Braztak's armor is shining from without and within. Beams of purple and emerald brilliance are thrown into the smoke-filled air from each plate, and more brightly from every gap between them also. The metal has become like slabs of translucent gemstone. The light carries on it runic power which is greater even than the light. I can feel it through my armor, in my bones.

“Drazakh Nachroktey!” he screams.

Then he leaps into the air, a fireball of gold and emerald and purple, with axe held high. The black dragon slashes at him with its talons. Braztak strikes into its palm with such force that the hand is thrown back. Hot blood sprays over him but does not stick to his armor—the light and runic force blows it away. The drops evaporate.

Braztak's armor has long been rumored to have greater power than he let on. Speculating on some greater hidden function was a popular topic of conversation when its creator wasn't around.

I think I now know what that hidden function is. The runes are not just grafted to the outside of the armor, but to the inside as well. Where the outer runes turn damage to the armor to power, these inner ones turn damage to Braztak's body to power. The dragon's flames burned him, and this burning will be its demise.

Braztak lands heavily. The stone at his feet shatters. Immediately he leaps forward, straight at the dragon's leg. He flies past it, cleaving as he does so. His axe slashes deep, the entire head going in and tearing through the black scales. Boiling blood blasts out the wound. The black dragon roars in pain.

Xomhyrk is still fighting hard, flying in and out of the darkness, striking deep with cold Icemite whenever he lands.

“What are you waiting for, Zathar!” Erak shouts. “Charge!”

I yell and throw myself forward. I leap over a crack of shattered stone and slide. The dragon shifts its foot. I chase and slam Gutspiercer into the wound Braztak just inflicted. I see the dragon's flesh tremble and my ruby fills my heart with heat. I stab again and again. Steaming blood coats me. Erak comes beside me and cuts with his axe.

The pain is too great for the dragon. It contorts its body in a fury and spins away, using its left wing to give it further momentum. The howl of hot air, a tempest of sound and force together, throws us tumbling back.

We hurry to stand. We see that it's leapt to the far side of the circular cavern. Its one eye glares at us, and not just at me and Erak, but every blood-drenched, half-scorched runeknight still alive.

It lowers its head and opens its jaws wide. It's about to throw flame over every last one of us with a single fell breath.

“Charge!” someone screams.

We yell and run toward the open jaws. Despite the terror and loss, no one is afraid. We have been driven into a battle-frenzy by the sight of the dragon's blood. No longer is it an abstract fear, a nightmare lurking within the mountain, capable of any method of destruction we can imagine, but a real beast with limits to its power and flesh that can be broken.

Runic armor and golden coins spin across the stone as we sprint through the main part of the dragon's scattered hoard. I jump over one sword, accidentally brush against another. It spins to point at the black dragon. I laugh joyously even as orange flame rushes out to meet me.

It comes as a wave, more like water than fire. The masses of gold coins scattered over the floor soften at its approach. A dwarf screams as he is engulfed. I yell in defiance as the fire washes over me.

My armor makes a keening sound. The titanium is screaming. It grows hotter and hotter. Any hotter and it will be burning my skin—and abruptly the wave of flame is past. The black dragon's jaw is hanging open like that of a slavering dog, strings of orange flame dripping from between its massive teeth.

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Xomhyrk flies from above. Icemite is angled directly at the back of the dragon's neck. It twists and Xomhyrk falls past it. He swings around, avoids colliding with the floor by mere inches.

I'm still charging, alongside some of the Dragonslayers, and Erak, whose armor has remained more or less intact, though about half its golden runes have been liquified. Gollor is ahead of us. His dark blue tungsten has been blackened. He's discarded his shield, and is holding his spear with two hands.

“Drazakh Nachroktey!” he screams, and we scream it with him.

How many of us are left? I glance around. Only about a dozen. A dozen! Can so many really have been killed? But those who are left are only the most powerful. Third and second and first degrees—I am the only remaining fourth. Mulkath and his mercury runes are nowhere to be seen.

