Looks of shock fall across the faces of every member of the Association, and over the faces of the other runeknights too.

“You killed him?” someone cries. “You killed our guildmate?”

“He was an oathbreaker.”

“So are you!”

“I was found innocent!”

“No one accepts that!”

Fury rises in me. “If you don't accept the Runeking's judgement, it's you who's the traitor!”

“You take that back!”

The runeknight, a sixth degree I'm not too sure of the name of, makes to stride out to toward me, but his friends grab his arms and pull him back.

“Faltast left us to fight the monster alone!” I shout. “If he—and the rest of the cowards—had stayed, maybe there wouldn't be so many bodies to bury! He betrayed us—and his guilt was not in question!”

“You got a trial,” someone else says. “Why shouldn't he have?”

“There's no time to carry out trials now, you fool! We're not a week's march from the dragon!”

“You had no right—”

“Silence!” Braztak shouts. “Silence, all of you!”

The sixth degree ignores the order. “How can you accept this?” he yells.

Braztak glares at him. A fearsome expression comes onto his face. I draw breath. It's the same expression he wore when he ranted at me about Wharoth being a coward and a traitor. His eyes are cold.

“I accept it because he's right,” he says sharply. “Faltast may have been my friend—but I reject that friendship now. He betrayed us. Zathar was right to exact justice.”

I nearly gasp. I cannot quite believe what I'm hearing. For kind Braztak to say that to kill a friend in cold blood was the right thing to do—this would have been unimaginable before we embarked upon this quest. Something has changed in him, or maybe nothing's changed, and it's just that something deeply buried has been pulled to the surface.

This is good for me, for I could not bear to lose his friendship, and yet his judgement still, somewhere deep inside, feels very wrong.

“But—” someone begins.

“Betrayal must be punished!” Braztak snaps. “Cowardice is not an acceptable trait for a runeknight to have. I told Zathar this, and now I'll tell all of you as well: too long in Allabrast has made us soft. We've been among dwarves who live only for treasure for too long. They've forgotten what the job of a runeknight is—to fight and face death.”

“Take that back!” a dwarf from another guild shouts. “How dare you enjoy our hospitality, then insult us so!”

“I tell the truth! I tell of what I have seen! How many from your guild have run away? Did you make any effort to stop them, like Zathar here has?”

“We don't kill our own.”

“Well, maybe you should.” Now Braztak turns to Xomhyrk. “I apologize for my guildmate disobeying your orders—even if they were indirect orders. And I apologize for him criticizing you in front of the expedition. However, I cannot apologize for his passion for our cause, and anger at those seeking to sabotage it through their selfishness.”

Gollor turns to him. “You apologize for Zathar criticizing our leader, and yet all but do the same yourself.”

“We are losing too many dwarves. And more than half to desertion.”

“We do not execute deserters. We have never executed anyone.”

“Then maybe it is time to start!”

“Who are you to say that? Who are you to tell us what to do?”

“Someone who wishes to see the dragon dead!”

“If you truly wish that, then stay in line and follow Xomhyrk's orders. Take your own advice!”

“Wait, Gollor!” says Xomhyrk.

“Wait for what? For what?” Gollor is enraged, his face ruddy around his dark gray beard. “His dwarf goes on a rampage, cutting down his fellows in cold blood, and now he has the gall to say we should behave the same way! We are dragonslayers, not dwarf-killers.”

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“This is true. However, perhaps he has a point.”

“What?”

Xomhyrk sweeps his eyes over our much-diminished army. I flinch. There's coldness in his eyes, fearsome coldness.

“Maybe he has a point,” Xomhyrk repeats.

“Commander?”

“We lost too many last night. Many of our own guild also. We cannot afford to lose any more.”

“Violence to our own won't solve that.”

“Those who flee our no longer ours. They can no longer be counted among us—they've abandoned our quest.”

“If we have them punished harshly, more will flee.”

“How do you know that?”

The big dwarf throws his arms up. “You have said so yourself! Isn't that why you stopped branding dwarves with your ice?”

“True. But with outsiders, it seems that words alone are not enough. Discipline has frayed at every obstacle we've faced. In the humans' town, in our battle with them, when we heard the dragon's roar—every time.”

“All that means is that when we do reach the dragon, we have an army, not a rabble.”

“Yes, but we still have to get to the dragon.”

“I don't think this is the right way forward. And we shouldn't let others make our decisions for us—least of all third and fourth degrees!”

“I am not letting them make the decision!” Xomhyrk shouts. Gollor steps back. “All they have done is made the facts clear to me. Made clear what I should've realized a while ago: that too many on this quest are not dedicated to it, have not pledged their lives to it.”

