Tharnak Deepdelve, Age 40 – beardless, brash, and unproven
The mountain didn't care.
It didn't care about the callused hands of miners or the blood they left behind. It didn't care about the broken picks, the aching backs, or the hushed prayers offered in the name of the Stonefather. The mountain was ancient, unmoving, and as far as Tharnak was concerned, utterly indifferent to dwarves.
Especially foolish, beardless ones sneaking into forbidden tunnels.
Tharnak grunted as he dropped to one knee, brushing dirt away from a crack in the wall. His fingers moved with instinct, tracing the lines of the fault. It had been a collapse—not a full cave-in, but enough to swallow anything unlucky enough to be standing too close.
And his cousin, Baelric, had been very unlucky.
He hadn't returned with the morning shift. And while most in Stonehearth simply accepted the worst, muttering "granted to the stone," Tharnak couldn't let it go.
He wouldn't let it go.
Baelric was the only cousin who didn't treat him like a runt. He was the only one who'd helped teach him to shape steel, the only one who didn't call him Tharnak the Scrape—a jab at the scar he'd earned from falling into a forge ash pit as a child.
Tharnak placed his gloved hand on the stone and whispered, "I'm not leaving without you."
With a twist and a strained pull, he wedged a rusted prybar into the fault line and pushed. A slab shifted, revealing a narrow passage beyond. He drew in a breath, took his pick—not Orecleaver, not yet; this was before that name meant anything—hooked the lantern to his belt and squeezed inside.
The tunnel was tight, the air stale, the only sound was his breathing and the occasional clatter of settling rock. It stretched far deeper than expected, leading away from the main shaft and into the forgotten bones of the mountain.
A flicker of lantern light caught the glint of something ahead.
Steel. A helmet. Baelric's.
Tharnak scrambled forward, heart pounding, and reached the body.
The helmet was still warm.
"Baelric," he whispered, kneeling down and pulling the dwarf over—
Only to recoil.
The eyes were wide open, lips parted in a silent scream. No wound, no blood—just… death.
Tharnak spat, angry, tears welling in his eyes. "Dammit Baelric—"
And then he heard it.
A skitter, like claws over stone.
He froze.
The light from his lantern danced, making the shadows writhe and flicker across the tunnel walls. Something moved in the dark—a shape, too long, too many legs, and a set of glimmering, oily black eyes reflecting the flame.
A shriek cut through the stone like a knife through sinew.
It lunged.
Tharnak barely rolled aside, the creature—a twisted thing of centipede legs and plated bone—smashing into the wall. Its mandibles snapped where his throat had been a second earlier. He reacted and lashed out with his pick, catching one leg. The beast hissed, retreating just enough for him to scramble to his feet.
What in the name of Keldgar's beard—?!
He didn't recognize it. No story, no lesson from the mines prepared him for this. It moved like a shadow, faster than anything that size had a right to be, and the stench of it—old rot and sulfer—clung to the air.
"Come on, then!" Tharnak snarled, stepping between the beast and Baelric's body.
The monster hissed again—and charged.
This time, Tharnak met it.
He threw himself low, under the snapping mandibles, and drove his pick into its underbelly. It shrieked, twisting violently, and flung him hard into the stone wall.
His vision swam.
His shoulder screamed.
The lantern flew free from the hook on his belt, causing the light in the cavern to be nearly snuffed out.
But luckily he held onto the pick.
The beast reared again and charged towards him, and with the last of his strength, his back aching and lungs burning, Tharnak swung down and buried the pick in the creature's eye.
The impact rocked him, knocking him off his feet. Something hot and wet splashed on his face. The thing convulsed, legs scraping frantically at the stone—and then it collapsed, twitching, before falling still.
Silence filled the caverns. The quiet is almost deafening in contrast to the sounds of battle.
Tharnak coughed, rolled over, and spat blood.
"Never… liked centipedes," he muttered.
He crawled to Baelric, closed his eyes gently, and sat in silence for a long time.
It was the first time Tharnak had seen death claim someone he loved.
The first time he'd held a weapon with purpose.
And when the forge-guards found him hours later—half-broken, bloodied, and dragging his cousin's body behind him—they didn't see a boy anymore.
They saw a dwarf.
A warrior.
A survivor.
And the mountain still didn't care.
But that was all right.
Because Tharnak would make the mountain remember his name.