The Dwarves (2 page)

The strident noises jangled in his mind, and it seemed to him that the beasts had somehow changed. There was a palpable air
of confidence about the raging, shouting mob.

For the first time, he was afraid of the beasts.

What he saw next did nothing to ease his mind.

Scanning the ranks of the invading army, his gaze fell on a cluster of lofty fir trees. Since childhood he had watched them
thrive and grow on the otherwise barren slopes.

Now they were sickly and dying.

The trees are faring no better than we.
Glandallin’s thoughts were with his wounded and ailing friends. “What strange forces are these? Your children need you, Vraccas,”
he prayed briefly, gathering his axes from the parapet.

With growing dread, he pressed his lips to the runes. “Don’t abandon me now,” he enjoined the blades softly, before turning
and hurrying down the steps to join the small troop of defenders.

He reached them just as the first wave of beasts struck the wall. Quivering arrows rained down on the dwarves. Ladders were
thrust against the walls, and orcs hastened to scale the wobbly rungs, while others set down their catapults and launched
burning projectiles to reinforce the bombardment. Leather pouches, filled to the brim with paraffin, spluttered through the
air and burst on impact, covering everything around them in an oily liquid and setting it ablaze.

The first salvo was aimed too low, but the dark hordes were undeterred by the sight of their front line burning in a storm
of fire. Nothing, not the battery of stones nor the torrent of molten ore, could check their rapacious zeal. For every orc
that was slain, five new aggressors scaled the walls. This time they were determined to breach the defenses. This time the
gateway was destined to fall.

“Look out!” Glandallin ran to the aid of a dwarf whose shoulder had been pierced by an arrow. One of Tion’s minions, a stunted
creature with thick tusks and a broad nose, had seized his chance and squeezed through an embrasure, hauling himself over
the parapet and onto the battlements.

Dwarf and orc stared at each other in silence. The clamor of voices, the hissing of arrows, the clatter of axes faded to an
indistinct buzz.

Glandallin’s ears were tuned to his opponent’s heavy breath. The red-veined eyes, buried deep within the head, flicked nervously
from side to side. The dwarf knew exactly what was going on inside the creature’s mind. The orc was the first of its kind
to have set foot on the battlement and could scarcely believe its good fortune.

A foul odor rose from the thick gray layer of tallow that coated its armor plating. The smell filled Glandallin’s nostrils,
drawing his attention back to the battle.

Shrieking, he threw himself against the beast. His shield jabbed smartly downward, shattering his opponent’s foot, while he
lunged with his ax from above. The blade smashed through the unarmored flesh around the armpit. The orc’s arm, sliced cleanly
at the joint, fell to the stony floor. Dark green blood sprayed upward from the open wound.

The orc let out a high-pitched scream, for which he was rewarded by a mighty stroke perpendicular to the neck.

“Tell your kinsfolk I am anxious to make their acquaintance!” Glandallin gave the dying brute a final shove and sent him tumbling
against the parapet, where he took the next invader with him as he fell. They vanished over the side and plummeted to the
ground.
With any luck, they’ll crush half a dozen others,
thought Glandallin.

From then on the enemy gave him no respite. Running from one end of the parapet to the other, splitting helms, cleaving skulls,
ducking arrows, and evading firebombs, he felled orc after orc.

Darkness was descending on the Stone Gateway, but Glandallin was untroubled by the fading light; even the thickest gloom could
be penetrated by sharp dwarven eyes. But each blow and every movement took its toll on his weary arms, shoulders, and legs.

“Vraccas, grant us a moment to gather our forces,” he coughed, rubbing his braids across his face to free his eyes of blood.

The dwarven deity took pity on his children.

A fanfare of horns and bugles bade the hordes cease their assault, and the orcs complied, pulling away from the walls.

Glandallin dispatched a lingering assailant and sank to the stone floor, fumbling for his drinking pouch. He tore off his
helmet and poured water over his sweat-drenched hair. The cool fluid trickled over his skin, revitalizing his will.

How many of us remain?
He stumbled to his feet and went in search of survivors. Of the hundred-strong army, seventy were left, among them the formidable
figure of the fifthling monarch.

