Despite the concealment spell Ibbalat had cast upon them, they stayed silent as they descended. While for weeks now Anathta had been playing the role of Redgate’s paramour, masking her troubles behind a jovial exterior, even she was silent here. The tension was high. It was one thing to know that your enemies could neither see nor hear you; it was another thing entirely to chat away nonchalantly as you traipsed through their city. Everyone had their eyes peeled for danger, turning at any sudden noise.

Minutes passed. As they neared the lower levels, the reek of accumulated filth began to fill their nostrils. It probably didn’t help that, wherever possible, Kani took them along less-populated corridors – moving invisibly, they got to see many of the hidden areas of this warren-metropolis. There were great vats of meal standing in one cavern, kitchen-kobolds hard at work grinding bones and separating rotting meat from clothing. Tribal dormitories, redolent with the odours of decade-old sweat and other, even less savourous scents. Abandoned mine-shafts, ropes and chains strung across the ceilings where carts had once hung. Mushroom farms, crude alchemical facilities, well-dipping rooms…

Every step was one step closer. And here, on the threshold of the battle for which he’d been waiting for so long, the warrior found his resolve wavering.

It is not Ord Ylon we face. It is the evil of our own making. The slayer we brought here to save us will be the death of us.

What was Redgate going to do if he won? Was he planning to drop the roof on them and leave their corpses there with the dragon’s? Or would he take them with him, as unliving slaves?

Those were the only two eventualities Phanar could bring himself to imagine, when he was being honest with himself. For certain, he could imagine a better end. He could picture himself giving up the adventuring career, settling down somewhere with Kani – she could open a healing shrine, and he could teach swordplay for coin. Ibb and Anathta would visit, and the four of them would…

Would what? Such imaginings always turned to ash. They were the flights of fancy that men clung to in their last moments, day-dreams and wishful thoughts. No. Dead, or undead – neither was a future he could become. Neither was acceptable. And they were the only options he could wrap his head around.

We have a few advantages, he reminded himself. The sorcerer has many more tricks up his sleeve than we, but that doesn’t mean we have nothing. It means only that every surprise has to count.

Feeling a little better, he flicked his gaze about at their surroundings, taking in a plethora of details at a single glance.

They’d come to a convergence of routes and there were lots of kobolds in this spot, many of them travelling uphill.

More and more guards had been passing them for the last five minutes, heading upwards.

Then he smelt it.

“Anathta!”

She looked at him, her gaze surprisingly calm, collected.

“Wolves,” he said.

She took a deep sniff, then her eyes widened in alarm.

“We’re covered, when it comes to scent,” Ibbalat advised. “They can’t pick us out.”

“Let’s hope you’re right,” the warrior replied.

They continued on their way, following Kani down a spiralling slope, keeping to the edge of tunnel and stopping in natural alcoves when the foot-traffic became too heavy to sneak around.

Redgate said nothing, gave no outward sign of protest, despite the fact these interruptions should’ve been an annoyance to him – crowds meant nothing to the sorcerer. Walls and floors meant nothing to the sorcerer!

Could it be that even he felt uneasy? That at this last step the archmage would falter?

Phanar supposed that, with all the hate flowing through him, he’d never paused to think about how Redgate must’ve been feeling. Even creatures of pure evil and arrogance could doubt, couldn’t they?

I hope Ord Ylon closes his teeth on you even as you cut off his head!

He drew a deep breath.

I am doing it again.

Then he realised just how much the odour had grown in the past thirty seconds.

As they rounded the next corner they saw it, heard it. It was berating what appeared to be a small coven of kobold shamans, the robed creatures clutching their staves defensively.

The dire wolf was roughly the size of a pony, black as pitch. Its eyes were vivid, startling green. The slobber that foamed from its massive jaw fell in congealed gobbets, plopping to the stone floor as it spoke.

The potion translated the dire wolf’s language just the same as it did the kobolds’.

“The Master says they’re already here!” it snapped into the face of a terrified-looking male kobold, the feathers upon his headdress and leather smock only amplifying every miniscule quiver of his shrinking flesh, making him into a shaking peacock. “They were to be taken prisoner. You – and you!” It indicated two of the magicians with a huge fore-paw, and they clutched their spell-rods even tighter. “Head up with the fighters and find out what’s happening. This failure will not be tolerated. The rest of you – work your conjurations. They must be found – now.”

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Kani swiftly passed by the chamber, skirting the walls again, and the rest followed on her heels, eager to be away from the massive, magic-blooded beast.

Ylon knew we were coming anyway, Phanar thought with some satisfaction. It felt nice to have the confirmation. So he was looking for us after all.

If the dragon knew they were coming for him… Was there a sliver of a chance that Ord Ylon had experienced his own anxiety over this confrontation? Was it the night wolf’s frustration being expressed by its exhortations, or was it the wolf’s master’s?

But then, why would he have not capsized them while they travelled to Tirremuir aboard the Dremmedine?

He wants us, Phanar realised, and a coldness flooded him. He wanted us, all along. Here.

To torture. For the murders of his spawn.

He looked at the others, but none of them seemed to have put the pieces together; their faces showed none of the heightened concern he would’ve expected to see if they had.

Except the unreadable archmage. He might’ve been intuiting the likeliest possibilities, but, of course, there was no way to tell.

