The Sundered Arms

THE HELLFORGED

They climbed down to find their way up.

Below the fungus-choked caverns they found even more natural passages, some leading to ancient stores chiseled out of the limestone, others twisting away in patterns known only to the gods of earth and stone. Veins of minerals shot through the bedrock to form graceful shapes on the walls, tendrils of pale blue and deep red with glittering flecks.

Where the dwarves had carved their own passages, there was no less beauty. Even after centuries of abandonment and the smut of generations of vermin, the stonework remained strong and glorious, with artful flourishes at every arched portal. Symmetrical dwarven braids lined the corridors. The perfectly fitted floor tiles formed firm but elegant mosaic patterns. Twice they found basins filled with spring water jutting from the walls. The contents of one were murky, but the second looked clear and pure. No one dared to test the water while their own waterskins were still full.

Molds and slimes glistened on the walls, but Vadania declared most of them harmless. When a gray mass oozed out of a still pool and began tracking them, Tordek ordered a hasty retreat rather than expend their strength in an unnecessary fight.

They found stairs both ascending and descending, and they traveled upward around a grand spiral stair until they came to a closed wooden door. Neither rot nor infirmity of age was apparent on its grayed surface, which seemed to have drunk in the strength of stone over the centuries. The group moved quietly around the portal, communicating with gestures and the barest of whispers as Lidda knelt to listen at the seam between the door and the stone floor.

"Nothing," she whispered in report. Still, the others remained quiet, weapons in hand. Lidda had loaned Karnoth a dagger, but her fine short sword remained handy in its scabbard.

The door's great, metal lock was grown black with age, but Lidda produced a tiny oil tin and greased the ancient tumblers. Probing with a pair of picks and a strong piece of wire, she felt out the lock's secrets. At first she attacked the job with a confident grin, but as the intricate workings of the lock defied her efforts, she bit down hard on the picks she held in her teeth. The others waited as patiently as they could, but it was well over twenty minutes later before they heard the last, satisfying click of success. Lidda returned her tools to their leather sheath and stood back, letting Tordek lead the way.

They found another barren passageway, this one dry and relatively free of floral infestation. The regular spacing of the doors along its length suggested a dormitory wing. Tordek looked to Karnoth for some sign of recognition.

"I've been through an area like this," he whispered, "but not here. Maybe at the same level."

Tordek nodded and led the way once more. Each time they spied a new turn in the corridor, he made a sign to cover the lights and crept forward alone, as quietly as his heavy armor would permit. He peered around the corners. When he spied no danger, he beckoned Karnoth to join him. The first few times, the old dwarf merely shook his head and shrugged. At last, however, he nodded in recognition.

"They brought me down from that stairway," he said, pointing east.

From that point, their exploration became an exercise in stealth, made more tricky by the appearance of torches in wall sconces every ten feet or so. The light revealed two layers of crude writing on the walls, an ancient script drawn in thick, black runes covered by a far more recent scrawl in red and gray chalk. The latter was so prolific and hectic that it all but obliterated the older characters. Most of it was scribbling, but here and there were rude drawings of improbable pornography or boastful goblin mottoes. Devis paused to rub away some of the chalk and identify what lay beneath.

"Don't bother," said Tordek. "It is the curse that doomed this place, scratched on every wall once sanctified by the clerics. Its magic is long since expended, and its words mean nothing except to those whose corrupt souls still burn in the lowest hell for the evil that they nurtured here."

"Oh," said Devis, looking disappointed. He brightened slightly as he looked Tordek in the eye. "You know, that was pretty eloquent. Ever think about-?"

"No," said Tordek.

Twice as they crept carefully up the lighted corridors, Lidda's keen ears warned them of approaching goblins. Tordek's fingers itched to throttle them one by one, but he smothered his desire and hid with the others as the ragged troops marched past. If they escorted another slave for the oubliette, he decided, he would abandon all subterfuge and slaughter them despite the risk of alarm. Fortunately for the goblins, they were merely changing the guard or patrolling incompetently.

"Hear that?" asked Lidda. Vadania was the first to nod, but soon after Tordek also heard the sound, a low, rhythmic bombination punctuated by muted tolling of iron striking iron.

Karnoth pointed up the passageway, indicating another rising stairway that ended in a solid double door. "Two chambers beyond lies the foundry. The way is well guarded, mostly to prevent escape. Still, you won't get in without a fight."

