Hammers fell silent when a rider’s breath fogged the tunnel and a sealed scroll thudded on the stone—Laurenz heard the knock and smelled the damp cloak before the messenger spoke. The hammering had been the city’s heartbeat; now it stopped, small and anxious, as a name was read aloud that carried the weight of a throne.
Salzburg held music and gold above, but below its rooftops a different rhythm kept time. For a kingdom hewed from rock, sound and breath meant life or doom. Laurenz wiped soot from his palm, tasted iron, and looked up at the men waiting for his word.
A rider arrived with a scroll sealed by Duke Leopold of Austria. The decree demanded fealty: tribute in gold and gemstones, and a public oath. The messenger’s eyes slid over the hall as if measuring how much ancient pride could be contained by a single parchment.
The Hidden Kingdom
Below Salzburg’s cobbled streets, past catacombs no map kept, lay Undermount. Its halls were carved from the mountain’s ribs, lit by gemstone veins that gave a steady, ember-bright glow. Coal and hot metal flavored the air; hammers stitched day into night.
A smith named Haldor kept a small brazier where apprentices learned how to temper a blade. He ran fingers along an edge and told a boy to listen for the note the steel gave—if it sang too thin, the weapon would fail when a life depended on it. The boy's palms were callused already; his eyes kept time with the hammer.
For generations the dwarves prospered in secret. Their forges made both tools and small wonders; trade with humans was measured and silent. Laurenz kept those trades precise—iron for silk, gems for grain—so his people would neither bleed into the world above nor starve by cutting themselves off.
Laurenz led by example. He spoke in short lines and set his jaw when the council argued. He had learned that firmness and care could hold a people together when greed threatened to pull them apart. In quiet hours he would walk the lower streets and hear a child's attempt at hammerwork—small, off-beat, determined—and he would remember what it was they protected.
The Duke’s command cracked the fragile truce. To demand tribute was to claim ownership of what the dwarves had carved with their hands.
“Tell him we are no man’s subjects,” Laurenz said. “If he wants what we hold, let him come and take it.”
The knight left with the reply, and the hall filled with a hard silence. Thrain Ironfist—broad-shouldered, scarred where steel had kissed bone—spoke for many. “We are forged by hunger and anvils. No lord above will command our blood.”
Laurenz thought of the mines, the apprentices learning to hammer, the smith who taught him to temper an axe. The choice he faced was not only steel against blade; it was whether to hand his people's history to men who saw treasure and nothing else.
The Duke's Ultimatum
The decree fell like winter: cold and indifferent. Miners sealed passages and rerouted air; scouts listened for the soft scrape of boots. The Duke's forces tested the mountain, driving picks into old veins, while Laurenz mapped every seam and weakness in his mind.
