Deepforge (4 page)

Grognor arrived and ordered, “Dismount!”

The dwarves all jumped off their horses, giving their steeds the option to retreat, or stay and fight alongside them, doubling their numbers. None of the dwarves’ horses fled. Instead, they ran alongside the dwarves toward the unprepared humans.

As the battle intensified even more, the humans began to lose heart. A few at a time began to turn tail and run, unwittingly giving the unearthly dwarven/warhorse army one last chance to attack. Warhorses chased down and trampled the humans, whinnying and tearing with their carnivore-like teeth. Human armor and flesh flew apart from the enraged horses’ attacks.

Grognor and several brave humans squared off. He smiled and said, “Time for human sport!”              

The dwarves cheered and rushed forward, swinging with a weapon in each hand.

Four human warriors rushed Grognor slashing at him with their swords. With his hammer in one hand and his double bladed axe in the other, he ran to meet them. As they swung down, he swung up. All weapons clashed in a loud
clang.
The humans’ swords shattered as they impacted Grognor’s weapons. He didn’t pause to gloat, he swung again, bisecting the two on the left with his axe, and beheading the two on his right with the powerful impact of his hammer.

At the sight of this impossible attack, the remaining humans turned and ran. They almost got away before Haansa took several out with her hand axes, and Kergnor took out two more with his spear as it flew through the first and into the second. Twelve more humans ran as fast as they could, to be stopped in their tracks by a line of enraged warhorses, their whinnies sounding more like growls, their sharp teeth bared and their armored ears flattened. They tore the hapless humans to pieces. The rest of the humans escaped, most of them simply by being mounted at the time, with their horses panicking. This included most of the leaders.

Chapter 4

G
rognor and the victorious army returned, not in the least bit tired, and with no losses suffered. The Emperor jumped off his steed, and right into the fist of Teelena. She punched him in the nose just as soon as he pulled off his helmet. He snapped back and grabbed her by the waist. Then he attempted to devour her lips.

“Did she just punch my brother in the nose?” Selena asked, incredulous.

“She sure did! Looks like we’ll see a joining ceremony!” Mergnor laughed.

Kergnor body slammed Grognor, signaling his approval.

Grognor pulled away, full of fervor, and still high from the battle.               Everyone looked at their Chieftain, their Emperor Grognor, and simultaneously cheered.

Teelena punched Grognor in the nose again, this time following up with, “Join with me now, before we go to Lakeshore to game with the humans!”

“Did you just say ‘we’?”

“I don’t stutter, asshole!” Teelena smiled a shy smile, and seductively stroked her short, light blonde beard.

Everyone laughed a hardily as Grognor nearly cried from the exhilaration of it all.

“To the Great Forge!” Grognor yelled.

Everyone cheered as they followed into the Gigantic room. The Great Forge was the innermost cavern of Deepforge. It was largest room in the city, circular in shape. At its very center was the heart of the mountain, the active volcano. The bright red circular pool of magma was walled all the way around, splattered with magma. It bubbled and spit magma up into the air, falling down and re circulating. The metalsmiths and forgers, all armored with heat shields, dipped and retrieved only certain colored patches of the pool with their long dippers, and then poured the hot red liquid into other, smaller pools that were filled with other liquids. There, they began the process of forging metal. For anyone to come within just a few feet of the Great Forge pool without heat shields would result in that person spontaneously bursting into flames.              

Grognor and Teelena stormed into the Great Forge with nearly the entire population of Deepforge close behind. They stopped at the ‘safe line’, the carved line on the floor that sat as a concentric circle at the specified distance away from the magma pool’s wall.

They edged ever closer to it, finally just stepping over. Then they turned around. As their backs began to smolder, they said at the same time, “We are joined!” and promptly stepped away from the danger zone, their backs burned. Several people ran up and poured water on them. It was done, they were joined for life. The population of Deepforge cheered. That night was full of parties, and high spirits. Grognor and his new wife consummated their joining with a late night of fighting and love making as only dwarves can…let’s just leave it at that. Early the next morning, they all prepared to leave for Lakeshore.

