webcrawl/APGTE/Book-4/tex/Ch-075.md.tex

\hypertarget{chapter-58-quiet}{%
\section{Chapter 58: Quiet}\label{chapter-58-quiet}}

\begin{quote}
\emph{``May the Heavens strike me down if I lie. Again.''}

-- Dread Emperor Abominable, the Thrice-Struck
\end{quote}

No one in living memory had seen a dwarven army take the field, not on
the surface anyway. Even with all the dangers swirling around us I'd
been looking forward to that part. Since becoming the Squire I'd
scrapped either with or to the side of most the famous militaries: the
Legions of Terror, the Spears of Stygia, Helikean exiles, both fae
Courts. My own people in rebellion, Akua's host of old breed Praesi. The
Tenth Crusade too, though in all fairness I'd seen neither hide nor hair
of soldiers that weren't Proceran in the northern campaign. There was
little left to account for. The other cities of the League were hardly
known for their soldiery -- apparently Bellerophon didn't even have
career officers, which just boggled the mind -- and Ashur was primarily
a naval power. The Dead King and the Chain of Hunger were the last two
contenders, since the elves didn't really fight wars. I'd be facing the
former sooner or later, and the latter was allegedly more horde than
host. With the drow having proved to be a pack of squabbling assholes
bleeding themselves over the right to be Creation's ricketiest demigods,
the only force of note that remained was the Kingdom Under. Juniper, I
thought, would have given her right hand to stand in my shoes right at
this moment.

Indrani had led us to the same perch she'd used on earlier trip, and for
all that it felt overly exposed it did give us a perfect view of what
took place below. She hadn't been overselling the size of the cavern, I
quickly found out. Large as Laure might, if anything, be an
understatement. There were a lot more people in Callow's capital, of
course. Maybe half the cavern was taken up by a lake, which to my mild
interest revealed itself to be another food source for the locals. There
were fish farms, walled in with stones, and what I was pretty sure was
crab traps though the creatures writhing inside didn't look like any
crab I'd seen before. Most of the rest was `farmland'. Raised stones
covered with thick lichen, mushrooms patches and what looked like some
strange cousin of potatoes wherever the dirt was thick enough. Most of
that was now occupied by the dwarven vanguard. The only drow holdout was
the massive stalagmite in the back that Indrani had mentioned, though
she hadn't done the sight of it justice with her short description.

At the base, it was about as thick as fortress. Archer had labelled the
path up as a spiral, but the angle was too sharp for the term to really
fit. It zig-zagged across the sides of the stalagmite with precision too
defined to be anything but manmade, the parts of the path that passed
between the stone spire and the wall of the cavern effectively tunnels.
There'd been tents there before, but they'd been flattened or taken away
by the drow awaiting the assault. Which was coming soon, there were no
two ways about it. I could tell as much just by the way the army had
been positioned. At the bottom of the stalagmite a force of three
thousand was standing patiently, and I'd almost let out a whistle at my
first good look. Dwarves were known for their heavy infantry as well as
their lethal contraptions, but these soldiers went a step further than
I'd expected. It was like looking at walking barrels of steel. It was
plate, in the sense that their armour wasn't mail, but layered so
thickly no a spot of dwarf could be seen underneath. Not even the famous
beards: the helmets bore face-covering masks that ended in a sculpted
steel beard where I assumed their actual beards lay protected. The
weight of that should be too heavy for even the famously physically
strong dwarves to be able to move in, so while there were no runes to be
seen on the surface I assumed some had been inscribed beneath. To a
dwarf, they bore long halberds with steel shafts that weighed enough
even Hakram would have difficulty swinging one around.

They're weren't infantry so much as a company of walking battering rams.

The five thousand remaining dwarves were less heavily armoured, at
least. Three divisions of a thousand each wore ornate but otherwise
unremarkable plate, with square shields and war hammers. They all had
crossbows on their back. I was classifying them as regulars in my mind,
though in anyone else's army they would be heavies. The last thousand
was\ldots{} interesting. The most lightly armoured of the lot, with only
steel cuirasses over leather and plumed helmets that left the faces
bare. They attended to the three dozen war machines the vanguard had set
up in a crescent facing the stalagmite. If Juniper would have given a
hand to see the battle, then Pickler would have eaten her firstborn to
get a good peek at those. About half the machines looked to be some kind
of fat steel ballistas raised on wheeled platforms. Not even the rope
was, well, rope. It looked to be some kind of woven metal chord. There
were wagons full of spherical projectiles next to them, two per
ballista. The remaining half of the engines was hard to classify. The
basic shape was like an onager's, more or less small and portable
catapults. What a scorpion was to a ballista, though my sappers would
string me up for making so broad a comparison. The similarity ended at
the shape, though. The steel base had been nailed to the floor with
spikes almost as large as the engine itself, and instead of spheres to
throw the already-loaded projectiles looked like elongated battering
rams in a metal I did not recognize.

