It has been a hard journey up for Wharoth and the Association of Steel. Their specially rented train arrived at the planned destination at the planned time, but that was still underground, and so the past two long-hours have been spent climbing up a long, steep tunnel to the surface. According to Wharoth's map, it was meant to be a flight of stairs, but those have long since eroded away.

The path upslope was arduous and not without loss. There were sudden pits, and vicious bats set upon them also. Now, though, they have finally arrived on the surface from a small hollow in a hill. Water runs from the cave in a thin stream, cutting a path through the dirt to join a wide, languid river at the hill's base.

“Northwest Tallreach,” says Voltost. “I can't help but wonder if that cavern road was really ours to take.”

“If it wasn't, Uthrarzak's dwarves were somewhere else.”

“Indeed. I'm glad we didn't meet any. And I hope we don't meet many humans either.”

Wharoth consults his map. “We are rather far west of the central hills. Unless we get unlucky, we shouldn't have to fight much.”

“We have not been lucky so far.”

“Then we will have to hope our luck improves.” Wharoth shrugs. “What do you want me to say? This is a dangerous place to be.”

He turns to address the guild, who are gathered on the slope below. They look exhausted from the climb: armor grimy with cavern dust, shoulders sunken from the strain of bearing heavy supply packs, eyes pained from witnessing the sudden loss of too many friends. They need a rest.

“I'm sorry, but this is not a safe time to rest, while the sun is up,” Wharoth announces. “Nor is this a safe place to rest, up on the hill. And we cannot afford to rest too often in any case. Haste is everything for us. So, let us march.”

The guildmembers nod as one, and make no complaint as he leads them down into the valley.

They travel for many days. The landscape is unforgiving—this area of Tallreach is sparsely populated for good reason. The hills are cragged and broken, the rivers deep and fast. There are cracks in the earth the Association of Steel must find ways over. Wild beasts watch from the cliff-clinging trees, eyes and fangs yellow. Voracious hunger is in their bellies.

Once a day or so one will attack. Several more dwarves are lost—although the beasts' fangs cannot pierce plate, the force of their blows is enough to break even a sturdy dwarven neck.

And then there are the humans. The guild avoids them where they can, but sometimes they have no choice but to pass below clifftop villages. Arrows and rocks rain down. A few dwarves are lost to these barrages as well, and usually their bodies must be left behind, for there is no way to counter-attack and drive the humans away.

Only occasionally does Wharoth let the guild rest, and only ever for a few hours at a time. He shouts down any protests:

“Do you want to abandon your friends to the dragon?” he says furiously to an eighth degree one night. “If we do not make it in time, it is our responsibility if they die.”

This is a line he repeats many times, for the protests never totally die away as the journey continues. Fortunately, neither do they get louder. There's discontent, but it's only at a simmer. No one serious challenges Wharoth's authority and nor does anyone challenge the reasons for and goal of their quest. This comes as a welcome surprise—he'd been expecting more pushback.

“The split in our guild is a wound that must be healed,” Voltost says to him one night. “It must be. Everyone understands this. And they don't want to cause any further splits.”

“I can't help but feel that there's things they aren't saying. Things that will burst out when we come under real pressure.”

“Each has his or her own feelings, but there will be no mutiny against you.”

“I hope that is the case.”

“It is!” Voltost insists. “Those here with your now are those most loyal to you. Remember that.”

Finally, a few weeks after their arrival at the surface, they make it past the craggy cliffs and into the cold wastes at the northwestern border. Wharoth leads the guild a few hundred yards out into the snow, which is glistening. It's strangely warm today. He ignores this oddness and addresses them:

“We have had a long journey so far, yet thankfully not one so arduous as I'd feared. The humans have mostly left us alone, and now here we are, all of us but fifteen, who will never be forgotten.”

Suddenly Wharoth grows worried. His dwarves don't look focused. Their eyes have a glazed look and they've drawn together in the cold.

