The Revenge of the Dwarves

XX

The Outer Lands,

East of the City of Letefora,

One Mile from the Black Abyss,

Early Autumn, 6241st Solar Cycle

The noise created by twenty thousand swift-moving befuns and the jangling of weapons and armor was enough to send the monsters crawling deeper into their hiding places in the ruins of the old houses. Not one dared emerge.

The acront of Letefora was not relying purely on the combined strength of ubariu and undergroundlings. With the army he sent war machines as complex as any Furgas had devised. Four armored vehicles, each forty paces long, ten wide and ten high, rolled at the head of the march and four at its rear. Iron plating across wooden frames made them look like hulls of overturned ships.

Catapults in the bellies of the machines were ready to launch flurries of spears and arrows through the slits; placed high up, these afforded a superior range of around three hundred paces and could fire in three hundred and sixty degrees and so cover any part of the battlefield.

These colossi were driven by a simple but efficient system of wind sails. On the upper side there were large rotating towers and sails to catch the wind’s power, which was transmitted by shafts to the driving axle, much as wind power drives a miller’s wheel. The machines labored along on a series of small rollers and could match the speed of a furious dwarf. Not to be sneezed at.

“Impressive, aren’t they?” Rodario said to Tungdil. He, too, had changed mounts and was now riding a befun; they were so much quicker than other animals. “Did you see how quickly the vehicles change direction? The rollers work individually, so they can turn on the spot and even go sideways.”

At the roadside Tungdil noted the corpses of creatures shot in encounters with the first wave of troops. The beasts had learned not to attempt the same thing again. “With just one of those vehicles the orcs could have been cleared out of Girdlegard ages ago.”

Rodario seemed to be studying the wagon but he was preoccupied with what the acront had told them. “It can’t be Narmora. We saw what was left of her. The Star of Judgment burned away all that was alfish in her. She can’t possibly have survived.”

“Magic and love are powerful forces-and not always benign,” Lot-Ionan chimed in, riding at Tungdil’s side. “Don’t forget it was Furgas who located the magic wellspring. In his madness he might have constructed a machine out of her remains, similar to those he made out of the unslayable’s beasts.”

Rodario gave himself a shake. “Narmora turning up again-a dead thing with a mechanical heart made of iron springs and cogs, and only moving because of magic in her veins? Furgas could never have done that to her. He loved her too much for that.”

“He loved her so much that he could do it. He did not want to be without her,” contradicted Tungdil. “Let’s hope we can stop her before she destroys the artifact.”

“What terrible vengeance to wreak on Girdlegard. What would be the motive?” asked the magus.

“But it’s exactly what he swore in Porista that he would do,” Tungdil recalled, thinking back to when he had broken the news to Furgas of the deaths of his daughter and his life-partner. The hatred in the magister’s eyes had been greater than any smoldering in a thirdling.

“The Judgment Star cost her all she held dear: her children, her whole life.” Rodario looked at where the ground fell away and no grass grew: only sand and dead earth, as if life itself were afraid to approach what lay below.

The armored vehicles at the head of the column broke formation now, slowing down and fanning out so that the ones from the rear could join them.

Sirka had been listening in silence. Now she heard the fanfare. “We’ll soon be at the Black Abyss. We need to take the diamond up to the front.”

The befuns altered their pace to powerful leaps. Strangely enough, the unpleasant swaying motion was reduced at these high speeds.

A wide bare indentation appeared in the landscape with the chasm at its center. The Black Abyss was a good half-mile in length and a hundred paces wide and looked like a slash cut in the body of the earth, its edges dark and smooth. Steep paths led up on either side.

“Like a gangrenous wound,” commented Ireheart, spitting in disgust. “The beasts are the pus.”

Flagur gestured south to a strange device at the entrance. “That’s the artifact.” He gave a sigh of relief. “It seems to be intact. I had feared the worst.”

Tungdil forced himself to say nothing; he must not kill their optimism. Narmora had been a powerful maga. Who knew what a demi-alf was capable of? “Have those exits guarded,” he said to the ubari. “To be on the safe side. We don’t want to be ambushed while we’re activating the diamond.” He turned to Lot-Ionan. “Are you prepared, honored magus?”

He studied the vast crater. “If it is possible to be prepared for what awaits here.”

Ireheart looked around him. “What’s happened to the advance party? We’ve seen no trace of them.”

“The escort will have gone down the ravine. But I can’t think why. Perhaps a battle? Or maybe Narmora had a trick in store and she’s woken the beasts of the abyss.”

The army split into two sections, with ten thousand ubariu and undergroundlings positioned in front of the exits from the Black Abyss, a living barrier to whatever might come storming out. They kept a hundred-pace safety margin from the precipice edges of the dread ravine.

The armored vehicles moved into position sideways-on behind the troops. Inside the tanks adjustments were made; the wind sail-wheels were running but as yet not engaged.

