[ WP ] A Fantasy Story ( elves , dwarves , etc . ) set in a Mad Max-style world .

Rok, son of Cave-in, spotted the dust as he patrolled the city wall. He braced his spyglass on a merlon that rose above the razor-sharp edge of the steel wall. The dusty lenses showed him specks of black and silver moving at the head of the cloud of dust in the distance. 
 
 Calmly, because it would diminish his reputation as a warrior if he gave any sign of fear, Rok moved to the nearest speaking tube and uncapped it. `` Elves!'' he shouted. 
 
 The word reverberated through the guts of the city, where his clan labored at forges and in mineshafts. Those who could set down their work without destroying it did so and stumped through the armories and to the spiral stairways that led to the surface. 
 
 Seeing the warriors climb onto the wall, clad in ornamented steel and bearing axes and hammers, Rok felt a surge of pride. When the magic left the world, dwarves had remained dwarves. They worked, they crafted, they fought. He looked at the dust cloud rising from the cracked plain. The dwarves had n't changed, but the same could n't be said for the world itself. Or for the elves. 
 
 The elders had told him that in the old times, the city had been surrounded by forest as old as creation and aswarm with pixies and dryads and animals of every variety. Now it was a desert. Dwarves do n't have much use for the surface, as a rule, but Rok would have liked to see what a forest looked like. He shrugged the thought away. Things are as they are, and all a dwarf can do is carve out a place for himself. 
 
 The elf raiders saw them manning the walls and accelerated, throwing up an even greater cloud of dust. They hurtled toward the city and in minutes every warrior on the walls could see them clearly. The sight caused an angry rumble from the dwarves, and blunt hands tightened around the hafts of weapons. Without magic, elves had lost almost everything. Their raiders used to creep in on foot to steal what they could, and warriors could easily repel them. But 120 years ago, the elves got lucky. 
 
 Even without magic, dwarves remained dwarves. The ponies died, so dwarves set about making replacements. It was only a few years before Ragnar, respect to his name, hit upon the idea of using steam to turn wheels. Dwarves had plenty of coal and underground aquifers, so it was an excellent solution to the problem of transport. Then the elves stole one of the automotives. 
 
 Elves were diminished without magic, but in the old days they had been skilled crafters in their own right, and it was only a short time before they resumed raiding, now driving fleets of automotives that were decorated with runed spikes and blades and surprisingly graceful murals depicting the most ungraceful of actions. 
 
 Seeing elves driving dwarven automotives only reopened the wound for Rok's clan. Rok was philosophical about it. He knew one day they'd wipe out the filthy elves and then the automotives would be only theirs again. 
 
 The elves circled the city, whooping their war cries. They would build a cloud of dust to obscure the defenders' sight, because those damnable elf eyes could pierce through the clouds better than a warrior's could. They began firing arrows, and neither the strength of their bows nor the accuracy of their aim had been lost with the magic, so the warriors ducked behind the wall. Normally they would have stood with crossbows and killed and died, but today was different. 
 
 The elves whooped louder to see the dwarves retreat, and turned their automotives in toward the walls, readying their scaling ladders. 
 
 Grim, the First Warrior, shouted, `` Ready!'' and every tenth warrior unslung the device at his back that he carried instead of an axe. Grim shouted, `` Mount!'' and those warriors stood and rested the device in a crenel. Their pincer-like feet gripped the wall below the razor-sharp peak and let the warriors swivel the device through an arc. Each warrior aimed at the nearest automotive they could see and took hold of the device's projecting crank. 
 
 Unfortunately for the elves, even in the new world, dwarves remained dwarves. They worked, they crafted, and they fought. And they were particularly good at crafting tools to fight with. Grim's voice thundered across the city: `` Fire!'' As one, hundreds of machine guns cracked to life, followed by a ragged series of explosions as bullets struck boilers. The elves had armored their boilers against crossbows, but they had no way of anticipating this. The surviving automotives began swerving erratically, trying to avoid the rivers of death pouring from the battlements. 
 
 The raiders lost over half of their number in a few minutes, and finally their war-whoop changed to the ululating wail of retreat. The black automotives with their silver blades and spikes turned and ran, going away to their den to lick their wounds and regroup. 
 
 Rok's clan cheered, throwing helmets in the air in celebration. It had been a glorious battle, once again demonstrating dwarven superiority. 
 
 The celebration died with a fearful shiver as the speaking tubes connected to the mines screamed in unison. `` HALFLINGS!''
