Resurgent Shadows (Successive Harmony Book 1) (9 page)

Eric bent down and picked up the hammer, feeling reluctant to leave it on the ground, and then he gestured for them to follow him and led the way into the tunnels. He could feel the eyes of the dverger king and his men boring into his back as he walked, studying him, measuring his every move, and weighing him on scales that held the balance of life and death.

He ignored it. There wasn’t anything else that he could do or say that would make any difference.

They skirted the bodies of the two wyrms and the corpses that lay around them. Eric didn’t stop to check if they were human or dverger. Now was not the time.

A few steps into the adjacent tunnel, a rush of echoing footsteps greeted them. Natalie appeared at the far end of the tunnel, followed closely by Dan and a group of heavily armed men, the remnant of Dan’s earlier patrol. Natalie carried one of their last remaining flashlights. The beam cut through the gloom like a scalpel, though it shook in her hand.

A sudden rush of anger at being disobeyed flashed through Eric’s mind, but it passed almost instantly as rough, meaty hands seized him from behind and pulled him back into the knot of dvergers. Strong arms forced Eric to his knees and a dagger’s tip dug a small hole in the side of his neck.

Dan and his men had guns trained on the dvergers holding Eric in mere seconds.

“Everything’s all right, Dan,” Eric said. “I’m taking them to see the damage in the Commons.” Blood pounded in Eric’s ears, and his pulse raced. His whole body seemed to itch in response to the cold metal at his throat, though he forced himself to remain calm. The hammer lay like a warm ember in his left hand, fighting the cool touch at his neck.

It was a mark of the trust Dan had in his older brother that he didn’t question the order, but shouldered his rifle and passed the word for his men to do the same. They were not so trusting as Dan. Their hesitation was shown in their expressions and the speed at which they put up their guns. The dvergers surrounding Eric muttered to each other in tones too soft for Eric to hear though their voices were deep and resonating. The conversations cut off at a sharp command from the King.

“Tell them to be putting their weapons on the ground and for the woman to be ceasing her spellcasting.” The king’s voice was moist in his ear.

Spellcasting? It took him a moment to realize they meant Natalie’s flashlight.

“Dan, have your men put their guns on the ground. Natalie, turn the flashlight off.”

Dan arched an eyebrow, meeting Eric’s eye.

“Just do it.” Eric was surprised at the level of anger in his own voice.

Dan frowned but ordered his men to put their guns on the ground. Natalie looked between Eric and Dan with a look of concern, but she clicked off the flashlight and placed it on the ground alongside the guns. Two dvergers ran forward and picked up all the guns. One of them gingerly rolled the flashlight down the hall with the tip of his boot.

The knife lifted from Eric’s throat. He got to his feet.

“Take us to be seeing the wounded,” the king said. He ignored Dan and the other men and gave Natalie a wide berth.

Dan and the other men stepped back to let the dvergers pass, though one of the bearded figures slowed to remain behind them.

Natalie dropped into line alongside Eric and took his free hand. “The injured are still in the Commons,” she said. “There were too many for the infirmary.”

Eric was cognizant of the dvergers behind him, straining to hear every word, so he remained silent. Natalie got the hint and quieted as well.

A scene of chaos greeted them when they entered the Commons.

Smoke hung heavy in the air. Most of the fires had been put out, but there were many bodies and wounded scattered throughout the remaining wreckage, badly burned by acid. Some were beyond the point of recognition. Eric could see where some of the bodies were being laid, arrayed in lines along the center pathway. Bile and nausea threatened to overcome him, but he fought it down. He would not throw up in front of the dvergers. He wasn’t about to give them that satisfaction. Dozens of other men and women, and even some children, scrambled through the burnt husks of buildings like a swarm of ants. They attended to the dead and wounded and tried to salvage what they could from their destroyed homes.

Natalie’s hand shook within his. Eric squeezed it comfortingly. He realized that despite the brave face she wore, she was as appalled and shocked as any other within the Commons. If her feelings were anything similar to his own, there was a small degree of denial at the sheer violence and chaos that assaulted their senses. It was nothing compared to what they’d lived through during the end of days—it paled in comparison—but they had been prepared for that. This had come without warning, swift and deadly.

He grabbed one of the men as he ran by. “Have someone organize a team to get the fires under control and then take whoever is left to get the wounded gathered.”

The man disappeared down the tunnel.

Eric let go of Natalie’s hand and ran to the nearest body. He thought about setting the hammer aside, but immediately dismissed the idea and instead pushed the haft beneath his belt.

