At the end of a narrow mountain pass opening onto a vast, open plain, a long column of dwarves pressed forward in desperation.
Some twenty thousand of them, crammed into an endless march, fleeing what had, until recently, been their home.
Their great underground metropolis, the city that had kept them safe and hidden from the world for two centuries, now lay behind them.
Roughly half of them were civilians.
Elders who could barely walk, women carrying children in their arms, kids who didn't fully understand why they'd had to abandon their homes overnight.
The other half were warriors — men and women of sturdy build, clad in armor and weapons, marching along the flanks and at the rear, protecting their people with clenched jaws and tense eyes.
At the head of them all, leading the column, marched a dwarf of broad, powerful build.
He had hair and a beard of deep red, and across his back he carried an enormous war hammer.
