A line of searing white slashes from the gray sky. It curves to strike a human converging on me from the side. The air shivers like iron struck by the hammer, and I'm shunted sideways, but I retain my balance, keep on charging.

The wizard's bloodshot eyes remain fixed on me. He yells something in human—an order, the humans coming at me from the side stop. Another bolt is coming. I dive to the ground and hear its terrible roar. It's lanced into the humans; they were still too close. The wizard shouts something again—it sounds like a curse.

I'm already back on my feet and charging. I hold Gutspiercer low, angled to strike up into the wizard's side. He's just a dozen yards away now, and now half a dozen.

His eyes glaze over for a moment. He's calling power down. I swing, but I know I'm out of range.

“No!” I scream.

Something dark collides with the back of the wizard's head. His eyes roll up and he stumbles forward into Gutspiercer's swing. The iron sinks deep into his belly. He lets out a gurgle; blood dribbles out his mouth. His staff falls from his grasp.

I rip Gutspiercer out and he collapses.

What hit him? More than fifty yards up the hill, Xomhyrk stands alone. At his feet is the body of a tall human. Icemite is buried in its chest, and a crown glints golden in the grass a few yards away.

I look at the dead wizard to see what hit him, but there's nothing.

Xomhyrk kneels and leans over the body of the king. When he stands up, he's holding the human's severed head. He raises it aloft, and screams something in human. Some arrows fly at him and break on his frozen armor.

The human spearmen at my sides falter. They turn and start to run. I make to give chase, when I hear a shout. I can't understand it, but can tell by the hate that it's directed at me. I turn.

Behind me stands the wizard's apprentice, and in his hands he holds his master's staff.

He levels it at me.

I leap to charge but his eyes are already glazing over as if a fog of power is passing through his mind. A jag of white leaps from the tip of his staff and strikes into the center of my breastplate. I scream in shock—suddenly my chest feels as if fingers of fire are trying to claw their way in. This is no momentary agony—the pain doesn't let up. This bolt is weaker than the lightning from before, yet it hasn't flashed away in an instant. It's continuing. The apprentice and I are linked by the shivering, twisting, wending line.

It shortens as I advance. The agony is growing worse—the fingers of fire are piercing through the gaps in my ribs. Spikes of pain shoot into my heart. I scream and raise Gutspiercer high.

I glance up at Xomhyrk—a group of human elites, bent on revenge, surround him. There's no help coming from there.

The apprentice yells. The bolt of power linking us increases in brightness. I shut my eyes, blinded. My steps falter as my body weakens.

Am I in range yet? I can't tell. But I'm at my limit. The lightning is through my ribs now. I swing down.

The fingers of fire grasping my heart vanish. The brightness is gone; I open my eyes and see that Gutspiercer is buried deep into the apprentice's shoulder. The staff drops from his hands. I stomp on it and it snaps in half.

Then I'm falling backwards. Now I'm lying on my back, arms up, Gutspiercer no longer in my grasp. Something is wrong with me, very wrong. There's a silence in my body that I'm never felt before. A part of me that should be moving is not.

My heart has stopped.

I open my mouth to shout for help. No sound comes out. The gray sky is going black at the edges, and the scar of black in the center of my vision is growing also, becoming a chasm. The shouts of battle are fading.

Heat blazes from my amulet. It's screaming silently. I cannot die, it tells me. I have so much more killing left to do.

I feel it blaze hotter three times, blaze like white metal. It's pouring its magic into my chest, desperately trying to restart my heart.

My heart doesn't answer.

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Three more rushes of heat.

Nothing.

Three again.

My mouth gasps and a flood of air enters my lungs. A hammer starts beating inside my chest—it's my heart, desperately trying to make up for the strokes it's missed.

Someone takes me by the hand and pulls me up. Dazed, I look into his helmet at the dark blue, cold eyes within.

“Well done,” says Xomhyrk. Somehow he's back down here. The humans he was fighting are nearly all dead—those who aren't are staring down in shock.

“You all right?” he asks.

“Fine,” I gasp.

He's carrying the king's head again. With quick precision, he sticks Icemite up the neck, then raises it high.

“Death to the humans,” he says to me. Then he looks past me and yells it to everyone: “Death to the humans! Kill them all!”

“Kill them all!” I scream.

Gutspiercer is happy to oblige.

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Wharoth stands in front of his gathered guild. His face is solemn. The guildhall feels empty, unbearably so. The chairs where Braztak, Erak, Zathar, and all the others who've gone to face the dragon sat seem cold, like shadows sit in them now.

