by Tom Liberman
Dol maneuvered to the side of the creature which seemed to be having trouble moving and aimed a blow just as the beast opened its mouth and a ball of molten fire leapt from the beast and engulfed the dwarf warrior. He felt fire in his mouth, nose, ears, and eyes and the ripping, burning sensation pierced his lungs, and he felt his internal organs shriveling from the blast. Somehow he ignored the pain for long enough to continue forward and bring down a killing blow on the head of the beast.
Gazadum managed to squirm or flow or somehow move just to the right and the hammer came down hard on its upper shoulder region and sent it crashing to the ground with the sound of a boulder smashing to the earth after a long fall.
Dol staggered backwards and fell to one knee, his lungs burning and his eyes unable to focus. It took a moment for him to recover enough to rise back to one foot and squint so that he could see Gazadum. The terrible elemental lay in a heap on the floor, most of its dragon form now more like molten rock, and it shimmered and twisted as it tried to regain its feet. “I have you now,” said Dol and moved forward slowly, his legs somehow did not seem to work properly.
“Dol!” shrieked Milli from the doorway as she saw what she could only assume was her friend close in on the beast. His body glowed red where the metal of his armor fused with it. One eye was burned out and the other showed a milky iris. His skin was melted and burnt black where not combined with the armor and his hand appeared melted to the handle of Kanoner whose formerly lily white coloring was scorched black along one side.
Dol turned and saw as the girl collapsed to the ground, lurching forward and trying to reach out to him. Her skin was blue in color and a crusty yellow chalk formed around her lips, nose, ears, and eyes. She tried to crawl once again towards him, raised one hand, but then her head fell and her body stopped all movement.
Dol turned once again to Gazadum and raised his hammer, “Now you die!”
“I am ready,” said Gazadum from the floor, although it still tried to regain its footing.
Dol squinted through his one good eye and saw clearly for a moment that great molten tears were falling from the eyes of the ancient creature.
“You fear death?” asked Dol as he stepped forward.
“No,” said Gazadum. “These are tears of joy for a life well spent. Perhaps I will never see my children reach the stars. I will never see if they were stronger than those created by the others. But, looking at you, I think I know the answer. Dol Delius of Craggen Steep, I thank you. Perhaps you would request a boon before you slay me. Even now in my weakened state there is little beyond me.”
Dol hesitated a moment and the great power of the hammer flowed through his dying body. He suddenly felt shame, terrible, intense shame, and then looked at Milli dying on the floor and pointed at her, “Yes, great Gazadum, my friend. There is a woman in the hills not far from here. Could you send Milli to her? So that she might live a full life, a life like yours?”
Gazadum nodded his head and the girl suddenly vanished. “There is nothing you want for yourself? Your wounds are mortal.”
Dol felt the fire burning in his lungs. “I have lived my life as fully as could be, I think. No, I have nothing … wait, yes, great Gazadum. I wish to die among my people in Craggen Steep, there is something I want to say to them before I pass. Can you do that?”
“I can,” said Gazadum. “Bring down your hammer and it will be done.”
Dol, tears in his own eyes, raised the hammer high and brought it down.
Chapter 30
The High Council chamber was in an uproar with hundreds of young dwarves packing the floor and balcony of the great room shouting and yelling obscenities at the two dozen golden-armored pike warriors who protected the seven council members in their high-backed chairs.
Cordoned off were the figures of Borombus Blackiron, First Edos Fierfelm and half a dozen other dwarfs, stripped naked in leg shackles and kneeling on the floor before the high council. In the chair formerly occupied by Borrombus sat a tall dwarf with a long beard held in place by heavily bedecked jeweled bands who looked down upon the prisoners. “The evidence of their rebellion is all around us,” said the new councilor with a sharp gesticulation of his right hand towards the maddened crowd.
More jeers came from the audience and someone shouted out, “We will be free of the tyranny of the Firefirsts.”
Another shout came out, “To Corancil, to Empire!”
But a group of young dwarf thugs in one corner of the packed hall shouted back in return, “The High Council has spoken, we are ruled by laws. You speak treason!”
At this the enflamed passions of the crowd exploded as dwarves pulled out axes and hammers and began to attack one another. It was impossible to tell who was on whose side in the melee as they all wore similar uniforms.
