A Song of Askaldenfirsts and Dragons. Book one: The outlanders (Part I-IV)
Chapter 26: Melkath

Melkath Seydikt was furious. Not only had the foolish tonnebeards attacked his army, that he had to punish them harshly, but also some of the larmarians sailed on ships, and instead of kneeling and swearing allegiance to king Yashkirran, they had come ashore and went to attack with fury. “Maybe we shouldn’t have put the dwarfs’ heads on the spears,” he thought, “but if Yashkirran will be there I want to see how he would try to convince them. Stupid race! And these larmarians, why they were so stubborn, they could give the ships and I would let them go?! But no, they have to be heroes, and all for the sake of what? Just so sit on a spear and look with glass eyes at their Outland Sea? But they were able to kill about a third of my troops! Third, vakshin dar arah!”

Melkath’s army advanced quietly across Farderland as far as Fishgartard. They walked almost along the Outland Sea, moving north to strike northerners from the southwest, in the event of a war with Norvinoria, which was, well, obviously going to happen. If the tonnebeards don’t take orders from Kaushmanashtoon’s king, then the northerners do not obey anyone at all!

Yes, Yashkirran had asked him not to kill unnecessarily, not to loot, but what to do when you need to go through the city, and some dwarfs say to you, “Go away or we’ll put your guts into your mouth!” Azdairiks are great warriors and they will not tolerate insults from short ones! “But Yashkirran won’t understand that, especially when he finds out that I failed to capture the larmarian fleet!”

And now that they were near Forsholden, Melkath felt uneasy. They had to make a detour along the Outland Sea, heading west to reach the road to Forsholden, a town in Norvinoria, near the Farderland border. There were no posts on the border, all the dwarfs had gone somewhere, as well as the northerners. The northerners with tonnebeards on the border often drank and sang songs, which irritated other races, such as arqilunians, for example, traders travelling in their wagons, who had already visited the cities of Farderland, wishing to cross the border, and head to the northerners, were in a surprised-haughty irritation when they saw that everyone was asleep at the posts. The wealthier arqilunians preferred to fly on argiphones over the trees, so as not to see the irresponsible behavior of the border guards. But now there was no one here, and this instilled fear not only in Melkath but also in many azdairiks of his army. In addition, it became problematic to hunt and get meat for the ashklahars, which was even more worrisome, because the ashklahars, although loyal to their masters, under certain circumstances can bite off the feeding hand if it has not brought anything to eat for a long time.

“The gates of the city are open, deshaar,” he heard the junior officer’s voice.

“I hope the news from the fishing town hasn’t reached them,” Melkath said distantly. “Go and give orders, we are stopping at Forsholden.”

“Yes, deshaar,” said the slender brunette, and, climbing on his ashklahar, rushed to carry out the order.

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