The Fate of the Dwarves

XX

The Outer Lands,

The Black Abyss,

Fortress Evildam,

Spring, 6492nd Solar Cycle

Winter was gone and with it the ice and snow from round the fortress—the magic red barrier, on the other hand, was still in place.

Goda watched it at dawn, and at mid-orbit, and at orbit’s end, and late at night, as if her steady gaze could somehow make it dissolve so that the stronghold’s catapults might be put into action against their foe.

But this did not happen. The glowing red screen, not unlike a thin gauze curtain in appearance, was resistant to all Goda’s wishes, prayers and spells.

Kiras came up to bring her an early-morning cup of tea. Together they observed the plain around the ravine. It had been transformed into a vast military encampment.

“Have you any idea what it means?” The tall undergroundling was surveying the scene before her.

Goda understood what she was referring to. The monsters had been making strange marks on the rock; viewed from above they formed a pattern. She guessed that they represented magic preparations rather than indications of where the monsters should be deployed in battle. There were several hundred troops by the Black Abyss, but nothing pointed to any immediate plans for attack. They were waiting, with all their war equipment around them. Waiting, just waiting.

“No,” she said slowly. “It could be a series of runes, but I can’t read them.”

“Then that’s even more worrying.” Kiras leaned against the battlements. “I’ve been asking around and nobody has an explanation for these strange marks on the ground.”

“They’re from a foreign land. They’ll not be able to understand our language either.”

“The thing that calls itself Tungdil—I bet it’d be able to read them.” Kiras looked at Goda.

“But it’s not here. We must manage without it. And anyway, it’d tell us nothing but lies.” The dwarf took out a sheet of paper on which she had previously made an exact copy of the runes she had noted. Comparing the two patterns, she realized that changes had been made. She placed the paper on the parapet and took a quill and pot of ink out of her reticule. She entered the new marks and tried, again in vain, to make sense of the drawing.

“What are you getting the guards to do with those mirrors? Whenever the sun is out they’re out there, practicing.”

“It’s just a wild idea. I need to do more research.”

An ubari brought in some news and a dwarf in black armor. He waited two paces behind the ubari messenger, not seeming particularly anxious. Goda and Kiras quickly exchanged glances. “Lady, he says that he comes from Tungdil Goldhand.”

The dwarf bowed. “I am Jarkalín Blackfist, one of the Black Squadron riding south with the high king against Lot-Ionan.”

Kiras looked him up and down. “Are all of Goldhand’s troops dressing in black nowadays? He seems to attract evil.”

“Tell me how you met up with him,” Goda demanded, holding out her hand for the message. Jarkalín gave her two leather rolls, and to the ubari he handed a sealed piece of waxed cloth with a letter enclosed in it; the symbol on one of the leather rolls was unfamiliar.

Jarkalín bowed. “This is from Aiphatòn, emperor of the älfar.”

Kiras and Goda stared at him in disbelief as if he had turned into a sharp-fanged rabbit before their very eyes.

Jarkalín gave a concise report of events. “… then the high king’s company set off for the south. I was sent out with twenty others to bring the news,” he concluded. “On the way back to the fortress I received Aiphatòn’s letter for you.” He bowed. “I shall wait for your answer to the high king.” Jarkalín withdrew three paces so that the queen could read the letter.

“Aiphatòn has turned into an ally, it seems.” Goda was puzzled by the turn of events. “Maybe Vraccas is on Tungdil’s side, after all.”

“Or perhaps it’s another god completely, out to trick us,” Kiras said sharply, her visage darkening.

Goda opened Ireheart’s letter, which told in few words the same story as Jarkalín’s spoken report. Aiphatòn wrote that the älfar were on the march and had started their campaign against Lot-Ionan.

“The emperor does not think the war will be over before the summer ends. The abyss must be contained at least till then,” she told Kiras as her gaze swept over the red globe that covered the area round the ravine. “I have a feeling our enemies will not wait that long. It’s deceptively quiet out there, a charade to lull us into a false sense of security.” She was struck by the difference between the älf’s script and her husband’s hand: The one curved and graceful, the other characterized by short straight lines, a steady pressure on the pen nib and several blots on the paper where the dwarf had been careless.

“Do we risk a sortie?” suggested Kiras.

