Ashen - Chapter 14: The Fall of Moradin's Forge

Chapter Fourteen: The Fall of Moradin’s Forge

With the death of the mummy priest and its wights, and the scattering of the Forge Beetles, the excavation of the Temple of Moradin complex was relatively straight forward. All manner of artifacts and antiquities were salvaged from the ruin. Everyone was instructed in the best way to transport such delicate rarities, and back at the camp, Adovar reviewed and cataloged everything.

    Impressions were taken, and charcoal rubbings. With the aid of the warforged, Adovar noted it all in his journals, having become suddenly very interested in the dwarven ruin. The elf was revealed to be an exceptional artist as well, rendering the Complex in fine detail. Hulk, the Axe, its previous wielder, and even the party that discovered it were all sketched out and annotated.

    “Not so bad after all,” Ceru asked one evening while watching him copy a record of Tormund’s tattoos and the family history which they represented both to the dwarf and the warforged.

    “What?” He looked up at her. “Oh. I mean… I’d been hoping for the Arcane, of course.” Turning toward the warforged he said, “and, Madame Hulk, I do hope you will someday show me the location of this city ruin where the dwarves found you; but this,” he indicated his journal on the axe. “This is patently amazing.”

    Over the course of their excavations, they discovered that - though the history of Clan Brightstone was all but forgotten, the Brightstone Clan Mark was found in the Clan marks of every dwarf on Zakhar - the foundation of every dwarf clan - perhaps even among those that did not settle on that desert world, who did not mark their Clan in ink on skin.

    “This was obviously a great hero of the dwarven people,” Adovar commented over supper. “Forgotten to time, erased long before the Illithid invasion and the dwarven exodus, and yet indelibly he has left his mark. How much of dwarven culture is founded right here in this long-dead warlord?” There was much speculation among the non-dwarven members of the crew.

    As for the axe, though Tormund had been overcome with emotion, and claimed he could not touch it, he had wrapped it gingerly in Adovar’s silken robe - almost as one might wrap a babe in swaddling clothes. He alone carried the axe, first to Adovar’s Tent, and then on the trek back to the ship. He spent a great deal of time in quiet contemplation, staring at the ancient weapon. On more than one occasion, this moved him again to tears.

    Dwarves of the Pyre, and great many Orks - who long to return to their homeworld, Moradin’s Forge - perform a ritual cleansing in the early light of morning, during which they also shave their scalp and beard, removing all hair from their heads. By nightfall, however, Tormund's head was covered with the short hair and simple beard one might find on a human.

    Ceru had been shocked to see that the brown hair that covered his chest and back gave way to reddish orange in his short beard and atop his head. They were seated around a bonfire in the lee of the Black Ophelia. A handful of able seamen had been sent back to the camp to retrieve the remainder of the haul - packed into crates and wrapped for shipping - while the expedition party enjoyed a well-earned rest.

    Tormund and Bob, and the few other dwarves in the crew were gathered around the axe, which lay on Adovar’s open silks, in the sand between them. They were smoking long pipes and thinking deep thoughts. The hair on all their heads was starting to grow.

    “The hell is that,” Mookee asked from his perch atop a stack of crates erected to shield them from the wind. Everyone stood to look where he was pointing.

    At first it was difficult to see, but far away, off in the distant east, they could just make out the light of a campfire.

    “Another expedition, maybe,” Oquee said.

    “Should we go out and greet them,” Ceru asked.

    “No.” Captain Coalbrand was still seated near the fire, his back to them. “It’s just as likely to be bandits,” he said. “And I trust your competence, but I see no reason to invite danger or risk a pointless battle. Longtail, double the watch tonight, and make sure everyone is aware that we’re not alone on this cursed rock.” He turned in his seat so he could see them. “You might all want to get your beauty sleep,” he added. “Tomorrow it’s all hands to gather up the rest of the elf’s treasures and load them. I’ve had my fill of this wasteland.”

    The next morning, Ceru, Oquee, Mookee, and Bob were walking along beside Tormund, who insisted on carrying the axe - still wrapped in silk - with him on the journey. Most of the crew was with them, stretched out in a line, following the foot trail leading from the ship to the camp and back.

