Markus Heitz: The Revenge of the Dwarves

Fear started to take hold of him.

He began to sweat. He was seeing hundreds of shadows surrounding him, then he thought his own shadow was moving when he was standing still. In no time he was so far gone he’d have welcomed even the sound of an orc’s death scream. At least he’d have been able to hear something.

Finally he broke into a run, not knowing what he was running from or running toward. He was so desperate to get away from the silence, he forgot to mark his way. No matter how tired he was, no matter how much time had passed: nothing else was important.

Then the passage opened up into a cavern.

Gronsha stopped on the threshold, gasping, in his left side a piercing pain each time he drew breath. He reckoned the cave was about forty paces long and over a hundred in height. Great shafts of sunlight, wide as tree trunks, fell through. It looked as if they were columns supporting the roof. The bright light cut through the gloom, tearing pale holes in the darkness of the floor.

He stopped short. Bones… heaps of bones. Orc bones!

Either he had found a burial chamber where cowards’ remains were unceremoniously thrown to rot away, or else these caves were home to some creature that was preying on his people for food.

Gronsha took a few careful steps into the cave, went down on one knee and poked around with the tip of his sword in a pile of bones the light had caught.

The bones did indeed show knife marks. Someone had painstakingly scraped off the flesh. They had broken open the larger bones to get at the marrow. Nobody had touched the skulls. He had the distinct impression that these remains were quite fresh.

He breathed out, stood up and tested the air. Perhaps the Groundlings had been, in all senses of the words, the smaller evil.

He strode on across the cavern, instinctively avoiding the patches of light. On the other side he took the next passageway and followed it, his stomach rumbling. All this running around had made him really hungry.

Gronsha’s trusty nose warned him.

A familiar smell told him that some of his own people were hereabouts, even though he could neither see nor hear them. It was strange that here the whiff of rancid fat from the armor was missing.

Then he saw the firelight at the end of the passage.

Not wanting to get himself shot full of arrows by some over-eager guard, Gronsha did not try to muffle the sound of his approach. “Ho,” he called out, the cave walls echoing and funneling his strong dark voice. “I am an orc. From Toboribor! I need your help, Brothers, against the Groundlings!”

Two large solidly built forms became visible at the end of the passage, blocking out the fire’s light. The vague smell he knew so well was getting stronger, and shadows flew along the cave wall toward him. He could not yet see any details, but it seemed that the orcs from the Outer Lands were no less tall than those from southern Girdlegard.

They approached him, their deadly barbed spear points facing the ground. Gronsha assumed the vicious metal hooks would simply rip off under pressure and stick in the victim’s flesh. He regarded the weapon with respect.

A third shape joined them, hurrying up with a lantern to shine on him.

Soon they were in front of him-he saw to his surprise one of them was a female. Not only did the sight of her, with all those rings in her ears and the unusually delicate nose, excite him, but he wondered what she was doing casting her lot in with these warriors. It wouldn’t happen back in Toboribor. Women should be seeing to the food and the kids. And to the needs of the fighting men, to his own needs, at once, right here.

“Don’t move your hands,” she ordered in her husky voice. The lance point was placed at his throat and forced him over toward the wall. “Stay there. Brother.” The other orcs laughed.

Gronsha studied their armor and the helmets. They really weren’t using the life-saving coating of fat on the metal plates. They’d stand no chance like that in a proper fight. He couldn’t see the point of making your enemy’s job easier. All in all they looked fairly clean. At any rate they were much cleaner than him. Unhealthily clean.

He started to feel envious. That armor indisputably came from an orc forge. But the quality of the metal and handiwork was way above anything that he had ever seen made by Prince Ushnotz’s smiths. Could that be why they were able to dispense with the coating of fat?

“I am Gronsha. Take me to your leader,” he commanded, stretching to his full height. “It is possible that I am being followed. It would be as well for you to watch out.”

The woman looked along the passageway he had come down and then sent the two warriors out to check. “You’re from… where?”

“Toboribor.”

“Toboribor?” She did not even look at him; she was watching what was going on down the passage. “What kind of a name is that?”

“ What kind of a name is that? ” he grunted indignantly. He was surprised. “It is a mighty orc kingdom, far to the south of Girdlegard.”

Now she did grace him with a glance. The expression in her pink eyes hovered between indifference and disdain. “An orc kingdom? That is good news for once. If it’s in the south, what are you doing in the north?” Her accent was painful for him: too clear and sharp. Arrogant, more like. “So you’re lost?”

“I command the troops of Prince Ushnotz, who rules Toboribor. I am here to look for allies to help us fight the Groundlings…” He bent the truth a little and noted from her face that she did not get his meaning. “You don’t know who the Groundlings are?” It was getting more and more difficult. “Then you are indeed blessed by Tion and Samusin, if you haven’t met this plague of ax monsters,” he snorted. He held his hands at hip level to show their height. “This size without their helmets. We call them Beard-Faces and Rock-Lice and usually-”

“Oh, of course. I know them,” she interrupted. The two orcs she’d sent out to reconnoiter were back and gave the all-clear. Nobody had followed him. “Our names for them are different. It’s not often that one of our Brothers ”-she emphasized the word and smiled-“takes the path and comes to Fon Gala.”

“To where?” Gronsha asked.

“Here.”

“Oh, the Outer Lands. That’s what we call it.”

“Welcome.” She widened her smile, baring her teeth and showing her fangs.

Gronsha liked her. He wanted her. When he had captured the stronghold he would take her for his wife and breed many children on her. He bet she’d never had an orc like him. He would break her in and teach her how a woman should behave.

“You may come with me, Gronsha. I’ll take you to our prince. He will be pleased to hear news of Toboribor.” At long last she removed the spear point from his throat and gestured toward the end of the tunnel where the light was coming from. “After you. Brother.” That set the orcs off laughing again.

They reached a large cavern that was part natural, part artificial. A hundred paces wide and two hundred in length, as high as the tallest tower on the Stone Gateway. In the middle a small stream flowed and along its banks black, five-cornered tents had been erected. There were several kinds of smell he noted in the air: food was cooking, and there was beer brewing somewhere. There were coal fires burning in glowing iron braziers.

Gronsha wondered why the normal unmistakable smell of his own people was absent-that heady mix of strength and presence and superiority, that the Red-Bloods said “stank.” The brother and sister orcs from the Outer Lands couldn’t have been here long.

He could not suppress a grin. Guessing at their number, he arrived at a couple of thousand. At least. With a force of that size it would be easy to wipe out the Groundlings.