“I’ll help you learn about dwarves,” Damon said, “and you tell me what magic is.”
Megistal scratched his head. “That’s like trying to describe red to someone who has always been blind.”
“Try,” Damon demanded.
“Well … take your barbarian friend there,” he said, indicating Quist. “It is possible that he could be not a human at all, but some other sort of creature—perhaps a wolf?”
“No, it isn’t.” Damon shook his head. “He isn’t a wolf. He’s a man.”
Casually, the wizard waved a finger and muttered an incantation. Suddenly, where Quist Redfeather squatted near the fire, it seemed there was something else instead. A large canine form shimmered around him, feral eyes fixed on the wizard.
“Now, you see?” Megistal said. “Now he is a wolf.”
“No, he isn’t,” Damon said.
Megistal pointed at the vision by the fire. “Don’t you see him? Look! That is no man. That is a wolf!”
“I see a man,” Damon maintained. “There is an image of a wolf surrounding him, but he isn’t it.”
“How can you see a man there?” Megistal shouted. “I don’t see a man!”
“You see what you want to see,” Damon insisted stubbornly. “I see what is there.”
The DRAGONLANCE® Saga
Chronicles Trilogy
Dragons of Autumn Twilight
Dragons of Winter Night
Dragons of Spring Dawning
Tales Trilogy
The Magic of Krynn
Kender, Gully Dwarves, and Gnomes
Love and War
Heroes Trilogy
The Legend of Huma
Stormblade
Weasel’s Luck
Preludes Trilogy
Darkness and Light
Kendermore
Brothers Majere
Meetings Sextet
Kindred Spirits
Wanderlust
Dark Heart
The Oath and the Measure
Steel and Stone
The Companions
Dwarven Nations Trilogy
The Covenant of the Forge
Hammer and Axe
The Swordsheath Scroll
Legends Trilogy
Time of the Twins
War of the Twins
Test of the Twins
Tales II Trilogy
The Reign of Istar
The Cataclysm
The War of the Lance
Heroes II Trilogy
Kaz, the Minotaur
The Gates of Thorbardin
Galen Beknighted
Preludes II Trilogy
Riverwind, the Plainsman
Flint, the King
Tanis, the Shadow Years
Elven Nations Trilogy
Firstborn
The Kinslayer Wars
The Qualinesti
Villains Series
Before the Mask
The Black Wing
Emperor of Ansalon
The Art of the DRAGONLANCE Saga
The Atlas of the DRAGONLANCE World
Leaves from the Inn of the Last Home
The Second Generation
HAMMER AND AXE
Dwarven Nations • Volume Two
©1993 TSR, Inc.
All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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Cover art by: Tim Hildebrandt
eISBN: 978-0-7869-6353-9
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v3.1
Dedicated to the Faithful
and the Fans
Contents
Cover
Other Books in the Series
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Map
Prologue: The Dwarven Lands
1: The Rage-Seekers
2: Into the Wilderness
3: The Intruders
4: Northgate
5: Realm of the Thanes
6: The Shadows of the Anviltops
7: A Time of Testing
8: The Lorekeeper’s Omen
9: The Shaft of Reorx
10: The Gathering Storm
11: A Taste of Rage
12: Tinker’s Blast
13: A Strange Alliance
14: Sorcery and Stubbornness
15: Fortress Thorbardin
16: The Enemy
17: The Bloody Fields of Southgate
18: Wizard’s Wings
19: The Day of Destiny
20: Favored of the Powers
21: The Breath of Reorx
22: Rage Within
Epilogue: The Proper Thing To Do
About the Author
Prologue
The Dwarven Lands
They went furtively in this land of peaks and valleys, of yawning chasms and soaring heights. From the east they came, traveling sometimes afoot and sometimes, when it was demanded, by arcane means to avoid detection. What they sought was a place that the moons said lay among these mountains: a place where high was low and low was high; where yesterday, today, and tomorrow might form a perfect circle; and where the moons of Krynn, on the seventh midnight of the seventh month of each seventh year, were the corners of a triangle whose exact center was directly overhead.
The place they sought would be suited to the building of a citadel—a Tower of High Sorcery from which to control and direct the magics of a world seeking order within chaos. Seven such places, the movement of the moons said, would be found suitable. The first was known—in the great forests of the ancient dragonlands where now were elves. The other six would be known to those who reached them, by the testing of mirrors and stones.
