Markus Heitz: The Revenge of the Dwarves

His shoulders throbbed and burned. The Black Immortality healed him fast but even so the pain was intense. He attempted a cautious movement of his arm, which obeyed him dutifully. Gronsha would have to rely on that arm because his enemies were still at large.

He could smell their presence despite the hateful damp cold gray vapor that was like a blindfold on his eyes. The further in you ventured, the less you could hear in this fog. Even his own armor had ceased to give off any sound. He was swathed in a cold damp blanket of the stuff.

Those other caves, the ones in the land of Toboribor, Realm of the Orcs to the southwest of Girdlegard, were always warm and dry: you could move about unhampered. This cavern was the exact opposite: cold, eerie and forbidding.

The gray veils swirled about wildly, making him think there were Groundlings on all sides about to attack as he felt his way along the wall searching for an exit. Three times he was fooled by his imagination and stabbed furiously at empty air.

At last Tion and Samusin, the gods of his people, took pity on him and showed him a way out-a black opening in the rock wall.

All at once a Groundling was in his path, jumping out at him from the fog and wielding a deadly ax. “Perish, fiend!”

This time Gronsha was ready for him, parrying the blow and kicking his attacker in the face so that the dwarf lurched back into the wall of mist, spitting blood and teeth. “You shall die first, rock-louse!”

Time to apply some trickery. Gronsha squatted down low, put the battered dwarf helmet on his head, took up the captured shield and altered his voice as he lurched from side to side, gurgling in desperation. “Help! He’s done for me.” He groaned and whimpered. “For the sake of Vraccas, friends, come to my aid!”

“Bendagar? Are you injured?”

“My leg,” moaned Gronsha, battling with the urge to laugh. This was no time for laughter-not yet.

“Hold on, we’re coming,” he heard the Groundling’s comrade call. The dwarf’s outline appeared in the fog. “Mind you keep quiet. There’s another of those snout-faces round here somewhere. He-”

Gronsha did not wait. He thrust the sword tip violently through the chain mail and into the belly of his enemy. “Well, well, Beard-Face, you don’t say?” His laugh was full of malice as he twisted the blade. The dwarf groaned and tried to strike at him but Gronsha fended off the blow, grabbing the ax handle and forcing it out of the weakening grasp of the other. “Bite on your own blade,” he growled, slicing into the bearded face.

The Groundling sank back into the wall of fog. This time forever.

Gronsha leaped over the body and raced into the swirling mist of the tunnels through which he hoped to make his escape.

It was a leap into the unknown and nothing like the sort of exploring he was used to.

He was aware of a feeling of great unease. I am in the Outer Lands , he thought, quaking with fear but unable to name the source of his terror.

In Toboribor there were legends about the mighty territories of the orcs. One place alone was as big as the whole of Girdlegard and could sustain a vast population of orcs-more orcs than there were stars in the heavens.

He thought the myths were exaggerated. But still, there must be orcs in the Outer Lands. Many thousands of solar cycles ago the first and only ever successful raid had started from the north.

Of course it was thanks to his people that the Northern Gateway had been breached. Every orc descendant knew the legend of the glorious orbit that celebrated the victory over the Groundlings. Only orcs had the necessary stamina, strength and courage. Cycle after cycle, the memorable event was honored in Toboribor.

How wonderful, thought Gronsha, to have celebrated the next festival in a conquered dwarf kingdom. And with the severed head of a Groundling to serve as a missile for the shot-put event, the way they used to at the festival commemorating the fall of Girdlegard. The feasts they provided had been enormous; this time he’d certainly have carried off the prize for competitive belching. Instead of enjoying the games, though, there he was, on his own, stuck in the Outer Lands. He had been born in the caves of Toboribor and knew nothing of the land of his forebears. The same as all the orcs in Toboribor.

But it wasn’t just orcs he was hoping to come across; there would be ogres, trolls, alfar and all the other creatures that worshipped the gods Samusin and Tion.

“Those were the days,” he grumbled. Since the defeat of their ally Magus Nod’onn there was no chance of any more good times for him and Prince Ushnotz, who was wanting to establish a new empire; they were constantly running away from the Red-Bloods, they had no home anymore and the prince was weak and treated them unfairly.

He still didn’t dare to stand up to Ushnotz, to kill him and take over. Others, those with more experience, he was sure, would be getting there first with their plans for a coup. Whoever managed to vanquish the prince would replace him-that was always the way with his people. The best man would take power. So Groshna went on waiting. He was waiting for his chance.

The only good thing about his position was his immortality, granted him by the Black Water. But immortality without power was like a bone with no meat.

Gronsha’s plan was changing, the further he advanced and the more the mist lifted. “Why should I go back and serve Ushnotz at all?” he asked into the empty air, and his words echoed back from the cavern walls. Reflections from the glistening moss gave enough light for his sensitive vision. He could see nearly as well as in bright daylight. His confidence grew. “I’m as good a prince as any.”

Perhaps he would be able to drum up a small band of mercenaries in the Outer Lands and get them to attack the Stone Gate. He and his troopers had managed to inflict substantial damage on the gates before having to retreat; the Groundlings would not be able to secure the gates easily. A few hundred orcs and they’d soon dispense with that puny handful of defenders. He’d have to act quickly and find allies enough to launch an attack before the Groundlings got their repairs underway.

Gronscha grinned. He, the immortal orc, would be the one to take the Groundlings’ stronghold. All he needed were comrades in arms. No point in being choosy. Anything that could hold a weapon would be fine with him. Now he was convinced: it had been Tion’s will that he should go into the Outer Lands.

His eyes picked out a sign on the cave wall. It was a rune, elaborate and strange and revoltingly dwarfish. The shape couldn’t be from the Sharp-Ears.

“Are those confounded bearded boils on this side, too?” cursed Gronsha. He couldn’t work out whether the marks on the stone were recent or had been etched a thousand cycles previously. He would have to be careful.

He carried on, following the tunnel that soon branched into two, and strode along after a moment’s hesitation, taking the passageway that had the slightly warmer air.

Soon the passage fanned out into a dozen corridors. Gronsha was entering a maze.

He marked his chosen path, scratching a large orc rune: two vertical lines with two dots between them. He might need to find his way back. Before long he was faced with the same decision about which direction to take. This happened eight times.

It was deathly quiet.

His footsteps made no sound now; the layer of grease on his armor had melted into the gaps and was lubricating the metal so there was no noise from the plates grating together. You couldn’t even hear a pebble dislodging from the roof, or a drop of water splashing down. In the Outer Lands there was neither sound nor life. Nothing but him and the passageways, sometimes high and wide as barn doors, sometimes as small as a human female.