by A. Giannetti
Cursing the brave, impetuous nature of his companions, Elerian shouted, “Run, you fools,” at Ascilius and Tonare, who had both stopped before the ridge of stone at the edge of the clearing, seemingly unable to comprehend that they were still alive.
Elerian’s shout broke their paralysis, and they bolted across the meadow, toward the trail on their right. Elerian was already well across the clearing by now. Even though he was running for his life, he felt compelled to admire the length and breadth of Ascilius’s strides as the Dwarf bounded lightly over the ground, drawing on that reserve of strength he seemed to save for especially dangerous situations.
“He will beat me and Tonare both to the trail,” thought Elerian dryly to himself as Ascilius edged past him on his left.
Once on the trail, the three companions ran for their lives. Behind them, they felt an explosion of heat and heard the roar of flames as Eboria consumed everything in and around the clearing with her fiery breath. Trees and brush burst into flame, consumed by the red mage fire spouted by the dragon. Confused by the pain from her wound and half-blinded by the blood pouring into her right eye, Eboria was burning everything in sight in hopes of roasting Elerian and his companions in the flames.
With red mage fire licking at their heels, the three companions sprinted the rest of the way across the ridge, stopping short in front of another wall of blank rock. Behind them, Eboria spread her leathery wings and leaped into the air, hoping to gain a better view of the ridge top, which was now blanketed with gray smoke and scarlet flame.
Ascilius spoke a word of command, and another small, hidden door opened inward. The three companions quickly jostled their way through the small opening, the door swinging shut behind them. Barely a moment later, there was a tremendous blow against the door that seemed to shake the mountain around them. Then, the air grew hot and stifling as Eboria directed her inner fires against the entranceway, heating up the passageway in which the three companions found themselves.
“Run or she will bake us alive!” shouted Ascilius as he kindled a mage light. Following his own command, he sprinted down the tunnel, followed by Elerian and Tonare. Soon, the heat around them grew less. They heard a series of heavy measured blows and then silence.
“She has sealed the door,” said Ascilius to Elerian as he slowed to a walk.
“Hold up a moment,” replied Elerian. He paused to remove the string from his bow, returning it to its case while Ascilius waited for him.
“How did you come to have your bow in hand instead of your sword?” asked the Dwarf.
“I had a feeling that it should be in my hand when we left the tunnel,” said Elerian.
“You did well to follow your premonition,” said Ascilius approvingly. “That arrow you shot at Eboria saved our lives.”
“Had the arrow hit her properly, she might now be lying dead on the mountainside instead of flying around trying to roast us,” replied Elerian, an edge of annoyance in his voice. “What did you mean be running at her that way and spoiling my aim? She would have snapped you up like a tasty tidbit if my arrow had missed.”
“I was only trying to save your life, and this is the thanks I get,” replied Ascilius crossly. Turning away from Elerian, he stamped off down the tunnel.
“It passes my understanding how the Dwarf race has managed to survive all this time if they are all like Ascilius,” said Elerian to Tonare.
“Now you know why they mostly stay in their cities,” replied Tonare with a cheerful gleam in his little eyes. It struck Elerian then that the dentire’s mood had improved considerably since he had choked the life out of the black dragon.
“He is as strange and fierce as his masters,” thought Elerian to himself as resumed following Ascilius.
The tunnel they were following ran straight before them with no slope at all, eventually ending before another blank wall.
“What is this passion that Dwarves have for hiding doors?” Elerian asked Ascilius. “The inner door, at least, could have been left visible.”
“Hidden doors are the best and craftiest expression of out art,” replied Ascilius smugly. “No other race does them as well,” he said, trying to goad Elerian into an argument.
“I wonder how many doors you Dwarves have made and then lost?” asked Elerian dryly. He smiled in triumph when Ascilius suddenly coughed as if clearing his throat.
“There is a door here which opens into a guard room,” replied the Dwarf, conveniently forgetting to answer Elerian’s question. “We will be safe in a moment.”
