Blue Diamonds (Book One of The Blue Diamonds Saga) (8 page)

“Yes Sir!” Pall clicked his heels together and saluted his uncle with a half smirk, staring out into nowhere. Burt couldn’t tell if Pall was mocking him, but even so he liked being saluted and always saluted back. This time the jolly round old dwarf also clicked his heels together, half out of instinct, half out of pride.

“Fine, just don’t dilly dally,” he repeated then wobbled away mumbling under his breath.

“Heehee. Don’t dilly dally Pall,” said Kala

Kala then appeared, floating down from above in front of Pall. Elves cannot levitate, contradictory to what many might claim, but they can shun the hold of gravity and balance on a falling leaf as it glides downward. This is what she was doing now, tip toeing on the falling maple leaf the same way she had on the log earlier. This time Pall was impressed.

Kala always hid in the presence of Pall’s kin. Dwarves equally disliked elves, and though this didn’t matter to them, they agreed it would be easier to keep their friendship a secret. Despite all of this she adored Pall’s kin. Her favorite dwarf to watch of all of them was his Uncle Burt.

“Whatever, I’ll move at me own pace,” Pall said.

“You should have asked him how to catch a fish,” she teased. Pall felt the sting of that jibe. It had in fact been a long, long time since he caught one.

“If ye don’t watch yer mouth I’ll make ye eat the next one I catch.” Pall smiled as Kala stuck her tongue out in disgust. She was a devout vegetarian.

“Go an tell his highness that I’ll be there after I take care of what ever me father needs, an if ye leave without me I’ll shave yer heads in yer sleep. An tell yer big boyfriend he hits like a girl.”

“What, are you saying I can’t hit?” Kala put her hands on her hips and started tapping her foot. She was standing on the log again.

“No, you hit like a man,” said Pall before propping his axe over his shoulder. He then tilted his head and grinned. In a flash Kala was in front of him planting a loud kiss on his cheek before leaping straight up into the branches above.

“That’s why I love you Pall Hammerheart!” she yelled from above. She was already skipping high into the trees, darting from branch to branch on a direct route back to Somerlund as quick as a jackrabbit on the ground.

Pall glanced back at the lake just in time to see his fishing pole jiggle and fly out of the ground and into the water. He couldn’t help but to laugh out loud.

“Darned fish,” he chuckled to himself as he fastened his axe onto his back, ready to begin his walk back to the mountain and the rest of his family who were hard at work.

Pall was impressed with how fast the construction came along. He knew all about the history of his people and their marvelous megaliths, but everything he knew came from history books or visiting some of these ancient structures. It was really something else entirely to see them going up in real time. They chiseled into the entire height of the cliff that jutted out from the mountain, all two thousand feet of it, which seemed to be a single piece of granite. He imagined that it had to be enough granite to recreate the entire castle Somerlund.

The worksite could be spotted from miles away, a scab on the mountain just above the forest canopy that blanketed its hilly base. A zigzag road ascended from the wooded foothills, straightening out just before it reached a perfectly rounded tunnel opening that was the entrance to Fort Hammerheart.

Two giant stone hammers were carved into the cliff, which were positioned leaning into each other, framing the entrance. The hammer’s heads don’t touch, but are connected by a six-pointed star that represented the forging spark.

"The most beautiful light in the world," any dwarf will tell you.

Carved into the center of the spark was a burning heart, with streams of smoke that morphed into a backdrop of sculptures on the cliff face behind the hammers. There were hundreds of these smaller carvings that you’d need to be standing near the entrance in order to see clearly. They told stories of the dwarven heroes of long ago. Intertwined with these were renditions of dwarven gods and scenes from historic battles. Most of these were only in beginning stages of sculpting, but Pall could make out enough details in their actions and posture to give names to the characters.

As glorious a sculpture it was to look at, it was an equally dangerous monument to wander too closely to without invitation. Dwarves grew accustomed to protecting their mines from intruders over thousands of years, and the defenses of Fort Hammerheart told the story clearly.

