“No, why would I?”
“Then you’ll have to climb.”
“Wouldn’t it be better if you carried him on your back into the center?” Rodario ventured. “You look stronger.”
Flagur shook his head. “I can’t touch the artifact. Only a rune master or a magus who is pure in spirit. Anyone else will be pulverized if they try.”
At that moment a horn sounded. It was a leaden tone issuing from the depths of the ravine, a dark, ear-splitting screech full of hatred and elation. It summoned its subjects with the promise of freedom, murder and destruction.
The friends could do nothing until the last echoes died away.
“It’s been heard,” Sirka mouthed fearfully. “We…”
Out of the ravine surged an angry chorus from thousands of throats.
“Here they come!” Flagur leaped onto his befun. “I must join my warriors. They must see I am not deserting them.” He drew his sword and nodded to Lot-Ionan. “Revered sir, it was an honor to meet you.” Flagur raced off; his commands could soon be heard in the distance.
The first rows of soldiers knelt down holding long iron spears to impale the first wave of beasts; in the ranks behind, the archers made ready their bows, while others held their huge shields to form a protective cover for their heads. The wagons opened up their shooting flaps.
Lot-Ionan approached the artifact, which was sending out enough energy to make the individual white hairs of his beard and on his head bristle and stand out. His steps slowed the nearer he got to it. He glanced behind to where the others were waiting and following his every move.
“I…” He was trying to say something, but he felt a blow in his chest. He stumbled backwards and fell in the dust, a black alf arrow in his breast. It had struck him right in the heart.
A shadow fell over him and a man leaped over his body, grabbing the bag at his belt that held the precious stone.
Warm blood spread as Lot-Ionan’s damaged heart continued to pump. Then it stopped. With a groan, Lot-Ionan closed his eyes…
F urgas?” Rodario had recognized the man who had sprung from behind one of the iron rings.
“We are in the Outer Lands. Here the dead return.” The magister snatched the diamond from the dying magus and walked slowly backwards. “I tricked even you, Incredible Rodario,” he smiled in satisfaction. When Tungdil took a step forward, Furgas raised his arm. “Stay where you are! Or the arrow will get you.” He indicated the other end of the artifact where a woman was standing with a bow spanned ready. “We shall see evil released from the Black Abyss. With my assistance it will march into the heart of Girdlegard.” He put the diamond in his mouth and swallowed it.
Ireheart raised his weapon slowly. “What a stupid idea,” he growled. “Now I’m really going to hurt him.”
“You can’t prevent it.” Furgas looked over at the ravine. “ That is the revenge I wanted for Girdlegard. The land will be submerged in waves of the beasts and will be annihilated. A fitting punishment for its arrogance and for having followed the dwarves and their false beliefs.” He stared at Tungdil. “The eoil were never a danger. It was you misbegotten dwarves interfering that robbed me of my family.”
“That isn’t Narmora,” murmured Ireheart. “She would be doing magic.”
Rodario said nothing but knew he was right. It could be the woman he had seen on the boat in Mifurdania. He was cross with himself for not having thought about her again. Now that the name of Narmora had been mentioned he was clear who she had resembled. That was why Furgas would have selected her as his ally. Perhaps in his twisted mind he actually thought she was his beloved spouse come back to life? “All that, the destruction of a whole land, all for the sake of vengeance? Do you think that’s what Narmora would have wanted? She fought with us against the danger.”
“She did not want to die!” Furgas cut in. “No, you will all pay by mourning your loved ones as I have been mourning mine. For over five cycles now.” He shook his fist and moved away. “In Girdlegard there will be not a single soul who does not experience the pain I feel.”
“And then?” Rodario carried on the train of thought. “Then Girdlegard is finished.”
“Why not? For all I care the lands can go hang.” He shrugged. “None of the worlds are anything without her; she gave me children and she saved my life.”
“You deceived me, Furgas.” Rodario went up to him.
The archer let her arrow loose and it hit Rodario in the right thigh. He fell next to Lot-Ionan. The archer woman notched a second arrow with lightning-swift and practiced moves.
“I told you. Stay there and watch.” Furgas stared at his former friend without a trace of remorse. “It’s your own fault you were hit.”
From out of the ravine the roar continued to belch.
An ugly hail fell on the allies: the remains, severed limbs and heads and chopped flesh, of the advance party, whom Furgas and his assistant had lured to their deaths. The dull thuds were sickening as the gruesome missiles fell on upturned shields and armor plating. The spraying blood and appalling smell did not fail in the intended effect.
Sirka became resolute. She had lost friends and relations and was determined to avenge their deaths.
“You have made terrible mistakes,” Rodario groaned, clasping his hand over the arrow wound. “Don’t make it worse.”
“No one will forgive me what I have done. There’s no making it worse,” Furgas cut in. “I built the machines to hound the dwarves. I didn’t take a lot of persuading when Bandilor suggested it. And I was happy enough to side with the unslayable. I knew exactly what I was doing and I planned it all in detail. Now I am at my goal. Why would I stop now?”
“We’ve found your tunnel. Evil won’t be getting through there anymore,” Tungdil told him, as he gave Goda a signal; Ireheart understood as well. “How ever did you manage to make those bastard hybrids out of machines and monsters?”
“There’s always room for coincidence in my plans,” he smiled. “When we were prospecting for iron ore on the lake bed we noticed the rocks were quite different. I thought of the source in Porista and started to suspect a connection. And it occurred to me we had found the metal that conducts magic.” He looked over to the abyss. The shower of body parts did not seem to be drying up. “I wondered if the machines could use it. Narmora had told me about the magic dormant in alfar. When the unslayable left his bastards with me I just tried it out.” Pride shone in his eyes. “The two thirdlings smelted me the special metal and then I created the new machines. Nobody before me had ever thought of combining magic, iron and living bodies.”
“You turned them into well-nigh undefeatable monsters.”
“That was my plan, Tungdil.” He folded his hands and was deathly calm. “I just wanted a distraction. While you were chasing the machines nobody worried about me. My tunnel could have been finished without anyone noticing. But the Black Abyss serves my purposes better.” Furgas turned to the mighty incision in the earth and nodded. “Hard to credit, isn’t it? I was playing you this farce all along, ever since Rodario turned up on the island.” Furgas turned to the actor. “My simulated suicide made it all perfect. You believed me and you told me all your secrets. Because of you my revenge will be sweeter than I could ever have imagined. Yes, if we did but know certain things in advance… Like the existence of the Black Abyss.”
The thudding had stopped and the horn sounded once more. The Black Abyss launched its horrors onto the defenders.
Tungdil was too far away to see exactly, but the monsters surging out of the chasm seemed far worse than anything known previously in Girdlegard: some had four arms and claws, others had two long necks and heads like snakes.
He noted a big fat creature as tall as a tree, with a red body shimmering moistly like raw meat, and half a dozen tentacles waving in the air, grabbing at anything in range. When it caught its prey it simply squashed it up against its own flesh until clouds of steam rose. The victims were dissolved in acid and ingested directly via countless mouths.