THE CASTELLA
When Ascilius commanded the hidden door in front of him to open, Elerian heard a lock click open as a door, outlined by a thin thread of silver, appeared before Ascilius. At a light push from the Dwarf’s left hand, the door silently swung open to reveal a large, square chamber. Iron brackets holding mage lights hung from a high ceiling, illuminating the room with a soft yellow light. Sitting unmoving on wooden benches around a long wooden table in the middle of the room were a dozen Dwarves dressed in hooded tunics, all of them wearing the same startled look on their faces. Elerian could not help but notice that they all had a gaunt, bony look about them, and that their dark eyes had retreated deep under their bushy brows.
When Ascilius stepped into the room, the momentary paralysis that had seized the Dwarves abruptly vanished. Leaping to their feet in unison, they sent their benches crashing backwards onto the floor. The air was suddenly filled with cries of alarm and warning as some drew their daggers while others ran for the weapons stacked in racks up against the walls of the guardroom.
“Hold!” shouted Ascilius, his deep voice drowning out the uproar. “Put up your weapons. We are friends not enemies. Herias, do you not recognize your own uncle?” Ascilius asked a Dwarf at the forefront of the group.
The confusion in the room died down while the Dwarf named Herias stared at Ascilius for long moments with cold, dark eyes that had a strange mesmerizing quality about them that put Elerian in mind of Eboria and her hypnotic gaze. Thick black hair, bushy black eyebrows, and a black beard that hung almost to his waist accentuated the paleness of his face. He seemed soft as milk to Elerian, as if he had never done a day of labor in his life, and unlike the other Dwarves in the room, who wore wool or plain linen, his clothes were cut from soft, brown velvet.
“You do not resemble my uncle as I remember him,” said the Dwarf slowly in a deep, suspicious voice. He turned his cold, skeptical gaze on Elerian. “Your companion is not even of our race. The Dark King has tried many times over the years to gain our confidence by tricks and stratagems. What assurance do we have that you are telling the truth?”
Herias fell silent, waiting for a response from Ascilius. The other Dwarves gathered behind him began muttering among themselves, many of them casting hard, suspicious glances at Elerian.
“Lock them up until we find out who they are!” one of the Dwarves in the back of the group suddenly shouted in a surly voice.
Ascilius and Elerian were suddenly pushed to one side as Tonare thrust his massive body between them. His powerful, stripped form appeared hard as stone beneath the mailed shirt that he wore as he fixed his fierce, little eyes on the group of unfriendly Dwarves. When a deep, bubbling growl rumbled in his chest every one of the Dwarves facing Elerian and Ascilius involuntarily stepped back a pace.
“A dentire in full armor!” exclaimed one of the Dwarves in the back of the group in a dismayed voice. He and the others standing near him began to edge toward the exit, leaving just Herias and a few others to face the three companions.
“I have just opened a secret door, you fools!” roared Ascilius at Herias and the Dwarves standing behind him. “Would an agent of the Goblin King know the passwords to the fortress? Bring me someone who has had enough years to gain some wisdom!”
As he spoke, Ascilius seemed to grow in stature, and his eyes flashed like lightening. When he raised the shield on his left arm, the crown and hammer worked on its front in argentum began to shine wit
h a white light.
“The royal sign!” whispered someone in the back of the room before hurrying out of the guardroom. The remaining Dwarves continued to regard Elerian and Ascilius with suspicion, but it was now tempered with uncertainty. A standoff ensued for none of them appeared to have any great desire to approach any closer to Tonare.
Ignoring them all, Ascilius turned around to close and lock the open door behind him. Elerian continued to stand behind Tonare. He looked tall and resolute to the Dwarves in the room, and his bright gray eyes looked as fearless as those of the fierce dentire standing by his right side.
