We found a way up eventually, through a side tunnel overgrown with thick gray moss and shoulder deep in water. Took a few dead amphidons to get there, but we emerged with no scars—at least not on our skin, our armor is another matter—and now we’re in a tunnel corkscrewing upwards that Hayhek thinks he recognizes.
“A day to go now,” he says breathlessly. “Maybe even less.”
“I’ve forgotten what a day looks like.”
“Looks like light. Looks like peace, maybe.”
“Not peace. The war’s still on, I’m sure of it.”
“A dwarf can dream. I need to have hope, you said. And I do have hope. I can feel that they’re waiting for me, Zathar! I can feel it!”
“That’s great,” I say, not really smiling. “Just great.”
At least one of us is going to see his family again.
“Nearly there,” he mutters. “Nearly there. Come on, come on...”
“I hope it isn’t blocked.”
“Of course it isn’t!” he snaps. “Can’t be, because we’re nearly there. Halda, Braize, Jaeld, Neyld... I’m nearly there...”
And, miraculously, our luck holds and the way is not blocked. We emerge on the outskirts of our side of the city mid-morning on some day the date of which I do not know. Hayhek does a dance for joy.
“We’re here!” he says in glee. “Here!”
“Yes,” I say, pointing to the mountain. “And not just us.”
Upon the final stretch of road to the mountain’s peak rages a battle, marked by a cloud of dust, steel glinting within, tinged with red. Hayhek frowns in worry, then a clear clarity comes over his face and he looks me in the eyes.
“In that case, no one’s patrolling the city.”
I nod. “Then let’s go find them.”
“Good on you,” he says. “You keep your promises, at least. Can’t deny that about you.”
That’s right. When he washed up I promised I would help him, that the key was to be secondary. Now that the key is taken by the dragon, helping him is the only task I have left. It's time to pay off the debt to this old dwarf who helped me when he had every reason to refuse, who has stuck with me despite our deep differences. My heart feels warm as we walk toward the city under the light streaming from the mirrors.
I know we will find his family safe and sound. And I know that after we find them, we will win the battle for the city, and win whatever comes after too.
----------------------------------------
Step by step, Vanerak’s army marches forward over the metal-clad corpses of Broderick’s runeknights; the crush becomes looser with each row they hack down. Wharoth makes it a dozen dwarves he’s slain. Their blood covers his titanium axe, a layer of shimmering crimson held there by the magnetic force of Zathar’s strange rune.
Yet his stomach churns with worry. He sees what Broderick’s plan is: tire them out with the stones and mid-tier runeknights before sending in the silver legend and the golden guard. Only they are a match for Vanerak and the rest of the tungsten clad elites. They will be sent in soon. Broderick has no other option—unless he comes himself, and that would be a hard fight indeed.
Yet they do not come. Another dozen runeknights fall to Wharoth's axe, and its haft and his right gauntlet too become dripping with crimson. Vanerak and the elites are similarly draped in gore.
“I don’t like this,” Wharoth tells him. “The silver legend might be waiting for us below. Maybe they’ve hollowed out a pit.”
“When he comes, we will destroy him,” Vanerak replies.
Wharoth swallows, wishing he had the mirror-masked dwarf’s confidence.
The enemy army is faltering now. Some at the back ranks are turning and hurrying up the stairs. Wharoth imagines the desperation and confusion on their faces: likely they are praying for their legend to save them, but he seems to have forsaken them.
Then, right on time, three golden figures appear at the top of the stairs. Wharoth feels his heart miss a beat.
Under the sun they shine brightly through the dust clouds. One holds twin axes, one twin scythes, the other a circular blade on an extended chain.
“There they are!” shouts the elite on Wharoth’s left. “Broderick’s golden guard!”
One of the fleeing dwarves at the top of the stairs looks up at one, a remarkably tall woman runeknight with blonde hair flowing from her winged helmet. She slashes her axe down. He rolls down the stairs, brains and blood splattering from his bisected head.
