Tungdil gave her a grateful look. His doubts and reservations about the half дlf had been canceled out by her deeds. "Girdlegard is in your debt twice over. No matter how expertly we fashion the weapon, Keenfire would be powerless without tionium-or without the undergroundlings' foe."
"It's the least I can do, given the amount of suffering my mother's race has caused," she demurred.
He glanced at the glowing furnace. "Shall we begin?"
"I'm afraid it's not that simple," said Giselbert. "The furnace is alight, but the temperature isn't high enough. Usually, we'd use the bellows to breathe life into Dragon Fire, but the equipment has rusted and we haven't been able to get it to work."
"Thank goodness for that!" Furgas leaped to his feet. "What with Narmora being the savior of Girdlegard, I was beginning to think I was just a hanger-on." He chuckled good-humoredly and the others joined in. "I hope you're ready for a demonstration of my expertise."
He was rewarded with a kiss from Narmora, who picked up her ax to practice wards, attacks, and strikes with Boпndil. Andфkai sat watching them, while Djerun, motionless as usual, crouched beside her. For some reason Tungdil was half expecting the helmet to give off a purple glow.
"You're wondering what's behind the visor, aren't you?" said Narmora, recovering her breath. She pressed the canteen of water thirstily to her lips.
He turned to her. "Is there something I should know?"
Narmora leaned against the wall of polished rock, still panting with exertion. Boпndil was a hard taskmaster and the combat sessions left her exhausted. "When I was little, my mother told me stories about a terrifying being, the king among Tion's and Samusin's creatures, the predator of predators, the hunter who hunted his own kind, destroying the weak and fighting the strong to make them stronger-or to kill them if their ascendancy was undeserved." Narmora dabbed the sweat from her brow. "She said that his eyes shone with violet light and that weaker beings fled for their lives at the sight of him. All the beasts are terrified of Samusin's son. She used to scare the living daylights out of me with those stories." She grinned, then averted her gaze, careful not to glance in the giant's direction. "And back then I didn't know that they were true."
The explanation didn't take Tungdil entirely by surprise. Samusin was Andфkai's chosen deity, and she would doubtless feel honored to be traveling with a creature who was said to be his son. Whether or not Djerun was more than just a servant to the maga was a question that Tungdil was reluctant to ponder. "No wonder the bцgnilim bolted."
"Most creatures would run away from him, beasts of Tion or not." Narmora got up to resume her drills.
He watched as Balyndis kindled one of the hearths with ordinary flames. After stripping off her mail and leather jerkin, she donned a leather apron that covered her chest and her midriff, although her undergarments left a good deal of flesh on show. He made his way over to see what she was doing. "What are you up to?"
"Making steel," she said, signaling for him to tie her apron at the back. Standing behind her, he caught his first proper glimpse of female skin. It was pink and covered in wispy down. There hadn't been much opportunity for washing of late, so she had a strong smell about her, but it wasn't unpleasant-not clean, exactly, but still quite arousing. "The blast furnaces are on the other side of the door, so I'm having to smelt the metal by other means. It's a trick of the trade."
Balyndis's apron strings were safely knotted, but Tungdil found himself clasping her sturdy hips. Her skin felt smooth and warm. He stroked the fine hairs.
"Come here so you can see what I'm doing." He did as he was told. "First we have to get rid of the impurities, which is why I'm placing the ore in a shallow pan. The heat will burn them off. Unfortunately, it means we can produce only small quantities of steel at a time, but it should be enough for a blade." She stood there, waiting patiently for the temperature to rise and the iron to melt. "Surely you've done this before?"
"No," he said regretfully. "I was only a blacksmith."
"How many strikes for a horseshoe nail?"
"Seven, if I concentrate. Nine, if I don't."
"Not bad," she said with a smile that made his cheeks flush redder than the molten ore. "It takes me seven strikes too."
"How many for an ax?"
"Seven, if I concentrate; nine, if I don't. Orbits, that is, not strikes. Since time is of the essence right now, I'll work straight through and it should be done in five orbits, without the quality suffering at all." She drew his attention to Giselbert, who was waving at them from the doors. "I think he wants to show you something."
Tungdil raised his hand to indicate that he was coming. "It's hard to believe that he and the others are older than anything we've ever encountered, save the mountains themselves."
"And to think that they're revenants as well. It's so sad that their souls were stolen by the Perished Land. I wish there was something we could do to get them back."
"Only Vraccas can restore their souls, but you're right, it must be awful for them." He hurried over to the anxious Giselbert.
"The beasts are preparing to attack."
Tungdil studied the heavy metal doors. They were reinforced with steel bindings and protected with Vraccas's runes. "I thought you said the forge was safe?"
"It was-until you gave them a reason to breach the doors. They know you're here and they know you're forging a weapon that will bring about their doom. Their priorities have changed." He pointed to a peephole and Tungdil peered through.
In the course of a single orbit the ragged hordes had become an orderly army under the дlfar's command.
A short distance from the doors was a growing pile of pillars and stalactites, torn down and stacked by a unit of ogres. Beyond that, further divisions of beasts were putting the finishing touches on what looked like hoists.
"You're right; it looks serious. I'll have to warn the others. What do we have in the way of defenses?"
Giselbert raised his ax.
"Is that all?"
The fifthling raised another ax and gave a wry smile. "It's not enough, I know. We-"
He was interrupted by muffled shrieks and jangling armor; ogres bellowed, orcs snarled anxiously, bцgnilim yelped in terror.
What's going on out there? Tungdil pressed his face to the peephole just as the fires went out in the encampment. Dwarf-sized warriors with pale faces poured out of the darkness, swarming among the beasts and cleaving through their ranks. They seemed to be deliberately beheading their opponents so that none could be raised from the dead.
The attack was over in moments. The flames were rekindled and the invaders disappeared without a trace.
The spirits of the dead dwarves'. He thought back to the pale figures and their mysterious warning. Tion's hordes had colonized their realm against their wishes, and the vengeful ghosts had made them pay. "What do you know about dwarven ghosts?"
"Ghosts? Nothing…but I'm glad they've decided to help."
Tungdil hurried to tell the others of the imminent attack. Everyone not involved in forging Keenfire was put to work hewing boulders to barricade the doors.
All that mattered for the moment was keeping the beasts at bay. Later they would have to figure out a way of getting themselves and the weapon out of the forge.
The company's faith in Furgas proved well founded. It took him less than an orbit to get to grips with the bellows. According to him, the pulley system worked in much the same way as a stage curtain, a parallel that he found especially apt.
Having located the damage, he repaired it, improvising a solution with the presence of mind and ingenuity befitting a prop master who had rescued plenty of performances from mechanical disaster. He even got the grindstone turning again.
Meanwhile, the others continued their efforts to barricade the doors. The beasts had already launched an initial offensive, which failed because the stalactites shattered against the doors.