Tom Liberman - The Hammer of Fire

Both of the guards looked at her for a moment and then dashed past the group and into the Hall of Relics.

“Can you say anything to a man that he doesn’t believe?” asked Brogus as the trio made their way quickly down the marble hallway, not quite running but not walking either.

“You are the most perceptive and handsome fellow I’ve ever met,” she said with a little pursing of her lips as she put her arm around the dwarf.

“Really?”

“No,” said Dol with a shake of his head as they continued their fast walk down the corridor. “Which way, Brogus?”

“You fools!” came a shout from behind them. “They’re getting away!”

“Don’t look back,” said Milli and put her arms around both of the dwarves, “keep walking. Maybe they won’t recognize us.”

“Turn here,” said Brogus. “We need to get into the mine shafts; luckily the Hall of Relics is pretty deep in the mountain. It’s not that far to the break in the wall. Come on, come on!” he said with an elevated voice as he took a quick glance backwards.

“Don’t look!” said Milli, but it was too late.

“There, there they are!” came a shout and the girl recognized the voice of Cleathelm, “it’s them. It’s Delius, the girl and that oaf Brogus! After them, you idiots, they’ve got the Hammer of Fire, they stole it!”

“Now we run,” said Milli.

The three broke into a sprint as they dashed around the corner towards a large pulley operated lift, Brogus headed towards it but Milli grabbed him by the arm, “No, you fool. They’ll pull us back up, the stairs, where are the stairs?”

Brogus looked to his right and said, “This way, around the corner, where are you going?”

Milli had boarded the lift, the big stone chamber was roomy enough to fit a dozen broad shouldered dwarves although not nearly the size of some of the mammoth elevators that brought up tons of ore and rocks from the deep mining operations, and was frantically pulling levers. With a lurch the thing suddenly started downward and the tiny halfling girl made a dash for the gate but the motion of the lift threw her off balance, her foot struck one of the controls, and she fell to the floor with a startled little cry.

“Milli,” shouted Brogus as he turned to the fallen girl, “You said don’t go in the lift! What are you doing?”

“Don’t stand there looking down my blouse, pull me out, you idiot,” said Milli looking up from the floor of the lift.

“I wasn’t…,” said the dwarf.

“Pull me out!” she screamed as the elevator began its descent down.

Brogus took two steps to the lift, fell onto his belly, and reached down to the girl. With a lunge Milli grabbed his hand and he yanked her up and out with a tug so hard that she actually flew through the air and landed face first against the hard stone. She sprang to her feet, blood already showing from a scrape above her left eye, “Down the steps, now, they’ll think we took the lift!”

The three dashed around the corner to an open passage that led to a series of marble stairs that went down twenty steps to a landing and then doubled back on itself. Each landing they passed contained a little alcove where a bust of a dwarf stood with a small iron plaque declaring his importance in the history of Craggen Steep.

“I’ve never taken the stairs before,” said Brogus, stopping to examine a particularly magnificent bust that depicted a fiercely scowling dwarf with a long scar above his right eye. “It says…,”

“Hurry up, you idiot. That lift trick won’t distract them long. How many flights down?”

“I’m not sure by stairs,” said Brogus with a shake of his head as he turned to Milli and Dol. “I know what level it is. Don’t the doors have numbers or something?”

“Come on then,” said Milli with a shake of her head. “This is the worst planned escape I’ve ever been a party too.”

“How many escapes have you been in on?” asked Brogus and even Dol gave a little chuckle.

“Did you just laugh?” asked Milli and turned to the short-haired dwarf and put her hands on her hips.

“No,” said Dol but he stopped to pull a small piece of cloth from one of his pockets and dabbed quickly at the blood on her forehead. “You’re bleeding.”

Milli reached up and touched the slick spot on her head, “It’s nothing, a girl has to have a scar or two to make her look rough. C’mon. How many levels down on the elevator was it?”

“About five, I’d guess,” said Brogus with a lingering last look towards the alcove and the impressive bust in it, “I wonder who that was. I never knew they put statues in the stairwells.”

“Between Dol’s stubbornness and you stupidity I’m not sure we’re going to make it out of Craggen Steep let alone to the south,” said Milli just as an echoed shout came from up above. “Hurry up, they’re coming.”

“Here it is,” said Brogus and pointed to a strange symbol on the stone door that exited the landing they came to in a rush. “We get off here and then it’s not too far.”

“Go one more down,” said Dol as he continued down the stone stairwell. “We’ll double back on one of the other stairwells.”

“Are there other stairwells?” asked Milli, but she followed Dol as he trundled down the stairs. He wore a thick glove, given to them just a short time before by Uldex, that glowed green and held the hammer with it. “Is it hot?”

Dol looked down at the hammer for the first time since he smashed the case and thought for a moment, “Not too bad, but I feel it.”

“The handle, it’s so small,” said Milli looking closely at the great weapon as they made it to the next landing and quickly darted through the door. “Where is this other stairwell?”

“It should be around the corner,” said Brogus. “We dwarves like to stick to the blueprint.”

“There it is,” said Milli as they came around the corner and found an open doorway, exactly like the one they just came through, down to the engravings on the silver door knob, and they quickly dashed back up to the floor above.

“What if they’re waiting for us?” asked Brogus as they stood for a moment on the landing. “They might know our plans.”

“Uldex promised me that he would distract the chase.”

“It doesn’t make any difference,” said Dol, a small frown on his face, and he immediately strode through the open doorway and into the corridor beyond. This deep in the mountain, the hallways lacked both the gleam and finish of the grand chambers above. The corridors didn’t have the smooth stone walls of the upper chambers and, in particular, the ceiling lacked the professional finishing that dwarves put on all their stonework.

“It’s a bit dank,” she said noting that the light stones embedded into the wall were further spaced than above and not of the same intensity.

“We’re too deep for fineries, these aren’t working mine shafts, that’s even further down, but nobody lives here, it’s just tapped out silver and gold veins,” said Brogus. I’ve been down here a hundred times and it gets worse the deeper we go. Come on, it’s this way.”

“Do you hear anything?” said Milli as she turned to Dol to find him carefully examining the hammer in his hand.

“What was that,” said Dol and looked up from the hammer with an unfocused gaze. “Did you say something?”

“Do you hear anything?” said Milli with a stamp of her little foot. She wore a pair of leather boots with wide toes that did not squish her feet. She didn’t often get a chance to put on the work boots but a young dwarf apprentice, she couldn’t remember his name, gave them to her as a gift a few years back. She remembered the disdain she had at the gift originally but now they proved their worth as the only pair of shoes she owned good for hiking and running.