The Covenant of The Forge

17

The mountain peak called Cloudseeker was not the tallest of peaks in Kal-Thax. Its broad summit, from which the Windweavers thrust upward like giant sharks’ teeth, was lower by a thousand feet than soaring Sky’s End, to the north. But Cloudseeker was far wider. From the foot of its north slopes where Sky’s End began to climb, to the sloping fields and the high-walled, closed valley that marked its southern base, Cloudseeker was nearly fifty miles across by horizontal measurement.

The caves and shallow warrens of the Theiwar stronghold, called Theibardin or “Theiwar-Home,” occupied only a small area below its crest. Above, the three great crags of the Windweavers jutted skyward, surrounding an immense sinkhole lake that was frozen over in most seasons but which provided constant seepage of moisture into the very heart of the mountain. Few, if any, Theiwar had ever ventured into the resulting deep caverns, but Daewar explorer-spies, far more venturesome than the dour, single-minded Theiwar, had crept into them by various routes, charted portions of them, and returned to Daebardin with wondrous tales.

Beneath the crags, they said, were deep caverns that ran for miles, converging into an enormous chamber dominated above by a giant stalactite a thousand yards high and even wider at its top, standing like a giant pillar above a subterranean lake big enough to be called a sea. The great stalactite was of living stone, and on the charts they called the sea Urkhan, in honor of a Daewar explorer who had died there on the expedition.

The Urkhan Sea was at least seven miles across, north to south, and was surrounded by dozens of square miles of natural caverns eroded into shale layers surmounted by harder stone. Throughout these, fresh air flowed from natural vents around the base of the peak and wafted upward to numerous open seeps around the Windweavers that served as exhausts. And many of the deep warrens were lighted by quartz strata, admitting daylight from miles above.

Only a bit of the marvel had been explored, but it was these reports and these charts that had enchanted the old Daewar regent, Bole Diamondcuff, and after him the prince, Olim Goldbuckle. Visions of an impregnable fortress, of a subterranean realm which might one day be a kingdom, blossomed for them both. Long before the spread of chaos from the east became obvious, it was Goldbuckle’s decision to drive a road right through the heart of Sky’s End, into the deeps of Cloudseeker, and relocate Daebardin into the subterranean heart of the mountain that the surly Theiwar thought of as their own.

To the ambitious and energetic Daewar dwarves, the golden people of Kal-Thax, the only valid claim the Theiwar had was to the part of the mountain they actually occupied and used, which was almost none of it. “Use it or lose it,” was the Daewar philosophy where territory was concerned.

So the great secret road went forward, a level tunnel twenty feet wide and fifteen feet high, driven through the granite heart of Sky’s End from Daebardin on the north, into the porous underlayers of Cloudseeker. As it neared its end, the Daewar made preparation to move to new quarters.

The hidden opening beneath Galefang, where Olim Goldbuckle led his expedition after the defense of the eastern border and the punishing of the Theiwar chieftain, was only a little, wind-scoured tunnel in the face of a cliff. But set into its back wall were iron doors, and beyond the doors was a wide, spiral shaft leading downward to the roadhead far below.

Hundreds of Daewar worked there, in gloom illuminated by oil wicks, forge glows, and torches. Expert delvers, the Daewar had averaged nearly thirty yards a day for almost ten years, digging away at the solid stone while winch-driven cable carts strung with dozens of almost inaudible bat-bells hauled the rubble back along the lengthening tunnel to dump it below Daebardin’s slopes. The resulting skirt of broken stone now was a slope in itself, extending almost to the great chasm which separated the base of Sky’s End from the foothills and the breaks and plains of the wastelands beyond.

Sealing the high doors behind them, Olim Goldbuckle and his legion descended into the depths of Cloudseeker, where delvemasters studied their charts while picks and drills chipped away at stone that was softer than most they had encountered before and different in color.

Emerging into the roadway, Olim Goldbuckle climbed atop a laden cable-cart and picked up a piece of the stone rubble. He looked at it, sniffed it, and tasted it, then tossed it back and swung down. Above him, bat-bells tinkled merrily. The bells were tiny silver devices which the Daewar had invented long ago to drive away the flocks of blood bats which sometimes invaded digs. But now they had another use as well. Although most people — even dwarves — could hardly hear the bells, they had found that echoes in stone could resonate them. By “thumping” stone in a delve, and counting the times the bells responded, they could tell how far it was from one side of the stone to the other.

