by Rhett Bruno
The creature cocked its head slightly. “Balonhearth has new masters now—they who call themselves Clan Cragrock have carved their home within her heart and I must do what it takes to gain entrance. Only one of you may allow me to reunite with her.”
“So, let me understand—I let ye in, and ye give me anything I want?”
“You ask too many questions. I see your heart, dwarf. You want to live to see this home complete. See all your hard work pay off—what small, mortal dreams. Ask it of me, and I will make it so.”
Brike wasn’t sure how to respond. It had been his first thought, to see their new home completed, finished, whole. He knew he’d never live long enough for that. For a moment, he allowed himself to dream of a life where he wasn’t swinging the pickaxe from morning to night. Hell, if he could have anything, he could ask to be king.
Then he realized what his kin would think if they could hear his thoughts. Even imagining usurping the throne was considered a crime. Dealing with the demons and dark arts was the way of the orcs and Drav Cra Warlocks. But it wasn’t the way dwarves solved their problems. Dwarves sharpened their axes and faced them head on.
“Ye ask me to risk the security of my home. I have every right to ask questions of ye! How do I know ye won’t lay waste to this mountain and all those within? That this isn’t some orcish trick.”
“I give you my word, dwarf. Not a soul within this mountain will be harmed by my hand.”
Brike didn’t know what the word of a demon was worth, but he knew what his honor was. He straightened his back and swallowed the lump in his throat. “No,” he said meekly, than gathered his courage and repeated it. “No.”
“Excuse me?”
“The word of a demon means nothing to me. Go find orc filth to tempt and be gone!”
Brike gripped the orb, his hand coated in sweat, and flung it off the mountainside. The moment he did his body went still. He knew that final moment of bravery would be his last. The Dreadfire released a blood-curdling roar and reached for him. The heat emanating off its skin and breath brought blistering bubbles to Brike’s own skin. He closed his eyes, and then felt nothing at all.
In a sudden whisk of the wind, the demon was gone. Brike looked around, incredulous. The air hit him like a torrent but he held his footing. From left to right he looked, finding nothing but snow and rock.
He turned as fast as he could. This time the chain of the entry budged and only when the heavy doors slammed shut and he was leaning against the walls of one of Baronhearth’s dim tunnels did he feel like he could breathe again.
“It was all in your head, Brike,” he told himself tapping the side of his skull as he started walking back toward the tunnels where his work waited. “You’re working too hard.”
“Did ye have a nice respite, Sledgeborne?” Jhaevin barked from down the hall, spittle leaping from his mouth.
“Huh?” Brike felt as if he’d been woken from a dream. Everyone who’d been drinking with Genreel and Genreel himself were back at work. It seemed everyone but Brike had returned to carving their home pebble by pebble. How long had he been out there?
“Muengor’s Beard. You look nearly frozen to death. That’ll teach you to fall asleep on the mountainside, you fool.”
“I didn’t—”
“Back to work!” Jhaevin slammed his mace against the wall.
Knowing how many enemies had been claimed by that weapon spurred Brike to action. He hurried down the warren of tunnels, struggling not to think about what had happened outside—maybe happened. He returned to his assigned zone, lifted his pickaxe and started digging. Until his hands were bloody from the rough grip and his lungs were filled with dust, he dug.
• • •
Brike kept at it for days. Even Jhaevin didn’t have anything to say about his effort. His pickaxe chewed through more rock than the weeks prior, but still everything before him looked the same. His muscles felt like they were ready to unravel. Catching his breath became a chore.
It was all he could do to keep his mind off of the demon he met on the mountainside, offering wishes. When his mind was fresh, he knew he’d done the right thing, but every time he grew weary he wondered if that were true. He could have wished for all this work to be over and his people to live in peaceful rest. An end to the working he would never otherwise see the end of. An end to chipping away at a mountain that refused to give.
“Day’s done!” Jhaevin’s voice echoed down the hall.
Brike paused for a moment, then raised his pickaxe and let it crash down hard, then again.
“Aye, Brike,” Genreel’s familiar voice said. He lay a hand on Brike’s shoulder, causing him to whip around, pickaxe in the air.
