by Josh Vogt
At last, the great gates swung wide, admitting a rush of dwarves. Their pounding steps echoed as they spread across the field, taking up positions behind barricades, forming ranks of squads and preparing to charge. Once the fore positions had emptied, the gates swung shut again. Horns sounded, hopefully signals for the rear guard to move up as reinforcements.
Vaskegar waited until all had quieted again. Then his harsh laughter broke the stillness.
"I see a cluster of rats before me, with twitching beards instead of twitching tails. You squat in shallow dens, too afraid to commit yourselves to one world or another. Fear and uncertainty rule you."
He drew one axe and held it high. To Akina's eyes, it held a deeper crimson hue than before, as if it had soaked up someone's blood.
Maybe Brakisten's.
"I am here to free you," Vaskegar cried,"either by dominance or death. Your choice is clear. Have spirit enough to make one. But know that every choice has its consequences. See now the price of defiance."
One of the Forge Spurned staggered up through the lines until it reached Vaskegar's side. Smoke chugged from its mouth and nostrils, obscuring much of its features, but Akina thought she could just make out a thinner face and anguished eyes she might've once known.
"This dwarf was once such as yourselves," Vaskegar shouted."Do you see? All who defy me will suffer the same fate. You will rise to serve Droskar, whether you wish it or not, and so serve me in his stead, wrapped in unbreakable chains and given over to an eternity of torment, burned from within by the shame of your miserable failure."
Dwarven defenders shifted and mutters rose, but Akina shouted over them.
"Liar! You're showing off nothing but a traitor. Those here are true dwarves, and any who fall today will be welcomed into Torag's realm."
"So you condemn them to death," Vaskegar said."Very well." He yanked his second axe over his head and stabbed both forth."For the glory of the Dark Smith!"
At the same time, Akina whirled her maulaxe overhead."Stone endures!"
Grasping the weapon shaft in both hands, she screamed in defiance and charged.
Dwarves and duergar sent up a mighty roar as they surged toward each other. From the back of Vaskegar's troops, the scanderig flung a first salvo of boulders, and one of the devilish trebuchets rocked as it its arm whirled.
Boulders landed among the dwarves, smashing squads and sending stone shrapnel in every direction. Powdered rock plumed, momentarily blocking sight of the duergar.
As the smoke thinned, duergar, elementals, and Forge Spurned plowed across the field. Once enough duergar were in range, a distant horn rang out and traps engaged. Duergar screamed as waves of fire and molten metal poured out across the stones. Spouts of flame engulfed soldiers, while others fell into pits that opened beneath them without warning. Massive blocks dropped from the ceiling, crushing multiple enemies at a time.
Dozens continued to rush in. Another horn blast, and crossbow quarrels flew over the advancing dwarves' heads to rain down on the attackers. Bolts bounced off duergar breastplates or struck stone. Others embedded in eyes, in throats, in chinks of armor, sending duergar toppling or forcing them to stagger on as blood streamed down their bodies. Quarrels striking the elementals proved ineffective, while those embedded in Forge Spurned flesh were ignored or yanked out and cast aside without slowing their steps.
The surviving first wave of duergar clashed with the main line of dwarven warriors. Axe met axe met shield met sword and a riotous cry filled the air. At the same time, lances and bolts of frost, fire, lightning, and acid landed in the fray from the duergar side as Vaskegar's casters unleashed their spells. Many of these were dispelled by Taggoret's arcane ranks, or struck and dissipated across invisible barriers. Many more tore into the dwarven ranks. Then the dwarven casters unleashed their own attacks, firing swerving missiles of pure energy, grabbing duergar with disembodied fists, and hitting the encroaching elementals with curses meant to banish them from the physical realm.
Akina claimed her first duergar with a sprint and smash of her horned helm straight into his chest. Two more quickly fell to strokes of her maulaxe. Ondorum fought by her side, casting down duergar with sweeping kicks and devastating staff strikes.
They created a circle where duergar entered but didn't leave alive. All around them, dwarf and duergar fought and died. Earth and fire elementals bore down through them, smashing aside shields, stomping bones, and roasting dwarves where they stood.
