T. H. Lain

The Sundered Arms

1

Bunny

Even hindered by his skirts, Devis quickly outran everyone.

“Wait until I get my hands on that half-elf,” growled Tordek as he watched the bard vanish down the dark street. No matter how he pumped his thick dwarven legs, the predominantly human mob at his back drew ever closer. Their murderous shouts grew louder than the clanking of his plate armor, and he could almost feel the heat of their torches on the back of his neck.

With a stride even shorter than Tordek’s, the halfling Lidda ran at his side. In her lightweight leathers, she could have easily left him behind, but she remained loyally at his side. Despite their peril, she could not suppress a grin as she shot back, “That’s what got us into this mess in the first place, hero!”

“Let’s…not…talk about it,” panted Tordek. “And I told you… never to call…me that!”

If the townsfolk caught up to them, Tordek knew Devis would escape while he and Lidda suffered their full wrath.

After his own death, Devis’s escape was the last thing Tordek wanted.

“You’re the one who kissed—”

A spear slammed into the road in front of Lidda. She threw herself to the side, tumbling deftly around the obstacle while barely breaking stride.

Tordek grunted his approval of her skilful maneuver without looking at her. Lidda beamed at the compliment, even as she, too, kept her eyes forward. She might have enjoyed the chase, but she knew as well as Tordek that they were running for their lives.

A hail of rocks fell around them, and one heavy cobblestone clanged off Tordek’s pauldron. It struck close enough to his head that he wished he’d worn his helmet into the tavern rather than leaving it in his wagon.

“Which way did he go?” he yelled. There was no sign of the half-elf or his conspicuously bright orange dress.

“This way!” shouted Lidda, veering to run between the cooper’s and the wainwright’s shops.

Tordek followed, trusting his companion’s sense of direction better than his own, at least above ground. The alley between the buildings was cluttered with empty barrels, stacks of timber, and wagon wheels. A thin corridor of moonlight drew a line from one end to the other. At the far end was an unpaved road leading away from Caravans Cross, toward the nearby farms. Dense woods loomed on either side, promising shelter from the eyes of the angry mob.

“Head for the trees!” called Lidda. “We can double back to the wagon once we’re out of sight.” She wasted no more breath but dashed ahead with a burst of speed. Just as she emerged from the alley, four big figures lunged at her from both sides.

Lidda shrieked in alarm and threw herself into a forward somersault. The men fell into a bone-crunching tangle of surprised shouts and flailing limbs as the nimble halfling rolled low and darted out from beneath their grasp. The men had missed their target, but as they sorted themselves out, the would-be ambushers ignored Lidda and turned to glower at the dwarf still trapped in the alley.

Torchlight spilled into the narrow passage between the buildings, and Tordek did not even have to look back to know that his pursuers blocked his escape. Their shouts subsided into the ominous mutters of a lynch mob that knew it had its quarry.

One of the burly men who stood between Tordek and the road yelped and clutched his head.

“You’ll catch the next one in the gnarlies if you don’t stand aside!” shouted Lidda. She held another stone high in warning.

Tordek knew the man might just as easily be dead if the halfling had used a sling to launch that missile. In his opinion, Lidda was far too kind to townsfolk and other dumb animals.

“Hurry, Tordek!”

“Always wear your helmet to town,” Tordek muttered, as if intoning a universal wisdom that would one day be inscribed on the hearthstone of every dwarven home. He lowered his head and charged straight toward the men barring his way. One of them raised a rake, while another defended himself with a stout oak quarterstaff. The other two crouched and held out their arms as if to grab an escaping hog.

Tordek barreled into them head first, knocking two to the ground and sending a third tumbling high over his shoulders to hit the ground with a thump. The man with the rake was canny enough to step aside, but when he raised his implement to stab down at the dwarf’s undefended back, he doubled over with a horrid, sobbing moan.

“I warned you,” said Lidda, dusting off her hands.

“Stop gloating,” warned Tordek, hastening past the dazed figures of his would-be captors. “They’re almost upon us.”

Without another word, they rushed across the road and toward the dark shelter of the woods, but it was too late. Two more clusters of torch-wielding townsfolk had already circled the buildings and closed in from either side. Tordek and Lidda could only put their backs to the woods and turn to face their doom together.

More than four dozen citizens of Caravans Cross converged on them. Those who didn’t carry torches bore quarterstaves or pitchforks, and a few held swords or the long spears of the volunteer militia. All of them glowered at the outsiders, their eyes filled with greed and hatred. No one could mistake their intentions for their trapped quarry.

The townsfolk brought along Devis, the bruises on his fair face already deeper than the rouge that had been his disguise. His yellow wig was gone, and the shoulder of his dress was torn away. The townsfolk hadn’t bound his hands, but the way his head lolled suggested that one of his captors had already given him a good rap on the skull.

“Are you prepared to meet your maker?” Tordek asked Lidda. He reached back to unsling his war axe from its loop on his back.

“Not really, no,” said Lidda. She made a quick flourish, and twin daggers appeared in her hands as if by a prestidigitator’s trick.

“Then stop playing patty-cake with these oath-breaking devils, and draw some blood! By Clangeddin’s Axe!”

Together, they screamed and raised their weapons as they charged toward their assembled foes.

Like a school of fish under a shark’s shadow, the townsfolk turned as one and fled back through the alley. They dropped everything as they ran, leaving behind only the creaking of the crickets and the sizzling of a half dozen torches dropped on the damp ground.

Tordek and Lidda gaped at their retreating foes. They turned to stare at each other, bewildered by the effect of their bluster on the formerly ferocious mob. Tordek looked down at Devis, who sprawled on the ground at their feet, still stunned by the blow to his head. It was obvious to Tordek that he had done nothing to send the townsfolk screaming back into their homes. He and Lidda looked back at each other, their astonished expressions gradually transforming into self-satisfied grins.

“Well, you were pretty fearsome,” said Lidda. “There’s nothing like a good dwarven war cry.”

“I should have known they would bolt,” said Tordek, glad despite his bluster that he did not have to slay the townsfolk. They might be cowardly cheats with no respect for the laws of hospitality, but the gods would punish them for those crimes. This way, at least the blood wouldn’t be on his hands or Lidda’s. “You weren’t bad yourself,” he told her. “Most terrifying halfling this side of Arvoreen.”

“You really think so?” said Lidda. She sheathed her daggers with a theatrical flourish. “You aren’t just saying that?”

“It’s true!” protested Tordek, slinging his axe. “Why, you nearly scared me.”

“Uh, pardon me,” said Devis. Struggling to disentangle his legs from the unfamiliar skirts, he rose unsteadily to his feet. “I don’t think they were afraid of the two of you.”

“What do you mean?” said Lidda, with genuine curiosity in her voice.

“Aye,” demanded Tordek. He planted the head of his axe on the ground and seemed far less interested in an explanation than in an immediate apology. “What else could send them running?”

Devis backed cautiously away as he pointed behind them. “That.”

Tordek and Lidda turned to see a mountain of rippling muscle under a thick, dark pelt. They looked up and saw a massive torso that must have weighed as much as ten Tordeks. They looked up more to see claws like black scythes. At last they looked up to a height greater than three dwarves, and they saw the savage face of a dire beast.

Lidda fell backward and scrambled away from the brute, soon outpacing Devis on her hands and knees.

“Oh,” said Tordek. He stood in the creature’s black shadow and crossed his wrists nonchalantly over the butt of his war axe. “Is that all?”

“Greetings, Tordek.” A voice like a warm breeze on a forest stream came from behind the monstrous wolverine. An elf emerged from behind the huge animal, her fair skin luminous in the moonlight. She wore tough hide armor and carried a wooden shield festooned with feathers and a great elk antler. She stroked the beast’s flank, and the animal dropped down to all fours. The top of its shoulder still loomed high over Tordek. “I hope Gulo has not frightened your friends too badly.”

Tordek glanced back to see Lidda and Devis huddled together, gradually regaining their courage as they saw him standing calmly beside the newcomers.

Tordek turned back to the elf and nodded at her, as if to an old but not entirely welcome acquaintance.

She nodded back. “It is time to settle old debts.”

An hour later, the four of them stood staring out from the woods at the burning heap that had been Tordek’s wagon.

“They stole my mules.” Tordek scowled at the flames.

“At least they only hurt the wagon,” observed Vadania. “It gave them something on which to vent their wrath. Better it than you.” The druid had sent Gulo away to forage while Devis and Lidda adjusted to the great beast’s presence. “Fortunately, I was able to retrieve your packs before they found the wagon.”

Tordek took his helmet from the pile of rescued belongings and set it gratefully upon his head. “I’ll not take this off again until Caravans Cross is a spot on the horizon.”

Devis straightened and tugged at the hem of his short jacket. He had already used the diversion of Gulo’s sudden appearance to slip back into the inn through a second-floor window and fetch his gear, forsaking his feminine garb in favor of quilted trousers and a one-sleeved jerkin. He also soothed his injuries with a song-spell, leaving his handsome face unblemished and his demeanor considerably merrier. Despite Tordek’s earlier threats, the half-elf seemed oblivious to the dwarf’s continued glowering.

“I care little for such towns,” said Vadania. “So many people packed so close together. It makes them mad.”

“We weren’t planning to stay the night,” said Tordek. “We were here only to collect our pay and move on.”

“Then everyone wanted to buy us a drink,” said Lidda. “ ‘A toast to the heroes of Caravans Cross!’”

“Heroes,” spat Tordek. His contempt for the word was palpable.

“Only it turned out what they really wanted was to get you drunk and steal back the bounty they paid for those bandits, eh?” Devis smirked.

“Oath breakers,” spat Tordek.

“Luckily for us,” said Lidda cheerfully, “you and Tordek had that little misunderstanding.”

“Hey,” said Devis. “That wasn’t my fault! He pulled me into his lap.”

“I thought he was a tavern wench,” said Tordek, looking away from Devis.

“Lady in waiting,” corrected Devis. He sighed dreamily. “To that raven-eyed beauty from the merchant lord’s entourage.”

“What is this?” asked Vadania, arching one silver eyebrow.

“Nothing,” said Tordek. “Just a mistake.”

“What a mistake!” cried Lidda. “The moment Tordek touched—”

“Lidda,” warned Tordek.

“—when he realized,” she amended, “that Devis here wasn’t really a woman, the husband of the lady you’d been ‘attending’ became awfully interested in you.”

“It wasn’t my fault!” protested the half-elf. “How was I supposed to know the girl was his wife? She could have been his daughter. His granddaughter, even!”

“It would have been all right if he’d seen you leaving the bath with his granddaughter this morning?”

Devis scratched his chin. “Not as bad. Besides, most of the time, the worst that happens is they insist you marry the girl.”

“Before or after they castrate you?” Somehow, Lidda managed to appear as though she were looking down on the half-elf, even though he was nearly twice her height.

Devis just grinned. “Doesn’t matter. I usually get away before the actual wedding.”

“Usually?” asked Lidda. “You mean you had to get married once?”

“Once or twice.” Devis shrugged.

“Once or twice!”

“All right, maybe it was six times,” he replied. “Anyway, no harm done. I got away with all my parts and bits.”

“You have six wives!” yelped Lidda. Her lip trembled in a quarrel between awe and disgust.

Tordek snorted and shook his head. “Disgraceful.”

“Say, dwarf,” said Devis indignantly. “You’re the one who tried to kiss me.”

“Not my fault you have such a pretty mouth,” said Tordek. “The dress fit you nicely, too.”

Devis grinned. “Well, I do have a pretty mouth.”

“I will call him Bunny,” said Vadania. The others looked at her to see whether she had cracked a smile, but the elf’s face remained serenely composed. “You know,” she added, “because bunnies tend to—”

“We get it,” said Lidda.

“Hey!” protested Devis. “I’m not sure that’s the kind of nickname I want to be stuck with.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t go hopping from burrow to burrow,” suggested Tordek. He hefted his pack and slung it onto his back, checking to ensure that its position did not impede his ability to draw his axe quickly.

“I like it,” said Lidda, giggling as she pulled her own pack onto her shoulders. “It’s sort of sexy.”

“You think so?” said Devis. “Bunny,” he tested the name. “Bunny. ‘Call me Bunny, sweetheart.’ Hmm, maybe it’s not so bad.”

Lidda and Vadania stared at each other for two heartbeats, then simultaneously burst out laughing. The halfling’s laughter was as cheery as sleigh bells, the elf’s as gentle as morning rain.

Tordek sighed and stomped away from Caravans Cross, leaving Devis to look from the elf to the halfling.

“What?”

As Devis stared at the women, they gradually regained their composure, looked at him pitifully, and turned to follow Tordek.

“Hey!” he called after them, grabbing up his own pack. “Where are we going?”

2

Tales

Tordek awoke to the smell of roasting venison. Peering toward the campfire, he spied Lidda turning juicy strips of meat on skewers stuck into the ground next to the campfire.

Beside Tordek, Devis snored gently under an oft-patched woolen blanket. Tordek thrust a stiff pair of fingers into the half-elf’s ribs.

“Rise and shine,” he said, poking Devis again. “Bunny.”

Grumbling, Devis began extricating himself from his bedding.

Tordek found the stream and washed himself, smoothing back his red hair with wet fingers. He felt the braids in his beard and decided they were still properly tight. He shook out his outer garments and re-secured his plate armor. By the time he went back to the fire, Vadania had returned from scouting their surroundings. She handed him a tin cup of strong tea.

“So it’s morning,” said Devis, warming his hands on his own steaming cup. “We’re miles away from that town. Now will someone tell us where we’re going?”

“You are not going anywhere,” said Tordek. “Not with us. This business is between me and Vadania.”

“Actually,” said the elf, “after last night’s rescue, I suggest that all three of you owe me a favor.”

Tordek scowled but did not dispute her claim.

“Sounds fair to me!” said Lidda. Tordek shook his head at how blithely the halfling promised her help, but he knew her well enough to realize she could never pass up an opportunity for adventure or treasure.

“Say, I didn’t ask to be rescued,” complained Devis.

“Perhaps you would like Gulo to take you back to Caravans Cross and return you to the merchant lord?” suggested Vadania.

“On the other hand,” allowed Devis, nodding toward Tordek, “I am curious why you went to the trouble of tracking down this sour-faced gargoyle.”

Lidda kicked his shin.

“Ow,” complained the bard, but he gave the halfling a flirty wink in return for her rebuke. She turned away a second too late to hide her pleased expression.

“Listen,” said Vadania, “and I shall tell you a story.”

“Yes!” Lidda clapped. “I love a good story.”

Tordek leaned forward attentively, and even Devis perked up at the prospect of a tale.

“Twenty-two days ago,” said the silver-haired elf, “the streams near my home began running red.”

“With blood?” gasped Lidda.

“Don’t interrupt,” said Devis, kicking at the halfling’s shin but missing.

“With iron slag and some stinking, steaming poison,” continued Vadania. “It sullied the water and killed the creatures that lived within it. I tracked the filth to the vents of an ancient dwarven stronghold.”

She paused as if for dramatic effect and watched Tordek for a reaction. At last, the dwarf spoke.

“Andaron’s Delve.” It was not a question.

“Aye,” said Vadania, “the very place.”

“I’ve heard of that,” said Devis. “The dwarves themselves turned against the master of the place, a blacksmith of fabled skill.”

“Andaron the Black,” said Tordek. “A name accursed for over three hundred years.”

“Why was he cursed?” asked Lidda.

Vadania shrugged, and Tordek stared at the fire, refusing to speak.

“In his pride,” said Devis, his voice falling into a taleteller’s cadence, “the smith-king forged a battery of arms for his most loyal thanes. Not content to invest the weapons with the meager blessings of Moradin—”

“Have a care, bard,” warned Tordek, displeased at any slight to the great god of his people.

“It’s a literal translation from the Dwarvish,” protested Devis, “not my personal opinion. Anyway, Andaron summoned an ancient demon, one Grolnark—or something like that—and commanded him to infuse his weapons with infernal power. It worked, or at least it seemed to work. Andaron granted the weapons to his greatest warriors. There were a pair of short swords, a greatsword, a dwarven urgrosh, and a mace.”

“A warhammer,” corrected Tordek. Pronouncing the word made his brows converge in a dark crease over his nose. Unconsciously, he reached beneath his armor and tugged out a leather thong threaded through six long finger bones.

“A warhammer,” repeated Devis, squinting at the necklace. “I had a feeling you knew more about this story than you were letting on.”

“The weapons are cursed,” said Tordek. “Those who wield them turn against their lords and allies. They become nefarious, oath breakers, lower than goblins.”

“Indeed,” said Devis. “They can never turn on each other, however, for those who have wielded the weapons of Andaron the Black become brothers in arms, bound by the same infernal enchantments that imbue their weapons with power. The weapons will not sunder the flesh of those who wield the others, and once one has taken a life with one of the arms, forever is he bound to the other armsbearers. At least, that’s what the legend says.”

“Once they saw how the weapons changed those who wielded them, the other clans realized Andaron’s folly,” said Tordek. “They turned against him and his dark champions in a short but bloody war. After Andaron was slain, they sundered the evil weapons and scattered the fragments. What is more, they buried the anvil on which they were shaped so that they might never be repaired.”

“Yet someone has lit the fires of Andaron’s Delve,” said Vadania. “The waste that pours from its grates is not simply iron slag. It is some noxious pollution, the excrement of foul magic.”

“Someone has restored Andaron’s hell-forge,” said Tordek. “Whoever it is must have found one of the cursed weapons.”

“I thought you said they were destroyed,” said Lidda.

“Only broken,” said Tordek. “They can never be destroyed by mortal hands, and thus their curse lingers on in tale-telling, luring foolish young dwarves to their doom as they seek to recover the lost weapons and employ their powers in chase of glory.”

“Did you?” asked Lidda. “Did you search for them?”

“Nay, not I,” said Tordek. He did not continue, and the other three stared at him from their places around the fire. For a long time, he said nothing. He only stroked the bones on his necklace. At last, their combined gazes broke his composure, and he said, “My brother, Holten.”

Devis and Lidda recoiled and grimaced at the bones around Tordek’s neck.

Tordek stared at them blankly for a moment before realizing the direction of their thoughts. “These are not my brother’s fingers!”

“Whew!” said Lidda.

“Glad to hear it!” said Devis.

“Whose are they?” asked the halfling.

“A demon’s,” said Tordek, glaring at one pointed finger bone before stuffing the necklace back down beneath his breastplate. “They belonged to the fiend who slew my brother.”

“So you killed the demon?” asked Lidda, a note of eagerness spoiling her somber facade.

“Nay,” said Tordek, “but one day, with Moradin’s allowance, I shall.”

Devis shivered with delight and snapped his fingers. “That does it. I’m in!”

“What?” said Lidda. “I thought you said—”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Devis, shaking his head and grinning. “What a great story this will make!”

“I don’t want your help,” said Tordek.” I want you singing the tale of this venture even less.” He scowled at the half-elf but would not look him in the eye.

“Perhaps not,” said Vadania, “but I do. We shall need all the assistance we can get. I came for you because you owe me a debt, and because it is said that the seals to Andaron’s Delve can be opened only by a dwarf.”

“Then how did someone get in to fire the forges?” asked Lidda.

“Perhaps someone came from the great below,” said Vadania. “The underdark.”

“Orcs,” suggested Tordek, nodding.

“Drow,” said Devis, both hopefully and fearfully.

“Or worse,” said Vadania. “Illithids, umber hulks, aboleths, aberrations of every—”

“Stop right there!” said Lidda, hugging her arms. “Name anything else with too much mucous and I’ll change my mind about helping you.”

Despite her admonition, excitement glimmered in her eyes. Tordek had seen that look before, and he knew that nothing would frighten the lithe halfling away from the prospect of adventure.

“Maybe it is another dwarf,” suggested Devis.

“Impossible,” grumbled Tordek. “No dwarf would break the taboo on such a place.”

“Well,” said Devis, “after all, it was a dwarf who summoned the demon and made the weapons in the first place. You said yourself that many dwarves have lost their lives searching for the weapons.”

Tordek growled at him.

Vadania looked from dwarf to half-elf and shrugged. “I do not know who relit the fires of Andaron’s Delve, and I found no opened seals. However, there were other signs of peril. A ranger I knew went to scout Andaron’s Delve soon after the river became tainted. I discovered his remains three days later in a patch of blackened forest large enough to hold six Caravans Crosses.”

“Dragon,” whispered Devis, a little too dramatically for Tordek’s liking.

The word was a charm to stave off further speculation as to the nature of the foes they would face. After a long silence, they quietly agreed to set out together after a quick inventory of their supplies. Vadania assured the others that she and Gulo could provide all necessary sustenance through hunting, but one glance at the remains of the deer Vadania had left for Gulo after breakfast made them wonder what would become of them should the gigantic wolverine be forced to go hungry.

Tordek insisted on an oath to divide equally any shares of treasure they might find in their quest. Lidda and Vadania were not surprised by the suggestion, but Devis found the proposal excessively formal. Lidda kicked the half-elf in the shins until he agreed to swear. Tordek intoned a simple oath in the Common tongue, but its cadences were purely dwarven. The others repeated it solemnly.

“By the gods who watch us,” Tordek added, “by Moradin’s beard and by our own honor, we swear not to wield the hammer of Andaron for ourselves.”

“What makes you think it’s the hammer?” asked Lidda.

“I just know,” said Tordek. He exchanged a conspiratorial look with Vadania, but neither elaborated.

“Right,” said Devis. “No problem. It will probably fetch a pretty price in New Koratia, and it’ll be easier to split the loot that way.”

“Idiot,” spat Tordek, “we won’t be selling it. We must shatter it and bury the pieces under the corners of the world.”

“What if we can’t break it?” asked Lidda. “You said mortals couldn’t destroy it.”

“In that case, we’ll hide it where it’ll never be found again.”

“What if we sell it to someone we trust to keep it safe?” suggested Devis. “Maybe some powerful lord would keep it under guard in his feast hall.”

Tordek stepped forward and grabbed the bard by his jacket. Lidda barely managed to wiggle her way between them.

“Boys, boys,” she said. “No need to quarrel. Just swear it, Devis. You’re in this for the story, remember?”

“Right,” said the half-elf. “I swear it. I swear it! We don’t keep the weapon, and we don’t sell it. All right, now?”

Tordek grunted and let him go, but his eyes were wary beneath his shaggy brows.

They marched across the western fields, stopping at midday for a brief dinner of sausages and ale from Tordek’s pack before continuing their journey. When they hacked through walls of brambles and felt scratches on their faces, Vadania healed them with a simple orison to Obad-Hai or nature itself. When their feet grew weary, Devis lightened their steps with a song about the adventures of mischievous Fharlanghn, the Dweller on the Far Horizon. Even Tordek sang along, his bass rumble providing an anchor for his companion’s high voices.

They reached Gossamer Wood an hour before dusk on the second day of their journey. Before they penetrated a hundred yards into the forest, the setting sun burnished the white webs that hung between the boughs, transforming them into veils of spun gold. Despite the implications of the obvious origin of the webs, the vision formed a glorious tableau that inspired Vadania to sing a dulcet praise to Ehlonna, Lady of the Forests. Devis provided a subtle counterpoint on his lute, and they entered the bower in a peaceful reverie that made Tordek nervous even as it lulled his companions. Even Gulo paused to rub his face upon the bark of an old oak, whuffling at the scent of forest pollen. This was the last sort of place in which they could afford to enchant themselves into a false sense of safety.

Before Tordek could decide how to bring his companions back to their senses, Lidda saved him the bother.

“Spiders are nasty,” she said, sticking out her tongue as they passed under the webs.

“I think they are beautiful,” said Vadania. She walked on blissfully, unaware of her companions’ pointed looks.

Everyone else walked a little farther away from the elf druid after her remark.

“Well,” said Vadania, finally noticing the effect her words had on her companions. “I do.”

They spread out to find a suitable campsite before nightfall. Soon after, the others came running when Devis began shouting, “Over here! Hurry!”

They found the bard standing over the corpse of an enormous spider, its body bigger than that of a pony. The vivid hues of its black-and-red carapace were faded, and crusty black trails of blood streaked down from the deep, triangular punctures all over its body. Beside it lay the clumped remnants of its demolished web and the cocooned bodies of its prey, apparently untouched by whatever predator had slain the arachnid.

“Oh, thank you very much,” said Lidda. “I was beginning to worry I wouldn’t have any nightmares on this trip before you showed us this. I’m not sure I like you anymore.”

“No, look,” said Devis. He crouched down and poked the dead spider with a branch.

Something wriggled beneath the softer flesh of the spider’s abdomen.

“Ah! Now I know I hate you,” said Lidda, making a great show of gagging.

“Burn it,” said Vadania. “Quickly”

“I thought you said spiders are beautiful,” said Tordek. Even so, he knelt and opened a tinderbox. Soon he was urging fire out of a spark from his knife and flint, and with it he ignited a torch. Vadania dragged the arachnid’s corpse and the detritus of its web away from a tree and cleared the brush beneath it. Afterward, she helped Devis pack kindling under the spider’s body.

Tordek lit the pyre on all sides and stood back with the others to watch it burn. The carcass whistled and popped as its flesh withered in the flames. The webs burned first, revealing a jumble of humanoid bones within the fat white sacs, along with thick leather armor and a spear. Soon the spider’s skin burned away to reveal dark, wriggling larvae imbedded in the flesh beneath.

“We will sleep safe from the web-spinners tonight,” Vadania told Lidda. “Spiders shun a place where one of them has fallen to a spider-eater.”

“Yeah?” said Lidda dubiously. “Maybe we should shun it, too.”

After they set camp nearby, Devis plucked out a bright tune while Lidda sat with her back to the fire, scanning the gloom for any sign of beady spider eyes gleaming in the forest. Despite the bard’s frequent attempts to turn his song about a brave young lad into a tale of a courageous halfling facing the wicked spider queen, Lidda remained wary and restless.

“I’m not afraid of them,” she insisted. “I just don’t like ’em.”

After a supper of pan bread and the last strips of venison, Vadania and Tordek took turns minding the smoldering remains of the dead spider lest its last embers leap out onto new tinder. Eventually, assured that the fire would not spread, they returned to camp where they found Lidda finally, reluctantly asleep beside the campfire. Devis put a finger to his lips as he finished tying the strings of his padded lute bag.

“I’ll take first watch,” he mouthed, pressing the tip of his thumb into his chest.

Tordek shook his head. “I’ll wake you later.”

Devis shrugged and smiled his thanks before lying down beside the banked campfire. As he snuggled into his worn blanket, Tordek and Vadania found a spot just beyond the dim firelight and sat back-to-back, each watching the opposite direction as they spoke in whispers.

“Goblins?” said Tordek.

Vadania made an affirmative hum. “Not the same ones, surely. Their lives are so brief, and it has been so long.”

“Perhaps,” said Tordek. His fingers moved as of their own will to the thong around his neck. They spoke no more throughout the long, quiet hours of the night.

3

Croaker Norge

Four days later they skirted the northern shores of Adder Lake and turned south to find a naked road, muddy from the steady summer drizzle that had followed them since the previous night. Except for the ruts carved by the occasional passage of wagons over the course of decades, it was barely more than a path marked with crude milestones. After counting six of them, they came to a forking path where Devis found a fallen post with three pairs of nails. On the ground nearby he found a pointed sign whose faded paint read “New Koratia, 80 Leagues.” Lidda pulled a second sign from the muck. “Croaker Norge,” it read. “6 Leagues.”

“Which way?” asked Tordek.

Vadania pointed west. “Toward the fens.”

“Joy,” grumbled Devis, “and me without netting for my tent.”

“Without a tent, even,” said Lidda. “Don’t be such a dandy.”

“Besides,” said Vadania, “the mosquitoes will not pester us while it rains.”

Less than an hour later, the rain stopped.

As the day wore down, the ground to either side of the road grew increasingly damp. Even Gulo remained on the road, where before he had been happy to stray just out of sight of his two-legged companions. Where they had seen occasional streams, now they passed more and more still ponds, many darkened by black, buzzing clouds.

“Why does anyone live here?” complained Devis, slapping his bare arm and grimacing at the three bloody stains where the tiny bloodsuckers had been perched.

“Mud,” said Vadania.

“What?”

“Clay, actually. For years the swamp folk sold the finest clay to potters in New Koratia.”

“What happened?” asked Lidda.

“I know little of such things. Prices dropped, fashions changed, the gods frowned.” The druid shrugged. “What I do know is that those who remained can barely eke out a living.”

“Why do they stay?” asked Lidda.

“Because it’s home,” suggested Tordek.

“That’s no good reason,” replied the halfling. Behind her, Devis nodded agreement. Vadania looked to Tordek for support, and a look of old veterans among striplings passed between them.

They camped near the road that night, for they could find precious few dry spots in the marshy terrain. With nightfall, a choir of frogs kept up an incessant serenade. The sound seemed to soothe Lidda, who had been complaining of spider dreams since they emerged from the Gossamer Wood, but the constant noise put Tordek on edge. He became downright irritable when Vadania took her reverie on first watch, leaning back into Gulo’s vast flank as she closed her eyes, leaving Tordek with only the bard for company.

For hours, Devis pestered him for more details on the fall of Andaron’s Delve, but Tordek was in no mood to humor the half-elf. Unlike most of human blood, Devis did not seem to understand that Tordek wished to sit in silence. Despite the dwarf’s refusal to answer his inquiries with anything other than a short grunt, Devis continued to press him for the details of Holten’s ill-fated quest for Andaron’s warhammer.

“What a song it would make!” urged Devis. “The honor-bound dwarf avenges his brother’s death.”

Tordek grunted. To any dwarf the sound plainly said, Be quiet, you nattering fool.

The ground pattered with rain once more, a cool shower that did little to improve Tordek’s mood. At least, he hoped, it would quiet Devis. The hope was fleeting.

“Just tell me what kind of demon—”

“Hush,” said Tordek, holding up a hand and pretending to listen to the night sounds of the swamp.

Devis obeyed, cocking his head as he listened for some sound amid the constant croaking. After a long minute, he whispered, “I don’t hear anything.”

“You had better have a look around. With the moon so thin, I can’t see a thing out here.”

“Think there’s something out there?”

“No idea,” said Tordek, honestly enough. “You can never be too careful. You had better make several circuits before returning.”

