"So is this the hall we were looking for?" Frivaldi interrupted. He nudged one of the skeletons with his boot. Its skull collapsed, and a rusted helmet clattered to the floor. "I don't see any axe. Lots of goblin swords and maces, but no axe."
Durin sighed. What, by the gleam in Brightmantle's eye, were the Delvers using as selection criteria these days?
"This," Durin concluded, "must be All-Father's Hall. The Bane of Caeruleus lies to the southwest, in the Hall of Hammers."
He paced a straight line across the hall, which turned out to be precisely forty paces wide. Reaching the wall, he turned right-standard delving procedure was ERROR: Enter Right, Return Opposite Right-making a circuit of the octagonal hall. As he walked, he quoted from The Fall of the Bold, a saga he'd spent decades piecing together from fragments: inscriptions on standing stones and feast bowls, dusty parchments long forgotten on library shelves, and bardic song.
And when the Hall of Hammers fell,
Bold Torunn heard his own death knell.
The Bane of Caeruleus he had wrought,
Abandoned lay, 'twas all for naught."
Frivaldi trotted behind him, scuffling and scattering skeletons.
"I don't see any dwarf bodies," Frivaldi said.
"The dwarves carried out their dead," Durin replied. "It was an orderly retreat."
Spotting a crack in the wall that ran square to the floor, Durin examined it according to procedure. FAIL: Feel Air, Inspect, and Listen. He wet a finger and held it to the crack. No air was escaping. He ran a palm against the floor, but found no groove that would indicate that feet had worn away the stone. He gave the wall a sequence of sharp raps with his delving pick, but heard no telltale reverberations. The crack was a natural fissure leading a short distance into the wall, not a secret door.
Frivaldi, all the while, stared idly around. "So why didn't they take the axe with them?"
" 'Weapon,'" Durin corrected as he resumed his circuit of the hall. He passed the staircase. "The precise translation from Auld Dethek is 'weapon.'"
Frivaldi waved a hand and said, "Axe, weapon-whatever. Why didn't they take it with them, if it was so valuable?"
"The Bane was too large," Durin explained. "Only Torunn could wield it."
He paused. A portion of the wall was angled slightly off true. It was time for MISS: Manipulate, Inspect, Slide, Shove. He pressed a raised spot on the wall next to it, but nothing happened. The section of wall didn't slide when he pressed his palms to it and pushed up, then down, then left, then right. Nor did it rotate open under a sharp nudge from his shoulder.
Frivaldi, all the while, continued to be idle. He could, at least, have leant his shoulder to the shove. Instead he persisted with his foolish speculations.
"Torunn led the shield band that broke through the goblin ranks. Why didn't he use the axe against the goblins?"
Durin sighed and continued his circuit of the hall. Frivaldi obviously hadn't been paying attention the night Durin had recited the saga for him. Verses one thousand three hundred and fifty-six through one thousand three hundred and seventy-four clearly stated the purpose of the magical weapon Torunn had forged-to slay a blue dragon that had been troubling the realm for nearly a century: the dragon Caeruleus. The magical weapon would enable Torunn to fight the dragon "claw for claw," according to the poetic language of the saga. Its wielder would be immune to the blue dragon's primary attack-the bolt of lighting it spat from its mouth-and to the aura of fear that preceded the beast like a shadow. Against goblins, however, the Bane would be no more effective than an ordinary weapon.
Since his map had proved accurate, it was all Durin could do to keep his emotions in check. His lip had twitched at least twice, threatening to pull his mouth into a smile-he straightened it into its usual grim line.
If he did succumb to idle mirth, however, he'd have good cause. After decades of searches in the Stormhorn
Mountains, he'd at last found Torunn's Forge. He was certain of it. Recovering the Bane of Caeruleus would be greatest thing he had ever accomplished in his long career. No Delver had ever brought back a weapon of its type. Oh, to think what the order's battle clerics would learn from it. The lost secrets of Oghrann metalsmith-ing would be returned to the light.
Too bad he'd been saddled with a fool like Frivaldi. Durin should have kept his mouth shut when the order asked who would mentor a new member. Durin had pictured an apprentice who would hang avidly on his every word, who would learn. That was hardly the case with Frivaldi. The boy had a precocious talent for opening locks, it was true, but in truth, Durin would be better off searching for the Bane of Caeruleus on his own. Instead he was stuck with a boy whose beard wasn't even long enough to braid.
Realizing he'd reached the point where he'd begun his circuit, Durin halted and consulted his map. Had he missed something? He glanced back along the wall he'd just walked. Nothing. Just bare wall. All-Father's Hall was one of the main entrances to Torunn's Forge, yet the chamber had no exit other than the stairs. There could be only one conclusion: It wasn't All-Father's Hall. He hadn't found Torunn's Forge, after all. His head bowed and his beard slipped from his shoulder, onto the floor.
Frivaldi peered over Durin's shoulder.
He stabbed a finger at the map and said, "We're here, right?"
Durin jerked the map away and slowly rolled it up.
"I thought so," he said. "But I was…"
He couldn't bring himself to say it.
"And that rune at the end of the line leading southwest from All-Father's Hall…" Frivaldi continued. "It's Auld Dethek for 'hammer,' right?"
Durin grunted. He hadn't realized Frivaldi could read Auld Dethek.
Frivaldi peered around, stroking his pitiful excuse for a beard.
"Then the exit's got to be… there!"
He pointed toward the crack Durin had thoroughly examined earlier.
Durin shook his head.
"It's solid stone." he said. "Standard delving procedure revealed no exit."
Frivaldi snorted and replied, "Standard delving procedure doesn't allow for imagination. All of those stupid acronyms…."
Durin's fists clenched. He'd written the chapter on acronyms for the Delver's Tome. Belatedly, he realized he'd just crumpled his map.
Frivaldi tossed his head, flicking his hair back out of his eyes. The habit was an annoying one. It reminded Durin of an impatient pony he'd once ridden. The gods-cursed animal had bolted off with both his tent and bedroll.
"Here's a new acronym for you," Frivaldi said. "R-A-S-H." Durin scowled.
Frivaldi winked and said, "Run At SHadows."
Whirling, Frivaldi charged straight at the cracked wall. Durin winced, waiting for the thud of a body hitting stone that would signal the boy knocking himself unconscious a second time.
The sound of running footsteps abruptly stopped.
Durin turned. Frivaldi was gone.
"By my brow," Durin muttered. "It's an illusion."
Tossing his beard over his shoulder, he strode through the wall.
Frivaldi waited, bored, while Durin inspected the corridor on his hands and knees, peering at the floor. If he remembered correctly, the procedure was called CREEP, and had something to do with crouching and examining the floor every so many paces. Eleven, he supposed. That would be the second "E." It seemed silly to Frivaldi. The trigger for any trap was just as likely to be on the second pace, or the seventh, or the twelfth.
With his own dagger, he scratched at the wall beside him, carving his name into a mural fashioned from a natural vein of silver in the rock. In the centuries to come, when other Delvers explored the Forge, theyd see it and know that Frivaldi Loder had been there first.