When the second orbit dawned, Gandogar began work on the diamonds. The environment could scarcely have been less conducive to his task, but he was fortunate to have use of Goпmgar's tools. Bavragor sat at a table and fashioned the spurs, his hands moving with the mechanical jerkiness of a puppet on strings.
Giselbert prepared the casts for the precious metals, while Balyndis threw herself into forging the blade and its shaft, which itself was the length of a forearm.
She set up her workshop in the middle of the chamber near Dragon Fire. With every sigh of the machine-driven bellows, the coals hissed and crackled, sometimes spitting white flames.
Her work was spread between three anvils of different sizes and shapes. Time after time she reached confidently for the appropriate tool among the rows of rivet tongs, wolf jaw tongs, duck bill tongs, and six dozen or so similar implements, extracted the red hot steel from the fire, hammered it approximately into shape, and replaced it in its fiery bed of coals as soon as the metal cooled.
Tungdil had never seen such a magnificent forge. Whereas he was accustomed to four types of hammer, there was a choice of fifty and all with different heads, not to mention the chisels, files, saws, and other tools that Balyndis employed with obvious skill.
"I could use your help," she said suddenly, handing him some tongs. "Draw out the steel to the thickness of a knife blade, halve the metal with your ax, and lay the sections on top of each other."
Tungdil did as instructed, reaching into the furnace with his long-handled tongs. White flames licked the coals, emitting a phenomenal warmth.
The steel was white-hot when he placed it on the anvil. He drew it out quickly and returned it to the flames, waiting for it to glow before transferring it to the anvil, dividing it in half, and hammering the two sections vigorously into a single strip.
It had been so long since he had last stood at the anvil that he felt a rush of elation as he brought down the hammer and tapped out a rhythm. This was the wizardry of the dwarves, their ability to induce metal to perform wondrous miracles that a magus or famulus would never understand.
He glanced at Balyndis happily; without realizing, they were hammering in unison.
At length he laid down his tools. "I ought to go back to shifting boulders before the others start accusing me of ruining the blade. How many layers will it have when it's finished?"
"About three hundred," she replied, still hammering. "It's good steel so it can take it. Thanks for the help."
Tungdil gave her a wave and joined the working party at the doors. The fifthlings hurried back and forth tirelessly, their undead bodies able to function without rest, but Tungdil and Boпndil were only too aware of the importance of conserving their strength. Most of their provisions had been eaten already and the rest would have to be rationed until they left the forge.
"Vraccas must be really farsighted," said Boпndil after a time. "To think that he brought us all together like this!'
"What do you mean?" asked Tungdil, surprised to hear the warrior pondering such matters.
Boпndil, his skin bronzed from orbits in the sun, turned his bearded face toward him. "Each one of us has a vital role to play. We needed you to come up with the plan in the first place, Balyndis and the others to make the blade, the impresario to save us from the runts, Furgas to repair the bellows, and the pointy-eared actress to strike the magus down." He sat down on a rock. "There couldn't be a better team…"
"What about Goпmgar?"
"Er… Well, we needed Goпmgar to save Gandogar."
"Aren't you forgetting the warrior twins? You and your brother wiped out anyone who stood in our way and kept fighting when others would have lost their nerve. We wouldn't have got this far if it weren't for you." He gave him a hearty thump on the back.
Boпndil grinned. "More incredibly, we turned our scholar into a proper, respectable dwarf. Living with the long-uns sent your instincts to sleep, but we've woken them up for you, Tungdil." He made to strike him with his ax. "Truth be told, you're pretty handy with a weapon. You must have been born a warrior."
Born a warrior. Tungdil was painfully reminded that he still knew nothing of his birth.
For once Boпndil picked up on his mood. "Cheer up, Tungdil! If the fourthlings won't have you, you can always live with us," he promised breezily. "I'll swear by the beard of Beroпn that you're the illegitimate cousin of my estranged aunt thirty-four times removed." They both laughed.
Giselbert, who had been peering through the peephole at regular intervals, headed over from the door. His expression was grave. "They've fashioned new battering rams. This time they might actually work."
"Is there any other way out?" asked Tungdil. "Rodario's act won't fool them again." He looked up at the chimney towering above the furnace. "Would that do the trick?"
"Our scholar is full of inspiration," Boпndil said admiringly.
"It might, but the stairs are pretty steep."
"We'll manage," Tungdil assured him. "Nothing can stop us from saving Girdlegard, especially not now that the ax is almost finished."
Just then, an almighty crash shook the walls as if the mountain were collapsing around them.
The doors shuddered, fragments of rock rained all around them, and the metal panels strained and groaned. The attack had begun in earnest.
VIII
Giselbert's Folk, Fiftbling Kingdom, Girdlegard, Winter, 6234th Solar Cycle For three whole orbits the forge echoed with continual pounding and thudding against the doors and the beasts' persistence began to pay off. The solid iron panels were already bulging in the middle, and the metal showed signs of cracking under the force of the brutal assault.
Tungdil had requisitioned one of the anvils and was frantically forging bars to add to the barricade, but it was obvious that the beasts would eventually force their way in.
Balyndis had almost finished the blade and was about to begin the fine-tuning. The task of engraving the metal was entrusted to Giselbert, who marked the warm steel with runes and patterns for the inlay. Gandogar had cut the diamonds to size and left them on his makeshift workbench. Each gem had been sharpened to a deadly point that would slit the magus open. The spurs, carved by Bavragor from black granite, were as long as a human index finger and were waiting to be attached.
Tungdil, under directions from Narmora, sculpted the grip using a hacksaw, a file, and a grindstone to shape the metallike sigurdaisy wood to fit her hand. He left the sanding to her and went back to reinforcing the doors. On the fourth orbit the heated blade was edged with diamonds and the spurs were put in place.
Balyndis worked with utmost concentration. The metal was unforgiving, and every strike of the hammer was vitaclass="underline" The slightest mistake could cost her the blade, and there wasn't enough time to reforge it. The constant gonglike pounding on the doors was a distraction that they could all have done without.
Giselbert was almost ready to combine the precious metals and create a single alloy, a process made possible by the incredible heat of the dragon fire. The others looked on in fascination as he heated the metals in individual pans: rich gold, shimmering silver, orange vraccasium, white palandium, and a coin-sized lump of black tionium.
One by one he emptied the molten contents into a bell- shaped vessel lined with glass. When it came to pouring the tionium, the black liquid hissed with Tion-like malice, angry at being united with an element as pure as palandium.
Another loud boom shook the hall, followed immediately by a cracking and snapping of metal. A battering ram smashed into the reinforced door, opening a gap half a pace across. In no time a bцgnil had squeezed through and was staring wide-eyed at his surroundings. He squealed in excitement.
"Come here, you ugly piglet!" bellowed Ireheart, whooping exuberantly as he charged. At last he could allow his fury to run riot. "So you think you're brave, do you? Let's see if my axes change your mind!"