A Dwarf’s Greatest Act

Where greatness can always be achieved, no matter how small you are…

By Ellie Karlin, age 14

From the moment I was old enough to know my name was Otto, I knew to fear the Tall Men.

You see, the Tall Men hold power in fists of iron over folk like me. Even as children, they realise what they have and nothing delights them so much as to use it.

They came for my father seven times. Once when he was a babe in arms; once when he was a green boy, building his first den; twice as a young man, finding his way; and three times as a married man, alone with his family in a big world. Each time, he ran. Each time, we ran.

Seven, he always used to say, must truly be a lucky number. For after the seventh time, my father chanced upon a piece of land which became sacred ground to him. It was a place forgotten by the world, a place where the grass grew thick and lush and the flowers were scattered plentifully, as from a giant’s hand. Birds sang in sweet welcome, never suspecting that with men came danger.

To begin with, there was only the slumped ruin of a little cottage, a relic of some long forgotten family. Though its foundations wobbled dangerously and its roof sat as haphazardly as a boy’s first hat, the crumbling cottage walls were draped with roses. They were red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. An omen of peace, my father said. He was sure this place was touched by magic. He was sure that here, we could make a home where they would never bother us.

While the old oak tree peered down on them with a kindly eye, my mother and father toiled from dawn to dusk each day, drawing from that odd strength peculiar to dwarves. Six and a half long months later, from sweat and tears and the aged tools owned by my family for generations, my parents raised a splendid cottage of roses. It was the finest den they had ever made, and I called it home.

Seven years old, I held the hands of my mother and father as we followed my laughing sisters through the little blue door, the fresh paint catching the golden eye of the sun. We were sure that the magic humming in the air represented that precious state our ancestors had enjoyed and lost centuries ago.

Fools that we were, we thought that we walked into safety.

For many years, we appeared to be right.

Growing up armed with the naive confidence of youth, I sometimes found it churlish that in the midst of our joy and prosperity, my father still rocked in his chair at night and talked of remembered fear and darkness. I saw our full table, my sisters’ smiles, the tomes that filled my imagination with the wild legends of my people.

Yet we could never truly forget the outside world and behind that wall of contentment, fear lurked.

‘Never forget who you are,’ my father told me, again and again. ‘Here we are safe, but in that village we are ants to be swept aside or trampled as they please. Once it was not so, but only the wood’s witch remembers that time.’

Years after we settled in the cottage, the Tall Men still stalked through my nightmares.

‘They have come for me,’ I would say aloud, and then I ran. I never wanted to, but I always did, just as they always caught me. As soon as as their fingers tightened about my arm, I awoke in a cold sweat, a cry of terror escaping from my lips.

‘It’s okay, Otto,’ my mother would whisper. ‘Here, they will never come. Here, we are safe.’

In the end, she was wrong. When they came, they looked just as in my nightmares.

***

At their head, rode a grizzled man with hurting grey eyes. His horse was black as ink and his mouth curled with terrible purpose. While the men following him joked and laughed, he never so much as smiled. Watching him approach, I felt the dagger of his gaze even through the curtains.

‘The leader of the village,’ whispered Amelia from behind me. I turned and saw a look pass between her and Ruth that was sharper than a scream.

“The land,” said Poppy. “It is theirs already. We must go through the back.’

Biting my lip hard as if that would make everything go away, I looked around at my sisters, thoughts frozen; they wanted to run. Older than I had been when the Tall Men last came, they remembered the running only too well. I wanted to follow them but I couldn’t stop remembering the nightmares. If we ran, we followed the Tall Men’s script. Gazing wildly around, hoping against hope that someone would jump in and tell me what I had to do, I met my mother’s rheumy eyes.

My sisters had forgotten her; an old, frail woman, since my father’s death she hardly spoke. Now, she stared at me in such a way that I was certain she too remembered those nightmares. Her shrunken lips broke into a grim smile and she nodded.

‘Stop!!’

The fatal word burst from my lips and there was no going back. My sisters’ pleas and shouts fell on deaf ears as I drew myself up to my full four feet and marched out of the door. The Tall Men who had lived in my nightmares for so long frowned down at me.

‘Out of my way, dwarf,’ their leader rumbled, reining up so hard that his horse whinnied unhappily.

‘This land,’ I said, in a voice that shook despite myself, ‘belongs to the dwarves. When my father arrived here, it was unclaimed. By the laws of the realm, it belonged to him and his heirs – so, me. Now, please leave. You’re trespassing.’’

There was a tense, juddering silence.

The men laughed.

The loud, coarse sound seemed to stab into my ears.. ‘Fool’ echoed in my head. I couldn’t tell if it was my voice or my father’s, ‘Hush,’ snapped the grizzled man and the laughter stopped abruptly. ‘The dwarf is impertinent. You all would do well to remember what happens to those who are impertinent.’ The scent of fear was sharp in the air, mine and theirs.

