Halrohir |
RE: Retaking Khazad-dûm (see OOC or PM me to join) on: February 24, 2009 04:53
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"I've been waiting for you," said Norin, who looked as if he had not slept a minute the night before.
"What happened?" Frain said anxiously. "You look terrible."
"Those scouts you had me send out last night... They never returned," came the reply.
"My regrets," Frain said. "I am sure they fought well. It looks like Bragin’s skills will be needed after all. I will inform him to begin working on his plans. We will need plenty of able workers to aid him. Also, if you have any architects among your company or those skilled with wood, we will have need of them."
Bragin was tossing in the midst of a dream, random images filling his slumber: Chisel pulling a vast load of stone, clearly too big for his strength; standing at the edge of a pit, looking down into a pool of boiling water, which was not boiling from heat but rather churning with snakes; carving a handle for a well-crafted throwing axe, interlaced with leather bindings, studded in iron, and the tracery of a flower around the haft, humming to himself –
…when he awoke to the thud of a kick to his leg, and drowsily looked up to see Frain’s impassive face looking down upon him. Bragin’s face also moved serious, as Frain explained the situation involving Norin’s scouting party and the lack of news from the gates.
“Ah, this is disturbing news, or rather the lack of it”, Bragin said as he pulled on his boots and retrieved his crossbow. “I’m supposin’, master Frain, that ‘tis my turn to aid you once again. Might I be asking the aid of a few more scouts, ones who will not blench at the thought of danger? Archers or crossbowmen will be useful, too.”
After a time of scrambling through his gear, in which he found his crossbow, a mattock, and a small kit of architect’s tools, Bragin stood with a group of six Dwarves led by Norin’s companion Glin, all armed as he was, awaiting his word. All was ready, when he turned to Nori, who was watching the party set out.
“Nori, medame, might you grant me a request?” Bragin said with a slight bow. “Will you consent to look after Chisel for a while? See that he doesn’t eat my blankets, or tug on the tent flaps?” After a silence, he looked down at his beard, then looked up and muttered, “Thank you, medame…” and walked off to the others.
The scouts, with Bragin accompanying them, moved from the camp and headed north and east. Their first obstacle was the old Hollin Road itself; situated high atop its own steep-sided roadbed, it wound this way and that, running more or less southeast towards a great cleft in the hills. The dwarves were obliged to scramble up its steep banks, after first traversing the deep rock-filled bed of what was once the Sirannon, now reduced to less than a feeble rill between the stones. When they reached the top, and the old pave-stones of the Hollin Road, Bragin took the lead, fingers entwined around the trigger of his crossbow.
The road veered to the left, headed now straight east. The party came upon a rise of rock, fully thirty feet in height, a jagged edge running along its length. There to the right lay all that was left of the Stair Falls – a tumbled mass of water-smoothed boulders, topped by a wide carved trough where the falls plainly spilled over the wall in old days. Hardly a trickle of water now babbled over the stones, noisy in the silence of the echoing hills. Bragin and the others crept cautiously to the base of the falls, where the road turned sharply to the left, rising in a steady ramp for a long distance before switching back upon the cliff face, to climb the rest of the way to the top. Cut into the rock before them, alongside the falls, were a set of broken stairs leading directly to the top.
Bragin motioned the others together, and explained his plan. “I shall go with you two, and follow the road – it will give me a chance to inspect the path. Glin, you and the others will ascend the stairs, and take a position at the top, but do not move until we start the second rise there. That way, we shall all arrive at the head of the stairs together. Keep out of sight, and have your bows ready!” Bragin had already taken in the sight of the falls and the stairs; the stairs were in fair shape, and it was plain the watercourse would be able to handle the volume of a great water flow. Mighty was the Gate-stream in the days of its youth! As the party proceeded, Bragin also took note that the switchback road itself was in need of repair and repaving in many places, to become able to handle traffic again. And he did not fail to note, there was a wide stable space at the start of the incline, large enough to accommodate a few buildings of modest size – storehouses, and even the tavern that Nori confided to him was her desire. So far, so good.
At last, they reached the summit of the cliff, and peered out over the landscape. Glin motioned Bragin over to his side. There at the top of the cliff was their first sign: scraps of cloth, a cap of hewn iron of Dwarf-make, and a shattered axe upon the stones.
“I know this helm, master”, Glin said. “This belonged to one of the scouts we sent last night. The axe-head has blood upon it, but that is no orc-blood, nor any creature I recognize.“
Bragin, Glin and the others knelt silently, thinking of the lost scouts, then turned to the view before them. From their hiding places atop the cliff, the dwarves looked out over a fetid and noisome lake still and smooth as glass, stretching from almost at their feet across the open space, right up to the cliffs that formed the Walls of Khazad-dum. Surely there, right across as the road plunged into the loathsome lake, on the opposite side was a jumble of destroyed trees and rubble piled against the cliff foot – the very place where the Nine Walkers encountered the Watcher. Looking north and south, the lake stretched out at least mile long, grey-green putrid water that totally blocked the passage. Around the north side, Bragin remembered, was the path the Walkers took to reach the West-gate. But that, he had to remind himself, was another day’s work. He forced his eyes to look around at his feet, and inspect the dam itself.
Without a word, Bragin laid aside his crossbow and produced his mattock, motioning the others to keep watch. He quietly scrambled down to the watercourse on the upper side of the falls, and walked its path to the foot of the dam carefully chipping away at loose stone with his mattock. The closer he got and the more he saw, the more incredulous Bragin became, trying hard not to laugh out loud at the sight before his eyes.
Of all the luck to find this, Bragin said to himself, it’s too easy! All they did was bring down part of the hillside, and let the avalanche dam the lake! There is no stone skill here whatsoever – they simply made a cofferdam of debris! Give me a dozen miners, and I shall have this thing down in a fortnight – a score or more, and the river is free inside a week!
Bragin looked up at the hillside, where clearly large patches of rock were missing, and the scars from sliding boulders were plain to see. There were no underlying base stones, no foundations – simply the mass of the falling rocks held the waters back. But that also posed a problem: with no support beneath, a spillway would be difficult. The energy of the rushing streams would eat away at the watercourse. Bragin would have masonry work to do, to create a solid base for a mill or a water wheel. More work, once the dam was secure. Bragin’s thoughts came to a sharp stop, with a call from above. Glin whistled in the silence, and the architect scrambled back up to his fellows. Looking out over the surface of the water, the stillness had been broken by numerous ripples on the surface, fanning out from a place in the center of the water.
“There one moment, gone the next”, Glin explained. “Like a large fish, a gar or a pike, just breaking the surface – but larger, much larger. Personally, master, it gives me the collywobbles. Norin and Frain spoke of a plan you have. What might stop such a beastie as tales in the camp tell?”
“It will be better than I first imagined, good Glin”, Bragin said. “Let us get down from here, and talk more freely at the base of the stairs.” As the party made to descend, Bragin took one last look back over his shoulder. Beyond doubt, there was something still lurking in the depths of the lake – a new ripple now moved the water, father out towards the other shore.
This is your hunting ground no longer, beastie, Bragin swore. We shall drive you out, and you shan’t like how we do it. Back to the abyss with you, and may you gnaw on your own flesh in your famine. For you shall not have Dwarf to feast upon ever again! He followed the others down and, after a hurried conference at the foot of the stairs, began the long hike back to the base camp, to report on their first glimpse of Khazad-dum.
[Edited on 2/25/2009 by Halrohir]
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gwendethAccounts Admin, Sindarin Mod & Head Stargazer of VardaPosts: 5808 Send Message |
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