The Half Dwarf Prince (12 page)

“It is. The dwarves are going back to retake it,” Rundo told her.

“You can’t go there. Orcs have constantly been moving through this area toward there. That is why we are here. There are druids from my community spread out among these woods in case the orcs start cutting them down or trying to stick around. We’re here to protect these woods.”

The fact that she knew about the orcs and Shinestone was surprising. The fact that he hadn’t figured out that she wasn’t just living here made him feel a little foolish.

“I have to go—they are my friends. The orcs that have moved into the mountain are just what is left of the orcs we already beat. They are the ones who escaped after they attacked the other dwarf homeland. Those are the orcs I was telling you about when I told you I summoned the earth golem for the first time.”

Evelyn
’s shoulders slouched and she looked down. She was defeated and she knew it. “Your loyalty to your friends is honorable. They are lucky to have you. I hope that you will all make it through this safely.”

“We will be fine
; don’t worry. We have dealt with a lot worse than orcs in the last few months. Once everything settles down I would like to continue learning, though. How long will you be here?” he asked.

“I cannot say. Whenever they say the threat has passed we will return to the community. Druids often live alone in the wild, but a druid community is fascinating. I enjoy solitude sometimes, but I could imagine what it would like not being able to return there. If you ever want to continue you should
go there.”

“Where is the community? What is it called?”

She looked at him. “Our community is in the great oak forest. It is a couple of days’ walk to the south and east of the city of Ambar. If you find the forest you will find the community. The life of the forest will guide you there.”

Rundo looked at her. He could see that just talking about the place made her happy. He really would like to see it, but now just wasn’t the time. “One day,” he said as he lay back down.

“One day,” he heard her say.

The next day was spent practicing shifting. It was substantially harder without the intimacy of his bond. It took him the entire day, but he finally was able to shift into the whole form of her fox. The only thing he wasn’t able to get was the
eyes. He had been able to get Messah’s eyes, because he had seen through them. He had taken the form of a fox, and he had even managed to shrink himself down to normal fox size, but he was never able to get the eyes. Finally they called it a day. She told him how well he had done, but her encouragements seemed stale. The whole day had dragged on, since they both knew Rundo would gave to leave to fight orcs in the morning. That night they didn’t talk much.

Rundo woke up in the morning to find Evelyn spinning some kind of large bird over the fire on a spit. “I didn’t want you to leave without a full belly,” she said.

Rundo recognized what she was doing. She wanted to end things between them on a happy note. He agreed that it was the best way. “We wouldn’t want that. I might just have to trust my ability with plants and hope the ones I chose weren’t poisonous.”

Rundo ate the bird and some wild onions that she had gathered. Then he
collected his things. “Thank you, Evelyn. I had a great time. You are an amazing teacher.”

“Be safe,” she said, and then she grabbed his face with both hands and kissed him. “You know w
here to find me.” Before he could respond, she was running into the woods with her fox at her side.

“Well how
about that?” he asked Messah. She didn’t respond, so he started walking in the direction of Bumbo.

Fredin
woke with his wounds mostly healed. The cuts were still there, but they were already scabbing over. The wound in his side was completely healed, though it was still sore. The hole in his arm was mostly healed as well.

Hure explained to him that Vingaza had used some kind of magic spell on him. She had watched as the minor wounds healed completely and the major one shr
ank before her eyes. It wasn’t until she had finished explaining everything to him that he realized that she was injured. There was a puncture wound that went straight through her arm. He knew without asking what had happened but he asked anyway.

“One of the
javelins punched through your shield?”

Hure shrugged at him as if it wasn’t important. In reality it wasn’t, but he had decided to acknowledge it. “Why didn’t he heal you?”

“He said healing isn’t his kind of magic. He used the only spell he had on you. He said that he didn’t know it well enough to use it more than once at a time,” Hure explained to him.

He wasn’t sure if he believed the wizard, but he didn’t really know anything about magic, so he couldn’t really argue. The wizard had helped him.
Fredin didn’t have a choice but to be seen now, and if he had appeared weak and wounded, he would have had to fight off a number of challenges. If his son were still alive he wouldn’t have to worry about it, but since he wasn’t, this was the way it was. Hure would help him with that problem. His grandson was already on his way as well. For now he was mostly healed, and there wasn’t an orc alive who could defeat him.

Now
Gescheit was telling him about an orc tribe marching toward Dungin Mountain. Fredin would go and meet them at the entrance. It was a good thing that he was healed. A new clan would likely mean a new challenge. He actually intended to somehow force a challenge. It was his goal to have all the orcs in the mountain united under him.

Gescheit and Vingaza followed. It wasn’t lost on him that the human had been staying closer since he had come back from the fight with the
kobolds. Fredin had led the attack to push them back, and once the orcs had them on the run with a constant flow of reinforcements, it had been easy enough to defeat them. Fredin had lost somewhere between five hundred and a thousand orcs in the attack. It was much more then they should have, but the kobolds were fast and could get those javelins in the air before you even saw them. They had killed or forced all the kobolds into lower levels, and the wizards had collapsed the tunnels. Fredin had constant patrols on that level now. If anything tried to tunnel up from under the mountain they would not be caught off guard again. But he didn’t need to worry about that now. Now he stood outside the entrance of his mountain while the four ranks of an orc clan came toward him.

