NOVEL FROG Dragonhunt 33: Wharoth Conflicted
Day comes and finally we make camp. Contraptions of extending poles and canvas, called tents, are to be our temporary shelters. Xomhyrk's Dragonslayers provide them. Braztak puts me in with the tenth degrees and tells me to keep an eye on their morale.
It seems fine—they quickly sleep. I stay awake for a while. The rippling of the canvas and the rustling sound of the grass outside is somehow disturbing. I haven't taken my armor off—no one dares to, even though we haven't been specifically ordered to keep it on. I keep expecting strange shadows to fall upon the tent walls.
A thrill runs through me each time I imagine this. Gutspiercer is eager to meet someone.
Deep below the stones covering the northern tundra, but getting closer to the surface with every thunderous step, another dwarven army is making its way toward the Mountain of Halajatbast. Unlike Xomhyrk's, this is not a small force. This is a proper force, a host off to war, numbering more than ten thousand, and at its head is an ancient and powerful Runethane.
He is clad in gold, or so those who see him from a distance think. In truth his golden chainmail is part of his skin, each ring piercing it as well as linking to its neighbors. Upon each is a short poem, in a script where each rune can hold more than one meaning. It confers resistance to every kind of weapon there is, and great speed and strength to boot.
In his hands are two golden axes. One he's had for a while, but its twin is newly replaced. It is a simple half-moon yet breathtaking to look upon.
“Almost disgusting, isn't it?” whispers the shadow. “To run metal through one's own skin.”
“If it works it works,” Hardrick mutters back.
“I won't let you do anything like that. I forbid it.”
“I'm not planning to.”
“Good. The runes aren't even that impressive.”
“Everyone else seems to think they are.”
“Well, they're better than yours.”
Hardrick scowls. “He's a Runethane.”
“So? That's no excuse. I told you that was the wrong script to use on your sword.”
“You told me halfway through grafting. Did you expect me to stop? Use fucking salterite?”
“Yes. It could be much better.”
“Your fault for not telling me earlier.”
“Stop shouting. The other dwarves are looking at you funny.”
Hardrick glares to the dwarf on his left. She returns the look.
“Tough one, isn't she?”
“She's the Runethane's daughter.”
“Shame she's so tall.”
“Half human. I've told you this before.”
“If we were ever to take down the Runethane, we'd have to get through her first. But I think my armor is up to the challenge, even if your sword is a little dull.”
“We're not taking down anyone. Shuddup, will you?”
The army marches onward. It's been marching for the equivalent of a month now. Runeking Uthrarzak doesn't believe in fancy mechanical contraptions like his rival Ulrike does. Hardrick wishes he did. His legs are aching as bad as his arms used to back in the mines.
At the very least, he wishes the dwarves of Uthrarzak believed in ramps rather than stairs. That's what this army is marching up, and has been marching up for the past several day-equivalents. Not easy stairs either, but tall, blocky ones. Many of Runethane Broderick's dwarves are already exhausted.
The rest of the forces though? They aren't so fatigued.
Runethane Broderick and his army are oddities among those under Runeking Uthrarzak. Originally Broderick was an ally of Thanerzak, and thus originally an Allabrast dwarf—that far off dream-like city Runeking Uthrarzak desires very much to conquer. Those dwarves are given the freedom to craft what they like.
Runeking Uthrarzak does not believe in freedom. He believes a runeknight should be a soldier and no more. There must be discipline, uniformity.
The stairs make a right-angle turn. As the formation wheels, Hardrick looks to his left and observes the main body of the army.
Steel, titanium, and tungsten glint in the torchlight. That's all—exotic metals are reserved for runes only. The shimmer of power is even. Only the use of certain scripts is allowed. That way runes can be better utilized: deep knowledge of a few scripts among the army is better than shallow knowledge of many.
The weapons too are uniform: grids of spearpoints glitter. Runeking Uthrarzak is not only a crafter of great artifacts, but he is also an author of many treatises on war. Over his nearly four thousand years of existence, he's perfected the art of fighting battles underground.
