TST (37 page)

Azerick raised his head, examined his work against the drawing, and found it nearly identical in detail. He looked over and saw Duncan watching him. With a mix of pride and trepidation, he handed the wax carving over to the rune master. The dwarf studied the width, depth, and quality of lines that made up the rune for fire.

“Not bad, not bad at all for a clumsy-handed human,” came Duncan’s prickly reply. “I think you are ready to move onto stone.”

Azerick smiled at the dwarf’s approximation of a compliment. Duncan passed him three soapstone discs and a finer set of chisels wrapped in a soft square of leather. Taking up a one of the chisels and a small wooden mallet, Azerick began inscribing a rune upon the soft, mottled stone chit. Carving into the steatite disc was significantly more difficult and less forgiving than the wax had been he quickly discovered.

It took over two weeks for the young Sorcerer to graduate from the soapstone to harder types of stone. The hard, grey rock before him frustrated Azerick to no end, as it seemed determined to fight his every attempt to create smooth, sharp lines with his chisels. It was thus that found Azerick hunched over the workbench blowing away the tiny flecks of stone from his most recent attempt at carving the resilient rock when a dwarf burst excitedly into the room.

Duncan looked up from the tome as the dwarf entered the room and began shouting. “Master Runecarver, a group of miners have been attacked by a huge beast in one of the caverns and has them trapped!”

Duncan hopped down from his stool, grabbed a wide belt adorned with several pouches, and belted it around his thick waist. “C’mon, lad, I might need your help.”

Azerick jumped up and followed the two dwarves down the series of slide poles. Despite their short legs, Azerick had a hard time keeping up with the dwarves as they sprinted through the streets and out to the mining tunnels beyond. Several more dwarves fell in behind the running rune carver and his human guest wielding axes, hammers, and shields. Most had found the time to slip a chain or heavy leather hauberk over their shoulders before rushing out to join the rescue party.

Azerick was the only one breathing hard by the time they arrived at a tunnel where several empty ore carts sat lined up on steel rails. Azerick followed closely behind Duncan as he vaulted over the side and into the mining cart. Several of the dwarves pushed the carts together and locked their couplers together with steel pins before cramming themselves into the train of four ore carts.

Duncan reached into one of the pouches on his belt and pulled out a palm-sized stone disc with the runes of air and iron engraved on its surface. He closed his eyes in concentration for a brief moment and uttered the rune’s command words in the rough dwarven language.

Azerick gripped the sides of the cart tightly as it lurched forward, propelled by an unseen force. Duncan leaned forward, his head just above the front wall of the cart with his beard flapping in the wind. Azerick’s eyes widened and his grip tightened on the sides of the cart as it continued to pick up speed.

Within moments, the train of carts was hurtling down the steel tracks with a velocity that would make a racing charger appear about as swift as a plow mule. The sorcerer’s stomach lurched and his eyes widened so far that the whites showed all around as the carts rounded a sharp bend in the tracks.

Azerick let out a scream despite himself as the invisible centripetal forces shoved him against the outside wall of the cart, certain that the dwarf-laden cars would be hurled off the narrow tracks, its living cargo thrown to their deaths.

The dwarves leaned into the curve and Azerick actually felt the inside wheels regain contact with the iron rail before continuing its terrifying dash down the dark tunnel. Azerick saw that Duncan once more had the rune-carved stone in his hand and was calling forth its power. The cart began slowing nearly as fast as it had taken off and soon came to a halt just short of a stout wooden barrier at the end of the tracks.

Azerick tried to follow the dwarves as they leapt out of the cart but his legs felt as though someone had removed the bones as soon as his feet touched the ground. Duncan grabbed him by the elbow and forced him to hobble along as the rescue party ran down a side tunnel.

Azerick could soon hear the crashing of stone, the shouting of dwarves, and the hissing of some large beast coming from up ahead. Several of the dwarves’ glowing orbs cast a pale blue light that lit up a large cavern at the end of the tunnel.

Near the back wall of the chamber, a massive creature, looking a great deal like a forty-foot long centipede, was hurling itself at a narrow cleft in the wall, furiously trying to burrow through the stone.

Curses streamed out from inside the fissure in dwarven, followed by a hurled pickaxe that struck the cave crawler in the middle of its eyeless head. The cave crawler hissed in anger and frustration, trying to dislodge the pickaxe as it lunged forward once more, tearing a large chunk of stone out of the wall with its massive, diamond-hard mandibles.

Azerick conjured forth a palisade of stone spikes between the fearsome beast and the dwarves trapped in the crevice. Several of the sharp stone tips burst up from the ground and struck the cave crawler in its softer underbelly, wounding the beast and forcing it to back away from its trapped prey.

The multi-legged creature swung its huge head towards the dwarves that ran at it with a loud battle cry that rang off the cavern walls.

Azerick let loose a barrage of arcane darts that flared brightly in the gloomy cave and struck the beast in its head. Duncan retrieved another rune stone from his pouch-laden belt. The earth and air runes engraved upon the stone glowed as he chanted under his breath. Several rocks the size of a large man’s fist rose from the cavern floor then flew across the open space as if hurled from a ballista. The projectiles hit with such force that the impact echoed throughout the chamber and cracked the beast’s hard chitin shell.

The cave crawler turned its glare away from the charging dwarves and locked its eyeless gaze on the magic-wielding human and the few dwarves that remained near him.

