Chapter 5: Beyond the Gorge

“Lady Galadriella, I bring grave news,” head gardener Dhigham called from her garden gate.

Lady Galadriella, mother of Lord Korwyn, was used to regularly meeting the Dwarf leader of the workforce which his Queen Myr, a person the Lady had never heard of before, to work her fields into shape and teach the boys and young men of the Isthmus how to farm, and train up a Militia of boys to protect the farms from the King’s expected wrath.

“Yes, Mr Dhigham, whatever is the matter?”

“Beggin’ yer pardon Ma’am, but a Company of King Goadrik’s Dragoons be at the headland gate and athreatenin’ to come in an’ slaughter us all.”

“Oh dear! And what shall we do in response?”

“Well, we already shot three of ‘em, so they’ve retreated for now, but they’s bound to come back,” the Dwarf said, “Then I s’pose we’ll face a proper attack by the buggers, begin’ yer pardon Ma’am.”

“Why’d you shoot them?”

“Well, Ma’am, for one thing, they was bein’ disrespectful, just comin’ up an’ makin’ threats agin peaceful folk. Secondly, they could have simply opened a parley with an offer, but they didn’t, which was bullyin’ and we ain’t never beholden to that, Ma’am.”

“What kind of offer could they have made, my dear gardener?” Lady Galadriella couldn’t help but smile at the indignation and defiance of this otherwise charming and hardworking Dwarf.

“Well, they could’ve said, ‘open up and we won’t slaughter you all’, or ‘depart from this place and we’ll give ‘ee free passage’, neither of which would’ve succeeded, of course. Thirdly, they rode up in force bristling with swords and lances and they could’ve sent an unarmed negotiating party under a white flag. And fourthly, any military man, however wet behind the ears they be, knows that a narrow crossing like what he have at the headland can be defended indefinitely against a regiment with just ten fighting Dwarves with ten more in reserve to relieve and support, so to come with an aggressive attitude like that is simply stupid.”

“So they’ve only themselves to blame, eh, my dear gardener?”

“Aye, Ma’am, I knew you’d see we’d done the right thing.”

“Give me a moment to change out of my gardening clothes and I’ll ride down with you. Shall I bring something we could use as a white flag?”

“I would, Ma’am, we Dwarves don’t normally have any need for such things.”

“Now, that I can believe. What of the three you shot?”

“All wounded, all consisting of the officer, his sergeant and corporal. So no-one in authority to command them in the field. Also, it takes six men with stretchers to remove three wounded men, so three targeted arrows immediately takes nine men out of the battlefield for a while. Simple economics of warfare, Ma’am.”

As the pair rode gently towards the eastern end of the isthmus, Lady Galadriella asked, “Mr Dhigham, as a military man how would you have handled this situation, approaching a near island like this with intentions of sacking our farms?”

“Well, Ma’am, I don’t think you can do anything right first time unless you knows what you is up agin first. Now they’s been here before and collected too much taxes, have taken sheep and cartloads of crops, because this place was never prop’ly guarded. Now we has a gate and a wooden structure next to it so we can defend the gate from height and espie any approach.”

“You’ve made many improvements, in such a short time.”

“We have expedited what was necessary, my Lady, and this was a first step. So, back to your question, I would’ve sent a small non-threatening party ahead, to enquire if we have an alehouse to quench their thirst or stave off hunger, or stabling to rest the horses. Who’d deny them hospitality if they are unthreatening? Then they’d look around, see farmers working with swords or pikes nearby and know this was going to be a harder nut to crack than usual. They could see that we are still short of essentials, cloth for clothes, seeds, charcoal for the forge. As they go out they could say they’ve supplies at their main camp they could bring back to trade for our early crops, spicy radishes and early peas, maybe, and come back with covered carts filled with fighting men.”

“What do you think they will do now?”

“From his sickbed, I think their captain will order his men to charge at us, thinking we be country bumpkins and not fully trained Militia. And Men always underestimate Dwarves because of our size, not aware that we are so built that we are four times stronger than them size for size.”

“How many men does he have?”

“A company of about thirty horsemen. I doubt if they have brought much more than a cart or two with cooking and camping gear, a servant for the Captain and a couple o’ cooks.”

“And what will happen if he charges?”

“He’ll lose them all within thirty paces. They won’t have a chance. We will spare as many horses as we can, to keep for carts and for breeding. Them horses what dies, well, we’ll cut up for a roast dinner and the rest we’ll smoke to keep us in meaty stews for the next few weeks.”

“What about our losses?”

“I can’t see us havin’ no injuries, unless one o’ your clumsy young lads drops an arrow on ‘is foot, Ma’am.”

“You’re thinking of using some of our youths?”

“Well, one or two is twenty years or more. It’s best practice to blood ‘em on something safe like this, then next time ‘ee won’t be so afeared. It’ll make his Mum proud of ‘im an’ other boys’ll want to join the Militia. It’s important that as many as possible do the trainin’ because than you’re better protected. You looks worried Ma’am, but don’t ‘ee worry, cos we is training defenders, not aggressors. You need folk what would negotiate first, but when that don’t work, will let the aggressors know that they are going to suffer for every bloody inch they is tryin’ to take from us.”

It took only a few minutes to reach the gate. Lady Galadriella had seen it before, in fact she had officially opened it with splash from a flagon of cider, which was then passed around those in attendance. It was a sturdy and heavy wooden gate, counter weighted so it swung easy in normal use, but the weights could be cut off if threatened with attack and then, Mr Dhigham had said, “it’s a bugger to open”, from the outside because the heavy gate rested on blacksmith forged rising hinges, which meant the heavy gate naturally slammed shut.

