Markus Heitz - The Fate of the Dwarves

The armor, he told himself, might have been a gift from some magic being. Or perhaps there were metals used in its composition able to store protective magic for the wearer. That will have been why Goda’s investigative spell had not worked. These metals would not notice the difference between a friendly touch and an attack. If it wasn’t Tungdil, why didn’t he kill me? On the contrary, he went to fetch a healer for me .

Ireheart sighed. All the same, his best friend seemed so alien to him. Different. Those cycles spent in the dark had wrought terrible changes in the Scholar. He had once driven out the demon alcohol successfully enough, but how do you rid the mind of what it has experienced?

“I’ll get my old Tungdil back,” he vowed, remembering how the three of them-his twin brother, himself and Tungdil-used to sit, beer in hand, laughing together, telling jokes and fooling around. He remembered how they had chased the orcs, how they’d sat under a tree to shelter from the rain, telling stories and making up things to tease each other with, how they had fought against the long-uns. How things used to be. “Vraccas and I will shake the darkness out of him.”

The ubari raised his telescope to see how much damage the catapults were achieving. “They’ve dealt with the first wave of beasts, General,” he reported. “But I can see that the next…” He stopped. “No. It’s not monsters. It’s something else,” he said excitedly.

“The kordrion?” Ireheart took the wax ear plugs out of his pouch in readiness. All the soldiers had orders to use these to protect themselves from being paralyzed by the terrible roar of the winged monster. The catapults must not stop firing if the kordrion was threatening to emerge.

“No, more like…” The ubari passed him the telescope. “Have a look for yourself, General.”

The dwarf squinted through the lens and tried to make out what was happening in the dark cleft of the abyss. “Some construction, long, narrow and tall,” he reported for Goda’s benefit. “It looks as if it’s made out of bones. Or very light-colored wood. And they’re keeping it behind the rock walls.”

“An assault tower?” suggested the ubari. “Or a stack of storm ladders?”

“Probably,” said Goda. “It would be the only way to conquer the fortress.”

Ireheart adjusted the end of the telescope to improve the focus. If he were not mistaken, the construction was being bent back. “They’re pulling it back… like a bow,” he called out. “Tell the men on the catapults to aim for the middle of the abyss,” he ordered the ubari. “I don’t want that… thing shooting at us. Who knows what they’re planning.”

While his commands were being conveyed to the troops by bugle signals, the beasts on the other side were acting fast.

Ireheart saw the construction shoot forward like a young tree held down under tension. Behind it, four long chains were thrown up into the air. White balls hung from them, each perhaps a full pace in diameter, and they had the appearance of spun cocoons. At the height of their trajectory the chains released them and the balls hurtled toward Evildam.

“Much too high,” commented the ubari, grinning. “Stupid beasts! Too dumb to aim straight.”

The nearer the strange spheres came the more obvious it was that they really were composed of spun threads.

“No, they intend them to go that high,” countered Ireheart. “They’ll come down behind the fortress! Tell the crews on the southwest ramparts to find out what happens when they come down. Maybe it’s a diversionary tactic to keep us busy on both sides.” He directed his gaze to Goda. “Can you stop them?”

She tilted her head and thought hard. “Wouldn’t it be better to wait and see? It might just be a harmless distraction and then I’d have wasted my powers on something trivial.”

Ireheart agreed and ordered the catapults to aim flaming arrows at the cocoons to send them up in a blaze. He watched what happened.

One of the shots was so true that it hit a ball in mid-flight. Flames consumed the sphere as if it had been soaked in petroleum; Ireheart heard the sizzling and crackling sound it made.

The casing turned to ash in the blink of an eye, releasing countless long-legged spider-like creatures the size of small dogs; they rained down, already fully aflame, crashing to the ground and causing a shower of sparks.

Most were destroyed by the fire, but three survived. They raced toward the bastion on their hairy legs, their long mandibles clicking and clacking.

The remaining spheres landed and bounced a few times before bursting open to let more of the little beasts escape. The arrows fired at them found no hold on their chitin plating.

Boindil cursed. “Use the spears…”

“General, they’re reloading,” shouted the ubari, prompting Ireheart to turn to the front again. The slender throwing device was being attached to the chains once more and pulled back toward the ground.

“Goda, destroy that thing,” said Ireheart. “Or we’ll never be able to cope with these animals. Who knows how many cocoons they have waiting to send out.”

The dwarf-woman nodded and took the telescope to have a closer look at the sling mechanism. Otherwise she would not be able destroy it with her magic spell. With her other hand she groped in her bag for the diamond fragments and pulled one of them out. Before she exhausted her own store of energy it would be better to use the strength left in the splinters.

Goda sent out a destruction spell directed at the upper edge of the cliff wall of the ravine. Dazzling lightning shot from her hand and screamed into the stone, breaking off boulders to crash to the depths. Then came the sounds of things falling followed by cries of dismay from inside the ravine. The beasts had lost their new weapon and presumably some of their fighters as well.

Goda felt the splinter of diamond in her hand crumble into dust, which clung to her fingers.

“Well done,” said Ireheart. He realized that Tungdil had been correct. They would have to force the monsters away from the ravine mouth, and then bring the whole cliff down on top of them. Bringing down whole mountains-who could do that kind of thing better than his own folk?

Suddenly he heard the clank of weaponry.

Boindil looked along the walkway to his left and saw that the spider creatures had climbed the fortress walls.

The ubariu, undergroundlings, humans and dwarves were fighting them with all their strength, but what he saw made Boindil doubt that the creatures could be subdued easily. Only heavy weapons such as axes, cudgels and morning stars were having any effect on the hardened body cases. Swords were useless, ending up blunt and damaged.

“We need Vraccas to crush them with his hammer!” A glance to Goda was enough-she turned to the fight, her first since the building of the fortress.

She took another diamond fragment into her hand, preparing herself to hurl another spell, but suddenly a flash came from the right side of the Black Abyss. Where the steep slopes fell away almost vertically, a figure stood, casting a sulphur-yellow ball of pure magic in the dwarf-woman’s direction.

The ubari had noticed the threatened danger and warned her with a shout.

She managed to form a barrier in front of the battlements so that the missile of magic crashed and exploded against it. A pressure wave whirled up the dust in front of the gate, obscuring their view of the Black Abyss, shields, helmets, flags and banners flying through the air as if in a hurricane. They would not be able to see a second wave of attackers approach.

“By the creator! Now evil has a magus on its side!” Ireheart coughed, pulling up his neck cloth to cover mouth and nose. “I call that a proper challenge!” He heard triumphant cheers resounding from the ramparts, and he peered through the veil of dust.