Flagur had explained that the sails were not just a driving mechanism but also produced energy for additional catapults. If the wagons were stationary it was possible to activate mechanical slings. These could fire off constantly using wind power and the crew only had to ensure the aim was correctly adjusted. They used their own supply of munitions or could scoop stones up from the ground below the vehicle through small hatches.

The vehicles were ready.

In the meantime Sirka, Tungdil and friends had reached the artifact. It consisted of several upright linked metal rings in roughly the form of a globe with a diameter approaching twenty paces. Symbols, runes and chiseled marks and patterns adorned the rings. A series of reinforcing rods radiated out to the circumference from a central decorated hub.

“The diamond needs to go in there, I assume,” said Lot-Ionan, getting down.

Ireheart shaded his eyes against the sun and looked up. “How do we get up? I can’t see a ladder.”

“That’s why we need a rune master.” Flagur bowed to Lot-Ionan. “Or our magus, of course. You must have a flying spell?”

“No, why would I?”

“Then you’ll have to climb.”

“Wouldn’t it be better if you carried him on your back into the center?” Rodario ventured. “You look stronger.”

Flagur shook his head. “I can’t touch the artifact. Only a rune master or a magus who is pure in spirit. Anyone else will be pulverized if they try.”

At that moment a horn sounded. It was a leaden tone issuing from the depths of the ravine, a dark, ear-splitting screech full of hatred and elation. It summoned its subjects with the promise of freedom, murder and destruction.

The friends could do nothing until the last echoes died away.

“It’s been heard,” Sirka mouthed fearfully. “We…”

Out of the ravine surged an angry chorus from thousands of throats.

“Here they come!” Flagur leaped onto his befun. “I must join my warriors. They must see I am not deserting them.” He drew his sword and nodded to Lot-Ionan. “Revered sir, it was an honor to meet you.” Flagur raced off; his commands could soon be heard in the distance.

The first rows of soldiers knelt down holding long iron spears to impale the first wave of beasts; in the ranks behind, the archers made ready their bows, while others held their huge shields to form a protective cover for their heads. The wagons opened up their shooting flaps.

Lot-Ionan approached the artifact, which was sending out enough energy to make the individual white hairs of his beard and on his head bristle and stand out. His steps slowed the nearer he got to it. He glanced behind to where the others were waiting and following his every move.

“I…” He was trying to say something, but he felt a blow in his chest. He stumbled backwards and fell in the dust, a black alf arrow in his breast. It had struck him right in the heart.

A shadow fell over him and a man leaped over his body, grabbing the bag at his belt that held the precious stone.

Warm blood spread as Lot-Ionan’s damaged heart continued to pump. Then it stopped. With a groan, Lot-Ionan closed his eyes…

F urgas?” Rodario had recognized the man who had sprung from behind one of the iron rings.

“We are in the Outer Lands. Here the dead return.” The magister snatched the diamond from the dying magus and walked slowly backwards. “I tricked even you, Incredible Rodario,” he smiled in satisfaction. When Tungdil took a step forward, Furgas raised his arm. “Stay where you are! Or the arrow will get you.” He indicated the other end of the artifact where a woman was standing with a bow spanned ready. “We shall see evil released from the Black Abyss. With my assistance it will march into the heart of Girdlegard.” He put the diamond in his mouth and swallowed it.

Ireheart raised his weapon slowly. “What a stupid idea,” he growled. “Now I’m really going to hurt him.”

“You can’t prevent it.” Furgas looked over at the ravine. “ That is the revenge I wanted for Girdlegard. The land will be submerged in waves of the beasts and will be annihilated. A fitting punishment for its arrogance and for having followed the dwarves and their false beliefs.” He stared at Tungdil. “The eoil were never a danger. It was you misbegotten dwarves interfering that robbed me of my family.”

“That isn’t Narmora,” murmured Ireheart. “She would be doing magic.”

Rodario said nothing but knew he was right. It could be the woman he had seen on the boat in Mifurdania. He was cross with himself for not having thought about her again. Now that the name of Narmora had been mentioned he was clear who she had resembled. That was why Furgas would have selected her as his ally. Perhaps in his twisted mind he actually thought she was his beloved spouse come back to life? “All that, the destruction of a whole land, all for the sake of vengeance? Do you think that’s what Narmora would have wanted? She fought with us against the danger.”

“She did not want to die!” Furgas cut in. “No, you will all pay by mourning your loved ones as I have been mourning mine. For over five cycles now.” He shook his fist and moved away. “In Girdlegard there will be not a single soul who does not experience the pain I feel.”

“And then?” Rodario carried on the train of thought. “Then Girdlegard is finished.”

“Why not? For all I care the lands can go hang.” He shrugged. “None of the worlds are anything without her; she gave me children and she saved my life.”

“You deceived me, Furgas.” Rodario went up to him.

