Warcraft: Exile

Chapter 5: The Shale Dwarves

By all the laws of nature, it should not have been able to live. A cactus towering two hundred feet, possibly more, and at least seventy feet wide. In the cloudless desert the moon showered the land in light, and the great Blackguard's army marvelled at the spiked colossus, and others spaced out farther in the distance.

A common sentiment echoed among the necrolytes, how could a plant grow to such proportions in a land with little, if any water? Even some of the Orcwraiths muttered words of the cacti draining the life of the desert.

Gorefiend lambasted them for their fear, "Fools and cowards! This and others like it have grown here for centuries, perhaps longer and the desert endures. Look with bold eyes! Could it be any more a perfect choice to build a citadel?"

Kraugg directed Gorefiend's attention to several burrows dug into the cactus; one at the level of the sand, two others higher up and all wide enough to admit an adult Wyrm "Sir, Those burrows were dug by beasts that have already laid claim to this citadel. By their size these beasts are likely massive and powerful."

"Then we shall kill those beasts and take their homes, as we have done time and time again. Take the Lannan-she to the higher perches and slay what you find within, my Ururghul shall deal with what lies below."

Even though such efforts had proved wasted before, Alleria screeched in refusal and tried to fly away, she had been used to cause too much bloodshed already. And just as before she was wracked with unliveable pain, then her spectral form flew to the higher burrows against her wishes. The Orcwraiths chuckled at Gorefiend's total dominance over her.

* * * Even for a mine, the mood was dark. Men and dwarves robotically dug clumps of sulphur out of the cave walls, wine-soaked scarves draped over their faces to bar sulphur dust from their lungs.

Not too long ago this task was done with merriment, a proud contribution to Haven's defence. But another battle had gone to the Orcs. The flying bombers so many had hoped to destroy the Mogor's base were lost to the Horde, their pilots found slashed and crushed.

Dheeldur's picked swung with the force of a wet noodle, clumps of sulphur fell at his feet and he if did notice, he couldn't bring himself to pick them up. His eyes stared into the rock wall; tears streaked along a dwarf face weighed down with apathy.

If the miners weren't sluggish in their efforts they were the opposite; smashing through the sulphur, striking the rock over and over as if it were the belly of Mogor himself. One such digger, one who had been barely a boy when he volunteered to defend Azeroth and had aged ahead of his time since smashed his pick into the same spot, scoring a dent that went deeper until the pick broke through to open space.

The sound of the youth's scream, the clatter of his dropped pick and the rush of air from the opening all took a moment to register in the heads of the other miners. Slowly they turned to see the youth staring at the opening he had made- but where did it lead? The foreman almost snapped at the youth to get back to work, but something held him back. Part of him worried about the opening; wouldn't believe it was just another pocket of air that had been trapped by cooling magma. The foreman called for hammers to be ready to break it down the rock wall, he then took the youth's shoulder, "Get the Prince. And the Archmage."

When the boy returned he struggled to catch his breath from running. Rogket, however bounded behind him without the slightest inkling of fatigue. Despite the barrel-sized torso held up on stick legs, the Archmage rarely showed sign of physical exertion; something he credited to his mixed parentage- dwarf strength and elf grace. Prince Wrynn, fully armoured, bearing a heavy greatsword and for the last few weeks afflicted with insomnia, took some time to catch up.

The Prince and Archmage were shown the opening, Varien seemed annoyed, "Miners find air pockets plenty of times, what's so important about this one?"

"There is light coming from the other side, " Rogket pointed out, "Light but no heat, which rules out magma. Unless this world can contain a star underground, someone lives on the other side."

"I thought you cautioned against seeking out native cultures."

"It may be too late for isolationism, very likely what lies on the other side may already have heard us, or even detected the miners' work well before coming this far. At least, we should know a little more about them."

Varien shook his head, "I don't think so, I can see behind that rock without advertising our presence." With that he dug a tip of his sword into the dirt and reached inward.

A yellow aura covered his eyes. He seemed weightless, ethereal. Abruptly he returned to normal, but with an expression even more worried. Varien turned to the foreman, "Are there any other veins of sulphur?"

The foreman pointed further up the shaft, "There's a fork in the vein slanting downward, probably goes right under Haven."