“We must cut the head off the rebellion,” shouted the new councilor to the dwarf in the center chair. “Borombus and his allies must die. It is the only way to save Craggen Steep.”
The dwarf in the high council seat looked nervously back and forth to the other councilors. “The period of judgment has not been completed. The laws of Craggen Steep do not allow for execution.”
“The laws are not for emergencies of this nature,” said the new councilor and Councilor Five, formerly Councilor Six, joined him. “High Councilor, this is an emergency of a like not seen in Craggen Steep in thousands of years. The rebels threaten to expose our location to Corancil. To march our armies south with the invasion force. Drastic times call for draconian action!”
The High Councilor again paused, “I do not like to suspend the law,” he said but then a hand-axe, thrown by someone from the balcony struck the high back of his chair with a crack and ricocheted off the heavy stone.
“High Councilor,” said all six of the other councilors almost in unison.
The High Councilor bent down, picked up the axe, and tested the sharpness of the blade with his finger, paused, and then nodded. “Let the traitors face the ultimate penalty.”
A massively built dwarf with a beautifully fashioned double-headed axe with an ivory hilt of the purest white moved forward and towards where Borrombus lay kneeling. The fat dwarf sneered at his executioner and looked up towards the High Councilor, “This is a betrayal of the laws of Craggen Steep and your willingness to embrace it shows that you are in the wrong. Let me go, let my companions go, let Craggen Steep be free to mingle in the world, to realize its full potential!”
“Silence him,” said the High Councilor to the executioner who looked up with unyielding black eyes. “Silence the traitors and let us put this nonsense behind us once and for all.”
A younger dwarf in golden armor suddenly burst through the massive doors at the entrance to the great chamber and this breech in protocol dimmed the cacophony of sound that reverberated through the halls. “Councilors, councilors, High Councilor!” he shouted.
“The chamber is not to be disturbed once in session,” said the High Councilor.
“Dol Delius has returned! He has the Hammer of Fire!”
What little noise was left in the chamber abruptly stopped as dwarves froze with their hands around one another’s throats.
“What?” said the High Councilor his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open. “What do you say?”
“Dol Delius has returned,” said the soldier, and to prove the point Dol staggered into the room. His face was an unrecognizable ruin and his armor fused with flesh stiffened his walk so that he looked more like a puppet on a string than a dwarf warrior, but he held the Hammer of Fire and the great weapon pulsed like a beating heart and glowed with the radiance of the sun.
“I have returned,” he said and held the hammer high.
“Just in time,” said Councilor Five as he stared at the raw power of the hammer and licked his lips. “I move that we make Dol Delius First Edos so that he might replace the previous office holder once execution takes place.”
“What?” said the High Councilor with a sudden turn towards h
is brother.
“Don’t listen to them, Dol,” said Borrombus from the floor. “They mean to bribe you. You’ve been in the world, you know we must strike out from this place.”
“The motion is seconded,” said one of the dwarves in the golden armor.
“A vote,” prompted Councilor Five.
“Yes,” said the High Councilor. “The motion has been seconded. We must have a vote.”
“There will be no more votes,” wheezed Dol barely able to breath. “There will be no more High Council. The dwarves of Craggen Steep will take their place in the world for good or for ill. I have slain Gazadum and yet his words live in me. Let Craggen Steep be free! Let dwarves live free. Let us all live our lives to their fullest and never again hide, never again let fear determine our path.”
With this he raised the hammer high over this head and slammed it down onto the massive granite floor fashioned countless eons ago by the greatest of the earth elementals. The floor cracked, but the pulsing hammer simply exploded sending eight shards of molten death sailing through the air like falcons diving towards their prey.
The seven councilors were dead before they even fully understood what happened, and a gasp of shock came from the crowd as if from a single entity. Dol looked down at his own chest, where the eighth shard rested, and smiled. He was dead before he hit the floor.
The dwarves in the balcony and the floor stormed as one towards the raised podium, and the golden armored soldiers threw down their weapons and fled. Dol’s eyes, although open, saw none of this. Nor did his ears hear the cries of freedom that rang up and down the ancient halls. His body did not feel the hands that lifted him, that carried him, nor did he hear as they called out his name again and again long into the night.