Surely they are not dead already. Yet soon they might be—will be.

Voltost nods to him. It's time to begin. Wharoth hesitates for one moment, then speaks:

“It was my deepest wish that our guildmates not go on this suicide quest. Their decision was, and remains so, a foolish one.”

The remaining guildmembers stare back, wondering why he's gathered them here.

“They have no hope of defeating the black dragon. They have little hope of even getting to it past Uthrarzak's dwarves. Or, for that matter, past the humans of Tallreach.

“Maybe they have even perished already.”

Silence. A few dwarves bow their heads.

“But I refuse to accept that their deaths are inevitable. If there is even the smallest chance that I can protect them, that we can protect them, our guildmates, then we must take it.”

Voltost's mouth becomes a grim line. Out of all the dwarves here, Wharoth has confided only in him.

“Our goal is not to slay the black dragon. That remains impossible. Nor is our goal to prevent them from reaching it. Like I said before, in this guild we are free to choose our own quests. No. Our goal is to help protect them in any way we can.”

For several long moments, there is utter silence. It seems that no one expected this decision. Wharoth never changes his mind. For him to do so now—what is going on in his head, in his heart?

“How many of us are to come to the surface?” someone eventually asks.

“I would hope all of you. Though I am not ordering anyone.”

“How are we to protect them from the black dragon?” someone else asks. “Is that not the same as fighting it ourselves?”

“We will decide on that when we get to it.”

“Do you still hope they'll turn back?”

“I hope so, yes. I do not believe they will, but that does not matter. That does not change my duty. Our duty.”

He raises high his shield. Its runes of fire-eating glitter in a spiral. He raises high his axe also—it's an old one, but reliable. He has not had time to finish his hammer.

“Gather supplies, those who wish to come!” he shouts. “We travel to the surface!”

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Vanerak examines his new boots. Most runeknights are not capable of truly understanding metal. It's not just that they don't understand it—that goes without saying. They can never understand it.

Metal holds a secret all but a few can perceive. This is the real reason so few dwarves ascend past second degree. But it is a secret Vanerak understands well.

The metal of his boots is nearly flawless. The iron gleams with a purity steel could never have. Their shape is near perfect also, though since this craft is such a rushed one, he can't help feeling a little disappointed. These boots could've been much more.

Now it's time to create the runes. Affixed to the wall of his forge are two long sheets of paper covered in them. Each symbol is barely the size of a flea, though each is still perfect in form, even in ink. A runeknight must strive for perfection in every aspect of his craft. Anyone who cuts corners, especially of runes, is not worthy of the title.

He's prepared a roll of thin wire. Unfortunately he's had no choice but to purchase the stuff, and so it's a product of the hands of a common metalworker. A skilled one, of course, the best, but still a mere metalworker. Some sections are thicker than others. Most runeknights would not notice this, but Vanerak does. And the metal does not contain the secret.

Still, there are times when speed is more important than perfection. Sometimes one must cut corners. And when the time comes to meet Zathar, he won't be wearing these boots anyway. He'll have his proper ones on.

Smoothly he shapes the wire. Each symbol he forms he checks against the poems on paper. He makes no mistakes, never does, but still he must check.

The twin poems sing of the surface wind. Vanerak has been up there many times, and knows the feel of it well. The wind flows across the grasses, through the trees, through the valleys and over the hills. The runes are of the Volot script, one of the only that contains all the words needed for describing the surface.

He wonders if Zathar has used it before. Maybe he's extended it. Vanerak's mouth waters at the thought.

He must have that dwarf! He must!

The wind blows past the hills of Tallreach and onto the tundra wastes. It picks up flecks of snow. It brushes the hair on the backs of mighty white bears. The poem's description of all this is detailed in the extreme, and beautiful. Vanerak imagines it would move many dwarves to tears.

Then the wind is blowing up the foothills of the Mountain of Halajatbast, but the poem ends there. No one knows what the mountain looks like now, so it would be folly to attempt to describe it. And this poem is for the journey, not the destination.

Vanerak readies his reagent mix. It's a precisely measured concoction of half of the major reagents and three minor ones, but the exact contents are a secret.

It flashes blue-purple as he grafts, and very brightly. The instantaneous shadows it casts are sharply defined. The air in the forge hums with power.

Finally, after many hours, the task is done. Vanerak assembles the boots then equips them. He paces around the forge. He grimaces. His stepping doesn't feel quite so even as he'd like, but there's no time to remake the craft.

Zathar is waiting for him.