“Travlgnal, call the human ambassador, let him know we’re on our way,” Grognor said as he and Teelena packed their bags.

Travlgnal picked up the telephone handset, and immediately jumped back, surprised. He dropped the handset. “Ouch! It shocked me!” he said, rubbing his hand.

Grognor and Teelena looked over to see the telephone sparking and smoldering.

“What the hell?” Teelena asked.             

Travlgnal tentatively grabbed the handset again, but the shocks had stopped. He gently put the earpiece to his ear and heard nothing. “The line’s dead.”

There came a knock at the door.

“Enter!” Grognor said.

Bergnor walked in. “Brother, I…I think we may be under attack!”

“What’s happened?”

“Well, we’re not sure…you just need to come take a look for yourself.” Bergnor motioned for him to follow, obviously distraught.

They all followed to the already open Great Door. The army was assembled and ready to move out with Grognor, but something unseen to Grognor was happening. They were all staring outside, pointing and speculating. The horses snorted in fury, ready to attack the unknown foe. Grognor and the rest pushed their way through to the front and couldn’t understand what they were seeing.

Down in the Deepforge valley was something hard to describe. It was a circular object of some kind, approximately three yards in diameter, just above the ground. Inside the circle could be seen scenery. Scenery that didn’t match what was actually on the other side. It could be described as a round doorway with fuzzy edges. It was a portal to another world, with red landscape and a light blue sky beyond. A strange atmospheric distortion emitted from the object. The telephone and electrical power lines which hung on a series of poles stretching from Deepforge down through the valley and then across to places beyond, were sparking.

Suddenly, a bright wave emitted from the portal like an explosion and quickly expanded like a bubble. The telephone and electrical lines all burst into flames and crumbled. As the bubble expanded to and beyond Deepforge, everyone’s hair stood on end, and all metallic objects began to spark. Everyone suffered mild burns. The bubble then expanded into the sky, where a beautiful light show began, appearing as gigantic curtains of multicolored light flowing across the sky much like the northern lights, but much brighter and far more active. Nobody knew what it was. Only a few moments had passed. As everyone tried to recover from the shocks, the portal suddenly closed.

“What the hell
was
that?!” Grognor asked as he flattened his now chaotic beard.

Nobody seemed to know, but one thing was evident: All communications and electricity was down. Most of the residents of Deepforge had a vested interest in the technology, as a large portion of the energy was generated from the volcano. Although  their electrical devices could be easily discarded and replaced with traditional mechanical ones at a moment’s notice, the people that might suffer would be the ones down the line in other villages; villages that depended on the Deepforge electrical generation plant.

Communications was a bit more of a concern, as this connected everyone across the River Valley. Grognor wondered if the telephone switching banks could even be reused, and how widespread the damage had been. This trek east would take on another purpose now, not just as a touring trip on the way to Lakeshore for games. They would have to see what damage had been done. He quickly convened an engineer’s council before embarking.

“As you all witnessed, all electrical devices and infrastructure has been destroyed. Can anyone explain? Was this an attack by the humans?” Grognor asked.             

Delvin Cranksprocket, the gnome head engineer reported, “Sire, I doubt this was an attack from the humans. This seemed unrelated. From what my associates and I have been able to determine, this had the markings of some sort of electromagnetic…‘EM’ pulse, of a power off the scale. It caused a high power induction through anything metallic, and literally fried all electrics.”

“Could you tell where it came from?” Grognor asked in frustration.

“No, Sire, but…as unlikely as it sounds, the consensus has been…” Delvin hesitated.

“Well? Spit it out!”

“Sire, we think it was a portal… connected to some distant world. A world with red soil and a singular sun. The exact location would be unknowable.”

“A distant world? For what purpose?”

“That’s unknowable as well. The configuration of the energy and the portal itself suggests it was artificial, not a natural phenomenon. We may never know what its purpose was. But, best guess is, the EM pulse itself. It was made specifically to distribute this…for lack of a better term…attack.”

