Valkyrie's Shadow

Stone and Blood: Act 3, Chapter 2

Stone and Blood: Act 3, Chapter 2

Chapter 2

“What are you dawdling for? Do it!”

The bridgekeepers exchanged one last look with one another before nodding down at the pair of slaves standing by. Their slaves – Stone Giants that stood four times the height of their masters – ponderously swung their four-metre-long mallets in response. An ear-splitting clank echoed along the battlements as the massive steel tools smashed into the enormous anchors of stone at the end of one of the bridges spanning the chasm between Clan Felhammer and Clan Grimmantle.

Uldun examined the aftermath as the Stone Giants raised their mallets. A sneer split his beard.

“Not even a chip,” he said.

“It’s going to take some time,” a nearby foreman said. “Our ancestors made this bridge tough enough to outlast time itself.”

Which was all well and good, but he doubted their ancestors ever expected that Clan Felhammer would end up in their present situation.

“Anything happening across the gap?” Uldun called out.

“Too far to tell,” a Deepwarden replied. “Their gate’s still closed.”

“Then let’s hurry it up before they send someone over,” Uldun said.

Another impact pierced the air. He turned and strode away from the gate with his escort, heading east along the battlements. There were three more bridges to collapse and they probably didn’t have much time before the neighbours figured out what they were doing.

With his Aunt Agni’s departure, Uldun’s mother immediately made preparations for a siege. She suspected that, with the change in the realms above, the other principalities would move to act against Clan Felhammer. By all indications, those suspicions were proving to be correct. The already antagonistic attitudes held by the other princes toward their clan was shifting to a blatant war stance.

Clan Felhammer’s spies reported troops being redeployed and ancient armaments brought out of their reliquaries and returned to active service. Markets throughout the realm were also shifting, suggesting that stockpiles were being filled in preparation for a coming conflict. Most concerning of all was that the Council of Khazanar had convened twelve times over the past month and no word was sent to Clan Felhammer to participate.

They were being cut off. Snuffed out. With their mines stolen from them generations ago and the overlanders ending the slave trade in the Abelion Hills, Clan Felhammer was nothing more than an agrarian territory in a civilisation where every faction sustained itself. In short, they were useless to everyone and thus their holdings would be divided between the others.

A column of guards marched toward them along the wall. The Captain called his men to a halt.

“What was that sound?” He asked.

“It’s starting,” Uldun answered. “We’re cutting the link to Grimmantle.”

“Are we under attack?”

“Soon, if not already. Everything’s happening all at once. It’ll be some time before we get word from the ports.”

The great chasms that divided the principalities of Khazanar were, in reality, canyons. Each principality was an ‘island’ in the Great Flow that made its way from west to east two kilometres below. The exposed portion of the waterway under them was known as Lake Khazanar, from which their realm took its namesake.

While the bridges facilitated the flow of Dwarves between the principalities, it was the ports on the water that moved the wealth of Clan Felhammer’s stolen mines and thus also had the capacity to move armies. They needed to seize the ports and trap the interlopers in their mines. If all went well, they could get their defences in place and prolonged attempts to storm Felhammer would bleed the other clans dry.

Uldun reached the next bridge and initiated demolition work. He looked back at the darkly glowing bridge west of them, silently trying to will it to fall.

Destroying each bridge was far harder than it looked. Each was essentially a single magic item, with the hardness and durability that came with being a two-kilometre-long work of ancient architecture. As with any magic item, any damage that it sustained repaired itself until the whole item broke.

Since it qualified as a magic item, that also meant it could be repaired as a whole via magical means. Unfortunately, there was no sneaky way of destroying the thing: maintenance checks were regular so it came down to being able to damage the structure faster than it could be fixed or secured by an occupational force.

The last bridge was on the tip of the island, stretching northeast to connect Felhammer to Darksteel. After getting the group there started, the foreman advising him spoke.

“What about Hardar Bridge?” He asked.

“No one asked you to ask.”

The foreman lowered his head in apology. Uldun departed to attend to his next task.

Hardar – the namesake of the Hardar Gate – was a lawless fringe of Khazanar; a place for the clanless and dispossessed who managed to avoid being enslaved. While there were ways to get there without going through Felhammer, they were neither fast nor easy. Nor could an army get through unnoticed. If things went according to his mother’s plans, they could secure Hardar with time to spare after they fortified Felhammer against its enemies. And, if those plans failed, Hardar Bridge was their only means of escape.

