Douglas Niles - The Heir of Kayolin

The miniature silver anvil on the head of Gretchan’s staff, which was Brandon’s only light source, bobbed and weaved crazily as he sprinted down the uneven bed of the cavern. He descended rapidly, following the slope as he pursued the retreating horax. All thoughts of reaching Garnet Thax, of escaping from that underground nightmare, were forgotten in the desperation and fear he felt for his captive companion.

“Gretchan!” he called again and again, only to hear the echoes of his terrified cry fading into the darkness before him. Was she still alive? He had no solid reason for believing that she was except for his own desire for that possibility. But he refused to surrender hope, so he kept running, heedless of ambush or treacherous footing.

He tripped over a protruding rock and flew headlong onto a pile of boulders. The staff flew from his hand as he tried to protect his face and his axe, absorbing the blow with his body. Ignoring his new bruises, he stumbled to his feet, realizing that the light on the staff had been extinguished when he dropped it. After a panicky minute spent feeling around in the lightless cave, he again wrapped his hands around the smooth wooden shaft, and was rewarded by a godly glow emanating from the anvil icon of the dwarves’ patron god.

“Reorx, please let me find her, save her,” he prayed, his words a rasping whisper in the darkness. “I’ll offer you anything-my own life! My axe! Just let me reach her!”

Though there was no answer, not even any change in the anvil’s glowing illumination, Brandon forced himself to believe that the Master of the Forge had heard his prayer and would take pity on him.

He proceeded as quickly as he could, slowing down from his headlong sprint only when the dry rasping of his lungs forced him to collect his breath. He knew that he would need his strength if-when! — he found Gretchan, so he slowed to a steady jog, marshalling his energy and staring intently into the subterranean darkness before him. Belatedly he realized that the horax, having already displayed surprising battlefield cunning and tactical sense, might be waiting for him in ambush. Remembering the way the creatures could climb the walls and even walk on the ceiling of an enclosed tunnel, he made a point of studying the passageway in all its parts and corners as he moved forward.

But still he trotted with reckless speed. The staff in his left hand, with its glowing tip, led his quest through the darkness. His axe he carried at his right, elbow cocked, blade poised for a quick chop forward or a parry to the side and back. For long minutes he ran thus, his alertness at fever pitch, his imagination conjuring wicked mandibles and bulging eyes in each shifting shadow, every imminent bend in the winding cave.

Every so often he came to a brown stain on the floor, and even a cursory glance confirmed that the stains were dried blood. Each spot of blood made his stomach lurch with fear, and his only consolation was the knowledge that Gretchan had been carried through there not long before. If she were wounded, her blood would still be bright, wet crimson. He guessed that the blood spots he’d found were grisly reminders of the fate that had met the gully dwarves who had once dwelled in the dead village.

He came to a place where the descending floor dropped away, as if the stream that had once carved the channel had spilled over a subterranean waterfall. Extending the light, he saw that the drop was barely six or eight feet, so he wasted no time in scrambling over the edge, dropping toward a rock at the base. His left foot slipped from the curving rock as he landed, and he tumbled, bruising his knee and wrenching a shoulder. Despite the pain, he bit back any exclamation and worried more about the clatter of his fall.

Only then did he notice that the drop had placed him in the middle of a new type of passage, one that was not a natural cave, but instead seemed to be a relic, a roadway or hall, from some ancient civilization. He blinked in surprise, holding the light up.

The winding cave had dumped him through the side wall of a precise, straight passage that had obviously been excavated under the ground there some unknown but long time earlier. The ceiling was twice his height, and the hall was at least six or seven paces wide. Columns, round as pillars and unadorned, lined the walls at twenty-foot intervals, and the space extended to the right and left as far as Brandon could see.

The horax-which way had they gone?

Once again the stains of Aghar blood gave him proof; he spotted a brown smear a dozen feet to his right. Immediately he started that way, jogging again, warily examining the walls, ceiling, and floor in his path. He came to more bloodstains and reminded himself that Gretchan had been caught in a web-the monsters wouldn’t have had to clamp her in their jaws to carry her. He thought of Gus Fishbiter, an annoying fellow but a friend of Gretchan’s, and felt a stab of pity for the miserable Aghar that had been carried away by the horax. Even gully dwarves didn’t deserve such a fate.

At the same time, he was relieved to see that there were no signs of fresh blood. He quickened his pace as the wide, smooth floor seemed to offer an open route ahead.

Abruptly he emerged from a tunnel mouth into a much larger space. Still standing on a smooth, carved floor, he raised the staff to see that he was in an expansive chamber, one where the ceiling dome rose so far overhead, it was out of the reach of his magical light.

He stepped forward slowly, staring around with frustration. At any other time, in any other delving, such an experience would have filled him with awe: in one corner of his brain, he realized he was exploring a relic of some civilization more than a thousand years old, perhaps predating even the dwarven colony of Kayolin. He saw suggestions of wide columns ornamented with hieroglyphics. Beyond the last column was even a stone chair in the commanding position of a large throne. The rest of the chamber was hidden in the darkness, but clearly very huge, very solidly constructed.

Brandon looked around in vain for some sign of Gretchan. He saw scratches and scuffs in the dust, marks that looked as if they could have been made by horax claws, but they seemed to go in every direction in the great hall; none stood out as a particular path.

He started to search along the near wall, going around the large columns, holding up the glowing staff head so he could see the throne. That, too, was covered with dust, though apparently undisturbed by the bug monsters’ footsteps. He was about to move on when something drew his attention back to the throne: a spark or a blink of sudden light.

Going over to the throne, he discerned a circular shape, a ring more than a foot in diameter, outlined underneath the dust. When he picked it up and blew it off, he was nearly blinded by the reflections of sapphire and silver. The blue stones, a dozen in number, were arranged in a perfect circle around the ring of metal. Then the anvil on the head of Gretchan’s staff blazed with an invigorated light, a brilliance that suddenly cast the whole subterranean throne room into an illumination nearly equal to daylight.

That circlet was hinged at one side and secured by a clasp opposite the ring. It could be opened to be placed around something like a column …

Or a dwarf’s neck.

“The Torc of the Forge!” Brandon gasped out loud.

As if acknowledging his statement, the glow of Gretchan’s staff settled back to its more normal dimness. Oddly, Brandon’s dark-vision hadn’t been destroyed by the brilliant glare; it was as if his pupils absorbed the brightness of Reorx’s blessing and adjusted.

His mind churned. If the artifact really was the Torc of the Forge, than Regar Smashfingers was using a fake in the construction of his crown. His coronation was based on a forgery-