The Fate of the Dwarves - By Markus Heitz Page 0,134

to get rid of all that. They pursued the kordrion with utmost haste.

Ireheart had nearly caught up with the monster and could see it clearly.

The wings were folded close to its muscular body, with no room to extend them in these narrow corridors. One was a little shorter than the other, as if it had regrown after an injury, perhaps. It was using its sharp claws to move its long, gray, wrinkled body, measuring twenty paces high and sixty in length. It dragged itself along through Phôseon, pushing forward with its legs.

It had crouched down as flat as it could, like a cat stalking a bird. Its back scraped against the ceiling of the arcaded corridor, damaging the stonework and causing large cracks. The floor was also suffering under a weight load it had never been designed to bear.

Ireheart had reached the tip of the tail and was unsure how to proceed. Shall I overtake it and attack from below? Shall I hack at the tail tip and attack when it turns round?

Before he could come to a decision, the kordrion suddenly slipped into the next vertical shaft and disappeared.

“What are you looking for, Bug-Eyes?” Ireheart was now at the edge and could see the monster several levels beneath him, creeping back into the building. “You’re looking for something, that’s for sure.” He turned and found a long flag hanging from the wall. Pulling it away, he wrapped one end round a column and used it to climb down to the floor that the kordrion had selected. When he landed he took out his crow’s beak again. “You’re not getting away from me that easily.”

Slîn and Balyndar slid down the flag to arrive behind Ireheart. They were breathless from the effort as the three of them pursued the monster.

The kordrion encountered no resistance. The älfar had never reckoned with a creature like this breaking into their city. The dwarves passed bitten-off limbs and pools of blood or smashed and mutilated bodies; these were the simple inhabitants of the town, as could be seen by the clothing they had worn. They had neither weapons nor armor at their disposal.

“It’s gone off to the right!” called Balyndar. “Over there in the wide passage.”

“I can see for myself,” growled Ireheart, who had grown tired of all this chasing about. He wanted a proper fight and was not interested in completing an endurance test.

They rounded the corner and were confronted with a broad gap in the walls, forming a path through to the gate they had entered by.

And that was where the kordrion was heading, still crouching low against the ground. Its back scraped some of the hanging gardens, making them sway and come away from their anchorages so that soil and plants rained down. Its claws hurled any älfar aside who had not sought cover; some of them the creature gobbled up or chewed to get at their blood, spitting out the remnants.

“Ho!” shouted Ireheart, hurrying onwards as fast as his legs could carry him. “Ho! You with the ugly face! Stand still for a change!”

“What’s it want at the gate?” Balyndar did not seem so bothered by all the running. “So it’s not you it’s trying to follow, Doubleblade.”

Slîn dropped behind. “Don’t wait for me,” he panted. “I’ll catch up. This armor is so heavy…”

Ireheart grabbed him by his forearm protectors. “You are a child of the Smith! Make a bit of an effort; you need to win your share in the glory of killing the kordrion. When will a fourthling ever get a chance like this again?” Secretly he was wondering where on earth Tungdil and Aiphatòn had got to.

He stepped over the debris and piles of sand from the hanging gardens; they kept having to make detours round broken lumps of masonry that had fallen from the façade. The vibrations caused by the kordrion’s progress, together with the violent swinging of its powerful tail, were destroying Phôseon.

“It’s… got… to the… gate.” Slîn could hardly speak, he was so out of breath. They were a hundred paces behind their quarry. “I’m… done for.” He stopped and rested his crossbow on a tree trunk. “I’ll cover you… from here.”

Ireheart and Balyndar hurried on. “Have you got a plan?” asked the fifthling. “Yes. To kill it,” replied Ireheart. “The simplest plans are always the best ones.”

They reached the open square in front of the gate.

The kordrion turned and twisted as if possessed, crouching down and arching its back and seizing the Black Squadron’s