Nowhere were the enemy corpses stacked higher than at Giselbert Ironeye’s feet. His shiny armor, made of the toughest steel
forged in a dwarven smithy, gleamed brightly, and his diamond-studded belt caught the flames that licked from pools of burning
oil. He climbed atop a stone ledge to speak to his folk.

“Stand firm!” Steady and true, his voice sounded across the battlements. “Be as unyielding as the rock from which we were
hewn. Nothing — no orc, no ogre, no creature of Tion — will break us. We will cut them to pieces as dwarves have done for
millennia. Vraccas is with us!”

The speech was met with low cheers and grunts of approval. The dwarves had been dealt a blow, but already their confidence
was returning. They had grit and pride enough to stop the enemy in its tracks.

The warriors replenished their weary bodies with food and dark ale. With every sip and mouthful they felt stronger, more alive.
The worst injuries were treated as time and circumstance permitted, gaping wounds sewn hurriedly together with fine twine.

Glandallin found himself a space on the floor beside Glamdolin Strongarm. The two friends ate in silence, watching the mass
of orcs that had retreated a hundred paces from the gates. To Glandallin’s eyes it seemed the enemy had formed a living battering
ram, intent on smashing down the gateway with their flesh.

“Such persistence,” he said softly. “I have never seen them as dogged as they are tonight. Something has changed.” The thought
of the dying trees sent a chill down his spine.

All of a sudden an ax clattered to the floor beside him. Turning just in time, he saw his companion slump forward. “Glamdolin!”
He caught hold of the dwarf and was dismayed to see delicate beads of sweat glistening on his forehead, drenching his face
and his beard. His reddened eyes were glazed and unseeing.

Glandallin knew at once that the mystery illness had claimed another victim, finishing what the enemy had left half-done.

“Get some rest. The fever will soon be over.” Hauling Glamdolin’s heaving body to one side, he settled him as comfortably
as he could, knowing full well that the illness was probably fatal.

T
he long wait sapped the strength of dwarves and orcs alike. Fatigue, the warrior’s enemy, set in. Glandallin dozed on his
feet until his helmet hit the parapet with a thud. Awaking with a start, he looked around anxiously. Yet more of his kinsmen
had fallen prey to the sickness. Fortune had turned her back upon the children of the Smith.

A bugle call rent the air, setting his heart racing.

In the cold light of the moon he watched the approaching rows of colossal silhouettes, four times as tall as the orcs. There
were forty of them. Their hideous bodies were clad in poorly wrought armor and their monstrous hands clasped fir saplings,
roughly fashioned into clubs.

Ogres.

The dwarves’ defenses would crumble if the giants were to scale the walls. The cauldrons of molten slag were empty, the cache
of stones depleted. For a moment Glandallin’s doubts returned, but a glance at Giselbert’s gleaming figure assured him that
evil would be defeated in the time-honored way.

The mass of orcs stirred and a cheer went up as the ogres approached.

Marching to the head of the army, the enormous beasts, uglier and more oafish than even the orcs, deposited their grappling
irons, the four prongs of which were the length of a fully grown man. They attached long chains to the stem of each hook.

The apparatus is ill suited to climbing,
thought Glandallin.
The beasts intend to topple the walls.

Whistling through the air, three dozen claws buried themselves in the stonework. A shouted order summoned the watching orcs
to join the ogres in their tug-of-war. A crack of whips sounded and the jangling links pulled taut.

Glandallin heard the wall groan softly. The stronghold, built many cycles ago by his kinsmen, was no match for the beasts’
raw power.

“Quick, bring the wounded to safety!” he bellowed.

The party of dwarves responsible for tending the cauldrons left their stations and carried off Glamdolin and the other ailing
warriors.

Masonry crumbled as a section of crenellated battlement ripped from the wall. The grappling hook went into free fall amid
the showering stonework, killing two ogres and ten orcs. The enemy forces held their ground. Soon the hook was ripping through
the air again, poised to sink its claws into the wall.

This time the dwarves retreated, abandoning the parapet just in time. They took up position in the barbican above the gates.

Glandallin listened as a large section of wall crashed and shattered on the ground below. The earth quaked and the invading
army howled in triumph.

