Chapter Thirteen
Horlarl was sitting easily on his throne, watching the battle play out in his seeing crystal, smiling wickedly. Jak, standing by his side, had a less than mirthful look on his delicate face. “My king, I beg you to end this. We do not need to destroy the dwarves to prove your point,” he pleaded with Horlarl.
“Silence, fool! I will not tolerate those damned dwarves tunneling under the earth as if they owned all of it. They must all be killed.” Horlarl had been waiting for this opportunity for many, many years, for he had been angry with King Bareet for expanding the kingdom of Jire diplomatically, and tunneling further and further from the Great Hill, ever seeking better ore for the goods his skilled craftsmen would make.
Centuries before, many centuries prior to humans settling on Atalmor, a young King Horlarl had made a deal with Bareet and Wyrmwood's grandfather, Olf, to keep the dwarven population down and for the dwarves to stay hidden in the Great Hill mountain. Olf had agreed, mostly out of fear of the elves, for they had great magic that the dwarves did not understand and thus were very afraid of. In truth, Horlarl feared the dwarves just as much, for he had no knowledge of this new race that had arrived on his island. Dwarves were smaller, but much more confident, and loud. Very loud.
From the time the first dwarves washed up on the shores of Atalmor until Horlarl made his arrangement with Olf, the dwarves had been spreading out, digging new tunnels anywhere they pleased. Horlarl, seeing the implications, decided that they should be roped in and limited to one mountain in the area. Olf, and then his son, Osgain, had both respected the barriers set in place by the elves. However Bareet, when he took the throne about the same time humans had begun to immigrate to Atalmor, became interested in the new race of tall folk, his curiosity increasing with everything they did. Though humans lived much shorter lives than the other races on the island, they had built, in their land that became known as Caryn, a great city. The humans had also brought their knowledge of farming with them, bringing a steady, year-round supply of food for the first time to the island continent.
Humans had also brought danger, for where a dwarf or an elf had centuries to live and learn and accomplish what they may, a human typically had less than one century, so everything that was done and built by humans was done hastily, and not necessarily thought all the way through. Their cities were cramped, polluted and overall were dirty, with buildings made of wood, that generally would rot and fall. Without the patience to learn the subtle arts of true masonry, all they normally made was of wood. Also, the humans tended to master, or think they've mastered, the arts of magic and science much earlier than other races, therefore making many mistakes with those arts.
When Bareet came about, he and his master masons taught the short-lived humans how to build structures to last, how to cut stone and to fit those stones into formations of strength and durability. Bareet had befriended Tystyl's father, King Tyst, and helped him and his people build the original city of Caryn. It was for these acts, when the north half of the continent was gifted to the humans by the elves, King Tyst granted King Bareet and the dwarves half of his land. Humans kept the fertile farmlands, while handing the dwarves the ore-rich mountains to the east. It was a good trade.
Horlarl, however, did not quite see things that way. He and his people had overcome the fear they held of dwarves, thinking them more of an annoyance than anything else. Humans, the elves could relate to. Mostly. The elves loved their land and air, their trees and animals. Humans also had a love for nature, but also had a love of farming, of making the land work for the things they needed. The elves and humans got along for the most part, elves seeing the virtues of humans, while humans saw the beautiful elves and their land as something more than natural. They seemed godly to the humans of old.
Dwarves, on the other hand, disliked any creature that would not work stone, that would not dig for the ore in the ground. Dwarves were a hard working people, and played just as hard. Many times a drunken dwarf would end up finding his way into an elven camp, only to fight his out, usually with little success. For this, Horlarl hated them. No other real reason, just that dwarves were seemingly unruly, a little gruff, and seemed to hold little respect for nature and the world above ground.
Horlarl looked back to his crystal, seeing that the fight was going well for the elves, and dismissed Jak. Jak looked at him sourly one last time before leaving the large hall. Outside the king's home, the dimensional door was still up, elves continuing to file through, bolstering the already overwhelming force on the other side. Suddenly, several elves flew back through the door, followed by a pair of blue-bearded dwarves and a dragonkin. Wyrmwood gave a threatening look at Jak, who was standing just to the side of the portal, and the three stormed toward Horlarl's home. Meanwhile, the door began to shrink, being closed from the other side.
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Standing in the direct center of the fray, Tystyl, Lisann, and Adley slowly began to work their way to the outer edges of the large formation of dwarves, helping where they could with a sword here, a blast of fire there. The force of elves here was astonishing. Tystyl didn't think this many elves lived on the island, but here they were. Hearing the main doors of the tower crash open, the king felt some relief, for he knew his army had entered the fight. Now if he could get the dwarves to force one side of the ring of elves to open.
“Tell them to start spreading, that we may separate the ring into a line,” he told a nearby captain. The captain in turn sent the message down the line. Very soon, the dwarves started to break formation from their protective circle into more of a line, pressing the elves into regrouping into a line themselves. Right between the dwarves and the army of Caryn.
Tystyl knew with the portal closed, he would be without Wyrmwood, but also knew that the dwarf could hold his own in battle. Indeed, the surly dwarf could bring down twenty elves with that nasty axe of his before taking a single blow.
*******
Wyrmwood led the charge, swatting any elf that got in his way to the ground and daring each one to get back up. Oh, how mad this dwarf was now. For Wyrmwood, loyalty was the one thing that stood above all else, and Horlarl had just shown where his loyalties truly lie. “How long I trusted that damned elf, how long I served him. His yeller arse wants to go against that, well we shall see how long he thinks to keep his course!” Bareet followed up that comment with a snort and a few curses of his own.
Coming upon the entrance to Horlarl's house, Kryzzl and the dwarves were met by several archers, letting fly as soon as the three were in range. Arrows zipped past them in the air, with only a few hitting their marks, but bouncing harmlessly off the armor. Wyrmwood had his helmet on now, a minotaur's skull, and was laughing all the way to the door, felling any elf that decided to confront him.
Kryzzl warned, “Stand back,” as he took in a deep breath of air. He reared back, and spat a great ball of flame at the elf's door, vaporizing the magical seals holding it. The dwarven brothers charged the door in unison, their short, heavy bodies reducing it to splinters in one hit.
Horlarl heard the commotion outside and retreated to a more secure room. The only stone room in the valley, which had been built by Wyrmwood during his exile, was in the exact center of the house, surrounded by a maze of vines and tangles of tree branches. Wyrmwood knew Horlarl would go there, so he headed straight down the center hallway, axe at the ready. Bareet was close behind with his axe, Kryzzl was following at a distance to fend off any ambush.
No ambush came, however, so the dwarves went to work, chopping and chopping until they reached the stone vault.
*******
The army of Caryn, along with the Reapers of Darkness, fought well, taking almost all of the archers out within an hour. On the other side, the elven swordsmen were thinning out surprisingly fast. Most of the elves didn't even know why they were fighting, they just knew they were told to kill any dwarf they saw. Standing here before them were all the dwarves they could imagine.
Tystyl, seeing this internal conflict in many of the elven faces, decided it was time to try something. He worked his way over to Lisann, who was fighting admirably, whispered in her ear, and watched as she drew out a flute with one hand while still working her sword with the other. She raised the flute to her lips and blew out a sharp note. Seconds later, Kemda swooped down to pick her up, and she was off, flying to the other side of the fight where Erimas was directing the reapers from atop the back of one of the taller grunts.
Lisann had to yell over the clamor of battle to Erimas, “Do you think your wizard can do some 'convincing'?”
Erimas grinned and said “That's what he's best at.”