As for the tenth degrees, Guthah and Pellas included, the first burst of dragonflame that hit us must have vaporized them. I should be feeling sorrow, maybe shame, yet all that's in my heart is joyous fury.

We can win this. We're about to win this. The black dragon's life is ours. All the damage I did is about to be undone.

A wave of darkness slashes out at us. It makes no sound—it's traveling faster than sound, like lightning before the thunder. It's the dragon's tail, a whip of black iron, and it slams into us.

Force, pure force—that's what it feels like—hits me square on. My armor crumples as it slides on the scales. Runes and metal scream. Cold steam bursts out to be swept away by momentum. I'm traveling through the air.

Gutspiercer has lodged itself into the dragon's tail and I'm carried up high. I scream. I can see the whole cavern laid out before me.

Those who charged with me are tumbling over and over in the air, flying helplessly toward the cavern wall. It's as if backwards has become downwards for them. I watch in horror as they smash into the stone. Clouds of dust and splinters are thrown out. Then they tumble down like broken toys to lie still upon the floor.

A terrible dark sound fills the cavern. It fills me with dread. A few moments after it finishes, I realize what it was: the black dragon's laughter.

Only three of us are left now. Xomhyrk waits somewhere up in the darkness, but he'll have a harder time hitting the dragon now there aren't so many dwarves to steal its attention. Braztak stands in the middle of the cavern. His armor is bright, but before the massive darkness of the dragon, he is like a single star in the entire vastness of the night.

And then there's me, clinging to the dragon's tail. The ambient heat from the scales is half-cooking me. My armor's runes are all but dead, and the titanium is crumpled and battered. The rough scales are scratching it further—its power to remove friction is gone.

I try to pull myself up to balance on top of the tail, maybe get into a striking position, but the dragon shifts and I'm left flailing. There's nothing I can do to help Braztak.

He stands defiant before the monster.

“Beast!” he yells. “You killed my wife, you killed my friends, you killed my guild! Now you'll pay for it!”

The black dragon laughs again. It rears up. As it does so, it swings down its tail. Its collision through the ground sends a shockwave through me, knocking the breath from my lungs. Black spirals form in my vision for an instant.

The tail is resting at an angle though, so I can still see Braztak.

“Answer me, dragon! What made you think you could take on the Association of Steel and reap no consequence?”

Again the dragon only laughs. It seems that its gain in power has brought an equal amount of arrogance. It does not speak to lesser beings. Why use guile when it has this much strength?

“Nachroktey!” Braztak yells. “Death!”

He charges. The dragon opens its maw and a jet of flame flashes out, pure white. It subsumes Braztak, and his armor glows brighter. Emerald and purple shine through the dragonflame. He's still moving, the dragon's flame is following him—despite the stone-melting heat, he is alive!

I came on this quest believing that it was my destiny, my fate, to face the dragon. I was prepared to die in battle with it, but secretly, in my heart, I could never imagine dying without striking at least one grievous blow. If I was to die, I believed, in my very death-throes I would wound deep its belly, head, neck, or at least break a limb or wing.

It seems that it was not to be me who does this, but Braztak. Just as Gollor said, this quest is not about my redemption: it is about all who suffered at the claws and fangs and flame of the dragon. And few suffered as terribly as Braztak did.

Still within the jet of flame, he leaps with immense speed. The dragon's one eye widens in shock and it pulls back its head, yet too late. Braztak strikes it in the lower jaw. There is a crack like the first tremor of a cave-in—blunt impact, his axe has been turned to vapor by the flames but he can punch—the dragon's jaw warps and breaks.

The white flame sputters, and with it so does the light pouring from Braztak's armor. I can no longer see him.

The dragon roars in agony, more gutturally than before. Its jaw flops down. Broken shards of tooth drop from it, and with them fall drops of molten gold trailing wisps of ash.