Ondorum pointed at one of the nearby earth elementals, which had backed a handful of dwarves against a barricade. Akina nodded, struck down a final duergar, and joined the oread in the assault. Her strike cracked one of the elemental's stony legs, and it swung around to face her. Ondorum hit it from the other side, staggering it. It slammed an arm down, trying to crush the monk, but he tumbled aside. Akina struck its other arm at the shoulder. Countless cracks formed over the joint, which instantly started to reform—until Ondorum's staff thrust popped the limb off entirely. The elemental bent over, off-balance. She slammed it full in the face, shattering the gems forming its eyes. With that, the rest of its body shuddered and began to disintegrate.
As the elemental crumbled beneath them, Akina spared a look to determine the attack's effectiveness so far. Forge Spurned stood like smoking pillars, lashing everywhere with their hammers and chains. Those dwarves who got too close soon found their legs or arms tangled in the black links, dragged in until the Forge Spurned bashed them down with unrelenting fury. On the other side of the tunnel, a band of six defenders ganged up on a single Forge Spurned. Several fought its living chains while the others charged in and hacked at its chain-armored body. The Forge Spurned crushed one dwarf's head with a fist, tore the throat out of another with a chain hook.
Then an axe blow split the chain loops down the Forge Spurned's back. It staggered, and cinders flew from the wound. The remaining attackers fell upon it in a frenzy, chopping and hammering the gap in its link armor, widening the opening until the Forge Spurned fell apart in a chaos of lashing chains and bursts of flame. In the wake of its death, a blast of foul smoke obscured the air.
So they could be destroyed. Right.
Two more trebuchets fired. One stone struck the gate itself. The barrier shook, but held. The other obliterated an iron barricade and scattered the dwarves behind it.
Ondorum directed her attention to another earth elemental, which had stomped through the front lines to pound boulder-sized fists on the gate itself. Spells and crossbow bolts bounced off it, while a squad tried to cut it down from below. At the same time, the scanderigs launched more rock slabs, which exploded against the gate walls. Beneath these hits, a few cracks formed in the barrier.
Akina followed Ondorum, intending to help down the next elemental, but then a chain whistled through the air in front of her. A hook snagged a dwarf and hauled him off screaming. She diverted that way, letting Ondorum assist the dwarves already attacking the elemental. By the time she reached the Forge Spurned, the dwarf it caught lay crushed to pulp at its feet. The creature roared at her, fresh smoke issuing from its mouth.
She bellowed back. All she had to do was envision the dead dwarf before her as Brakisten, and the rage came to her as easy as breathing.
The realization thundered through her mind: It had come to her. Rather than succumbing to the tempest of her fury, she wielded it like another weapon. She held it within her instead of being choked in its grasp.
The air turned as thick and hot as magma. Her bones turned molten and her armor and maulaxe melded with her until she couldn't tell where she ended and her gear began.
Barbed chains lashed out at her, but she forced past them as she plowed into the creature. The Forge Spurned stumbled back. It raised its hammer. She struck it aside. Her axe edge hacked at its exposed head, cleaving the skull. Hooks tried to tear into her armor. She grabbed one hook in an armored fist and used it to haul the Forge Spurned closer, then bludgeoned it with hammer blow after hammer blow. Heavy fists beat aga
inst her, but she shrugged them off. Another hit; one of its legs buckled.
She dragged the chain she held down, then stomped on it. It writhed underfoot like a metal serpent. She batted away the other hook and caught the Forge Spurned across the face with the axe side. It moaned like a dumb beast and lunged, arms spread in an attempt to smash her flat. She hopped away, letting it reel by, and then lashed into its exposed back with all her might.
The chain coils burst apart, revealing charred flesh beneath. The creature dropped, and Akina hacked away until flesh and bone and chain all broke beneath her. Ash and fire plumed from the corpse, and she lurched away, eyes squeezed shut against the blast. As the smoke and her vision cleared, a handful of defenders around her gawked at the sight—a lone dwarf taking down a Forge Spurned. They roused with cheers and launched themselves into the battle with renewed vigor.
