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« on: July 29, 2012, 09:20:34 am »
'It's just like The Dream'
'Aye, Lad, except we managed to trade for supplies first.'
Everyone in the fortress had had The Dream. All 26 dwarfs: even little Rimtar Tamecobalt, the three year old tyke. Everyone knew the horror when, with the dwarven trade caravan in the depot, 30 assorted undead attacked. Human corpses, goblin corpses, even dwarf corpses. Everyone saw the military fall one by one, saw the much better equipped caravan guards fall, saw the hastily drafted military fall too, leaving half the fort dead and the remaining dozen survivors too griefstruck to do anything as the traders panicked and left.
The Dream cast a shadow over the fortress. Plans had been changed. The depot was deconstructed and rebuilt inside the fortress proper. Six of the dwindling number of precious granite boulders had been sacrificed to make the river bridge retractable and install a new raisable drawbridge in the fortress entrance.
The caravan arrived. And left. And even though the events of The Dream had not occured, the dwarves still felt unease. The miners toiled in the depths and finally breached the aquifer. Dwarfs ventured outside again, but never for long. Vucar Syrupkindles wore his new steel armour all the time, and slept cradling his new bronze battleaxe.
Late in the winter, though winter was marked by a heat that was only slightly more bearable, Kivish Cavestruck was digging a defensive trench when she spotted them. There must have been 30 corpses approaching the fort. She ran for the fort shouting "Inside Now!" at the woodcutters and woodhaulers. The river bridge was already retracted but all the undead were on the wrong side of the river. That is to say they could all reach the fort without crossing it.
The three military dwarves stood behind the depot looking down the tunnel, towards the bright entrance. Vucar, clad in steel, Ùshrir Focustowns wearing leather and Vucar's old bone helm and gauntlets and hefting a bronze hammer, and Tulon Martyrtour, wearing leather and carrying one of the fortress's two crossbows and the only quiver. Ùshrir spoke to his son Rimtar. 'We're gonna need more troops. Find the gaffer and get him to draft the two diggers. Can you do that?' The tiny boy nodded and ran off to find the expedition leader.
'This is a bad business', Vucar said to Ùshrir. 'We need to let them attack by ones and twos, swarm them, then wait for the next few. Then we might just make it.' He looked back down the corridor at the meeting area, where civilians were milling around. 'Everything is under control, but get ready to pull that lever,' he bellowed, pointing at the one on the north side of the passage, the one that raised the entrance drawbridge and sealed the fort from the outside world.
Kivish arrived, wielding a shield and carrying a bronze pick. 'I got here as fast as I could', she explained, 'but I had to get myself a new pick. The old copper one didn't feel right for combat', she explained.
'Where's Onget? Still digging stone below the aquifer?'
'I'm here!' Onget Friendwinds announced, appearing at the depot. She had managed to scrounge up a rather inferior bone helm and leather armour.
The light behind Onget was occluded. 'Schist! They're here!', Vucar cursed. 'Alright. The plan is...' but Onget was already charging down the corridor past the flood of puppies streaming the other way, yelling a battle cry.
'Come back, you fool!', yelled Vucar. 'We can't seal off the tunnel with you there!'.
Tulon aimed his crossbow at one of the shadows in the entrance. Ùshrir frowned in puzzlement and asked of nobody in particular, 'What did he shout?'
Onget bashed a zombie with her shield, hacked at one with her pick, and kicked a third. Dogs around her snapped at the walking corpses. A zombie fell. Another one. A dog yelped in pain. Onget spun around and broke a rotting arm off its owner. In the time it took to dispose of a zombie, two more arrived to take its place.
'Shouldn't we be helping?', Ùshrir asked Vucar.
'Naah! Then there'd be three dead dwarves instead of one.'
Bash the human corpse! smash the dwarf corpse's thigh bone! shatter the goblin corpse's skull! Feeling more alive than ever, Onget had entered a trance and nothing but the immediate fight existed to her. Smash! Block! Bash! Dodge! Charge that one and knock it over!
'It's amazing she lasted this long.'
'They're mostly attacking the dogs.', Vucar said. 'So as long as the dogs live, she lives. Lucky the dogs are good at dodging.'
Ùshrir, watching the fight, winced. 'Mostly.' He said. 'Look! She's a hero. No question about it. She must have finished off half the attackers. But all it takes is one unlucky blow and she's finished! Are you going to let that happen to her? You, the only trained military dwarf in the fortress? Clad in your fancy steel armour? Oh no! She's hurt! One of them hit her thigh!'
Vucar pondered. 'You're right!' he said. 'Ùshrir! Kivish! On my mark, follow me! Tulon! To the entrance! But no further, mind. Ready... Go!'
The dwarfs ran along the tunnel, jumping over the corpse of a war dog and into the fray! 'Aha! Two!' Vucar yelled as a zombie fell. 'Seventeen', Onget said with a flat voice.
The fight was fierce but short, and soon even the straggling attackers lay dead on the parched ground. Onget's tally was up to nineteen kills while Vucar had claimed a third. The remaining kills were assumed to belong to the dogs. The warriors stood, numb, amid the carnage, as Stâkud the expedition leader emerged.
'Good work, all of you!' He said. Take a drink break, but the work isn't over. Let's see. We need to turn... that dry murky pond over there into a sheer-walled disposal pit and I need to make one, two, three... eight caskets. We know nothing about the life of these dwarfs but they deserve a proper burial no matter what happened to them after death.
Stâkud walked over to Onget and hugged her. 'You were magnificent, love' he said.
The dwarves entered the welcome cool darkness of the fort, leaving Ùshrir alone for a moment. The amateur hammerdwarf frowned in puzzlement and wondered aloud, 'What was that battlecry? What manner of hero or god is Leeroy?'
