The Sundered Arms dad-8

by T. H. Lain

  "You see?" said Hargrimm, hefting the hammer. "This is what your brother sought. It is a weapon worthy of me. He held it only briefly, and now it is mine, along with his soul. Today the hammer's power is restored, together with its kin. Do you know what I will do with them? Do you know the real power of the Arms of Andaron?"

  "It will matter little when I send you back to the Abyss," growled Tordek. He took a step toward his foe, but his shifting weight set the catwalk to swaying dangerously. He clung desperately to the rail with one hand, gripping his axe tightly in the other.

  Hargrimm laughed at his predicament. "You shall live long enough to be the first sacrifice to my lord Gruulnargh. Your courage is amusing, and I admire your necklace. Did you bring it as a gift?"

  Tordek spat at the demon and advanced another step. This time he was ready for the motion of the catwalk. Adjusting the rhythm of his pace to its swaying, he took another step, gripping the rail with his shield arm. He dared not look back at his companions, but he hoped they had recovered sufficiently from their tumble to escape.

  "Close enough, Tordek, brother of…what was his name again?" said Hargrimm. "Oh, I remember. Supper."

  With rippling muscles he raised the hammer and hurled it at Tordek. The weapon smashed into the dwarf's chest, crushing the armor plating and hurling him backward off the catwalk. As he flew through the air, Tordek reflexively grabbed the hammer as if for support. For an instant he felt it tug away, as if it might actually lift him up and spare him from the fall. When he hit the ground and felt the wind knocked out of his lungs, he realized the truth. The hammer should have returned to its wielder, but it hadn't. Some quirk of its enchantment failed.

  Tordek felt his friends' hands on him, helping him to his feet.

  "It isn't possible!" roared Hargrimm from above.

  Tordek felt heat from the hammer surge through his palm and into his veins. Inside his body, it sang to him a warrior's song.

  "Get him!" screamed Hargrimm. "Retrieve my hammer!"

  With wings snapping like sails, the winged Zagreb dived toward the dwarf. Tordek saw the half-dragon's jaws open wide, and a red spark flashed deep in the serpentine throat. Flames engulfed him. All he saw was light, and all he felt was searing pain. He closed his eyes tight against the inferno, praying that he might live long enough to strike just one blow.

  Someone grabbed him from behind and together they fell onto a hard, wood surface. It shifted beneath Tordek with a grating sound. He tried, but he could not open his eyes to see. His nostrils were filled with the stench of his own burned hair and flesh, and he felt a searing stripe of pain across the exposed portions of his face.

  "Push!" shouted Devis, so close to his ear that Tordek at least knew his hearing had not been burned away. He felt the earth shift beneath him, two more bodies leaped atop his, then the whole pile was sliding downward, backward, somehow picking up speed as it raced away from the Hellforge and plunged deep into the mines of Andaron's Delve.

  MURDARK

  At last Tordek pried open his scorched eyelids and blinked away the gummy residue of his eyelashes. The ceiling of the mineshaft sped by at incredible speed as they plunged down the steep slope. Despite his pain, he recognized immediately that they were piled onto a flat, wheelless ore sledge plummeting down an inclined tunnel.

  "Who is steering this thing?" he shouted.

  "There's steering?" cried Lidda, straddling his armored chest. She kept enough of her wits to strike another sunrod, which she waved to and fro in her search for a brake, a wheel, a lever, anything to guide or slow their descent.

  Tordek wriggled and shoved, but not so hard as to send Vadania or Devis over the side of the sledge. At last he managed to turn over on his stomach and look forward instead of straight up. They were sliding so fast that the new vantage was no more reassuring. He barely glimpsed side passages and rotten wooden braces to either side as they sped past.

  "This is going to hurt when we stop," suggested Devis. "A lot."

  "You can be the first to jump off!" snapped Tordek.

  The bard shut his mouth and concentrated, thinking of a spell that might help them, Tordek hoped. At last he shrugged and quickly sang the cat's grace spell that he had cast on Lidda earlier, but this time on himself.