Akina coughed, trying to clear her lungs. The battle fury dwindled to flickering embers, yet didn't recede completely. Her strength wavered, but she forced herself to stand firm; rest could come after victory had been assured.
Duergar and dwarves raged across the tunnel, but it seemed they had held the attackers off the first gate so far. Ondorum stood amidst the rubble of the elemental he'd help take down. He raised his staff to signal her. Akina headed his way.
A slab of rock exploded against the wall above him, and he went down in a spray of shrapnel. Her cry of denial was lost under further deafening crashes and booms. The gate buckled under a direct trebuchet strike, then shattered from a second hit.
Hundreds more duergar and another dozen Forge Spurned charged through the dust and ash. Behind them, the scanderigs and other constructs thumped into sight, joining the battle in earnest.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Old Friends
Rubble fell from Ondorum's back as he shoved out of the pile of ruined wall. Spitting dust, he dragged his staff from the heap and assayed the situation. The defenders edged back toward the second gate, their numbers cut at least in half from the opening engagement. Akina left a dead Forge Spurned in her wake as she hammered and chopped her way through duergar toward him.
Recovering his balance, Ondorum threw himself back into the fight, angling his attacks to meet her halfway. Boulder crashes continued to deafen him as the duergar army heaved forward. The foregate had been reduced to scrap, and now the constructs turned their attention to the defenders.
The forgefiends entered the fray, enormous bellies splitting wide into razor-edged maws, spewing sparks from the furnace glow in their depths. Any dwarves caught in those hellish teeth were gnashed to shreds in moments. The scanderigs also used their massive claws, shooting them out to spear defenders straight through their armor. As each dwarf died, the glow of the scanderigs' eyes and nostrils flared all the brighter.
The other constructs trod about, mostly trying to trample anyone in their way. One, though, snagged a defender in an iron fist and tossed the soldier into its huge mouth. The mouth clamped shut a moment later, sealing the unfortunate dwarf inside as the construct fought on. Other dwarves rushed to attack the construct, hammering and bashing to try and free their compatriot, but their attacks glanced off without effect.
More traps had been set along this stretch, but until most of the dwarves cleared the area, they couldn't be triggered without causing friendly casualties.
The full duergar ranks looked committed to the fight. The mounted artillery brought up the rear while teams edged the trebuchets closer to prepare an assault on the second gate. The trebuchets paused to fire as they came, flinging welded clusters of smaller shot that broke apart and scattered, ravaging the withdrawing ranks.
Ondorum slapped a crossbow bolt aside as it soared at him. He dashed Akina's way, pausing to help a pair of dwarven soldiers lay three duergar low in a brutal exchange. When the last dropped, Akina stood before him, chest heaving, teeth bared. Her own collection of corpses lay at her feet, several duergar with heads and chests smashed in. Putting his lips close to her ear, he shouted over the bedlam.
"Constructs first? Siege machines? Leader?"
She set her jaw and they surveyed their options. Vaskegar had dismounted and added his fury to the fight, with Ularna nearby. The pair struck down any dwarves who dared stand in their way. Blood spattered Vaskegar's bone armor, making him look like a monster stripped of skin and muscle. Ularna engaged every foe with deadly grace, turning aside the most vicious blows while returning strikes that seemed to ignore even the thickest plate armor.
A forgefiend plodded across the battlefield just behind them. Dwarven defenders had erected several ballista in front of the second gate and winched steel bolts into place. They launched one at the scanderig, and it struck dead-center in its open belly. The blow barely made it pause, and the chomping teeth scrapped the bolt within seconds.
Akina used her maulaxe to indicate the other scanderig coming up the left side. The dwarven line hadn't quite collapsed there, with a thinner band of duergar warriors between them and the construct. She and the oread stormed across the battlefield, cutting down duergar as they went until they reached the front line.
"The construct," she shouted to the other dwarves."Make it fall!"
She rammed a duergar aside, and they began slashing a path straight to the forgefiend. Dwarves bellowed battle cries as they fought along with them. The construct stamped to a halt as they neared, and the flames of its face gained a violet hue.
Sensing that change signaled an imminent threat, Ondorum roared,"Scatter!"
