Markus Heitz - The Revenge of the Dwarves

It was a long time coming. He heard alarm horns sounding, excited voices, weapons clashing, and now and then the sound of a dwarf in pain and furious. Every fiber in Bendelbar’s being demanded he join the hunt for the intruders, but he was helpless under the iron grating.

At last, steps came near.

Kartev’s coarse face appeared above him. “I’m back,” he said. Many hands helped to move the heavy grid. His shoulder painful and his skull throbbing, Bendelbar slid out from under the metal bars. Someone helped him to his feet. Before him stood the trader and Queen Xamtys. And maybe sixty warriors with blood on their weapons. “What happened?” he asked, bowing to his queen.

“We had to kill most of them, they were so wild,” she said. “They even got as far as the treasure chamber, but I don’t know what the outcome was. Terrible confusion.” Xamtys looked at Kartev. “Two of them fled, but you won’t get them back alive.” She handed him a bag that clinked in the familiar way: gold coins. “Take this as compensation and as my thanks for your attempt to aid us in our fight against the undergroundlings in the treasure chamber.”

The man bowed. “Thank you, noble lady. I am sorry that our commerce should take this form. I would have preferred to hand the captives into your keeping alive.” He pointed to the broken base of the cage. “I would never have thought them capable of breaking it open with a few pieces of iron. And they freed themselves from their chains, too.”

“It is not your fault. My guards should have checked the wagon more thoroughly,” she said, looking at Bendelbar. “From now on I shall expect my gate guards to be three times as watchful.” She spoke the words cuttingly. “Return to your post and let this be a lesson to you. This raid could easily have been successful.” She turned and moved off, followed by her retinue and surrounded by her bodyguards.

Bendelbar grimaced. He was in pain and was in disgrace with the queen. The last piece of news in particular would not be popular with the chief of his clan. He’d get another dressing-down there, for sure. He looked angrily at Kartev, who was loading the first bits of ruined cage on to his cart. “Leave it.” He gave the order for the rest of the guards to take over.

Not long afterwards Kartev was on his way back to the Outer Lands, accompanied by Bendelbar with what remained of his vehicle. It was a long journey for them both: three sun orbits on the broadest of roads in the dwarf realm, past many wonders, large and small, constructed out of stone, steel and iron. The sight of statues, bridges and murals raised the dwarf’s spirits.

Although the tradesman had received adequate recompense for his trouble, he was not happy about the outcome of his journey. It seemed to Bendelbar the man was mourning the loss of the undergroundlings. At any rate, he wasn’t appreciating the wonders they passed.

Seeing as he did not have the slightest wish to communicate, they were both silent when they went back through the gates of Ironhald. More than a mere “Vraccas keep you” did not cross their lips.

Bendelbar stopped. He ordered the outer gate to be closed and the wall gate to be opened for the trader, then he rushed up to the battlements to follow the progress of the ox-cart with his eyes.

Just as he was wondering why Kartev, after all that long waiting period at the gates, had not gone into Girdlegard with his gold to buy goods to sell on his way home, the man was doing something even stranger.

When he had left the last ramparts behind him, Kartev stopped to chat to a new arrival who was heading for West Ironhald: he pressed the reins of his oxen into the man’s hand and continued on his way without his cart or belongings.

“Vraccas, what is it with this fellow?” wondered Bendelbar, coming down from his vantage point. He wanted to find out.

He had just commandeered a pony and ordered five mounted guards to accompany him, when a messenger hurried past, storming into the quarters of Gondagar Bitterfist of the clan of the Bitter Fists, the commander of West Ironhald.

“Wait,” said Bendelbar to his companions, guessing that this agitation had something to do with the trader.

It took just about as long as a dwarf needs to draw an ax, take aim and hurl it at an enemy-that’s if you had a second one on you-before the threatening thunderous voice of the stronghold’s main alarm horn sounded. It was powered by huge bellows and activated from inside the commander’s quarters. It sent out its continuous message along the ramparts, up the slopes of the mountain, and all along the ravine.

The door flew open. Gondagar appeared, pulling his helmet on over his black curls, and gesturing at the dwarf next to Bendelbar. “You there, dismount. Let me on,” he ordered, swinging himself up into the saddle. “Let’s go. Stop that trader!” he yelled, spurring the horse so that it reared up at the pain and galloped off. “In all that confusion he’s replaced the diamond with a false one made of glass.”

Bendelbar ran hot and cold. His guilt was growing by the minute.

The dwarves on their ponies chased along the twists and turns of the ravine, and the gates opened before them in the nick of time.

Every hoofbeat brought them deeper into the Outer Lands. They followed the broad but uneven road; however hard they pushed their mounts they did not catch up with the trader.

Round each corner they expected to see him but were disappointed. There was nowhere he could have hidden. The walls of the chasm either went vertically upwards or there was a precipice down on the other side. The stone was too smooth to give any hand- or foothold.

Not until the sun was sinking over the Red Mountains and darkness was falling over the area like a black cloth, did they come to a halt.

Gondagar cursed roundly. “Where the hell has the bastard got to?” he called out furiously to the echoing mountain walls. “He must be in league with Tion, or how else have we not overtaken him? May Vraccas strike him down with his hammer!”

Bendelbar’s pony snorted in alarm and skidded round a harmless piece of rock on the roadside. The other mounts blew sharply through their nostrils and pricked up their ears, dancing on the spot and only kept from bolting by the riders pulling hard on the reins.

Then Bendelbar smelt it, too: orcs. The smell of their sweat carried on the evening air, polluting it. He slid out of the saddle and took his ax in his hand.

Gondagar followed suit. “I can smell them but I can’t see them,” he growled. “What devilry is this?”

Bendelbar approached the rock the pony had shied from, and held his weapon at the ready. “Perhaps there’s a secret under the stone-”

Suddenly the rock turned into Kartev. The trader threw himself forward with a huge cudgel in his right hand, hitting the dwarf on his injured shoulder.

The blow was hard, too powerful to have come from a normal man, who would not have been strong enough to wield a large club like that with one hand. Equally, it was impossible for a normal man to take on the shape of a rock. Something was not right here.

Bendelbar fell against the pony and under the whirling hooves of the terrified animal. Before he could protect himself from the kicks and get upright again, clenching his teeth against the pain, the fight with Kartev was decided.

But not in the way Bendelbar had expected.

His dwarf friends lay moaning or silent on the path, the man standing over them, taking deep breaths. He looked down at Bendelbar. “Stay where you are. I’ve got what I wanted,” he said, his voice sounding more guttural now, more like-an orc. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“But I want to fight!” yelled Bendelbar, lifting his ax and leaping forward. “Vraccas, come to my aid against the accursed greenskin.”