The Last Pantheon: of hammers and storms

by Jason Jones

  “Ogre and giants past the outdoors in the Bori don’t concern me, Kimmarik. Yer’ father owin’ me pub a lot o’ coin is the issue. Yer boys be just tryin’ to get him out, but they is all young and eager to fight. Tis’ half the problem.” Erden kept pace, eyeing the empty pouch of Kimmarik Thalanaxe and casting cross glances at his youngest.

  “Me boys ain’t never a problem, barkeep, and I will thud hammers with anyone who dare say otherwise. So shut yer beard before I help ye’ lose a few more teeth.” Kimmarik growled and walked faster toward the underground pub in Boraduum. “Baah, ye’ ain’t got no more teeth ye’ can spare.”

  The Pub o’ the Smokin’ Anvil was dark, open on three sides, and full of stone tables that numbered over one hundred. A golden anvil stood in the middle on a stone pedestal that connected to the end of fifty feet of brown marble polished bartop. The smoke indeed rose from the embers that were kept hot underneath the anvil, embers that matched the low lantern light of the whole tavern and its sixty or more current patrons.

  Kimmarik looked around, then he heard and saw them at the same moment. Stocky and glaring, Geadrik Thalanaxe, his oldest boy, dressed in full plate of a soldier, greaves, steel gauntlets, and a drawn battle axe in his hand.

  His middle boy, Tadnek Thalanaxe, barely thirty years old now, had the family shield with the twin axes over a moon held out on guard. His helm was on the ground and dented, his head bleeding from a cut, but his battle pick twirled in his hand nonetheless.

  They stood like battle hardened warriors, surrounded by nearly twenty angry dwarves armed with shortblades, barhammers, and daggers. The table they guarded held no royal king as one would think, but instead sat a wobbly thin gray dwarf, rambling aloud as he fished for which of the ten or so mugs and flasks before him held any spirits still.

  “Ye’ don’t be knowin’ the truth! Truth is, well it be a very long truth, in truth, ha!” Pentrik Thalanaxe laughed to himself, then threw an empty mug between his grandsons. It smacked a patron in the stomach and rattled its steel across the stone floor, tensing every dwarf in the room once more.

  “Truth is ye’ be a worthless whiskey-licker, old Pentrik! Now get out, before we does get ye’ out, the hard way!” Surrounding men grew closer, circling like wolves, tired of the drunken taunts and flinging steel cups it seemed.

  “Me papi will be leavin’ soon, so best ye’ back away, Silvunak.” Geadrik tapped his axe to the table and stared at the mob.

  “And if ye’ want the hard way, come and get it. I be happy to show ye’ how it’s done then.” Tadnek slammed the flat of his warpick to his shield, smiling to the growing gathering of dwarves that had tired of their grandfather throwing mugs and spouting off.

  “Tad! Gead! Enough now boys, the fight is tomorrow with ogre and giants, not in here with our kinsman.” Kimmarik walked up to the table, the dwarves making way to let the father to his sons.

  “Ain’t no kin o’ mine, Thalanaxe.” Someone said it, Kimmarik did not know who, and no one owned it as he looked around They just stood silent, ready and angry.

  “Ahhh, me only surviving son! Look what they done made me do, ya’ see? They, them blasted trollsuckers there made me drink again! They want the box they do, trickin’ me into givin’ it when I be in my mugs too far.” Pentrik spat at the mob of angry dwarves, managing to only hit the back of Geadrik past his scraggly beard.

  “Quiet now father, we needs to get ye’ outta here.” Kimmarik whispered.

  “No naye, no! Here, see what they want! Maybe ye’ will just let em have it then, won’t ye? Or maybe yer wife will give it to em’ then when I be dead and in Vundren’s halls?”

  Crack!

  The rusty iron box slammed onto the stone table, a tied leather bag, a rolled parchment, and an old key sliding out amidst the mugs. It was quiet, the cut on Tadnek dripped a drop of blood onto his armor, everyone heard it as the pub was like a grave for just a moment, all eyes on the box. Many knew what it supposedly was, most would ridicule it, but none would pass up the chance to get it for themselves.

  “Father, put those things away now. This is not the time---“

  “Aye shut yer’ beard Kimmarik! The mines o’ Kakisteele be ours, the Thalanaxes they are. Far to the north and the west, in ruined Mooncrest where elves and men n’ dwarves and temples be---“ Pentrik fell over as he waved his bony finger, fell out of his chair, drunk for days and nights on end in their underground home in the Bori Mountains.

