Free Resurgent Shadows (Successive Harmony Book 1) by Kevin L. Nielsen Page A

you promise to show me about these here boomsticks.”
    Caleb spun around. He had been focused on his work, absorbed in the labor. He had not heard Sigvid enter the room. He didn’t know how to answer, so he simply nodded.
    The dverger’s face was a grim mask, but his eyes were friendly. “These human weapons are a mystery to me, and the metals and materials used in them strange.”
    Caleb nodded again, but didn’t say anything.
    “The Council would have me kill you, human, but I said you could be trusted. Will you betray that trust?”
    Caleb paused halfway between a frown and an open expression of confusion. Why would the dverger have done that? How could Sigvid say anything about trust after only knowing him a few short hours?
    “Ack, there will be time for that later,” Sigvid said with a scowl. “First, we should pay respect to the honored dead. This is something that no human has ever seen before. Follow me.”
    Sigvid didn’t wait for him to respond, but Caleb followed anyway. The dverger only led him a short distance down the hall and entered a room made entirely of white marble and walls curved in an ovular shape. Black lettering covered the ceiling, carved into the rock, an odd contrast to the beauty of the pure white stone. Square blocks of the white marble sat in rows along both sides of the wall. Long marble pews ran along the ground on a line outward from each square set into the wall; their seats were covered in deep purple silk and their backs exposed to the air. Dvergers occupied each seat in the pews, each of them garbed in gleaming armor and bearing an array of weapons. Bothvar, seated on the last bench, looked back as they entered. His eyes widened in shock and anger.
    “You cannot be bringing him here, Sigvid,” he hissed. “You will not be violating the sacred dead.”
    Sigvid’s response was cold and immediate. “You’re here, on this side of the Watch, because of him. He is here as part of the Honor Guard.”
    “Did the Council be deciding this?”
    “We did, Bothvar,” a new voice said. “Now be silent. You do be dishonoring the dead with your anger.”
    Caleb turned to see who had spoken. A dverger, hair and beard gone white with age, stood behind him, an anvil clutched in his burly arms. Behind him, four other ancient dvergers stood in similar positions, each one bearing an anvil.
    Caleb moved aside so that they could pass.
    “That’s right, slink away,” Caleb muttered in a barely audible whisper. “Don’t dishonor your dead unless you care to join them.”
    Sigvid gave him a hard, penetrating look but then turned away before Caleb could give him a questioning look.
    Bothvar scowled at Caleb beneath his bushy beard and turned back to watch the procession march to the front of the room, where three large marble urns rested.
    Sigvid pulled Caleb into a seat on the bench opposite Bothvar.
    The dvergers placed their anvils on the ground around the urns, the largest anvil placed in the center. Each dverger took a position behind their anvil and pulled small, ornate hammers from their belts. The hammers glistened with a faint white light, as if they had been ornamented in silver and polished with powdered light. Caleb wanted to lean over and ask Sigvid what was going on, but the solemn atmosphere kept him quiet.
    Suddenly, a note rang out, deep and pure. It reverberated off the walls, growing as it echoed. One of the ancient dvergers dropped his hammer onto the anvil in front of him and another note rang out, higher than the first, but melding with it in harmonious unity. More notes sounded as the other anvils were struck, joining in a chorus that sounded as if scores of the instruments were being played.
    As one, the dvergers seated on the white marble benches lifted their voices and joined in the song.
     
    “Brothers here, down in the deep, now we guard you as you sleep.
    Through battles fought while in this life, now you rest free of strife,
    Together now, with your kin,