We waited a week in the ruined valley, while the demon emperor’s forces were replenished. When the mountain pass was truly closed, the demon emperor continued north to the Daz Baradash, the citadel heart of the dwarf kingdom. I instructed him on which roads to travel, what valleys to cross, and on where he’d find the tunnels to our deep road, the subterranean highway that connected the Golud Baradash.

An’ so, I was left with a detachment of my own: One-hundred human riders, two-hundred human knights with zweihanders and bows, and three companies of dwarf turncoats that swore oaths of loyalty in my name. My forces totaled roughly seven hundred, all told. My orders were to severe the head of the dwarf kingdom by killing king Dazka. Without a king, and with their citadel under siege, the dwarfs would isolate themselves in their disparate mountain holds. The demon emperor could then pick them off one by one.

We packed our supplies on the backs of hardy donkeys and traveled to Shuk-ilkron. It was the deepest mine in the kingdom, from which the majority of dwarf mithril was sourced. I had told my father to await me there, but as Shuk-ilkron was isolated from the deep roads, our journey was long and we were beleaguered by snow storms.

Many horses starved and were left behind, and knights were lost to ice trolls in early-morning raids. We were diminished by half, but we pressed ever onward, toward the highest peak in the land. It was so tall that in the day it blocked the setting sun, and at night the turning cosmos appeared to pour around it in phantasmal colors of red and blue.

After a month of travel, we arrived after nightfall. Shuk-ilkron was well guarded, defended on all sides by indomitable walls and square towers hewed from solid rock. The finest doom in all Baradash was maintained there, and they patrolled the woods regularly, in both times of peace and war. Their equipment of mithril and adamantine was renowned, for the finest smiths worked the great forges of Shuk-ilkron, and used the fruit of dwarf labor to create masterpieces of craftdwarfship.

As we approached, the snow was up to my chest. The humans trudged behind me, where it was packed up to their waist. We left the donkeys behind and the men wrapped themselves in warm ice troll pelts. They snuffed their torches and took position around the wood. I ordered them to adjust their eyes as best they could and warm their hearts with the last of our dwarfen ale. They would need every advantage, for when I lit my flare, they would begin their attack.

My loyal dwarfs followed me toward the fortress gate and I hailed him in the manner of our kin. The gate opened to celebration. They had received news of the demon emperor’s victory and his advance on the kingdom. They had thought me dead. When word reached my father’s ear, he declared a night of feasting, but did not emerge from the underhalls.

Large cedar tables were pulled out from storage, the barracks, and mess hall. The snow was cleared from the fortress courtyard and old braziers were lit with bright cinderfire. It was a night of drinking, chanting, and singing. We regaled each other with stories of our journeys, our hardships, and those of our ancestors, of which we were extremely proud.

Meanwhile, loyal dwarfs slipped from the feasting tables and took the walls. They took unsuspecting dwarfs by surprise, be it by their smile or their handshake. The tower guards were eliminated and my lieutenant, a dwarf with an immense brown beard wrapped in a single braid, worked his way through the revelers to my seat at the feast.

“The accommodations are ready, your highness.”

I nodded to him and handed him the silverine tube from my side satchel.

“Deliver this message,” I said. “And give our host our thanks.”

My lieutenant made a grim expression. He nodded and took the tube in hand. Minutes after he disappeared into the crowd, and I was hoisted by cheering dwarfs, the flare was lit in a high tower. Those revelers, who were the majority of the dwarfs stationed in that fortress, were disarmed and unarmored. They were fiercely loyal to my father, to the crown, and to Golud Baradash. There would be no negotiations with fine kin like they.

The humans scaled the smooth walls with grappling hooks. From the parapets, they drew their short bows and loosed arrows across the crowd. My loyal comrades took up their axes and cut down their fellows. It was not a quiet battle, it was not without its tears, but it was swift. Decorated in dwarf blood, I walked through the underhalls. Distant screams of betrayal rung clear as a bell in the vaunted ceiling.

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I gave the royal guard no time to secure the inner doors. They were outfitted in fine adamantine, but they fell against my all the same axe. The confusion told in their eyes, their apprehension and sorrow, was no match for my fury. I was a nightmare made real.

I found my father on the sixth floor. The last of his guards lay dead in heaps at the door. He was alone at the end of a great colonnade hall, his back turned to me as he faced an enormous portal gate. Through its iron bars was an elevator that descended to the very deepest level of the mine. I understood that there were secrets in that place of which even I was unaware. My father was keen to protect them.