    “Tell us about the axe, please,” Ceru said once she’d grown tired of counting her steps in the loose dust and dirt.

    Tormund and Bob both sighed. “We’ve heard the story of Brightstone,” the dwarf said, “and how the axe came to be here of all places - secreted away at the end of the Mithral Age, when the dwarf lords were all turning their faces to greed and plunder.”

    He walked on a moment in silence, gathering his thoughts, seeming to weigh the Axe in his hands. “To understand why it…” he choked up. “Legend tells us the Dwarf who returns to Moradin’s Forge bearing this Axe will lead the Dwarven people into a second Mithral Age.” His eyes were red and swollen.

    “This,” he held up the silk bundle for emphasis, “is the key to retaking the Forge.

    “When the Mind Flayers and their abominable kin came out of the Void, they fell first upon Moradin’s Forge, landing their massive spelljamming ships on the surface of the planet, and loosing their thralls into the deep roads where Dwarves and Orcs waged a careful, dangerous peace that lasted a hundred generations.

    “I’d like to say the Orcs fell first to the Illithid mind-magic,” he took a long look at Bob, the Half-Orc, “but that’s only because I’m still a racist, and I harbor ill will from my youth. No offense, Bob.”

    Bob gunted his approval.

    “Truth is,” Tormund continued, “no one knows exactly how they did it, but before long Dwarf and Orc were fighting side-by-side against our own brethren.

    “The Illithid were establishing cities in the ruins of our great capitals. The Stonebreaker Clan was the first to flee the Forge. They built their Citadel from ancient plans and packed themselves into it, taking to the stars, and landing I know not where. A great many clans followed their example, but just as many fell to the Illithid or were left behind.

    “We tell stories of Dwarves and Orcs on the Forge. Resistance fighters and heroes struggling to retain or reclaim our world. It isn’t a small planet, but the truth is we don’t know. Not really.”

    By then they had reached the camp. Bob was holding a large crate of artifacts in his brawny, bare arms. “But every Dwarf knows the story of that Axe,” he said. “Every Orc too. My own ma’ told it to me when I was a little one.”

    “Mine too,” Tormund agreed, “but I’d been playing centurions and orcs since before I could walk straight, and we always included the Axe in our play.”

    “Where did it come from,” one of the crewman asked. She’d been tagging along behind them, and had kept to herself for most of the trek. Half-way back to the ship, she’d broken a lull in the conversation.

    Tormund carried the Axe, resting on one shoulder, with a small wooden box of the Elf’s bits and bobs balanced on his hip. “They say it was forged by the first Dwarven King,” he said. “They say he had the aid of the Dwarf Father, and together they crafted the tools with which to smith the thing. With one hand, he hoisted the Axe, still wrapped in silk. His eyes were weepy again. “This Axe was used to Forge the Dwarven Kingdoms of old. The king who carried it united the Clans and ushered in the greatest age of prosperity and wealth the Forge has ever known.”

    “Yet,” Bob said, and the two of them smiled. “And this time, the Dwarves won’t be warring against the Orcs. This time the children of the the Forge will ally themselves against a common foe. That Axe will be a beacon for both my - our - people.”

    “Aye,” Tormund said. Then he hurried his step a little, jogging up to fall in with the Captain. “I won’t be staying with the ship,” he said. “I mean… I’m not staying here; but once we find the Dwarf who can wield this Axe, my first duty has to be to Moradin. And to my people.”

    “What about you, Bob?” Coalbrand called back. “Will you be returning to the Forge?”

    “I don’t know,” Bob said. “You know I keep hoping to stay here, but…” He sighed. Clearly there were other gods on his mind than Moradin.

    It was nightfall by the time they arrived and unpacked, so that the Elf could catalog everything as they loaded it on the ship. Ceru and Oquee were relaxing together with the rest of the crew that would take the first watch when the ship took to the sky.

    One of the unlucky crewmen who’d been roped into loading the ship, Carver, was standing near a large elf-wood crate, after hammering it shut. He stopped a moment, stretched, and wiped his brow. Then he squinted his eyes and pointed off to the East. “Uh, Mookee,” he said, “Mateys? Is that campfire closer than it was last night?”