Goda sighed. She had often played through this scenario in her head.

It would be enough if they could destroy the enemy’s equipment. The monsters had taken an age to assemble it all and they would need a long time to replace it. “I’d have to drop the barrier. That will take a lot of my energy and I can’t say how long I can hold it open.” She opened the next letter.

It was from the freelings, to say they were sending a contingent to join Tungdil. The siege the älfar and the thirdlings had subjected them to was now over—this had been effected by the negotiations or commands of the high king.

“They are glad the hero has returned to unite and lead the dwarf-tribes,” she relayed to Kiras, who grimaced. “In their eyes Tungdil Goldhand is the greatest dwarf-leader ever and has united the factions and will bring them all lasting peace following the promised defeat of Lot-Ionan.”

“Why do I feel so angry and so helpless?” the undergroundling exclaimed desperately, addressing the skies. “Shouldn’t I be rejoicing at all this good news?”

Goda embraced her. “I feel the same. We are the only ones who believe the one who returned from the abyss is a being sent by the darkness.”

“And he is uniting all the forces of evil under his banner. No one else can see it.” Kiras ground her teeth. “I’d swear that Tungdil’s pact with Aiphatòn is of a completely different nature than it’s purported to be.” Her eyes flashed. “Of course! It’s the other way around!”

Goda did not follow. “Explain.”

Kiras pointed to the screen. “Tungdil is gathering these horrors to form an army: Aiphatòn, Lot-Ionan, himself and these beasts from the Black Abyss with their sorcerer-commander. He won’t destroy them, he’ll consolidate them. An army nobody can stop.” She passed her hand over her face. “By Ubar! Do not let my terrible conviction prove true!”

Goda opened another letter. She lowered it in surprise. “It is from Rognor Mortalblow, king of the thirdlings… He says he’s pulling his troops out of the Brown Mountains and the freelings’ caves to march against Lot-Ionan.” She emptied her beaker. “You see me totally at a loss, Kiras. I don’t know what to think!”

“All the demons and evil spirits are with Goldhand,” she hissed, smiting the battlements with her hand in exasperation. “He must have put a spell on Mortalblow to soften his mind and bend his will.”

“You can’t do that with a spell.”

“There are no such spells that you know of, Goda.” The undergroundling was close to tears—tears of anger. “No one else can see what we can see,” she whispered in despair. “They’re all running after him. Running to their destruction.” She buried her face in her hands. “That’s what he’ll bring them: Destruction,” she mumbled.

The maga skimmed the letters again to be sure she had understood everything correctly, then she called the ubari over. “Summon the officers. Tell them to gather in the conference chamber. We’ll be making a sortie.”

Kiras straightened up and wiped away a tear. “I’ll come, too,” she announced. “I want to see with my own eyes exactly what’s been going on.”

Goda gave her an anxious glance.

Rattling and groaning, the mechanism to open the great southern gate slowly started to move. Four hundred soldiers waited, poised to sally forth.

At the head of the force stood a hundred dwarves, then came two hundred combined ubariu and undergroundlings; the rear was brought up by one hundred humans, archers and crossbowmen, to provide covering fire for the warriors and to check enemy attacks at source.

Goda looked at her daughter Sanda and her son Bandaál, both standing by Kiras among the dwarves at the front. These two children of hers had inherited her magic gifts and knew their way around spells and incantations. They waved at their mother.

The maga was including them in this force so that they could, if necessary, recite spells to protect them from enemy sorcery. She was uneasy sending her own flesh and blood to the other side, but there was no other way. She would have her hands full, holding the gap in the screen open for them; her children would not be capable of doing that.

And there was another of her offspring among the company of brave hearts. He had not brooked any attempt to hand over command to anyone else: Boëndalin Powerthrust, her oldest son, an excellent warrior, taking after his father. He stood proudly in the first row, holding a shield and his two-bladed ax. He greeted his mother with a nod, his eyes flashing with battle-lust. He controlled his hot blood better than his father could, which was why the command was safe in his hands. His skill with weapons made him the best warrior in Evildam.

Between the double gates of the fortress a slit was visible now, letting in a reddish shimmering light.