Cold against my forehead, the flat of the man’s blade smote me carelessly aside. It had come out of nowhere. I felt faintly surprised as I crumpled to the ground. My face was bathed in sweet, fresh dew and as I fainted my head rang with the sound of coarse laughter.

I must only have been unconscious a minute; the burning humiliation woke me. Shame covered me like a mantle and I felt a depressing hopelessness. For all my parents had suffered and my vaunted courage, the Tall Men had crashed into our magical land, and I was powerless to stop them.

“Hey, he’s awake!” a voice cried. A large, calloused hand grasped me roughly by the scruff of my neck and drew me into the air like a child. My vision was filled by the man’s broad, tanned face, stubble lining his jaw. He saw my fear and smiled for the first time. His teeth were white and sharp like a predator’s. He bared them for several long moments, driving home his message, then released his fingers slowly, not deigning to look at me as I hit the ground once more.

‘Coward!’ I yelled.

The very air seemed to tremble. ‘What. Did. You. Say.’ His voice was so low I had to strain to hear it.

With an almost superhuman effort, I rose, swaying, to my feet. The other men drew away automatically as I staggered forward, close to fainting again.

‘Is this how you challenge me for my land? What bravery is there in hitting a dwarf? Give me a fair challenge, coward!’

I was almost certain I had pushed him too far, yet the vague plan that filled my head was all I had left. Madness burnt in his eyes, but I thought I also saw injured pride.

‘What challenge could a dwarf ever hope to win?’ scoffed one of his men.

‘A noble game practised by generations of my people and yours,’ I replied, attempting a smile that was more of a grimace. ‘If you want my land, prove your superiority by beating me at a game of – golf.’

As surprise passed over their faces, I smiled and extended my hand.

***

Drumming my fingers against the carriage windowsill, nervous excitement coursed through me. I felt both brave and bold and very stupid and I could tell my fidgeting was starting to annoy the driver.

I had only enough money for one torch so his face was wreathed in shadows. The ramshackle carriage travelled too slowly, but it was all I could afford. Six long, uncomfortable nights crawled by before I clambered out at the mouth of a large forest.

‘Not a safe place for a little man like you,’ the driver grunted as I pressed my last few coins into his outstretched hand. “The villagers say this place is haunted.’

‘Thank you, but it is a risk I must take,’ I told him, my voice slightly shrill. ‘I am going to see the wood’s witch. Please wait for me.’ I turned on my heel, and plunged into the shadows, determined not to look back.

It felt as though I walked many hours. Each new tree rose up before me like towers pulled from the earth, and I felt they followed my every step. The canopy was dense and oppressive, dimming the rays of sunlight. Despite everything the legend had promised, I felt achy and tired and very alone.

When I felt I could walk no longer, I came upon a small, muddy clearing. Not a promising spot, but the first place where the trees weren’t pressed together shoulder to shoulder, orderly as soldiers. I gulped and took a few tentative steps inside. Instantly, I felt the magic all around and knew that I had found the right place.

‘Hello?’ I said, turning myself about. ‘I’d like to see the wood’s witch please! I have come a long way.’

No reply.

It had gone very quiet. The hollow whip of wind, the hoarse chirping of hidden birds, rustling leaves: everything was still.

I gulped and tried to steady myself, squeezing my eyes shut. When I opened them again, the world was black around me.

‘Answer me!’ I shrieked, panicked. Shameful terror was seeping into my bones. I ran about like a madman, hands groping desperately for the trees. They found only emptiness. My feet fell silently, no longer on soil. ‘Tell me where I am!’

I held my breath in the silent blackness. Then I saw the faint gleam of a light in the far distance and ran towards it, flushed and clumsy.

A form, perhaps a person, was slumped, puddle-like, on the ground. They seemed to glow by a light of their own. For a moment I thought it might not be a person at all, but then a woman’s shape rose in a great flapping of fabric and stumbled blindly towards me.

I recoiled. Her hair was an unnatural white and her jowls wobbled as she ran. Though I tried to scramble away, I was too slow and she fell on top of me, her skeletal fingers tightening around my shoulders. I screamed and she slipped against me.

‘The wood’s witch,’ I muttered, fighting off panic. Could this all have been for nothing? ‘The wood’s witch, the wood’s witch, this is the wood’s witch?’

Her face twisted into what might have been a smile. Her teeth, unlike the Tall Man’s, were yellowed and crumbling.

‘Are you worthy, child?’ she breathed in my face. ‘I know why you have come. But are you worthy? You must tell me, are you worthy?’

