The blasts shook the halls and hurled huge chunks of earth into the air. Torch light was muted by thick clouds of dust that hung still in the explosion’s wake. Gund waded through the choking smoke to the center of the blast. He’d lain in wait with a company of Sunderers until he saw the enemy shadows close on the heart of the network of passageways before unleashing the Red Spears. The sappers had lain thirteen lines of powder throughout snaking passages that wormed their way into a large cavern. They hid the lines under long strips of burlap covered in loose rock and dirt, to prevent both the lines being found as well as being broken. Bear Riders closed in behind the goblins, driving them into the trap by the roars of their bears. Wulden himself stood in the central chamber between the confluence of blasting lines and struck his flint rod to them the instant Gund had blown his ringing horn.

Dead goblins lay scattered in fragmented heaps throughout the halls. Gund looked idly at an unrecognizable pile of anatomy while Wulden commended his men. “That was too easy,” Gund said quietly to Wuden. The Red Spears were working to clear rubble and hide the parts of the goblins. Seeing their dead only drove them into a fury that could be difficult to contend with, whereas they were often unnerved when their were no signs of their dead, as if they feared their comrades had suffered some mystic fate at the hands of unseen foes.

“I’ll take easy,” Wulden replied, “we’ll have a hard time of it soon enough. Hedas, you left three skulls by that boulder. Come now, make it clean. Sorry Chieftain, he’s new. Talented, though.”

“I’ve no doubt. We’d best make this quick. Sunderers! Help the Spears pack away their haul. They’ll have heard that explosion. I don’t want to be trapped in here when others come.”

“This was a good catch,” Wulden said as he dug at the blasted ground with a pick, “several hundred I’d say.”

“One hundred fifty,” said Gund. “Three hundred would had taken twice as long to fill the halls.”

“True,” Wulden said as he chipped the edges of his hole wider. He slid his pick through a loop in his belt and held his hands out towards one of his men. The soldier began tossing bits of goblin to the Captain, which he then filled into the hole. “I’m assuming our Dread Sovereign doesn’t know you’re here.”

Gund stapped his halberd into the ground and leaned on the haft. “That’s right. If you want to keep your beard he won’t find out.”

“You wound me, Chieftain.”

“I will if you tell Grar I came myself.” Wulden chuckled and Gund cracked a smile. “What are you doing? Brace up the wall of that cave before the entry caves in. Bury those limbs under those loose rocks there. Are you trying to kill us all?”.

Wulden laughed. “Still the stone mason. I tell every man who enters enters our ranks who taught me blasting craft.”

“And I tell every one of them you were my slowest pupil.” Gund had wry a smile ready, but Wulden’s head was darting about, pausing briefly in the direction of each tunnel. “What do you hear?” Gund asked.

“I’m not certain. Loose stones falling. Buhr, Zekog, head down that southron tunnel till it loops eastward.”

Gund readied his halberd and inclined his head. The troops all paused in their work and gripped their weapons. He heard rock crashing to the ground, and felt the vibrations of loose boulders crumbling. “I hear cracked stone crumbling. That’s typical after a good blasting.”

“And we just blasted Alon out of the pit,” Wulden was still scanning with his ears. “I hear the walls crumbling. I thought I heard stones clattering across the ground, kicked by feet maybe.”

“Sunderers! To arms! Have your Spears finish the work.”

Wulden nodded. A few moments later, his two lookouts returned with nothing to report other than finding a good place to piss.

"What do you say, Wulden," Gund asked, "do we keep this up, and risk being ambushed?"

"I wager they know we're here, Chieftain. It could be a few stragglers who were spared from the blast, or it could be scouts for an entire legion. Either way, what purpose do we serve here?"

"If naught else we've made it hard for them to know how many were killed here." Gund looked around at the men, then at the tunnels. "Pack it up. We're moving back to the forward camp. Let's move quick. If I die out here before the real fighting starts, the King will kill me."

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They moved quickly and quietly. Gund weighed every possibility in his mind as they marched. Dwarves wer by no means slow creatures, and were comfortable on broken terrain as well as steep cliffs. But goblins were lean and long limbed with a curiously strong grip. They could move on all fours and fit in small cracks, or cling to overhangs and drop on the dwarves from above. Most of all the thought of their numbers loomed in Gund's thinking. He'd begun to doubt the count given by Gurgu Driggz, as that particular goblin had proven to be extremely unstable. Still, the amount of troops he'd seen pouring through the Starwood was immense.

