by T. H. Lain
Tordek considered that number. "Are they fit for combat? Will they fight if armed?"
"A few, perhaps," said Karnoth. "The goblins give us precious little time to rest, and those who falter share the fate from which you rescued me."
"Tell us more about the layout of the forge. I would know the battlefield before we step upon it."
The old dwarf nodded his endorsement of Tordek's caution and described the circular forge area with a battery of sloping shafts into the mines. "There are five entrances to the main floor, one of them grander than the others. I have seen balconies on a higher level in the forge, but only the goblins go up there."
"Let's find them, then," said Tordek. Once again he led the way, letting the stealthy Lidda scout the corners now that his darkvision was no longer an advantage. When they came to locked doors, Lidda listened for occupants on the other side before thwarting their mechanisms with her arsenal of picks. Each door took successively less time to unlock, as she became increasingly familiar with their type.
"There's a master key for most of these," she said. "Next time we see a goblin with a key ring, we should thump 'im."
"Thump 'im at the very least," agreedTordek. His tone was far darker than his words.
"Why the grudge?" asked Devis. "I mean, I don't like them, either. You've probably faced a lot of different foes over the years. I'm surprised that those little runts bother you so much. What is it with you and goblins?"
When Tordek did not immediately answer, Devis opened his mouth to voice another question, but Vadania put a hand on his shoulder and shook her head, No. The bard's jaw jutted in a brief display of petulance, but he drew a deep breath and nodded, sighing.
After half an hour of furtive exploration, they found another passage to the upper level. This one was also well lighted but with wide braziers set deep into the walls at dwarf height. Their coals cast a red glow upon the carved ceiling while their smoke drifted up through narrow ventilation shafts cleverly hidden by the ornamentation. The ancient dwarven curses marked the walls, absent the goblin scrawl.
The sound from the forge was louder here, especially from around a bend at the far end of the corridor, past three doors on the right side of the passage, where two goblins stood before a grand door. Their gazes were fixed on some bright area around the corner, so they remained oblivious to the intruders.
"Just two?" Lidda signed with the fingers of her left hand. Her right already held her short bow.
Tordek observed the way the two goblins chattered to each other and decided they were alone. He gestured an affirmative and aimed his own bow, noting that Devis had done the same, and Vadania's sling was already forming a loop in preparation for the throw.
At Tordek's signal, the missiles flew. Lidda, Vadania, and Devis were already running toward the goblins as the hapless guards slumped against the door they had been guarding. Tordek followed with Karnoth, careful not to cause too much of a clatter in his armor. By the time they reached the others, both goblins were dead, and Lidda was listening at the door. She shrugged, nodding toward the light from the balcony they had been facing to indicate the clamor that rose from the foundry prevented her from hearing anything.
After checking the hall for other occupants and spying none, Tordek approached the balcony rail to gaze into the forge of Andaron. He felt the first wave of heat as he rounded the corner, but as he looked down he felt it withering his eyebrows.
Larger than all of the lower caverns combined, the foundry was a blend of artifice and nature. Its floor was carved from the living rock in four increasingly deep, pentagonal levels. Around the outer ring were five separate entrances, four of them simple rectangular portals fortified by iron portcullises. The grand entrance was an arch over ten feet tall and almost twenty feet wide, its open doors blistering with spikes and steel bosses to rebuff and absorb any assault. Opposite the grand entrance was a line of round tunnels bored deep into the earth. A stone ramp jutted from each one like an impudent tongue. Beside two of the ramps lay ancient ore sledges, one of them piled with bins of the abandoned bounty collected before the fall of Andaron's Delve. Whatever business its current inhabitants had, it was not refining ore.
The rest of the outer ring was a clutter of water troughs, worktables, empty tool racks, and the makeshift beds of the slaves who labored in the inner rings. On one filthy pallet lay a burned and sweating dwarf stripped to the waist, restless in his torpor. Nearby stood a trio of grinning goblins, throwing dice and occasionally prodding the sick dwarf.