‘I don’t know.’ My voice was brittle and though she was frail and light, I sagged under the weight. ‘I don’t know! I know I don’t look like the hero from the legend, but I need what I know you have! I need it desperately. For my sisters as well as –’

I broke off abruptly. Her eyes were rolling back into her head and she foamed at the mouth. She gave a little sigh and her head tossed about on her thick neck. At last, she smiled a terrifying smile and bowed her head forward, almost like a nod. I felt my soul was open before her.

Her hands pressed down more heavily, shoving me away. I felt myself falling and my voice rose in a pathetic shriek. The last thing I saw were her eyes, milky and unseeing. They were almost lost in folds of skin. I hit the ground but never felt it.

When I came back to myself, the carriage driver was standing impatiently over me. I sat up with a gasp and felt a large, lumpy parcel pressed between the folds of my coat.

I was outside the forest again and the wood’s witch was nowhere. 

***

The day dawned grey and brooding. Though I woke up before five, when I came downstairs, my sisters were sitting at the table, tension crackling. Two bulging suitcases were propped against the wall, my father’s toolbox next to them. I almost missed my mother, rocking back and forth in his old chair.

‘You foolish, foolish man,’ said Ruth softly.

‘You don’t understand,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t run. And if I win ...’

‘If you win a game of golf?’ Poppy repeated, voice breaking. ‘He’s bigger and more

powerful and you’ve played twice!’ ‘But I have my –’

‘They’re not magic golf clubs! That probably wasn’t even the wood’s witch. And if it was, they weren’t made from the metal of the Smith’s own forge. Face it Otto. They aren’t blessed or anything, they’re just a small set of nice-looking golf clubs.’

I didn’t respond. Their faces were hard; the faces of survivors. They were tougher than me, yet it was down to me to save them. Running had never worked. Running would never work. The Tall Men denied our right to live on our land and we had to prove them wrong.

For all the hours I had pored over that legend as a child, I had known from the very first time that some day, it would mean more than just spidery scribbles on yellowing paper. I had known that legends don’t become legends without meaning lurking within them.

‘Otto,’ Amelia said solemnly. ‘Whatever happens, we are ready. Whatever happens, they will not get you.’ She thumped the top of the toolbox. ‘Dwarves have power too.’

‘That’s what I’m showing you,’ I said, but I was grateful. My mother said nothing but looked at me with eyes that said ‘good luck’.

At nine o’clock, we set out in the cart together, as a family. Poppy had chosen the strongest mules and Ruth and Amelia had loaded the suitcases and tool box underneath. Everyone looked back at the cottage as we left.

‘We’ll be back,’ I said. They looked at me without confidence.

The Tall Men were already there when we arrived, lounging about. Though they talked with a lazy sort of arrogance, I thought there was slight unease.

Their grizzled leader jumped down when he saw us, smiling contemptuously at my still bruised forehead. He lifted a languid finger and one of his men scurried off to fetch his clubs. They were three times the size of mine, a fine, glorious set. A golfer’s dream. Mine were still bundled in the faded sack, but I smiled to myself.

We stepped together onto the golfing green, the Tall Men whistling provocatively. My sisters watched with anxious, gloomy eyes but my mother smiled encouragingly. I took out my clubs.

The silver was old but it gleamed with a light of its own.The engravings followed a strange, inscrutable pattern that was beautiful nonetheless. I selected my first club; it fit perfectly in my hand.

‘Made for a dwarf, made by a god,’ I said aloud, and grinned, sparing one moment to look up in silent thanks.. ‘Shall we begin?’

Afterwards, I could remember almost nothing of that game. Every time, the clubs swung exactly right in my hands and a deep, sacred sense of calm flooded my being. By the end, the grizzled man had tossed his fine, massive clubs into the mud and advanced towards me in loser’s rage.

‘You’ve had your fun, dwarf,’ he snapped. ‘Now out of my way, That land is mine.’ My sisters’ eyes widened in alarm, but I remembered the wood’s witch’s question. Was I worthy? I had won, but by her hand, not mine. This was my true challenge. ‘My land belongs to me,’ I said steadily. ‘I don’t rent to cowards.’

For a moment, nobody spoke. My sister’s were all staring at me, looking both exasperated and proud. His men were looking worriedly at each other, then at their leader, then at me.

Finally, one of them guffawed. Then another. And another. And soon my sisters and my mother and the Tall Men were all laughing and the grizzled man was storming away, his face burning furiously.

I can’t claim that one dwarf’s statement was enough to repel such a man, nor even the laughter that followed. Several times the humiliated soul came back roaring with vengeance in his heart and a sword at his hip, but from the moment I spoke my defiance, the clubs made from the Smith’s own forge thrummed with life and magic, and never could he get in. The clubs truly became mine, for I was worthy of them and them of me. By their influence, my father’s sacred land became a safe haven for all people like me, away from persecution and fear.

And all that, my friends, came from the greatest act of a dwarf called Otto.