The archer let her arrow loose and it hit Rodario in the right thigh. He fell next to Lot-Ionan. The archer woman notched a second arrow with lightning-swift and practiced moves.

“I told you. Stay there and watch.” Furgas stared at his former friend without a trace of remorse. “It’s your own fault you were hit.”

From out of the ravine the roar continued to belch.

An ugly hail fell on the allies: the remains, severed limbs and heads and chopped flesh, of the advance party, whom Furgas and his assistant had lured to their deaths. The dull thuds were sickening as the gruesome missiles fell on upturned shields and armor plating. The spraying blood and appalling smell did not fail in the intended effect.

Sirka became resolute. She had lost friends and relations and was determined to avenge their deaths.

“You have made terrible mistakes,” Rodario groaned, clasping his hand over the arrow wound. “Don’t make it worse.”

“No one will forgive me what I have done. There’s no making it worse,” Furgas cut in. “I built the machines to hound the dwarves. I didn’t take a lot of persuading when Bandilor suggested it. And I was happy enough to side with the unslayable. I knew exactly what I was doing and I planned it all in detail. Now I am at my goal. Why would I stop now?”

“We’ve found your tunnel. Evil won’t be getting through there anymore,” Tungdil told him, as he gave Goda a signal; Ireheart understood as well. “How ever did you manage to make those bastard hybrids out of machines and monsters?”

“There’s always room for coincidence in my plans,” he smiled. “When we were prospecting for iron ore on the lake bed we noticed the rocks were quite different. I thought of the source in Porista and started to suspect a connection. And it occurred to me we had found the metal that conducts magic.” He looked over to the abyss. The shower of body parts did not seem to be drying up. “I wondered if the machines could use it. Narmora had told me about the magic dormant in alfar. When the unslayable left his bastards with me I just tried it out.” Pride shone in his eyes. “The two thirdlings smelted me the special metal and then I created the new machines. Nobody before me had ever thought of combining magic, iron and living bodies.”

“You turned them into well-nigh undefeatable monsters.”

“That was my plan, Tungdil.” He folded his hands and was deathly calm. “I just wanted a distraction. While you were chasing the machines nobody worried about me. My tunnel could have been finished without anyone noticing. But the Black Abyss serves my purposes better.” Furgas turned to the mighty incision in the earth and nodded. “Hard to credit, isn’t it? I was playing you this farce all along, ever since Rodario turned up on the island.” Furgas turned to the actor. “My simulated suicide made it all perfect. You believed me and you told me all your secrets. Because of you my revenge will be sweeter than I could ever have imagined. Yes, if we did but know certain things in advance… Like the existence of the Black Abyss.”

The thudding had stopped and the horn sounded once more. The Black Abyss launched its horrors onto the defenders.

Tungdil was too far away to see exactly, but the monsters surging out of the chasm seemed far worse than anything known previously in Girdlegard: some had four arms and claws, others had two long necks and heads like snakes.

He noted a big fat creature as tall as a tree, with a red body shimmering moistly like raw meat, and half a dozen tentacles waving in the air, grabbing at anything in range. When it caught its prey it simply squashed it up against its own flesh until clouds of steam rose. The victims were dissolved in acid and ingested directly via countless mouths.

Similar ghastly beings came running and riding out of the ravine; large and small, unspeakably ugly and horrific to see.

Winged monsters as tall as a house crawled up the ravine sides and threw themselves off to take advantage of updraughts and prevailing winds. They sailed over the heads of the ubariu and with their long claws ripped open the scalps of the defending warriors.

The catapults had opened fire now and were keeping up an answering barrage on the attackers.

Flying beasts attacked the armored wagons, landing on them or climbing on top to destroy the wind sails, or to strip off the iron plates to get inside. The allied army had to support the vehicles under attack.

Suddenly the shrillest of screams issued from the depths of the chasm; it was louder than any other noise. The voice was so loud that it cracked the rocks at the side of the chasm. Friend and foe alike stopped in their tracks in utter horror and the monsters ceased their onslaught. They were terrified of their own kind.

“Ubar protect us,” whispered Sirka, flinching and stepping back involuntarily. “A kordrion! Only the cry of a kordrion can split rocks, it says in the books. Nothing can hold it back if it escapes.”

Furgas scuffed. “And there isn’t anyone to hold it back, Sirka.” He pointed to Lot-Ionan. “Your last hope lies there. The old man has failed.”

The hand of the magus moved. Assumed dead, he still managed to direct a dark green beam at Furgas.

It swept the technical genius off his feet and sent him flying up toward the hub until suspended exactly above it. Then the wizard broke off the ray and Furgas sank down. At the last moment he put out a hand to grab one of the reinforcements.

The woman took a shot at Lot-Ionan but the arrow never made it. Magic forced it to hang in the air. Lot-Ionan had been prepared for the attack.