The three had traveled far to reach this mountain land, intent upon their quest. Few knew of their passing. The skills they had learned from the Scions, the arts of weaving spells to draw and utilize the magics, had served them well. And yet, the search was difficult. The world itself told them where to look, to find the points of perfect balance of forces, but only in general terms. They knew, within a few miles, where the base of the citadel must stand and how it would relate—in many planes, seen and unseen—to other such citadels in other places. High in the western mountains lay a flat plain, bounded by towering peaks and precipitous cliffs—a place where low was high and high was low. But they must find the place, exactly. Only by testing would they know, and they must suffer the effects of their spells many times to be sure.
A hundred times in a doze
n days they had repeated their ritual, here on the high meadow above the Sheercliff escarpment, deep in the land that the dwarves who lived there called Kal-Thax. The moons decreed the area, and their calculations had told them that the root-source of powers from which a Tower of High Sorcery might draw substance was here … somewhere. But the plain was miles across in all directions.
That they were interlopers in this land, trespassers without leave or warrant, was of little concern to them. They were first-order wizards, trained and nourished in their arts by the Scions themselves. The others suspected that Megistal might be one of those rare ones chosen for deeper magics, though he gave no clue to this, unless it was in the fact that, while the other two had been appointed by their peers to the present mission, Megistal seemed to have appointed himself.
Still, none of them needed permission to go wherever they chose. No one could stop them. No one could even see them if they wished not to be seen. Many times since entering these mountains they had seen dwarves, or heard signal drums, and several times Megistal had suggested that, in all fairness, they should at least let the dwarves know what they were doing. It was none of the dwarves’ business, but it might avoid conflicts later if the dwarves were to accept now that there would be a Tower of High Sorcery within their realm, whether they wished it or not.
But each time, the other two had disagreed. “It would just cause a fuss,” Sigamon argued. “What they don’t know won’t hurt them, and, besides, we’re doing this for the general good—for their good as much as anyone else’s. Magic must be ordered, for the benefit of all. It is the purpose of the citadels.”
Of course, Tantas sneered at this attitude. “Dwarves don’t matter,” he said. “But we’ll need them later, and the less they know in advance, the better. When the site is found, we’ll need laborers to set the stones. Where better to get slaves than from among these dwarves? Tell them nothing. When we need them, we shall take them.”
So the dwarves knew nothing of the wizards or why they were there. Recently Megistal had the feeling that someone was watching them, but he was certain it was not a dwarf. Whoever it was had not interfered, though Sigamon’s favorite chalice had turned up missing, and Tantas complained that he could not find his blackstone bracelet. So as the days went by the wizards labored, slept, and labored again, drawing upon their own energies to feed the magics of the search.
Megistal was tired now, as he raised bloodstone amulets above his head, one in each hand, and uttered the spell he had repeated a hundred times or more. “Dactis tat sonan!” he breathed, and felt the uncomfortable tingling in his shoulders and fingers as the amulets drew strength from him to do his bidding. Little fires arced around and between the two stones, their deep red color becoming an angry glow, like cold, blood-red fire dancing from one to the other. Megistal drew a deep, shuddering breath and commanded, “Chapak!” Abruptly the flow of light between the stones extended ahead of him, becoming a double shaft of radiance that grew and raced outward, to converge upon a spot on the ground nearly sixty feet away. Instantly, the ground there seemed to come alive, to swarm with busy, scurrying things, but he knew that was only an illusion.
“Mark the point!” Megistal called, concentrating. It took substantial effort to hold the spell in place.
Tantas and Sigamon hurried forward, Sigamon lifting his muddy white robe above his knees to sprint on long, ungainly legs, while the hunchbacked Tantas scuttled in that peculiar gait of his, clutching his black floppy hat to keep it from falling off. While Megistal stood, intent and motionless, holding the sources of the light in place, the two other wizards knelt where it touched the ground and set a stake there, driving it into the hard earth with a wooden mallet.
Megistal, though exhausted, noticed again the odd, distant rumbling sound that seemed to become more pronounced each time they ran their tests. It was as though something, somewhere, was reacting to the magic of the search. What it was none of them knew, or really cared. The blood-red light winked out as the wizard lowered his arms. “That’s one corner,” he said. “Who’s next?”
Tantas paced a distance from the stake, scuttling as he always did, and drew his blue-black seek-stones from his pack. As Megistal had done earlier with his bloodstone seekers, the dark wizard lifted his arms, holding the stones high. “Dactis tat dervum!” he commanded. Inky mists grew around his hands. “Chapak!” From the dark mists, brilliant lightning streaked outward, sizzling and scorching the ground where it touched. Sigamon and Megistal ran to mark the spot, and again the meadow seemed to rumble angrily. Within the past two days, the sound had become quite loud.
