The Half Dwarf Prince: 02 - The Dwarf War (21 page)

King Patria knew that he had a broken leg, and probably a couple ribs. Every breath came with a stab of pain. He couldn’t fight, but he could lead. He had the men help him up onto a horse
, and he called out weak points in the wall. He ordered reinforcements to the areas where too many men had fallen. He realized that the huge birds and the men who had blown the dwarves into the deep trench along the wall had to be druids. They must be the druids Rundo had told them about. He knew that he owed them the lives of whatever soldiers made it through this fight. They wouldn’t have had many men left at the end of this if it weren’t for the druids.

Rundo stood on the wall, throwing his daggers down at the dwarves around Grizzle and Jabaal. They were fighting through the army of Tiefes Loch, but they were trapped in the center of it, and they would eventually get stuck there. Frau came up next to him and started firing her magically enchanted crossbow down at the enemy. Her crossbow fired quickly, but even with her crossbow magically reloading right after contact, and with Rundo’s daggers doing the same, Grizzle and Jabaal were still getting no relief. Kraft came up next to them.

“We gotta get them out
ta there,” he said with a big smile on his face, and then he turned and fired his crossbow down into the dwarves ahead of Jabaal. All the dwarves within ten feet of the exploding bolt died or were thrown away. Even the ones outside the circle were staggering a little, and Jabaal went running along the shoulders and heads of the dazed dwarves, his swords following his feet, finding the necks and shoulders of the dwarves he passed.

Rundo and Frau started firing at the dwarves behind Grizzle
, and Kraft fired another of his exploding bolts down ahead of them. Finally, with Frau and Rundo’s quick firing and throwing, Kraft’s exploding bolts, Jabaal running around like a wild man stabbing out in flashes of blue, and Grizzle swinging that blessed hammer, they had made it about a hundred paces.

T
hen Grizzle took a crossbow bolt in the back of his leg. He spun around, knocking the attacking dwarf to the side with his hammer, and then he threw it at the dwarf as he tried to reload his crossbow. A dwarf came in from the side with a sword, and when Grizzle turned to him he stepped into the sword, trusting in his enchanted armor to stop the blade. He reached down and grabbed the back edge of the blade before the dwarf could retract it. He pulled on the sword, bringing the other dwarf forward, and smashed his head into the face of the dwarf. The dwarf fell at Grizzle’s feet, and he turned the sword in his hand up just in time to deflect the axe coming down from another dwarf coming in at his right. Just as he deflected the axe, a crossbow bolt suddenly stuck into the dwarf’s neck. Grizzle dropped the sword and took up the blessed hammer. He started moving toward Jabaal, but then he felt a sharp pain in his leg. One of the dwarves who was dying on the ground had reached up with a last burst of strength and stabbed a knife into Grizzle’s lower leg. Now, with a crossbow bolt in back of his thigh and a deep cut in his lower calf, the leg wouldn’t hold him. He limped forward, swinging his hammer desperately to fend off the dwarves closing in on him.

Rundo started stripping down on the wall. “What are you doing
?” Frau asked.

“Just keep them off him. Kraft
, when I take off, put one of your exploding bolts on each side of him. Make them close. It’s all right if you daze him; just don’t get too close.”

He didn’t wait for him to respond he dropped his clothes and gear on the ground and started shifting. He leaped into the air, but as the exploding bolts went off
, another huge bird flew past him and picked up Grizzle. Rundo didn’t hesitate; he turned to his left, sweeping in toward Jabaal. He called out with an ear-piercing cry. Dwarves turned to look up, but Jabaal leapt off the shoulders of one dwarf, sheathing his blades as he flipped into air. Jabaal grabbed onto Rundo’s legs as he flew by. Rundo was pulled down slightly, but he gave a couple of hard flaps of his wings and he was on his way up out of range. One of the dwarves got off a shot, though, and it punched through his wing just outside where it connected with his body. He was still able to fly, but it was painful. He flew over the wall and dropped Jabaal in the field behind the wall, over by Grizzle.

