The Dwarven Wars Read online

  The Dwarven Wars

  Book Three of the Clockwork Fairy Kingdom Trilogy

  Leah Cutter

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Author Note

  About the Author

  Also by Leah Cutter

  About Book View Cafe

  Chapter 1

  “Silence!” Varlaam the dwarven king shouted, his voice thundering across the open throne room and echoing off the carved rock walls. He banged his great wooden staff in vain.

  Damn it! His subjects used to be more respectful. They had feared their king, particularly when he raised his voice.

  Now? The world had changed. His people, diminished. Kostya, one of the greatest of them, killed by the treacherous fairies in the New World.

  But Kostya’s death had moved the king’s plans forward. He had plans within plans.

  If Varlaam was being honest, Kostya’s death actually served Varlaam better than his return would have.

  If only Varlaam could make his subjects listen!

  The noise made him grit his teeth. They sounded like a group of squabbling seagulls.

  “QUIET.” A single gruff voice echoed above the heads of all the dwarves.

  Silence finally rippled across the room. Varlaam sat up straighter on his huge, blue-and-green agate throne. He threw a grateful smile over at his brother Ivan standing next to him on the dais. His voice had been the one that had rung out, demanding obedience. Then Varlaam glared out at his subjects. He let the quiet grow.

  He couldn’t help but shrug his great cloak once and settle it further on his shoulders. It had been made of the hide of an albino goat, and just a touch of magic made it glow with a soft light. He knew better than to reach up and adjust his tall crown, made from the finest silver wire and studded with emeralds, rubies, pearls, amethysts, pale moon stones, and nuggets of gold. That would show weakness, uncertainty.

  At a time when he felt the most certain of all.

  “Yes, Kostya has been killed by the fairies of the Greater Oregon Kingdom,” Varlaam said. “Killed when he should have been welcomed as an ambassador.” Varlaam held up his hand before another outburst occurred. “But we have planned for that outcome.”

  That brought a quicker silence to the room. His subjects were curious. Good.

  “We have chased the fairies from our coast,” Varlaam said grandly. It was almost the truth. The fairies had mostly left the far eastern coast of what the humans called Russia. The majority had left voluntarily, seeking a better life in the New World, or going farther south, into the foreign lands of China.

  “We have spread our territory from north to south.” Which was also almost true, though really, it was just a few far-flung farms, full of subjects who barely recognized his authority.

  “Now, it is time to turn our sights east,” Varlaam continued. “To the New World.”

  A murmur of interest swelled across the throne room. The fifty or so nobles gathered there did not represent the wealthiest or highest ranked families. The families represented here were primarily known as gamblers, seekers, those looking for such a risk. Many were actually poor, with too many sons and not enough property to divide among them.

  Varlaam might have spread a rumor or two as well, about seeking new founding families, who would establish a new kingdom, become the new nobility.

  Ivan nodded, agreeing to Varlaam’s plans of expansion. It hadn’t been easy for Varlaam to convince his brother of the necessity of growing the kingdom. Ivan had been perfectly content with their sliver, hemmed in by humans on the one side and the great sea on the other.

  Varlaam still wasn’t sure exactly which argument had won his brother over. Maybe it had been the promise of more territory for Ivan’s three sons. Though, of course, they wouldn’t have the lands that Varlaam would bequeath his own tiny, newborn daughter. Varlaam’s own sons had wasted away at the turn of the century from the strange plague that had taken half of his subjects.

  That had been part of why he’d sent Kostya and the others to the New World, to seek cures. Kostya had also acted as a spy, keeping a close watch on their enemies, the fairies. However, the fairies had destroyed the herbs that might have cured them all. At least according to Kostya.

  “Our offer of a peaceful co-existence has been rebuffed,” Varlaam said, pushing himself to his feet. He didn’t lean on his great staff, not in front of his subjects. But his right calf had never fully healed from the wounds he’d received in the last great battle with the fairies many decades before.

  Varlaam paused, not for effect, but so that he could extend his magical senses, reaching deeply into the earth beneath the grandly tiled floor of the throne room.

  Magic pooled there, cool and glistening like the new moon.

  He siphoned off a trickle, pulling it up through the staff and into himself.

  The golden wood of the staff started to glow. It bore no jewels; no symbols or runes marred its smooth surface. Hidden deep inside the wood casing ran a quick-silver core of pure moonlight. Only a few dwarves still knew how to use such magic.

  Even fewer understood the spells necessary to craft such an artifact.

  “We will have our revenge!” Varlaam announced. He banged the staff loudly on the wooden dais. Light shot out of the top of the staff, making the whitewashed ceiling sparkle. “We will beat down the doors of the false fairies with our axes! Attack their kingdom! Take their territory for ourselves! Quench our thirst with their blood! Swallow their magic whole, and grow great again!”

  That was the true purpose behind their expansion, though Varlaam would never admit it to his subjects. The magic of the old world was fading. The great sheets of magic that used to fill the sky, that even the least powerful dwarf could reach out and drain, were no more.

