The Mad Dwarf

The mad dwarf was on foot. Not that that was a surprise.  He had never taken to the animals of the Above Folk, and dwarfs never used them in the Under.  They  were always on foot.  The mad dwarf  was also  on the move.  To where, he did not know, or much care. But he strode on implacably, one foot after the other, a drumbeat of anger, away from his failure.  But he was away from the caverns, tunnels, steads, mines and facades that had been the boundary of his life. Until now.  He nursed  a grudge that he had held  for years, a grudge that had simply grown and festered, taking on a life of its own.  It began  when those strangers had made an appearance and the young one had bested his impotence  spell and then the strangers had left, with the chief’s  son and his blessing,  and his once-partner Tamara had gone with them.  And then  he had been shunted from one place to another, one cavern to another, with fewer and fewer dwarfs about, less and less important activities, more dampness, less need for his powers.  No longer.  He had left all those constraints behind him.  And he had allies.  O yes he did.  He found he could not be everywhere or see everything at once  but those Banshsees, now they could go great distances and do it quickly.  They resented his control, but that is what wizards do, they control things.  He sent the Banshsees out to find those strangers.  He had been told the intruders  had left the land, but he didn’t believe it, so he searched  for them himself,  and with great effort he had opened a tiny crack in the place between worlds, and the Banshee  creatures had come through. He sent out what he now  thought  of as his servants to find these interlopers, while he sought some new  place more suited to his mood and his aim, some place more open, some place dark, some place to lure them in,  someplace in their upside  someplace they were more likely to be, someplace for revenge maybe….

The Red Witch is available at amazon.com in print or digitally. It reads as a stand alone story, but the events follow those in The Song of The First Bard. Enjoy