Boindil pulled his head back, fighting down his astonishment and shock. “I wanted to know how you were feeling. If you were satisfied with how the vote went.” He took a seat opposite Tungdil.
“Is that the real reason you came?” Tungdil was breathing heavily. “Or did you want to see what I get up to when I think no one is watching?”
“You’re surely immune to being taken by surprise in that armor of yours.” Ireheart attempted a light tone, his smile awry.
Tungdil looked at his friend and Ireheart was pleased to see the old familiar expression. He had no doubt about it; this was his true Scholar.
“I didn’t ever ask you what you thought of my suggestion,” Tungdil said. “About how we take on the enemy.”
“Bit late for that now, surely? The decision is made.”
“Yes, I should have taken you into my confidence earlier,” replied Tungdil. “You were a wonderful advocate for me.”
Boindil smiled amiably. “I can’t leave you to face those obstinate stubborn-heads all by yourself. What kind of comrade would that make me?” He rubbed his brow and put his fingertips together. “It will certainly be dangerous, and undoubtedly there will be much loss of life. I have no illusions on that score. But it could work, because none of the enemies will be expecting a trick like we have planned. We’ll get them with their own weapons.” He muttered into his beard: “Well, at least the black-eyes.”
“You’re sure about this?”
Ireheart considered the matter. “There are many imponderables in your strategy that we can’t influence. What if the alfar kill the Dragon sooner than we intend them to? What if the kordrion doesn’t care about its brood like you assume it does? What if Lot-Ionan only has to snap his fingers to turn the beast to stone?” He folded his arms across his chest. “But I think that’s unlikely.”
“Is that because you are sufficiently desperate to believe anything or because it was me that suggested the plan?”
“I’m in favor because it’s a good plan. Audacious, but good,” replied Ireheart thoughtfully. “I’ve been through so much with you and we’ve made so many impossible things happen, so I don’t have doubts about this.”
Tungdil nodded in silence and stretched out his hand for the jug. Seeing it was empty he swept it from the table. “Do you think the title of high king will suit me?”
That was a question Ireheart would have preferred not to have to answer. “It was my idea, after all. If I hadn’t been convinced of that I wouldn’t have put it to the assembly,” he said, skirting around the difficulty.
“You think it was your idea. But what if my runes had put a spell on you?” Tungdil suggested wearily. “If it was me putting the idea into your head? So that I could get my hands on the title at last, after all those cycles of wanting it. Although I knew under normal circumstances it could never happen? It would never be allowed.” The eyelid fluttered and the eyeball rolled back. He was practically asleep.
“I don’t believe that, Scholar,” said Ireheart quietly as he stood up. “If I don’t want to do something I’m sure nobody 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 befun 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 alfar.”
“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 alfar 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 befun’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.” Boindil 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 alfar 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 befun 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 any chance of surviving.
“Curse the black-eyes,” raged Ireheart, crawling through the snow to Tungdil. “I’ll shove a longbow up their arses and the arrows, too. Sideways!!”