Grumbling his acknowledgement, Broyleson shouldered past Joshurn and put the pouch into Yurec’s hand before stomping out of the room, sending an unfortunate chair in his path flying into the nearest wall for good measure. Kristoff moved to help Joshurn up from the floor, but the younger dwarf shrugged out of it, staring bitterly after Broyleson.
Gauging the stone’s weight in his hand, Yurec waited for the other two to shuffle out before taking one last look around at his brother’s chambers and following silently after them.
*** * *
Present
A voice boomed down at the dwarfs from the structure above, reverberating from the rocks, the magma, and even the ashy sand itself. “SEEK NOT WAR HERE, BROTHERS.”
The voice drifted off crazily, the constant heat maddening enough to convince them it had only existed in their minds; the looks passed between the companions, however, proved it must have at least been a delusion they’d experienced together.
Fires burst into life far above, shooting down from the dripping spires of the ashen keep in the ceiling toward the roiling lava below. An immediate sense of dislocation overwhelmed the Ironguard as they stood upon the scorched shoreline, their minds struggling to reconcile the vision of fire burning down instead of up in this deep and twisted world. As the madness wormed deeper, it became difficult not to envision the myriad of stalactites above as burnt mountain ranges. The peaks of those hanging mountains stabbed like sharpened spears against an inverted skyline, with the valleys between reveling in their shadowed existence below a writhing magma sky, brewing its storms of ash and soot. Their stomachs churned as they wrestled with the imbalance of such a thing.
The feeling only worsened when the former Lord Durok himself, clad in blackened steel lined with immaculate golden inlay from head to toe, stomped purposefully from within the now obvious inverted citadel as though the ceiling above were the ground and they were the ones upon the ceiling, that they were in fact the unnatural occurrence in that vivid hellscape.
“Seek not war,” he repeated. “We’ve naught to fight about. What kind of host would that make me?” Durok’s voice had taken on a sweeter tone, calm even, and though he spoke at a regular volume, none on the beach struggled to his words. His tone brought a grimace to Yurec’s face, though, his sibling recognizing the familiar and friendly mannerisms from the many years spent in his company. It was not a grimace at his deceit, however; it was a grimace born from knowing Durok to be completely sincere in his words.
Partially obscured by the wavering heat, the dwarfs below watched silently as two glistening protrusions from the ceiling came to life on either side of the abyssal dwarf and unfurled into ghastly mockeries of life, only with shiny obsidian wings protruding from their backs. The living gargoyles grasped hold of Durok’s still-extended arms, and the trio released their hold from the inverted world above to glide toward Yurec and his Ironguard.
The gargoyles landed without so much as a whisper, the glossy black stone of their bodies shifting unnervingly to the observers’ eyes; that such dense stone could move with life seemed impossible. Durok, in sharp contrast, landed as though the weight of the world bore down upon his shoulders, as though the ground had sought his reconnection and pulled at him greedily. His impact sent tremors through the shins of the Ironguard, and the ground cratered around him in a wide circle; the lava at the shore behind him rippled outward before slinking back toward the beach.
Looking at the fallen Joshurn, now unrecognizable with the blood pooled where his face had been moments before, Durok only made a chiding ‘tsk, tsk’ sound. “Is this how you would have me treat guests to the new family keep, little brother? Are you no longer teaching your men respect?”
The Ironguard stood with their weapons before them, sweat pouring from their faces, and watched as the broad abyssal dwarf walked calmly to the body of their fallen comrade without budging. The gargoyles were still, crouched at the lava’s edge. “Pity, really. Perhaps he should have crafted a better helm? Shameful how poor the metalwork of the so-called ‘Free Dwarfs’ has become.” Several of the Ironguard bit back sour retorts at the slight against their craftsmanship. Durok reached down, grasped Joshurn’s armor at the neck, and tossed him the dozen paces through the air into the burning tide at his back without so much as a grunt of effort. The heavy corpse sank quickly, rivulets of steam popping free to rise with a hiss as it boiled within its encasing armor.