"Good. Then mine your sulphur from it. I want this tunnel leading up to that fork collapsed-"

"But Prince-"

"And no arguments."

That night Varien sat and poured himself an urn of dewberry wine before sitting on his bed. He absently picked up his sword and started to contemplate it. Forged with iron dug by humans, folded as steel by dwarf smiths and cooled in the waters of the sunwell, it had been made as a symbol of the goodly races' cooperation and unbreakable unity. Instead the unbreakable bonds had eroded from complacency and petty bickering, an alliance outlived by the artefact forged to represent it.

Varien twirled the sword in his hand, the opposite blades cutting a circuit through the air. Abruptly he paused to regard the chipped edge, the edge that had disembowelled Killrog Deadeye. The dent in the steel took him back to Draenor, back to Auchindoun.

The Orcs had laughed at the mass of knights and "dirty old dwarves" gathered outside, but the smiles fell from their faces when the dirty old dwarf mortar crews blasted their north wall to gravel. The warriors had charged in ranks two to three Orcs deep, most of them blasted apart by rifles before the gunners stepped back for the knights to butcher the rest and charge into the exposed fortress. Against this clan that had despoiled their ancient homes and fled through the portal to escape retribution, there could be no mercy. The smallest youngling would be denied breath.

Varien trod the streets between the burning hovels, both blades slick with Orc blood. Scanning for enemies, his eyes fell on a figure covered in a cloak running from one of the homes. Blood rage enveloped him, He thundered forward and cut down the figure. Only when it dropped and the cowl fell back did he realize he had killed a mother and the child she held in her arms. Feeling a stare in the back of his neck Varien turned around to see Kilrogg Deadeye, one hand holding a blood-soaked sword, the other dangling a knight's head by the hair.

"Congratulations, Human" The Warlord snarled, "You just bested a den mother."

"Your actions brought this doom upon her, yourself and your clan, you'll not trouble my conscience."

Deadeye growled, and when Varien didn't flinch the brute charged forward, sword held high. Varien blocked Kilrogg's swing with his own sword; cutting off the Orc cleaver below the hilt, the reverse cut slashed through Deadeye's abdomen, bouncing off his hipbone and chipping in the process. What Kilrogg had for bones that could damage such a weapon the Prince could only imagine.

A torrent of blood splashed over Varien's feet with intestinal tract in pursuit. Varien watched Deadeye's green skin jaundice before him, turning grey as the body hit ground. For the first time he recalled taking the Orc's scalp, which had hung on his armour ever since.

The Prince jumped at the knocking on the door. Holding the sword ready, he pulled the door open with his free hand-

It was Rogket, "I know it's a little late, but isn't that overreacting a bit?"

Varien's shoulders dropped, "Sorry, I found myself drifting back to Auchindoun."

"Indeed," Rogket walked inside and on noticing the urn picked it up to see how full it was, "Carried there on the dewberry current, by any chance?"

"These days I need a little help getting some sleep."

Rogket almost said something but stopped himself. He put down the urn and waddled to Varien, "Before I forget why I came here; you saw something behind that rock wall, something that frightened you. What was it?"

Varien brushed hair out of his eyes, "Rooms. Maybe a thousand of them, all tiny and all with the exact same dimensions. Like in a wasp nest."

"You saw who inhabited these rooms?"

Varien nodded, "They looked like dwarves- with grey skin and hair that glittered like silver or gold. But that wasn't what bothered me- they all dressed alike, spoke alike, groomed their hair exactly the same style; even their footsteps moved in perfect sync with each other. And even though I couldn't understand what they said, some seemed to be pointing in the direction of Haven to others."

The Archmage was aghast, "Then they already know about us, they're likely preparing to attack us even now," Rogket picked up the wine-filled urn again, "This is not a good time for you to sedate yourself," and poured the wine into the sitting aside chamber pot.

Outside the palisade Dhaine and his sharpshooters approached the gate, eager to get back to their beds for rest. The watchman recognized them and called for the door to open. It had barely swung closed behind them when an attack flare lit up the sky.

"What's going on?" The same watchman shouted, "We can't be under attack, there's nothing out there!"

"Then we are besieged from within!" Dhaine shouted, "Move out!" The sharpshooters dispersed.