His path took him away from the walls and down a road that led to a cavernous entrance near the centre of the island. One of the grim-faced guards stationed there saluted as Uldun approached, then fell in step beside him as he walked by.

“The Second and Third Battalion should have reached the mines by now,” the guard said. “The Fourth Battalion is waiting for you just behind them.”

“Any trouble along the way?”

“Not that I know of, sir. We’re cutting down anyone that looks like they might be an informant. Local jamming is up, so there won’t be any telepathic warnings getting out.”

Uldun grunted in acknowledgement. Dark Dwarven operations were always quick to the point of seeming impromptu. Anyone involved in planning was isolated from the world at large and even allies usually had no idea what was going on until the moment it happened. This was primarily due to the psionic nature of their race: the longer it took to plan and the more people were in on that plan, the higher the chance of their enemies picking up on it through casual scans of the population.

Everyone was accustomed to doing things this way, however, so there was no waffling about in confusion as the various slave races might. Indeed, as portions of the rank and file were made aware of the upcoming conflict, Uldun only sensed a thrill of anticipation. At long last, Clan Felhammer would take back what was theirs.

A descent of a thousand metres took them to the edge of the Felhammer Mines. The fact that something had gone wrong was immediately apparent.

Aren’t there too many casualties?

His Fourth Battalion wasn’t where the guard said they would be. Hundreds of wounded soldiers were lined along the tunnel walls, awaiting their turn for healing. Uldun’s gaze went back and forth as he made his way through, searching for an officer. Finding one was unlikely where they were, however, as they were prioritised for healing on the battlefront.

After walking several hundred metres, he stopped at a side room where a senior Priest was organising the recovery efforts.

“What’s happening on the front?” He demanded.

“Stiff resistance,” the Priest replied. “Expect more casualties. That’s all the missive from the General said.”

“Tch.”

Uldun made his way deeper, wrinkling his nose at the thin veils of dust that drifted in the air. When the sounds of battle grew audible, he lowered his visor and unclipped the war pick from his belt. Not long after, they found themselves facing a wall of bodies.

“Make way,” the Captain of his escort shouted. “Make way!”

As they squeezed their way through, Uldun eyed the throng of impatient-looking soldiers.

“Why the hell is it so crowded?” He asked.

“Those troglodytes collapsed the tunnels,” someone answered. “We’ve been stuck like this from the start.”

From the start?

That couldn’t be right. One didn’t just ‘collapse’ Dwarven tunnels on a whim. It was standard practice to keep passageways magically reinforced and inspected for integrity. Not a single clan in Khazanar would allow their tunnels to fall into a state where they could be casually collapsed.

Eventually, the tunnel they were following widened into one of the many workshop areas that could be found in Dark Dwarven mines. All along the opening in the side of the island, engineers were setting up siege engines in preparation for an inevitable amphibious assault. At the overseer’s post, he found General Khorax, the Commander of Clan Felhammer’s army, conversing in low tones with two of his officers.

“General,” Uldun offered a salute as he joined them on the platform. “How far are we?”

“Barely a third of the way,” General Khorax said. “They had ninety per cent of the underways collapsed.”

“I heard about that,” Uldun said. “But how did they do it? We didn’t give them enough time to prepare that sort of welcome.”

“We were confused about that at first, as well,” the General said, “but…”

He picked up the warhammer from his desk and struck the stone support column beside it. The impact made an unnaturally dull sound.

“This area is well-maintained,” General Khorax told him. “It’s the area joining Felhammer and the mines that were rigged to collapse. I don’t think they prepared those measures for this attack – they prepared it for any attack. I wouldn’t be surprised if the council set it up the moment they seized our mines.”

“That’s…an unfortunate oversight,” Uldun said. “How has it affected things?”

“The Second Battalion lost a few hundred in the collapse alone. Our caution after that slowed things down until we figured out what was going on. The upside’s that resistance is weaker than expected. Once our soldiers got through the bottleneck, we started sweeping them aside. We should overtake our projected advance before half the day is done. I sent your battalion down to secure Darksteel Port instead of the Second Battalion.”

Uldun walked over to the railing, peering down at the distant waterfront.

“What about the Uncarnates?”

“Haven’t heard back from them yet,” the General replied. “That should mean they’re still fighting to seize the ports from the inside.”

“Any quick way to my troops?”

“No. Our enemies made sure to destroy the lifts as they pulled back. The tunnel to the left there will bring you straight to your troops.”

“Are there any changes to the plan?”

“No changes. We take the ports, clear the garbage out of our mines, and hold.”

