Legend of the Runeforger: A Dwarven Progression Fantasy

“Braztak and Erak!” Xomhyrk yells. “Your guild's to have the second place of honor. Form up behind the tip of the wedge!”

“Association, form up!” Braztak shouts. “Zathar, left flank! Tarak, right flank!”

“Tenth degrees, third rank!” shouts Erak. “Ninth and eighth around them! Seventh and sixth of the back! Fifth degrees, fill the gaps!”

We hurry to get into formation, colliding against each other in our haste. Below us, the humans are raising spears and nocking arrows to bows.

The king and his retinue are trotting away as fast as they can through the ranks in the valley between our hill and the next. They're making easy progress, for the elites here, in plate or chain, are well-trained. They step aside smoothly and reform just as smoothly once their leader is past.

I notice that the elite humans' spears have hooks on them, to catch in the gaps between armor. I wonder how many of them have fought and killed dwarves before.

“Hurry up!” Xomhyrk yells. “Dragonslayers, get them in order!”

Cue more yelling down the ranks as our force continues to form up. The humans have raised their bows now, are on the point of drawing them. I look to their king. He's at the foot of the opposite hill already.

The sky is continuing to darken. Spots of rain fall onto my helm and freeze solid. I scrape them away, but they come too fast. Soon my vision is a blur. Shit! I put one hand to my brow to the stop the rain running down, and quickly scrape the ice away with the other. Better. I can see the humans clearly now.

They're still prepared to loose arrows, but no one has yet given them the command. Why? We have no ranged weapons with us, and even if we did, how much damage could they possibly do against two thousand bowmen?

The king and his soldiers have started up the opposite hill, are now winding up a rough track. But the wizard and his apprentice stop on a small outcrop. They're speaking—the master is instructing his student about something.

About what? The sky is almost black now. Something's coming, some terrible magic. I remember my last encounter with a sorcerer and begin to feel a little queasy.

The racket of metallic jostling and angry shouting behind finally ceases. I glance back to look along the line of runeknights. It extends out far to the left. Our wedge is complete. Now all we have to do is wait for Xomhyrk's order. He gives it immediately:

“Char—“

Halfway through the word, the wizard raises his staff and flash of white obliterates the darkness. A roar obliterates the sound of rain, and then the first flash is followed by another, and another, so quickly in succession it could be called flickering, yet this magic is too powerful for such a weak word to suit it. The roaring increases, louder even than a cave-in.

I'm thrown from my feet. I try to scream but my breath has been knocked from me. I gasp. White spears are stabbing down from sky to ground far faster than any spear of metal ever could. I see red splinters flying through the rain above me—remnants of ruins now further smashed.

Lightning. The power Jerat harnessed for his weapon has been unleashed against us on a scale no dwarf of the underground could ever have predicted.

Jerat! He was next to me. I look to see if he's still standing. He isn't. He's lying still, and white smoke is rising up through his visor.

“No!” I yell.

I pull the visor up. His face is raw red and burned.

“No!”

My voice is lost to the roaring of the rain and thunder. Bolt after bolt continues to fall. Something heavy hits my shoulder, denting the pauldron slightly. It drops down into the mud. An arrow. The humans are loosing at us, a rain of steel to follow their wizard's rain of power.

“No!” I scream again.

I should've seen this coming! Or if not me, someone with experience of the surface! Lightning hits things standing tall, and is particularly attracted to metal. We've been led into a trap.

I glance back at our wedge. It's in disarray. Dozens have fallen. Guthah is one of them, his spear shattered.

“No!” I scream.

Then I throw myself down the slope, Gutspiercer ready in my hands.

Dwarves. Caask lives far from any dwarf-holes, and had never thought much about them until today. They were the objects of fairy stories, legends, and jokes. When he and his men were called out to face them, he hadn't felt much fear. How much damage could an army of folk more than a foot shorter than you ever do?

Their armor is thick, true. But all armor has gaps, and war with bows is a game of numbers. Throw enough darts onto the enemy and some will get through. Keep throwing them, and eventually there won't be a body on the battlefield that's not pierced in some way. Caask should know. He's been in a fair few battles.

“Loose!” he yells again. “Nock! Draw! Loose!”

His platoon's arrows fly up toward the dwarvish army, still reeling from the wizard's spell. Fools! Isn't 'to stay on the hill while the blue is darkening' a well-known saying, meaning to do something completely suicidal? But there probably aren't any hills underground, just tunnels. And no light to judge distance by either—maybe that's why there aren't any dwarvish archers.

