Markus Heitz - The Revenge of the Dwarves

“What have we done to make Vraccas so angry? This chamber won’t hold much longer,” guessed Ireheart, worried about his friend. “Can you go on?” he asked the gasping Tungdil.

“I’ll have to,” he groaned, fighting for breath as he struggled to his feet. “I never wanted to die like this.” He thought about the strange shape he had seen behind the figure of the dwarf. “What was that thing he had with him?”

“I don’t know. Whatever it was, he would have set it on us if the tunnel hadn’t collapsed.” Boindil shook the dust out of his beard, which had turned gray. “You’re the scholar, Tungdil. Have you ever seen anything like that before?”

On the opposite side of the cave, parts of the walls were starting to burst, with stone shrapnel flying hundreds of feet through the air. One of the warriors was hit in the face. Blood shot out of the wound on his cheek.

Tungdil did not answer, but gave the signal for them to set off. Things were no longer clear at all.

They hurried back through the fog-filled tunnel, while the stone under their feet shook and would not come to rest. Tungdil was convinced that the rock was furious at the intrusion: the insides of the mountain had been vandalized, and its caves destroyed.

But they escaped the anger of the mountain, finally reached the Northern Pass and made their way home through the frost and fog. Hoar frost formed on their helmets, their chain mail, their shields, and their beards, turning the dwarfs completely white.

When they arrived back at the gate, they were expected.

Girdlegard,

Kingdom of Gauragar,

Spring, 6241st Solar Cycle

Make way! Make way for the King of the Players!” shouted the herald in his multi-colored garb, one hand beating the drum he carried on a strap round his neck. Then he raised the trumpet to blow the fanfare, a tune vaguely reminiscent of Gauragar’s royal anthem. He strode noisily through the crowd; eager to see what the approaching high-born personage might look like, people fell back to let the herald pass.

Following the herald came an arrogant figure wearing what were surely priceless robes; he wore a conspicuous blue hat sporting three feathers and held a silver-headed cane in his hand. A goatee beard suited his aristocratic visage well and the long dark brown hair rested on the collar of his mantle. He waved to all sides majestically; to emphasize the royal gesture he had fastened a white silk cloth to the ring on his middle finger and it fluttered like a miniature standard.

“May the gods love you and protect you, people of Storm Valley!” He walked to this side and that, and even risked a smile to a young woman. “Especially you, my lovely child. If the gods do not comply, call for me and I will gladly take on the duty myself.” The girl blushed and some in the crowd around her laughed out loud.

Arriving at the center of the marketplace, he jumped up onto the rim of the fountain.

“Now, come, honored spectators! Come and see for yourselves in my traveling collection of curiosities the most wonderful adventures ever witnessed in Girdlegard. It will be as if you had been there in person,” he enticed them. He ran round the low circular wall of the fountain, the buckles on his shoes clinking as he did so. “The battle with the orcs, the fight against the eoil and the avatars, the cruelty of the unslayable siblings that governed Dson Balsur-you will see it all with your very own eyes. Heroes, villains, Death and Love. I, the renowned Rodario, whom once they called Rodario the Incredible and Lover of the Maga Andokai, shall tell you of grand deeds. I have tales to tell of why Andokai was also known as the Tempestuous One.” A few laughed at this innuendo. “And I fought side by side with Tungdil Goldhand in combat with the eoil,” and here he swished his cane through the air in imitation, “until the mist-shape lay dead at our feet!” He stood up at his full height and stretched out his arms. “For I, myself, cherished spectators, have lived through these very events. Can there be another such who could recount in more detail, with more verisimilitude? Who could report to you with greater honesty than I?” Blue and gray flames shot from his fingertips, to the shock and surprise of the bystanders. “This was merely a foretaste,” he promised, looking at a young boy. “You will have to cover your eyes during the show, little man, to stop them jumping out of your skull,” he said in a conspiratorial undertone.

The boy went pale and crept closer to his mother, who laughed and ran her fingers through his hair. Rodario fired off another batch of flames against a darkening sky which was indicating the approach of a spring storm. A few thunderclaps and some lightning would not harm the atmosphere in the great marquee one little bit. “Listen! The first twenty spectators to arrive will receive a free cup of wine, and also a glass jar with a breath of eoil fog. Watch it and wonder! But never dare to remove the cork, else otherwise…” He left the threat hanging unspoken in the air, and restricted himself to displaying a mysterious warning expression.

His brown-eyed gaze swept over the throng, who were hanging on his every word. As always, he had been able to win over the crowd by a mixture of personal charm and free offers. In every place he visited he would look around for a familiar face; but as always in these last five cycles that face was still missing.

Finally he noticed a beautiful woman in the second row watching him. This cheered his mood considerably and combatted his disappointment.

She looked to be about twenty, tall and attractive. Everything was in the right place for a woman, though a little more substance in the decollete would not have come amiss. She wore her long blond hair down; her face was narrow and full of expression; her green eyes were following him intently. He would have judged her to be of noble birth, had she not been so simply attired and had it not been for the laundry bundle in her arms.

Her visage showed a strange longing; it was less a matter of desire for himself as a man, more a question of sharp interest in what he was doing. Rodario was well acquainted with this effect. He had stood at the doors of a theater four cycles earlier with the same expression on his face, with no other thought in his mind than the need to appear on stage. And he had achieved his dream.

He took it as a sign from the gods. Following his instincts, he jumped down from the fountain edge and landed directly in front of her. Then he made her a deep bow and, thanks to amazing dexterity and meticulous preparation, conjured up a black paper flower as if from nowhere.

“Bring this flower this evening and you shall see the show for free,” he told her with a smile, raising one eyebrow and treating her to his famous stare no female yet had been able to withstand. “Tell me your name, my Storm Valley beauty.”

After a moment’s hesitation she accepted the paper flower. Then a young man pushed his way through in front of her, tore the gift from her hand and trampled it underfoot. “Keep your flattery to yourself,” he threatened.

“Sir, it is not courteous to interrupt the entertainment in this way,” Rodario responded smoothly.

“It’s not entertainment, you clown! You were flirting with my wife,” the man retorted angrily, shoving his balled fist into Rodario’s face. “Try that again and it’ll be a black eye you get, and not a black paper flower.”

“No?” Rodario bent forward swiftly, pretending to pull something out of the young man’s ear. To the delight of the watching crowd he extracted a second paper flower. “You see? You already had one.” He handed the flower to the young woman. “Here, madam, with your husband’s compliments. He is a lucky man to have such flowers growing in his head. It must be the futility, I mean the fertility, of his earwax that does it, methinks.”