Did the flash from the north a week ago frighten them that much? It and the accompanying thunder were made faint by the high cliff they were sleeping under than night, but everyone could still tell their origin: the black dragon.

But no. Wharoth believes this languor to have a more mundane cause: lack of supplies. This was the drawback of not risking interactions with the humans. All they've had to drink is riverwater, and the hard-tack and jerky brought from Allabrast is running dangerously low. On Wharoth's map is marked a small realm called Heldfast Hill where they might be able to purchase supplies—but he has no idea if the black dragon has destroyed it or not.

“We will now walk over the tundra. It is cold here, but easier to traverse than the hills. We can travel straight. We aim for Heldfast Hill, a small realm between here and the Mountain of Halajatbast. There we will buy supplies.”

He decides to gamble that the dragon has not destroyed it. And even if it has, there still might be stores left somewhere. Some deep-buried preserves—something, at least. There has to be something.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

This is a terrible risk—seeing hope spark in his dwarves' eyes, he's already regretting mentioning the hill—but this whole expedition is a terrible risk.

“Let's go. I have no more to say than that. All we can do is walk.”

----------------------------------------

A human watches from a high hill as ten silvery figures sprint through the valley. They look small—dwarves? That can't be, decides the human. Dwarves have short legs. They can't run fast. These must be spirits.

She closes her eyes and turns her face up to the sun. She makes the sign of the stars on her chest, then hurries back toward the village, water-bucket only half full.

Vanerak doesn't notice her. His eyes are set firmly on the path ahead. Which way to weave next, left or right? He will not stop to check his map, never does. It's memorized perfectly—if one can memorize runes, one can memorize a map. The map is imperfect, which is why he needs to put thought into where he's heading, but to stop to think—foolishness.

Zathar is headed for suicide. Vanerak cannot allow that to happen. He must reach him in time.

For an instant he doubts: maybe the shortbeard is dead already. Only an hour or so after they arrived on the surface there was a faint flash and a rumble from the north. Most likely that was Uthrarzak's forces taking on the dragon, for surely he sent some, and they would have arrived earlier than any expedition sent from Allabrast, but there is a slim possibility that Zathar got mixed up with them somehow.

Such thoughts are pointless—he refocuses on the route ahead.

He leads the party left. They bound across a small river. He wonders if his dwarves feel exhilarated by this act, or perhaps even joyous. Vanerak, however, has long known that he does not feel the same things other dwarves feel.

There is no joy in his step, no exhilaration. And he is proud, in a very subdued way, of this fact. He is a true runeknight. There are only two things that give him joy: killing and creating. And he suspects that even this joy isn't quite the same as what others feel.

The sun begins to set. They won't rest. Their boots are forged in such a way that momentum is conserved. Even this rapid speed uses only a little more energy than marching does.

Only now, reflecting on his creation, does Vanerak feel a slight happiness. To create such boots in such little time is a feat few could match. As armor, they are not much, and he would not wish to traverse caverns in them—they do not have the grip most dwarven boots do, nor the balance—but they are perfectly suited to the surface.

Stars appear in the sky, one by one and then a hoard, and then the sun rises to obliterate them in a wash of orange. It becomes rather hot, hotter than it should be for this season, but it's no hotter than a forge, no problem for dwarves. They continue to run.

And reach a killing-field.

The stink is the first thing that alerts them. One of his runeknights, the only one among them in an open-faced helm, risking sunblight for better visibility, rushes forward to his commander. Vanerak turns to him.

“Yes, Halax?”

“There's death around that hill.”

They are still running as they talk.

“Speak clearly,” says Vanerak.

“I can smell bodies rotting in the sun.”

“Many bodies?”

“Yes.”

“Dwarven or human?”

“Human, I think.”

“Understood. Tell the rest to close in behind me, then run ahead and tell me if there's any living humans also.”

“Yes, my runethane.”