  Vadania craned her neck to peer at the ceiling.

  "What are you looking for?" yelled Tordek.

  "Roots!" she shouted back. "Do you see any roots?"

  At her words, all four of them scanned the walls for any sign of roots, but Tordek knew it was a vain hope.

  "We're too deep!" he cried.

  "I'm out of ideas," she replied.

  At that, the walls and ceiling disappeared.

  "What does that mean?" yelled Devis. "We're in a bigger area! Is that good?"

  The sledge slowed. The hissing of its passage gradually declined to a deep, grating sound. Soon it was quiet enough that they could hear their own sighs of relief.

  "Thank Fharlaghn!" said Devis.

  "Thank Moradin," insisted Tordek. He rose to his knees and peered ahead as the sledge ground forward over the gravel slope. He opened his mouth to shout a warning, but it was too late.

  "Thank Yondaaaaahhhh!" screamed Lidda as they plunged over the edge and fell into a black abyss.

  They sat upon the bank of the sunless lake and wrung out their cloaks. Devis sneezed and shivered in the cold, but they had no time to light a fire. The icy water that saved them from crushing death now threatened to kill them more slowly with pneumonia.

  At the edge of the sunrod's light, the ore sledge bobbed gently in the water. Devis suggested they use it as a raft, but the thing could barely float unladen. Their brief experiment proved that even with just Lidda's weight, it would quickly sink below the surface.

  They paused only for a few curing spells from Vadania and Devis before collecting their gear. Remarkably, nothing was lost except for Tordek's shield, which he imagined Hargrimm was already mounting as a trophy in his bedchamber. The furious demon was sure to send pursuit, and it wouldn't be long before goblins found this flooded chamber.

  Tordek led the way, favoring the northerly path whenever presented with a choice. By his dwarven reckoning, which acted as an unerring compass underground, their plummet had carried them far beneath the "prow" of Jorgund Peak so they were now below the wrong side of the tainted river.

  "We must find a way out of these mines," he said. "If those tunnels lead only back to the foundry, then we have a problem."

  "On the other hand," said Lidda, "we also have that big, blue fellow's hammer. From the way he was howling about it, I bet he needs it real bad, probably to summon his demon pals."

  "You heard all that?" asked Tordek.

  "Most of it," said Lidda. "Vadania filled us in on the rest of the story."

  Tordek turned an accusatory glare upon the druid.

  "I thought you were about to die," she argued.

  "Don't worry," said Devis. "She only gave us the outline. I know you were waiting for the right moment to tell us the story yourself. Weren't you?"

  "No," said Tordek, unmoved by the half-elf's ploy.

  "Don't you think we have a right to know?" said Lidda. "Especially me. How many times have I saved your life already?"

  "None."

  "That's not fair! How about that time with the minotaur?"

  "I could have beaten him," said Tordek.

  "Not without my distraction. That wasn't easy, you know. You try jumping off a roof with a rope tied around your waist. It hurts."

  "I don't owe you anything," said Tordek.

  "You're wrong," said Lidda crossly, "and your face is burned and you have no eyebrows. If not for us, you'd be dead and this conversation wouldn't be happening!"

  "Enough!" said Tordek, halting their march and turning to face the others. They returned his gaze with earnest expressions.

  "We have all helped each other," said Vadania gently. "We are comrades in this quest."

  Tordek's shoulders sl
umped. He gave Devis one last, dirty glance before sighing. "Very well, but we keep moving while I tell it."

  "Holten was my older brother by exactly ten years," said Tordek. "To the day."

  "You were twins!" said Devis.

  "Don't be stupid," snapped Lidda. "After all that effort to get him to tell the story."

  "No," said Tordek. "He's right. My people consider brothers or sisters born on the same day any count of years apart to be twins. Holten and I were brothers in arms as well, even as children. When we played at war, we were always on the same side, he the captain, I his lieutenant. We never quarreled. I was always happy to follow his lead.

  "Except once."

  They marched along in silence for a while, climbing over a steep incline to reach a rocky plateau. All around them were deep holes where dwarven miners once drilled samples in their search for ore. Judging from the predominantly natural rock walls, they had found none.

