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TWL Chapter 362: The Elder Who Would Not Fall
🕑 Added 2025-04-15 21:38:06 +0000 UTCThe Lion's eyes gleamed sharply, locked onto the dwarven Elder. And the Elder, now that the Scoia'tael dwarf could no longer rant and rave, finally began to speak in a different tone.
“Two hundred years ago, the clans chose me as Elder-in-Chief. I began my rule over Mahakam.”
The three-braided dwarf stared at him in shock as Brouver suddenly reached for his shoulder and slapped it—his cloak slipped off and fell to the ground.
“The elves once knelt at Mahakam’s gates, begging for our aid. But I gave the order to shut those gates.
Their kingdom fell.
Mahakam endured.
Today, we are the last nation still ruled by an Elder Race.”
With a sharp tug at his waist, Brouver yanked off his belt—his breastplate crashed to the ground.
“For centuries, we’ve mined, forged, mined, and forged again. Young dwarves left… only to return.
And you think you, you who joined the Scoia'tael—you think you’re the first to have ideas?
To dream of overthrowing me?”
His eyes blazed.
His face remained calm, but fire was already roaring in his chest.
With one hand, he ripped open the padded shirt beneath his armor, revealing skin like gnarled oak and a chest still sharply defined with muscle—
—and drove it straight against the axe blade.
“You think you’re the first to defy me? To try and kill me?!”
The three-braided dwarf could no longer meet that searing gaze. He began looking around in panic, hoping someone—anyone—would come to his rescue.
“Damn it—someone! Someone give him an axe! Or—or give your Elder a sword!”
The Scoia'tael dwarf’s lips trembled. “If not… if not, then I’ll…”
“What? Kill me?” Brouver coldly cut him off.
“Young fool. You think you've seen the future of the dwarves? You think you're right?”
He thrust his chest forward again, forcing the axe blade to pierce shallowly into his skin.
“Then do it! Kill me! Lead Mahakam into that ‘future’ you dream of! Isn’t that what you believe in?!”
Bright red blood trickled like a stream from the edge where metal met flesh.
But the three-braided dwarf recoiled as if struck by lightning—he jerked his hands back and hurled his only weapon far, far away.
His steps faltered in retreat until finally, one foot tangled with the other—or maybe his knees simply gave out.
With a heavy thud, he collapsed to the ground.
The Elder continued his slow, relentless steps forward, ignoring the gash in his chest, until he stood directly before the fallen dwarf.
“Listen well, traitor—yes, I won’t even bother to remember your name.
I will not die.
Not at the hands of you.
Mahakam won’t allow it.
The dwarves won’t allow it.
And the mountains’ future won’t allow it.”
“Our… our plan… our dream was…”
The last of the dwarf’s defenses crumbled. He could only mumble to himself, unable to finish the words 'plan' or 'dream'.
The mountain wind howled past, swiftly freezing the Elder’s blood into a hardened crimson crust across his chest.
"You wanted to prove you were a man."
The Elder in Chief shook his head as he looked at the Scoia'tael who could no longer stand.
"But even if you’ve grown a beard, you’re still just a child in the end. A plan to return, infiltrate, and overthrow Mahakam? You don’t have the courage for something like that."
"Tell me—who orchestrated all of this?"
"It was... the Scoia'tael. The elves."
The three-braided dwarf moved his lips with difficulty.
"The elves?"
The Elder in Chief’s gaze turned unreadable.
The dwarf lowered his head.
"Those elves… the ones in charge of contacting Nilfgaard. They received orders not long ago. They said… they’re willing to establish a new nation for the elves. And… and they’re also willing to give us dwarves a more open territory of our own."
"Nilfgaard?"
The Elder in Chief’s expression grew even more disappointed.
"A grudge against humans, is that it?"
"Oppression! It was the Northern Kingdoms that oppressed us—Temeria, Kaedwen, Aedirn… and Temeria again..."
The three-braided dwarf muttered to himself, shaking his head wildly.
"We—we could leave the mountains. Become freer, more open. Once we get new lands, Nilfgaard won’t matter anymore. Together with the elves, we could then even turn on Nilfgaard..."
The Elder in Chief stopped looking at him.
He had already heard everything he needed to know.
With a wave of his hand, two dwarf guards immediately stepped forward, re-binding the dazed, rambling dwarf and dragging him away.
Lann suppressed the upward curve of his lips with sheer force of will.
He strode forward and stopped exactly five steps away from Brouver Hoog.
“Elder in Chief, are you all right?” Lann’s gaze rested on the shallow wound on the old dwarf’s chest.
“No, Duke Lannister. I am not all right,” the Elder in Chief replied solemnly.
“I’m freezing to death!”
The short, bare-chested elder suddenly began stomping his feet and shouting at the top of his lungs. “Damn it! Are you all a bunch of idiots? Where’s my cloak? Where are my clothes?”