“So,” he said. “You have returned.”

His voice echoed up the hall as I approached, axes low in my hands. The braids of my beard were splashed with blood, and my eyes shined in luminescent red.

“I ‘ave returned,” I said. “I kept my word.”

My father was dressed in a colorful robe of blues, grays, and gold lining. It was decorated in stone ornaments and its cloth was inscribed with the rune words of our kin. He appeared to stroke the many braids of his white beard, clasped tightly in golden bands.

“What news do you bring?” he asked.

“The war is over, father,” I said. “We failed to defeat the demon emperor. He has crossed the mountains and valleys and laid siege to the Daz Baradash. Before long, the whole of the kingdom will fall before him.”

“Then this hall must be sealed,” he said. “It must be closed, so that what lay beneath never see the light of day.”

“I cannot do that,” I answered.

He turned slowly; his hand nestled in the braids of his beard. His sharp eyes checked me with no reaction, rather I felt illuminated by them, stunned with their comprehension.

“You knew?” I asked.

“I feared,” he said. “I cannot know how, or why, you have chosen this path, but the fact remains.

“This is what you have decided.”

I stopped, perhaps ten feet apart from him. I held my axes firmly and tightened my jaw. “What are you doing, father?” I asked.

“This is what I’ve decided,” he said.

“Why?” I asked again. “I’m here to kill you!”

“You were my responsibility, Balagrim, until the day you took the throne,” he said. “Your life, your education, your accomplishments, and mistakes. Whatever you have done, I believe, it’s because of what I taught you. This outcome reflects on me as a king and as your father.”

My axes trembled. My arms shuddered with despair. My father did not meet my challenge in the dwarfen way, by duel. He did not cower, or hide. Whether he had been warned beforehand, or realized it through his own insight, he had prepared himself as I saw him. There he stood crownless before a door many times his size, under a hall carved by a thousand hands, in soft robes that befit a proud dwarf on the precipice of death.

His eyes were steady. I saw blame in them, but it was not for me. He blamed himself and all dwarf kind.

“Whatever conclusion you have reached,” my father said. “You could only have made by drawing on your own conscience. You, who was so true to our ways, and so filial a son, were the one entrusted with our future. If you have discarded the crown, then so too will I toss my own.

“I will not fight you. If the dwarfs are to die, then we go to the black by our hand. Your hand.”

My father sat on his knees and folded his hands over his beard. My red eyes glistened and I took one step forward.

“I ask again,” he said. “Do not let the demon emperor have what is in the deep.”

“I cannot do that,” I repeated.

“Despite your actions, I know you do not serve the demon emperor for the sake of power,” he said. “Whatever your reason, it must be for the good of dwarf kind.”

Tears dampened my face.

“It must be so,” my father said. “What lay below… is therefore something that was meant for you, but it is not something you deserve.

“And that fault is our own.”

He lowered his head and I loomed over him, my axe wound to strike.

“I kneel before you,” he said. “But you must hold your head high. So long as you stay true and loyal to the dwarfen ways, then come the day of our next meeting, you may decide again whether you are worthy.”

“Aye,” I said quietly. “I love you, father.”

Blood spilled across the black marble floor and king Dazka slumped to the ground. I left my axe buried there, in his flesh, and turned to the noises approaching from behind. It was the humans and my loyal dwarfs. The arrived in their black armor and white ice-troll pelts, their weapons wet with dwarf blood.

“Excellent work, Balagrim,” the commander of the humans said. “We have taken the fortress. All that remains is securing the mithril mine for our emperor’s ambitions.”

The men stepped forward and I stomped the floor, hard enough to crack the marble tile and disturb dust from the walls of the colonnade. My eyes shined with power, pressured their bodies, such that the men did not take another step.

“This gate will be sealed shut,” I said. “The emperor has already had his prize. The Golud Baradash is his to rule.”

“But—”

The human looked surprised as I twirled my axe.

“I am your master,” I said. “My word is as good as the emperor’s. This door will be sealed, forever!”

Those dwarfs still among the men ran forward. They set their axes on the ground and knelt before me. “My king,” my lieutenant said. “Yer command will be done.”

“I am no king,” I answered and slipped my axe back into its belt loop. I walked past them, toward the exit.

“I am a Demon Lord.”