Good luck to them,
thought Glandallin, endeavoring to stay calm.
I hope they dash their brains out on the doors.
The gateway was built to withstand more than a few paltry grappling irons.

He peered cautiously over the steel-plated wall. More reinforcements were on their way. Horsemen mounted on jet-black steeds
galloped to the head of the army of ogres and orcs. Glandallin instantly recognized the pointed ears of the tall, slim creatures.

A red glow shone from the horses’ eyes and their hooves struck the ground in a shower of white sparks. Two riders thundered
to the gateway and gave orders to the troops. The orcs and ogres set about clearing the pathway of fallen masonry so the assault
could start afresh.

Wheeling round on their horses, the riders found safe quarter from which to watch. One of the two creatures unshouldered a
mighty bow and nocked an arrow against the woven bowstring. The marksman’s gloved fingers held the weapon loosely as he bided
his time.

Hastily, the fifthlings pushed boulders over the parapet and onto the beasts below. The enemy flinched, jostling to evade
the projectiles, and three of the orcs turned to flee. The archer raised his bow. Before the deserters could take flight,
the first arrow, too fast for Glandallin to follow, sang through the air and an orc fell to its knees.

Already a second missile, uncommonly long for an arrow, sped from the archer’s bow. The second beast perished, shrieking,
followed a moment later by the third. The remaining minions took heed of the warning and resumed their work on the pathway.
The orcs did not venture a protest at the murder of their kinsmen.

B
y the coming of dawn, the path had been cleared.

The fifthlings marveled at the scene unfolding before their eyes. The sky had brightened in the east, heralding the rising
of the sun, yet a thick bank of fog loomed in the north. Its luminous center, a maelstrom of black, red, and silver, flickered
with coursing light.

In defiance of the wind, it rolled toward the gateway, sweeping over the beasts below. The raucous orcs fell silent, huddling
nervously together and shrinking away from the fog. Stooping, the ogres allowed it to pass. As if hailing their leader, the
riders bowed their heads and saluted the vaporous mass. The shimmering mist lowered itself gently to the ground and hovered
in front of the horses.

Then the unthinkable happened. With a shudder, the first of five bolts on the doors shot from its cylinder. The gateway quaked.
Someone had spoken the incantation, delivering Girdlegard into the clutches of the invading hordes.

“No!” bellowed Glandallin, turning his back to the enemy and leaning over the inner wall to seek the culprit below. “No dwarf
would ever…”

Glamdolin Strongarm.
Alone, the dwarf was standing by the doors, lips moving, hands raised in supplication.

“Silence!” Glandallin bellowed. “Can’t you see what you’re doing?”

His shouts fell on deaf ears. The second lock glowed brightly, illuminated by the runes. The bolt creaked back.

“He’s been bewitched,” muttered Glandallin. “The fog has infected his mind.”

The third bolt left its ferrule and shot free.

At last the custodians of the gateway stirred. Springing to their feet, they darted down the staircase, racing to put a stop
to the treacherous magic before it was too late. The fourth bolt drew back. With one bolt remaining, Glamdolin was still standing
unchallenged on the pathway.

Time is against us
, Glandallin thought grimly. “Forgive me, Vraccas, but I have no choice.” He gripped his ax and hurled it with all his might
and fury at his comrade-in-arms.

The blade sliced through the air, spinning, then plunged sharply toward the ground. Glandallin’s aim was unerring and the
ax drove home.

Glamdolin groaned as the weapon struck his shoulder. Blood spraying from the wound, he stumbled to the ground. Watching from
above, Glandallin sent a quick thanks to Vraccas for guiding his blade.

His relief was short-lived. Death had come too late to prevent the traitor from achieving his terrible purpose. The final
bolt shot back.

Slowly, the colossal gateway opened. The vast slabs scraped and dragged across the ground, as though reluctant to obey the
treacherous command.

There was a grinding noise of stone on stone. The chink became a narrow channel, which widened to fill the breadth of the
path. Time slowed to a crawl as the gates swung open. One final creak and for the first time in creation the path into Girdlegard
was clear.

No!
Glandallin stirred from his paralysis and hurtled down the steps to join Giselbert and the remaining warriors defending the
gates.