“Belthur?” I say. “Don’t be stupid! You’re the murderer, Fjalar—”

“I am not!”

My mind whirls in a fury. I should’ve expected such a dirty trick. I assumed for some reason that he would respond to my accusations through physical violence, but Fjalar is too smart for that. No, why prove that you’re a killer by attacking your accuser, when instead you can try and destroy his credibility with some half-forged theory of your own?

“Belthur cannot be the murderer,” I say.

Yet can I be so sure? He was one possibility I counted, after all. Shit! I’m starting to doubt even myself.

“He can be and he is,” Fjalar says. “Who else gains from confusion in the fort? With the Runethane driven crazy, Belthur wanted to step in as the only voice of reason. The commanders were too close to the Runethane, too loyal to take that role for themselves, and the few second degrees were too loyal also. That left Belthur, who was on the brink of becoming a second degree also.”

“How could a second degree become a Runethane? He’s not strong enough.”

“No, but he could have been the de facto ruler, if he had everyone’s trust. Then when more powerful, stepped into the role proper.”

“I can't imagine Commander Hraroth bowing to him. And there are many ways he could’ve undermined the Runethane without resorting to murder.”

“Such as?”

“Spreading rumors. That’s how these things are usually done.”

“And he spread plenty of rumors! Like how the Runethane was wrong, that the darkness was not responsible for the killings, and that our expeditions were a fool’s errands.”

“Many dwarves spread those rumors. You and your brother included.”

“Leave my brother out of this!”

He sounds genuinely enraged—he’s in true grief over losing his brother, I see that now. Their fighting was the only purpose in his life, after all. Yet this is no time to tip-toe around his feelings.

“You both spread a lot of rumors, always switching sides. That’s another reason I started being suspicious of you.”

“All were discussing the threat and what it might be,” Fjalar snaps. “Leave my brother out of this.”

“Then Belthur’s discussion of the same isn’t really evidence then, is it?” I counter.

“He was doing it more than most. He had an entire group around him to help him forment his little rebellion. Lothan, a few other senior runeknights, and a couple dozen lower degree ones also. He grew it over time.”

“That’s true. Nthazes and I were part of it.” A few dwarves recoil in alarm; I raise my voice, “But it was not for rebellion, but to discover the identity of the killer!”

“And discover him we have,” says Nthazes. “We searched you and your brother’s rooms, Fjalar.”

“So it was my fellow dwarves then,” Fjalar spits. “I’d wondered if that was the case. Not the human, then. You were happy for him to be your scapegoat though, weren’t you Zathar? Your so-called friend.”

“We worked together,” I say, not letting the insinuation get to me. “We were all prepared to suffer the consequences of our actions. What we found was more important than who got blamed for it.”

“It was just you three skulking around the fort, was it? I think you had help to stop yourselves getting caught. Belthur bribe the guards, did he?”

“He covered for us, yes. That’s not important—”

“So Belthur’s dwarves had such great control of the fort that they were able to allow others to circumvent the Runethane’s rules, brazenly, and yet Zathar here won’t admit that maybe he had other interests in mind, that were more about power than getting to the truth?”

Some of the dwarves look at each other. Are they coming around to his side?

“You’re trying to distract us,” I say. “It won’t work. What we found in your chambers were bloodstained containers and fragments of glass with some rather suspicious runes on them.”

“Bloodstained containers!” Fjalar laughs, a relieved-sounding laugh.

Have I made a mistake? I thought the containers did have blood in them, used for their preliminary experiments, but maybe he never needed such. Maybe they were just rusted—and of course it was Galar’s half of the chambers we searched. He might never have been privy to Fjalar’s interest in blood, just manipulation of glass.

Admitting error would weaken my position here, so I decide to go all in: “Yes, you were researching blood’s potential. But the glass is more important. The runes we found on it were those related to drawing things in, and expelling others.”

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“And? We did many experiments on glass; they were all failures.”

“You saw a use for them even if Galar didn't—though I think he used the same principles when making his trident.”

“Fine.” Fjalar shrugs. “Tell us what I used the glass for, then.”

“Your amulet. It’s not ruby.”

“Go on.”

He doesn’t sound nervous at all—yet he should, I’m confident my theory is correct. Maybe he thinks that what he’s actually accomplished is so brilliantly impossible that no one here will believe it.

“I tried to get a look for myself in the infirmary, when you were pretending to be recovering from the blood-loss, but didn't have time to examine the runes. Yet I’m sure of what it is now—hollow glass filled with blood.”

Fjalar shakes his head, laughing quietly. “Go on, go on. We’re all listening.”

“It’s the blood of your victims. Your weapon is a needle, linked to your amulet by a thin and flexible tube of metal.”

“There we have it: you’re wrong. You’d have seen such when you stripped my armor off after my battle with the dithyok.”

“Not if it was under your skin.”

“What?”

