"Kvalinn! Why are you home so late!?" When I got home from school, my father looked at me with concern and a bit of grumpiness due to working all alone. "Did you mess up a greeting to an Elder?"
I put my bag in its usual corner and put on a work apron before answering. "I was asked to stay late and add a rune to the knife I made for the Elders. They brought me to what they called a rune forge and taught me a new forge song. It was way hotter than our forge here."
"A rune forge!" Father almost dropped his hammer in surprise. "A new rune song! Quickly, show me what they taught you."
Father took a hot iron from the fire, placed it on my workstation, and then stood back expectantly, waiting for me to make the rune. Although he still kept his shield within arms reach, just in case the rune crafting went poorly. He had been taught since birth that rune crafting was extremely dangerous, and inherently unstable.
Even though I was exhausted from a long day at school, plus the extracurricular activities, I began working to create a dagger. Once I had it shaped and ready for the rune, I began singing the rune song I had learned at school. After several minutes of work, the knife was complete with a rune of sharpness.
"Interesting." Father took up the knife and examined it closely. "This rune should exponentially increase the cutting power of any weapon and keep it sharp through weeks of neglect. Who taught you how to make this?"
"A teacher named Elder Rongrim taught me the song, and then Elder Thrikrondromm supervised me making the rune."
"Elder Thrikrondromm!" Father's eyebrows went as high as I've ever seen in surprise. "Tell me, what did he say? Was he impressed by your ability? Did he seem apprehensive at all? Quickly now, your fate may depend on the Elder's impression of you, and how we can plan for the future."
Alarmed by my fathers intensity, I hastily told of the events of the day, from meeting Bekhi in Elder Rongrim's class, to making the rune in the forge. Throughout my retelling, father stroked his beard in thought, barely giving any other reaction.
"So Elder Thrikrondromm was impressed by your ability, and offered to teach you once you learn your runes." His voice was serious, and his eyes never moved from his anvil as he collected his thoughts. "If you survive his training, then you will have one of the most sought after skills from the mountains of the dwarves, to the fields of the humans, to the island of the elves. And you would need not worry about being denied entrance to the halls of the ancestors, or exiled from the mountain."
"Wait, did you say 'survive his training'? Is training to learn magic runes that dangerous?"
Father let out a sardonic chuckle before answering. "You probably saw the shields that were produced for testing the rune, and how the youngest and least important person in the room was sent to test its power. That's because a poorly made rune can kill its wielder in the most gruesome and unimaginable ways. It's because of this hazard that few rune crafters exist, and those that can consistently make powerful runes are treasured by the kingdoms. If you can join their guild, then your future will be assured until the mountains fall."
The next day at school, I found myself sitting alone. Not that I minded. Socialization has always been difficult to impossible for me, but I was curious as to why Zikruk and the others I had met at the youth center were avoiding me like the plague.
"Greetings, Kvalinn Ekgorsson. Is this seat taken?" Looking to the side, I saw Bekhi nervously pointing to the seat next to me.
"Greetings, Bekhi Mubrimssdottir. This seat has not been taken by anyone yet so far as I know." Even though we were both kids, formal language like this was expected of us so that we did not accidentally cause trouble between the various clans. But once she was seated, Bekhi dropped all pretense at formality.
"So, Kvalinn. I was hoping to trade with you for some of those sweets you baked for the kids at the youth center. I got to taste some of the crumbs and they were delicious! I would've asked you yesterday but you were busy with the Elder's."
I was a little concerned about what she said about 'tasting the crumbs' but I decided not to poke my nose into her personal business. Instead I took out a tin of cookies I had been planning on enjoying with lunch and began bartering with her. We soon came to a deal, in exchange for the cookies, I'd get two strips of beef jerky and one of lamb jerky.
Satisfied with our exchange, I bit down on the lamb jerky and let the delicious, but salty, flavor melt in my mouth, while Bekhi enjoyed the honeyed sweetness of a cookie before class started. From what I had seen of the food culture in this world so far, sweets and unsalted meats were considered a royal luxury, and most dwarves subsisted off blackened bread and a gruel that was a mixture of oats, water, and sometimes a little meat for flavor.
