Markus Heitz: The Fate of the Dwarves

Some of the spears and arrows landed near him, falling short of their intended targets. The soldiers at Evildam were sticking to the letter of their commander’s instructions, even if he himself was acting contrary to his own orders. He was seeking to engage the enemy on open ground instead of running for the fortress to repel the approaching army of beasts from the safety of the stronghold’s mighty walls.

Ireheart found himself less than ten paces away from the enemy. They hadn’t stirred from their positions and were waiting at the exit to the ravine.

Enemy reinforcements clambered out over the bodies of fallen comrades, putting out fires with sand and bone dust. As soon as one creature fell, another ghastly monster took its place. The chasm apparently held an endless number of them. It was a nest of horrors.

As far as Ireheart could see, they were keeping their distance from the false Tungdil figure, as if he were surrounded by an invisible dome of respect and awe. “Whatever you are, I’m going to wipe you out!” he yelled, and with an earsplitting cry of fury he swung the crow’s beak high over his head.

The two blue eyes on the underside of the kordrion’s muzzle focused on Ireheart for a moment and then turned on the black-armored form of Tungdil, who swiveled away from the fighting-mad Ireheart to face the gigantic monster, the runes on his armor glowing.

The kordrion screamed, and it sounded… afraid?

Before Boindil could reach him, Tungdil had leaped forward onto one of the monsters’ corpses; he jumped onto another close by and used a thick spear jutting out of the body as a springboard to reach a position on top of a huge boulder. From there his path took him to the next boulder and the next until he had passed along to the head of the army as if on stepping stones in a stream. Now he was close to the kordrion’s throat. The cowering beast recoiled, hissing sharply.

Unable to hold back the blow he’d been waiting to deliver, Ireheart released it against one of the monsters racing toward him. This one seemed like a cross between an oversize reptile and a very fat orc, with the arms of a gnome stuck on to its sides. But it was still wielding a sword and shield with aplomb.

The flat head of the crow’s beak shattered both shield and thin arm holding it, then smashed right into the ribcage; the beast fell dead in the dust.

Ireheart held off his next adversaries by whirling his weapon round in circles, liberally dealing out injury and death among them. All the time he ensured that the supposed Tungdil remained in sight. He was steadfastly refusing to assume that it might yet be his battle companion from the past but his confidence was starting to fade. What in the name of Vraccas is he up to?

Suddenly Yagur and the other ubariu were at his side fighting evil’s misbegotten monsters, which in spite of their superior numbers seemed to be holding back, awaiting the order to storm the fortress en masse . Only a few of the creatures were venturing to attack and they paid with their lives. Some arrows, meanwhile, glanced off the huge shields the ubariu carried while others were halted in mid-air, falling ineffectually to the ground. Goda’s magic.

“We’ll have to go back, General,” Yagur insisted, as he sliced his opponent down the middle with a wild sword thrust; Yagur jabbed through the falling body to reach the next oncomer. The second ubariu patrol joined them, strengthening their numbers.

Ireheart looked up at the black-clad dwarf wielding Bloodthirster in both hands to attack the kordrion. The strangely shaped blade cut through the creature’s putrid grayish skin to release a river of blood.

The kordrion emitted a roar that shook Ireheart to the core and almost paralyzed him. The thunder of the creature’s mighty voice all but caused the work of battle to cease and the walls of the ravine shook under its reverberations.

Everything was still…

… apart from the dwarf in the dark tionium armor!

He clanged the visor on his helmet, not caring about the blood streaming over his head.

It is him after all! He was just waiting for the right moment to show us who he is! At the sight of the dwarf’s face Ireheart could no longer doubt this was his best friend returning at last to his side. He had missed him so badly. He wanted nothing more than to believe that this was Tungdil. The heroic and selfless conduct displayed in the assault on the kordrion was typical of the dwarf who had triumphed in the past in so many battles for Girdlegard. And there was probably a very good explanation to account for Tungdil’s completely different set of armor-armor that reminded Ireheart of Djern. Time for all that later. Now for the fight!

But when, next moment, Tungdil was bathed in the kordrion’s white fire and swallowed up by bright flames, Boindil gave up the hero for lost. He knew exactly what those flames would do, even though his experience of them had been over two hundred and fifty cycles previously. Even if the tionium withstood the fire, the heat inside the armor would roast the wearer alive. He remembered finding the body of his twin brother…

“No!” Ireheart bellowed in despair, hacking through helmet and skull of another enemy with the curved end of the crow’s beak. There was a crack and then the sharp point appeared again through the breastbone under the throat. Boindil hurled the creature to the ground, placing his right foot on its shoulders to pull the weapon back out through the ugly face. “Vraccas, don’t let me have found him only to lose him again so soon.”

The ball of fire spread and swelled to form a cloud in which a black shape could be seen. Tungdil seemed to have survived!

The black-armored dwarf had sunk onto one knee. He held Bloodthirster protecting his face, his other arm at his back. As the flames ebbed away he sprang up and stabbed at the lower eyes of the kordrion, taking it by surprise.

Tungdil managed to hit one of the eyes. It sounded like a leather wine pouch bursting.

Bluish liquid poured out, swiftly followed by a stream of dark-red blood. Veins and sinews tumbled out as thick as a man’s arm; more liquid fountained out of the wound and the creature convulsed with pain.

Ireheart couldn’t believe his eyes: Spraying blood from a gash in its side and the injury on its head, the kordrion was slinking back into the ravine!

The enormous feet squashed dozens of monsters, pressing them into the ground. Bodily juices squirted out in all directions. Then it was gone, leaving a wet trail on the rocks. A final flurry of arrows and spears accompanied it to its lair, then the stronghold catapults fell silent.

Quiet returned, so that the sound of the wind along the battlements and on the slopes of the Black Abyss-not heard amid the noise of battle-was loud in comparison.

Ireheart commanded the ubariu to watch the murky path down into the chasm while he stepped forward, lowering his blood-smeared crow’s beak.

He gestured to the armored dwarf to come down. “Show yourself, so that I may see if you are an old friend or a new enemy,” he called out. He could not control his excitement, but was yo-yoing between joy and suspicion, his belief that this might be his old companion not quite being enough in itself to convince him.

Trumpets blared from the battlements, the great gate was opened and an army of two hundred dwarves and undergroundlings issued out under Goda’s command. They took up their positions behind Ireheart and the ubariu and waited. Ready to fight.

The dwarf that was possibly Tungdil sprang down with remarkable agility, belying the weight of his armor, then ran along the stepping stones until he reached ground level. As he jumped down, a cloud of white dust rose, covering the black metal knee protectors. He held Bloodthirster in his right hand, with the blade resting up against his shoulder. Step by step he approached the band of warriors. The helmet stayed shut.