Evelyn was already taking off when
Rundo dropped Jabaal down next to Grizzle. “Who was that?” Grizzle asked.

“I think that was Rundo’s girl,” Jabaal said
, looking at the huge hawk that was Rundo. Rundo cried out and lifted back into the air, flying back to his gear on the wall.

Grundel fought through the last of the dwarves ahead of them. The druids had reappeared and pushed hundreds of dwarves into the deep canal along the wall with their powerful wind. He had seen Rundo do something similar, but it was nothing compared to how powerful the wind was of the combined group of druids. With the two blasts of wind eliminating nearly half of the dwarves between them and the entrance to the wall, and with the help of the druids dropping stones on the dwarves, Grundel and the others had fought their way through. Grundel could still hear fighting past that turn, though, and he sprinted forward. He could barely lift his arms anymore. Even with his axes seeming nearly weightless, the blows that he blocked weren’t, and he had been swinging his arms back and forth for at least an hour, though it felt like an entire day.

He heard his uncle behind him shouting loudly over the army
, commanding men to line up along the trench and not to allow anyone out. He told them not to kill any of the dwarves who still lived unless they tried to escape. The rest of the army he was commanding to follow the heir.

Grundel
ran around the edge of the wall and found the dwarves were mostly holding their shields over their heads. They would have established a shield wall on the other side where the fighting was, but on this side they were just trying to protect themselves from the bombardment of crossbow bolts and stones coming down on them. Grundel threw his axe, and it flew through the ranks of dwarves. He knew there were men fighting them on the other side, so he called his axe back as he ran toward the army at an angle that would bring his axe back on a different path then it had left, cutting into dozens more dwarves. Just as his axe returned to him, there was an explosion. He slammed into the dwarf lines, and the army of Patria met the dwarves of Tiefes Loch again, but this time they did not have an established shield wall. Grundel heard another explosion.

Jerrie ran up behind Grundel and then off to his side. His magically enchanted glove had proved to be as useful as any of his other items. He could move that hand so quickly he couldn’t even see it. As he ran into the dwarf army he changed his knife into a sword. He now had a sword in his magically enhanced hand. The sword worked in a blur, slapping dwarf weapons away as quickly as he could notice them. He was blocking and attacking before the dwarves could get a full swing in. Two dwarves swung their weapons at him at the same time, but he didn’t even slow down. His sword deflected both weapons and then cut a leg off each of the dwarves at the knee, and then he just kept moving through the army. An explosion went off close to him ahead, and he started working his way back toward Grundel.

“He’s good,” Jabaal said, coming up next to Rundo on the wall. Grizzle stood next to him, leaning heavily on the wall. He wouldn’t leave the battlefield until the fight was over, and Rundo wasn’t going to waste his breath.

“He Grundels you,” Grizzle said.

“What?” Jabaal asked.

Grizzle nodded down toward the fighting. “Look at them, they fight just like me and you. Grundel cuts his way through the army
, creating gaps for the army, and Jerrie fights his way out and back to Grundel. They fight just like us. Jerrie is Grundel’s version of what you are to me.”

Jabaal smiled. “What if he had two of me
?” he said, then yelled out, “Kalime Aquida!” He began glowing blue and leapt off the wall, flipping in the air as he fell toward the dwarves.

“His leg heals when he does that,” Rundo said in surprise.

“More than that heals when he does that,” Grizzle said, as he watched his friend come to life now that he had an enemy to fight. Grizzle couldn’t go down there and fight—he could barely walk—but he could still throw Gorgon’s Hammer. He threw the weapon down into the dwindling dwarf ranks. Explosions went off in the dwarf ranks, and showers of crossbow bolts fell down on them. With the dwarves of Tiefes Loch fighting Grundel, Jerrie, Jabaal, and the army of Patria on one side; the army of Portwein on the other side; and with hundreds of crossbow bolts and huge rocks being dropped on them from above, the rest of the fight didn’t last long.