  The others refrained from prompting him for so long that Tordek felt an unwanted smile curling on his lips. The telling of this particular tale was proving much less painful than he feared, though he suspected he would feel differently when he came to the point of the matter.

  "Holten heard the tale of the Arms of Andaron from a human bard in a tavern. We all heard some version of it as children, but dwarf storytellers present it as a terse, cautionary tale. The humans tell it differently, with hints of great power and glory to those who recover the lost weapons. They have no idea what harm they were causing."

  Tordek could almost hear Devis swallow guiltily behind him, but he did not turn to see his expression.

  "He bought a treasure map and believed the rumors that Andaron's hammer was buried in a crypt at the foot of the Thunderstone Mountains. He begged me to go with him, and I begged him not to go. In the end, I let him go by himself.

  "Holten returned six years later, boasting of a great battle with a vicious worg that could transform into an enormous, blue goblin. He and his allies routed Hargrimm and his followers from the crypt, only to learn that both groups had been tricked with false clues. Hargrimm came away with nothing. Holten returned with these finger bones around his neck and a score of brave scars upon his body."

  Tordek paused again as the group came to a sheer decline. Lidda heard the distant sound of plunging water toward the east. After a brief discussion, they chose to follow it. Lidda clambered down the wall to anchor a knotted rope on which the others could follow, then she climbed back up to retrieve it and came nimbly down again.

  "I believe we have come far enough to spare a little rest," said Vadania. "With the echoes in this place, we will hear anyone who approaches long before they arrive."

  Tordek agreed, and they made a tiny fire with a few torches from their packs. Tordek made a simple frame with his bow and hung his cloak to dry beside the fire, hoping it would also hide their light from distant eyes. The others imitated his arrangement with bows and shields, forming a makeshift wall around their camp. The resulting enclosure trapped the heat and soon returned the warmth to their bones.

  Tordek waited until Lidda proffered him a tin cup of warm tea before continuing his story.

  "There was no preventing Holten from striking out again. By that time I was ranging out on quests of my own. It was then that I realized how hypocritical I had been, refusing to join his venture when fortune and glory were my goal as well."

  "There was a difference," Vadania gently corrected him. "You understood the danger of the Arms of Andaron. Holten was brave, but he was reckless."

  Tordek waved away her argument. "No matter," he said. "I was young and foolish, not yet fifty. I wanted to be wrong so that one of us could apologize and we could join forces once more. Moradin knows he was never going to be the one to make the gesture. So I gathered allies of my own, including a rather green druid, and set out to join him. We searched for three and a half years before finding the lone survivor.

  "We found him sweeping the floors in a temple to St. Cuthbert. The clerics tolerated his presence because he had once been of their order, though he received no more grace from the god. He was drunk the day we found him, and he liked to stay that way, so we got the story from him for the cost of a few bottles of cheap wine.

  "Holten and his fellows found the Hammer of Andaron, all right. They even escaped its trap-filled tomb with minimal casualties. Only this time it was Hargrimm waiting outside for him, and this time the worg-demon brought an army.

  "They were slaughtered, all of them but the cleric, who was bound and forced to watch as Hargrimm devoured the others alive. It took days. When it was done, the demon simply let the cleric go, knowing his mind and spirit were broken."

  "Is that why you were able to catch the hammer?" asked Devis. "Because Holten once had it, and it cannot harm his twin?"

  Tordek grunted an affirmative. He had surmised as much ever since he felt the hammer tug away then surrender to his grasp.

  Tordek searched his imagination for some important way to conclude his story, but none came to mind. For a moment, he worried that Devis would come up with something dramatic to add to his tale when the bard repeated it in taverns across the land. The thought did not please him, but it felt good finally to have told the story aloud to others who faced the wrath of the fiend that swallowed his brother's soul. It made Tordek feel as though he were one step closer to laying his brother to rest.

  There was only one more step to take.