“Good plan,” said Devis. He rose silently and crept away to stalk the perimeter, peering in all directions with his keen, half-elven eyes.

Tordek allowed himself a faint smile as he settled back against the bole of a black oak. By the time Devis was finished scouting the campsite, it would be time to wake Lidda, and he could have some peace at last.

Less than an hour after breaking their fast and resuming their trek, they spied the first columns of black smoke upon the leaden sky. Soon after, the acrid smell of burned wood overcame even the earthy stink of the marshland. These twin harbingers steeled them for the sight they encountered as they reached the remains of Croaker Norge.

The rain of the previous night had smothered most of the fires but only four houses remained standing, and two of those had lost most of their thatched roofs. The rest were a black cemetery of cinders and withered beams where a community of more than twenty homes had been. Soot mingled with the road mud to form a dark morass between the ruins. Nothing stirred among the wet ashes until a whimpering yellow dog came padding down the street with a severed hand in its jaws.

“Here, boy,” called Lidda, scrunching her nose at the dog’s gruesome prize. The dog whined and shied away.

Vadania pointed with her chin to send Gulo back, out of scent range, then she walked away from the others and squatted low to the ground, reaching out with one hand to beckon the dog. When the skittish animal still would not come to her, she chanted a spell.

Tentatively at first, then more confidently, the creature approached her. When it came near, it dropped the grisly parcel at her feet. Vadania stroked the dog’s head, scratched under its chin, and picked up the severed hand.

She showed it to Tordek.

“Definitely goblin,” he said. The ruddy hand was smaller than a dwarf’s and larger than a halfling’s, with ragged, dirty nails and warty knuckles.

“At least somebody here got a lick in before the end,” observed Devis.

“So where are all the bodies?” asked Lidda.

“Good question,” said Tordek. “Let’s have a look around.”

Vadania and Devis ranged outside the village while Tordek and Lidda searched among and between the remains of the buildings. At first they found a few incinerated corpses scattered in and around the ruined buildings. Soon after, they discovered the mound of the main pyre still smoldering between the blackened foundations of razed cottages. They counted another sixteen bodies, big and small, bringing the total to just over twenty dead. From some of the corpses jutted sharp, slightly curved spikes, like short javelins. Others had crushed skulls or severed limbs. Judging from the number of burned homes, Tordek reckoned the total number of dead accounted for no more than half the village population.

The furnishings inside the surviving buildings were smashed and overturned. A few hastily inscribed glyphs were smeared on the walls: obscenities and threats.

“Goblin work,” snorted Tordek.

“Yeah,” agreed Lidda. Even in the few months the two had spent together, they had seen much of the same carnage in other villages, where the people had hired them too late to save them from the raiders.

In one of the two least-damaged buildings, Lidda spotted a trail of sooty footprints leading into the kitchen and back out again. She pointed them out to Tordek.

“A child,” he observed.

The halfling nodded and held a finger to her lips as she followed the tracks outside and around to the back of the cottage. They ended at the mouth of a storm cellar, its gray, wooden flaps shut fast. Lidda pressed one pointed ear to the door and listened. She crept back from the cellar and whispered, “I heard breathing. At least three people, maybe four or five.”

Tordek nodded, unslinging his war axe.

Lidda gaped at him. “What’s the matter with you?”

“They could be hostages,” Tordek whispered back.

Lidda considered that point and reluctantly shrugged agreement. “All right,” she said. “Just let me go in first.”

Tordek didn’t argue because the last time they tried strength before stealth, Lidda had very nearly come out of that situation a quarterling. At last he nodded, mouthing, “Be careful.” He took a spot beside the cellar doors, the haft of his axe upon his shoulder.

Lidda lifted one of the doors by the bottom rather than the handle. It rose only an inch before the bar caught, but that was enough to see that it was a poor defense indeed. It looked as though someone had slipped a broom through the handles on the other side.

With a gesture, Lidda told Tordek that they were changing the plan. He nodded back, and she called, “Hello in there! Whoever attacked you is gone. We mean no harm. It’s safe to come out.”

After a long pause with no reply, she added, “Really. We could help if you’re hurt.”

Another silence followed. Tordek rolled his shoulders and bent his knees to keep from being caught flat-footed should someone suddenly burst out of the cellar.

At last they heard the sound of the bar sliding out from the inner handles, and a reedy old voice called, “Stand back from the door. I want to see you first.”

“All right,” said Lidda. She took a few steps back so as to be in full view of those inside.

Tordek sidestepped to avoid the opening door, wincing as he heard the faint creaking and clatter of his armor. “Bother!” he muttered as his presence became obvious, stomping over to join Lidda in plain sight.

The door opened a few inches, and a pair of bright blue eyes peered out at Lidda. The halfling returned the gaze with a winning smile. She said, “It’s all right to come out now. There are only two of us here. Our friends have gone to scout around the village.”

The doors swung fully open, first one and the other. Standing between them was a one-legged human woman holding a bow, the arrow pointing at the ground between Lidda and Tordek. A girl of no more than twelve years stood beside her, bracing the old woman on the side of her missing leg. In the shadows behind them crouched a pretty, older girl with her arms around two smudge-faced boys no taller than Lidda. One of the boys had the broad features and deep skull of a dwarf.

The woman chewed her cheeks as she apprised the armed and armored strangers. Her face was tough as an oak knot, and the arms that bent her bow were strong for a woman half her age. Tordek wondered whether any of his companions could have held it so long without wavering. The woman’s gaze flicked over the swords at Lidda’s hips, the shortbow on her back. It lingered even longer on Tordek’s huge axe and the mighty longbow slung upon his back.

“What brings you to Croaker Norge?” she demanded.

“We were passing through on the way to Andaron’s Delve,” said Lidda. “We saw the smoke and thought we might help the survivors.”

Again, the woman looked suspiciously at their weapons.

“There’s a healer with us,” Lidda offered.

The woman’s untrusting demeanor softened slightly, but her expression hardened once again as she raised her bow to point the arrow at a spot just past Tordek’s shoulder. Tordek whirled to face the danger, unslinging his axe and raising it to guard in a fluid motion.

Devis approached, raising his empty hands in the universal gesture of surrender. He seemed less concerned by Tordek’s axe than by the direction of the old woman’s arrow. He winked at her and smiled. The gesture was lost on Tordek and Lidda, but it made the old woman lower her aim to the ground once more.

“My name is Devis, fair lady,” the bard bowed low with a courtly flourish. He walked to the cellar and offered the woman his arm. “If you would permit me the honor…”

Tordek and Lidda stared as the old woman relinquished her weapon to the girl at her side. She looped her hand through the crook of the bard’s arm and allowed him to help her up out of the cellar.

“It’s got to be a spell,” said Lidda out of the side of her mouth.

“Hmm,” agreed Tordek.

“I would never fall for that folderol.”

Tordek grunted another affirmative then wished he had kept his silence as the halfling’s face brightened in remembrance.

“You found him fetching when you thought he was a woman,” said Lidda. “Didn’t you?”

Tordek frowned. He returned his axe to its sling and ushered the rest of the children out of the cellar.

“Seriously, how does he do it?” persisted Lidda. “I mean, what was the first thing that attracted you to him in the tavern?”

“Drop it,” warned Tordek.

“Oh, come on. It’s funny.”

“Not in front of the children.”

“I bet they’d think it was funny, too.”

“Lidda.”

She laughed, and her delight infected the children, brightening their fearful faces for the first time since they emerged from the cellar. She gave Tordek one last, mischievous look before giving up. “Killjoy,” she said.

The old woman’s name was Kerel, and she was no relation to the children who had survived with her in the cellar. Except for a brief sortie to fetch food from the kitchen, they had remained hidden after the assault, fearing that the raiders would return to finish looting the remaining buildings.

“The attack began two and a half hours before dawn,” she reported. Tordek liked Kerel’s precise description. She spoke as if reporting to a commanding officer, and in fact she told them she had once served in the New Koratian army. “At first there were cries of fire. By the time I came outside, half the houses were burning. There were at least thirty goblins, many of them with torches, but the fire came so fast that something else must have started it.”

“Drink this,” said Devis, handing her a steaming cup. Kerel looked around to see that all the children had hot drinks before she gratefully sipped hers.

“Vadania should have returned by now,” noted Tordek.

“She took wing to survey the surrounding area,” said Devis. “We found a dead ox with some nasty bites in it. She says to burn them before we leave.”

“More of those spider-eaters?” Tordek asked.

Devis nodded.

Tordek turned back to Kerel. “Did you see any unusually large insects with the goblins?”

“Aye,” she said. “Mostly we heard them buzzing around above the firelight, but I saw some of the goblins riding the things. They looked hard to control, especially around the fires, and they left after most of the men were captured. They took only the strongest men and boys and killed the rest, but it was obvious that the one they wanted most was Kurdag, our smith. They captured him and his two elder boys first, beating them down and shackling them hand and foot. They stuffed them into a cage carried off by most of those giant bugs all together. This is Kurdag’s youngest son, Bandar.”

The dwarf boy squared his jaw and stared stoically ahead. Tordek knew how he must feel, torn between the desire for revenge and the shame of having escaped his kin’s fate.

“Did you see their commander?” asked Tordek.

Kerel considered the question. “No, not a commander as such. Mayla saw something else among the goblins. Tell them, lass.”

“It was horrible,” said the elder of the girls. She had freckles on her nose and shy eyes the color of cornflowers. “It was riding one of the monstrous bugs. At first I could only hear its voice, cackling at the slaughter as it flew its mount closer and closer to the flames. That’s when I saw the rider appear out of nowhere. It was smaller than a child, but horrible, with oozing green skin and these wretched horns.”

“There, there,” said Devis, taking Mayla’s hand and sitting close by her side.

Tordek wanted to kick the bard in the seat of his tight pants, and from the look on her face he surmised that Lidda was entertaining similar thoughts. Tordek said, “Let her finish.”

The girl seemed brave enough despite the recent trauma, but she welcomed the consoling shoulder Devis offered. She gave him a sad, grateful smile and continued. “It clung to the saddle with its feet and beat the insect with a little stick, driving it down closer to the flames until its wings caught fire. It had its own wings and hovered there in the flames after the bug fell. It was hooting and cheering, telling the goblins what to do, ordering them to…kill everyone.”

“I gathered those that I could,” said Kerel, putting her arm around the young girl who had supported her earlier. “Jaylee was helping me get them down to the cellar when we saw Mayla staring at the monster in the flames. When it looked at her, we could almost see the hairs standing up all over her body. There was something of the abyss in that thing’s eyes.”

“I don’t know what happened to me then,” said Mayla. “I was so frightened that I ran. I think I must have screamed.”

“That you did, my dear,” said Kerel, “but so did every last, living soul within thirty paces of the wicked little creature, even the goblins. Luckily, you ran right past us, and we were able to bring you down into the cellar before it thought to come looking for you.”

“What was it?” asked Lidda, her eyes wide in thrilling horror. “A demon?”

Kerel shrugged. “Don’t know what else, if not that. Anyway, we saw no more of it that night, though we heard far more than we’d have wished. We barred the door and tried covering our ears while we prayed for deliverance. Eventually, Pholtus sent us the dawn.”

“Then you came,” said Mayla, looking up at Devis. He smiled back at her.

Lidda coughed violently.

“You say they used most of the spider-eaters to carry the cage with the smiths?” said Tordek.

“That’s how it looked to me,” said Kerel. “The rest of the goblins were preparing to drive the captives out of town on foot.”

Overhead, a hawk screamed as it wheeled over the village, slowly descending toward them.

“She’s back,” said Tordek.

The villagers looked on in wonder as the hawk glided to a graceful landing atop a nearby fence. The creature folded its vast wings then ruffled them briefly as if shaking off a wet rain cloak. Afterward, the bird appeared strangely altered, with longer legs and a much bigger body. Its feathers shrank and turned to a long, white mane along its head and neck. It shook its wings again, and what looked like feathers earlier were now the ragged edges of a fur cloak, its talons transformed into fine white hands. After one final shake of her shoulders, Vadania sat upon the fence where the hawk had just perched.

Devis made a gallant exchange of introductions, cut short by dirty looks from Tordek and Lidda. Tordek summarized what they had learned from the survivors.

“I spied the raiders with their hostages on my flight,” said Vadania. “They are trudging across the fens.”

“Which way?” asked Tordek.

“To the northwest, toward Jorgund Peak. They move slowly. We could overtake them by midday.”

“Oh no,” said Mayla, clutching Devis’s arm. “You mustn’t follow there.”

“Why?” said Tordek before the half-elf could answer. “What lives there?”

“Troglodytes,” said Kerel, “and worse. That must be why they chose to travel by daylight. Sandrine comes out only at night.”

“Sandrine?” said Devis, dropping Mayla’s hand and leaning eagerly toward Kerel. “Cold Sandrine, the poisoner’s daughter?”

“You’ve heard the tale?” said Kerel.

Mayla pouted at the sudden loss of the bard’s attention.

“Heard it? Why, I must have sung it a hundred towns, and twice before princes.”

“Is it a long song?” asked Lidda, making no effort to disguise her satisfaction at Mayla’s sudden abandonment.

“There is a long version, yes,” said Devis.

“We’ll hear the other one,” said Tordek.

“Just the salient points, please,” added Vadania.

The bard opened his mouth to protest, but when he saw both the dwarf and the elf staring pointedly at him, he acquiesced with a defeated huff. “Very well. Scorned woman wants revenge on the man who jilted her for another. Sends the fellow a poisoned mince pie, supposedly from his intended. The man dies horribly. Gurg. Gah. The whole town knows it’s Sandrine to blame, so they chase her out into the fens. It’s winter, so she freezes to death, but just before she dies, she prays to Nerull the Reaper for revenge on the villagers. Nerull grants her life after death so she can prey on fickle men by luring them into the swamp and drinking their blood.

“There,” he concluded with a disgusted glance at Tordek and Vadania. “Short enough for you?”

“Perhaps a little too short,” suggested Vadania. “What manner of creature is she? A vampire?”

Devis shrugged, adopting an offended air. “I thought you didn’t want to be troubled with such trivial—”

“He doesn’t know,” said Tordek. “Do you?”

“Sounds like a vampire to me,” said Devis. His indignant expression crumbled under Tordek’s glare, and he added, “but no one knows.”

“She is deathless,” said Kerel. “That much is sure. Whether by sorcery or some unholy bargain, no one knows. Those who might have learned did not return to tell their tales, thank Pelor.” She drew the circle of the sun god over her heart to ward off evil.

Tordek turned to the old woman. “This Sandrine—whatever foul thing she has become—she lives in this swamp?”

Kerel nodded. “I knew her sister. She was an old woman when I was Jaylee’s age.”

“Then it’s true about the luring and the drinking?” asked Lidda.

Kerel shrugged. “Every few years, hunters find the bloodless body of a young man out near Sandrine’s cottage. There are warning totems, for even the trogs know how dangerous she is. Despite the warning, some young fools from the village still go there on dares and stories of buried treasure.”

“Not anymore,” said Bandar, gazing out at the smoking ruins and the black remains of the pyres.

The young dwarf’s words cast a pall over the gathering, and no one had anything more to say before Tordek and his companions gathered their packs to set off once more.

4

Territories

Tordek swept his war axe completely through the first defender and let the powerful momentum carry the blade past to cut off another of the wretches at the thigh. Four big, bloody pieces of goblin splashed to the marshy ground.

Tordek glanced up to see Lidda’s green-fletched arrows fairly streaming at the main body of guards. The goblins screamed impotently as the swamp grass clutched their legs and held them to the ground. Her spell completed, Vadania joined the halfling in picking off the trapped goblins one by one with keen sling bullets that wounded where they did not cripple and crippled where they did not slay.

Behind the fierce women, the captives from Croaker Norge scrambled for cover. Most of them were still bound with leather shackles and collars, but they wasted no time getting away from their entangled captors.

Devis felled one foe with a shot from his crossbow then darted past Tordek to stand between the village captives and the goblins that weren’t entangled by Vadania’s spell. Tordek grunted his approval. Initially he had feared that the bard might do little more than cheer the attack with a song or stand back and fling a few spells with his lute, but it was good to see that Devis did not quail at the prospect of toe-to-toe combat.

The goblins recovered quickly from their initial surprise at the ambush, and the survivors formed a rough wedge as they advanced on Tordek and Devis. The leader tumbled backward with the shaft of one of Lidda’s arrows protruding from his eye, but the remaining goblins charged the attackers that stood between them and their captives.

The half-elf’s slender blade dipped in and out of his foe’s guard, plucking splashes of blood from the goblin’s unarmored face and arms. Devis barely seemed to move, but wherever he leaned or turned, the goblin spears missed him by a coin’s width. A few that might have grazed the bard glanced aside, and for an instant the pale blue outline of his mage armor shimmered brightly.

Tordek fought much more directly. He caught the enemy blades on his shield and shoved them aside to form an opening for his axe. Wherever the heavy blade fell, it left ruined armor and gore in its wake. He split the skull of his first foe with an overhand thrust and shoved hard with his shield as a pair of goblins strove to pull it away and give their fellows an opening. Even in twos and threes, the goblins were too weak to withstand Tordek’s battle-hardened strength. He bellowed with blood-glee when a fallen goblin’s skull cracked under his boots, and he advanced into the fray.

After the initial clash, Devis stepped back and let Tordek lead. The dwarf welcomed the doubled odds, feinting an overhand chop but instead kicking his nearest enemy in the chest. As that one fell, Tordek redirected his balked swing, breaking another goblin’s boiled-leather helmet and smashing the skull within. As from a distance, he heard Lidda’s joyous shout, the thrup of her bow, Vadania’s sweet voice turned savage in chant, and Gulo’s terrifying roar. The din was but a murmur beneath the triumphant pounding of Tordek’s heartbeat. His blood surged hot and rhythmic through his warrior’s frame. He felt the beat of war-drums in his belly.

Before he could give himself up to the rapture of combat, the fight was over. All the war-heat drained from Tordek’s body as he gazed over the battleground.

Everything was gloom and shadow under the cloud-veiled sky, through which the sun was little more than a silver coin above the swamp. Although the trees were never so dense as to bar the way, the mist was so thick that they could see no farther than a few dozen yards in any direction.

Tordek trudged across the field, watching for pretenders among the fallen foes. Every second step was a gray puddle or a patch of the smelly mud that was already oozing into Tordek’s boots.

A quick tally told him they had slain fourteen goblins, but more might have lain trampled beneath the muck. Tordek had a small cut on the bridge of his nose. A goblin arrow hung from Vadania’s cloak, though it seemed to have missed her body. From her shield jutted a few more arrows, and the sight reminded Tordek to look down at his own. It bristled like an angry porcupine. The others appeared completely uninjured.

Tordek spied a movement in the grass to the east—a motion contrary to the breeze. Before he could call out a warning, Lidda sent an arrow toward the disturbance. The first shot evoked a frightened yelp, but the second stilled the movement.

“Gulo!” called Vadania, standing tall atop a clump of grassy earth. She pointed at the spot where the arrow fell, and the gigantic wolverine surged forward, a mountainous wave of flesh. When its jaws found the wounded goblin beneath the grass, even Tordek had to turn away from the creature’s quick, brutal demise.

“We are the best!” crowed Lidda, leaping with delight as she stood among the rescued villagers. They had anticipated at least a few casualties among the prisoners before they launched their attack on the goblin captors. Thanks to Vadania’s immobilizing spell and the swiftness with which they dispatched the goblins, every one of the men and boys taken from Croaker Norge now stood shaken but alive. They stared at their saviors with awe and gratitude but also with more than a little fear. They looked weary from the march of a night and most of a day, and their faces were blackened by the smoke of their razed village.

“Wait a moment,” said Tordek. “Did someone remember to keep one of the buggers alive?”

“Of course, my fearless friend,” said Devis with a flourish of one hand. Just when Tordek was beginning to think the bard might be more useful than annoying, the half-elf had to take on those courtly airs once more. Devis beckoned to a nearby stand of pussy willows. “Come on out, little fellow.”

Fearfully, a particularly small and ugly goblin emerged from the reeds. One of its arms—unnaturally short—was bound to its chest with dirty, blood-crusted bandages. Tordek noted with grim amusement that he had probably seen the goblin’s hand back in Croaker Norge.

“Let’s find out what he knows,” said Devis, beckoning his new “friend” closer. Tordek had seen the effect of charm spells before, and he knew the goblin would be no friendlier to him or the women. Only Devis would seem to be its ally and only so long as the spell endured. Still…

“Leave him to me,” said Tordek. He set his axe aside and pulled the goblin close by the collar of his studded leather armor. The creature’s teeth were yellow where they weren’t black, and its breath stank of decay.

Devis stepped close and put a hand on Tordek’s pauldron. “Maybe it would be easier if I were to—”

“Go help the others get the villagers sorted out,” snapped Tordek.

White flecks of spittle appeared on the goblin’s face. The captive flinched. This would not take long, he thought. Just to make sure, he smacked the crippled goblin sharply in the face.

“Tordek?” called Vadania.

He did not even turn to look at her. He had no time for qualms about the way he chose to interrogate this wretch. “Later,” he said to her. Turning back to the goblin, he demanded, “Where were you going?”

The captive did not immediately reply, and Tordek grasped the goblin by the crotch and throat. He lifted the smaller creature completely off the ground before hurling it back down with a bone-crunching impact. If not for the soft, black muck of the swamp, the blow might well have broken the goblin’s back. The creature gasped and whined, trying to climb back up to its feet, a difficult feat for a goblin with only one hand. Before it could stand, Tordek grabbed it by the face and lifted it up again, one-handed.

“I’ll ask only once more,” he warned. “Answer me, or be damned.” He gripped the goblin’s jerkin with his other hand and released its mouth.

“The dwarven delve!” yelped the goblin in the common tongue.

“This is important,” interrupted Vadania again.

Tordek snapped his head around to glare at the intruding druid. “What is it?”

“We’ve found some tracks,” she said.

“Good,” said Tordek. “We’ll follow them as soon as I’m finished inter—”

“Lizard tracks,” said Vadania. “Two-legged lizards, probably troglodytes. From the look of them, we are in their hunting grounds.”

“We’ll be gone long before they return.”

“The tracks are fresh,” she insisted.

“All right then,” said Tordek. “I’ll make this quick.”

“Lidda is sending the villagers back immediately,” added Vadania.

She stepped close to look into Tordek’s face, but he kept his gaze locked on the goblin, striving to burn his hatred into the creature’s skull by force of will. Vadania’s words seemed far away.

“We can’t keep guarding them all, and it will be dark soon.”

“All right. Just give me a few more moments.” He put his face right up to the goblin’s scabby visage. “Who led you there?”

The goblin shrieked a protest in its native language. Unlike some of his kin, Tordek never bothered to learn the corrupt tongue of the least of the dwarves’ eternal foes. Lidda could talk their gutter-speech, but he preferred not to have a translator for this. It made the goblin work harder to tell the truth, and that pleased Tordek. He shifted his grip again, digging his hard fingers into the goblin’s armpits.

“Who?”

“Har—!” shrieked the goblin. Twin fears fought over the word in its mouth like two feral dogs over a bone. Perhaps the goblin thought its master was more fearsome than Tordek. Perhaps it would need a lesson to correct that mistake.

“Tordek!” said Vadania. The elf’s normally cool voice was shrill with urgency, but Tordek barely heard it. He felt as if his head was spinning, and hot blood surged just behind his bulging eyes.

“What did you say?” roared Tordek, squeezing the goblin so hard that he felt the creature’s ribs begin to creak.

The goblin gurgled, “Harg…Harg…”

As his fury grew, Tordek wanted nothing more than to crush a skull between his fists, no matter that this particular goblin was not the foe he truly wanted to murder.

“Tordek!” shouted Vadania, shoving him hard and pointing at the ground. “Look!”

Tordek shook his head, but the gesture did little to dispel his dizziness. Looking down where Vadania directed, he saw that he was standing in a deep depression in the mud.

“What?” he said, keeping a tight grip on the squirming goblin.

“Step back and look,” said Vadania.

He did as she instructed and realized the depression was actually a gigantic, three-taloned footprint. From its middle toe to the dewclaw, the print was nearly as tall as Lidda. After a good rain, any two of the companions could have taken a bath in the concavity. Water was only just beginning to ooze into the print, and Tordek didn’t need Vadania’s wood-cunning to understand that meant the track was fresh.

Tordek stared for a moment, his mind unable to calculate the size of the monster that must have left that print.

“We have to leave,” said Vadania. “Now.”

Tordek nodded dumbly, still stunned by the size of the footprint. He lowered the goblin to the ground but maintained a grip on its collar.

“Does he have the hammer?” Tordek demanded.

Without warning, the goblin leaped at him, knocking Tordek back a step. The anger came rushing back into his limbs, but before he could retaliate, he felt the burning-cold spot on his ribcage and saw the other side of the short javelin protruding from the goblin’s back. From the butt of the weapon dangled fetishes of frog bones and vulture feathers.

Tordek realized the goblin had not attacked him after all.

Vadania helped him pry the dead goblin away. The corpse took with it the javelin that had penetrated its entire body with enough force to pierce Tordek’s armor and sink deep into his side. Only after the shock of the goblin’s final, sudden, and involuntary lurch began to fade did the wound begin hurting.

The druid called a warning to the others as she and Tordek crouched for concealment. A few more javelins arced down from clusters of weeds and leafy shrubs in the west. None of them was as accurate as the weapon that had silenced the goblin.

“They are testing us,” said Tordek, “to lure us into a hasty response.”

“Then we had best run now, before they see how few we are,” she said.

“Psst!” Lidda parted a clump of grass behind them. “Come on! We need to draw them off so the villagers can get away.”

Before Tordek could protest, the halfling fired an arrow in the direction of the incoming javelins. With a sharp twang, Devis’s crossbow joined her bow.

“By Abbathor’s thumbs!” grumbled Tordek. Crouching, he recovered his axe. Vadania pressed a leaf of mistletoe to his bloody side and chanted a word of healing. He smelled a fleeting odor of pine needles and felt the warm magic suffuse his torn flesh, knitting the deep wound back into seamless skin.

After healing Tordek, Vadania readied her sling, but no more javelins fell near them. Tordek listened for any sound of approaching troglodytes. He heard nothing but the sloshing of the marsh water around them, but Vadania tucked her sling into her belt and drew her scimitar from its scabbard. She crouched, ready to spring. Tordek followed her example.

Gulo’s roar announced the start of the hand-to-hand struggle. A chorus of rasping, hissing screams answered Gulo’s cry, and a dozen reptilian warriors surged out of the marsh. They stood tall as elves but slouched forward, their lean bodies balanced by long, heavy tails. Sharp teeth jutted from their crocodilian jaws, above which their yellow eyes flicked with amphibian double eyelids. Vestigial horns pricked up upon their brows, and tall dorsal ridges jutted atop their heads. Some wore scavenged or makeshift harnesses festooned with teeth and skull fragments. Half of them bore long spears and javelins, while the rest loped forward with fangs bared and claws grasping.

Devis put a bolt in a trog’s throat, but still the lizard rushed forward. Lidda’s arrow found the same target, crossing the first missile deep inside the trog’s thick neck. The reptilian hunter fell with a red splash.

Four troglodytes thrust their spears at Gulo’s face, forcing the great animal to rear up on his haunches. They stabbed at the wolverine’s exposed belly, and two sharp spearheads sank deep. Gulo snapped one of the offending spears in half while the other weapon whipped back for another thrust.

Vadania turned her head and grimaced at the plight of her bestial friend, but she faced two foes of her own. She slashed at the first, but it caught her scimitar on a bark shield. The second trog leaped at her. She stepped back barely in time to evade its sharp claws. She did not see the third one rising up out of the muck behind her.

Tordek spied the trap and called out a warning. Two troglodytes stood between him and the druid. Neither creature was armed, but Tordek knew that their teeth and claws were more than sufficient to tear away even his plate armor. He knew these reptiles were keen-minded warriors who probably expected him to keep them at bay with the advantage of his weapon’s reach.

Tordek lowered his head and rushed them.

The first troglodyte crouched, arms wide to grapple the rushing dwarf. Briefly, Tordek thought of the human villager who had tried catching him that way a few days earlier. He knew the reptile-man was more cunning and far more powerful than any villager. Just before he came within its grasp, Tordek leaped up and stomped on the trog’s thigh. The creature trumpeted its pain as Tordek continued running over its body. His armor-bolstered weight drove the surprised trog down into the mire. Tordek’s trampling attack was so unexpected that the second trog charged past the point where it expected him to be. Tordek continued running toward Vadania and her three assailants.

The elf struggled to free her sword arm from the grip of the trog that grasped her from behind, but she could not match its reptilian strength. The trog pinned her as its two fellows closed in to rip her apart with their razor-sharp claws. Unseen by either of them, Lidda’s short sword licked out, biting one troglodyte on the hip and drawing its attention away from the druid. The frill upon the trog’s neck rose in a threatening fan as the gaze of its beady, black eyes fixed on the halfling.

With a mighty heave, Tordek raised his axe and brought it down with all his mass and strength. The blade separated the second attacker’s head from its shoulders and showered Vadania with blood.

Tordek heard furious splashing behind him. He tried to turn in time to face the foe he had eluded moments earlier, but he was too late to raise his guard against the fangs and claws. Tordek heard the snap of a bowstring and felt a quick breeze upon his cheek just before the rushing troglodyte barreled into him, then they fell together into the muck. Tordek thrust an elbow into his foe’s head, but the enemy was already limp in death. As he shoved the dead trog’s body aside, he saw another of Devis’ black-fletched bolts that had pierced the monster’s cheek and penetrated into its brain.

Tordek rose to his feet, looking around to appraise the course of battle. Vadania and Lidda had their backs together, and two more trogs lay dead at their feet. Gulo had made short work of all four of his attackers and galumphed back to bolster his two-legged allies. Behind the dire wolverine, a second, longer line of troglodytes approached warily, the frills on their heads fanned out in threatening displays. Having witnessed their clutch-mates’ fate, they were less inclined toward a reckless charge.

Tordek grunted his approval at the tide of combat. He felt that his companions and he had little more to fear before they could begin withdrawing from the territorial troglodytes.

