The Half Dwarf Prince: 02 - The Dwarf War (10 page)

The wizard Dirigente walked next to King Bergmann. Chaos surrounded them. Men and dwarves fought to their deaths and died by the thousands. He walked along next to the dwarf king of chaos, tendrils of dark energy flying from his fingertips. Bergmann was winning. He was destroying the other dwarf kingdoms. The images shifted, and he was in Portwein. The city was burning. Men fought each other. The king was dead. The other nobles were all fighting for power. The city guards had been bought by the leaders of the city and were pitted against each other. Chaos reigned. King Bergmann stood on the balcony of the palace laughing like a madman.

Dirigente woke with a start
, sitting up in his bed. That hadn’t been a dream. Those were images of what could be. That was a message from Delvidge, the god of chaos. The dwarf king had already taken over Portwein’s army. He would do what he could to help. Delvidge obviously had big plans for him.

Bergmann walked through the parade field. It had been in constant use along with the training ground. His dwarves were training the human army. There were a few companies that might just be useful. He wasn’t worried about the humans winning him the war. They would all likely die, but if he could hold in reserve the units that showed some promise, they might be useful after the dwarves of Shinestone wore themselves out fighting through the others. Then his dwarves could come in and finish off the exhausted army. He would convert or kill every dwarf in all of the dwarven kingdoms, just like his father had done in Tiefes Loch. Bordin was a weak god. He wanted to control the dwarves, he kept them weak, and the ideals of the dwarves following him were slowly destroying the whole race.

Captain Walsh
had proved to be quite capable. His battalion was training with the dwarves right now. He had put talented men in charge of his companies, and had even pulled one of the men from the more experienced battalion to come over and be one of his company commanders. He didn’t accept failure. A failure was met with a correction. If a soldier continued to make the same mistakes, he was punished. At one point on the first day Bergmann had seen at least a hundred of Walsh’s men standing out in the heat of the day holding their swords out in front of them for a set amount of time. When one man let his sword fall they all had to start the time over. They never actually made it the designated amount of time but after holding their swords out at arm’s length for the better part of an hour, all of the men were exhausted. Each day the commander’s punishment was different, but every day that group had gotten smaller. Right now there were about fifteen men off to the side of the parade field, squatting. A lieutenant stood watch with a stick. When one of the men stood up or fell, he was smacked in the legs with a bamboo rod.

Bergmann
watched as the men went through their drills. His dwarves formed up into a shield wall, and the men moved forward, fighting the shield wall with their own shield line. Bergmann had the men equipped with tall shields that were as high as a dwarf. They covered from the men from feet to chest. It would make it difficult for the dwarves to get any attacks in. The men practiced with wooden versions of their sabres. They practiced having the men behind the shield wall reach in between the shoulders of the shield men and stab at the opening in the dwarves’ armor around the neck. His dwarves were coming back a little more bruised at the end of each day. The humans would still take dozens of casualties for every dwarf casualty, but at least now they would be able to inflict casualties instead of just tiring out their enemies’ sword arms.

Bergmann also
watched Captain Walsh. Walsh didn’t just command his men from the sidelines; he got in there and worked as hard as any of them. The dwarf in front of Walsh raised his shield slightly to block a sword thrust coming in over the top of his shield, and Walsh slammed his shield against the dwarf’s. With his shield up to block the strike coming down, the dwarf’s balance was off to stop the shield that struck his, and he stumbled back a step. It left an opening in the shield wall for only a second, but Walsh capitalized.

“Strike,” he called out
, and the men on either side of him struck. With the mutual support of the shields being compromised, the dwarf to either side of him was stabbed in the neck.

“Stop
!” Bergmann shouted out. The dwarves and men all stopped the drill, and turned toward the dwarf king and leader of the army. “Captain Walsh, come here.”

Captain Walsh came running over. “Yes
, King Bergmann?”

“Do you know what you just did
?” Bergmann asked.

“I just saw an opening and took advantage
, King Bergmann,” the captain answered.

“I know that, but explain to me what you did,” Bergmann responded.

“Well, King Bergmann, when anyone raises his hands up to defend, he changes his center of balance, so when the dwarf in front of me raised his shield I knew he would be weaker against an impact from the front, so I slammed my shield into his. He stumbled back, and with the opening that he left, the dwarves to his left and right were open to an attack,” Captain Walsh explained.