  Varlaam had no idea how to bring the magic back. How to repopulate the sky with shimmering sheets. How to reinvigorate his people.

  The New World, though, held delights. And treasure. And power. They just had to reach out and take it.

  “Will you sail with me to the New World? Destroy the enemy fairies? Dare to be great again?”

  The resounding roar of agreement pounded against Varlaam’s chest like a living thing, full of vigor and resolve.

  Varlaam let himself be carried away by their excitement. Yes. This would do nicely.

  He would only reveal his grand, final scheme once they’d swept the New World clean of their enemies, after they’d swallowed down all the magic they could plunder.

  Then, and only then, once the dwarves had grown powerful again, could they turn their sights to the humans.

  And push them out as well.

  “Thirty-eight dead in the latest attack.”

  Cornelius bowed his head and mourned with the rest of the Greater Oregon Fairy Court. They had assembled in the throne room to hear the news that morning. So many dead according to the latest report by Thirza, the head of the warriors. Royalty, warrior, and commoner alike, all killed by the Old One, the one the humans called the o’onakie.

  The east wind.

  The graveyard to the west of the kingdom already overflowed with tombstones. Sebastian, the head priest for Anabnus, the sun god, had gone so far as to suggest reviving the ancient practices of burning their dead.

  Barbaric.

  Yet, there might come a time when they’d have to consider it.

  Heavy, green-velvet curtains covered the far windows of the throne room, another sign of their constant mourning. The will-o-the-wisps dancing near the ceiling prov
ided subdued light. Most of the royal fairies wore black: the women in heavy skirts that swept the floor, the men in vests and long-tailed jackets. Their wings drooped with sadness.

  Only the priests broke the solid pool of fine black mourning-frocks. Sebastian wore brilliant yellow robes while Nanette, the priestess of Clotana, the moon goddess, wore only a white skirt. Glitter covered her torso and breasts. Yellow and white streamers decorated their wings and floated in the air behind them.

  “What are we going to do about the attacks?” Imogene whined. Since her husband Gideon had been killed—blown up by one of the traps set by the thrice-damned dwarf Kostya—she’d grown more strident. Cornelius hadn’t thought that was possible, but she’d proven him wrong.

  Worried murmurs filled the chamber, echoing off the hard black-and-white tiled floor. The maroon and midnight-blue walls glowed darkly between the white-and-gold columns that marched around the edges of the room.

  The backless white throne at the far end of the room still sat empty. No one had dared claim it after the court had banished Queen Adele. Cornelius led the royals only by their consent.

  However, getting any kind of agreement had proved more and more difficult as they lost fairies, good fairies, to the attacks.

  Cornelius cleared his throat.

  He didn’t want to be the one to say this. He wished that the court’s encounters with the o’onakie had turned out differently.

  But very few wishes whispered under the new moon lived to the light of day.

  “The Old One hates us,” Cornelius said loudly into the growing quiet, stating the obvious. “Hates that we chose the side of the Maker and the Tinker. He will no longer abide us in his territory.”

  The fairies had never signed a treaty with the Old One. They’d lived in his territory, not with his permission, but with his forbearance.

  “How do we fight him?” Thirza, the head of the warriors, asked. She wore red stripes of paint from neck to waist, broad lines that made it look as though her torso had been raked with a clawed hand, along with the traditional leather skirt, made from strips that ended just above her knees. The clockwork embedded in her shoulder no longer accurately showed the phases of the moon, but instead, was always stuck on the last quarter, its light and power fading. She’d cut her long, brown hair, keeping it as short as a young boy’s.

  No one replied.

  How did they fight the Old One?

  “Either we learn how to destroy him, or we will be forced out of our home,” Cornelius stated plainly.

  It hurt him to talk so bluntly. He, who used words as a weapon, instead of his sharp teeth or clawed fingers. He had never burst open an opponent’s head by ramming it with his own, cracking the bony ridge that ran across his forehead and down his nose. He with his finely combed gray hair and black-and-white striped vests, perfectly-tailored trousers and glowing white shirts.

  He, with his newly damaged wings that refused to fully heal.

  “We could try negotiating again,” Edeline suggested meekly. She was a diminutive fairy, with a round figure and tiny wings. It would be easy to mistake her for a warrior or even a worker, as the royals tended to be slender and much taller. However, she was undeniably of royal blood, despite her tiny stature.

  She’d always seemed so hesitant in the past. Why was she speaking up now?

  Thirza snorted, her derision obvious. “We could send more ambassadors. And they’d get killed, sure enough. We might not get the bodies back, this time.”

  Cornelius grimaced. Thirza was right. The Old One wouldn’t bargain with them. Had no patience for them. Wouldn’t compromise.

  The o’onakie wanted the Greater Oregon Fairy Kingdom removed from, well, Oregon.

  “The Old One won’t live forever,” said Nanette, the head priest for the moon goddess, stepping forward. “He’s old. And weak.”

  “He’s stronger than any of us,” Cornelius pointed out. “Possibly all of us. He’s old, yes. He’s been alive for centuries. That gives him more wisdom as well. But no one knows how long his kind live.” If the Old One was related to the winds, he might live as long as one of them.