"I don't mind a fight," said Tordek, "but let us not endanger the prisoners needlessly. How many are there?"

"Thirty-two, if none have died since the goblins dragged me away."

Tordek considered that number. "Are they fit for combat? Will they fight if armed?"

"A few, perhaps," said Karnoth. "The goblins give us precious little time to rest, and those who falter share the fate from which you rescued me."

"Tell us more about the layout of the forge. I would know the battlefield before we step upon it."

The old dwarf nodded his endorsement of Tordek's caution and described the circular forge area with a battery of sloping shafts into the mines. "There are five entrances to the main floor, one of them grander than the others. I have seen balconies on a higher level in the forge, but only the goblins go up there."

"Let's find them, then," said Tordek. Once again he led the way, letting the stealthy Lidda scout the corners now that his darkvision was no longer an advantage. When they came to locked doors, Lidda listened for occupants on the other side before thwarting their mechanisms with her arsenal of picks. Each door took successively less time to unlock, as she became increasingly familiar with their type.

"There's a master key for most of these," she said. "Next time we see a goblin with a key ring, we should thump 'im."

"Thump 'im at the very least," agreedTordek. His tone was far darker than his words.

"Why the grudge?" asked Devis. "I mean, I don't like them, either. You've probably faced a lot of different foes over the years. I'm surprised that those little runts bother you so much. What is it with you and goblins?"

When Tordek did not immediately answer, Devis opened his mouth to voice another question, but Vadania put a hand on his shoulder and shook her head, No. The bard's jaw jutted in a brief display of petulance, but he drew a deep breath and nodded, sighing.

After half an hour of furtive exploration, they found another passage to the upper level. This one was also well lighted but with wide braziers set deep into the walls at dwarf height. Their coals cast a red glow upon the carved ceiling while their smoke drifted up through narrow ventilation shafts cleverly hidden by the ornamentation. The ancient dwarven curses marked the walls, absent the goblin scrawl.

The sound from the forge was louder here, especially from around a bend at the far end of the corridor, past three doors on the right side of the passage, where two goblins stood before a grand door. Their gazes were fixed on some bright area around the corner, so they remained oblivious to the intruders.

"Just two?" Lidda signed with the fingers of her left hand. Her right already held her short bow.

Tordek observed the way the two goblins chattered to each other and decided they were alone. He gestured an affirmative and aimed his own bow, noting that Devis had done the same, and Vadania's sling was already forming a loop in preparation for the throw.

At Tordek's signal, the missiles flew. Lidda, Vadania, and Devis were already running toward the goblins as the hapless guards slumped against the door they had been guarding. Tordek followed with Karnoth, careful not to cause too much of a clatter in his armor. By the time they reached the others, both goblins were dead, and Lidda was listening at the door. She shrugged, nodding toward the light from the balcony they had been facing to indicate the clamor that rose from the foundry prevented her from hearing anything.

After checking the hall for other occupants and spying none, Tordek approached the balcony rail to gaze into the forge of Andaron. He felt the first wave of heat as he rounded the corner, but as he looked down he felt it withering his eyebrows.

Larger than all of the lower caverns combined, the foundry was a blend of artifice and nature. Its floor was carved from the living rock in four increasingly deep, pentagonal levels. Around the outer ring were five separate entrances, four of them simple rectangular portals fortified by iron portcullises. The grand entrance was an arch over ten feet tall and almost twenty feet wide, its open doors blistering with spikes and steel bosses to rebuff and absorb any assault. Opposite the grand entrance was a line of round tunnels bored deep into the earth. A stone ramp jutted from each one like an impudent tongue. Beside two of the ramps lay ancient ore sledges, one of them piled with bins of the abandoned bounty collected before the fall of Andaron's Delve. Whatever business its current inhabitants had, it was not refining ore.

The rest of the outer ring was a clutter of water troughs, worktables, empty tool racks, and the makeshift beds of the slaves who labored in the inner rings. On one filthy pallet lay a burned and sweating dwarf stripped to the waist, restless in his torpor. Nearby stood a trio of grinning goblins, throwing dice and occasionally prodding the sick dwarf.

