The goblins entered the tiered antechamber of the dome - though, in truth, they could not have possibly known what lay beyond. Below them were arrayed rows of coffins, with narrow walkways between. This, the goblins realized with rising fury, must be where the dwarves had placed all of their dead after the battles of 203 and 204. In those years, a great force of goblins and trolls had besieged the fortress, only to find the site abandoned. The trolls had gone about the business of smashing apart the innumerable coffins, defiling the graves of their enemies. Then, suddenly, the dwarves had emerged, without warning, from their hiding place. All the invaders within Weatherwires had been slain without mercy.
The next siege that had arrived, a few months later, had found nothing. There was no sign of the dwarves, or their dead, or any coffins at all. The fortress - at least, that part of it which the goblins could reach - was empty. The dwarves' disappearance had been a mystery.
Until now.
These must have been the coffins that the dwarves had claimed in 204, Damsto reasoned, hauled down into this safe hole and sealed away with magma. The spearmaster's jade lips twisted into a sneer beneath his copper helm, and he turned his attention to the prominent passage on the opposide side of the chamber. By a quick count, there were little more than four score dwarves buried here - and, so the stories went, the entire dwarven civilization had died here, in Weatherwires. The rest of the tombs must lie elsewhere... deeper within the tunnels.
As the goblins began to pad through the hewn passageway, their ears picked up the faint sound of creaking machinery, and an odd thumping sound. Any right-minded goblin knew to be wary when strange sounds echoed through the halls of a Mountainhome, but Damsto laughed at his underlings, dismissing the sounds as the stupid trolls tearing up grates far above them.
The trolls were indeed stupid, and it was true, that they were tearing up grates. Occasionally, one would rend a grate in pieces while he stood upon it, causing him to fall into the magma below.
But what Damsto and his squad did not notice - or gave no heed to - was the sudden diminution of that ceaseless rumbling which had accompanied them through the previous tunnels, which had echoed loudly within the caldera of the volcano. Any dwarf would recognize that sound: the reverberations caused by the flow of massive amounts of molten rock. And likewise, the sudden
ceasing of that sound could mean but one thing.
The draining had stopped.
Solon Townclenched lay next to the toggled lever atop the ring in the center of the room, gasping for air after her long trek from the citadel. The entire lever room was indeed a miniature map of the dome, with levers tending to correlate to different hatches or seals in the fortress - but these levers, atop the central ring which was analogous to the great temple, controlled the drainage of the volcano; the sealed passage to the surface.
She glanced down from her vantage point, and through the doors below her, she heard echoing cries of surprise and anger, and harsh curses in a guttural tongue. Despite her best efforts, the goblins had breached the dome - the dwarves were truly doomed. The goblins had, in the end, finally made it into the fortress, and it would be those foul creatures - not demons, nor ghosts, nor legendary beast - who finally laid the Merchant of Echoing in its dark and forgotten tomb.
And, she realized, with the only exit quickly sealing, they would seek a way out. They would search every chamber in the fortress. This room - they would eventually find it, and Solon, too.
She crawled down the staircase and made for the door.
Far above, the lava in the caldera settled flat, and began slowly refilling.
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Topic: The Saga of Weatherwires: Children of Dwarves (spoilers + image heavy) (Read 159502 times)