Markus Heitz - The Fate of the Dwarves

The maga skimmed the letters again to be sure she had understood everything correctly, then she called the ubari over. “Summon the officers. Tell them to gather in the conference chamber. We’ll be making a sortie.”

Kiras straightened up and wiped away a tear. “I’ll come, too,” she announced. “I want to see with my own eyes exactly what’s been going on.”

Goda gave her an anxious glance.

Rattling and groaning, the mechanism to open the great southern gate slowly started to move. Four hundred soldiers waited, poised to sally forth.

At the head of the force stood a hundred dwarves, then came two hundred combined ubariu and undergroundlings; the rear was brought up by one hundred humans, archers and crossbowmen, to provide covering fire for the warriors and to check enemy attacks at source.

Goda looked at her daughter Sanda and her son Bandaal, both standing by Kiras among the dwarves at the front. These two children of hers had inherited her magic gifts and knew their way around spells and incantations. They waved at their mother.

The maga was including them in this force so that they could, if necessary, recite spells to protect them from enemy sorcery. She was uneasy sending her own flesh and blood to the other side, but there was no other way. She would have her hands full, holding the gap in the screen open for them; her children would not be capable of doing that.

And there was another of her offspring among the company of brave hearts. He had not brooked any attempt to hand over command to anyone else: Boendalin Powerthrust, her oldest son, an excellent warrior, taking after his father. He stood proudly in the first row, holding a shield and his two-bladed ax. He greeted his mother with a nod, his eyes flashing with battle-lust. He controlled his hot blood better than his father could, which was why the command was safe in his hands. His skill with weapons made him the best warrior in Evildam.

Between the double gates of the fortress a slit was visible now, letting in a reddish shimmering light.

“May Vraccas be with you,” called Goda. “You have your orders: Destroy as much as you can and come back quickly if the opposition is strong. We don’t need heroic sacrifices today. Save them for another time.”

Kiras raised her hand. She was wearing leather armor and carrying a sword-ax, a weapon the undergroundlings had developed in the last eighty cycles. On one side you had a blade, and at the end there was a narrow ax head that could be employed against shields and helmets.

Sanda and Bandaal had the traditional dwarf chain-mail shirt, helmet and shield; they carried axes in their belts. Their priority would be to counteract any magic attack. Goda had also given them each ten splinters of diamond. They were to use up this external energy first before having recourse to their own inner powers.

Goda raised her arm and concentrated. She did not want to repeat her mistake of trying to break the screen by force. Instead she wanted to chip away at it gently with magic, to scrape and abrade it until a weak spot developed. A weak spot large enough for all these warriors.

Her lips moved and she assayed a combination of formulae. She was not entirely sure what would work, but had a few ideas.

Pulsating white magic left her fingertips and snaked toward the barrier, smoothing itself around, like a cat encircling the legs of a human.

No resistance was encountered.

Goda sighed with relief and increased the area covered, so that it would be large enough for the ubariu to walk through.

Sparks appeared and this part of the screen turned a lighter color, going pale pink and then disappearing completely until only the white could be seen.

“Off you go,” Goda commanded, holding her magic firmly to support the rest of the barrier. Where red and white met, there was hissing and crackling and occasional sparks, which, if they touched anything, left a black scorch mark.

The troops stormed out without any battle cries and fanned out to form a long line, while the archers remained behind preparing to shoot their arrows and crossbow bolts. The attack began.

The first of the tents and buildings fell to the warriors without a sound. Only when the flames shot up, leaping from one length of canvas to the next, to spread to the whole encampment, did the horrified howls of the monsters ring out. Trumpets gave the alarm. Drum rolls called them to arms.

Goda kept her arm outstretched and fed further magic into her spell in order to be able to maintain it. She was afraid she might not be able to open the gap again if she allowed the first beam to fail.

“May Vraccas be with you,” she repeated quietly. And with my own children, above all things.

Kiras followed close on Boendalin’s heels.

They ran forward, passing through the gap in the barrier. The undergroundling felt pain for a fleeting moment as they did so.

“Take out the big machines by the walls first, and the tents,” Boendalin ordered, telling the archers to prepare their fire arrows. While the unit moved over to the right, their burning missiles shot in the opposite direction to keep the monsters occupied extinguishing the flames. Then they confronted their first opponents.

Kiras was struck by the ease with which they were able to rampage unopposed. They had caught their foes unawares at their midday meal-indeed, how could they have possibly guessed that Goda was going to open the barrier?

In the course of all the turmoil created by the attack more fires broke out as cooking stoves were kicked over in the general confusion.

Before long all the machines by the gates had been destroyed; the largest ones now were three hundred paces away. From the direction of the gates impressive numbers of strangely diverse monsters came surging toward the dwarves.

“Archers! Fire!” Boendalin ordered the rest of the company to continue advancing. Arrows skimmed overhead from behind, targeting the monster horde, bringing some of them dead or injured to the ground. “And now have at them! Down with them all! Over there, get to the catapult!” the dwarf shouted as he rammed the sharpened edge of his shield into an opponent’s neck. Slicing through leather protection the metal opened the monster’s throat all the way to the spine. The beast went flying, as good as decapitated.

The commando troops slashed and bashed their way through the enemy. Kiras, dispatching many opponents herself, had to admire Boendalin’s skill, whether in giving orders or fighting. She would appreciate a partner like that at her side, but a sense of tradition made it an unsuitable match. Undergroundlings and dwarves did not mix. Not for long, anyway.

They had reached the tall catapult towers. Two-thirds of her group gave covering fire while the others hacked at the guy ropes, smashed the supports and inflicted so much damage on the device that there was a loud crash as the construction shuddered and fell.

“Get out of here!” Boendalin commanded. Like Kiras, he had seen that the enemy was regrouping. “We’ll withdraw back to the gate. We have done well!”

The undergroundling looked at one of the odd poles that stood apparently isolated on the plain, a taut chain leading back from it down the Black Abyss. It was only a couple of hundred paces away. “What about that, Boendalin?” Kiras called out. “Can’t we get that one, too?” Success had gone to her head. “We can do it!”

The dwarf looked at the beasts. Behind a furrowed brow his brain was working furiously. They still had not found out what the masts were for, and there were about four dozen of them planted round the entrance to the ravine.

“It’s not far,” she said, enticingly. “Whatever they’re for, we can easily get rid of them. And we haven’t seen hide nor hair of their magus yet.”