The Dwarf Kingdoms (Book 5) (10 page)

“That will not take long,” said Ascilius confidently, for despite injuries and losses, his company still far outnumbered the Goblins. “You are too few to oppose us for long.”

“I think you had better count again,” said the Uruc with grim humor. From the shadows behind him, Wood Goblins began to appear in a steady stream, assembling by the hundreds all around Ascilius’s small band of Dwarves.

“They should not be here in such numbers,” muttered Ascilius to Elerian as if by objecting to the presence of the Mordi, he could make them vanish. “It makes no sense to have a garrison this large in place here.”

“It makes perfect sense if you are setting a trap,” replied Elerian quietly. “I understand now why the gate to the fortress was left unsecured and lightly guarded. The Goblins wanted to make it simple for an enemy force to enter the castella where they would then become trapped between the garrison on the upper level and the Goblin army outside the fortress.”

“But they had no warning that we were coming,” objected Ascilius.

“A careful commander would need no warning,” replied Elerian. “He would simply take precautions against an assault from Ennodius.”

“I am a fool for allowing myself to be hoodwinked in this manner,” groaned Ascilius quietly.

“We can discuss your shortcomings later, if we are still alive,” replied Elerian dryly. “Right now we need to deal with these Goblins.”

“Let us begin then,” said Ascilius, shaking off the dismay brought on by the sight of the Mordi. “Form a shield wall,” he shouted to his Dwarves who had already begun to draw closer to each other. Standing shoulder to shoulder, they overlapped their shields, forming a wall of steel between themselves and the Mordi. Elerian stepped back behind Ascilius as his companion linked shields with the Dwarves standing on either side of him.

“Better for me to stand where I can move freely,” he thought to himself, ignoring the dark looks some of the Dwarves cast his way. Clearly, they thought that he was afraid to stand and fight.

“A brave show, but it will not save you or your Dwarves,” said the Goblin captain to Ascilius in a sympathetic voice as the shield wall took shape. “I will make a pact with you, Dwarf. If you and your companion surrender yourselves to me, I will let the rest of your company depart in peace.”

“I do not make pacts with liars,” replied Ascilius contemptuously.

Upon hearing Ascilius’s insult, the Uruc captain’s amiable facade vanished. Sword upraised, he leaped at Ascilius. Supple as panthers, red sparks gathering into flames in their dark eyes, his Urucs followed his lead, attacking the Dwarves standing on either side of the Dwarf. The ring of steel on steel shattered the night as the Wood Goblins followed their captain’s lead, seeking some weakness or opening in the Dwarves’ shield wall through which they could slay or maim with their long, black bladed swords. There was little Ascilius’s company could do in return besides crouch behind their shields, for they dared not break ranks, and their knives and short swords could not easily reach their enemies through the small gaps between their shields.

Standing behind Ascilius, Elerian watched helplessly as the Uruc captain rained blows down on Ascilius, the argentum inlaid in the sides of his sword briefly gleaming red with each stroke. Only Ascilius’s magic shield held the Uruc’s dark sword at bay, the lines of argentum inlaid in its surface gleaming white as it deflected blows that would have cut through ordinary steel. All around the shield wall, Ascilius’s Dwarves fended of similar attacks from more ordinary swords, but Elerian knew that, eventually, some of them would give way.

“Once the Goblins break through, Ascilius’s company will fall before them like leaves before an autumn wind,” thought Elerian bleakly to himself. “I would rather die cleanly than fall into the hands of these fiends again,” he decided, harkening back to his captivity in the Goblins’ mines. “Before the end comes, I will cast another destruction spell. It will destroy everyone in the courtyard, but at least the Dwarves from Ennodius will find the outer gate sealed and the castella in Dwarf hands when they arrive.”

He was distracted then by taunts from the Goblins who took him for a human because of the illusion spell which disguised his true form.

“You should have picked better friends, long shanks,” called one.

