“I will communicate with the Core, and give it its directives. From then on, it will operate independently, and will take over the defenses of Karak-Drang. After it gains self-awareness, General Khazum, you can start withdrawing your forces from the tunnels. They will no longer be needed to fight the Demon Horde; the Core will take care of that function on its own.”
“And if it fails?” asked General Khazum. “If the Demon Horde destroys this elaborate machine? Then what?”
Archwright Bomfrey shrugged. “Then we all die, and our civilization is lost. This Core is our last hope. Our only hope.”
With that, he inserted the soul gem of Emperor Gra’had Akzad into a socket in the core of the enormous engine, and poured molten gold into the runes that were carved into the sides. Once all the runes had been activated, the engine coughed and spluttered for a moment, and then it abruptly roared to life.
“And that’s that,” said Bomfrey. “The Core is … alive. Now leave me, all of you! I must give the Core its directives. The rest of you, prepare to evacuate the city. Hurry! We have wasted enough time already, and the Demon Horde grows ever closer.”
The other dwarves nodded and hurried out, while Bomfrey stayed behind to communicate with the now-living Factory Core. After some time, he too exited the Core, closing the heavy oaken doors behind him and stumbling out, looking suddenly exhausted.
“It is done,” he gasped as one of the guild leaders hurried over to help him stagger away. “It is alive, and now it has a mission.”
From out of the sides of the Factory Core, gaps opened up in the stone, and huge bronze-plated legs—like those of a gigantic spider—came out, powered by hissing hydraulic steam pistons.
With a creaking and a whirring of gears from deep within the Factory Core, the spider legs dug themselves into the floor, and then lifted the entire structure up off the ground. All of the dwarves watched, utterly spellbound.
And then the Factory Core started to walk.
CHAPTER 4
“Rifle-dwarves, first row!” barked General Khazum as the demons surged up the tunnel, charging screaming along the floor and scuttling along the walls and ceiling like vile insects. “Aim … fire!”
The first row of rifle-dwarves, who were kneeling in a tight formation, with their rifle-barreled muskets pressed to their shoulders, fired off a volley at the hissing, wildly-charging demons. The thunderous boom of the volley resounded through the tunnels, and left General Khazum’s ears ringing. But he was used to that, being a veteran of many past battles and wars.
He smiled grimly as he watched a dozen demons being flung back or hurled off the walls and ceilings from the force of the musket balls, which were coated in silver. The dwarves had found that silver-coated musket and cannon shot was particularly effective against demons. Far more so than simple lead shot, which could take a good few hits to bring a demon down. However, silver, like gunpowder, was in extremely short supply, and even with this discovery of how effective it made their projectiles, there just wasn’t enough of it to make a difference. The numbers of the enemy troops were simply too large.
“First row, clean barrels and reload!” bellowed General Khazum, not allowing the demons any time to recover from the first row’s musket volley. While the first row of dwarven warriors had been taking aim and shooting at the charging mass of demons, the second row had been reloading their muskets in preparation for another volley. Now, as the first row of rifle-dwarves hastily cleaned and reloaded their muskets, the second row shouldered theirs, each rifle-dwarf taking aim at an individual demon. “Second row, aim and … fire!” yelled Khazum.
Again, thunder crashed through the tunnel as the rifle-dwarves unleashed another volley, and once more a dozen or so demons were hurled back as the silver-coated musket balls smashed through their bodies … but it was far from enough. Hundreds more came pouring into the tunnel from the fire belching cracks at the end of it, and for every demon that fell, twenty took his place.
“One more volley, then we fall back!” roared Khazum as the charging demons got within thirty yards of the rifle-dwarves. “First row, aim … fire!”
Another booming volley ripped through the ranks of the demons. Still, no matter how many fell, the momentum of their wild, almost suicidal charge did not falter.
