The Dragon Engine

by Andy Remic

  “We need the manacles off first,” said Jonti. Her nose had been broken, and both nostrils were rimmed with dried blood. As they beat her, Dake had attacked – as best his chains would allow. It took three dwarves to subdue him; and three dwarves to beat him down. It had taken a long time for him to come round, and Jonti had wept over his unconscious body for hours, thinking him dead. “We can do nothing with these bastard irons binding us!”

  “They have to move us from the carts at some point,” said Lillith, her voice gentle. “But I fear they will only unshackle us one at a time.”

  “Then that person has to strike, and strike bloody hard,” said Beetrax, scowling. “This is no way to treat a man! Bloody slavers!”

  “But these are not men,” said Lillith. “These are the Harborym Dwarves. Extinct, for thousands of years, so wrote the scholars. How little they truly know!”

  “Pah! Bloody academics. They should come out here and do their own damn research! Not use us as a bloody bait trap to find out the bloody truth.”

  They sat in gloomy silence for a while, staring at one another, and wondering what to do.

  “Do you think they plan to starve us?” asked Beetrax eventually.

  “That would be counterproductive,” said Lillith. “If they really have us down as slaves.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They want us to work the mines,” said Lillith, staring kindly at Beetrax. “Don’t you realise? To break out the rocks in the tunnels. That seems logical. Even these carts, look, filled with rock dust and pebbles. Used for transporting rock waste. The whole thing screams a mining operation.”

  “They want us to break rocks?” rumbled Beetrax, frowning. “That’s just not right.”

  “Better get used to it, soldier,” said Talon, sombrely, easing himself into a more comfortable position with a grimace. “These are dark days we face. They’ll feed us. And water us. You’ll see. They’ll need us to keep up our strength.”

  “I ain’t working in no fucking mine breaking fucking rocks,” scowled Beetrax.

  “We shall see,” said Jonti, voice almost a whisper.

  As Talon had predicted, before long the door to the barracks opened. Three dwarves stepped out, bearing plates and metal cups. They approached the group, who watched with burning eyes.

  At the front was Krakka, grinning from ear to ear and showing his mixture of gold and black teeth. Behind him were two dwarves; one was relatively tall and slim, with a narrow, evil-looking face. He wore his beard close-cut, he had a long, pointed nose and black eyes, no emotion, like glass eyes in a stuffed fox. The other was a hulking, brutal creature, broad-shouldered, with massive, stocky arms and long braided red hair that fell down his back to his waist.

  Krakka halted, and their boots kicked pebbles. “Right then, slaves, this here is Val,” he gestured to weasel-face, “and this one,” he nodded vaguely at the hulking monstrosity, “is Galog. They are my deputies, and whatever instructions they give, you obey instantly. You understand?”

  The Vagandrak companions stared at him. His grin widened.

  “I think they understand, all right,” said Val, who had a slightly whining voice, as if he partially spoke through his long, thin nose. His attention seemed riveted to Lillith and Sakora. Slowly, his eyes moved over them, and then shifted to Jonti, whose lips became a compressed smile.

  “Hng,” grunted Galog, and they noted he carried a variety of hammers at his belt. They seemed more than simple tools for geological exploration.

  “Tell me, human ladies,” sneered Val, stepping a little closer. His eyes narrowed, and seemed to twinkle with humour at some personal joke. “What do you think of your first real dwarves, eh? We’re a handsome bunch, ain’t we?” He roared with laughter, as if this was some great comedy recital.

  Lillith focussed on Krakka. “May we eat and drink, Krakka? We are close to exhaustion, and have not drank for days, now. I am assuming you would rather we were strong, than weak shells unable to work?”

  “Oh you’ll be strong enough, lady,” said Krakka. “But first, we need to learn you the rules, for the rules need to be learned. And that first rule is this – we control the water and the food down here, nobody else. If we say you starve to death, you starve to death. If we punish you with three days without water, then that’s what you get. None of them up there care about what goes on in the mines, as long as we’re meeting our quotas and the fire keeps flowing. You understanding me, all of you bastards? We have your lives in our hands. You are now our possessions. You left your freedom behind when you decided to come exploring the Karamakkos.” He laughed out loud, and leaned over the cart, handing out the tray with cups and plates.