  How long did the wind live?

  “He weakens every time he leaves his territory,” Thirza said slowly. “He cannot renew himself. Every time he leaves to visit the Maker, he grows weaker.”

  “Could the Maker trap him?” Cornelius asked. Nora, the human Maker, had been captured by the Old One. He’d intended her for his bride. But she’d escaped: in part, because of the help of the fairies.

  Because of Adele, the old queen.

  “No, the Maker couldn’t trap him, keep him out of his territory. That isn’t in her power,” Thirza said. “It isn’t in the power of the Tinker, either.”

  Cornelius grimaced. Dale, Nora’s twin brother, the human Tinker, wouldn’t be sad to see the fairies leave. He’d promised to help the fairies with their clockwork, however. And he’d more than kept his word: though he’d only agreed to visit them once a year, he’d come once a month for the last three months, spending a few hours fixing the clockwork in the kingdom.

  However, there was only so much the Tinker could do. The clockwork embedded in the fairies’ bodies—primarily the warriors—was breaking down. Almost as if it were cursed.

  “If we left here, where would we go?” Imogene asked.

  Really, how did that woman put so much whine into such a few short words? Her tone constantly amazed Cornelius.

  “We could go to the Redwood Kingdom,” Thirza said slowly. “I know the warriors would be welcome there.”

  Cornelius nodded. Bascum and a few of the other warriors had left the kingdom with Queen Adele, going to the Redwood Kingdom where they lived as their ancestors had: savage, undignified, short lives.

  “Could we go north instead?” Edeline asked.

  Cornelius peered at her. He was certain Edeline hadn’t come up with that question on her own. She was normally too timid to say much of anything to anyone. He assumed that her hesitance was caused by her age. Cornelius would have to check, but he suspected Edeline was the youngest fairy among them.

  She’d never spoken up on her own before. Was she growing up? Or was someone prompting her? Feeding her lines?

  But who? He’d missed the shift in alliances.

  “Aren’t there trolls to the north?” Imogene asked in a querulous tone.

  Really, Cornelius was going to have to take lessons from that woman in how to be the most irritating with the fewest number of words possible.

  Thirza replied, “There are trolls to the north. But trolls are stupid. They’d negotiate with us and give us everything we asked for, if we were clever.”

  “Trolls also don’t honor their treaties,” Cornelius pointed out. “At least that’s what the oral histories tell us.”

  How dare Edeline and the other younger fairies—like Percy and Floyd—look as though they wanted to roll their eyes at him? It was his job to remind these young people of their long and illustrious history.

  No wonder the fairies were diminishing!

  “We can deal with the trolls and their perfidy later,” Edeline finally replied.

  “I see,” Cornelius said, narrowing his eyes at the young fairy, who looked up at him defiantly. “I suppose you have it all worked out who should go on a scouting mission?” he asked.

  He wasn’t admitting defeat. Not to this youngster.

  But they had to do something about the Old One.

  Before they lost more good fairies.

  “Maybe?” Edeline said. She glanced quickly over her shoulder at Thirza, the warrior.

  Interesting indeed!

  So the warriors wanted to go scouting north? It made sense to Cornelius, now. Their known enemies were to the south.

  “Then let us explore the north,” Cornelius said grandly.

  “But we should stay and fight!” Imogene said.

  Cornelius ignored her, continuing his statement, talking directly to Edeline. “Come and meet with m
e in my chambers tomorrow for breakfast so that we can plan your expedition.”

  When Edeline looked as though she might object, Cornelius stated, “We want to make sure that your group is well-equipped, given the best there is from the kingdom, so that they might survive the journey.”

  The greed that flared in the young fairy’s eyes brought warmth to Cornelius’ heart.

  Got you now.

  All these children were so easy to lead. And to lead astray.

  He just had to find the right strings to pull.

  Nora sat on her bed in her dorm room, fiddling with the knots on the new bracelet she was Making. She knew she had the traditional forms correct: the eye knot for seeing, the doubled knot for protection, and the half-loop knot for slipping out of traps easily.

  But she wanted this bracelet to do more. She was crafting the bracelet for her twin brother Dale, to protect him while she was away at college. She needed to add a double-eye, or something similar, so the wearer would be more aware of his surroundings. He was such a boy sometimes! He didn’t see beyond the tip of his nose, and he stubbornly kept fixing the fairies and their clockwork though he didn’t have to.

  Stupid boy.

  Her magic teachers had warned her that her magical knotwork wouldn’t last too long. Dale’s bracelets lasted about six weeks. However, the protection she created for Denise, her mother, lasted about half that time.

  Was it because they still lived in Oregon? In the territory of that o’onakie, Brett, the Old One?

  Nora firmly pushed aside her shudder at how he’d controlled her. Kept her like a puppet. Soiled her soul. She’d been through intensive rape counseling the last few months, though he’d never touched her body without her permission.

  Her mind and her magic, though…

  If only she could get her mom to move away from Oregon! Out of that damned creature’s territory!