“I knew you would do this, so please don’t let it play on your mind, sir,” Al said. “Without you, Sir Will, I wouldn’t even have reached this place to begin with. I’d probably have died on the way.” He smiled.
“The young master is quite correct.” Ghelreis nodded slowly with his usual stern face.
“Yeah,” said Reystov. “Nothing new there. Anyway, if I know you, you’re planning on going right now. I packed already.”
Reystov understood my pattern of behavior. I was grateful for that.
“What? Right... now?”
“Yes. Can you show us the way to the nearest underground path? Oh, we’ll be abandoning the boat, so please do what you want with the cargo and food we can’t carry with us. We’ve also left a simple map.”
If I’d just said, “You can have these,” there was a chance that the elves wouldn’t accept them, so I was going to leave it all behind to give them no choice. If one of the elves used our boat to go upstream, return to the lake, and head towards the city by the lakeside, Gus would probably attend to the rest as he saw fit. My grandpa was proficient in Elvish and also knew that our city was located downriver.
Dine still hadn’t replied.
“If we’ve been noticed by the enemy, speed will be of the essence,” I prompted. “So please make it quick.”
“Alright.” Dine nodded and looked around at the other elves behind her as if to check something with them. Then she turned back to us. “I’ll send one of us back to the village to inform everyone. So please, take us with you. We should at least be good as decoys or shields.”
They all wore the same expression of steadfast resolve. Menel opened his mouth to reply, but I forestalled him. “We don’t want you,” I said, dismissing their resolve out of hand. “You’re too weak.”
I thought I heard them quietly gasp. Though I’d called them “recovered,” that only meant that I’d removed the toxins and miasma inside their bodies. The physical strength lost by being poisoned for so long couldn’t be recovered by benediction. Even these, the finest fighters among them, didn’t look well in the face.
“We can’t afford dead weight.” I was firm about it.
Dine scrunched up her face. “You’ve done so much for us, and you want us simply to show you the way into a death trap?”
“Yes.”
“This is so humiliating,” Dine muttered, furrowing her brow and looking as though she had just taken a bite of something terribly bitter. “But... alright... fine. We’ll abide by your decision.”
The elves behind her began to protest.
“But Dinelind...”
“Don’t you think this is rather...”
But Dine turned back to them and said, “Surely you don’t think we should turn our eyes from our own powerlessness and compound our shame?” Those words silenced them. “Right now, we can’t do anything to change the fact that we’re weaklings in poor health. We’re weaklings...” It sounded as though she was trying to convince herself.
“It’s this way,” she said, and started walking. “Follow me.”
I got a slight glimpse of her violet eyes. She was fighting back tears of frustration.
Menel whispered to me. “Hey, Will... you know I could’ve...”
“No. I was the right one to say it.” Menel had probably been intending to take that unenviable job and make himself the bad guy, but I thought that would probably be far too cruel.
◆
It was a set of strange metal doors fitted into an enormous stone arch. A mixture of dwarven construction and elven ornamentation, the doors had countless Signs engraved upon them in an ancient style of writing. Toxic miasma seeped out of small gaps around their edges.
“The West Gate... I never thought the day would come when I would come here again,” Ghelreis murmured with feeling.
“So this is the entrance to the Iron Country...” Al gazed at the doors and spent a while in silence with his lips drawn together. No one said anything for a while. Ghelreis hadn’t been back home in two hundred years, and for Al, this was the first time.
“You’re really going through here?”
“Yes.” I placed poison-resistance magic and blessings on each of us. Menel added to that by summoning some assistance from the elementals of air, gathering clean and fresh air into our surroundings. Reystov cast his eyes around cautiously, while Ghelreis and Al gave their undivided attention to a final inspection of their gear.
As they worked, I gave the doors a look-over. They had a large door knocker made of metal that was fashioned after a flower. Several large Signs that were engraved near it were now quite worn away. I read them carefully.
“Pulsate et aperietur vobis.”
On a closer look, the doors were made of an evil-warding metal that no one knew how to smelt any longer, and not only that, multiple blessings had also been placed upon them. They were the kind of doors that would inflict serious damage upon the minions of the evil gods if they so much as carelessly approached them, let alone knocked. They were doors made with the advanced technology of the Union Age, which were impossible to recreate with the world’s current level of technology.
“Al, knock,” I said to my gentle, black-haired friend. “That’s the sign.”
“Sir Will, umm, you want me to be the one to do it?”
“Who better?” He was the true successor to the lost Iron Country; there could be no one with the right to open these doors other than him. “This job should be yours.”
“Okay...” Al went quiet as if hesitating for a while. Eventually, he pushed his lips into a thin line, and made his way towards the doors. He was tall for a dwarf, but standing next to the enormous doors, he looked very small. He took a single deep breath, took hold of the door knocker, and with a serious manner, he struck the doors twice, producing two deep, resonant sounds.
The Words engraved upon the doors shone, and the structure enclosing the doors rumbled. Slowly, weightily, as though welcoming us in with both arms spread wide, the huge doors opened—
That instant, a powerful chill ran down my spine. My entire body stiffened, and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. A single image was thrust into my mind.