“Fall back, behind the cannons!” roared General Khazum, who was manning the cannons behind the rows of rifle-dwarves himself. In his right hand were a number of strings, strings that would simultaneously fire each of the assembled cannons—twelve of them altogether. The cannons were loaded with grapeshot, which, like the musket balls, was coated with silver. The twelve cannons would function like gigantic shotguns, blasting masses of wide-spreading destruction into the ranks of the incoming demons.
In quick but disciplined order, the rifle-dwarves retreated, positioning themselves behind the cannons, so that the artillery pieces were between them and the running demons.
“Ready your axes!” shouted Khazum. “As soon as they’ve tasted the grapeshot, we charge! No mercy!”
“No mercy!” roared the rifle-dwarves, who threw down their muskets and pulled their battle-axes off their back as they prepared to engage the demons in hand-to-hand combat.
The madly-screaming demons charged en-masse straight at the cannons, howling and shrieking with vicious fury and frenzied aggression. Khazum waited, the strings bunched in his sweaty palms … waited, waited for them to get as close as possible to the barrels of the cannons. He only had this one chance, and he wanted it to cause as much damage to them as possible.
Twenty yards. Fifteen. Ten. Five, four, three, two…
As the sprinting mass of demons got within two yards of the cannons, Khazum yanked the strings. A sound, as if the planet itself was splitting in half, crashed like a thousand peals of thunder through the tunnel as all twelve cannons fired simultaneously, spitting out fire and mass death for the demons.
The first wave was torn to shreds, and the deadly silver-coated grapeshot spewed out by the cannons ripped through the ranks of the Demon Horde with vengeance, blowing their red bodies to smithereens and tearing off legs, arms and heads, and smashing torsos into pulverized meat.
The dwarves didn’t allow their enemies even a moment to catch their breath after the shock of having the cannons blasting their deadly grapeshot into them. A mere few seconds after the cannons unleashed their fire and fury into the demons, the dwarves charged out from behind the cannons, roaring battle cries as they began finishing off any survivors of the attack with their battle-axes.
For the first time since the demons had invaded their world, it seemed as if the dwarves might actually be gaining the upper hand. The dwarven warriors fell among the wounded demons, hacking and hammering with their axes. General Khazum had charged in as well, and was swinging his huge weapon in great whirling arcs around him, possessed with battle fury. As they dispatched the fallen demons, the dwarves roared out cries of revenge for their lost comrades and family members who had fallen to the Demonic Horde.
Behind the dwarven cannons was another ally of the dwarves. A new ally.
The Factory Core sat in silence, observing the battle as it played out. It was able to see through a number of different glass lenses built into both its inner and outer walls, with the sights viewed through these lenses redirected—via a complex system of mirrors in brass pipes—into the central engine: the heart of the Core.
The Factory Core had already made notes about the effectiveness of silver-coated weapons, and the general efficiency of the dwarves’ gunpowder-based weapons. With the minds and souls of so many heroes of past Ages now fused into its structure, the Core was able to learn and make calculations at a rate that far exceeded that of any single mind of Elf, Dwarf or Man. In fact, it was already experimenting with different formulae to make the dwarves’ gunpowder even more destructive.
Meanwhile, out in the tunnel, the dwarves were slaughtering the wounded demons, and General Khazum roared
out with triumph and raised his battle-axe above his head as it seemed that victory was in sight.
But then something else came out of the fiery hole in the stone.
More red demons scuttled out, and with them came a new adversary: a wraith. The wraith itself was barely noticeable; only the tattered black hooded cloak it wore was fully visible. The rest of it—which, if you could have seen its solid form, would have looked like a withered and rotten husk of a human corpse—was almost imperceptible, and ghostly in appearance … except for its eyes, which glowed intensely, like twin red jewels in the darkness.
General Khazum stared in horror at the wraith as it hovered in the air for a few moments. And then the wraith screamed. It was a horrendous sound, like a thousand shrieks of pure terror and hatred and savagery all rolled into one, and the dwarven warriors all dropped their axes, howling, as they tried to cover their ears.