“Soon, your flesh will be meat for our dinner,” called another.

“Not before he sings for us,” laughed a third. “He will carry a beautiful tune when we flay the skin from his living flesh.”

“Man flesh is so much sweeter when it is seasoned with pain,” observed another.

“Your head and that of your companion are safe, however,” taunted the Uruc captain, pausing in his attack on Ascilius. “Those I will send to my dark lord.”

Pointing Acris at the Goblin’s chest, Elerian angrily cast a destruction spell, but he was not surprised when his third eye opened, revealing that a shield spell covered the Uruc from head to toe like a cloak of red light.

“I might have guessed that he would be a mage,” was Elerian’s disappointed thought as he fended off a similar attack from the Uruc by absorbing his spell into his ring of power.

“Is there nothing you can do to this fellow,” muttered Ascilius wearily to Elerian over his left shoulder. “I feel like a piece of iron under the hammer from the sword strokes he has rained down on me.”

“He is a mage, and beyond my power,” said Elerian regretfully to the Dwarf as, eyes burning like red coals in his pale face, the Uruc captain suddenly lunged at Ascilius with his sword, redoubling his efforts to slay or wound the Dwarf with his flickering blade. Out of the corners of his eyes, Elerian saw that the shield wall was contracting as Dwarves began to fall to the swords of the Goblins.

“Do not let them take us, Elerian,” said Ascilius suddenly over his left shoulder as he deflected yet another heavy blow of the Goblin captain’s sword. “They will break through the shield wall soon, and I would not fall into the claws of these fiends a second time.”

“That will not happen again,” Elerian assured the Dwarf as he pointed the tip of Acris at the flagstones near his feet, holding himself ready to cast a destruction spell which would likely destroy every living thing on the mountaintop. “I had not thought that it would end like this,” he thought regretfully to himself as, around him, the shield wall continued to contract as more Dwarves were slain by the Mordis’ swords. 

“I should do it now, before it is too late,” he thought to himself, but the optimism that was a part of the fabric of his nature refused to depart, bidding him to wait a few moments more before ending all.

“Now, Elerian, while there is still time!” shouted Ascilius, certain that the end was near.

Reluctantly, Elerian cast his spell, but still did not release it. His third eye showed him a large, golden orb clinging to the point of Acris, ready to fly away at his command.

“Wait no longer,” urged Elerian’s common sense, but still he hesitated, driven by hope to wait a few moments more. Suddenly, the melodious notes of a Dwarf horn rose above the sounds of battle. Elerian’s sharp ears told him at once that it came from the fortress, not from the Dwarves in the courtyard.

“Has Falco come to die with us?” he wondered to himself as he turned toward the entryway of the hall. To Elerian’s surprise and confusion, however, it was Tonare not Falco who bounded through the doorway, his spiked collar and armor gleaming in the starlight.

UNEXPECTED HELP

With a ferocious roar, the dentire sprang on a Wood Goblin, closing his great jaws on the Goblin’s face as he bore him to the ground. Ignoring the blades of the Mordi who stabbed uselessly at his stony flesh, Tonare crushed the Goblin’s skull between his teeth. A cry of dismay rose up from the Wood Goblins around him when he raised his massive head to search for his next victim. Behind Tonare other stripped shapes were now springing through the doorway, fierce eyes alight with the desire to rend Goblin flesh. Pouncing like great cats on the hapless Mordi, the dentire savaged their foes, causing great confusion in their ranks. Behind the troll dogs, Elerian saw Durio suddenly run through the doorway leading a company of Dwarves that filled the hall behind him. Joining shields, the Dwarves plowed into the ranks of the Wood Goblins like a great steel ram. Driven on by the weight and strength of the hundreds of Dwarves behind them, they overran the Mordi who opposed them, sweeping them off their feet and trampling over them while those who came behind stabbed the fallen Goblins with their short swords and knives. Like a high tide rushing in from the sea, the Dwarves swept away the dark ranks of the enemy, assimilating the shield wall of their brethren as they advanced across the courtyard.