“What?” he snapped.
“Shog! Relax, mate. It’s only me.”
“Sorry, I uh…what is it?”
“Ye’ve been working too hard this week,” Genreel said. “Ye ain’t gonna dig this place out alone, or even in our lifetimes.” His grin faded when Brike didn’t return the gesture.
“Might be if we work hard enough,” Brike said, turning to work again.
“Stop, mate,” Genreel said, pulling Brike around again. “You’re going to drive yourself crazy. I’ve seen ye get fixated like this back at Four Winds.”
“That was war.”
“Exactly, this isn’t. We’re going to get a game of scatrat going in the off-shift, have a few pints. You should join us, brother.”
Brike glanced back at the ever shifting yet never changing wall of rock. The longer he went without swinging it, the heavier his pickaxe felt, and the more clear the dreadfire’s terrible, fiery eyes became in his mind.
“Maybe I’ll meet you there. I want to get a little more work in.”
Genreel’s lip twisted. He gave Brike’s shoulder a shake. “At least try to get some sleep then, old friend.” He turned away, seemingly disappointed. Brike answered only with a shrug.
He turned and squeezed his pickaxe. Heat suddenly started to build up behind his head, as if Polcrym’s warm breath kissed his neck. He glanced back, heart racing, but saw nothing.
“All in your head,” he whispered. “All in your head!” As he shouted the words again he slammed his pickaxe against the rock. The edge slipped off a groove in the surface and he lost his grip. It swung back around and struck him in the shin.
“Shog!” he yelped as he fell.
His fur boots arrested the tool to a degree, but the spike still punctured his skin and loosed a great deal of blood. He leaned forward to try and get a clear look at the wound when he felt something roll out of his pocket. The dark orb etched with the image of a dragon—dreadfire he’d come to realize—rolled into the wall, the image of beasts eye’s shifting to stare directly at him.
“What?” He staggered backward. “No, no, no. That’s impossible.”
“I am ready to deal…” Brike heard the deep voice and a snort echoing in his head. That final word felt like a pickaxe driving through his skull.
“I said be gone, demon!”
He kicked the orb, but now it was heavy and barely budged. Pain flared up in his big toe.
“Your body breaks for your people,” the voice spoke directly in his mind. A salacious whisper, each syllable trailing off as if lost in a void. “Why keep suffering?”
“Quiet!”
“I am ready to deal.”
“I said quiet.”
Brike hoisted himself to his feet, grabbed his pickaxe, and slammed it down on the orb as hard as he could. It didn’t even roll a smidge. The tool, on the other hand, wasn’t so lucky. The metal cracked, shattering and sending a splinter up the shaft that ended in he splitting of the wooden handle. The recoil sent Brike reeling, his hands feeling like they’d been flattened on an anvil.
He cursed, words that escaped his lips since the war. He lay against the rock, cradling both hands together with what was left of the pickaxe lying across his legs.
“What in Muengor’s name was that?” Jhaevin’s voice
resonated down the tunnel. Brike cringed with every tap of the dwarf’s cane as the eternally dour foreman approached.
“Brike,” he said. “How the hell did ye manage this?” He bent down in front of him and lifted the cloven shaft of the pickaxe.
“I...” Brike swallowed. “It was that stone. The damn stone!” His injured hand trembled as he pointed to the place where the stone had been.”
“What stone?” Jhaevin kicked aside some debris, but the smooth, dark, dreadfire stone was nowhere to be seen.
“It was right there. I tried to...and it—”
“All right, Brike, that’s enough.” He grabbed Brike by the collar and hoisted him to his feet. “Ye know I’d be the first to appreciate hard work, but ye’ve been at it for days without a wink of sleep. Get some rest. I won’t tell ye again.”
Brike turned back toward his wall of rock and the mysteriously absent orb. “It was right there,” he muttered. “Right there.”
“Ye probably hit a metal vein. Back this way, let’s go. We’ll get ye a new set of tools in morning.”
