The Fate of the Dwarves - By Markus Heitz Page 0,75

not sure if it was fear or anger at the interruption. “He has many names. One of them I can pronounce: Vraccas.” “What?” Ireheart sat bolt upright. “That’s blasphemy! How does he dare to call himself that?”

“He is without doubt something special and until I turned up he was the only dwarf in the blackness of the other side.” Tungdil shuddered. “If you could see him, Boïndil, you would understand why the name made sense to me. And he saved me from the orcs.” He dropped his gaze and stared at the mug of tea. “He took me to his refuge, an old stronghold abandoned by Tion’s hordes. He had reinforced its defenses as necessary and had installed a giant forge there. It was just the way I’d always imagined the creator’s eternal smithy! He has forges hot enough to melt anything, Boïndil! Stone, ore, everything! I saw it with my own eye. Dragon’s Breath is merely a warm breeze in comparison.” Tungdil stood up, restless now. “He passed the time thinking up types of new armor and perfecting them. If you like, I was his apprentice.”

Boïndil rubbed his beard. He did not like the sound of this. “And these runes? Did the false Vraccas think them up, too?”

Tungdil nodded. “He knew a lot about magic, I think. But it was a different art from that of the magae and magi in Girdlegard. On the one hand, spells are compressed into the runes and you can bring them to life by the use of particular words. On the other, sometimes they can function on their own.”

“I remember,” grumbled Ireheart. “The first time was enough for me.” He glanced at the ceiling, where snowflakes were drifting through the hole in the roof before melting on the floor. A hole in the roof is better than an arm torn off. He leaned on his elbows and put his chin in his hands. “So he was your master?” Tungdil was walking up and down. “He showed me forging techniques that were new, and I made my own armor using these new skills. It had not escaped my notice that he would be visited every so often by monsters, and that he was quite polite to them. Horrific creatures, Ireheart. They were messengers from the kordrion and other monsters who are worse still. They would order armor and weapons for their troops. And some of them wanted to get him to lead their own armies. They’d have given him whatever he asked. You know, there was constant war among the beasts, because by nature they were so violent and bloodthirsty and couldn’t get out of the Black Abyss, so they would fight each other.”

Ireheart’s imagination was working overtime, creating terrifying images. He saw crudely hewn passages full of monsters, slaughtering each other and covering the walls and ceilings with blood and guts; enormous caverns filled with vicious fighting forces, roaring and rampaging and at each others’ throats; black fortifications that they charged and rammed, the walls shaking from the impact and from the hail of missiles.

Boïndil felt Tungdil staring. His friend smiled knowingly.

“Nothing you can imagine is bad enough to describe what I saw,” said the one-eyed dwarf softly, as he took his seat again. “What wouldn’t I give for a good gulp of brandy and a barrel of black beer,” he sighed.

“Me too,” muttered Ireheart, in spite of himself. His friend’s story had affected him deeply. “What happened to you after that?”

“My master, if we can call him that, never took up their offers. He did not wish to lead armies—why would he? They weren’t his wars and they weren’t his people.” “And where was he from?” Boïndil wanted to know.

Tungdil ignored the interruption. Perhaps on purpose? “He provided arms for all sides. He made everything they asked for, but never gave them armor as good as his own. After thirty cycles with him I had won his trust and complete confidence. He would send me as his agent to negotiate with the forces of evil. They started to make those same offers to me.” He swallowed and looked down. “I didn’t resist. Reason told me it was a good thing to send as many beasts as possible to their deaths and I could do that best by leading one lot against another. And I had to get to the Black Abyss—what better way to get there than at the head of an army?”

“A wise decision, Scholar,” commented Boïndil.

“But it brought down the