NOVEL FROG Cavern Exile: Marching Onward
Most of the third degree runeknights are spaced around the dragon-hunting army at strategic defensive points so that any threats lurching out the stalagmites can be quickly and brutally dealt with before they cause harm to the bolt-launchers. It’s a dull job and unglamorous, since no creature even this deep is mad enough to assault an army of two thousand heavily armed and armored dwarves marching in lockstep through the stalagmites. The clanking of two thousand suits of armor alone is enough to give the most fearsome beast pause, and the magnificent sight of their two thousand glittering weapons puts the teeth and claws of the monsters here to shame.
Guildmaster Wharoth, though, has been give a specially honored position. No defense for him—Vanerak wants him on the attack. They walk side by side at the front of the column.
“I’d always thought your guild wasn’t worth the stone you built it on,” Vanerak says. The stalagmites are reflected darkly on his tungsten mask. “This past year is making me reconsider my opinion.”
It’s been so long since anyone talked down to Wharoth that he doesn’t quite know how to reply.
“Your shield is of a most original design,” continues Vanerak. “For all our Runethane’s virtues, originality is not one of them. Tungsten is his answer to dragonfire, and runes of fire-resistance. Your runes, if I’m not mistaken, are of fire-eating. Are they?”
“They are. Were difficult to get right. Had to angle them inwards, you know, to make them whirl properly. Or the linkage between each one doesn’t work.”
“Yes. The Southmost Cathlowt third script is a difficult one to perfect.”
“You know it?”
“I know many scripts, guildmaster. I am more than twice your age, if you recall.”
“Oh,” Wharoth says, feeling very strange, almost like an initiate again. “Of course.”
“I find the implementation of the runes to be more interesting than the runes themselves. The problem we identified with fire eating was that with too much fire, the runes are unable to take the strain. You fixed that issue to a large degree.”
“Not quite enough.” He grimaces and taps his bracer. “You should see the scar on my arm.”
“Nevertheless, if you wouldn’t mind sharing a few technical details..?”
Guildmaster Wharoth cannot refuse and doesn’t want to either. He explains in depth his forging process, the laminating techniques he used for each of the three layers of the shield, the particular reagent mix he had to alter by degrees as the runic whorl grew tighter, and the clever way he designed the insulated sleeve on the inner part of the shield so that excess heat flowing into it was redirected back into the metal to be reabsorbed.
It’s nice to have someone intelligent to boast to. Most of his dwarves—well, they’re nice enough, but the cream of the crop doesn’t exactly come to his guild, does it? If only he had the same mind for business that he does for metallurgy.
“Your weapon too. Much cruder than the shield, but...” Vanerak looks down at the titanium blade through his dark-mirror helmet. “That rune is one I haven’t seen before. I can think of a few scripts I’m not familiar with, but its shape is rather dissimilar to the letters of those. Would you mind telling me what it is?”
Ah. So this was Vanerak’s real reason for bringing him to the front. But does he ask out of simple curiosity? Or suspicion?
“It’s..."
Wharoth pauses. What can he say without revealing too much?
"Go on, guildmaster."
"Well, I thought it was Halat from Jalrat Fourth script...”
“There’s an extra line, though.”
“Yes...”
“There’s no need to keep secrets from me, Guildmaster,” Vanerak says pleasantly. “We’re all on the same side here. Dig up some forgotten book?”
“Not exactly...”
“Well?”
It would probably be sensible, Wharoth decides, to tell the truth. Vanerak is acting soft enough now, but everyone knows what he's capable of. Though that doesn’t mean he needs to reveal his fears.
“You remember Zathar, surely.”
“How could I not?”
“It’s one he used. Claimed it was Halat from a dictionary of Jalrat Fourth script.”
“Yet we have determined it is not.”
“I don’t know how he stumbled across it. Honestly! I’m as puzzled as you are.”
“Puzzled, yes. He’s a very interesting puzzle, that one. I’ve done things I regret before, Guildmaster, but letting him live twice wasn’t one of them.”
“I'm glad to hear that.”
“I hope he continues to survive. I would rather like to puzzle him out, one day. Solve him.”
“I... I hope he survives too.”