Olim ignored the tiny sounds now, brushing his hands. “Gypsum,” he said to Gem Bluesleeve. “We are near the caverns.”

“Very near, Sire,” a delvemaster looked up from his spread chart. “Nearer than we thought. We could break through at any moment.”

“Into what?” Olim squinted at the chart.

“According to Urkhan’s calculations,” the delvemaster said, “there is a great natural cavern ahead. The one he called the first warren. It connects to other caverns beyond, and eventually to the subterranean sea.”

“I hope we break through above sea level,” Olim noted.

The delvemaster drew himself up, as one deeply offended. “Would you like to calculate the elevations yourself, Sire?”

“Of course not.” Olim smiled. “I trust your calculations above all others, Slate Coldsheet. Just keep doing the wonderful job you do.” He turned away, muttering to Gem Bluesleeve. “That’s the problem with delvers, Gem. By the time they are wise enough to chart a bore, their sense of humor has been drowned out by the ringing in their ears.”

Followed by some of his guard, Olim went forward to where the boring was in progress. The ring of hammers on iron drills, the splitting of stone as foot-wide slabs were broken away with prybars, and the clank of picks and mauls as the rubble was broken filled the wide tunnel with a chorus of sound. Beneath its tempo was the crunch of shovels, the low thunder of rubble raining into high-sided carts, and the ever-present, rhythmic tapping of mallets as spikes were set to steady the cart rails that followed along behind the dig.

The carts were wide, low-wheeled vehicles chained together by threes and fives, and a constant parade of them had been rolling back to the far side of Sky’s End for the past ten years to dump rubble. At intervals, where the tunnel was wider, empty returning carts were diverted to side-rails to make way for the full ones.

Working in shifts, with hammer drills and prybars, the Daewar delvers could extend their tunnel as much as fifty feet in a day’s time, even in the toughest rock. Now that the substance was softer, they were moving faster than that, though some additional effort was required for occasional shoring as they went. The first vertical fault they had encountered, a seep in soft, porous stone, had cost them a dozen lives and three days’ delay because of a cave-in. Now they took no such chances.

A lantern-bearer going before him, Olim Goldbuckle went all the way to the front, where a fresh layer of stone had just been levered away, adding another foot to the tunnel’s almost fifty miles of length. Drillers and drivers, cutters and prisers stepped back as the prince approached, and a sweating young Daewar with bulging forearms and whiskers of spun gold pointed at the new-cut face of the tunnel. “Softer by the minute, Sire. And we have sound.”

“We are that close?” Olim’s brow creased. “Let me hear.” He knelt at the sheer wall of the fresh cut and sniffed the stone, then pressed his ear against its surface. The young driver stepped forward, attached a string of bat-bells to the surface, raised his hammer, and delivered a smashing blow to the stone inches from his prince’s head. The bat-bells quivered and tinkled, and Olim counted his heartbeats, then grinned as a muted echo came back to him, ringing through the stone itself.

“Twenty feet,” he judged. “Not more than that.” He stood. “Gem, bring a company of fighters forward. I doubt if there is a Theiwar within miles. They don’t have the patience or the inclination to explore what is beneath their very feet, but let’s take no chances when we break through. If there happens to be anyone there, we don’t want reports going aloft just yet.”

“Yes, Sire,” Gem Bluesleeve agreed. “If they knew we were tunneling into their mountain, rather than building a city under ours, they might be rather upset.” Gem hurried back the way they had come to select his company of warriors. He would head it himself.

Olim followed him, away from the resumed clamor of the dig. He had a few hours to wait before the tunnel broke through into the first of the giant caverns charted by Urkhan and his band. He wanted to eat, and to rest, and to give some thought to what should be done once the tunnel was completed. He didn’t really expect to find anyone at the end of it. The Theiwar were not explorers, and who else could have stumbled onto Urkhan’s discovery?

Once fortified, not even dragons or magic would be likely to invade such a place. Olim shivered slightly at the thought. He had never seen a dragon and never expected to. But there was magic in the world, and, like all of his kind, he considered magic an abhorrent thing, an evil that only humans or other lesser races would even think about exercising. Even the primitive Theiwar and dark-dwelling Daergar … even the wild-eyed Klar abhorred magic. There were legends, of course, of a dwarf who had become involved with magic in some way, but to Olim Goldbuckle the idea was unthinkable. Yet, there had been times of late when Olim’s dreams had been troublesome. Several times, in his sleep, when he dreamed of the great undertaking now at hand, a spectral, shadowy figure had been there in his dreams — a figure that whispered words to him. “The Daewar are chosen,” the specter said, “to carve out a place.” But then it added, “But others will come to guide your race.” Each time, Olim had awakened shaken and puzzled. What others? What did it mean?

