by Sam Ferguson
Sylus nodded and moved past him to break off one of the pink crystals jutting out from the column. The addorite felt warm to the touch. He turned and one of the miners held a large lantern up for the king. Sylus put the addorite close to the light and smiled. “Yes, this is it. A good find.”
“We have mined forty pounds of the crystal just today,” Didger said as he moved into the chamber and brushed his dusty hands on his stained, brown coveralls.
“Good,” Sylus said. “Tu’luh wants us to send one hundred pounds to Valtuu Temple.”
“Ah, we have much more than that, I assure you. You had better ask him where it all goes. Or, see if he would let us sell some of it.”
Sylus shook his head. “Tu’luh was explicit. None of it goes to market. He said the addorite can be toxic to humans and elves if not handled properly.”
Didger sighed and shrugged. “As you wish.”
Sylus turned and tossed the bit of crystal into an open basket and then moved in to inspect the rest of the chamber. In his estimation, there was easily half a ton of addorite, and that was just what he could see. If any more of it was hidden within the walls, then there would be a great payload for Tu’luh to take to Valtuu Temple.
“Any more attacks?” Sylus asked Didger as he slid a hand along the western wall of the rounded chamber.
Didger nodded. “We had one a couple days ago. More of those cursed lurkers. They are swift and deadly buggers, but we put them down.”
“Not without loss on our side,” the stout officer put in as he approached. “Two cavedogs and three soldiers. One miner was stabbed in the shoulder by one of the lurkers, but he should pull through after some time in the hospital.”
Sylus nodded. He hated lurkers. Over the last several years since the first attack there had been several encounters. It was as if the addorite attracted them. The king studied this chamber once more, scanning the walls and ceiling for any sign of chutes or lava tubes that would let a lurker into the area.
“Don’t worry, my king,” Didger said. “When we found this section, we made sure there was no other way in. No lurker is getting in here except through the main tunnel, and we have sealed off all other known tubes in the area.”
“Triple the guard,” Sylus told the officer. “This is the most addorite we have seen. If we are right about the lurkers being attracted to the crystal, then I would expect them to try and come for it.”
The officer nodded dutifully and turned to send a runner up for reinforcements.
“Now would be a good time to lay down some tracks,” Didger suggested. “We could run carts up the tunnels.”
Sylus shook his head. “From what I have seen, the cavedogs can sense when lurkers are in nearby tunnels. A system of tracks would take up most of the tunnel’s width, and make it harder for the cavedogs to freely move. Let’s stick with handcarts. Alternatively, we can bring more cavedogs down and those that aren’t used to guard the mines can run bags of addorite up and down the shafts. They can move it faster than handcarts would in any case.”
“As you say,” Didger said with a respectful nod.
Sylus remained in the chamber for twenty more minutes, watching the miners work and ensuring that there was not going to be an attack. Should any more lurkers show themselves, he wanted to be there to personally send them to Hammenfein. His hands went down and slid over the handles of his twin knives. Despite his uneasiness, the workers continued to chip away at the stone with a rhythmic ting-ting-ting. Nothing attacked them. Even the cavedogs seemed at ease, most of them lying lazily on the stone floor and taking the opportunity to snooze.
So why couldn’t he shake the uneasiness rising in his stomach like a churning knot of bile?
Sylus decided he would stay longer than originally planned. He had spent too much time on the battlefield to distrust his gut. He began to pace around the chamber. Some of the other dwarves glanced uneasily at him as he walked by. It was obvious that they could sense his wariness.
Good. It will keep them on edge in case I am right.
Sylus inspected the walls, placing a hand on the hard surface every few steps and feeling for… feeling for what? Did he expect the rock to tell him of impending danger? No, that wasn’t it. He was looking for something. Perhaps there was a section of the wall that was thin. Maybe the miners would break through to another chamber, and there they would find lurkers.
Yet, every place he inspected the wall, the vibrations from the ceaseless pickaxes striking the stone was faint, hardly perceptible at all. It was exactly what he would expect of a solid area.
