Chapter 66

 

Morning of Day 14 since entering the gnome’s warren;

We were all impressed by what we were seeing. Go figure I’d never seen this coming.

We had all gotten up a bit extra early when we heard and felt the others around us getting excited. Both the people in our survivor group and the gnomes had a steady stream of people heading to the front entrance.

It seems a gnome scout had confirmed that the dwarven caravan was set to arrive today. We found ourselves incredibly hopeful about how the dwarves and their civilization might be. I had a thousand questions for them.

Everyone’s hopes are up but for different reasons each.

What were their cities like?

Did they also have magic?

Can they help us?

Do they have tools or access to things that can make our lives better?

Were they really inventors and craftsmen like mythology seemed to portray them as?

Were their cities fortified and well defended?

Would they take in humans without enslaving us?

Those are the types of things our survivor group is asking each other. The others voiced their thoughts throughout the day like this.

“Shun, do you think the dwarves can help us?” Rina asked.

“I hope so,” I replied. “We have to figure out if we can trust them first.”

“I was wondering how good their weapons and armor were compared to others?” Asakura asked me.

“That would be wonderful,” Yumi said.

“That’s an interesting possibility,” I acknowledged.

“I hope they have some decent clothes too,” Asakura said, leaning closer to me so that the others might hear her.

“I don’t know you look really good in tight skimpy frayed outfits,” I teased.

“Oh I do, do I?” She pretended to be mad, but she was actually happy we were together.

She ended up talking about going on another date with me together later on, while we watched the dwarves coming in.

Hmm, the future isn’t so bad then. I was kind of getting used to this place and not living with electricity. I was lucky to be surrounded by beautiful women too. So far things were looking up.

Rina’s face looks clouded. Is it because she likes being here more? Or maybe she likes us being together in a secluded environment. I hadn’t thought she’d be like this.

Yumi seems really quiet right now. I’m not sure why.

So now we were all at the front entrance. We would have been here anyway to reinforce and guard the big hole in the gate though. Fortunately the hole was above the height of the ground at the top, so only a creature that could jump like ten feet height and climb walls could use it very well without siege equipment.

But it was still a fair sized hole. Just seeing it there made us nervous.

Why hadn’t the gnomes tried to cover it yet at least?

I don’t like this.

The gate below and to the right of it, had a secret door in the middle bottom area of it. It was so cleverly made that you couldn’t even tell it was there unless you had already seen it open. So there was like a gate within a gate. It was a dwarf door, as it was explained to us. It was built to be too short for most large creatures like wyverns, or dragons, or even other larger critters, and so that reinforcements could arrive inside without having to open the main heavy gate.

In this way a steady stream of dwarves had been arriving for the last twenty minutes through the door. Two of them were on either side of it acting as spotters for something that shouldn’t go through or for those that needed help.

It was interesting to study their features.

I felt excited and wanted a front row seat. We’d heard so many cool things about them from the gnomes that it was like looking at a real living legendary creature.

But in retrospect was part of the gnomes awe for them because the dwarves made their alcohol? Wait a minute here, we better not have clouded judgment. Maybe I should get my own opinion about them. There had to be other reasons at work as well besides alcohol, I told myself.

Gnomes and dwarves look completely different! How do they even call each other cousins?!

The only thing they have similar to each other is their height and their beards. While gnomes look small emaciated bodies and bony skinny with pudgy bellies, dwarves are built like rock and with tons of muscles, but not fat. They look very intense and regard each other coolly with more confidence and cunning. It looks like they are very strong the way they carry so much gear without even any kind of complaint.

But I couldn’t tell if they looked confident because these were some kind of elite explorer soldier types or because everyone in their race was like this.

Of course they seem surprised that there are a bunch of human refugees in the gnomes’ warren. I can see some of them talking with the gnomes while pointing and gesturing at our group. The dwarves seem dour and negative on their facial appearance, but then as the gnomes keep talking to them they soften up a bit.