“Who could have done this, and why?” Grognor asked, rhetorically. “What kind of timeline are we talking about for repairs?”

“That’s hard to say, Sire. Everything we’ve seen here is a complete loss. Even the switching room is destroyed, just a mass of melted metal. We need to do a full assessment, but we may be looking at a catastrophic loss of electrical infrastructure.”

“Catastrophic?”

“We may never recover from this… or at least, it will take us back to square one, technologically speaking.”

“Mister Cranksprocket. You will accompany us to Lakeshore and do a full assessment of the damage.”

“Yes, Sire. I will prepare at once.” He and his associates left the council chambers, and quickly gathered all their tools for the trip.

Grognor sat alone in the room, thinking to himself. ‘Catastrophic loss. Maybe this whole high technology thing was never supposed to be. Maybe that thing was a tool of the absent gods.’ He nodded, resolute. No matter what the damage turned out to be, he would discourage a full restoration. In his estimation, it was not meant to be. Dwarves and all humanoids were trying to harness the power of gods, and that wasn’t right.

Part 2: The Spring Games

Chapter 5

T
he thousand member, mounted dwarf army set off just as soon as everyone was ready. Not on a mission of war; rather, just the opposite. It would appear to be for all outward intents to be a mission of peace; to enter the Spring Games the humans held near the Great Lake at the Lakeshore villages.

“My love, do you think we’ll see any of the humans you gave the spanking to?” Teelena asked her new husband as she checked her weapons.

“I would almost count on it, darling,” Grognor said with a hopeful tone. “I’d hate to think that was the very last of human sport. Remember, now they’re outlaws. Even their own people won’t accept them as we are apparently trying to make peace. So, in the interest of personal honor, they
must
attack. Should be fun!” 

She smiled and became a bit anxious for human sport. She had never been involved in this sort of thing, but was ready for whatever came. She was highly skilled in the art of war hammer battle, nearly as good as Grognor, she felt.

Grognor leaned over to her as if reading her mind. “Sometimes greatness is a skill worked on, forged during the times of early development. Not everyone is a master from the beginning. Practice makes perfect? Maybe not. But diligence builds greater and greater skill. Never give up. The fruits of your labor will be realized when you least expect. I have no doubt that your hard work will pay off and you will have the chance to smash a human’s head before we’re done.” He grinned, pleased with his new spouse.

“Ha! Maybe we should contest, see who can smash more!” she said, challenging his experience and superior skill.

“Oh, really? Then why don’t you enter the games with me? In fact,” Grognor started, raising his voice so all could hear, “I hereby challenge any of you to beat me in the games! Come on! Will you let me be the only one to…play… with the humans?”

There was only a moment of silence, then the entire army began roaring with exchanged challenges. Grognor was pleased, indeed. Despite the Chieftains’ objections, the warriors would participate. It was a minor victory for him.

The army made their way down Deepforge Valley across the recent battlefield full of exploded carts and dead humans. The narrow river that ran near the wide trail was flowing swiftly.

“The snows are melting,” Grognor said, watching with amazement at the white capped waters rolling down.

As they camped the first night, Grognor and his bride cuddled up near the campfire and stared at the bright star-filled sky.

“Wow, look at Armadia tonight,” Grognor said.

Teelena gazed up as she finished a long drink from her flagon, the army partying around them. “The rings are spectacular, aren’t they?”

One of the gnomes sitting around the fire looked up. “Hey, look at that, you can see it already!” He pointed to a different part of the sky.

Grognor and the others sitting around the fire looked where the gnome was pointing.

“The rogue Sun!” Teelena said, amazed.

A small point of red light, no brighter than the average star, sat in a place where there normally wasn’t a star.

“Let me go get my portable telescope,” the gnome said, and got up to unload his pack.

“Last time it came into the system was ten thousand years ago,” Grognor said, staring up at the motionless point in the sky.

“Wow, we truly are living in an interesting time,” Teelena said, cuddling up again to Grognor.