Sylus left the walls and turned to the columns. For a moment he wondered if one of them might be hollow, but he dismissed the thought as quickly as it came. These columns had been formed by stalactites and stalagmites reaching each other over centuries and forming a hard, strong bond. Besides, even if the centers had been hollowed out, they were far too small to conceal lurkers. Any dwarf could almost hug around the largest of the columns in this chamber. To think they could house anything that would give the soldiers or cavedogs any amount of trouble was laughable.
Eventually he eased his mind. Perhaps it was only the knowledge of the threat a lurker could pose rather than an actual imminent threat that had him worried. Many dwarves had lost their lives over the last several years in the mines, but it still wasn’t a number nearly as high as those killed in battle beyond the mountain. Defending the humans was far more dangerous to the dwarf folk than mining in the depths below their mountain. Nevertheless, there was something about the dangers in the depths that kept Sylus awake at night. Perhaps it was the fact that lurkers were still so foreign and strange to him. They had never been able to take one alive, and those that died had either been burned to ash, ripped apart and consumed by cavedogs, or dragged away by surviving lurkers.
It made it nearly impossible to create a worthwhile entry in any bestiary. They had enough eye-witnesses to make rough sketches, but when it came to detailing precise information that would be useful, such as the length of their claws, what their scales were made of, or an anatomical description that could better point out weaknesses, there was nothing. They could only guess based upon haphazard battles, and that fact drove Sylus mad.
When he fought an orc, he understood his enemy. He knew that he faced a large humanoid with great strength, but a foe that ultimately resembled any other humanoid in aspects of anatomy. They had the same weaknesses. They had the same types of skills. They had a similar method of battlefield strategy. They even had the same blood.
Lurkers didn’t have blood.
They had some sort of goo inside them that hissed and bubbled like acid before evaporating upon contact with the air around them. They had no discernable strategy, even when they attacked in packs. Their anatomy was a mystery as well. Sylus, as well as others who had fought them, guessed they were similar to roaches or other insects. Based upon this, they tried to strike organs that they would expect a large roach to have. More often than not, those efforts proved fruitless. The dwarves had found no organs. There was no spot on the lurker’s body where a single stab would result in death. Severing the head worked, but even when the dwarves had managed to take a lurker’s head, the beast would continue to run around and attack for minutes, lashing out with its terrible claws just as dangerously as before.
To make it worse, the claws themselves seemed to be formed by some unknown material that was capable of piercing most armors worn by the dwarves. Only mithril could stop the tip of the lurker’s claw, and even then the force of the blow itself was still dangerous.
Sylus stroked his beard and leaned against the wall near the opening. He knew his restlessness must stem from his lack of understanding his foe. The unknown threat was always more dangerous than the known and understood enemy. Sylus sighed and watched as the dwarves continued their work.
Soon the baskets were heaping with piles of addorite and the surface of the chamber was looking more and more bare by the minute. Within another hou
r the dwarves were hauling the baskets out of the chamber and setting them into handcarts. It appeared that Sylus’ concern had been in vain.
A miner on the opposite side of the chamber gave a mighty chop with his pickaxe and a hunk of stone fell out of the wall that was larger than he was. The miner jumped out of the way as the boulder rolled over to reveal that there were several addorite crystal growths on the back side.
“Found more,” he called out. He then bent down to inspect the cavity and pointed inside. “A lot more in here too!”
Didger bounded over happily and smacked the miner on the back. “Well done, Hasim.” Didger turned and surveyed the baskets, beaming from ear to ear when he saw that there were none left with enough space for the newly found pocket of addorite. He turned to the king and shrugged with a gaping grin. “As I said, much more than what we needed.”
Sylus nodded and started walking over.
A great crrrack sounded on the other side of the wall. A fissure ripped through the stone and from deep within the mountain poured out a fiery red glow. Didger turned and put a hand up over his eyes.
“What in the name of Volganor is that?”
A thunderous rumbling echoed through the chamber and shook the floor so violently that the dwarves fell to all fours. Crrrrack! BOOM!
