Interlude: Dawi Zharr

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The newest goblin slave missed the chisel head with his hammer, instead smashed his own thumb. He howled and lurched backwards, tossing his tools aside. The goblins to either side of him, knowing what was to come, flinched away to protect themselves.

The whips descended.

They were long and barbed with small bronze hooks.

The hands that wielded them were large and armored in black iron. So were their bodies. Their beards were long, black, and decorated with silver and copper beard-clasps. Their faces were heavy and angry, eyes black and merciless. Atop their head were tall, columnar high-hats, made of stiff ork hide and dyed red, braced with gold edging.

Dawi Zharr.

Two Dawi Zharr lashed out, tearing ribbons of green flesh and black blood from the back of the goblin. The pitiful creature howled, fell backwards, and thrashed to the ground. One Dawi Zharr kicked the goblin hard; the other grabbed it by an arm and dragged it away from the work bench, a length of chain manacled to its ankle clinked as it stretched. The thump of heavy boots announced the arrival of a half-dozen more armored taskmasters.

The Dawi Zharr dragging the goblin roared out, "Five lashes to the three gobos on each side of this wretch scum!" The other taskmasters set to work, lashing and brutalizing the other goblins. "And find another slave to fill that gap!"

He pulled a key ring off his belt and unlocked the ankle-cuff, tossing the manacle back at the workbench. He dragged the now silent, back-bleeding, goblin down a narrow aisle, between the workstations of the Dawi Zharr smiths of the Sorcerer-Prophet Hekras the Burnt-Hand. The taskmaster paused and pointed at one with his whip, "You, Crozad Magmaheart. Come with me."

Crozad barely looked at the taskmaster, "I'm working." He was heating up rivets, a nearly constructed bronze torture wrack lay alongside his station.

"NOW!" roared the taskmaster.

The smith paused and gave the taskmaster a long, hard look. Crozad Magmaheart looked like most of the breed. He was tall for a Dawi Zharr, pushing five feet, with huge muscles and large hands and feet. His face was cruel and eyes black as coal. His long black beard was carefully braided and tucked neatly under his forge-armor. He had a gittering golden nosering, and his tusks were thick and inlaid with silver runes of heat and hate. He did not wear a high-hat; his head was bare to the hellish heat of the forge. The smith paused long enough to show that he did not answer to the taskmaster. He answered to Despot Bador Bonebane, the overseer of Hekras's smiths, and as black-hearted a Dawi Zharr as they came.

He put his tongs down in the coals, stepped away from the forge, and faced the taskmaster, "At your service, Taskmaster Greygrip."

Greygrip jabbed the goblin with his whip, "Take this thing to the sacrifice cauldron!" Crozad looked down at the goblin, he grunted in annoyance, "I've already sacrificed today."

The taskmaster's face nearly turned purple, he screamed violently, "Then find someone who hasn't!"

The smith just waved his hand dismissively at the taskmaster, "Fine, yes."

Greygrip growled and walked back to the line of slaves. A new goblin was shoved into the old goblin's spot, and tools pushed into its clumsy hands. The creature looked around, terrified, and muttered pleas to its silent neighbor slaves, who now bled from whip-wounds across their shoulders and back. "No talking!" screamed Taskmaster Greygrip, and lashed out violently.

Crozad Magmaheart took the goblin by the ankle and dragged him down the aisle. He paused at a forge station further along and whistled loudly. The smith glanced over and frowned. Crozad made as if he was throwing something, then held out his fist, forefinger and little finger extended, making the reverent sign of the Bull-God, Heshut. The smith looked at the goblin, thought for a moment, then nodded. He put his tools down and walked over to the goblin. He took the creature by the arms and lifted it up, while Crozad took the legs.

Together they made their way to the end of the hall. As they went, they passed another Dawi Zharr, going the opposite way. He had a crooked-backed goblin following him, struggling to carry lengths of heavy steel. He paused and looked at them, made the bull-sign, which Crozad nodded to. He fell into step with them.

At one end of the titanic and diabolic forge-hall, high up on the wall was a huge iron bull-head statue, smoke and ash drifted from its eye sockets, and a river of molten metal poured from its fanged mouth. The glowing river poured into a massive black cauldron with sinister glowing runes craved long its bell-shaped sides. Blazing liquid metal filled the cauldron, and flowed out over the spouted flanks. The raw heat was like physical thing – burning flesh at ten paces.

The Dawi Zharr hardly noticed, the goblins squirmed in discomfort.

The three smiths gathered around the wounded goblin. The creature was so beyond terror it hardly moved. Crozad went first. He grabbed the goblin by the head, and chanted, "I, Crozad Magmaheart, hellsmith of Hekras the Brunt-Hand, give you O' great dark lord, this creature's sight." He rammed his armored thumbs into the creature's eye sockets. Not so far in as to kill the goblin, but enough to destroy its eyes. Crozad flicked the blood and eye-matter at the cauldron.

The goblin screamed and screamed.

The next Dawi Zharr took the flailing goblin and said, "I Khurgrim Metalsunder, hellsmith of Hekras the Brunt-Hand, give you O great and dark lord, this creature's voice." He rammed his metal gauntleted hand into the goblin's big mouth and with a twist and nasty jerk, pulled its tongue out. Khurgim hurled the tongue into the boiling cauldron.

The last Dawi Zharr said, "I, Heluk Undermarker, hellsmith of Hekras the Brunt-Hand, give you O great and dark lord, this creature's foot." Heluk pulled out a thick bladed dagger from his belt and cleaved off one of the goblin's feet. Like Khurgrim, he tossed the foot into the cauldron.

This went on, and on, with each Dawi Zharr taking a turn at breaking, removing, or ruining some aspect of the goblin. When the creature was nothing more than a pile of tormented flesh that once was shaped like a goblin, Crozad lifted the husk up and hurled it into the boiling cauldron, where it sank and melted.

Heluk turned to the goblin that had been following him, and who had stood silently while one of its own kin was brutally torn apart and sacrificed to a dark-god. The smith snapped his fingers and pointed to the ground. The goblin slowly lowered the steel it was carrying to the obsidian floor. Heluk grabbed the goblin by the neck and with one heave, flung the goblin into the cauldron of molten metal. Its screams were loud, but short lived.

The three hellsmiths roared like berserkers and thrusted out their hands in bull-horns to the fire-breathing, smoke-wreathed bull-headed statue.