The wraith blasted out a spell from its ghostly fingertips: a semi-transparent wave of sickly green energy, which hit the front row of dwarven warriors. The spell caused no physical damage, but the evil magic attacked their minds, and paralyzed them with debilitating fear. This fear was no ordinary fear; it was soul-destroying, freezing terror, which made the formerly brave and potent warriors all but helpless. They abandoned their position and started running like madmen, away from the battle.
“No!” roared General Khazum. “Pick up your weapons! We cannot stop now! The battle is almost won! Pick up your weapons and get back to the front, damn you! Pick up your—”
Before General Khazum could finish yelling out his order, the wraith blasted another spell at the dwarves. This one, however, did harm them physically. In a terrible way. The wraith held up both of its ghostly hands, pointing them at the dwarves, and then torrents of green fire, materialized from the hot air by magic, poured from the creature’s fingers.
The rivers of fire, each stream a hundred yards long, tore through the tunnel at a ferocious speed. General Khazum was only just able to dive out of the way, but other dwarven warriors weren’t so quick or lucky. The green flames enveloped their bodies, cooking them in their steel and bronze armor, the heat causing the steam-powered pistons that enhanced their strength to explode. The dwarven warriors caught in the roaring rivers of fire howled in agony as they burned to death.
“Retreat!” roared General Khazum hoarsely. “Retreat! The battle is lost, retreat!”
As the surviving dwarves fought to make a desperate retreat—all while more demons poured out of the flaming fissure in the rock—the Factory Core quietly observed the scene as it unfolded. While it had been studying the dwarves’ tactics, it had also been studying the demons, and how they behaved on the battlefield. Using the demons’ style and weapons against them, the Factory Core thought, was something that could certainly prove to be quite useful in the clashes that lay ahead.
General Khazum led the exhausted soldiers backward through the tunnel in a fighting retreat, and the Factory Core retreated along with them. It was not quite ready to fight the Demon Horde yet … but it would be soon. Very soon.
CHAPTER 5
As Ser Caspian Greenfield walked through the half-deserted streets of Karak-Drang, he had to force himself to keep a stony expression on his face and not smirk smugly. Here, in the capital city of the Dwarves, he felt like a giant instead of a mere man.
Ser Greenfield was an envoy from the City of Merador, one of the great city-states of Men. As it was located a mere fifty miles from the Smoky Mountains, it was one of the closest cities of Men to the Below World of the Dwarves, and therefore one of the first Human cities King Odok-Kram had appealed to for help.
Men did not love engineering and invention in the same way the Dwarves did, but Men did love gold, and the Dwarves had plenty of that due to their extensive mines. For gold, Men would do just about anything. Including helping their former foes. Ser Greenfield had been sent here as a representative of King Pavanir, ruler of Merador, to negotiate with the Dwarves.
Ser Greenfield was, like most Men who occupied positions of power and authority, a warrior first and foremost. Tall for a human, at six foot two, he towered over the dwarves of Karak-Drang. He was in his fifties, but still strong and fast. His sandy blonde hair, which hung about his broad shoulders, was streaked with grey, and his close-cropped beard was peppered with white. A long scar ran across his tall, high-bridged nose and half of his cheek. His deep-set blue eyes glimmered with a keen intelligence, and haughty pride.
His polished suit of plate armor gleamed as he strode with purpose and focus through the streets of Karak-Drang, and as the dwarven inhabitants of the city came out of their dwellings, shops and workshops to stare at him (many had never seen a human before), he had to do his best not to grin. He felt like a true celebrity down here.
Nonetheless, the focus of his diplomatic visit was business, and it was on business that he intended to focus.
As he reached King Odok-Kram’s palace, the two dwarven guards manning the gate crossed their long poleaxes in front of Ser Greenfield, blocking his passage.
“You cannot carry weapons into the palace, human,” one of them grunted, staring up at Ser Greenfield with contempt and aggression in his gaze.