Over the din of battle, Wharoth hears her scream a command:
“Tzhakeil!”
“Charge!”
At the same instant, Vanerak replies in kind:
“Tzhakeil!” he roars. “Tzhakeil!”
Both forces clash together once more into a solid steel press. Wharoth shouts in anger as a spear shoots into his cheek guard, tearing a deep scar into the metal and his skin. A wide stream of blood runs down his face. He tries to bring his hand up to the blade of his axe again, but the dwarf opposite him is pressing hard with his shield, trapping Wharoth’s arm against his own breastplate.
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“Strike them down!” Vanerak orders, yet even he is having trouble wresting his opponent away to get a clear stab.
Wharoth bends his legs, leans forward and shoves with all his might. His muscles feel like they nearly burst, he senses the runes of strength and speed at his thighs shudder. His opponent grunts in surprise, but doesn’t budge an inch—he can’t, there are too many behind him. Wharoth shouts in impotent frustration as rocks begin to fly through the air again to crack on helmet and shield. It seems that the presence of Broderick’s finest and cruelest has persuaded those runeknights with hammers to forget their pride and get to rock breaking.
The elite on Wharoth’s left suddenly grunts. Wharoth glances and sees a spear is through his neck. The wielder rips it out and blood sprays in a short jet. The enemy wastes no time in angling the weapon at Wharoth. She stabs fiercely. He ducks, not low enough, and the blow tears his helmet right off.
He yells in fright at the sudden coolness of the air and doubled din of battle. The runeknight opposing him snarls and gives a mighty shove with his shield. For the first time in the battle, Wharoth is forced to take a step back. Vanerak takes a rock to the head and stumbles also. He grunts, brings his halberd back up, but can’t quite get the spike at the right angle to stab.
The spear again lances out again and slashes open Wharoth's left temple. Blood floods down the side of his head, wetting his pauldron. A rock narrowly misses him. He cries out in fear.
Is this how it ends? Not in bed at the end of a long and illustrious career? Not even in combat with the dragon, avenging his guild with his dying breath? Is he to die stuck in this press of armor with his head staven in by a rock?
And the golden guard have not even joined the fray. They stand there shining in the sun—or at least two of them do. The third is walking down from the castle with a figure in dark metal slung over his shoulder. He sits it down—displaying its headlessness—and another runeknight hands him a long hooked pole with some rope.
“Is that..?” gasps someone behind.
Another stab flies at Wharoth and he only just manages to duck. When he brings his head back up he sees that the golden guard is tying the rope around the headless figure’s chest and under its shoulders to make a harness. He binds the harness to the hooked pole.
With a mighty effort he lifts the headless figure high into the air for all Vanerak’s army to see.
All gasp. Their enemies laugh and press forward the attack.
“No!”
“That armor...”
“It’s our Runethane! He’s dead!”
“Dead!”
“Runethane Thanerzak is dead!”
“No!” shouts a voice of desperate reason. “It’s a filthy trick. It’s fake armor, not real! Or a fake body! It could be anyone’s!”
Wharoth feels the press loosen behind him. He retreats along with them and the runeknight opposite advances, slashing into his shield again and again. Each ringing impact sends him stumbling back further.
“No!” screams a voice of utter despair. “They have his head too!”
Wharoth looks up. The golden guard with the axes is holding a red blob aloft. It is of course too far away to tell the features, and of course no one except Vanerak and a few other elites have ever seen Thanerzak’s face, yet instantly Wharoth understands that this is no trick. He knows Thanerzak hid his face after being tortured by the dragons, never allowing even a single mirror in the castle, because his once handsome features were obliterated and even his beard would not grow.
The cold logic is unavoidable, inevitable. That red mess of a head is Thanerzak’s. Their Runethane is perished.
The army begins to disintegrate; Wharoth feels and hears it vanishing behind him. He’s stumbling back fast now, tripping on loose stones and dropped weapons. A spear nearly takes him through the throat, the swordsdwarf chasing him slashes his blood-coated left pauldron in two.