“We’ve got three minutes left on the spell,” Ibbalat said. “I can renew it two, maybe three times if I can stretch my reagents…”

“We do not know how far down the lair is,” Phanar reminded everyone. “Unless – Kani?”

She didn’t look back, but he caught her saying: “We aren’t three minutes away from the gate out, but how much farther from there – I don’t yet know. I have to trust it. It’s taking me on the best path.”

Her voice sounded tight, as though she were right on the edge of losing her nerve; she didn’t seem to be huffing with the exertion yet, but he could see the sweat glistening on her cheeks where it’d run from beneath her helmet.

“We cannot afford to waste resources,” Phanar said. “We will wait to surveil the next section before deciding whether you should cast it again, Ibbalat.”

“It won’t work on Ylon,” the mage said regretfully, “but if there are some more wolves down there, we’ll need it.”

“Perhaps,” Anathta said, a terse one-word reply. She was getting closer to her own combat-self, Phanar realised, now that she’d seen one of the wolves up close again. It was the first time in a long time – and he knew she had her own deadly state that came over her when it was time to kill.

When they came to the final gateway, the low metal-clad doors were of course barred. Eight more guards, loitering about with bored expressions on their faces.

Lingering just around the corner to discuss their options, Phanar suggested the obvious play, to which the others readily agreed.

The concealment-spell negated by a flick of Ibbalat’s hand, they ran (on what Phanar supposed would look like flapping kobold-feet) around the bend.

“Fellow kobolds!” Ibbalat cried. “You’re needed! Intruders in the upper levels! The wolf of the Master commands you!”

The guards barely waited a second – the notion of enduring a dire wolf’s wrath seemed to be enough to spur them into immediate action. Half of them left their posts without even taking their weapons with them.

The last guard to pass them did stop for a moment, turning her head –

“But what about you lot?” she asked, peering for a second time at their high-quality armour and clothing.

“Duh!” Ibbalat groaned, affecting a bit of panting. “We’re here to look after the gate, aren’t we?”

It didn’t seem to matter that it made no sense – the kobold just nodded and ran off after the other guards.

They lifted the bars, and walked through into the next dark tunnel, letting the gates swing shut behind them. There were no guards on the outside of these doors… Had Shrunken-Tail and the others been posted by Red-Of-The-Fur outside the upper-level doors, specifically to watch for the dragon-slayers? Yet they’d fallen for it? Phanar hoped there was another explanation. Surely even kobolds couldn’t be that stupid.

“Ibbalat, can you lock it behind us?” Phanar asked. “We do not want them following us, but if we can get back the same way when we leave – this would be for the best.”

The magician patted his pockets, his pouches. “Sure – I’ve got a sealing-spell…”

“Do not trouble yourself.”

Redgate turned, sweeping his head about in an arc as though studying the squared-off archway – measuring distances? Then, before anyone could discern how to properly react, whether to say or do anything, the sorcerer raised a hand and it was no longer a hand.

Protruding out of his sleeve was a gauntleted fist, formed from crimson-enamelled plates of armour, the metal articulated down to the fingertip. Swiftly the dark, shining surfaces spread along his arms, his sleeves transforming as they watched: the huge gloves covering the hands melded into spiked bracers along the forearms; jointed greaves at the elbows stretched up the biceps, forming jagged pauldrons over his shoulders. Then, even more quickly, the rest of his body was covered. A breastplate with its scarlet, bloody sheen. Leg-plates and heavy metal boots. Every inch of him was coated in the demonic metal.

The mask alone was left almost untouched by his transformation: the spider-face was now red instead of black. A high collar of plate rose up behind his head.

The archmage reached high, sank his fingers and then his whole hands into the rock above the gateway.

Within seconds, Redgate had created a cave-in.

The others backed away, breathing through cloaks or other bits of cloth as dust billowed into the tunnel. The din it caused was atrocious, and seemed never-ending.

After a solid fifteen seconds spent coughing and wincing at the continuing noise, it finally died down, and Phanar saw as Redgate floated through the clouds of dust towards them, drifting along without a care in the world.

“Too loud!” Ibbalat snarled, seemingly without being able to help himself. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Sealing-spells may be undone,” the champion said breezily. “To disintegrate or command-aside the weight of stone I have just brought down? This is not so-easily accomplished, and will likely require a significant expenditure, measured in both power and time spent at the task.”

“I know that!” the magician retorted. “We were supposed to go back that way, remember!”

“I can move aside the rocks.” The archmage affected a brief shrug. “Our routes both in descent and ascent are secured. Shall we continue, Sister?”

Kani’s gaze was steely as she nodded in response, her movements almost jerky as she spun on her heel and continued leading them down the tunnel.

And now only Redgate can get us out, Phanar thought. Was it calculated by him to be so?

At the thought, the warrior felt the gentle smile split his face, and he tucked in his chin to hide it, as though he looked at the ground to maintain his footing, something he hadn’t had to do since the cradle.

Where Kani had her faith, he had his instincts.

I swallowed my ghost. I crossed the sand. I smashed the hourglass and remade it in starlight. I walked every way. I took every path. I found my future. And I became it.

This time, the nothingness came over him, the cool sheath from which his mind could be redrawn again at need, a cold weapon to bisect his obstacles.

Even obstacles in crimson demon-armour.

* * *