The third ring was filled with anvils and lesser forges, half of which rang with hammer blows as three dwarven and two human smiths beat points and edges into simple swords. The goblin guards scolded one of the dwarves for taking too long to complete his latest blade, but the proud smith balked at their warning and continued his work. For him it was torment enough to manufacture inferior weapons, even for his enslavers. He bore the threats and abuse with dwarven stoicism until at last he plunged the red and black blade into a water barrel and tossed it onto a table of similarly crude work. A young man with his face half covered in dirty bandages took the swords up to the outer level, where he and a companion fitted hilts and quillions to the blades.

Inside the ring of anvils were three foundry tables on which squatted the iron molds. Huge cauldrons of molten iron jerked and swayed on a battery of rails affixed to the ceiling. Their molten surfaces bubbled just three feet below the rail of the catwalks, close enough for workers to reach them with long ladles or hooks. Along the catwalks, a pair of ogres dragged the glowing pots from the great, central forge and provided the brute force to tip out the molten iron as a team of goblins guided its course. Black stains on the floor showed where accident or cruelty had recently spilled the ore over workers whose bone fragments were still fused into the stone.

Carved upon the floor of the inner level was a wicked sight: a five-pointed star whose every line overlapped another in a queer illusion that made the design appear in constant motion. Within its borders writhed the naked bodies of the damned, lost souls of every race and breed, grasping and tearing at each other, man against monster, elf entwined with beast, halfling and gnome and orc all destroying each other in a futile effort to escape their doom.

Tordek gasped, momentarily mesmerized by the illusion that the figures were alive rather than mere carvings. There was the look of dwarven craft about the pentacle and its vile embellishments, but some dark shadow had fallen over it and given it a glimmer of demonic life.

Whatever dread figure was destined to appear in the center of the star, Tordek could not guess. Upon it squatted the great forge of Andaron, a tremendous furnace carved within a pillar of red-streaked black rock too smooth to be iron, too dull to be obsidian. Three teams of men and dwarves worked the bellows, their bare chests blistering from the heat. One of the dwarves had already lost most of his beard to the flame, and one of the men pumped the lever with one hand and a blackened stump. Fire blazed white and yellow through the slits of the forge's great iron doors, each shaped like a devil's face. The edges of those that were closed glowed red, while those that were opened unleashed such an inferno that the big men who fired the blades wailed from the heat. When one fainted, another took his place, goaded by the long pikes of their goblin captors, who used the hooked tips of their weapons to drag the fallen away from the fire. Those who stirred back to wakefulness were flogged by cackling taskmasters. Those who rested too long felt the spear tips as well as the lash.

The air above the forge rippled with heat, and smoke rose up to vanish into huge ventilation shafts covered with iron grates. The catwalks rested on five spiral stairways on the outer level and hung from great iron rods embedded in the stone ceiling. They shuddered with every lunge of the ogres, zigzagging between the stalactites that pointed down from the ceiling like accusing fingers. The iron paths linked the vents to the forge's chimney and the black scaffold supporting the bellows. One of them led to the balcony on which Tordek stood, while another reached the platform's twin, twenty feet to his left.

"Look there," said Devis, pointing over Tordek's shoulder.

Someone-or something-quite large was moving on the other side of the Hellforge. All Tordek could see from this vantage was something that looked like a huge, red, leather cloak upon a gigantic back. Whatever creature it was thrust a blade into the forge and held it there unflinching, then it turned and placed the weapon on an unseen anvil. The resultant hammering suggested that at least three other smiths assisted with the task.

"Zagreb," said Karnoth. "He would not sully his hands by working on ordinary weapons."

Tordek strained for a better view but realized he would have none from this balcony. He went to the next one, only barely mindful of the need for quiet. There he spied Zagreb at last.

A head taller than either of the other ogres and far more noble of countenance, Zagreb stood before a great anvil wearing nothing but a loin clout. His muscular body was redder than rage and scaled like a lizard on thighs and shins, shoulders and forearms. Except for the enormous wings folded upon his back, he looked more like a huge man than an ogre, but upon his face was the mark of his true ancestry. His nose was broad and reptilian, with slits for nostrils above a protruding jaw, short, thick spikes jutting from his chin like some fanciful beard. His forehead sloped back in bony ridges bordered by curling black horns, and a glossy black mane spilled down his back. His ears were long and ridged, jutting out almost as far as the black horns that ringed his head like a crown. In his naked grip was a dwarven urgrosh, a long-shafted axe with a great spearhead at its butt. The entire weapon was made of steel, now glowing white-hot from the kiss of the forge. Zagreb did not mind the heat as he held the weapon down on the anvil while three dwarven smiths beat at the axe head. With every stroke of their hammers, the great crack that creased its blade grew fainter and fainter. The weapon was gradually becoming whole again.

