The acront was speaking again and, as his spouse transmitted his words, Sirka translated for the others. “It seems the news of the army’s destruction was false?”
“Who brought that news, Celestial Acront?” asked Flagur.
“It was a stranger, a woman who knew magic. She came to Letefora some time ago and told us how badly things were going in Girdlegard. She said she had managed to get here with the last of her strength. With the diamond.”
“She showed it to you, Celestial Acront?”
“She did. I gave her an escort to go to the Black Abyss.”
“But that cannot be,” exclaimed Lot-Ionan in agitation, opening his palm and displaying the true diamond. “You have been tricked by a forgery. We have the real stone!”
Rodario took a deep breath. “I have absolutely no idea what is happening but it’s not going to be good.”
Tungdil stepped forward. “Did she give her name, Celestial Acront?”
The acront’s uncanny eyes focused on the dwarf and the creature spoke once more, its voice transfixing Tungdil; the import was transmitted to the consort and then translated by Sirka.
“Yes. She called herself Narmora. Narmora the Forgotten.”
XX
The Outer Lands,
East of the City of Letefora,
One Mile from the Black Abyss,
Early Autumn, 6241st Solar Cycle
The noise created by twenty thousand swift-moving befuns and the jangling of weapons and armor was enough to send the monsters crawling deeper into their hiding places in the ruins of the old houses. Not one dared emerge.
The acront of Letefora was not relying purely on the combined strength of ubariu and undergroundlings. With the army he sent war machines as complex as any Furgas had devised. Four armored vehicles, each forty paces long, ten wide and ten high, rolled at the head of the march and four at its rear. Iron plating across wooden frames made them look like hulls of overturned ships.
Catapults in the bellies of the machines were ready to launch flurries of spears and arrows through the slits; placed high up, these afforded a superior range of around three hundred paces and could fire in three hundred and sixty degrees and so cover any part of the battlefield.
These colossi were driven by a simple but efficient system of wind sails. On the upper side there were large rotating towers and sails to catch the wind’s power, which was transmitted by shafts to the driving axle, much as wind power drives a miller’s wheel. The machines labored along on a series of small rollers and could match the speed of a furious dwarf. Not to be sneezed at.
“Impressive, aren’t they?” Rodario said to Tungdil. He, too, had changed mounts and was now riding a befun; they were so much quicker than other animals. “Did you see how quickly the vehicles change direction? The rollers work individually, so they can turn on the spot and even go sideways.”
At the roadside Tungdil noted the corpses of creatures shot in encounters with the first wave of troops. The beasts had learned not to attempt the same thing again. “With just one of those vehicles the orcs could have been cleared out of Girdlegard ages ago.”
Rodario seemed to be studying the wagon but he was preoccupied with what the acront had told them. “It can’t be Narmora. We saw what was left of her. The Star of Judgment burned away all that was alfish in her. She can’t possibly have survived.”
“Magic and love are powerful forces-and not always benign,” Lot-Ionan chimed in, riding at Tungdil’s side. “Don’t forget it was Furgas who located the magic wellspring. In his madness he might have constructed a machine out of her remains, similar to those he made out of the unslayable’s beasts.”
Rodario gave himself a shake. “Narmora turning up again-a dead thing with a mechanical heart made of iron springs and cogs, and only moving because of magic in her veins? Furgas could never have done that to her. He loved her too much for that.”
“He loved her so much that he could do it. He did not want to be without her,” contradicted Tungdil. “Let’s hope we can stop her before she destroys the artifact.”
“What terrible vengeance to wreak on Girdlegard. What would be the motive?” asked the magus.
“But it’s exactly what he swore in Porista that he would do,” Tungdil recalled, thinking back to when he had broken the news to Furgas of the deaths of his daughter and his life-partner. The hatred in the magister’s eyes had been greater than any smoldering in a thirdling.
“The Judgment Star cost her all she held dear: her children, her whole life.” Rodario looked at where the ground fell away and no grass grew: only sand and dead earth, as if life itself were afraid to approach what lay below.
The armored vehicles at the head of the column broke formation now, slowing down and fanning out so that the ones from the rear could join them.
Sirka had been listening in silence. Now she heard the fanfare. “We’ll soon be at the Black Abyss. We need to take the diamond up to the front.”
The befuns altered their pace to powerful leaps. Strangely enough, the unpleasant swaying motion was reduced at these high speeds.
A wide bare indentation appeared in the landscape with the chasm at its center. The Black Abyss was a good half-mile in length and a hundred paces wide and looked like a slash cut in the body of the earth, its edges dark and smooth. Steep paths led up on either side.
“Like a gangrenous wound,” commented Ireheart, spitting in disgust. “The beasts are the pus.”
Flagur gestured south to a strange device at the entrance. “That’s the artifact.” He gave a sigh of relief. “It seems to be intact. I had feared the worst.”
Tungdil forced himself to say nothing; he must not kill their optimism. Narmora had been a powerful maga. Who knew what a demi-alf was capable of? “Have those exits guarded,” he said to the ubari. “To be on the safe side. We don’t want to be ambushed while we’re activating the diamond.” He turned to Lot-Ionan. “Are you prepared, honored magus?”
He studied the vast crater. “If it is possible to be prepared for what awaits here.”
Ireheart looked around him. “What’s happened to the advance party? We’ve seen no trace of them.”
“The escort will have gone down the ravine. But I can’t think why. Perhaps a battle? Or maybe Narmora had a trick in store and she’s woken the beasts of the abyss.”
The army split into two sections, with ten thousand ubariu and undergroundlings positioned in front of the exits from the Black Abyss, a living barrier to whatever might come storming out. They kept a hundred-pace safety margin from the precipice edges of the dread ravine.
The armored vehicles moved into position sideways-on behind the troops. Inside the tanks adjustments were made; the wind sail-wheels were running but as yet not engaged.
Flagur had explained that the sails were not just a driving mechanism but also produced energy for additional catapults. If the wagons were stationary it was possible to activate mechanical slings. These could fire off constantly using wind power and the crew only had to ensure the aim was correctly adjusted. They used their own supply of munitions or could scoop stones up from the ground below the vehicle through small hatches.
The vehicles were ready.
In the meantime Sirka, Tungdil and friends had reached the artifact. It consisted of several upright linked metal rings in roughly the form of a globe with a diameter approaching twenty paces. Symbols, runes and chiseled marks and patterns adorned the rings. A series of reinforcing rods radiated out to the circumference from a central decorated hub.
“The diamond needs to go in there, I assume,” said Lot-Ionan, getting down.
Ireheart shaded his eyes against the sun and looked up. “How do we get up? I can’t see a ladder.”
“That’s why we need a rune master.” Flagur bowed to Lot-Ionan. “Or our magus, of course. You must have a flying spell?”