Legend of the Runeforger: A Dwarven Progression Fantasy

Because the war is not yet started in earnest, and because to move massive stocks of food, expansive tents, and dig latrines would take dwarfpower better employed creating the wall and blocking off tunnels, for the time being I am just a part-time soldier.

I have the late-afternoon and evening shifts. Despite the late nights, I do not allow myself any sleep-ins. Each morning I shake off the despair of my nightmares, gather up my materials and make my way down to the forge.

Every detail has to be perfect. Every mistake must be ironed out or redone. In fact, I think I end up remaking every one of the overlapping finger plates, just to make sure the surface of each is optimal for both perfect physical defense and clean rune-grafting.

I realize the chainmail is going to be more difficult than I thought. The linking machine is more complex than I gave it credit for. If I do not keep the turn-speed of the wheel constant, the links end up uneven. The mail fabric I thought was so perfect before proves on closer inspection to have minute unevennesses, so I throw it out and begin again.

Yet I’m making progress. As the days grind on, my gauntlets begin to come together.

Once lunchtime comes, though, it’s away from the forge and up through the city to defensive position number sixty three. I stare out over the city, longing to be back in the forge working on my craft. Instead, I watch another kind of craft coming together. The great craft of the walls.

Stoneworking is another ancient and revered dwarven skill. Since we spend our whole lives surrounded by the material we have a natural affinity for it. If runes could be grafted to it, perhaps masons would be as well-respected as runeknights. In times of war, they nearly are. Everyone is in awe at the walls they are constructing. They are a hundred feet high, and each block is cut so perfectly, stacked so exactly against the other, that the seams between them cannot be seen even from just a foot away. Up in the distance, they look as smooth as any wall of natural making—smoother, for they are not yet weathered, and thus gleam like gray mirrors.

For about a week and a half they continue to extend upwards until they reach the point judged adequate by the stonemasons, or perhaps the limit of Defense Minister Ganzesh’s funds. The masons are not finished, however. They create triangular crenellations all across the top, and rumor has it ‘murder-holes’ to throw down rocks and burning magma pumped from below. They also build bunkers at even intervals both behind the walls and on top, as triage and command emplacements.

It’s satisfying to watch, and relieving too. The more I look at the walls growing day by day, the more confident I am that I will not have to fight the silver legend until I am ready. Broderick’s men will not be able to both cross the chasm and smash through the walls. And they will surely not risk the march through to the outer edges of the forest to bypass the wall, not with a dragon lurking there, and all the other beasts besides it.

“How is the dragon hunt going?” I ask Hayhek one day. “Haven’t heard any news lately.”

“If you haven’t heard any news, that means there isn’t any. Still tracking it, I imagine.”

“The Runethane is very confident he can find it.”

“The Runethane knows plenty more about dragons than us. We just have to have faith in him and his guard. That’s just the way of the world: can’t do everything on your own.”

“Yeah.”

Do I even want them to find it? I’ve gone from fearing my death at its hands, to new hope for the future. The silver legend gave me inspiration for my craft, and this inspiration in turn has given me some hope for my future. But my future includes my brother, and to get to him, I must fulfill the dragon’s request.

My leg is nearly completely healed now—I barely limp, and I am a member of the Runethane’s military, and the castle is right behind me. Gaining access is not totally out of the question. The key is not so far out of my grasp as it once was.

But what does the black dragon want with the key? What if giving it the key will mean the deaths of hundreds? What is the key for? These are uncomfortable questions.

The construction of the walls completes; the remaining scaffolding is taken down. Nothing of note happens for a few days. The city calms, an effect of the great gray cliffs now protecting us.

Then a rumor takes root.

“There’s something on the other side...” whispers one dwarf to another during night shift.

I prick up my ears.

“What thing?”

“A machine. My cousin’s down helping block off the tunnels. Talked to some of our spies... Broderick is building something.”

“Building what?”

“No idea. Something big. Something huge.”

The other guard chuckles. “I think your cousin’s telling tall tales, mate.”

Nevertheless, the rumor persists. Over the next few days I hear it repeated again and again, a story of some great machine of twisted metal forged together with huge trunks of wood from the surface. No one has had a glimpse of it, least of all me, but even so we start to see it through the wall. Just our imaginations, of course, but imagination is often more demoralizing than reality.

A hideous monster of a machine, built to one purpose and one alone: our destruction. None of us feel so safe any more.

I feel even less safe the day one of the Troglodyte Slayers comes down to greet me. I see her striding down from position number sixty-two in her bronze armor, which is more ornate than Kazhek’s was, and shimmers at the shoulder plates—there’s some kind of runic poem of strength there. A two-handed hammer is strapped to her back.

The commander lets her in. She climbs up the stairs to the emplacement and faces me. I step back, two hands on Heartseeker, ready for anything.

“Relax,” she says. “I’m not here for revenge.”

“You’re Kazhek’s sister,” I say.

“You’ll remember I stopped him killing you, then.”

“Yeah. His first attempt, at least.”

“He always was rash. I tried to talk him out of sabotaging you in the examinations.”

“How kind of you.” I narrow my eyes slightly. She does not look particularly kind. “At any rate, that’s all over now.”

She shakes her head. “Kazhek had friends who would very much like a piece of you. Polt wasn’t so popular, but he was.”

I tilt my head in suspicion. “Why are you telling me this?”

