The runeknights follow Runethane Vanerak down the winding tunnels of the black cliff and into the low hall of pillars that is the final cave of safety. Yet even with every runeknight seventh degree and over spilling out into it, the hall no longer feels as crowded as it once did.
Hayhek sees that there are no longer enough runeknights left for this battle, and sees also that most of the others feel the same way. No one gives voice to this thought, of course. The only sounds are the dull clank of tungsten boots and the muted puff of heavy breathing. But they don't need to. The slight slowness, the slight reluctance in their march tells all: no one believes they can win this.
Apart from the only dwarf whose opinion matters.
The solid gates are opened without ceremony and the army marches through them. The fumes hit Hayhek like a gust of acid. He chokes. He can hear a rumbling in the far distance, louder than usual, the sound of some distant eruption. The very magma is roaring a challenge at them. Hayhek swallows. He remembers a moment from the distant past, remembers a certain young dwarf urging them to step away from the impossible odds, to live another day, to fight to protect their family another day.
Various second and third degrees shout commands and lead their squads to pre-arranged destinations. Hayhek falls into formation silently. Black, slightly molten sand crunches and squelches. He grips his heat-mask and coil of breathing cable nervously. He did not make these, some runeknight perhaps now dead did. Will they fail him?
The remaining squads march into position. Once the army is finally arrayed, its ranks darkly gleaming in the hot glow, Runethane Vanerak steps out.
“We shall go no roundabout route!” he shouts, to make himself heard over the magma's roaring. “We will swim forward to attack directly! The demons will bring their main strength to bear on us, but our strength will prove the greater! You may be attacked by the runeknight beside you; do not hesitate to kill! To do so is no crime, but a mercy! Be ready, my runeknights! The demons think they can master us, but they have never faced our entire might before! And they have only rarely faced my own! Forward!”
The roaring of the magma takes something of the power of his authority away. Some say that the demons are the anger of the magma made manifest. If this is the case, the army is doomed, for who can hope to win against such a terrible natural force?
Runethane Vanerak, perhaps sensing his army's apprehension, lifts his mirror-mask.
“You are feeling fear!” he shouts. “Do not be so weak! Look upon my face! Do you see fear there? I tell you all that I faced down the black dragon, twice, and the demons' heat is nothing compared to its power and flame!”
Once he faced it down, certainly. But twice? Zathar never wanted to discuss the final battle against the black dragon. Hayhek had thought it was just too fearful a memory for him, yet maybe there was a different reason, that being he was reluctant to tell lies, as he would have had to in front of the guards.
Was the letter correct, at least in part? Hayhek does not want to believe that it was, not in this hour, when loyalty and trust are paramount. Yet his suspicions suddenly crystallize: he sees that the letter told the truth.
Runethane Vanerak pulls down his mirror-mask. The line of runeknights reflected in it does not seem so long. He takes his breathing tube and pushes it under the mask, then he fixes on his heat-mask, a web of chain and ruby.
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“Masks and cables!” roars Commander Nazak. “Make sure they are secured properly!”
Hayhek obeys. Air vanishes, floods back. Light vanishes, heat appears, a flat sea before them and not-darkness around them. Sand crunches. Hayhek steps forward himself, ten times, and heat envelops him, bright yet not with light.
Down into the magma the runeknights march, to go beyond the shore one final time.
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I treat the spike of true tungsten not as metal, but as a gem. I cannot go by feel, for I do not have the many long-hours of practice needed for me to work it by intuition alone. Instead I must calculate: the angle, the force, the direction, which part of the hammer to contact with. I must be cautious in every aspect, and more than this, I must be patient. Time exists, but I must ignore its existence and focus fully on my craft.
Strike by very careful strike, discord is cleaned from harmony. The tune of the spike becomes apparent. It is a sharp song, one promising violence, with notes that leap out like the strikes of weapons from a shield-wall. A few more heavy, yet supremely accurate strokes, and the tune becomes almost flawless. The only imperfections are those too minor for me to be able to tell what causes them.
I judge the spike to be complete. I take off my runic ears and look up at the guards.
“How much time has passed since I last spoke?” I ask.
“Perhaps a short-hour.”
“Shit!”
A whole short-hour! The next three spikes, perhaps, may not take quite so long each—unless I make a horrible error and crack one into pieces. How long will it take the army to reach the city? I've heard it takes just over a short-hour to swim-crawl-pull the whole way. In tight formation it might take a little longer, especially if they are harassed on the way.
How long might the battle last? Sometime a battle can take a whole long-hour, if it is a fight of attrition where two evenly-matched sides grind against each other, sparks and blood flying, or else if it is spread out into many skirmishes throughout hundreds of close tunnels where only two may fight at a time.
Yet sometimes battles are over in seconds. One force overwhelms the other, breaks its courage and sends it fleeing. Which will this battle be? Will the demons beat themselves upon a wall of rending blades? Or will the wall collapse in an instant, its blocks turning against themselves, shattering each other?
I have no way to tell, but it does not matter, does not change what I have to do: complete the weapon.
With my smallest tongs I pick up one of the three smaller discs. I place it into the crucible, place the crucible into the furnace. The blue sphere of heat ripples the air. The disc turns white and quickly I pull it out, sit it side-on within the tongs' clasp. I turn off the furnace, lift my hammer high, bring it down hard. A violent clang stings my ears. There is only a certain amount of precision needed for this stage: I hammer hard, hammer fast, trying to fold the metal in two.
It takes me a hundred times a hundred strikes. By the end, I am panting heavily and my arm is aching badly. My ruby burns, yet it is not burning strong enough. The pain is intense—my muscles will not last. They have already been pushed beyond their natural endurance.
I shut my eyes. I recall the moment Vanerak walked around the corpse of the black dragon as Xomhyrk lay dead. I remember the moment he ordered Pellas to be tortured and killed. I think of Guthah, his love snatched away. I think of Hayhek, now snatched away from those he loves to die in a futile battle—if he has not perished already.
Some of the ache in my arm fades. I raise my hammer high again, and bring it down with the strength of hate.
Again and again, a hundred times a hundred, and again, repeating. The anvil trembles. Strange sparks fly, tracing outlines. A distorted symphony sounds. Smash, breathe, smash. I ignore the pain, which is growing again, and focus fully on the hate.
Time vanishes. The disc folds a third time, a fourth, a fifth, and then once more. I heat it soft, hammer each of its sides with very slightly diminished power from the tip up, closing the gaps between the folds. Back to white I heat it. I hammer around it again, slowly turning it, a hundred times. Now it is an uneven cone.
“How long?” I gasp.
“About another short-hour has passed,” says a runeknight. She sounds tired. “Do you require water, Second Runeforger?”
“I do, please.”
I equip my runic ears and get back to hammering. My mouth feels a little less dry—I've been given something to drink, but did not notice it. Here there is nothing but the metal and its symphony, still discordant.
And once this spike is complete, I still have two more to finish, and after that, the enruning. Despair comes over me.
I do not have enough time!