TODAY IS TOO LATE (22 page)

“What is down there?”

Azmon said, “The Demon Tribes.”

Tyrus muttered to himself. The animal men, servants of the shedim with green and gray flesh, stayed underground to avoid the sun. A host of fiends composed the Demon Tribes: orcs and goblins and trolls were the most notorious. Tyrus repositioned his saddlebags so they were easier to drop if he needed his sword.

They stood at the door without speaking. Neither of them liked what they saw. The darkness had texture, a presence that spoke to his instincts, whispering to Tyrus to stay away. He fought down a fear of the unknown. Azmon shifted his packs and rested a hand on his dagger.

“You know the way?” Tyrus asked.

“I’ve memorized Rordal’s journals. There is a passage linking old Falrin to the Deep Ward, which connects with Dun Drunarak.”

“How far?”

“Over twenty leagues down, another hundred to the east.”

Tyrus attempted the sums. Sounded like weeks underground with the Demon Tribes.

“How do you measure a league without the sun?”

“I had not considered that.” Azmon’s chuckles defied the darkness and broke the tension. “I guess we count steps. Maybe King Tubal has a better method.”

Tyrus shuddered at the old memories; days without sunlight became weeks and months. His nose never adjusted to the smell. The air felt heavy in his lungs as though the stench suffocated him. The tribes tested them many times. Tyrus and Azmon relied on their runes to see in the darkness. The creatures hungered for their flesh and tried to creep toward them and slit their throats. After a few battles, steel and sorcery against fangs and claws, the tribes respected them. They might drool, but they had the intelligence to avoid a sorcerer and his guardian.

Tyrus had imagined Dun Drunarak as a city with walls and towers, but what they found was a heavy gate. Vaulted ceilings and a cobblestone street led to massive steel doors. The air was dense with impressions of metal, soot, and oil. For the first time, the smell of food made Tyrus hungry. Someone baked bread. Six guards stood outside the gate, impressive and not dwarf-like at all. He had heard stories of the dwarven Wardens, but never seen any in person. They stood five feet tall and as broad across the shoulder. Plate armor covered their boxy frames, plates so thick Tyrus wondered if a hammer could dent it. They carried shields as big as steel doors and vicious short swords. The only hint of flesh came from the beards pouring out from under their helms.

Tyrus admired the weapons, a heavy kind of long knife perfect for close quarters. His own sword was too large, useless in tight tunnels.

Their arrival caused confusion. The guards did not speak any of the languages of the surface, and a runner was sent. A smaller door opened within the larger one. A new dwarf joined them, much smaller than the guards and far more dwarf-like. He spoke broken Kasdin. Tyrus did not follow everything, but Azmon presented himself as an agent of Dura Galamor and the Red Tower of Sorcery. Towers did not impress dwarves, and Tyrus grinned at the confusion.

“We seek audience with King Targar Thadius Tubal.”

“No trade with surface. Go.”

“No trade.”

“Yes.”

“No.
We
do not want to trade.
We
no trade.”

“No trade. Go. Go.”

Azmon struggled for the words. He looked to Tyrus for help, but Tyrus could only shrug. Azmon said, “Skogul,” and mimed a pair of legs walking.

The dwarves bristled. They spoke in their language, and a few laughed. Their voices rumbled like avalanches. Tyrus tried to remember the name. He had heard it before, an old story or legend. Why did it sound familiar? The word recalled dusty things.

The talker treated Azmon like a child. “No Gimirr. Not a dwarf. No Blood Quest for you.”

“Yes. Blood Quest. To Skogul.”

The talker jabbed a finger at Azmon’s chest. “You. No. Gimirr.”

The group shook their heads at him, and Azmon cursed. Tyrus hoped he had no plans to attack these things. The few guards filled the tunnel, such wide shoulders and stocky frames. His height would work against him, and their armor offered no easy targets. Instead, Azmon dropped his packs and loosened his robes. He bared his chest, his birth rune, and the dwarves gasped.

Tyrus knew Azmon kept his chest and stomach free of other runes so that his one true rune was not besmirched. Azmon had been etched with several runes, and kept the exact number a secret, even from Tyrus. They were on his back and legs.

One dwarf lit a torch. The sudden brilliance after weeks underground blinded Tyrus. When his eyes adjusted, the gray world teemed with color, and he noted the dwarves used dyes in their armor, blues and purples that shimmered like runes. Silver runes, razor thin, gleamed in the flame. The guards clustered around Azmon and made appreciative sounds. One of them traced the white ridges of the birth rune with one finger.

“Are you okay?” Tyrus asked.

“Yes. I think they understand.”

Azmon held out an open hand. The air chilled, and a flame burst into existence in his palm. The guards raised shields and swords, but the talker gestured for calm. They did not like sorcery. Tyrus saw glares and bared teeth under the massive helms.

“Apologies, Reborn. Forgive?”

“May we see King Targar Thadius Tubal?”

“King, yes.”

The steel gate creaked open. Deep within the rock, metal clanked. Clacking chains rattled over gears before the heavy doors swung open. The city within glowed gold. Warmth radiated out. Smells, seemingly strong before, now overpowered. Tyrus sniffed water in the air, like dew before dawn, and a freshness. The city had clean air compared to the dank tunnels. More guards waited on the other side, but Tyrus caught his first glimpse of dwarves without armor, built like badgers, all shoulders, forearms, and knuckles. So much hair, fur on skin, and beards hanging below belts.

