A Song of Askaldenfirsts and Dragons. Part six: The death
Chapter 6: Richten

Huge frostorels surrounded Stumbleglade. Certainly they were less majestic than the aranisoias, which were the tallest trees in Ermir, but the frostorels in Farderland seemed to reach fifty yards, though the largest frostorels in Ermir should be within forty, and the average representatives of these conifers were around twenty.

The light barely streamed through the needle-like foliage. It was warm here. The trees seemed to exude warmth. The light snow that Richten had seen before he and Hemrockhever and Ulrihelga entered the forest was replaced by a blanket of half-luminous frostorel needles. Frostorels often glowed in the dark, but the needles rejected by the tree that fell to the ground could also shimmer in the daytime as well.

“Something is wrong here,” Hemrockhever said. “Give me that thing that dreams of being an axe someday,” the tonnebeard asked Richten, and Richten handed it to him, and the snunorf himself drew his sword, and Ulrihelga drew hers.

At first they saw the corpse of a dwarf, it was a stocky warrior, with a clearly bitten-off arm and torn guts. Then they saw dozens of corpses, narrow-eyed azdairiks began to appear near the tonnebeards, and then giant ashklahars, similar to Earth wolves only the size of an Earth horse or even larger. From the mouth of one ashklahar protruded a torn arm up to the elbow, holding an axe. Hemrockhever approached Richten and held out his axe.

“Take that thing,” he said.

“I’m not going to carry it anymore,” Richten protested.

“You may throw it away, I don’t need that crap,” with these words Hemrockhever approached the corpse of ashklahar and with his strong hands pulled the animal’s mouth open. The hand fell to the stony surface, the axe blade made a nasty sound, but the axe didn’t fall out of the hand. Tonnebeard walked over and began to unclench the fingers of the hand. He pulled out an axe, and then put the severed hand down, looked at it sadly, and said, “You fought bravely, now I will fight in your place, brother!”

“Couldn’t you be louder?” Ulrihelga asked irritably.

Hemrockhever sniffed and wiped his new axe on a clean part of the ashklahar’s hide.

“It was much quieter than you make sound at night!” he said. Ulrihelga smiled.

“Hmm,” Richten said, he paid no attention to the dwarf’s remark, “it happened recently.”

“Whatever happened here, those responsible will be punished, I guarantee it!” Hemrockhever said.

They kept moving forward, and the farther they moved, the more dead bodies there were. The wooden small houses began to be replaced by stone ones. Frostorel needles were still rustling underfoot, but there was less of them, and the boots felt the stone road leading deep into the forest. Richten thought that the forest was taking them into the bowels of Ermir.

It was getting darker. Darkness descended on the taller houses and the thicker trees that grew between them.

Finally they reached Kings Alley, it was a long paved alley of tonnebeards, with huge frostorels growing around it, and small piles of corpses lying between the trees. Stumbleglade had once been the capital of Farderland...

In the dim light of the torches that stood along the alley, silhouettes were distinguishable that were on the throne and next to it.

Hemrockhever rushed forward, Richten and Ulrihelga ran after him.

“Oh, and here come the new slaves! We wondered who was making noise there!” the azdairik joyfully exclaimed, it was a young man of about twenty, with broad unkempt eyebrows, a broad nose, an oval-triangular face, and little stubble and a short haircut. At this moment, he was sitting on the throne and eating meat...

Richten opened his eyes wide, for what he saw astonished him. An old azdairik, smooth-shaven with narrow eyes was standing next to the one who was sitting on the throne. Another young azdairik with large eyes froze in tension on the other side. And beside the throne, on chains, in collars, were six tonnebeards, two men and four women. The great and mighty dwarfs of Farderland looked terrible. Richten thought he would never forget this…

Richten barely had time to block the way for Hemrockhever, who was about to run into the attack. No, not just run to attack, but run to kill, hack and slash!

“Not now, don’t be silly,” he said to the dwarf. Hemrockhever looked at Richten with eyes full of hatred, and then cast an anger glance at the seated one on the throne and the other two azdairiks.

