Markus Heitz - The Fate of the Dwarves

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 alf 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.

Coira 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 Zhadar screamed.

“Slin!” Ireheart yelled, incensed. We haven’t come this far and survived all those dangers only to have some stupid cowardly alf 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.

“Slin!”

“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 alf voice. “First I want to eliminate your backup.”

There were two more arrow strikes, this time hitting Slin and the remaining Zhadar.

“That should do it,” Ireheart heard the alf say. The dwarf saw the alf standing thirty paces away in waist-high grass. It was a relaxed Tirigon, 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 shot. He rushed over to the alf.

Tirigon 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 alf 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!”

Tirigon 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.

Girdlegard,

Alfar Realm of Dson Balsur,

Dson,

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.

“Coira!” 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 Coira 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 alf when they arrived. The alf must have used the chance to escape and have attacked the maga.

However distraught he was about Coira, 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.