When Ascilius turned around to face the room full of Dwarves again, one silent, awkward moment after another passed until the Dwarf who had left the room returned with a white haired elder dressed in a pale blue hooded tunic. The older Dwarf ignored Tonare, fearlessly approaching Ascilius with a firm step. His sharp black eyes closely examined Ascilius's face from under bushy, snow- white eyebrows.
“Hirrus,” said Ascilius, “surely you recognize me?”
The white haired Dwarf hesitated, obviously unsure of Ascilius’s identity.
“If you are indeed Ascilius, you are greatly changed in appearance,” he said in a hesitant voice. “What was the first weapon you forged during your apprenticeship with me and what did you name it?”
“It was a war hammer,” said Ascilius without hesitation. “I named it Fulmen, the thunderbolt. It was a fair hammer, but I have brought a better one with the same name.”
Ascilius lifted the hammer in his right hand above his head. The argentum inlaid in the bright steel shone as if lit from within. In that moment, the light in Ascilius’s dark eyes was scarcely less bright. The white haired Dwarf bowed his head, satisfied at last. He turned to the Dwarves gathered behind him and spoke.
“This is truly Ascilius returned to us once more,” he said in a firm voice. “No counterfeit of the Dark King could command the hammer in his hand.” Turning back to face Ascilius, he said, “I heard the great horn of the vigilarum sound ten days ago. Unbidden, a sudden thought entered my mind that you had returned. Welcome home my Lord Ascilius. Would that you had returned in happier times,” he continued in a sad voice.
Turning to Elerian, Ascilius said, “This is Hirrus, my forge master of old. I was his apprentice for many a year. Are my father, mother, or brother here in the castella?” Ascilius asked Hirrus, his voice at once full of hope and fear.
A grim look appeared on Hirrus’s face.
“Your brother fell before Eboria, defending the great hall by the front gates. We do not know what happened to your parents, Ascilius. They never came to the castella.”
“They are dead then,” said Ascilius in a bleak voice. “There was no one left alive in Ennodius except this dentire. He told me that after my parents returned to the fourth level of the city to search for survivors, he never saw them again.”
“That sounds just like your parents,” replied Hirrus. “After Eboria entered the city, they worked tirelessly with Corbulo, the captain of your father’s personal guard, to help others escape, either through the stables or through the hidden doors on the upper slopes of the mountain. If this had been an invasion like those we suffered in the past, it would not have been so bad, but Eboria’s dragonets were our downfall. After Eboria destroyed the outer gates, they raced to the other levels of the city through the smaller ramps, attacking from behind those who were trying to close the doors to the central ramp. One after another, Eboria destroyed the doors to the central ramp, leaving the city open to her depredations and those of her offspring. She patrolled the main passageways and plundered the outer rooms while the smaller dragons entered the smaller tunnels and the rooms that were out of her reach. No door was able to keep them out for long, and no one was able to slay them for their scales rendered the best of our weapons harmless. Your father ordered the doors to the smaller ramps sealed in an attempt to contain them, but in the end, there was nothing left for us to do except flee the city, taking as many wagons and ponies with us as we were able. After the last Dwarf entered the castella, we sealed the doors to the stables. We have remained trapped here ever since.”
“Who was on duty in the vigilarum when the dragon approached?” asked Ascilius quietly, pitching his voice low so that it would not carry to his nephew or the other Dwarves. “It seems strange that Eboria was able to approach the gates of the city without an alarm being sounded.”
“Herias, your nephew, kept the last watch,” replied Hirrus, also keeping his voice low. “He told us later that Eboria approached out of the sun and attacked the vigilarum before he could sound the alarm. She drove him off the peak and then attacked the gates before he could warn anyone.”
Elerian at once noted the lack of expression on Ascilius's face as Hirrus fell silent.
“Something is not right here,” he thought to himself as he threw a sidelong look at Herias who looked as if he was straining to hear what was being said. Elerian thought his face had a shuttered look, as if he wished to conceal his thoughts. “The vigilarum showed no sign of any attack when Ascilius and I visited it,” thought Elerian to himself. “At least a part of the tale Herias told was untrue. What else is he hiding, I wonder. He seems none too happy to see Ascilius again.”
