Shiland Hills
If one side held an overwhelming advantage, the stronger party could afford a measure of patience.
A weakling's petty defiance, once or twice, might be overlooked. It would not change the tide, and the damage on their own side would amount to very little.
But the moment they realized the other side possessed enough power to stand against them — enough to wound them — the story changed. Mercy, or no mercy? The weakling had become a threatening enemy.
The air among the elves encircling the dwarves sank, cold and still. Whether the dwarves felt that shift or not, a steel-hard resolve settled into the eyes of those gathered together, and the reddish-brown dwarf who had wiped out the elves' magic was visibly steeling himself for a fight.
"Even if I die here, I will never again be fooled by you pointy-eared liars and dragged back into slavery."
Hmm?
Something in the provisional captain's words carried a strange undertone, and Artia tilted her head a fraction. Until a moment ago the elves had been bristling with killing intent, yet the instant they heard the dwarf, their composure wavered. Was there some history here?
She had no way of knowing what had passed between the two races, but a thought flashed through her mind.
Don't tell me—
It's you again, isn't it, you bastard Oros! Black Sun or whatever you call yourself!
Back on modern Earth, if something vicious turned up in world history and you blamed that one particular country, you were right about half the time. In this world, whenever something ugly involving elves cropped up, pointing at that bastard seemed like the safe bet.
"Kuh— even so, I can't forgive you for ambushing and wounding someone who was trying to help!"
"Trying to help? Ha! Don't make me laugh. You meant to drag us back to that horrible place, didn't you. I wouldn't believe a word out of your mouths even if you swore you could smelt iron out of ore."
"What? You little shit?!"
"Oh? Going to try that precious magic of yours again? I'll take every last bit of it this time too!"
The female elf — the same one who had loosed the first flame arrow — had somehow appointed herself spokesperson and kept scrapping with the reddish-brown dwarf. They were saying plenty. Honestly, though, it did not feel like an actual conversation. Each side spoke only what it wanted to say, with no thought of listening or of understanding, and the two tracks ran on forever in parallel. Both were armed to the teeth with rage and distrust. Leave them like this, and blood would fly again.
Both sides need to cool their heads.
What did dialogue and negotiation require before anything else? The willingness, itself, to hear the other side out. At the very least, you had to drag them to the table. If they would not sit down, the most thorough preparation in the world meant nothing. Flawless logic? Neatly fitted reason? A silver tongue dazzling enough to steal a person's soul? Those only worked on people already prepared to listen. And what exactly was anyone supposed to do after blood had already been drawn?
Hmm. For now...
"We'll have to make them behave."
Both sides.
No way. But...
Elgaia finished the emergency treatment on the wounded elf and turned her eyes to the dwarves still locked in their standoff. They had packed themselves tight into a defensive formation. Surrounded though they were by a greater number of elves, they showed not a tremor of fear. They were surely outstanding warriors among their own kind.
And that, by itself, was not enough.
Dwarves possessed excellent raw physical ability, but their affinity for mana was poor. To stand against magic, they needed something more. Elgaia focused on the presence that had brushed her senses a moment ago — the aura she had felt when that reddish-brown dwarf swung his weapon.
It had unmistakably been the presence of magic.
Magic. If it was magic the dwarves used, there was only one such art in the world.
Engraving Magic.
A branch of Ritual Magic, and the pride and secret art of the dwarves — a system devised by a people whose bodies handled mana poorly, created precisely to overcome that weakness. If their own flesh could not wield mana well, then they would make a tool that could. Born from a thoroughly dwarven line of thought, the art had been handed down and refined from their ancestors in the distant past until, at last, it reached true mastery.
Its power stood on an entirely different plane from the trinkets humans cobbled together and had the nerve to call magic tools. Human magic tools might hold the advantage in convenience and variety, but works truly worthy of the names magic weapon or engraved weapon could be made by dwarves alone. A sword whose light never faded. Armor that mended itself. A spear that drew forth strength beyond its wielder's limits. There was a reason the craftsman who forged the heroes' arms and armor in the old tales was always a dwarf.