Fredin
stood and watched while the orcs slowly moved toward him. He had Hure, Gescheit, Vingaza, and a thousand orcs behind him. The orc clan stopped about a hundred paces away from him.

“Fredin Dungin
, I challenge,” said an average-sized orc as he walked out in front of the rest of the clan. Fredin just smiled and waited. In one hand the orc had a simple wooden club. In his other hand was a banded wooden shield. When he was about thirty paces away the orc began sprinting toward him. At fifteen paces the orc brought his club back behind him and raised his shield in front of him. At ten paces Fredin reached back over his shoulder and wrapped his hands around his greatsword. He could feel the tightness in his damaged muscles, but it was a pain that felt good. When the orc was almost upon him, Fredin pulled the sword free of his back, and in the same motion he came down with it, throwing his weight behind the blow. He was on one knee in less then a second. His sword had dug into the shield, forcing it down as the end of the blade continued down into the orc’s shoulder. With the amount of force he had put behind that blow the blade hadn’t stopped there. The other orc was on his knees in front of him in a very unnatural position. Both of his knees were out to the right side of his body in a weird angle. He should be on the ground, but Fredin’s sword caught in the mess of bones in his chest. He stood up and turned his sword, rolling the body onto its back. The orc was dead; his mind just hadn’t figured it out yet. Fredin looked down into the orc’s eyes. He put one foot on one side of the dead orc’s chest and pulled his sword free. Without paying the body any more attention he turned back to the clan that the orc had come from.

“
Uncle!” Fredin shouted.

Fredin watched as
an orc behind the first rank stood up to his full height. The head lifted up over that of the orc in front of him. The orc in front of him didn’t even come up to his shoulders. He pushed the orc in front of him to the side. Fredin walked forward to greet the only orc in the world that was likely to come close to his own size. They walked up to each other, and at the last second his uncle’s hands shot out and grabbed the sides of Fredin’s head. Fredin reached up and wrapped his hand around the back of his uncle’s head. Together they slammed their foreheads together, and neither orc wavered. Fredin looked into the eyes of his uncle, which were nearly level with his own.

“Is that all the son of my brother can do?” his uncle taunted him.

Fredin brought his head forward with all of the force he could muster, pulling his uncle’s head toward his own. The force of the blow dazed him, and his uncle stumbled back a step, letting go of him. “Better,” his uncle said with a smile.

“What
are you doing here, Uncle?” Fredin asked.

“
Some scrawny little orc was running around telling every orc in my area that they should come join the orcs of Dungin Mountain. When I found out that there was a dwarf mountain with my name on it, I had to see it. How did you know it was my clan?”

Fredin smiled at his uncle. “Only
Dungin orcs walk in columns. You are the only living Dungin besides me old enough to lead a clan.”

“Your son fell taking the mountain?”

“My son was killed in combat with the king of Evermount. He killed the king in the process. We nearly took the mountain, but a wizard showed up and called lighting and fire down on us.”

Fredin stared at his uncle
, waiting for some insult, but none came. His uncle looked past him to Dungin Mountain. “You will have other sons. You have taken a dwarven kingdom for the orcs. Sons have been lost for less.”

Fredin knew that his own grandfather had killed his uncle’s son. Dungins don’t fight or challenge Dungins. It had happened about twenty years ago. Fredin’s grandfather had chosen his father to take over as clan chief. His uncle
Crone had accepted that decision, but Fredin’s cousin disputed the ruling and challenged their grandfather on the spot. He had watched as his uncle grabbed his son and turned him around, trying to talk him out of it, but as Crone was about to plead with his son, his father buried a sword into the youth’s back, cutting through his heart and lung. He was dead almost instantly. Fredin had been twenty-two years old when he watched his grandfather kill his own grandson. “Dungins do not challenge Dungins, and Dungins do not kill Dungins.” Those were his grandfather’s last words. He turned the same sword he had just used to kill his grandson on himself. Fredin remembered thinking how steadily he held the sword as he pulled it across his own throat. His point was made. Fredin’s father took over as the clan chief of the Dungins, and his uncle Crone had left the clan to go establish his own clan of Dungins.

The two shared a look. Orcs weren’t normally sentimental. They normally didn’t care much for anyone or anything. They were very primal in nature.
But they could be trained, as the Dungins had discovered.

“So you got room for another clan of Dungins in there?” his uncle asked.

“Space is one thing we have,” Fredin answered.

“I won
’t give you command. You make the rules for the mountain, but I keep control of my own clan. They answer to me and me alone.”

Fredin thought about this for a minute. “We will give you the upper levels. There is no one in them now. You can reopen one of the entrances that leads down
into the mountain, as long as you keep that entrance guarded.”

“Done. Leave me someone who can get us settled in, and we
’ll get moved in. I’ll come see you again when we’re settled,” Crone said.

