Lord of the North (Diaries of a Dwarven Rifleman - Book 2) by Michael Tinker Pearce & Linda Pearce

Author:Michael Tinker Pearce & Linda Pearce [Pearce, Michael Tinker]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-12-14T18:30:00+00:00

Prince Istvaar Dvalinson looked out over the massive scar in the earth and frowned. “If they aren’t here, then where the hell are they?”

The dwarven forces had at last located the vast open-air mine the braell called ‘"The Pit." The terraced excavations ran for leagues through the mountains, all along the valleys. Or perhaps, over the ages, they had created those valleys. Some of them, at least. The scale of the digs was almost beyond imagining. dwarves mined for metals and precious stones, but they followed the lines of ore, sensitive to the earth around them, working with the rock as much as boring through it. This, though… for centuries, perhaps thousands of years, the baasgarta, or rather the braell at their master’s direction, had simply torn at the world, clawing what they wanted from the open wounds. Where once rivers ran through lush growth and ancient trees, stagnant water choked with rubble and run-off from the scarred mountains now lay. The oldest portions of the workings were blurred by erosion and time; the newest were still sharp and raw as a razor-cut. Dwarven miners coaxed, cajoled and seduced the stone like lovers. This? This was rape.

Captain Kollyr shrugged. “It appears that they simply picked up and left. No telling how long it’s been, but I’m guessing not too long after the Battle at Skappensgrippe. I reckon they were gone before the snow flew last fall. The winter storms and spring run-off have wiped out any traces they might have left when they fled.”

The prince shook his head. “We’ve found barracks for perhaps ten thousand baasgarta, and from what the braell have told us there were four to five times as many dwarves. They can’t have just vanished. They would never have made it through the winter without some sort of shelter, and all of those slaves would need to be fed.”

The Captain shrugged again. “At first, maybe. Fewer and fewer as the winter went by, a’course.”

Istvaar shuddered. Yes, we don’t need to guess how the baasgarta fed themselves through the season. Throughout the excavations they had found pits full of dwarven bones bearing the marks of teeth and cutlery. Once they'd been worked to death, the slave's bodies had not gone to waste.

The Pit simply repeated a pattern they had seen ever since the thaw; as the dwarven regiments advanced, they found isolated farms where the braell were yet held in thrall by the baasgarta. But the towns, mills and garrisons? Empty and deserted, stripped of food, clothing, and weapons, but otherwise left as they were. Warehouses full of iron ingots, precious metals, crates of raw gemstones, just left, abandoned to the advancing armies. Abattoirs where livestock had been hurriedly butchered, the offal and remains left for scavengers but tons of meat carried away. The farmers they questioned were as baffled as the dwarves at the disappearance of their fellow Bassgarta.

There were traces, indistinct and broken trails after the winter passed, indicating large bodies of people moving west. But

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