 Elerian turned back toward the Goblin captain and saw that he had broken off his attack on Ascilius. Dismay suffused his pale, lean face as he witnessed the swift reversal of his fortunes. Touching his ring of power to the destruction spell that hovered about Acris’s point, Elerian used the circlet of argentum to take in the spell, rendering it harmless.

“Stand and fight me one on one,” he called out to the Goblin captain. “I swear that I will kill you quickly,” he promised the Uruc, a cold light in his gray eyes.

The Goblin’s dark eyes turned crimson with rage, filled with a malevolence so virulent that, turned into a weapon, it might have slain Elerian on the spot. With a great curse, the Uruc suddenly threw his sword point first at Elerian who casually flicked the dark blade away with tip of his sword. With a ring of steel, the Goblin blade feel to the floor of the courtyard on Elerian’s right. Disappointed that his last treacherous attack on Elerian had failed, the Uruc cast a final baleful look at his enemy, before turning and running swiftly through the ranks of Mordi behind him. His small company of Urucs followed him, ruthlessly striking down any of their troops who were slow to clear a path for them.

Pushing past Ascilius, who only now had begun to realize that the tide of battle had turned, Elerian pursued the Goblin captain who began to cast aside his other weapons and armor. As if it had suddenly become fluid, his shape began to change even as he ran. Two of the Urucs following him suddenly turned to face Elerian, but he impatiently struck them down with two swift thrusts from Acris, brushing past their bodies before they had fairly begun to fall to the ground.

 In front of him, the Uruc captain leaped to the top of the stone wall that circled the courtyard. Standing on four legs now instead of two he leaped into the air, disappearing from Elerian’s sight as he fell like a stone into the abyss that lay beyond the wall. Two of his companions followed him, but the six who remained all turned to face Elerian, their deadly blades held high. Before he could close with them, Elerian suddenly felt himself pushed to his left as Ascilius rushed by him, springing among the Urucs like a whirlwind of destruction. With room to move now, he swung Fulmen in quick, immensely powerful strokes that crushed the Goblins to the ground, while his magical shield provided an impenetrable barrier against their dark blades as he spun and leapt nimbly among them. Prowling the perimeter of the battle, Elerian accounted for two of the Urucs who tried to flee, but the remaining four fell to Ascilius’s hammer.

“What a greedy fellow you are,” said Elerian to Ascilius as he leaned on his sword. “You might have left me at least one more.”

“You would have passed me then,” said Ascilius, who was engaged in crushing the throat of a wounded Uruc with the heel of his left boot, his dark eyes filled with implacable hatred as they coldly drank in his enemy’s last gasping breaths.

A dark shadow blotting out the starlight suddenly caused both Elerian and Ascilius to look up. Three huge shapes covered with sleek, sable fur hovered above them, supported by vast leathery wings that were eerily quiet as they flapped up and down. The lentuluses glared down at the two companions with hate filled, crimson eyes.

“Do not be afraid,” shouted Ascilius in a mocking voice. “Come down and let me caress the three of you with my hammer.”

As if accepting Ascilius’s invitation to do battle, two of the shape changers suddenly folded their wings and dove straight down at the two companions like stooping falcons. The third, their leader, bore down on the Dwarf advance, dropping into their ranks to rend and tear with teeth and claws while at the same time buffeting them with his mighty pinions which broke their bodies like great hammers. Axes, hammers, and swords all fell uselessly on his stony flesh, inflicting only the most minor injuries.

