Markus Heitz - The Fate of the Dwarves

“There you are,” Balyndar crowed. “He is a traitor!”

“No. Quite the opposite,” continued the magus. Lightning flashed out of the sphere, hitting Tungdil’s armor. Not a single rune shimmered in defensive warning. The energy struck his breast and hurled him backwards, where he fell next to the corpse of his former master. “He meant what he said. Only I don’t hold with making bargains and pacts with creatures who are not worthy of my discourse. However, he gave me the opportunity to concern myself more closely with the protective spells on the armor.” Lot-Ionan smirked. “Very helpfully.”

“I’m going to cut you right out of your stupid hood.” Ireheart took a threatening step forward.

“Take one more step and your wife will be blown into tiny pieces,” the magus warned him calmly.

Ireheart stopped short. “What are you waiting for then? Why don’t you go ahead and kill us both now?”

“I may need you again.” Lot-Ionan followed the kordrion’s movements as it rampaged through the undergroundlings’ ranks, killing its victims with swift bites. “On the other hand it should be sufficient if I just have you stuffed.”

The swords floating in front of Balyndar advanced. He managed to deflect three blades, but then the next ones dug into his flesh, stabbing him in the body, arms and legs. Only neck and head remained whole. He tipped over into the swamp, moaning, and lost consciousness.

“Enough!” thundered a clear voice. “I can stop you, Lot-Ionan. Your days as an insane magus are over at last!”

Ireheart was flabbergasted to see Rodario on the battlefield. In his right hand he was holding a smoke diamond… the very smoke diamond Ireheart had once handed back to Tungdil after it had been dropped in Evildam!

“This artifact will seal your destruction!” The actor spoke clearly, enunciating his words and projecting his voice as if this were the climax of a tragedy on stage. As he approached the small group he said, “I know its power and shall use it without a second thought, no matter how you may have served us in the past.” He held the stone out in front of himself as if it were a shield.

Lot-Ionan raised his eyebrows then laughed outright. “An actor, am I right? Looks like Rodario and talks like him. An excellent performance. But completely useless.” He sent a magic beam that focused precisely on the stone.

The smoke diamond flared up in Rodario’s fingers and crumbled instantly to black powder.

“By Samusin! I could have sworn it was going to be really important,” said a disappointed Rodario.

“No, it wasn’t,” gloated the magus. “Let us bring this to an end, before…”

Half a dozen red flashes shot out, crackling behind him. Lot-Ionan was forced forward and stumbled over Goda; she tore herself free and drew her dagger to stab the magus in the throat, but his sphere of energy halted her action by thrusting itself against her forehead. She collapsed without a word.

“Goda!” Ireheart raced forward, forgetting that his crow’s beak was still stuck in the enemy he had been fighting.

Covered in filth, Coira was less than ten paces away from them waving her hands for another spell. Finally she had been able to overcome her paralyzing terror.

Lot-Ionan stayed on his knees, also working on a spell.

There was a humming sound and a crossbow bolt slammed through the magus’s back into his heart. Slin had scored once more, but Lot-Ionan was still alive, the danger that he might loose a final violent magic strike still remaining.

Shrieking with fury, Ireheart raced over, snatching up Keenfire as he passed. Whirling it above his head he followed through with a horizontal blow to Lot-Ionan’s throat.

A sparkling trail appeared in the ax-head’s wake and a wave of heat wafted back to the dwarf-and then he hit home!

The sharply polished diamonds cleaved the wizard’s neck so that the head flew off in a wide arc. The torso fell to one side and landed in the dirt, stump-side down.

“Vraccas!” cried Ireheart with a gasp, not quite able to take in the significance of his heroic deed. He stared at Lot-Ionan’s head and saw that the lips were still moving and a smile had appeared on the features; then the eyes rolled up into the skull and the sheen of life was extinguished. “What? Did he…?”

Tungdil was suddenly at his side. There was no evidence now in his countenance of those horrific black lines. “Break him open!” he demanded through clenched teeth, his right hand clutching the hole in his own breastplate armor. “Didn’t you hear me?” When the astonished dwarf failed to react, Tungdil grabbed the dagger and brutally slit the dead man’s body from top to bottom.

A green glow flared in the carcass, getting steadily stronger and making the red flesh transparent. Smoke curled up with a smell of burning.

“By all the infamous ones!” Tungdil searched in the steaming guts, arms up to his elbows covered in blood. Then his fist closed and he pulled something out, together with a handful of flesh.

Ireheart could hear hissing inside the gauntleted grip, like the sound of water sizzling on a red-hot stove. “What, by Vraccas, is that?”

“It’s the fragment of malachite,” his friend replied briskly as he got to his feet. “All of you, run to the fortress,” he commanded as he charged off to the ravine.

“What? Why, Scholar, why?”

“Run as far and fast as you can!” shouted Tungdil, charging on down the path to the abyss until he was swallowed up in the shadows. Ireheart attempted to help Goda up but she did not move, so he threw her across his shoulder. “Hey there, actor! Go and get Balyndar!” He snatched his bugle from his belt and gave the dwarves the signal to retreat.

Coira watched the ravine in disbelief. “He has made fools of all of us!”

“What do you mean?” said Ireheart, looking at the kordrion which, though weighed down by a mass of spears and arrows, was still continuing to wreak havoc on the troops in its vicinity. Spreading its wings it climbed the rocks of the Black Abyss, then slid down in an attempt to launch itself into the air above the plain. There seemed no way for them to prevent its escape.

“He has taken the force of the magus with him!” The maga gulped. “There was immense power in that crystal splinter. That was how Lot-Ionan was able to store up all his magic!”

Meanwhile, Rodario had hauled Balyndar out of the swamp and tossed him onto his shoulder like a sack of flour. “You lot and your armor,” he complained. “It just adds to the weight.”

The dwarf-army obeyed Ireheart’s clarion call and the remaining soldiers retreated from the field of battle.

“Yes, but what’s he going to do with it?” protested Boindil in defense of his friend, countering the queen’s accusations. “He has surely proved he is on our side…”

Before Coira could reply there was an enormous crash in the Black Abyss, followed by a quaking of the earth that threw them all off their feet; then came the explosion.

Ireheart twisted round to see what was happening.

Parts of the fortress had collapsed, with great wall sections falling down, taking the men on the battlements to their doom.

The chasm was suffused with a ghostly dark-green incandescent glow. A broad beam shot up vertically toward the sky and then a second detonation occurred, lifting rocks around the ravine’s edges. Finally the earth subsided, bringing the cliffs down with it.

It all happened so quickly that the kordrion had not been able to reach a safe distance. As it flapped wildly to get away it was struck by hurtling debris that half buried it. It disappeared with a screech into the collapsing ravine, turning to ash when it came into contact with the glare.