The Half Dwarf Prince Read online

  The

  Half-Dwarf

  Prince

  © 2013 by J.M. Fosberg

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or distributed by any means without prior permission in writing from the author.

  Dedication:

  I would like to dedicate this book to my brother Jerry. Having a brother who is less than a year younger than you can be a blessing and a curse. Over the last two and a half decades he has been my best friend, my mortal enemy, my accuser, and my defender. Through it all, though, one thing remained constant: when it came down to it I knew he would be there if I needed him, and he would stand beside me against the world. This one is for you, little brother.

  .

  Acknowledgments:

  First I would like to thank God for blessing me with a distractingly active imagination. Without it these stories would never be told, and my life would be maddeningly boring.

  As always I have to thank my team of beta readers: Brent Markee, Penny J. Wills, and Stuart Bohnet, who saw a much rougher version of this book and helped me shape it into what it is now. Anyone who saw any of my unedited work could testify that this is a much more difficult task than you would think.

  I would like to thank Jodie Young of www.rooftopcopy.com for taking the painstaking job of editing my work. As always she has done an amazing job, and I am very fortunate to have her help. Not only does she make the mess that is my grammar readable, but her input is invaluable.

  A huge thanks to Camille Neighbors, who did the amazing work on the cover. I think it is the best cover so far, and I look forward to working with her in the future.

  I would especially like to thank Toby Neighbors, who has been a great mentor and advisor.

  Finally I would like to thank you. I thank you for allowing me to take hold of your imagination and guide it with my own. I hope that you are not disappointed by where my imagination leads you. I will continue to write, and I hope that you will continue to read. I want to thank everyone who has left feedback, whether it was a review on Amazon, an email, or a Facebook post or message. I enjoy hearing what you have to say, and I try to build from that feedback.

  Books by J.M. Fosberg

  Rising of a Mage Trilogy

  Rising of a Mage

  Gods and Magic

  A Mage Risen

  The Half-Dwarf Prince Series

  The Half-Dwarf Prince

  The Dwarf War

  Oct 2013

  Dwarves of Chaos

  (Estimated release Feb 201 4 )

  Table of Contents

  Prelude

  Chapter One: Grundel

  Chapter Two: Orcs and Dragons

  Chapter Three: Frau Kleinod

  Chapter Four: Dungin Mountain

  Chapter Five: Setting Out

  Chapter Six: Jerrie

  Chapter Seven: Kobolds

  Chapter Eight: Dragons and Supplies

  Chapter Nine: Another Path

  Chapter Ten: The Path of a Druid

  Chapter Eleven: Under Dungin Mountain

  Chapter Twelve: End of the Road

  Chapter Thirteen: Preparations and Assassins

  Chapter Fourteen: Dungin Mountain or Shinestone?

  Chapter Fifteen: Betrayal

  Chapter Sixteen: He Needs a Healer

  Chapter Seventeen: Wait and See

  Epilogue

  Prelude

  Delvidge, the god of chaos, had laid destruction at the doorstep of the dwarves. He had sent the ancient serpentine demon beast known as Miskrull to annihilate the dwarven kingdoms, and the kingdom of Shinestone was destroyed. With the help of his friends, Grizzle was able to return to his home and stop Miskrull from finishing its task.

  But now most of those friends were dead or gone. Mariah, the priestess of Mishima, had had her spirit ripped into the waiting by a wraith sent by Delvidge. Anwar, Rundo, Navaeh, and Grizzle’s son, Grundel, had taken her body to the fairy forest in hopes that the fairies could guide her spirit back to her body. But her spirit had been away from her body too long, and when Mariah returned to her body, she died. Navaeh the druid was so overcome with fascination for the fairy forest, and her connection to the place had become so strong, that she had been unable to leave. Anwar Alamira, the most powerful mage in the world, and the one who ultimately thwarted all of Delvidge’s plans, was nearly overwhelmed by his own power. He went with the Father, the immortal protector of the mortal plane, hoping to learn to control his power before it consumed him. Jabaal, Grizzle’s best friend, lost his leg in the battle to save Evermount, the dwarves’ greatest kingdom. That battle also took the life of Grizzle’s father, the king of Evermount. The only one of his companions who remained was the halfling Rundo, who had now committed himself to becoming a druid.

