Dan Parkinson - The Covenant of The Forge

“No, they won’t,” Glome decided. “Slide! The signal!”

Slide Tolec put a short trumpet to his lips and blew a blast, then another. All up and down the net line, dwarves raised heavy axes above the keeper cables, and when Slide’s trumpet sounded again, they sliced downward. With a crash that grew like thunder, the nets collapsed and tons of stone plunged down the slope, picking up momentum with each yard. The dust that rose above the landslide was a dense cloud, billowing upward in the garish light of the moons. Beyond it, the thunder of falling, crashing stone drowned out the screams of the dozen or so Klar trapped ahead of the fall.

Again Slide Tolec sounded his trumpet, and the battle cries of thousands of Theiwar and Daergar rose above the tumult of falling stone crashing down upon the Daewar citadel. A torrent of dark shapes on the mountainside, Glome’s army charged down the rock-scoured slopes, following after the chaos they had unleashed.

Parts of the citadel still stood, broken spires thrusting skyward in the moonlit dust, but there were great holes in the structure where walls had fallen under the torrent of stone, and the Theiwar, Daergar, and remaining Klar poured through them, fanning out to occupy the old stronghold of the Daewar. Shouts of “Kill the Daewar!” rang and echoed, then died away in confused silence. Somewhere a querulous voice called, “Where are they? There’s no one here!”

For more than an hour, in angry silence, the invaders searched level after level of the Daewar’s mountainside city. They found nothing. The place was completely deserted. Not so much as a rug or piece of furniture remained.

It was by tracing the tracks of the ore carts back into the stone of Sky’s End, that they found the sealed gate where the fresh delving of the Daewar had begun. It was a circular slab of solid granite, twelve feet in diameter, set into the neck of a tunnel.

“The delvings.” Glome the Assassin decided. “They have completed their new city under the mountain and withdrawn to it.” He pointed at the granite slab. “Bring it down,” he commanded. “The Daewar are on the other side.”

They brought out their tools and set to work. Outside, beyond the wrecked walls of the old citadel of Daebardin, daylight came and went and came again as determined dwarves chipped away at the edges of the plug gate. Finally, though, it was loose and they attacked it with prybars. After a moment, the thing teetered outward and fell as dwarves scampered aside, then drew their weapons and poured through the opening.

Beyond should have been an underground city, a city filled with Daewar and Daewar treasures. Instead, there was only a tunnel — a huge, track-floored tunnel that receded southward toward the heart of Sky’s End.

A cluster of dark-blade-wielding Daergar turned to stare with blank, iron faces at the leader of the Theiwar. “So they are here?” one of them hissed. “Where, Theiwar?”

“Deeper,” Glome decided. “The Daewar prince said they were delving deep. We must follow this tunnel. Their new city is ahead somewhere.”

“It had better be,” a Daergar rumbled.

Mile after mile the tunnel ran, deeper and deeper into the stone core of the mountain. Almost featureless, except for widened caverns at regular intervals, where the telltale marks of pulled spikes — where cart-track had been pulled up — spread into double pairs. Here, in the Daewar’s delvings, the ore carts had been able to pass, laden carts rumbling outward, empties heading back into the mountain. With something like awe, the Theiwar studied these marks, as they studied the precise chiseling of the walls where stone had been removed a few feet at a time to bore the tunnel.

The huge tunnel, driving straight into the heart of a mountain, was impressive. It was not a thing beyond their understanding — many Theiwar were fair tunnelers — but it was a feat far larger than anything they had ever attempted, and the farther they went the more they realized the enormity of what the Daewar had done. If this mighty tunnel were no more than a road leading to their underground city, then what must the city be like?

After a few miles, dome’s army began to shrink as individuals and small groups, mostly Theiwar, held back, waited for the rest to pass, then quietly turned and went back the way they had come. It had occurred to many of them that if there were a city at the end of this road there must be far more Daewar than anyone had thought. The idea of attacking a tribe that outnumbered them, on its own ground, gave many a Theiwar second thoughts about the whole venture.

Few of the Daergar turned back. Driven by the intense, single-minded stubbornness of natural miners, the Daergar would go on, and some of the wild, erratic Klar with them.

Far into Sky’s End, Slide Tolec noticed that the Theiwar were far less numerous than they had been, and he edged aside, looking back along the great tunnel. Pretending to adjust his boots, he knelt beside a wall while the mixed army — still several thousand strong — marched past him.

When they had all gone by, he stood and glanced around. For a second he thought he was alone, then a shadow moved nearby, and a familiar voice said, “You, too, Slide Tolec?”

Brule Vaportongue stepped from shadows into the dim light of Slide’s oil-wick. “You have realized it, too, then?”

“Realized what?” Slide snapped the words. The half-Daergar dark-seeker had startled him, and he resented it.

“That it is time to leave this place.” Brule shrugged. “No Daewar fortune awaits us here. Only death. This road is not the entrance to a city. It is exactly what it seems. A road. The Daewar built it, and the Daewar have gone where it leads, and Glome the Assassin is going to his death.”

“You fear the Daewar?” Slide sneered.

“Not as much as I fear my half-kin.” Brule shrugged again, not reacting to the taunt. “I know the taste of the stubbornness that drives the Daergar. It is what Glome played on to get them to follow him. But I know a thing about that stubbornness that even Glome does not know.”

“And what is that?”

“The blood call of the Daewar,” Brule Vaportongue said, “can be opened, but not closed. My half-brothers there” — he waved in the direction the dwarven army had gone — “seek the blood of the Daewar. But if they are denied it, they will find other blood. The Daergar are like their blades. Once drawn, they will not be sheathed again until they have tasted blood.”

Thoughtfully, Slide Tolec gazed down the tunnel where the sounds of Glome’s invasion were fading. Then he adjusted his pack, weapons, and belts and turned away. “I’m tired of this,” he said. “I’m going home.”

“Good choice.” Brule Vaportongue nodded and fell into step with the Theiwar.

Glome’s dwindling army was twelve miles into the heart of Sky’s End when it reached the second blockade, a grating made of four-inch-thick bars of forged iron, beaten together in hammer welds.

Glome pounded on the barricade in a rage. “Cart track!” he shouted. “Rust and corrode the Daewar, they’ve made a gate of cart track!” Panting in frustration, he gestured angrily, “Open it!”

Other Theiwar and several Daergar came forward to peer at the gate, holding up torches. The light shone through the grating, gleaming on metalwork beyond where a pair of cable winches sat, beyond reach as were the spike-locks which sealed the gate to its deep slot in the cavern floor.

“We can’t open this,” a Daergar said. “It can only be opened from the other side.”

“Then cut it!” Glome roared.

“With what?” the Daergar asked, his voice a silky purr as he turned to face the Theiwar leader. “We brought no forging tools. No steel chisels or saws, only delving tools. You said that was all we would need.”