The Half Dwarf Prince: 02 - The Dwarf War (12 page)

A crossbow was fired at him from a rooftop a few seconds later. He turned his axe to protect his head
, trusting in his magically enchanted jacket to protect his body. The bolt glanced off his axehead. The soldiers where already firing their own bows at the roof, but the man had already ducked behind the roof’s wall. Grundel reached up with his left hand and pulled out his other axe before throwing the one in his right hand. His axe smashed through the wall where the crossbowman had been. It didn’t hit the man, but Grundel could see him crouch down beside the hole in the wall. His axe came flying back, spinning horizontally instead of vertically. It cut through the man as it broke through more of the wall. The man fell to the ground amongst a shower of stone.

The soldiers were marching the king and his mother back toward him. Dobo and Gob
o had somehow already made it through the soldiers and were walking on either side of his mother. Everything seemed to be under control now, and Grundel realized for the first time that the screams of the crowd were not in fear for themselves, but for the king and Grundel’s mother.

Everyone walked back to the palace surrounded by soldiers. Grundel was the only one who remained mounted
, searching for a threat. By the time they made it back to the palace he heard people in the crowd cheering for Prince Grundel.

Grundel dismounted when they were inside the palace walls
, and a guard took the reins of his horse. He followed the others up the steps and into the palace. He heard Master Renwald up ahead talking to the king.

“Your Highness
, is everything all right?”

“We are all fine
, Renwald, thanks to Anna’s and Grundel’s friends. They have proven themselves to be quite capable.” He turned to his cousin. “Anna, I suppose we should discuss what brought you here. It seems that the issues want to press themselves.”

“Should I cancel the feast
, Your Highness?” the queen asked.

He looked to his wife. “No, we will not start canceling things because of these assassins
; we will just prepare more thoroughly. If you would, Priscilla, let Captain Douglas know that the security for this evening should be doubled.”

She bowed slightly. “Of course
, Your Highness,” she said, turning and hustling down the hall.

He turned back toward the others. “Please come with me,” he told them.

They followed him back through the audience hall and into his personal audience chambers. Once inside he asked his guards to wait outside. Grundel couldn’t blame them for seeming to be uncomfortable leaving him in the room with all of these armed strangers. The king closed the door behind the last guard as he walked out, and then turned back to Anna.

“So what is going on?”

“Cousin, the world is falling to chaos, and no one knows it yet. Delvidge sent one of his creatures to the mortal plane. I know it sounds like a story Master Brennin used to tell us as children, but I have seen the beast myself. My son and the others destroyed it in Evermount. An army of orcs marched on the mountain after that. It was only with the power of a great wizard that we survived. Now the dwarves of Tiefes Loch are marching to take the other dwarven cities. They have abandoned the old ways. They are overbreeding and they have enlisted the army of Portwein to aid them. We came here to ask you for your help. The army of Patria is the best in all of the five cities. If you attack from the rear while Shinestone fights the army from the front, we can destroy them.”

He thought about this for a few minutes. “The Black Dragons are with them.”

“We believe they are, but we don’t know for sure,” she told him.

He shook his head. “It’s the only explanation. If Tiefes Loch has persuaded Portwein to ally with them
, then they must have promised them arms, armor, and money. Bergmann must have promised them power. But that wouldn’t explain the Black Dragons coming out in the open to attack royalty. They have never been so bold before. If they are coming out and attacking like this, it means they are trying to prevent this alliance from happening. It means that their guild of wizards and assassins have joined with this army. If they are part of it, then the army isn’t going to stop with taking control of the dwarven kingdoms. Portwein is going to attempt to seize control of all of Gegend.”

“Does that mean that you will help us
?” Grundel asked.

“I don’t know yet
, nephew, I don’t know. I will have to talk with my advisors, and my generals. I know we can’t stay out of this, but I will have to consult with them. We will have to gather more information. We still have time to come up with a plan. If we haven’t heard anything yet, then that means that they couldn’t have left Portwein yet. We have received word they had dwarves in the city, but we haven’t heard anything about their army mobilizing.”

Grundel just nodded in acceptance. It was a prudent choice.
The king would tell his people what he had heard and allow them to confirm the information. Once they confirmed the information it would be more real to them, and they would be more likely to get involved.

“Well, we will have to deal with this as it comes. I am sorry I can’t give you an answer yet. Either way
, you are welcome here as long as you want to stay, and I will let you know everything I find out. You are both members of the Patria line, and we will not accept anyone trying to harm our own family. The Black Dragons have now waged war against the city of Patria, and their presence here will not be tolerated any longer,” the king said with determination.

“You should all return to your rooms and prepare for the feast. Brennin will show you to your new rooms and
staff will be sent up to bring you anything you need. I need to talk to my men about the Black Dragons,” he told them as he moved toward the door.

“Your Highness,” Grundel said.

The king turned back to him. “Yes?”

“Your Highness
, if you decide to go after the Black Dragons I would like to go,” he said.

“I couldn’t let you do that. It wouldn’t be right to send a member of the royal family to do something like that.”

Grundel took another step closer. “With all due respect, Your Highness, your men might know how to fight the assassins, but they don’t know how to fight the wizards, nor are they prepared to. Their weapons won’t work, at least not very well. We have the weapons and armor to fight them, and we are the only ones in this city who have fought wizards before. Let us go with them, and you will save the lives of a lot of your men.”

The king stared at him for a minute and then looked at the others. He looked last to Anna, who nodded.