As an attendant handed him a loaf and a bowl, Olim Goldbuckle’s gold-whiskered face contorted itself into a scowl. “Guide my race?” he muttered. “None but Daewar shall rule Daewar!”

“Sire?” The attendant blinked at him, startled.

“Nothing!” Olim growled. “Bring me ale.”

“Yes, Sire.” The attendant hurried away, and Olim perched on the wheel of a sidelined cart to have his meal.

Had he been human, or even elf, Olim Goldbuckle might have dismissed the dreams as something imagined … as something simply beyond understanding. But Olim Goldbuckle, prince of the Daewar, was a dwarf. And like most full dwarves, his practical mind had no use for the unintelligible nor any patience for things indistinct. He could not ignore the dreams or simply forget them. Especially not the latest one.

“You will know them when they come,” the phantom voice had added, this last time. “You will know them by the drum.”

Olim was still thinking about dreams when distant shouts echoed back along the tunnel, and messengers came running. “We’re through, Sire!” they shouted. “We have entered the first warren, just as Urkhan’s charts promised!”

“Send runners northward,” Olim ordered. “Withdraw all Daewar from Daebardin and start them this way. Prepare to seal this tunnel when all have passed through. We will establish residence and claim this place as soon as we have looked around.”

The warren was an immense natural cavern, softly lighted by a high ceiling that was, in some places, pure quartz. More than half a mile beneath the surface, it was as Urkhan’s explorers had described — a vast, elongated chamber almost two miles across at its widest point and four miles long including a narrowing, funnel-like “tail” that curved away to the east. Here and there, stalactites hung from the high ceilings, their shapes as varied and fantastic as candle-beads. Beneath each was a waiting stalagmite, tall sentinel spires like the bases of trees in a giant forest.

“Marvelous!” Olim Goldbuckle exclaimed as he led his guards through the new opening into the silent cavern. Faint echoes of his voice drifted lazily back to him, and in the distance something moved — something very large, slowly raising what might have been a head, to listen.

Some of the Daewar clasped their swords, but an old delvemaster hurried forward to thrust an unrolled scroll under the nose of his prince. “Tractor worm,” he said, pointing. “As Urkhan described. They are large creatures. Very strong. But slow, dull-witted, and docile. The explorers supposed that they might be useful, if they could be controlled.”

“Tractor worm,” Olim repeated. Quickening his stride, he hurried toward the movement, dozens of Daewar following him as more entered the cavern behind them.

The thing was huge, at least thirty feet in length, and it turned what appeared to be its head toward them as they approached. No eyes were visible, nor ears. Instead, its “face” was a cluster of waving tentacles surrounding an orifice that opened and closed rhythmically. Olim stepped closer, peering at the creature. He raised his shield and waved it from side to side. The creature did not respond. “It’s blind,” he said.

At the sound of his voice, the thing turned toward him, its tentacles quivering. “Ho!” Olim rasped. “It can hear me.”

Beside him, Gem Bluesleeve stepped aside and cupped his hands. “Ho, worm!” he called. Immediately, the raised end of the thing turned toward him. He stepped farther to the side and called again. Again the worm responded, turning to face him. “It hears,” he called to the others. “Watch!” Turning, he hurried away, quartering around the creature until he was off to one side of it. Then he called, “Ho! Worm! Here I am!”

Obediently, the thing turned toward him, this time moving its entire body in a slow, methodical arc to face him. The dwarf chuckled. “I have this thing’s full attention,” he called. “See? Now it is coming toward me!” He scampered away a hundred feet and turned to call once more. The huge worm increased its speed, its gray, banded body rippling as it flowed across the uneven floor of the cavern. It was faster than it had seemed, and Gem backpedaled, staying a good distance from it. Its pace was that of a walking dwarf.

“He has its attention, all right,” Olim noted to the others watching. “Now I wonder what he intends to do with it.”