Twenty of the fifty Dwarves were present as the gate, and a rider was ready mounted if needed to summon more, but this was planting time and the rest were out in the fields sowing crop seeds. There were ... eighteen, she counted, young boys, some as young as fifteen and one or two in their early twenties, wearing the blue armbands which signified they were Militia. Although concern at so many so young, Lady Galadriella knew from regular updates that fifteen of the first twenty who signed up for the Militia were fully already trained, and all five plus eight more from the second set of twenty volunteers were fully trained and confident in the use of bow and arrow, sling shot, pike, sword and battle axe.

She cast her mind back to when the Isthmus was a much more vibrant place, full of young men in their prime, like her son, who formed the Mounted Militia which had kept their land safe and peaceful. Now it was filled with a few old men, too many middle-age widows and a handful of young men who’d grown up from boys to men with no man to guide them. This was a bad situation but, she realised, how bad it would be if they didn’t have the Dwarves here to aid them? Perhaps, she hoped, one day her son would return. He had sent the Dwarves all the way to his old home, he had sent gold home, but what she really wanted was Korwyn back home, with his bride or not, it was here that he was needed. It was beyond time that he should be home.

Clive had turned his mobile phone off immediately after hearing from Carole on his first night in Paris. The children and he were so busy the rest of the week that it was only on Friday morning, the day before they were due to fly back, that he switched his mobile phone back on again. He had woken early on their last full day in Paris Disneyland. He was relaxed and refreshed, while the kids still slept on.

The missed calls registered 55 while the messages app showed 43 unread messages. He recognised most of the phone calls as they were from his wife’s phone, several from Mum-in-Law and half a dozen that he didn’t know. When he went through the messages, he deleted all Carole’s without reading them; read the first of June’s half-dozen before deleting the rest of hers out of hand as the first was only trying to get him to take Carole’s calls; leaving him six more to listen to. The first two were from Carole, using a different mobile phone number. He wrote the number down in his note pad for future reference, then deleted them both.

The third call was interesting, it was from a mutual family friend who wanted to point out to him that on Carole’s trip out with ‘the girls from work’ she was seen with a recently divorced member of her church, a George Winston, who was a few years older than Clive, with a grown up family, and rumoured to have been divorced because he had been caught by his wife having a series of affairs. The mutual friend, was once a close neighbour who had moved away some time before, but his wife was a teacher or teaching assistant at Carol’s school, because he had met them there at a number of socials organised by the school and were reacquainted recently.

The third call, and the next three following, were from one of the headhunting agencies he had registered with and sent off application forms for jobs through. All four messages, with two on Wednesday, and one Thursday, urged him to call back urgently during office hours, while the last one, timed at 9:21 last night, kindly requested him to call back day or night. He couldn’t remember who he had dealt with originally, but the name Deidre, who signed off the messages, didn’t ring a bell with him.

Clive was in a happy mood, though, even if it was nearly half past six in the morning, and therefore half past five in England, so he thought, ‘what the hell’, and he rang the number.

A sleepy voice answered on the second ring, “Hello?”

“Hi, is that Deidre?”

“Yuh.” The voice was still sleepy.

“This is Clive Lawson from Guildford, you’ve been trying to reach me?”

“Yes, Mr Lawson, we have, for some days.” The voice sounded instantly awake. “Where are you and why was your phone switched off?”

“I’m in Paris, Deidre. At the last minute, before half-term, I took the children to Disneyland for that school break and turned the phone off so we could relax and enjoy our short time here.”

“Of course, it must be the holiday of a child’s lifetime. Will you be back by Monday, Mr Lawson?”

“Please call me Clive, after all I’m using your first name. All the paperwork is at home and I cannot remember your surname.”

“It’s Mason, Clive, Deidre Mason, of MRA Consulting.”

“What does MRA stand for?”

“Mason Recruiting Agency, my father started the business 40 years ago.”

“Right, I recall now. I dealt with Becky?”

“She’s one of our best recruiters. Our client who wishes to include you in his list of those called for interview, is one of our best clients, so I tend to get involved at this stage. Becky will be your fallback if I’m not available, but please call me on this number in the first instance.”

“I will, thank you, Deidre. We are flying back tomorrow, but two of the children have an inset day on Monday so I will be caring for the children on that day.”

“Excellent. I will get on the phone to our client and get back to you. Be prepared for an interview Tuesday and Wednesday.”

“Both days are good for me.”

“Excellent, I’ll be in touch. Please enjoy the rest of your holiday with your children in the meantime, Clive, I bet they’re having a wonderful time. I’m quite envious.”

“We all are having a brilliant time, Deidre, myself just as much as the children.”

“Delighted to hear that and seeing you so positive, I’m looking forward to meeting you next week and getting a good response from the job interview. So don’t worry, I’m sure this is going to be as enjoyable an experience.”

Korwyn boldly entered the Realm of Man for the first time in more than a decade, without Zyndyr at his side. He had insisted that he enter alone and that she command the Skirmishers and others today.

Behind him, strung out and reduced to one abreast in the narrows of the deep gorge, came alternate companies in line of Dwarves and Goblins. ‘This may have been the direct route from the land of the Dwarves to the Realm of Man,’ Korwyn thought, ‘but it was really only fit for small groups travelling light, not a large army.’

Korwyn was the first to clear the gorge and stepped onto soil presently ruled by his uncle. Ahead of him was a mounted regiment of men that looked more like a poorly equipped Militia, with no tunic the same cut or colour as the next, their horses unmatched in size. One rode forward a couple of horse lengths and removed his helm. Korwyn recognised the Man as Montoule and waved at him, the Man waved back. Behind Korwyn a company of Goblin mounted lancers spread out behind his left arm as they came through the gorge. Soon a company of infantry Dwarves lined up behind his right arm.