Behind him, the dverger king snapped out his own orders. A dverger warrior pushed forward and helped him pull the inert man towards where the other wounded were gathered.

Burns covered much of the man’s body. Eric recognized him as Joshua, who had once been a banker. The man groaned and stirred at their touch, but didn’t open his eyes as they laid him back onto the ground.

Eric nodded his thanks to the dverger and moved on to the next man, fighting to keep his nausea under control.

The next few hours passed in a blur of activity, thoughtlessness, and emotion. Repairs were started, wounded tended to, fires tamed, and plans organized and implemented. Eric was a part of all of it. He pushed himself to the limits of his strength and then pushed some more, running from group to group and task to task until everything was set to his standards.

The dvergers were quick, diligent workers. They shouldered burdens and loads that none of the men could have completed unaided. A team of them, sent for by the dverger king hours before, had already begun repairs on the homes and storage buildings. Others were helping Dan repair the perimeter entrances.

Roberts had been sent out on a needless supply run down some of the remote tunnels that extended out beneath the old university. As much as Eric disliked the man, he couldn’t risk the dvergers discovering that Roberts had ordered the two dvergers be killed. And he still needed to confirm it was something Roberts had done that had given them away in the first place.

Eric groaned, shifted his weight off his injured ankle, and tossed a large chunk of stone aside. Someone had come along earlier and bandaged his foot at Natalie’s insistence, but he’d refused the pain medicine they had tried to press on him. Their supply of such medications was limited, and he was not about to waste any of it on something as trivial as his own sprained ankle.

Finally, Eric took a look around and decided everything was organized and structured enough for him to sit down, his last drop of energy spent. He collapsed onto the ground and sunk backwards onto the floor, ignoring the chill dampness that soaked his shirt. The hammer haft scraped against the floor.

Eric closed his eyes and breathed deeply, letting the stress, pain, and soreness of the day leak out as he exhaled. The sound of heavy booted feet approaching caught his attention. He opened one eye.

The dverger king stood above him, outlined against the light from the lanterns along the walls.

Eric sighed. Couldn’t he at least catch a few moments of rest, at least? This reminded him of finals week the last year of his master’s program, except about twice as tiring.

The dverger king took a seat on the ground next to him and proffered a jug of water he had picked up somewhere.

Eric sat up with a groan and accepted the container.

“Thanks,” he said, taking a drink.

“You’re welcome. I be called Olan, King of the dverger people.”

“Eric.”

“You do be an interesting man.” The dverger took the jug back from Eric and gulped a long swig. “We’ve not met any human like you since before the Breaking.”

It was an apt name for the days of chaos. The days when lava spewed from volcanic maws, when earthquakes broke the face of the earth apart and destroyed the lives of billions. It had literally sundered the earth, and humanity along with it.

“I guess I’ll take that as a compliment,” Eric said carefully. “You’re an interesting dwarf.”

The dverger king chuckled. “We be not these dwarves of whom you speak. The bands of men we’ve come across in this place have been knowing us by that name. We do be knowing you as well, or at least your human nature, even if we do not be familiar with your machines or sorcerer’s ways. You, human, be not the same as the other men we did meet here.”

Eric let out a soft chuckle and scratched at his chin. There was a day’s worth of growth there, beneath the grime. He’d be needing a shave soon. “We call those men marauders,” he said. “And I’m glad I’m not like them. They responded to the ‘Breaking’ by giving up their humanity and answering horror and violence with an even darker version of itself. They live to hunt and kill their kindred men. Most join the golgent and trulgo armies, killing in the name of one Dragonlord or another. They’re one of the reasons we live underground, far from where the dragons roam and away from their fiery breath.”

Olan spat in disgust. “Aye, men of that ilk do often be drawn to the Dragonhosts. We had thought this world made up of naught but Dragonspawn.”

Silently Eric agreed with the dverger. Throughout history, men had often become the evil they saw around them. It was a vicious cycle where the abused turned around and became the abusers. In the face of dragons and creatures of nightmare entering the world, it was little wonder that some of the survivors joined themselves with those horrors, recognizing the inevitability of utter destruction.

He remembered the first footage of dragons climbing out of the volcanic eruptions, dripping lava and flame. Massive red monstrosities that spewed plumes of fire a hundred yards long and almost half again as wide. They flew through the air on silent wings of death, with hides nigh impenetrable. And then, just before all communication had ceased, a few had given reports of the dragons having riders: Dragonlords. They led the Dragonhosts, bending golgent and trulgo alike to their will. Was it little wonder that the weak of mind and heart sought them out?