  The laughter boiled over as old grayed dwarf, mugs, old junk from a rusty box, frazzled beard and hair, and even the chair all toppled. Everyone laughed, pointed, and shouted at the venerable fool of the Thalanaxe clan. Kimmarik, his three sons, and Erden Granvang were the only ones not finding anything humorous. Little Azenairk ran over, helping his papi to the chair and began picking up the things that he knew went back in the box. He had helped do this before, more than a few times.

  “Maybe yer’ luck be better would ye’ head that way then!” One of the Silvunaks piped over the laughter.

  “Aye, might be enough gold in Kakisteele to pay for ole’ Pentriks drinks then, maybe!” An Ordrimm threw an insult next. The laughs were hearty, black beards of sixty dwarves bobbed up and down in the shadowy tavern.

  “If the Thalanaxes believed in mining as much as fairy tales, then hells, we’d o’ had the whole o’ the Bori Mountains done dug out!” Erden Granvang, having to show some humor in his own pub, tossed another jab of words toward the Thalanaxe clan as Zen helped Pentrik to stay back in his chair.

  Three dwarves fell down in laughter, it was too much for them to handle as Kimmarik and his two eldest stood while the little one that worked in the temple held up the drunken grandfather.

  It was an onslaught that they just stood silently and took. Kimmarik looked to the mugs, counted eleven, he did some math quietly.

  “Aye! And a six legged demon, the demon o’ curses and ruin, she has our mines held!” Pentrik roared in his stupor over the crowd.

  “Father, shut yer beard now, enough---“

  “She does, does she!? Maybe it be eight legs? Or perhaps she has but three and ole’ Pentrik be seein’ double!”

  “That third leg might not be a leg, maybe the demon ain’t a she!” More laughter rolled, it was unstoppable.

  “Ye o’ no faith, ye’ stupid drunks, all o’ ye! Me fathers, fathers, father was handed this and he knew, aye he did! That be no myth, it is there, ye’ stupid fools are no---“ Pentrik fell back in his chair again as a mug flew across the pub and hit him square in the nose. The laughter was deafening, but the tempers boiled from his family.

  “How much for a mug, Erden!?” Kimmarik spoke up amidst the laughter.

  “Three silvers. Why, lookin’ to drown yer’ father out for the night and save some beard?” The pub owner laughed and pointed, seeing little Azenairk the temple boy helping old Pentrik up once more.

  “Son.” Kimmarik spoke deep, an angry tone.

  “Yes father!” All three boys answered, they knew that tone of voice. It was beyond the fights he and their mother had, beyond the battle cries out in the mountains his oldest had heard before, it was a calm inner storm of short words he would expect quick answers to.

  “Middle son, Tad.” His growl almost a whisper, Kimmarik stared his blue eyes at the ground.

  “Aye father!” Tadnek stepped to his father, keeping an eye on the mob that continued to laugh over the Thalanaxe plight.

  “Who hit ye Tad’?” Kimmarik looked to the older Silvunak man, Forikk was his name, the one with the shortblade in his hand, he had a hunch already. Kimmarik remembered he had borrowed some of his men for a dig, turned up empty, and had yet to pay them.

  “No one did father. Old Silvunak threw a chair at papi to shut him up about the lost mines, so I jumped in the way of it. Ye’ always told me to use me head.” Tadnek felt the bump, saw the blood on his hand, and smiled to his father. The smile was not returned.

  “Gead.” Kimmarik glared at Forikk Silvunak, the
n to Erden Granvang.

  “Yes father.” Geadrik lowered his axe a little, pulled his beard to keep his anger down at all the laughter still roiling in the pub.

  “Watch yer little brother Zen, and papi, just for a moment. I need a word with a few o’ these men here.” The slightest smile, though not of anything pleasant, crept from under his beard.

  “Then what?” Geadrik looked at his fathers eyes, blue and serious like his papi’s.

  “Fight like hell, boy, ye’ fight like hell.”

  Geadrik took a breath as he gazed at the now eager twenty angry dwarves circling from other families. He looked to little Zen, then to his rambling grandfather, finally he cast a wink to Tadnek. The wink was returned.

  Kimmarik Thalanaxe walked up to Erden, warhammer in hand, which drew all the angry dwarves involved up close. They knew he had fought in several wars, he had a reputation as more a warrior than a miner, and they all knew he was likely unable to pay the bartab, again.