An explosion of rock and light erupted into the chamber. Sylus barely caught a glimpse of Didger’s broken body flying limply through the air before a fiery hand reached through the massive hole in the wall and seized the miner by the throat. The hand squeezed and the dwarf’s neck snapped in less than a second.
“To arms!” one of the soldiers cried out. The miners fled to the back of the chamber and waited with their pickaxes in hand as the soldiers rode in upon their cavedogs. A great beast stepped through the opening and roared terribly, emitting a wave of heat so intense that Sylus had to shield himself with both arms. When he could finally look at the invader once more, he realized this was something much more dangerous than a lurker.
The fire demon stepped confidently into the chamber, its twin tails swishing angrily behind it as it walked. In its left hand it held a sword of crude iron, while its right hand wielded a large, spiked mace. Four horns crowned its head, one on either side just above the temple, and two sticking out the front of its forehead that curled up. Its chest was easily four feet across, and however tall it was, it had to stoop over to maneuver under the thirteen-foot-high ceiling.
One sweep of its right hand obliterated a fair number of dwarves and their cavedogs. A few got in close and swiped at the demon’s legs, but it moved so quickly with its sword that it swept the attackers away, killing several of them. It then roared again, issuing fire from its mouth.
“Dismount!” King Sylus shouted over the din of the angry demon. “Let the cavedogs fight on their own.”
The soldiers obeyed immediately, rolling off their mounts as the cavedogs sprang into action quicker now that they didn’t carry any burden upon their backs. The dwarves shifted to using crossbows with mithril bolts, something they had started carrying in response to their battles with the lurkers. A few of them managed to let fly their bolts before the demon let out another wave of fire.
Sylus couldn’t tell if any of the shafts hit their mark. If they did, the demon certainly wasn’t slowed by them. It stomped and crushed cavedogs as it moved in with its mace and sword. Dwarves circled around it, refusing to offer the demon a single direction to focus his attacks.
King Sylus watched the demon for several moments, learning its movements and timing its reactions. Dwarves moved in, jabbing and striking at the demon’s legs. The demon deflected most with its own weapons, but others it countered with its twin tails, snaking out around the dwarves and slapping a few across the chest and another in the head.
The cavedogs darted in and around the demon’s legs, biting and snarling. Even their attacks were having little effect. A few gashes opened on the demon’s legs, but nothing serious enough to bring it down.
Then the unthinkable happened.
The demon ignited its own body and covered itself in a living armor of fire. Three cavedogs had their heads and mouths scorched. A dwarf was encircled in flame and ran away from the fight, screaming in agony.
Sylus couldn’t wait any longer. He took his hammer in hand and sprinted in as soon as the demon turned to the right and exposed his left side to Sylus. The dwarf king moved speedily, and silently. He kept his eye on the prize he wanted. He flipped his hammer over so as to strike with the spike on the back. He moved in, ducking under a wild swing of the demon’s sword that whooshed a couple of feet above Sylus’ head. Then he spun and put every bit of strength he had into his attack.
The spike sailed in, arcing for the front of the demon’s left knee. Neither the flames, nor the patella, could withstand Sylus’ blow. The spike drove in, breaking through the kneecap with a gruesome snap! The demon howled in pain and moved back, but Sylus held his weapon in place, letting the spike linger in the space inside the knee joint.
Another dwarf ran in and leapt up. He too wielded a hammer. As he sailed through the air, he wound up an overhead chop and came in with a savage yell. The hammer connected with Sylus’ hammer, driving the spike through the demon’s leg entirely, and nearly ripping the left leg in half.
The demon shrieked so loudly that all of the cavedogs winced and shied away. Even several of the dwarves had to cover their ears. Then, the demon let out a devastating attack. Fire spewed out from its mouth, bathing nearly a dozen dwarves in flames. The sword came down hard on the left. Sylus was swift enough to dodge it, though he had to leave his hammer stuck in the demon’s knee. Three other dwarves were not as lucky. They were all cut down in the blow. Four more took the brunt of the spiked mace and were squished in a sweeping attack that smashed them into the wall.