The stink hit him like a stone.

For an instant, Tordek was sure he would vomit uncontrollably. Tears streamed down his cheeks and into his beard as the noxious vapor stung his eyes, yet his dwarven fortitude withstood the full power of the toxic stench.

Devis and Lidda were not so fortunate. The bard doubled over and spewed out his own nasty contribution to the already filthy mire. Lidda managed to keep her insides on the inside, but she staggered back from the approaching trogs as if tipsy. Both looked wan and feeble, like ghosts in the gray swamp mist.

“To me!” cried Tordek. He stood as tall as possible upon a miserable, damp clod and raised his axe and shield to draw the enemy’s attention.

Lidda bounded through the swamp as fast as her little legs could carry her, mostly avoiding the muck and puddles that impeded her. Devis hesitated, seeming to consider casting a spell before thinking better of it and running toward Tordek.

Vadania was already by his side, scimitar in hand. Gulo crouched nearby, his dark lowering indicating that the beast was ready to deal more slaughter.

Rather than charge, the troglodytes crouched down among the grass and reeds. Those with javelins and shields began beating them together in unison.

“What are they doing?” asked Lidda, still gagging from the disgusting trog musk. She grabbed Devis’ arm for support, but he too was so weak that she nearly pulled him down off their little island before they steadied each other.

“They expected easier prey,” said Vadania. “They hope to frighten us away.” She turned to Tordek for agreement.

He nodded slowly, wondering whether the druid was sure of her assessment. “It’s time to get out of here.”

“Won’t they just begin tracking the villagers?” said Lidda.

Tordek sighed. Lidda’s concern for the villagers was admirable, and he too hated to think that their rescue might be for nothing, but saving them was not part of the mission at hand. He took a deep breath and prepared to explain exactly that when Vadania pointed beyond the trog position.

“Look,” she said.

Tordek could see little more than the blurred outlines of the nearest trees, dark green in the fog. Some of them were slender and lonely, while others clustered in twisted columns.

One of the thickest columns lumbered toward them.

The thing was well over twice Tordek’s height and built massively. When it moved, waves rippled out in all directions through the watery ground, and Tordek thought of the giant footprint he had seen earlier.

The enormous monster grasped one of the lone trees. With a terrible sound of tortured wood and deep suction, it rent the tree from its roots and hefted it like a club.

Devis uttered a long and artful dwarven curse that impressed even Tordek. He concluded in the common tongue, “What in the nine hells is that?”

“Maybe a hill giant,” said Tordek, hopefully. He longed to test his skills against one of the gigantic foes of his people, and he prayed fervently that he could defeat one such creature with a little help from his allies. He feared this was not his time for that battle—not when the thing had so many of its allies nearby. As the monster lumbered toward them, Tordek saw that it did not have the roughly humanoid head and shoulders of a giant. Instead, its reptilian skull hung low from its hunched shoulders, and what looked like three separate pairs of yellow eyes pierced the gloom like lanterns.

Gulo lowered his head and whined like a frightened dog.

Vadania looked at Gulo with an expression of astonished disappointment. Tordek guessed that she had never seen the great animal so cowed with fright.

“I’m with the big fellow,” said Devis. Beside him, Lidda nodded emphatically and pointed at herself before jerking a thumb over her shoulder in the universal sign for, Let’s get out of here.

Tordek felt the earth trembling. The monster’s steps came ever closer, gradually picking up speed. He saw the thing’s gray jaws clearly for the first time. They seemed as vast as a portcullis gate, with sharp teeth as hard and sharp as iron spikes. He hated to flee a fight, and yet…

“Damn it,” Tordek rumbled. “Run!”

The trogs hooted in triumph as they saw their foes scatter. Another flight of javelins fell to the ground all around, but neither Tordek nor the others turned to see where they struck.

Tordek and Lidda soon lagged behind their longer-legged companions. With every six of his own labored steps, Tordek felt the impact of another of the gargantuan beast’s long strides shudder up through the ground. He heard the thing’s breathing, deep as a forge bellows. He wanted to call out for help, but his pride forbade it.

“Hey, it’s catching up!” Lidda screamed to Devis and Vadania. Apparently, she was unhindered by Tordek’s qualms. “Do something!”

There was no time to hope for help, thought Tordek. He slowed his pace, preparing to turn and swing his axe around to fight the beast. He would not prevail, he knew, but he might delay the thing just long enough to give the others time to escape. Maybe the bard would make a song of him, maybe not.

When Tordek felt the splashes from the monster’s footfalls wet his back, he planted his feet and turned to face the foe.

“Tordek, don’t!” shouted Vadania.

Her warning came too late.

The beast’s roar was like an avalanche in his ears, its breath a noisome gale. Tordek swung his blade in a low arc, hoping to wound the beast so suddenly that it would stumble, giving the others a few more seconds’ lead. Instead, his axe swept through the empty space where the monster’s legs had been the instant before it hopped back from the dwarf, howling.

The beast dropped its giant club and clutched at dozens of tiny wounds in its feet, where sharp, woody spikes jutted from its thick hide. None of them was wicked enough to maim the creature, but collectively they gave it a fearsome pain. The monster bellowed and rubbed at the gigantic thorns.

Briefly, Tordek wondered how he had avoided treading on the spikes, but in an instant he realized their source and knew they had not been there when he passed. Vadania summoned them from the roots of the swamp growth to slow the brute.

Rather than take advantage of her spell, Tordek had turned to stand there like a half-wit.

“Hurry, you fool!” cried the druid. “I cannot do that again.”

Tordek lowered his head and ran for his life, muttering a brief prayer of thanks to Moradin, who had forged his soul and watched over it, even when he made such blunders as this one. The monster’s howls of pain turned to roars of anger as it regained its feet and chased after its prey. Even with their slight lead, Tordek knew the monster’s vast strides would soon close the distance.

They ran until Tordek felt his pulse throbbing in his head. Ahead of him, Vadania and Devis slowed their pace so that he and Lidda might keep up. Tordek heard a mighty splashing behind him and saw Devis staring agape.

“Don’t look!” shouted the bard. “Just run!”

Devis turned and obeyed his own advice, as did Vadania and Gulo. They ran for hundreds of yards, and each one felt like ten for all the clinging mud and rough terrain. They ran until their breath came in harsh wheezes. They ran until they could no longer feel their legs.

Tordek barely noticed when he slammed into a tall pole and knocked it down into the marshy ground. He stomped on some leathery fetish that had been mounted on its tip, but he spared it not so much as a glance.

He ran until his heart leaped to escape his chest, his eyes swelled almost to bursting, and his legs turned to rubber. At last he knew that the last stand from which Vadania had just spared him was indeed fated for this day. Once again, he planted his feet, grabbed his war axe, and turned to face his doom.

He saw nothing but empty swamp.

As his throbbing pulse slowed, Tordek could hear the distant splashing of giant feet running in the opposite direction. Soon after, a horn sounded in the distance. It came again a moment later, more distant still. The trogs were retreating.

For a long while they stood gasping for air, their bodies bent over, their hands clutching at their knees for support. Devis tried to speak, but all that came out was a harsh whistle. Gradually, their panting slowed, and they blinked away the dizziness.

“Well,” said Vadania, “it wasn’t Gulo who frightened off the mob this time.”

“Maybe not,” replied Tordek, “but something surely did the trick.”

“Maybe it was one of these,” suggested Lidda. She shook a tall pole with a troglodyte’s head mounted atop it. Some of the bones that rattled beneath the rotting head looked more human than reptilian.

“Uh, oh,” said Devis. “I have a bad feeling I know where we are.”

They looked around in all directions, crouching low in an effort to see before they were seen—by exactly what, they were not certain, making them feel all the more exposed and vulnerable. They spread out slightly, keeping in sight of each other as they searched the area.

“There,” said Vadania, pointing toward the northeast.

On a relatively dry mound of earth stood a homely cottage no better than those they had seen in Croaker Norge. All around it stood similarly gruesome warning poles, some mounted by skulls, others with frightful talismans of sticks and bones and skin.

“Shall we have a peek?” said Devis.

“No!” said everyone else.

“Aren’t you curious about the fabled Sandrine?”

“We’ll skirt the cottage,” decided Tordek. He looked up to judge the sun’s distance from the horizon. It was hard to tell how much daylight was left when precious little of it reached them through the mist.

“There could be treasure,” crooned Devis, drawing out the last word in a manner obviously meant to tempt a dwarf. “Gold and jewels and fabulous trinkets plucked from her victims over the years.”

“Knock it off, Bunny,” said Lidda. “You just want to see whether she’s beautiful.”

“Well…”

Tordek turned his back on the argument and led the way around the cottage, staying as close to the totems as possible. Lidda and Vadania soon followed him, as did Gulo, who was gradually looking more and more ferocious after his embarrassing retreat from the bigger foe. Slowly, reluctantly, Devis followed them through the totem poles and north, away from the story of Sandrine the poisoner.

5

The Little Fiend

They trudged through the mire for hours, determined to get out of the swamp and into the hills near Andaron’s Delve before setting camp. The stink of the mire and of its reptilian inhabitants still dulled their heads, but as the sun touched the horizon they settled for a dry spot in the lowlands to make their camp.

“Tell me those dwarves didn’t build their forge in this swamp,” said Lidda.

“Those dwarves didn’t build their forge in this swamp,” Devis assured her.

“No,” agreed Tordek, “but they were mindful of its value as a barrier to the south. Few armies would choose this path.”

“No kidding,” said Devis, flinging a particularly nasty bit of black slime from his sleeve.

Vadania nearly exhausted her spells healing Gulo, who had suffered by far the worst wounds of the day’s battle. The great wolverine did not seem to mind the smell and the muck that clung to them, but Devis complained steadily until the druid promised to conjure some clean water for their morning ablutions.

They rested uneasily after the fattening moon rose up to whiten the treetops and cast the rest of the world in stark shadow. The double-watch left only Vadania enough time to recuperate from the day’s trials. The elf never truly slept but merely meditated in reverie while Tordek and Lidda watched over her and the gently snoring Devis. When Lidda grew sleepy eyed, Tordek indulged her in a silent game of finger signs. He scowled each time she bested him, and she grinned in triumph as they turned away after each brief match to look outward from the banked campfire to spy any threatening movement beneath the trees.

True to her word, Vadania conjured a small pool of fresh water at dawn. After everyone including Gulo had drunk from it, Devis stripped off his clothes and made a hasty bath. Lidda joked about the effects of the cool water on his retractable bits, but the bard didn’t seem to mind the teasing. He was happy to be clean again. After he was finished, the others washed quickly before setting off once more.

Vadania led them out of the wet terrain and up into rocky hills before noon. Tordek sighed in relief as he felt the firm ground beneath his feet once more. He could feel the solid bedrock through his boot soles and the topsoil. The realm of frogs and serpents was behind them, and even the rain abated as they climbed higher into the hills. They were entering dwarf country.

On the second night after leaving the swamp, the full moon soared high in a cloudless sky. Lidda and Devis slept under the shelter of a deep outcropping while Tordek kept watch with Vadania nearer the hilltop for a far vantage, careful not to climb so high as to present a silhouette against the moon.

“There,” said the elf, pointing toward the northwestern horizon. “Jorgund Peak.”

Tordek squinted at the point she indicated. He saw a roughly triangular promontory jutting from the forested hills like the prow of a half-sunken ship sailing southeast. It was too small to be a mountain, too sharp and conspicuous to be merely a hill. Trees covered its crest and ran down the gently sloping back of its northwestern face. Its western and eastern sides formed sheer cliffs streaked black and white with years of droppings. Tordek hoped that what flocked there were merely birds, but a cold premonition settled in his stomach. At Vadania’s indication, he spied a trio of pale oval spots running along the limestone cliffs before vanishing into shadow, their alignment suggesting a regular progression around the escarpment.

“Eight of them,” said Vadania. “They look as though something large was cut away from the stone.”

Tordek could barely make out the spots she indicated. Judging from the distance, he guessed that each one must be around twenty feet high. He made a low, almost inaudible thinking sound deep in his chest. “Perhaps,” he said.

Vadania watched him, expectant of more information. When he did not offer any, she looked back at the peak and said, “I see smoke against the stars. There is a camp near the summit.”

Tordek took her word for it. By dint of his dwarven blood, he could see through subterranean blackness without so much as the light of a spark. Even so, no dwarf could hope to see so far and clearly as an elf on a moonlit night.

“Uh oh,” said Vadania.

“What?”

“Something is moving among the trees up there. Something big.”

“Giants?”

She nodded. “Probably. There were none in the area a month ago. I would have seen their tracks.”

“He is wasting no time,” said Tordek. “Already he summons an army for his champions to lead.”

“You think it is Hargrimm?”

“Who else?” said Tordek.

“Why haven’t you told the others about him?”

Tordek ignored the question. “Where is the secret entrance you found?”

“They deserve to know what manner of foe we face, Tordek. Your brother’s was not the only soul the barghest devoured.”

“Where is the entrance?” insisted the dwarf. He jutted his jaw obstinately, but there was more entreaty than warning in his tone.

The elf pointed to the base of the nearest cliff. Tordek saw the glimmer of water coursing below the promontory. Even at this distance, he saw that where it passed the cliffs its surface turned dark and unreflective.

“Can we reach it without alerting the troops on the summit?”

Vadania raised one eyebrow at the word “troops.” She said, “This is no war, Tordek. We are no army.”

“Can we reach it undetected?”

“Yes,” sighed the elf, “if we are careful of their scouts. I can take wing tonight and try for a better look at the camp on top.”

Tordek considered the offer but shook his head. “I think of those spider-eaters and do not like the thought of their catching you alone. Besides, we won’t have to go anywhere near the camp. At first light we go down past the eyes and fingers of the fiend and strike at his heart, down in Andaron’s Delve.”

Four hours after dawn, they stood on the narrow shore at the base of the southwestern cliffs of Jorgund Peak. Thirty paces to either side, steaming trails of iron slag and some other hellish substances oozed out of narrow sluices and into the river. Already befouled by the grates on the other side of the promontory, the stream burbled and blushed as it received the noxious runoff. As much as the pollutants offended the two-legged companions, whose legs it had stained dark red as they waded across the stream, their stench drove the usually silent Gulo to whining like a kit.

“I’ve got nothing,” said Lidda, rocking back on her heels as she squatted before the cliff wall.

“Keep looking,” said Tordek. He stood on her right and peered along a hairline crack, blowing dust out here and there. “How about you, bard?”

At the other side of the door, Devis traced a faint line of dwarven characters and compared them with what he had written on a sheet of parchment. “Still the same,” Devis said.

For the past two hours, Tordek and Lidda had taken turns examining the nearly invisible outline of the secret door for some sign of a catch and the surrounding wall and ground for any indication of a counterweight. While they sought a mechanical solution, Devis considered the weathered runes, which he translated literally and inscribed on parchment. Tordek did not fully trust the bard’s ability with the dwarven tongue, but for a dabbler who was not fluent in the language, the half-elf had done a creditable job. The dialect was peculiar even to Tordek, and a few characters had been effaced by centuries of erosion. The bard summed it in Common: “In siege or mutiny, friends of Andaron, come silently through the secret under the mountain.”

“I give up!” sighed Lidda. “Either this is a false door, or else the dwarves never finished cutting it.”

“Nonsense,” said Tordek. “Who would write a welcome on a door that was not finished? It would be an affront to the delve and to the gods that protect it.”

“You said it yourself,” said Devis. He blew one last time to assure himself the ink was dry, then rolled the parchment and put it in the bag with his other scrolls. “It sounds solid when you rap it. My spell detected no trace of magic on the wall. There must be some dwarven trick to it.”

Tordek grumbled a nonspecific complaint and looked up at the sky. The sun was rising toward its zenith, and the shadow that helped shield them from view was rapidly shrinking. High above, brilliant white clouds rode high in a bright blue sky. A great, lozenge-shaped formation slowly glided past one of the flat spots pointed out by Vadania the night before, giving the illusion of steam rising from a white pool set into the cliff. The spots were smooth except for the mark of chisels and stone saws, which Tordek could identify even from the base of the cliff, thirty feet below. Each was about eight feet wide and ten or twelve feet high. They had distinct outlines that hinted at giant faces.

“What were they?” asked Vadania.

“The gods,” replied Tordek and Devis in unison. Tordek gave the half-elf a sour look, but Devis grinned and winked back at him.

“You want to tell it?” he asked. His tone of voice made it plain that he hoped Tordek did not.

“Go ahead,” said Tordek sourly.

“Many dwarven strongholds set the images of their gods looking out at the surrounding lands as a way of calling on their protection. Usually it’s just one god, or perhaps two. Moradin is always the first one. That’s probably him, there, right above us. On the other side is Berronar Truesilver, his wife and the Mother of Safety. They usually appear beside each other.”

“Who are the others?” asked Lidda. “I know Clangeddin Silverbeard, Father of Battle.”

“I don’t know,” said Devis. “It’s hard to tell from the shapes that are left.”

“He’s on the other side,” said Tordek. “Protecting Berronar and Sharindlar the Shining Dancer. Probably keeping an eye on Abbathor, too.” Tordek licked his thumb and rubbed it against two fingers as if feeling a coin. “Trove Lord, he’s called. Wyrm of Avarice. He left his shadow on this delve, to be sure.”

“Who’s on this side?” prompted Vadania.

Tordek looked up and considered. “Dugmaren Brightmantle, Dumathoin the Keeper of Secrets Under the Mountain, and Vergadain the Merchant King, probably.”

“Are you sure?” said Devis. “What about Haela Brightaxe or Gorm Gulthyn? There are others, too. Deep Duerra and Ladaguer, for instance.”

“Haela is a demigod, lauded as a hero in some delves, as a goddess in others. Gorm you will never find on the surface, for he watches for those who devour from beneath the hearth.” Tordek fixed his eye on the bard. “The others are not to be spoken of.”

Devis looked disappointed, but he nodded. Despite the warning, there was no keeping his tongue still for long, and Tordek sighed as Devis put his hands on his hips and leaned back to look at the places where the gods had been. “Dumathoin you said. Which one is he?”

“Can’t be sure,” said Tordek. He pointed at one of the smooth planes. They could see the truncated edges of ears, jaws, and rippling hair. “Maybe that one, with the thin neck.”

“I’ve heard another name for him,” said Devis. “ ‘The Silent Keeper.’”

“That’s because he never speaks,” said Tordek. “Dumathoin is mute.”

“Ah,” said the bard, “but remember what’s on the door. ‘Come silently through the secret under the mountain.’ That’s two hints about Dumathoin.”

“He’s right!” said Lidda. “That’s got to be important. Maybe the real secret door is under the face of Dumathoin.”

“Perhaps,” said Tordek, “but there’s a slag drain there, and it’s working. That’s no secret entrance.”

“Maybe the passage was through the face of Dumathoin,” suggested Vadania.

“Yeah,” said Devis. “In his ear or up his nose, maybe.”

“Still your profane tongue, half-breed!” snapped Tordek, raising his voice enough to cause an echo. He saw his companions look around nervously and lowered his volume. “Just speak of the gods with respect, is all I am saying.”

“I’ll climb up and have a look,” volunteered Lidda.

“Up his nose indeed,” muttered Tordek, glowering at Devis. The half-elf grimaced an apology.

Lidda clambered up the cliff face as nimbly as a monkey. Tordek had seen her perform similar feats a dozen times, but he still marveled at her skill. He would need a stout rope to get up there, and to be careful he would need to haul up his armor separately. He watched as Lidda braced herself and began feeling the bare stone face for secrets. Her slender fingers probed the cliff for only a few minutes before she called down to them.

“There’s something here! It’s small, but I think I can open it!” Lidda grinned down at them, a fierce grin on her face. It vanished when her gaze fell upon Gulo. Big, huge, gigantic Gulo.

Vadania caught the meaning of the look and put her slim hand on the dire wolverine’s massive shoulder. “I am sorry, my friend. You can surely make the climb, but the passage is too meager for so great a warrior to pass.”

Tordek knew that the dire wolverine could not understand Common, but he was sure he took the elf’s meaning nonetheless. With a deep whimper that was anything but ferocious, he slunk slowly away along the shore, sniffing for a spot upstream where he could cross without entering the tainted water.

Vadania looked after her animal friend with a sad expression in her almond-shaped eyes. Tordek stood beside her. “Where will he go?”

“We have walked many trails together,” she said. “He will remain nearby until I call for him.”

“Come on,” urged Devis. He held a knotted rope and had one foot on the cliff face. Thirty feet above, Lidda sat in the mouth of a narrow opening with the other end tied around her waist and played through her gloved hands.

Devis started climbing. He reached the halfway point when Vadania hissed a warning. Devis froze, crouching low to the wall while craning his neck to look down over his shoulder.

The druid was listening intently, so Tordek did the same. He heard nothing but the gurgling of the stream behind them.

“Something’s coming!” hissed Vadania. “Something that buzzes.” She flapped her hands at Devis, urging him to climb faster as she grasped the rope below. “Hurry!”

Tordek hesitated only a second before snatching up his bow and setting an arrow to the string. By the time he had the weapon ready, he heard the buzzing that had alerted Vadania. A moment later, he spied the first of them.

The thing was like a hornet the size of a boar, with four dangling red meat hooks for legs. The creature’s body was a suit of lacquered yellow armor with black splotches, its wings a dark leathery blur. Its eight multifaceted eyes reflected a hundred tiny images of the sky, the cliff, and the ground beneath. A crude harness encircled its fat abdomen, securing a saddle between its wings. There perched a lean goblin resting a short bow across its knees.

The rider spotted Devis crawling into the hole where Dumathoin’s eye once lay just as Tordek raised his bow. As the goblin lifted an arm to point at the climber and opened his mouth to shout, Tordek’s arrow shot through its chest and slammed it out of the saddle. The goblin tumbled backward over its gigantic mount and dangled, already dead, from one leg still trapped in its stirrup.

Even without its rider to goad it on, the spider-eater flew toward the secret entrance. Devis was already inside the shelter of the stone, but Vadania still climbed frantically toward it. Even while Tordek reached for another arrow, he knew she would never make it in time. As he fired at the monstrous insect, two more of the things buzzed around the promontory.

On one of them rode another goblin, already rising in its saddle to shoot at Vadania. On the other, Tordek caught a brief glimpse of a creature even smaller than a goblin, knotty and twisted like an old piece of moldy wood. Before he could identify the wretch, it vanished. When he heard weird, piping laughter from atop the flying insect, he realized its rider had turned invisible.

He cried a warning to those above, but they were already too busy to heed him.

With its hanging rider forgotten, the first spider-eater descended on the druid. Devis reached down to help her up into the secret passage, but just before their hands met, the gigantic insect bumped Vadania and glided gently away to hover over the poisoned river.

From Tordek’s perspective, it seemed like such a gentle blow that he didn’t realize the peril until he heard Vadania’s painful cry. She clutched at her thigh and lost her grip on the rope. Before she could fall to the ground, Devis lunged down and grabbed her with both hands. Behind him, Lidda held onto his ankles and jammed her feet and shoulders against the walls of the tiny passage for support.

Unable to help them from the ground, Tordek fired at the second goblin. The first arrow from his mighty longbow passed completely through the goblin’s right arm, severing the bone and leaving the limb and the weapon it still clutched hanging by a ragged strip of flesh. A bright stream of blood blew into a dull mist in the wake of the spider-eater’s droning wings.

Tordek spared a quick look up to see that Lidda and Devis had dragged Vadania into their shelter. That was a relief, but it left Tordek alone to face three furious insects and their invisible commander. He bellowed curses at them, hoping to draw one close enough to test his axe against its shell. Before they got within axe reach, he fired two more arrows at the one that stung Vadania. One glanced off the insect’s chitinous hide, but the other cracked the surface and sank deep. Thick ichor dripped down the arrow shaft and blew away in black streamers.

The attack had its desired effect. The insect flew straight toward Tordek, followed closely by its companion with the invisible rider. The dwarf barely had time to drop his bow and reach for his war axe. As he gripped the weapon’s haft, an icy thrill gripped his spine and shot out through every nerve until his body trembled with ineffable fear. He gritted his teeth against the unmanly emotion, but still his weapon shook in his grip. The spider-eater closed and struck at him, and he turned away to run. He felt the monstrous stinger scrape across his armor. The metal saved him from the foe he could not face. Tordek bit his lip and cursed himself for cowardice as he ran. That the terror undoubtedly came from a spell cast by the invisible foe did nothing to cool the shame.

Despite the fear, fury rose up from Tordek’s belly, filling his heart with gleeful hatred. It routed the magical fear and drove it from his body. With a roar, he wheeled around and heaved his axe up in a powerful overhand arc, cutting through the tough sinew connecting the insect’s membranous wing to its body. The spider-eater hurtled past him, spinning out of control, until it crashed on the shore of the polluted stream. Its remaining wing beat uselessly against the pebbles.

Tordek whirled again to face his unseen enemy, but the invisible rider was too cagey to be lured close. The spider-eater hovered well out of reach. The drone of its wings barely covered the nervous muttering of its unseen master. Before the monster could complete whatever foul spell it was about to utter, the air above the spider-eater shimmered, and its rider was invisible no more.

The thing was only two feet tall, with twisty horns and pustulant, green flesh. It was naked and unadorned but for a spiraling black tattoo that roamed from one gnarly shoulder across its thin chest and torso before ringing its opposite leg. The creature gripped the spider-eater’s reins in one slender hand and shook the long claws of its other hand at Devis.

“Got you, you little bastard!” cried Devis. Tordek looked up to see the bard dropping a scroll whose magic he had just discharged. Devis ducked back inside the passage in time to avoid another rush from the third hovering insect.

Tordek was loath to give up his axe, but he dropped it in favor of the longbow. The previously invisible rider screeched a command, and its mount rose farther away from Tordek. The other remaining insect swooped down from the secret passage to join its fellow.

Devis whooped a note so musical that Tordek thought at first he was singing. Instead, the bard leaped from his high vantage and fell with all his weight upon the retreating spider-eater. Together they plummeted toward the dwarf, Devis shouting, “Kill it, Tordek!”

At the same moment, the strange insect-rider shrieked. Tordek glimpsed its fall out of the corner of his eye. The tiny creature tumbled off its steed with a green-fletched arrow lodged in its knotty hide. It seemed more startled than injured.

Tordek’s attention was wrenched back to Devis when the bard and the other spider-eater crashed into the gravel at the cliff’s base. Devis rolled away from his unwilling steed onto the shore. The creature’s wings were broken and its carapace cracked, but its razor claws thrashed furiously in all directions. Tordek snatched up his axe and after slashing off the flailing limbs, set to work chopping the spider-eater to messy bits. The monstrous insect squirmed and chattered horridly until the blade cut it into dozens of sections.

Devis regained his feet as Tordek turned to face the third and final foe. Instead, he saw it disappear over the top of Jorgund Peak, followed by an erratically flapping bat he had not spied before. There was no sign of the little demon.

“We’d better hurry,” said Devis, beckoning him back to the rope. “When that giant bug returns to camp, they’ll send out a larger party.”

Tordek nodded, collecting his bow and shield. There was no time to send up his gear and climb unhindered, but he paused before climbing the rope to consider the bard.

“That jump off the cliff,” he said. “Not bad at all.”

“Well, thanks,” said Devis, “but when you tell the ladies, use the words ‘brave’ and ‘dashing,’ will you?”

Tordek pulled himself up the rope, guiding his ascent with his feet upon the cliff face. He grunted and said, “I’ll think about it.”

6

The Buried Forest

At Tordek’s suggestion, Lidda crept back to close and jam shut the secret door. While the halfling worked, the other three crawled more than twenty feet into the passage before finding a chamber large enough to shelter them all together. The smooth, regular lines of dwarven chisels gave way to a cool, damp chamber shaped by eons of trickling water. A natural passage continued to bore deeper into the mountain, but they paused to tend to injuries.

While he could see perfectly well, albeit in shades of black and white, Tordek drew his magical torch from the black cloth that hid its continual flame’s enchantment. Lidda had already struck a sunrod, filling the small cavern with golden light, but Tordek knew it always paid to have a second source of light. Even a few seconds of blindness could mean the difference between life and death in the subterranean world, especially one shared with fiends and gods-knew-what-else.

Vadania’s injury had swollen so horribly that she had to slit the side of her trousers lest it burst. The wound was scarlet against her white flesh, even after she cast a spell to cure the injury. The effort exhausted her strength, and her muscles were beginning to seize up in paralytic convulsions.

“It’s infected,” said Lidda. She drew a dagger and sighed. “That leg’s going to have to come off.”

“Keep her away from me,” said the elf.

“Some people!” said Lidda, sheathing her blade. “Try to raise their spirits with a little levity.”

“I thought it was funny,” said Devis.

“Yeah?” said Lidda, brightening as she sidled up to the half-elf. “I hear you were daring out there.”

“Stand back, both of you,” said Tordek. He knelt beside the injured druid.

He already regretted his earlier praise for Devis, and he suspected the bard had somehow tricked him into it. The scamp was already contaminating Lidda with his childishness. In the months she had spent with Tordek, the halfling rogue had never been a liability in a dangerous spot. She might make a snappy remark now and then, but she was never so easily distracted when there was serious work at hand. Now Tordek was beginning to wonder whether he could rely on either of them.

“Do you have anything for it?” He wished he had more than a cool splash of water to offer. Despite years in battle, he never learned more healing than the simple tasks of binding wounds and splinting broken limbs.

“Devis already tried one of his spells,” she said. “Here, take off this pack. Find the scrolls inside.”

Tordek did as she bade, digging through pouches of trail rations, leaves, little clay pots, a soft bag of some squishy substance, and other odds and ends before finding three leaves of parchment rolled around a sunrod. He showed them to her, and she chose one. Tordek held his torch up to illuminate the page as she intoned the healing magic. Together they watched as its soothing power ran through Vadania’s hand and into the festering wound. Instantly, the ruddy stain of poison faded, and the swollen flesh became smooth and healthy once again.

“Still hurt?” he asked.

“Not a bit,” she said, “but I feel a little stiff. Maybe you or Lidda should lead the way in.”

“You keep an eye on the bard,” said Tordek. “He’s liable to try something ‘daring.’”

Vadania smiled. When she saw that Tordek was still scowling, she wiped the expression from her face and nodded.

