He would have such a death, if it spared the colony. "Sigun, ye fool!" The lady captain called desperately in her high-pitched voice, "We stand together!" There was no turning back now, the demons were upon him. "Close the gate!" Sigun called over his shoulder as he rushed past the closest traps, his steel armor jostling. He charged forward, running over the iron toward the foul monsters.
It was terribly clear in his mind what had to be done. He spat out his pipe, which clattered to the bedrock floor. The demons, by no means devoid of intelligence, would surely cripple it. But left open as it was, the gears were vulnerable. When shut, it would be seamless with the smooth rock, completely unassailable from the outside. He looked at the drawbridge, welded from thick iron blocks, laying flat against the floor in the corridor. Stating the benevolence of the god of Blood was something a dwarf said when a gruesome death was nigh, and there was no hope of victory or escape. "Armok's mercy," Sigun heard Logem say in dread anticipation. He could see them, eyes ablaze on bodies of searing heat and writhing shadow, rushing up the corridor. The colony had a formidable military, but it would take the bulk of their forces a whole day to make the decent from the Great Hall. But the demons glided through the air with otherworldly power, their wings and serpentine tentacles flitting them over the pressure plates. It did not bear thinking of what fate had become of them.Īt first, Sigun thought they stood a chance, since the passageway up to the checkpoint was carefully constructed with traps, the floor and walls primed to bristle with serrated steel discs, giant axe blades, and spikes carefully designed by Koe herself. Two miners were unaccounted for, as well as Domas, one of the miner's young children, who had been allowed to watch his father work at the excavation. Demons, surging up from Hell itself, eager to exploit the passage into the world above that the colony's mining efforts had unwittingly created.Ī hysterical ore hauler had managed to make it out and raise the alarm.
These were not magma crabs or fire imps, but something from much deeper. Two tiers of battlements rose into the high chamber, meant to defend against the strange things that were reportedly seen dwelling in the great magma sea during the excavation of the adamantine vein. A couple of marksdwarves were stationed at the fortifications behind them at that place, the deepest safeguard of the colony of Craftflame. They were the closest ones ready for battle when the alarm was sounded. Most of the rest of Sigun's squad were grabbing equipment or hadn't arrived yet. He gripped his steel warhammer, a masterwork of craftdwarfship, created by their own legendary weaponsmith, Koe Degelostar. Sigun Earthenfountain took a long draw from his carved fungiwood pipe, causing the bowl to faintly glow a dull red in the dim cavern. Logem and Sigun stood on either side of Erith, their militia captain.
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