Markus Heitz - The Fate of the Dwarves

Rodario could not assess whether the Weyurn folk had the necessary skills for the upkeep of these iron walls. And the dwarves certainly had more pressing things on their minds than to come round and carry out repair work. They were battling away in the mountains, fighting for their very existence. Against dragons. Against the kordrion.

The bottom of the shaft was only about ten paces below him now. Planks had been laid across it so that the princess would not sink in the mud.

Rodario took a sharp breath and clung fast to the cable.

Loytan had told the truth: Coira was indeed naked-apart from the leather gauntlet on her right arm.

She was floating in the middle of the shaft in the blue light, her long black hair drifting as if under water. The young woman had her eyes closed and was smiling. She was enjoying her energy bathe.

Rodario looked his fill, wondering when he was likely ever to see such a perfectly formed female body naked again. But how strange that she had not removed her glove.

Suddenly he was overcome with shame. What he was doing just was not right.

I shall win her for myself , he vowed, and then looked away, embarrassed. He started the upward climb, inching his way up the wire rope.

The next time he saw Coira without her clothes, he thought, she should be undressing for his eyes alone and doing so willingly. “Stand tall,” he told himself. “Attitude is everything.”

At that moment he heard someone shouting excitedly at the top of the shaft.

Hot and cold shivers ran down his spine. The guards had discovered him committing this inexcusable indiscretion!

Girdlegard,

Protectorate West Gauragar,

Topholiton,

Winter, 6491st Solar Cycle

Down in the brick-built cellar four lamps shed a faint light over the score or so people gathered.

Most of them were glad not to be obviously recognizable. Simple clothing concealed social status or provenance, and they wore hoods to keep their faces in shadow.

They were meeting under the house of the sheriff, who was asleep two floors up, reluctant to know anything about what was going on here. His courage amounted only to leaving the iron-clad door to his cellar unlocked.

Mallenia, surrounded by her co-conspirators, could not believe what Frederik was telling her. “The thirdling is still alive?” She forced herself to take a deep breath. The air down here was stale and smelled of sweat and food. The group had been there for some time arguing and planning, as they sat among smoked hams, sauerkraut barrels, jars of jam and bottled fruit and tubs of salted meat.

Frederik nodded. He was a local butcher of good reputation and no one would have thought him likely to rebel against the vassal ruler and the alfar here in Topholiton. In his early thirties, he had a face that seemed much too nice for the butchery guild he belonged to; and certainly too nice for revolutions. “It is so, my lady. Hargorin heads the Black Squadron once more and is riding out collecting the tribute. It is said his warriors are more brutal than ever.” He took a folded paper out of his sleeve and handed it to her. “Read for yourself. The price on your life has been increased. Whoever brings your head to Hargorin may select what they like from his treasure store.”

Mallenia looked at the sketch of herself on the crumpled paper and was dismayed how true to life it was; underneath the picture was the number 1,000. That was a great deal of gold. “They say that Hargorin’s treasure hoard contains objects of breathtaking value,” she said pensively.

Frederik looked enquiringly around the circle. He took off his cap, revealing short black hair. “My lady, I know you don’t want to hear this but we think you should halt your activities. You have provoked the alfar and their henchmen to intolerable lengths and with rewards like this…”

“I shall go on provoking them,” she interrupted without a moment’s hesitation. “They will go on hounding me even if I crawl into some dark hole and hide for cycle after cycle.” Mallenia surveyed the assembly.

Her fellow insurgents looked tired, fear and distress showing on many of the faces. They were frightened for their families. The death of friends, killed in the attack on the Black Squadron, had brought home to them that even the best-laid plans could go wrong.

Mallenia knew why Frederik was making this suggestion and she could not take it amiss. She smiled. “I thank you for what you have done in past cycles, but I am going to release you now,” she said kindly, trying hard to show she harbored no resentment. “From now on I ride alone.”

“My lady!” exclaimed Frederik in shock. “No! We don’t want to give up…”

She put her hand on his arm. “It’s all right, Frederik. I can’t have you all taking these risks for the sake of my struggle.”

“Gauragar is our homeland, my lady. We have the same duty as you to fight off the oppressors.” He was not prepared to drop the subject. “We are glad to have you at our side. If the Urgon group were here, they would say the same.”

Zedrik stood up. One of the sentries at Topholiton’s gates, he was a rough man of rough appearance. He was only ever to be seen in armor, as if there were no life for him outside military service. “May the gods and yourself, my lady, forgive me, but I have been wondering about our cause for a long time-whether there’s any point. We steal the tribute, kill a few thirdlings maybe, but does this make anything better for the people here in Gauragar?” Zedrik sounded disconsolate. “The people support us but they are the ones to suffer when the reprisals come.”

“What do you suggest?” Frederik studied him. “Do you want to kowtow to the black-eyes forever and a day? Is that what you want for your children and their children? This oppression?”

“It’s how it used to be, and we managed all right; it’s not a bad life,” replied Zedrik with a sigh. “We pay up and they leave us in peace.”

Mallenia followed the dispute attentively, her decision now reinforced by what she’d heard. They must break up their organization. The butcher did not want to give up, as she had first thought, but some of the others did. Too many. Fear could lead to betrayal, just as a high reward might.

Frederik was disgusted. “Just how stupid are you, Zedrik? What happens when we’ve nothing left to pay them with? When they raze our villages to the ground because they want the land for their preposterous art projects; want to change everything to fit in with their mad ideas of aesthetics?” he cried, exasperated. “Does nobody remember what happened in Tareniaborn?”

Tareniaborn. Mallenia swallowed hard and the thought of the town with its forty thousand men, women and children, filled her with horror. Nothing like that had ever happened before.

It had been eleven cycles ago. One of the alfar princes had decided to turn the town into a work of art: Tareniaborn and all the land surrounding it.

To this day no one knew whether the alf had gone mad or whether each and every town in Idoslane could expect a similar fate.

“You were there, my lady. Think of how cruel our over-lords were,” Frederik demanded grimly. “And bear in mind, they’re not going to shrink from violence on that scale if the fancy takes them again.” All eyes in the cellar were on Mallenia.

“I can’t say how it happened. I arrived when it was all over,” she said. “I came on the town by accident when out riding with some volunteers. We were up on a hill and had a good view of the town and plain.” She felt a fluttering in her stomach and started to feel sick. “We saw patterns in the snow round the walls, and the whole town glistened red. Everything, absolutely everything, was covered in a layer of frozen blood. Red ice, everywhere!” She saw in her mind’s eye the ghastly lanes and alleys of Tareniaborn. “In the marketplace they’d strung up the hearts of the inhabitants, pierced with silver wire and silver rods, twisting them together to make a giant tree, the hearts of the adults on the trunk, those of the children on the twigs. And they’d hung the heads of newborn babes like fruit from the branches.”