“Durok! You know the dishonor you would show his fami-” Yurec began, but he was cut off by his imposing abyssal counterpart, a sudden and unnerving fury in his words.
“Do not, brother! Do not mean to tell me of honor,” Durok emphasized each word with sharp jabs at the air, “when you have entered my home and mean for war!” Durok’s eyes had begun to burn the same angry red as Andreu’s had before, and the Ironguard collectively crouched in preparation for the strike sure to come.
“It was you that abandoned our house… You’ve known since that day we would come for you. It is our way.” Yurec’s voice was strong but filled with the pain only born from surviving absolute betrayal. “You do not stand with us, brother.” Yurec gestured stiffly in his mechanical armor at the blackclad dwarf. “You stand against us; against the whole clan. You’ve become a slave to the Abyss, and I’ll see you free from it!” The armorclad dwarf stood stalwartly, the joints in his Steel Juggernaut armor clicking as he positioned himself for violence.
Durok’s head nodded slowly before he shared a look with Andreu. The quiet berserker walked to his side and began to unbuckle the armor plates on the Abyssal Lord’s back. “Standing here, in this place, you see it, don’t you? You must have felt it by now, at least.” The abyssal dwarf’s rage was gone again, his tone unexpectedly mantic. “This is our true realm, Yurec. We are made for it, grown and forged in Ariagful’s magnificent light to reign in this land and receive her blessings.” Andreu tossed Durok’s heavy pauldrons to the sand at their side, their considerable weight loosing a slight thud as they struck the ground. “Our kin have spent too many years with the softskins from above, adopted too many of their ways. We dwarves have become too focused on the steel without,” Durok waved dismissively at Yurec’s impressive armor while himself removing his gauntlets. “While we’ve forgotten the steel within.” He tapped his fist against his chest for emphasis.
It was clear Durok’s impassioned speech was beginning to affect several of the Ironguard, their resolve diminishing as they found themselves wondering at the Abyssal Lord’s words.
Andreu stepped back as Durok pulled his own black mail shirt clear, his pale skin immediately beginning to redden from the extreme heat. Stripped down only to coal grey slacks and heavy dragonhide boots, he continued, “It is you who are the slave, Yurec. Your traditions, your orders, all of it! There is no power there, no freedom. You’re just the council’s pawn. Have you never wondered why they have developed such an interest in the strength we can gain from the depths of the world?”
Durok began to walk slowly, never taking his eyes from Yurec, his pacing somehow both casual and anxious as it followed the edge of the magma’s tide. “Our people are those born for something greater than the other races of this world; it is why we survive where they cannot.” He gestured grandly, spinning in place. “Just look at our realm, brother! Look, all of you! We are ALL kings. It is our place to rule over the weak humans and fancied elves, the beasts of the forests, even the fishmen in their realms of water, and it is their place to bow to us. Your precious council knows the truth of it, too… but they would rather keep that power for themselves alone.”
Yurec lost all pretense of composure, his voice raised to a shout. “That’s ridiculous! The clan is strong because of our unity, each of us a cog in the great machine. You speak with madness, and would see us fall into a state of chaos the likes of which we should never recover. The Abyss whispers only madness in your ears.” The mechanisms in his gauntlets squealed with strain, the warrior gripping his hammer with such force as would
warp a lesser-made weapon.
Durok laughed, but there was a sadness in it. “Madness? I would see us serve a unified purpose. The purpose. Together. It is not too late for you, brother; nor for any of you.” Durok included the nervous warriors at Yurec’s back with a sweep of his hand, their minds reeling from the effects of the cavern and from Durok’s words. “We are the masters of the very firmament upon which all others tread. The abyssals are our only kin here, in the heart of the world. The fire to our steel.” Without warning, his countenance again turned dark, as though blackened with soot, and his eyes blazed like the molten lake behind him. “But I can see now what a fool you’ve become under the tutelage of the council. They nearly blinded me to the truth, too. But I’ll show ye the light of the Black Flame of Ariagful… and you’ll see as clearly as I do!”
