Elvenshore: 01 - The Dwarves of Elvenshore (26 page)

Tabor was shocked and overjoyed at the news.
“How about the dwarves?”
He asked.

“No leave,” was the response.

‘So, the humans have had enough for now and want the dwarf friends to go it alone.’ He thought, ‘Maybe, just maybe they will break their stranglehold on me and I can proceed with my plan.’ Then he thought about how he still did not have any breeding pits. He slumped back down in his chair as glum as he was before.

He sent for another commander.  “Capture me a dwarf, I feel like torturing something. If you can’t find a dwarf, a gremlin will do.  Bring someone who ran away from a battle.”

The commander left.  The gremlins hated and feared Tabor, but they had loyalty inbred into them by the elves, so they would follow him to the ends of the earth, which they had.  Once in a while there would be a small rebellion, but that was quickly stopped and the guilty killed.  Still they hardened when Tabor would kill one of their own in front of them.  It would kindle their hatred even more.  They were becoming less and less loyal to him all of the time.  In his arrogance, Tabor could not see what was happening.

In the old halls of the dwarves, a trio of conspirators was getting ready for a dangerous journey.  Sarchise had decided to go with
Thador
and
Amlius
on their adventure.  They dressed all in black and smeared charcoal all over their faces. Quietly they crept out of the entrance to the old halls and made their way up the backside of the mountain.  It was a hard steep climb, and the night was getting old.  By the time they reached the old servant door it was nearly four in the morning.

Around them lay an odd assortment of farms and ranches, all of which had
been plundered by the gremlins.  Still in their haste, they had left a lot of food in the fields.  The servant’s door opened to the outside world where the food
basket for the halls were
stored.  The servants would collect food from the farmers and take it directly down to the kitchen.

Thador
felt the side of the mountain, back and forth, until he located the doo
rs
.  The doors were built to resemble the rest of the rocks around them.  They were perfectly balanced and swung in with out a sound.  The elf was the first down the passageway. He went noiselessly followed by Sarchise who was very quiet.  After the dwarf went two steps, the other two stopped him and made him take off his boots.  His footsteps were echoing down the corridor. 

They didn’t take a torch with them but felt their way in darkness. At last they came to another door.  It led into the well lit kitchen.  The pots and pans of the dwarves were scattered about the room.  The pantry had been raided and things the gremlins didn’t eat, like floor and salt, were scattered on the floor.  There was one gremlin asleep in the room.  Sarchise moved towards him slowly, sword in hand.  When he got there he put his hand over the gremlins slimy mouth and stabbed him.  Not a squeak was heard. 

Thador
watched the far door to the kitchen while
Amlius
cracked open the door that connected the kitchen to the Great Hall.  Slowly and carefully he
creaked
it open.  He did not crack it open far, just enough where he could see the throne. There sat the miserable Tabor, slum
ped
back in his chair. 
Amlius
drew his bow back and let fly.  The arrow arched through the hall and hit perfectly into the heart of the evil Tabor.  The ruler of the gremlins slid off the throne and onto the floor dead.

Gremlins ran off in all directions.  They didn’t know where the attack had come from and were now leaderless. Panic soon spread through the enemy army, with gremlins running in all directions.

Sarchise,
Thador
and
Amlius
ran about halfway up the passageway. They figured that a narrow passageway would be their best hope for defending themselves.  With sword, bow and
axe
ready, they stood there ready to defend themselves.  After sitting there an hour, they realized that no one was coming after them. They sat there a few more minutes, but still there was no pursuit.  They crept back up the passageway and opened it to the outside.  There were gremlins storming all over the mountain and no way to escape
in
that direction.

They closed the door back up and went to the base of the tunnel.  They opened the door only slightly into the kitchen and found it empty.  They then opened the door to the Great Hall.  There, in a pool of blood, abandoned by his soldiers, lay Tabor.  They walked over to him and saw the surprised look on his face.  He must have seen the arrow coming towards him a split second before it hit him.

“Well,
Thador
,” said
Amlius
, “There must be another way out of here.”

“We are probably safer here,” said Sarchise, “the gremlins don’t know where
the attack came from.  But it had to have been a powerful attack in their minds if their leader was killed because of it.”

“Still
,
elves don’t take to tunnels well; I would rather take my chances on the surface.”
Amlius
said.

“Good shot, by the way.”
Thador
added.

With that the trio made their way slowly up the passageway that
Thador
thought would be the safest.

The mountain suddenly erupted with gremlins coming out of every hole and crack that would lead them to the surface.  The dwarves in the fort couldn’t believe their eyes.  The gremlins didn’t seem to be going to anything, just from the underground chambers.  There were too many for them to count, and seemed to be everywhere all at once.  Soon they were coming in range of the archers.  A few arrows their way and the gremlins would go running and screaming in a different direction. 

A large group of them started out towards the Northwood.  The banners from the men of the Four Kingdoms were now visible from the fort.  They could see the red ones form the Middle Kingdom, The blue from the Kingdom of
Ril
, the Dark blue of the Kings Guard.  The Kingdom of
Myr
had their black banners, and of course the green of the Royal Scouts of South Fort.