“Freedom! Freedom! Dol Delius and Freedom!”
Epilog
Jurus Thrimskull did not like these deep passages of the Maw where Edos Edorin Firefist often came to do his meditation. The fumes of the Black Fire were intense and the heat even more so. He wore a mask on his face and a heavy linen smock to keep as much of the heat from his body as possible. “Why is it always me,” he muttered to himself as he turned a corner and saw the dim black glow of the ancient cavern ahead. The heat seared him and even with his magically treated mask he felt his lungs burning, “Go get Edorin” he said in a high-pitched, whiny voice. “Why is it always me?”
He took a few more steps forward and saw the form of the dwarf master blacksmith standing near the open chasm below which roiled the Black Fire. The heat of it drove Jorus back a step and he turned his head away, “Edos Edorin?” he said in a small voice but the words seemed to die in the atmosphere. The apprentice coughed, “Edos Edorin?” he repeated a bit louder.
The master of the black forge sighed and turned towards his best apprentice, “What is it, Jorus?”
“The trade master wants to know if we will have this month’s shipment ready for Queen Onolodia?”
“You know the answer to that,” said Edorin as he turned back towards the river of black fire that flowed beneath him. It leapt and bubbled with turbulence and the heat waves distorted the air. He breathed in deeply and smiled.
“I told the trade master that the Black Fire is running hot and that all shipments are delayed, but he wants you to tell him,” said Jorus and lowered his gaze.
Edorin nodded his head and put his hand to his beard. He wasn’t wearing his metal circlets as they tended to heat up too much down here in the bowels of the Maw where the Black Fire burned hottest. “I understand. I’ll be up shortly. Come here, Jorus, come and look upon the Black Fire.”
Jorus sighed deeply, closed his eyes, and hesitatingly walked forward towards Edorin. The heat was intense, and the boy put his hand in front of his face to try and ward off some of the power of the furnace below. He looked down upon the lava not for the first time and blinked in awe at the power. This was the source of all the wealth of Hot Rock. No one had managed to harness it until Edorin arrived some thirty years ago, before Jorus was born. Now they used it in the smithies to forge the great weapons that were in demand the world over. His wealth was assured for the future as long as Edorin stayed here in Hot Rock and tended the forge.
“What do you think,” said Edorin looking down upon the chaos below. The lava seemed to leap and shake as if trying to remove itself from the channel that contained it.
“The Black Fire runs hot,” said Jorus and blinked rapidly. “Very hot.”
Edorin’s gaze suddenly went far away and he said nothing.
“Is there anything I can do, Edos Edorin,” said Jorus breaking the long silence.
“No,” said Edorin. “Time is the only answer.”
“Time?” said Jorus.
Edorin smiled and his mind drifted back to the ancient wooden chest that contained a half white, half burned hammer haft and eight pieces of metallic slag that still burned to the touch. Or at least he assumed they still burned to the touch. He hadn’t seen them in over thirty years but they had stayed hot for two thousand years after Delius smashed the hammer. There was no reason to suspect that the last thirty years could change that immutable fact.
“Time?” repeated Jorus.
Edorin thought about the scroll in his room that when read would send a signal across the continent to dwarves waiting in the ancient citadel, now shamefully hidden again. This time it would be his family, the Firefists, who would free Craggen Steep from its second, self-imposed exile from the world. This time it was the Blackirons who held onto power like a lover holds the object of his affection. The signal would send his cousins scrambling to pack up the chest and send it south, here, to the Maw. “Yes, time.”
“I … I don’t understand,” said Jorus and lowered his head.
“The Black Fire runs hot,” said Edorin. “But not hot enough.”
“Hot enough for what?” said Jorus and looked at the dwarf with wide, blue eyes.
“Time,” said Edorin. “Soon,” he turned back towards the roiling fire. “Shadak was the first born of Gazadum you know, Jorus. In his essence is the key.”
“I don’t understand,” repeated Jorus and shrugged his shoulders.
“Soon,” said Edorin and turned away from the fire. “Soon you will. But now, let us go to the trade master and alleviate his concerns.”
Edorin and Jorus walked away from the cavern and though Jorus looked back frequently, Edorin only looked ahead.