Between a score of the stone figures were shadow-covered portals that concealed lookout stations, each manned with guards operating powerful crossbows. The crossbows were dwarven repeaters, famed for their ability to shoot three projectiles simultaneously, while being accurate enough to target any part of the road below all the way to the tree line. The crossbow's crank, a device Burt adamantly claims was invented by a Hammerheart, cocks the string, loads the arrows and fires all in one complete turn of a crank. On the side of the weapon was a long, open slot where a second dwarf loads arrows by the handful.

The main entrance looked like a massive tunnel from a distance, but as you got closer you found that it narrowed abruptly, just steps inside of the huge hammer frame. Then, once inside, you continued down a tunnel wide enough to fit two wagons at a time if side-by-side. If an army were to make it to the entrance, they would surely be at a dilemma here. At this point the dwarves would hold a fierce phalanx front with shield and spear. The goal of the armored wall of spikes is only to bottleneck an enemy’s advance, so that their soldiers taking up the rear could remain open to the bombardment of crossbows.

If by some unnatural feat the raiders were able to breach the phalanx, the dwarves would signal for the tunnel to come down in a triggered collapse. It is no secret as to why entry tunnels into dwarven strongholds are always one hundred yards long. It is because that enables them to perfectly balance a thousand tons of rock above the tunnel, all of it rigged to fall by the pull of a lever. Even if the enemy tried to dig through, unless they were Dwarves themselves it could take several months. It always gave Pall the shivers when he walked through this deadly section of tunnel. Dwarves were crushed in mine accidents all the time, and in a way this trap was designed to inflict on enemies their worst fear.

Pall lost nearly an hour weaving through tunnels crammed with dwarves busy at work before finally locating his father. He was in a long, oval cavern that was going to be the clan’s dining hall. There were several ways into the hall, and enough tables and chairs to seat a thousand hungry diners with seats to spare. Six rows of tables stretched along the ballroom ending at a taller table that was positioned perpendicular to the six rows like the spine on a comb. There was no guessing who would sit here. The silver and gold trimmed tablecloth draped over the table hinted at the bountiful feasts that were sure to come spread over equally impressive platters, but for now it was covered corner to corner with blueprints and maps.

Jevon Hammerheart, Pall's father, was clearly in distress by the way he frowned over the table as four other prestigious looking dwarves watched. Three of them Pall easily recognized as elders of the Hammerheart clan. Jaspar the Lead Miner, Jargon the Mappist, and Marco the Lead Architect. The fourth he had never seen within the clan, here nor in Ol’ Brook.

“Finally me son shows his face!” announced Jevon, raising his head from the blueprints. He nodded towards the newest face at the table. “Pall, meet Baylor, he’s an alchemist.”

“Well met Baylor," said Pall as he stepped up to extend his hand. Baylor was holding some blueprints and made no attempt to set them down. Instead he just stared at Pall as if he was diseased. Pall could’ve sworn he caught a hint of a sneer.

“Yes. Indeed,” replied Baylor, acting oblivious to the hand before him. Pall already didn’t like him.

Pall dropped his hand and directed his attention back to his father, “Uncle Burt says ye need me?”

“Yes,” Jevon smiled and leaned towards his son. “Got an errand for ye.”

“An errand? Couldn’t ye find ano-” Pall started, but was cut short.

“Ye aint helpin with the buildin so I won’t hear yer yappin,” his father snapped. “Baylor says we’ve run into some rocks that could be dangerous diggin.”

“Dangerous diggin?” Ridiculous, thought Pall. To him diggin was about as exciting as watching beans sprout.

“Yes, dangerous diggin. Something ye'd know little about. We're lookin at a big pocket of fire rock.” Jevon proudly glared at his alchemist, happy to have acquired him. He met the intriguing dwarf during the chaos prior to the big move. He'd never met a dwarf alchemist, let alone heard of one. Fire rock was a miner's worst nightmare. If undetected and struck with a metal tool it exploded into violent plumes of flame and poisonous gas. In the best-case scenario it killed the miner, while in the worst case it brought the entire tunnel system crashing down.