They followed the passage deeper into the bedrock, finding only scant clues that the place was ever inhabited. A few rusty torch clasps slowly crumbled away from their sockets in the limestone walls, and twice they walked through tunnels scarred by the chisels that opened them wide enough for dwarven shoulders to pass.

Patches of shelf fungus and fuzzy mold covered the damp stone here and there. As they descended below the river’s level the rocky floor gave way to great swathes of soft earth in which an increasing array of subterranean life flourished. There were tiny button mushrooms, mushrooms with bright red caps, mushrooms that grew over one another like ripples in a rain-spattered pond. Mushrooms grew underfoot, on the walls, and even on the ceiling in a few places. Some were squat and wide as lily pads, while a few rose taller than Lidda.

“Can we eat these?” she asked, crouching beneath one huge, pink and violet specimen as if it were a parasol.

“No,” replied Vadania. “If you stand there much longer, it might eat you.”

Lidda threw herself to the floor and rolled away in a hasty, graceless escape. She crouched there with her short sword drawn, watching for any sign that the giant mushroom might follow her.

“Just kidding,” said Vadania.

“What?” Lidda turned on the druid, yellow rage in her eyes.

“Some people,” Vadania said, not quite mimicking Lidda’s usually cheerful voice. “A little levity.”

Lidda stared at the druid, her expression twitching between real anger and surprise. She decided on pouting indignation when Tordek’s deep chuckle escaped the shelter of his big red beard.

“Funny,” he observed.

Lidda looked to Devis for support, but he was pressing a hand to his flat belly and bracing himself against the wall to keep from laughing aloud.

“That’s enough,” said Tordek. “Some of this stuff could be dangerous. Andaron’s people undoubtedly cultivated this area, but in the years since the place was abandoned, who knows what degenerate strains have crept in.”

“True,” agreed Vadania. “I’ll jest no more about the fungus. Some of it can be quite deadly. Don’t eat any unless I’ve seen it first, and don’t poke any of the large ones.”

As they pushed deeper into the caverns, they found fewer clear paths through the fungus, and Lidda led them carefully around the more sinister-looking specimens. Once they spotted a sudden movement among a stand of tall, white stalks with puff-balls for heads. They crouched low and watched, momentarily sheltering their light, but whatever crawled through the soft fronds did not stir again. They resumed their explorations with weapons in hand.

The mushroom grottoes extended in all directions, each new cavern revealing two or three more passages leading to still more fungus-filled chambers. Through two of them ran a clean stream that Tordek estimated branched off from the untainted portion of the river outside. Near the bottom of the clear water they spied a few crawfish and an eyeless, pale gray eel coursing downstream.

“There,” said Lidda, pointing at a spot just beyond their light. “Some chambers carved into the rock, behind that ridge of orange fungus.”

After Vadania’s guess that the brilliant, fan-shaped stuff was harmless, Tordek hacked a path through it and they peered into the chambers beyond. They were simple, cubical rooms upon whose black hinges still hung a few scraps of rotten wood. Inside, where mold had not grown into great mounds, they found little more than a stone trough in each of the four identical rooms. In one they found the white ribcage of a huge, long-bodied lizard half-buried in yellow mold. Vadania immediately warned everyone to stay well away from the powdery stuff.

“We’re in the kennels,” declared Tordek. “Keep searching.”

Soon they found a stairway cut into the living rock. Its steps were blue with some slick, mossy growth that made Vadania shrug when Lidda asked whether it was safe.

“Don’t we want to go up?” said Devis. “I thought the forge would be higher. Drier.”

Tordek grunted an affirmative. “Let’s search a while longer for another passage. If we don’t find anything leading up, then down we go.”

Half an hour later, they gave up their search for an alternative passage and turned back toward the overgrown staircase. If there was another egress, it had to be completely smothered by fungus or mold, and none of them wished to poke too deeply into the subterranean forest.

Before they reached their destination, a distant cry echoed through the caverns behind them. A jabber of goblin voices responded, and soon there followed a clamor of jostled armor, dire curses, and shouts for help from someone decidedly not a goblin.

“That’s a dwarf they have!” said Tordek. He hustled toward the voices, and the others followed close behind. The sounds led them to a cavern choked with fungal growth, one they had skirted earlier because of its particularly foul stench and lack of a clear path.

“Cover the lights,” he whispered, shoving his everburning torch into its shroud. Lidda did the same with her sunrod. In the resulting gloom, they all saw the crescent of light opening twenty feet above their heads. It had not been obvious on their earlier passage, but now they saw a small square of worked stone amid the natural stone of the ceiling.

The crescent soon became a circle through which they spied a struggle of ruddy goblin limbs and the bigger but outnumbered figure of an old dwarf with a long, snowy beard. The scuffle was brief, abruptly punctuated by the sound of a truncheon rapping against the dwarf’s skull. The goblins chortled as they dropped the limp body through the hole, and they watched as it struck the dense fungus below and sent waves through the nearby fronds.

Tordek lurched toward the fallen dwarf, but Vadania held him back.

“Wait,” she whispered.

Light from the goblins’ torches illuminated the point where the dwarf had fallen. Tordek marked it and crouched impatiently. Even as the initial disturbance subsided, he saw two new waves form in the fungal growth. A fan of writhing tentacles rose briefly above the mushroom caps to taste the scent of the fallen dwarf before homing in on his location. He caught a glimpse of vivid, green flesh as some huge, wormlike body passed through the fungal trees.

The goblins cackled gleefully until one of them cracked a lash and scolded the others. Grumbling, they replaced the cover to the oubliette.

Tordek rushed forward. He drew out his everburning torch and stuck it in his shield hand, his right moving to unsling his war axe. After ten paces, he had to hack his way through huge stalks of mushrooms but still he plunged forward, for every step a stroke of his blade to clear the path. With every yard he gained, he saw the carrion crawlers move closer to the dwarf who lay motionless beneath the oubliette hatch.

Vadania ran past Tordek, seemingly unhindered by the thick barrier. Where her slender form slipped through the stalks, she left no sign of her passage. As she reached the gray-bearded dwarf, a prayer to nature was already on her lips. She knelt and pressed one hand flat on the dwarf’s chest while holding her scimitar defensively above her head. It was a useless gesture, since her curing spell demanded her concentration.

Tordek saw that one of the crawlers would be on her before he could intercept it. He shouted a warning and hewed furiously, barely speeding his progress. Behind him came the twang of Lidda’s bowstring, but her arrow sank into a thick black mushroom cap as big as an ogre’s shield, never reaching its intended target. Near her, the bard sang a couplet:

When off to fight my dearest girl goes,

She stalks her prey on kitty-cat toes!

Tordek clenched his jaw and hoped that was a spell and not some damned silly flirtation. He sliced away another massive stalk and clambered over the stump. In just a few more steps, he could stand over the fallen dwarf and Vadania, shielding them from the crawlers.

Unfortunately, he was out of time. Even as the druid completed her spell, eight writhing tendrils curled over her blade and reached for her unprotected face. She ducked her head, and two of the intruding members recoiled with her headpiece in their grip. Another three clung to her silver hair, but three more found her flesh and stroked her bare skin. Where they touched, they left yellow trails of slime.

“Gah!” Vadania retched at the disgusting feeling. She rose to a crouch and slashed at the tendrils, barely slapping them before her limbs seized up in a paralytic rictus.

“Yes!” cried Lidda as her next arrow flew neatly between the obscuring fungus and punched deep into the worm’s side. It shrieked and champed its huge jaws, stretching its cruel mandibles wide enough to grasp Vadania around the waist. The monster reared up, revealing dozens of tiny claws on either side of its segmented belly. Dark ichor spurted from the wound, and Tordek noted that the thing was green on the inside, too.

Devis was already crooning another spell, but Tordek paid no heed to the words. At last he was close enough to strike. With obstructions to either side, he had no choice but to raise his axe in an overhead arc. His blade cut through the creature’s gummy hide and drew a dark, green line down its pale belly. Its final scream was a breathy spray that wet Tordek’s face and beard as the monster fell down onto him. Clamping his lips tightly shut against the foul mess, he braced both hands upon his axe and used it to push the stinking carcass to the side.

Spitting, he turned just in time to see the second crawler arrive. Devis was already there, the faint shimmering of his mage armor surrounding his body. He thrust cautiously with his longsword, trying to keep the monster at bay. The worm hissed furiously, its poisoned tendrils wriggling in a fan beneath its huge jaws. Its eyestalks were perfectly erect, craning to spy the body of its mate.

Tordek stepped over the fallen dwarf and the paralyzed Vadania. He felt bones crunch under the soles of his boots and almost tripped. A mighty chop at the furious worm severed two of its tendrils as they slipped down to snatch at the dwarf’s legs. A few more stuck, and he felt their brief tug at his armored legs.

Lidda put another arrow in the beast’s flank. Devis drew a dark slash along its skull, right between the eyestalks. The crawler lunged for him, and the half-elf stepped deftly aside. The attack brought the creature’s head well past Tordek’s blade, and the result was inevitable.

The axe swung down and bit halfway through the monster’s neck. With another powerful chop, Tordek severed its head from its nine-foot body.

Lidda climbed to the top of a nearby mushroom to look out for further attacks. Devis stabbed his sword into the ground and knelt beside Vadania, who gagged pitifully beside the corpse of the first crawler. Its spilled guts smelled revolting.

“You thought they smelled bad on the outside,” quipped Devis, smiling down at her as he held up her head and carefully wiped away the slime on her face. He moved her gently off the fallen dwarf and tried making her comfortable while the effects of the paralysis wore off.

Tordek knelt beside the graybeard. The old dwarf was breathing, but just barely. Vadania’s quick action had undoubtedly saved his life, but if he did not receive more help soon, he would not live to thank her. Tordek said as much to Devis, who nodded and reluctantly left Vadania’s side. Again he sang as his hand made a theatrical flourish over the graybeard’s face and chest:

Sinew knit and flesh restore,

Render this poor fellow whole.

A rosy glow briefly suffused the dwarf’s face, and the bruises on his forehead faded with the light.

“That doesn’t rhyme,” commented Lidda from her perch.

“It’s known as near rhyme to those of us in the arts,” said Devis. “Anyway, it works.”

“Calls himself a bard,” snorted Lidda. She kept scanning the surrounding darkness and glanced frequently at the portal above.

The dwarf shifted and snuffled then blinked.

“You are safe, grandfather,” Tordek said in the dwarven tongue. He offered the graybeard his waterskin. The old dwarf took a long look at Tordek’s face. He looked around at the others and seemed satisfied that it was a rescue, not a ruse.

“I am Karnoth of Oak Dale,” he replied in the same language. “Son of Brandok Iron-Monger, grandson of Helsa of the Flaxen Hair.”

Tordek introduced himself and his companions using the Common tongue.

“Why have you come to Andaron’s Delve?” asked Karnoth. Lidda and Devis bristled at his suspicious tone, but Tordek liked the dwarf’s reticence. It was wise.

“Not to stoke ancient curses,” said Tordek, “but to stop those who would.”

The gray-bearded dwarf nodded his approval. “I will help you as I am able.”

“Tell us how you came here.”

Karnoth’s tale was not surprising to those who had heard the tale of Croaker Norge. More than a month earlier, insect-riding goblins and powerful monsters attacked his village. They captured as many able-bodied workers as they had shackles to bind them, slaying the rest along with the children and the infirm. Retired from the smithy for decades, Karnoth had been sure he would be murdered, but when the goblins learned that he was a blacksmith, they spared his life. After the long march from their ruined homes, the predominantly human survivors passed through an excavation on the top of Jorgund Peak and descended into Andaron’s Delve. On the way down, they passed a small army of goblins reinforced by giants and eventually joined dozens of other captives.

Vadania stirred, and Devis was at her side, helping her to sit up.

“Why did they throw you down here?”

“I refused to work,” said Karnoth. “Some of the others did the same, but the goblins were crafty enough to capture at least one member of each smith’s family. Those who refused to work watched their sons and daughters tormented to death then thrown down into this pit.”

He said nothing else for a minute, and Tordek looked away out of respect for what Karnoth was leaving unsaid.

“Didn’t they have any of your family?” asked Lidda at last.

Tordek silently cursed her inquisitive little heart, but in truth he too wondered about that question.

“My grandson,” said Karnoth. “He was a valuable dwarf.”

Tordek thought about the bones he had trod upon earlier and understood the full meaning of Karnoth’s term, even in the Common tongue. Among dwarves—especially dwarven blacksmiths—“valuable” was a term exceeding even “honorable.” A valuable dwarf would never consent to perform any task that would harm his kin or any other dwarven clan.

“I could not shame him by agreeing to their demands. They wished that I should ignite the dead coals within the Forge of Andaron.”

“How could you do that?” asked Devis. “The stories tell that the forge was cursed to hold no fire.”

“No earthly fire,” corrected Karnoth. “There are dwarven ways, and I know some of them. It does not matter now. They have done what I refused to do. There is a dragon-spawn with them. He breathed into the forge and set it leaping with unholy flame. Once I saw him grasp a blade still glowing from the forge, and it did not burn him. They call him Zagreb.”

“Is he the leader?” asked Tordek.

“No,” said Karnoth. “He is the one who oversees the forge. He answers to an enormous goblin with skin as blue as slate. He is attended by a ghost-pale elf. I do not think she breathes. Her name is Sandrine.”

“Aha!” said Devis. “That’s where she went.”

“There is also some little fiend who delights in tormenting the prisoners. Zagreb calls him Yupa. Whenever the imp torments the wrong prisoner to death, Zagreb threatens to feed him to something called Murdark.”

“Some thing?” said Devis.

“None of us has seen it,” said Karnoth. “They say it prowls the lower caverns in search of food.”

“Um,” said Lidda. She looked up at the unhewn stone that arched above them. Water glistened on its dark surface, and from its crags hung streaks of black and red moss like wet fur from some gargantuan animal’s belly. “Aren’t these the lower caverns?”

The dwarf shrugged. “I have seen only the forge and a few nearby chambers, but I think there are even greater depths to this place. I hope that is where Murdark prowls.”

“Can you lead us back to the forge?” asked Tordek.

Karnoth nodded slowly. “I think so. What will you do when you reach it?”

“Do you know why they have relit the forge?” asked Tordek.

Karnoth nodded, not daring to say the truth aloud in this place. “They have begun their fell work. They kept me alive after forcing me to watch Yupa torment my grandson to death. Since then they have set me to menial chores. Because my work helped ease the suffering of my fellow captives, I obeyed. It was when I refused to work the bellows that they finally dragged me down here.”

“Which of the Arms of Andaron have they brought to reforge? Is it the hammer?”

The old dwarf gaped at him. “You did not know before you came?”

“Know what?” asked Tordek.

Karnoth swallowed. “They brought them all.”

7

The Hellforged

They climbed down to find their way up.

Below the fungus-choked caverns they found even more natural passages, some leading to ancient stores chiseled out of the limestone, others twisting away in patterns known only to the gods of earth and stone. Veins of minerals shot through the bedrock to form graceful shapes on the walls, tendrils of pale blue and deep red with glittering flecks.

Where the dwarves had carved their own passages, there was no less beauty. Even after centuries of abandonment and the smut of generations of vermin, the stonework remained strong and glorious, with artful flourishes at every arched portal. Symmetrical dwarven braids lined the corridors. The perfectly fitted floor tiles formed firm but elegant mosaic patterns. Twice they found basins filled with spring water jutting from the walls. The contents of one were murky, but the second looked clear and pure. No one dared to test the water while their own waterskins were still full.

Molds and slimes glistened on the walls, but Vadania declared most of them harmless. When a gray mass oozed out of a still pool and began tracking them, Tordek ordered a hasty retreat rather than expend their strength in an unnecessary fight.

They found stairs both ascending and descending, and they traveled upward around a grand spiral stair until they came to a closed wooden door. Neither rot nor infirmity of age was apparent on its grayed surface, which seemed to have drunk in the strength of stone over the centuries. The group moved quietly around the portal, communicating with gestures and the barest of whispers as Lidda knelt to listen at the seam between the door and the stone floor.

“Nothing,” she whispered in report. Still, the others remained quiet, weapons in hand. Lidda had loaned Karnoth a dagger, but her fine short sword remained handy in its scabbard.

The door’s great, metal lock was grown black with age, but Lidda produced a tiny oil tin and greased the ancient tumblers. Probing with a pair of picks and a strong piece of wire, she felt out the lock’s secrets. At first she attacked the job with a confident grin, but as the intricate workings of the lock defied her efforts, she bit down hard on the picks she held in her teeth. The others waited as patiently as they could, but it was well over twenty minutes later before they heard the last, satisfying click of success. Lidda returned her tools to their leather sheath and stood back, letting Tordek lead the way.

They found another barren passageway, this one dry and relatively free of floral infestation. The regular spacing of the doors along its length suggested a dormitory wing. Tordek looked to Karnoth for some sign of recognition.

“I’ve been through an area like this,” he whispered, “but not here. Maybe at the same level.”

Tordek nodded and led the way once more. Each time they spied a new turn in the corridor, he made a sign to cover the lights and crept forward alone, as quietly as his heavy armor would permit. He peered around the corners. When he spied no danger, he beckoned Karnoth to join him. The first few times, the old dwarf merely shook his head and shrugged. At last, however, he nodded in recognition.

“They brought me down from that stairway,” he said, pointing east.

From that point, their exploration became an exercise in stealth, made more tricky by the appearance of torches in wall sconces every ten feet or so. The light revealed two layers of crude writing on the walls, an ancient script drawn in thick, black runes covered by a far more recent scrawl in red and gray chalk. The latter was so prolific and hectic that it all but obliterated the older characters. Most of it was scribbling, but here and there were rude drawings of improbable pornography or boastful goblin mottoes. Devis paused to rub away some of the chalk and identify what lay beneath.

“Don’t bother,” said Tordek. “It is the curse that doomed this place, scratched on every wall once sanctified by the clerics. Its magic is long since expended, and its words mean nothing except to those whose corrupt souls still burn in the lowest hell for the evil that they nurtured here.”

“Oh,” said Devis, looking disappointed. He brightened slightly as he looked Tordek in the eye. “You know, that was pretty eloquent. Ever think about—?”

“No,” said Tordek.

Twice as they crept carefully up the lighted corridors, Lidda’s keen ears warned them of approaching goblins. Tordek’s fingers itched to throttle them one by one, but he smothered his desire and hid with the others as the ragged troops marched past. If they escorted another slave for the oubliette, he decided, he would abandon all subterfuge and slaughter them despite the risk of alarm. Fortunately for the goblins, they were merely changing the guard or patrolling incompetently.

“Hear that?” asked Lidda. Vadania was the first to nod, but soon after Tordek also heard the sound, a low, rhythmic bombination punctuated by muted tolling of iron striking iron.

Karnoth pointed up the passageway, indicating another rising stairway that ended in a solid double door. “Two chambers beyond lies the foundry. The way is well guarded, mostly to prevent escape. Still, you won’t get in without a fight.”

“I don’t mind a fight,” said Tordek, “but let us not endanger the prisoners needlessly. How many are there?”

“Thirty-two, if none have died since the goblins dragged me away.”

Tordek considered that number. “Are they fit for combat? Will they fight if armed?”

“A few, perhaps,” said Karnoth. “The goblins give us precious little time to rest, and those who falter share the fate from which you rescued me.”

“Tell us more about the layout of the forge. I would know the battlefield before we step upon it.”

The old dwarf nodded his endorsement of Tordek’s caution and described the circular forge area with a battery of sloping shafts into the mines. “There are five entrances to the main floor, one of them grander than the others. I have seen balconies on a higher level in the forge, but only the goblins go up there.”

“Let’s find them, then,” said Tordek. Once again he led the way, letting the stealthy Lidda scout the corners now that his darkvision was no longer an advantage. When they came to locked doors, Lidda listened for occupants on the other side before thwarting their mechanisms with her arsenal of picks. Each door took successively less time to unlock, as she became increasingly familiar with their type.

“There’s a master key for most of these,” she said. “Next time we see a goblin with a key ring, we should thump ’im.”

“Thump ’im at the very least,” agreed Tordek. His tone was far darker than his words.

“Why the grudge?” asked Devis. “I mean, I don’t like them, either. You’ve probably faced a lot of different foes over the years. I’m surprised that those little runts bother you so much. What is it with you and goblins?”

When Tordek did not immediately answer, Devis opened his mouth to voice another question, but Vadania put a hand on his shoulder and shook her head, No. The bard’s jaw jutted in a brief display of petulance, but he drew a deep breath and nodded, sighing.

After half an hour of furtive exploration, they found another passage to the upper level. This one was also well lighted but with wide braziers set deep into the walls at dwarf height. Their coals cast a red glow upon the carved ceiling while their smoke drifted up through narrow ventilation shafts cleverly hidden by the ornamentation. The ancient dwarven curses marked the walls, absent the goblin scrawl.

The sound from the forge was louder here, especially from around a bend at the far end of the corridor, past three doors on the right side of the passage, where two goblins stood before a grand door. Their gazes were fixed on some bright area around the corner, so they remained oblivious to the intruders.

“Just two?” Lidda signed with the fingers of her left hand. Her right already held her short bow.

Tordek observed the way the two goblins chattered to each other and decided they were alone. He gestured an affirmative and aimed his own bow, noting that Devis had done the same, and Vadania’s sling was already forming a loop in preparation for the throw.

At Tordek’s signal, the missiles flew. Lidda, Vadania, and Devis were already running toward the goblins as the hapless guards slumped against the door they had been guarding. Tordek followed with Karnoth, careful not to cause too much of a clatter in his armor. By the time they reached the others, both goblins were dead, and Lidda was listening at the door. She shrugged, nodding toward the light from the balcony they had been facing to indicate the clamor that rose from the foundry prevented her from hearing anything.

After checking the hall for other occupants and spying none, Tordek approached the balcony rail to gaze into the forge of Andaron. He felt the first wave of heat as he rounded the corner, but as he looked down he felt it withering his eyebrows.

Larger than all of the lower caverns combined, the foundry was a blend of artifice and nature. Its floor was carved from the living rock in four increasingly deep, pentagonal levels. Around the outer ring were five separate entrances, four of them simple rectangular portals fortified by iron portcullises. The grand entrance was an arch over ten feet tall and almost twenty feet wide, its open doors blistering with spikes and steel bosses to rebuff and absorb any assault. Opposite the grand entrance was a line of round tunnels bored deep into the earth. A stone ramp jutted from each one like an impudent tongue. Beside two of the ramps lay ancient ore sledges, one of them piled with bins of the abandoned bounty collected before the fall of Andaron’s Delve. Whatever business its current inhabitants had, it was not refining ore.

The rest of the outer ring was a clutter of water troughs, worktables, empty tool racks, and the makeshift beds of the slaves who labored in the inner rings. On one filthy pallet lay a burned and sweating dwarf stripped to the waist, restless in his torpor. Nearby stood a trio of grinning goblins, throwing dice and occasionally prodding the sick dwarf.

The third ring was filled with anvils and lesser forges, half of which rang with hammer blows as three dwarven and two human smiths beat points and edges into simple swords. The goblin guards scolded one of the dwarves for taking too long to complete his latest blade, but the proud smith balked at their warning and continued his work. For him it was torment enough to manufacture inferior weapons, even for his enslavers. He bore the threats and abuse with dwarven stoicism until at last he plunged the red and black blade into a water barrel and tossed it onto a table of similarly crude work. A young man with his face half covered in dirty bandages took the swords up to the outer level, where he and a companion fitted hilts and quillions to the blades.

Inside the ring of anvils were three foundry tables on which squatted the iron molds. Huge cauldrons of molten iron jerked and swayed on a battery of rails affixed to the ceiling. Their molten surfaces bubbled just three feet below the rail of the catwalks, close enough for workers to reach them with long ladles or hooks. Along the catwalks, a pair of ogres dragged the glowing pots from the great, central forge and provided the brute force to tip out the molten iron as a team of goblins guided its course. Black stains on the floor showed where accident or cruelty had recently spilled the ore over workers whose bone fragments were still fused into the stone.

Carved upon the floor of the inner level was a wicked sight: a five-pointed star whose every line overlapped another in a queer illusion that made the design appear in constant motion. Within its borders writhed the naked bodies of the damned, lost souls of every race and breed, grasping and tearing at each other, man against monster, elf entwined with beast, halfling and gnome and orc all destroying each other in a futile effort to escape their doom.

Tordek gasped, momentarily mesmerized by the illusion that the figures were alive rather than mere carvings. There was the look of dwarven craft about the pentacle and its vile embellishments, but some dark shadow had fallen over it and given it a glimmer of demonic life.

Whatever dread figure was destined to appear in the center of the star, Tordek could not guess. Upon it squatted the great forge of Andaron, a tremendous furnace carved within a pillar of red-streaked black rock too smooth to be iron, too dull to be obsidian. Three teams of men and dwarves worked the bellows, their bare chests blistering from the heat. One of the dwarves had already lost most of his beard to the flame, and one of the men pumped the lever with one hand and a blackened stump. Fire blazed white and yellow through the slits of the forge’s great iron doors, each shaped like a devil’s face. The edges of those that were closed glowed red, while those that were opened unleashed such an inferno that the big men who fired the blades wailed from the heat. When one fainted, another took his place, goaded by the long pikes of their goblin captors, who used the hooked tips of their weapons to drag the fallen away from the fire. Those who stirred back to wakefulness were flogged by cackling taskmasters. Those who rested too long felt the spear tips as well as the lash.

The air above the forge rippled with heat, and smoke rose up to vanish into huge ventilation shafts covered with iron grates. The catwalks rested on five spiral stairways on the outer level and hung from great iron rods embedded in the stone ceiling. They shuddered with every lunge of the ogres, zigzagging between the stalactites that pointed down from the ceiling like accusing fingers. The iron paths linked the vents to the forge’s chimney and the black scaffold supporting the bellows. One of them led to the balcony on which Tordek stood, while another reached the platform’s twin, twenty feet to his left.

“Look there,” said Devis, pointing over Tordek’s shoulder.

Someone—or something—quite large was moving on the other side of the Hellforge. All Tordek could see from this vantage was something that looked like a huge, red, leather cloak upon a gigantic back. Whatever creature it was thrust a blade into the forge and held it there unflinching, then it turned and placed the weapon on an unseen anvil. The resultant hammering suggested that at least three other smiths assisted with the task.

“Zagreb,” said Karnoth. “He would not sully his hands by working on ordinary weapons.”

Tordek strained for a better view but realized he would have none from this balcony. He went to the next one, only barely mindful of the need for quiet. There he spied Zagreb at last.

A head taller than either of the other ogres and far more noble of countenance, Zagreb stood before a great anvil wearing nothing but a loin clout. His muscular body was redder than rage and scaled like a lizard on thighs and shins, shoulders and forearms. Except for the enormous wings folded upon his back, he looked more like a huge man than an ogre, but upon his face was the mark of his true ancestry. His nose was broad and reptilian, with slits for nostrils above a protruding jaw, short, thick spikes jutting from his chin like some fanciful beard. His forehead sloped back in bony ridges bordered by curling black horns, and a glossy black mane spilled down his back. His ears were long and ridged, jutting out almost as far as the black horns that ringed his head like a crown. In his naked grip was a dwarven urgrosh, a long-shafted axe with a great spearhead at its butt. The entire weapon was made of steel, now glowing white-hot from the kiss of the forge. Zagreb did not mind the heat as he held the weapon down on the anvil while three dwarven smiths beat at the axe head. With every stroke of their hammers, the great crack that creased its blade grew fainter and fainter. The weapon was gradually becoming whole again.

“We are not fighting that thing,” said Lidda. “Maybe instead we can taunt it from a safe distance.”

“Or we could send it a nasty letter,” suggested Devis.

Tordek ignored them both, but he started when Vadania said, “They’re right, Tordek.”

“What? You were the one who brought us here.”

“Yes,” said Vadania. “I still wish to stop the forge, but we cannot fight that thing. Not here, among its allies.”

Tordek looked to Karnoth for another dwarf’s opinion. The graybeard kept his face neutral, as Tordek should have expected. It was his decision to make.

“Very well,” he said. “First we must find a way to get the prisoners out of the forge area. How long until they rest?”

“It is difficult to say,” said Karnoth. “In the beginning they worked us only half the day, but lately they have pushed us harder.”

Tordek turned to Lidda. “Can you slip down there unseen and give a message to the prisoners?”

Lidda considered the chaos below and grinned confidently. “No problem.”

“You know,” offered Devis, “I can help you with that. I know you’re good and sneaky, but would you like to be invisible?”

“Would I!”

Tordek creased his brow in annoyance at the bard’s interruption, but he could hardly complain about his plan. Perhaps Devis was wiser than he looked, for he turned to Tordek and added, “Just say when.”

“All right,” said Tordek. He knew by rights that Vadania was leading this mission, but he felt comfortable in command and had known the elf long enough to realize she preferred the role of counselor to leader. He was just glad that Lidda and Devis also acknowledged his leadership. “Here’s what we’ll—”

Devis grabbed Tordek and pushed him down beneath the balcony railing. Simultaneously, Lidda and Vadania ducked for cover, pulling Karnoth down with them onto the iron floor of the balcony, out of sight from the hallway. With a jerk of her chin, Lidda pointed back toward the door at which they had slain the goblins.

A low voice spoke calmly upon the discovery of the slain guards. “Yupa, go down and alert the troops,” it said. “We have visitors.”

“Shall I go with the quasit?” purred a woman’s voice.

“No,” said the other. “Come with me to the forge.”

Tordek felt the vibration in the iron floor even as he heard the pair step out onto the catwalk from the other balcony. He waited a moment to be sure they were walking away from the corridor, then he peered over the railing, noting that the others did the same beside him.

The male looked like a huge goblin, nearly as tall as an ogre but with the lesser species’ flat nose and prominent ears. It wore steely gray hair pulled back in a neat topknot bound by a comb of gold and rubies. Its skin was a deep, vivid blue, covered by piecemeal armor that showed off muscular arms and shoulders. Down its right arm ran a spiral tattoo culminating in a dark design on the palm. Its left hand was gloved, and the fingers brushed protectively over the warhammer that hung at the creature’s hip. The hammer’s ornate head glowed red and black, like coals in a banked fire.

