The Covenant of The Forge

8

The first day of Balladine, as always, was the day of solstice — the one day of the year when the sun at its zenith would shine directly down the great central shaft of Thorin. For the Calnar it was the holiest and most joyous day of the year, for a very practical reason. At noon of this day, every level of the city would be flooded with brilliant light, and at the very base of the city — the deeps of the great firewell around which the smelters roared — the living flame of Thorin would be renewed by the direct, focused light of the sun, magnified and amplified by huge lenses of clear, perfect quartz high above.

For this day, the paths to the smelters were blocked. No one would enter the great pit that surrounded the firewell, or even the shielded smelters above. The carbon shields were rolled back to receive the fireflash that was the original — and secret — reason the dwarves celebrated Balladine.

Starting the day before, the lowest levels had been evacuated as always. When fireflash occurred, the heat there — even in the recesses of the smelter level, far from the firewell — would be too intense to survive. But it was only for this day, and the mighty furnace that was Thorin’s foundation — a pit of pure magma — would be rejuvenated for another year.

The principle and the annual phenomenon of the solstice fireflash were as old as Thorin itself. But not older. It was no ancient ogre-work that had built the central shaft with its levels, the foundry regions, and the firewell. Some believed that the firewell itself was a gift from Reorx, but all the rest was pure dwarven craft and lay far deeper into the mountain than the old ogres had ever thought of delving.

The pit at the bottom was the very substance of Thorin, and the Calnar’s greatest secret. Coal, coke, and other firestones were used in the foundries and the forges, but it was the firewell itself that gave them steel, and the annual fireflash on solstice day fed the firewell.

As usual, the big gates of Thorin Keep would open shortly before noon. Knowing nothing of the inner workings of Thorin, or of the firewell and the solstice, visitors to Balladine took it as quaint dwarven tradition that the gates always opened when the sun was overhead. In fact, though, the reason was practical, as were most dwarven traditions. Not only the obvious gates below the keep, but actually every entrance to Thorin — most of which were cleverly hidden — was opened at the same time. During fireflash, it got hot in Thorin, and the opening of ways was to air the place out.

The morning sky blazed beyond Thorin Crag when sally ports in the great gates swung open, and a company of guards emerged to take positions on the highest terrace. When the guards were in their places, trumpeters appeared and formed ranks on each side of the portal. Troops of liveried dwarves followed them, carrying banners. When this array was assembled before Thorin Keep, the trumpeters raised their burnished horns and shrilled a five-note call.

Below Thorin, on the roadways flanking the lower terraces, the caravans of Golash and Chandera were already in motion, creeping upward like great, distorted serpents — long trains of wagons, carts, barrows, and travois, with their teams in harness and their attendants flanking them.

At the sound of the trumpets, a gold-and-black banner climbed its pylon atop Thorin Keep, followed by a white banner with a blue cross. Banners arose in unison at the lead of each approaching caravan — the banners of Chandera and Golash, each accompanied by the blue cross flag of trade.

It was a ceremony as old as Balladine. The Calnar showed their colors and the blue cross. Their visitors showed their own colors and the blue cross. Each thus declared this to be a time of peace, a time of goodwill, a time to gather and mingle and exchange the goods of commerce.

At the second terrace, the human caravans turned toward each other and spread out, and even before the carriers had stopped rolling there were people at work, erecting pavilions, rolling back wagon covers and setting up shop. On the first terrace, Cullom Hammerstand and his traders led a procession of heavily laden Calnar into the open and directed the erection of the pavilions of Thorin.

Hammers rang, buntings arose, and the morning air was alive with the sounds of preparation.

As was his custom, Cullom Hammerstand went with a pair of guards to the lip of the first terrace, fifteen feet above the beginning of the second. For a time, he wondered whether his counterparts would come to exchange greetings, then he saw them, issuing from the assembling stalls to right and left — Bram Talien, coming from the Chanderan caravan, and Barak Toth from the Golash ranks. Each was accompanied by large men Cullom did not remember seeing before … men who wore swords at their belts and shields on their backs, and who carried bows. It was far more than ceremonial weaponry. The trade warden glanced at his own guards, who had noticed the same thing. It was obvious that they did not like what they saw.

Cullom waved a troubled salute at Bram Talien, then at Barak Toth, and raised his eyes to look beyond. Usually Garr Lanfel, the Prince of Golash, would come himself. But today there was no sign of him. Cullom frowned, wondering. Many things were strange this year, and he shared the uneasy feeling his chieftain and the others had. Balladine seemed to be opening as usual — but he knew that something was wrong.