  Grizzle was left to deal with the aftermath: Shinestone was going to have to be retaken, and there were thousands of orcs that had escaped the wrath of the battle-mad Anwar and needed to be chased down and neutralized. On top of that, there was the ever-looming issue of his tenuous claim to the Shinestone throne: Grizzle was married to a human woman, so his son was only half dwarf, giving the other dwarven kings reason to challenge his family’s right to the throne. The Stonehearts had ruled Evermount for thousands of years, but he might very well be the dwarf who would finally end their long reign.

  The biggest concern for Grizzle, however, was that his son—whom Grizzle had just barely started getting to know after a long separation—had already decided he would be going with the war party to retake Shinestone. Rundo the halfling had also decided to go along with his son and help retake Shinestone. The expedition shouldn’t be overly dangerous—the kingdom had been abandoned for only a couple of months—but there would inevitably be some resistance. Whenever a place is left uninhabited, there are always others who will try to take advantage of it. Most likely there would be a handful of kobolds, goblins, maybe even a troll or two, hiding in their own separate holes in the cavernous space. Even knowing that there wouldn't be heavy resistance, Grizzle still wasn’t comfortable letting his son go.

  Grizzle knew he should let his son make his own decisions. He just hadn’t had enough time with him yet. Grizzle had given his father, king of Evermount, no choice but to banish him when he married a human woman. Interracial marriage wasn’t generally scorned by the dwarves, but when the heir to the throne did it, that was different—as Grizzle had found out the hard way. He and his father had agreed that, half-dwarf or whole, the boy, Grundel, had the blood of kings in his heart and should be raised in the seat of the Stoneheart kingdom. Grizzle left his wife and son in the care of his father in Evermount, returning from his banishment after twenty years to warn the dwarves about Miskrull. His father had reinstated Grizzle as heir, then, but the old king had died barely a month later, when hundreds of thousands of orcs sent by Delvidge had attacked Evermount.

  Now Grizzle, with all his friends gone, was left to manage the politics of the throne while his son, Grundel, prepared to run off into danger.

  Chapter One

  Grundel

  Grundel sat in the catacombs of Evermount staring at the twenty-foot-tall stone replica of his grandfather’s last moment of life. The statue showed a huge orc holding Grindel in the air by the neck, crushing his throat, while Grindel buried his steel hand into the orc’s chest. The songs about it were already being sung every night as mugs of ale ran down the throats of dwarves. The songs weren’t all that great yet, but a couple of them were good, and with a little refinement one of them would carry the story of his grandfather’s final battle on for centuries. The final battle made for a great story, but Grundel was still trying to deal with the reality of it all. Dwarves didn’t mourn
death; they celebrated it. Grundel was happy to celebrate his grandfather going on to join the smith of Bordin—his grandfather had been a great king, and his life should be celebrated. But Grundel was struggling with all the problems that had been created by his passing.

  He knew that right now two issues were being argued in the king’s hall. One was the issue of Shinestone: they had to decide who would lead the kingdom, then they would decide how large a force would go and how many dwarves from each kingdom should be sent to recolonize the kingdom. It was a difficult situation, but not so difficult as the second problem: the identity of the current king. His father, Grizzle, was the king now, but when a son inherits the throne from his father, his rule isn’t official until the kings of the other kingdoms all agree to it. Normally this is just ceremonial. The only reason a son wouldn’t succeed to the throne is if for some reason he was unable, if he was crippled or near death himself. In Grizzle’s case, the fact that his heir was half-human would be the issue. Grundel sat there staring at the statue of his grandfather, wishing he had lived just a little bit longer, to figure a way around all this.