The last of the dwarves fell between the two human armies, and then the
two armies stood facing off between the walls with Jabaal, Grundel, and Jerrie between them. King Patria rode out ahead, and a single man walked out in front of the Portwein army.

Commander Boris
approached the men and the huge dwarf at the front of the Patria army. He looked up to the man still sitting on a horse. He bowed to him, guessing he was the king.

“Your Highness, I am Commander Boris. Master Rupert informed us that King Bergmann intended to have all of the men in our army killed in order to weaken the city of Portwein, and then have king Merwein killed. He informed me of his plan to turn on King Bergmann
, and I agreed to help him. King Bergmann treated our men very poorly, and we were barely able to prevent an all-out mutiny as it was.”

King Patria looked down
, and Grundel and Jerrie reached up and helped him off the horse. Jerrie had to help hold him up. His leg was throbbing in pain, and it had taken every bit of effort he had just to stay in the saddle. He couldn’t put any weight on the broken limb.

“Commander
, thank you for seeing reason. King Bergmann made promises to me as well, but it was clear that he had no intention of keeping them once he had what he wanted. Do you know if Master Rupert made it through the battle?”

“Master Rupert told us
only that he would deal with King Bergmann. I do not know what happened to him once the fighting started, Your Highness,” Commander Boris answered.

“Commander
, if you would send a couple of men who would recognize Master Rupert with my men, I would like him found, whatever his condition. He is, after all, the one who organized this whole ambush,” King Patria said. Jerrie sent a couple of the White Dragons with the soldiers from Portwein to carry out the king’s order.

The Portwein army was opening up
, and the dwarves were coming down the center. In the front was King Grizzle Stoneheart, leaning heavily on King Kimmel Kraft; on their left was Rundo and on their right was Queen Frau Gemcutter.

Grundel saw that his father was limping, but he
quickly figured out that it wasn’t too serious. Jabaal was standing next to him; he must have come to help him with his father couldn’t fight anymore. With him and Jerrie both fighting in circles around him at the end, he had barely had an enemy to fight. But when Grundel looked at Frau, all of that was pushed from his mind. She walked toward him in hard leather armor that Anwar must have made for her. She had a crossbow hanging on her right hip and a sword sheathed on her left hip.

Her hair hung down and stuck to her face with sweat. He locked eyes with her
, and the world around him disappeared. He stared into her eyes as she grew closer and closer. She stopped a few feet away, standing between them and the commander of the Portwein army.

“I apologize for this
, Commander, but there is something that needs to happen,” Grizzle said, and then he turned to Grundel. “Well, let’s get this over with, boy.”

Grundel looked to his father, who nodded back to Frau. Grundel went to her. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her. For the first time he kissed her without worry about what anyone else might think, or how it would affect her position as queen. She kissed him back. When they pulled away from each other she had blood on her face. He tried to wipe it away, but he just rubbed more on. Then he realized that his nearly white hair
, hanging down in his face, was red with blood. The moment was over, and he turned back toward the others.

Grizzle reached out a hand to King Patria. “King Patria, I am Grizzle Stoneheart
, King of Evermount, husband to your cousin and father to your nephew. It is an honor to finally meet you.”

King Patria took his hand and smiled. “The honor is mine. I guess neither of us really made it out of this in the best shape.”

“You both made it out better than Bergmann,” Kraft said.

Grizzle turned to his companions. “
This is King Kraft of Haufen, and this is Queen Gemcutter of Shinestone. Seeing as introductions are made and there are quite a few of us who will need some medical attention, I say we get on with this.”

Frau stepped up. “Commander Boris
, your men can stay in the field to the left of the entrance. King Patria, your men can stay in the field to the right, at the base of the stairs that lead up to the mountain. I will send escorts with you both to ensure you have everything you need. Once your men are settled, we would like you to come up to Shinestone with any of your men you wish to accompany you.”

She had barely finished talking when Rundo took off running
past the Patria army back toward the outside of the wall.

“Where’s he going
?” Kraft asked.