“Or how he will get rid of it,” the old master delver Slate Coldsheet added. “The captain should have read these scrolls. Urkhan’s party reported that the worms tend to become … uh … attached to people. They follow and try to get close. The danger is that they might actually crush a person by their weight. Some of the explorers were nearly exhausted by the time they managed to elude their pets.”

“I could use some help here, I think!” Gem Bluesleeve called, walking briskly in the distance while the giant worm chugged along behind him. “I don’t know how to make this thing stop!”

“Some of you drillers,” Olim said, gesturing, “see if you can get some grapples on that thing.”

Gem was quite some distance away now, coming around in a long circle, trying to head back to the others. Behind him, the worm followed happily, its banded length rippling in the subdued light, its tentacled face waving merrily.

Carrying chains, throw-lines, and rock-harness, several dozen drillers and delvers fanned out to approach the monster from its flanks. It seemed not to mind them at all. Its full attention was focused on Gem Bluesleeve, and it seemed to desire nothing else in life than to reach him. Gem kept walking, trying to keep that from happening.

Flanking the worm, teams of dwarves managed to get sling-harness attached to it at various places and grasped the halter-lines, setting their heels. The worm neither slowed nor turned. It continued its methodical pace, following Gem Bluesleeve. Behind and along its flanks dozens of sturdy dwarves were dragged along, their steel soles carving ruts in the hard floor.

“Tie off those lines!” Olim Goldbuckle roared. Gem was approaching now, looking very worried, and the worm wasn’t far behind him.

Scrambling, the delvers spread and raced outward, carrying their cables. Two modest stalagmites were within reach, and they snugged the lines there, then watched in awe as the cables came taught, strained, and hummed, and the stone of the stalagmites began to crumble. The worm slowed, but surged forward again as one of the restraints burst in a shower of limestone dust. But other cables held the monster now, attached to sturdier uprights, and it tugged futilely at its bonds for a moment, then subsided.

“Tractor worm,” the old delvemaster remarked, shaking his head. “We should have a few of those things hauling our ore-carts.”

Behind Olim there was a clatter as something fell to the stone floor. Out in the cavern the tractor worm, which had been resting quietly on its tethers, suddenly raised the front half of its huge body upright, whistled a sound that might have been either a scream or a roar, and surged against the lines. Cables parted, and the worm shot free to roll over on the floor.

More quickly than seemed possible, it turned, raised itself, and dived straight at a group of drillers trying to back away. The great creature’s body smashed down on them, then it roared and raised itself again, flailing about like a creature gone berserk.

“The bat-bells!” the delvemaster shouted. “Someone dropped the bat-bells. That’s what it hears!”

Dwarves scurried about, collecting the spilled silver bells and thrusting them into clothing to muffle their sound. Out in the cavern, Gem Bluesleeve brandished his sword and shouted. “Ho! Worm! To me!”

Again the worm turned, away from the drillers, heading for Gem. Other drillers and several guardsmen raced toward it, throwing cables and stone-nets.

Then, as abruptly as it had reacted, the creature subsided. All the bat-bells had been muffled, and it no longer heard their clamor. Racing around the thing, delvers and guards bound it in a thick mesh of steel cables and ran anchor lines to several large stands of stone.

Where it had attacked, two delvers lay dead, smashed into the stone floor by the mass of the monster. Several others limped away, injured but still able to move.

“Keep those delving bells silent!” Olim Goldbuckle ordered. “Get them out of here. Take them back into the tunnel.” Then he swung around to face the delvemaster. “You still think those worms might be useful, Slate?”

“If they can be controlled,” Slate said. “They react to sound, and if there are some sounds that … I don’t know. We’ll have to work at it.”

Gem Bluesleeve approached, visibly shaken. It had been on impulse that he had distracted the raving worm from the delvers, calling its attention to himself. Now he was wondering just what he — sword and all — could have done had the thing not stopped.

Olim Goldbuckle looked at his captain and frowned, then sighed, shaking his head. It would do no good to admonish the guardsman for risking his own life. It was just the way he was.

Gem approached, started to speak, then simply shrugged.

“If you are through playing with your worm,” Olim Goldbuckle told him, “I believe we should get on with exploring these caverns.”

Slate Coldsheet glanced at his chart and pointed. “Straight south, Sire. A mile or so, then the cavern narrows for another mile, past which is some kind of crevice. Beyond should be another cavern — not quite as wide as this, but longer. From there should be a tunnel to Urkhan’s sea.”