Bergmann nodded approvingly. “That’s exactly what I wanted to hear. Captain Walsh, I want you to assemble your commanders, and have each of them practice doing what you just did. Make sure you supervise them until they get it right. When your men move on to other training
, I want you to leave some men to train the leaders of the next battalion to come out here. They won’t have to stay to teach every battalion; I will have men from each battalion teach the next, do you understand?”

“Yes
, King Bergmann, I will get the men started on it right away,” Walsh responded, and then stood waiting to be dismissed.

Bergmann admired Walsh. There weren’t many humans that he thought had any sense, but Walsh was one.

“That is all, Captain Walsh.”

The
captain slammed his fist to his chest, then ran back to the men he had been training with. He spoke with them for a minute and then three of them ran off, presumably to gather the company and commanders.

“King Bergmann
, the wizard is coming,” Rupert said with a hint of disgust.

So he did break his perfect composure sometimes
, Bergmann thought. Bergmann couldn’t blame him; he hated wizards, too. Magic just wasn’t natural. Thinking about it, Bergmann considered that Rupert might be feigning his disgust to serve some purpose, but either way it didn’t matter. The man was clever, he had to give him that.

Bergmann
turned toward the Black Dragon leader. “Dirigente, have you figured out a way for your wizards to be useful yet?”

“I have gathered thirty Black Dragon wizards and another thirty assassins to accompany us. Thirty wizards will be more
than enough, I assure you. They will scout ahead while we travel. I will send someone forward to Patria and Ambar while we travel, so we will have constant updates of information. My wizards will be most useful getting you into the mountain. Once inside, their usefulness will be limited by the confines of the space, but we will spread out through your ranks once the fighting starts, and do what we can,” Dirigente said.

Dirigente was the only man
who didn’t bend to his will. The man might explain what he was going to do, and offer his services, but he did not answer to Bergmann, and he knew it.

“Good
. Getting into the mountain will be the hard part—that is true whether you’re trying to get into a mountain or a city. The only difference is that you have to use the gate on the mountain; there are no walls to scale. I am sure Grizzle and Kraft will be there, and they will have some clever traps prepared to cut into our numbers. Your wizards should be useful there. We are leaving tomorrow,” Bergmann told the wizard.

Dirigente didn’t react at all
. “Yes, I had heard that. We will be with you when you leave. I will see you then.” With that, Dirigente turned and went back the way he had come.

Bergmann saw Commander Boris walking through the ranks
, observing the training. Bergmann grabbed a nearby soldier by the arm.

“Go get Commander Boris.”

“Ah yes, ah, Commander, ah, Your Highness, sir,” the fool said nervously, but did not move. Bergmann pointed to the commander. “Yes, sir,” the idiot said before taking off at a run to the commander.

Commander Boris came over. “Good
morning, King Bergmann, what can I do for you, sir?”

“Just make sure the army is ready to march at first light tomorrow,” Bergmann said.

“They will be ready, King Bergmann,” the commander answered.

Bergmann turned and headed toward the palace. When he made through the palace entryway he heard shouting. He walked down the hall to the king’s audience chamber
, where the king met those who brought their concerns to him. It was his cousin again.

“
They’re all inbred filth. I won’t be associated with them. You are the king! Tell that fool dwarf that he is to reinstate me. The city watch isn’t a command,” the fool was shouting at the king. There were two guards standing inside the doorway of the room.

Bergmann had had enough of this fool. He walked up behind him
, drawing his axe, and then brought it down onto the king’s cousin’s skull. Blood sprayed across the king’s face.

“Wha
. . . wha . . . wha . . . what did you do that for?” the king asked.

“He was a problem for you. He would have eventually tried to take your throne, and he did nothing but harass you
. Plus he was trying to assassinate you,” Bergmann said, pulling the dead man’s belt from his hip and dropping it on the ground in front of him. The king stood staring, openmouthed, and speechless.

Bergmann
turned to the guards at the door. “You two, the king’s cousin just attempted to assassinate him. I stopped him just in time. Now come get this body away from your king; it’s making him uneasy.”

