I creep through the shelves of storeroom three, listening intently to the quiet bustle of the other dwarves amplified in my runic ears, glancing left and right, watching my torchlight play across the stacks of metal. The hoards of steel, titanium, copper and iron in each storeroom have been built up over untold years, and despite our best efforts to put everything into some kind of order after the searches, they remain in a state of chaos. Yes, I think Jaemes is right: it would have been easy for the killer to sneak around and, unseen and unheard, join the horrified group of dwarves crowded around Danak and Yalthaz’s corpses.

My nerves are frayed, doing this. I can’t imagine how frayed they’ll be if I decide to go through with Nthazes’ plan and do this for real, helmet off and properly alone. Already I’m imagining a dark figure, half shadow and half dwarf, rushing me from behind a corner, his knife of dark iron stabbing down toward my neck...

Right now I’m just here to figure out the best place to set the bait—that is to say, me. Somewhere deep enough among the stacks and shelves to be an easy target for ambush, yet with a wide enough corridor for Nthazes to rush down and save me. So far, I have found no such ideal place. It is a twisting maze.

I hear a creak from my left and spin around, thrust out my torch. The dwarf there jumps back just in time to avoid getting his beard scorched, then topples backwards onto his behind with a clank.

“Ah!” he shouts. “Watch it!”

I pull back my torch. “My bad.”

“Too right.” He scowls. “Do I look like a shadow to you?”

“I can’t see you when you sneak up on me from behind, you know. Maybe say something next time.”

“I’m trying to be quiet. I don’t want to draw attention, yeah?” He rubs at his beard, and I see that it didn't go entirely un-singed. “Now look what you’ve done.”

“Wear a helmet like everyone else then,” I snap.

“Metal didn't stop it getting Danak. I want the extra visibility.”

“Suit yourself. I’m not paying for your beard-bleach though.”

“Oh, bugger off.”

I roll my eyes and walk away from him, shaking slightly. At the back wall shelves, upon which lie thick rolls of leather, there’s an open corridor. I lean back against the leather and breath deep. My heart feels like it’s about to explode. That idiot! Creeping around, he’s lucky I didn't stick Heartseeker through him.

I wonder what the hell’s got into me. Really, why am I so on edge? I’ve marched into battle before, for goodness sake, against lava trolls and abyssal salamanders, and in any case, none of the runeknights down here have experience fighting other dwarves, so as long as I can deflect the first blow, I’ll have the experience advantage.

Unless, that is, the dwarf isn’t wielding a dagger, sword or any conventional weapon at all. The latest whispered rumor going around—despite Cathez’s repeated warnings to shut up—is that the killer is some kind of shadow-dwarf. There’s two versions of this theory: that one of us has been corrupted through repeated exposure to the darkness, or that the darkness has twisted itself into the shape of a dwarf and come to us. Several are apparently convinced it's me, even though I fell from above rather than clambered up from below.

The theory doesn’t seem entirely implausible. It mostly fits with what Jaemes said about the killer being one of us, and it goes some way toward explaining the horrible way in which the victims have been killed.

I hear voices through my runic ears:

“You done?”

“Done... We all here?”

“Where’s Zathar?”

The dwarves I came down with are getting ready to leave, and maybe without me if I’m not quick enough. I rush back through the maze of shelves, grab a large roll of titanium wire I've requisitioned in advance, and make it through to them.

“What took you so long?” says the fourth degree who led our group down here. He peers through the eye-slits of my helmet. I blink in the light of his mace.

“Can’t be too careful when you choose materials, can you?” I tell him.

“Can’t be too careful when there’s the darkness on the loose either,” he replies, in a definite tone of suspicion.

“Sorry. I’ll be quicker next time.”

“You better be. No one wants another death, even if it’s you.”

I scowl. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, nothing.”

“I’m pulling my weight just as much as everyone else, yeah? Certainly I’ve proved myself on the hunts.”

“Sure you have.”

“I have.”

“Well, just don’t skulk around in the dark away from us anymore, yeah?” says the dwarf whose beard I singed.

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“Take your own advice next time.”

“Both of you don’t skulk off on your own,” says our leader.

“I wasn’t skulking, Hurist,” I say. “And if we’re all going to be after different things, I don’t have much of a choice but to strike off on my own, do I?”

“If you say so.”

“I do say so.”

“Oh, lay off him,” another dwarf complains. “He doesn’t look like a damn shadow to me.”

Now it’s Hurist’s turn to scowl. “I never said he was.”

“Not when he’s around, no.”

“I’ve never said it!”

“You’ve insinuated it. About him, and several others too.”

“I have bloody not,” Hurist snaps. “Be quiet. You shouldn’t even mention such things.”

“Take your own advice before someone reports you to Commander Cathez.”

“I’ll report you, you damn sixth degree.”

“Pulling rank, are we?” sneers the sixth degree. “How typical of you.”

“Just shut the hell up!” Hurist barks. “No more talk of this.”

