The Hammer of Fire

The Hammer of Fire

by Tom Liberman

Text copyright
©
2012 Tom
Liberman

All Rights Reserved

Table of
Contents

Thanks to
Raro
for his
magnificent cover art and to my mother for her proofing diligence.
I will never fully understand the comma.

Udor Firefist sat at his workbench, in his
private chamber, and stared at hammers, axes, shields, armor,
swords, and various other implements of war that lined the walls.
His bench-top was clear of his work tools, they hung neatly on
wall-hooks, but the stone table retained the stains of thousandsof
jobs, tens of thousands, who knew how many? He looked longingly
from one implement to the next and then put his fire-blackened
right hand to one of the four platinum and gold bands, encrusted
with rubies, emeralds, and diamonds, which circled the gray beard
that he spent over fifty years cultivating since he gave up his
apprenticeship robes all those years ago. It seemed like a blink of
the eye to him now as he gazed at five thousand years of work
produced by the finest metal smiths of Craggen Steep. “Five
thousand years,” he said with a quiet voice, and he frowned deeply
although his heavy beard hid most indications of such.

The title of metal smith was the most
prestigious in all of Craggensteepand the most common. Young dwarf
boys of promise generally applied to the Guild at the age of eight
and worked their way through the various stages of apprenticeship
and then on to craftsman and, hopefully, eventually arrived at the
class of fully invested Edos, or First Class Metal Smith. Even then
there were levels of delineation as the various metals within the
great mountain, iron, copper, steel and more, were of greater or
lesser esteem. The pinnacle of achievement was to become the Master
Edos of the Deep Forge, or the First Edos. Udor was now in the
thirty-fifth year of his reign at the top of the heap and yet he
still felt restless, eager.

His room, as he thought of it after so long,
was not the only place where the relics of the great dwarf citadel
resided. There was the Hall of Relics, the Chamber of Hovslaag, the
High Council Chamber, but this room, the chamber of the First Edos,
technically the most powerful dwarf in the mountain, was his and
his alone. The others were for the public and for ceremony where
the great relics of the realm were displayed. This place, his room,
was the spot where the weapons of war created by previous office
holdersrested. Here resided weapons crafted by his predecessors,
the dwarves who sat in this very chair over the last five thousand
years. Near the end of their reign each chose a single item to hang
on its wall before he retired. The room itself now housed a dozen
side chambers built solely to accommodate the ever growing armory.
Nowadays Udor spent very little time in the workroom. His days were
filled with management of the Deep Forge, concerns about which
craftsman should be promoted to edos, which apprentice should move
to craftsman, and all the other mundane tasks of his job. It was
perhaps once every two years of late that he had time to come to
this room to design, to plan, and then to the Deep Forge to create.
In the last ten years this glacial pace slowed even further, and
Udor spent most of his time wooing the powers that be in Craggen
Steep as he tried to achieve one political goal after the next. He
sighed deeply once again and his hidden frown deepened.

He remembered when he first came to this room
as an apprentice and stared in wide-eyed wonder at the relics on
the walls. He was forced to memorize the history of each relic and
five thousand years is a long, long time. Soon enough he grew used
to them and didn’t think twice about the dwarves who crafted them,
the ancient history they represented. When he became First Edos he
was too young to think about his retirement, of what weapon he
wanted to hang on these walls. He was a child then; a portrait on
his desk reminded him of that fact daily. The artist, he
remembered, was an elf, brought into the hidden city blindfolded.
Eventually a larger version of the same portrait would have a place
in First Edos Hall. Although he suspected his might find some
adjacent corridor reserved for those who didn’t accomplish great
things. He didn’t sigh this time but his shoulders slumped ever
further and his body seemed to shrink in upon itself.

He gazed for a long time and occasionally
blinked his languid black eyes, covered by his bushy gray eyebrows,
and gave off a soft sigh at regular intervals. A slight tap at the
door broke into his reverie and he looked at the thick wood gateway
adorned with steel bands and these decorated with gemstones and
gold filigree. Wood was rare in Craggen Steep, stone and metal were
the choice material of most artisans, but here, in the office of
the First Edos, expensive things were the norm, not the exception.
“What?” he said although he already knew what waited on the other
side of the door.

“Edos Udor,” came a plaintive voice an octave
higher than a young dwarf should have and just barely audible.
“They are waiting.”

Udor sighed again and looked one last time
around the office before wearily getting to his feet, limping over
to the door as his gout-ridden left foot shouted out in protest,
and giving the handle a sudden yank.

Young Fierfelm Sunspire almost fell into the
room when the door opened but managed to catch his balance at the
last moment. “Edos Udor,” he said in the same little voice. “They
are waiting, all of them. This is your big day, why aren’t you in
your fineries?” He was small for a dwarf with blue eyes and from
one of the lesser families. Many criticized Udor when he picked the
young Fierfelm as chief apprentice. He remembered the ridicule at
the High Council clearly. “How could you, of all people, pick
someone from an inferior genetic line?” was the question he heard
most frequently and persistently to this day. Perhaps it was that
decision, only a year ago, which started the spiraling end of his
career as First Edos. Certainly the three most powerful families,
the Blackirons, the Drawhammers, and his own clan, the Firefists
did not approve. It was common for the chief apprentice to inherit
the mantle of First Edos and he was getting up in years. But, damn
it, young Fierfelm was far and away the best of the litter; he had
creativity, drive, and stamina. Too often the rigid social
structure of Craggen Steep caused those best suited for a job to
lose out to traditionsthat had roots as deep as the mountain.