A wave of gremlins charged off in that direction only to be turned back by the arrows, swords and shields of the army of men.  The gremlins ran back screaming and yelling and then tr
ied
to break through in a different spot.  They could not figure out why the men would not just let them go.  Their leader was dead, and they had no more reason to attack the men.  But the armies of the Four Kingdoms didn’t know that, and would not have let a massive enemy army go anyway. 

The wave of gremlins swept back past the fort and was met with a hail of arrows.  It would then rush off in another direction.

The trio of Sarchise
,
Thador
,
and
Amlius
finally made the surface.  It was atop an old watchtower that had not been found out by the gremlins. There they could see around the whole of the mountain kingdom. 

They sa
w
green masses of gremlin, running to and fro;
They
could see the armies of men in a semicircle running east to west, with no gaps and no way around.  Off in the distance, to the north, Sarchise could see a small city partially hidden by the mountains. They were near the peak of the tallest mountain.  It was very cold and had snow and ice on the ground beneath them. 

Thador
lit a fire in the tower smokestack and soon the three were warm. Sarchise finally asked, “What city is that to the north of us?”

Thador
looked and said, “We are not suppose
d
to tell, and I should not have brought you up here or you would not have seen it. That being said and since you already know of their existence that is the city of the
valkyries
.”

“I thought they lived by the borders of the Westwood and I had woken them up by my walking in their gate.” Sarchise said.

“Old elves tales.”
Thador
said, mockingly, and then realized that
Amlius
was standing there. “Sorry, but that is what we call the old myths here.”

“So they were here all along.” Sarchise said.

“Yes, it was our job to protect their secret.  They had two cities, one that was lost, and one that was hidden.  Both of which were built for them by the dwarves.  They have been good allies to us.  It was they, who would sneak food to us at night, as often as they could.  It didn’t keep us fat and happy, but it kept us alive.”
Thador
said.

“That is why they were there when I was attacked.  They were trying to get food to you when they saw my predicament and came to help.” Sarchise commented.

The King
’
s men with banners unfurled were daily moving forward.  The King had fond hopes of the dwarves finishing this one and he and his men being spared.  He wanted the trap set just in case however.  He should not have done it, but when the messenger had come through with a message for Cazz
, h
e had opened it.  It had read that the gremlins might try and go back to the Iron Mountains.  This was unacceptable to the King, so he sent the message on and positioned his forces so as to cut off any escape.  He was not going to let them retake their stronghold and start up the breeding pits again.

Still he was in no hurry to lose a lot of men.  He would move slow and let the dwarves have the lion
’s
share of casualties.  The King was awoken this morning by one of his guards. “Sir, there is activity in the mountains.” The guard had said
,  The
King watched as gremlins started coming out of every entrance and hole that the mountain had. It was just a curiosity at first but then a wave of gremlins started coming in their direction.

The men were
called
into battle formations and when the gremlins came near, the archers were the first to engage.  The gremlins were yelling and shrieking before the arrows let fly, but they got all the louder afterwards.  Still they came on and smashed into the shield wall.  That was when the battle really started. They nearly broke through in a couple of places but the King rushed up the reserves just in time and
was
able to drive them back.

The King could not see a strategy behind the attack.  They did not come with all of their forces and some of them, in the rush, had forgotten to take weapons with them.  Those had just leapt against the shield wall in hopes of knocking it down.

The enemy headed off in a different direction.  The
y
attacked again, against the armies of men, but failed to break through.  Then they surrounded the fort but were driven back by arrows. They degenerated into a hopeless rabble. That is when the King saw groups of white clad horsemen, on white horses start chasing down and annihilating small groups of gremlins.  He also saw the dwarves rush out of their tunnels and the fort and start driving the gremlins off of the mountain.

Gremlins that fled before the dwarves again came against the shield wall of men.  Arrows were flying in both directions and the gremlins were trying to flee in every direction.  The King motioned his men forward.  It was time to end this.  The enemy was now trapped between the two armies.  Those that were able to escape the
trap were ridden down by the
valkyries
.  It was then, only a matter of time before the last of the gremlins fell to sword and
axe
.  Man and dwarf met in the middle of the battlefield, allies at last.

Sarchise and his companions, seeing that they were missing a good fight, left the comfort of the heated watchtower and went back through the halls of the dwarves, and out the main gate.  By the time they got through, all of the gremlins had been driven off the mountains.  They rushed to the foot of the mountains to the fort.  Finding the fort empty, they ran to where the battle still raged.  It was there that about twenty gremlins started to charge the trio, but before they could make contact with them, the
valkyries
ran the gremlins down. All they could do at this point was watch the mop up operations and complain about how they missed out on the last battle.

They did not miss out on the clean up.  It lasted three days.  The dead gremlins had to be piled up and burned.  Wounded men, dwarves and
valkyries
had to be taken to the healers.  The dead were buried at the base of the fort and a list of names was carved into the walls of the fort of all the dead. It took up the whole south wall.

After the cleanup, Sarchise spent a few days with the dwarf King in his halls.  He had the body of Tabor burned and cleaned up his Great Hall. The gremlins had destroyed much of the artwork and scattered everything else around.  So it would be another clean up under the mountain too.  The King did have his gleaners go out to the fields and harvest that little bit that the gremlins had left in their haste.  They were also blessed with some meat from the hidden city of the
valkyries
.