The two guards walked across the room. When the
y bent down to pick up the body, Bergmann swung his axe down, cutting clean through the neck of the first. The other guard was quicker; he was able to get his sword out and attempt to block, but it wasn’t strong enough, the spike on the back of his axe punched straight through the man’s sword and steel plate, and into his chest. The man fell to his knees. Bergmann tried to pull his axe free, but it was stuck. He put his boot against the man’s chest, forcing him to cough up blood. He pulled hard, and his axe came free.

The king sat on the ground and put his hands on his head.

“Your cousin and those two guards tried to assassinate you. Hey!” Bergmann shouted at the king. The king looked up. “You hear me?”

“Yes
, they tried to assassinate me.”

“Good
. Your cousin was angry with you because he was relieved of his command. When you wouldn’t reinstate him, he tried to kill you. He hired your personal guards to help him. I showed up just in time to stop them. It has just enough truth to it that it will be believable,” Bergmann told the king, and then he turned to Rupert, who had watched the whole thing without any reaction. “Rupert, go summon the guards.”

Rupert went out into the hall and screamed. “Guards,
guards, the king has been attacked!” Bergmann watched as he walked back into the room with his usual composure, as if nothing had happened.

Bergmann had known the man was capable, but in that moment he knew he was dangerous. Any man who could watch a brutal murder like that without any reaction was someone
who could be dangerous; the only question now was how he could use him.

A minute later six guards came charging into the room. “The king has been attacked. I saved him, but he should be looked at by a healer just in case,” Bergmann said, and then walked from the room. He had done that as part of his long-term plan, but it sure had been fun. In one move he had killed that annoying cousin
, who had come to the palace everyday complaining, put the king even more solidly under him, and set Portwein up for a collapse. Merwein didn’t have an heir, and the only other man with the family’s bloodline was spilling that royal blood out onto the marble at the king’s feet. After the war, Portwein’s army would be almost completely lost, leaving only the city watch. When the king fell, the city would implode. All of the powerful nobles would fight to take the throne, and when the dust cleared, there would be nothing left. This was the repayment for turning on him all those years ago. He wouldn’t destroy them; he would just set them up to destroy themselves. He was, after all, a child of chaos. What could he do to please his deity more than to set up the largest of the five cities for complete chaos while he fought the children of Bordin, his oldest and most hated enemy.

Grundel drove his cart up to the gate of Patria. Patria was different than any city he had seen, at least from the outside. The wall was raw. It was made of huge stones stacked on top of each other and mortared together. They had made no attempt to cover the wall with mortar and make it flat and hard to climb, but perhaps it wouldn’t matter anyway: the wall was a hundred feet high. The gate was made of two, one-foot thick wooden doors with steel bands set around them in intervals. Each of the doors was about eight to ten feet wide and about twenty feet high. Grundel saw the spikes of a steel portcullis just barely sticking down above the tops of the doors.

Two guards stood outside the gate
, blocking the entrance. “Welcome to Patria. What is your business in the city?” one of them asked.

Before Grundel
could respond, his mother cut him short. “I am Anna Patria. Take me to the watch commander immediately,” his mother said with a demanding voice he had never heard her use before.

The man froze for a minute,
then turned and walked through the gate. The other guard didn’t speak, but continued to block the road. A few seconds later the first man returned with four additional guards. One of them walked over to the cart.

“Your
Highness, if you would follow me, I will lead you to the watch commander. I have already sent a runner to inform him of your arrival. A royal escort should be ready by the time we arrive.”

Anna nodded. Jerrie and Rundo were riding in front of the cart, and Dobo and Gobo were riding behind. Two of the city guards walked next to their horses. The one who had spoken and the other walked ahead
, in front of Rundo and Jerrie. Once inside the gate, Grundel saw that there were tables and benches just inside where guards could relax. There were four guards there now, but they were watching them. There was also a small shack that was likely where the man who was leading them had come from. Grundel processed this. That meant that at any given time they had at least ten men at the gate. They were vigilant. The men waiting on the benches could easily drop the portcullis if anyone tried to enter.

The area inside the gate was clear of buildings. This area was
designed so that men could assemble here and defend. Again, Grundel had to appreciate the city’s preparedness. The nearest building was about two hundred paces down the cobble road, inside the gate, and it appeared that was where they were headed. As they approached he realized that the buildings next to the first one were barracks. In the grounds outside men were training. There was an area where men were training with swords, and another where men on horseback tried to get the end of a long pole through a little ring on a post. It seemed that Patria kept its army well trained. Grundel had heard that most of the human cities let their armies become lazy and their equipment fall into disrepair during times of peace. That didn’t seem to be the case with Patria.