A gold reptilian eye staring at us.
Pierced by its glare, I felt my heart tighten as though it were being slowly squeezed. My legs trembled. I felt like I was going to fall to my knees. My breathing grew ragged and heavy. Instinct grabbed reason’s collar with all its strength and screamed madly into its face: Run. Run, run, run! Abandon everything and run right now! You can’t win!
Then I noticed the others. They were on their knees, clutching their chests. It looked as though several of the elves had already passed out. The golden eye in my mind narrowed as its stare grew more murderous. The pressure increased further. My mind was scrambled by worry and fear. My knees started to buckle.
I clenched my teeth. Tensing up all the muscles in my body, I opened my eyes wide and dug both my feet into the ground. I calmed the stormy sea inside my heart and forced my ragged breathing under control.
“Fortia!!”
I shouted out the Word that meant bravery and strength. At the same time as the influence of the Word spread like a wave through the space surrounding me, there was a sudden release of pressure inside my head, and the image of the golden eye vanished without a trace. I breathed heavily. It was gone. I could sense nothing.
But I knew he was grinning.
◆
“So we were noticed...”
This wasn’t the work of demons. Even a demon with the rank of Commander, no, even a King probably couldn’t perform a feat like that. I hadn’t felt such a sense of despair and pressure since the god of undeath’s Echo. And it had taken no more than a look. Without a doubt, this was the work of the dragon. It was the foul-dragon from the age of the gods, whose power even the gods recognized and whom Stagnate had predicted would be my death.
“Calamity’s Sickle, the foul-dragon Valacirca...”
&
nbsp; The demons aside, I’d never expected to be able to cheat my way to a victory against the dragon. I’d felt a prickling on the back of my neck immediately after we’d purified the Lord of the Woods, so I’d even had a vague awareness that we’d been detected. I’d known it—but I hadn’t expected Valacirca to be this far off the scale.
Menel breathed very deeply and hit his own quivering legs over and over, cursing at them. Reystov was breathing slowly and steadily. His hand was gripped very, very tightly around the handle of his sword. Ghelreis and Al had just about managed to prevent themselves from collapsing by leaning against one of the doors.
When I turned around, I saw that all of the elves had passed out with the exception of Dine. Even she had sunk to the ground and was shaking heavily and weeping.
That malicious gaze from below the earth was so harmful on its own that “devastating” would be too tame a word. So this was a dragon, and this was what it meant to oppose a dragon. I’d been expecting it, but I couldn’t help shivering at just how far removed from everything else it was. Demidragons and dragons were nothing alike. This dragon was probably even above the god of undeath’s Echo in terms of power.
“You... You’re going to fight... this?” Dine murmured in shock.
“Yes. That’s why we came.”
I looked up at the reddish-brown mountains to which we’d drawn so close. I thought of the peaceful scenery of Whitesails and Torch Port. I thought about the whiteness of the sails traveling back and forth on the river and sea, the cheery shanties, the bustle of people putting their all into their daily labor, the daily activity that ought to continue a long time into the future.
“To take back the mountains. To take back peace.”
I gripped the handle of Pale Moon once again. The spear, which I’d grown quite accustomed to by now, fit snugly into my palm just as it had when I first laid hand on it. I incanted a single Word and lit up the blade.
Everyone had already regrouped without me saying anything. With their weapons in hand, they had picked themselves up and were standing firm. It struck me how ready they looked. Those were the resolved expressions of warriors.
“So, we’ll be going,” I said.
“Don’t sweat it, we’ll make it back alive somehow.”
“Yeah. Just another job.”
“I’ll do my best...”
“Mm.”
We all offered a parting remark, and headed for the open doors together. Beyond, the creepy entrance to a pitch-black tunnel awaited us like a gaping maw.
“Wait.” It was Dine’s voice. As I turned around, she shakily rose to her feet and looked directly at us. Her face was pale, but still she gracefully placed a palm over her heart. “We elves of Lothdor will not forget this debt. I swear here to our creator, Rhea Silvia. One day, we will repay your kindness.” She smiled, as though giving us her blessing. “May the protection of the good gods and the spirits of courage be with you wherever you go.”
All of us replied with a smile and a nod. And then we walked. Into the stone tunnels of the dwarves, the roots of the Rust Mountains, the ruins of the once-prosperous Iron Country, the downward slope of darkness—
We walked forward, never turning back.
Beyond the West Gate lay stone walls and stone floors—endless stone passages that gave a rigid and cold impression. The passages were wide with high ceilings, probably because they had been important trade routes with the elven lands.
A lot of dust had piled up over the past two hundred years. It would have been normal for a place like this to have spider webs everywhere and be covered in droppings from bats and beasts, but there was no sign of anything like that. The reason was the foul-dragon’s miasma filling the air with a black, mist-like smoke.
“Urgh.”
“I don’t think any of us want to stay here long.”
Though I’d stacked anti-poison miracles and magic upon us, I could still sense something unpleasant. And because of the miasma filling the air, we didn’t have a very clear view ahead of us, either.