The spot chosen by Tantas’s lightning was thirty yards from the point where Megistal’s red light had struck. Sigamon paced the distance, then placed himself directly between the two points. His mark would complete the triangle, but only by testing could they know which direction the triangle should point. Sigamon pulled out his clear, glittering gems and raised them. “Dactis tat osis!” he said. “Chapak!” Blinding white light flowed from his hands and shot out behind him. Where it struck the ground frost formed. The other two ran to mark the place, and once again the very earth seemed to growl.
“I wish we knew what was causing that,” Sigamon remarked. “The Scions didn’t mention anything like that occurring.”
“I wish I knew where my bracelet went,” Tantas grumbled.
“Magic is a new art.” Megistal shrugged. “There is still much that isn’t known. But once the Towers of Sorcery are in place, the learning can proceed more rapidly.”
In a dark place deep beneath the surface, cold mists stirred and swirled to echoing roars of pure, intense anger. Like a sleeper beset by insects, she had hissed and grumbled, clinging to sleep, shutting out the torments. But they had continued too long—the stings of unseen aggravation that annoyed her—and now that she was awake, her roar was like the only name she had ever had. Rage.
How long had she slept? She had no way of knowing, but she knew it had been a very long time. Ages of time. Where once there had been an ice cavern, deep within a mountain, now cold mists swirled. And where once she had been trapped within the ice—imprisoned there by forces beyond imagining—now she lay half-encased by a shell of stone, limestone that had formed around her with the gradual melting of the steel-hard ice. Ages had passed. Eons had come and gone while she slept.
But now she was awake, and her name was Rage, and rage was all of her. Her bondage was over. She had been imprisoned because the creatures of her world feared her, with good reason. They were living things, and Rage was death to them. She had rampaged freely among them, exulting in her power to kill. There had never been another like her. It was as though the forces that created her had regretted what they had done and turned against her, imprisoning her forever in the ice. But now, it seemed, forever was over.
Now she was awake again, and free. How, she didn’t know, but she was. Were there still creatures in this world? Were they still the soft-bodied, screaming things that had so delighted her, things that held warmth within them and writhed in agony as they died? She didn’t know, but she meant to find out. Rage stirred, and the limestone cracked away in the swirling mists that surrounded and clung to her like a silver-dark cloak.
It didn’t matter to Rage how she came to be awakened. All that mattered was that she was awake. She slowly studied the stone around her until she found a crack large enough to permit her passage. With the mists flowing about her and following after her, she went looking for the outside world. Eventually she emerged into moonlight near the base of a great wall of serrated stone, a sheer cliff hundreds of feet high. Before her lay a mountain world of peaks and valleys, of stark slopes and vast vistas.
Turning her back to the cliff from which she had emerged, Rage went hunting.
Several hundred miles to the east, where rolling plains began and within view of the eastern range of the mountains of the dwarven realm, high tower windows looked out on the teeming ways and climbing roofs of a great walled
city. In the crowded streets below the tower, throngs of people vied for space and for bits of the wealth that was released occasionally by the overlords to sustain the city and its populace. Among them, everywhere, dark-armored and bright-pennanted, marched the companies of grim guards who kept order and enforced the dictates of the overlords.
But the man standing at the tower window was not looking at his city or its thronged streets. Instead he gazed westward, where tall snowcapped peaks, blue with distance, broke the horizon and seemed to dominate it. The nearest and tallest of the peaks, Sky’s End, stood like a defiant monolith, seeming to return the man’s hard gaze. Between the city and the mountains were nearly impassable barriers—miles of dangerous, broken lands where travelers gathered and brigands hid in waiting, and past that, the great chasm known simply as The Gorge. But the barriers to the mountain lands were more than just terrain. The real obstacle was the border of Kal-Thax, the land of the dwarves. For centuries, conqueror after conqueror had tried and failed to penetrate and seize the mountain lands, but the dwarves of Kal-Thax were fierce and stubborn.
Still, the High Overlord of Xak Tsaroth had ambitions, and one was to conquer and rule the dwarven realm, to loot it of its riches. And the High Overlord had plans in motion, toward that end.
From the west window he turned and crossed the tower chamber, his gilded slippers making almost no sound on the thick, richly textured carpet that covered the polished stone of the floor.
Directly beneath the east window were the postern gates of the keep, where three men were exiting as the High Overlord looked down. Three wizards had come from a distant encampment, seeking audience, and now three were leaving. But they were not exactly the same three. Two were the same—wizards of the orders of Solinari and Lunitari—but the wizard of the Nuitarian order who had come with them was dead, killed by a magic far greater than his own. In his place a different Nuitarian had joined the remaining two.
Hammer and Axe Page 1
