out brawl as the dwarves angrily cut down the invaders.
“To the next chamber!” someone called, and the dwarves again began their retreat down the next tunnel. Slowly they backed shoulder to shoulder into the wide tunnel as the horde advanced after them. The dwarves fought valiantly but the Draggard numbers were too great. As they downed one, another stood to replace it.
“Go with yer father and brothers!” said a dwarf named Dwelldon to Roakore. “MI and me brothers’ll buy you some time.” Dwelldon held a massive war-hammer, and his eyes shone with a burning fire. Roakore knew he would not be talked out of his resolve, so he simply nodded. The dwarves retreated quickly down the tunnel as Dwelldon and his four brothers stood shoulder to shoulder blocking the way. Roakore listened with shimmering eyes as they took up the battle song of the gods.
As the dwarves, now numbering less than fifty, entered the next chamber, they were followed by the sounds of Draggard howls and of war-hammers thudding into bodies. This was the Chamber of Spears, another triangular chamber with a staircase leading to a great balcony. Atop the balcony awaited another hundred dwarves, this time brandishing huge spears. Roakore and the remaining dwarves from the Chamber of Arrows ascended the stairs and took up places upon the balcony as the drawbridge was lowered. Roakore found his father and brothers in the entrance to the next tunnel. They were huddled around someone lying on the floor. Roakore went to them and to his dismay found that the one they looked over was his eldest brother, Wrakkwor.
“My son,” Roakore’s father said to the fallen dwarf. “Go now in peace to the Mountain of the Gods. You have earned your place among the kings of old.”
Roakore wiped his eyes as he watched his beloved brother’s last breath leave his beaten body. “Take him to the last chamber!” his father ordered two awaiting dwarves. They took up the body and hurried down the tunnel. Roakore’s father turned to his three remaining sons with burning, tear-filled eyes. “They’ll pay.”
Roakore grabbed his father’s arm as he stormed past toward the balcony. Roakore knew the Draggard had entered the chamber, for dwarf spears had begun to fly.
“Be there word from the four groups that’ve doubled back to the main chamber?” he asked.
Roakore’s father looked ill; his grey eyes burned still, but beneath that fire of hatred lay a hint of despair. “Yes, my son. They found the chamber full. The Draggard army numbers in the thousands. They fill every hall, tunnel, and chamber. We, my son, are all who remain.”
Roakore knew in his heart then that they were doomed. The Draggard numbers were so great that still they filled the main hall and all surrounding tunnels. Although hundreds of tunnels and a vast number of chambers rooted out from the main hall of the dwarf city for miles, only two tunnels led to the surface.
“Has word been sent to Ky’Dren?” Roakore asked his father.
“Aye. When the horn blew, riders were sent out. But they’ll bring news o’ peril too late, I’m ’fraid,” he said gravely.
Roakore said nothing; his father watched him keenly and recognized his fears. In a voice loud enough for all around to hear he yelled, “That is right, my son, they shall die, one and all! Let them come, and let them know the wrath of the dwarves!”
His words were met with an enthusiastic roar all around him as he nodded to his now-eldest son, Roakore, and walked to the balcony. Roakore understood as well as his father that the fight would be lost. He also understood that his father could not in the face of such peril let the bleak truth diminish the dwarves’ spirits. They would all die fighting for their mountain, and they would all be rewarded in death with a place on the Mountain of the Gods.
From where he stood at the tunnel entrance, Roakore could tell that the Draggard army was filing steadily into the Chamber of Spears. Soon his father’s command rang out into the room: “Bring the chamber to life!”
Roakore heard the telltale sound of hundreds of spears being launched from their mounts upon the chamber ceiling, down into the ranks of the beasts. “To the next chamber!” The dwarves, led by Roakore, made their way down the tunnel into the next chamber.
The Chamber of Mazes was not a chamber at all, but rather a series of interconnecting tunnels. Roakore led the group down the short tunnel into a small room that opened into four separate tunnels. He opted for the first tunnel to his right and urged the dwarves on.
