The world was young, the mountains green,
No stain yet on the Moon was seen,
No words were laid on stream or stone
When Durin woke and walked alone.
He named the nameless hills and dells;
He drank from yet untasted wells;
He stooped and looked in Mirrormere,
And saw a crown of stars appear,
As gems upon a silver thread,
Above the shadow of his head.
The world was fair, the mountains tall,
In Elder Days before the fall
Of mighty kings in Nargothrond
And Gondolin, who now beyond
The Western Seas have passed away:
The world was fair in Durin's Day.
A king he was on carven throne
In many-pillared halls of stone
With golden roof and silver floor,
And runes of power upon the door.
The light of sun and star and moon
In shining lamps of crystal hewn
Undimmed by cloud or shade of night
There shone for ever fair and bright.
There hammer on the anvil smote,
There chisel clove, and graver wrote;
There forged was blade, and bound was hilt;
The delver mined, the mason built.
There beryl, pearl, and opal pale,
And metal wrought like fishes' mail,
Buckler and corslet, axe and sword,
And shining spears were laid in hoard.
Unwearied then were Durin's folk;
Beneath the mountains music woke:
The harpers harped, the minstrels sang,
And at the gates the trumpets rang.
The world is grey, the mountains old,
The forge's fire is ashen-cold;
No harp is wrung, no hammer falls;
The darkness dwells in Durin's halls;
The shadow lies upon his tomb
In Moria, in Khazad-dum.
But still the sunken stars appear
In dark and windless Mirrormere;
There lies his crown in water deep,
Till Durin wakes again from sleep.
She had the time to repeat her song three times before their part of the army finally reached the lower levels of the stairs. The march came at that moment abruptly to an halt, as loud and big "CLANG!" and "CRASH!" were suddenly heard.
Everyone in the vicinity stopped whispering or singing. The "CLANG!" and "CRASH!"could be heard during half a minute or so, and then silence fell again in the depths of the mountain. One look towards the goblins that were nearby and the curse-breakers was enough to be sure that whatever noises these were, Alexandra guessed they had not been part of any scenario.
Turning in direction of Sturmwald, she whispered:
"What do you think it was, Sir?"
At the light of his wand, Heinrich's face looked glum.
"It was the platform elevator. I think." Replied the German curse-breaker in a hesitant tone that was out of character for him.
"You told us the wards protecting the elevator were perfectly safe!" Snarled a massive goblin warrior next to Stephen Selwyn. "Damn humans unable to work properly..." the rest of the sentence was said in another language, but Alexandra did not need to know it to know the goblin was agonising them of insults.
"Quiet." Said Sturmwald. "His face was ashen, and Alexandra's heart accelerated when she realised the man was afraid."If we were wrong about the elevator, then we may be wrong about the main doors too. And if we are..."
"Oh, no." Alexandra own voice sounded distant, even to her own ears. "They provoked an alert in the dark magic wards in order for us to descend here."
"Ridiculous!" The same goblin who had spoken earlier told them. "They should have known how we would react! And even if they did, we have an entire army here!"
"Much less as it pain me to admit it, the goblin's right!" Told Henry Thurgood in his best 'I'm a pureblood and so I'm superior to everyone else'. "Their little trap has no chance against the magical power we brought!"
"Imbecile!" Snarled Sturmwald. "How did you manage to get your curse-breaker license? Until we have found what's waiting for us, we have to assume that they have information about our procedures and formations!"
"Not that this little debate isn't interesting," Interjected Jeremiah Maestro. "But isn't the atmosphere a bit hot suddenly?"
The man's remark hit home. The goblins and the humans had walked for so long at such rapid pace they had missed the warmth which was suddenly engulfing the base of the stairs.
"It comes from the vault 13. I think." Told a goblin on the left.
"What was supposed to be there?" Asked Thurgood, in a tone which made limpid he had not liked at all being insulted in front of everyone.
"Don't know!" Grunted the goblin. "Do I look like the Senior Keeper of the Vaults?"
"You little..."
Henry Thurgood had not the time to finish what was undoubtedly a nasty insult to the goblin. A terrifying bestial noise resonated in the corridors and the stairs, half growl, half whistle. The sound was unnatural and stopped all debate for ten seconds.
"What was that?" Shouted Thurgood.
"Definitely coming from vault 13!" Affirmed the goblin which had just been speaking previously. "Follow me!"
In ten seconds, hundreds of goblins and three dozen humans began to run in a corridor on their right, which led them directly to the entrance of the vault in question. The war cry and the shouts in the nearby corridor told them the rest of the expeditionary force had followed the same reasoning.
At least, what should have been a vault. Alexandra had seen her personal trust vault at Gringotts, and it had been a massive door with runes, mechanisms and other inscriptions to ensure the security of the possessions inside. No door was quite the same at London, but the Potter Heiress imagined a steel door was a steel door, no matter the family who owned the vault.
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