The Fate of the Dwarves - By Markus Heitz Page 0,204

released him and disappeared into the shadows.

“What do I do when the thirst comes back?” Ireheart asked in a muffled whisper.

“I’ll be there and I’ll help you slake your thirst,” came the answer out of the dark.

He sighed. “Vraccas, whenever I think it can’t get any worse, you have a surprise in store for me,” he grumbled. “My soul is besmirched, I have an elf curse on me and the only pointy-ears who might be able to help me—well, no one knows where they are or if they’re even still around.” He fiddled with his trousers, preparing to give some dwarf-water to the desert. “Oh, and let’s not forget the monsters of the Black Abyss. And Lot-Ionan, who we have to defeat but mustn’t kill. All the usual suspects for a dwarf like me to contend with. Anyone would think it was some marketplace bard coming up with this tale. Perhaps you’ve got a pet storyteller, Vraccas, giving you ideas.” He directed his dwarf-water to describe at least the first letter of his name in the sand.

He was not surprised in the slightest to note that his stream ran black as ink before it trickled away between the grains of sand.

XXV

Girdlegard,

Former Queendom of Sangpur,

Southwest,

Spring, 6492nd Solar Cycle

They left the belt of sand behind them, marched through fields of boulders, traversed valleys and skirted ravines in which, numberless cycles earlier, vast rivers had run. Now they were met only with dust, stones and the occasional bleached skeleton.

This stretch of the Sangpur desert appealed to Ireheart because it resembled his old habitat with its soaring rock walls, its chasms, its echoes, its subterranean passages, here cut by racing water and not by dwarf-hand. The landscape had something primeval to it. I could almost start to like it here if it weren’t hotter than the inside of a maniac’s forge.

Today they were making their way through a labyrinth of sunken walkways in which Franek, at the head of the company with Tungdil and Barskalín, kept getting lost. It was only thanks to the dwarves that they ever found their way out again. One of the Zhad��r climbed up high to get a better view and pointed them in the right direction for the east.

“Our water supplies are running out. We should have got to the village you told us about three orbits ago,” said Tungdil. “If we don’t reach it tomorrow, you’re for the chop, famulus, for having tricked us. I think you’re taking us round in circles hoping we die of thirst.”

The man gasped. “Oh sure, and I’m taking myself round in those same circles to die with you? Not a good move.”

“Who says you don’t have a secret reservoir near here?” Ireheart moved up to the head of the column. “What kind of a village did you say it was?”

“A desert market; a trading station. We’ll get everything we need. They used to sell dwarf-made goods there, weapons particularly. Even today you can get some quite rare items.” Franek looked down at the clothes he was wearing, marked over and over with salt rings. “They know me there.”

“Is that a good or a bad thing?” Ireheart laughed. “I like to be prepared. I’d like to know whether they’ll greet us at spear-point because we have you with us.”

“We’ll be safe enough. The town belongs to me.” He drew in a hot lungful of air. “Well, it was mine until Lot-Ionan chucked me out.”

“What was your research area? I don’t remember—or maybe you never said?” Ireheart looked at Balyndar, who carried the slit water pouch at his belt. He had assumed the damage must have been an accident. Perhaps he had dreamed that the pouch was the head of an orc rising up out of the sand to attack him. Then he must have slashed at it with his knife. After hearing this, none of the others cared to sleep in his immediate vicinity.

Behind Balyndar came the Zhadár who called himself Balodil. Ireheart had stopped believing that he might really be the Scholar’s own son. The age did not seem right. Barskalín told them that only old dwarves were taken into the ranks of the Zhadár. The real Balodil would not have been old. At least, not old for a dwarf.

“I was studying how to maximize size in animals. And in things,” answered Franek.

“Aha,” grinned Ireheart. “That will have made you popular with the ladies, I’ll be bound?”

“It’s not what you think, beard-face,” the famulus retorted. “You, of course, could do with