I’m surprised that even the dwarven beards are different in a way from the gnomes though that seems strange to explain. Both favor long beards that are uncut in length, but while gnome beards have a thin scraggly look, dwarf beards look heavy and solid all the way through like they are with a wiry long type of hair. They are often collared and held pinned with gold or silver…’tie pins’. At least they resemble tie pins, except for them being for beards instead of a tie.

Still, I’m so impressed with them, that I’m almost afraid. They are not fat or thick by any means but their arms are so strong that they look chiseled and have severely pronounced muscle definition. There doesn’t seem to be such thing as a dwarf that looks like a wimp.

Asakura turns to whisper to me, “They look safe enough to hide behind.”

I nod slowly taking it all in. “They do look pretty solid.”

“Although, we still don’t know much about them,” Asakura reminded me.

“Bingo,” Rina whispers in agreement.

“I think we know where for us to go now,” I said.

The others agree. Dwarves look safe to be around; definitely very safe looking.

I also notice that they are armed to the teeth, in such a way that it makes the gnomes look very poor.

I can’t see a single dwarf coming in the front gate that doesn’t look like he’s armed to go to Armageddon. Not only are they heavily muscled by they all have on really tough looking solid metal armor. There seems to be an even distribution of both chain mail types, and plate mail types, and each of them have at least three or four weapons each.

Most of them have a sword, not an axe despite the references to axes in mythology. I count maybe ten percent of them maybe with axes, so that surprises me. But they also are equipped each with a range weapon, which is usually a crossbow of some kind hanging from their belts, a buckler packed away on the left side, and a backup weapon. Naturally not all of them are armed the same but this appears to be a typical arrangement.

But I can see they are all veterans too. Many of them have scars on their faces or arms. The mail is always well cared for but has scrapes and scratches. It seems that they have been in a lot of fights in their lifetimes.

Of course they are also regarding us coolly too, and sizing us up. They seem very intelligent.

I also notice it looks like there are three distinct dwarven officers that seem to be in charge. One way or another I will have to meet them so I can get out of the gnome’s camp. I don’t feel like it would be a good idea for us to stay here long term, despite the gnomes’ kindness.

Next to us Yumi is so surprised she drops the gnome hard tack that she’d been chewing on. It wasn’t really food anyway, at least according to human standards. Because it’s rolled into the dirty ground her face has an expression like broken glass.

“Damn it,” she sighed.

Times are tough; none of us like to throw away food.

“Wow,” she says as she’s distracted at what’s ahead of us in front of our eyes.

“Wow, look at that! They must be as strong as an ox to carry all that,” Yumi says pointing at them.

They are each carrying heavy packs in addition to the weapons, which are full of trade goods. I hadn’t expected that. I thought there would be wagons of some kind and some pack animals. But it seems it’s hard to do that underground. Still they walk around as if they aren’t carrying anything or bothered by the weight.

The packs are big even for humans.

I wonder what the average weight is. It has to be a lot because the pack straps looked like they are straining under the weight.

Did they march all day like that? So far it seems like it.

Woah…

I hope they don’t expect those traveling with them to carry the same amount of weight. That could be bad. The weight of some of those packs is probably close to Rina’s weight.

In fact, the only way for us to be able to work with them is if they are willing to take on mercenaries temporarily, and if they want us to help carry stuff I’d have to figure out a way to stow it in the demon box.

But even as we watch something is happening.

A commotion starts! People are yelling and getting armed.

Suddenly there’s the sound of some kind of warning horn from the other side of the gate. It’s a sound that is long and loud, while kind of harsh at the same time.

The larger company of dwarves on this side suddenly looks like an ant’s hill nest that has been attacked. Both the dwarves and the gnomes scurry about and there’s a sense of panic going on. The dwarves are trying to get through the dwarf door quicker, but now a few of them are trying to move so fast they end up clipping the edges of the door as more of them get through. They still manage to keep a good pace going through, but it’s not easy.