“You will take the place of the new slaves, especially you,” said the young azdairik who sat on the throne and he looked intently at Ulrihelga. She was in a fighting pose and smiled maliciously at him in response. “Look at this one, at her pale white skin,” the azdairik said, and stood up from his throne and walked over to one round-faced tonnebeard woman, “her name is Liddareth and she won’t spread her legs without a whipping. She’s not very pretty, but her temper excites me. On the other hand, look at this one,” he walked over to the pretty young tonnebeard, a smile seemed to freeze on her lips, though she was frightened, “she’s always smiling, and stopped resisting after a while, a pretty face for a dwarf ugly girl, and not even plump like her rotten people, but somehow not so good to me. Will you forgive me, Endara?”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” the girl muttered.

“I’ll disembowel you!” Hemrockhever shouted. The old azdairik man who was holding the tray, took it and threw it straight at Hemrockhever, but the dwarf fought it off with his axe.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” the young azdairik shouted, and cast a dismissive glance at the old man, “don’t do that again, Mivash!”

At that moment, Hemrockhever had already run up to the throne and swung at the young azdairik, but the young azdairik dodged, and Mivash jumped up, drew his sword, and managed to cut the shaft of Hemrockhever ’s axe. A second young azdairik, who had big eyes, ran up to Richten, Richten lunged, but the azdairik repelled his blow. The dwarfs began trying to break free from their shackles.

The old man began to fight Hemrockhever, the one who sat on the throne chose Ulrihelga to duel, and another young man began to fight Richten.

Pulling her hands with a sword to her face, Ulrihelga waited for her opponent to lunge.

“I don’t want to kill you! You must be a very disobedient slave. What’s your name?” young azdairik asked.

“Your death, bastard!” she gave him a fake smile.

“And my name is Furluck Keysegt. I can’t fuck these short-ones forever, and you’re pretty for a northerner, but not that pretty… If you become an obedient slave, you’ll have privileges. For example, a longer chain.”

He lunged, and she fought him off.

“I won’t let Hemrockhever gut you,” Ulrihelga said, “or you’ll die too quickly.”

“Hem…rockhever! What kind of idiotic name is that?” and he made another lunge, but the snunorf woman repulsed it, and made a counterstrike, but the azdairik repelled it.

Ulrihelga now lunged first. At the same time, Hemrockhever was running away from the old man in search of suitable weapons. The big-eyed azdairik made a series of effective strikes, forcing Richten into an area where there were many trees.

Hemrockhever finally saw the hilt of the azdairik sword, ran up to it, and grabbed it.

“It’s so light,” Hemrockhever said, and lunged at the agile old man.

In the meantime, Ulrihelga crossed her sword with Furluck, and then they abruptly parted.

“I can’t fuck short bitches all the time, you must understand, northerner, that I have to put them on the table, and on the table they resist more actively. And lying down to press their bodies against the cold stones, well, I’m not such an aesthete.”

“Stop talking!” Ulrihelga barked at him and made a deadly lunge, ducking under him, turning sharply, she drove her sharp northern sword right into his thigh, with such force that the sword crushed his bone and part of the point protruded from the other side. Ulrihelga drew her sword sharply, and the azdairik fell. “Tarragorad take you, shiglinar’s shit!” she cursed as she saw the blood gushing from the wound and the azdairik screaming in pain. He dropped his sword and tried to grab his leg, but lost consciousness.

“I surrender,” said the big-eyed azdairik, and suddenly threw his sword in front of Richten.

Hemrockhever was slightly distracted by this, and when he turned to repel the oncoming attack, the old man disappeared.

Ulrihelga noticed this, but then shifted her gaze to the dead Furluck. She bent down, pulled down his pants. She looked at his cock.

“What a pity,” she said, “pity you won’t feel it,” and with an incredible grimace she cut through his cock and pelvic bone with her sword.

Richten ordered the azdairik to release the prisoners. Hemrockhever approached the prisoners to help them, and then turned to the azdairik, “Where has the old man gone?”

“First, let’s give the tonnebeards a drink and food,” Ulrihelga approached them, “and then we’ll interrogate him.”

“Thank you,” said a beautiful young tonnebeard with large greenish-yellow eyes and she suddenly burst into tears.

