There are a few seconds of silence, then the hall erupts into outraged shouting. The violence of my fellow dwarves shocks me—our ranks push forward, spears are brandished and jabbed in Jaemes’ direction.

“Murder? Murder?”

“Impossible!”

“Dwarves do not stab each other from behind! That’s human behavior!”

“You surface-dwellers might be thieves and assassins, but not us!”

“Human fool!”

“Human scum! How dare you dishonor us!”

“You never should have come here!”

A lower degree dwarf actually tries to charge at Jaemes, but Cathez steps in and slams him to the ground.

“Silence!” he bellows. “Halt, all of you! You are in the presence of your Runethane!”

The surge toward Jaemes grinds to a halt and the shouting ceases. The runeknight who was thrown to the ground climbs to his feet and slinks back into the ranks. Jaemes, who did not flinch at all at the threats, crosses his arms and glares at us.

“I merely gave my opinion. I am not accusing any of you. I just wish for the Runethane to have as much knowledge as possible at his disposal so that he can help to guarantee our safety.”

“Yes, thank you for your opinion, human,” Runethane Yurok says. His tone of voice suggests he’s not much less angry than everyone else. “However, I am not convinced. We are a brotherhood down here. There is little disharmony between us, and certainly no crime as serious as murder.”

“Even so, is it not—”

“I said thank you for your opinion!”

Jaemes takes the hint and steps away from the throne. He bows low. “Very well, my Runethane.”

“Good. Now that’s cleared up, the search and extermination will begin. Commander Cathez, I leave it in your capable hands.”

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

Commander Cathez divides us into squads of five. We march to the eighth storeroom--accompanied by the chamberlain with his brightly glowing mace--where he orders us to drag out some large crates from the corner and open them up. They are heavy, but not as heavy as crates of weapons would be.

I use Heartseeker to help prize the first open. The wood creaks loudly, then the lid unseals and the smell of tar pours out, making me step back, coughing loudly.

Once I’ve recovered from my coughing fit I see that inside is a stack of long wooden torches, unused for perhaps many centuries. The heads have compressed together into a singular sticky mass.

The lower ranking runeknights are ordered to cut them apart. They grumble at the insult of having to use their crafts for such menial work, but Commander Cathez gives them a strong reminder about how serious the situation is. Eventually they manage to separate them all, and Cathez orders us to take one each. A burning brazier is carried down from the kitchens and we light them. The room fills with choking fumes and heat, and for an instant I am reminded of the black dragon.

“Squads one to three will go to the forges,” Cathez orders. “Squad four to the road. Squads five to eight to the sleeping chambers. Squads nine and ten to the kitchen and eating hall. Squads eleven to sixteen will accompany me to the storerooms. Understood?”

“Understood,” we chorus.

“I will also confer with Commander Hraroth to see how many can be spared from the Shaft to help with the search. Once the darkness is discovered, a light-enruned weapon must be used. Do not attempt to fight it with your torch—it isn’t bright enough. Just try to hold it back.”

“Understood.”

“Excellent. Now move out.”

I am in squad three and thus head up to the forges. The heat and light of the torches ought to be a comfort to me, but the flickering shadows they cast are unnerving. The crackling sound they make also disrupts my hearing, so my runic ears will be no help in detecting the strange silence which Nthazes has told me heralds the deep darkness' presence.

We enter the forging hall. It is eerily silent—no hammer-blow echoes, no anvil clangs.

“We’ll divide the job into thirds,” says the fourth degree in charge of squad one. “My squad will do the left third, squad two the middle, squad three the right. Do not search anywhere alone. Go into each pit as a group, and make sure to open every drawer, every chest—anywhere there might be darkness.”

“What about the armor and weapon storage?” someone asks.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“We will do those after the forging pits have been inspected. And make sure to remember what Commander Cathez said about not fighting it! No heroics. If the darkness is discovered, shout loudly, step away, and try to make a ring of light around it with the rest of your squad. Hopefully the torches hold until reinforcements come.”

My squad clambers down into the first forging pit in single file, holding our torches close to the ground. Several of us are shaking. I tighten my grip on my torch and Heartseeker and take a deep breath. Giving into fear will only make the process worse. I remind myself that the likelihood of my squad discovering the darkness is only one in sixteen, and get to work.

We search in pairs. I use Heartseeker to hook open a drawer, then my partner thrusts his burning torch just above it. I prod whatever’s in there—chisels, small bits of metal, other various tools—to try and turn them over so that the light can reach into every nook and cranny. Then we move onto the next drawer, chest, or shelf. The furnace is turned up as high as it can go for maximum illumination.

It is hot and sweaty work, and very nerve-wracking. Sometimes the fire of a torch will flicker because of a draft and everyone will jump. It always proves to be nothing, however.