He nodded and descended the platform, joining the flow of bodies to join his soldiers. The clash of battle echoing up the tunnel was intermittent, as if halfhearted or outright flimsy. One of his lieutenants, Glaurga, greeted him on the way to the front.

“Commander,” she said. “How are things going up top?”

“They’re going,” Uldun replied. “Damn bridges are hard to break, but they aren’t sending attacks over them, yet. What do you have for me?”

“Not much,” his lieutenant told him. “It’s mostly Thrallherds down here. Barely any security. The clans have gone soft.”

Did they get complacent because of their ancestors’ preparations?

If anything, the old trap should have served as a constant reminder to remain vigilant against Clan Felhammer. The opposite occurring was a delicious irony, but, even so, it was too much of a stretch.

“How experienced were the defenders?” He asked.

“That’s hard to say,” Glaurga replied. “We’re literally stomping over the ones on the way to the port. Given the resistance that the Second and Third Battalions faced after the tunnels up there came down, they might’ve used everything they had trying to hold the open ones.”

Strategically speaking, at least that part made sense. If they couldn’t hold back Clan Felhammer at those bottlenecks, they had no hope of doing it anywhere else. Whoever the enemy Commander was probably knew that the council would have his head for allowing Clan Felhammer to retake the mines even if they had woefully under-equipped them to deal with the assault.

“What about any repeats of what happened above?”

“We’re checking as we go,” his lieutenant replied. “So far, we’ve found nothing suspicious about the main tunnels.”

“I don’t like this,” he muttered, “it makes too much sense.”

“Yes, sir. What are your orders?”

“Keep things orderly,” Uldun replied. “Contain any holdouts in the side tunnels and focus on securing Darksteel Port. I don’t want overeagerness creating unnecessary casualties. We need every soldier we have for the siege and we need to preserve our mana for when it starts.”

If something was too easy and made too much sense, one would naturally suspect a trap.

Uldun considered the first wave of casualties and its effect on the army’s healing capacity. Keeping an enemy’s casters busy and depleting their mana reserves to limit their tactical and strategic options was one of the fundamentals of warfare. The sudden ‘shock’ that accompanied heavy mana use for one side was usually accompanied by a purposeful movement by the other to seize an advantage. However, there was no indication of that occurring and he couldn’t see how they could pull off an effective counterattack given their showing thus far.

His doubts continued to plague him as the battalion worked its way deeper into the mines. Annoyingly, the various suspicions he harboured continued to go unconfirmed. He stopped to glower at a row of freshly-taken slaves being led away from the front.

“Did they have anyone even remotely important stationed here?” Uldun asked.

“None that’ve admitted it,” Glaurga answered. “I think we’re actually putting more effort into sorting out all of these slaves than we are fighting.”

“How do the numbers look?”

“So far, the mines look fully staffed or close enough to it. There’s nothing out of the ordinary about the ratio of slaves to handlers. The amount of security is about what it would be if this wasn’t a mine stolen from the angry clan above it. All I can think of is that they were treating it as business as usual. Since it’s so far from home, only the people with no say on where they’d be assigned would end up working here.”

Staffed with unwanted incompetents? Still…

“I still don’t like this.”

“Did Lady Baerwynn mention something?”

“No,” Uldun shook his head. “Everything’s going exactly as planned. But when the hell does someone let their enemy get away with that?”

“I agree, sir, but we can only work with what we have.”

“Yeah, and I don’t like that.”

If they were being met with real resistance, he could at least get a better sense of what the enemy’s motives were through their tactics and strategy. As it was, they could be up to anything.

They came to another cliffside workshop, which was also being transformed into a supply depot and fortified. Uldun went to inspect the slave pens up one of the side tunnels, walking over to an officer with a group of grey robes a dozen metres in.

“How many of these slaves have you interrogated?” Uldun asked.

“I’ve lost count, sir,” the officer answered. “They’re coming in as fast as we’re shipping them out. Is there some specific information that you’re looking for?”

“Just some sense of what they’re up to,” Uldun said. “This showing of theirs is too suspicious to take at face value.”

The officer nodded, stroking his braided white beard in agreement.

“Everyone assigned to sorting out the captives is running on similar suspicions,” he said.

“I assume that answer means that you haven’t dug anything up.”

“That’s the gist of it, sir,” the officer replied. “Everyone from the thralls to the foremen – no one knows a thing. Was just another day on the job, just like every other day before it. Our attack was a complete surprise.”

Just like every other day before it…

Was it truly complacency and incompetence? He refused to believe it, but they were being interrogated by grey robes.