“Not all of us,” Eric said softly.

“So it be seeming. I would not have thought Valundnir would be choosing a human companion, much less one which did play a part in the death of its former companion. Most unfortunate.”

Despite his fatigue, Eric noticed the change in Olan’s tone. This was the Olan’s final test. He wanted answers about the deaths of his kin, answers that would determine if anyone other than dverger would ever again leave the confines of the tunnels beneath Provo. Eric glanced around and noticed the dverger warriors trying and failing to appear unobtrusive near where he and Olan sat.

“I wasn’t there when it happened,” Eric said, his voice level and calm despite the rush of adrenaline that coursed through his blood. “But I can promise you that things would have been different had I been. The man who was in command is a fool, but owns the loyalty of a lot of men and their families. Blame, if there is any, lies with him. He will be punished accordingly.”

Olan leapt to his feet in a crash of metal.

“Indeed he shall. The man will be tasting the blade of my axe.”

Eric got to his feet as well, ignoring the twinge of pain from his ankle. The adrenaline spiked and, despite himself, Eric found himself facing down the short, angry figure before him.

“He is one of my men, as dumb as he is. I would not think to execute one of your dvergers regardless of what he did to my people. That would be no better than taking up arms with the dragons.”

The dvergers around them roared. Eric took a few quick steps backwards as Olan ripped a battleaxe from his belt and Eric took a few quick steps backwards. Part of him was warning him to calm down, think the situation through, and act only when necessary. Part of him didn’t care. He set his feet wide and raised his fists in a defensive position. The weight at his belt disappeared and his fingers were shoved aside as the hammer, which had been on his belt until that moment, materialized within his grip.

Eric’s surprise was nothing compared to the reaction of the dvergers. Several of them dropped their weapons and shouted with alarm in their native tongue. Others gave him startled, but reverent bows.

It was a stark contrast to the tension and rage that had filled the room only moments before. It was still there, hidden beneath the surface, but it was receding into a simmering anger, fast resolving into something smaller.

Olan’s face was a mixture of quizzical surprise and the last stubborn vestiges of anger.

A dverger that Eric had not noticed before scurried out of the smoldering ruins of a nearby building. With a sense of surreal detachment, Eric curiously looked over the dverger’s armor, which appeared far more ceremonial than functional. It bore etchings of white enamel about its entire surface, arrayed in patterns and symbols Eric didn’t understand. The only recognizable symbol was that of an anvil, hammer, and axe arrayed together within a silver circle. The armor was pulled over a flowing white robe which gave the dverger a comical appearance.

Regardless, the dverger pushed his way forward until he was standing directly in front of Eric, though with his back to him, and threw his hands into the air. “Valundnir has chosen! A Guerreiro has been chosen! Witness and observe!”

By now everyone in the compound, human and dverger alike, was staring at Eric, who stood in bewildered silence, the war hammer held lightly in his hand. The weapon seemed to thrum in his hands, pulsing and vibrating as if with a heartbeat of its own. His own heart pulsed almost in unison, following the pattern of beats and pauses with uncanny precision. As one, the dvergers, including Olan, clamped fists to their chests and snapped to attention with a bellowed shout.

Eric didn’t understand what they said, nor was he sure how he should respond. He looked out beyond the dvergers to the men and women whispering in confusion against the backdrop of death behind them. The sight pulled him back to the bare bones of the situation in an instant, stilling the thrill that had momentarily raced through him.

The dvergers looked at him with a mixture of respect and open curiosity, as if they were expecting something from him. This was not his problem. There were people who needed him.

Grunting in his best imitation of dverger gruffness—since he didn’t know what else to do—Eric hooked the war hammer through his belt and pushed through the dvergers, who gave way before him without protest. He ignored the other men and women of the compound that called out to him and skirted into a side passage. He knew he would be followed.

The sound of heavy dverger footfalls soon echoed in the passageway behind him. Judging from the sounds, there was more than one. No, one had a different sound, like the soft thwap of flip-flops on stone. Eric stopped, turned, and was unsurprised to find both Olan and the white-armored dverger—whose sandaled feet poked out from beneath the flowing white robe—a few steps behind him.

The tunnel was dark, only dimly lit by the remnants of light that filtered down from the. The darkness hid their faces from view, so Eric stepped back into a swath of light. Olan and the other dvergers followed. The dverger king’s face was grim, though his companion’s bearded face was split in a wide, toothy grin.