The army continues its march. They are in the furthest extremes of the forest now, and will soon come to a sharply concave section of the wall, a horizontal funnel with no exit from which the black dragon will have no escape.
Four months have passed, and they have not been able to see the city for a long time. Guildmaster Wharoth hopes Zathar is forging well, for he does not like the way Vanerak enunciated the word ‘solve’.
“Reagent binds rune to metal so its power can flow freely,” I explain to Dwatrall back in the forge. “Without it runes are no more use than any other piece of metal wire.”
“But what gives runes power in the first place?”
“Our ancestors did, long ago.”
“How?”
“No one knows.”
“That is rather frustrating.”
“Yes,” Hayhek agrees. “But it can’t be helped. And we need to hurry. You say there’s a cave with hytrigite nearby?”
“I remember scouting something that matches your description, yes. Blue spheres like frog eggs. It’s not so nearby, though.”
“How far?” I ask.
“Three or four sleeps away. But Hayhek, why not make weapon first?”
“Because what you saw might not be hytrigite. jasperite is very similar, and there isn’t a metal here compatible with the both of them. I can’t waste time on a weapon I might not be able to enrune.” He hefts up an iron bar leaned against his stone anvil. “This will have to do for now. And Zathar has Heartseeker, of course.”
“Yeah,” I say nervously.
How is un-runed steel going to measure up against the monsters of the caverns? And Heartseeker is perfectly sharp, yes, but not properly repaired. All I’ve been able to do is straighten the haft a bit. The damaged runes remain damaged.
“Caverns are relatively safe,” Dwatrall says. “And it’s not just us three. Chief wants us protected. Ten more will come with us, more than enough to deal with anything.”
With our escort and destination decided, we embark after our next sleep. We march—Hayhek and I at least, the trolls stomp loudly—past the silver waterfall, up through a short tunnel which expands and becomes a long cavern. Curtains of semi-translucent, linked limestone stalactites form a maze that we weave through. We pass through a narrow opening and trek up a slope of rubble.
The stones crush and crumble under the trolls’ tread. The rumble of our passage echoes off the tall walls. Our steel-clad legs flash in the dim light, as do the trolls’ claws. Dwatrall is unbalanced at first, the uneven slope sending him tottering and swaying as he struggles to get used to the new weight on him, but he’s soon as well-balanced as any dwarf.
He is shorter than the other trolls, but walks more upright. His fists are smaller than the fists of the leader of the escort, but despite this he takes the lead after the second sleep. The trolls can tell he is their future.
By this point we are traveling downward once more. The slope of rubble was only a temporary ascent, for the hytrigite lies in a cave just below the river’s deepest abyss. As we descend the cave walls become slimy with a new kind of algae, a deep blue kind that emits not only light but sadness. Lethargy drags at me. Hayhek’s head droops.
“We’ll get there soon enough,” I say.
“Yes. But we’ve lost too much time.”
“We had no choice. We had to forge.”
“The dragon hunt might have already returned to the city.”
“If they are, what does it matter? Their victory won’t depend on us being there, no matter how good our crafts.”
“It’s not about victory! Victory or defeat, I need to be there to protect my family.”
“We’ll be there.”
“Will we?” he hisses. “After your stupid agreement?”
“We will.”
"I don't believe you, Zathar. I don't."
The descending tunnel straightens out and we wade through watery muck that smells of grime and rotten plants, and glows an even deeper and sadder blue than the wall-slime. It’s hard going, especially for Hayhek and I, our legs being barely half the length of the trolls’. As we struggle physically, I wrestle with my conscience.
The right thing to do is clear to me. My priority has to be getting Hayhek to the surface. I must apologize to the trolls and refuse to take on their request to find the hammer. Once Hayhek is safely back, and only then, can I decide if I want to get the key or not—and if I do get my hands on it, I should return it to the Runethane, if he lives.
If I can still remember the violence the black dragon inflicted on us, the terrible burning smell of flesh, the screams, why can I still imagine helping it? Yet my will to proceed goes in only one direction: toward my brother. As my conscience begs me to stop, the rest of my heart marches grimly on. It says to hell with everyone and everything. It says I can wallow in regrets after I find him, and never before.
Our next sleep we take sitting up so not to be submerged. Then, after several more long hours of wading, the tunnel ends and we have arrived at our destination.