We didn't get a chance to enjoy our delicacies for more than a minute though, since Elder Rongrim entered the room and prepared to teach the class. After he glared everyone to their seats and into total silence, he began teaching from the beginning. Literally. Starting from before the gods had created the world.
According to the ancient teachings of the dwarves. The gods had once existed in the Eternal Realm. Where nothing physical existed, and no god was more powerful or less powerful than any other god on that plane of existence. It was, to them at least, a perfect utopia that existed through eternity.
However, after untold eons of just existing, some of the gods grew bored with their lives and decided to quarrel amongst themselves. The quarrels turned to fights, then to brawls, then to full on wars. Due to their celestial nature, they couldn't fully die, so the wars continued unabated for untold millennia.
Finally, the all father of the gods, Ymerawdwr. The one who had created both the Eternal Realm and the gods, grew tired of their bickering and kicked every single one of them from the Eternal Realm. Telling them not to return until they had accomplished more than petty warfare.
Finding themselves in the dark and cold void of space, the gods were without purpose, and a suitable place to fight. Eventually, one of the gods figured out how to form rocks and stone, and named himself god of stone. Not satisfied with just a dark rock to fight over, another god created the sun, and of course named himself god of the sun.
This prompted all the other gods to get busy and create other elements to declare themselves the gods of. After all, they couldn't let the gods of rock and sun get one over on them. Also, none of them wanted to spend eternity on a barren rock, and Ymerawdwr's commands to accomplish something burned in their souls.
Of course, there were still gods who still fought amongst themselves for power, and they used this new world as their battle ground. Destroying mountains, vaporizing oceans, sinking continents, nothing was beyond their destructive powers, and with this new physical world, came new means of killing each other.
The gods of fire, iron, and stone soon came to be known throughout the pantheon as the best weapon makers among them, and were incessantly called upon to make weapons for the other gods. Causing them to be eternally busy, working for the other gods and left out of any power struggles.
At first, the three gods reveled in their status as the best (and only) weapon crafters in the world. They soon became bored, making endless weapons for eternal wars, and began working on a way to offload the work to someone else.
After working on the project for centuries, the three gods combined their might and created the first dwarf, Hjerouhrdinn Godforged. He was created in secret to take the burden of creating weapons off their shoulders. To prevent any chance at rebellion, he was made to be completely incapable of wielding the gods power, otherwise known as magic.
Hjerouhrdinn Godforged was made to be extremely powerful, and to his creator gods he was a complete success. He was able to make weapons of a quality never before seen by the world before and not seen since. Even without magical enhancements, his weapons were able to kill the weakest of the gods, and once imbued with the power of the gods they could kill the strongest of them.
Due to being unable to wield magic, Hjerouhrdinn was forced to slave away for the gods benefit and glory for centuries. But one day, angered by his chains, and with the corpse of a god fading away nearby, he sang the first forge song and created the first magical runed weapon.
"That is all for today." Elder Rongrim closed the book he had been reading from. "Tomorrow we will go over Hjerouhrdinn's fight for freedom from the gods. Now, retrieve your writing materials and prepare to learn the runes."
I already had my writing materials out so I went over the notes I had made so far. I had found early on in my new life that I could speak, read and write in English without issue. But to everyone else, my English just sounded like infantile babbling, and my writing was just squiggles that nobody could read. So it was ideal for keeping notes that only I could understand.
Elder Rongrim drew several runes on a chalkboard and described their meaning and how to pronounce them. Apparently, since dwarves were the first species in this world, our language had been handed down directly by the gods, and each rune was symbolic of one of the many gods. But for those words who had no god assigned to them yet, or for gods whose symbols were forbidden, there were individual letters. Sort of like the relationship between Japanese kanji and katakana/hiragana.
We were set to practice writing the runes for the next hour or so, until it was time for the next class. It was rather nostalgic for me to be working with a pencil and paper again, even though the pencil was just charcoal wrapped in a cloth, and the paper was a piece of smoothed scrap wood. I looked over at Bekhi once we were done to chat on the way to class but was stopped short by her appearance. She looked like she had gone through an hour of torture instead of an hour of relaxed writing.
"Gah, Kvalinn. My head hurts." Bekhi moaned while clutching her forehead like someone dealing with a painful headache.
