil leaped forward and swept Bloodthirster at the magus, who laughed as he made a gesture that had the dwarf suddenly enveloped by one of the flags; then he reached out at full stretch to land a blow on Tungdil with his staff.
Hardly had the onyx stone touched the embroidered material than the fabric turned into a gigantic snake wrapping its coils around Tungdil’s body. Muscles worked feverishly and the armor creaked in protest but the dwarf was unable to move.
Balyndar was on the ground by this time and rushed over toward Lot-Ionan, Keenfire at the ready. The diamonds and inlay pattern shone with inner fire and the heat it gave out was like being in a forge.
Bald-headed Lot-Ionan saw him coming and turned to face him. “So what are the children of the Smith doing, coming to the aid of the älfar?” The ends of his beard waggled and the sharp-featured face was an uncanny picture of malice.
“We’re not here on their behalf.” Balyndar leaped at the magus, swinging Keenfire in a powerful stroke; Lot-Ionan did not have to know that he only intended to hit him with the flat side of the weapon.
The magus sidestepped with surprising agility, raising his own staff to strike Balyndar.
Keenfire and onyx clashed in mid-air.
The explosion that ensued stunned and dazzled Balyndar. He could hear a rattling sound as if pebbles were being dropped. Blinded, he stumbled forward under the impetus of his own attack and staggered into a pillar, which broke his fall.
He ducked and whirled round, holding Keenfire in front of himself as protection. Gradually his sight returned.
Tungdil was still locked in the clutches of the enormous snake.
Lot-Ionan waved the remains of his broken staff accusingly in Balyndar’s direction. The top end had snapped off and the onyx jewel lay in fragments around the throne.
“By Samusin!” gasped the magus, flinging the broken pieces at him. “By Samusin!” he shrieked in fury, lifting his arms. “If only you were a mere stain on the ground as I intended!” Invisible powers must still have been issuing from the magus, for the flagstones, the pillars and everything near Balyndar started to shake and move toward him. “I shall squash you like squeezing a lemon, dwarf! Your bones will be ground to powder and be banished to eternal oblivion with the rest of the tower.”
With a loud roar Tungdil tore the snake in two with his bare hands, not needing Bloodthirster. He kicked the weapon up with his foot, catching it adroitly to go in for the attack.
The quaking walls round Balyndar ceased their movement. The young dwarf breathed a sigh of relief and threw himself on the magus. “For Girdlegard!”
But to his surprise Tungdil ran past the wizard, heading instead straight for him!
Ireheart did not hesitate.
Grim and stubborn, he ran full tilt at the älf, not wasting a thought on the fact that a black arrow could strike at any second.
“Parry this if you can!” he bawled, slamming his crow’s beak down murderously, the spike targeting the älf’s left flank.
Tirîgon acted swiftly. He brought down his two-handed sword, plunging the tip into the earth, thus blocking the first attack; then, supporting himself on his parrying stick, he dealt a two-footed kick into Ireheart’s face.
The dwarf staggered back, spitting blood. His nose was broken and already swelling up. He could see the white of the exposed bone. Two of his teeth were loose. “You’ve made me bite my tongue,” he raged at the älf.
“It won’t be your last injury.” Tirîgon leaned on the parrying stick, staring at the flames engulfing the city. “That destruction is hardly all down to you.”
“I wish it was.” Ireheart came up to his adversary and feigned a strike at his head, but altered direction, aiming the flat edge of the crow’s beak at the älf’s right thigh.
Tirîgon took an evasive sidestep and placed a hand on his sword, pulling it to one side. Once more the dwarf-weapon clashed on steel. And again the älf launched a mighty kick, striking Ireheart in the neck.
With a curse Ireheart charged forward, landing on his knees in the dust. “This is not a proper fight!” he yelled angrily. “Come on, fight like a decent warrior!”
“But I’m not fighting against a decent warrior, so why should I?” the älf returned scornfully, leaning on his tall sword. “I always thought the famous Irehe
art was an excellent fighter, but I’m disappointed to find him as lame as an orc.” He put his head on one side and winked. “I’ll grant you one wish: How would you like to die?”
Ireheart whirled the crow’s beak. “Drinking a beer, black-eyes!” He pushed forward. “As you don’t have any beer with you, I’m safe.” This time he struck diagonally.
Tirîgon ducked and used the two-hander again to block the blow.
But in his arrogance he had underestimated the dwarf’s furious strength. The blow thrust the älf back onto the ground and, although the weapon itself did not strike him, the sharp end of his own parrying stick was forced right into his shoulder.
I’ve got you! Ireheart followed through swiftly, striking at Tirîgon and missing his head by the breadth of a beard hair. The älf executed a backwards somersault, intending to grab his two-hander, but the dwarf stamped on the sword, grinning.
Tirîgon grinned arrogantly back and drew out both his double-daggers at the speed of light; the stabs ensued in a flowing movement.
Ireheart saw the two arms with their four blades heading for him. He had to decide which to parry. He blocked one with his weapon haft and the blades swished past his face. But the second knife hit him.
The double blade did not penetrate the chain-mail shirt, but the blow winded him badly.
The next assault followed fast and Ireheart tried to back away from Tirîgon.
The älf did not let up, but kept attacking with the daggers. Still with a smile on his finely chiseled features, he appeared not to have exerted himself at all.
Ireheart’s hands were cut, as was his face and every part of his body that was not covered in chain mail.
“You see, I’m out to cut you, not to kill you,” the älf explained with a laugh. “Are you getting tired, dwarf? If you collapse and breathe your last before my very eyes I shall watch carefully and store up the moment in my memory. I can use it in a picture? Or a drawing?”
“You’re only slashing at me because you are not fast enough to catch me properly, black-eyes!” Ireheart had detected a pattern to the attacks. I know what you are going to do next. “And anyway,” he taunted, dodging the dagger thrust and plunging the spike of his crow’s beak directly into the älf’s belly. “You won’t be doing any more painting.” He tossed the paralyzed Tirîgon onto his back and tore the weapon downwards in his flesh to widen the entry wound. “Except in the dirt here, clawing with your fingers!” He levered the weapon out of the body cavity, tearing the guts. He studied the bloodied tip with satisfaction. “You guys really aren’t anything special. You’re just big, that’s all.” Ireheart kicked him viciously in the face, heard the bones crack, then spat at him. “That’s for breaking my nose.” Then he turned round.