The Half Dwarf Prince: 02 - The Dwarf War (20 page)

Bergmann knew that by the time his forces were inside the new walls of Shinestone
, he would be attacked by the Patria army from the rear. He had his army up early, hoping to get a head start on the Patria army, but despite having marched his men toward Shinestone before the sun came up, he already saw the torches of the Patria army approaching behind his army in the distance. He marched his army ahead faster, giving orders to his men.

“Rupert
, go to the back and make sure that my dwarves know that they are not to come forward until they get the call. We will make it past this wall with the human army and the wizards. Once we get past the wall, I will call up the troops from Tiefes Loch and send back the human army to hold off the Patria army. Once we are inside the walls, we can use those walls to hold them off while my dwarves take the mountain.”

“As you command
, King Bergmann,” Rupert said, and then turned toward the back of the army.

Bergmann turned to Dirigente. “Wizard, make sure you have enough of your wizards up front to deal with all the dwarves on those walls. With this army behind us
, we are going to need the Portwein army to hold off the Patria army while we take the mountain. I can’t afford to let them all die now.”

Dirigente just gave him one of his evil smiles that made the man look mad.

Bergmann assumed that since the man didn’t go anywhere that it was already under control. He marched down the road between the human army and the dwarf army.

Rundo stood on top of the wall
, watching as the army passed by. The rest of the forces from Shinestone were along the walls that led down the main road toward the entrance of Shinestone. He was on the wall along the road that led out of the trees. He watched as somewhere between two and three thousand men marched down the road and in between the two walls. Rundo could see where the two armies split, with humans and dwarves being divided by a small group of men who were obviously Black Dragons, King Bergmann, and a couple of other dwarves. They were all obviously unsure why the front of the army hadn’t been attacked yet. It was obviously a trap; they just couldn’t figure it out. Rundo watched as the army continued forward. When the king passed his position he shifted into a hawk and took off flying back toward Shinestone to get up and out of range before turning back and flying over the army. When he passed over the army, a horn blew from the top of the wall.

“Why haven’t they attacked
? They have the army in the perfect position between those walls already. Almost the entire Portwein army is between those walls now. If they wait any longer, they will not be able to stop them from getting inside,” Bergmann said. A shadow crossed over him and he looked up, expecting a trap. The trap sprang, but not where he had been expecting it. He reached up and grabbed his neck. He turned around and saw Rupert standing behind him.

Rupert stepped forward. “I would never have allowed you to destroy my city. Now your army will fall.
” Bergmann fell to his knees. “The king has fallen!” Rupert yelled.

The Black Dragons around him were all looking up at the huge bird overhead. When they looked back at the king
, a horn blew. They turned just in time to see hundreds of crossbow bolts come raining down on them. They all ignored the bolts. They believed their magical shields would protect them, and so they began their first volley of spells at the wall, but they had been wrong. Many of the bolts bounced off harmlessly, but many of them didn’t. A dozen wizards fell at once. Dirigente took a bolt in the leg, and he immediately traveled backward among the dwarf ranks to get out of range.

Grizzle stood on top of the wall, watching as the army of Portwein pushed down through the wall. They had taken a risk allowing them to move inside the walls, but it seemed like it had paid off. Bergmann had pushed these men too hard; he had treated them too badly.
The
mes
s
enger who had escaped Bergmann
’s army
and made his way
to
Shinestone had told them that
the King of Portwein’s personal advisor had
informed the
human
army
’s
commanders that Bergmann’s plan was
ultimately to bring down Portwein
.
H
e had
convinced them to turn on Bergmann when he would be most vulnerable. The Portwein commanders had obviously been convinced, because the men down below were turning on the wizards in their ranks. They actually were able to bring down a couple with enough of them surrounding the wizard and striking at him—the wizard couldn’t travel away, and the soldiers eventually defeated the magical shield.

The dwarves on the wall were focusing
their crossbow strikes on the men that were being attacked inside the army’s ranks; their magic bolts were helping to defeat the magical shields. The army continued to move down the road into the fields between Evermount and Shinestone. They had at least forced the army to go into the field away from the entrance of Shinestone, so they would be canalized if they did try to attack. The dwarf army was pushing forward, and the rear ranks of the human army stopped inside the walls and defended, blocking the dwarves of Tiefes Loch from passing.

They
rained crossbow bolts down on the approaching dwarves. So far the trap had sprung beautifully, but then a couple of wizards appeared behind the wall, firing up at the dwarves. One shot was fired straight at Grizzle’s back, and he was knocked over the wall, falling between the charging dwarves of Tiefes Loch and the defending army of men from Portwein.

Jabaal watched as Grizzle went tumbling off the wall. He called on his god for the first time since the battle in which he had lost his leg. He yelled out “Kalime Aquida!” and his body was surrounded in a blue light that was the blessing of his god. Most of the paladins of Kalime could barely get a weapon or a shield to glow, but when Jabaal called out to his god, his faith surrounded him. He was surprised to see that when he was surrounded in the blue light, the leg he had lost appeared, glowing brightly. He didn’t take the time to contemplate that, though. Grizzle was about to face off against the army of Tiefes Loch, and Jabaal wasn’t about to let him do it alone. He leapt off the eighty-foot wall, flipping in the air as he fell toward the dwarf army.

Rundo rode forward at the front of the army with King Patria. As they approached the rear of the Tiefes Loch army, he saw the blue light that could only be Jabaal go over the top of the wall in the distance. He didn’t have time to think about what that might mean, though, because he saw a black tendril of dark energy fly toward the king. Grundel leapt off the back of his horse, flying in front of his uncle. His belt buckle absorbed the tendril of energy, and he went tumbling to the ground.  He felt his shoulder dislocate and snap back into place as he rolled. He came back to his feet, running toward the army. He spun his arm, testing his shoulder, and it seemed to be working fine. He reached over his shoulder, pulling his axes free. He threw one of them into the midst of the enemy army and he watched with a stab of guilt as his axe found dwarf flesh for the first time since they were created.