"Baylor says there's a way to diffuse the dangerous stones, but he needs some materials first."

Pall shot an incredulous look at Baylor. “Fire rock? In this ancient mountain? Everyone knows it’s been dead for many-"

“-Yes, Fire rock," said Jevon, and he cut off his son's glare with a wave of his hand. "He’s the specialist here, and the last I checked yer just me slacker son. Now yer actually going to do something for yer clan. Baylor needs a book from the great library in the city and yer gonna go fetch it.”

“A book?” said Pall. He heard the word city, and the fight in him subsided for a moment. Shomnath was waiting in the city.

“Three books, actually. I wrote a list for yer father.” Baylor slid into the conversation, seemingly just loud enough for Pall to hear. Even though Baylor was hidden somewhere out of Pall’s peripheral he felt the alchemist grinning. Sneering.

“And another thing," his father put his hands on his hips.

"Yes father?"

"Don’t dilly dally.”

Jevon held out the list to his son, which Pall briefly considered not taking. He changed his mind when his father replaced his smile with the universal “son, yer about to get a beating,” look. There was no point in arguing now. Pall knew all too well the finality in his father’s eyes.

“Yes father, I’ll be on me way," was the only thing Pall could say as he took the list, his posture no longer confident but a submissive haunch.

“Great,” said his father, his face transformed back to his normal, jovial appearance. “I knew ye would see the light.”

Pall cast a quick, angry look at Baylor before shuffling away from the head table, then back down along the rows of tables and out the exit farthest from his father.

During the stroll out of the giant maze he encountered one dead end tunnel after another. Yet instead of adding to his frustration, the wandering ended up chipping away at his mood, because with each step there was also the curiosity of what adventure Shomnath had planned. They'd gotten into plenty of mischief together, but this was the first time he'd only speak in person, which meant this had to be something special. Before he even found his way out of the mountain he'd forgotten the embarrassment of the confrontation with his father, and was steadily daydreaming.

Once Pall emerged from the hammer gate and into the full afternoon sun, he realized that he still had the problem of fetching the books. It would be too awkward to ask for help from any of the dwarves that were breaking their backs on the cliff, being that he was the cleanest dwarf in or out of the mountain. Most of the dwarves he passed on the way out were so completely covered with grime that they were the same color as the tunnel walls, and only the whites of their eyes and smiles floated by.

No, he couldn't bother any of them. He would just have to get to the library and back as quickly as possible. Maybe he would plead for Shomnath not to leave till he got back. Shomnath normally sent Kala to fetch him ahead of time while he made provisions for their trip anyway. If Shomnath couldn’t wait, well, he decided he was just going to be in big trouble with his father.

“Hey Pall! Pall!” The high, warbling voice caught Pall’s attention just as he was nearly out of the build site.

“P-a-l-l! Hey! Where’re ye off to?” Scuttle, Pall’s youngest cousin, was hurriedly wobbling down the path after him.

To Pall, Scuttle’s life seemed to revolve around irritating him. Not the way carrying luggage can be irritating, but in the way a curious wasp can be irritating. As cute as the short, round, curly-haired boob was, he was extremely accident prone and generally oblivious. At first, Pall was going to dismiss his cousin the way he usually did, but saw the window for opportunity.

“Hey little cousin,” said Pall, looking side to side before lowering his voice to a whisper. “I’m off to the city on a very important, secret mission.”

“Whoa!” Scuttles eyes nearly popped out of his skull. Pall patted the air between them, lipping "quiet" all the while.

“Want to help?” asked Pall after Scuttle finally calmed.

About half the height of Pall, Scuttle was twenty-five years old, or about a twelve year old in comparison to a human’s maturity. The chubby little dwarf tensed at his cousin’s offer, nodding his head up and down furiously.

“Relax Scuttle, before ye get seen acting strange. The first step in keeping a secret is not letting anyone know that there’s a secret being keeped.”