  Val and Galog handed over their trays, one of which Beetrax accepted, and he was dismayed to see Val’s eyes still lingering on Lillith. A look of thunder crept across Beetrax’s face.

  “You can stop bloody staring at her,” he snapped, and Val’s attention drifted, slowly, as if torn away. He looked at Beetrax.

  “Or what will you do, fighting man?”

  “I’ll break your fucking neck, is what I’ll do.”

  “You reckon?” whined Val, and grinned, showing several blackened teeth. His foul breath wafted over Beetrax, who readied himself for another beating under the head of a savage club.

  Instead, Krakka stepped forward. “Val, Galog, go back to the barracks. I need a quiet word with our Vagandrak heroes here.

  Grumbling, Val tore his gaze from Lillith, and padded alongside the stomping figure of Galog. They disappeared into the low building, door slamming shut.

  Krakka moved closer, and flapped one hand, signalling Beetrax to settle back down. “I just wanted to offer you some advice. You obviously know nothing of our culture, or our people. You have come here treasure hunting – as quite a few of your kind do. What I’d like to point out is that you all end up in our mines. Nobody ever escapes. Some live out a long life of servitude; some,” he glanced at Beetrax, “are either killed, or we have to put down like rabid dogs. Now, the decision is really yours. You choose how you behave. And this is the last time I’m going to give you any such warning, but you – Big Man – if you ever threaten my deputy like that again, I’m going to have you beaten so badly you won’t work for a month. And if you don’t work, you don’t fucking eat. You hearing me?”

  Beetrax stared at him, single eye narrowed. “I hear you, Krakka. But I’m still going to kill him first.”

  Krakka stared back for a moment, then erupted into booming laughter. “Oh you Vagandrak bastards! You have such wild imaginations and a sense of humour. It has been a while since we had some of your kind here for sport; I look forward to seeing how you progress in our world. Truly, I do.”

  Krakka whirled, and strode back to the barracks, still laughing, rubbing his beard, and disappeared.

  “Beetrax!” hissed Lillith. “Why are you antagonising them? You’ll wind up dead quicker than you can blink.”

  “I’m not having that dirty dwarf staring at you like that. I’m just not bloody having it,” rumbled Beetrax.

  Talon grinned. “They can chain you up, manacle you, beat you with clubs, but you’ll never change, will you, hey Trax? Always the hard head, always the stubborn attitude; nothing will break you, will it?”

  Beetrax grinned, showing his less than perfect teeth.

  “We shall see,” said Lillith, her eyes hooded and dark.

  They travelled for another full day, down deep tunnels, some narrow, some big enough to fit several houses inside. Most were coarse, jagged and black. They passed over high arched bridges, where the light from the brands fell away into a seeming infinity of darkness, so deep the spaces beneath appeared as black lakes, oil pools, way way down below. The prisoners peered from their donkey-pulled cart with grim faces and a gradual feeling of despair. The further they travelled inside the mountain, the deeper under the rock they journeyed, the less likely they were of ever seeing daylight again.

  Occasionally, they passed
other groups of dwarves in this deep, damp place. Sometimes they were groups of ten, like this one, with donkey-pulled carts. Their greetings were always brief, harsh words, snapped out like barking dogs. Sometimes, they met squads of guards or soldiers, and Beetrax and Dake observed various different uniforms, and a multitude of weapons, from war hammers, axes – both single and double-headed – to nasty little short swords, some straight, some curved, all with modest blades. No long swords down here in the mines. Not enough room to swing a long blade.

  Eventually, weary from the jerking of the cart’s iron-rimmed wheels, the rumble of wheels and clop of hooves, they turned down yet more tunnels, deep within the maze of the mountain interior, and emerged from an inverted funnel into–

  “That’s the biggest damn mine I’ve ever seen,” said Dake, sitting upright, his shackles jangling.

