On all four fronts the advance halted, many warriors turning tail in terror as they heard the whirr of approaching scythes.
The second battalion of opponents, armed with axes and swords, seemed to have formed small groups and were rampaging through the army lines, making inroads through the throng. None survived their blows.
How can these fiends be tackled? Ireheart saw that the warriors next to Coira were being hurled through the air. Holy forge-fire! One of the invisible enemies must be approaching the maga! Lot-Ionan was still immersed in fabricating his spell as she stopped what she was doing and sprang aside with a shout.
Ireheart ran over to defend Coira, puzzling over how he could make their opponents visible again.
The battle raged around them, the warriors desperately trying to defend themselves against their invisible adversaries but only succeeding in laying a few of them low. Hard to locate and harder still to fight. Worse still, it took an incredible number of blows to bring them down; as well as their invisibility they had their armor and shields for protection.
Ireheart had lost sight of Tungdil while trying to help the maga. Coira possessed the power to defend herself but was retreating from the fray, shrieking in terror. Hers was no warrior spirit.
Lot-Ionan, meanwhile, had sent his magic force against the fallen master-the rays were met once again by a freshly erected barrier! Flames licked around the sides of a bright red dome before dying out.
“Stupid fool! See what you’ve done through your cowardice!” The magus cursed Coira, who had tripped over the hem of her dress, tumbling to the boggy ground. The accident fortuitously saved her from the invisible sweep of the scythes, for to her right and left dwarves were felled mercilessly, injured and mutilated. Blood and severed limbs abounded.
Ireheart had almost reached her but could not believe how Lot-Ionan was behaving-ignoring Coira instead of helping her up. He was making for the magic barrier behind which Tungdil’s former master was already pulling the crossbow bolt out of his head. The wound closed up as soon as the tip of the bolt had left the skull and he jumped to his feet as if nothing had happened. He could not be slain with ordinary weapons.
“Vraccas, we need your assistance!” Ireheart saw more dwarves cut to ribbons while others plunged frantically into the swamp; blood and mud splashed up. He stared at the ground and noted the huge footprints of his opponents.
“I’ve got you,” he growled, taking a running leap to aim a blow at where he supposed the creature’s neck to be. He brought down the crow’s beak with all his might. The spike shattered something and a loud cry rang out. Thudding into metal, the dwarf held on to the shaft of his weapon as firmly as he could while his adversary bucked and tossed under him like an unbroken horse trying to throw off a rider.
But Ireheart was having none of that. Refusing to loosen his grip, he hung suspended with his feet a pace and a half above the ground, swinging wildly and cackling with laughter. “Rear and buck all you like! It’s no use! You won’t get rid of me!” He quickly drew his knife out with one hand, clamping it between his teeth. Then he pulled himself up with both hands along the shaft of his crow’s beak until he reached the ax head, then plunged his knife into the wound until the blood ran free. “How do you like that, long legs?” he growled, rootling around in the flesh until he got through to a bone, where he anchored the knife.
“Off to Tion with you!” Ireheart clung onto the dagger in order to gain leverage to extract the crow’s beak, which he wielded in an upward swing.
There was a clang as the spike met and pierced metal. The bucking motion ceased and the dwarf was pitched forward and down as the invisible warrior crashed down at Coira’s feet. Ireheart picked himself up and stood on the creature’s neck, hands around the crow’s beak. “Ho! That was none too easy,” he called out to the maga, as he pulled his weapon out of the body of the fallen foe. Visible now in death, its enormous dimensions could be fully seen.
Ireheart stepped over the head and hopped down to where the maga was standing on the soft ground. “Girdlegard needs you!” he urged her, proffering his bloodied gloved hand. “Get over your fear and concentrate on your magic powers or things will end badly.” He pointed to the barrier. “Help Lot-Ionan!”
Coira’s eyes fluttered; she was in a panic, not even daring to grasp the dwarf’s hand. “I can’t,” she whispered. “I’m too frightened.”
With a hissing sound the swamp started to boil and bubble. Jets spurted up twenty paces high all over the battlefield, deluging the warriors. The impact knocked many of them over and the soft mud covered their armor, helmets, eyes… It also covered the invisible giant hordes! The coat of dirt made them instantly detectable and the dwarves made immediate use of this fact.
That will have been Goda’s work! thought Ireheart, proud as could be.
Coira was still staring at him blankly, refusing to budge, so he turned and ran to the barrier. Stupid human women! Out of the corner of his eye he saw Balyndar, Tungdil and Lot-Ionan hurrying over to her.
Ireheart grinned. The quartet would surely prove too much for the dwarf in the posh armor. “You’ve been a master, now you’ll be an ex-master,” he smirked.
One by one they too arrived at the barrier, through which they spied the master and the last of his followers.
“Go on,” Ireheart urged the magus. “Get the barrier down so we can do for him!”
Lot-Ionan paid no attention. His fingers were making shapes in the air.
Tungdil stepped up to the barrier and banged on it with Bloodthirster. It pinged like glass. “Our duel is not yet over. Your fighters are being defeated, as you can see. Would it not spur you on to see me dead even if you have lost them all?”
“He who bears many names,” the nearest enemy fighter spoke up, “announces that the battle is not over. But until then,” and suddenly the barrier moved to encompass Tungdil, locking him in, “he will fight you and punish you.” Then he lifted his black bugle and blew a blast on it. Numerous holes in the instrument allowed him to play a range of notes, as if on a flute.
“No!” called Ireheart, smashing his crow’s beak into the shield. It hummed but did not disintegrate. “Let me in!”
Balyndar grabbed him by the shoulder and forced him to look at the ravine. “What do we do now?”
Ireheart pulled himself out of Balyndar’s grip. “Don’t you touch me…” Then he noticed what all the others were staring at.
Another kordrion had appeared in the cleft. The head was smaller than the fully grown version-but then one head after another popped up. The beast revealed itself to the armies of Girdlegard.
“A kordrion with four heads,” groaned Ireheart.
Tungdil had taken up the fight with his former master while the shimmering protective shield expanded in size once more. The dwarves and Lot-Ionan had to step back.
Ireheart cursed and looked at the magus, who was still casting spells but having no success on his own. “Goda!” he called. “Goda, we need you!”
“Disappear!” Balyndar struck the magic hemisphere, but Keenfire had no effect. It bounced off and nearly injured its owner with the spike.
The giant bugler sounded another range of notes and, in response, the kordrion hissed and charged the nearest ubariu soldiers, breathing a sea of white fire over them. Spewing out flames in three directions at once, the four-headed creature was inflicting carnage on the troops. At a further signal it unfolded its wings, took off and landed in the very heart of the ubariu, crushing many of the valiant warriors; two of the creature’s heads snapped and bit at them while the other two sent out the deadly white fire.
“Come, on, wizard!” Ireheart bellowed at Lot-Ionan. “We need to get that trumpet thing.”
Meanwhile, the bout between Tungdil and his master was progressing; they were well matched. Neither was gaining the upper hand, each succeeding in inflicting cuts and dents on the armor of the other. The runes stayed still. Ireheart did not know why.