“Great! The stone is up there now. It’s just got to get into the setting.” Ireheart ran to confront the archer-woman, Goda at his heels. “I’ll take her, Scholar. You find a way to get Lot-Ionan up to the diamond.”

Tungdil and Sirka helped the magus to his feet.

Lot-Ionan drew the arrow out of his flesh and discarded it. “It’s not so easy to kill a magus,” he said with a peculiar smile. “Evil will not prevail.” He grasped the iron rings to start the climb.

A bolt of lightning struck from the center of the artifact, sending the wizard sailing through the air to land four paces away. He lay groaning as smoke poured out of his body.

“Lot-Ionan!” Tungdil ran to his side. The wizard’s hand was badly burned and the skin was flaking off onto the ground. Blood seeped out of the blackened flesh. His eyes had turned back in his head and he was convulsing.

Sirka stared. “It’s because his soul is not true,” she realized with horror. She watched the battle rage. “What now?”

Their army was holding their ground on nearly all sides, but a few of the creatures had broken through the defense line. And it was these misbegotten beings that were now heading toward the artifact. They were well aware what had held them prisoner for so long in their black ravine. They were desperate to destroy it.

“I don’t know,” Tungdil replied quietly. Raising Bloodthirster he mounted his befun and rode to confront the monsters. “I’ll keep them busy. Then we’ll have to see. Look after the magus.”

I reheart had reached the archer and smashed her bow just as she was notching her next arrow. It fell harmlessly to the ground and she leaped back in fury, drawing her sword.

His eyes flashed. “So, you cowardly murderess. Let us see what battle skills you have now that I’ve broken your favorite toy.” He dealt her a blow with his crow’s beak.

She sidestepped deftly and launched a kick but he was able to ward it off with the handle of his ax. He drove the jagged point, where the spike had broken off, deep into her flank, tearing a gaping wound. She fell back, gasping.

“You ain’t seen nothing yet, you crafty bitch,” he crowed and, whirling his ax, was about to strike when she threw her sword.

It missed him and he heard Goda cry out.

Up until recently there would have been nothing that could have distracted him in combat, but his concern for Goda did so now. He turned.

The archer’s sword was stuck deep in Goha’s arm, and the impact had forced her backwards-right up against the rings of the artifact.

“Vraccas! No!” yelled Boindil, thinking of what Flagur had said. In his mind’s eye he saw Goda transformed to ashes, torn by lightning bolts, consumed by flames…

But nothing happened.

Before he could realize how surprised he was, he felt a sharp pain in his side. It had a hellish kick. Turning, he faced the flying fist of the archer-woman.

“Not so fast!” he exclaimed and hit at her hand with the flat of his battleax. There was a loud crack on contact and the finger bones crunched. Without waiting to see what she was doing, he dealt her an uppercut with the jagged edge, shattering her chin.

She fell to the ground but still slashed out with her dagger.

Ireheart sprang to one side and the glistening knife-tip missed him. “My turn,” he laughed, lifting his weapon high over his head to slam it down with all his strength. “What does a skull do when it bursts?”

The woman had no answer. Under the blow from his ax her head demonstrated the solution to his riddle.

From far above Furgas shouted. He had found his footing on one of the cross-bars and sat there, condemned to watch and wait, which was what he had demanded the others should do.

“We’ll deal with you in a minute,” Ireheart called up. He raced to Goda’s side. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” she said. “I was careful, master.” Laying his hand on the sword handle he pulled it out of her arm. Goda gave a quiet moan. He showed her the sword. “Never throw your weapon unless you have a second one,” he reminded her. “She still had her little toothpick.”

Goda noticed the blood trickling out of his side. “I can see.”

“That? Only a scratch.” He inspected her back for any scorch marks on the armor. Nothing. A slight giddiness forced him to plant his feet firmly on the ground.

“Goda, Ireheart!” called Sirka. “Come over here. The magus has something to say.”

It was only now that the two dwarves saw Lot-Ionan stretched out on the ground next to Rodario. “Oh no! Did he fall?” asked Boindil somberly. “Now we’ll need a catapult to get him up there.”

They ran to the magus. His breath was short and he was obviously in great pain. Sweat glistened on his forehead. “I didn’t fall. The artifact rejected me,” he explained.

Ireheart looked up at Furgas. “Fine artifact this one is. Why doesn’t it grill him instead of you?”

Lot-Ionan turned his pale blue gaze on Goda. “You must go and complete the task.”

“Me?” The dwarf-maiden raised her night star as if in excuse. “I’m a warrior and-”

“The rune master knew and I saw it with my own eyes, too,” he interrupted, speaking hoarsely. “Goda, you bear within you the gift to use magic. And unlike mine your soul will be pure and innocent.”

“Innocent?” Rodario scoffed. “It’s a good thing the artifact does not have ears, after what I heard in Pendleburg.”

