Markus Heitz - The Revenge of the Dwarves

Rodario had already started to wonder why the alfar were talking in human language. Now he understood. They were acting. These “alfar” were just men, dressed up as alfar; they gained their height from special shoes they were wearing. The disguise might have deceived a simple peasant or a fisherman, but not him.

“It’s a shame we had to kill so many of the injured,” said the blond one, helping the other to mend his ear.

“Looking after them just takes too much time.” He laughed. “And the prisoners enjoyed the goulash.”

Rodario peered over the edge of the platform. Below was a workshop two hundred paces in size, with machine floors on several levels. Forges had been set up in niches in the rock face, and platforms like the one he was on had been fastened together and fixed into the stone with strengthening beams. These too served as smithies.

Humans, chained hand and foot, were working to produce various metal shapes, including wheels and iron rods. Each worker had a set number of repeated movements to carry out, and finished items were thrown into the wire cages that traveled up and down at speed on a chain. At the bottom of the workstation these were unloaded and carried out by yet more prisoners.

Several machines were as big as a house, moving by means of cog wheels, pulleys and pistons, with belts and chains traveling over the cogs toward other devices that they powered. In places, some of the belts passed through the walls to other chambers.

The machines emitted hissing clouds of steam. People ran around, shoveling coal or pouring water into huge containers for the boilers. The noise close to them must have been unbearable.

Rodario had no idea what was going on. But this island had nothing to do with alfar, that much was clear. It was what the inhabitants of Weyurn were expected to believe, however, meaning that they would stay away at all costs and never talk about it. The best form of concealment.

Feet came stomping up the stairway. “Hey, you two! You’re supposed to be standing guard, not playing with your ears!” Next to the men there appeared a dark-haired dwarf in leather breeches, boots and a leather apron. His naked torso, decorated with tattoos, shone with sweat. In his hand he swung a smith’s hammer as if it were made of tin and balsa wood.

From his voice Rodario recognized him as the man who had attacked him outside his caravan. He was sure now that the barge he’d been following had not broken up on the island, but it had disappeared inside it. The island must have sunk down again causing Rodario’s nutshell-boat to capsize.

“It’s the heat, Master Bandilor,” protested the one who’d been told off. “It makes the resin go soft.”

“Then sew it on properly,” growled the dwarf. “I don’t want to see this sort of thing again, you fingering each other’s ears, right? If one of the prisoners sees it, the masquerade is over.” He turned his head and Rodario saw the thick beard, dyed blood red. “Did either of you leave that bulkhead open?”

“No,” said the blond one. “I’ve no desire to burn up.”

Bandilor’s eyebrows crinkled. “Did Mistress Veltaga come past you on her way to check the second chamber?” He walked past them, his hammer held at the ready.

“No, Master Bandilor. Nobody.”

From what he had heard and seen Rodario worked out that he had found a secret headquarters of the thirdlings. No one would ever think of dwarves voluntarily living on an island, let alone one that could sink down to the bottom of Weyurn’s lake. And their captives had no chance to escape.

To Rodario’s horror, Bandilor started up the steps. No matter where he looked, he could see no way to avoid being seen. He got half upright, ready to crawl back into the passage, but Bandilor spotted him.

“Unbelievable! It’s that crummy actor, isn’t it?” The dwarf took a step forward and made to grab him by the leg.

Rodario launched himself off the platform, holding fast to its edge so that he could do a forward roll. His lower body swung freely over the abyss, but he landed with his feet on the solid iron steps, quite near to the two false alfar. He opened his fingers, his heart beating wildly.

“More respect, please, for my art,” he called up to the dwarf, who had flung his hammer at him in fury, but missed. The metal tool clunked down the stairs into the depths.

The guards lowered their spears and attacked.

“Forgive me, I don’t feel like fighting you.” Rodario certainly was not going to involve himself in combat. Without a second’s hesitation he leaped into a passing wire basket and let himself be carried down in it. “I’m looking for a happy ending!” he called, waving up. “We’ll meet again, Master Bandilor. And I’ll be back with an armada of Weyurn’s warships.”

He went past the astonished prisoners, who were not daring to move a muscle. They didn’t help him, or join him. Their fear of the alfar and the punishment they could expect should they do so held them back. He couldn’t hold it against them. After all, he had no idea whether it was possible to escape.

A spear missed him narrowly and got stuck in the grating. “Thank you for the weapon, alf,” he called, only to see a second missile on its way. This missed him, too, the angle for the throw being a difficult one, but now archers were dispersing round the upper galleries; they would have no trouble hitting him.

Rodario jumped up out of the cage at an intersecting passage and ran through the corridor bent double. Somewhere in the middle of the mountain he suspected he would find his friend Furgas, held in chains. Tungdil and all the rulers had underestimated the malice of the thirdlings. Perhaps he could find out what their intentions were. They had to be doing more than simply forging strange devices. They would surely have a grand plan.

He arrived in a second cavern, which was somewhat smaller than the first but similar in its arrangement. Here it was hotter still, because of the many furnaces at work on the platforms, with molten metal streaming out of them.

There was a dwarf-woman standing among the workers on the cavern floor. She was issuing instructions while sparks flew about her. Close by, white-hot metal was just being released; molten streams of alloy ran along the sand channels to the molds, where they would cool into shape.

That was all Rodario could see. He reached a door and found himself in one of the twisting polished stone corridors again, worming its way through the center of the mountain.

He met another guard keeping watch at one of the side doors, a false alf who attacked him with a ridiculous hiss.

“No grasp of character or motivation, but you want to be center stage,” laughed Rodario critically. He wasn’t afraid of a human in disguise. If it had been a real alf his reaction would have been different, no doubt. As it was, he could rely on considerable experience in fighting, even if he were a trifle rusty.

He walloped the guard’s spear aside and thrust the blunt end of his own weapon into his assailant’s groin, making him fall back in agony, “The alfar, you know, don’t hiss when they attack. Get it right next time. They are as silent as the night and as deadly as…” He searched for an appropriate simile. “… as… Oh what the hell.” He hit the man on the forehead with the blade of his spear and sent him unconscious to the floor of the passage.

“If you were standing guard in front of a door, there’s probably something valuable on the other side,” he addressed the man lying on the ground. He put one hand on the handle. “Let’s have a look.”

He pushed the handle down and rammed his shoulder against the wood, whirling into the room.

Clothes were strewn all over the place, the air was stuffy, smelling of stale food and there were papers everywhere, covering any flat surface and stuck up on the walls, each bearing sketches of eccentric-looking machines and strange apparatus.