Men were forming up outside the first building as they approached. When they got there
, the men had formed in four ranks of ten, with one man standing out front.

“It is a pleasure
, Your Highness. I am Captain Thompson. I have already sent a runner to inform the king of your arrival. I will lead you to the palace, if you wish.”

“Thank you
, Captain. Please lead on,” she told the man.

“Of course,
Your Highness,” the man said, then he turned to his soldiers. “Open ranks!” he shouted, and the four ranks each took a different number of steps. “Escort march!” he shouted, and the first column marched out in front of Rundo and Jerrie, forming into two columns on each side of the street. The second column marched around the back of the cart and lined up on the other side of the cart. The third column formed up in two ranks behind Dobo and Gobo, and the final rank formed up on the left side of the cart. “Forward march,” the man shouted, and the men began marching down the street. Grundel flicked the reins and the horses began pulling the cart.

The training grounds and barracks separated the city and the main gate. Once they were past the training grounds
, houses and shops lined both sides of the street. Everything was made from stone. Most of the houses were made of raw stone stacked and mortared together, but some of the shops had mortar spread over the outside of the stone, giving it a flat outer surface. Those buildings could be wood with mortar along the outside, but either way, this city wouldn’t burn. Everything about the city seemed to have been crafted with its defense in mind. There were lots of inns and pubs along this road. This must be the road where all of the travelers stay. The smell of food cooking coming from all directions made Grundel aware of his empty stomach. They hadn’t really eaten breakfast. They knew they were going to make Patria today, so everyone had just eaten dried rations this morning, hoping to get on the road early.

His mother must have heard
Grundel’s stomach growl, because she looked over and smiled at him.

“Don’t worry
, once we get to the palace they are going to smother you. You will have more food than you can eat. We will have to get all of the formalities and introductions out of the way first, of course.”

“What are the formalities
?” he asked her.

“For now, the main thing will be that my cousin will personally welcome us into his home. All new family members will be introduced
, so we will meet his wife and children, if he has any. The last I heard, he didn’t. Then I will introduce them all to my son. Once all members of the royal family are introduced to each other, we can dispense with the formalities for a while. There will likely be a dinner in our honor in the next couple of days. Remember that he is the king, so you should bow. If you salute, that will also be accepted, since that is the dwarf way to show respect; that much at least is known by human royalty, and the custom is accepted. Either one will be fine,” she told him.

“I will try to remember. So what do I call him? Humans call
their kings ‘Your Highness,’ right? That’s what we always say when we are joking with our own leaders.”

Anna couldn’t help but smile. “Yes
, you will call him ‘Your Highness,’ and the people of this city will call you ‘Highness’ as well. You are a member of the royal family of this city. You have the blood of its king, and even if you didn’t, you are a member of your father’s royal family, so everyone would call you ‘Highness’ anyway.”

Grundel just shook his head. “Why do humans have to make everything so complicated? Why can
’t they just call their leader what they are? A king is a king, and a prince is a prince. ‘Highness’ sounds like the king is a god or something.”

Anna smiled at her son. “You should probably avoid singling out the human race like that. You are
, after all, a part of it, and these are your people.”

“I don’t even know these people,” he answered.

“No, but after today they will know you. You are the grandson of their previous king and the nephew of their current one. Everyone in Patria will know who you are by the end of the day.”

They were coming to the end of the road. There was a
nother wall around the palace; this one was also made of stone, but it was only about twenty feet high and it did have a smooth surface of mortar on the outside. There was no gate here, so they turned right down the street and followed it around the wall. It was another small, but specific detail with defense in mind. If an enemy did make it into the city, they wouldn’t be able to march directly up to the palace gate. They went past six streets before turning left, following the wall. They passed three more streets before they came to the gate—two heavy doors made of iron bars.

The commander at the gate spoke with Captain Thompson for a few seconds, but did not open the gate. Grundel saw that there was a line of soldiers on each side of the path inside the gate. The soldiers here had been summoned quickly. Captain Thompson walked back to the cart.

“Your Highness, the king will be here shortly. I apologize, but it has been many years since you have been in the city, and the royal guard has insisted that His Highness confirm your identity. I did insist that I recognized you, Your Highness, but the royal guard has the final say in palace defenses.”