The dwarves lunged in all directions just as a wall of purple fire flashed into existence in their midst. Only one warrior got caught in the blaze, but her horrendous screams battered their ears. The heat of the wall slapped Ondorum as the defenders reconverged from various sides. The construct stood still a moment, as if studying an anthill it wanted to smash. Then it began stomping all about, trying to pulp its attackers or catch them in its fiery maw. Several dwarves were crushed beneath its bulk before they could back off.
Duergar came to defend their construct, and the outer ring of dwarves spun to hold them off. The rest hammered at its legs and feet, trying to bring it down. Akina joined in, screaming as she rained blows on the Abyss-forged metal. The construct continued spearing dwarves with its claws, tossing their corpses into its furnace-like belly.
Ondorum took up a position behind the construct, spinning his staff into a blur to shield the dwarves, deflecting incoming crossbow volleys from the rear artillery.
He glanced back as Akina lunged by him. With a furious howl, she leapt onto the scanderig's back. She held on with one hand and wielded the maulaxe with the other, whacking away at the many pipes and pistons across its form. Steam erupted and metal squealed as she wrecked the construct's upper framework. The forgefiend stamped in a circle, claws straining to pluck her off. She clambered higher and struck blow after blow atop its head. At last, a hit dented its brow and closed one of its eyes.
As she distracted it, the dwarves pressed their attack, jamming their blades and weapon shafts into its joints and pipeworks. The construct stabbed a hand into the ground, piercing a dwarf in half. However, its claws jammed in the earth as it tried to pull back out. Soldiers raced to that side and bashed it until, with a shriek of tortured metal, the arm snapped off wholly.
The construct reared, fought for balance, and lost. With an earth-quaking crash, it struck the tunnel floor and rolled onto its back. It wobbled like an overturned beetle as the dwarves swarmed over it and beat it into a motionless heap.
Akina staggered out from the chaos, looking both crazed and dazed at the same time. She licked her lips, and Ondorum had no trouble reading what she mouthed.
Again.
They looked across the battlefield. Several Forge Spurned lay pinned by ballista bolts, but others engaged the dwarves at the second gate. The siege engines had begun firing anew, battering the second gate as well with each awful shot. Already the walls had started to sunder; several major dents forme
d a gap down the middle of the double-doors. Reaching the trebuchets required fighting through the larger mass of duergar.
The defenders on the far side were busy trying to repeat the construct takedown with the second scanderig. The forgefiend picked off dwarves by the handful, adding to the forge fire raging within it. As each dwarf fell into its belly, the maw spewed hot ash and embers over the dwarves attacking it up close. This blinded them long enough for the forgefiend to scoop up another screaming victim.
Ondorum pointed his staff at the trebuchets. They needed to give the dwarves some manner of reprieve if they were to rally. He headed that way, Akina on his heels.
Then she cried out,"Wait!"
∗ ∗ ∗
Akina stared at a particular Forge Spurned thumping across the field. Unlike the rest, it didn't attack anyone as it came. Its dark eyes fixed on her and no other. It held a pair of small axes as it lumbered closer, smoke churning from its gaping mouth.
"Gromir," she whispered.
As if in answer, the Forge Spurned spread its arms and wailed, ash forming a fresh cloud about its tortured form.
Ondorum moved to intercede, but she waved him away."No! Mine!"
He jerked a nod and turned to engage anyone in range.
Akina gripped her maulaxe with renewed strength and set her feet to charge. Images of Jannasten and Brakisten seared her thoughts. Molten ore pumped through her veins as she dashed toward the creature.
Living chains writhed toward her. She slashed one aside. The other coiled around her wrist and yanked, trying to throw her off-balance. Instead of fighting the pull, she let it jerk her closer to the Forge Spurned. She whipped the handle of her maulaxe up and thrust the spiked ball at the end into the creature's throat.
A spike slipped through the choking chains and rammed deep into the flesh beneath. Smoke poured from the wound as she tried to throw the creature to the ground. It stumbled back and the chain around her wrist loosened. At the same time, the other slithered along the ground for her ankle.