The guards, who had just been watching him with reverence from a few paces away, immediately scrambled in a panic. They rushed into the biting wind to retrieve the elder’s cloak, their stubby legs moving frantically. They quickly draped it back over his shoulders, covering the blood that had already clotted into dark patches.
Since the Elder in Chief hadn’t vented his anger on the Scoia'tael earlier, he now unleashed it in full on his own dwarven guard. He kicked one of the soldiers helping him with the cloak right in the rear, then resumed stomping to keep warm, cursing fluently in the elder speech.
“I know what you’re about to say, Duke Lannister—but give it a moment. That includes what I told you about the changing situation in the Northern front. Once we reach Mount Carbon, we’ll discuss it all under the witness of our ancestors and the goddess. The answers you want will come more easily then, and with more certainty.”
“If it’s inconvenient, we can wait until Mahakam settles its own affairs first,” Lann said, nodding toward the captured Scoia'tael members, his voice deliberately tactful.
“No, no need. They’re not a problem for me,” the Elder in Chief said with a shake of his head. “Let’s continue our journey.”
After a short rest, the dwarves prepared to move out again. Soon, from the direction of Mount Carbon, a group of dwarves came rushing over, their tiny legs working double-time to check on the Elder in Chief’s condition.
Leading them was Colonel Barclay.
Still stomping from the cold, the Elder in Chief gave the respected officer a fierce tongue-lashing. Barclay, brave and battle-tested as he was, took the scolding in complete silence, like a child being rebuked by his elder. He blamed himself deeply for the lapse in Mount Carbon’s defenses that had allowed the Scoia'tael to slip through.
When Barclay offered to assign more soldiers to the Elder in Chief’s escort to ensure his safety, the old dwarf exploded again. His roar could’ve shaken the mountain: “So, you think Mahakam has other enemies now, do you? Are you that damn useless already? You think I’m as worthless as you are? That I’d actually get myself killed in Mahakam?!”
After being thoroughly chewed out, Barclay finally left with the captured Scoia'tael members in tow, taking them back to Mount Carbon.
The Elder in Chief stood silently, watching them go. The Cintran warriors nearby braced themselves, expecting another burst of anger. But the white-bearded dwarf just stood there, quietly. His bushy eyebrows drooped like a forest canopy, partially veiling his aging eyes.
There was no fury in them.
Only sorrow. Deep, aching sorrow.
“Let’s move.” After the dwarven engineers reinforced the long bridge once more, the Elder in Chief turned to call out to Lann. “To Mount Carbon.”
…
On the eastern side of Mount Carbon, in the Mahakam Mountains, connected by an ancient underground road and an external mountain route that crosses the Langbridge, lies an unnamed city, simply called Mount Carbon, as if it were part of the mountain itself. A fortified city and sanctuary carved into the rock, it is less accessible to humans and protected by sealed tunnels and hidden entrances.
Considered the spiritual and ancestral cradle of the Mahakam dwarves, the city houses the Founders' Chamber, where the bones and weapons of the seven original clans are preserved.
Although dwarves do not follow a divine pantheon like humans, they do venerate their ancestors and maintain a system of worship based on memory, legacy, and tribal honor. Their beliefs are not articulated through temples or sacred scriptures, but through stone, fire, and spilled blood. And in this city, the oldest and most closed city in Mahakam, that veneration reaches its purest form.
There burns the Flame of Borin, an eternal fire lit since the founding of Mahakam, which has never been extinguished. Around it stand the Steel Tablets, enormous plates inscribed with the names of all those who have fallen in battle since the time before the arrival of humans. And, at the far end of the central hall, stands the Throne of the First King, carved directly from a vein of dark hematite, a symbol of the lost lineage of the founding clans. No one has dared to sit on it for centuries. But beyond the glare of politics and war, there is another symbol, more subtle but deeply rooted.
Above the outer gates of the city, hidden from the view of ordinary visitors, stands a colossal statue of the dwarven goddess of fertility and abundance. Her generously proportioned silhouette is carved with simplicity and strength from volcanic stone. She bears no weapons or crown, only a mantle of sculpted flowers and her hands extended in a welcoming gesture.
According to dwarven tradition, this figure represents an ancestral incarnation of the goddess Melitele, reinterpreted not as an abstract divinity, but as a symbol of fertile stone, of the cavern that protects and gives life, of the womb that nourishes both the clan and the earth.
She is not worshiped like humans would. There are no masses or prayers. But every now and then, a dwarf mother leaves dried flowers at her feet, a young apprentice places a polished stone before beginning his work, or an old healer murmurs words under her breath as she rubs her copper necklace.
This city doesn't have a council like Mount Carbon. It's ruled by the 'Guardians of the Deep,' a hereditary order of dwarven elders who serve as custodians of the cultural legacy.
They don't intervene directly in politics, but their word is law among the oldest clans, and they are second only in authority to the Elder in Chief.