“Enemy encounters and traps are the big worry,” Al said.
Ghelreis nodded. “Apart from the demon traps, I also cannot deny that there might still be some untriggered traps that were set by our fallen brothers.”
He was right. Since they’d been trying to repel a demon invasion, the dwarves of the Iron Country at the time must have prepared a large number of defenses. In a situation like this, it was possible to anticipate that we wouldn’t be dealing with tame traps that set off alarms, but serious ones that could kill you instantly if you stepped on them.
“About light. Gonna be using fire?”
“Let’s not. There’s a chance that there are buildups of bad air.”
The best practice for a source of light was to prepare both a magical light and a regular flame and make it so that even if one went out, you still had the other. However, this used to be a mine, so I had some concerns that buildups of gas could ignite here. Deciding to hold back on the fire, I supplemented Pale Moon by converging mana into several pebbles with the Word of Light engraved upon them and handed them out. Menel threw them into lanterns with shutters, making it so we could control the amount of light being produced. It was a trick that also considered the scout at the front of the party, who needed to work in low light.
“What order are we going in?” Menel asked.
“Menel, you lead us. Be on your guard for traps and demons. Ghelreis, you go behind him.”
I placed Menel, who had good ears and could detect traps, at the front. Next came Ghelreis. Like all dwarves, he could see in the dark and excelled at sensing things underground, and additionally, he had a good grasp of what the internal structure of the Iron Country was like at the time.
“Then Al and I will go in the middle. Reystov, you take the back, please.”
I placed Reystov the veteran at the end of the line and asked him to watch out for attacks from the rear. Because I could use magic and was the most powerful force in battle and Al had high physical offensive strength, I placed us right in the middle so we could quickly change places according to the situation.
“Our opponents are demons. There are some that crawl along walls and ceilings, and some have wings. Take care you aren’t surprised by an attack from an unexpected direction.” Everyone nodded.
As we got walking, I noticed Al constantly turning his head, so I added in a quiet voice, “Oh, I didn’t mean to stay alert in all directions at all times.”
“Really?”
“Yes. After all, that’s impossible.”
A person who has his guard up in all directions at all times only exists in the imagination. Humans can’t change the fact that they find it easier to detect things in front of them than behind them, and being constantly on your guard in enemy territory is exhausting. That’s why it’s meaningful to have a few people each look in different directions to cover for each other.
“Just keep it in the back of your mind. It’ll make it faster for us to reorganize ourselves.”
When you are actually attacked from an unexpected direction, whether or not you were told that might happen translates to a difference in the speed of the reaction. When something they weren’t expecting in the slightest happens to a person, they freeze up and stop thinking for an instant. It happens to everyone. I’d mentioned it just to be safe, but I’d forgotten that this kind of dangerous journey was a first for Al.
I re-explained in a way that was easier to understand. “Menel and Ghelreis are watching what’s ahead and on the ground, and Reystov is keeping an eye out behind us, so we should focus on what’s happening above and to the sides. The stuff about surprise attacks is just something to bear in mind. This will get pretty tiring, so we’ll take little breaks from time to time and have someone stand on watch.”
“Right!” Al nodded enthusiastically. He really was quick on the uptake, and his close-combat skills were improving rapidly as well. I was sure that he would get used to the tried-and-te
sted techniques of exploration just as quickly.
The straight path continued. We all pushed forward in silence.
Every so often, Menel would stick a palm out behind him to stop the rest of us, and spend a moment listening out or disarming a trap. Deterioration over the years had already rendered the bow guns in the walls harmless due to lack of tension, but the same couldn’t be said for the pitfalls and spike balls. Menel discovered those kinds of dangerous traps effortlessly and neutralized them with a practiced hand by either disarming the mechanisms or marking the spots that would trigger them.
As Ghelreis watched him work, he said briefly, “The Rock Hall soon. After that, it branches terribly.” Then, as an afterthought, he said, “This has been unexpected.”
I nodded in agreement. “Yes. There weren’t any demon ambushes.”
There hadn’t even been one. We’d clearly been discovered by the dragon, yet there was no sign of any of them coming to intercept us.
◆
“Does that, um, mean that the dragon and the demons aren’t acting as one?”
“Can’t be sure of that yet. Rock Hall’s coming up. They’re probably all waiting there, right? Hoping to surround the enemy in a wide, open place and finish them off with a full-scale assault. Usual stuff.”
Drawing the enemy deep into your own territory to encircle and destroy them was certainly an effective technique.
“On the other hand, if there isn’t an ambush in the Rock Hall...”
“Yeah. Al’s right if so.”
Ghelreis had said that the path branched terribly after Rock Hall. Once we made our way into one of those branches, the demons wouldn’t be able to track us completely. There was no way that whoever was leading the demons would choose not to send his forces to intercept us at Rock Hall. If something like that happened, the only possible interpretation could be that the demon leader hadn’t noticed our intrusion in the first place. In other words, it would be the surest possible proof that Valacirca, almost certainly the owner of that murderous stare, hadn’t teamed up with the demons at all.
The Lord of the Rust Mountains (Complete) Page 26