MURDARK
At last Tordek pried open his scorched eyelids and blinked away the gummy residue of his eyelashes. The ceiling of the mineshaft sped by at incredible speed as they plunged down the steep slope. Despite his pain, he recognized immediately that they were piled onto a flat, wheelless ore sledge plummeting down an inclined tunnel.
"Who is steering this thing?" he shouted.
"There's steering?" cried Lidda, straddling his armored chest. She kept enough of her wits to strike another sunrod, which she waved to and fro in her search for a brake, a wheel, a lever, anything to guide or slow their descent.
Tordek wriggled and shoved, but not so hard as to send Vadania or Devis over the side of the sledge. At last he managed to turn over on his stomach and look forward instead of straight up. They were sliding so fast that the new vantage was no more reassuring. He barely glimpsed side passages and rotten wooden braces to either side as they sped past.
"This is going to hurt when we stop," suggested Devis. "A lot."
"You can be the first to jump off!" snapped Tordek.
The bard shut his mouth and concentrated, thinking of a spell that might help them, Tordek hoped. At last he shrugged and quickly sang the cat's grace spell that he had cast on Lidda earlier, but this time on himself.
Vadania craned her neck to peer at the ceiling.
"What are you looking for?" yelled Tordek.
"Roots!" she shouted back. "Do you see any roots?"
At her words, all four of them scanned the walls for any sign of roots, but Tordek knew it was a vain hope.
"We're too deep!" he cried.
"I'm out of ideas," she replied.
At that, the walls and ceiling disappeared.
"What does that mean?" yelled Devis. "We're in a bigger area! Is that good?"
The sledge slowed. The hissing of its passage gradually declined to a deep, grating sound. Soon it was quiet enough that they could hear their own sighs of relief.
"Thank Fharlaghn!" said Devis.
"Thank Moradin," insisted Tordek. He rose to his knees and peered ahead as the sledge ground forward over the gravel slope. He opened his mouth to shout a warning, but it was too late.
"Thank Yondaaaaahhhh!" screamed Lidda as they plunged over the edge and fell into a black abyss.
They sat upon the bank of the sunless lake and wrung out their cloaks. Devis sneezed and shivered in the cold, but they had no time to light a fire. The icy water that saved them from crushing death now threatened to kill them more slowly with pneumonia.
At the edge of the sunrod's light, the ore sledge bobbed gently in the water. Devis suggested they use it as a raft, but the thing could barely float unladen. Their brief experiment proved that even with just Lidda's weight, it would quickly sink below the surface.
They paused only for a few curing spells from Vadania and Devis before collecting their gear. Remarkably, nothing was lost except for Tordek's shield, which he imagined Hargrimm was already mounting as a trophy in his bedchamber. The furious demon was sure to send pursuit, and it wouldn't be long before goblins found this flooded chamber.
Tordek led the way, favoring the northerly path whenever presented with a choice. By his dwarven reckoning, which acted as an unerring compass underground, their plummet had carried them far beneath the "prow" of Jorgund Peak so they were now below the wrong side of the tainted river.
"We must find a way out of these mines," he said. "If those tunnels lead only back to the foundry, then we have a problem."
"On the other hand," said Lidda, "we also have that big, blue fellow's hammer. From the way he was howling about it, I bet he needs it real bad, probably to summon his demon pals."
"You heard all that?" asked Tordek.
"Most of it," said Lidda. "Vadania filled us in on the rest of the story."
Tordek turned an accusatory glare upon the druid.
"I thought you were about to die," she argued.
"Don't worry," said Devis. "She only gave us the outline. I know you were waiting for the right moment to tell us the story yourself. Weren't you?"
"No," said Tordek, unmoved by the half-elf's ploy.
"Don't you think we have a right to know?" said Lidda. "Especially me. How many times have I saved your life already?"
"None."
"That's not fair! How about that time with the minotaur?"
"I could have beaten him," said Tordek.
"Not without my distraction. That wasn't easy, you know. You try jumping off a roof with a rope tied around your waist. It hurts."
"I don't owe you anything," said Tordek.
"You're wrong," said Lidda crossly, "and your face is burned and you have no eyebrows. If not for us, you'd be dead and this conversation wouldn't be happening!"
"Enough!" said Tordek, halting their march and turning to face the others. They returned his gaze with earnest expressions.
"We have all helped each other," said Vadania gently. "We are comrades in this quest."
Tordek's shoulders slumped. He gave Devis one last, dirty glance before sighing. "Very well, but we keep moving while I tell it."
"Holten was my older brother by exactly ten years," said Tordek. "To the day."
"You were twins!" said Devis.
"Don't be stupid," snapped Lidda. "After all that effort to get him to tell the story."
"No," said Tordek. "He's right. My people consider brothers or sisters born on the same day any count of years apart to be twins. Holten and I were brothers in arms as well, even as children. When we played at war, we were always on the same side, he the captain, I his lieutenant. We never quarreled. I was always happy to follow his lead.
"Except once."
They marched along in silence for a while, climbing over a steep incline to reach a rocky plateau. All around them were deep holes where dwarven miners once drilled samples in their search for ore. Judging from the predominantly natural rock walls, they had found none.
The others refrained from prompting him for so long that Tordek felt an unwanted smile curling on his lips. The telling of this particular tale was proving much less painful than he feared, though he suspected he would feel differently when he came to the point of the matter.
"Holten heard the tale of the Arms of Andaron from a human bard in a tavern. We all heard some version of it as children, but dwarf storytellers present it as a terse, cautionary tale. The humans tell it differently, with hints of great power and glory to those who recover the lost weapons. They have no idea what harm they were causing."
Tordek could almost hear Devis swallow guiltily behind him, but he did not turn to see his expression.
"He bought a treasure map and believed the rumors that Andaron's hammer was buried in a crypt at the foot of the Thunderstone Mountains. He begged me to go with him, and I begged him not to go. In the end, I let him go by himself.
"Holten returned six years later, boasting of a great battle with a vicious worg that could transform into an enormous, blue goblin. He and his allies routed Hargrimm and his followers from the crypt, only to learn that both groups had been tricked with false clues. Hargrimm came away with nothing. Holten returned with these finger bones around his neck and a score of brave scars upon his body."
Tordek paused again as the group came to a sheer decline. Lidda heard the distant sound of plunging water toward the east. After a brief discussion, they chose to follow it. Lidda clambered down the wall to anchor a knotted rope on which the others could follow, then she climbed back up to retrieve it and came nimbly down again.
"I believe we have come far enough to spare a little rest," said Vadania. "With the echoes in this place, we will hear anyone who approaches long before they arrive."
Tordek agreed, and they made a tiny fire with a few torches from their packs. Tordek made a simple frame with his bow and hung his cloak to dry beside the fire, hoping it would also hide their light from distant eyes. The others imitated his arrangement with bows and shields, forming a makeshift wall around their camp. The resulting enclosure trapped the heat and soon returned the warmth to their bones.