Legend of the Runeforger: A Dwarven Progression Fantasy

The raid I witnessed was the first of many. Nearly every day after, a new one springs from some disused tunnel to kill, maim, and most importantly destroy. Rumors explode of an army being raised on the other side of the chasm, to flood across and unify both halves of the city once and for all under the golden fist of Runethane Broderick.

The defenses go up, all around and under Thanerzak's half. The earth trembles with the rumble of mining and the low thunder of stone brick placed upon stone brick. Tunnels are blocked up. In their place, new mineshafts dug and the materials of construction raised into the city. Along the chasm rises high scaffolding, obscuring the enemy side from view.

The raids diminish in frequency, but do not quite cease. Every runeknight in the city now belongs to the militia under the command of Defense Minister Ganzesh. I understand that he plans to keep our territory standing no matter how much gold, sweat, and blood it takes.

From now on vital industrial areas are to be protected by only the strongest. So once the paperwork for my placement into the militia is finished, I am to be assigned a new position.

And while I wait for my assignment I begin a new craft. I cannot give up, I've decided. It is odd to say, and likely treasonous, but seeing the runeknight in silver, the legend who has gone from miner to general, has inspired my heart to roil with jealousy. Only a miner yet he has excelled; there is no reason I cannot too. And with the dragon being hunted, and the defenses going up, it is not likely to be burning me any time soon. Maybe it will even miss my six month deadline.

All of us who faced the dragon received gold. It is not much, but I can create something, at least, better than the wonky iron that is my current gear.

Gauntlets. My power is in the offense, and so I must emphasize that. I have thought of the perfect runes to graft. First though, the forging itself, down at one of the forges our guild has been gifted as a replacement for those incinerated.

I measure the plates to fit exactly—my right hand is more swollen with muscle than the left, and I make sure to take this into account, as well as every other difference in structure between my hands. I curve the backplates so they follow exactly the lines of my knuckles. Each part of each finger gets its own plate as well, which overlap.

Most importantly, the chainmail. Guildmaster Wharoth is willing to give me his linking machine free of charge as promised.

“Go ahead,” he said to me. “You stood up to that monster. You didn't flee. Keep it, in fact.”

It’s an amazing piece of equipment. It doesn’t just link rings together, but creates them too. All I have to do is cut the steel wire into the correct lengths, insert them, and keep my hand turning the machine’s wheel steadily. In a day I have nearly a third of the chainmail I need, and it’s gleaming and soft to the touch. I wrap it around my hand and unlike the cheap stuff, it’s as flexible as silk.

But I cannot spend every day in the forge, as much as doing so calms my heart and mind. Today I am to be assigned my position. I leave my apartment, bypass the forge and walk up through the main roads of the city.

I imagined military law to mean serious, grim looking runeknights marching up and down the streets at all hours, beating anyone who didn't have permission to go outside. The reality is different.

The most obvious departure from peaceful times is the amount of dust in the air. The high walls in front of the chasm are being constructed at incredible speed, and all the stone-cutting raises up huge gray clouds that drift through the streets, coating everything and everyone, and getting into my lungs to make me choke. Coal-smoke adds its darker tones to the air, as vast amounts of metal ore are smelted to drive down the price of materials so every runeknight can equip themselves for the battle to come.

There are still plenty of grim-faced military types, however. I come face to face with a committee of three up in the plaza outside the arena, where the open-air assignment office has been set up. Office is rather grand a word. It’s a long table stacked high and haphazardly with books and papers. In the middle, orientated to face the new militia members, is a large map marked with many numbers.

“Name and degree,” intones a tungsten clad officer.

“Zathar, tenth.”

The officer raises his eyebrows as he makes a mark on his list. “Well! The famous one!”

One of the other officers laughs. “The crazy one.” She grins at me. “Not quite as handsome as he was in all that gold.”

I scowl.

“Where do we put him?” asks the third. “The front lines? He has courage.”

“Tenth degrees can’t go on the front lines,” the first points out. “They’d be slaughtered. And he can’t go in the rapid response force either.”

“But can’t have him too far back,” says the second. “Not near anything important.”

“The middle then... Here,” says the third. He taps his finger on the map, half a mile up the mountain. “Defensive position number sixty-three.”

“What do I do there?” I ask.

