The Fate of the Dwarves - By Markus Heitz Page 0,261

arc. The torso fell to one side and landed in the dirt, stump-side down.

“Vraccas!” cried Ireheart with a gasp, not quite able to take in the significance of his heroic deed. He stared at Lot-Ionan’s head and saw that the lips were still moving and a smile had appeared on the features; then the eyes rolled up into the skull and the sheen of life was extinguished. “What? Did he…?”

Tungdil was suddenly at his side. There was no evidence now in his countenance of those horrific black lines. “Break him open!” he demanded through clenched teeth, his right hand clutching the hole in his own breastplate armor. “Didn’t you hear me?” When the astonished dwarf failed to react, Tungdil grabbed the dagger and brutally slit the dead man’s body from top to bottom.

A green glow flared in the carcass, getting steadily stronger and making the red flesh transparent. Smoke curled up with a smell of burning.

“By all the infamous ones!” Tungdil searched in the steaming guts, arms up to his elbows covered in blood. Then his fist closed and he pulled something out, together with a handful of flesh.

Ireheart could hear hissing inside the gauntleted grip, like the sound of water sizzling on a red-hot stove. “What, by Vraccas, is that?”

“It’s the fragment of malachite,” his friend replied briskly as he got to his feet. “All of you, run to the fortress,” he commanded as he charged off to the ravine.

“What? Why, Scholar, why?”

“Run as far and fast as you can!” shouted Tungdil, charging on down the path to the abyss until he was swallowed up in the shadows. Ireheart attempted to help Goda up but she did not move, so he threw her across his shoulder. “Hey there, actor! Go and get Balyndar!” He snatched his bugle from his belt and gave the dwarves the signal to retreat.

Coïra watched the ravine in disbelief. “He has made fools of all of us!”

“What do you mean?” said Ireheart, looking at the kordrion which, though weighed down by a mass of spears and arrows, was still continuing to wreak havoc on the troops in its vicinity. Spreading its wings it climbed the rocks of the Black Abyss, then slid down in an attempt to launch itself into the air above the plain. There seemed no way for them to prevent its escape.

“He has taken the force of the magus with him!” The maga gulped. “There was immense power in that crystal splinter. That was how Lot-Ionan was able to store up all his magic!”

Meanwhile, Rodario had hauled Balyndar out of the swamp and tossed him onto his shoulder like a sack of flour. “You lot and your armor,” he complained. “It just adds to the weight.”

The dwarf-army obeyed Ireheart’s clarion call and the remaining soldiers retreated from the field of battle.

“Yes, but what’s he going to do with it?” protested Boïndil in defense of his friend, countering the queen’s accusations. “He has surely proved he is on our side…”

Before Coïra could reply there was an enormous crash in the Black Abyss, followed by a quaking of the earth that threw them all off their feet; then came the explosion.

Ireheart twisted round to see what was happening.

Parts of the fortress had collapsed, with great wall sections falling down, taking the men on the battlements to their doom.

The chasm was suffused with a ghostly dark-green incandescent glow. A broad beam shot up vertically toward the sky and then a second detonation occurred, lifting rocks around the ravine’s edges. Finally the earth subsided, bringing the cliffs down with it.

It all happened so quickly that the kordrion had not been able to reach a safe distance. As it flapped wildly to get away it was struck by hurtling debris that half buried it. It disappeared with a screech into the collapsing ravine, turning to ash when it came into contact with the glare.

A third explosion hurled molten rock into the air. It spattered as far as the fleeing armies, creating new victims. Smoke and steam rose up, obscuring the view.

The battlefield was silent now.

“No.” Ireheart stared into the veil of steam and dirt. “Coïra, can you get rid of this fog? I have to know what’s happening.” He stood up, groaning, and laid Goda down on her cloak. She was still breathing, so he was less concerned about her than about the welfare of his friend.

The maga did what he had requested and called up a mild breeze to waft away the curtain, even though clouds