  “Look at the slaves,” said Jonti, her voice small, and her eyes met Dake’s. They were filled with despair.

  The roof sheared off above, and to the Vagandrak heroes, it was like standing at the base of a mountain. A mountain within a mountain. Ahead, there was a large area, to the left various low wooden barracks, surrounded by a compound of wire attached to posts drilled into the rock. To the right there were more barracks, but of higher quality and obviously belonging to the wardens. Behind these, there was a slope to a large, underground lake; black as ink, slick as ice. Straight ahead was the mine face – at least three thousand feet, an upwards slope cut with a winding road, and various sets of steps. Against this face were various vertical steel towers, and swinging cables and rails on which carts rumbled, filled with rocks. A soundtrack became apparent; the ching of iron on rock. The smacking of rock hammers. The thump of sledgehammers. The distant, eerie jangle of chains. Against this slope of activity could be seen the working slaves; perhaps a hundred of them, all wearing rough grey smocks, their faces, although distant, downturned, concentrating on their tasks. Various dwarves patrolled the pathways, switchback roads and rough-cut steps. They carried whips and clubs.

  “Let’s get you lot out of the carts,” snapped Krakka, and gestured to Val and Galog, who moved with practised ease, dropping side-gates and gesturing for the bound prisoners to jump down, an act made more difficult by the chains around their ankles.

  Val held up a hand to help Lillith, but she scowled and leapt down, landing lightly, although clumsily thanks to the added metalwork.

  “Welcome to Gold Mine 79. The most profitable of our enterprises for quite some decades now, and owned by the Church of Hate.”

  “The Church of…” Lillith bit her lip. A scene flashed through her mind. A cosy tavern, roaring fire, honey mead, good company, hasty agreements. It felt like a hundred years ago. It felt like a thousand years ago…

  Greeves gave me a map; a page torn from the Scriptures of the Church of Hate, or at least, what fragments still remain.

  That is one ancient, deadly, cursed tome.

  It’s a map that leads to the Five Havens, the five dwarf cities under the Karamakkos Peaks. They were once ruled by the Great Dwarf Lords who mined untold wealth – I'm talking oceans of jewels, warehouses full of gold coin, lakes of molten silver. Enough to buy you a lifetime of whores, Falanor brandy and Hakeesh weed!

  Wasn't there something about a dragon?

  The three dragons were slaves to the Harborym, their minds hammered and broken, or so the legend goes. They were locked away in three huge cylindrical pits, where they were used to light the furnaces. Or something. Anyway, that’s all academic bollocks. The point is, the Harborym are long gone, extinct for ten thousand years, the Five Havens lost to the knowledge and thoughts of us mere mortal men. But all that treasure is still there, waiting for some hardy adventurer types to trot along and fill their pockets, and maybe even a few wheelbarrows, with an orgy of sparkling loot.

  And now they were there. For real. And Beetrax’s words had been so ill-informed it would have been laughable, if the whole sorry situation wasn’t so tragic. And Lillith had a feeling it was going to get much, much worse…

  They stood, in their shackles, looking at one another, gazing about. More dwarves arrived, perhaps twenty in total, armed with axes and war hammers. Their faces were grim, but a few smiled, their dark eyes glittering.

  “New meat?” growled one.

  Krakka nodded. “Time for them to be given their first lesson before we put them to work.”

  “Yes.”

  “Listen, you southern heaps of horse shit. You are now slaves of the Harborym Dwarves. There is no appeal. You will work in these mines, and you will die in these mines. You will do as you are told, or you will be beaten and whipped. If you die during such a beating, your corpse will be flung into the Dragon Engine where you will be eaten, or incinerated, depending on how they see fit. Now, you will be shown to your bunks.”

  “Let’s get to it,” said Val.