He lifts Icemite and sweeps it in an arc in front of him. Its point, sharper even than the point of Gutspiercer, traces a white line of reflected sunlight. I feel a cold wind rush over us—rush through us.

“Listen here, all of you!” he shouts. “From now on, deserters will be dealt with harshly, by me. I can move fast, faster than all of you know. Run and I will find you—me personally.”

He gives me a hard look.

“Do not take justice into your own hands again, Zathar. It is mine to take. Mine alone.”

I nod.

“Is that clear, all of you? Do you understand that now that you have come this far, you have no choice but to keep on going, all the way, to the black dragon's end or to your own?”

We nod.

“I cannot hear you,” Xomhyrk says coldly. “Do you pledge your lives to the quest?”

“I do!” I yell, and Braztak and most of the Association do also, but many from the other guilds stay silent.

“Either you pledge your lives to this quest, and carry out the job you signed up to do, or you leave as deserters.”

“Are you threatening to kill us?” says one dwarf, a senior runeknight in steel plate with razor edges.

“Are you threatening to let the black dragon roam free to end the lives of thousands more of our kin?”

He has no reply to that.

“I ask you again: do you pledge your lives to the quest?”

“I do!” I scream, and this time every other dwarf shouts the same, though some with more enthusiasm than others.

“Good,” Xomhyrk says. “From now on there will be no more disobeying my orders. Disobeying will mean punishment, ranging from branding to death. And I mean all of my orders. You have pledged your life to the cause—if I tell you to charge into the dragon's maw, you will do it.”

He pauses. The silence is deep. It seems that only now are many of the dwarves here truly coming to understand what coming on this quest means—almost certain death.

“But unlike some leaders, I will not ask you to do anything I would not do myself. I will be first into battle. If I am not, you have my permission to desert.”

We nod solemnly.

“Your first test comes now: I am about to give an order many of you Allabrast dwarves will not agree with.”

I think I can guess what it's going to be.

“There is a high chance that when we enter the mountain we will meet dwarves from Runeking Uthrarzak's realms. If we do, and if they are willing, we are to ally with them.”

There are gasps of shock. A high degree runeknight in plate of sharpened steel steps forward angrily.

“Ally with Uthrarzak's scum?”

“Yes.”

“He is a monster. A demon. Worse than the dragon!”

His hand goes to the handle of his sword, which gleams with yellow runes showing through a slit down its scabbard in the typical Allabrast fashion.

“Warak, isn't it?” Xomhyrk says. “Of the Steel Raiders.”

“Of the Steel Raiders, yes! We are warfighters. We have been to the border, many times, for the protection of Runeking Ulrike's caverns, and we have faced Uthrarzak's dwarves there.”

“I see. And I imagine you have lost friends and family to his forces.”

“Indeed we have!”

“Yet when you came on my expedition, you came to fight the dragon. You did not come to fight against Runeking Uthrarzak.”

“We did not come to ally with him either!”

“But we may have to.”

“You cannot expect us to accept this order.”

“I can.”

“You do not know the depths of our feud!”

“Your feud does not matter here. All that matters is that we slay the black dragon.”

Xomhyrk angles Icemite at his belly. My eyes are drawn to the shining tip. Runes I cannot read spiral around it and into it. It's translucent, and I notice for the first time that there are layers of runes inside the metal, tightly wound coils that speak of cold.

Warak seems to wince a fraction. Then he clasps the hilt of his sword. The yellow runes visible through the slit in the scabbard brighten a touch.

“You will not slay me,” he says.

“I will.”

"You will reduce the expedition further?"

"If you do not obey my orders, you are not part of the expedition, but a deserter. I keep my promises, Warak. If I say I will slay a dragon, I slay it. If I say I will slay a dwarf, I will do that also."

Warak's hand tightens around his sword's hilt.

"Do not throw your life away in ignominy."

Warak draws the blade an inch. Xomhyrk shifts his back foot a little. He's now ready to lunge.

"Do not do this!"

Warak pushes the blade back in and takes his hand off the hilt. He steps back. I let out the breath I've been holding. He's seen sense. No more dwarves will have to die today.

“You do keep your promises, don't you?” he says.

“Yes.”

“Very well. I don't want to throw my life away, nor the lives of my guild. But if we are to ally with Uthrarzak's dwarves, then do not place us next to them in the ranks.”

“I will place them as I see fit. Though, considering your hatred for them, I think the best place will not be near you.”

“Indeed.”

Warak takes another step back, into the lines. Xomhyrk brings Icemite back up to vertical.

“Remember well what I've said today,” he says to all of us. “All of it. Now, let us return to burying the dead.”