  The waterfall whose voice they followed led them to another buried lake. Their aches from their falls, battles, and exertions were finally so tender that they could not press on without rest. They lit another small fire with a few fresh torches and the charred remains of their previous fire before setting watches. It felt like only minutes had passed since Tordek laid his head down on his rolled cloak before Lidda was urgently shaking his shoulder.

  Tordek rolled up to a crouch. The Hammer of Andaron lay nearby, but he ignored it in favor of his trusty axe. Devis was already alert with his crossbow cocked and held neat against his shoulder. Lidda moved to shake Vadania out of her meditation.

  Tordek followed the bard's gaze and saw the wake of a huge creature swimming toward them across the underground lake.

  "What the devil is that?" said Devis.

  "Murdark…"Tordek remembered how much he disliked that name the first time he had heard it. "Karnoth warned us of a beast that roamed these lower caverns."

  "Let's hope it's allergic to crossbow bolts," said Devis. His aim followed the creature's dark head as it emerged from the water and its body lumbered up in the shallows.

  Tordek tensed to leap forward as soon as he heard the crossbow's twang. Instead, he heard an urgent "No!" and the sound of Vadania's hand slapping the bard's crossbow out of line. The bolt cracked against the distant, unseen ceiling before splashing into the lake.

  From the dark water rose a colossal beast, its dark pelt black and smooth from its watery passage.

  "Gulo!" cried Lidda.

  Vadania said nothing, but she rushed forward to stroke her mammoth friend's face. "You foolish, foolish boy," she crooned at him.

  "Say," said Devis. "If Gulo found himself a way in…"

  "… then he found us a way out," finished Tordek.

  "Why don't we just get out of here?" suggested the bard. "Hargrimm can't do his ritual without the hammer, and we can't fight that legion of monsters assembled up there. I say we run far, far away from here and hide this thing under somebody's army."

  "That won't solve the problem of the poison river," said Vadania.

  "It won't do anything about Hargrimm's army, either," added lidda.

  "And it won't do anything about Hargrimm," said Tordek. "I am not running away."

  "Me neither," said Lidda. "Sorry, Bunny. I'm with the dwarf."

  Vadania said nothing, but she stepped beside Tordek even while she kept a hand on Gulo's soggy shoulder.

  Devis looked back at them with disbelief all over his weary face. "But we'l
l lose," he said. "That makes a terrible story."

  "How can we lose now?" said Tordek. "We've got Gulo with us."

  Devis made a little choking sound.

  "We don't have to face Hargrimm's assembled army," said Vadania. "If we can lure him out and kill just him, maybe his army will break apart. You know how fractious such creatures can be."

  "Besides," said Lidda, "there are captives to rescue, more evil weapons to steal…and at least the way up is drier than the way out."

  Devis looked unconvinced, but he shrugged at last. "All right," he said, "but only because I don't want to go swimming again."

  As if he had been waiting for someone to say exactly that, Gulo violently shook his pelt and soaked them all to the skin. Sheets of water quenched the fire, so they stood there amid gales of laughter in the darkness until Tordek brought out his everburning torch and saw that, for once, Devis was the only one not laughing.

  Hours later, they climbed up through a rent that could only have been caused by an earthquake and emerged into a vast and pillared hall. Four different prayers of thanks were muttered to four different gods. Even Gulo rumbled a grateful sound as he clambered up onto the fitted stones, his great claws clicking on the floor.

  "Feast hall," said Tordek. His everburning torch illuminated bare poles that once held clan banners on the walls. Vadania struck a sun rod and walked in the opposite direction. Even the two bright lights could not illuminate the entire room at once.

  They saw broken chairs and graying tables scattered around the room or stacked in careless heaps. In one wall was set a great fireplace choked with half-burned detritus, while four lesser and two grand arches yawned open to shadows beyond, their doors long since torn away. Whatever lay beyond them remained black in the gloom.

  "Now which way, O fearless…" Lidda stilled her tongue and listened to Gulo. The dire wolverine put his head low to the ground and growled.

  "Something's coming," translated Vadania needlessly. The others drew their weapons, and Devis sang himself a shimmering suit of mage armor.