“May Vraccas be with you,” called Goda. “You have your orders: Destroy as much as you can and come back quickly if the opposition is strong. We don’t need heroic sacrifices today. Save them for another time.”

Kiras raised her hand. She was wearing leather armor and carrying a sword-ax, a weapon the undergroundlings had developed in the last eighty cycles. On one side you had a blade, and at the end there was a narrow ax head that could be employed against shields and helmets.

Sanda and Bandaál had the traditional dwarf chain-mail shirt, helmet and shield; they carried axes in their belts. Their priority would be to counteract any magic attack. Goda had also given them each ten splinters of diamond. They were to use up this external energy first before having recourse to their own inner powers.

Goda raised her arm and concentrated. She did not want to repeat her mistake of trying to break the screen by force. Instead she wanted to chip away at it gently with magic, to scrape and abrade it until a weak spot developed. A weak spot large enough for all these warriors.

Her lips moved and she assayed a combination of formulae. She was not entirely sure what would work, but had a few ideas.

Pulsating white magic left her fingertips and snaked toward the barrier, smoothing itself around, like a cat encircling the legs of a human.

No resistance was encountered.

Goda sighed with relief and increased the area covered, so that it would be large enough for the ubariu to walk through.

Sparks appeared and this part of the screen turned a lighter color, going pale pink and then disappearing completely until only the white could be seen.

“Off you go,” Goda commanded, holding her magic firmly to support the rest of the barrier. Where red and white met, there was hissing and crackling and occasional sparks, which, if they touched anything, left a black scorch mark.

The troops stormed out without any battle cries and fanned out to form a long line, while the archers remained behind preparing to shoot their arrows and crossbow bolts. The attack began.

The first of the tents and buildings fell to the warriors without a sound. Only when the flames shot up, leaping from one length of canvas to the next, to spread to the whole encampment, did the horrified howls of the monsters ring out. Trumpets gave the alarm. Drum rolls called them to arms.

Goda kept her arm outstretched and fed further magic into her spell in order to be able to maintain it. She was afraid she might not be able to open the gap again if she allowed the first beam to fail.

“May Vraccas be with you,” she repeated quietly. And with my own children, above all things.

Kiras followed close on Boëndalin’s heels.

They ran forward, passing through the gap in the barrier. The undergroundling felt pain for a fleeting moment as they did so.

“Take out the big machines by the walls first, and the tents,” Boëndalin ordered, telling the archers to prepare their fire arrows. While the unit moved over to the right, their burning missiles shot in the opposite direction to keep the monsters occupied extinguishing the flames. Then they confronted their first opponents.

Kiras was struck by the ease with which they were able to rampage unopposed. They had caught their foes unawares at their midday meal—indeed, how could they have possibly guessed that Goda was going to open the barrier?

In the course of all the turmoil created by the attack more fires broke out as cooking stoves were kicked over in the general confusion.

Before long all the machines by the gates had been destroyed; the largest ones now were three hundred paces away. From the direction of the gates impressive numbers of strangely diverse monsters came surging toward the dwarves.

“Archers! Fire!” Boëndalin ordered the rest of the company to continue advancing. Arrows skimmed overhead from behind, targeting the monster horde, bringing some of them dead or injured to the ground. “And now have at them! Down with them all! Over there, get to the catapult!” the dwarf shouted as he rammed the sharpened edge of his shield into an opponent’s neck. Slicing through leather protection the metal opened the monster’s throat all the way to the spine. The beast went flying, as good as decapitated.

The commando troops slashed and bashed their way through the enemy. Kiras, dispatching many opponents herself, had to admire Boëndalin’s skill, whether in giving orders or fighting. She would appreciate a partner like that at her side, but a sense of tradition made it an unsuitable match. Undergroundlings and dwarves did not mix. Not for long, anyway.

They had reached the tall catapult towers. Two-thirds of her group gave covering fire while the others hacked at the guy ropes, smashed the supports and inflicted so much damage on the device that there was a loud crash as the construction shuddered and fell.

“Get out of here!” Boëndalin commanded. Like Kiras, he had seen that the enemy was regrouping. “We’ll withdraw back to the gate. We have done well!”

The undergroundling looked at one of the odd poles that stood apparently isolated on the plain, a taut chain leading back from it down the Black Abyss. It was only a couple of hundred paces away. “What about that, Boëndalin?” Kiras called out. “Can’t we get that one, too?” Success had gone to her head. “We can do it!”