  That was when it hit him. He knew how to fix it. He knew what he needed to do, and what his father had to do. He also knew that it wasn’t a decision that either his father or his grandfather would have made on his own. It had to come from him. Grundel headed up out of the catacomb of kings and headed toward the meeting hall where the kings were arguing.

  Grizzle stood on one side of a ten-foot stone table in the king’s hall. This room was used only for meetings of kings. The room was twenty feet by twenty feet. The table was ten feet long, ten feet across, and just over waist-high for an average dwarf. The room was plain. There were no designs, banners, or distractions of any kind. This room was meant to serve one purpose, and that was for kings to meet and discuss business. Around the table the other dwarves were all on their feet as well. There were no chairs around the table. The kings who designed this room and established its procedures believed that this room was to serve a singular purpose, and comfort and luxury would distract from that purpose. Protocol also dictated that only water would be served during a council of kings. The table was meant for the leadership of each of the four kingdoms to stand on one of the sides of the table. Evermount was the biggest and the home of the king over all the dwarves; its assigned side of the table was furthest from the door. By tradition the king of Evermount came in last and left first. Grizzle had walked to the end of the table on the left side. When he left, he would walk around the table on the right side. This tradition was meant to remind the kings that even though this was a room set up for arguments to be had, for the kings to council each other, and for plans to be made by the kings of dwarves united, one king had to have final authority. The problem for Grizzle was that he was that dwarf, and the primary purpose for this meeting was to challenge that authority.

  To his right the table was empty. That was the side designated for the dwarves of Shinestone. On his left were the dwarves of Haufen, who had the closest ties with humans and did a lot more trading with them. Across the table, with their backs to the door, were the dwarves of Tiefes Loch, the only dwarven kingdom that wasn’t built into a mountain. Tiefes Loch was a deep mine, and the dwarves who lived there had very little communication with anyone outside their own kingdom. They strove to avoid contact with all other races, and they only rarely left their mine or interacted with the other dwarf kingdoms. They were notorious for their xenophobia and air of self-importance.

  Right now they had plenty to say. Grizzle steadied himself. The arguments were heated. Each king had been allowed two councilors to attend the meeting with him, and now the room was filled with the voices of dwarves, each attempting to yell louder than the others. The prejudice of the dwarves of Tiefes Loch was well known and usually tolerated, but today they went too far. The councilor to the right of Bergmann, the king of Tiefes Loch, yelled over the voices of everyone in the hall: “Tiefes Loch will never bend the knee to a half-blood mutt of a king!”

  Anger overtook Grizzle, and he brought both of his fists down hard, slamming into the table. The whole room echoed the boom and everyone went silent. Grizzle looked across the table into the offending dwarf’s eyes, then in a quiet, controlled tone spoke for the first time since the argument had begun.

  “Whatever any dwarf here, or anywhere, thinks about the decisions I have made, whatever is decided in this room, no matter who rules and where, may you all hear this and know it to be true: That is the only time that my son or my wife’s name will be defiled in my presence. If it ever happens again, the dwarf who says it better have the metal to back up his words, because the only response I will offer will be single combat. Is everyone clear on that point?” He scanned around the table.

  Every dwarf was looking at the one who had made the offending remark. No one could blame him for the threat, as dwarves berated each other constantly. But there was one rule accepted by every dwarf in every kingdom: You never insult another dwarf’s family, and if you do, you deserve whatever you get. Grizzle stared across the table until the other dwarf finally nodded and looked down.

  With silence finally achieved, Kraft, the king of Haufen, spoke up. “No one has the right to insult your family, Grizzle, but the fact that your heir is only half dwarf makes it hard to accept you as the king of our first kingdom. You have to see that when you made the decision you made to marry outside of your race, you put your own desires above the good of your kingdom.”