"We are not fighting that thing," said Lidda. "Maybe instead we can taunt it from a safe distance."

"Or we could send it a nasty letter," suggested Devis.

Tordek ignored them both, but he started when Vadania said, "They're right, Tordek."

"What? You were the one who brought us here."

"Yes," said Vadania. "I still wish to stop the forge, but we cannot fight that thing. Not here, among its allies."

Tordek looked to Karnoth for another dwarf's opinion. The graybeard kept his face neutral, as Tordek should have expected. It was his decision to make.

"Very well," he said. "First we must find a way to get the prisoners out of the forge area. How long until they rest?"

"It is difficult to say," said Karnoth. "In the beginning they worked us only half the day, but lately they have pushed us harder."

Tordek turned to Lidda. "Can you slip down there unseen and give a message to the prisoners?"

Lidda considered the chaos below and grinned confidently. "No problem."

"You know," offered Devis, "I can help you with that. I know you're good and sneaky, but would you like to be invisible?"

"Would I!"

Tordek creased his brow in annoyance at the bard's interruption, but he could hardly complain about his plan. Perhaps Devis was wiser than he looked, for he turned to Tordek and added, "Just say when."

"All right," said Tordek. He knew by rights that Vadania was leading this mission, but he felt comfortable in command and had known the elf long enough to realize she preferred the role of counselor to leader. He was just glad that Lidda and Devis also acknowledged his leadership. "Here's what we'll-"

Devis grabbed Tordek and pushed him down beneath the balcony railing. Simultaneously, Lidda and Vadania ducked for cover, pulling Karnoth down with them onto the iron floor of the balcony, out of sight from the hallway. With a jerk of her chin, Lidda pointed back toward the door at which they had slain the goblins.

A low voice spoke calmly upon the discovery of the slain guards. "Yupa, go down and alert the troops," it said. "We have visitors."

"Shall I go with the quasit?" purred a woman's voice.

"No," said the other. "Come with me to the forge."

Tordek felt the vibration in the iron floor even as he heard the pair step out onto the catwalk from the other balcony. He waited a moment to be sure they were walking away from the corridor, then he peered over the railing, noting that the others did the same beside him.

The male looked like a huge goblin, nearly as tall as an ogre but with the lesser species' flat nose and prominent ears. It wore steely gray hair pulled back in a neat topknot bound by a comb of gold and rubies. Its skin was a deep, vivid blue, covered by piecemeal armor that showed off muscular arms and shoulders. Down its right arm ran a spiral tattoo culminating in a dark design on the palm. Its left hand was gloved, and the fingers brushed protectively over the warhammer that hung at the creature's hip. The hammer's ornate head glowed red and black, like coals in a banked fire.

"Hargrimm," whispered Vadania. "The barghest."

With him walked a woman so white she might have been made of lily petals. Her eyes were completely black, so dull that she appeared blind at first glance. She wore a once-fine gown of crushed velvet that might have been blue. Its hem was tattered and worn cobweb thin. She wore two large rings on each hand, and a ruby pendant gleamed at her throat.

They talked as they strode across the catwalk, but their words turned to thunder in Tordek's ears. He pulled the necklace from beneath his armor and clutched the finger bones so tightly they threatened to burst into powder.

"He has the hammer," he grumbled.

Vadania put a hand on his shoulder, urging him to sit down, out of sight. "Bide your time, my friend," she said. "Bide your time."

Lidda saw the look on Tordek's face and frowned sympathetically, but then she brightened and said, "Have you noticed how all our enemies come in primary colors lately?"

Behind her, Devis snorted a laugh, and even Vadania smiled briefly. Karnoth looked more surprised than amused, but Tordek felt the choking rage loosen its grip on his heart. Still, he rebuked the halfling. "This is no laughing matter. That fiend devours his foes, who then spend eternity fueling his infernal power."

"What do we do now?" said Devis soberly.

Tordek knew the bard was making an effort to defer to him, but he couldn't decide whether it pleased or irritated him. Still, they had to act quickly now that their presence was detected.