Jhaevin ushered Brike toward a fork in the tunnel and gave him a light push toward the sleeping hollow. Brike was too exhausted to fight it. His foot, his arms, his hands, he felt like he had after the Battle of Four Winds Hall. Body bruised and broken, mind ready to snap from all the carnage around him.
He limped all the way to a carved hollow lined with bunks. Half were empty due to changing shifts. Others carried on at the makeshift tavern down the way. Brike heard Genreel guffawing at some grand joke and considering going there himself, but he made it no further than his bunk before he collapsed onto it and wrapped the sheepskin around him.
“It’s all in yer head,” he told himself. “Just a few solid hours and ye’ll forget it all.”
Brike rolled over to find a comfortable position for his aching body, and felt something bulbous digging into his hip. He immediately sprung upright, hit his head on the bunk above, and dumped out the contents of his pocket. The dark orb tumbled right out onto his lap.
“I am ready to deal,” the demon hissed.
“Why are ye doing this?” he asked, rubbing his head.
“I see your heart. Don’t deny yourself.”
“Ye thinkin’ that makes ye powerful, demon? That ye be seeing I want to live to witness my people in a true home again? That I wanna sit in the warmth of a hearth and be knowin’ they’re safe after all we been through? Ye be havin’ no power over me.”
“Ask me, mortal, and it will be so.” The demons voice now slithered through one ear and out the other, louder than before, like it was simultaneously coming from without and within. Brike’s head felt like it was going to split apart. His hands burned with pain.
“Fine!” he snapped.
“You must speak the words.”
“Help with our home so that I may look upon it with me own eyes. And ye will harm none of ’em, as promised, or ye’ll prove to me just how weak ye really be.”
In an instant, the whispers in his head vanished. The orb grew lighter and colder, and when he looked down upon it he saw the image of the dreadfire had vanish. Even his aching body began to loosen as the pain diminished.
Brike stuck a finger in his furry ear and rooted around. Then he tapped on the side of head. Silence. He leaned back on his pillow and smiled. Nothing around him changed. The narrow confines of their new home remained as they were—rough and unadorned. The miners continued to sleep or enjoy their time off. It was said that demons could only take advantage of the weak, and he wasn’t that.
Brike closed his eyes. He’d learned from war that when the stress and exhaustion takes hold the mind can go to dark places. Sometimes all it took was confronting those thoughts and they’d go away. Rest was all he’d ever needed.
• • •
It was the most refreshed Brike had felt in weeks when he woke the next morning. It was that same proud sensation that always stole over him after victory in battle. He even decided to join Genreel for a drink before heading down to his tunnel.
“Nice to have ye back in the realm of the living again,” his oldest friend said, smiling and patting him on the back.
"Good to be back,” Brike replied. He meant it.
“Ye should listen to me more often. Ye get too focused sometimes. Lose sight of what really matters.”
Brike scoffed. “Ye always think everyone should be listenin’ to you.”
“Aye. The kingdom would be better for it. See ye after the dig for some scatrat?”
“Sure, somebody has to put ye in your place.”
They embraced, strong like in the old days. Then Brike headed down into the tunnels. The deeper he went, the more dust found its place in his lungs, but this time he didn’t mind it. Jhaevin handed him a new pickaxe and made a snide comment about not breaking this one.
The blade was clean and shiny, but before long it’d be as dented as his last. A part of Brike looked forward to seeing it get that way, to seeing progress. Only dwarves could carve a worthy home into the mountain. The orcs built them rugged and unseemly. The humans were too weak to do their own work—paying someone else to do it for them And a demon could never do what his people could.
He lifted the pickaxe high over his should a drew in a long, hearty breath. He let it fall, using the weight of the top to bite into the rock rather than exhaust his muscles quickly. It cut through clean, and then large gash developed within the wall. Chunks of rock the size of his head tumbled lose, and then a crack ran up and over his head splaying out down the tunnel like a spider’s web. A rumble shook the whole mountain.
Brike looked around, frantic. Dozens of his brethren were in the tunnels with him. Dirt started pouring down from above.
“Cave in!” Jhaevin shouted. “Retreat!”