Azerick saw the thick, caustic liquid dripping from its mouth as it drew its head back. The sorcerer had a gut feeling of what was about to happen and raised a ward just as the creature whipped its head forward like a striking viper. A stream of venomous acid sprayed from the creature’s mouth, easily covering the tens of yards between them. Azerick bent his concentration into his ward and was just able to deflect the stream away from him the dwarves. Where it struck, the stone hissed and bubbled like the mud around a hot spring.

The attacking dwarves reached the cave crawler and scurried about like ants attacking an intruder, hacking at its many legs and underbelly. One of the dwarves went flying across the cavern when the segmented creature whipped its hind end around and struck the dwarf solidly in his back.

The cave crawler snapped up a second unfortunate dwarf in its powerful mandibles and lifted him high above the ground. Even as the sharp pincers pierced the dwarf’s armor, the valiant warrior raised his hammer high over his head and brought it down on the monster’s forehead between where its eyes should have been, cracking the hard carapace that protected it near the area where the pickaxe was still lodged.

A stream of gore flew out from the wound when the cave crawler whipped its head to the side, tossing the dead dwarf away to lie lifelessly in a heap against the cavern wall.

“Azerick, keep that thing from charging us as soon as my dwarves fall back,” Duncan ordered.

Azerick nodded as the rune carver yelled for the harassing dwarves to fall back to him quickly. The attacking dwarves retreated to the cavern entrance with military precision. As soon as they gained a few feet of space between themselves and the colossal creature, Azerick brought forth another field of stone spikes. The cave crawler tore at the spikes, tearing the sharp tips off with its mandibles and shattering others with its huge body.

Duncan raised a rune of water and earth and the stone beneath the numerous feet of the cave crawler turned soft, its own weight forcing it down into several feet of mud. Turning over the stone disc, Azerick saw the runes of earth and fire engraved upon it. The runes glowed once more, as Duncan fed power into them, causing the mud to return to its solid form once again. The cave crawler shrieked its rage at suddenly finding most of its legs trapped in solid stone. It thrashed about and began tearing at the rock with its powerful jaws.

“Stay back, ya thick-headed louts!” Duncan shouted as his dwarves, along with the miners hiding in the crevice started to charge the restricted cave crawler once more.

Duncan retrieved another rune carving of earth and spirit from his belt. The floor trembled slightly as the magical runes worked its power upon the earth. Several sharp, snapping noises were all the warning the cave crawler got before several large, sharply pointed stalactites lost their hold on the tall ceiling overhead. The heavy stone spears, hurled down by the force of gravity, struck the cave along its hard carapace, cracking and piercing it in several places.

Dwarves rushed forward once more, swinging their axes, hammers, and pickaxes at the restrained and severely wounded behemoth. Though severely hindered, the cave crawler was far from helpless. As the rescuers and miners charged the beast, it whipped its head around, snapping angrily at any dwarf that got near. One dwarf was barely able to dodge the lethal mandibles but still got himself butted by the creature’s enormous head, sending the hapless attacker rolling halfway across the cavern floor.

The cave crawler reared back to launch another stream of caustic acid but Azerick distracted it with another salvo of magical bolts straight at its head. The dwarves drove their hammers and axes into the rents caused by the fallen stalactites, hacking and prying large chunks of the chitinous armor from its body then chopping at the soft tissues beneath.

Azerick poured lightning into the cave crawler and was gladdened to see the creature shudder under the assault. A second blast brought the creature down and dwarves scurried up its hard back and drove their weapons into the creature’s skull.

Duncan ran and attended to the injured using rune stones marked with the glyphs of flesh and spirit. Azerick saw that one of the dwarves trapped in the cleft was Togar. He watched as the dwarf strode over to the front of the cave crawler’s head, grabbed the handle of the pickaxe that had lodged there, and pried it loose before striding over to where Azerick stood by watching the dwarves tend to their wounded and recovering the one unfortunate dwarf that had perished.

“Looks like I owe my life to ye again, wizard!” Togar yelled as he walked towards Azerick.

“You have Duncan and the courage of the other dwarves to thank just as much,” Azerick replied, grasping forearms with the dwarf.

Togar smiled broadly at Azerick’s inclusion of the other dwarves in the rescue. “Aye, that be for sure, but there’d be a lot more injuries and no less than a few more deaths without your help and I’ll thank ye for that.”

“I’m glad I was able to help.”

Togar walked back towards the other dwarves and clasped wrists with Duncan as the rune caster finished tending to the injured and returned to where Azerick was standing out of the way. The unwounded dwarves were helping those that had sustained injuries that made walking difficult or impossible. Four other dwarves carried the warrior that had given his life in defense of his comrades using a blanket as a makeshift litter.

“It’s been a long time since a human has fought beside dwarves inside their own warren. I want to tell you that we all appreciate your help. You likely saved a lot of lives today,” Duncan said, nodding his large bearded head.

“I was glad to help as any guest should be. I am sorry that one of your people fell to that beast.”

“He died a warrior’s death and many tankards will be lifted in his name tonight. Living under the earth is a hard life and it has made us a hard folk. We’ll mourn his death and cheer his life and his return to the great forge where he will be made anew. So, you ready go now?”

“Depends, can we take the mine cart?” Azerick asked with a grin.

Duncan laughed hard and clapped Azerick on the back as they walked ahead of the rest of the dwarves towards the waiting ore carts.

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