Then the demon lost the strength lent to it by its anger, and it fell as it tried to put weight upon the left leg. Sylus bent down and took a spear from a fallen dwarf. He and several others rushed in to finish the battle. The demon raised its sword, and with a flick of its wrist it stabbed two dwarves as they charged. Its right hand released the mace, the spikes still stuck in the wall, leaving the weapon to hang there with the dwarf bodies like a grotesque tapestry before it struck out with its flaming fist, crushing a few more dwarves. Cavedogs rushed in and, despite the flames, leapt up to bite at the demon’s chest. In return, it lunged down and bit one of the cavedogs in the neck.
However, in leaning down, the demon exposed its own neck.
Sylus sprinted the last few steps and put all of his weight behind the spear thrust aimed at the side of the demon’s neck. The weapon went in much easier than the hammer. Flame and bright, orange light seeped out around the shaft of the spear, but Sylus drove it in as far as he could, unflinching from the heat. The dwarf king then hung from the spear as the demon tried to rise again. The demon let out a gargled cry and bent in pain toward Sylus.
The mighty dwarf king held fast, pulling and jerking on the spear with all of the strength he could muster, widening the wound in the demon’s neck. The demon fell to the ground, and a trio of dwarf soldiers moved in to hack and stab at the neck as well. Within moments, the head rolled free of the neck, and the flames surrounding the demon faded.
The dwarves stood, stunned and heaving for breath as they stared at the demon’s corpse.
“What in Hammenfein’s name was that?” one of the soldiers asked.
Sylus turned and surveyed the area. There were only seven soldiers left. Three of the cavedogs remained, though Sylus took heart and smiled when his lizard approached him proudly and stood next to him. About half of the miners survived. Most of the others had been taken by the many fire attacks. Some had been mortally wounded by the shattering rock when the demon had first entered the chamber.
“This addorite better be worth it,” one of the miners said.
Sylus looked up and saw another miner slapping the one who had spoken, harshly criticizing him for questi
oning the king.
The dwarf king went to retrieve his hammer, and then he went to the miner who had murmured against him. The other dwarves stood rigid, but the miner who had spoken stood tall, as if preparing to let Sylus know what he thought of the attack and the dangers presented in the deep mines. However, instead of chastising or punishing the miner, Sylus stretched out a hand and put it on the miner’s shoulder.
“I share your concern,” he said. Sylus glanced around the chamber and then locked eyes with the miner. “I will go and speak with Tu’luh. Mark my words, if I ever, for one second, think that we are wasting our lives needlessly, I will close the mines.”
None of the dwarves spoke.
They stood silently, watching as Sylus went and mounted his cavedog. The dwarf king motioned to the chamber with a sweep of his hand. “Gather our fallen kin. When the reinforcements arrive, take them up and prepare for the funeral rites.” Sylus then looked to the gaping hole from whence the demon had come. There was no light coming from beyond the chamber anymore. It was dark and silent. “Blow this chamber. Seal it off.”
*****
Sylus yanked his dented armor off and threw it on his bed. He didn’t even bother cleaning himself before he went out to the tunnel that joined his room to a large balcony that served as a platform for Tu’luh to land upon. He stormed out, hammer in hand and fuming mad as he had ever been in his life.
He went to the large pedestal on the balcony and uncovered the crystal sphere sitting atop it. He spoke the ancient words passed down from the first king of the dwarves, and the crystal awoke. At first it was a tiny, yellow glow deep within the crystal, but it quickly grew into a thick shaft of light that streaked up into the night sky and pierced the heavens.
There was no way for Sylus to know how long it would take the Ancient to respond. Sometimes it was minutes, at other times it took several days. He knew only that he needed to know more about the addorite in the depths of the mountain. As far as he was concerned, his continued obedience to Tu’luh was staining his hands with the blood of his kin. It was one thing for soldiers on the battlefield, but it was another matter entirely to command miners and engineers to march into the depths knowing that it could spell their doom.