“Olan,” Eric said with a slight inclination of his head.

The white armored dverger opened his mouth to say something, most likely a reproof regarding Eric’s lack of an honorific, but Olan raised his hand and the dverger fell silent before he had even began. The light played across the stony, dverger features, casting them into shadow and highlighting the crags and gullies that lined their faces where they weren’t hidden by beard or mustache.

“There be some small matters we be needing to resolve, human,” Olan said, his voice flinty, “starting with Valundnir. Torsten here be a cleric of Atelho, our God, and guardian of the Elithalma. He be needing to see if the hammer do truly be yours now.”

“And if it is?”

“Valundnir be a magical weapon, human, one of the most powerful we know of. It be made by our only Ferreiro before he be lost in the Breaking.” Olan’s voice grew somber and, if anything, even flintier. “The weapon do be recalled to its master when it be summoned and it do give its wielder enormous physical strength and stamina in battle. How else could you be killing a wyrm with a single blow? It did know only one other master, the berserker that were killed by your men.”

“So what do you want me to do?” Eric asked. He had to focus to keep his irritation down. He breathed in deeply to calm his nerves. He must have been more tired than he thought. He didn’t usually lose his temper so easily.

“Just be giving it to Torsten and I’ll be explaining the rest.”

Eric felt a strange reluctance to part with the weapon. He reached out one hand and dropped the weapon into Torsten’s waiting, outstretched hands. The fatigue and pain from his wounds immediately threatened to overwhelm him as Torsten pulled the hammer close to his chest and stomped off back the way they had come. Eric blinked and forced himself to focus on Olan’s scrutinizing face.

“What’s to keep you from simply taking the weapon back? Why do you even care?” Eric asked.

“If the weapon do truly be yours only you or a cleric of Atelho can be touching Valundnir without being instantly killed. Now, summon it. Speak the weapon’s name within your mind.”

Eric did so, feeling only slightly foolish, and the hammer instantly appeared in his right hand, materializing out of thin air in a coalescence of shadows and light that crackled and snapped with surprising vigor. A small shout of surprise echoed down the passageway. The weapon thrummed in his hand and the fatigue of the day’s events faded slightly. Eric swallowed dryly. This was something that couldn’t be explained by science, that didn’t have an easy answer.

“It would seem that Valundnir be indeed yours, Guerreiro,” Olan said as Eric tucked the war hammer into his belt with a slow, measured hand. “Never before did there be anyone not of dverger blood with an Elithalma. There will be blood spilled amongst the clans over this.”

“I don’t really care about your internal politics,” Eric said with a note of impatience in his voice. “I care about how this is going to affect me and those I protect. Two of your people are dead. I lost at least a dozen of mine. So I have a magic hammer. What does this have to do with anything? Why are you here? What are your intentions towards my people?”

Olan grunted something under his breath that sounded like a curse. His brow furrowed and his mustache quivered on his lip as he banged the butt of his axe against the ground.

“The politics do be affecting you, human. As a Guerreiro you be having as much say as a clan chief and command of a squadron of twelve dvergers. They will be seeing this as complete and utter blasphemy. They will be demanding your death and the deaths of everyone here as penance.”

“Technically, Olan,” Torsten said, appearing out of the shadows before Eric could respond, “Atelho demands that he be adopted by the same clan as the previous wielder of Valundnir, which is your clan, the Deepgarth.”

“Of more pressing urgency, what are
you
doing here and what are
your
intentions towards my people,” Eric repeated, his frustration coming through.

“That do be none of your concern, human.”

“None of my concern? You just named me a Guerreiro and told me that I have as much say as one of your clan chiefs, and yet you brush me aside like child pestering its mother. It makes sense why your clan chiefs would be so cruel and heartless as to slaughter an entire community of innocent people if this is the way their king treats them.” Eric dropped a hand onto Valundnir’s cool metal head, feeling its reassuring presence. He’d lost his guns during the battle, but he felt just as well armed with the hammer at his belt has he had with any of his guns.

Olan’s eyes blazed with anger and he snapped his axe up into his hands as his feet moved outward into a wide battle stance. Before either Eric or Olan could make any sort of move towards the other, Torsten interposed himself between the two.

“He is right, Olan, however disrespectful,” the cleric said, looking Olan in the eye. “He has the right to be answered.”

Olan growled but blinked and looked away.