I wasn't sure what those were meant for, but I doubted the drow would
enjoy it.

The last of the dwarves were maybe two hundred, including what I was
pretty sure was their command staff. Their armour was closest to that of
the regulars, but lined with enough precious stones to steady Callow's
treasury for a good year. Unlike the grunts they were mounted. No
horses, though. Best way I could put it was the unholy offspring of a
lizard and an insect: the creatures were scaled and their reptilian
heads had an impressive set of fangs, but their legs numbered six and
were strangely segmented. They had three claws at the end of those,
though they looked like they'd been blunted. Those officers were only
around four dozen in number, and the remainder was unlike any other
troops I'd seen so far. They wore heavy cuirasses and mail beneath them,
but no helmet and both hair and beard were almost obsessively braided.
Their weapons were not standardized, ranging from greatsword to some
kind of chain with spiked weights at the end, but the eye-catching part
was the trophies dangling down their bodies. Skulls and claws, stingers
and broken weapons. Indrani caught me looking and leaned closer.

``Deed-seekers,'' she whispered. ``Met of few in Refuge. They're after
things they're not supposed to get according to other dwarves, so
they're trying to earn enough glory that they become worthy of getting
them. Some came up to hunt in the Waning Woods. Heard others go through
the gate in Levant to have a tussle with the stuff in the woods there.''

``They any good?'' I whispered back.

``Ran across one who broke his hammer on a manticore's horns so he beat
it to death with his bare hands,'' she said. ``And I'm not talking a
juvenile, the thing was fully grown. They're pretty hardcore. Polite for
dwarves, though. Those I met knew surface tongues and they were willing
to pay for guides.''

``So crazy of the dangerous kind,'' I grunted. ``Just what we needed.''

The conversation ended there and for good reason: the dwarves were on
the move. There was no horn, no trumpet or warning. The ballistas just
shot their first volley and the battle began. The projectiles, round
orbs of steel, smacked into the upper reaches of the stalagmite. They'd
been denied a better target: the drow were holing up out of sight. Rock
shattered under steel and the whole spire shook. My brow rose at the
sight. Those hit a lot harder than anything my goblins had ever cooked
up.

``Flushing out the drow, you think?'' Indrani said.

``If that stalagmite is solid rock, it'll take them a while to make a
dent even with strong engines,'' I said.

Twenty heartbeats later the second volley hit, hitting the same places
with impressive accuracy. The drow remained in hiding, which I honestly
couldn't fault them for. Between the crossbows and the siege if they
made a stand anywhere in the open they'd get slaughtered. Their best
shot was to make the dwarves come to them and hold a narrow passage
hidden away from the engines. Alas for the locals, it was not to be.
Three volleys later the entire stalagmite \emph{cracked}. I could see
the fracture going through the side, jagged and large enough to be
easily visible even from where Indrani and I were laying on the floor.
The entire top third of the spire had been cracked, at least on the side
facing the dwarves. Had the thing been hollow? Maybe. Still, crack or
not the weight of that upper third was keeping it in place. My eyes
moved to the second kind of engines, anticipating there would be answer
to that. My instincts had been correct. The almost-onagers were being
seen to, long steel chains being attached to the back of the ram-like
projectiles. The chains led to matching cranked wheels, already nailed
into the ground.

``They're going to pull the damned thing down,'' I murmured. ``Gods.''

How? Even if they put dwarves to work the crank, they shouldn't be
strong enough to apply sufficient pressure. The rams flew and sunk into
the stone like a knife through butter, shivering after coming to a rest.
There'd been sorcery at work, I thought. Blades unfolding inside to give
greater grip? Impossible to tell. Anyhow, my first question got an
answer moments later. Only a single dwarf attended to each crank, but
the moment they laid hands on them the wheels lit up with runes. Not
even thirty heartbeats later, the whole upper third of the spire came
toppling down. They'd angled it to it fell into the water instead of on
their own troops, though the great splash wet a few of them anyway. My
eyes narrowed as I returned my attention to the stalagmite. It
\emph{was} hollow. The drow inside were swarming like a hive that'd just
gotten kicked. The angle of steel ballistas was adjusted, projectiles
from the second wagons loaded, and the volley arced up moments later.
The spheres were stone this time, not steel. I did not wait long to
learn why: at the summit of their arc, just above the hollow, they
burst. Burning rain fell down, reaping a harvest of screams and death.