“First Edos, your fineries,” repeated the lad
with wide eyes. “The High Council is to honor you for your service
these last fifty years.”

Udor looked down at the heavy smock, horribly
stained from decades of use and inherited from the First Edos
before him, and ran his hands down the front slowly and softly.
“These are my fineries,” he said at last and his craggy face broke
into a smile that revealed almost a complete set of platinum teeth,
embedded with gemstones. “I’ve been an edos for almost fifty years
and First Edos of the Deep Forge for the last thirty-five of those.
If I’m to be given any award I’ll wear my uniform. Do you have a
problem with that, apprentice Fierfelm?”

“No, First Edos,” said the young dwarf his
little beard no more than a few inches long, his eyes grew wide,
and his hand trembled. “You should … you can … it is not for me to
say …” and eventually his voice softened to the point of
inaudibility.

“What is the finest item on those walls?”
asked the old dwarf with a quick gesture to the walls of the
workroom.

“It … it … it’s … I don’t …,” stumbled the
young apprentice as his hand began to tremble with even more
violence.

“Calm yourself boy, this is not a test. There
is no right answer. Just tell me what you think.”

The boy’s fear washed away like a piece of
debris in one of the swift underground streams that flowed deep
within the mountain and he looked again, this time more closely,
and took a few steps into the room. His blue eyes were wide and his
finger came to his lips as he paused before a massive sword that
only a giant might wield, and then moved further into the room to
examine each of the four walls with careful consideration. He did
not bother to look down the extra corridors for all the best items
were here, in the main room. “The Axe of Five,” he finally offered
as his voice deepened slightly although it cracked on the word
five.

“Where was that forged and by whom,” said
Edos Udor as he came up to stand next to the boy and look at the
heavy handled axe that adorned the wall. “You can read the plaque
if you don’t know it by heart, this isn’t a test, today at least,”
he continued with a gentle smile.

“I know it,” said young Fierfelm with a fiery
glance at Udor. He turned to look up at the man who had served as
his master for the last year of his apprenticeship. The man who
picked him from a hundred other young dwarves working the bellows
at the two dozen high forges in the great mountain. There were
other forges as well but they were for personal use, for dwarves
not chosen to be an apprentice as boys. Fierfelm took in his
breath, stood up straight, pulled the sleeves of his red jerkin
tight, “First Edos Uromos Firefist forged it seven hundred years
ago at the Deep Forge as a gift for a human who saved his son’s
life in battle.”

Udor nodded his head slowly and fingered the
impossibly valuable bands at his beard again, “How is it here in
the First Edos’s chamber then?”

Fierfelm did not pause, “The human passed it
to his son who passed it to his son who was killed by hobgoblins in
western realms. Our agents went seeking it then and brought it back
to Craggen Steep …,” here the boy paused, closed his eyes, and
tapped his chin for a moment.

“It’s not a test,” repeated Udor.

“No, First Edos, I know the answer, they
recovered it eighty-five years ago from a grave. They returned it
to Craggen Steep where the Antiquarians Guild confirmed it and
placed it on the wall as First Edos Uromos requested.”

“Enough,” said Udor with a smile and a nod of
his head as he patted the boy’s back. “This is not a test. Now,
tell me, in the Chamber of Hovslaag where all our most important
and powerful items are kept. What item there do you think the most
potent?”

The young boy didn’t have to think this time
as he immediately blurted out his answer, “The great Shield of Dar
Drawhammer who used it to defeat Gazadum. It was he who freed us
from slavery to the elementals!”

Again Udor nodded his head, “And who made
that particular item and when?”

“Hovslaag the earth elemental at the Deep
Forge but that was before it was the Deep Forge, it was the Forge
of Hovslaag then, and we were just slaves.”

Udor frowned as he looked at the young
apprentice whom he chose as the most promising of the lot. “And,
finally young Fierfelm, where on any of those walls hangs something
that I’ve forged?”

The young dwarf eyes began blinking rapidly
and he turned to look up at his master, “But, First Edos, you are
still master of the Deep Forge, your relic is yet to be hung.”

“Exactly right,” said Udor. “Your answer
haunts me. For thirty-five years I’ve had exclusive use of the Deep
Forge where Gazadum sat on his throne and shaped the world for
years beyond comprehension. The very heat of the first fire
elemental which burns hot and strong to this day and yet I’ve
produced no great weapon, no legendary shield, nothing; my life is
now almost over and I will be eased out of my position soon. That’s
what this little ceremony is all about Fierfelm. You should
remember that because someday you might be part of a similar
event.”

“No, that’s not true Edos!” said the young
dwarf his jaw jutting forward and his blue eyes burning with
intensity. “You are the finest First Edos since Uromos and your
weapons and shields are used by every dwarf champion in the
world.”