The third ring was filled with anvils and lesser forges, half of which rang with hammer blows as three dwarven and two human smiths beat points and edges into simple swords. The goblin guards scolded one of the dwarves for taking too long to complete his latest blade, but the proud smith balked at their warning and continued his work. For him it was torment enough to manufacture inferior weapons, even for his enslavers. He bore the threats and abuse with dwarven stoicism until at last he plunged the red and black blade into a water barrel and tossed it onto a table of similarly crude work. A young man with his face half covered in dirty bandages took the swords up to the outer level, where he and a companion fitted hilts and quillions to the blades.
Inside the ring of anvils were three foundry tables on which squatted the iron molds. Huge cauldrons of molten iron jerked and swayed on a battery of rails affixed to the ceiling. Their molten surfaces bubbled just three feet below the rail of the catwalks, close enough for workers to reach them with long ladles or hooks. Along the catwalks, a pair of ogres dragged the glowing pots from the great, central forge and provided the brute force to tip out the molten iron as a team of goblins guided its course. Black stains on the floor showed where accident or cruelty had recently spilled the ore over workers whose bone fragments were still fused into the stone.
Carved upon the floor of the inner level was a wicked sight: a five-pointed star whose every line overlapped another in a queer illusion that made the design appear in constant motion. Within its borders writhed the naked bodies of the damned, lost souls of every race and breed, grasping and tearing at each other, man against monster, elf entwined with beast, halfling and gnome and orc all destroying each other in a futile effort to escape their doom.
Tordek gasped, momentarily mesmerized by the illusion that the figures were alive rather than mere carvings. There was the look of dwarven craft about the pentacle and its vile embellishments, but some dark shadow had fallen over it and given it a glimmer of demonic life.
Whatever dread figure was destined to appear in the center of the star, Tordek could not guess. Upon it squatted the great forge of Andaron, a tremendous furnace carved within a pillar of red-streaked black rock too smooth to be iron, too dull to be obsidian. Three teams of men and dwarves worked the bellows, their bare chests blistering from the heat. One of the dwarves had already lost most of his beard to the flame, and one of the men pumped the lever with one hand and a blackened stump. Fire blazed white and yellow through the slits of the forge's great iron doors, each shaped like a devil's face. The edges of those that were closed glowed red, while those that were opened unleashed such an inferno that the big men who fired the blades wailed from the heat. When one fainted, another took his place, goaded by the long pikes of their goblin captors, who used the hooked tips of their weapons to drag the fallen away from the fire. Those who stirred back to wakefulness were flogged by cackling taskmasters. Those who rested too long felt the spear tips as well as the lash.
The air above the forge rippled with heat, and smoke rose up to vanish into huge ventilation shafts covered with iron grates. The catwalks rested on five spiral stairways on the outer level and hung from great iron rods embedded in the stone ceiling. They shuddered with every lunge of the ogres, zigzagging between the stalactites that pointed down from the ceiling like accusing fingers. The iron paths linked the vents to the forge's chimney and the black scaffold supporting the bellows. One of them led to the balcony on which Tordek stood, while another
reached the platform's twin, twenty feet to his left.
"Look there," said Devis, pointing over Tordek's shoulder.
Someone—or something—quite large was moving on the other side of the Hellforge. All Tordek could see from this vantage was something that looked like a huge, red, leather cloak upon a gigantic back. Whatever creature it was thrust a blade into the forge and held it there unflinching, then it turned and placed the weapon on an unseen anvil. The resultant hammering suggested that at least three other smiths assisted with the task.
"Zagreb," said Karnoth. "He would not sully his hands by working on ordinary weapons."
Tordek strained for a better view but realized he would have none from this balcony. He went to the next one, only barely mindful of the need for quiet. There he spied Zagreb at last.