“I don’t want anyone else in my guild to get hurt,” she says sourly. “I don’t think you’re particularly skilled, to be clear. Just lucky.”

“I’ll try not to hurt any of them, then,” I say.

“Don’t be so rude. You should be thanking my brother. You weren’t in any shape to take on the rest of the fifth grade examination. I should know, I’ve taken it. Seems Vanerak enjoyed the duel so much he decided to keep you alive.”

“Or maybe he just thought I showed promise.”

“Whatever the reason, just stay away from my guild. Don’t pick fights if they provoke you, and don’t accept any duels.”

“I wasn’t planning to.”

“Good.”

She leaves and I lean against the battlements and sigh.

“It’ll never be over,” Hayhek warns. “Feuds are ugly things.”

“They’ve got nothing to complain about,” I say darkly. “Kazhek challenged me. If he lost that was his fault and his business.”

“It’s not about logic, Zathar. Never is.”

“I suppose.”

We continue to watch out over the city. The light of the mirrors turns orange, then fades to dim silver.

“Hey,” says one of the other dwarves. “Look at that. Down there.”

I squint to the smeltery district he’s pointing to. Smoke is rising from a hole in the street.

“Some accident?” Hayhek says.

Armored figures climb from the hole. At their head is the runeknight in shining silver. My grip on Heartseeker tightens. They flood out into the nearest facility.

“Another raid!” someone shouts. "Commander!"

The commander scrambles up the stairs and looks down.

“There’s a lot this time,” he murmurs.

“Do we go down?”

“No. Stay here. We have to keep discipline. Someone else will deal with it.”

There’s an awful lot of soldiers though. And the skill of the silver legend I have seen for myself.

Runethane Thanerzak’s hammer falls again and again upon the blade. The anvil shudders with each beat. Sparks flash into the air, blue and white. He cannot see the blade change its shape, the alloy is far too hard for that; it takes all his strength to bend and flatten it by even a micrometer. It has taken him a century to form it into its current form.

It is nearly done, though. Another few weeks, and the weapon will be complete.

Someone raps at the door to his forge. He grimaces and puts down the hammer, walks over to open it. It’s Ganzesh, of course.

“What is it?” The Runethane’s voice reverberates metallically behind his mask. He often wonders if he is the only one who can hear the reverberations, or if the peculiarity makes its way outside the mask as well.

“My apologies, Runethane. I have an urgent military report.”

“Go ahead.”

“I think it would be better if we were to sit down, somewhere... I have reports from the rapid response forces, and the head quartermaster, as well as financial statements—dire ones—from the banking guild. We should go over them.”

Thanerzak glowers. Ganzesh of course cannot see the glower, but he can certainly feel it.

“I am forging.”

“Even so... It is urgent.”

Thanerzak is beginning to regret giving Ganzesh his new position. He wanted him out of his way, up in the city organizing things, not down in the castle bothering him.

“If it’s so urgent, tell me here and now.”

“We have just driven off another raid—”

“Is that all?”

“But one of immense size, Runethane! With the silver legend at its head. The one I told you about, Broderick’s newest general.”

“You still drove them off.”

“At cost! Fifty runeknights slain, and several of our biggest smelteries have been demolished by thermite charges. The knock-on economic effect will be enormous. Prices of bronze, copper, and titanium were already high, and now—”

“If you have already driven them off it no longer concerns me. I have a more important concern.”

“My Runethane, there is also the matter of the ram they are constructing. My spies say it is vast, and my stonemasons say that the wall will not hold against it forever.”

“Even if they batter a hole in the wall, they will still have to bridge the gap, and we will not let them.”

“I would not be so—”

“Enough!” Thanerzak snaps. “No matter how many runeknights Broderick pours into my city, once my weapon is complete, they will be of no consequence. Broderick will be destroyed, and I will be able to restart the true conflict. Starting with severing the black dragon’s scaly head from its shoulders, unless Vanerak manages first.”

“Just one weapon cannot defeat an entire army.”

Runethane Thanerzak smiles behind his metal mask. “You will see, young dwarf. Now leave me be.”

Ganzesh bows and hurries away. Runethane Thanerzak turns back to his forge.

It is not large at all. Nor is it, like those of most of his underlings, perfectly geometrically carved and equipped with all the latest forging technology—automatic vises, pump-action hammers, linking machines and the like. It is the same rough cave as he found it four hundred years back, on his first expedition to what would become his lands, when all was as yet untouched by dwarven hand.

There is only one addition.

He looks down upon the axe. Head and welded haft both glimmer in every color there is, and some there are not. It’s not glowing with heat anymore though. The alloy he mixed over a century back tends to bleed heat if it isn’t being subjected to constant impacts, and Ganzesh has completely interrupted his rhythm.

He lifts it up and places it lengthways into a blackened alcove at the far end of the forge. Beside this alcove shines the handle of his diamond key: it is inserted halfway into its lock. He pushes the key in a fraction; it clicks; he turns it and it clicks again, louder.

Something deep below rumbles, a scream through the rocks, and white dragonfire roars into the alcove. Its blinding light and heat glare out, turning the forge room incandescent. Runethane Thanerzak begins to laugh, then to scream with laughter. His rabid mirth fills the forge room and echoes down the halls of his mountain-castle.

This is his revenge. The dragons that tortured him so, he is now torturing in turn, and he will continue to torture them, every day, with every new craft he makes.

His revenge will never end.