Hardrick has had many opportunities to watch how his grim dwarves fight. They do not charge rabidly, nor do they form uneven lines of dwarves with mixed sets of equipment. They hold their shields in an overlapping wall and point their spears over the top. Behind the first kneeling rank is always a second standing one armed with longer spears, then behind them is a third, with pikes. Not many foes can get through this triple defense, but those who do are met with the dwarves' sidearms.
Here Runeking Uthrarzak allows his dwarves some freedom. Not in type of weapon—they use short, stabbing swords—but at least they are free to choose what runes to write, and the more senior runeknights are permitted use of exotic metals.
Each weapon is shut tightly in its scabbard. They must not be shown. They must not disrupt the unity of the formations. Individuality, even when permitted, is to be kept hidden.
Not every dwarf is equipped with spear or pike, shield and heavy armor—there are specialist units marching between the blocks of spear and pikedwarves also, in light chainmail with axes and hammers—but ninety five out of a hundred runeknights are regulars or their officers.
“Very effective use of runes, isn't it?” says the shadow. “Runes not as art, but as tools.”
“Shuddup,” whispers Hardrick.
He rounds the turn with the rest of the senior commanders. Runethane Broderick is only a dozen or so feet ahead of him. Hardrick wonders what exactly his plan to take on the black dragon is. The beast is enormous, and more to the point, it flies. How, exactly, are dwarves stuck on the flat of the surface meant to strike it? There are ballistae with the army, dismantled and carried with the rest of the ranks, but Hardrick has a feeling they won't be enough.
Well, whatever happens, he ought to be fine at least. His titanium and steel shines with a dim red aura. Written across it in runes of abyssal salamander skin and magma worm tooth are poems about wading through lakes of white dragonfire.
“Yes,” says the shadow. “So what if the rest all burn? They should burn. The Runeking would be most pleased if we alone were to slay the beast.”
“Shuddup!” whispers Hardrick. Braedle gives him another wary look, and adjusts her grip on her axes.
“And we need the Runeking,” says the shadow. “For he is old, and knows more than most!”
Guildmaster Wharoth strikes the blazing metal hard with millimeter precision. He does not allow the uncertainty in his heart to affect the hammer in his hand. Blow by blow, the weapon's shape becomes distinct. The shapes of the runes do also.
He is using a secret script, from a slate deep in his private library, coupled with a rare reagent he's purchased with most of the profits of his guild. Together they make runes which gain their power in the forging. It's a similar process to that which Barahtan used to make his greave, when he melted runes into the molten metal, though a step less extreme.
That doesn't make it any less powerful. It's more reliable, actually, tried and tested many times over, by both Wharoth and his old teachers.
As the shape of the hammer, flat on one side and spiked on the other, grows smoother, as the metal cools from red to gray, Wharoth thinks on his decision.
To follow, or not to follow?
He'd been hoping they'd see through this Xomhyrk—who surely cannot be as powerful as he claims to be—and turn back. Yet he understands now that they will not. Zathar especially will chase after the black dragon even if it means walking alone into the middle of Runeking Uthrarzak's encampment—not that the Runeking will be there personally. Probably he'll have sent Runethane Broderick, and considering Zathar's history, that will end up going even worse.
And if Zathar finds himself walking through the blackened bodies and melted armor of a defeated army he won't turn back either.
He's smarter than he used to be. He'll find some allies to help him first. He'll try to forge something. He won't kill himself on purpose, but, when he thinks he's prepared all he can, and tricked himself into thinking he has a chance, he'll fight and he'll lose.
No one can stand against the black dragon. Wharoth is convinced of this.
Yet even so, should he follow them?
He puts down his forging hammer and stares into the burning mouth of the furnace. In the flames he sees his old guildhall. He sees his friends being gutted.
Maybe to die in battle against the monster would not be such a bad fate. It would be honorable.
But still pointless.
Even so, as guildmaster, is it not his duty to protect his guildsdwarves as best he can?
But what about the rest of the guild, here in Allabrast? If he leads them into danger, he's failing them. And if he abandons them and goes alone he's failing them also.
He cannot decide.