“Hargrimm,” whispered Vadania. “The barghest.”

With him walked a woman so white she might have been made of lily petals. Her eyes were completely black, so dull that she appeared blind at first glance. She wore a once-fine gown of crushed velvet that might have been blue. Its hem was tattered and worn cobweb thin. She wore two large rings on each hand, and a ruby pendant gleamed at her throat.

They talked as they strode across the catwalk, but their words turned to thunder in Tordek’s ears. He pulled the necklace from beneath his armor and clutched the finger bones so tightly they threatened to burst into powder.

“He has the hammer,” he grumbled.

Vadania put a hand on his shoulder, urging him to sit down, out of sight. “Bide your time, my friend,” she said. “Bide your time.”

Lidda saw the look on Tordek’s face and frowned sympathetically, but then she brightened and said, “Have you noticed how all our enemies come in primary colors lately?”

Behind her, Devis snorted a laugh, and even Vadania smiled briefly. Karnoth looked more surprised than amused, but Tordek felt the choking rage loosen its grip on his heart. Still, he rebuked the halfling. “This is no laughing matter. That fiend devours his foes, who then spend eternity fueling his infernal power.”

“What do we do now?” said Devis soberly.

Tordek knew the bard was making an effort to defer to him, but he couldn’t decide whether it pleased or irritated him. Still, they had to act quickly now that their presence was detected.

“How many of us can you render invisible with your spell?” he asked the bard.

Devis grimaced an apology. “One,” he said. “Two if you ask first thing tomorrow.”

Tordek turned to Vadania.

“I have a potion,” she said. “No such spell, however.”

“That’s only two of us,” said Tordek. “Not good enough.”

“They just came out of that room,” said Lidda. “I bet that’s the last place they’d think to look for us. Besides, who knows what they have stashed in there?”

“Good idea,” said Tordek. “Let’s at least have a peek and wait there until the search party passes by.”

They crept away from the balcony and stepped over the corpses. Before Lidda knelt to examine the door’s lock, Devis whistled a little cantrip and hissed, “Don’t touch it!”

Lidda recoiled, edging back from the door on both knees before looking at the bard for an explanation.

“I think it’s warded,” he explained.

“Can you dispel it?” asked Tordek.

“Maybe,” said Devis. “I have a scroll, but only the one.”

“Hmm.” Tordek considered whether it was worth the expenditure of such a useful spell for a peek inside what might or might not be Hargrimm’s quarters. Again, he turned to Vadania, but she only shook her head no. Before he could make up his mind, a scream rose above the steady clamor of the foundry. They rushed to the near balcony and peered down.

Zagreb pushed the body of one of the dwarven smiths off the spear of the reforged urgrosh. Its surface radiated with a hellish glow as the dwarf’s blood quenched the heat that knitted its axe blade.

Hargrimm stood beside the half-dragon, the glow of his warhammer pulsing in sympathy with its resurrected sibling. He raised the weapon, holding it poised to strike at Zagreb.

The ogre-dragon gazed back unflinchingly. With a shark’s grin, Hargrimm struck Zagreb full on the chest. The blow might have slain a man, but it rebounded from the half-dragon’s chest as if it had been little more than a friendly nudge.

“Do you see?” said Hargrimm. “Now we are truly brothers in arms.”

Zagreb nodded, a smile finally creasing his dour face. He raised the urgrosh and struck back, slamming the keen axe head into the barghest’s shoulder. The blow left not so much as a scratch upon his bare, blue flesh.

Behind them, Sandrine eyed the weapons greedily, but she stood silently, patiently, unnoticed by either of the brutes.

Hargrimm started and cocked his head, as if listening to a tiny messenger beside him. His gaze rose to the balcony, and his eyes stared directly at Tordek, who realized that the tiny, invisible fiend had just pointed them out to its master.

Squinting in their direction, Hargrimm stood straight. Zagreb said something to him, but he shook his head at the suggestion, and the half-dragon took a step back deferentially.

Hargrimm smiled and beckoned at them to come down. Tordek was certain he had been seen, but he gambled that the others were still hidden from the barghest’s sight. With one hand still behind the balcony rail he gestured for them to remain crouched, then he stepped out onto the catwalk.

This drew an approving nod from Hargrimm, who made a gesture and slowly levitated up to the level of the walkway. When he came to rest on the iron catwalk, he beckoned again. The gesture was polite enough except for his wolfish grin of anticipation.

Tordek walked forward. All the eyes of the slaves and their keeper turned up to witness his exchange with their master.

“Who in the countless cells of the Abyss are you?” demanded Hargrimm. Again he cocked his head to listen to his unseen familiar. His eyes were novas against a face as dark as demon wine as he stared at the finger bones that lay on Tordek’s chest.

Tordek set the head of his axe upon the bridge and planted his fists on its butt. “I am Tordek, son of Vardek Sure-Fist, grandson of Grisna the Red, slayer of the usurper Felldrake, great-grandson of Belsedar Truce-Forger.”

“I know none of those names,” said Hargrimm. He bit the fingers of his glove and pulled it off, revealing a ruined hand with only a thumb and one finger to hold the glove in place. “Still, something about you makes my fingers itch.”

“My brother’s name was Holten.”

“Ah.” He smiled wistfully. “That name I know. You may know me as Hargrimm…” The creature’s grin grew improbably wide, revealing a thicket of sharp, yellow teeth. “…Devourer-of-Holten.”

“Our meeting was fated,” growled Tordek. “Prepare to return to the pit from which you crept.”

“Yes, now I see the resemblance—thick of chest, thick of arm, and thick of skull. Come, if you wish to follow your brother.” The demon licked blood from his lips. “He is lonely in his torment, and I am hungry.”

Tordek growled and raised his axe. Below Hargrimm, the pale woman smiled and sank into the shadows, while the red ogre snapped his vast wings open with a sound like sailcloth in a gale. Hargrimm waved them away with his maimed hand as he raised the hammer of Andaron in the other.

“No, Tordek! Not here!” called Vadania, standing to show herself to the foes and thus spoiling Tordek’s hasty plan to act as a diversion. “Not now.”

“She’s right,” said Lidda, rising to level her bow at Hargrimm. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Come on, Tordek,” pleaded Devis. “At least give me time to compose a proper revenge ballad before we all go down fighting.”

“Idiots,” muttered Tordek.

“Your friends are loyal,” laughed Hargrimm, “if not obedient. Have you told them the lesson of your brother?”

“Enough talk,” said Tordek, raising his war axe and dropping his shield. He would have shrugged off his pack if he had a moment more, for there was precious little room atop the catwalk.

With an evil grin, Hargrimm raised the glowing hammer and struck the iron frame of the catwalk.

The iron rippled like water, hurling Tordek up so suddenly that he missed grabbing the rail. Behind him, iron bolts shrieked and popped as the catwalk snapped away from the wall. He glanced back to see Lidda, Devis, and Vadania tumbling to the ground twenty feet below. Karnoth remained on the level above, narrowly avoiding the fall but now revealed to all who cared to look up.

Tordek crouched and clutched the railing. The catwalk dipped and listed six feet to one side, but it did not break. He looked down to see the smiths at one of the outer anvils running away to avoid being crushed by the tumbling metal. Still it held, shaking in the aftermath of the hammer blow.

“You see?” said Hargrimm, hefting the hammer. “This is what your brother sought. It is a weapon worthy of me. He held it only briefly, and now it is mine, along with his soul. Today the hammer’s power is restored, together with its kin. Do you know what I will do with them? Do you know the real power of the Arms of Andaron?”

“It will matter little when I send you back to the Abyss,” growled Tordek. He took a step toward his foe, but his shifting weight set the catwalk to swaying dangerously. He clung desperately to the rail with one hand, gripping his axe tightly in the other.

Hargrimm laughed at his predicament. “You shall live long enough to be the first sacrifice to my lord Gruulnargh. Your courage is amusing, and I admire your necklace. Did you bring it as a gift?”

Tordek spat at the demon and advanced another step. This time he was ready for the motion of the catwalk. Adjusting the rhythm of his pace to its swaying, he took another step, gripping the rail with his shield arm. He dared not look back at his companions, but he hoped they had recovered sufficiently from their tumble to escape.

“Close enough, Tordek, brother of…what was his name again?” said Hargrimm. “Oh, I remember. Supper.”

With rippling muscles he raised the hammer and hurled it at Tordek. The weapon smashed into the dwarf’s chest, crushing the armor plating and hurling him backward off the catwalk. As he flew through the air, Tordek reflexively grabbed the hammer as if for support. For an instant he felt it tug away, as if it might actually lift him up and spare him from the fall. When he hit the ground and felt the wind knocked out of his lungs, he realized the truth. The hammer should have returned to its wielder, but it hadn’t. Some quirk of its enchantment failed.

Tordek felt his friends’ hands on him, helping him to his feet.

“It isn’t possible!” roared Hargrimm from above.

Tordek felt heat from the hammer surge through his palm and into his veins. Inside his body, it sang to him a warrior’s song.

“Get him!” screamed Hargrimm. “Retrieve my hammer!”

With wings snapping like sails, the winged Zagreb dived toward the dwarf. Tordek saw the half-dragon’s jaws open wide, and a red spark flashed deep in the serpentine throat. Flames engulfed him. All he saw was light, and all he felt was searing pain. He closed his eyes tight against the inferno, praying that he might live long enough to strike just one blow.

Someone grabbed him from behind and together they fell onto a hard, wood surface. It shifted beneath Tordek with a grating sound. He tried, but he could not open his eyes to see. His nostrils were filled with the stench of his own burned hair and flesh, and he felt a searing stripe of pain across the exposed portions of his face.

“Push!” shouted Devis, so close to his ear that Tordek at least knew his hearing had not been burned away. He felt the earth shift beneath him, two more bodies leaped atop his, then the whole pile was sliding downward, backward, somehow picking up speed as it raced away from the Hellforge and plunged deep into the mines of Andaron’s Delve.

8

Murdark

At last Tordek pried open his scorched eyelids and blinked away the gummy residue of his eyelashes. The ceiling of the mineshaft sped by at incredible speed as they plunged down the steep slope. Despite his pain, he recognized immediately that they were piled onto a flat, wheelless ore sledge plummeting down an inclined tunnel.

“Who is steering this thing?” he shouted.

“There’s steering?” cried Lidda, straddling his armored chest. She kept enough of her wits to strike another sunrod, which she waved to and fro in her search for a brake, a wheel, a lever, anything to guide or slow their descent.

Tordek wriggled and shoved, but not so hard as to send Vadania or Devis over the side of the sledge. At last he managed to turn over on his stomach and look forward instead of straight up. They were sliding so fast that the new vantage was no more reassuring. He barely glimpsed side passages and rotten wooden braces to either side as they sped past.

“This is going to hurt when we stop,” suggested Devis. “A lot.”

“You can be the first to jump off!” snapped Tordek.

The bard shut his mouth and concentrated, thinking of a spell that might help them, Tordek hoped. At last he shrugged and quickly sang the cat’s grace spell that he had cast on Lidda earlier, but this time on himself.

Vadania craned her neck to peer at the ceiling.

“What are you looking for?” yelled Tordek.

“Roots!” she shouted back. “Do you see any roots?”

At her words, all four of them scanned the walls for any sign of roots, but Tordek knew it was a vain hope.

“We’re too deep!” he cried.

“I’m out of ideas,” she replied.

At that, the walls and ceiling disappeared.

“What does that mean?” yelled Devis. “We’re in a bigger area! Is that good?”

The sledge slowed. The hissing of its passage gradually declined to a deep, grating sound. Soon it was quiet enough that they could hear their own sighs of relief.

“Thank Fharlanghn!” said Devis.

“Thank Moradin,” insisted Tordek. He rose to his knees and peered ahead as the sledge ground forward over the gravel slope. He opened his mouth to shout a warning, but it was too late.

“Thank Yondaaaaahhhh!” screamed Lidda as they plunged over the edge and fell into a black abyss.

They sat upon the bank of the sunless lake and wrung out their cloaks. Devis sneezed and shivered in the cold, but they had no time to light a fire. The icy water that saved them from crushing death now threatened to kill them more slowly with pneumonia.

At the edge of the sunrod’s light, the ore sledge bobbed gently in the water. Devis suggested they use it as a raft, but the thing could barely float unladen. Their brief experiment proved that even with just Lidda’s weight, it would quickly sink below the surface.

They paused only for a few curing spells from Vadania and Devis before collecting their gear. Remarkably, nothing was lost except for Tordek’s shield, which he imagined Hargrimm was already mounting as a trophy in his bedchamber. The furious demon was sure to send pursuit, and it wouldn’t be long before goblins found this flooded chamber.

Tordek led the way, favoring the northerly path whenever presented with a choice. By his dwarven reckoning, which acted as an unerring compass underground, their plummet had carried them far beneath the “prow” of Jorgund Peak so they were now below the wrong side of the tainted river.

“We must find a way out of these mines,” he said. “If those tunnels lead only back to the foundry, then we have a problem.”

“On the other hand,” said Lidda, “we also have that big, blue fellow’s hammer. From the way he was howling about it, I bet he needs it real bad, probably to summon his demon pals.”

“You heard all that?” asked Tordek.

“Most of it,” said Lidda. “Vadania filled us in on the rest of the story.”

Tordek turned an accusatory glare upon the druid.

“I thought you were about to die,” she argued.

“Don’t worry,” said Devis. “She only gave us the outline. I know you were waiting for the right moment to tell us the story yourself. Weren’t you?”

“No,” said Tordek, unmoved by the half-elf’s ploy.

“Don’t you think we have a right to know?” said Lidda. “Especially me. How many times have I saved your life already?”

“None.”

“That’s not fair! How about that time with the minotaur?”

“I could have beaten him,” said Tordek.

“Not without my distraction. That wasn’t easy, you know. You try jumping off a roof with a rope tied around your waist. It hurts.”

“I don’t owe you anything,” said Tordek.

“You’re wrong,” said Lidda crossly, “and your face is burned and you have no eyebrows. If not for us, you’d be dead and this conversation wouldn’t be happening!”

“Enough!” said Tordek, halting their march and turning to face the others. They returned his gaze with earnest expressions.

“We have all helped each other,” said Vadania gently. “We are comrades in this quest.”

Tordek’s shoulders slumped. He gave Devis one last, dirty glance before sighing. “Very well, but we keep moving while I tell it.”

“Holten was my older brother by exactly ten years,” said Tordek. “To the day.”

“You were twins!” said Devis.

“Don’t be stupid,” snapped Lidda. “After all that effort to get him to tell the story.”

“No,” said Tordek. “He’s right. My people consider brothers or sisters born on the same day any count of years apart to be twins. Holten and I were brothers in arms as well, even as children. When we played at war, we were always on the same side, he the captain, I his lieutenant. We never quarreled. I was always happy to follow his lead.

“Except once.”

They marched along in silence for a while, climbing over a steep incline to reach a rocky plateau. All around them were deep holes where dwarven miners once drilled samples in their search for ore. Judging from the predominantly natural rock walls, they had found none.

The others refrained from prompting him for so long that Tordek felt an unwanted smile curling on his lips. The telling of this particular tale was proving much less painful than he feared, though he suspected he would feel differently when he came to the point of the matter.

“Holten heard the tale of the Arms of Andaron from a human bard in a tavern. We all heard some version of it as children, but dwarf storytellers present it as a terse, cautionary tale. The humans tell it differently, with hints of great power and glory to those who recover the lost weapons. They have no idea what harm they were causing.”

Tordek could almost hear Devis swallow guiltily behind him, but he did not turn to see his expression.

“He bought a treasure map and believed the rumors that Andaron’s hammer was buried in a crypt at the foot of the Thunderstone Mountains. He begged me to go with him, and I begged him not to go. In the end, I let him go by himself.

“Holten returned six years later, boasting of a great battle with a vicious worg that could transform into an enormous, blue goblin. He and his allies routed Hargrimm and his followers from the crypt, only to learn that both groups had been tricked with false clues. Hargrimm came away with nothing. Holten returned with these finger bones around his neck and a score of brave scars upon his body.”

Tordek paused again as the group came to a sheer decline. Lidda heard the distant sound of plunging water toward the east. After a brief discussion, they chose to follow it. Lidda clambered down the wall to anchor a knotted rope on which the others could follow, then she climbed back up to retrieve it and came nimbly down again.

“I believe we have come far enough to spare a little rest,” said Vadania. “With the echoes in this place, we will hear anyone who approaches long before they arrive.”

Tordek agreed, and they made a tiny fire with a few torches from their packs. Tordek made a simple frame with his bow and hung his cloak to dry beside the fire, hoping it would also hide their light from distant eyes. The others imitated his arrangement with bows and shields, forming a makeshift wall around their camp. The resulting enclosure trapped the heat and soon returned the warmth to their bones.

Tordek waited until Lidda proffered him a tin cup of warm tea before continuing his story.

“There was no preventing Holten from striking out again. By that time I was ranging out on quests of my own. It was then that I realized how hypocritical I had been, refusing to join his venture when fortune and glory were my goal as well.”

“There was a difference,” Vadania gently corrected him. “You understood the danger of the Arms of Andaron. Holten was brave, but he was reckless.”

Tordek waved away her argument. “No matter,” he said. “I was young and foolish, not yet fifty. I wanted to be wrong so that one of us could apologize and we could join forces once more. Moradin knows he was never going to be the one to make the gesture. So I gathered allies of my own, including a rather green druid, and set out to join him. We searched for three and a half years before finding the lone survivor.

“We found him sweeping the floors in a temple to St. Cuthbert. The clerics tolerated his presence because he had once been of their order, though he received no more grace from the god. He was drunk the day we found him, and he liked to stay that way, so we got the story from him for the cost of a few bottles of cheap wine.

“Holten and his fellows found the Hammer of Andaron, all right. They even escaped its trap-filled tomb with minimal casualties. Only this time it was Hargrimm waiting outside for him, and this time the worg-demon brought an army.

“They were slaughtered, all of them but the cleric, who was bound and forced to watch as Hargrimm devoured the others alive. It took days. When it was done, the demon simply let the cleric go, knowing his mind and spirit were broken.”

“Is that why you were able to catch the hammer?” asked Devis. “Because Holten once had it, and it cannot harm his twin?”

Tordek grunted an affirmative. He had surmised as much ever since he felt the hammer tug away then surrender to his grasp.

Tordek searched his imagination for some important way to conclude his story, but none came to mind. For a moment, he worried that Devis would come up with something dramatic to add to his tale when the bard repeated it in taverns across the land. The thought did not please him, but it felt good finally to have told the story aloud to others who faced the wrath of the fiend that swallowed his brother’s soul. It made Tordek feel as though he were one step closer to laying his brother to rest.

There was only one more step to take.

The waterfall whose voice they followed led them to another buried lake. Their aches from their falls, battles, and exertions were finally so tender that they could not press on without rest. They lit another small fire with a few fresh torches and the charred remains of their previous fire before setting watches. It felt like only minutes had passed since Tordek laid his head down on his rolled cloak before Lidda was urgently shaking his shoulder.

Tordek rolled up to a crouch. The Hammer of Andaron lay nearby, but he ignored it in favor of his trusty axe. Devis was already alert with his crossbow cocked and held neat against his shoulder. Lidda moved to shake Vadania out of her meditation.

Tordek followed the bard’s gaze and saw the wake of a huge creature swimming toward them across the underground lake.

“What the devil is that?” said Devis.

“Murdark…” Tordek remembered how much he disliked that name the first time he had heard it. “Karnoth warned us of a beast that roamed these lower caverns.”

“Let’s hope it’s allergic to crossbow bolts,” said Devis. His aim followed the creature’s dark head as it emerged from the water and its body lumbered up in the shallows.

Tordek tensed to leap forward as soon as he heard the crossbow’s twang. Instead, he heard an urgent “No!” and the sound of Vadania’s hand slapping the bard’s crossbow out of line. The bolt cracked against the distant, unseen ceiling before splashing into the lake.

From the dark water rose a colossal beast, its dark pelt black and smooth from its watery passage.

“Gulo!” cried Lidda.

Vadania said nothing, but she rushed forward to stroke her mammoth friend’s face. “You foolish, foolish boy,” she crooned at him.

“Say,” said Devis. “If Gulo found himself a way in…”

“… then he found us a way out,” finished Tordek.

“Why don’t we just get out of here?” suggested the bard. “Hargrimm can’t do his ritual without the hammer, and we can’t fight that legion of monsters assembled up there. I say we run far, far away from here and hide this thing under somebody’s army.”

“That won’t solve the problem of the poison river,” said Vadania.

“It won’t do anything about Hargrimm’s army, either,” added Lidda.

“And it won’t do anything about Hargrimm,” said Tordek. “I am not running away.”

“Me neither,” said Lidda. “Sorry, Bunny. I’m with the dwarf.”

Vadania said nothing, but she stepped beside Tordek even while she kept a hand on Gulo’s soggy shoulder.

Devis looked back at them with disbelief all over his weary face. “But we’ll lose,” he said. “That makes a terrible story.”

“How can we lose now?” said Tordek. “We’ve got Gulo with us.”

Devis made a little choking sound.

“We don’t have to face Hargrimm’s assembled army,” said Vadania. “If we can lure him out and kill just him, maybe his army will break apart. You know how fractious such creatures can be.”

“Besides,” said Lidda, “there are captives to rescue, more evil weapons to steal…and at least the way up is drier than the way out.”

Devis looked unconvinced, but he shrugged at last. “All right,” he said, “but only because I don’t want to go swimming again.”

As if he had been waiting for someone to say exactly that, Gulo violently shook his pelt and soaked them all to the skin. Sheets of water quenched the fire, so they stood there amid gales of laughter in the darkness until Tordek brought out his everburning torch and saw that, for once, Devis was the only one not laughing.

Hours later, they climbed up through a rent that could only have been caused by an earthquake and emerged into a vast and pillared hall. Four different prayers of thanks were muttered to four different gods. Even Gulo rumbled a grateful sound as he clambered up onto the fitted stones, his great claws clicking on the floor.

“Feast hall,” said Tordek. His everburning torch illuminated bare poles that once held clan banners on the walls. Vadania struck a sun rod and walked in the opposite direction. Even the two bright lights could not illuminate the entire room at once.

They saw broken chairs and graying tables scattered around the room or stacked in careless heaps. In one wall was set a great fireplace choked with half-burned detritus, while four lesser and two grand arches yawned open to shadows beyond, their doors long since torn away. Whatever lay beyond them remained black in the gloom.

“Now which way, O fearless…” Lidda stilled her tongue and listened to Gulo. The dire wolverine put his head low to the ground and growled.

“Something’s coming,” translated Vadania needlessly. The others drew their weapons, and Devis sang himself a shimmering suit of mage armor.

Scale is too heavy and chain gives me rashes,

Give me some armor that spares me from slashes!

“That’s a very silly spell!” whispered Lidda.

“You’re the one who insists on perfect rhyme,” he hissed back. They ceased their banter as they heard the beast approach.

The sound was a scraping, like someone dragging a box of arrows down the hall: slow at first, then followed by a brief rattling as of a rack of spears bumped by a careless soldier. The same sound came again, slowly and confidently, followed by a deep snuffling and a low, purring growl.

Gulo roared back, filling the great hall with his voice to warn off any challenger that would trespass on his ground.

“So much for our chances of parlay,” grumbled Devis.

A great shadow slouched into the frame of one of the grand arches, even blacker than the gloom behind it. At its shoulder it stood taller than Tordek. Its long body crouched low, and its bushy-tipped tail switched back and forth on the floor with a sound of rushes.

“Fire!” cried Tordek. His bow sang in chorus with his companions’, and four missiles flew at the intruder.

The monster shrugged and coughed like a leopard. Two great dark wings rose up from its back then folded down again as its tail flicked scorpionlike over its back, flinging its own barrage back at its foes.

A needle-sharp spike shot through Tordek’s chest, punching through his armor as if it were foil. It lodged deep in his body, just below his heart. Beside him, Vadania shouted in surprise as another spike slammed through her shield and into her shoulder, spinning her around. Devis cursed and clutched his thigh, but luckily for him the wound was only a graze.

Gulo rushed forward. He reared up to fall upon the foe, but the enemy beast also rose up on its hind legs and locked the wolverine in a vicious embrace. Claws cut deep as both animals twisted their heads to bite at an unprotected flank while simultaneously turning away to avoid the other’s fangs.

Tordek dropped his bow and unslung his war axe. The motion was agony as it tugged at the long spike imbedded in his lung. He coughed painfully and tasted blood in his mouth, but still he lumbered forward to help Gulo against the monster.

Vadania’s sweet voice rose in an elvish hymn to Obad-Hai. A flickering, purple aura appeared around the foe.

It had the body of a gigantic cat, spotted like a leopard but with the powerful haunches of a desert lion. Great umber wings spread from behind its shoulders to beat furiously at Gulo’s face. A ragged line of thick, black spines ran down its sinuous back. The spines tapered away at the base of its long, twitching tail to reappear in a thick cluster at its clublike tip. The thing’s face was round and manlike, with a huge maw far out of proportion with the flat-faced head. A beard of black spikes bristled from its chin, reinforcing the monstrous resemblance to a man.

“Manticore!” shouted Devis, running up with his longsword in hand. “It’s a manticore!”

Another spike seemed to spring suddenly from the monster’s chin, but it was a dagger, not a spike. Lidda whooped in triumph. The creature screamed in annoyance and jerked back its head. The involuntary gesture gave Gulo the opening he needed to sink his fangs into the beast’s shoulder.

Tordek swung his axe at the manticore’s haunch. The beast shifted backward in Gulo’s deadly embrace just before the blow fell, sparing it a crippling wound.

Devis lunged in to thrust at the thing’s side, now high above his head. The point of his blade sank a few inches between the manticore’s ribs, earning him a furious roar and the beast’s full attention. He muttered an unintelligible oath while ducking to avoid a wing buffet.

Gulo continued pushing hard against the manticore, but the foe had the advantage of greater mass. It was cunning, too. When Gulo released his grip and hunched low to bite the manticore’s exposed belly, the monster leaped upward, pushed off against the wolverine’s broad back, and took to the air with a harsh snap of its leathery wings.

“Look out for its tail!” cried Devis, running for cover. The others scattered in four directions, wary of being caught together in a barrage of spikes.

While its flightless foes fumbled to change weapons yet again, the manticore wheeled around in the relative confines of the great hall, searching for a high perch. Spotting none, it dived straight toward Devis.

The bard’s face paled as he hurriedly sang another spell. Wheezing, struggling to breathe, Tordek stumbled to help him. He released his bow and reached for the axe that he realized too late wasn’t there—he had dropped it only a moment before in favor of the bow. There was no time to turn back for it. His hand touched Andaron’s Hammer, and a furious surge of power pulsed up through his arm and across his chest. Filled with its hot strength, he ripped the manticore’s spike from his ribs and kept running with renewed strength.

Lidda’s bow twanged. The arrow disappeared into the flapping wings of the manticore as the monster flicked its tail. A black hail of spikes fell around Devis just as he vanished from sight. A moment later, the manticore landed directly on the spot where Devis had stood. Blindingly fast paws slapped the area until the creature felt something and scooped it toward snapping fangs. Daggerlike teeth slashed and tore blindly, and blood splashed across the horrible jaws.

The unseen victim’s screams were hideous.

Lidda sent arrow after green-fletched arrow slapping into the monster’s flank.

Tordek ran hard. The surge from the hammer gave him strength even though it did nothing to quench his agony. He covered the last six feet in a flying leap. The mallet head crashed down like a landslide. The massive impact severed the manticore’s spine just above its haunches.

The monster wailed its ear-splitting anguish and twitched spasmodically. The tail, decked with deadly spikes, lashed to and fro reflexively but there was no control behind it. The manticore’s legs collapsed and dropped it to the floor in a heap.

Gulo was upon the crippled beast in a flash, and his sharp fangs found its soft throat. With three wicked shakes of the wide-eyed head, the manticore’s screams were silenced forever.

Lidda raced around the monster’s body, shouting Devis’s name and feeling along the blood-slicked floor for the invisible bard. Vadania did the same, circling the other way. Tordek pushed against the manticore’s body, trying to roll it over to see whether it might have fallen on its last prey.

“Answer us, Devis!” called Vadania urgently. “We can’t see you.”

“No no no,” muttered Lidda quietly as her hands brushed against a body. She drew one away. It was covered in blood.

The druid joined her, and together they gently rolled him onto his back and felt for his throat and his chest.

“Is he alive?” demanded Tordek.

“I can’t feel a pulse,” sobbed Lidda. “His face is all…torn up.”

“Get back,” said Vadania. She filled her hands with mistletoe and called on the powers of the world. Pale, green luminescence flared, then faded on her fingers, and she called again. By the third time, she had only an orison to offer, and then her powers of curing were depleted.

“Is that it?” shouted Lidda. “Is that all you can do?”

Vadania whipped her head around to face the angry halfling. “Shut your mouth, you stupid little clown!”

Lidda’s face turned red, and her lean body quivered in rage. For a long, long second, Tordek feared she would stab the elf in the throat. The tensions was broken by a sound from the floor.

Devis gurgled weakly. An instant later, he reappeared. Neither the elf nor the halfling could disguise their shock at the terrible wounds on his face and neck, as well as his bare and bloody arm.

With his other hand, he groped weakly for his pack.

Sensing his desire, Lidda and Vadania peeled the pack from Devis’s back and plucked out everything they could lay hands on: torches, a waterskin, what was left of his trail rations, a scroll, a potion, and finally a wand which he grasped and held to his chest. Bubbles formed on his mouth as he gagged out a few words in a thick, unmusical voice and touched the wand to his throat. It emitted a milky light that soothed and knit the torn flesh it illuminated.

Tordek watched as the women competed with each other to fuss over the wounded half-elf. Vadania held up his head while Lidda washed away the blood on his face with her own waterskin. The elf snatched away the waterskin to bathe his arm, then Lidda took to stroking his uninjured hand and telling him that everything would be all right.

Tordek shook his head and turned to Gulo, his only remaining ally who had not become crippled or insane.

