All through the caverns of Vanerak's realm, his runeknights end their final forgings. Metal cools to gray. Reagent flashes into bright colors; runic power is brought shivering forth. Hammers are hung on their hooks and leather smocks are folded and packed away. Dark armors of tungsten plate are adjusted to fit. Newly gleaming weapons are swung and stabbed, their affixed thorns rending the air. Furnaces are left to cool, and dim, and grow cold.
Hayhek kisses his wife, kisses his daughters, wipes the tears from his eyes. He hands over his last purse of gold to them and puts on his ruby-dotted helm. He marches from their home and out along the dark tracks leading to the Runethane's palace.
The cavern air blows hot, but he feels cold, empty, lonely. As he treads the path of history, over the grand mosaics of battles long past, he wonders just how many widows and orphans were left behind in the wake of the Runekings' great wars and tries not to think about what surely happened to them after their protectors were slain.
A glint of blue catches his eye. He kneels to look at the figure of Zathar, the traitor, the Second Runeforger. He wishes he'd had a chance to speak with him one last time, to put some closure to their friendship—for friends is what they have become, despite Hayhek's swearing that they could never grow close.
How will he fare, in his cell, when he realizes that all have perished? Hayhek has no doubt none will make it back alive from this senseless invasion. He obeys the Runethane only from a lingering sense of duty, and fear of what might happen to his family if he was to refuse the call.
“The traitor, ay?” someone whispers.
Hayhek turns and sees a runeknight he only barely knows, wearing tungsten of about fifth degree quality. His visor, of almost tooth-like interlocking triangles, is down.
“Yes,” says Hayhek. “I was there, that day.”
“So was I. But how much of that tale is true, and how much falsehood?”
“It is all true. I was there—with him.”
“Ah, of course. I recognize you, Hayhek. But they say you are also his friend.”
“I wouldn't go so far.”
“No, of course not, of course. But...”
“What is it?”
The runeknight with the tooth-like visor looks back. Two senior runeknights are approaching. “Never mind,” he says. “We'll see how things turn out, in the magma. But he has more friends than he realizes.”
“Let's get a move on,” Hayhek says nervously.
“Of course, of course.”
They advance through the great gates and into the entrance hall. It is not as crowded as it was on their last visit here, a while back now, when Runethane Vanerak first removed his mask and ordered their advance beyond the magma shore. There had been cheering back then, much brandishing of weapons and imagining of victory. Now the atmosphere is like that of a catacomb.
Hayhek had dawdled in saying goodbye to his family, had worried a little that he would be late, but this doesn't seem to be the case. He ends up standing right near the front.
The Runethane's carven stone throne sits empty and dusty. He recalls the moment the Runethane lifted his mirror-mask, showing the brutish, red-lipped, cold-eyed face beneath, and his stomach twitches with revulsion. To think that one dwarf should carry the fates of so many in his hand. To have the power to lead them to their deaths, to leave so many behind bereft. And he can enforce his commands with terrible cruelty. Hayhek glances sideways at the runeknight with the tooth-like visor. Through two slits in his helm, that dwarf's eyes, fixed directly upon the throne, look as cold as Vanerak's.
After a half-hour there is a commotion at the back of the hall. It could only be one thing—one dwarf—and Hayhek hurries sideways with the flow of the crowd as it parts.
Runethane Vanerak walks down the parted sea of tungsten armor followed closely by his three remaining first degrees—commanding Nazak, inscrutable Halax, and cruel Helzar. He is wrapped in a suit of tungsten foil, enruned minutely, but Hayhek has seen the Runethane's foilsuit on past occasions, and his eyes are drawn to something else: bare stone—the rear third of the hall is bare. Runeknights used to crowd even the first part of the corridor out, but now they do not fill even the whole of the hall! How many remain? Perhaps only five hundred or so. Certainly less than a thousand.
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And towards the back the armor is poor in quality. They are seventh degrees in name only: Runethane Vanerak used to be feared as an examiner, when there was a great surplus of candidates, but these dwarves are not worthy of their rank. Hayhek sees this and feels not anger, as some dwarves feel about the loosening of standards, but a pang of sadness. Some of the faces look young, too young, nearly as young as Yezakh was when he strode into a fight he was not ready for.
Runethane Vanerak and his three elites ascend the steps and turn to face the gathered runeknights. Slowly the Runethane lifts his mirror-mask, revealing once again his face. It has not changed. No emotion shows in his cold eyes or on his blood-hued lips.
“I have little to say to you,” he says. “You know why I have gathered you. It is time to make a final assault upon the foul demons and give meaning to the great losses we have suffered. I will lead you. I have no new weapon, but the old shall suffice, as it has before.”
No one applauds his words.