The command needed not be given more than once. Metal and splintered wood hit the floor, and dwarven boots pounded the ground as everyone, Brike included, sprinted toward the living quarters.
• • •
All progress came to a screeching halt as Clan Cragrock dealt with the aftermath of the most extensive cave-in they’d ever witnessed. Whatever had triggered it, an immense air-pocket must’ve burst. The floors throughout their new home gave way, from the tunnels to the living quarters.
It was devastating enough that everyone figured the King would move the clan along to a new mountain. That was, until they started digging out the ruble. The excavated hollow was large enough to fill a city, and it was deep in the heart of the mountain where they’d be safe from invaders. Even the walls were unnaturally smooth, and on the side beneath Brike’s tunnel was a vein of gold that glittered even in the darkness.
It would’ve taken decades for them to carve out a realm so vast. And if not for the lives the cave-in claimed, ale would’ve been flowing and songs echoing the halls. Fourteen died and many more were in critical condition, resting in hastily built infirmary. Brike too was there, though he’d managed to escape unscathed.
He gazed down upon his closest friend, Genreel Spinebreaker. He couldn’t imagine the fearless warrior could ever appear so weak, but there he was, lying broken on a table, clinging to life by a thread of Muengor’s robes. The doctor’s said he didn’t have long. All the orcs he’d battled, and it was a falling rock that crushed his chest.
Brike placed his hand upon his friend’s chest and spoke the words. “Give ye rest to the end. Once the end: ale.”
It was customary for dwarves to be buried with the object of their demise. If in battle, an axe. If in childbirth, the umbilical cord. All of the others had been buried with a hunk of the mountain itself. Brike reached down into his pocket and produced the small black orb.
After the dust settled, he couldn’t help but wonder if this was the demon, Polcrym’s work. The dreadfire he assuaged to quiet his thoughts. But the demon had promised nobody would be hurt, and cave-in’s were common, regardless of the size of this one.
“He was a good lad,” Jhaevin said, placing a
hand on Brike’s shoulder.
Brike immediately stowed the orb in his pocket. “Better than all of us,” he said somberly.
He shook Jhaevin off and left the infirmary abruptly with the stone still in his pocket. This had nothing to do with the demon. Their king demanded a home worthy of his name, and that meant danger. The mountains of the Dragon’s Tail didn’t concede their hollows easily.
All Brike could do to honor the name of his oldest friend was keep digging.
• • •
As the years past, Brike held onto that smooth little orb as if losing it would kill him. It reminded him of Genreel and all his people had been through to get where they were.
The great city of Cragrock—as the clan had come to call it after their clan and King—had been carved tunnel and chamber in a fraction of the time it should have taken, thanks to that fateful cave-in.
Presently, Brike stood at the center of a wide dais in Heroes Hall. He allowed his gaze to revel in the product of some many years’ hard work. The likeness of kings and heroes past stood erect, carved out of stone, larger than life. A lone chisel pounded, a ping and a grunt—the sound Brike had been accustomed to most of his life, although this time it wasn’t the digging of tunnels, it was the completion of the latest statue.
A tear pooled in the corner of his eye as he looked upon a gigantic carving of King Andur Cragrock. Their great leader had passed not a day after the final tunnel was dug down to the very crypts where he’d be buried. Crossed on his back were two axes and in his hand, his pickaxe, although he’d never stuck one to the mountain’s flesh or joined his diggers in their toil.
A a priest of the Order of Muengor, garbed in their elaborate blue and gold robes, stepped up to the edge of the dais and cleared his throat.
“Today we gather to celebrate King Andur Cragrock, whose name will ever be known. King of the Clan, leader of the Stone Army, He-Who-Gives-Not-A-Shog.”
The Mountain men bellowed with laughter and they clanged their weapons together. They were proud. Content with a new realm to call home. The tear that had been collecting in Brike’s eye rolled down his wrinkled cheek as he watched, alone. Most of his brother’s in arms had passed from the strain of work, never to live to see their wives descend from the upper portions of the mountain where the air was fresher and the light more plentiful and look upon their handiwork. Jhaevin’s wounds finally caught up with him and rendered him bed-stricken.