The dwarf looked at the beasts. Behind a furrowed brow his brain was working furiously. They still had not found out what the masts were for, and there were about four dozen of them planted round the entrance to the ravine.

“It’s not far,” she said, enticingly. “Whatever they’re for, we can easily get rid of them. And we haven’t seen hide nor hair of their magus yet.”

Boëndalin glanced at his siblings, who both indicated their approval.

One of the ubariu protested, wary of the long distance back to safety; their retreat could be cut off. Their armor had grown no lighter in all that fighting and running was getting more difficult now. For all of them.

“Let’s attack,” was Boëndalin’s decision finally. He charged off. “Archers, fire to the left and right! Undergroundlings, bring up the rear!”

In this formation they reached the first of the mysterious metal poles. The foundations, made of solid lumps of cast iron, were almost impossible to dislodge.

“Get the ubariu to bend the poles back toward the chasm—they are already under tensile stress.” Boëndalin gave the command and reconfigured his troops.

Kiras was following the action out of the corner of her eye, watching the powerful warriors thronging around the pole, some pushing, the others pulling.

The metal creaked and gave way. The huge chain, which had the diameter of a tree trunk, suddenly went slack and dropped to the ground. Two of the ubariu failed to leap to safety swiftly enough and were crushed to death in their armor, squashed like insects by the heavy links.

“Come on! Let’s get the next one!” Boëndalin pointed over to the right.

This time the ubari expressed his objections forcefully. “Your mother said we were not to cross a line that’s over three hundred paces behind us now. Sir!” His pink eyes were full of reproach. “And there are over forty of these masts to be dealt with. We’ll never do it.” He pointed to the left, where a wall of beasts was advancing on them. These had shields for protection against arrows and crossbow fire; no comparison with the random rabble they had previously faced. They were still three hundred paces away. “We need to retreat, sir!”

Boëndalin exchanged glances with Sanda and Bandaál. “Keep that lot off our backs,” he told them. “We’ll bring down another dozen of the masts, and then,” he said, looking angrily at the ubari, “I’ll be the one to order the retreat. No one else.”

The dwarf-famuli took up position and raised their hands. Their fingers described runes in the air, and their diamond splinters shone out dazzlingly bright, surrendering the last of their magic to empower the formulae.

A dark-blue beam shot out from the palm of Sanda’s hand, forging a path through the attackers from the front of the wave right through to the last man. Everything the beam of light touched was immediately vaporized to a stinking black cloud, with only molten clumps of metal remaining of armor and weapons.

“What do you say to that, brother of mine?” she said, panting heavily, and flashing a challenge with her eyes.

Bandaál formed a half-globe with his hands, the open side directed toward the beasts. He blew gently through his fingers and his breath became a tornado to rout the enemy.

Half of them were swept off their feet, banners went flying and even creatures the size of an ubari were blown about like puppets of straw. Arrows that had been on their way toward the dwarves were forced back on the ranks of monsters.

Bandaál lowered his arms, grinning at his sister. “I think my spell was eminently superior.”

“It’s not a game!” Kiras had been watching them and waved them on to join the others who were charging off toward the next pole. “Come on! We’ve got to stick together!” She looked back at the southern gate, which now seemed a very long way off. The undergroundling was shocked to see the white shimmer they had come through now appeared rather pink. “I think Goda is having trouble holding open the gap!”

The famuli looked at the opening, and thus missed seeing the horde of monsters split in two to reveal a small-statured warrior striding to the front.

Kiras took her telescope off her belt to get a closer look.

A dwarf in glorious red-gold vraccassium armor with deep black tionium inlay was stomping toward the apprentice magicians; in his hands he carried two war hammers with silver and gold heads studded with jewels reflecting the light. He did not look anywhere near as dangerous as Tungdil Goldhand. Perhaps it was the color of his armor plates.

His visor was open—and she felt suddenly nauseous. The dwarf had no lower jaw!