“Perhaps you have little confidence in this assault. Yet it is our duty to obey Runeking Ulrike to the last and retrieve the secret knowledge he has sent us to gather. That the demons try to prevent our entrance to the innermost parts of the city is proof that therein lies what we seek.”
Still no applause, no reaction. Runethane Vanerak lifts his pollaxe high.
“Follow me, my runeknights, on our final expedition beyond the magma shore, for a better fate or worse.”
Commander Nazak lifts his axe high; he glares at the gathered dwarves, and perhaps it is Hayhek's imagination, but are his eyes glinting in a watery way?
Halax and Helzar raise their weapons also. One by one the gathered runeknights follow suit, knowing that to refuse to do so would be tantamount to treason. Some raise their blades quicker than others, however, and the runeknight with the tooth-like visor is one of the last to.
Perhaps this does not have to be the end, Hayhek dares to think.
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Clang and ting and ring: my hammer plays music upon the true metal. The melodies are complex—broken, since the geometry is not yet perfectly shaped—yet I can tell that there is music to be uncovered, real music, not single notes or mere undulating tones.
What the tune will be, I cannot tell. This final shaping is truly difficult work.
Although the basic shape of the needle-point is complete, it must be perfected. Thus I have equipped my runic ears and am battering away at the more minute bumps and ripples with my new hammer. I use only a small part of the edge, and lift it only slightly, for accuracy, but the power is not quite enough. The true tungsten does not want to cooperate with such puny strikes.
Most strikes, in fact, do not change the shape of the metal at all. At first one in five had an effect, but now, after a thousand strokes, only one in ten does. Either my arm is growing weak or the true tungsten is growing angry. I heat it once more to soften, yet this brings little improvement.
I curse. I need to hit it harder. The annoyance I feel from it may not be mere metaphor—and if it cracks apart, how long and hard will I need to reforge before its anger eases?
I raise my hand higher for the next stroke, bring it down harder, and the true metal's music, the music I've been uncovering so carefully, turns discordant. Damn! I curse louder. I misjudged the angle. I have to be more careful. I lift, strike again. A loud note sounds out. The metal warps and my mistake is mostly undone. I strike again, err slightly again.
Bastard!
Practice—that's all I need. Patient practice. Time does not exist—here. But outside it does, and something has changed. Nazak! I know well the shape of his armor and the tones it makes as he moves. I can hear and know Halax's armor also, and Helzar's; none of them are here.
I remove my runic ears, look up to confirm, and notice that there are no senior runeknights at all amongst the guards. In fact, not one looks stronger than eighth degree. Their armor is steel or iron, not tungsten, and their eyes are those of dwarves who have seen only skirmishes.
When I look directly at the one in the first degree alcove, he flinches back.
“Where is Nazak, or Halax?” I ask. “Where has everyone gone?”
The eighth degree runeknight looks left and right, as if unsure whether he's allowed to answer me.
“Answer me!” I demand. “I am a prisoner—but I am also precious to the Runethane. Tell me where they have gone!”
“You can't escape!” says the steel and iron clad runeknight. “You are unequipped!”
“I have no desire to escape. Just tell me where they are.”
“That information is—”
“They have gone on some final assault, haven't they? That's the only reason I can imagine. Unless the demons have assaulted here.”
“The former,” another runeknight says quietly. “Honored Second Runeforger,” she adds.
“You can't escape!” repeats the first runeknight, glaring at the second. “You are unarmed. We are not.”
“If you harm my flesh the Runethane will burn you alive,” I say. “But again, I have no desire to escape. Tell me, when did they leave?”
“Not an hour ago,” says the second runeknight.
“I see. Thank you.”
I stare at the uncompleted spike with slowly dawning fear. A final assault. A final assault! Every runeknight above eighth degree has dived into the magma and is swimming directly for the sunken city.
“And our Runethane?” I ask. “Has he gone also?”
“He has.”
Shit! Then it really is the final assault. Vanerak would leave his forging for nothing less. Absolute victory or absolute defeat: these are the only two things that will come from this, and either will be disastrous.
Defeat: if the runeknights are destroyed, there will be nothing to prevent the demons and their possessed victims from tearing apart this defenseless realm.
Victory: as terrible for me as defeat. I am sure that Vanerak has puzzled out something about runeforging, something deep. This is why he has stopped interrogating me. If the heart of the city contains some further clue, as it may well, he will have no further use for me. Upon his return he will slay me.
For me, both possibilities lead to the same result, death. What if, however, there is a third?
I dare to imagine a Vanerak in battered and rent armor crawling from the magma. He looks up. Upon the black sands I stand over him, my tines of true metal reflecting in his hateful mirror-mask. I stab.
But my trident remains uncompleted.