“Come. To king.”

The city followed a geometric pattern that Tyrus struggled to understand until he realized it was three dimensional, a diamond shape carved into the rock. They followed their guide up a pathway on the edge of the town that turned on sharp angles as it climbed toward the top of the diamond. Occasional gaps in structures, sometimes alleys, sometimes steep drops, showed a sprawling city with numerous causeways.

The sudden change from tunnels to such a large space made Tyrus more aware of the mountain of rock suspended above their heads. He never feared the tunnels caving in. They looked solid, but flimsy columns and arches supported the ceiling over Dun Drunarak. Tyrus hoped they used no sorcery in their construction. A sorcerer could destroy the city.

More guards at the top, and a stone room echoing the Royal Court of Rosh, a throne on a dais, tapestries, and the serious faces of people struggling for power and influence. They wore robes embellished with gold and silver runes, something Tyrus had never seen before: runes as decoration. A strange thought: ambition on a dwarf looked no different than ambition on a man.

King Targar Thadius Tubal wore white and brown furs that blended with his white beard and long hair. His crown was a simple band of gold, and his eyes rested deep within wells of wrinkles. Their guide pointed at the floor and approached the dais.

“What is this nonsense, two men on a Blood Quest?”

Azmon sighed. “You speak Kasdin.”

“And you, apparently, do not speak Gimirr. Why visit us when you speak none of our tongues?”

Azmon bowed. “My apologies, your majesty. I read a little but had no way to practice.”

“You seek Skogul?”

“We travel to the Bottom of the World, yes.”

“Why?”

“A new weapon, runes, to be tested against the adversary.”

“The adversary?” King Tubal’s nose wrinkled. “You cannot mean the shedim?”

Azmon launched into a long story, one Tyrus had never heard before. Azmon spent years studying the Sarbor and claimed to have discovered a weakness. He detailed scrolls found on the surface and his belief that he had new runes to use against the shedim. The order of the Red Tower knew of his work and protected his research, but he traveled to the Deep Ward to test theories.

Tyrus realized Azmon lied. The story entertained until he remembered the things Azmon had let slip over the years. He wanted to be closer to the shedim, not fight them. He wanted their runes. The convincing lie shamed Tyrus. By standing as his guardian, Tyrus helped deceive the dwarves.

“It is time to take the battle to them,” Azmon said. “How much longer can the Deep Ward hold? You lose ground below and above. Their spawn multiply. The Demon Tribes have invaded the surface. The Marsh Fen Orcs build cities that threaten human settlements. They make war during the day.”

Tubal’s hands closed into enormous fists. “You blame us for losing control of the Deep?”

“That is not what I said.”

“Where is the help? Why must we guard the Deep alone? What happened to the ancient Kassiri who sent their warriors to test the tribes in the tunnels? You come here and blame me for losing ground?”

“Majesty, I did not say that.”

“Grayskins are on the surface because you give them space to breed. What happened to your crusades? Much has changed since the death of Jethlah. You forget the past, and your nations will fall like Ancient Kassir.”

“Your majesty, please, I have come to fight.”

Tubal huffed and his white mustache fluttered. “You know not what you do.”

“I wish to learn.”

Tubal cast his attention to the gathered nobles. They spoke in their language, harsh and guttural words. The mood shifted from inquiry to agreement and then silence.

Tubal said, “To learn, you must first survive. Return to the surface. Test these runes on your own demons.”

Azmon waited. Tyrus stood behind him and could not tell how he handled the rebuke. A downward tilt of Azmon’s head was the only hint at disappointment.

“Majesty, I have vowed to confront them. My task is no different than your Blood Quests. I cannot turn back.”

“A matter of blood?”

“It is my destiny.” Azmon bowed.

“It costs nothing to open our gates to the Deep. But my warriors will not join you. You travel alone.” Tubal studied Azmon. “The surface offers pleasant deaths. It is a soft world for weak, spindly things. You travel to a
hard
place. We have an old saying, ‘Nothing dies well in the deep.’”

Tyrus grimaced. That sounded unpleasant. The idea of dying so far from the surface made Tyrus feel small. He imagined rocks smashing him the way a boot might crush a bug.

Azmon said, “I understand.”

“The Lost City is not empty. A broken clan, abominations who shall not be named, guards it,” Tubal said. “They will hunt you long before you see the gates of Skogul.”

They left Dun Drunarak with an emblem from Tubal and traveled to a dozen more dwarven cities, each deeper than the one before, and at each stop Azmon spoke of his mission from Dura Galamor to challenge the shedim, and the dwarven kings warned them of their doom. Tubal’s emblem opened gates but not minds.

The Deep Ward was a series of fortified tunnels through the dark, leading downward to the Bottom of the World. Clans of dwarves, dozens of different families, guarded the passageways to the surface. Tyrus learned that once, in antiquity, the dwarves had controlled the Black Gate. But the spawn of the shedim conquered their greatest city and pushed the dwarves toward the surface.