Through the focused lenses she saw the long-healed injury in all its terrifying detail. A blow must have cost him jawbone and teeth. A healer had simply sewn up the loose flesh and tightened it so that the dwarf could take in food and continue to live, and had left him a narrow slit below the upper jaw through which presumably the food could be pushed in. But he would not be able to speak or chew, Kiras thought. Long black beard hair reached down from his cheeks to his chest. No hair at all grew where the scars were.

Some of the nose was missing, too. Cartilage had been cut away and the hole was protected by a silver plate. Two vertical slits allowed air to be taken in. The very appearance, like a skull, would be enough to root any enemy to the spot. The brown eyes burned with hatred and pain.

“By all the…” Kiras put her telescope down swiftly as an icy shudder ran through her body. This must be the master that had been spoken of. She told the famuli about this new danger, Boëndalin and the troops not having noticed, being busy with the attempt to demolish the next metal pole.

“Let me,” Bandaál said. “I’m older than you.” He prepared his magic spell, took out a further diamond splinter and clasped it determinedly in his hand to make use of its energy. He murmured a banning spell and a column of gray light the size of a human rose up before them. At the final word of the incantation if shot off in a straight line toward the dwarf, transforming itself in mid-flight.

It broadened out and developed spikes like fingers. It was clear to Kiras that nothing would survive contact with this phenomenon.

The dwarf stopped, twirled his weapons and abruptly laid the hammers crosswise together.

A loud bang ensued and a second column appeared—but this one was as high as one of the catapults. It surged off, spreading in the same way as the first, developing spikes the length of spears. The two shapes sped toward each other between the two armies. Bandaál’s collapsed with a crash and the other dwarf’s deadly wall of light continued on its path.

Boëndalin had turned round now and had seen what was happening. He screamed out commands, ordering an immediate retreat. The discipline among his troops was incredible and no one broke ranks or shouted, but they all raced faster than they had ever run before to leave the battlefield.

“By Vraccas!” Sanda cast a green lightning flash against the encroaching wall but it melted away harmlessly on contact.

“It’ll have us any second!” Kiras looked at Boëndalin, who was gesturing to them. It was impossible to avoid the magic pillar—it was moving too fast.

Sanda took hold of her remaining eight diamond splinters and told her brother to do the same. “Quick, a sphere,” she panted, grabbing his hand. Both of them knelt down.

“Get down,” Bandaál told the undergroundling, “or you’ll lose your head.”

Kiras threw herself onto the ground behind the siblings. The pillar hummed close. A milky hemisphere had enclosed them and, at the next moment, the pillar of light crashed into it.

One by one its spikes broke off and lightning bolts flashed hither and thither, but the three of them were unharmed. Kiras had a sense that every piece of metal near her, even the smallest rivet on her armor, was growing hot, and she felt her whole body being pinched and jabbed.

Then the attack was over.

“We’ve destroyed it,” gasped Sanda in relief. The sphere collapsed and she felt the wind that the wall of light had stirred up gust past her. Dust whirled up, getting between their teeth.

The undergroundling turned her head. “No!” she groaned. Before the wave of dirt hid the scene from view she saw the wall of light heading directly for Boëndalin and his troops. Then the dust cloud became too dense for her to see anything more.

Bandaál and Sanda pulled Kiras to her feet and, holding each other’s hands so that they would not get lost in the gray veil of dust, they stumbled on toward the safety of the southern gate.

All of a sudden the wind changed and they could see looming up through the dirt, less than ten paces ahead, the form of the unknown dwarf. He was holding his hammers right and left of him, arms spread out, the heads pointing down.

Sanda screamed when she saw him, clapping her hand to her mouth. Bandaál took a deep breath.

Kiras, on the other hand, looked past him to where Boëndalin’s unit had been standing.

The men and women had been caught mid-flight by the magic. Their bodies lay scattered on the ground, and Kiras scanned the carpet of limbs and torsos in vain for any signs of movement. She was suffused with guilt. If she had never pointed out the masts to Boëndalin, they would all have been safely back in the Evildam fortress by now.

The dwarf’s head was held low. A black lock of hair fell over his brow and blew about in the light breeze. Without a word from him, black flames emerged from the hammerheads and he slowly raised his arms.

Kiras stepped in front of the siblings and gripped her sword-ax. “Try to get to the gate,” she told them. She was more afraid than she had ever been, but was not going to leave Bandaál and Sanda here alone. “Go on!” the undergroundling urged. “You are more useful than I am.”