So a dwarf carrying a magic weapon was not, in itself, anything special. Not special — but only when the dwarves had a proper foundation on which to forge their arms. This was empty hill country, and these people had been locked in a slave trader's wagon until moments ago. Not the sort of thing they ought to have had on them. Slave hunters were not fools. They would never have left magic weapons in dwarven hands; every scrap of metal would have been stripped away.
And yet the sword and axe in that reddish-brown dwarf's grip were, without question, magic weapons. By any measure they were the work of a human blacksmith — crude past words, by dwarven standards. Under ordinary circumstances they could never have become magic weapons at all.
If things like that had suddenly become magic weapons—
He made them here. Just now.
But how? Even a dwarf, of the blacksmith race, could not stamp a magical engraving into an ordinary iron sword with neither proper tools nor materials. Only one thing made that possible.
The divine relic of the dwarves, and the symbol of their royal authority. The Thunder Hammer, Kandra, and nothing else — a sacred relic only dwarven royalty could wield.
Could there truly be dwarven royalty in this place?
How on earth? No — how did this even happen?
Elgaia looked at the dwarves with eyes gone heavy and dark. If she followed her heart, she would have rushed out that instant and demanded to know what in the world they had done. Dwarven royalty were prisoners the Black Sun, Oros, had watched with particular care. If he learned that royalty had escaped — and that the dwarves' divine relic had vanished along with them...
A fear dreadful even to imagine swept over her. Terror carved into her memory set her body trembling of its own accord, but Elgaia steadied herself. This could become an opportunity instead — a chance to fill the chasm between the two races, a gulf that had only been growing deeper.
Before the situation could boil any hotter, Artia moved.
A hand came down on a shoulder.
"A— Artia?!"
The first order of business was calming the elf on their side, whose blood was up over a wounded friend. Artia had set her hand on the shoulder of the woman glaring at the dwarves from the very front.
"Easy. If a fight breaks out here, your friend could truly be in danger."
"Ah— Lady Artia—"
The moment she saw Artia's face, the vicious edge she had worn a heartbeat ago collapsed so completely it was hard to believe she was the same woman. In a sense, the reaction was only natural. Among the elves at present, Artia's authority was close to absolute. Their own High Elf, Elgaia, treated her with profound respect, and through several fights Artia had always taken the most dangerous work upon herself — dealing with the users of magic scrolls. The glimpses of power she showed along the way were enough, on their own, to command the awe of every elf present.
With an Artia like that stepping forward, it would not matter what power the dwarves held or what trump card they had prepared. They would not be able to resist. So the elves thought, and they drew back of their own accord, lest a fight catch them in the wake of Artia's strength and lest she feel any hesitation in using it. It was the first thing any elf committed to memory before setting out to strike the elf-hunters.
Watching them fall back so naturally, Artia gave a satisfied nod. Their side had been easy. Now for the other.
"And how about you cool your head a little too? Whatever the grudge between our peoples, we did pull you out when you were taken as slaves. That part's true, isn't it?"
The elves' withdrawal seemed to register. Thick wariness frosted over the dwarves' faces. Artia lifted both hands to show she meant no harm and came on slowly. She had no idea whether a gesture that worked on Earth would work here, but people were people, more or less, wherever you went. Weren't they?
"Don't come any closer!"
Steel cut the air.
The arc was simple — a swing meant only as a threat. Had Artia stayed where she was, the blade would never have reached her.
Clang!
"Huh?"
She stepped farther in and took the sword with her body. The edge, swung level, slammed square into her waist. Magical light flared, and a pressure no ordinary iron sword could produce drove into her midsection and through the point of impact. Even a dwarven magic weapon, of course, had no hope of breaking her skin. The rebound — like bringing a hammer down on raw iron that had never so much as been heated red — froze the reddish-brown dwarf's face as hard as cooled steel.
Artia met the eyes of the dwarf staring up at her in blank bewilderment.
"Feeling a bit calmer now?"