Elvenshore: 01 - The Dwarves of Elvenshore (19 page)

“Elves do not work with stone, their magic is in wood.  Man always uses mortar when he builds with rock. The
minotaur
don’t usually build their own buildings but take over from some other species. This has to be the work of dwarves.”

Just then one of the axe men came back down the trail to find Sarchise. “Sir, we have discovered a gate.”  Sarchise and
Oswin
both followed the axe man back.  There was a gate that looked like it had been made of wood. 
Bits of a badly rusted hinge was
all that was left of a gate.  As they walked through the gate, there between the trees was an enormous city.  All of the buildings had been overgrown with vines.  The streets had bushes and trees growing in them and even some of the buildings had trees going up through the roof.  The gray walls were surrounded in a carpet of green vines and trees.  There were no birds or animals within the walls, just a sense of deep
gloom. An evil filled the air; if one listened closely you could almost hear the ground crying out for justice, for revenge.  Deep and foreboding hung thick around them.  None of the dwarves would walk past the gate.  Sarchise took a few steps in, but felt something was watching him, hating him. He acted like he was satisfied with what he saw; he did not hesitate to get back outside the gate.

“Bar the opening with trees, I don’t want what is in there to follow us.  Find a way around this wall, we will not be going through,” Sarchise commanded.

The axe men blocked the opening with the fallen trees and proceeded to cut a trail around the city.  It was hard work and took two days to complete because of the vastness of the city.  The warriors could not sleep so close to the walls, so the whole army was awake and watching, so deep was the foreboding coming from the city. When they were at last clear of the city, Sarchise rested his army for a day and a half before continuing on.  By noon the next day they had broken out of the Westwood and into the Kingdom of
Zor
.

The grasslands stretched for miles with gently rolling
hills, and they
could see the gray shapes of the Mountains of Iron to the north. 
Behind them stood the Westwood looking like an impenetrable wall of trees.
Sarchise set up camp and then sent forward scouts and sent runners back through the woods to Cazz, telling him of their progress.

Most of the army was still bruised and hurting from the recent battle.  Sarchise’s left arm still throbbed and it felt good to let it rest from the long journey.  He let the dwarves have small fires, as the spiders and bears were not known for hunting outside the forest.  He did not want the large bonfires as he was yet unsure of whether he was in friendly count
r
y or enemy. 

It was good to have hot food again. It improved the mood of the dwarves.  It was simple fair of rabbit and venison, as there was little bread and cheese left, but it was warm.  The cooks also made a soup broth with the rabbit.  After dinner there was time to sharpen their axes and swords.  Someone had found Sarchise’s old sword but he left it in the baggage cart as it was too hard to wield a full size sword with only one good arm. Most of the dwarves slept under the stars, as the weather was good.  The healers built up a shelter, as they usually do, even though they only had a few patients, mostly from tripping over the roots of trees.  They were also keeping an eye on the few walking wounded that were allowed to go with Sarchise, which includes Sarchise himself. Keeping a few guards out to keep an eye on things let the rest of the army get some much needed rest.

In the morning, after a breakfast of rabbit and venison, the army formed into ranks and marched out of their camp.  The dwarves were even in such good spirits that they began to sing traditional marching songs again. Sarchise smiled to himself despite his pain.  Things were starting to look up.

He headed his army across the plains, not wishing to take the old King’s Road,
as that way would be watched. After three days of travel over the rolling grassland, the scouts that he had sent ahead started to report back.  They painted a clear picture; only one of the Kingdoms old cities was now inhabited.  There was a small human settlement inside the ruins of the town, but there were some gremlins patrolling outside.  Whether they had the humans inside held as captives or they were allied with the inhabitants, the scouts did not know.

At that point Sarchise only moved the army at night, and hid them in the lowlands during the day.  He did not want to be spotted.  After a few days march they made camp in a small valley with a stream of pure water running through it.  There they replenished their drinking water and washed themselves as best they could. Sarchise took off his armor and put on his old Royal Scout green cape and hood. He had to have a little help because of his sore arm.  He climbed a small hill with some brush growing on it so he could get a good look at the city below.  What he saw chilled his blood.  There were about fifty gremlins and two hundred humans.  The gremlins were taking orders from some of the men. There were a few others men, women and children that were obviously servants of the men who were in charge of the gremlins.  The women would fetch water and the men and older children were put to work fortifying the city. Sarchise snuck back down the hill.  That night the army of dwarves surrounded the city.

In the morning the inhabitants were awakened by the sounds of dwarf battle horns.  Some of the gremlins panicked and tried to flee out of the gate but were cut down by arrows.  The gremlin commanders finally got the rest under control and tried to organize the defensive.  Sarchise moved his troops forward.  They found weaknesses in the makeshift walls and were soon through the old wall.  A battle in the street began but it was one sided.  There were not enough gremlins to make a stand.  The dwarves killed all of the gremlins and most of their commanders.  Only two survived the brief battle. The rest of the inhabitants greeted the dwarves like liberating heroes.  They cheered as the dwarves went past; some of the women hugged and kissed them.

After the battle, Sarchise had the prisoners brought in for questioning.  The first one was a man named Timor.  He was a hard man and had many scars on his face from battles and bar room fights.  Sarchise sat him down, but had him tied to the chair.

“What is your purpose here?” Sarchise began the questioning. 
Oswin
was there too, sword at the ready, just in case.

Timor laughed. “Looks like you met my brother and his army in the woods on the way here, how many of you did he get.”

“Your brother and his whole army are all dead.”