Dark Dwarves had latent psionic potential and their race as a whole had a few common psionic abilities, but truly harnessing that psionic potential required extensive training. Amongst the grey robes before him, there would be at least one telepath powerful enough to break into most people’s minds – especially since all of the interrogation subjects were completely at their mercy.

“What are the chances of worms?” Uldun asked.

“There’s always a chance,” the officer answered, “but I can’t think of any benefit to having them in this scenario. These wretches are stuck with us until they die.”

“Send a runner the moment you find anything out of the ordinary,” Uldun told them. “This whole thing stinks more than the refinery over the last few months.”

“Yes, sir.”

The group saluted as Uldun turned and went on his way. His mood grew fouler as he approached the front lines and still nothing seemed amiss. It was as if he was wasting all of his time to find out that nothing was going on. He was seeing nothing, hearing nothing, and doing nothing. Once he figured out who was responsible, he would strangle them with their own beards.

In the end, they arrived at Darksteel Port without incident. At the entrance was a young woman, her legs dangling over the roof of the guardhouse as she juggled a hatchet with one hand. The weapon went high into the air, disappearing into the stone ceiling of the port. It reappeared after a few moments, its handle falling into the woman’s palm before the weapon was tossed into the air again.

“Took you long enough,” she said.

“You didn’t signal the General, Velgath,” Uldun told her.

“I did after we made sure it wasn’t a trap,” Velgath replied. “Wouldn’t want to inadvertently lure my big brother to his doom, would I? With all this jamming going on, I couldn’t get directly in touch.”

Uldun raised a hand. His battalion rushed forward to occupy the port and augment its defences. Velgath floated down and landed beside him as he entered the gate.

“How much of a fight did they put up down here?”

“It’s not as if we let them put up a fight,” Velgath replied, “but it didn’t feel like they expected an attack at all. When we hit them, it was every Dwarf for themself. Took all of five minutes for the entire population to barricade itself into their homes and whatnot. After that, it was all fun and games.”

His sister caught her hatchet one last time before returning it to her belt next to several others. Velgath was a type of Psion known as an Uncarnate, which was so named because of their distinct ability to ‘uncarnate’ themselves. Of the many vocational avenues that an Uncarnate could take, Velgath employed her powers as a sort of psionic assassin.

Mundane defensive measures mattered little to her. If anything, they made her work easier. If someone locked themselves inside a guard post, she’d just walk through the walls and bury an axe in the back of their head while they were watching for attacks coming from the doors and windows.

“So you didn’t lose any troops?” Uldun asked.

“Not even a scratch,” his sister answered. “We’re all healthy and bored. What about the rest of the army?”

“Most of the underways were rigged to collapse. The Second and Third Battalions took casualties from that. Even so, the defence they tried to muster didn’t stop us for long. After we took control of the remaining underways…well, as you said, it didn’t seem like they expected an attack at all. There were no preparations to defend the mines aside from that starting bit. The interrogation teams say the same thing. All of the captives thought it was just another day at work.”

Velgath’s lip curled. The behaviour of their enemies was an insult. After over a century of resentment, the other side never even saw them as a threat.

They made their way down through the levels of Darksteel Port, watching as the army methodically swept through the city lanes, securing its residents as they went. Formerly – or once again – one of two of Clan Felhammer’s major ports on Lake Khazanar, it was a small city with a population of twenty thousand. Nineteen out of twenty were slaves involved in logistical operations, working in the harbour or on the rail network.

“Was the governor in?”

“Yeah,” Velgath said. “We left him cooped up in his manor. I took a look at the guy. He’s just some nobody.”

“Which clan?”

“Darksteel, but not from any of the big families. They really did treat Felhammer as the ass end of nowhere.”

And they paid for it. Assuming they even cared. That was another explanation for the lack of resistance: no one was willing to protect it and only the lowest of the low from the other principalities bothered coming to work in Felhammer.

“That may be so,” Uldun said. “But they won’t let our reclamation of the mines go unanswered.”

Valgath snorted.

“And the Krakens will eat well as a result. Once they run out of idiots to throw at us, maybe we can go and conquer the rest of Khazanar.”

“As a side project, maybe,” Uldun told her. “For now, we have bigger plans to carry out.”

In a rare moment, his sister’s cocksure air faded. Uldun cast a sidelong glance at her.

“What?” He said.

“Will it work, brother?” She asked.

“Mother is leading the First Battalion to take Hardar,” Uldun answered. “I can’t imagine them failing.”