“You sit there and do nothing,” says the woman officer. “If Broderick’s army makes it through the city to you, you’ll have to fight, but that won’t happen.”

“Who else is with me?”

“Go there and find out,” the first officer says sternly. “You report there tomorrow. Fail to show up, and there will be both physical and financial consequences.”

I arrive at defensive position sixty-three and my first thought is that it looks very defensive indeed. It’s a circle carved into the rock of the mountain slope, twenty foot in diameter, four foot deep at its front side and eight foot at the back. It is also fronted by a wall; stairs lead to the small platform behind small crenellations. We are, I imagine, meant to stand on these and stab downward if Broderick’s dwarves show up.

Then I realize the fatal flaw. Any enemies can bypass the front, climb the mountain a little, and charge in from the back.

“It used to hold a ballista,” explains the commander, a nervous looking runeknight of the sixth degree. “If the enemy shows up, we’re supposed to get out and form a line linked with the defenders in the other positions.”

“That shouldn’t happen though, right?”

He shrugs. “I hope not. Who knows, though?”

The dwarves with me are unfamiliar faces. None are equipped very well. Mostly steel, with rather uninspired runes of toughness and flexibility—and a few don’t even have steel, just iron like me. As for weapons, I personally think Heartseeker is the best by far. If its dark glow even makes my allies nervous, how much more so my enemies?

On account of its glow, and maybe my reputation too, the rest avoid me. I spend my time looking out across the city from the top of the wall with no one at my side.

A few days later, however, one familiar face comes to join us. A gray-bearded one, with eyes dark from lost sleep.

“Zathar,” he says. “Nice to see you.”

“Hayhek. Funny we should end up together.”

“Not really. Anyone strong is either up front or back at the castle.” He chuckles. “Likes of us get put here.”

I try not to let my frustration at his lumping us into the same category show. “Didn't they put Yezakh in with you?”

“Still hasn’t taken the exam, and now they’re on hold.”

“Oh.”

“And with what happened to your guild, well, he’s a right mess about that as well.”

“He’s tough. He’ll recover.”

“I hope so.” He sighs again. “I hope so.”

I nod firmly. “He will. And so will our guild. The Guildmaster has the money. Once this all blows over, he’ll rebuild it. Yezakh can join, and then he can take the exam.”

“If it blows over.”

“Won’t it? At least, no one’s going to make it up here to us.”

“Better hope they don’t.” Hayhek grimaces. “Look up there.”

I look to where he points. At the emplacement adjacent to ours are several figures in dark bronze. My new hopes sink.

“Do they want revenge?” I ask. “I beat Kazhek fairly.”

“I don’t know. But I won’t trust them to guard our backs.”

I must stay at the emplacement every day until four hours after nightfall. As the mirrors darken, torchlights flicker into flame down in the city, turning it into a sea of lights. They are thickest and brightest along the front wall whose construction stops for nothing.

One night a procession begins along the main road. It is too dark to make out properly, but I can see a long line of massive carts, each pulled by a straining blindboar. Upon each cart is a contraption of some kind.

Of course. Tonight is the night the dragon hunt leaves the city.

“Is this wise?” I ask Hayhek. “With the raids, and Broderick's army.”

“Wise? Who knows? We all understand why he’s doing it, though. With his history.”

“What history?”

Hayhek looks at me curiously. “You don’t know it?”

“No.” Miners never got history lessons.

“This cavern used to be ruled by the beasts. He was the one who took it from them, three hundred years ago.”

“You remember it?”

“No! I’m not quite that old. But he suffered a great deal in the process. Which is why he’s charging off now.”

I point to the head cart of the procession. “Is that the Runethane, then?” I can just make out a tungsten clad figure walking in front of it, armor gleaming darkly in the torchlight, a tall halberd leaned on his shoulder. I swallow—this is the most powerful dwarf in the caverns, the thousand year-old warrior who conquered dragons. He’s so far above me that he may as well be standing on the surface under a glow of unfiltered sunlight.

“No.” Hayhek deflates my thrill. “That’ll be one of his first degrees. The Runethane is in his forge.”

“Is he making something?”

“Of course.”’

“What?”

Hayhek shrugs. “No one knows. Best not to speculate. Nothing the likes of us could ever hope to create.”