“To meet with his druid friends, I would guess,” Jerrie said.

“And his girl,” Grizzle said.

“Should we wait for them?” Frau asked.

“No, they won’t all come. He will bring the ones who want to come when they are ready. Druids aren’t big on crowds or caves. I wouldn’t be surprised if he came back with only the girl,” Grizzle said.

With that said
, Grizzle, Jabaal, Frau, Grundel, and Kraft prepared to head toward Shinestone.

“You should go
, Your Highness,” Jerrie told King Patria. “I will make sure that the men get settled, then I will come up. You should really get that leg looked at.”

King Patria looked back
at the army, but Grundel reached under his arm, supporting the king’s wounded leg, and started walking toward the mountain.

Rundo had been searching for Evelyn’s aura as the others talked. When he sensed her getting close, he took off running through the Patria army. He came out onto the road and saw her standing on the other side of it, at the edge of the tree line. He ran across the road toward her, and she met him halfway. He wrapped his arms around her and she bent down and kissed him. The fact that there were dead bodies all around them didn’t even register as they shared the embrace.

“I love you,” Rundo told her.

“I love you, too,” Evelyn said. She had tears in her eyes.

“Why are you crying
?” he asked.

“It just was never real before this,” she said.

“What wasn’t real?” he asked.

“The danger. I knew that you were off fighting and everything, but I had never seen a war in person. It was never real
to me how much danger you were in,” she answered.

He pulled her in close. Someone else slammed into them. He looked up to see Erica wrapping her arms around them.

“I am so glad you are both okay,” she said. “I helped, Rundo, did you see?” she asked.

Rundo looked at her
, confused.

“I was with the others on the ground
,” she said. “We pushed the army into the big hole over there with blast of wind.”

Rundo looked over to where the soldiers of Patria lined the long trench that ran along the edge of the wall. A lot of the dwarves
who fell in there would still be alive. Dwarves from Shinestone were already coming out to relieve the men guarding the area. Jerrie was guiding the soldiers inside the walls.

“You saved hundreds of men’s lives, maybe even thousands,” Rundo told Erica. Her face lit up with excitement.

“Brother Rundo,” said a voice behind Evelyn and Erica. Rundo looked around them to see Brother David.

“Brother David, thank you for your help,” Rundo said.

“We did it because it was best. That army cut down trees and killed animals unnecessarily all the way here. We couldn’t allow someone like that to establish themselves in an area with so much life around it. The Elders have asked me to come on their behalf. The rest of the community is already moving back to the forest. We would like to know what comes next,” Brother David said.

“Of course,” Rundo said. “Let
’s get up to Shinestone. There are a lot of people who will need healing, and the dwarves in those trenches who are still alive will need to be dealt with, so we probably won’t meet about what comes next until tomorrow, but we can get you settled in the mountain, and I can introduce you to the others.”

“Will they be killed
?” Erica asked.

Rundo looked over to the where the dwarves were taking up places guarding the trenches. “I don’t know. I think it will depend on the individuals.”

Erica stared over at the trenches. “Let’s go, Erica,” Evelyn said, trying to divert her attention. “We are going to get to see a real dwarven kingdom.”

Erica turned and looked up at the looming mountain. Rundo
led them through the bodies and toward the mountain.

Jerrie walked over to where the White Dragons were standing. “That is King Bergmann,” one of the Portwein soldiers was saying. “The dwarf king bled to death from a cut in his neck.”

“And this is Master Rupert,”
another soldier said, pushing a dwarf off of the man lying a few feet from the fallen dwarf king. Rupert still had the knife in his hand, but he also had three crossbow bolts in him, one in the shoulder, one in the leg, and the one that killed him, which had gone through his chest and punctured his lung.

“Well
, he took care of King Bergmann like he promised,” Jerrie said. “Pick them both up. We will take them up the mountain.”

After that he turned and
walked back toward Shinestone. He had already talked to Captain Thompson, who was getting the soldiers settled inside the walls. He would wait until the captain was ready and then lead him up into Shinestone.