When Hirrus began to speak again, Elerian turned his attention back to the old Dwarf.
“You are the king now, Ascilius,” said Hirrus in a guarded voice, “but I warn you there may be trouble. Many of your family’s older supporters will have doubts about you because of your history. The younger Dwarves do not know you at all.”
“My brother was ever the favorite of the people,” said Ascilius without any trace of bitterness in his voice.
“The people cannot be blamed for that,” said Hirrus quietly but sternly. “You were often away from the city on trading expeditions. Then, you spent a number of years in Calenus. Your brother, on the other hand, remained home and was involved in the daily affairs of the city. It is not to be wondered that the people loved and respected him.”
Elerian thought he detected a hint of reproof in the old Dwarf's voice. He had to restrain himself to keep from speaking in Ascilius's defense.
“Who leads in my father’s place?” asked Ascilius, ignoring Hirrus's veiled criticism.
“No one leader has stepped forth,” replied Hirrus. “Many of the older Dwarves follow Durio, for he was a close friend of your father and a great captain of war before his son took over his duties. During the evacuation of Ennodius, he stood and fought when others threw down their weapons and ran away in terror of the dragon. No one doubts his bravery or wisdom, but he is very old. Some of the younger Dwarves feel more comfortable following your nephew Herias. He is not much of a warrior, but he is accounted uncommonly wise.”
“What happened after the gates to the castella were sealed?” asked Ascilius.
“At first there was great confusion,” replied Hirrus. “Many were injured and families were separated. As soon as order was restored, we made plans to escape to Galenus over the hidden road as soon as all the injured could travel. By the time we were ready to start, however, it was too late. Galenus is closed to us now,” continued Hirrus grimly, “for the Goblins have besieged the city. They came up the road from Calenus not long after the dragon laid waste to Ennodius. They gave Ennodius a wide berth, traveling north over the mountains to the west and laying siege to Galenus instead.”
“That I knew already,” said Ascilius. “Elerian saw their army from the vigilarum at the top of Geminus.”
A startled look passed over the old Dwarf's face.
“He has the eyesight of an eagle or one of the Elves then,” said Hirrus wonderingly. For the first time, he looked closely at Elerian with his wise old eyes. “I took you for a Tarsi, but perhaps I am mistaken,” he said softly so that his voice would not carry to the Dwarves behind him. “Welcome to our fortress Elerian,” he said more loudly. “I would hear your story when you have time to tell it.”
“Thank you for the welcome,” replied Elerian. “We will talk when there is time for conversation.”
“The dragon now patrols the valley south of Galenus,” continued Hirrus, turning back to Ascilius, “but she has not menaced the Goblins. We have sent out scouts, and the few that returned reported that the Goblins have already taken the outer fortress of the city. Their army is now camped in front of the main gates, and they control all the surrounding countryside.”
“How long have you been penned up here in the castella?” asked Ascilius.
“Almost eight months,” replied Hirrus sadly. “We have plenty of water, but not much food left, for we fled from Ennodius with only the clothes on our backs and whatever food we could carry with us. At first we were able to send out small foraging parties, but after Eboria set fire to all the land between here and Galenus, there was little food to be found. Even the game in the surrounding forests has fled.”
“How low are the food stocks?” asked Ascilius.
“Very low,” replied Hirrus. “When the last of the feed is gone, we will eat the ponies. After that we will starve.”
Ascilius knew at once that the situation was grim indeed, if there was talk of eating the ponies. The sturdy, little beasts the Dwarves used to pull their wagons were more like family pets than beasts of burden.
“This is a puzzle that will require some thought,” said Ascilius. Ignoring the other Dwarves in the room, he took a seat at the rough table, motioning Elerian to sit next to him. Tonare lay down at their feet under the table.