Vanerak starts to feel a strange sensation in his stomach and chest. Worry, he thinks. Whatever the feeling, it's uncomfortable, made more so by the fact that he shouldn't be feeling anything like it. Humans are always fighting each other. There's no reason to believe Zathar was mixed up in this.

“There's been a battle,” says Halax when he returns. “A large one. More than a thousand are dead.”

“That's not so large.”

“Of course.”

“Yet not small either. Were there any living humans?”

“A few. Savage ones, or impoverished. Picking through the bodies for anything valuable, no doubt. But they ran when they saw me.”

“Interesting.”

The smell is growing so great now that Vanerak can scent it even through his mirror-mask. It's not so ripe as it might be—he guesses that the humans have been lying out for more than a week.

“It's only natural for humans to run when faced by runeknights,” says Halax. “They are as limestone to diamond. One will always split open the other.”

“It's not the living humans that interest me.”

“Very good, my runethane.”

“Let us round the hill.”

They curve around the low hill before them. The blades of grass become flecked with spots of blood, making them look as if they have rusted. Rain, which has surely fallen once or twice between now and the day of the battle, has not been sufficient to wash away the violence. The dust the dwarves tread kicks up has a reddish tinge to it also.

The battlefield, a wide swathe of trampled earth scattered thickly with the sun-scorched corpses of humans, comes into view. Vanerak leads his runeknights uphill. Their boots groan in protest—their poems are for flying across flat land. But he only calls a halt once they're nearly at the top. He wants to be sure of something.

“Look,” he says, gesturing. “What do you see, Nazak?”

The first degree squints. “Dead bodies. Mostly crowded around that hill, that one with the ruins. They're old ruins, though. Maybe they had sentimental value.”

“You think that's what they were fighting for?”

Vanerak's voice has an edge to it that Nazak takes to mean that he's wrong.

“They weren't fighting for the hill,” says Halax. “Otherwise the winners would be there now. At least a token force.”

“Yes,” says Vanerak. “They were fighting to get off the hill. That's why the ground is so churned up on that slope, and why most of the bodies are at the base.”

Nazak shrugs. “Whether they escaped or not, we're fast enough to outrun any humans. Even if they're on horseback, we have more endurance. And better weapons.”

“You think this does not concern us?”

“I don't quite see how.”

“None of you are looking close enough. For runeknights, you have terrible eyes for detail.”

His runeknights tense.

“Can none of you see it?”

Each of Vanerak's first and second degrees has known him for a long time. They can recognize when he is annoyed. No one dares to answer.

“They have left their metal,” Vanerak says. “It's shining on the slopes. Plate armor—or what passes for it amongst humans.”

His runeknights remain quiet.

“If this had been a battle between two groups of humans,” Vanerak continues. “then the winning side would have looted the other. And there are no trolls or elves in these parts.”

“So it was a battle between humans and dwarves?” says Nazak. He looks back at Vanerak excitedly. “You think the traitor was here?”

“I think it possible. Any army of Uthrarzak's would have emerged further north.”

“He must be part of quite the army, if it wiped out such a large force.”

“Or an army that includes some very powerful dwarves,” says Halax. “We may have trouble securing him.”

Nazak shrugs. “We rush in, slice his head off, rush out. He's only a fifth degree. There'll be no fight to speak of.”

“I suppose.”

“No,” says Vanerak coldly.

The runeknights freeze. Nazak bows low.

“My Runethane, I apologize!” he says. “He must suffer more before the final blow, and in front of all those he betrayed.”

“No.”

Nazak frowns. “I see. He is to suffer for eternity.”

“All those killed suffer for eternity. You know this.”

Nazak bows again. “Of course.”

“We must not take his head, his life, not now, not ever—or at least not until his purpose is fulfilled.”

The runeknights stare at him, confused.

“His purpose?” asks Halax. “What do you mean, my Runethane?”

“There is something you do not know about Zathar. Something you must know—and then you will know that our quest is to an end far greater than revenge.”

“Greater than revenge?” says Nazak.

“Much greater. My runeknights, it is time for me to tell you about the future.”