“How does he do that?” he asked the wolverine. Tordek was about to complain that Devis was not the only one in need of curing, but then he felt a warm and healthful glow where his lung had been pierced. Reaching awkwardly under his damaged breastplate, Tordek probed for the wound but felt only a hard knot where the hole should have been. It felt rough as sandstone and oddly cool against his warm skin.

He looked at the hammer still clenched in his grasp and quickly replaced it on his belt. A new question troubled his mind as he walked away from the women cooing over Devis and went to retrieve his dropped axe.

9

Dissention

They dared not tarry in the feast hall for fear that the manticore’s corpse would put more searchers onto their trail. Despite the cure spells, Devis walked with a weary limp that prompted Vadania to support him as they went. Tordek saw that Lidda was sulking about it as she brought up the rear, and he hoped her indignation would not dull her senses to an approaching threat.

He did not really hold her to blame, though. He was more than half certain the bard was overplaying his injury for more attention. The only reason Tordek did not say so was that he was sure his accusation would only generate more sympathy for the damned rascal.

Instead Tordek led them farther north, along a great cavern lined with long-abandoned homes and shops stripped of their original contents. Except for their subterranean location, the structures were not so different from the houses of the hill dwarves, who lived their lives above the ground. The only obvious difference was that the peaked roofs were reinforced for rockslides, not mere rain.

The cobbled streets smelled of dry rat dung, and the shredded remains of old spider webs waved in the gated air vents that remained open. From others, the stains of rain-soaked soil ran down the walls, and mounds of pebbles and dirt gathered at their bases, proof of the centuries of neglect the abandoned stronghold had endured. Now and then they found a few scattered bones, cracked and sucked dry of marrow. Centipedes and ants the size of Tordek’s thumb crawled away as their light approached.

They crossed a bridge over a vast chasm. Looking up, Tordek saw reflected light over another bridge high above. The silhouettes of two more bridges appeared between them and the light, showing that Andaron’s Delve was once far more than the shelter for a great smithy; it was a city unto itself. The distant echo of hammers drifted down from the heights, confirming his earlier estimate that they had plunged about three hundred yards below the foundry before splashing into the subterranean lake.

Lidda whistled low and appreciatively. “That’s some climb.”

Tordek nodded. “Unless their forces are far greater than we realized, they might never find us down here. Still, I would like to find a defensible room before we rest.”

No one argued that point.

They crossed the bridge and entered a region of wide avenues paved with hexagonal tiles. Grand fountains, cracked and filled with dust, formed a roundabout at every intersection, and between the ornate houses jutting from the stone stood great half-pillars carved in the likeness of dwarven heroes. Despite the strength of their construction, inexorable time had dropped stones, pulled apart the earth, and shaken the walls to form long cracks. Most of the buildings had even greater injuries, with entire rooms crumbled to gravel or roofs collapsed into the chambers they once sheltered from avalanche. One narrow alley between a pair of squat domiciles was completely filled with deep, red clay fallen from a rupture in the cavern. Condensation from the walls trickled down its length, forming a miserable little creek across the street.

Tordek led them past all the crumbling monuments to a square of temples surrounding a huge statue of Moradin above his anvil. The Soul Forger’s arm was raised above his head, but it ended just short of the elbow. Great fragments of his hammer and forearm lay tumbled on the street. Tordek knelt briefly and said a prayer to the great god of the dwarves, asking his pardon for this intrusion into accursed chambers and permission to take shelter within his once-holy refuge.

“How about this one?” said Lidda. She stood before a squat edifice with a row of scalloped columns for a facade. Unlike its neighbors, it had suffered few cracks, none larger than a snake could penetrate. Its walls looked thick and sturdy. Its only visible door was a great bronze portal turned dull green with age.

“If you can open that door,” said Tordek, “I’ll be impressed. That is a coin vault.”

“Ha,” said Lidda, bending her entwined fingers backward to crack her knuckles. “Brace yourself for being impressed.”

She set to work with an intensity Tordek had never before witnessed, exchanging picks every few moments as she quickly got a sense of the lock’s inner mechanism. When he saw her furtive glances to check whether Devis was watching her progress, he realized the source of her inspiration. He turned back to the broken statue of Moradin and made a silent prayer for endurance.

Lidda worked silently for half an hour, then the excuses began.

“There really is a lot of corrosion in here,” she said.

Devis complained of a pain in his neck, and Vadania massaged his shoulders. The druid didn’t seem to notice when Gulo whuffed indignantly and wandered out to explore the nearby buildings for vermin. Tordek wished he could go with the big fellow.

Lidda did a double take when she heard Devis sigh with pleasure and noticed the elf’s ministrations.

“Damn it!” she said. When everyone looked at her querulously, she hastily added, “Almost had it that time.”

Irritation made her difficult task downright impossible. Tordek saw her drop a pick and curse under her breath, so he decided to let her off the hook.

“Forget that lock,” he said. “It’s probably ruined, fused shut over the centuries.”

“No,” protested Lidda. “I’m going to show this bitch who’s boss.”

Tordek kept the smile off his face with a supreme effort. He knew it wasn’t the lock she was cursing.

Devis took his lute out from its bag and tuned it by ear. Vadania sat back to listen, and Lidda noticeably relaxed as the elf took her hands off the bard.

“I once knew a great lockpick,” said Devis, plucking out a tune that started slow and gradually picked up to a lively pace. He smiled at Lidda and added, “Not quite in your league, of course. In his land, he was known as the phantom, because he could pass through any door.”

Spend all the coins kept in your purse,

The phantom’s come to town.

Your vaults will go from bad to worse,

When he comes through the ground.

Lidda grinned and turned back to her task, a new gleam of determination in her eye. Tordek knew this sort of sport could cause trouble in the long run, but if it kept up her spirits while she was helping them find shelter, he had nothing to say about it.

They laid a trap in every house,

But he was warned before.

Their cage was bare but for a mouse,

And he was out the door.

The lyrics didn’t get any better, but at least he sang it quietly. Tordek had to admit that the lad could carry a tune. Maybe later he would teach him some proper dwarven drinking songs, if there was a later for them all.

“I got it!” cried Lidda exuberantly. When she realized how loud she had been, she grimaced her apology and whispered, “See? Are you impressed now, Tordek?”

“I’m impressed,” said Devis. He stowed his lute and made for the unlocked vault door, pausing only to give the halfling a congratulatory kiss on the cheek.

Tordek looked to see what reaction Vadania had to this turn of events, but the elf’s serene face was unreadable. To Tordek, that composure was more frightening than any sign of ire.

“Let’s go in,” he said. “Carefully.”

The outer vault was merely the entrance to a wide hall of individual repositories, each sealed by a much more impressive, much less ornate iron door. Once Gulo ambled in to join them, Tordek made sure the door opened with a latch from the inside and pushed it closed.

“At last,” he said, “we can get some proper rest.”

He spied Lidda standing beside one of the iron vaults. Upon the wall was a row of short, iron levers and four corroded wheels. Lidda reached for one of the handles.

“I wonder what happens if I pull this lever…”

“No!” shouted Tordek, Devis, and Vadania in unison.

“I was only kidding!” she said. “Gee, I’d think you could trust me by now.”

“How should we know when you’re joking?” said Tordek. “You’re a halfling.”

“Yeah, a halfling, not a moron!”

“What’s the diff—?” began Tordek in an innocent tone.

“Don’t finish that thought,” said Lidda, holding up a finger. “You aren’t even a little bit funny. You think you are, but you aren’t.”

“Dwarves have a tremendous sense of humor.”

“Some dwarves,” she said. “Not you.”

“Not now, you two,” said Devis. “Maybe you should sort this out by taking the first watch. I’m beat.” He yawned into his fist.

Vadania spread her bedroll on the floor. When Devis placed his beside hers, they exchanged a sidelong glance that both Tordek and Lidda noticed.

“What’s she doing?” muttered Lidda. “She doesn’t need to sleep like people do.”

“Maybe you can find the trap,” said Tordek, hoping to distract her from the little drama Devis was nurturing.

“Maybe you can find it,” snapped the halfling without taking her eyes off the bard and the druid.

“Already did,” he said. “You’re just about standing on it.”

Lidda shot him a suspicious glance. “Fool me once…” she warned.

“I’m not joking. You’re fine as long as you don’t pull that lever or pull on the vault door.”

“How can you tell?” she asked.

Tordek pointed to the flagstones. Their creases were filled with dust and grime. “See how much space is between them? That’s because they’re on a balance of some sort. If they were meant to be firm, they’d be mortared.”

“All right,” said Lidda, stepping carefully back. “I see it now. You had a dwarf advantage on that one.”

“Aye,” agreed Tordek. “Still, I couldn’t figure out how to disable it if I tried.”

“Bet I could,” said Lidda.

“How much?”

“What?”

“How much would you like to bet?”

“You never bet!”

“I will this time,” said Tordek. The more incentive he could give her to concentrate on something other than Devis and Vadania, he reckoned, the less likely she was to sulk, complain, or otherwise irritate him while he stood watch.

“A hundred gold,” she said with her chin held high.

“Done,” said Tordek.

“Damn. I should have said two hundred.”

“Do you have two hundred?”

“I will when this bet is settled,” she replied.

“One hundred it is. I’ll get out of your way and keep an eye on the door.”

For the first time in hours, Tordek breathed easily. He could still feel the strange, dead core through his lung where the hammer’s accursed power sealed his wound, but at least it didn’t hurt or seem to be spreading. He walked toward the door and found a comfortable seat on a block of granite that had been an elegant bench before something smashed one end. Gulo was curled up nearby. He opened one wary eye as the dwarf approached.

Tordek knew that Vadania’s bond with her animals did not necessarily include her two-legged companions, but he had met Gulo when the wolverine was little bigger than a wolfhound. He reached out a cautious hand and stroked the big animal’s head. Gulo made a contented sound and closed his eyes. Tordek smiled but withdrew his hand. Better not to press his luck.

“I think I’ve done it,” said Lidda an hour later. Rather than pleased, she sounded weary and sullen.

“You didn’t try one of the doors, did you?”

“Of course not,” she said. “Not while both the healers are… sleeping.”

Tordek looked past the halfling to see Vadania nestled under Devis’s arm.

“Besides,” she said, “I thought you weren’t interested in finding treasure here.”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t interested,” said Tordek. “It’s just not as important as stopping Hargrimm.”

“Yeah,” said Lidda. “About that, you have any ideas how we’re going to do it?”

“I don’t know,” sighed the dwarf. “I wish we had a small army.”

“I wish we had a big army,” said Lidda, “with tall feathered hats. We could make them march.”

Tordek shook his head and turned his eyes up to the heavens.

“See?” she cried after him. “Me, funny. You, crabby.”

“All right,” said Tordek. “I concede the point.”

“You’ll give me a hundred gold, too, once we open one of those vault doors.”

Tordek nodded, glad to see Lidda thinking of something other than that foolish bard. It wasn’t a great surprise that the fun-loving halfling had gotten her head turned by Devis’s silver tongue. What surprised him was Vadania. The elf was older than he by considerable years. She should have known what trouble such trifles could cause among a small group that depended on each other so much. He would have to broach the matter with her later, in private.

They kept watch silently for an hour and then whispered for a while concerning theories about how the vault doors must open. Lidda identified the particulars of the trap. The pressure plates triggered a battery of spikes or spears from the floor. As if that weren’t enough to deter a thief, it appeared that the ceiling was rigged to fall on the skewered intruders moments afterward. The more she described the mechanisms she had perceived from the hidden clues of the stonework and vault hinges, the less Tordek wanted to explore the treasures that lay beyond the trap.

Vadania sat up, gently setting Devis’s arm aside as he snored. She blinked a few times and stretched her neck, but then she appeared as alert as if she had never closed her eyes. Tordek had seen her go from seeming slumber to action in the time it took a stone to fall from shoulder height. These elven reveries were yet another way in which the fair folk were set apart from the other races, as well as another excuse for those who feared and hated them.

Lidda had never been one to shun elves, but she sniffed and turned away as Vadania joined them on the broken bench. Tordek moved over to make room for her.

“Shall I make a fire?” she asked Tordek.

“Not on my account.”

He noticed that she did not make the same offer to Lidda. So did the halfling, judging from her arched eyebrow.

“You look a little stiff,” said Tordek, nodding to the bloodstained wound on her shoulder. All of her cure spells were expended on Devis. She had made do with a simple bandage.

“I’ll be fine,” she said. “In a few hours, I’ll be able to mend it. Or perhaps Devis will do me the honor.”

Lidda snorted derisively. “Is that what you elves call it?”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“ ‘The honor’,” Lidda mugged like a child. “It’s a wonder he didn’t ‘do you the honor’ right there in front of the rest of us, after you rubbed yourself all over him.”

“Lidda,” admonished Tordek.

“No, let her speak,” said Vadania. “She is obviously troubled by the attention Devis shows me.”

“Shows you!” Lidda sputtered. “I’m the one he was singing to. I’m the one who got us in here so he could sleep.”

“Who?” said Devis, stirring from his slumber.

Tordek held his head in both hands.

“Well, you’ve put an end to that, haven’t you,” said Vadania. “If I knew how irrational and jealous you would be, I never would have invited you on this quest.”

“Invited?” said Lidda. “Why, you practically blackmailed me into this. Devis, too. I have half a mind—”

“That’s the main problem,” interjected Vadania.

“Ladies, ladies,” said Devis, gesturing for calm. “There’s no need to fight over me. I’m perfectly willing to—”

“This has nothing to do with you, minstrel boy!” spat Lidda. “Butt out.”

“Yes,” agreed Vadania. “This is between me and the brownie.”

“Who are you calling a brownie, you green hag!”

Tordek made a tactical withdrawal behind Gulo, who was already snuffling as the loud voices jolted him from dreams of slapping salmon out of the river—or so Tordek imagined. The thought of standing in an icy river was appealing to him, too, at the moment, as long as it was far from here.

The combatants circled each other while trading verbal barbs. Tordek shot an accusatory look at Devis, expecting him to do something to stop this quarrel. The bard only shrugged with a conceited little smile as if to say, Can’t help it.

“If you weren’t a friend of Tordek’s,” said Lidda, working up a good head of steam, “I’d…I’d…” She thrust her finger at the elf, just short of poking her in the chest.

Vadania gasped and arched her back, her head whipping back.

“Don’t you mock me, elf!” cried Lidda. “I won’t stand for it.”

Vadania stumbled forward onto her hands and knees, and they all saw the gashes in the back of her armor and the blood dripping down the leather.

“I didn’t do that!” Lidda unsheathed her blade, peering behind Vadania for some sign of her attacker.

Devis hopped up and grabbed his sword. Tordek already had his axe in hand. He swung it before him like a blind man walking through an unfamiliar room, seeking the unseen intruder.

Vadania recovered quickly and scrabbled to her feet while reaching for her scimitar, but then she let out a little shriek as another pair of slashes appeared on her sword arm. For an instant, Tordek saw the pustulant little fiend from the forge room appear beside her, but the creature vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. Its mocking laughter rang out briefly, then Tordek heard its scabby feet running across the floor.

Gulo sniffed and growled as he caught the thing’s scent. The big wolverine stalked forward, then snuffled the floor. He turned from side to side, unsure which way the thing had run.

Vadania fell again to one knee. Her body shook as the quasit’s venom worked its way through her veins toward her heart. Lidda moved beside her, sweeping her short sword in all directions in the vain hope of cutting the invisible foe.

“You ridiculous, pathetic fools,” cackled the voice. Tordek stalked toward the sound, but then it spoke again from another location entirely. “Hargrimm promises the next of Andaron’s blades to the one who brings back the hammer, and that will be Yupa!”

Tordek lunged for the voice, swinging wildly but cutting only air. Devis did the same, more cautiously and with his back against the wall. Lidda stood guard over Vadania as Gulo lurched first this way, then that. All the while, the quasit mocked them from the shelter of his invisibility.

Gulo roared and twisted around to slap at his tail, which suddenly bled from a jagged wound. The quasit appeared for less than a second before scampering off again. Gulo tracked it for ten or twelve feet across the rubble then darted to the side, confused by the quickly moving scent trail.

“Leave now,” cried the shrill and hateful voice. “Leave the hammer behind, dwarf, and flee. It is the only way to avoid joining your brother’s bones in my master’s belly!”

“You couldn’t lift Andaron’s Hammer, you troglodyte dropping,” spat Tordek. “How will you carry it away?”

A sudden, pungent sensation surged through the room. It was a stink that was not scent, a cold, liquid urgency beyond feeling or taste or sound. Tordek swallowed hard, trying to smother the sudden urge to flee.

Vadania curled into a ball on the floor.

“Oh, good gods,” babbled Devis, He almost dropped his sword as he pressed his back harder against the wall. His gaze darted from side to side, finally fixing on the front door. Tordek saw that he would bolt from the place if he could work up the nerve to leave the safety of the wall.

“Tordek!” cried Vadania. “Whatever you do, don’t let that thing near those levers or we’re doomed!”

He hesitated only an instant before catching her meaning. “Oh, no!” he yelled, a bit stiffly. He balked as if torn by two opposing fears, then he ran—not too quickly—toward the trap levers.

“Too late!” cried the little fiend’s voice. One of the levers shot down with a clang.

Nothing happened.

Tordek took a step back and looked up at the ceiling. He half-expected the roof to fall in on them all.

“Oh, no!” shouted Lidda. “He’s going to pull the second lever!”

“What?” said Tordek. “Oh, oh no!”

With a gleeful cackle, the invisible quasit pulled the next lever. Eight spears shot up from the floor just in front of the vault doors. The one nearest the levers dripped with ichor for an instant before they plunged back into their sheathes in the floor. A wet mess began pooling on the floor beside the levers. Something burbled and gasped as it made halting trails in its own blood.

“Stand back, everyone,” warned Tordek, heeding his own advice by hustling away from the vaults.

Eight granite blocks fell from the ceiling. Their crash silenced Yupa the quasit’s frightened squeak.

Devis held a hand to his chest as though to keep his heart from leaping out. Tordek knew just how he felt, but he managed to hide it better. Lidda seemed completely nonplussed by the infernal terror as she knelt beside the elf and popped the cork from a pewter vial then held up Vadania’s head to help her drink.

“There, there,” she said. “This will fix you up.”

Vadania licked the last drops of the curing potion from her lips and sighed in relief. “Thank you,” she said.

“Hey,” replied Lidda, slipping the vial back into her belt pouch. “Anything for a friend.”

“Friend?” said Devis incredulously. “Just a minute ago—”

Before Tordek could warn him, both of the women turned on him with squinty eyes.

“Mind your own business,” said Vadania.

“Yeah,” agreed Lidda. “Stop causing trouble, Bunny.”

“I can’t believe I let him snuggle with me,” said Vadania.

“You think that’s bad?” asked Lidda. “He kissed me, and I’ve seen where that mouth was recently.”

“Hey!” said Tordek and Devis. They looked at each other, then they looked uncomfortably away.

“Men,” said Lidda.

“Boys,” corrected Vadania, and they both nodded in sympathetic understanding.

10

Andaron’s Tomb

Lidda flung a handful of gold coins across the vault. They clattered into a dusty corner and rolled back out onto the granite floor. “This stinks!”

After digging through the rubble that fell on their quasit foe, they had found the secret locks to the treasury vaults. Lidda spent nearly three hours searching for further traps, disabling them, picking open the locks, and doing the same again once they found the second and third doors. When the inner seals opened with an inexorable groan, she cheered her triumph until the others did the same.

Inside they found only a few gold and silver coins spilled at the back of the vault shelves, along with the meager remnants of a much larger, long-absent trove.

Tordek and Devis inspected a row of armor and weapon racks. Most of the sagging wooden frames were bare, their timbers old and dusty. The dwarf frowned as he examined the remaining swords, axes, and hammers. They were serviceable weapons but nothing more.

“Well,” said Devis, poking at a gold-plated breastplate adorned with semi-precious stones, “at least some of this stuff is pretty enough to fetch a few more coins.”

“It is all gilt and ornament,” said Tordek, “the sort of thing some men call ‘parade armor.’ No warrior-smith would have any use for such frippery. Even were you to find some fool to buy it, the price would not be worth the trouble of dragging it out of here.”

“Someone must have broken in before we did,” suggested Vadania mildly.

“Nay,” said Tordek, “but we are meant to think so.” He considered the possibility that plunderers penetrated the vaults previously, despite the absence of any signs of their entrance. The dwarves used many strategies to thwart thieves, and not all of them involved traps and locks.

He paced the dimensions of the vault and made the mental calculations comparing its size and shape to that of the exterior of the building. He rapped on the shelves, crept along the floor, and listened to the walls.

The others followed his example. Devis and Vadania peered into the high corners for any sign of concealed passages while Lidda climbed the shelves to run her fingers along the ceiling as far as she could reach.

“Here,” said Tordek at last. The others joined him where he stood at the innermost wall. He tapped its granite surface with the butt of his axe. To his ears, there was no mistaking the sound of an empty space beyond. When he saw that his non-dwarven companions did not hear the same clue, he explained, “This is a barrier, not a support. Something lies beyond.”

“There’s no way we can break through that much stone,” said Lidda.

“Maybe if we constructed a ram from the fallen timbers?” suggested Devis.

“No,” said Vadania. “I have not yet meditated for my spells today, and it is nearly dawn, by my reckoning. If the rest of you would fetch me some of that clay from outside, I have something that might serve.”

She asked Tordek to confirm which way was east, then she sat facing the rising sun. No matter that she could not see it, Tordek knew, it was the gesture that aided her communion with the world. He had seen her perform this ritual dozens of times before.

Tordek and Lidda went to the clay stream and scooped up handfuls of the thick stuff onto a wooden door, which they then pulled back to the treasury like a sledge. Devis awaited them at the entrance, where he and Gulo kept watch over the meditating druid and the approach to the building at once. They would not be caught unawares again after the lesson that Yupa taught them.

Vadania concluded her meditation by rising silently to her feet in a way that seemed to defy gravity. Tordek knew elves could perish and druids molder unto dust, but something about the fey folk—especially one so closely bound to the earth and wood—left him feeling by comparison vulnerable, fragile, and altogether mortal.

When Vadania saw the makeshift sledge, she nodded approvingly. “That should be plenty. Bring it over to the wall.”

She rolled the soft clay into long ropes and pressed them against the wall until they stuck. One by one, she added more ropes to form a rectangular frame upon the wall, pausing only to ask Tordek how thick he estimated the wall must be. When she finished, she had created a border slightly more than two feet high and wide, complete with a handle protruding from one side.

She placed both hands within the frame of clay, a sprig of mistletoe in the crook of her middle fingers, and she began humming. The sound was high and sweet at first, much like her voice.

Soon the stone began resonating, answering the druid’s call with its own deep, eternal voice.

Tordek nodded as the clay outline glowed orange and flowed into the wall, leading the stone in its own transmutation. The fragile clay handle drew out the hard matter of the wall to form a sturdy grip. An instant later, the wall became a simple door.

Vadania stepped back and spoke to Gulo. “Wait here, old friend,” she said. “We’ll be back soon.”

Tordek pulled the door open with a dull scraping sound.

They plunged their lights into the gloom beyond and saw a low passageway, the work of dwarven chisels rather than the slow tearing of the mountain. Tordek squeezed through the small door and led the way. The walls were cool and faintly damp, but flickering light spilled around a corner ten feet ahead. After turning once, the hidden passage became a railed spar jutting into the center of a cavern so vast that the lights revealed only the wall behind them as it soared upward into darkness. The bridge into empty space ended in a circular platform ringed by a crenellated wall upon which blazed perpetual flames in six braziers.

On sturdy stone tables, heaps of octagonal coins filled bronze bowls ringed with images of dwarves in the mines, at the forge, and beside the anvil. Chalices and cups overflowed with rubies and topazes and gems of all the colors of fire. Plates forged with the faces of bears and badgers, ale horns capped with silver, armors and helms and shields and weapons shaped by a master’s craft hung from every wall.

Upon the floor lay open chests, some overflowing with coins and ingots, others with ivory scrolls and tomes bound in lizard hide and gold. Several of these works had been left open, their pages torn out and scattered upon the floor in curling leaves, the detritus of history and lives chronicled then buried. All these works surrounded a pair of stone biers bearing a pair of sarcophagi. The lid of each was carved with surpassing skill and obvious veneration, their features painted so artfully that the figures might have seemed alive before the cloak of dust dimmed their hues and the oozing walls streaked their features with a calculus of tears.

To the right lay the sculpture of a dwarven matron of ageless beauty. Her refined cheekbones and the faint lines etched around her closed eyes informed Tordek that she had lived well over three hundred years before her death. Her dark, braided hair was entwined with silver threads. Upon her cheeks were painted black tears, the mark of a loyal wife who went to her grave mourning a disgraced husband.

Her spouse’s sarcophagus was on the left. The figure on the coffin’s lid wore black chain armor with a shattered breastplate, the mark of a dwarf slain in combat by his own people. His scarred and craggy face was shaven, his eyes open, his naked hands empty: three signs of an accursed interment.

“It’s him,” said Devis, approaching the husband’s coffin with an uncharacteristic reverence. His eyes glowed with awe as he gently laid a hand on the dwarf’s stony boot. “Andaron the Black.”

The heavy lid jumped, and in the instant of its leap, a deep, sepulchral gasp escaped the coffin, stirring the ruined pages on the floor like autumn leaves in a dry wind.

Tordek already had his axe at the ready. “Don’t touch anything,” he said. He heard the sound of little hands scooping coins and gems and added without looking, “That goes double for you, Lidda!”

Vadania remained warily back from the treasure and the coffins while the others looked over the treasure, resisting the temptation to scoop it into their sacks all at once. Devis whistled a cantrip that made his eyes flash with green light. Gazing around the room, he grinned broadly.

“That,” he said, “and that…” He pointed to a large wooden shield with a bronze lion’s face for its boss, a suit of beautifully tooled leather armor, and a pair of steel gauntlets. “Oh, and I want that crossbow.”

Vadania chanted her own orison of detecting magic and scanned the room as Devis had. Seeing what she was doing, the bard jutted his jaw in blatant indignation and gave up his survey of the treasure in a huff. He turned his intention instead to the parchment pages littering the floor. Snatching one up, he perused it briefly before handing it to Tordek.

“Dwarvish,” he said. “Naturally.”

Tordek scanned the parchment as Devis collected others, searching for a title page and passing the most promising candidates to the dwarf. Some of the pages were rendered illegible by water damage, but others appeared almost pristine after Tordek blew the dust from their faces.

“ ‘The Thane of Harrowstone Implores Andaron to Truce,’” read Tordek from a chapter heading.

Again, the cover of the smith’s coffin jumped, and a moaning wind blew forth and stormed through the tomb. The swirling parchment leaves rose from the floor in a cyclone that formed around Andaron’s coffin, swelling and shrinking in the rhythm of a frantic heartbeat as the wail grew so loud it shook the foundation of the tomb. Each time the parchment tornado contracted, its cylindrical form became increasingly like the image of Andaron lying on his bier. As its mouth gaped wider, its moaning cry rose ever louder. Tattered pages swept across the parchment-ghost’s chaps to form a windblown beard, and a dark red ribbon writhed within its jaws to serve as a tongue.

“Who has disturbed my crypt?” wailed the ghostly figure. “Why have you come?”

The others turned to Tordek, who had no argument to defer to one of his allies as the spirit spoke in Dwarvish. He gripped the haft of his axe more for courage than in hope of defeating the semi-corporeal Andaron, should it come to a fight.

“We have come to quench the re-ignited fires of your forge, damned specter!” he thundered in his most authoritative voice. “We have come to slay the barghest who gathered your accursed weapons from their graves and seeks to conjure his infernal master from the Abyss. What say you to that, Andaron the Black?”

A hellish blast hurled the lid to Andaron’s coffin against one of the high crenellations, smashing it to gravel that whipped around like hailstones. Gems and coins exploded from their containers on the funereal tables, and all the arms and blades hummed a murderous song upon the walls. The parchment writhed and twisted into a serpentine length that lunged past Tordek, between the bard’s legs, and over Lidda’s shoulder to thrust itself into a suit of dull, black plate armor. There it forced its fragile pages into the sleeves and greaves, rising to stand at the head of the open coffin.

The armored ghost reached up to the wall, heedless of the four blades raised to descend upon its body. It snatched down not a weapon but a helm, which it thrust down upon the tortured lump that formed its head. Once contained, a ragged face formed again, this time in still detail. The old parchment formed a visage not unlike a smith’s leathery face, except for the runes that slanted and overlapped upon its nose and brow.

“What do I say to that? What do I say?” The ghost’s voice crackled with heat. His hollow eyes fixed on Tordek’s, and he said, “I say it is a noble answer.”

“Loyal, every one,” said the ghost. He spoke the Common tongue with a rolling accent. He gripped the rail with parchment fingers as he looked down upon dozens of mausoleums, far beneath his tomb. A few coins enchanted by Devis’s light cantrips cast the marble walls into stark relief in the atramentous gloom of the chasm beneath Andaron’s tomb.

“Your ancestors?” asked Tordek. He stood beside the spirit in what he hoped was a respectful posture, but every sinew of his body was taut with suspicion. Should the spirit make one false move, Tordek would be ready to defend himself.

“My counselors,” he said. “They invoked me to reason. They conjured every sage argument, and yet I heard only Hargrimm’s voice. Still, they gave themselves to death to perpetuate my own, unworthy life.”

“Hargrimm?” asked Devis. “How could you come to trust such a demon? Why did your people ever accept him?”

“He was not always as you saw him,” explained Andaron, still gazing out over the cemetery of his followers. “Once he was my nephew, a dwarf of boundless craft. This vessel in which he now exists was his gift for subverting my mind toward the designs of his master, whose name I shall not utter so near his gate.”

“Are you saying Hargrimm is to blame for your disgrace?” said Devis.

Andaron glanced over his shoulder at the half-elf, then turned to Tordek. Even through the crude material of his face, his expression was unmistakably that of one who has been insulted by an idiot or an outlander.

“No,” said Tordek. “Only Andaron is to blame for what befell this place. He accepts the responsibility for his crimes, and neither Moradin nor the hordes of the Abyss shall shield him from his mortal shame.”

The ghost murmured his appreciation of Tordek’s words, which spared him from the humiliation of speaking them himself.