“You have nothing to apologize for
, Captain. I cannot be upset that my cousin is being properly protected, and as you said, it has been nearly twenty years since I have been in the city. I am curious how it is that you recognize me. You seem familiar to me somehow,” she said, and the man seemed pleased that she had recognized him.

“My father was a member of your father
’s personal guard, Your Highness. I lived in the palace for two years when I was a child. I was many years younger than you, but you were always kind to me, Your Highness,” he answered, bowing his head slightly.

She stared at him for a second, and then
she recognized the scar over the man’s left eye. “You were my brother’s friend, the one he was always with in the palace.”

The man looked down at the ground with honest sadness. “I was that boy,
Your Highness. I did not feel it would have been appropriate for me to speak of it. Your brother was the best friend I ever had. It was a terrible thing that happened. I am sorry for your loss, Your Highness.”

“It was many years ago, but thank you.” She saw a group of people coming down the palace steps. “Ah
, it seems my cousin has decided to grace us with his presence. Thank you again for your help, Andrew,” she said, using his first name to show him she really did remember. The man had gotten the cut over his eye when a dog that had somehow gotten inside the palace grounds attacked her brother. Andrew had jumped in front of the dog and was bitten on the face. She remembered that the dog had bitten him just above his eye, ripping the skin and leaving two puncture holes just above his hairline. The captain helped her down out of the cart. He waited there as she walked toward the gate. She stopped a few steps short of the gate and turned back to the man.

“Captain,” she said.

“Yes, Your Highness?” he asked.

“After you saved my brother from that dog
, he told everyone who would listen that you were an even better guard than your father,” she told the man.

He smiled at her. “Thank you
, Your Highness.”

She nodded and then walked to the heavy
, iron gates. Grundel, Rundo, Jerrie, Dobo, and Gobo all pulled their horses up behind them and climbed down.

Anna watched as her cousin
approached the gate. He had grown so much. When she had left he had been in his midteens, now he was in his early thirties. He was tall like her father had been. He was at least half a foot taller than her six-foot son. He wasn’t nearly as wide, but he still had a strong build, and he carried himself well. He had the same pale blond hair that she and Grundel had. That hair and his eyes would make everyone in Patria except Grundel. It was a family trait of the Patria line. It was said that their ancestors had come from a place where the sun would shine for only a few months of the year. That is why their hair was the color it was, and why they could see so well in the dark. She didn’t know if it was true, but it was a good story.

“Open the gates. Even if you fools had never seen her in your life
, how could you doubt this woman was a Patria?” The gates opened as he approached them. He walked out to meet her. “Anna, it has been too long,” he said, taking her hand and kissing it as she curtsied, bowing her head slightly.

“It truly has
, Your Highness,” she said in a very formal tone.

“This must be your son
, Grundel. Your letters never said how big he was. I bet you are as strong as an ogre,” the king said to Grundel.

“I am stronger th
an the only one I ever met, Your Highness,” Grundel said, bowing his head slightly. He decided to try to keep the human customs as best he could.

“Now that is a story I would like to
hear, but that will have to wait. Let me introduce you to my queen. This lovely woman is Priscilla,” he said, stepping to the side and motioning toward the woman next to him. She had classic beauty: long legs, a thin build, an ample bosom, and a very delicate face. She had bright blond hair and blue eyes. Many Patria kings had married women whose features matched as closely as possible to the nearly white hair and electric blue eyes of the Patria line, but a Patria had never been born without those features. Even Grundel, whose father was a dwarf and had dark hair and dark eyes, had them.

“It is a pleasure to finally meet you
, Your Highness,” Anna said, bowing her head slightly.

The queen stepped forward
, holding her hand out to Grundel. He took the hand gently in his own and kissed it lightly, the way the king had his mother’s.

“It is an honor to meet you
, Your Highness,” he said, tilting his head and releasing her hand.

She stepped back. “It is an honor to meet you both,” the woman said formally.

“Well, that is all out of the way,” said the king. “Come inside. I am sure you would all like to get cleaned up, and get something in your stomachs. The soldiers will take your horses to the stables.” Soldiers walked through the gates taking the reins of each of the horses, including Bumbo. The king turned and walked back toward the palace, and the six of them followed him.