Markus Heitz - The Fate of the Dwarves

But before any of them could set foot on the plain the first stroke had to be successful.

Lot-Ionan stepped forward to study the dark-red barrier edge. He placed his left hand on it and spoke a short sentence, suddenly crying out loud and tensing his whole body.

White lightning flashed through the shield, causing it to dissolve. The barrier disappeared with a high-pitched whine!

“For Girdlegard!” came Tungdil’s rallying cry. He sounded his bugle. All four armies started their advance, while the fortress catapults went into action, raining down havoc on the bewildered monsters.

Rocks, arrows and spears hurtled through the air, crashing and thumping down; burning petroleum bombs and red-hot iron balls shot over into the monsters’ unprotected camp, striking the tents to kill and maim those inside. They struck the siege towers, the battering rams, the storm ladders, all the military equipment the beasts had placed ready on the plain.

As fire erupted, the crackling of bursting wood could be heard above the screams of the beleaguered creatures. At that moment the clouds parted and the rain stopped. It was as if the gods were sending them propitious weather. But all of a sudden a second barrier appeared twenty paces further on. The projectiles bounced off it harmlessly.

“Shields!” bellowed Ireheart to the forces behind him, reaching for his own.

The first of the deflected missiles started to strike the dwarves, who had quickly brought up their shields to protect their heads. They hid until the lethal hail of projectiles had ceased. The catapult crews on the battlements had reacted swiftly and stopped firing to prevent hitting their own ranks, but some of the missiles had been in mid-flight.

Ireheart felt a light blow and then a stronger one that tumbled him out of the saddle. He rolled over, keeping under his shield. This proved the saving of him when, a moment later, something soft thudded into the shield, causing a burst of flame. He flung his burning shield away and bounded away from the fire. Had the bag of petroleum touched his body he would have perished in the flames.

Ireheart saw Goda smiling happily at the sun, lifting her bugle to her lips to play a rapid succession of notes whose significance he did not understand.

All around the battlements of Evildam dazzling light flared out.

He could see the soldiers hefting vast burnished metal mirrors into place. The sun was reflected hundreds of times, dancing over the ground and focusing on the largest of the enemy siege towers where the beasts were getting ready to fire catapults. These beams of light pierced the magic barrier without hindrance.

Confused, the monsters shut their eyes. Ireheart saw them waving their arms about and then the first of them caught fire!

Ireheart was amazed. The mirrors are catching the power of the mighty orb and are relaying it a hundredfold in strength! Even damp wood was catching fire; then, suddenly, the petroleum for the beasts’ fire arrows ignited, sending up a burst of flame. The base of the siege tower was engulfed by the blaze.

Goda whooped with excitement and Kiras hugged her. Ireheart felt proud that his wife had come up with such a trick . She’s a little scholar herself. Not only a maga , he thought, hurrying to join Tungdil and Balyndar.

The mirrors were adjusted anew to attack the next tower with their dazzling rays. The force of the beam was enough to make all the beasts there quickly evacuate the construction. They could guess what would happen if they stood their ground when the first of the rays started to converge: The whole erection would turn into a blazing inferno, burying many of their number under the burning rubble as it collapsed.

Ireheart’s initial optimism that they might carry the day became a stout conviction. But not yet utter unshakeable certainty.

Lot-Ionan was at the barrier, forcing it to disintegrate once more, but this time the fortress catapult crews held back, fearing the shield might re-form further along, thus causing death and injury to their own soldiers when shots were deflected.

Ireheart attended to his wounded warriors and calculated how many casualties the dwarves had suffered. Some lay on the ground, bleeding, others, with dented helmets and body armor, stayed bravely on their feet.

Tungdil sprang off his pony. “Forward!” he yelled frenetically, brandishing Bloodthirster. “Mow them down!” Then he stormed off, ax gripped in both hands.

The dwarf-army followed him, taking courage from their war-cry chorus, which resounded off the walls of the fortress.

The beasts were rushing into battle formation, obviously in panic.

Reinforcements arriving from the ravine did nothing to calm the enemy’s frenzied endeavors. The recently arrived monsters were infected by their comrades’ nervousness, prompting their furious officers to lash out at their own troops with their long whips, almost as if they were fighting the foe.

The dwarves were now less than a hundred paces from the enemy front rank; suddenly the kordrion’s monstrous head showed itself above the edge of the ravine.

Ireheart immediately recognized it as the one that Tungdil had attacked on his re-emergence from the Black Abyss. The scars and missing eye were obvious.

Swiftly, he placed wax plugs in his ears, as did the others, the surrounding roar of battle immediately being muffled as if coming from a distance.

The kordrion opened its mouth to bellow, and came further up out of the cleft in the rocks.

Ireheart grinned. None of the dwarves had halted. The roar still sounded frightening but it was no longer able to paralyze them, a lack of reaction that clearly disturbed the monsters more than anything.

And their own riposte soon followed. Lot-Ionan fired two bright blue beams at the kordrion, striking him in the neck. Flames erupted, and the creature’s gray flesh blistered from the heat, burning black. The skin burst open and bluish black blood splattered down onto the beasts beneath.

The kordrion charged, screaming, out of the chasm, trampling its own monster-soldiers under its claws. It pushed up, spreading its massive wings, but was hit by a second wave of magic-this time from Goda. A crackling yellow flash of lightning bored its way into the creature’s flank, leaving a hole the size of a mill wheel.

With a yell, the kordrion catapulted itself aloft with powerful movements of its wings, heading high into the sky, spilling its blood on the ground below. It made no attempt to bombard the magus or the maga with white fire; the pain and shock had been too sudden. It had never met an attack of this nature.

The dwarves cheered when they saw their greatest adversary take flight. But if they expected this setback to discourage the monsters they were disappointed. Having overcome their initial panic they now clashed with the dwarves in full combat, shields held in front of themselves in battle formation.

Again Lot-Ionan showed why he was rightly feared by all the inhabitants of Girdlegard: He spread his arms wide as if trying to encompass a wall and gave a high-pitched whistle.

A terrible gust of wind arose and whirled off to meet the monsters’ phalanx. For a length of forty paces the fighting beasts were scattered by the blast, thrown into the air and hurled backwards to be spiked on the raised weapons of their own fighters, before the ranks behind in their turn were blown into the air. The magus kept up this mighty gale until a swathe thirty paces wide had been cleared.

And it was into this gap that Tungdil led the dwarf-army. “I’ll take the left.” He raced off and let Bloodthirster do its worst among the remaining ranks of the enemy.

Ireheart grinned and broadened his chest proudly. “Follow me!” he bawled, hammering his weapon into the repulsive head of a monster that looked like a gugul on long legs. A mass of jelly spattered out and the beast fell over. “For Girdlegard!” came their cry.