  They were split up, and each manhandled by a group of dwarves towards the barracks on the left. They passed through various gates, and noted the perimeter, surrounded by ten-foot-high posts with horizontal spans of razor wire; getting over that would cut a person to ribbons. The barracks loomed ahead, to a backdrop of rough mountain walls and fire burning in iron fire-pits. To each man and woman of Vagandrak, it seemed like a dark dream, and they were powerless to resist being sucked into its whirling centre…

  Party Time

  BEETRAX WAS HURLED forward into what could only be described as a cell. It had bare timber walls, a blanket on the floor and a bucket. Beetrax stared around, and grinned back at Krakka, who stood in the doorway. He was carrying a solid club. He stepped forward, and three more big dwarves squeezed in behind him. They all stared at Beetrax, then Krakka nodded, and one moved forward with a huge bunch of jangling keys. Beetrax’s eyes lit up. This could be it. This could be his chance. Suddenly, a club flashed in the air, striking Beetrax between the eyes. He stumbled back, but the dwarf kept coming, raining down blow after blow and putting Beetrax down on his knees, panting, blood in his eyes, blood pouring from his nose. Only then, did the dwarf stoop and unlock the ankle shackles, and then the wrist shackles. They jangled to the earth floor.

  “Get undressed,” said the dwarf.

  “Fuck you,” snarled Beetrax, and with a roar leapt from his kneeling position, charging the dwarves. A right cross put one down, but a blow to the temple stopped Beetrax in his tracks and he hit the dirt, panting, stars in his skull. When, gradually, they cleared, all four dwarves were there, Krakka grinning.

  “We can do this the easy way, or do it the hard way,” said Krakka.

  Beetrax crawled onto his knees, drooling saliva and blood, and groggily, got to his feet. “Well, gentlemen,” he managed, rubbing his beard, “I fear it will have to be the hard way.” He lunged forward, both fists flying like whistling clubs of iron, but he missed his targets and all four dwarves put him down with their clubs, beating him unconscious.

  Finally, panting from his exertions, Krakka looked back to the doorway, and said, “Better get the Ball Cracker.”

  Beetrax swam through a sea of red and black, and he remembered Lillith with flowers in her hair. He kissed her, and they sat under Lover’s Oak, sunshine dazzling rays through the high branches, and they held hands, and she told him about her dreams, to work in medicine, to study herb lore, to help people less fortunate than herself, as the nearby stream tinkled music and the sun showered them with diamonds of light.

  “I have written you a poem,” said Beetrax.

  “You have? How wonderful! Will you recite it to me?”

  “Yes, yes of course.” His bear paws fumbled inside his shirt, and he pulled out a scruffy, tattered, crumpled sheet of paper. “Now, don’t laugh please, it’s the first poem I’ve ever written, so it’s not that good, not like those posh ones written by those fancy people at Vagan University, like.”

  “I’m sure it will be amazing,” said Lillith, giving a gentle smile and running her hand through her hair.

  He began
to speak, his voice cracking and unsure at first as he glanced at her, but then falling into the words, and becoming entranced in the rhythm of the words he had laboured over for so long. He spoke slowly, softly, and Lillith listened in silence…

  She stood upon the beach,

  Naked.

  She curled her toes in the sand,

  As the ocean sighed the remains of a dream.

  Her eyes were topaz.

  They sparkled like breathing gems.

  She understood infinity.

  The hydrogen sparkle of dying stars.

  The waves crashed like seashells gently weeping.

  The ocean spoke to her, in tongues of the Wild.

  You wish to swim in my cold waters? quoth She.

  Well… I want to be free.

  The ocean sighed. A mermaid’s sexual union.

  There is no free. Only a perception of free.

  She considered the words,

  Of a world gone wild,

  Of a world gone strange.

  Images flickered like stroboscopic memories,

  Burning down the world.

  I don’t understand?

  You are not expected to.

  In her nakedness,

  She walked forward and enjoyed,

  The cold wind blowing in from an endless infinity.

  Roaring waves. Surging.

  It chilled her to the bone.

  You wish to understand how the world works? quoth She.

  You want to know the mechanics?

  The way people work?

  The way a mind processes emotion?

  I do, she said.

  She curled her toes in the sand.

  Her nakedness thrilled her,

  For it was forbidden.

  And yet she defied the Law.

  She defied that which was not allowed.

  Because she had to.

  She stood before a million accusations,

  pointing at her with twisted fingers,