Brother and sister raced off and the dwarf let them pass. His brown eyes held Kiras in their gaze. His face was expressionless, or was that an attempt at a smile on his cheeks?

Kiras forced saliva down her dry throat. It ran slow as treacle down her gullet. “You’ll have to attack if you want me dead!” she called to the dwarf, pointing her weapon at him. “You will be…”

She spoke no more.

The dwarf moved too swiftly for her to be able to follow. He was suddenly right in front of her and struck her in the chest with his burning hammer. Her armor burst into flames, even though it was not made of any flammable material.

The second hammer hit her on the back of the head and she collapsed, swooning. She could hear the crackle of flames at her ear. The metal of her helmet did not seem to care that it could not burn. Flames flickered at the holes made by the hammers.

As she fell she pushed her helmet off and rolled onto her belly to extinguish the fire on her breast.

A foot turned her over onto her back and the terrible face of her enemy was directly above her own. He was staring at her as he raised his hammer again. The black fire around him had died away but its heat was still overwhelming. He pressed the hammer head against her brow and the metal ate into her flesh.

Kiras gave a scream and lost consciousness.

Goda saw the glowing wall of light approach the fleeing figures and forgot all her previous intentions. Three of her children were in mortal danger. If she did nothing neither she nor Ireheart would ever find forgiveness.

She leaped through the gap and let fall the spell that had been holding the opening against the company’s return. She hurried forward to protect Boëndalin and his troop from the magic forces attacking them.

Goda racked her brain to find some incantation she could use against the wall of light. The enemy magus possessed enormous power. This shimmering wall of spikes was rushing up behind the troops, who turned to face it when Boëndalin gave the command. They crouched down behind their shields.

The maga panted; there were still three hundred paces to cover before she could reach her eldest son. She had grasped the fact that she would never manage to protect all the warriors from the wall’s onslaught. In her left hand she had two dozen splinters of the magic diamond. They would be no help now.

“Take them softly to the eternal smithy,” Goda prayed, weaving a protective spell which she placed only around Boëndalin. He disappeared in a flickering cloud.

Then the wall of light hit the troop.

It was painful for her to witness the deaths of so many fine fighting souls. The spikes pierced shields and armor, bodies and heads, and speared the dead onto the living until they all lay heaped up like sand on a shovel; finally the wind fell and the corpses rolled apart to scatter on the ground, the momentum still driving them.

“Boëndalin!” she screamed, running on. She could see him, surrounded by the shimmering. He was standing in front of the pile of slaughtered warriors, unable to understand how he had been spared and the others had not. “This way,” called Goda. Between her fingers the diamond splinters crumbled and were blown away.

Thick veils of dust took away her vision. Fearful of a further attack, she put her hand back into her pocket, calculating how many splinters remained. She noted that she was down to half the original stock. Again she called her son’s name.

“I’m here, mother,” he gasped, coming toward her through the fog of swirling dirt. He was holding his arm across mouth and nose and had screwed up his eyes against the dust storm. “What happened?”

“The magus has…” As the clouds of dirt thinned out, Goda could see Bandaál and Sanda with Kiras standing before a dwarf in reddish-gold armor. His back was turned to her as if he had nothing to fear from her. Or had he not seen her? “Is that him?”

Boëndalin’s glance flew between his siblings and the corpses on the ground. “Why didn’t you save all of us?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

The hammer heads started to emit black fire.

“He’s attacking them!” Goda hastily prepared a spell.

Bandaál and Sanda ran past the unknown figure, while the undergroundling confronted the dwarf in combat.

Boëndalin wanted to charge off to help her, but Goda restrained him. “You cannot help her against this enemy. Only my powers can effect anything.” She chose an assault spell that would bombard the dwarf with multiple lightning strikes. But before she had finished speaking the charm, the foe had felled Kiras with a double blow, finally forcing his hammer onto her face; the undergroundling lay motionless.

Goda released the energies.

Lightning flashes shot out from the tips of her fingers, aimed at the dwarf, who straightened up, crossed his hammers over each other and held them up, arms outstretched.

Bandaál and Sanda had now reached their mother and saw what was unfolding.