"How many of us can you render invisible with your spell?" he asked the bard.

Devis grimaced an apology. "One," he said. "Two if you ask first thing tomorrow."

Tordek turned to Vadania.

"I have a potion," she said. "No such spell, however."

"That's only two of us," said Tordek. "Not good enough."

"They just came out of that room," said Lidda. "I bet that's the last place they'd think to look for us. Besides, who knows what they have stashed in there?"

"Good idea," said Tordek. "Let's at least have a peek and wait there until the search party passes by."

They crept away from the balcony and stepped over the corpses. Before Lidda knelt to examine the door's lock, Devis whistled a little cantrip and hissed, "Don't touch it!"

Lidda recoiled, edging back from the door on both knees before looking at the bard for an explanation.

"I think it's warded," he explained.

"Can you dispel it?" asked Tordek.

"Maybe," said Devis. "I have a scroll, but only the one."

"Hmm." Tordek considered whether it was worth the expenditure of such a useful spell for a peek inside what might or might not be Hargrimm's quarters. Again, he turned to Vadania, but she only shook her head no. Before he could make up his mind, a scream rose above the steady clamor of the foundry. They rushed to the near balcony and peered down.

Zagreb pushed the body of one of the dwarven smiths off the spear of the reforged urgrosh. Its surface radiated with a hellish glow as the dwarf's blood quenched the heat that knitted its axe blade.

Hargrimm stood beside the half-dragon, the glow of his warhammer pulsing in sympathy with its resurrected sibling. He raised the weapon, holding it poised to strike at Zagreb.

The ogre-dragon gazed back unflinchingly. With a shark's grin, Hargrimm struck Zagreb full on the chest. The blow might have slain a man, but it rebounded from the half-dragon's chest as if it had been little more than a friendly nudge.

"Do you see?" said Hargrimm. "Now we are truly brothers in arms."

Zagreb nodded, a smile finally creasing his dour face. He raised the urgrosh and struck back, slamming the keen axe head into the barghest's shoulder. The blow left not so much as a scratch upon his bare, blue flesh.

Behind them, Sandrine eyed the weapons greedily, but she stood silently, patiently, unnoticed by either of the brutes.

Hargrimm started and cocked his head, as if listening to a tiny messenger beside him. His gaze rose to the balcony, and his eyes stared directly at Tordek, who realized that the tiny, invisible fiend had just pointed them out to its master.

Squinting in their direction, Hargrimm stood straight. Zagreb said something to him, but he shook his head at the suggestion, and the half-dragon took a step back deferentially.

Hargrimm smiled and beckoned at them to come down. Tordek was certain he had been seen, but he gambled that the others were still hidden from the barghest's sight. With one hand still behind the balcony rail he gestured for them to remain crouched, then he stepped out onto the catwalk.

This drew an approving nod from Hargrimm, who made a gesture and slowly levitated up to the level of the walkway. When he came to rest on the iron catwalk, he beckoned again. The gesture was polite enough except for his wolfish grin of anticipation.

Tordek walked forward. All the eyes of the slaves and their keeper turned up to witness his exchange with their master.

"Who in the countless cells of the Abyss are you?" demanded Hargrimm. Again he cocked his head to listen to his unseen familiar. His eyes were novas against a face as dark as demon wine as he stared at the finger bones that lay on Tordek's chest.

Tordek set the head of his axe upon the bridge and planted his fists on its butt. "I am Tordek, son of Vardek Sure-Fist, grandson of Grisna the Red, slayer of the usurper Felldrake, great-grandson of Belsedar Truce-Forger."

"I know none of those names," said Hargrimm. He bit the fingers of his glove and pulled it off, revealing a ruined hand with only a thumb and one finger to hold the glove in place. "Still, something about you makes my fingers itch."

"My brother's name was Holten."

"Ah." He smiled wistfully. "That name I know. You may know me as Hargrimm…"The creature's grin grew improbably wide, revealing a thicket of sharp, yellow teeth. "…Devourer-of-Holten."

"Our meeting was fated," growled Tordek. "Prepare to return to the pit from which you crept."

"Yes, now I see the resemblance-thick of chest, thick of arm, and thick of skull. Come, if you wish to follow your brother." The demon licked blood from his lips. "He is lonely in his torment, and I am hungry."