Elerian only saw the havoc being wreaked by the Goblin captain out of the right corners of his eyes, for most of his attention was focused on the lentulus which was swooping down on him, claw tipped paws reaching out to seize him. At the last moment, he darted to his left, crouching under the shape changer’s right pinion as it roared past him. Cupping its wings, the lentulus dropped to the courtyard, its iron hard claws scoring deep gouges in the flagstones as it arrested its forward motion. Swift and sinuous as a serpent, it twisted its ugly, snouted face around to face Elerian, fanged jaws gaping wide to seize his face and throat. Instinctively Elerian thrust upward with Acris, sliding the sword’s gleaming blade between the lentulus’s razor edged teeth and into the roof of its mouth. Elerian saw a flash of silver white light and felt a wave of weakness wash over him as the sword drank deep of his power, the force of his blow and the monster’s forward momentum forcing Acris up through its wicked brain and out through its thick skull bone. Thrust back by the massive form that struck his chest, Elerian lost his grip on Acris and fell backward, landing on the flagstones of the courtyard with the lentulus’s great sable head resting on his chest. As the hate filled, crimson eyes of the creature dimmed and guttered out, Elerian desperately squirmed to his left, just managing to avoid the stream of corrosive black blood that overflowed over the lentulus’s lower jaw, steaming and hissing as it dripped onto the floor of the courtyard.

To Elerian’s left, Ascilius confronted the second lentulus. Hammer raised high, timing his strike perfectly, he sidestepped the creature when it dropped out of the sky at the same time bringing Fulmen’s weighty head down on its right wing joint, shattering the bones beneath. Losing control of its flight, the lentulus tumbled across the courtyard, coming to rest sprawled out on its belly. Shaking off the effects of the hammer blow he had landed, Ascilius pounced on his fallen enemy. Casting aside his shield he landed a mighty two handed blow on the shape changer’s brain pan, crushing it like an eggshell, the argentum inlaid in the hammer’s head emitting a flash of silver white light that briefly lit the courtyard like a lightning strike, illuminating some of the combatants and casting others into shadow. Overcome by the force he had expended to slay his enemy, Ascilius toppled over backward, unable to support himself on legs gone suddenly weak and nerveless.

In the midst of the awful destruction he was inflicting on the Dwarf ranks, the Goblin captain raised his hideous sable head, startled by the light that briefly lit the courtyard and stung his eyes. Disbelief, rage, and fear, too, filled his black heart when he saw that his two companions were dead, slain by the fell weapons of his enemies.

The Goblin captain suddenly leaped high into the air, spreading his vast leathery wings so that he resembled a great bat hanging in the night sky. At the same moment, Elerian rose to his feet. Stooping over his dead enemy, he drew Acris from its fleshy sheath, its shining blade clean and untarnished by the deadly blood of the lentulus. Ascilius, who had also regained his feet by now, walked over to Elerian, standing by his left side with Fulmen clenched in his powerful right hand.

“Your end will come soon and it will not be a pleasant one,” threatened the lentulus in a snarly, harsh voice as he hovered over the two companions, but instead of dropping to the ground to attack them, the monster suddenly rose higher into the air before flying swiftly away to the west, toward the Goblin army. Having witnessed the potency of Acris and Fulmen, the Goblin captain feared to face Elerian and Ascilius alone. After a swift flight, he landed before a black tent pitched on a grass-covered hillock located about a half mile south of the gates of Galenus. The large pavilion belonged to his commander, an Uruc skilled in both the arts of war and the mysteries of mage craft. Sarius was his name, the same Sarius who had slain Elerian’s parents and then pursued Elerian, himself, through the Abercius.

Still in the form of a lentulus, his wings folded against his sleek sides, the Goblin captain padded past the door wardens into the interior of the tent where his commander sat in a chair of polished ebony, his pale face and dark form illuminated by a dim red mage light suspended from the ceiling. As the Uruc nervously reported, in a guttural, snarly voice, the loss of the fortress and all of the troops he had commanded, his thick tail twitched nervously behind him, the claw which tipped it gleaming like polished jet in the rays of the mage light. Uncertain how Sarius would take the news, he held himself ready to flee at the first sign of any threat of punishment, for he thought it better to live as a fugitive in the wild rather than to be flayed alive and roasted over a slow fire for days. Sarius, however, appeared more puzzled than angry by the news brought by his captain.