The route through the chamber was taught to every dwarf child at an early age. It would take less them than ten minutes to complete it. But anyone who did not know the way could explore the tunnels for days to no avail.
Roakore led the group through the last series of tunnels and fake doors to the real exit. He knocked out a rhythm on the heavy door and was answered with the sounds of many disengaging deadbolts. The door swung open and the dwarves entered the Chamber of Traps, the last defense in the Chambers of Errakner.
The chamber’s ceiling was over one hundred feet high, and the chamber itself spanned over one thousand feet in length and two hundred feet in width. The dwarves were careful to take the previously memorized route to the back wall. One false step in the perilous room could easily cost them their lives. Beyond the entrance to the chamber the room seemed fairly empty, but hidden within were hundreds of traps.
More than one thousand armor-clad male dwarves waited at the end of the chamber, less than one-tenth of the full army within the mountain. Any who were not within the chamber could be assumed dead, having been out on mining expeditions miles away when the invasion started, or killed in the battles that followed. Those within the most distant mines of the mountain would return to the city to find it overrun with Draggard; they would die, but would no doubt take many of the beasts with them.
At the end of the chamber behind the army of dwarves was a single door which led to the Hiding Chamber, where more than ten thousand terrified dwarf women and children and elders waited. Mothers held their young and soothed the crying children’s fears with soft words as the older, braver lads begged to be let to fight. The mountain had not been invaded in over seven hundred years, well beyond the reckoning of even the eldest dwarves, and never had it been invaded by the likes of the Draggard.
The dwarves prepared for battle, sharpening hatchets and axes, checking each other’s armor and readying crossbows. They did not expect the Draggard to get through the maze for hours yet but were determined to be prepared. Roakore found his father and brothers and was met with a great hug from his youngest brother, who had grown a beard only the year before. “Today we avenge our people, brother. They will not get by!”
Roakore responded with a gruff war cry, but he saw his brother’s fear. Not fear for himself or even the women and children, but for their father. For there was no place within the Mountain of the Gods for a king who had lost his mountain. His soul would linger eternally within the many tunnels and halls of the mountain.
“Today we fight side by side, my sons,” the king roared.
He was interrupted in his speech by a shout from one of the door guards. “They have reached the chamber! They have reached the chamber, and they are at the doors!”
A hush came over the group, and in the silence the sounds of many clawed fists banging on wood echoed throughout the chamber.
“They must’ve sniffed us out, the animals,” one of the dwarves growled.
The king walked calmly to the front line with Roakore and his sons and addressed the army. “Archers into position!” he bellowed, and two ranks of one hundred archers took to the balconies on each side of the chamber. The banging and clawing upon the thick chamber door became louder, the king continued.
“Good dwarves, today our deepest fears have been realized. Behind that very door awaits an army o’ thousands. We’re outnumbered, an’ we’ve come here to make our final stand.” He scowled and his powerful voice rose, filling the chamber and drowning out the sounds of the Draggard.
“We fight now fer our mountain. The gods and kings o’ old watch us now, each an’ every one o’ us. What legacy will ye bring with ye to the Mountain o’ the Gods? What’ll ye do to ensure yer place?”
He paused and eyed the battle-hungry crowd, fire burning in their eyes. The pounding upon the door escalated, and it finally gave way to the horde of Draggard. They poured into the room, dozens instantly taking to the walls. The king paid them no mind, however, and went on.
“What we do here today shall echo in song throughout the great golden halls o’ the Mountain o’ the Gods! What we do here now’ll become legend! Let these foul beasts know our wrath, an’ let ’em rue the day they entered our mountain! We’ll fight till our last breath, bloody axe an’ crushin’ hammer. Leave none alive, an’ let the tale o’ this day echo eternally throughout the great halls o’ our gods!”
The king’s speech was met with a thousand war cries, and the great voice of the furious dwarf army stopped the Draggard in their tracks. The king took up the war song of the gods and a thousand voices joined in.