Goda blushed. Ireheart looked sternly at Rodario. “We were doing wrestling drills, actor. She is still untouched.”

Lot-Ionan gazed steadily into Goda’s brown eyes. “I don’t know how-perhaps from the magic source, or perhaps you’ve had it from birth.”

“Is that what you and the rune master were talking about at the campfire that night?” Rodario remembered the evening he had shared the strange spice with Flagur and seen the two men talking.

“Yes. I did not want to tell Goda until we had completed our mission. You might have been my famula.” He shut his eyes, and his teeth were chattering. “Climb up, Goda.” His words could hardly be heard now. “Kill Furgas, put the diamond in the setting and save Girdlegard.”

“And my homeland, too,” added Sirka.

O n the left more and more beasts were breaking through, heading for the artifact. Tungdil rode back and forth, felling one creature after another, but there were far too many. Three dozen were coming their way.

Sirka pillowed Lot-Ionan’s head on her mantle, then she took her combat stick and nodded to Ireheart. “I think we’ve got work to do.”

Rodario broke the arrow off close to the entry wound and got to his feet. “Well, you’ll be needing me, as well. I can’t miss a third opportunity to be a hero.”

Ireheart gave Goda a tender kiss. “Hurry. But not too fast. Leave a few for me and my crow’s beak.” He turned to face the foe. Again the world seemed to waver in front of his eyes and he needed to blink before his sight cleared.

“Irrepressible,” was all Goda said. She went to the nearest ring and sought a hold for her fingers as she started to climb.

“Just you try,” shouted Furgas. “I’ll kill you.”

Sirka twirled her weapon and looked at Ireheart. “Can I ask a favor?”

“Sure.”

“Tell me the joke about the orc and the dwarf?”

“Now?”

“Might be our last chance.” Sirka grinned. The first monster was ten paces away, swinging a huge sword.

“Hurry.”

“Well, one orbit, a dwarf meets an orc at the Stone Gateway.” Ireheart raised his crow’s beak. “The orc saw him and said, ‘Little man, can you tell me where…?’ ”

Sirka’s adversary arrived and grabbed her attention with a hefty swipe.

“Later,” she called to Ireheart as she put her heart and soul into the fight.

Tungdil spurred his befun across the battlefield, striking at the monsters’ heads with Bloodthirster. Each strike took a life.

The refashioned alfish blade raged amongst the enemy throng. It seemed as if the sword were helping of its own accord, directing its own attack, and seeking out the most vulnerable places to strike. The weapon was uncanny but fascinating.

But whatever efforts the ubariu and the undergroundlings made, more and more creatures broke through the defenses, as soldiers were lost.

The winged monsters could not be stopped. They seemed immune against attack by arrow or crossbow bolt and had overturned two of the armored wagons, falling in swarms on the others. Swift as the wind they tore off the heavy plating to slaughter the crew inside.

The remaining vehicles gave the infantry some cover and kept up a spear attack, but they too were damaged.

“Curses!” Tungdil halted his befun to study the artifact. He saw Furgas was at the top and that a small figure was making its way up on the outside ring. “Goda?”

The befun cowered and emitted a furious roar. All at once it was dark round Tungdil, and a foul-smelling wind touched him. Claws slashed to the right and the left, lodging in the flesh of his steed, then up he soared…

The ground fell back and he was hovering over the battlefield witnessing the butchery on both sides of the chasm; it was a miniaturized version of what he had been experiencing himself.

“What…?” Tungdil turned to see the hideous face of one of the winged monsters, its muzzle agape.

His first thought was to plunge Bloodthirster between the teeth of the beast to kill it. But it would have meant his own death. From one hundred paces up in the air a fall was certain death.

Instead, he leaped off his injured steed to land on a claw of the flying beast, who dropped the befun and uttered a fearful cry. The animal tumbled to earth, smashing four ubariu beneath itself as it fell into their own ranks.

“You won’t shake me off,” snarled Tungdil, stabbing the monster in the belly, making a gash half a pace long, out of which a stinking liquid gushed to drench him.

Screeching, the dying beast tried to land, coming down over the line of undergroundlings and skimming over the spears of the Black Abyss army before it came to earth with widespread wings, blundering through the ranks and killing or maiming maybe fifty.

Vraccas protected Tungdil. Apart from a few scratches and a shallow gouge on his right calf from a spear tip, there was nothing. So he struggled out from under the wing and found himself standing right in the middle of the opposing army. He had not been noticed.

The foremost ranks of the ubariu and undergroundlings were an arrow’s flight away, and the entrance to the chasm fifty paces from him.

“Well, Vraccas, whatever your plan is,” he said, looking round, “I’m very keen to know how it all ends.”

Again he heard the sound of the kordrion. Stone cracked and a landslide of rubble buried several beasts. Immediately there was stillness and the warriors’ eyes all turned to the entrance to the ravine.