A head taller than either of the other ogres and far more noble of countenance, Zagreb stood before a great anvil wearing nothing but a loin clout. His muscular body was redder than rage and scaled like a lizard on thighs and shins, shoulders and forearms. Except for the enormous wings folded upon his back, he looked more like a huge man than an ogre, but upon his face was the mark of his true ancestry. His nose was broad and reptilian, with slits for nostrils above a protruding jaw, short, thick spikes jutting from his chin like some fanciful beard. His forehead sloped back in bony ridges bordered by curling black horns, and a glossy black mane spilled down his back. His ears were long and ridged, jutting out almost as far as the black horns that ringed his head like a crown. In his naked grip was a dwarven urgrosh, a long-shafted axe with a great spearhead at its butt. The entire weapon was made of steel, now glowing white-hot from the kiss of the forge. Zagreb did not mind the heat as he held the weapon down on the anvil while three dwarven smiths beat at the axe head. With every stroke of their hammers, the great crack that creased its blade grew fainter and fainter. The weapon was gradually becoming whole again.
"We are not fighting that thing," said Lidda. "Maybe instead we can taunt it from a safe distance."
"Or we could send it a nasty letter," suggested Devis.
Tordek ignored them both, but he started when Vadania said, "They're right, Tordek."
"What? You were the one who brought us here."
"Yes," said Vadania. "I still wish to stop the forge, but we cannot fight that thing. Not here, among its allies."
Tordek looked to Karnoth for another dwarf's opinion. The graybeard kept his face neutral, as Tordek should have expected. It was his decision to make.
"Very well," he said. "First we must find a way to get the prisoners out of the forge area. How long until they rest?"
"It is difficult to say," said Karnoth. "In the beginning they worked us only half the day, but lately they have pushed us harder."
Tordek turned to Lidda. "Can you slip down there unseen and give a message to the prisoners?"
Lidda considered the chaos below and grinned confidently. "No problem."
"You know," offered Devis, "I can help you with that. I know you're good and sneaky, but would you like to be invisible?"
"Would I!"
Tordek creased his brow in annoyance at the bard's interruption, but he could hardly complain about his plan. Perhaps Devis was wiser than he looked, for he turned to Tordek and added, "Just say when."
"All right," said Tordek. He knew by rights that Vadania was leading this mission, but he felt comfortable in command and had known the elf long enough to realize she preferred the role of counselor to leader. He was just glad that Lidda and Devis also acknowledged his leadership. "Here's what we'll—"
Devis grabbed Tordek and pushed him down beneath the balcony railing. Simultaneously, Lidda and Vadania ducked for cover, pulling Karnoth down with them onto the iron floor of the balcony, out of sight from the hallway. With a jerk of her chin, Lidda pointed back toward the door at which they had slain the goblins.
A low voice spoke calmly upon the discovery of the slain guards. "Yupa, go down and alert the troops," it said. "We have visitors."
"Shall I go with the quasit?" purred a woman's voice.
"No," said the other. "Come with me to the forge."
Tordek felt the vibration in the iron floor even as he heard the pair step out onto the catwalk from the other balcony. He waited a moment to be sure they were walking away from the corridor, then he peered over the railing, noting that the others did the same beside him.
The male looked like a huge goblin, nearly as tall as an ogre but with the lesser species' flat nose and prominent ears. It wore steely gray hair pulled back in a neat topknot bound by a comb of gold and rubies. Its skin was a deep, vivid blue, covered by piecemeal armor that showed off muscular arms and shoulders. Down its right arm ran a spiral tattoo culminating in a dark design on the palm. Its left hand was gloved, and the fingers brushed protectively over the warhammer that hung at the creature's hip. The hammer's ornate head glowed red and black, like coals in a banked fire.
"Hargrimm," whispered Vadania. "The barghest."
With him walked a woman so white she might have been made of lily petals. Her eyes were completely black, so dull that she appeared blind at first glance. She wore a once-fine gown of crushed velvet that might have been blue. Its hem was tattered and worn cobweb thin. She wore two large rings on each hand, and a ruby pendant gleamed at her throat.
They talked as they strode across the catwalk, but their words turned to thunder in Tordek's ears. He pulled the necklace from beneath his armor and clutched the finger bones so tightly they threatened to burst into powder.
"He has the hammer," he grumbled.