With a rocketing burst of speed, the shirtless abyssal dwarf shot forward into his brother as though from a cannon. His bare fist rang loudly as it struck Yurec’s breastplate like a hammer on an anvil, slamming his heavily armored sibling off his feet to stumble back several paces before he was caught – but only just barely - by his Ironguard companions. Durok smirked as he whispered, “Some lessons are harder than others, of course.”
Loosing a bestial yell filled with years of bottled fury, Yurec’s armored form came to life. Propelling himself forward with impressive power provided to him by his suit, he swung his hammer down into the space Durok had occupied a split-second before with enough force to bury his hammer in the rocky ground as debris sprayed outward like an explosion. His peripheral vision blocked by his helmet, Yurec never saw Durok’s second blow coming. The wind rushed from Yurec’s lungs as his brother’s fist made contact just below the ribs and crumpled the thick steel plate. A burst of impossibly black light flashed when the strike connected, and Yurec was propelled up and away before crashing into the scorched ground, his hammer left behind and still sticking from the sand.
“You’ve come all this way to fight me, haven’t you?” Durok rolled his shoulders backward, and his eyes again shone a bright red-orange. “So fight me, whelp! You’ve always been nothing more than a servant to the council. Learning of my defection must have been the best day of your miserable life.”
Yurec scrambled to his feet, unsettled at how powerful Durok had become in such a short amount of time. His previous dealings with iron-casters had always been challenging, but he had never before faced such raw power directed internally as to amplify the iron-caster’s own strength; the typical student of the Abyss preferred to express his or her power on an unwitting subject and then point them toward Yurec’s Traduciators, instead.
Durok continued, his voice suddenly revealing the duality of his new power as another voice chorused with his own, “I am indeed different, little brother. All those you’ve hunted before were fools, playing like children with powers beyond their comprehension. Allow me to show you the true strength of our people!”
Yurec’s face betrayed the shock he felt, but his stout Steel Juggernaut frame would not allow any more of his fear to telegraph through. In that moment, he knew that he had likely brought his Traduciators on their last hunt of the fallen, his only regret in that moment that he would never be able to warn anyone, even the overbearing and secretive council, of the powers they would soon face.
Moving in unison, the unnatural sounds of their bodies alerting the Ironguard with just enough time to raise their shields, the gargoyles launched themselves into the armored dwarfs. Andreu stood apart, squinting his eyes at the steep cliffside some distance away, seemingly unconcerned with the violence.
Durok again shot forward at Yurec with incredible speed, ever the aggressor, this time Yurec only just managing to bring an armored gauntlet up to repel the first attack before falling back under the iron-caster’s rapid-fire punches. The Steel Juggernaut armor was some of the most powerful kit to be found within the realm of the collective Free Dwarfs, though, absorbing the worst of Durok’s assault. Yurec could only hope to survive long enough for Durok to burn through his energy reserves, and leave him unable to pursue any surviving Ironguard. Rallying his strength, Yurec loosed a single powerful blow, his amplified strength sending Durok sailing through the air toward the lava’s edge.
Durok snapped to his feet in an instant, his eyes still glowing with the red light Yurec had seen before, only brighter. Much brighter, in fact. Durok’s muscles seemed to swell with yet more strength, the veins bulging sharply as his skin stretched to accommodate, his fists clenched.
Yurec spat blood and loosed a sharp laugh. “You’ll kill me, true. But know in the days to come that it was me that freed your slaves, me that brought your ruin! Haha!”
Durok’s brow creased in confusion, but before he could speak, Andreu’s voice cut through the chaos. “Lord Durok… it would seem our stables have indeed been emptied.”
Kristoff smashed the obsidian skull of the final gargoyle with his axe, the glassy chunks blending seamlessly with the sand at their feet. Breathing hard, he became aware of the immediate silence from his comrades, and looked around at them curiously before following their gaze.
The steep cliffside wall stretching away to the horizon writhed with movement, the bodies of hundreds of orcs scrambling across it, resembling nothing so much as the side of a disturbed insect hive. Many were headed away, which the dwarfs knew instinctually to be south, but several dozen were making their way rapidly toward the conflict at the lava’s edge.
