Aella lifted another heavy stone into place, as the dwarves grumbled happily at her strength. They had brought over a contraption that normally lifted the heavier stones for them, but she was able to deadlift them, making the device useless.The two royal dwarves stopped by occasionally to check in, before leaving to do other royal stuff. Aella had really wanted to trail behind them, but she had to finish this bar for Bob first. Even if the issues they were dealing with were different from what she had to deal with, she could still see how it was supposed to work.
"This place is coming along really fast!" exclaimed the foreman who was in charge, checking his clipboard and looking around. "If I didn"t know any better, I would say you guys have pushed us ahead of schedule! We should be done in two days" time, instead of a week."
"Good," grunted Frederik, shoving a heavy stone of his own into place. "This is hard work and I"ll be glad to be done with it."
"We all will be," gasped Alfred, wiping the sweat off his brow. "How much more of this stuff do you guys need?" he asked, gesturing to the bag of mortar he had just set down.
"We"ll be needing at least another thirty bags," said one of the dwarves, looking up from the stoneworking he was currently working on. The mortar held everything together nicely, like a stone glue.
Alfred zoomed off for another bag. He traveled faster than any of them, but could only carry one bag at a time and still manage to get through some of the doorways.
Aella knew the dwarves probably had easier ways of doing things, than what they were showing off, but figured they were determined to make the process as painful as possible to try and dissuade her from finishing the bar for Bob. Turning back for the next block of stone, she heard a deep grunt from Frederik that had her spinning on her heel towards him. That was a grunt of pain!
"What the..?" he gasped, falling to the floor clutching his side. Bright blue blood was already quickly pooling under him.
"What happened?" asked Aella, reaching his side before any of the dwarves even had a chance to move.
"I"m not sure, there was a dwarf walking by, and then I felt the sharp pain and it was gone. I…" coughing, he winced, trying to keep still.
Aella could tell from the cough that whoever had just stabbed him, hit a lung. If she wasn"t trying to hide her abilities, she would teleport to grab Josephine, but she wasn"t willing to do that.
"Don"t try to move too much, and tell me if it gets too hard to breath," she said, looking around the room quickly. She hadn"t seen the dwarf he was talking about, so she didn"t know who to blame. They all pretty much looked the same to her!
"What"s going on now?" asked one of the dwarves, coming forward but not looking too worried. "Did he crush his fingers or something?"
"No! He was stabbed! I demand someone do something about it!" she growled, pushing on the spot to try and slow the bleeding. It wasn"t doing much, though.
"What?!" cried the dwarf, immediately jumping forward to see the wound before darting out of the way and shouting orders to get the others moving. It wasn"t long before they had moved him to another room and had one of their healers looking at him.
"This is serious," said the healer, shaking his head. "The wound is deep. It may take magic to heal it before sickness takes hold."
"And you said one of my dwarves did this?" asked the prince again.
"You idiot!" shouted the princess. "Of course, one of our dwarves did this! You don"t think they stabbed each other?"
"Well, they are demons," said the prince. "We don"t know that they aren"t trying to stage something!"
"You think I would intentionally hurt one of my own people?!" growled Aella, about to attack the prince, politics be d.a.m.ned!
"Don"t worry, King Aella, I will have my personal healer tend to your injured," said the princess, trying to calm her down. "My idiot of a brother will look into who may have caused this in the first place!"
The prince gaped at her as if she had gone crazy, then stormed out of the room without another word.
"At least he listens," she grumbled, shaking her head. "My brother has not taken well to the idea of my taking over the throne. It has never been done before. I imagine he"s behind this somehow. Don"t worry, I will have my guards posted around you and the site of the bar to ensure this doesn"t happen again."
Aella nodded, to angry to respond. She had felt uneasy getting involved in the dwarven politics earlier, but she had never antic.i.p.ated someone actually attacking her or her people. The princess had better hold to her word, or there would be more problems for the dwarves in the future.
The dwarven healer rushed into the room, smelling strongly of oils and herbs, and quickly a.s.sessed the wound before starting to chant a healing spell. Watching curiously, Aella saw the wound slowly stop bleeding and the tissue started to knit together.
"It will be tender for a day or two, but you should be fine now," said the healer with a tired voice. "There was also a poison on the blade that inflicted the wound. I was able to nullify it, but only because I was the one who tended to it. None of the other healers in the entire kingdom would have managed, Your Majesty."
The princess frowned at that and nodded, letting the healer leave.
"I will let you rest here until I have secured the build site for you to continue the construction. I think it would be best if your companion rested for the remainder of the day. The healer said he would be fine, but I see no reason to test his word too soon."
Aella nodded, "Let me know what you find out about who is behind this. I am not pleased with this."
The princess nodded, understanding of Aella"s threat clear on her face. "If my brother is behind this, I a.s.sure you, I will find out before the day is done. Rest here until everything is secured and then you can continue on the bar."
Alfred appeared as soon as the princess was gone, looking down at Frederik curiously. "Laying down on the job?"
"Ha ha," grunted Frederik, rolling his eyes.
"You don"t happen to know what happened? Do you?" asked Aella, turning to Alfred.
He gave her a grin and said, "Of course! What kind of hero do you take me for? The dwarves that are behind this are tied up in a dark hole in the ground, sobbing and begging for mercy. I couldn"t bring myself to kill them. That seemed too dark for me."
Aella chuckled and shook her head. "Do you know if they work for the prince or not?"
"You think I actually asked them anything? I don"t torture information out of people, Aella. That"s a job for your Royal a.s.sa.s.sin. Do you want me to go get them so you and Frederik can use them as punching bags?" asked Alfred with a raised eyebrow.
"I have a hard time believing two dwarves would be begging for mercy. Go ahead and bring them here. We could at least figure out who they are, and who reacts the most when they are presented as my prisoners."
Alfred nodded and disappeared. It wasn"t but a few minutes before he was back, hauling two half-sized dwarves with him. Neither had much in the way of beards and were in the middle of wailing and crying when they appeared before her.
"I knew it! I told you he was one of those evil demons!" cried one of the dwarves with a grungy black chin, wiping snot from his large nose.
"I don"t care!" sniveled the other, whose hair was a dirty blonde. "I just want to go back to my aunt"s house! I don"t want to be a part of the Angry Forge anymore!"
"The Angry Forge?" asked Aella, stepping up close to the young dwarves and glaring down at them with her all black eyes.
"It"s a thieves guild!" whimpered the blonde dwarf.
"Shut it! Do you want them to kill us?" hissed the black-haired dwarf. "The Angry Forge doesn"t like snitches!"
Aella laughed a nasty evil laugh. "And you think you shouldn"t fear me?"
Grabbing both boys she teleported with them to a spot high in the air over her new kingdom. They were so high in the air, her new city looked like a small coin below them. She grinned as evil a grin as she could muster, then dropped them.
She watched as they fell, letting the air push them around and play with them as they screamed and flailed, then teleported next to them and grabbing them again, she teleported back. By the time the princess returned to tell her it was safe for them to resume construction, both boys were more than willing to spill everything.