“I wished to forge the mightiest weapons ever shaped by mortal hand, and I accepted any promise, any hint of the power I knew must be used to make such magic. When my own skills fell short, I turned to sorcerers, yet they could offer only those enchantments that have been born so many times again in this world that bards sing of them in every hall of humans, dwarves, and elves.”

“Halflings, too,” offered Lidda quietly. At a glance from Vadania, she cast her eyes to the floor and stilled her tongue.

A faint crinkle of mirth formed at the edge of Andaron’s mouth, but it died as he remembered more of the past.

“Hargrimm spoke to me of ancient lore forbidden by jealous wizards, kings, and priests. In my pride—in my folly—I charged him with gathering me this knowledge that I might bend it to my own design and infuse my weapons with such puissance as to place my image uttermost in every forge, even beside that of the Soul-Forger.”

Tordek stepped away from the blasphemy.

Andaron nodded sadly. “Aye, such was my depravity, and so was I justly abandoned by the gods.”

“You say Hargrimm went on your quest for power,” said Vadania.

Andaron nodded. “Indeed, and he returned to the hearth with the prize I craved. In tomes and scrolls and ancient stories whispered now only by the cults of Nerull and gods still more vile, he culled the forbidden knowledge and presented it to me as a gift of his devotion. My heart too greedy for achievement, I took it all and demanded more. After three decades and some years, he brought me all I desired, a design to infuse my greatest weapons with magic unknown on our mortal world.

“My engineers balked at the plans for the great forge, and my clerics rebuked me for the unholy images I set my artisans to carving. I listened to them all or pretended so. When their chests sagged for all the air they had blown, I dismissed their suits and continued, unmoved by their entreaties.”

“Did you kill any of them?” asked Devis.

“What?”

“In your passion, did you order any of these wise counselors executed? Perhaps a close friend or relative.”

Andaron turned to Tordek for a translation of the half-elf’s inexplicable inquiry. “What mockery is this?”

Tordek narrowed his eyes and glared a warning at the bard, again to no avail.

“It’s a common event in stories of this kind,” shrugged Devis. “I just thought it might add some drama to the tale for when I tell it in…”

“YOU…!” Andaron’s body rose, levitating from the ground as a sourceless white light shone up at him. He pointed at the bard as he intoned a harsh Dwarven curse before adding in Common, “If thou bandy my woeful chronicle with the least adulteration, minstrel, I shall harry thee to the very terminus of the world.”

Tordek raised his axe, uncertain whether it would be better to smite the spirit or the bard. Lidda drew her short sword and stood bravely by Devi’s side as he raised his hands in surrender.

Vadania stepped around them both to intercept the angry spirit.

“Your sins have roots, hammer-fist. Even now, centuries after your wickedness first sprang from this mountain, its sap runs through the sieves of your fastness and into the streams that feed the forest. Life withers, water curdles, children die in their mothers’ dens, and everywhere your infamy makes a stain upon the land. Do you dare demand commendations from your grave?”

The illumination beneath Andaron turned bloody as his body shivered in its rage. Gradually, both the light and the fury dimmed to nothingness, and the ghost floated back down to the floor. His shoulders slumped, and his beard sagged upon his chest.

“You speak fairly,” he conceded. “I deserve no pity nor even true remembrance…and yet I would you speak of me as I was and conjoin to my legend no crimes I did not undertake. I implore you.”

Tordek lowered his weapon. “We make no such promise.”

“Still,” added Devis, stepping away from Lidda before she could climb up and stop his mouth with a little fist, “how better to conclude this tale of villainy than with redemption?”

“Redemption?” Andaron raised his head, intrigued.

Tordek relaxed and waved Lidda away from Devis. “Let him talk.”

“Take all you wish,” said Andaron as they stuffed their packs with gems and jewelry. “Should you succeed, then you will not be able to return. Should you fail…”

“When I strike with these,” said Tordek, making a fist inside one of the fabulous gauntlets, “you shall have a hand in undoing your deeds.”

“If what you told us proves true,” promised Devis, “I’ll fire no truer with this bow than I shall sing of your chronicle.” He unstrung his own crossbow in favor of the fine weapon from Andaron’s tomb.

The ghost looked down at Lidda, who stretched her arms and legs to accustom them to the armor she had claimed. As she tested its boundaries, it seemed to snuggle just right into the crooks of her arms and elbows.

“My wife’s,” said Andaron. “She tracked many a rogue goblin in her youth, and that armor served her well. I pray that it will do the same for you.”

Tordek demanded that Devis leave behind a sack of coins he had gathered, insisting that the burden was too great. Treasure was all well and good, but a fleet foot was better in a fight. Tordek ignored the bard’s reproachful glance as he paused to sling the magical wooden shield onto his left arm.

“A replacement for the one I lost,” he said when Devis raised his eyebrow at his seeming hypocrisy. He cursed himself silently for sounding so defensive. Tordek knew it was more than his share, but they could settle the difference later. In the meantime, he needed a new shield. Besides, he had no need to explain himself to the minstrel.

The ghost noted the silent exchange and spoke to them all. “You must each have a gift for the quest you have undertaken on my behalf.” He looked directly at Vadania, who had taken no magical loot from his trove.

“We do not do this on your behalf, Andaron,” said Tordek.

“Nay, that is true. Yet it is in my benefit, and I would see no guest leave my hall, as tiny as it has become, without a gift befitting the hope you offer me.”

He lifted the lid to his wife’s coffin and pushed it aside as if it were as light as a blanket. For a moment he stared down at the contents of the crypt, his face a leathery mask of reverie and sorrow. He reached down and gently unclasped something from his wife’s body.

When he turned back to the living occupants of his tomb, he proffered a silver armband inlaid with mother-of-pearl and studded in six places with a sapphire lozenge. “For you, lady of the wood. It was a gift my mother gave me, and it granted me wisdom in my youth. In turn I gave it to my bride, and yet it was I who needed its aegis.”

Vadania hesitated, and Tordek knew she was reluctant to accept such a gift. Yet the druid was already wise beyond her peers, and she weighed the offense of refusal before responding.

“She will not grudge you,” assured Andaron. “Not if in wearing it you may undo some part of my iniquity.”

“Then I accept her gracious gift,” said Vadania, taking the periapt into her hands.

“Go, then,” said Andaron, “and may the Soul-Forger reward your beneficence with courage and resolve, for surely you face a terrible task.”

Tordek did not look back as he left the secret tomb, but he sensed Devis and Lidda fidgeting all the way through the passage and into the vault, where they rejoined Gulo. The dire wolverine snuffled at each of them in turn. He nudged Vadania in a rough gesture of affection that might have sent a big man running in terror.

They stepped out into the crumbling dwarven street. The distant sounds of the forge still echoed in the reaches above, but now they were joined by a new and deeper sound, a throbbing pulse of goblin war-drums. Tordek covered his everburning torch, and they listened as a deep, trumpeting roar filled the upper expanse and rang through every adjoining passage.

“Sounds like the giants are inside,” said Lidda.

“At least they won’t get through every passage,” said Tordek. “It could take them hours to make it down here.”

“So,” said Devis, “do you think we have the slightest hope of actually accomplishing what he suggested?”

Tordek shook his head solemnly.

“No,” said Lidda. “Not really.”

“Not a prayer,” agreed Vadania.

“You realize there’s nothing stopping us from climbing back down to that lake and swimming out of this place, right?”

When they all nodded, Devis looked into each of their faces, one by one, and saw the same determination.

“So we’re going up there anyway to die in the attempt?” “That’s the plan,” said Tordek, slapping the bard on the shoulder. “Glad you’re with us.”

11

Moradin’s Gaze

Lidda shifted around slowly and made the all-clear sign. Even so, Tordek gestured for the others to wait as he crawled up to the halfling’s vantage with as much stealth as a dwarf in scale armor could muster. That was not much.

“How many?” he whispered.

“Twenty-eight goblins and two giants,” she said. “No sign of Hargrimm or his lieutenants.”

Tordek considered that fact. “No doubt he remains in the forge, but judging from what that quasit said in the vault, I wager the others are looking for us down below with as many goblins as Hargrimm would spare.”

Together they looked down at the chasm bridge. On this side, it led into a grand arch that housed chambers on the northern half of Andaron’s Delve. On the other was a huge gate that defended a wide plaza filled with the smashed remnants of half a dozen statues and most of a sculpture melding a peculiar natural rock formation with chiseled spires and turrets to form a fantastic castle. In other dwarven strongholds, Tordek had seen similarly capricious sculptures in which children played at battles with tiny stone and pewter warriors. The remembrance made him briefly melancholy for all the orphans created by the fall of Andaron’s delve and all the blameless souls who dwelt within its caverns.

“What are those?” asked Lidda. “More air vents?”

Tordek followed her gaze up to the massive copper tubes slanting out of the wall above the plaza. Each was wider than the height of two dwarves and perfectly round. All of them terminated in louvers connected to cables running down through green brass rings. At one time they must have run all the way to a brass plaque bolted into the wall near the grand door, yet someone had cut the chains at a point some thirty feet above the floor.

“No,” said Tordek. “Those are something else entirely. Even dwarf children need the kiss of the sun to grow hale and strong, so they built the eyes of Moradin to shine down upon them as they played in the afternoon.”

“Magic?” asked Lidda.

“No, not a dram of it,” said Tordek, allowing a faint smile to cross his lips. “It’s an ancient dwarven secret.”

“Oh?” said Lidda. “How does it work?”

“By not telling halflings,” he said.

“Very funny.”

“Seriously,” said Devis, “how does it work?” The half-elf had slipped up without making a sound, but the fact that he had not waited for Tordek’s signal annoyed the dwarf.

“Ask me again when our lives are in less imminent peril.”

“Fine,” sighed Devis. A second later, he blurted, “Light vents?”

“Aye. That’s a fair name for them. No doubt the centuries have sealed them shut like the sandy eyes of a dreamer too long aslumber.”

“Hey,” said the bard. “You keep that up, and I’ll report you to the guild.”

Tordek raised an inquiring eyebrow, unsure of what the bard was implying.

“That was downright lyrical, what you said,” Devis smiled. “You’re a poet!”

Tordek jutted his chin and squinted at the half-elf. “You take that back!”

“There are many great dwarf bards.”

“Well, I am not one of them,” insisted Tordek, “and you would do well to remember it.”

“All right, forget I said anything.”

“That will be a feat worthy of Clangeddin Silverbeard, the way you keep nattering on.”

To look at anything other than Devis, Tordek glanced at the uppermost bridge soaring more than sixty feet above them, both anxious for and dreading the moment when they crossed back over and faced Hargrimm in the forge. The spirit of Andaron did not seem deceitful, but one could never be sure with the dead. Even if what he proposed were true, it was still a speculation that would ensure their deaths if proved false. There was no other way that Tordek knew to eliminate the danger posed by the Arms of Andaron.

“Let’s go,” he said, rising to follow Lidda’s careful descent to the bridge. They waited until Vadania and Gulo joined them before hastening across. Tordek braced his shoulder against the heavy gate and pushed. To his pleasant surprise, he felt the great mass move more easily than he expected. Andaron’s gauntlets lent him far more than protection; they also imbued him with magical strength.

Beyond the gate they saw that dozens of benches surrounded the plaza. Most were smashed to ugly fragments scattered at the posts that once formed their legs. Tordek knew that long ago, dwarf mothers sat there and watched their children at play. Vadania noticed that his gaze lingered on the scene. She touched his arm as Lidda and Devis loped toward the big door.

“You are troubled,” she said.

Tordek made a noncommittal grunt and headed toward the door.

“You fear that by heeding Andaron’s suggestion you might be delivering to Hargrimm the very thing he needs to complete his summoning.”

“The thought occurred to me,” said Tordek. He brushed his armored fingers over the handle of Andaron’s hammer. A faint, electric tingle stroked his fingers in return, and he withdrew his hand from the enchanted weapon. “Maybe the half-elf’s right. We should take this damned thing and flee, hiding it where that demon will never find it.”

“Yet he found the others,” said Vadania, “all of them. Hargrimm had centuries to search, and he will have centuries more if no one puts an end to him.”

Tordek grunted an affirmative.

“You must have faith,” she told him.

“That I have,” he replied. “The Soul-Forger surely blesses our quest.”

“I mean in yourself,” she said, “and in your friends.”

He stopped walking and turned to her. “You know I trust you, lass, and Lidda, too, for all her jests. The bard, well, he has his uses, I suppose.”

“He could have left us if he truly wished it,” she said. “If all he desired was a tale, he has it by now. Lidda has her adventure and her treasure. I know that the forges will stop spewing out their infernal poisons as soon as Hargrimm finishes repairing the shattered weapons. Yet all of us remain, and there’s only one reason for that. One thing holds us together in this quest, and that is you.”

She looked down at him with such a confident and tender expression that he turned away rather than face her words. He cleared his throat a few times without speaking.

“My thanks,” he said at last. He turned back and looked her in the eye. “Andaron could have used a counselor like you.”

They joined Lidda and Devis at the far wall, where they had given up on the main door and now listened at one of the lesser portals.

“Barred,” said Lidda quietly. “They probably left someone on the other side after all. Maybe I can pick one of these others.”

Gulo growled at the same moment that Vadania turned her head to listen. Above the bridge they had just crossed, a large, dark figure glided down to stand at the open gate. Even in the faint light from the tip of his long spear, there was no mistaking the massive shoulders and horned brow of Zagreb. His deep chuckle rumbled all the way across the plaza as he lifted one hand to beckon his prey to him.

“Damn,” spat Tordek. “If he is showing himself, there must be reinforcements coming. Keep working on that door, Lidda. You, bard, stay with her. Vadania, you and Gulo come with me. Spread out as we get close.”

He shrugged his shield down onto his arm and gripped it tight, ready to crouch behind it at the first sign that the half-dragon intended to belch flame at him again. With his war axe raised in guard, he walked slowly toward the center of the plaza. To either side, Gulo and Vadania moved to flank the monster.

Zagreb ignored them both. He twirled his spear and grinned as he locked gazes with Tordek.

“You ran from me last time,” he said. “This time you have nowhere to go.”

A premonition tickled his neck, and Tordek whirled around to see Lidda and Devis. The halfling worked intently on the lock while the half-elf plucked out a tune on his lute, no doubt working some spell.

Neither of them saw the pale limbs of Sandrine climbing down toward them along the wall above.

The plaza trembled as Zagreb charged toward Tordek.

The dwarf shouted a warning even as he turned to defend himself. The half-dragon’s spear smashed his shield aside and numbed his arm. Tordek slashed wildly and missed his foe completely. The sharp edge of his axe drew a line of sparks on the flinty plaza surface.

“Gulo!” cried Vadania.

From the corner of his eye, Tordek saw the faint glimmering that rained upon the druid after she cast some of her spells. She pointed at the half-dragon. “Kill!”

The dire wolverine lunged low, but Zagreb leaped up and took to the air. The first powerful slap of his wings felt like a blow on Tordek’s face, and the sound rang in his ears as the half-dragon rose high above them.

“Here, you abomination!” Vadania whirled her sling and let fly. The missile shot past Zagreb’s face, but it was enough to get his attention. He grinned as he swooped toward Vadania, his jaws opening like an infernal stove.

“Here’s your foe!” shouted Tordek. “Fight me!”

It was too late. The dragon’s flame poured out, engulfing Vadania as Zagreb swept past her. Fire lingered on the stones as he went by even as the flames on Vadania shook and vanished.

The druid rose from her protective crouch, already swinging her sling for another shot. There was not so much as a smudge on her silver hair.

Tordek smiled grimly as he realized that she must have anticipated another meeting with the half-dragon and prepared herself a ward against fire. Unfortunately, unless she had another spell to draw him into close battle, Zagreb could harass them until Sandrine dealt with the others and the goblin horde arrived.

Tordek felt a throb of heat against his leg. Looking down, he saw the head of Andaron’s hammer pulsing with an eager, red aura. While it had not harmed his flesh, the blow it struck when Hargrimm hurled it at him was mighty indeed. He did not like the prospect of employing the weapon again.

“Let her go!” shouted Devis.

Tordek spared a glance at the door and saw Sandrine climbing up the wall. In one slender arm she cradled Lidda. The halfling’s head lolled as her arms clung weakly to her kidnapper. Her eyes were open, so Tordek knew she was somehow charmed.

“Look out, Tordek!” Vadania cried.

He threw himself down, rolling out of the way as Zagreb swept past again. This time the half-dragon’s long spear came nowhere near Tordek. Gulo roared as he charged futilely toward where the half-dragon had just been. Before the wolverine could reach the spot, the monster was safely out of reach.

Tordek kept an eye on Zagreb as he ran back toward the wall. Devis drank a potion to give himself an arachnid’s clinging touch. He leaped onto the wall and ran after the retreating Sandrine, longsword in hand.

“Get her!” called Tordek, feeling useless as he watched the bard give chase.

Despite his natural grace, Devis loped awkwardly on two legs and a hand, while Sandrine moved away as nimbly as a spider. They darted up and down the wall, the vampire easily running around the half-elf’s clumsy rushes.

At last, Sandrine scurried away from him and perched against the wall, sitting on her heels which clung to the stone. There she paused and cradled Lidda like a child, smoothing her hair before tasting the skin of her neck with a long, dark tongue. She bared her fangs and looked down at Tordek.

“Give us the hammer.”

Tordek hesitated. At a roar from Gulo, he glanced back to glimpse Vadania running from Zagreb as the beast fell toward her with his long spear braced to impale the druid. She twisted away at the last instant, but the wicked tip of the weapon caught her on the hip and spun her to the ground. Gulo charged after him, stopping only to place his big body over Vadania’s writhing form. She did not cry out, but her agony was plain to see.

“Give it to us!” hissed Sandrine. To emphasize her point, she bit hard on Lidda’s throat. The halfling did not scream but gasped a sigh as much of unexpected pleasure as pain.

Tordek dropped his axe and took the hammer into his hand. The thrill of its war-fervor once more ran up his arm and into his heart, where its pulsing beat spoke urgently.

“I’ll kill you,” he murmured in an unfamiliar voice. He raised his arm to hurl the weapon, heedless of Lidda’s peril.

“Don’t!” shouted Devis. He threw himself from the wall, but not toward Sandrine. Instead he leaped at the chains dangling from the huge pipes on the ceiling. He caught one as he fell, and his weight pulled open the louvers with a tooth-thrilling shriek. Dust poured down along with glittering glass fragments, and a beam of pure, white light shot down to fall upon the plaza floor.

“Spite!” screamed Sandrine, recoiling from the light.

Devis swung his legs and aimed for the next chain. He grabbed it and opened another of what he had named “light vents,” sending a second brilliant sunbeam into the hall.

Sandrine dropped Lidda and scrambled away on all fours.

Tordek rushed forward, dropping his weapon and shield as he threw out his arms to catch her. He was an instant too slow, but he dived forward and put his body beneath her before she struck. Even her miniscule weight felt like a boulder falling from such a height, but he spared her unprotected skull from a rap on the unyielding floor. Lidda moaned and shook her head dazedly.

Above them, Devis whooped and swung from chain to chain, calling forth another shaft of sunlight with every tug. The fifth beam fell directly on Sandrine. Flame burst over her in a brief corona. She shrieked and threw herself to the floor to escape it. Smoking, she rose to her feet and fled toward the bridge. The monstrous wolverine barred her way, so she turned instead to plunge silently over the precipice and away.

Vadania shouted another warning, and Tordek saw Zagreb swooping down toward the hammer he had left behind. In an instant, the monster would have it in his grasp.

Tordek roared and reached for the hammer. “You have never held it. It is mine!”

At Tordek’s call, the hammer flew out from under the half-dragon’s grasp and into Tordek’s outstretched hand. Triumph swelled in his chest, his hungry eyes searched for a foe to murder. High above the plaza, Zagreb soared back up to wheel amid the dusty shafts of white light.

Tordek calculated the dragon-ogre’s course with a cruel leer upon his lips. As his foe approached the right spot, he threw every ounce of his body into hurling Andaron’s hammer. The weapon left his gauntleted hand with a hellish shriek. Its red corona blurred and turned violet, then indigo as it flew straight at its target. The weapon smashed the long spear clutched in Zagreb’s claws. That terrific impact sent the half-dragon tumbling in mid-air before the hammer arced around and raced back to its master’s hand.

Zagreb fell like a meteor, the cruel hands steaming and bruised to blackness. No sooner had he hit the ground than a long ton of furious wolverine smothered him. Gulo raked and bit, then tore at the foe again as he trumpeted his warrior’s glee. Beneath him, already wounded by the fall, Zagreb drew his legs up to protect his belly and covered his face with his massive arms. Within seconds his limbs sagged with ribbons of torn flesh. Still, he kicked back with such hell-borne might that Gulo lurched away, briefly stunned.

Vadania ran to aid her gigantic friend as the maimed Zagreb staggered to his feet, a trail of dark blood steaming in his wake. Tordek hastened to join them in dragging their wounded foe to his death, but the half-dragon was too close to his escape. Like his sinister ally before him, he threw himself off the edge of the plaza, into the yawning chasm.

They all heard the snap of leathery wings as the half-dragon took to the air once more, this time far below them.

“Hurry!” Devis called from the wall. He climbed down to join Lidda at the door she had opened. Even as she finished beguiling the tumblers, she slumped against the bard, exhausted from her ordeal. Devis held her up, and together they waited impatiently for the others to catch up. When Tordek arrived, Devis nodded toward the hammer. It was radiating enough light to rival the natural sunlight that fell from the mirrored pipes above.

“Impressive,” said the bard.

“Magnificent,” agreed Tordek, admiring the hammer in his grip. “A weapon worthy of the greatest heroes.”

“I thought you didn’t like that word,” said Lidda. She was obviously trying to put on a brave face, but her head wobbled slightly, and her voice was wan. Her eyes were sunken, and the skin of her face was almost translucently pale.

Tordek looked at her with an expression of deep vexation tempered by concern. Rather than forgo his ire, he frowned at her and turned away.

“Don’t forget your axe,” said the bard.

Momentarily confused, Tordek looked back at the trusty blade he had carried for so many years, abandoned on the plaza behind him. For an instant, he felt a vague regret, as though he had performed some heinous transgression on a long-forgotten vow. The pang of guilt quickly evaporated in a hot gush of pride for his new weapon, the hammer of Andaron. Tordek shrugged. He was no longer interested in carrying the inferior war axe.

He realized everyone was staring at him.

“You aren’t thinking of keeping it, are you?” asked Lidda. “You’re the one who made us swear.”

“We’re here to destroy it,” said Devis, “aren’t we?”

Tordek looked to the elf for support, but Vadania just looked back at him, her eyes full of trust.

Tordek stomped back to retrieve his old axe, resenting it more and more with every step. By the time he returned, the others were trying hard not to look at him. The effect was even worse than if they had stared at him.

“Shut up,” he said to no one in particular, but no one had said a word.

12

The Arms of Andaron

They raced through the halls, heedless of further traps and sentries. Their only nod to stealth was to put their lights away, using the sparse torches and braziers the goblins left burning as their guides.

While many of the goblins must be searching for them below, Tordek had no doubt that at least one of their recent foes had survived to warn Hargrimm of their imminent arrival. Rather than listen at doors and skulk through corridors, they rushed through portals and barred them from the opposite side in a slim hope of slowing the inevitable pursuit from search parties they had bypassed.

At last they encountered a small group of goblins guarding a passage. For an instant, the savage humanoids snarled and raised their weapons, but their courage quickly dissolved as the foes rushed toward them. Those few that stood to fight did not stand long. Those that ran fell with arrows in their backs. One that survived the initial assault made the mortal mistake of moaning as Gulo lumbered by. The wolverine paused only long enough to crush the goblin’s head between his jaws with a perfunctory crack.

Past that light screen of defenders, they found few more impediments to their journey to the upper level. They approached the highest bridge warily, scanning the ceilings and walls as carefully as the floor ahead of them.

“Something’s wrong,” said Vadania. “There should be far more defenders here.”

“Maybe Hargrimm sent too many down to look for us,” suggested Devis.

“Perhaps,” allowed the druid, “but surely he would have kept a stronger guard for the forge. Do you agree, Tordek?”

Tordek nodded to make her stop talking, but he was not truly listening to her. Instead, he harkened to the rhythm of the hammer at his side. He felt its pulse through the palm that he surreptitiously laid upon the weapon’s haft beneath the cover of his shield. Even though his hand itched to grip the mighty hammer, he kept it still for all the others to see, lest they question him again.

How dare they question him? he thought—or something asked him in his thoughts. None of them had ever laid a hand on one of the master smith’s weapons. They could not know the honor—the responsibility—that wielding such a weapon conferred. No doubt they would quail in the face of such an awesome duty. Worse, they would deny Tordek the opportunity to do what they dared not. It was an honor he deserved, one that he earned by righteous action throughout his life. Holten thought he was worthy of the hammer of Andaron, but he was a fool to think so. He was rash and unprepared, so he had failed where his ten-year twin would—

“Tordek!” Lidda tugged at his arm. “Are you all right?”

“Hmm? Oh, yes, of course.”

“You looked all queer and distant,” she said, looking pointedly at the way he held his shield over the hammer.

Tordek took his hand from the weapon and held the shield from Andaron’s tomb properly. He regretted the move immediately, as the lurid glow from the hammer’s head spilled out for all to see.

“Maybe you should let one of us carry that hammer for a while,” said Devis.

Tordek bit his cheek to stop himself from spitting back a hateful retort, but he could not prevent himself from glaring jealously at the bard and holding the shield protectively over the weapon once more. Mustering all his will to compose his face, Tordek replied simply, “No.”

“I think it would be a good idea,” said Vadania. “After all, we know the hammer cannot harm those who have wielded it. If each of us takes a turn, then perhaps…”

“No!” said Tordek. A cool lucidity fell upon him like a gentle snow after long hours in a winter smokehouse. “Do you think I am unaware of the effect the hammer is having on me? Yes, damn you! It’s true. I hear its whispers. I feel the curse working on my mind just as it did on Andaron’s. Do you want us all to wrestle with these subversions while we face our enemy? Well, none of you has the strength for it. None of you has the guts. I am the only one who can succeed where Holt—” He stopped too late to cover his gaffe, and the others stared at him.

Both Devis and Lidda looked as though they wanted to say something, but neither of them could look him in the eye. It was Vadania who stepped close and placed a gentle hand upon his cheek rather than his armored shoulder.

“Very well,” she said. “You are indeed the strongest among us, and we trust you to protect us from the curse by bearing it yourself. If it already spurs you to such distemper, though, then we must waste no more time in putting an end to those who would unleash it on the world.”

A wet lump formed in his throat, and Tordek tried to swallow it before speaking. It would not budge, and an uncomfortable emotion warmed his cheeks so that Vadania’s hand felt cold upon his face. He turned away to escape it, nodding agreement.

“Aye,” he said. “Let us hurry.”

He ran through the corridors nearest Andaron’s forge, and the others followed. He felt their eyes upon his back, and he wondered whether the heat on his face was shame or rage. He wondered how much of his retort was the distortion of the hammer’s seductive power and how much was his own arrogance and greed.

They arrived at the great doors they had seen from inside the foundry. No guards were posted in sight, and the huge portals stood open. Beyond them the foundry was dark but for the deep, red glow of the forge and the cauldrons of molten iron hanging above it. Tordek was the first to perceive the scene of carnage, but as their eyes adjusted to the dimness, the others gasped one by one.

Dozens of corpses lay upon the design surrounding Andaron’s Hellforge. They were not strewn haphazardly but rather arrayed within the pentacle’s boundaries. The bodies glistened with blood, each of them sundered by a powerful blade stroke. Some were pierced by gashes large enough that Tordek could have reached inside and clutched the victim’s heart. Others were dismembered or beheaded, and all of them still bled slowly into the evil patterns on the floor.

At the center of the charnel circle squatted the wicked forge itself, the vents from its doors glowing with malign pleasure as the blood drained through the floor and into whatever vile chambers lay beneath its foundation.

Tordek searched the room with his gaze but spied no living thing on the floor. Still, some numenous feeling told him that they were not alone in the vast chamber.

“Show yourself!” he demanded. His voice came back to him, reflected down from the cavernous ceiling. Another voice came with the echo, a deep and satisfied chuckle from somewhere upon the catwalk.

“My henchmen did not believe me when I told them you would return the hammer,” said Hargrimm. Tordek followed the voice, walking toward the center of the foundry but stopping short of the circle of corpses. He sensed more than heard Lidda and Devis climbing up the catwalk behind him. Vadania and Gulo crept around the perimeter, the druid chanting a spell. He hoped the wolverine’s nose was keen enough to find their prey among all this stench of death and the sulfuric fuel that powered the forge.

“I had faith in you,” said Hargrimm.

Now the voice sounded as though it came from across the chamber, near the floor by the mineshafts. Tordek followed it as Hargrimm spoke to him.

“I had faith that you would follow precisely in your brother’s footsteps. Dutiful, brave, and utterly, utterly predictable. Now bring me my hammer. Lay it at my feet, and I might spare your life.”

The light spilling in from the corridor narrowed and vanished as someone closed the great doors with a metallic toll. Tordek heard the latches click shut, but even before the sound of the bar falling into place came the fast rhythm of goblin drums summoning back the search parties.

Tordek’s hand moved toward Andaron’s hammer. It took a force of will to grasp his war axe instead as he stalked toward one of the iron stairways to the catwalk. He scrambled up the steps just in time to see a purple radiance spill over Hargrimm’s figure, making him a brilliant target in the dark foundry. Within a second of Vadania’s spell, Lidda’s arrow and Devis’s bolt flew toward the foe. Each missile found its mark and passed through to shatter on the wall behind Hargrimm’s image.

“It’s an illusion!” cried Devis. “He’s hiding somewhere within sight of it!”

Tordek blinked. He still saw the image of Hargrimm illuminated by the druid’s faerie fire, but now he perceived its ephemeral nature as the giant, blue goblin put his hands on his hips and leaned back to mock them with his laughter. For a second, Tordek thought the barghest was insane to cavort in such a manner during a fight, but then he realized Hargrimm’s true purpose—distraction.

