The Half Dwarf Prince: 02 - The Dwarf War Read Online Free Page A

effect on perceptions here.”
    Bergmann balled up his fist. “You would associate with orcs?”
    Dirigente smiled. “No more than you would associate with humans. Don’t look at me like that, dwarf. I am not the greedy, blind king over here. I know that you hate humans. I see your play and I understand it. The question for me is, does your plan benefit me, and will it benefit me more if I help? Right now I see a dangerous war in confined spaces against dwarves who have a few in their number with the ability to battle wizards. You haven’t yet given me a reason to join in your war. If anything, you have only helped persuade me to stay out of it.”
    Bergmann stared at the wizard fo r a long time. He couldn’t think of anything he had to offer that the Black Dragons couldn’t get on their own. He had only one option. He took off his armor. He undid his leather vest, and then he slid his shirt over his head. In the center of his chest was a tattooed circle with dozens of black tendrils coming out of it. It was the mark of chaos. It was the mark of Delvidge. Even the Black Dragon wizard was shocked.
    “The dwarves of Tiefes Loch are the children of Delvidge. This is the task he has given us. For three hundred years we have been preparing. Now we will take control of all of the kingdoms of dwarves. Any dwarf who will not convert to chaos will be sacrificed, as they were in Tiefes Loch.”
    He looked around the room to the other dwarves , nodding at each one. Each of the dwarves took off his armor and clothing, revealing heavily tattooed bodies. Each had the circle of chaos in the center of his chest. The symbol was never exactly the same—that was the heart of chaos—but the general idea of the symbol was a small circle with black tendrils of different lengths going in every direction. The other dwarves were covered in the black tendrils from the neck down.
    Dirigente lifted his sleeve and looked at his own symbol of chaos tattooed on his forearm. “The last army sent against these dwarves was destroyed. Why should I join you? How will you beat them?”
    Bergmann knew he had him now. “They were defeated by a wizard with the power to challenge the gods, but that wizard was taken away by The Father. He will not interfere. If we take one kingdom at a time, the remaining dwarves will have no choice but to convert or die!”
    Dirigente looked around at the heavily tattooed dwarves. They had abandoned their old laws. They had created a huge army, and they were committed to Delvidge. How would he be able to justify not assisting in generating chaos? This was specifically what the Black Dragons were created for. He looked up at the dwarf king and nodded.
    Bergmann looked at the other dwarves.
    “We prepare for war!”
    The king of Portwein screamed in fear when the dwarves pulled out their knives and dragged them across their chests, drawing lines of blood that ran down their stomachs. Bergmann walked over to them and stopped before the dwarf whose cut had drawn the least blood. The cut was deep, but he was the only one who did not have blood pooling on his pants yet. The dwarf handed his king his knife.
    “Your sacrifice to chaos will guarantee our victory,” Bergmann said, and then he buried the blade in the chest of the dwarf.
     

Chapter Four
An Unexpected Visitor
     
     
    Grundel sat in his room sharpening the knife Frau had given him. It had been an hour of slow, smooth strokes of steel against stone, but now he was finished. He wished he wasn’t, but he was done. The knife hadn’t been dull to begin with, but now it was ridiculously sharp. After an hour of slowly sharpening and increasing the angle, the edge of this blade could cut to bone with very little pressure. He looked it over one last time before he slid the blade into its sheath.
    S harpening that blade made him miss working with metal. He had thought of himself as a master smith before his father had returned to Evermount. After watching his father work,