``Lava,'' I quietly said. ``That was fucking lava.''

``I mean, it's not like they're ever going to run out,'' Indrani mused.
``I can see the logic behind it.''

``Don't you try to make it sound like it's reasonable to shoot
\emph{magic lava stones} at people, Archer,'' I hissed. ``Who even does
that?''

``The dwarves, evidently,'' she said.

Sadly, throttling her might have given away our position so it would
have to wait. Our time to move was fast approaching, though. The moment
the dwarven infantry engaged we'd be trying our luck at sneaking
through. Our exit tunnel had already been picked out, and we had a route
across that wouldn't take us too close to the fighting. The drow had
been on the defensive so far, but since it'd become clear that the
dwarves had no intention to climb up and the alternative was remaining
inside a hole that'd slowly get filled with molten rock they were
finally coming out. It was the first time I was having a look at a drow
force that wasn't already a pile of corpses, so they earned my full
attention. \emph{This is not a professional army}, was my first thought.
Even Proceran levies had officers and an order of battle, but the drow?
This was a tribe of warriors, with not a single soldiers among it. I
could make out the hierarchy by the way they were equipped. No steel to
be found on any of them, but there were tiers of a sort. The lowest of
the low wore skins and leathers, armed with spears and blades. I winced
when I noticed some of those blades were \emph{bone}. That wouldn't even
scratch the dwarven armour.

Higher up the ladder, and fewer in number, there were drow in obsidian
and stone. The equipment was not uniform, some of them having what I'd
consider decent armour while others wore essentially the same as the
first batch only with dangling bits of stronger material over it. Their
weapons were mostly iron, of passable make. They'd at least manage to
leave a mark on the enemy before being slaughtered. The last and rarest
were those I assumed to be Mighty. Only a dozen of them, but they stood
out starkly from the rest. Garbed in long flowing robes of Night with
shifting plaques of iron in it, they moved swift as arrows through the
charging crowd. Spears were the only armament they seemed to wield, with
what I was pretty sure were sharpened ruby heads. Wasn't sure how that
would measure up to steel, though I did remember rubies were supposed to
be one of the harder gemstones. The whole muster of the sigil was maybe
two thousand. They'd get brutalized when they got to the bottom of the
spire and engaged the dwarven heavy infantry, but the dwarves seemed
disinclined to allow even that.

One of the mounted officers brought a horn to his lips, the first signal
of the battle, and the deep call got the regulars moving. The square
shields were set down to cover their bodies, crossbows taken out and the
proverbial fish in the barrel got that same proverbial end. It was a
relief to see that their firing rate was lesser than that of my
legionaries. The range, though, was at least double. I would not want to
fight those on an open field. The bolts scythed through the drow as they
kept charging down the ramp, though only for the lesser warriors. The
rest melded into the shadow-state when they saw the volleys approach.
The ballistas had never ceased firing, slowly emptying the wagons of
projectiles. Lava kept raining down into the hollow spire. The screams
hadn't ended either, and I was fairly sure the only warriors in the
cavern were the ones charging to their doom. It would have been
interesting to see how Mighty fared against dwarven infantry, but I
didn't intend to stick around until the final clean up. Their attention
should be on the drow, for now, and that was our way out. I elbowed
Archer and gestured towards our back. She nodded and we crawled out of
sight before rising. The others were a short ways back, Akua keeping an
eye on them.

They'd been waiting on us, and there was little need for conversation
when time finally came to move. The plan was fairly simple. Indrani had
the rope and hook to allow us to climb down to the floor of the cavern
below, and the drow should have no issue managing it. The only thing up
in the air was whether or not our friends would pick up on my use of
Winter, and there was no real way to know that without trying it.
Glamour shouldn't draw as much attention as more direct uses, so it was
as calculated a risk as we could take. I returned back to the edge, and
with a deep breath allowed Winter to slither through my veins. I kept it
simple, erasing our presence to the senses -- I wasn't sure whether the
dwarven mounts could smell us at a distance, but I wasn't about to take
the risk. The working wasn't too complicated, but it would take
concentration to keep it going. The moment it settled, I glanced down at
the battle. The dwarves had not stirred, which was promising. I gestured
for the others to begin climbing down.

