Markus Heitz: The Revenge of the Dwarves

Each dwarven folk had contributed the finest of its handiwork and skills. The secondling stonemasons had executed immaculate repairs and excavated new accommodation quarters and halls, forming pillars and bridges of stone with an accuracy that beggared belief.

The smithies of the firstlings had supplied decorative strengthening girders, fretted screens, metal furniture and fencing, lamps and other articles.

The fourthlings brought the arts of their colleagues to perfection by studding them with precious stones, polished for sparkle.

Together with artistic murals in gold and vraccasium and other precious metals from the devastated remains of the vanquished fifthling realm, the new occupants had created the finest of dwarf kingdoms. Here, all the best had been brought together.

Glaimbar enjoyed the admiration he saw in the eyes of his high-ranking guests. “You see how the whole of the Gray Range territories have become a center of excellence. And the cream of the thirdling warriors are training us in new methods of combat, so we may better protect our wealth and the land of Girdlegard,” he concluded as they completed their tour and made for the assembly hall.

Tungdil remembered this unusual room clearly; it was constructed like a theater with a circular floor area, twenty paces across. The walls had a broad ledge at waist height-about four paces wide-then continued in the vertical plane.

Here was the place he had made the proposal that Glaimbar should be crowned king. Here it was he had renounced his own claim. What would have happened if I had been king of the fifthlings? he wondered, gazing at the empty rows. Would things have turned out better, or worse?

There was to be no voting in the chamber today. Instead, the clan leaders were waiting to feast with them. They were all sitting in the center of the first level at a long table that seemed to bear every dish the dwarven cuisines could offer.

When the three stepped into the room, conversations ebbed away and all those present got to their feet. Knees were bent in homage, swords held aloft, heads bowed. It was the silent pledge, a promise to give life and limb for the high king. “Rise and eat,” spoke Gandogar, taking his place at the end of the table. “Let us enjoy our meal. I am hungry from our walk. Thirsty, too. Let us talk later.” Tungdil sat at his left side, Glaimbar at his right. The meal began and the musicians struck up.

Tungdil partook of the feast with delight, his palate enchanted by the variety of tastes: spiced root jelly, roast goat meat, kimpa mushrooms, sour cheese with herbs, and steaming hot dumplings made of root flour. The feast was such a contrast to the simple fare of his life in the mines-neither he nor Balyndis were accomplished cooks-the other thing was that he liked the food of humans, but she preferred a more traditional diet. The compromises usually tasted rather disappointing.

He wiped his fingers on his dirty beard. So enthusiastically was he attacking his food that he missed the horrified glances of the clan leaders. They were disturbed at his lack of grooming.

Gandogar passed him a tankard of beer. “Here, taste this. You don’t have stuff like that back home, do you?”

It won’t have been meant unkindly, but it made its mark through the wafer-thin mental armor. His expression clouded over. “I am content with what I have.” He took a helping of the roast, sinking his teeth into the goat flesh; brownish-red gravy dripped through his matted beard as if it were blood trickling down. His abrupt movements were at odds with his words.

“Do you have any children yet?” asked Glaimbar, not knowing that this was another sensitive area. “Who knows when we will need the next heroes, and if your children-”

Tungdil threw down the piece of meat, wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his mail shirt and gulped down his beer. Then he motioned to a dwarf standing by to bring him more. “Please, tell me why you have summoned me, King Gandogar,” he said, changing the subject so emphatically that even the simplest of minds got the point.

Glaimbar and the high king exchanged looks. “As I said before, it is all very quiet now, Tungdil,” said the king, continuing to eat. “This makes me uneasy.”

“Rightly so,” agreed the other. “For a whole cycle now we’ve been seeing a lot of orc activity in the Brown Ranges; they’re all surging over the pass as if the forces of goodness were pursuing them.” He was served dessert. “But at the Stone Gate it’s as quiet as the grave.”

“These last four cycles we could have safely left the gates open and nothing would have happened,” added Glaimbar.

Tungdil recognized the pudding at once and took some. It was a light sweet cream that he’d had before, back with the freelings of Trovegold-in the house of the dwarf Myr, who had betrayed him and paid for it with her life. The woman he had loved.

The choice of dessert was a mistake. The first spoonful brought back the bitter-tasting memories that wrecked his appetite. He reached for the beer again.

“That is strange indeed,” he grunted rather than said. He cleared his throat and swallowed down the images of the past. A lot of beer would be needed to keep those pictures in their place. “Have you sent out scouts?”

“No,” answered Glaimbar. “We didn’t want to waken any sleeping ogres until we had completed and extended our defenses.”

“That’s why you are here. We thought of sending out a small party and we thought of you, Tungdil Goldhand, to lead it.” Gandogar took over. “You’ve been to the Outer Lands, I hear.” He pointed to the hero’s ax, resting next to his chair. “You have the ax Keenfire to overcome all adversaries. You are the best choice for such an undertaking.”

Tungdil pushed his full plate away and asked for a third tankard of beer. He was stilling his hunger with the barley now. As so often in the recent past. “Yes, Your Majesty. I have been to the Outer Lands. I stayed about the length of an orbit. It was foggy; I lost three men to the orcs and in one of the caves I discovered a rune that I couldn’t decipher. It wasn’t worth going.” He poured the beer down his throat, clanged the tankard down and suppressed a belch. “You must admit, it’s not a lot of experience.”

“Nevertheless, we need to find out what’s happening there.” The high king did not sound as if he would accept a refusal on Tungdil’s part, not even an implied one. “I want you to set off tomorrow for the Stone Gate. You’ll take a group of our best warriors with you to the Outer Lands, and you’ll see what’s what.”

Tungdil had started on the fourth tankard, but put it back down on the table. “It’ll be foggy, king, that’s what. You know what fog is like. How many shades of gray do you want me to describe when I get back?”

“Hang on, Goldhand,” warned Glaimbar, delicately eating his dessert. “You may have to offer the high king an apology if you see hordes of monsters assembling there to attack us.”

Tungdil turned back to his beer and then looked at Glaimbar. So he was keen to send him to the Outer Lands, was he? Perhaps the mooted reconciliation hadn’t been so genuine, after all? He was ashamed of harboring this uncharitable thought. He was as suspicious as a gnome.

Cursing, he put down his beer. “Excuse my surly tone, King Gandogar,” he said quietly. “Of course I will go to the Northern Pass.” Turning to Glaimbar, “I’ll be happy to encounter Tion’s creatures. And if I die in battle, I don’t care! Because…” He pressed his lips together. “Forgive me. I am too tired to be good company.” He got up, bowed to the two rulers, grabbed the tankard and left the dining hall.

The dwarves all followed him with their eyes, chewing their food in silence. No one spoke. No one wanted to voice the growing doubts about their hero.