Markus Heitz - The Revenge of the Dwarves

“Then they came. I remember exactly… We came to the surface and they were brought to us. Ugly little bastard-hybrids of orc and alf-the biggest no older than four cycles. Bandilor took the island to a secret location somewhere in the lake and sank it to the bottom. Then we put the bastards in the machines, screwed and hammered them all up tight, cut off their limbs and attached in their place the things Bandilor brought. Glass or crystals, I don’t know which. He pushed the rods of magic-conducting metal through the small bodies and threw the little bastards into a hole he had dug. They screamed. Oh, how they screamed.”

He shuddered with the horror of the images he was bringing to mind. “Green lightning shot up out of the hole and into the iron. Alfar runes flamed and flared and these hybrids… they grew and they screeched. Their bodies became fused with the contraptions. With my contraptions.” He emptied the cup. “I don’t know how long it took. Then Bandilor had the island brought up to the surface and I never saw the creatures again. Till we heard about them on the journey.”

He fell silent. All about them was quiet for some time.

Tassia had goosebumps all over as her imagination conjured up these horrific beings, filling her with terror. “Ye gods!” she breathed. “How awful!”

Rodario, too, needed some time to recover from what he had heard. His own technical theater-genius had created his masterpieces. Masterpieces of destruction and cruelty, driven by evil and suffused with the will to wreak havoc and death. “You are not the guilty one,” he breathed finally, helping Furgas over to the bed to sit down. He poured out wine, which his friend gulped down.

Furgas was shaking all over. “I don’t deserve to live, Rodario,” he said, despairingly. “Of course the thirdlings forced me to do these things but I carried out my tasks with precision. I did my work only too well.” He clenched his fists. “All the time I was thinking about Narmora and my children. I served the thirdlings well in order to avenge myself on the dwarves and on Girdlegard for what happened when they took my family. Only toward the end did I realize what harm I was causing to humans, elves and dwarves.” He emptied the wineglass and closed his eyes. “I… feel giddy,” he whispered and fell sideways onto the pillows. Wine and blood loss were taking their toll.

“Sleep as long as you can,” Rodario told his friend kindly. He covered him with a blanket and wiped the blood from the floor. He would scrub the floorboards later. “And don’t touch the knives.” He left the caravan, pulling the door to behind him.

He sat himself on the steps with the bottle of wine and watched the last rays of the setting sun. He took a swig of wine and passed the bottle to Tassia.

“What did he mean about his family being taken?” she asked hesitatingly. “I thought it had happened at the battle of Porista?”

He put his arm around her and pulled her to him, looking her deep in the eyes; imagining all of a sudden what it would be like to lose her forever, he felt a wave of fear surge through his being. He kissed her tenderly.

Tassia was aware of the difference between this and his usual passionate embraces: a kiss now not of desire but of such deep emotion that not even a poet would have been able to describe it. She smiled at him and put a hand to his face. “What was that for?”

Rodario sighed. “His life’s companion, Narmora, was a half-alf. She fought with us on the side of good against Nod’onn and then was apprenticed to the last of the magae, Andokai the Tempestuous. She took the maga’s place and protected Girdlegard from avatars and the eoil. But in return for her efforts, the alf part of her was burnt to ashes. The Star of Judgment knew no mercy. Not for her…”

“… or her children?” Tassia continued, shocked and saddened. “How terrible. Poor Furgas.”

“After the battle he blamed dwarves and humans alike for their deaths. If they had let the avatars have their way, he used to say in his utter despair, there would have been fewer victims in Girdlegard. They would have destroyed the evil in the form of the alfar and then they would have withdrawn. Without letting the Star of Judgment rise. And he could have been a contented father.” He looked past her to the red of the dying sun. “Sometimes I wonder if perhaps he was right.”

She was silent, took a mouthful of wine and passed the bottle back to him.

“I’d be lying if I said I’d understood him at the time. Now I’m able to imagine what it must have been like for him.” He stretched out a hand to stroke her hair. “I pray to the gods I’ll never be put in that situation. Like him I should hate-hate and hunt down-to the end of my days, anyone who caused me such pain.”

She took his hand and laid it on her cheek.

So they sat until darkness fell. Rodario looked in on the patient, now sleeping soundly, then he and Tassia moved over to the campfire to join the rest of the troupe, where they sat, arms around each other, listening to Gesa sing.

Girdlegard,

Kingdom of Gauragar,

Fortress Cowburg,

Summer, 6241st Solar Cycle

B alba Chiselstrike from the secondling clan of the Stone Teasers was feeling a little out of place amongst all these humans.

Queen Isaka’s direction that no dwarf be allowed inside the walls of the castle she found ridiculous. She could not understand the ruler’s fear. The humans, it was clear to Balba, would be completely lost without the fighting power of the dwarf peoples.

In spite of her resentment she intended to carry out her task conscientiously. Supervising the completion of defense works with the foreman, she was checking every stone in Paland’s bastion walls.

“It’s a wonderful fort, isn’t it?” the man said admiringly.

“No, it isn’t,” Balba smashed his complacency. “It’s ugly. The whole construction lacks grace and has been thrown uncaringly at the landscape. The old builders always planned meticulously but they never considered aesthetics.”

Her condemnation wiped the foreman’s good mood straight off his face. As a descendant of Paland’s original builders he felt this was a personal attack. “You dwarves all think you can do everything better.”

“I never said we would have done it better.” Balba knew her people would indeed have done it better but refrained from saying so. “I miss here the soul that every dwarf building has. The humans who built Paland hewed the stones into shape without paying attention to the strata and structure of the rock. Instead of listening to the grain and fitting the stones so that they last forever, an artificial mountain, the builders have forced the stone, violated it. That is why our buildings last longer than yours.” Balba and all dwarf masons knew the characteristics of every type of rock, from granite to slate, from basalt to marble or sandstone.

By the light of the setting sun she promptly discovered a damaged stone. “Hey, you there!” She called over one of the workmen the king had supplied her with. She pointed out a finial on the passageway arch to the main building. “I told you to take that one out and replace it.”

“We haven’t had time, Balba. We had to-”

“Right, I’ll explain to King Bruron when that stone starts to shake and the arch falls around his ears at the first fanfare.”

She put her hands on her hips-she was not going to be changing her mind.

The foreman sprang to the defense of his worker. “I’ll get a couple of people over and start work at once, Balba,” he said, lowering his head so she would not see the scowl. He hurried off, glad to escape her harsh tongue.

The dwarf-woman shook her brown hair back and adjusted her leather apron. “Humans,” she muttered and walked off.