Anger flashed in Timor’s eyes and he tried to rise out of his chair and go after Sarchise but
Oswin
grabbed him by the hair of the head and pulled him down.  He held his sword against Timor’s throat and said, “Let me remind you that we are asking the questions here.”

With that Sarchise asked again, ““What is your purpose here?”

Timor laughed again; even with
Oswin’s
sword at his throat he was cocky. “It’s only a matter of time until you know. We will rule the Four Kingdoms, and you and your dwarf friends will all be dead.  Like my brother.”

“But why take the village?” Sarchise asked.

“I’m not going to answer any of your questions.”
Timor  turned
his head to the side.

Sarchise had him taken away and the other prisoner brought forward. His name was
Zohn
.  He had been wounded in the battle.  An arrow had gone through his right shoulder.  He was a tired, weak and beaten man who was in a lot of pain. 

“What is you
r
purpose here?” Sarchise began again.

“The village had a lot of farms and herds when we came here.  Our job was to raise food for the armies of Tabor.”
Zohn
said, “But the locals didn’t take kindly to being enslaved. They would rebel from time to time.  Timor was the commander; he is a blood thirsty man. Instead of just beating them and sending
them
back out to the
fields, he would have them killed. Soon there wasn’t enough food to feed the village itself.  Then when he heard about an army in the Westwood, he gave up with the farms and had the people start to fortify the city. You got here faster than we anticipated.  Timor sent his brother and an army to slow you down leaving only enough gremlins to watch over the shrinking villagers.”

“Where did Tabor get men to command his army?” Sarchise asked.

“They are from a small Tavern along the North King’s highway, in the Kingdom of
Ril
.  He recruited many of us.  He promised us adventure.  We would do anything to get away from the boredom.  Some of us he put in a secret cave under High Mountain. Some in the breeding pits of the Iron hills. One was sent to keep an eye on the dwarves and the rest of us were put here. That is until Timor sent some with the gremlins to delay you.”

Sarchise said, “Do you think he will
recruit
more?”

“No, when the King found out that a man named Tabor was out and about he put a bounty on his head, and the head of anyone who has joined up with him.  Too late for me, I found out what I had gotten myself into.  I cannot go back to my old life, as I will get killed for the bounty money.  I did not realize what the whole picture was when I joined up. Now it’s too late.”

“What is Tabor’s goal?” Sarchise asked.

“He wants to control the whole world. 
At
first we thought that he just wanted to destroy the Minotaur. That was all right by us because we have no love for the creatures, then he wanted to destroy the dwarves, that was not agreeable, but he talked us into it because they had not helped us in the last war after all.  But when we came here and started enslaving and killing humans, it wasn’t all right anymore.  I kept looking for a way out, but Timor would have me killed if I tried and failed to escape, and the bounty hunters would have me killed if I did escape.  I had no choice.”

“Do you know how to breed gremlins?”

“Yes and no, Tabor told us how it was done, but it is very complicated and I have never done it, I don’t know if I could do it given the chance.”

At that point Sarchise knew that
Zohn
had just signed his own death sentence. He had one of the men from the city brought in.

The man
’s
name was
Hoeron
. He was so happy to be liberated that he kneeled down in front of Sarchise.

“Get up,” Sarchise said. “I am not a ruler over you.”
Hoeron
got to his feet.

“Tell me, how did you get to be slaves of Tabor?” Sarchise asked.

“It was horrible; we had come from the Middle Kingdom to resettle the land.  There were 500 of us with a certificate from the King that we could re-colonize this Kingdom, as long as we subjected ourselves to the King of
Ril
. He being the only King left. So we settled here and began to till the ground and raise crops.  We had a small force of 60 men to protect us. When our first crop was ready to harvest we saw a large army coming towards us.  We had not cast the walls back up for we were the only ones in the land.  We braced ourselves for the attack. With thousands against 60, we had no way of winning and the battle was over in a matter of minutes.  Timor and his bloodthirsty gang took over. 

“At first we cooperated and did as they said
, But
Timor would rather rip out a man’s heart than talk to him.  Soon
we
saw that they were not going to leave after they took all our crops but were here to stay and would be forcing
us
to plant again next year.  Timor lusted after the
mayors
daughter and took her as wife against her will. When the mayor objected Timor had him killed.  After that the men in the village rebelled and refused to work in the fields. Timor and the rest chose out five and slew them in front of the whole city, including their wives and children. After that we did not rebel openly, but every time a gremlin would venture out alone, or in small groups, they would simply disappear. 

“Timor must have noticed his army was shrinking because he mandated that no less than twenty gremlins had to travel together.  Still in the middle of the night when no other patrols were about, sometimes the group of twenty would vanish.  When Timor found out that he had lost three patrols in three nights he went into a rage.  He killed every man in the village that was large or strong in stature to be a threat. At that point we gave into our fate, except for the Mayor’s daughter who tried to kill Timor while he slept.  She stabbed him but missed his heart.  He awoke and killed her, and then in the morning he killed the rest of her family.”

“A truly sad tale,” said Sarchise, “You no longer need to worry about Timor for I deliver him into your hands to do with as you see fit. I also give back to you your land; I must continue my journey to the north.  I would ask if you can provision my men for the upcoming campaign.  I know that you have little but I must have food.”

“We do have little for ourselves, but in the storehouses of Timor they have enough of our food to feed his armies for a long time.” 
Hoeron
smiled. “With your help we will batter down the doors and have enough food for the upcoming winter and you shall have enough and to spare for your army.”