"School isn't over yet, we still need to survive combat classes." I offered Bekhi a helping hand up from her seat, but at my words, she perked up in anticipation.
"Hurrah! Combat class! Let's go, Kvalinn!" Bekhi brushed all her writing materials into her bag with a single sweep of the arm, then grabbed my hand and started running excitedly towards the next class. Dragging me behind her in an enthusiastic, but inescapably iron, grip.
Elder Dworhick greeted us at the door of the training hall. "Kvalinn, Bekhi, since you two are the first two here I'm pairing you as training partners. Each of you grab a shield and a training battle axe, don't use one that's too heavy or it will affect your work."
Following the teachers instructions, I went to the wall where shields and practice weapons were waiting on racks. Since I had no experience with choosing a shield or weapon, I subtly watched Bekhi and copied what she chose. She chose a light battle ax, and a heavy weighted shield. I would have preferred to use a sword, since that was what I was most familiar with from my days as a nerd, but I elected to mimic Bekhi since she seemed to know what she was doing with her weapon.
The rest of the students eventually arrived and were paired up for combat practice. They chose a variety of weapons, from hammers, to battle axes, to swords, leaving the weapon racks for first year students nearly bare.
Blowing a whistle that sounded like it had been borrowed from a gym couch, Elder Dworhick brought all the childish horsing around and chatter to a stop. "Listen well, students. The weapons in your hands are just one of many that you will use to defend yourselves. In future drills, you will be forced to drop whatever weapon you are using and switch to a backup, or a backup of your backup. So do not exclusively practice with one weapon, because unless you have an ancestral weapon forged by Hjerouhrdinn himself, your weapon will break. For today's lesson, you will be engaging in mock one on one combat with the person you are paired with. This is not a competition, there are no prizes for beating your opponent quickly, instead you are to learn from one another and from the flow of the fight. Ready? Begin!"
At the sound of Elder Dworhick's whistle, a cacophony of noise started as wooden weapons clanged against metal shields. I had to hastily raise my own shield as Bekhi swung an overhead blow at surprising speed.
"Woah! That was close! You almost hit me, Bekhi!" I was just a little panicked about being in a fight, and the ease with which my opponent was handling the heavy practice weapon wasn't helping.
"Com'n, Kvalinn. I'm going easy on you, you've got to be faster if you want to survive the battlefield. Or at least that's what my dad says. Here, block an overhead blow like this, side blows like this, and thrusts like this, see?" Bekhi demonstrated how to position a shield to block all three types of blows. "Alright, now I'm gonna go all out so get ready!"
Before I could protest, Bekhi began attacking in earnest and I was forced to fully concentrate on blocking all her blows to avoid the painful thwacks my peers were receiving from their opponents. Devoting all my attention to defense, I was starting to feel like a certain shield hero.
At the end of the hour, I was left panting on the floor with several bumps and bruises. Most of my classmates were in the same condition since Elder Dworhick had switched out most of the student pairings with teachers assistants for further training.
"Well done, Bekhi Mubrimssdottir." Elder Dworhick said in a loud voice. "Your weapon blows were both excellent and merciless. Don't forget about defending yourself though. The ability to deal the most devastating blows is worthless if an unlucky arrow kills you before the enemy gets in range. And, Kvalinn." The Elder looked down at my panting and bruised body, trying to find something complimentary to say to me. "Try to attack at least once. Have Bekhi teach you some tricks. She appears to be well taught in combat despite being a surface dwarf."
Elder Dworhick then dismissed the class, and aside from a few students who had acted out instead of training, he told us to eat our lunch and then go home. Lunches were provided to the poorer students, and everyone else retrieved lunch from their bags.
Ignoring my screaming muscles and bruised limbs, I found my bag and propped myself up against an empty portion of wall to eat. Thanks to my trade with Bekhi earlier, I was looking forward to enjoying some beef jerky to accompany the usual hard bread.
Bekhi sat down beside me, seemingly completely unaffected by our earlier workout, and began eating her own lunch.
"So, Kvalinn. What's life like down here?" Bekhi asked in a curious tone. "I told you all about life in Vesturhildrun, so it's only fair that you tell me about your hometown."