It was a tense half-hour before everyone made it to the cavern floor,
shimmying down before Archer tugged back her rope. I'd not been certain
whether or not I could keep the glamour going while having to focus on
going down the rope, so an alternative solution had been required. The
working should take care of the sound, and that was the important part.
I glanced down and shrugged. Only thirty feet or so. I'd fallen down
worse before. I leapt. Wings would make this much easier, admittedly,
but they would require drawing deeper on my mantle. Besides, I mused
even as the ground came ever closer, I'd been meaning to find out
something. If I could turn myself into outright mist, finer
manipulations should be possible as well. I landed on the stone in a
crouch, having meddled with my legs, and found mixed results.
Strengthening my knees had succeeded at making sure they wouldn't break,
which had been my main objective. Sadly, it'd also torn up whatever
smoke and mirrors passed for my leg muscles these days. Half a win, I
decided, adjusting my cloak where the fall had put it in disarray. The
muscles were already reforming. Next time I'd have to see if I could
make the entire legs solid without rupturing my insides above them.

The others clustered around me without a word. I'd made it clear that
the closest to me they stood, the easiest it was to keep up the glamour.
Our way through was still open, thank the Gods. Dwarven forces had been
placed to prevent the drow in the spire from escaping, not occupy the
whole cavern, which was too large for that regardless. It meant that if
we kept close to the wall on the left side, we avoided coming close to
the battle. In a strange and silent pilgrimage we tread through moss and
mushrooms until we were hugging the wall and began our way through. My
control was not fine enough to erase our footsteps, I'd warned them. It
took longer to go through while avoiding leaving visible marks on the
ground, but there was no other option. I'd never kept a working going
this long before, and now I knew why I'd unconsciously avoided it: the
longer I did the more I could feel Winter's influence creeping into my
mind, even if I was drawing no deeper on my power. Fortunately, Akua was
there for me to shunt the influence into. It was almost tenser to stalk
through unseen than take part in the fighting, I thought. Battle I knew
well, but this? It wasn't my wheelhouse. It took us most an hour to get
across, and by then there was not a single living drow left.

I'd not had a good look at the last of the fighting, but the dwarven
heavy infantry hadn't been shaken by the doomed charge of the Mighty in
the slightest. The regulars had gone up the slope afterwards, into the
hollow part, and soon after the screams had gone silent. There'd never
been a chance the drow would win this, and the outer rings were supposed
to be the weakest part of the Everdark, but if this was a sign of what
was to come\ldots{} Well, I didn't fancy the chances of the drow as a
whole to turn back this invasion. I allowed the thought to fade as we
neared our chosen tunnel. Archer hadn't had a chance to take a look
inside, but she'd noted it was the most lightly guarded. Ivah had gone
through one close to it, on its way to the Gloom, and assured us that
after another large abandoned cavern it led into a mess of small paths.
Enough that it would be more or less impossible to keep an eye on all of
them. It was a detour, taking us to the northeast when the quicker route
would have been straight north, but a few additional days were well
worth keeping out of sight. I was an old hand at disaster, by now, so my
nerves grew more ragged as we neared the exit. If this was going to
fail, it was going to fail now.

There were dwarves near the tunnel, but only a small company. Less than
a hundred. It was my first time coming this close to their kind, but I
did not slow to take a better look. Distractions were the enemy of this
not-fight. I did note they were regulars, however. Those in layered
armour might not be too common. More importantly, they were dawdling
near the tunnel and not blocking the exit. We passed them by, step by
step. I felt a dim spike of fear when a pair began talking loudly in
some dwarven tongue, but they began brawling not long after and I let
out a relieved breath. My shoulders loosened as we left them behind,
allowing myself a strangled laugh. I wasn't a fool, of course. I
wouldn't drop the glamour until we were much further in. But it looked
like -- no, I wasn't going to finish that fucking thought. \emph{Never
count the chickens, Catherine, even when they're hatched. The Gods will
shove them back in the fucking eggs just to spite you.} Being absolutely
still in the middle of the metaphorical woods, we pressed on. Archer
took the lead, Ivah at her side, and they took us through a handful of
short passages in quick succession. It was maybe another quarter hour
until we reached the large cavern Ivah had mentioned.

Abandoned was something of a misnomer, as it was currently full of
dwarves. Slightly more problematic was the way my glamour was ripped
apart before we even entered. Runes shone on the tunell walls, panes of
force fell down around us and dwarven yells sounded in the distance. I
looked up angrily.

``Can I really not have a \emph{single} chicken?'' I complained. ``You
tight-fisted assholes.''