Behind Cullom, one of his guards hissed in surprise, and Cullom glanced around. The guard, a sturdy dwarf named Sand Sakor, was turned half away, looking here and there. He seemed puzzled. “Odd,” he muttered.

“Is something wrong, Sand?”

The guard shook his head. “I guess not. I felt … or thought I felt … someone touch me.”

“Who?”

“I guess I imagined it, Trademaster. It was as though someone brushed past me just then. But there’s no one here.”

Bram Talien approached with his armed escort and stopped just below the rim. The human trader’s face looked pale, and he kept his eyes down.

“Greetings, Bram Talien,” Cullom Hammerstand said. “Do you bring fine works to trade this Balladine?”

“The usual, Cullom Hammerstand.” The human still kept his eyes averted, though the two men with him leered and grinned at the dwarves just above. Their manner was arrogant, bordering on insulting.

“Do you have any … ah … unusual commodities this year?” the dwarf pressed. “I see large wagons there, in your caravan.”

“It is only coke, Trade Warden,” Bram Talien said, stiffly. “As usual.” He raised his eyes, then, and there was a plea in them. “Firestone, for your forges … as usual.”

Cullom Hammerstand hesitated. The man was telling him something, giving him a warning.

The Golash contingent arrived then, and the dwarf noticed that Barak Toth’s guards were of the same cut as Bram’s. These were not men of Golash, any more than those with the Chanderan were of Chandera.

Barak Toth looked as frightened as Bram Talien, and Cullom Hammerstand felt a rush of intuition. The human traders were not here freely. Their guards were not their escort, they were their captors. The Chanderan and the Golash traders were prisoners!

He sensed that his own guards, behind him, had come to the same conclusion, but they kept their silence while Cullom Hammerstand thought fast. He glanced at the sky, then spoke to the humans below the terrace rim. “You who come in peace are welcome here, as always. The gates will open soon, and Balladine will begin. You should hurry, now, and make the usual placements.”

Those below looked puzzled. One of the Chanderan’s guards — or captors — demanded, “And what usual placements might that be, din … ah, Sir Dwarf?”

“Why, the usual. It is customary for all women and children, and the infirm, to go down to the third terrace to await Balladine … ah, so that our providers can serve them refreshment there while the trading begins.” He glanced at Bram Talien and Barak Toth meaningfully. “It is how we always do things here, is it not, my friends?”

“Of course.” Bram Talien answered, with a look of gratitude in his eyes. “We always do that … for their comfort.”

“Then hurry them away.” The dwarf nodded. “We must open the gates very soon.”

Cullom Hammerstand turned away, followed by his guards, and headed for the gates. He had heeded the veiled warning that Bram Talien tried to give him and had done all he could to repay the favor. Now he had to report to his chieftain.

At his side, one of his escorts glanced back, then leaned close to whisper, “Those people are hostages, I swear. The men with them are outlanders. There is going to be some trouble.”

“I know,” Cullom agreed.

The other escort asked, “Do you think they fell for that business about getting the innocents out of the way?”

“I don’t know.” Cullom shrugged. “It was the most I could do.”

“Do you think they mean to attack Thorin?” the first one wondered. He seemed astonished at the idea.

“I am afraid they intend to try.”

Passing through the dwarven pavilions, Cullom Hammerstand glanced at the sky again and quickened his pace. He wanted to tell Colin Stonetooth what he had learned, before …

But it was too late. Even as they rounded the last pavilion, the trumpets sounded again, and Colin Stonetooth emerged from Thorin Keep, mounted on his great horse and followed by the Ten. In perfect parade drill, the group rode out from the sally port, then spread and turned their mounts, and the chieftain raised his hand. Trumpets shrilled, drums thundered, and the huge gates swung wide.

Balladine had begun.

The gates of Thorin were massive twin doors of hardwood timber, bound with heavy iron strap, hinged at either side of a portal twenty feet across by sixteen high. As with most gates and doors of dwarven make, the panels were a few inches narrower at top than at bottom, and the huge iron hinges were canted slightly inward. It was dwarven logic that an open door is not a door at all, so doors in Thorin were designed to close by themselves. An open door, unstopped, would swing shut by simple gravity.

Opening the great gates, though, required effort. Big, wide-arm windlasses were mounted in stone alcoves at either side of the entry corridor, with cables extending through sockets to levers beyond. A dozen dwarves at each side turned the windlasses, and the doors swung slowly outward until they stood wide. Oddly, through the turning, the gate openers, one after another, glanced around, puzzled, as though someone had tapped them on the shoulder. But there was no one there.

