Markus Heitz - The Fate of the Dwarves

The befun resembled a large gray-skinned orc on four legs with a short stumpy tail. The body was muscular and as broad as a horse, the nose flattened, which made the head quite short. Its squarish, three-fingered hands, covered with toughened skin, were adept at grasping things.

Ireheart knew that a befun would stand erect in battle, aiding its rider by the use of its claws as an extra weapon. A special saddle with a long, curved back support ensured the rider had the right posture and could not easily be dislodged.

The two dwarves made a strange pair. The companions were different in so many ways, not simply in their choice of mount.

Ireheart presented the classic dwarf-figure familiar throughout Girdlegard from ancient times, when the small-statured folk had campaigned heroically against Nod’onn or the avatars or the creatures from the Black Abyss, described in so many heroic tales. Those grand days were long past; recent battles had ended in defeat: Against the alfar, against Lot-Ionan, against the Dragon… But the dwarves were still respected.

Ireheart sported an impressive braided beard and had a memorably wrinkled dwarf-face. He wore his reinforced chain-mail shirt under a light-colored fur coat with a hood. He had his crow’s beak weapon fastened to his saddle, and was puffing away at his pipe while humming a tune.

Tungdil in his dark armor seemed more like a small squat alf. The fact that he rode a befun emphasized the spooky impression, and the weapon Bloodthirster at his side-the reforged alf sword he used-did not help to make him look like a friendly child of the Smith. Any dwarf of the thirdling tribe, the dwarf-haters, would have treated him with respect, assuming him to be one of their own.

It was thoughts such as these that occupied Boindil constantly; he tried hard to push them out of his mind and not to think about the obvious changes in his friend.

Puffing blue smoke, he brought out his drinking flask. So that the water in it did not freeze, Ireheart carried the flask close to his body. “Well, do you remember the way?” he asked his friend, as he took a long draft from the flask. “I prefer to rely on my pony’s memory. His head is bigger.” He put the stopper back. “It must be a hundred and fifty cycles since I was last anywhere near here.”

Tungdil laughed. “That makes two of us. But I can add a further hundred cycles.” He looked round. “No, try as I might, without the path I’d be completely lost. Or, at the very least, I’d take a very long time.”

The companions fell silent again.

The clattering of hooves on stone was thrown back as an echo by the mountains; a light breeze chased the new-fallen snow and formed it into drifts in places, hazardous for the ponies.

“No questions at all, Tungdil?” Boindil finally asked. He attempted a smoke ring.

Keeping his gaze solidly toward the front, Tungdil opened his mouth and said, “I’m still trying to come to terms with what you’ve told me. Lot-Ionan the Forbearing. What can have changed him so? Magic?” He was lost in thought for a time, then sighed deeply. “There are so many things I want to remember, to convince you that I really used to know them. To convince you that it’s really me, your comrade-in-arms.” He touched the scar on his brow. “It was this blow, I presume, that robbed me of my memories, both happy and sad. It was my master who delivered the blow and it nearly did for me. It didn’t kill me but it wiped away images of my past. It’s the only explanation I can come up with.”

Ireheart studied the scar. “I’ve heard of that happening, someone losing their mind if they’ve been hit on the head in a fight. But losing your memory is the lesser evil, surely,” he said, sounding relieved. “I should have realized…”

“… except that all the people around you were telling you to fear the worst. They made you think I was not your old friend, the Scholar, who owes you so much.” Tungdil fell silent again, lost in thought.

Ireheart let him be. He would ask him some other time about this master he had mentioned. But not now.

“I know! When I saw Lot-Ionan last he had a light blue robe and was wearing white gloves…” Tungdil seemed alarmed. “The gloves, Ireheart!” he cried excitedly. “I can see it clear as day; he needed gloves to cover the burns he sustained touching the artifact. The skin had healed but had stayed black.”

“That’s the idea, Scholar!” Ireheart greeted this successful recollection gladly. “The artifact treated the magus harshly. I had a bad feeling even then,” he added angrily. “But I’m glad you can remember it. The artifact had denied him access because he was not pure in thought. At the time we thought it meant he had lost his purity through some trivial misdemeanor, but we’ve known for some time now that it must have been something much worse.” Ireheart wished he had a whole band of pig-faced orcs at hand to take out his fury on. He had been blaming himself for several cycles for not having acted against Lot-Ionan; he had let Goda talk him round. “In part it is my fault. If we had stopped him then and there, or imprisoned him, the tribe of the secondlings would not have been practically eradicated.”

“Goda was his apprentice?”

Ireheart nodded. “She was his famula for about ten cycles. The ubariu couldn’t find anyone else to be their rune master. But then she noticed that the artifact was reacting differently from usual. When she touched the dome to refresh her magic, it was very painful. She thought her own purity of soul was in danger, but couldn’t explain what the reason was. She had given birth to our firstborn quite a long time beforehand, so it wasn’t that.”

Tungdil adjusted the golden eye patch, and the polished metal flashed in the sunshine. “So the change was gradual?”

Ireheart looked at his friend and started wondering, despite himself. Did he always wear the patch on the right side? Wasn’t it the left eye that he’d lost? He could not be sure, but the thought did nothing to put his mind at ease. He pulled himself together to reply.

“That’s right. Until he tried to teach Goda some magic spells that she thought were just too cruel. When she refused to cooperate he fell in a rage and walked out. After that, a few letters came, asking her to go to him in Girdlegard so that they could talk it all through, but she did not want to leave the artifact unattended. The last letter was full of threats and said some dreadful things. We took it as confirmation that we’d made the right decision.” Ireheart caught sight of a mountain hut on the road to the pass where travelers could shelter rather than spend the night out in the open. “Look! It’ll be a bit basic, but much better than sleeping in the snow.”

“And Girdlegard just sat back and watched him conquer the Blue Mountains?” objected Tungdil, unable to believe it.

“But what could they do against a magus, Scholar? After he’d been freed from petrification by bathing in the magic source his strength grew greater with each coming orbit. You would have thought he had the skills of two magi.” Boindil clenched his fists in helpless anger. “That was how he managed to wipe out nearly the whole of my tribe. He subjugated the very rocks to his commands. And with that power he defeated the dwarves.”

“What do you mean? He made the tunnels fall in?”

“Exactly, Scholar. He sent one earthquake after another and our halls and strongholds collapsed. Passageways filled up with molten rock and water flooded the shafts. Thousands lost their lives, and then he lay in wait for the wave of refugees at the fortress Ogre’s Death, and struck them down with magic spells.”

Ireheart’s eye filled with tears of anger and grief that rolled down his cheeks into his beard, where the freezing wind turned them to gems of ice. “There are hardly a hundred of them left. They took refuge with the freelings.”