Jerrie was riding alongside the king, with his White Dragons following close by. Grundel had leapt in front of the king to stop a tendril of dark energy. The king’s horse jerked to a halt, throwing the king on the ground. Jerrie didn’t stop, figuring the King was safer where he was. Jerrie had located the wizard when he had fired, but he was hiding behind a dwarf. Crossbow bolts just barely missed him as Jerrie rode into the ranks of Teifes Loch dwarves and then leapt off the horse, letting it run into the dwarf ranks. The dwarf directly in its path leapt out of the way, and Jerrie released the knife he was already beginning to throw. The knife went over the shoulder of the dodging dwarf and into the chest of the wizard, who couldn’t stay low behind the much shorter dwarfs as he tried to get out of the path of the charging horse. The horse died at the hands of the dwarves, but not before the wizard.

The Patria army slammed into the dwarf shield wall. Jerrie knew that the dwarves had the advantage. Their shield wall was very effective, as he had seen when fighting with the dwarves against the orcs in Shinestone.

Grundel came charging after Jerrie and the soldiers of Patria. He ran between their lines, bringing his axe down and making a hole in the shield wall while calling to his other axe. He spun as he stepped into the place of the fallen dwarf, cutting down the dwarves on his left and right and creating a gap that the Patria soldiers could flood into. He blocked the swing of the war hammer from the dwarf in front of him just before his other axe slammed into the back of the dwarf. The dwarf fell forward, and he called his other axe out of the dwarf’s back and into his hand. With both axes in hand, he spun in a circle, extending his arms out as he did, letting his axes cut into the four dwarves within reach. Grundel turned right, fighting his way along the backside of the shield wall, and gave the human army a change to get inside the dwarf ranks. Jerrie had somehow made it to him and was moving along behind him, spinning and rolling and diving, his knives finding tendons and joints and the insides of thighs more often than organs. He was protecting Grundel’s back as he fought his way forward.

Even with Grundel creating opening
s and Jerrie’s unimaginable speed, the dwarf walls were filling in behind them in most places, and more humans were falling along those walls than dwarves. Then something very unexpected happened. 

Rundo
, in hawk form, was just landing on the wall. He had seen Jabaal leap off the wall. He landed next to his gear and quickly began changing. Just as he got ready and threw his first knife down from the top of the wall, a shadow passed over his head, and a huge rock fell into the dwarf army. He looked up, and he didn’t need to feel her aura to know who that was—Evelyn in her huge hawk form. A dozen other large birds followed behind her, dropping rocks into the enemy army. They swooped back out of range, and after Rundo spent a minute throwing daggers down into the dwarf army, the birds returned to drop more rocks.

Grizzle saw the huge birds dropping big stones onto the attacking army. He was pretty sure he had broken his left arm, but he only needed one arm to swing Gorgon’s Hammer—the hammer that the smith Gorgon had made and Bordin had blessed with the sacrifice of Gorgon’s life in Grizzle’s first fight with Miskrull. He swung the hammer, full of the enchantment of his god, at the dwarves. It slammed into the first dwarf so hard that he knocked down the two dwarves on his right as he was thrown to the side. His backswing crushed the skull of the next dwarves in line. He swung the hammer back the other way, caving in the chest of one of the dwarves and knocking back another.

Jabaal came flying over the dwarves in front of
Grizzle in a cloud of blue light, and both of Jabaal’s swords stabbed down into the shoulders and necks of dwarves as he landed next to Grizzle. Grizzle fought to the left, and Jabaal went to his knees and spun off to the right. The two of them each went a few feet in opposite directions before working their way back towards the other. It had been a little while since either of them had fought together, but it was second nature. Grizzle swung his hammer, caving in the head of the dwarf in front of Jabaal, and then Jabaal went flying over Grizzle, leaping off the head of his hammer and onto the shoulders of a dwarf. His jump sent Grizzle into a spin, and he brought his hammer up into the chest of the dwarf who had been coming in behind him. It was the only reason Jabaal would have pushed off of his hammer like that. Jabaal was leaping from dwarf to dwarf, his swords shooting out beneath him, his feet barely touching the shoulders and heads of the dwarves below him. He would inevitably take some cuts on his legs, but he moved so fast when doing this that no one had ever gotten a solid hit on him. Even the cut that had taken his leg had only done so because of infection.

The dwarves of Tiefes Loch were having to protect themselves from above as the huge birds dropped rocks on the shield wall. Having to protect themselves from the rocks was making the shield wall weaker, and the humans were gaining ground. Grundel was still cutting his way through the dwarves behind the shield wall. Jerrie was moving his one hand so quickly that his knife was deflecting blows of dwarves before the weapons were even close, and the dagger found fatal spots before the dwarves even realized their attack had been deflected. No one had gotten close to him from behind. He had taken a nasty cut on one of his legs, but it was still numb. He looked over the heads of the dwarves and saw a bunch of people coming out of the trees on the other side of the road.

Jerrie
blocked with the sword on his right, and then Jerrie’s knife came in under his arm, stabbing the dwarf as he tried to throw his axe forward, cutting down into the shoulder of the dwarf in front of him. That had been too close. He looked up again just in time to see the humans on the other side of the road with their hands up. A heavy wind blew across the road, throwing hundred of the dwarves into the deep trench below the wall. The humans then ran into the forest as the dwarves who hadn’t been thrown into the deep hole shot crossbows at them.