“That’s not what I was referring to.”

How the hell should I know?

Uldun glanced at their surroundings. What was the point of bringing up the topic here? Not that anyone could provide an answer to her question…except perhaps their father.

The operation to secure Felhammer and Hardar was but one part of a massive shift in Khazanar’s foreign and domestic policies. One might note that it was only Clan Felhammer enacting the changes, but change would come to the rest of the realm whether it liked it or not. Assuming Clan Felhammer’s opening moves succeeded, of course.

When their mines were seized and their prince was exiled over a century previous, Clan Felhammer relied on three things to maintain their hold on power.

The first was sheer inertia. Felhammer was one of Khazanar’s largest principalities and had the population to match. One couldn’t simply attack them in their own hold. Falling out of favour didn’t change that. If anything, it bound the clan together more tightly than ever before. A common enemy could unify a people and Clan Felhammer had everyone else as its enemy.

Baerwynn Felhammer, their mother, led the clan, harnessing that mass of raw political will and successfully directing things despite the clan’s compromised standing.

Their father, Falagrim Felhammer, made good use of his exile by working the slave trade in the Abelion Hills. Through his dauntless efforts, millions of slaves had been delivered to Khazanar, fueling the realm’s industries and keeping the clan economically relevant.

With their source of slaves from the surface cut off, they had no choice but to maintain their strength by taking back their mines before their enemies seized the chance to destroy Clan Felhammer for good. By securing Felhammer and Hardar, Clan Felhammer would grow their economic influence on the surface while at the same time waging a long war with the rest of Khazanar.

That long war, however, showed no signs of starting. At least on their enemies’ part.

“Commander,” a lieutenant saluted as he came up the street toward them. “The Governor of Darksteel is demanding to speak with you.”

“Give him to the grey cloaks for interrogation,” Uldun replied. “Rip everything you can out of him – I don’t care if you turn him into a lump of meat in the process.”

“Yes, sir.”

Once they arrived at the harbour, he and his sister ascended a tower to gaze out over the dark waters of Lake Khazanar. Darksteel was just over a kilometre away, but there was still no sign of a response to Clan Felhammer’s offensive. The battalion made their preparations regardless, mounting siege weapons brought down from above in every practical position they could find.

“They clearly didn’t expect us to attack so quickly,” Velgath said, “but what if they weren’t preparing to take us down in the first place?”

“Then they’re idiots,” Uldun told her. “They knew that war was coming and they weren’t prepared to win. The world has no pity for fools like that. As for your question from before, either we make it work or we don’t.”

A warning call rose from one of the other towers nearby. Uldun looked over at a Deepwarden stationed beside them.

“What do you see?”

“Line of cargo barges comin’ over, sir. Six, so far.”

The number grew to a dozen, then two. When they came within a hundred metres, the first set of Clan Felhammer’s defences was activated. From each tower, magical spotlights cast beams of brilliant light upon the approaching flotilla. The ships’ crews recoiled as one at the brightness. It felt a bit stupid if one thought about it for too long, but one of the most effective measures against dayblind races was shining a bright light on them.

“You should get to shelter, Commander,” the Deepwarden said, hefting his arbalest.

“Hm? Why’s that?”

“They brought some powerful Deepwardens with them. You might get sniped.”

The sentry pointed out over the water, but not directly at the approaching ships. It took a moment for Uldun to spot the figures of Dark Dwarves who were seemingly standing on the water on their own. The trough of a passing bow wave revealed what the closest was standing on, however.

“How many are there?” Uldun asked.

“Eight, that I can see,” the Deepwarden answered. “No, eleven now.”

Two dozen ships and eleven Krakens…

“Looks like they were preparing something, after all,” Uldun said. “We just beat them to the punch.”

“Felhammer!” An enraged voice called over the water, “What in the name of the gods do you think you’re doing?!”

Uldun pondered the utterly idiotic question, trying to think of some choice words to reply with before ordering his battalion to sink the Darksteel flotilla. Unfortunately, while he was doing so, the sky fell on them.

A calamitous roar filled the air as pieces of Darksteel Bridge, which was directly over Darksteel Port, splashed into the water. Uldun ducked as a colossal wave slammed into the harbour. By the time he stood again to peer over the parapet, all that was left of the enemy was their pulverised pieces.

“Huh,” he grunted. “I suppose I need to be quicker with my insults.”

Beside him, the Deepwarden levelled his arbalest, sinking a quarrel into the neck of one of the surviving sailors in the water. All things considered, they were off to a good start.