“Yep, nobody alive now has ever seen it, and will never see it again,” the gnome said as he set up his telescope. He adjusted and fine tuned the instrument for optimum viewing. “There you are! Hello beauty!” He smiled as he peered into the optics. “Sire, My Lady, you must see this!” He backed away and motioned to the telescope.

Grognor and Teelena stood up and took a look. Grognor motioned for Teelena to go first. She giggled and did so.

“Wow!” Teelena said, “this is incredible! It looks so close, you can actually see the spots and flairs!” She backed away and looked up at it without the telescope, and nodded to Grognor to look. “What’s your name?” she asked the gnome.

“Forgive me, My Lady. My name is Epsilon Opticon, Engineer and Master Astronomer.”

“Well Mister Opticon, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’ve never seen you around Deepforge.”

“My Lady, I spend most of my time in the observatory on the top. I’m one of the Astronomers, you see. We search the skies for knowledge. This is amazing, though. We knew it was coming soon, but couldn’t know exactly when. We’re a fortunate generation to be able to see this.” He motioned up at the star.

Grognor looked into the telescope for a long time, inspecting the rouge star. “Opticon, why is it we can see such detail, not like the other stars which appear only as flickers?”

“Sire, this star is quite dim and actually very close, despite its appearance. It’s many times smaller than the red sun. That’s why it doesn’t do much more than the comets when they enter the system. We may feel a few minor seismic disturbances, but nothing more. The highly eccentric orbit doesn’t take it anywhere near us, just through a steep angle around the system’s center of gravity. But, it will get much brighter as the years go by, and according to the ancient records, in about two years should look as big as the red Sun, and will bathe our world in red light, even at night. We should have a good solid four months with no night. It’ll be amazing!”

“Doesn’t the current origin theory say this star had something to do with us being here?” Teelena asked.

“There’s a subject that’s hotly debated,” Opticon said. “Some circumstantial evidence shows that the cataclysm spoken of by the dragons was initiated by the rouge sun, which actually collided with the red sun, causing a wave of death to re set the worlds. I don’t believe any of it. The rouge sun has an eccentric, but stable orbit that takes it nowhere near the inner system, at least not that close. There’s absolutely no chance that could have happened. I think it was something else, something artificial.”

Warriors lined up to take a look at the star, until it finally faded with the morning light below the horizon. Opticon laughed. He knew that the movement of the celestial object would be slow and visible for years to come. Everyone would see it more and more easily as time went by. But, the excitement of the first viewing was undeniably exciting.             

The morning met an army well drank, well fed, and ready for travel. They set out across the Deepforge tributary river, the massive warhorses easily fording the raging waters.              

They rode on, the morning air crisp, but warmer than it had been for several months. Spring had arrived. The wild bloom plants were everywhere, and the multicolored wildflowers blossomed and filled the air with sweet aromas. This combined with the scent of the mountain pines rolled down into the River Valley, making for an almost perfect spring morning. The sky was partly cloudy, and the two suns shone brightly down upon the mighty dwarven army.

“Wow, what a nice morning!” Teelena said, taking in a deep breath.

Grognor watched her as she did, her large breasts swelling with the inhale. He was very much pleased with his new wife. The day started very good, indeed.             

The road leading east was paralleled by a series of very straight poles. At their tops, which were as much as forty feet high, were cross members. Attached securely to the cross members were four ceramic insulators. Before the EM burst from the portal, the cross members were connected one pole to another by long stretched wires. This was the telephone and electrical distribution line. It came from Deepforge and teed off at the crossroads where the road from Deepforge met the east-west road, following and paralleling the road. To the west the lines went to the Stone Village and all the surrounding smaller villages.

The road itself was well worn and perfect for the army to trek without issue. Periodically they would stop for rest and have beer and food.

“An army travels on its stomach,” Grognor said on a regular basis. The designated hunters had the task of bringing in food for the people, and as soon as the next rest was taken, the chuck wagon cook would enlist several people to do the cleaning and pre-prep of the meat. Then he and his assistants would prepare an epic feast. The beer wagons were by far the largest part of the army caravan. No army would even consider a two week march without a good supply of beer and food.