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

That little argument was very representative of the tone most discussions are taking on. There are no overt accusations to anyone’s face, but plenty of snide insinuations and suspicion-rousing remarks, shortly followed by denials, insults, and veiled threats. Nothing Cathez can say seems to quell the rumor-mill. For example, a few days after my excursion to the storeroom he gathered everyone not on duty and told us:

“No more fucking rumors! No more talking about shadow dwarves, or dark runes, or any other stupid theory you lot come up with. They don’t exist. Mathek, Danak, and Yalthaz were killed by the same darkness we’ve always been fighting.”

“Why’s it changed then?” said someone with more courage or stupidity than most.

Cathez glared at him. “I don’t know. No one knows. But speculation isn’t going to help us. So just shut it, all right? The next person I hear spouting nonsense will be dragged, personally, by me, into the Runethane’s hall where you will explain to him exactly why you have been undermining the morale of the fort like a traitor. Your punishment will not be a pleasant one.”

Then, as soon as he left the meal hall for his duties, the whispers started up again.

I halt my pacing around the forge, and for the hundredth time tell myself that worrying isn’t helping anything. The best thing I can do now is work on my gauntlets, so I can have the speed I need to catch the killer’s first blow before it sinks into my jugular—if I'm still really going to go through with Nthazes' mad plan, that is.

I’ve finished the twenty-eight plates that will go over my fingers, and the two large plates that will over the backs of my hands too. Unlike my last pair of gauntlets, which had many tightly overlapping plates, the plates of these ones will be widely spaced to allow for mobility. I want my hands to be as fast as possible when I grab at my assailants arm, and the best way to ensure this is to have the majority of my gauntlets composed not of plates, but of chainmail.

So now I’m faced with the challenge of forging more than a thousand tiny rings of titanium and riveting them all together, despite the fact I’ve never made even steel or iron chainmail before—I’ve always bought it ready made. And there isn’t even a handy machine available to help me either.

I heft up the large roll of titanium wire I requisitioned from storeroom three, and unwind an amount about as long as I am tall. The length seems excessive until I start to wind it around a wooden pole only a few millimeters in thickness to make a coil that ends up roughly as long as my forearm.

I remove the wood and examine the titanium, trying to work out how best to clip it. In order to rivet the rings, I’m going to have to cut them out not as perfect circles but with overlaps, which will form the section the rivets go through. Some chainmail is not crafted like this: instead the cuts are done to form rings with little overlap so they can be easily put together with no rivet, but this simple method is widely considered suitable only for novices.

I take up a pair of titanium clippers which I’ve borrowed from Nthazes—most of the clippers down here are steel, and thus not suitable for use on titanium because of the iron oxide issue. I slice down the coil, cut by cut, making sure to line up my clippers so that each link comes out with an overlap of the same size. The clippers make a metallic snicking sound each time I cut, almost like the notes of a musical instrument.

Once I'm done, I lay out the rings for examination. Several I’ve cut wonky, or have an overlap too small, and I make a small pile out of them at the left side of my anvil. Maybe I can melt them down in future to make something else with.

The rest now need to be hammered flat. This is likely to be a more difficult task than I anticipate, since for the links to fit together smoothly for the best flexibility, each needs to be the same thickness. I hammer at the first one, making sure the angle at which I hit it is perfectly vertical, and as I do so count the strokes. It takes me ten solid hits.

I hammer the next one with ten solid hits too, but when I put my eye level with the anvil to check its thickness against the first, I see that it’s a little thinner—clearly I put too much power into my strikes.

I put that link with the other rejects and move on to the next. This time I check the thickness after the ninth stroke. It’s not quite flat—I controlled my power better this time—so I give it one more and place it on the right side of the anvil.

I continue this slow process until all the links are either flattened to the perfect degree or lying in the pile of rejects. I scowl at it: it’s a full quarter of the size of my pile of correctly made ones, and I have a feeling it’s only going to grow during the next two stages.

The links must now be heat-treated. This can’t be done after the mail is complete, or the links would stick together, so it has to be done while they’re still separate. Each must come to the same temperature, or the finished mail will have weak points, so, because the heat distribution in the furnaces down here is uneven, I have to heat them in small groups of only half a dozen or so each.

It’s an incredibly tedious process, yet one that also demands great concentration lest I leave them in too long. My mind still occupied with thoughts of the killer, I slip up several times and another few dozen links end up in the reject pile.

It’s approaching a full third of the size of my collection of usable links.

Now it’s time for the final stage: riveting. First, each link needs a hole punched into it where its overlapped ends have been flattened into lobes. Another few rings go in the reject pile when I misjudge the position of the thin nail I’m using. Next, I must link the rings together. From an even thinner length of titanium wire, I clip very short lengths to form the rivets. I thread them into the holes I punched into the now linked rings, and with my clippers, which have a flattish section behind the blades designed for this job, tightly squeeze them into shape.

Finished. I now have enough mail to fit around one finger. Judging by the amount of titanium I’ve wasted, I’m going to need to go on two more hunts at least to earn enough honor to complete both gauntlets and become ready to take on the killer.

If, that is, I really am going to take him on.

Until then he will have free reign.