Moments before Dhaine's return, and as Vairen spoke with his dwelf friend, three dwarf riflemen posted near the point of the tunnel collapsed shivered in the cold night sharing whiskey to keep warm. From Kurdan's personal still, it was powerful and smoky, said to be strong enough to dissolve an elf's lower jaw if one ever tried to drink it.

Despite being well on the way to intoxication, they were sober enough to hear the sounds from behind the wall of rubble. Diggers, many of them, were shovelling their way. Two aimed their guns at the rubble while the third ran for the cave entrance. He heard his brothers fire their weapons and suddenly scream, barely reached the flare holstered along the cave wall and, as he shot it, saw the ground rushing up to meet him. By the time Varien and Rogket had responded to the alarm Knights, gunners and militiamen were already skirmishing against the dwarves Varien spoke of. The intruders parried and fought back with very un-dwarven curved swords and pronged daggers.

Rogket hurled lighting at the nearest attacker, the opposing forces were so tightly packed any more destructive spells would have killed his own troops. Varien rushed to cut down two enemy dwarves that had cornered a footman, the two humans then turned to find more invaders.

Kurdan hacked and bashed his way through the mass of enemies; attacked by three at once he managed to kill two before the third caught his hammer and axe in pronged daggers and pulled them out of his hands. Kurdan grabbed the grey dwarf's neck and started constricting just as another plunged a blade that appeared made of blue-black smoke into his back.

Varien bellowed, and charged toward the two attackers, slashing down those that tried to intercept him. The grey dwarf that stabbed Kurdan, hearing the prince's shouts turned to counterattack; Varien's sword blasted through the dwarf's arm severing it below the elbow, then impaled the attacker through the skull.

On freeing the blade Varien found resistance, the few seconds of delay was all the dwarf who disarmed Kurdan needed. Holding down the sword with his daggers the attacker kicked out Varien's leg and caused him to fall, dropping his sword. It laughed as Varien grabbed his broken leg.

With the familiar twang of bowstrings followed by a sound similar to a window shattering the grey dwarf fell, an arrow through each eye. More arrows lunged from the dark, silencing other grey dwarves. Though undeterred by human warriors in melee, unseen shooters seemed to daunt the invaders; the survivors ran down the mineshaft. The last one stopped at the tunnel mouth and uttered something in its alien tongue; the rock around the tunnel mouth turned to mud and buried the entrance.

Dhaine and his sharpshooters stormed into the open whilst priests scrambled to treat the wounded. As one cleric tended to fusing Varien's leg the prince pulled forward the body of the grey dwarf that dropped him, and examined it with the curiosity of a scientist, momentarily shutting out everything else.

Its skin was the colour and texture of porous stone, metallic strands of hair glittering in torchlight. Its teeth looked reminiscent of granite, and one eye that had been hit beneath by the arrow still remained intact; it was a tiny, shimmering geode. Much of the dwarf's blood had trickled down its face; Varien pressed his hand onto some of the blood and held out his palm so the firelight could catch it- it was dark green. Varien was mesmerized by the strangeness of it all Rogket had to shake him to get the prince's attention.

"I'm sorry Prince," Rogket pulled his hand back, "For a moment I feared they got you as well."

"Got?" Varien stood, leaning so little of his weight was on the leg that had been fused together, "What do you mean?"

"That." Rogket pointed toward Kurdan and the others who had been struck by the alien dwarves' swords- they lived! However they didn't move or speak, and unless someone pulled them to their feet they would simply lie where they had fallen.

Varien rushed to Kurdan. He called out the dwarf's name, waved a hand in front of Kurdan's face, then backhanded him across the cheek; all without a response or hint of acknowledgement. Baffled, Varien looked past Kurdan's shoulder to see a footman's torch, and then looked the light around Kurdan, "Where's his shadow? He doesn't draw a shadow!"

The others held light close to the other 'zombies', "This one doesn't have a shadow either!"

"Or this one!"

"None of them do!"

Rogket locked eyes with Varien, "Those swords made of smoke they carried- instead of killing someone's body they steal the mind? The soul?" The words carried and panicked the soldiers even further; many started to scream or whimper until Varien signalled a mortar team to get their attention with another flare.