"I'm afraid I don't know that much. I've spent most of my life with my father at the forge, learning to craft weapons. Before a week ago, I hadn't even left my house, let alone explored my home town."
"Wait, what about your family? Haven't they told you about the city?"
"It's only me and my father at home, and he spends all his time working at the forge alongside me."
Bekhi looked at me in surprise, she was a little incredulous that two people could be so dedicated to work that they didn't explore, or even leave their house. To be honest, I would have agreed with her had we been living on Earth, but this was a fantasy world that appeared to be culturally in the middle ages, and the risk of death from disease was a bit too high for someone in my age bracket for me to be comfortable.
"What about your city?" I asked to change the subject. "What's your city like?"
My ploy worked, and set Bekhi off on a long, but cheerful, description of her hometown, the people who lived there, and what they were like. I listened in relaxed contentment while munching on my lunch.
All good things must come to an end though, and Elder Dworhick basically told everyone to go home for chores now that lunch was over and kicked us out of the training hall. Bekhi kept chatting with me until it was time for us to separate at the doors of the school.
"Thanks for listening to me, Kvalinn." Bekhi said with a small smile. "I miss my family, but it was nice to talk to someone about them. Anyway, I'll see you tomorrow!"
Bekhi ran off down the road to wherever she was staying, her chestnut braid trailing behind her like a cape, and as I was about to start making my own way home, Zikruk walked up to me wearing a scowl.
"Why are you still talking with that dirt grubbing surface dwarf?" Zikruk asked in the same tone someone would ask why you were having orange juice in your cereal. With a mixture of confusion, bafflement, and disgust. "If it were just for a trade or a sale, then maybe I could understand you tolerating it, but after completing the trade you kept talking with her! There's no good reason for it. I bet her family doesn't even have an ancestral mine."
"Why does that matter?" I asked. "Bekhi is nice enough, and very good in combat class. What does it matter where she came from? We're all going to the same school together, and will continue to do so for the next decade, so why not make friends?"
"Then make friends with the people I introduced you to at the youth center!" Zikruk retorted. "If you keep talking with that surface dwarf then you both are going to have a lonely time at school."
Zikruk stormed off in a huff, leaving me to my thoughts. I wondered if Zikruk's feelings on dwarves from the surface was shared by everyone under the mountain. I asked my father about it later that night over dinner.
"Hmm, so you have a dwarf child from the surface attending the school? I don't believe that's happened once since the school was opened centuries ago. But not because they weren't allowed, it was simply because they didn't have any interest in learning from the ancestors who stayed down among the solid stone." Father thought for several minutes on how to explain it to me, and sensing another history lesson, I refilled our beer mugs. Eventually he found the right words and told me about the dwarves who lived on the surface.
"It happened when I was a boy around your age, roughly two hundred or so years ago. Several families from various clans throughout the mountain decided that they were tired of being at the bottom of the ladder, and didn't want to wait the centuries required to advance among their clans. So they petitioned King Thralgrorlum to allow them to build a city on the surface of the mountain, where they could create their own clans and build new lives for themselves. Seeing it as a way to reduce our dependence on trade for food, the King agreed and appointed a Thane to rule the new city. Many dwarves resented them for jumping ahead in position, many more despised them for performing work that has been done by humans since the beginning of our race. Since then, the city of Vesturhildrun has remained nearly isolated, aside from some trade, despite resting on the mountain of its ancestors. The fact that one of their children has been sent to the school down here is… Interesting."
Father drifted off into silence for several minutes. Stroking his beard in thought while I sipped my beer and nibbled on a cookie. After several minutes where the only sound was the crackling of the fire, he spoke in a serious voice.
"Befriending this girl was the right thing to do. Tomorrow when you return from school, I'll help you craft a short sword for her and you can add the rune you learned from Elder Thrikrondromm. As for Zikruk, I will talk with Aundarord about his behavior. Expressing his distaste for surface dwarves so bluntly could prove disastrous if he should ever go on a trade caravan to the surface or to a human town."
I nodded in contemplation, happy that the opinions voiced by Zikruk earlier weren't shared by my father or Aundarord. Hopefully a lecture from his father would sway Zikruk away from his prejudicial views.