Durok’s voice escaped as little more than a whisper. “…What have you done?”
“While you focused on me through that stone of yours we kept with us as we traveled, another unit made for your slave pens,” Yurec countered triumphantly. “You’re stronger than me, sure. But you can’t take on the likes of the Rhyn Dufaris without your army.”
“You IDIOT!” Durok shouted. “Have you truly paid so little heed to the world around you while hunting the servants of the Abyss? The world has changed while you chased me, little brother. Our former clan has already begun evacuating and heading south to seek the aid of the fat King Golloch. The armies of Tragar are pressing into the Halpi Mountains even now as we stand here and spat like children.”
Several of the Ironguard shifted uneasily, uncertain whether to believe the words Durok spoke. Now it was Yurec that appeared unsettled and confused.
“This bunch will push south and grow stronger, maybe, but more than likely they’ll be picked up and their number added to the slaver’s ranks among the gilded horde of Tragar itself. What you’ve done to weaken me has only made it worse for your precious council. Do you even understand what you’ve unleashed here? It’s no wonder Ariagful chose me instead of one as shortsighted as you!” Durok’s bulging form moved to place himself between the confused Ironguard and the approaching orcs, the lone berserker joining him. “If you want any chance at surviving the day, we’d best make friendly-like real quick.”
The orcs were coming toward them at a run, their fangs bared, the beasts seemingly unaffected by the heat against their naked flesh. Even a handful of orcs would have been a challenge, but in such numbers it would be a slaughter.
Their decision made, the Ironguard stepped forward next to Durok and the berserker, with Broyleson and Kristoff at the lead. Yurec felt the years of confusion reawaken within him, the many times where Durok had seemed so right and so clear headed in his arguments for pursuing the powers sure to be found at depths unexplored, at the notion that the dwarfs could only grow in power the closer they came to Mantica’s core. The notion that to capture and use the ever-present orcs as weapons, in the manner of their abyssal cousins, would simply be fighting fire with fire. But always, always the council had rebuffed his brother and sent him away with shame. Had cast away his ideas as blasphemous, as tantamount betrayal… but had it not also inspired the council’s further investigations, and even their creation of the Traduciators? They had claimed the creation of such a group, a militant faction fulfilling clandestine missions to track and h
unt those dwarfs whom had fallen to the sway of the Abyss, was kept secret only to insure it could operate independently. Yurec was no longer certain that had been their intentions at all.
Seeming to read his thoughts, Durok stated, “There is more than one god of the Abyss, after all, little brother.”
But before he could internalize any more, the haze lifted, and the orcs were upon them all at once. Fighting tooth and claw, the press of bodies tore into the Ironguard, the tangle of limbs ripping the life from the valiant Kristoff as Broyleson screamed his rage at his side, beheading the orc which slayed his companion before shifting to the next in line. The screams of the dying filled the air from both sides. Andreu vaulted past his kin into the midst of the green horde, his countenance again that of rage incarnate, his movements making the orcs look slow and dull in comparison.
Durok howled, and a burst of light blinded those few surviving orcs closest to the iron-caster as a bolt of lightning shot forth from his blackened hand to strike through a line of the beasts, the sour smell of cooked orcflesh filling the air. Yurec regained his composure, the flash reawakening his brain, and he hurriedly collected his hammer from its impact crater, smoothly transitioning the motion into a wild swing and intercepting a humongous orc and crumpling its chest inward just before it connected with Durok. The iron-caster immediately returned the favor, his thick arm sweeping into another orc intent on Yurec and batting it away, its neck broken. Awarded several seconds of respite before the next wave crashed against them, Durok saw his opening.
“Keep ‘em off me for a moment, brother!” he shouted, and with a nod of confirmation, the iron-caster crouched and placed his naked palms against the sand, where they began to glow as brightly as the sea of lava at their backs. Yurec took up a defensive position in front of his brother without a second thought, his confusion and uncertainty swept away with the clarity of battle, facing the grotesque horde bearing down upon them.
Tales of Mantica Page 10