“Why, Agar, would the little people venture out from the city to recapture a fortress they cannot hold?” he wondered aloud, a frown on his pale brow.

“Perhaps they believe their new leader will lead them to victory,” replied Agar cautiously. “They were commanded by a Dwarf carrying a mighty hammer the like of which I have never seen before in all my long years. He was accompanied by a Tarsi bearing a sword of equal power. With these potent weapons, the Dwarf and his companion slew Hugor and Grogon even though they had taken the form of lentuluses.”

Sarius leaned forward, a look of eagerness appearing on his face at this last bit of news. “These two must be the escaped slaves that Torquatus wants so badly,” he thought to himself, for he had already received word from his dark king that Ascilius and Elerian were bound for Ennodius. The reason that Torquatus wanted the pair remained a mystery to his minions, for he had divulged that information to no one. The dark king had also kept Elerian’s history a secret so that Sarius had no suspicion that he was the same child that he had hunted so many years ago in the Wild Wood.

“How did the Dwarf and his companion arrive here?” he wondered to himself. “It passes belief that they were able to evade the claws and fiery breath of Eboria.”

“Are you certain that you are telling me the truth, Agar,” he asked suspiciously, red motes resembling fiery sparks suddenly appearing in the depths of his dark eyes. “Other than a small dragon hunting the hills, my spies have reported no suspicious creatures of any kind in the forest between Ennodius and Galenus.”

“They may not have come through the forest,” suggested Agar cautiously. “The Dwarf’s companion is a powerful mage with a ring of power on one of the fingers of his right hand. Perhaps he opened a portal which allowed him and his companion to enter Galenus unseen. From there, they could easily have launched an attack through the stable door which was but lightly guarded.”

“Only the Dark King possesses a ring with enough power to open a gate,” replied Sarius harshly, but there was a note of doubt in his voice, for there were many strange stories being told about the magical exploits supposedly performed by the escaped slaves. There was even a rumor that Ascilius’s companion was actually an Elf in disguise, but Sarius tended to doubt that, for the Elves had never possessed any ability to change their shape, relying mostly on illusions to disguise themselves. Ascilius’s companion, on the other hand, most definitely possessed that ability, for if he had used an illusion to conceal his identity when he was a captive in the mines, the guardians would have detected his use of magic at once.

“He is a shape changer of an unknown race,” thought Sarius to himself. “When he falls into my hands, I will discover his true nature, even if I have to peel his hide off an inch at a time,” he thought to himself, the image giving him an exquisite enjoyment. “After that, I will deliver what is left of him and his Dwarf companion to Torquatus, an act which will raise me high in his favor. The Tarsi’s ring, however, I will keep for myself, for it may finally provide me with the means to overthrow Torquatus and take his dark throne for my own.” Sarius’s dark eyes gleamed with anticipation at the thought that he might finally bring to fruition his most cherished, secret desire. 

“Tell my captains that we will abandon the siege of Galenus for now, leaving only a skeleton force before the gates to the city, Agar,” he said aloud to his subordinate. “They are to bring the full weight of my army against the castella. Once they have retaken it, they are to search for the Dwarf who led the attack and his human companion. If they are found, they are to be brought to my tent that I may question them further.”

Relieved that he was not to be punished, Agar at once slipped, like a dark shadow, out of Sarius’s pavilion eager, to be away from his commander’s uncertain temper. After following Agar to the entrance of his tent, Sarius watched impatiently as almost all the dark hordes arrayed before Galenus began to march toward the castella. Behind them rumbled siege engines mounted on great iron wheels and pulled by scores of black oxen. Last in line was a great ram newly arrived from Nefandus. A score of massive Trolls pulled it slowly along, bent almost double against its great weight.