The only time anywhere close to such numbers had been mobilized was after the Great Year, when Alden Gace rallied the Six together to oust the gnolls. Even then there were scarcely more than one hundred thousand soldiers on the field, and that was counting the gnoll warriors. No, Gund could not imagine any more than half the reputed number being sent, and even that was a staggering amount. The goblins bred like rabbits, a name Gund had heard them called many a year ago. They had numbers to spare; on large scale battles, massive construction endeavors, unsafe experiments, and all manner of ludicrous endeavors. This made the attack all the more perplexing to Gund, as he couldn't find any clear indication of their motive.

Another scattering of rocks disturbed Gund's thinking. Every dwarf heard it, with their feet and legs as well as their ears. It was distant, and there was no accompanying footfall. Perhaps a goblin gripped a loose stalactite while crossing over a chasm. They carried on undeterred, but more cautious. Another scattering of rock, this time closer.

"I think they're toying with us," said Wulden.

Gund turned his head about, looking for yellow eyes shining in the dark. The path hey chose was a direct route to their forward camp, and unless they found and killed every goblin following them they would lead their enemy right to it. There was a narrow tunnel that wove westward nearby. He thought hard of any possible linkages between that route and where they were heading. "Wulden, do the westward tunnels link with any northward passages?"

"They do. But not for a ways. There's a conflux above the copper sea mine. The main road to Ormazum runs right under a delivery chute that climbs north and eastward. From there we can double back to the camp, though you may as well head west to Forvangur at that point."

"We'll go that route. I'll leave half my men with you and you can continue your operations."

They carried on in silence until they found the ohr-tempus leading to the wider road to the conflux. Gund ordered the Spears to seal the tempus with boulders and fusing oil before they left. The dimroads were lit by a smattering of bright sconces, giving enough illumination for casual travelers. It was uncommon for soldiers to use such pathways on maneuvers, but Gund had ordered all paths sealed over a week ago. He was cursing himself for not acting sooner. Had he taken the goblins more seriously he would have closed off all underground passage the moment they were sighted. He thought of Koll Ladhu's daughter being stranded out there, but it gave him little comfort to save one person at the risk of so many others.

"So many unusual events at once," Wulden was saying, "eh Chieftain?".

Gund grunted his agreement. He was feeling something that made him uneasy. There was a tremor on the edge of sensation; a thin quaking in the stone he felt in between every third and fourth step. "Do you feel that? Wulden? Anyone?"

They all stopped and felt the ground. Some of Wulden's sapper pressed their hands against the walls. It was definitely there, but what it was was unclear. Grar had refused to suspend the primary mining and forging operations, and the mass forges were directly beneath them. But they were deep under the mountain, where the hum of the ohr could be heard, and gasses flowed in abundance to fuel the forges.

"It's a constant sound," said one of the sappers, "perhaps a mass forge."

"I was thinking that as well," Gund replied. "I'm almost never down here anymore. There was a time when I knew every sound this mountain made, and could count the voices in a hall from a quarter league away. A flux on my old ears! It changes nothing. Move out."

The sound grew as they approached the conflux. The acoustics were amplified where roads met. Sound echoed off the high vaulted ceilings of each conflux; voices and footfalls being thrown and flung against the high walls and cast into ventilation chambers carved into the rock. The infinite carvings decorating the wide roads formed so many thousands of rivers for laughter and joyful shouts to ferry through. There was much laughter, and much joyful shouting awaiting them as they approached. Shrill cries of excitement, bloodthirsty howls, and baleful chanting filled the conflux. They found a terrace overlooking the wider roads beneath them, and with horror saw an ocean of iron pothelms and billhook spears.

"Imanna's doom!" Wulden exclaimed.

"They're making for Ormazum," Gund said woefully. His heart sank.

"How?" Wulden was incredulous. "There's no way to access the wider roads from anywhere but within the realm when the deep gates are sealed."

"There's a way," Gund didn't want to admit he'd been so stupid, to have overlooked such an obvious weakness.

"How? Chieftain, I must know. If I've..."

"You've done your duty, Wulden. And you've done it well. This is my failing. I've had a sinking feeling in my bowels that an old enemy was reaching out to strike at us, but I never quite put it together. The goblins that abandoned the main group were a faint. They'll return partway through the battle to reinforce the main host when we've beaten them back, and then this horde will rise to claim Ormazum once we've been re-engaged."

"But how did they access the dimroads? I don't understand."

The men had all gathered close and were looking at him expectantly. Gund sighed. "Patiently, Wulden, a few dozen at a time. They came up the Lonely Ohr."