Near the high ceiling, a dark, red light caught Tordek’s attention. He looked up to see Zagreb’s leathery wings opening like a blossom, only instead of spreading for the sunlight the unfolding petals revealed the unholy glow of the reforged greatsword of Andaron. Fresh, black scars criss-crossed the monster’s muscular arms. He released the grip of his taloned feet on the ceiling and fell, using his wings to turn so that he landed on both feet. The impact of his landing shook the catwalk and the entire network of ironwork surrounding the forge. He crouched momentarily, his blazing eyes fixing on Vadania. With a rumbling purr of anticipation from deep in his chest, he took a step toward her.

The druid stood only twenty feet away. Her eyes widened when she saw the half-dragon’s greatsword erupt with magical light. Despite the peril, she wove the fingers of one hand in a divine prayer and spoke the words of power. She held her shield up with the other arm, but Tordek knew it was a frail shelter from Andaron’s enchanted greatsword.

As Vadania uttered the final syllable, Zagreb closed the distance between them. His blade swept down on the druid’s shield. Vadania’s magic flickered like a swarm of fireflies in winter fog before dissipating around the blazing brand of Zagreb’s sword. The druid shouted in pain as the sword cut a deep, black mark into the wood. Miraculously the enchanted shield held, but the force of the blow deadened Vadania’s arm so that it hung limply at her side.

Lidda shouted from the catwalk. She raised her bow to shoot at Zagreb, but the half-dragon was following the retreating druid up to another of the iron stairways. Beside Lidda, Devis gestured as if wiping a window between them as he softly sang a song. The last note wavered as Sandrine fell hissing atop him, a pair of blazing short swords in her hands. She wielded the weapons inexpertly, but where they struck the bard’s body they left deep, weeping wounds.

“Watch, Tordek, brother of Holten,” called Hargrimm. He said something else as Zagreb attacked Vadania, but he spoke the words quietly, too softly for Tordek to hear. The barghest’s voice seemed to come simultaneously from his glowing image and from a point on the floor, near the forge. “Witness the futility of defiance, then ask yourself whether it would not be better to serve at my foot than to perish beneath it.”

A flurry of images pelted Tordek’s imagination. He saw Vadania throttled in Zagreb’s fiery hands, Lidda and Devis hacked to pieces under the clumsy but still deadly flurry of Sandrine’s short swords. He thrust away the cruel fantasies and forced himself to look at reality.

Vadania staggered along the catwalk toward the brightly glowing forge, practically dragging her shield arm as she drew her scimitar from its scabbard. Zagreb followed, taking his time without letting her escape. His wounds from their earlier fight looked severe, but they seemed to have little effect on the monster. He severed an iron support bar with his greatsword, just to show that he could. He was savoring the slow chase and its inevitable outcome.

Tordek wanted to run to Vadania, but he knew it was futile. She would die before he could reach her. The weight of guilt, heavier than any anvil, pulled his heart deeper into resignation.

Devis scrambled away on all fours, trying to escape Sandrine’s blades. She cut him with every step until at last he drew his longsword and extended it to parry her blows. She spat and screamed at him as she hacked at the blade with her swords. At last, one of her swings beat his guard aside, and the following blow knocked the weapon out of the bard’s hand. It tumbled off the catwalk and clattered on the stone floor, far below.

“Look, Tordek,” called Hargrimm. “See the results of my commands, and despair.”

This time the voice came from a lone point, and the projected image wavered and vanished. Tordek turned toward the voice and saw Hargrimm standing alone among the dead bodies of his former slaves. He smiled as he saw the dwarf look at him. He raised his own weapon, the reforged urgrosh of Andaron. Its blades glowed with the same diabolical power as the hammer at Tordek’s side. It pulsed with a rhythm that Tordek could feel beneath his shield hand, against his knee.

“Reach for the hammer, Tordek,” crooned Hargrimm. “It calls for you. I can hear it, too. Take it in hand, and bring it to me.”

Never had Tordek felt such desperation, such an overwhelming sense of impotence. It washed over him like the sea, pounding his spirit down upon the unyielding earth. Dimly he was aware that the demon had afflicted him with fell magic to weaken his spirit, but that knowledge was no proof against the result. He had been every bit as foolish and boastful as Holten to think that he could defeat Hargrimm and his unassailable allies. He had been deluded to think he was even worthy of the task, much less capable of succeeding in this foolish quest. Soon he would die, but not before he saw his own allies slaughtered and added to the sacrificial heap surrounding the forge.

Tordek dropped his war axe. The clang of it striking the iron walk sounded like a death knell that rang throughout the foundry. He let his shield fall beside it. With his hands freed, he struggled mightily to keep them away from the haft of Andaron’s hammer, even as its power called to him, telling him nothing else could put an end to his foe.

Tordek breathed deeply and set his jaw. With quick, practiced motions he grabbed his bow and a magical arrow from his quiver, set Hargrimm in his sight, and let fly.

Hargrimm seemed merely to step to the side, but he vanished as if that step carried him through an invisible door. The magic arrow sank into the iron face of the forge and burst into flames.

“So be it,” came Hargrimm’s voice from behind the forge.

He shouted a short command in the goblin tongue, and all the foundry’s doors clicked open to reveal a mob of goblin warriors beyond. They spilled through the side entrances and poured up out of the mineshafts below even as the great doors opened slowly to reveal a horde bristling with spears and javelins. Even high above, goblins streamed out of the balconies to stomp along the catwalks.

“You had your chance to bring it to me,” Hargrimm called to Tordek. “Now I shall have it fetched from your dead body.”

13

Summoning

Directly above Tordek, Sandrine screeched.

It was a sound to shatter crystal and thrust seeds of agony into every tooth. The swarming goblins paused to shove their palms against their ears, many of them adding their own shrieks to the din.

Tordek glanced up just as one of the vampire’s glowing short swords clattered onto the iron walk. Sandrine dropped the weapon as she reached around to clutch a wound in her back. Lidda scampered away from the spitting vampire spawn, no longer cloaked by Devis’s invisibility spell. With another pernicious scream, Sandrine threw herself at the halfling, reaching out with a naked hand as she struck with the remaining sword.

Far around the walkway, Zagreb lurched forward to loom over Vadania. The druid fell to one knee as she struggled to navigate the corner and escape him. The half-dragon’s greatsword rose high to strike, but before it could descend, the catwalk shuddered under a tremendous load it was never meant to bear. Gulo had clambered up the outside of the stairway and thundered along the walk, barreling straight into the monster that threatened his friend. He knocked the half-dragon back, and Zagreb redirected his swing. The blade fell across Gulo’s shoulder, cutting deep into muscle and bone. The wolverine howled in pain, but the sound turned quickly to a roar of fury and his claws raked over the foe he had marked before.

Zagreb beat on the shaggy skull with the hard pommel of the greatsword, and Gulo ducked his head. That was all the room the half-dragon needed to step back, stretch to his full height, and raise the sword for a far deadlier blow.

This time, it was the elf who came to her friend’s rescue. Waves of heat rose behind her from a huge cauldron of molten iron. With a harsh, imperious cry she conjured a swirling cloud of bats. They swarmed down from the cavernous ceiling to form a dark halo around the half-dragon’s head. They squealed and flapped in his face, pelting him with their tiny wings and needle-sharp fangs. Their attack did little to harm the monstrous foe, but they turned his wrath away from Gulo and onto their own fragile but plentiful bodies.

Despite the terrible struggles of his companions above, Tordek faced even more outrageous odds on the foundry floor. There was no longer any question that he could prevail without employing Andaron’s fell weapon. He gripped it tightly, feeling its unholy power surge even faster into his body, searing his veins and thrilling every nerve with a promise of dauntless power. Even as he reveled in the ecstasy of magic, a cold dread hung heavy in his gut, an ominous warning that not only did he tread close to damnation but already he had one foot in the Abyss.

He thrust aside his doubts, forsaking his soul for revenge as he hurled the hammer at the nearest cluster of goblins. It flew like a meteor. Bodies were hurled up and aside as the weapon crushed heads and shattered ribs. The hammer burrowed through the enemy ranks, curving around to slap its haft firmly back in Tordek’s hand after completing its murderous arc.

With the hammer in his grip, Tordek heard all the hymns of war resounding in his head. He swung left and right, slaying with every stroke. He crushed helms, shattered shields, and reduced cold-wrought iron to powder. Without turning, he sensed the approach of enemies from the rear. He threw the hammer blindly, and he knew how many bodies it left in its wake when it returned unerringly to his grip. Tordek’s kenning of the battle swelled farther, enveloping the entire forge. He knew the count of enemies, and a distant part of his mind even wondered at the incredible carnage. Goblins perished by the dozen with every toss of the weapon. Tordek knew without looking what transpired on the iron walkways above his head.

Sandrine grasped Lidda’s hair and beat the halfling’s head against the unyielding iron grate. Lidda struggled to slip her own short sword up into the vampire spawn’s ribs, but every blow dazed her and splattered more of her own blood into her eyes.

Suddenly the vampire’s grip was gone, and Sandrine shrieked again, more hideously than ever. The ruddy tip of Devi’s longsword thrust out from her chest, just below one of her fine, white collarbones.

Devis grinned maliciously as he twisted the blade. In his other hand he held the short sword she dropped earlier. “Shouldn’t leave these things lying around, sweetheart.”

Sandrine dropped the second weapon and grabbed at the blade protruding from her body, but behind her Devis put a foot on her back and pulled the sword free, slicing her fingers to the bone.

Beside the iron cauldrons Zagreb ignored the winged rodents swirling round his head and struck instead at their summoner. His mighty blade hummed through another of the catwalk’s support rods. The edges of the severed metal glowed red hot. The blow shook the walk again, knocking Vadania to the hard, iron platform. She raised her scimitar in a futile gesture of warding, but it would be as potent as a switch against a falling century tree. Again, and for the last time ever, Gulo rose up to catch the half-dragon’s wrist in his powerful jaws. The wolverine bit deep, evoking a shout of intense pain from the winged ogre. Gulo shook his bloodied head and the greatsword clattered onto the catwalk. Fearlessly the wolverine threw his full weight upon his foe. Both of them hurtled over the railing and into the roiling cauldron, three feet below.

Searing gobs of iron splashed over the edges to fall on the thinning goblin horde. They screamed in agony, and the first cowards among them broke and fled from the hall.

Vadania threw herself against the railing and screamed Gulo’s name to the flaring cauldron. Her scream was in vain, for her friend died instantly in the molten iron. The carcass, engulfed in sheets of flame, still clutched his foe’s limbs and slowly dragged the monster toward a shared death.

Zagreb, nearly invulnerable to heat, gasped for breath in the thick, suffocating iron. He struggled to pry Gulo’s baked jaws from his arm and dig the claws from his searing flesh. The infernal heat seemed powerless to harm him, even as it incinerated Gulo’s body.

“No, you don’t,” murmured Vadania, reaching for the fallen greatsword. It took all of her strength to raise the weapon above her shoulder, but once it was firmly in her grip, it seemed to grow light and facile in her hands. She raised it high, holding its long handle like the haft of a spear. She thrust its blade at Zagreb’s face. The point struck his eye and though it could not penetrate to harm one who wielded it, Vadania threw her weight behind the weapon and pushed Zagreb’s head below the bubbling surface. The liquid metal rushed into his gaping mouth. When he rose back up, it began to cool and solidify.

Vadania stabbed again, managing to thrust his head once more into the molten iron. The monster might be immune to its fire, but she saw his body twitch in suffocating spasms as he gagged for breath with a mouth and nostrils plugged by iron.

“If you won’t burn,” she shouted, striking him down again and again, “then drown, you abomination!”

She struck one more time, forcing the head below the surface. Finally, though she stood poised with the sword, she struck no more, for Zagreb did not rise again.

Across the catwalk Sandrine howled at the two tormenters who closed in on her, one on either side, each wielding one of the short swords she had dropped. Lidda clutched her own sword as well, while Devis held his bloody longsword pointed at her eye.

“I’ll kill you both!” she shrieked, pawing at her wounds. “Before this is done, I’ll kill you by inches!”

“Now, now,” cautioned Devis, “that’s not a pretty thing to say, is it?”

She whipped around to face him, just as he had calculated, and Lidda plunged her sword into Sandrine’s back. The blade barely missed the vampire’s spine, but it sizzled through her undead flesh.

Devis darted in and hacked at her slender neck. He knew that Andaron’s sword could not cut Sandrine’s flesh, but he hoped he might knock her off balance. The blade passed through a sudden mist as Sandrine vanished. The cloud lingered tantalizingly where she had stood, then floated toward the ceiling.

Lidda readied her bow just in time to fire a single, useless arrow through the gaseous foe, but then the mist vanished into one of the hidden vents in the cavern wall.

“I hope it’s noon out there,” Lidda spat after the retreating enemy. She turned back to Devis and shrugged. “I lost track.”

Together, they hefted Andaron’s short swords and looked down at the battle below. It was a hurricane of bodies with Tordek at its eye. A lightning bolt in the form of Andaron’s hammer flashed out and back, leaving carnage in its wake.

“Let’s go,” said Devis.

They ran along the catwalk and descended toward the battle.

Vadania was there ahead of them, wielding Andaron’s greatsword as lightly as a willow wand. Though her face was wet with tears, her eyes were a terror to behold—cold as ice and hard as granite. Devis and Lidda joined her and the three of them cut a swath toward the forge, leaving mounds of goblin dead marking their path.

Without realizing the transformation, they were soon caught up in the same battle-glee that buoyed Tordek. They marveled inwardly at their killing power and delighted in the sounds of tearing flesh, shattering bones, and dying screams. The remade weapons rang with glory and glowed with insatiable lust for combat.

Too soon, only a few hardy goblins lingered in a wavering circle around the blood-spattered warriors standing amid mounds of corpses. The goblins hesitated, unwilling to advance to their doom. As they wavered, blinding light burst upward from the lines of the pentacle surrounding Andaron’s forge. The surviving goblins cringed, then fled in terror from the unholy radiance ringing their foes.

Only Hargrimm remained to stride past the heaped dead. Tordek rushed him, but the barghest rose high above the floor with a casual gesture. Levitating near the center of the circle, directly above the radiant forge, Hargrimm shouted out his triumph and his rapture.

“At last, my master, the sacrifice is sufficient!”

Tordek felt jarring, icy guilt spread through his gut. It chilled his bones and cooled the fury that charged his limbs with strength. Hargrimm’s exultation made clear the meaning of Andaron’s warning. They, Tordek and his companions, who risked so much to stop Hargrimm, had unwittingly become the instruments of their foe’s triumph.

Hargrimm’s voice swelled to fill the room and echoed back down with a tangible wave of force. “Come, glorious Gruulnargh, master of these tools of destruction. Command us!”

The ground trembled and cracked. Tordek and the others leaped to get outside the circle just moments before the stones between the arms of the pentacle fell away, revealing an endless pit beneath the forge. A firestorm swirled within that abyss, roiling up to spill upon the demonic circle. Where it splashed out, it pooled and congealed. Each new, lapping wave of the hell-stuff solidified over the previous layer adding to the amorphous figure that grew slowly and steadily before the forge.

“At last,” called Hargrimm, lowering himself to the ground outside the circle. “The summoning is irrevocable, and we are brothers in arms. Rejoice, for you have all earned a place at the heel of Gruulnargh the destroyer.”

“Never,” spat Tordek. He raised the hammer and hurled it at Hargrimm’s head, but the weapon glanced away as if deflected by an invisible shield.

Hargrimm smiled and backed away nonchalantly, gesturing at all the remaining corpses. The bodies withered to ectoplasm that flowed into the burning circle, feeding it with ever more souls.

“There is no need to squabble now. We shall all be rewarded for our part in this triumphant moment. Do not think otherwise. After all, you contributed as many sacrifices as I.”

Tordek’s heart grew cold at the barghest’s words. The faces of his companions grew pale.

His eyes wide with horror, Tordek staggered back from Hargrimm. He stared for long moments as the master demon took shape. Lumps of magma gradually transformed into scabby tentacles studded with tiny, yellow spikes.

Tordek looked down at the hammer in his hand. He looked back up at Hargrimm, against whom this mightiest of weapons was useless. His eyes continued farther up, toward the heavens.

The barghest smiled back at him. “Even you must see the irony, Tordek, brother of Holten,” he said. “Accept the destiny that you forged with me.”

Tordek’s gaze came back down to Hargrimm, and a grin creased his face. “Accept yours,” he said coldly. He flung the hammer as high and as hard as his mighty arm could throw it, far above the barghest’s head.

Hargrimm followed the hammer’s flight upward and saw it smash through the bottom of the cauldron in which the half-dragon had drowned. A pillar of fiery red molten iron rocketed downward toward him. The barghest threw himself to the side with superhuman effort, and he almost escaped.

Zagreb’s flaring corpse smashed Hargrimm’s legs flat against the floor with a horrible sound of crushed bones and searing flesh. Sizzling iron splashed across the floor and over Hargrimm’s broad back, burning black holes into his body. Oily smoke rose from his wounds in ruddy purple swirls stinking of brimstone.

Tordek spared only a brief, grim glance at his dying foe before turning toward the urgrosh that tumbled from Hargrimm’s hands to skitter across the floor.

“Quickly!” he yelled to his friends. He held out a hand to receive the returning hammer, and it slapped firmly into his grip, smoking and glowing. Tordek stepped haltingly toward the forge, then paused while gazing down at the weapon.

Its steel body gleamed pure and silver in the hellish light of the charnel house that had been Andaron’s Forge. Such beauty, Tordek thought, and such power.

He looked up at the monstrous figure of Gruulnargh, at its lashing tendrils and half-formed mouths. He glanced at his friends, who rushed to his side while struggling to elude the partially formed demon’s grasp.

Tordek closed his eyes and hurled the hammer toward the forge. Guided by his will more than by his arm, the weapon smashed through a closed iron door and plunged into the nova-bright heart of the infernal fire.

Gruulnargh shrieked, and tornadoes erupted across the chamber. The monster’s sulfuric breath stung their eyes and choked their throats. Its tentacles whipped blindly in all directions, seeking betrayers, for its eyes had yet to form on this plane.

As one, Lidda and Devis tossed their short swords into the hole in the forge made by the hammer. Vadania flung the greatsword moments later, shaking her hands as if to clear them of some lingering filth.

The demon’s body swelled and throbbed. It accelerated its materialization by thrusting up bone and sinew without benefit of flesh and skin to support them. Ghastly organs bobbed from its nether portions, screaming with mouths of their own until half-formed eyeballs burst out of the wet surfaces to search for targets. Skinless tendrils shot out with blinding speed and latched around Vadania and Devis. They were lifted from the floor and waved madly through the shimmering air. Lidda narrowly escaped the powerful clutch by tumbling out of reach.

Only the urgrosh remained of Andaron’s arms and Tordek dived toward it. He clutched the iron shaft in both hands as the demon’s tendrils whipped around his legs and spiraled up to squeeze the breath from his lungs. In the instant before they could pin his arms, Tordek hurled the weapon toward the opening. It tumbled awkwardly and struck the edge of the opening but fell inside the sundered forge.

The last weapon vanished with a fiery flare.

Gruulnargh’s roars turned to screams and squeals as the five doors of the forge burst open and flames spewed across its partially formed body. Tendrils writhed uncontrollably, dropping Devis and Vadania to the floor, where they scrambled away from the dying demon. Tordek struggled to follow them, but powerful limbs and jaws clamped tightly on his leg.

The trapped dwarf twisted around to see an enormous worg. Its crushed and useless legs and the black burns on its back left no question as to its identity. Despite the crippling wounds, Hargrimm clawed his way across the floor to Tordek’s body. Orange eyes seethed with hatred. Scarred jaws opened wide.

Tordek punched Hargrimm’s lupine skull, but even bolstered by Andaron’s gauntlets, the blow was trifling in the face of the demon’s infernal rage. The dwarf twisted away, reaching for his axe. He saw the weapon and knew he could reach it, but Hargrimm dragged Tordek back, away from the weapon’s hope of salvation.

A thudding sound grabbed Tordek’s attention and he saw an arrow jutting from Hargrimm’s neck. An instant later, a crossbow bolt pierced his cheek, and then a wound exploded on his canine snout from a sling bullet creasing his skull.

The dwarf heard Lidda’s voice shouting something, but he needed no prompting. A sharp kick propelled him away from the tenacious worg, then the axe was in his grip. He swept the blade past his feet and felt it connect with snapping jaws. In a moment he was standing above his crippled foe with the axe gripped in both hands. Tordek looked down into the face of hate and met it with his own undying enmity.

“You want to be with your master?” he said. The axe swept down toward Hargrimm’s neck but the barghest heaved itself forward with powerful front legs. Its fangs caught hold of Tordek’s greave and clamped tight, but a mighty blow of the axe sliced away the lower jaw. The second strike severed the monster’s spine, and the third sent the giant wolf’s head rolling away from its body.

“Join him in hell,” spat Tordek as he wiped his axe blade on the worg’s wiry fur.

When Tordek looked up, the last of Gruulnargh’s burning body was seeping back down through the gate. The magical portal itself was shrinking. Its circumference was now barely wider than the forge. As the glowing border of the pentacle touched the solid iron base of the furnace, the earth shook again.

Afterward came a long minute of silence in which Tordek heard only the clatter of falling pebbles and his own labored breathing. Gradually, and then with growing urgency, his companions gathered their belongings and joined him. Together they watched the last infernal radiance die out from Andaron’s forge. Its hellish fires extinguished at last, leaving the giant cavern pitch black.

Vadania rapped a sunrod on the floor. Its illumination highlighted a fifth figure in their solemn cluster beside the forge. It was the translucent image of Andaron himself, no longer formed of the pages from his own chronicle. He looked at each in turn, a growing expression of puzzlement creasing his visage.

The earth trembled again, this time shaking loose a huge stalactite from the ceiling to burst upon the floor. The catwalk squealed in protest as it buckled and slumped.

“What are you waiting for, fools?” shouted Andaron’s ghost. “I’ve given you your reward, the deed is done, and I can’t hold this place together much longer. Run!”

“Which way?” yelled Tordek.

The ghost shot him a look of supreme annoyance. “The way out, unless you care to join me in eternity.” He closed his eyes as if in tortured concentration. His image sank once more into the earth, heralding another jolt of the ground.

“This way,” cried Lidda, running toward the mineshaft. Devis was already there, pushing bins of forgotten ore off the remaining sledge.

Vadania hesitated only an instant before chasing after them, and Tordek was hard on her heels.

“This is suicide!” Tordek shouted. “We survived the first time only through a miracle. This time the whole place is coming down. We’ll be buried alive.”

Despite his complaint, he helped Devis shove off the last of the bins. Together, they spun the sledge around and pushed it to the edge of the shaft through which they had plunged once before. He complained again, “It was a miracle.”

“Yeah?” said Lidda, climbing on board. “If anyone’s earned a miracle lately, it’s us.”

Devis jumped on behind her, and Vadania behind him, leaving Tordek to give them a push. He threw his full weight and strength behind the effort, shoving the sledge over the edge and leaping aboard at the last moment.

“Moradin!” he cried. “Please?”

14

Heroes

Tordek dreamed of Holten. This time his brother was young and hale, not harrowed and broken as he appeared in Tordek’s countless nightmares of the past decades. This time the handsome young dwarf smiled at his younger brother, his ten-year twin, before turning to walk down an endless stairway. As he disappeared into the cool darkness, Tordek knew he would rest easy at last.

He slept for what seemed hours after the brief vision. When Devis woke him from this restful slumber, Tordek was not in the least irritated to see the half-elf smiling back at him. He even liked the black smudge that remained on the tip of his nose, resistant to any amount of scrubbing over the past five days. It was good to be alive and among friends.

There had been moments of real doubt in the tumultuous passage through the deep caverns of Andaron’s Delve, but eventually Moradin provided that second miracle. After the screaming descent through the shaft and the cold plunge that was no less thrilling for being expected this time, they dragged themselves into the shuddering caverns and searched for Gulo’s passage through the underground streams. It was past midnight by the time they swam up and out to the clear eastern stretch of the stream running past Jorgund peak. They did not stop until they were a mile away from the shaking promontory. From the outside and in the bright moonlight, the only sign of collapse was the absence of the trees directly over the foundry. At dawn, they could see the deep cracks in the stained white cliffs and several mounds of rubble at the base of the little mountain. The collapse stifled the stream, whose waters were already pooling to form a new, if small, lake. Lidda worried aloud that all their efforts might have been for naught if the collapsing delve had killed the stream.

“It will find a new path,” said Vadania. “Water always does.”

The druid mourned for Gulo, but she made no ritual of her grief. When the others offered their condolences, she accepted them with a quiet grace that invited no further efforts at consolation.

“He was a great warrior,” Tordek said to her.

“And sometimes a great coward,” she said with a wan smile. “I think I loved him best when he was afraid.”

Later, as they marched toward Croaker Norge, Devis made a point of walking beside Tordek for a league. He was silent for the better part of an hour, but finally he said, “You know, I meant it as a compliment when I said you were a poet.”

Tordek almost choked with laughter, but to Devis it seemed as if the dwarf was stifling a cry of outrage. Tordek did not correct that impression. “Just don’t let it happen again,” he said.

Devis nodded, smiled uncertainly, and dropped back to walk beside Lidda.

A few hours later, Lidda joined Tordek in gathering firewood. Once they were out of the bard’s hearing, she said, “That was kind of mean, you know.”

Tordek nodded and shrugged. “What he doesn’t realize is that I’m a damned fine actor, too.”

“Not all the time,” said Lidda. “Right?”

Tordek looked at her and saw that she was not about to let the question pass unanswered. He set aside the fallen branches in his arms and sat on a fallen log. Lidda joined him there, sitting beside him without speaking for a long time. They watched the sun sink lower in the west until its upper edge barely broke the silhouette of the highest trees.

“You felt it, didn’t you?” he asked.

“Maybe,” she said. “A little bit, right before I threw it into the forge. Everything was happening so fast that I couldn’t really tell whether it was the sword or my own fear.”

Tordek nodded. “It was difficult,” he said, “to resist the lure of the hammer. If I had held it any longer…”

Lidda chucked him on the arm. When he seemed not to notice the gesture, she repeated it with much greater force. “You did great. You were a real—”

Tordek looked down at her with one hairless eyebrow arched, and she squirmed under his gaze.

“Hero. There, I said it. I know you don’t like the word, but it’s true.”

Tordek shook his head and rose to his feet. He gathered up the firewood in his arms, and Lidda did the same. They walked back to the campsite.

Sandrine stirred as they pulled the lid from her coffin.

Her eyes were still closed against the light filtering into her cottage from above. The vampire lay in a grave lined with skulls. Four shadows fell across her pale body.

“Did you think we would forget you?” asked Devis. He held the sharpened stake to her heart.

Either his voice or the pricking point of the stake plucked the vampire fully from her torpor. Her eyes widened as she saw her predicament.

“Kill us by inches, I believe she said,” added Lidda.

“Hurry,” said Vadania. “The earth cannot abide her poison any longer.”

Tordek raised his axe and brought its flat side down against the stake. Sandrine shrieked one last time as her body wracked with the final, hated spasm of true death.

Tordek grunted and raised his axe again. This time he did not strike with the flat. The rest was work for flame.

No festival awaited them in Croaker Norge, but never had Tordek felt more genuine gratitude from people he helped. Granted, this lot had not paid him for his services so they should be doubly pleased with the results. Still, their honest offers of the best they had was more touching than countless free ales and fawning adulation from tavern wenches in towns he’d defended for pay.

Soon Tordek realized the trap of such honest gratitude when he began feeling that he should do more to deserve their accolades. They asked for nothing, but a blind man could see that they needed help repairing and rebuilding homes. Even with the return of the captives, they were left with barely half their previous population. Many of the survivors were injured too severely to be of much help. It would be worse for the families of the slaves who died in the mine, Tordek knew. He wished fleetingly that they had found a way to rescue all the hostages before facing Hargrimm and his henchmen, but he also knew that more evil might have been the result if he carried Andaron’s Hammer any longer than necessary.

The druid’s spells were especially beneficial in healing the wounded and repairing damaged property. Devis worked reluctantly during the day, but in the evening he was the center of attention as he told the tale of Andaron’s Delve to an enraptured audience. The chronicle grew and transformed each time he repeated it. By the fifth night, it had become a tuneful song.

It was around that same time that Tordek and the others came to an unspoken agreement that they had lingered long enough. It was time to count their coins and gems, divide them equally as they had agreed, and go their separate ways.

“You can’t be tired of me already,” protested Lidda. “We’ve had some great times, haven’t we?”

Tordek nodded. “We will meet again, I’m sure, but it’s time I walked alone.”

She made no attempt to hide her disappointment, but the halfling nodded her acceptance. “I guess I understand that. You don’t mind if I take Devis with me, though, do you? I know you and he have this special bond, but if you really want to be alo—” She leaped away just in time to avoid Tordek’s boot connecting with her bottom.

Lidda and Devis set off that afternoon. The halfling gave Tordek a fierce hug and made him promise to look for her the next time he heard of a great adventure that didn’t involve spiders, aboleths, illithids, or anything gelatinous.

Devis offered his hand, and Tordek grasped it.

“You’d do well to stay out of dresses,” advised the dwarf.

“I can’t promise that,” said Devis, “but I promise to stop wearing them around frisky dwarves.”

On the morning after their departure, Tordek rose early to find Vadania sitting nearby, waiting for him to wake. She sat patiently as he went washed his face and dressed. When he finished, she had her pack slung over her shoulder.

“Well, then,” he said. “All obligations settled?” She nodded. They clasped hands and said in unison, “Bargain.” Vadania tugged gently on Tordek’s beard and leaned down to kiss him on the cheek. “If you should ever need a friend’s help, do not think you need to hold my obligation to call upon me.”

“Aye,” he said. He hesitated so long that she turned away to leave before he added, “And you should call on me.”

She smiled at him over her shoulder. “I shall,” she promised, “whenever I need a valuable dwarf.”

Content

T. H. Lain
The Sundered Arms

1 Bunny

2 Tales

3 Croaker Norge

4 Territories

5 The Little Fiend

6 The Buried Forest

7 The Hellforged

8 Murdark

9 Dissention

10 Andaron’s Tomb

11 Moradin’s Gaze

12 The Arms of Andaron

13 Summoning

14 Heroes