Markus Heitz - The Revenge of the Dwarves

“To arms!” he screamed, drawing out his ax. “Greenskins!” Before he knew it, a missile flew toward him and hit him on the brow. It knocked him flying and he collapsed. Half conscious, he imagined he saw a pink-eyed orc bending over him, fingering his skull, then disappearing…

When Ingbar came round later he was still lying in the engine room. He could hear the rattle of chains. Groaning, he struggled upright and felt for the lump on his head. Next to him a stone lay on the ground. The orcs must have thought he was dead, no two ways about it. They would never leave a dwarf alive.

Footsteps were approaching and in the torchlight he could see a band of warriors coming up. “Ingbar! Did the greenskins come this way?” one of them asked him urgently.

“They came up here, but whether…” He looked for the lift cage. It was gone! “No… Look! They’re on their way down.”

The warrior stared grimly and helped him to his feet. “Then bring them up again!”

Ingbar limped over to the machinery, adjusted some of the cogwheels and attached extra weights again. The orcs had collected a lot of booty during their raid on the Brown Mountains, it seemed. The cage was overloaded. “What happened?”

“We hoped you could tell us that,” replied the dwarf. His companions arrayed themselves in a semicircle round the shaft, crossbows at the ready; the enemy would be met with a hail of bolts. “The orcs appeared from nowhere, overcame the guards and stole the diamond.”

“ The diamond?” Ingbar was horrified. “What are the monsters planning to do?”

One of the warriors took a look down the shaft. “Another twenty paces, and they’re up,” he reported, moving into place.

“We don’t know. Notice anything unusual about them?” asked the dwarf.

“No, not…” Ingbar hesitated. “Yes! One of them had pink eyes.” He gave a brief description of events. “And when I came round, you arrived.” He stopped speaking, for the cage had arrived. The door stayed shut. So maybe the orcs were afraid to come out.

“Come out and face us, you cowards!” called the warrior. “You can’t escape!” Nothing happened, so he sent one of his men over to open the iron door.

That was when Ingbar realized what had been bothering him: the cage was too heavy! Whatever was in there it couldn’t be the orcs; because before he’d pulled them up with the conventional forty hundredweight. Now he’d applied the forty plus the extra counterweights. No diamond in the whole of Girdlegard was that heavy!

The soldier who’d been sent forward to the lift freed the catch and pulled the door open a little way.

A steel arm shot out through the narrow gap and forced the doors wide. A cloud of steam hissed from the cage, enveloping the astonished dwarves. They staggered, fighting for air; the scorching fumes hurt their lungs and stung their eyes; water droplets formed on their cold armor.

Clicks, clanks and rattles; a rain of crossbow bolts shot through the air randomly, mowing down several of the soldiers. They fell to the stone floor, dead or injured.

“Get back!” cried Ingbar. He knew what it was that had got itself transported up in the lift. All the dwarf regions had by now received the warnings of the death machines wreaking havoc in the mines of the children of the Smith. There were at least a dozen of these machines now, that was for sure. And he knew there was little chance of combating them.

The mist cleared enough for him to see his immediate surroundings. “I’ll send it back down before it can get out of the cage,” he coughed into the vapor cloud. He unhooked the weights from the winch-pulleys and stretched out his arm for the iron rod blocking the vital cogwheel.

At that point a monstrous shadow appeared out of the fog next to him. An iron vice-grip snapped at him, biting down on his left arm.

Ingbar was lifted up and whirled against the roof as if he were a doll. It felt like being in the mouth of a dragon. From up here he could see the back of the devilish machine, as strongly armored as the front. Dwarf-warriors were courageously attacking, but the machine rolled steadily forwards over the bodies of the dead and wounded.

He could see how the rod was slipping under the cogwheel. It was being forced out of true. The winch gave way under the sheer weight, having no ballast, and the cage shot down to the depths.

Pulleys, cogwheels and rollers worked faster and faster, chains unwound at great speed. But Ingbar’s plan had failed. The devil machine had already left the cage.

The metal grab-hand gave him another mighty shake, a sharp pain shot through his shoulder, then he was thrown to one side.

The death machine had aimed well. Ingbar was hurled straight into the mess of whirring cables and winches. He crashed against a speeding chain, landed under a huge rotating cogwheel and he and his chain mail armor were crushed to pieces.

Girdlegard,

Kingdom of Gauragar,

Porista,

Early Summer, 6241st Solar Cycle

P rince Mallen sat in his room on the top floor of the house he and his companions had been assigned. Through the window he observed the cranes on the site of the new palace, constantly in motion, turning, lifting, lowering. A continuous stream of carts loaded with stone rolled through the streets, and the army of laborers grew from orbit to orbit. The breeze brought the sounds of a new beginning to Mallen’s ears: banging, clattering, sawing, hammering-and there was singing and the workmen’s shouts.

King Bruron was losing no time. The empty space in the middle of Porista was to be filled with a splendid building which promised to outshine Nudin’s palace in opulence. Five towers and three keeps were planned, arranged stepwise and connected by smaller transept buildings. The architects had estimated the work would take five cycles, and the foundation stone was already in place.

Mallen stood up, and now he could see the tips of the tent poles emerging from the top of the huge white canvas marquee erected in the center of the cleared site. This was where the kings and queens were meeting this afternoon. Bruron wanted the great monarchs assembled on the spot whence in former times the mightiest power of Girdlegard had issued. In the place of the magic wellspring they now had unity and harmony among the rulers-this was the sign for all of their peoples.

Mallen chose a light fabric coat to throw over the bright red robe. He strode out of the room. The bodyguard waiting outside fell in beside him. On horseback he moved through the busiest streets of the town, where the crowds drew back respectfully, proud to be providing hospitality to such visiting dignitaries.

In silence the prince rode on, not responding to the occasional cheer. As so often, he was preoccupied with thoughts of the terrible raid on Goldensheaf; he was missing his trusted comrade in arms, Alvaro, whose dead body he had examined in minute detail. It had been the slash to the throat that had robbed him of his lifeblood and he knew it had not been the terrible creature that had inflicted this wound. Of that he was convinced. Since that day he had never turned his back for a second on Rejalin or any other elf. The matter of the elf runes he had kept from the other rulers when he described the events of that day. He could not have said why this was. He wanted to speak to Liutasil in private about it.

His troop reached the marquee. Young pages hastened to take hold of the guests’ horses.

The prince stepped inside the airy enclosure; the tent was lined with colorful silks and decorated with ribbons and painted banners. It must have taken several orbits to bring in all the furnishings-the long table, the heavy chairs and cupboards-so that the meeting hall looked dignified and stately in spite of being under canvas.