"As you were!" the Prince shouted, "If these beings can capture their minds we can rescue them but we must hurry!" The Prince pointed to a captain, "Assemble a detail," Then to a cleric, "Gather some of the magi. The rest of you will guard Haven in case these dwarves come back- or anything else shows up." Varien turned to Dhaine, "We'll need your sharpshooters to cover us."

Dhaine nodded. The footmen and Magi gathered, "Prince it would take days to clear that tunnel," A footman pointed out.

"And that entrance is likely guarded, " Rogket pointed out, "But fear not, making our own is less of a problem than you think." The dwelf scattered a luminous powder in a circle next to the rescue party. The ground inside the circle tremored and churned, the dirt erupting into the air and settling into the form of a hunchbacked, wizened old man.

Rogket held out his hands, "Sedemataros, native of the elemental plane of stone, father of the soil, foundation of the universe. We entreat you for assistance."

"I know what plagues you. The Shale Dwarves, thought rooted from my universe and built from my element have long been corrupted. A dire fate awaits their prisoners."

The Elemental Lord pointed to the ground, the soil rose nearly ten feet before an opening fell away.

"The tunnel will lead you to their inner hive. I will try to convince others of my ilk to help distract their warriors, but I cannot guarantee anything." Rogket made a quick bow in thanks; the others had already run down the tunnel.

As the party moved through the tunnel, the rock wall at the end pushed ahead of them, growing farther with each step. Eventually on reaching the hive it blasted open an act that alone scattered and disoriented many Shale Dwarves nearby.

On clearing the tunnel Varien and the footmen hacked a swath through those that stood in their way. Dhaine's sharpshooters loosed volleys of arrows into dwarves seeing the carnage from higher levels. Rogket unleashed a blizzard spell on a mass of Shale Dwarf warriors approaching, while his students polymorphed many of them to add further confusion. With the entire section of the hive in chaos Varien ran down the hive, with the others following him. Having seen much of the hive through his visions only that afternoon the Prince knew exactly where to go.

The hive was built around a stone pillar, flat, rectangular and black as pitch. Only on killing the guards and breaking through the door did Varien see it now surrounded by Shale Dwarves in ceremonial robes; and the flat surface of the pillar embossed with screaming, moving faces of humans- and Kurdan.

Still in shock over their interruption the Shale Dwarf clerics did not react until Varien hefted his enchanted blade like a spear and vault it at the pillar.

The pillar exploded, obsidian fragments shredding the dwarf priests. Ghostly silhouettes of his comrade and subjects flew past Varien in direction he came from, not moaning in pain but exulting in release.

Rogket rushed into the room, "You did it, you freed them!" But his face went pale. Varien looked to where the pillar had lain. Standing over his sword was a collossus, with a long sinuous tail, a jaw with needlelike teeth and cloven hooves."

"An Eredar," Rogket trembled, "A Warlock Demon. Kill it, before it gets his bearings!"

Not even pausing to hear the dwelf's plea Varien dived for his sword and swung the far blade toward the devil's knee. The thrice-blessed weapon parted the infernal flesh easily; rising to his feet Varien reversed the swing and ran the demon through. Its skin and flesh liquefied; falling off the skeleton it flowed away then bubbled and evaporated, leaving the demon's bones, dry and white as if they had been bleaching in the sun for years.

Varien and Rogket locked eyes for a long moment. They finally turned to look in the direction they came from. Their warriors had made a hasty phalanx behind them; several were wounded but a mass of shale dwarf bodies littered the ground they faced. Many others were aimlessly wandering further down the hive corridor, completely unconcerned with the rescue party. Several sharpshooters fired on them anyway. The Shale Dwarves that fell were ignored by their brethren; one even trod over by another headed the same way.

"I don't get it," The captain said to Varien, "They were charging us to the last dwarf, suddenly they don't seem to care if we're here, or even about whether they live."

"It doesn't matter, " Varien held his head up, feeling proud of himself for the first time in a long spell, "We saved our people, that's what's important."

Rogket nodded, "There is a skeleton of an Eredar demon in the chamber. Demon remains are very useful to Magi, so I shall bring them with us." Chanting and spelling out runes in the air with his hands, the Archmage called forth a Wind Elemental, which entered the vault and lifted the bones in a miniscule tornado.

Varien sighed in exhaustion, "Let's go home."