Fredin
rejoined the orcs in front of the entrance of Dungin Mountain. “Gescheit, lead my uncle to the upper levels.” He didn’t stop to explain himself. He walked past Hure and Vingaza. The orcs moved out of the way as he passed.

Hure and Vingaza followed him back to his rooms. He knew they were going to have questions
; he just wasn’t sure who would ask them first.

“Is he a threat
?” Vingaza asked.

At least he didn’t waste time with unimportant details. “No, he is my uncle. My father was placed in charge of the Dungins over him. He went and took another clan. Dungins do not challenge other Dungins. That is why we have ruled for so long. One of the reasons
, anyway,” Fredin explained.

“So he has submitted to you,” Hure asked.

“No, he is the clan chief of his own clan of Dungins. They will follow rules set for the mountain, but his clan will answer to him alone. I have given them the upper levels. That will keep them separated. They have another eight thousand orcs. If the dwarves come they will fight. If one of us falls, there will still be a Dungin under the mountain.”

Vingaza and Hure didn’t ask any
more questions. They had more questions, Fredin knew, but anything they would ask would have to be more personal in nature, and they were at least smart enough to know that those were answers they would not get.

An hour later there was a knock at the door. Gescheit and Crone walked in
. Fredin didn’t get up. He just motioned to the two empty chairs. Vingaza was sitting in a chair over by the wall. Hure was sitting on the end of the bed. “The dwarves come,” Crone said as he sat down.

“You saw them
?” Fredin asked.

Crone nodded his head. “I ke
ep scouts in all directions. One night I got word that ten dwarves were wandering through the woods with wagons full of food. The news came from a scouting party of twenty orcs—but they had all died but one. Ten of those dwarves killed almost twenty of my orcs, and not one of them was wounded. I took a thousand orcs and marched back to where my scout said he had seen them. Ten wagons of food can’t be left behind, you know. When we got there we found that ten had become a thousand. We ran the rest of the way here. Three days straight. They will be here in less than a week.”

“You had eight
-to-one odds against them. Why didn’t you attack?” Hure asked angrily.

Crone looked over at her and stared hard into her eyes for a few seconds. “Y
ou never fought dwarves before. They are not goblins, they are not orcs, they are not humans. They are a race of warriors, every last one. From birth they learn to fight. They all understand tactics. They all understand formations. If you find a dwarf gem cutter and think he is an easy target, remember this: he learned to wield a hammer as a weapon before he learned to use it as a tool. Orcs are wild fighters. We win by overpowering our enemy, by sending greater numbers and fighting like animals. Orcs can be trained to a degree, but the Dungins have spent generations creating thinking orcs. You aren’t completely stupid, which makes you the exception. The best-trained Dungin army is still an orc army. We are still going to run in and attack wildly. Every orc is going to fight on his own. But the dwarves are going to form lines, fight alongside each other, and coordinate their attacks. Eight-to-one odds for orcs, against an armed and armored dwarf army? The odds were even at best. If I’d won that fight I would have been lucky to have enough orcs left to drive those wagons here. Keep your mouth shut, and let us who fought some wars talk about the fighting. You just keep ya pretty little ears open, and ya might just learn something.”

The look Fredin gave her said that he agreed with Crone and she wasn’t going to talk again. She pushed back onto the bed and listened.

“So we wait to open your entrance until after they come,” Fredin said. “The last thing we need is them coming at us from two directions. The close confines of the tunnel will give them the advantage, but do we want to send orcs out onto the field?”

Crone looked at Fredin. “The dwarves will have the advantage in the tunnels, but they will have to fight to gain ground. We will just have to defend. They will tire out and have to fight past the bodies of the fallen. Tired dwarves will fall fighting fresh orcs. I have eight thousand. What are your numbers?”

“I have about nineteen thousand orcs. We lost a few to a kobold raid a couple of days ago.”

“Are they all Dungin orcs?” his uncle asked.

“Not yet. Some are still too new to have been reorganized. The newest ones will defend closest to the entrance. Hure’s orcs will fall into the tunnels behind them. The rest of both our clans will fall in, in opposite directions, behind them. Vingaza, what can you and your wizards offer when the dwarves come?”

Vingaza looked from Crone to Fredin. He realized that if Fredin fell he would still have an ally in Crone. He would rather have Fredin, but if it came down to it, Crone wasn’t stupid
, either. “I will put two wizards at the end of the tunnel entrance. When the dwarves have fought their way into the tunnels, they will unleash their spells there. They should be able to eliminate a couple dozen quickly. Then they will travel back down the tunnels to another long tunnel and wait to do the same. After they finish their initial attack it would be best if the orcs behind them went in to retake the entrance. Make the dwarves fight for the ground all over again. Those two should be able to do this one more time from the second location. I will leave the specific place up to you, but the orcs there will need to leave some space open for them to travel to. I have seven wizards total. The other four, I will let you decide where to put them. They will be able to do the same thing. As a pair they can clear a tunnel of dwarves. They can do this twice. One will stay with me. I will stay near you.”