  “Granvang, I see eleven mugs there, would be thirty three silvers, or three gold and a bit extra. Ye’ told me seven.” He pointed to his fathers table.

  “For all the trouble, the price be double. Shart, ye’ don’t have any coin anyhow, Thalanaxe. Everyone knows that.” Erden smiled his toothless smile, surrounded by twenty angry patrons, his confidence was sound.

  “Maybe I will take that box o’ junk for the tab, but ye’ will still have to wash me mugs cuz’ it is about worthless. Hand it over then.”

  “That what this about then, is it?”

  “Naye, its about not wantin ye in here, on account o’ drinkin on no coin. I see five mug washers here, otherwise. Now, hand it over, Thalanaxe.”

  “Naye. It be ours.”

  Kimmarik ignored the laughter at another jest aimed toward his family and walked up to old Forikk Silvunak, smiling with each step. The laughter died off early, all the dwarves could sense anger now brewing in the quiet grinning dwarf.

  “Forikk, did ye’ throw a chair at me father?”

  “Aye!” Forrik stared right down at Kimmarik. “Damn straight and narrow then!”

  “And it hit me son, in the head? Then did ye’ throw a mug me father, right at his face?”

  “Aye, sure did, you was here! Tried to shut his stupid ars up. What ye’ think ye’ gonna do---“

  Crack!

  Crack!

  Kimmarik lowered his warhammer, passed on from his old father, after two brutal swings to the ribs sent Forrik to the ground. The hammer swung again, this one to the side of Forrik Silvunaks face, and he went down to the stone floor, hard.

  “Crack!”

  “That!”

  “Now ye’ done it Thalanaxe! Take this load o’ shart out o’ me pub and send for the guard! Not before we rough em all up a bit ourselves!” Erden Granvang pulled a small hammer off his belt as two dozen dwarves in his tavern pulled weapons and stepped up on Kimmarik.

  “Boys! Time to settle the tab at The Smokin’ Anvil, the hard way!” The old warrior, followed by his two sons, dove into the mob that charged them.

  Geadrik smashed the pommel of his axe into an angry dwarf, then swung his plated fist into the face of another, wild swings, brutal and hard. Tadnek slammed his shield into breaking dwarven noses and heads, his pick was held upside down and clubbing everything in sight with a black beard. Kimmarik whipped the hammer twice, then his elbow three times, then even headbutted another bar patron. The dwarves flew and fell like sacks of squash. Many other patrons just watched, moving away for a bit of safety, but enjoying another fight at the Smokin’ Anvil.

  Azenairk watched his brothers and father pummel twenty dwarves through chairs, over stone tables, and even slammed their heads into the hot anvil centerpiece more than once. He stood, guarding his papi, and watched his heroes in action. His smile hurt his face it was so wide, yet he never blinked, not daring to miss one second, one blow, not one brave strike that his outnumbered family dealt the patrons that had insulted them. They were giants to him, Gods even, three dwarves that no one could match. Within a minute or three, it was all but over.

  “Ye’ had better yield, or it will be the Smokin’ Granvang in a moment!” Kimmarik held the bleeding face of Erden next to the hot golden anvil, ready to push down should he not give up.

  “I yield, I yield, ye’ blasted wretch!” His eye was an inch from the steaming hot embers that kept the anvil scalding.

  Kimmarik threw Erden Granvang to the ground. He looked about full circle, his boys stood tall with him, over twenty or more dwarves that were all crawling and groaning in pain. Bruised, bleeding, and beaten, they all shuffled on the stone floor away from the Thalanaxe boys and their father.

  “This is gonna cost us more than seven gold coins, eh?!” Kimmarik smiled to his sons, then to his youngest, then he met the eyes of his father.

  “Was there a fight, what did I miss?” Pentrik stood, wobbly, putting a hand on little Zen for support. He handed the rusty box to Azenairk as he gazed at the moaning dwarves on the ground of the pub. He kicked one, then spat into his gray beard.

  “Kimmarik, Kimmarik! Come quick!” Rhosda yelled into the pub, looking to the mess, then back up as if it mattered not. Two of their workers, covered in soot, stood behind her.

  “Sorry hun, it got a bit complicated with papi and all. I uhh, well ye’ see, the boys and I just----“

  “Oh close yer hairy spitbucket and come here, look at this.” Rhosda opened a cloth that one of the miners handed her.

  “What is it mum?” Little Azenairk tried to see, standing on the tips of his toes.