Tordek growled and raised his axe. Below Hargrimm, the pale woman smiled and sank into the shadows, while the red ogre snapped his vast wings open with a sound like sailcloth in a gale. Hargrimm waved them away with his maimed hand as he raised the hammer of Andaron in the other.

"No, Tordek! Not here!" called Vadania, standing to show herself to the foes and thus spoiling Tordek's hasty plan to act as a diversion. "Not now."

"She's right," said Lidda, rising to level her bow at Hargrimm. "Let's get out of here."

"Come on, Tordek," pleaded Devis. "At least give me time to compose a proper revenge ballad before we all go down fighting."

"Idiots," muttered Tordek.

"Your friends are loyal," laughed Hargrimm, "if not obedient. Have you told them the lesson of your brother?"

"Enough talk," said Tordek, raising his war axe and dropping his shield. He would have shrugged off his pack if he had a moment more, for there was precious little room atop the catwalk.

With an evil grin, Hargrimm raised the glowing hammer and struck the iron frame of the catwalk.

The iron rippled like water, hurling Tordek up so suddenly that he missed grabbing the rail. Behind him, iron bolts shrieked and popped as the catwalk snapped away from the wall. He glanced back to see Lidda, Devis, and Vadania tumbling to the ground twenty feet below. Karnoth remained on the level above, narrowly avoiding the fall but now revealed to all who cared to look up.

Tordek crouched and clutched the railing. The catwalk dipped and listed six feet to one side, but it did not break. He looked down to see the smiths at one of the outer anvils running away to avoid being crushed by the tumbling metal. Still it held, shaking in the aftermath of the hammer blow.

"You see?" said Hargrimm, hefting the hammer. "This is what your brother sought. It is a weapon worthy of me. He held it only briefly, and now it is mine, along with his soul. Today the hammer's power is restored, together with its kin. Do you know what I will do with them? Do you know the real power of the Arms of Andaron?"

"It will matter little when I send you back to the Abyss," growled Tordek. He took a step toward his foe, but his shifting weight set the catwalk to swaying dangerously. He clung desperately to the rail with one hand, gripping his axe tightly in the other.

Hargrimm laughed at his predicament. "You shall live long enough to be the first sacrifice to my lord Gruulnargh. Your courage is amusing, and I admire your necklace. Did you bring it as a gift?"

Tordek spat at the demon and advanced another step. This time he was ready for the motion of the catwalk. Adjusting the rhythm of his pace to its swaying, he took another step, gripping the rail with his shield arm. He dared not look back at his companions, but he hoped they had recovered sufficiently from their tumble to escape.

"Close enough, Tordek, brother of…what was his name again?" said Hargrimm. "Oh, I remember. Supper."

With rippling muscles he raised the hammer and hurled it at Tordek. The weapon smashed into the dwarf's chest, crushing the armor plating and hurling him backward off the catwalk. As he flew through the air, Tordek reflexively grabbed the hammer as if for support. For an instant he felt it tug away, as if it might actually lift him up and spare him from the fall. When he hit the ground and felt the wind knocked out of his lungs, he realized the truth. The hammer should have returned to its wielder, but it hadn't. Some quirk of its enchantment failed.

Tordek felt his friends' hands on him, helping him to his feet.

"It isn't possible!" roared Hargrimm from above.

Tordek felt heat from the hammer surge through his palm and into his veins. Inside his body, it sang to him a warrior's song.

"Get him!" screamed Hargrimm. "Retrieve my hammer!"

With wings snapping like sails, the winged Zagreb dived toward the dwarf. Tordek saw the half-dragon's jaws open wide, and a red spark flashed deep in the serpentine throat. Flames engulfed him. All he saw was light, and all he felt was searing pain. He closed his eyes tight against the inferno, praying that he might live long enough to strike just one blow.

Someone grabbed him from behind and together they fell onto a hard, wood surface. It shifted beneath Tordek with a grating sound. He tried, but he could not open his eyes to see. His nostrils were filled with the stench of his own burned hair and flesh, and he felt a searing stripe of pain across the exposed portions of his face.

"Push!" shouted Devis, so close to his ear that Tordek at least knew his hearing had not been burned away. He felt the earth shift beneath him, two more bodies leaped atop his, then the whole pile was sliding downward, backward, somehow picking up speed as it raced away from the Hellforge and plunged deep into the mines of Andaron's Delve.