I ask exactly what will happen if we do find the deep darkness, and the squad leader tells me there are a number of possibilities: the torch could dim or die, or I could feel a terrible coldness as it tries to sap the life from me, or if it is powerful enough I might not feel anything as every iota of life-energy in my body is ripped out in a single instant.

“Though I don’t really know that well,” he says. “Still haven’t forged my weapon of light.”

“Are light runes very hard to master?”

“Extremely. But let’s stay focused on the task at hand.”

“All right.”

We clear the first forging pit, then climb out and down into the second. The same process commences—open, illuminate, poke around, close again. No shadows leap out to drain the life from us. We move onto the next pit, and then the fourth.

Nothing. Neither does there seem to be anything in the other parts of the forging hall, since we hear no cries of panic or screams of terror. I begin to calm a little, jump less at the flickering of shadows.

A new worry takes hold of me: what if Jaemes is right?

Though I wasn’t enraged by his comments like the others, I did find them a little hard to believe. After all, everyone down here—bar the twins—seems to get along in brotherly harmony. Unlike the warring runeknights of Thanerzak and Broderick, everyone here has the common cause of defending against the deep dark. They are proud to say that they have no energy to waste on fighting each other.

Yet on second thoughts, is it not impossible that there has never been any crime down here? Within the centuries upon centuries, perhaps even a millennia of two hundred runeknights packed together in the darkness, it is unlikely that not a single grudge has been formed, a single insult taken the wrong way. I've seen enough dwarf-on-dwarf cruelty to understand what we are like.

At some point, someone must have decided their grudge was too much to bear, and done something about it. An accidental nudge toward a sweeping tendril of darkness, perhaps. Or abandonment in the upper reaches of the mushroom basket with a predator lurking near.

Surely sometime, somewhere, something like this has happened amongst these dwarves. And if not, then it is long overdue.

But what weapon could drain every last drop of blood in an instant and not leave a single stain? I cannot think of any runes that could accomplish the task. Where would the blood go, anyway?

Just after we have cleared the final forging pit in our section of the hall, a group of ten runeknights wielding hammers and maces of light arrive. Arrayed in an even row, they are a spectacular sight, their weapons gleaming like a row of stars—glowing balls in the surface sky I've read about—except these stars are not illustrations but bright and real.

Their leader, a third degree whose armor is adorned with mirrors of platinum like the Runethane’s doors, steps forward to converse with the leader of squad one. After some discussion, we are ordered to begin inspecting the armor crates and weapons stands at the far end of the hall, those used to store unfinished crafts, while two or three runeknights with weapons of light stand behind each squad ready to strike.

Some of my fear returns. The armor boxes are big, and many have not been opened for a long time. With no furnace nearby the only light is from our torches and the maces of the two runeknights behind us, which cast long shadows. The weapon racks are worse—they are inside tall sealed cabinets to protect their contents from moisture, and each time I open one I feel a terrible dread, expecting a cold shadow taller than I am to subsume me in death.

This does not happen. Nothing happens. The armor boxes contain nothing but armor, and the weapon racks hold nothing but weapons. We come to the final box—an enormous, ancient looking thing of gnarled surface wood.

“Open it up,” orders our squad leader.

Two dwarves wedge their spears into the thin gap under the lid and attempt to pry it open. They heave hard, but it won’t open.

“Harder.”

They strain as hard as they can, but their spearheads are beginning to bend.

“Wait,” says one of the runeknights behind us. “I think this one’s sealed magnetically. Check the side, there’s probably a switch to reverse the polarity.”

I put my torch to the side of the chest to illuminate it, and just as the runeknight predicted there’s a square button inscribed with a rune I don’t fully recognise, but with a broken jag stroke that suggests something to do with magnetism.

My partner kneels down and presses it.

The lid flies open with a sudden bang and a black shadow flies out at us. I yell and dodge out of the way and it affixes itself to the runeknight behind me. He shouts in panic and thrashes at it with his glowing mace, but it has no effect. I thrust at the blackness with my torch and an acrid scent fills the air. Everyone else follows suit, and the shadow flares into bright flames.

The other runeknight with a mace of light grabs hold of the flaming shadow and tears it off his comrade, then throws it to the ground and curses loudly:

“Fucking silk! Who the fuck put silks in their armor chest? Why the hell would anyone do that?”

“Whose even is this anyway?” says our squad leader in a faint voice. He sounds as if he’s just had a minor heart attack.

The runeknight who was ‘attacked’ pokes around the chest with his mace, pushing away a few more large cuts of silk cloth. Below them is a half-enruned suit of steel armor, far from the best quality.

“Some idiot’s,” he says. “One long dead.”

“This storage really ought be gone over more often," another dwarf says. "It's horribly disorganized."

“It is, just no one bothers to check the corners. Well, it’s all checked now. We’re done. Wherever the deep darkness is lurking, it isn’t here.”