R. Salvatore - Archmage

“Oh, but lovely,” Oretheo said with a sigh, and he hopped up and ran off to the base of the nearest guard tower. All of them had been stocked for exactly this purpose, with torches and with a pile of burning embers glowing under a stone hood.

He drove the torch into the orange-glowing pile and pulled it back, the end igniting and flaring to life. He took it in his shield hand, hoisted his axe once more, and ran off, waving the flaming torch to gather attention.

“We got ourselves a marker!” Ogden Nugget called, pointing to the running dwarf with the waving torch.

“Aye, and it’s Oretheo Spikes hisself!” Carrinda said. She punched her fist into the air again. “Just stay at the window and guide me turns!” she instructed Ogden even as she leaped back to the ballista and grabbed the handles.

“Just stay with him,” she added, as Nigel pointed left and up, then down and back to the right, accurately following the movements of Oretheo Spikes. Powerful Carrinda and Nigel turned the ballista in line.

“Fourth north pocket!” Ogden called out, and that same shout was echoed in a score of similar towers all across the cavern, and on the lower floor of this one as well. The call was more than a description of a place, it was one of the common marks to which all of the weapons on this side of the cavern had been sighted, and it told every artillery dwarf exactly where to align his weapon.

“Bugs!” Carrinda shouted then, and all three turned and gasped to see a swarm of chasme flying in at them.

But just below them on the balcony, their brethren saw it, too, and they were well prepared. Even as the three in the ballista room braced for the incoming fight, the catapult below let fly, a basket full of small caltrops that tumbled and spread wide as they flew off.

“Bird shot,” the dwarves called it, for such a load could take a flock of geese from the sky.

Or a swarm of chasme, the ugly things sent spinning and tumbling all in a rush.

Carrinda, Nigel, and Ogden went right back to work.

“Fourth north pocket again!” cried Ogden, seeming somewhat surprised that Oretheo Spikes had apparently backtracked.

“Ah, but he found somethin’!” Carrinda said, eyes gleaming in anticipation. “Something big!”

Oh, Oretheo Spikes had indeed!

The dwarf ran faster than he ever had before in his entire life. Only twice in his years had Oretheo Spikes truly known fear: first near a frozen lake when the source of that unseasonable ice, a great white dragon, had exploded through the pack to join in the battle, and now, when in his run, he had nearly tumbled into a pack-a pack! — of gigantic glabrezu.

He just lowered his head and ran for all his life, a dozen of the beasts close behind, and with a flock of giant vrocks right behind them.

“Third pocket!” came the cry from every tower, and as Oretheo Spikes passed that mark, he skidded to a stop and spun, pointing back with his torch. A signal the disciplined Adbar dwarves knew well.

Oretheo saw the demons rushing for him, towering over him. And he heard the creak and whoosh of the great weapons of war.

“Bah, but yer mother’s a bunny!” the Wilddwarf roared, certain that he was doomed, seeing great pincers already coming his way.

A score of ballista spears crashed just in front of him. A score of catapult loads and twice that number of side-slingers-bird shot, larger rocks, burning pitch, and one with a pile of stones soaked in oil of impact-let fly for that sighted area just in front of Oretheo Spikes, the place the dwarves had named “third pocket north.”

The cavern shook under the weight of the barrage, and trembled with the explosion of the magical oil.

Oretheo Spikes was barely aware that he was in the air, but he felt the hard stone when he crashed down.

He felt it because he was, somehow, alive!

Looking back, he saw the jumble of demons and spears and rocks large and small, and the smoking husks of fallen fiends and the cracked wall of the cavern.

Another catapult load smashed in, throwing a vulture beast into the wall.

And more followed, relentless and punishing.

“Bah, but yer mother’s a bunny!” Oretheo Spikes roared once more, pulling himself from the floor. And off he ran, torch waving.

And now, he noted, he wasn’t the only marker, as other dwarves on this end of the large cavern had taken up torches. Far across the cavern, he heard “Second pocket south!” and a few heartbeats later, a similar devastating barrage went out from the southern guard towers.

“Well done, King Connerad,” Oretheo Spikes mumbled under his breath, truly glad that the young dwarf had so brilliantly organized this defense, and blissfully unaware that at that very moment, King Connerad Brawnanvil was being torn in half by the powerful pincers of a glabrezu very much like the beasts Oretheo’s gallant efforts had just destroyed.

He began his run anew, but blowing horns gave him pause.

He looked back to the pond and took heart, for the rest of Adbar’s force had come forth from the throne room, and now more than a thousand battle dwarves had pushed to the far bank of the pond, and no more beasts would get free of that water.

And the Adbarrim were coming across the bridge as well, a great wedge of dwarven fury and dwarven muscle and dwarven metal.

And on the near side, the boys of Mirabar had poured into the chamber from the outer caverns. Dwarven squares had used the support artillery to join up in stronger formations and had begun an irresistible march back toward the pond. Nearly three hundred Mirabarran and Adbarrim would die this day in the entry cavern of Gauntlgrym, but so be it.

When the pond’s water stilled once more, Oretheo Spikes, Nigel Thunderstorm, and all the remaining dwarves looked about at the carnage and knew that Comragh na fo Aster, the Battle of the Cavern, had come to a glorious and victorious end.

Bruenor and Emerus stood beside the outline of the stone door the wizards had identified as the ancient portal connecting dwarf lands. Over and over, the dwarf kings ran their hands along the ancient stonework, nodding as if they could feel the power thrumming within the stone-and likely they could feel it, Cattibrie and the others realized. Ever since they had sat on the throne, these two and Connerad seemed more attuned to this place than any non-dwarf could ever hope to understand.

“Where’d it go?” Emerus asked, his gravelly old voice filled with wonder and awe.

“Another dwarf kingdom, they’re saying. And aye, but I’m thinkin’ that’s the truth of it,” Bruenor replied. Then he added slyly, “If they were thinking o’ what might be the greatest place to go of all, they’d’ve had it set in line with Mithral Hall, eh?”

“Aye,” Emerus said without missing a beat, “that hole’d be a great musterin’ field for them dwarfs heading over to Citadel Felbarr.”

The two kings smirked at each other, both glad for the levity, and Bruenor truly needing it with his dearest friend lying so broken back in the main complex.

Behind them, Ambergris and Athrogate began to laugh, then to howl, drawing curious looks from Ragged Dain and Fist and Fury, and a curious glance back from the two kings.

Shaking her head, Catti-brie walked past the onlooking dwarves, Penelope and Kipper beside her.

“So if we’re to get it working, then how’re we to know where we’re going?” Emerus asked them. “Could be anywhere. I’m not knowing o’ any other dwarf homes as old as Gauntlgrym, and I’m guessing this was put in early on.”

“Right after they got the Great Forge fired, I’d wager,” Catti-brie agreed. “Might be that it opened into Waterdeep-or whatever city was thereabouts back in the day o’ Gauntlgrym’s making. Easy journey for trade.”