Ser Greenfield remained cool and diplomatic. Smiling thinly at the guard, he nodded and unbuckled his sword belt. He handed it, along with his sheathed longsword and dagger, to the guard.
“Now may I pass, good sir?” he asked.
The guards did not reply; they simply stared straight ahead and uncrossed their poleaxes, allowing Ser Greenfield to walk through. Inside the grounds of the palace, a dwarven servant was waiting for him, and the servant guided him to the king’s council chambers, where a number of prominent dwarves were seated around the round table.
“Long has it been since a Man has seen the inside of this palace,” said King Odok-Kram as Ser Greenfield entered the chamber.
While Ser Greenfield was not required to bow before a dwarven king, he decided that in the interests of diplomacy it would be pertinent to swallow his pride and show a little humility—even if it was put-on. So he walked slowly up to the king and got down on one knee before him, and bowed his head.
“It is an honor to represent my people and my king here in your magnificent city, King Odok-Kram,” he said. “I hope that my people and yours can come to an understanding that will be … mutually beneficial, your grace.”
King Odo-Kram smiled; it was not often that a Man bowed before a Dwarf, and he was enjoying the spectacle. Nonetheless, it was not something he could afford to dwell on; pressing matters were at hand.
“Rise Ser Greenfield,” said the king, “and take a seat, please.”
Ser Greenfield took a seat at the far end of the table, and the dwarves who were nearest him shifted their chairs away with scowls on their faces; they were not happy about having to ask former enemies for help. Again, Ser Greenfield had to restrain himself from flashing them a smug grin. It felt good to be in a position of power at the bargaining table. Especially when your former enemies would have to grovel before you. Despite his feeling of quiet triumph, though, Ser Greenfield maintained a cool and neutral expression on his face.
“Let’s get straight to it, Ser,” said King Odok-Kram. “We need the help of the Men of Merador. The Demon Horde grows stronger, and more of our tunnels, citadels and forts are falling before their relentless attacks every day. We have decided to evacuate the remainder of our people from the Below World, but up on the Above World—”
“My world, your grace,” said Ser Greenfield with a subtle smile.
“Yes, yes, your world,” continued the king, looking irked, “we have no shelter, no place for our women and children and elderly to rest.”
“And this is why you need the help of Merador and its glorious ruler, King Pavanir.”
“That is why, Ser. We know that there is a huge network of ancient crypts beneath Merador. Tell me, Ser Greenfield, what does Merador use those cryp
ts for, right now?”
“In centuries past,” answered Ser Greenfield, “they were used as catacombs. Tombs for the dead. But no longer. They have been abandoned for over a hundred years.”
“We dwarves are accustomed to living below the ground; we do not like the sun. We prefer to have a sky of rock and stalactites over our heads instead of a blue dome of ether and clouds. We could not only use Merador’s abandoned crypts for temporary shelter, we could transform them into a space that would prove very useful to you Men once we have left and returned to our home under the Smoky Mountains. There would also be a substantial reward to your king for his permission to do this, which we would pay in bars of solid gold.”
The thin smile remained on Ser Greenfield’s lips.
“You do intend to return here, do you not?” he asked. “It would be a temporary situation, yes?”
“Do you think we’d want to live like rats in the crypts of your stinking city?” roared General Khazum, losing his temper. “We are only making this shameful offer because we have no choice! And by the Hammer of the Forge God, we’d want to get the hell out of there as fast as we could!”
“General Khazum,” said King Odok-Kram, “I would appreciate it if you kept your opinions to yourself, for the time being.”
Ser Greenfield waved a dismissive hand in Khazum’s direction. “I take no offense at your hot-headed general’s outburst, your grace,” he said. “We are perfectly willing to accommodate your people as guests in our crypts.”
“Guests,” snarled General Khazum, rolling his eyes. The king fired an icy glare at him though, silencing him.
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