A pale claw as wide as three fortress gates shot up out of the blackness of the abyss and took hold of the outer edge of the ravine, trying for a hold. Cracks formed and rock crumbled under the pressure and weight of the creature that was still down there in the dark attempting to free itself. Its claw fastened into the rock again, the long nails taking hold.

The most dwarven of Tungdil’s virtues came to the fore. When all about him was hopelessness, he kept his head and drew on the qualities of steadfast stubbornness and pigheadedness or whatever other folk thought of when they spoke of the dwarves.

He climbed up the corpse of the winged beast so that both friend and foe should see he was there. He took his bugle from his belt, placed it to his lips and replied to the call of the kordrion, sounding the battle signal into the horrified silence.

“I shall not allow you out of your prison,” he bellowed down into the chasm. He raised Bloodthirster, drenched as it was with the black lifeblood of all the creatures he had vanquished. “The weapon I snatched from evil shall be the one to stop you, whatever you are. Fire fights fire.”

He stormed straight through the ranks of the beasts, and hacked to pieces every assailant that dared to cross his path; it was as if their armor was but butter and their bodies but straw.

Behind him he heard Flagur’s voice, then the ubariu yelled and the undergroundlings hallooed, joining their efforts with his own.

Hope began to blossom.

F lagur saw Tungdil suddenly appear between the enemy ranks and the cadaver of the monster. He had sounded his horn as fearlessly as if standing in safety behind the walls of Letefora. His words resounded clearly, echoing over the death-filled field. Then he sprang forward.

“Ubar, you have sent us a true hero, whose courage surpasses even that of an acront,” he avowed, lifting his sword. “Let us follow him!” He sent his rallying cry to right and to left. “We shall be the first to defeat a kordrion. For Ubar!” Stepping forward, his weapon grasped in both hands, he cut the beast that reared up before him into two halves, slicing from skull to groin. He was covered in its dark blood and the smell of it spurred him on.

His warriors joined their voices to his own and sallied forth. Turning their enormous shields they charged ten paces deep into enemy lines. There they halted: the first ubariu formed a protective metal wall, cutting off the antagonists now behind them from the main army of monsters.

Following in the wake of the ubariu, the undergroundlings bombarded this isolated section, felling monsters so swiftly with their combat batons that the creatures could not coordinate any defense.

Meanwhile, pressure was increasing at the shield barrier where the Black Abyss hordes were menacing the ubariu.

“Again!” yelled Flagur, calling for the lance with his banner affixed. They repeated the maneuver: turn shields aside, let some of the assailants through, hem them in and butcher them.

“Take care!” called Flagur to the front line overlooking the field, holding his banner aloft to ensure the enemy knew what name death bore.

At that moment he felt a searing pain in his side. Suddenly there was an arrow sticking out between his ribs, making breathing a torture. Yet Flagur did not surrender to the pain. His fingers contracted around the shaft of his lance and he used it to support himself. Show no weakness. The battle must first be won. “And change… now!”

Those fighting at the front withdrew and were neatly replaced by a second line of fresh warriors, so that the onslaught kept up its momentum. Their enemy floundered when faced with well-drilled strategy like this. The monsters were exhausting themselves in their relentless attack.

Losses, however, were many.

More than once Flagur saw a good friend fall, heard a death cry and chimed with it in his soul.

On the outside no weakness could be seen, even though he would have wished his fallen warriors out from underneath the carcasses of slaughtered monsters. They deserved a better resting place. Several of them he had known for countless star cycles; he had trained them himself. To watch them die like this hurt as badly as the arrow in his side. Mourning would have to wait, as always in battle.

Flagur saw that one of the armored vehicles was set sideways-on to provide cover for their advance. Flurries of arrows and spears were whizzing out over the heads of their own troops. The archers knew their stuff. Five whole rows of the enemy were felled by these missiles, and a second salvo mowed a wide path through the heaving, screaming throng.

“Onwards and forwards!” commanded Flagur, his spear aloft and the pennant cracking in the breeze, signaling the major assault.

G oda climbed up. Now she had reached a crossbar and slid along on it toward Furgas. Beneath her, Sirka and Ireheart were thumping the life out of the beasts; Rodario had a short bow and a quiver taken from one of the creatures and was loosing arrows at the foe. No matter if your aim was not very good-in this crush you would always hit a target.

Ireheart gave full vent to his battle rage. He used the madness coursing through his veins to make him insuperable in combat. The crow’s beak whirred without rest, denting helmets, shattering bones, slicing through armor and hurling the victims a good two paces through the air.

Sirka for her part was fighting like the water element, slipping into gaps and using the barb on her slim weapon to strike and the hook to fend off blows, to wrench swords out of assailants’ hands, or to thrust into unprotected flesh. She never stayed long in one position, but moved with flowing grace.

Goda had nearly reached Furgas.