Some of them are spotters for the others.

We don’t have to speak gnome to tell that something has gone wrong.

This is…an invasion! Something is attacking them from the other side of the door!

The dwarves are screaming and yelling, because they’d been tricked into going through at exactly the wrong time.

The gnomes have gotten their weapons out and form a perimeter around the gate. They have their pole arms ready and as many of them as possible have also taken out small buckler like shields.

“Is it the spiders again?” I wonder.

“Something is going on, that’s for sure,” Asakura says. She’s been trying to get the gnomes teach her how to use a crossbow it seems. But it hasn’t worked out. I think it would be good to have one of us be able to handle range warfare.

But it’s too late for that now.

They have already declined because of fear about humans and because of some things that Akimoto has done. But I notice every chance he gets, he watches how the gnomes use and load their crossbows. Many of them are doing so now, or checking their already set loads.

The crossbow seems like a good weapon to learn. Not just for him, but for the others. It should be easier to learn than a normal bow. A crossbow is more mechanical and less based on skill and dexterity. As long as you know how to point it and reload it the learning curve is way less than a bow by far.

To be honest, when I was a kid I was fascinated with bows but the learning curve for them is pretty much many, many, many years of toil and sweat. Nobody is going to become an overnight deadly elf shooter build, that shoots stuff dead in one shot with under thirty years straight daily intense practice. Even then it doesn’t work that way.

We’d have to find a bigger town to get resupplied. I’m considering fleeing with my team.

But I can’t just run off without a plan and a goal, and having things worked out. That would get the others killed.

Think...I told myself.

The dwarves finally pull themselves in mostly, but I can see some of the ones on the back row of their platoon that has already about faced and gone into formation. They are in a block of six dwarves wide and ten deep.

It’s an impressive sight.

But will it be enough? We’d seen some terrible monsters recently. I had been hoping there would be more of them. This few is a disappointment. I supposed it’s expected a caravan might be this small, but for fighting it’s not a lot.

So there are about sixty of them? But is that how many it takes to bring all the goods, or how many it takes to defend a caravan that big?

Carefully they’ve handed off their packs to gnome attendants that move the big things two at a time so that the dwarves can fight better. It’s a process that is fairly quickly, since everyone is working together.

The attendant gnomes are carrying the dwarven packs up the switchback trails away from the courtyard gauntlet area that we are overlooking. They are anxious to get the supplies away from the front lines. I’m sure there is medicine and food supplies in there.

But I noticed the very back row of the dwarves that have just come in are all bloody and cut up. At least eight of them are bleeding quite a bit. A lot of the blood is on their backs or sides. So either they were ambushed or, had to do some kind of fighting retreat; or maybe both.

I should have noticed sooner that many of those in the back also have bloody weapons, that is stained with nasty putrid liquid smears of black and green in nature. They’ve tried to clean off the blood since coming through the door, but it’s fairly obvious by now. There is too much going on to not notice things like this.

So they had to fight their way through.

But there are still a few dwarf stragglers trying to get through the dwarf door.

“They better get that door shut in time or we’re toast,” Asakura breathes with wide eyes.

“This is really bad,” Yumi wheezed out.

Rina doesn’t say anything but looks at me expectantly.

“Shun?” Asakura stops in mid-sentence.

Oh so it’s like that. Everyone expects me to save them.

Many of these last few are even bloodier than the others, with actual sword wounds on their bodies and arms. Wounds like that are terrible to look at; many of them stumble through while the gnomes and dwarves try to surround the entrance area.

They help one of the dwarves that have fallen over from the extreme nature of being attacked more than the others. Two others also look very serious and critically wounded.

But what concerns us the most is the small dwarf door still hanging open.

What are they going to be doing about that?

It seems that some strange creatures are trying to get in behind the last of the dwarves. There seem to be a few of them just in the door, but the dwarves aren’t getting to them fast enough.