The glowing flashes crossed the distance in zigzag lines, overtaking each other in a race to see which would reach the adversary first.

The first lightning bolt hit the hammer head, and discharged its power. Brighter than the flash itself, the symbols on the metal shone out. Then came the next strike.

The dwarf was forced back by the impact, his heels dragging great gouges through the dusty ground surface—but he did not go up in smoke, or fall! When the last bolt had hit him, he turned his upper body slightly and spread his arms again. It was a pose of consummate superiority.

Then he turned away and strode back to his beasts. He left Kiras lying there.

Abruptly he circled round again, his hammers crossed against the maga. Two of the armor runes shone out and seemed to be feeding light to a jewel that was placed above his solar plexus. The gem glowed and released an ochre-colored thick beam, for which the weapon heads formed a lateral boundary; the dwarf seemed to be steering it by manipulating the hammers.

Giving a deep dangerous roar he flew over to Goda and her children; the earth beneath him was scorched black.

Goda put her hand back into her pocket and created a hasty counter-spell, which crashed into the enemy magic with a crackling, hissing sound, shattering it like porcelain. The heat they were showered with took away their breath and singed beards and eyebrows and rebellious locks of hair. They had to shut their eyes against the blast to prevent them drying out.

When they looked up once more the dwarf had gone. The monsters were waiting four hundred paces away at the entrance to the abyss, watching them.

“Go and fetch Kiras,” Goda commanded quietly. The magus had made himself invisible.

Boëndalin sped off, threw the undergroundling over his shoulder and returned with her.

Then the monsters roared and charged.

They reached the barrier in the nick of time, and behind it lay the saving grace of the southern gate. Goda collected the last remnants of concentration and, with extreme difficulty, forced the red screen open for a second time.

She was the last of the group to re-enter the fortress. But when the gate closed behind her she still did not feel safe. The power of the disfigured dwarf had been far greater than she had feared.

Boëndalin laid Kiras on a stretcher. “See what you can do for her, mother,” he asked, as he dampened the girl’s face with water.

The soldiers around them and up on the battlements sent sympathetic glances to the returnees; one or two were angry, critical because of the disastrous outcome of the sortie and the death of so many warriors. Boëndalin gave a deep sigh.

Goda checked the undergroundling’s heartbeat. “She’ll be all right,” she comforted Boëndalin and her other two children, both of whom stood at her side, quite distraught. “Apart from the burn on her face she doesn’t seem to have sustained serious injury.”

The maga did not recognize the symbol that the enemy magus had imprinted on the undergroundling’s forehead. Was it intended as a branding mark of humiliation? Why had he spared her life? Because she had been so stupidly brave?

“It’s all my fault,” said Boëndalin to Goda. He sounded more than downcast. “We should have retreated after destroying the catapults. It was only because I insisted on leading the troops to the masts. That’s why they all died.” He lifted his head. “It was my fault,” he called up to the silent soldiers guarding the walls.

“Nonsense. This is war, and war kills. It kills humans, dwarves, ubariu and undergroundlings.” Goda contradicted him. “All of them knew that it was a really dangerous mission. They all volunteered to go with you.”

Boëndalin was past consolation. “I should be lying out there with them.” He lowered his voice. “It is only thanks to your art that I am still alive. It wasn’t my strong arms or my skills as a commander that saved me. The name of each of the fallen will remind me that I must be a better leader.” He was about to go.

Goda touched him on the shoulder. “And yet the mission did succeed. The camp has been burned down and the catapults have been destroyed. They have not sacrificed their lives for nothing.”

“They would not have lost their lives at all if I hadn’t given those commands.” He left them and walked to his quarters.

Sanda and Bandaál came over and, in long tearful embraces, thanked her for saving their lives. Goda sent them off to rest.

She stepped into the lift to go up to the tower to survey the scene of conflict. She had not lied to them. The mission had won the defenders valuable time and the knowledge that, without outside support, they would never be able to vanquish their opponents’ magus.

Her gaze swept over the barrier, now obscured under clouds of smoke. In spite of all their losses she remained convinced that they had scored a victory over the monsters; albeit a two-edged victory.

We shall have to wait until the summer, Vraccas, she said in prayer. Her hand felt for the diamond fragments and found only four, together with a great deal of dust. The last ones…