“It’s all right, Ovenka,” said the elderly tonnebeard woman with unnatural orange eyes, red-brown hair, and even redder lips, “everything is all right.”

“My name is Hemrockhever,” Hemrockhever introduced himself, “and this,” he pointed to the northerner, “is Richten, next to him is Ulrihelga.”

“And I am Thessella Birdsoldar,” said the elderly tonnebeard woman, “and this is Torjorick Evenwulfdar,” she pointed to the young tonnebeard with green eyes, small ears and round face, “and Esvelmorn Bilbrondok beside him,” the blue-eyed tonnebeard with the gray-brown beard and round face bowed respectfully, even though he could barely stand.

“Where do you have water and food stashed here?” Ulrihielga spoke loudly to the azdairik, grabbing him.

“Over there, behind the trees, a little further than the corpses,” the azdairik answered.

“Are you idiots?” Ulrihelga scolded. “It is unknown what kind of infection can spread from corpses at such a distance!” and she went that way, and then returned with waterskins and dried meat.

“Here, I poured the water from the barrels, it seems normal, I tasted it,” Ulrihelga said and handed the waterskins to the freed tonnebeards. They drank and then ate the meat.

“Well, shithead,” Hemrockhever said to the azdairik, “where did that old man disappear to?”

“I don’t know,” the azdairik answered.

“What is your name?” Richten asked.

“Kar Bneur,” the azdairik answered.

“I understand that you are from the army that was led by Melkath Seydikt?” Richten asked.

“Yes,” Kar confirmed.

“I see,” Richten said and turned to Hemrockhever, “they split up, part went to Forsholden and part here, they thought they had to take the tactically important city, because the tonnebeards would have flocked here, like you said.” He turned to Kar again, “How many were you and how many groups did you split into?”

“About three thousand, if you count those without ashklahars. The detachments with the ashklahars rode forward and divided into smaller groups. How many... I don’t know. I can only say that after Fishgartard, when we lost many of our warriors and ashklahars, Melkath ordered the groups to go around Forsholden. I was in such a group, but we deviated more and more eastward, and then we saw dragons... Many died. So, with those who remained alive, we decided to take Stumbleglade, hold our positions, and take the tonnebeards hostage, to bargain if we were besieged, if anything–”

“But why kill potential hostages?” Richten interrupted Kar.

“The tonnebeards didn’t want to surrender… Well, the terrain here is all trees and houses, they didn’t think of fortifying themselves, but it would have been hard to take them on the ashklahars either,” Kar answered.

“What do you mean?” Ulrihelga asked. “Are you saying that you just didn’t give them a chance, that you didn’t even try to negotiate?”

“We tried!” Kar said sharply.

“I’ll kill you,” the blue-eyed Esvelmorn suddenly shouted. He had found a sword somewhere at the time and was about to slice through Kar’s belly, but Richten grabbed his hand.

“Not yet!” Richten said.

“He held me,” Ovenka said, nodding toward Kar, “when that bastard Furluck was raping me,” tears welled up in her eyes.

“That’s it,” Hemrockhever said, holding back the tears with hatred, “Finish it, Richten, I need to cut off his hands!”

“Is that all who are left alive?” with horror asked Ulrihelga.

“Yes, I mean there are–” replied the green-eyed Torjorick.

Suddenly, Hemrockhever thrust his sword with force at an angle into Kar’s belly, tearing up a part of his guts. Hemrockhever held back his tears, letting out a look of hatred.

Kar fell with the tonnebeard’s sword, Hemrockhever spat, and the two freed tonnebeard men ran up to the azdairik and Esvelmorn pulled Hemrockhever’s sword out with force, and then cut off Kar’s head.

Esvelmorn stood with the bloodied sword, and then turned to everyone, “There is one small comforting thing. The fact is, after the dragon attack, we expected an influx of refugees, but it turned out the opposite, many tonnebeards fled the city, fearing that the dragons would not stop our trees, and, you know, our trees are burning just fine. So many have left Stumbleglade... May I ask why you came here?”

“King Tulvarick is missing, perhaps he’s dead,” Richten said.

“What?!” the tonnebeards jumped up.