He was watching her. “What do you think you are doing?” he asked. “I’m curious to see…”

Goda drew out her night star, her favorite weapon, with its three hefty spiked globes. She would have to be careful not to lose her footing if she missed her mark. She balanced cautiously, stepping out along the narrow strut, and raising her right hand.

Furgas pushed himself backwards out of range. “You won’t get me like that.” He squinted down, looking for the next reinforcing bar. “Time is on my side, dwarf. Always the most reliable of allies.” When Goda came closer still, he jumped off and dropped down, his fingers outstretched to catch the next bar.

Even though she only had one weapon with her Goda decided to contravene the first rule of combat: she hurled the night star at Furgas.

The three spiked balls hit his hands and smashed his fingers; screaming, he plunged, landing on his belly in the very setting the diamond was destined for-a central setting ringed with spikes.

“No!” He shrieked in agony, working the spikes even deeper into his flesh as he struggled. His blood flowed down over the hub and cascaded to the ground. His movements became gradually weaker. Finally his screams died away.

Goda sent a prayer of thanks to Vraccas, climbed carefully down to the central hub where Furgas’s body hung. The next problem would be to locate the stone. “How do I find it?” she called out to Ireheart.

Her dwarf mentor was whacking a monster on the paw with his crow’s beak, and ramming his own sharp helmet into its abdomen, so that black blood streamed down over his head and shoulders. “Slit him open. Top part of his belly. It’s only a little while since he swallowed it.” Hopping back to avoid a spear thrust, he sliced the head off his assailant.

Goda drew her dagger and forced the body into a sitting position, hauling it off the spikes. The hole in the magister’s chest would not be big enough so she was just placing the knife tip underneath his ribs when he opened his eyes.

“I won’t give it up,” he croaked, blood gushing out of his mouth, dripping down his chin. “I shall have my revenge.” He pushed her and she lost her balance.

She fell.

T ungdil stormed into the darkness of the chasm where light was afraid to go.

In front of him reared up a being beyond the wit of Tion to create. It would have needed gods such as Girdlegard had never known.

The kordrion was a vast tower of horror. Its wings were folded close in to its huge muscular body, for there was no space in this ravine for the mountainous creature to spread them. Four huge dog-like paws bore its stupendous weight, though the front two limbs seemed more like arms. The rest of its naked body lay in shadow.

Its neck was comparatively short and it had a head like a dragon, but festooned with horns and spikes. Behind the long bony snout glinted four gray eyes. Further back, two blue ones. It was half upright and struggling to place its claws into fissures in the rock to drag itself up.

A three-armed beast leaped shrieking toward Tungdil, long muzzle agape, with a dark red barbed tongue snaking out.

The dwarf confronted that tongue quite simply by holding up Bloodthirster, whose wicked cutting edge sliced the flesh, sending the creature whimpering back, its bleeding tongue segments recoiled into its maw.

But Tungdil followed through, cutting the monster in two from top to bottom. Then he turned Bloodthirster on the kordrion. “Get back in the abyss you crawled out of,” he commanded. “I don’t believe anything is insuperable, whether my opponents look like you or even worse.”

The creature’s blue eyes focused on him. It dropped down onto its forepaws, but this still meant that its head hovered a good ten paces above Tungdil. It opened its powerful jaws and roared at the dwarf. Each and every tooth in its head was as big as one ubariu standing on top of a second.

From behind he heard the rattle and clash of weapons and armor, and then Flagur stood at his back with his ubariu and undergroundlings. With the aid of their armored vehicles they had managed to defeat the beasts and had stopped up the entrance. The kordrion was making things easy for them now because none of the other monsters still in the ravine dared force their way past it.

“Ubar, help us now,” was Flagur’s prayer. “How can we deal with this one?”

“I can see the acrontas might be needed for a monster like this.” Tungdil experienced no fear. With Bloodthirster in his grasp he was a bundle of confidence, tenacity and cussedness. “But if we don’t make a start we’ll never know if it can be done without them.” He raced forwards, aiming for the claws which were now down on the rocky floor. “While he’s stuck in this cleft we have the advantage. Cut through the tendons-hack at anything you can reach. Sooner or later we’ll have him down!”

Flagur watched the dwarf go. “He’s not afraid at all,” he murmured admiringly as he lifted his own spear. Shaft and banner fabric were now drenched in the blood of monsters he had slain. “Onwards!” he called out, and cantered off, his breath shallow as he battled with the wound in his side.

His warriors followed him and rushed toward the kordrion with weapons held high-until they heard the infamous roar. But it was not the being in front of them that made the horrendous sound.

Flagur’s steps slackened and the blood froze in his veins. The ecstasy of battle dispersed and gave way to fear. “Tungdil! Come back! There are two of them!”

Then the kordrion opened its great muzzle and swept the warriors with a wave of white fire.

