Dennis McCiernan - Into the Forge

Events are like stones cast upon waters: they make an immediate splash and waves ripple outward in ever widening circles, diminishing as they go. Significant events, like large stones, sometime send waves great enough to engulf those immediately in the path, perhaps to completely overwhelm them if they are not far enough removed from the event. Sometimes the stone is so very large as to affect the entire world (as the dinosaurs literally discovered).

It depends upon the size of the stone and its entry velocity as to whether the initial wave is enormous or minuscule. Yet whether we sink or swim does not necessarily depend upon the magnitude of this initial wave, nor, to a great extent, our distance from it, for the water is full of expanding ripples, some large, some small, all commingling, reinforcing here, negating there, and several tiny ripples can combine a half world away to cause a great effect-a butterfly effect-just as other waves great and small can completely nullify one another.

This tale is about stones cast upon waters and the intermingling of waves.

– Dennis L. McKiernan August 1996

Author's Notes

Into the Forge is the first book of the duology of Hel's Crucible. Along with the second book, Into the Fire, it tells the tale of the Great War of the Ban, as seen through the eyes of two Warrows, Tipperton Thistledown and Beau Darby.

It is a story which begins in the year 2195 of the Second Era of Mithgar, a time when the Rapt are yet free to roam about in daylight as well as night, although it is told that they prefer to do their deeds in darkness rather than under the sun.

The story of the Ban War was reconstructed from several sources, not the least of which were the Thistledown Lays. I have in several places filled in the gaps with assumptions of my own, but in the main the tale is true to its source material.

As occurs in other of my Mithgarian works, there are many instances where in the press of the moment, the humans, Mages, Elves, and others spoke in their native tongues; yet to avoid burdensome translations, where necessary I have rendered their words in Pellarion, the Common Tongue of Mithgar. However, in several cases I have left the language unchanged, to demonstrate the fact that many tongues were found throughout Mithgar. Additionally, some words and phrases do not lend themselves to translation, and these I've either left unchanged or, in special cases, I have enclosed in angle brackets a substitute term which gives the "flavor" of the word (i.e… and the like). Additionally, sundry words may look to be in error, but indeed are correct-e.g., DelfLord is but a single word though a capital L nestles among its letters.

The Elven language of Syiva is rather archaic and formal. To capture this flavor, I have properly used thee and thou, hast, dost, and the like; however, in the interest of readability, I have tried to do so in a minimal fashion, eliminating some of the more archaic terms.

For the curious, the w in Rwn takes on the sound of uu (w is, after all, a double-u), which in turn can be said to sound like oo (as in spoon). Hence, Rwn is not pronounced Renn, but instead is pronounced Roon, or Rune.

But Mithgar… Mithgar is yet wild, tempestuous, unkempt, savage, turbulent, exciting. We come here to feel alive.

Wha-? In the chill dark Tipperton started awake-What was that? He lay quietly and listened, straining to hear above the burble of the Wilder River, the water running freely beneath its sheath of winter ice. I thought I heard shing

There it is agai-! shing-shang… chang…

Distant metal striking metal. What th-?

Tipperton swung his feet over the edge of his bunk, and in the icy gloom stumbled from his bed and across the cold wooden floor-"Ow!"-barking his shin against a misplaced bench.

Shang-chang! Chnk! The clang of metal upon metal grew louder, as if coming this way.

He fumbled about on the table, knocking aside pots and pans as he searched for the lantern, while-Ching-chang!- the rattle and clash grew louder still, now mingled with guttural shouts and the thudding of feet.

At last among the trenchers and kettles Tipperton found the lantern, and just as he ineffectually flicked the striker, a high-pitched scream sounded, and something heavy thudded against the ground outside.

Tipperton flicked the striker again, and this time the wick caught. He lowered the glass and a yellow glow filled the mill chamber, illuminating the great overhead shafts and gears and wooden cogs that drove the massive buhr-stones, all now at a standstill, for the sluice weir was shut and no current flowed through the millrace and over the grand water wheel.

Yahh! Chank! Dring! Clang! Tipperton stepped to the door and slid back the crossbar and flung the portal wide just as-Thdd!-someone or something slammed against the mill wall, the entire structure juddering with the blow, sending a shower of grain dust drifting down from the cedar shakes above.

In nought but a nightshirt and holding his lantern on high, Tipperton stepped out upon the porch-"Hoy, now, what's all this racket?"-and in the dimness just beyond the reach of the glow he saw black shapes whirling in melee.

"Get back, you fool!" came a shout, even as a dark figure broke free from the tumult and hurtled toward Tipperton.

"Waugh!" The buccan leapt hindward, slamming the door to and ramming the crossbar home just as whatever had rushed at him crashed up against the shut wooden panel.

Feet thudded upon the porch, and window glass shattered inward as Tipperton darted across the chamber and snatched his bow from above the mantel of the hearth. Amid thuds and tromping and screams and shouts and the skirl of steel upon steel, swiftly the buccan strung the weapon. Seizing his quiver and leaving the lantern behind, Tipperton scrambled up a ladder to the catwalk above and raced to a sliding door in the wall and jerked the panel aside. In the frigid light of diamond winter stars and in the frosty rays of the pale quarter moon riding upward in the southeast, he clambered out into the snow-laden run of the wooden sluice, the blanket covering a thin layer of ice.

In that moment there sounded a shriek and a heavy crashing down… and lo! except for Tipperton's own hammering heart and gasping breath and the burble of water below the ice, all fell silent.

Arrow nocked and crouching low, Tipperton made his way to where he could see the front of the mill. Several dark shapes lay scattered and unmoving upon the snow, and two or three were slumped on the porch. Cautiously, Tipperton crept to a point above a millrace support and waited, the buccan shivering in the frigid cold, for his feet were bare and planted in snow lying upon ice, and he was yet dressed in naught but a nightshirt. Long moments passed, and all remained still. At last he climbed down the support ladder, and with bow drawn taut, and ignoring his numbing feet, he moved through the snow to one of the sprawled shapes.

It was a Ruck. Dead. Hacked by some kind of blade. The now glazed-over viper eyes staring upward.

Tipperton moved onward through churned-up snow, his gorge rising as he cautiously stepped past a dead, hamstrung, eviscerated horse-steam rising through the cold air-and among more slain Rucks: leather-clad, bandylegged, batwing-eared, dusky-skinned. Their dark ichor seeped outward upon the snow, and weapons-scimitars and cudgels-lay scattered. Most of the dead had been cut or pierced by a blade of some sort, though the skulls of one or two had been bashed in. And here, too, vapor rose from gaping wounds and spilled entrails steaming.

Arrow yet nocked, Tipperton came to the porch. Half on, half off the planking, another Ruck lay dead. And to the left and slumped against the door lay two bodies. The one on top was a Hlok-Rucklike but taller and with straighter limbs-pierced through by a sword, his body yet impaled by the blade; he still clutched a bloody tulwar in his dead hand. As to the other body, the one on the bottom, it -groaned -His heart leaping in alarm, Tipperton yanked his bow to the full and Wait! It's a man, a Human. Oh, Adon, look at the blood flowing.