  “Oh by Vundrens holy helmet, where did ye’ get that then?” Kimmarik stared, his boys stood with their mouths agape, and old Pentrik just stumbled past. He took the box back from Zen, patted him on the head, and kept walking in his smiling stupor.

  “The miners found it, tis gold Kimmarik, it---“ Rhosda was cut off.

  “Ye’ got to give it back then, tis a lot, someone will surely be lookin’ for it and---“

  Smack!

  She slapped her husband out of his glare and stare, wiggling his graying beard of black and refocusing his blue eyes to blink.

  “Tis ours fool! It was in our mines, the outer ones! The ones yer father had bought o’er thirty years past now, they be full of gold on the south walls hun. Five veins they done found.” Rhosda Thalanaxe coughed, then held the rough golden ore low. It was pure, shaped like a wedge the size of a melon, solid, enough to make a hundred coins or more.

  “Ye’ serious?”

  “Aye master Thalanaxe, we gonna need more workers then.” One of the miners spoke up.

  “Yer family likely gonna be rich again, but we need more men to fetch all of it. It’s five veins, each one looks to be maybe, say, four to six hundred feet, and that be if they don’t spread or fork off to more.” The other miner added.

  “How many men we, uhh, we talkin’?” Kimmarik was choked up, he could barely speak. “ I mean, how..uhh..how much gold be there then, uhh…is that?”

  “Gimme’ twenty to mine, five to hold guard, and about fifteen more to haul, stack, and keep diggin’ out and down. Should do it.”

  “Ye’ serious?”

  “Aye, he be serious then! Snap out o’ it Kimmarik.” Rhosda put her hand gently on the side of her husbands face this time.

  “Boys, pinch me or somethin’, so I know I not be dreamin’.”

  Two hard slaps into his back and a third low into his thigh did the trick, Kimmarik Thalanaxe was not dreaming.

  “Then, then, we can get our old home back, up topside near the peaks? The fancy noble nice one?”

  “Aye husband.” Rhosda was tearing up.

  “And then, our things, our family things we been sellin’ off, we can get them back too? The old Thalanaxe tapestries and all o’ that?” Kimmarik began to choke up again.

  “Aye father.” Geadrik put his hand on his fathers shoulder.

  “Then, little Azenairk can go and study at the temple then, without w
ashin’ floors n’ shitters? Zen, My little Agrvund?” Kimmarik looked to his youngest, then to his father who had sat down with the rusty box against a tunnel wall, talking to himself and his heirlooms.

  “Aye father, he can.” Tadnek spoke up, putting his arms around his mother and father.

  Gong…Gong…Gong!

  The bells rang three times in the halls of Boraduum, summoning the soldiers to head to the outdoors to the north. They all heard it, fifty thousand dwarves in Boraduum, the army was over five thousand strong and ready for war. They had been ready for days now, waiting for the ogre and giants to cross up into their lands.

  The Thalanaxe family stood still, staring at one another, then the gold, and the bells rang again. No one spoke for untold moments, no one breathed much either.

  “Time to go boys. Ye’ got me armor at the barracks?”

  “Aye father.” Tadnek nodded.

  “Bells tollin’, call me General Thalanaxe, here on out.”

  “Aye, General.” The boys nodded and stiffened up.

  “Don’t be goin’, Kimmarik. Not this time, we don’t be needin to---“ Rhosda put her arm on his shoulder.

  “Honor in thine name, Thalanaxe, it shall n’er falter, for king and country, Rhosda. Not never, whether there be gold or not.” Kimmarik looked to her, looked until she nodded. He had given his word, to King Nalanobek, and he would never break his word.

  “I know it. I know. You promise me ye’ be careful then?”

  “Aye wife, me Rhosda, mark me words with Vundren.”

  Kimmarik hugged his wife, then his youngest, then nodded to his drunken father who was unaware of anything besides the old rusty box and its contents.

  “Can ye’ keep up, old General? I thought ye’ slowed a bit last battle, maybe ye’ should let me lead the second brigade this time?” Geadrik smiled and smacked his father on the back, then rubbed Azenairks head, lastly hugging his mother before they left.

  “Baah, ye’ stay close to me boys, I’ll show ye’ how tis’ done in case ye’ forgot me actions at the last two battles. Them giants and ogre fear the name Thalanaxe out there, mostly cuz’ o’ me ye’ know.” Kimmarik smiled, turned with his two oldest, and walked toward the north tunnels, ready for war once more. Hundreds of dwarves falling in beside them as the bells continued to toll in Boraduum.