“I will think about it, but I haven’t decided to go after them yet.”

Grundel nodded his acceptance, and the king opened the door. “Master Brennin
, please show them to their rooms, and make sure they have whatever they need to prepare for tonight.”

A couple hours later
, Grundel sat on a big chair in the main room of his mother’s apartments with Rundo and Jerrie. Dobo and Gobo stood in the hall outside the door. All he had needed to do to prepare for the feast was change from the brown pants to the gray ones. His mother had been in the other room for over two hours. They would need to leave soon.

A half hour later
, the door opened and his mother followed the two other women out of the room. Grundel stood and stared at her. She wore a long, dark red dress that hung from her shoulders by two thin pieces of cloth. The cut was low, exposing just a little cleavage. The dress fit her body tightly. There was a slit in the dress on the left side that came up to her knee. She wore white gloves that came up to her wrists. Her hair was pulled up and braided from the front of her head down her back in an intricate weave of braids. In each of her ears she wore an earring that had four diamonds dangling, each one smaller than the one above it. Grundel had never seen his mother like this. He had actually never seen anyone dressed like this, but it fit her. He never would have thought it, but she wore the clothing with confidence. If he didn’t know her he wouldn’t be able to imagine her in the loose-fitting, leather clothing she wore in the dwarven mountains. She was beautiful.

“What do you think
?” she asked him.

“You look like you came out of a story,” he told her.

“Your beauty gives the goddesses reason to envy, Your Highness,” Jerrie said.

She smiled at him. “You have a very eloquent tongue when you choose to
use it, Jerrie,” she said, and then turned to Rundo. “What about you?”

“Oh
, you want me to follow a compliment like that? Greeaaatttt.” She laughed. “You are beautiful, Your Highness,” he told her.

When they arrived
at the feast they waited just outside the door while Master Brennin introduced them. Grundel heard his introduction first. “His Highness, Grundel Stoneheart, son of King Grizzle Stoneheart of Evermount, and grandson of His Highness the late King Patrick Patria.” His mother nodded to him, and he walked through the door.

He walked into the room to find a
semicircle of tables around a big open floor. Across that open floor was a single table. A man led him up the three steps to his seat at that table.

He stood behind his chair like his mother had told him. She was already being announced. He only caught the end of it.

“. . . Her Highness Queen Anna Patria Stoneheart.”

A couple of people had clapped as he entered the room, but every person in the room clapped for her. He watched as she walked through the door
—if you could call it walking; it was more of a glide. When he looked back at the room he saw that some people were actually crying. She stopped at the top of the stairs and bowed slightly before putting her fingers to her lips and blowing a kiss to the room. The people cheered as she took her place behind the table.

The king and queen had not been there when he had walked into the room, but they had apparently showed up since. Master Brennin began introducing them as the people in the room calmed down.

“Your Queen and King, His Highness King Paul Patria,” Master Brennin said and the king and queen walked into the room, her arm wrapped around his. The people clapped for them like they had for him. In that moment Grundel realized that he might be the king, but these were his mother’s people.

The king and queen took their places behind the table. “Everyone
, please take your seats,” the king said. Everyone in the room sat down, with the king and queen sitting down last.

Jerrie, Rundo, Dobo, and Gobo were sitting at the nearest table to the right. The food
was brought by an army of servants. The head table was presented with their food first, because everyone would wait for the king to start eating first. By bringing his food first, no one else was stuck waiting around with untouched food in front of them. This was one of the many things his mother and Master Brennin had tried to explain to him in the short amount of time before the feast.

The first thing to be brought out was a plate of green leafy vegetables with some kind of sauce on it. The king waited until everyone at the
head table had their plates before stabbing some of the leaves with his fork and putting them in his mouth. Grundel waited for his mother, following her lead. When she took her first bite, he did as well. He tasted the vegetables and found that the leaves tasted like he would expect, but with the sauce over them they weren’t bad. Servants began to fill their glasses with wine. He picked up his cup and took a drink. He was about to take another bite of his leafy meal when he felt a burning in his chest.

Poison
!
he thought. He looked over to the man who had just filled his wine cup. Someone else had filled the king’s and queen’s. He tried to stand, but his legs were weak under him. His mother was lifting her own cup to her mouth. He attempted to swat it away, but he stumbled. The glass flew from her hand, though, and Grundel looked back to see Rundo and Jerrie running toward him. Dobo and Gobo were charging across the open floor toward the servant.

Grundel
was down on one knee now. The poison was fast and it was strong. He felt his dwarven constitution fighting the poison. If his mother had drunk the wine she would have been dead already. But his size and his dwarven constitution saved him. He was going to be weak for a while, but he didn’t think he was getting worse.

The king and his mother were both at his side. “Grundel
, are you okay?” his mother asked.

“Poison. I will be ok
ay. I just need a minute. It would have killed you, Ma. It’s strong,” he said to her.

“Master Brennin! He’s been poisoned
!” the king yelled.

“He should be al
l right,” his mother said. The king looked at her curiously.

“He just said it would have already killed you. He needs an antidote,” the king responded.

“Dwarven constitution, Your Highness,” Jerrie said. “They rarely get sick, and poison doesn’t work on them like it does on us. It would take ten times as much poison to kill a dwarf as it would a human of the same size.”

Jerrie helped Grundel to his feet
, and that seemed to satisfy the king. He turned to the man who was now being held by Dobo and Gobo. The king’s guards held swords to the man’s back.