When the gates were fully open, they held pressure on the windlasses while others ran out to drop heavy iron pawls through ring-sockets, and into slots in the stone below. With the gates thus secured open, the openers and the stoppers stood aside, awaiting the processional of traders and barterers who would follow the chieftain out onto the high terrace. As they lined up at their posts, the pawlmen appeared as puzzled as the windlass-turners had been. Each felt that someone had touched him, though there was no one to be seen.

Only one among them even imagined he had seen anything. That one, frowning in bafflement, had the impression that a pair of red eyes had looked at him in the instant he turned.

The draft issuing through the keep was warm and becoming warmer. Far beyond, in the depths of Thorin, the sun-flare was building as the sun above the mountain neared its midday solstice. All accesses to the smelter and foundry levels now were closed, but even in the grand concourse the heat would be intense for several minutes preceding fireflash and for an hour or so afterward.

That was why Balladine always began outside, on the terraces.

*

The lookouts on the Sentinels saw the attack forming, but the sound of their horns was drowned by the trumpets blaring on the first terrace, where Colin Stonetooth had raised and then sheathed his sword — the ceremony declaring Balladine to be open. Atop Thorin Keep, Tolon the Muse heard the horns, looked up, and followed the gestures of the lookouts. From left and right, bands of armed barbarians were issuing from the cover of the caravans, racing for the top terrace and the open gates. Tolon leaned far out over the parapet, shouting and pointing.

Colin Stonetooth had sheathed his sword and was turning his tall horse toward the gates when he saw Cullom Hammerstand and two others running toward him, waving their arms. In the clamor, he could not hear them, but when Cullom pointed upward Colin saw Tolon. He looked in the direction that his son was pointing and saw the attackers — hundreds of men, armed with swords and lances, racing toward him. As he saw them, an arrow flicked past, missing him by inches, and another clanged off the half-slung shield of Jerem Longslate, First of the Ten.

“Arms!” Colin roared, pulling his sword free again. An arrow caromed off his gauntlet and embedded itself in the nearest gate, where the procession of Calnar barterers had just appeared. Colin waved them back as the Ten closed around him, using themselves and their horses as a living shield for their chieftain.

It was an all-out attack, and though the Calnar had been prepared, the sudden ferocity of it caught them off guard. A dozen dwarves fell within seconds, from arrows and thrown lances, and many more followed as the two bands of humans raced among the trading stalls, slashing and cutting.

A squadron of attackers made directly for the chieftain and ran into fury as the Ten counterattacked. Within seconds, the area near the gate was strewn with dead and dying humans, who had never realized that a Calnar and his horse — especially those of the Company of Ten — are a formidable fighting unit. Instantly, it seemed that the Ten were everywhere — swords swinging, shields ringing, and iron-shod hooves slashing with deadly precision. The first humans to reach Colin Stonetooth’s guard never had a chance.

“Back!” the chieftain called. “Retreat in order! Stoppers stand by the gates!”

He glanced around, deflecting an arrow with his shield, and stared.

At each gate, the pawlmen and the windlassmen beyond were on their knees, some even rolling on the ground, each clawing at his throat. Even in the turmoil, the sounds of their agony and the breaking of spines could be heard. Among them, for an instant, was just a suggestion of a pair of glowing red eyes.

The gates would not be closed. A magic had been done, and once open, the massive portal remained open.

Colin Stonetooth and those around him held their ground for a minute, and then for another, letting all the Calnar who could retreat through the gates. There were not many left to retreat. Cullom Hammerstand, trade warden of Thorin, lay dead almost at the feet of Jerem Longslate’s war-horse. His escorts lay beside him. Everywhere the terrace was strewn with corpses, and many among them were dwarves.

Some came from within to try for the gate pawls and were cut down as they appeared.

Three armed humans erupted through the living shield of the Ten, aiming for Colin Stonetooth. Two of them died under the hooves of his great, gold-and-white horse, and the third was split from neck to waist by the chieftain’s sword.

Everywhere along the thin line, attackers fell in their own blood, but for each one down, a dozen others charged forward. There were far too many of them to stop.

“Through the gates!” Colin Stonetooth ordered, and the Ten responded, backing their mounts, cutting and slashing, still protecting their chieftain in retreat.

Inside the great tunnel, Willen Ironmaul and three companies of guards reached the portal. They spread across the entrance in phalanx, and the chieftain and the Ten backed through their ranks, still fighting. Those humans pressing them suddenly found themselves confronted by dwarves on foot, armed with javelins, swords, and axes — a solid wall of shields, with mayhem flicking forth among them. The charge was stopped, but only for a moment. Beyond the shrieking, falling men were hundreds more, pressing to attack.

Grudgingly, the dwarves of Calnar retreated into their gaping shelter with its useless gates, and a torrent of howling barbarians poured in after them.