And then Vanerak surges into the blood-hungry enemies. One moment he is being driven back beside Wharoth, the next he is in the midst of the foes, halberd spinning and stabbing through breastplates, slashing off limbs, hammering heads flat. Terrible screams erupt from around his deadly dance.
“Charge!” he finds time to yell amongst the flashing metal and fountaining blood. “Avenge your Runethane! Charge!”
The swordsdwarf opposite Wharoth is distracted for a fleeting moment and the guildmaster removes his head with a sweeping blow.
“Our general is correct!” he shouts, pointing to Thanerzak’s body with his bloody axe. “This is not the time to flee. It is the time to kill! The time for revenge!”
The army’s fear turns to shame at their cowardice in an instant, then to vengeful rage. They rush after Wharoth as he leaps to join Vanerak's dance of death. The enemy dwarves not in combat falter, unable to believe the sudden transformation. They back away to form a new line a dozen paces away from the losing combat in front of them.
With a final spin of his halberd Vanerak finishes off the last of his opponents, splashing an arc of blood through the air.
“Tzhakeil!” screams the golden guard with the axes from the top of the stairs. "What are you doing? Cut them down!"
The wrong army obeys the order: the forces of Thanerzak charge up the slope to reach the mutilated body of their honored Runethane. It has become no longer a symbol of fear, but a battle standard to rally to.
Broderick’s dwarves resist for a few moments before shattering and routing up the stairs. The golden guard throw down Thanerzak’s body, but this only enrages Vanerak and his army further. They thunder up the stairs in a wedge formation, cutting down any enemy who runs too slow until the steps level off and they are at the top.
The three golden guards stand to halt them as the remaining cowards flee like rats into the castle. The one who raised up Thanerzak’s body steps forward swinging his chain-and-blade in a blur. The other two shift sideways, preparing to attack in a pincer movement.
Vanerak rushes the middle one with blinding speed. The chain flies out to meet him equally fast and wraps around his neck. The two golden guard flanking spring forward, but they are too late, Wharoth and several other elites are already intercepting them, and Vanerak has stabbed their comrade through his chin and up into his brain.
Wharoth faces the one with long hair and axes. She is faster than him, far faster, yet she cannot keep up with a dozen attacks a second from three different opponents. She falls back, sparks showering from her golden axe blades each blow she blocks.
Out the corner of her eye she sees Vanerak charging with his halberd held high. With incredible agility she backflips over the runeknights attacking her out his range, leaps and bounds in a leftward arc, and vanishes into the castle gates. Wharoth and the elites take a moment to collect their confused senses and follow her.
“Halt!” Vanerak orders.
Wharoth comes skidding to a halt just under the raised portcullis. He spots curious red bags laid around the walls inside. One has a sparking fuse set into it.
“Shit!” he yells, and throws himself backward at the same moment they detonate. The castle walls blow out and he goes flying. A sizable block hits square on his breastplate and and bowls him over. Stone shards rain down on him. His head rings with white noise and he can smell the acrid scent of singed hair.
An elite grabs his hand and pulls him up. He nearly falls back down again but resists his dizziness. Through the cloud of dust he can see that the castle's lower walls have been blown out and the rest has fallen down to seal off the tunnels that are the true castle below.
“Sealed it off, have they?” Vanerak muses. His voice is as cool as ever on the surface, yet Wharoth can sense the anger boiling below.
“Seems that way,” spits an elite. “The cowards.”
Vanerak turns to look upon his army, who stand bloody, dusty and exhausted yet have lights of triumph shining in their eyes. "It is to be a siege, then," he declares. “It is no matter. The city is ours. We have gained the higher ground as I told your commanders we would. And the body of our Runethane is returned to us.”
The ring of runeknights guarding it steps away. Vanerak walks to the severed head and kneels before it.
“It has been so long since I looked upon your face, my friend.” He reaches forward and closes its withered eyes. “We will give you the funeral you deserve.”
He stands up and raises his bloody halberd.
“And we will take your revenge soon after.”