“Nock! Draw! Loose!”

He sees an arrow go into the eye of one of the dwarves as it stands up. He smiles grimly. This is not a battle, but a slaughter.

Good. That's the best kind of battle. Maybe after it's finished, he'll pick up a dwarven helmet to show his sons. They'd like that.

Then the dwarf at the head of their army, the one in dark blue with the spear, suddenly vanishes. Caask blinks. Did he fall? No, there's no body. Some kind of magic?

“Nock! Draw! Loose!”

He has no time to ponder the strangeness—there's no more lightning left, and the dwarves are starting to recover from their shock. A few jump down the hill to charge. Arrows meet them, slowing their advance through sheer force, though none make it through their armor. The spear-line levels their hooked weapons.

“Nock! Draw! Loose!”

They're getting closer. Caask's heart begins to beat a little faster. They don't look quite so small anymore. They might be short, but they're wide, and that armor adds a lot of extra bulk.

“To the side!” one of his men suddenly yells. “Left! Shit!”

Caask quickly turns his head to look. His eyes widen. A dwarf is nearly on him, has somehow broken through the spear-line already. He's raising a long pickaxe above his head. His armor is shining white, and its helm is like a skull.

He lowers his bow and looses into the dwarf's eye socket. It's a perfect shot—hits dead center—it rebounds off.

Now the dwarf is driving his pickaxe into the hollow between Caask's neck and collarbone.

He feels a terrible agony in the side of his chest.

And now he feels nothing at all.

“Nachroktey! Nachroktey! Nachroktey!” I scream as I strike the humans down one by one.

Their arrows glance away from my armor, sliding off its frozen surface. It's protecting me just as I forged it too. Only the most perfect or lucky shots can as much as slow me. And very few can aim those shots now that I'm in the thick of them.

I swing Gutspiercer into the nearest, burying the point deep in his belly. He bends double. I rip my weapon out with ease. One of the weaknesses of a war-pick is that it can sometimes be hard to extract, but Gutspiercer doesn't seem to have this issue. It's always eager to be out and striking at its next victim.

Blood sprays onto my mask. My vision becomes translucent red, and with the usual deep black scar through the middle too, but the ground is so packed with humans that I barely need to aim. I feel Gutspiercer shiver twice as I fell two more victims.

One human throws down his bow and draws a short sword. He lunges at me just as I'm drawing Gutspiercer out of his comrade. He stabs down, aiming for the gap at the front of my neck. I let go one hand from Gutspiercer and grab hold of his wrist.

He's stronger than a dwarf and the force of his blow sends me to my knees. Then he screams. I laugh. Tiny white lines are spreading across his wrist from where I'm grabbing it. He tries to pull away but I don't let go.

One of his friends looses an arrow at my shoulder. It gets through the gap, and pierces the chainmail a little. The prick of pain enrages me. I let go of the human's wrist, stand and pull Gutspiercer back, hooking his ankle. He falls backwards then I'm driving it through his chest—now I'm leaping over him—now his friend's eyes show only white as I bury Gutspiercer through the top of his skull.

“Nachroktey!” I scream.

The humans are hurrying away from me now, screaming in terror, boots churning up the mud of the valley. A few loose arrows at me, which glance off. I resume my charge. A spearman lunges at me. His hooked spear catches on my pauldron but then snaps. I laugh at its poor quality, then let Gutspiercer take his life.

I see it pull a length of intestine out, then I'm trampling over his body up the hill.

Three spearman lunge simultaneously. They're elites in steel plate. The succeed in stopping my charge for about a second, then I'm sliding through the points. Their eyes, only semi-concealed by their open-face helms, widen in surprise.

Gutspiercer doesn't even notice their steel-cladding. It takes one through the chest, the next through the side of the ribs. The final one quickly steps back and thrusts at me—he's a professional, seems to be totally unfazed by the sudden deaths of his comrades.

His discipline is for nothing. The point of his spear glances harmlessly off my breastplate, then Gutspiercer is inside his chest. He screams in agony and falls down.

“Nachroktey!” I scream. “Nachroktey!”

There's empty slope ahead of me. No more humans—but for one, standing on an outcrop about thirty yards distant:

The wizard. His eyes meet mine. They're bloodshot, and there's tracks of dried blood running from his nose also. But I think he still has some power left in him, for he makes no motion to flee.

“Nachroktey!” I scream, then charge.

The wizard raises his staff.