Vadania put a hand on his shoulder, urging him to sit down, out of sight. "Bide your time, my friend," she said. "Bide your time."
Lidda saw the look on Tordek's face and frowned sympathetically, but then she brightened and said, "Have you noticed how all our enemies come in primary colors lately?"
Behind her, Devis snorted a laugh, and even Vadania smiled briefly. Karnoth looked more surprised than amused, but Tordek felt the choking rage loosen its grip on his heart. Still, he rebuked the halfling. "This is no laughing matter. That fiend devours his foes, who then spend eternity fueling his infernal power."
"What do we do now?" said Devis soberly.
Tordek knew the bard was making an effort to defer to him, but he couldn't decide whether it pleased or irritated him. Still, they had to act quickly now that their presence was detected.
"How many of us can you render invisible with your spell?" he asked the bard.
Devis grimaced an apology. "One," he said. "Two if you ask first thing tomorrow."
Tordek turned to Vadania.
"I have a potion," she said. "No such spell, however."
"That's only two of us," said Tordek. "Not good enough."
"They just came out of that room," said Lidda. "I bet that's the last place they'd think to look for us. Besides, who knows what they have stashed in there?"
"Good idea," said Tordek. "Let's at least have a peek and wait there until the search party passes by."
They crept away from the balcony and stepped over the corpses. Before Lidda knelt to examine the door's lock, Devis whistled a little cantrip and hissed, "Don't touch it!"
Lidda recoiled, edging back from the door on both knees before looking at the bard for an explanation.
"I think it's warded," he explained.
"Can you dispel it?" asked Tordek.
"Maybe," said Devis. "I have a scroll, but only the one."
"Hmm." Tordek considered whether it was worth the expenditure of such a useful spell for a peek inside what might or might not be Hargrimm's quarters. Again, he turned to Vadania, but she only shook her head no. Before he could make up his mind, a scream rose above the steady clamor of the foundry. They rushed to the near balcony and peered down.
Zagreb pushed the body of one of the dwarven smiths off the spear of the reforged urgrosh. Its surface radiated with a hellish glow as the dwarf's blood quenched the heat that knitted its
axe blade.
Hargrimm stood beside the half-dragon, the glow of his warhammer pulsing in sympathy with its resurrected sibling. He raised the weapon, holding it poised to strike at Zagreb.
The ogre-dragon gazed back unflinchingly. With a shark's grin, Hargrimm struck Zagreb full on the chest. The blow might have slain a man, but it rebounded from the half-dragon's chest as if it had been little more than a friendly nudge.
"Do you see?" said Hargrimm. "Now we are truly brothers in arms."
Zagreb nodded, a smile finally creasing his dour face. He raised the urgrosh and struck back, slamming the keen axe head into the barghest's shoulder. The blow left not so much as a scratch upon his bare, blue flesh.
Behind them, Sandrine eyed the weapons greedily, but she stood silently, patiently, unnoticed by either of the brutes.
Hargrimm started and cocked his head, as if listening to a tiny messenger beside him. His gaze rose to the balcony, and his eyes stared directly at Tordek, who realized that the tiny, invisible fiend had just pointed them out to its master.
Squinting in their direction, Hargrimm stood straight. Zagreb said something to him, but he shook his head at the suggestion, and the half-dragon took a step back deferentially.
Hargrimm smiled and beckoned at them to come down. Tordek was certain he had been seen, but he gambled that the others were still hidden from the barghest's sight. With one hand still behind the balcony rail he gestured for them to remain crouched, then he stepped out onto the catwalk.
This drew an approving nod from Hargrimm, who made a gesture and slowly levitated up to the level of the walkway. When he came to rest on the iron catwalk, he beckoned again. The gesture was polite enough except for his wolfish grin of anticipation.
Tordek walked forward. All the eyes of the slaves and their keeper turned up to witness his exchange with their master.
"Who in the countless cells of the Abyss are you?" demanded Hargrimm. Again he cocked his head to listen to his unseen familiar. His eyes were novas against a face as dark as demon wine as he stared at the finger bones that lay on Tordek's chest.