Only a few days after leaving Deepforge, the Hawkflight industrial park skyline could be seen. It wasn’t a pleasant sight as it usually was. Hawkflight was one of the designated spots for overnight stays and had plenty of supplies. The industrial park was really a city. There were homes, a central trade square, and everything a city would have, but was surrounded by smelting plants, various factories, and so forth. The entire park was owned by Hawkflight Industries and supplied the known world with nearly all manner of high tech devices and electrics. It centered on the River of Prosperity, with a series of ornate stone bridges spanning the river connecting the two halves of the high tech city. The trade square itself was on the south side of the river.              

The multi-story buildings normally rose high into the sky, majestically declaring mankind’s triumph over nature. Now it was something else. Multiple plumes of black smoke rose into the sky, but not from the smoke stacks which normally did so as the manufacturing progressed. This was sign of something else. Disaster. Buildings were on fire, no doubt a result of the EM pulse.

“By the gods!” Grognor exclaimed, to be echoed by the army. “Looks like they were hit hard. We need to hurry. They must need help.”

They increased their speed and dispensed with the indulgent food stops. Of course, the beer stops were required. As they drew closer, the true extend of the damage became more and more evident.              

“It’s all gone!” one of the warriors exclaimed, not believing his eyes.

The entire industrial park was destroyed, leaving only burning skeletons of the buildings behind. The only portion that survived was the residence area and trade square. Everything on the northern side of the river where the crossroads and one of the power distributions centers were, was nothing but burning rubble. Dwarves and gnomes scrambled everywhere as the army arrived.

The army quickly dismounted and chipped in with the cleanup.

“Where’s Chieftain Hawkson?!” Grognor screamed in desperation.

“Emperor!” The gnome Chieftain Hawkson ran up to the scene. He was burned on his left side, and had apparently suffered some sort of major electrical discharge on his helmet, which was now melted and burned onto his head.

“Thank the gods! Hawkson, are you ok? How many did we lose?”

Hawkson ran up and hugged his friend Grognor. “Sire, thanks to the gods, or fate, or something, we lost no one. The infrastructure is a complete loss, however. We were all in the council chambers when everything metal began to spark, then the main reactor exploded. We got out just as cooling tube number 4 collapsed, right into the council. We escaped as everything in the industrial park exploded in plasma bursts! It was terrible! Do you have any idea what happened?”

The engineers from Deepforge converged on the scene and explained the whole EM burst incident from the portal.

“Chieftain, what do you need, we’re here to help?” Teelena asked.

Hawkson burst into tears and embraced her, finally succumbing to the technological horror he had witnessed over the past week.

“There, there,” she said, looking over at Grognor as he and several others attempted to put out the enduring fires, and clean up the massive mess.

Grognor’s eyes met hers, and he let slip a tiny smile. He nodded and continued to help, moving the largest pieces, the ones nobody else could.

“It’s a total loss, Teelena. Everything’s gone! All of it!” Hawkson cried.

Teelena caressed his arm, and got a good look at his melted helmet. “Oh, my goodness. We need to get this off before it gets infected. Come on, let me help you.”

Hawkson scarcely heard her. Teelena led him over to her steed, and pulled out her first aid kit and tools. As the distraught Chieftain continued to mourn his masterpiece of technology, she methodically removed the helmet and healed him as best she could.

“There, that’s better, “ she said as she began wrapping a large bandage around his head.

“I can’t stay here. I…have to leave…” Hawkson said. He was now obviously in shock. He stood up and began walking north.

Grognor saw this and walked up. “Where’s he going?”

Teelena shook her head in pity. “I think the shock of it all finally hit him when we showed up. He said he couldn’t stay here.”

They watched as he walked off toward the forest.

“Shouldn’t we stop him?” Teelena asked.

“No, just let him go. There’s a hidden elven village that way, they’ll take care of him.

Teelena nodded and helped the cleanup effort. “Poor, poor gnome. This was his life’s work. I just can’t imagine how hard this is for him.”

“Yea,” Grognor nodded, “this has got to be tough. But, maybe it’s a good thing.”