The Fate of the Dwarves - By Markus Heitz Page 0,85

else’s thoughts can take hold of me.” He looked around the chamber and found a blanket that he spread over Tungdil.

Ireheart’s lips narrowed. “You will be the best high king the tribes have ever had,” he whispered as he withdrew. “A high king born of crisis and one that will tower over all the previous incumbents. Perhaps the ruler who will finally be able to bring peace to the children of the Smith. Genuine peace and not just an armistice.”

The warrior walked to the door and smiled at his sleeping comrade, then he left the sparsely furnished chamber, a room unworthy of a freshly elected high king.

X

Girdlegard,

Protectorate of Gauragar,

Eleven Miles East of the Entrance to the Gray Mountains,

Winter, 6491st/6492nd Solar Cycles

Ireheart’s eyes were fixed on the chain of hills rising to the north. They were the foothills of the Gray Range, running across the horizon in a ribbon, and they promised the travelers a place of safety.

“I wish we were there already,” he muttered into his mottled gray and white beard.

Tungdil was riding at his side, still preferring a befún to a pony. This made him taller in the saddle than the rest of the group, which consisted of the two of them and then Balyndar and his deputation of fifthlings. Frandibar had also given them his five best fourthling warriors, one of whom was a crossbow archer. “It never looked for a moment as if we were in any danger.”

“That’s what bothers me,” said Balyndar, scanning the snowy expanse before them. “On the journey we narrowly escaped from a patrol of Duke Amtrin’s men. He’s in the service of the älfar.”

“Escaped! Listen to that,” snorted Ireheart. “I can’t believe it! In the old days we’d have hunted them down instead of running away and hiding.”

Balyndar assumed the words were intended as criticism of himself and his fifthling soldiers. “I don’t blame you for talking like that, Doubleblade. You won’t know that their patrols are always accompanied by two älfar archers with longbows. We can’t compete with them.”

“I know that,” he growled. “My brother was nearly killed by their black arrows.”

Tungdil sat up straight in the befún’s saddle. “We’re going to get a chance to prove the opposite,” he said quietly, pointing to the southwest with Bloodthirster. “They’ve been following us for a while now. If I’m right, there are twenty of them. They could have overtaken us easily with those horses.”

“They’re waiting to see what we’re doing. Which way we’re heading.” Balyndar let his pony drop back between Tungdil and Ireheart. “That’s more than strange. The others always chased us.”

“They’ll be afraid.” Boïndil gave a hearty laugh. “If they meet more than forty dwarves they start to sweat, no matter what the temperature is.”

“I think,” Tungdil took up his train of thought, “that they don’t have any älfar with them. I can’t make out any firebulls or night-mares. On snow like this it’d be easy to spot the animals.”

“Or maybe they are circling round us to attack from the front. An ambush,” Balyndar suggested in concern. He gave his fifthlings the order to have their shields at the ready.

Ireheart reckoned the enemy troop were a good two miles away, if not more. It was a miracle that Tungdil had been able to recognize anything at this distance, he thought. When he lost that eye of his, did the vision in the other get sharper? Or what else could it be?

The befún gave a warning snort and turned its head to the right, where several large—up to seven paces high—dark gray boulders jutted out from the snow.

“Take cover!” Tungdil commanded, slipping out of the saddle. Ireheart did not hesitate and even Balyndar quickly followed suit.

The long black arrow aimed at the leader whirred through the air straight past his right ear and buried itself in the snow so deep that not even the fletching was visible above the white.

Immediately there followed a cry and one of the female dwarves fell back off her pony. An arrow had pierced the edge of her shield and gone straight through the protective helmet into her right temple.

Now all the dwarves had grasped that the archers attacking them were hidden behind the rocks. They dismounted quickly and used the bodies of their ponies as shields against the lethal arrows. Nobody panicked and nobody shouted out, as might have happened with humans in the same situation.

Another set of arrows hissed, and three dwarves fell. Hit in the heart or the head, none of them had