He could have waited for us,” grumbled Boïndil Doubleblade of the clan of the Swinging Axes. The secondling warrior was making his way to the surface with incredible speed. “The cavalry has attacked; I can hear the horses.” He gripped the metal rungs with his powerful fingers, climbing hand over hand. The only light in the shaft came from chinks around the doorway. It was barely enough to illuminate the ladder, but Boïndil—like all dwarves—was accustomed to seeing in the gloom. “What if the long-uns finish them off before we get there?” he said anxiously.
Tungdil Goldhand, climbing behind him, tried not to laugh. He knew that his friend was desperate to fight. The hot-blooded Boïndil, known to his kinsfolk as Ireheart, pursued his enemies with a vengeance and was bent on waging war. “I had a word with Prince Mallen; he promised to leave some for you.”
Ireheart snorted, his long black plait swinging across his back. “You shouldn’t make fun of me,” he called back grouchily, climbing faster than before. He let out an excited shriek. “I think they’re right above us; I can smell their stinking armor!” The weight of his chain mail, shield, and axes seemed not to bother him. One hand was already reaching for the door; a moment later, he found the bolt and opened the hatch. He poked his helmed head tentatively into the open.
“What can you see?” panted Tungdil, whose muscles were tiring. “Any sign of the orcs?”
“We’ve died and gone to Vraccas’s smithy,” whooped Boïndil. With a bloodcurdling “oink”, he catapulted himself out of the shaft like a dwarven cannonball. “Stand clear, you little runts, I’m coming!”
Craning his neck, Tungdil looked up and saw the secondling silhouetted against the light. He seemed to be brandishing both axes as he flew through the air. Tungdil turned back to the others. “Quick, after him!” He hauled himself out of the shaft.
He hadn’t expected the situation to be good, but it was worse than he had imagined. He was standing in an encampment of shrieking bögnilim and angry orcs. Tungdil’s notion of the eternal smithy was rather different.
As soon as he was clear of the shaft, he reached behind him and drew his ax from the sheath on his back. The diamond-encrusted blade glittered fiercely in the crimson light of the dying sun.
At the sight of Keenfire, the orcs pulled up abruptly, grunting and shuffling back. They knew they were dealing with no ordinary warrior. Every beast in Girdlegard had heard how Tungdil Goldhand had slain the dark magus and sliced the demon in half with a glittering blade.
Crafted by the best dwarven artisans, with a blade made from the purest steel and forged in the fieriest furnace, encrusted with diamonds and inlaid with precious metals and tionium, Keenfire was a weapon of untold power and strength. The beasts were right to be afraid.
Summoning his courage, an orc stepped forward to challenge its bearer. He swung his cudgel with a snarl.
“Ah, a hero,” growled Tungdil, dodging the blow. He hoisted Keenfire above his head, whirled round, and drew the ax across the orc’s belly. The blade sliced through the fat-smeared armor as if it weren’t there, spilling green gore and intestines. The disemboweled orc groaned and toppled to the ground. Tungdil raised his ax. “Any more takers?”
The orcs shrank away and hollered for their archers.
The dwarves behind Tungdil seized their chance and clambered out of the shaft. Soon there were thirty of them standing shoulder to shoulder in a circle, weapons hefted and ready to counter an enemy attack.
Meanwhile, Ireheart was rampaging through the hordes. He darted and bounded between the orcs and bögnilim, felling beast after beast. Tungdil lost sight of him, but he could hear the secondling’s frenzied laughter as he baited the enemy by oinking like a runt.
Glancing up, Tungdil caught sight of Prince Mallen’s cavalry approaching from the north. The riders were charging down the hillside in a line measuring five hundred paces across. Beasts and bögnilim were trampled to the ground.
“Get back, Boïndil!” he shouted anxiously. Behind him, the last of the dwarves were clambering out of the shaft: Tungdil’s troop of a hundred warriors was complete.
“Aren’t you coming?” called Boïndil cheerfully from somewhere in the scrum. His voice was barely audible amid the sound of buckling armor and the shrieks of the dying beasts.
Tungdil gripped the haft of Keenfire with both hands and squared his shoulders. His eyebrows knitted together in a determined frown. “I’m coming,” he murmured softly. Then he raised his voice to a shout. “Drive them forward!”
His warriors let out a fearsome battle cry and fanned out, brandishing their hammers and axes as they threw themselves on the startled beasts. Tungdil and Keenfire led the attack. Nothing could stop the formidable blade as it sang through the air, slicing shields, hewing armor and chain mail, severing limbs, and killing strings of orcs with every blow.
The dwarves carved a path through the hordes, undeterred by the stinking blood and the vile smell of their enemies’ grease-encrusted armor. Green gore splashed from gushing wounds, and dismembered limbs thudded to the ground to be trampled underfoot by the indomitable dwarves. Soon the warriors at the rear were clambering over enemy corpses, but they pressed on regardless, determined to free Girdlegard from the pestilent orcs.
The resistance soon dried up. The bravest beasts died in combat, while those of a less courageous nature fled at the sight of the grim-faced dwarves.
“After them!” shouted Tungdil. The strategy paid off: Driven forward by the dwarves, the orcs and bögnilim collided with their comrades, who were running from Mallen and his men. The beasts were doomed.
Swinging his ax, Tungdil took aim at a couple of orcs. Even as the blade swung toward them, the beasts keeled over, felled by an invisible hand. To Tungdil’s astonishment, Ireheart popped up from behind the corpses. He was soaked with the blood of countless orcs and his eyes were glinting dangerously.
“I was wondering where you’d got to,” he said cheerfully. “What kept you? Don’t tell me you were having trouble with the runts.”
“I was yelling at you to come back,” scolded Tungdil, shaking his head.
“Oh,” said Boïndil. “I assumed you were talking to them.” He pointed to the fleeing beasts. Sighing contentedly, he contemplated the battle. “A good end to the orbit, eh?” He raised his gore-spattered axes. “Come on, we’re not finished yet.” Suddenly a shadow crossed his face. “To be honest, scholar, it isn’t much fun without my brother. The two of us would have wiped the floor with the runty little beasts. The next twenty are for him…” He charged off, bellowing ferociously at the top of his voice.
“His fiery spirit will be the death of him,” murmured the dwarf next to Tungdil. Soon he too was slashing his way through the orcs.
Please, Vraccas, prayed Tungdil. Don’t let Boïndil come to any harm. He dropped back a few paces and placed the bugle to his lips, playing a sequence of notes that Mallen would recognize as a signal that the dwarves had arrived and were closing in from the opposite side. There was a danger that Mallen’s archers would loose their deadly arrows at the dwarven warriors, who were hard to spot from a distance, especially when surrounded by orcs. He waited for Mallen’s bugle to reply, then caught up with the rest of his company, and launched himself into the fray.
The dwarves were still fighting at sundown and Mallen’s infantry joined the action, which didn’t please Boïndil at all. Some of the orcs and bögnilim were intent on escaping, but Mallen was ready for them, and the attempt to leave the battlefield was blocked by a unit of riders with lances.
By nightfall, there was barely room to step around the corpses and the channels of melt water were awash with green blood.