Eric noted the exchange with interest. The cleric was powerful indeed if he could make a dverger king blink.

“We be here because the Brown Dragonhosts be moving northward. My armies must be meeting them halfway, before their alliance with the Reds can be finalized and we be finding ourselves facing both ‘Hosts at the same time. The wyrms did be the first phase of that alliance. The Death Squads, the wyrms and trulgo that did come with them, have been hunting us and my hunters have been hunting them. There do be nothing better at hunting wyrms than a berserker.”

“Armies?”

“Yes, human, armies! Remnants of all nine clans still be remaining. I have united them all as no King has done before. We be five hundred score strong. We move south as one united force—a single dverger nation to meet the twisted spawn that the Brown Dragonlords have at their beck and call.”

Eric reeled at the number Olan was suggesting before a quick reality check brought him crashing back down to reality. Against the millions of golgent, trulgo, and men twisted into servitude to the devil, ten thousand dvergers didn’t seem like much.

“How do you travel in such large numbers without being noticed by the patrols?”

Olan smiled somewhat ruefully as he replied. “The Browns do not be much for flying. They do prefer to burrow into the ground and weasel about in the earth like gnomes. They keep their feet and bodies on the ground. But there’s something else that keeps them away from us.”

“What is that?”

“We dvergers be the world’s finest dragon hunters.”

“Dragon hunters?” Incredulity hung thick in Eric’s voice.

He remembered the initial reports from the first encounters with dragons. Bullets, rockets, and mortars has bounced of the dragon’s thick hides as if they were pebbles tossed against the trunk of an ancient oak. As he thought this, his hand settled on Valundnir’s head and he felt a slight rush of adrenaline. Maybe with weapons like Valundnir the dvergers would stand a chance.

Olan grinned, a malicious twinkle in his jewel-like eyes, though Torsten’s expression was grim and strained.

“Aye, dragon hunters!” Olan said. “You’ll have to be seeing it to understand, should you happen to get that chance.”

“Your Majesty,” Torsten said, interrupting the conversation before Eric could repeat his most pressing questions. There was a deep note of weariness in his voice. “The clan chiefs should be assembling now. As King you should meet them and lead them into the tunnels yourself. We don’t want to start another battle with these humans.”

Olan shrugged noncommittally, looking between Torsten and Eric in mild confusion, as if trying to decide what he was going to do. Torsten gave a slight nod and Olan’s expression cleared. The dverger king inclined his head toward the pair and headed off in the direction he had come, leaving Eric and Torsten alone in the sparsely lit tunnel.

Eric wondered at the relationship between the two dvergers if Torsten could so easily influence Olan’s decisions. He wasn’t sure it boded well. True leaders, those that weren’t always in the spotlight, but that influenced the decisions of everyone around them, those were the most dangerous. When they got a hold of something they hung on like weasels, tenaciously gripping their claims until death or a force greater than their own deposed them.

“Olan means well,” Torsten said with a sigh, “but he’s a true dverger through and through. He thinks with his axe far more often than he does with his brain.”

“And you do not?” Eric asked. As wary as he was of the dvergers, Torsten had sent Olan away for a reason and Eric was curious what that was.

“Perhaps, but then again, perhaps not. You know so little, and yet you must learn so much is the short time we have. I am called Torsten, of the Midgarth Clan, chief priest and cleric of Atelho, son of the All-Father and Father of the dvergers. You are Eric.”

It was not a question. The cleric looked up at Eric with intensity in his gaze, his deep blue eyes piercing and hard. Eric remained silent, intrigued.

“There was an event in our recent past where the might of Úndin, the All-Father, was matched against Sayrin, his brother. Their battle sundered the universe and created this union of lives that you and I now live in. But their fight is not over. They fight on even now, but they are constrained in their fight to use their instruments, imperfect mortal creatures such as ourselves. The creations of Úndin are on one side, and Sayrin’s children are on the other. Man, however, was a creation of both Úndin and Sayrin and thus prone to fall prey to their own whims and follow the path that they so choose. The aylfins, the daughters and sons of Faerin, have followed their own paths as well, either falling to Sayrin or joining us on the side of the All-Father. Such is their fickle nature as well, though they are outside the balance of power. The dvergers alone remain pure and loyal to their creator, Atelho, first son of Úndin. The humans we have found have all decided to follow their lesser Father to aid the golgent and the Dragonhosts. The dragons we fight are the tools of Sayrin and we dvergers fight them at every turn.” Torsten recited this as if from rote memory, with minimal inflection.