Was that worry creeping into his voice? I press the attack: “You hid the weapon inside yourself to guarantee it could never be found. You’re cautious, Fjalar, very cautious. You never attacked a dwarf if you thought there was even the tiniest chance you’d be caught—until the dithyok forced your hand, at least, and the darkness forced it again just now.”

“So not only is my weapon of unparalleled brilliance,” Fjalar says in a sarcastic drawl, “imbued with abilities anyone sane would consider impossible, but it was also tiny enough to fit under my skin? You are absurd.”

“It is a needle,” I say. “A hollow needle. As long as it isn’t run through anything vital, it won’t do any harm to you. Some dwarves go their whole lives with bits of metal embedded in them. Runethane Broderick, for example, with his skin of golden chain.”

“I’ve never heard of this Runethane Broderick. But I’m no Runethane, Zathar. I’m a fifth degree, as good as you according to the Runethane—though I think I’m a bit better.”

“You’re a great deal better than me. You and your brother are geniuses.”

“Flattery won’t help your case,” Fjalar sneers.

“I haven’t finished. The runes in your needle pulled in the blood, it went through the tube into your amulet, which compressed it, and more importantly, stole the vital energies from it.”

“Vital energies? What the hell are you on about?”

“Just as the darkness steals the vital energies from those it touches, your amulet drains the same energies from the blood. To heal you, and more importantly to gain your victims’ skill. You wanted to become better than your brother by an order of magnitude. For that, you needed to thieve.”

“Absurdity upon absurdity!”

“What’s so absurd about it? We all know what amulets of unaging are for—via the medium of a gem, they connect body and mind to rune. They stall the deterioration, yet what if they could do more than that? What if they could improve body and mind beyond what they are meant to be? I’ve witnessed such crafts in action.”

“You speak of a Runeking’s crown then,” Fjalar says. “Only the most brilliant dwarves can forge such a craft. I, as much as it pains me to admit it, am not that good.”

“No. Which is why you devised something that merely takes from others, rather than creating it for itself.”

Fjalar turns to the intently listening dwarves behind us. “Please, tell me you do not believe this foolishness. If there’s such runes that can accomplish what Zathar says my amulet has, only a Runeking, or Runethane on the verge of becoming one, is capable of creating them.”

“All Runekings were runeknights at some point,” I say. “Many have the potential, but are cut off through bad chance.”

A flurry of blows against the darkness from the two guarding the door momentarily steals our attention. It’s just forced part of itself in, a cloud that for a moment obscured the torsos of the defenders. Fjalar, thinking faster than me, rushes for it and with his blinding mace helps beat it away.

“Thanks,” says one of the two guards.

“No trouble. Apparently I still need to prove I’m not an ally of the darkness.”

“I never said you were its ally,” I snap. “The killings and the darkness are not connected.”

“No, you’re right—they were a way for Belthur to topple the Runethane.”

“Back to this again? It’s ridiculous. The only reason Belthur betrayed the Runethane is because of these disastrous expeditions!”

“No, it goes deeper than that. I’ve been down here a lot longer than you, Zathar. Belthur has never been happy with the Runethane.”

“Neither have I,” says Nthazes. “That doesn’t mean I betrayed him. I would’ve gone into the darkness with him, had Zathar not persuaded me that my true duty was to the fort. Belthur is honorable too. He wants what is best for the fort. He never would’ve killed his fellows.”

“How many have died because of him now?” counters Fjalar.

“He did not intend to kill them. He intended to save us, and maybe he has. None can ever tell that.”

“And Belthur could not have forged such a weapon,” I point out. “He’s never shown genius. Skill yes, genius no.”

“He’s a higher degree than I am,” says Fjalar. “The degrees exist for a reason, and they are accurate.”

“They are for most. But you and your brother—”

“Leave him out of this!”

“You and your brother made sure you didn't rise for years—centuries! And if you all cannot fathom what that is, they have been here since the last Runethane, at least. A very long time. Long enough to become very skilled indeed!”

"If I'm so skilled, then why do I need to become even more so? And why then is my weapon not superior to Galar's trident, which just saved us all?"

"You want to be more skilled than Galar. You don't need to, but you want to. And you had to hurry your mace after getting out the infirmary."

"So if I was able to heal myself, why was I in the infirmary?"

"You didn't want to raise suspicion."

"Ridiculous. This is all ridiculous. No such weapon or amulet exists."

"It does." I step away from Fjalar and turn to face the dwarves in the center of the room head on. I take a deep breath. “I've said all I can: Fjalar slew the victims with a needle concealed within his body, likely his wrist. The blood was ripped from them to his amulet, where its vital energies were drained to give Fjalar power. That’s how he was able to survive the wounds from the dithyok, and also those from the blast just now. I examined two bodies—they were far lighter than they ought to have been.”

Fjalar shakes his head. “You cannot all believe this.”

“I am not asking you all to believe out of blind faith. And of course I am willing to admit I may have been wrong. I am an honest dwarf. So, Fjalar, let us about we prove the truth once and for all: strip off your armor.”