Markus Heitz - The Fate of the Dwarves

All the more reason to reach the source at Lakepride to stock up on energy.

Otherwise…

Girdlegard,

Protectorate of South Gauragar,

Winter, 6491st Solar Cycle

Hindrek steered the sledge piled high with logs toward the house in the snow-bound forest clearing.

He had prepared this store of timber a few cycles ago and now the time had come to bring the logs home ready to split them into firewood. The family’s woodpile was running out. There had been barely enough to light the kitchen fire that morning.

Hindrek stopped the horses at the barn and called his sons to help with the unloading.

The door opened and two boys came running out, aged eleven and fourteen cycles. Like their father they were wearing coats and hats made of an odd mixture of patched furs ranging from rabbit to squirrel. It did not matter as long as they kept you warm. Their mother waved from the window, holding up a freshly skinned rabbit. It was to be their midday meal.

Hindrek stood on the back of the sledge handing the wood down to Cobert, the elder of the two boys. “So who caught the rabbit?”

“Me,” said Ortram proudly. “It was in my trap.”

“He always knows the places the smallest creatures go,” laughed Cobert, grinning. “But I’m better with the bow, of course.”

“But you haven’t caught anything for ages,” said his brother, sticking his tongue out. “I’m far better than you!”

“Yes, of course, we’d have starved to death without you, wouldn’t we?” laughed Hindrek, passing him a large chunk of wood. “Go and chop this lot up. Do something for those muscles of yours, or you’ll never be able to pull the bowstring back like your brother.”

Now it was Cobert’s turn to stick his tongue out. He went over to the block where the ax lay, his little brother following at his heels.

Hindrek watched them go, then raised his hand in greeting to his wife Qelda, who blew a kiss from the kitchen window. The man watched his two boys unload the sledge, squabbling about which of them was better at doing the heavy work.

Hindrek enjoyed his life as a forester, though he would have preferred not to be in the service of Duke Pawald, a vassal of the alfar. But they left him in peace as long as he carried out his tasks properly. He could only hope that his sons would one day live in freedom, unlike himself.

The wind turned and blew from the north, bringing wonderful music to their ears. Its tones moved them instantly, lifting the hairs on their arms and on the back of their necks.

The song was a sequence of meaningless syllables but the clarity of the woman’s voice and the emotion with which she sang had them all entranced, rooting them to the spot and forcing them to stare into the forest from whence the sound came. But the melody grew ever fainter until finally silence returned.

Ortram turned to his father in ecstasy. “What was that?”

Hindrek shivered, filled with yearning, a longing to experience more of what he had just been granted. “I cannot tell. Perhaps a traveler passing the time on her journey by singing to herself.”

Cobert threw his ax down onto the snow, heading straight for the trees. “I want to see what she looks like if she sings like that,” he called, running off.

“Stay where you are!” his father ordered, leaping down from the sledge. “There’s work to do.” But he understood his son all too well. “Wait!” he called, pursuing his elder son as he disappeared among the trees. It was good that he had an excuse now to follow the song without having to face his wife’s disapproval. “Ortram, you stay here. I’m going to get your brother.”

He could see Cobert’s patchwork coat flitting between the tree trunks in the distance. As if possessed, the boy forged onwards, drawing his father ever deeper into the forest after him. Soon the woodsman was perspiring under his heavy coat.

The shadows were darker here and it seemed the sun was becoming fainter the further he got from home. Hindrek grew uneasy.

“Cobert!” he called. “Don’t go any further!” The father stopped, leaning on a Palandiell pine to get his breath back. “Something’s not right. It must be the spirits of the forest playing tricks on us. Can’t you hear me?” He listened hard.

There were those tones again.

All his cautiousness melted at the sound of that glass-clear singing voice. He knew only the desire to see the face of the singer. To admire her and hear her song. She must sing for him alone. No one else must have this pleasure!

Raging jealousy flamed up in his heart and, without realizing it, he pulled out his hunting knife. The heavy blade threw off a faint gleam.

Hindrek followed the melody; it was coming from close by now.

His swift steps turned into a run, a driven stumbling race forward, not stopping at any obstacle. The forester wanted to see the woman whose voice gave him such ecstasy of delights.

He fought his way through thickets, through snow, past banks of tearing thorns, over fallen trees, feeling no pain, his mouth set in a beatific smile, his eyes glinting feverishly. On, ever onward!

Then he stopped in his tracks, finding himself unexpectedly two paces away from his elder son. Bareheaded, Cobert was kneeling at the feet of a woman dressed in a black mantle decorated with silver thread. A song was issuing from her lips and the boy was listening spellbound. She had placed her right hand on his blond curls, stroking his head as if he were a lover.

Her countenance was full of grace; even the most beautiful woman Hindrek had ever met would have appeared ugly in comparison. In his mind nothing else existed except for this perfect figure. Her long black hair was moving gently in the breeze and framing her lovely face. On her brow a dark diadem made of tionium, silver and gold bore two large sparkling diamonds.

Hindrek felt a red-hot surge of jealousy that even the gentle song could not soften. It should be him there at her feet, not his son! Her delicate fingers should be stroking his head. What did the boy know of love and emotions?

His ill-will grew. When Cobert laid his cheek on the woman’s hand and planted a kiss, Hindrek launched himself at his son’s back with a roar and drove his hunting knife in through the ribs to the heart.

The singing stopped.

“Get away from her!” he screamed, hurling the corpse aside as if it were a sack of grain. “She is mine,” he continued, his voice turning to a whisper. “I heard her first,” and he sank onto his knees in the blood-soaked snow. He dropped his arms and gazed longingly at the silent, smiling woman. He waited for her to touch him as she had touched Cobert. He raised his head and closed his eyes in anticipation. “Please, goddess, sing for me,” he begged.

“What will you do for me, Hindrek?” she asked, reaching out to touch his cheek. “If I am to sing for you there is a price to pay.”

“Anything,” he answered at once through quivering lips. His body was racked with the pain of intense longing to hear those tones again, to hear them constantly until the end of his days. The voice must never stop. She must sing for him alone.

“Go back to your cabin and bring me the heads of your wife and child,” said the beauty seductively. “Then I shall sing for you again.” He opened his eyes and saw her bending over him. Her lips so nearly touched his own. “I shall sing you the song of lust.”

Hindrek jumped up and ran off. He ran back the way he had come, hearing her voice, the sounds of her song, urging him ever faster, giving him untold energy; he raced home like the wind.

It had grown dark. Lamps were burning inside the cabin and smoke rose from the chimney. The horses had been unharnessed and there was a small pile of firewood by the chopping block.