“We came here for help, we wanted to understand how to defeat the dragons, and we wanted to replace the king of the Farderland as well, and we also wanted to deal with the criminals who seized power in Norvinoria,” Richten explained.

“We need help too,” the elderly Thessella said, and she went to the stone slab behind the throne, did something with her hands, and called the others. The mechanism worked, and the slab pushed back, and the tonnebeard children began to climb out of the hole.

“Ou, Randaback blessing!” Hemrockhever said with undisguised joy and surprise.

“Mother,” cried one girl of about ten years old with brown eyes. She ran up to Liddareth. Liddareth hugged her and kissed her forehead.

About twenty children got out of the secret hiding place.

“We have supplies, and we don’t think the dragons will fly here, at least we’ll shelter the children there,” Esvelmorn said, pointing to the hiding place. “We’d only need a mage to help us get rid of the corpses, especially the ashklahars.”

“We’ll replace you a mage,” Ulrihelga said abruptly.

“And we’ll help you pack for the journey,” said Thessella. “You need to replace our king, and learn something about dragons, too. And after that all the tonnebeards will help you deal with the criminals in your country.”

“But first we must replace you a mage, or we must get rid of the bodies as quickly as possible,” Ulrihelga repeated.

“We’d prefer the larmarians, but we already agree on the arqilunians as well,” Thessella said, “because we heard that the dragons attacked the Larmar Islands and that there were almost no larmarians left…” she faltered and changed the subject. “We have another hiding place where you can replace suitable karkhashes.”

She led Hemrockhever, Ulrihelga, and Richten to a nearby tree, then pressed something on the tree, and a lighted staircase appeared in the ground. They descended, an open space opened up in front of them with a clearing in light snow, with a small insulated karkhasharn to the left of a small rock.

“Wait, wait, please,” Ovenka shouted, “I want to go with you!”

Richten and Ulrihelga looked at each other in puzzlement. Hemrockhever was surprised and a little relieved.

“You shouldn’t come with us,” Richten said.

“I have no one left here... I mean, my parents were killed, as were my two brothers,” tears welled up in her eyes, “I don’t want to search their bodies, I can’t, I need to get out of this place. Besides, in case you have important things to do, when you’ll replace a mage, I’ll take him here, and you’ll go on your journey further.”

“We can’t let you go back alone with the mage,” Hemrockhever shook his head. “We won’t know what kind of ermirian the mage will be, he may or may not be a friend, but,” he said, anticipating the irritation of Richten and Ulrihelga, not allowing them to confer, “you may come with us!”

“What?!” the snunorfs burst out at the same time.

“Yes, you may come with us!” Hemrockhever repeated and he grinned as he looked at the northeners, adding, without giving them an opportunity to protest, “Can you ride?”

“Yes!” Ovenka answered happily.

“Choose a karkhash then,” Hemrockhever said, and the girl ran to the karkhasharn.

“That’s not a very good idea,” Thessella said.

“Yes, exactly!” Ulrihelga supported with irritation and looked at Hemrockhever.

“She’s a traumatized girl, she’s been through unspeakable horrors, and you want to send her on a cold and dangerous adventure when we can have problems with food and water, and a huge number of enemies as well?!” Richten objected.

“Snow and rivers, my friend, will give us water. But most important, you’ll stop waking me up with your moans so I can get a good night’s sleep! And the girl would benefit from a distraction, and I’m sure we will protect her!” Hemrockhever said, looking perplexed at Richten, then he turned his gaze to Thessella, “Do you have a clean good weapons around here? I really need a good new axe!”

“Yes, there’s a warehouse behind the karkhasharn,” Thessella replied.

“That’s great!” Hemrockhever said, and happily went there.

“Take care of her,” Thessella said, “there are too few tonnebeards left.”

“Yes, and every life is precious now,” remarked Richten, “but we’ll do what we can. Thank you for your help.”

“Thank you,” Thessella said, “if it weren’t for you, we’d be dead soon.”

“We’ll try to replace some tolerable mage and get Ovenka back as soon as possible,” Ulrihelga added, and then she sadly patted Richten’s shoulder and went to the karkhasharn. Richten followed her.