W ith enormous presence of mind Goda managed to hook her leg over one of the bars. She pulled herself up again, panting hard. She could never have imagined herself capable of these acrobatic tours de force . All that exercise, all those drills, all that training with heaving and hauling-it was all paying off now. She would never complain again about the harshness of that regime.

Ropes with grappling hooks flew past her, fastening themselves to the bars. Some of the monsters were attempting to demolish the artifact, while their comrades, at risk to their own lives, tried to provide cover from attacks by Ireheart and Sirka.

“Faster!” Boindil called up to her. He knew what was making him feel giddy; the woman’s dagger had been coated with poison and it was starting to work.

Goda crawled over to Furgas. “You did not get rid of me.”

He drew a rattling breath and drew out his dagger. “And you have not killed me.”

“I’m going to make up for that.” She avoided his lunge, grabbed his useless arm and removed the knife. It was easy for her now to overcome the fatally wounded Furgas and to ram his own dagger into his body. The man gave one final groan and died.

Now she was faced with the part of her task she was not happy about. She fumbled around in the magister’s warm vitals until she found the hard object she was searching for.

“I have it!” she yelled triumphantly, to boost the morale of the defenders below. She cut the diamond out, then gave the corpse a shove so it plummeted to the ground.

Goda did not bother to clean the stone but pressed it, filthy though it was, into the setting, then closed the four fastenings. She stared at the stone. “Come on now! Do something!” She rubbed it to make it work.

A new roar sounded from the chasm and a wall of white fire shot out of the cleft, surging across the ground. The burning bodies of ubariu and undergroundlings were hurled through the air before slamming into the cliff face and extinguishing like sparks. The armored vehicle that was nearest was consumed with fire so that the iron plating peeled off and the wooden frame beneath turned to ash.

The kordrion pushed itself out into the light. With a louder roar than ever, which broke whole boulders off, it forced its way free and was approaching on all fours. It gave another roar of victory as it left the darkness of the abyss. Goda couldn’t gauge its size accurately. Twenty paces high and sixty paces long?

The army ran back from the chasm’s edge, overwhelmed by horror…

The kordrion reared up and unfolded its pale wings. The world grew dark, as if a cloud had covered the sun.

“Goda!” yelled Ireheart, as he felled his last opponent by slamming into its ribcage. Ribs broke puncturing heart and innards. The three of them, he, Sirka and Rodario, had managed to prevent the destruction of the artifact. “We’re waiting!” His legs gave way and he collapsed, sinking down onto the body of his victim. His sight was going, colors swimming together confusedly.

Sirka stared at the huge pale mass of the kordrion. “Tungdil,” she whispered in horror, grasping the fact that her companion could not have survived. That white fire melted stone and steel.

“He’ll be OK,” said Ireheart, fighting the effects of the poison and rallying. “The scholar always survives. He is a friend of the gods.” But his face too darkened in concern. A monster like this had never been seen before. It was trampling the ubariu and undergroundlings, sending out another plume of white fire, killing five hundred fighters at one stroke. The last of the armed vehicles was overturned and burnt. Nothing remained but a glowing hulk. The kordrion was growing stronger with every moment it was able to spend outside its prison-gorge.

Goda hit out in despair and fury at the stone that was failing them so. She heard a slight click and it slipped down into place in the setting.

A bright silver light shot along the bars of the artifact, slamming into the mighty rings: the symbols started to glow faintly and then increased in brightness with an opal sheen that made Goda think she was losing her sight.

When her vision cleared she saw a glittering sphere had overlaid the rings of the artifact. A second globe enclosed the opening to the Black Abyss.

She could no longer see the first kordrion, a severed claw and part of a wing being the only evidence that it had ever emerged from its dungeon. A second version raged wildly behind the delicate but impenetrable barrier; as if possessed it hurled itself against the thin membrane, to no avail.

“I’ve done it,” she whispered, hardly daring to believe it. She gazed at the diamond’s matt shimmer. She laughed out loud. “I’ve done it!”

“Yes, you have!” Ireheart returned her joyful words. He tried to stand up, but felt very wobbly. “Come down carefully so I can hug you!”

Rodario placed his hand on Sirka’s shoulder. “Tungdil will have made it, too,” he encouraged.

She let her eyes roam across the sunken battlefield, now filled with the cadavers of beasts and the corpses of her own people. A number of monsters had escaped the axes and swords of their opponents and were fleeing over the edges of the crater to disappear into the distance.

“But the kordrion has got away,” she stammered. “The artifact did not work in time. What now?” She looked at Rodario. “There’s no hope. The books say-”

“Don’t give up, let’s wait and see. The old books aren’t always right, you know.” He leaned on her shoulder for support. “Come, let’s go over to the ravine to find Tungdil.”

She gave him a grateful smile. Together with Goda and an unusually pale Ireheart they made their way over the mountain of bodies.

But neither Tungdil nor Flagur returned from that battle.