  Before Grizzle could respond the room burst into an uproar again. The dwarves on either side of him both rose immediately to his defense. Then the door slammed open and Grundel walked into the hall. The room went silent, and all eyes turned to the huge, half-dwarf son of the king.

  Dwarves were typically not more than about four feet tall. Grundel was nearly six feet tall. His build was the same as any other dwarf: he was half as wide as he was tall. He had thick arms, a broad chest, a wide waist, and tree trunks for legs. Aside from his height, the only other features he took from his mother were his hair and eyes. His hair was so blond it was nearly white, and his eyes were a brilliant blue that seemed to glow, so much so that you could actually pick them out in the darkness.

  Grizzle looked at his son. “Grundel—”

  Before he could finish his son cut him off. “Father, please, everyone needs to hear this.”

  Grizzle wasn’t sure what his son was doing, but he couldn’t really make the situation any worse. He watched his son walk around the table to the open Shinestone side. He put one fist to his chest and tilted his head down. “I apologize for the interruption and for disrupting the tradition and procedures of this hall. I know what the problem at hand is, and I believe I have the solution. The problem at hand, simply put, is me. Removing my mother and me from the picture, does anyone here challenge my father’s leadership or right to the throne?”

  “Grundel—” Grizzle began, but Grundel looked at him and shook his head.

  Grundel looked around the table, but no one made any argument. “Then the solution is simple. The argument here is that I am the heir to the throne and my father is married to my mother. Here is the solution. First, here with all of you and Bordin as my witness, I, Grundel Stoneheart, son of Grizzle son of Grindel, give up my claim to the throne of Evermount. Second, we need to address the issue of my mother. As hard as it is to think about, my mother is nearly forty years old. That means her life is close to half over. When my father buries my mother he will still easily have three centuries of life left. When my mother dies my father will do his duty and marry a dwarf woman. If he hasn’t found a suitable bride on his own by his two hundredth birthday, then this council will be free to arrange one for him. He will procreate that marriage and provide Evermount with an acceptable heir.” When he finished he looked across the room to his father. He had just committed his father to some significant promises without talking to him about any of it.

  Grizzle stared across the room at his son. He h
ad just done the one thing these dwarves had accused him of not being able to do. He had put the kingdom above himself. Grizzle knew that if he didn’t become king, the fight over who should assume the throne would continue for years. Right now the dwarves needed to unite. Right now the best thing he could do was take his son’s advice. Grundel was still staring at him in anticipation. He nodded to his son in approval, and then he turned back to the other dwarves. “If I agree to these terms, will that settle this issue?”

  Along each end of the table the dwarves whispered to each other. It didn’t take long before Kraft turned back to the table. “Haufen will follow Grizzle Stoneheart under these terms.”

  Kraft had barely finished saying the words when Bergmann turned back to the table. He put one fist to his chest and tilted his head down. “Tiefes Loch pledges its loyalty to Grizzle Stoneheart.”

  Grundel brought his fist to his chest and prepared to dismiss himself before Kraft stopped him. “If it is all right with everyone, I believe that Grundel Stoneheart should stay as the representative of Shinestone. He is, after all, going to be one of the dwarves taking it back. I think he is quite the problem-solver and has the best interest of the kingdom in mind. It’s too bad he can’t be the heir; he would make a good king.” Kraft then looked to Grizzle and gave him a nod that was both apologetic and approving.

  No one argued the fact, and so Grundel took his place at the empty side of the table that was reserved for Shinestone.

  Grizzle looked around the table. He couldn’t help but be proud of his son. Grundel wasn’t even twenty years old, and he had just walked into a room of anxious kings and councilors and put them all at ease. “Now that the issue of Evermount is settled, we need to decide on possible leaders for Shinestone. We can’t really move on until we have decided that. Whoever we decide on will need to be involved in any further planning and preparation for the retaking of Shinestone.”