I find the dry jerky and drier tack hard to swallow, even with a mouthful of water to help them go down. The black opening beckons, like an open mineshaft luring a tired miner to the call of the void. I want to pull away from the danger, flee this place, and I’m sure I’m not the only one. There’s still no talk amongst our ranks, and the smell of fear is palpable.

“We’ve rested enough," announces the Runethane. "We can’t allow the darkness any respite. Let us strike while the iron is hot; continue our hammer-blows before the metal cools and becomes too hard to work with.”

I put the waterskin back into my pack and stand, ready to march. With his mace held high and bright like a torch, the Runethane leads us into the gaping, gateless hole in the wall.

The wall is thick; yet not thick enough. Very quickly we come to its other side, where we are met with blank stone. The Runethane detects an opening along to the right; we march to it. A slim door is set here, one barely big enough for us to fit through double-file. Clearly no carriages were ever meant to come through here, just a few guards.

"Be ready to fight as soon as you are out," warns the Runethane.

Nervously we line up, then, two by two, we shuffle through. I can't see what's out there—for all I know those who just left could be fighting already, subsumed by the darkness. My turn comes: I swallow hard, brace myself. My shoulder scrapes against the edge of the doorway, my mace jostles against that of the dwarf next to me, then we're out and marching along a corridor that, while not as tight as the doorway, is still only wide enough for four or five abreast.

There is no attack, not yet. But it is noticeably colder.

I glance back and see that there are no windows on this side. The stone is unadorned also, and of a slightly different texture. It’s smoother, yet also gives an impression of dullness. I blink open my eyes and I’m right—the light of our bright maces blurs on it.

We continue to march forward until all are out, then we’re ordered into a column four abreast. Our march proper restarts, and I realize that the corridor is turning subtly. The turn becomes more pronounced, and then a halt is called. I peer over the head of the dwarf in front of me, and see that the corridor has split into three.

“We’ll stick together,” says the Runethane. “Let us go right.”

Along the rightmost branch we go. Abruptly we come to a halt once more: the corridor splits into two, a stairway up and a stairway down. The steps are massive, not designed for dwarven scale.

“Down,” says the Runethane.

Right, then down: he’s choosing the paths he thinks most likely to take us to the center of this place. No longer are we in a city—the blankness of the walls, roof and floor, the lack of etchings that one could get one’s bearings from, suggest a labyrinth. I get a sinking feeling that my idea from earlier was right. The wall was the last line of defense from something from within, not without. This labyrinth is another defensive construction, and one that clearly didn't work.

Our footsteps are dull; the stone eats the sound. There are fewer echoes than you usually hear in tight corridors, though enough to make the passage seem slightly warped to my hearing. The air remains dry and scentless.

We reach the bottom of the steps. A few minutes later and we are at a crossroads. The Runethane thinks for a few minutes, then says:

“We go right again.”

Dutifully we continue the march. The coldness grows deeper, and the echoes of our steps grow even quieter. Several more branches and crossroads meet us to confound us, and we have no choice but to trust in the Runethane’s decisions of where to go. I think he’s choosing whichever passages seems the quietest. The difference between each choice must be subtle, but his runic ears are likely more sensitive than anything I can imagine.

His choices seem to be correct. We’re getting closer to the heart of the deep darkness. The lack of sound is oppressive now: my ears feel blocked, like I’ve just rapidly descended a mineshaft. I’m shivering in my armor: my skin feels like the warmth is being drained from it.

“Halt!”

There’s a note of surprise to the Runethane’s voice. A physical shiver runs up the column: what has he found?

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“I believe we’re nearly there,” he declares. “This staircase has a sense of finality about it. Yes, down here is the deep darkness. I’m sure of it. It’s waiting for us. Can you all not sense it? Those of you who’ve fought it before at least have developed an understanding of it. It’s a lifeless force, like death itself, but even natural phenomena can seem to take on consciousness. Yes, waiting is the word to use here.”

I feel my hands tighten around the haft of my mace. Is this truly it, then?

“Forward,” orders the Runethane. “Be careful of the steps, they’re even steeper than the last few sets were.”

Our march slows to a crawl as we carefully make our way down. The steps are indeed incredibly steep: each is about two feet in height, forcing us to use our arms to steady ourselves against the walls, lest we tumble. A few dwarves do tumble, their armor making strangely subdued clatters and crashes, yet they don’t curse. No one wants to bring attention down on themselves.

Partway down, the Runethane calls a halt for us to get our breath back. This has been very tiring work, and my legs and lungs both ache. Steps are bad enough, but having to lug a heavy pack and a heavier weapon down them adds a significant amount of challenge.

The rest is too short though; soon the Runethane orders the march restarted. The chill becomes so intense that I feel almost like I’m wearing neither armor nor clothes—a terrible feeling for any dwarf. The lack of sound feels horrid too. I can barely hear my own breathing inside my helmet.

“The steps end!” calls the Runethane. “They meet a corridor perpendicular to them. It is wide enough to form up in.”

We form up back into our squads once we reach the bottom. The corridor is indeed very wide, and seems to be circular in shape. Unlike the labyrinth we just navigated, the stone here has etchings. I can barely make them out, but it seems that almost all of them depict works of sorcery.

Dwarves do not deal in sorcery. Our magic is in our runes: it is a more reliable and physical kind of power than that which humans and elves up on the surface employ. Their powers come from within, and are dangerously unpredictable. I’ve never encountered a sorcerer, and I never wish to.

Maybe the darkness is a spell that went wrong. Or, worse, maybe it’s a spell that went right.

The Runethane puts his hand against the wall. Quickly he draws it back.

“Very cold,” he says. “And my hand feels dulled. The darkness is behind here. There is no doubt about it. Let us march around and find an opening.”

We do as he bids. Our steps no longer echo, their sound instead confined to our immediate vicinity, fading before they have a chance to contact the walls. This means that my hearing-vision of the corridor is all but gone. It is the equivalent of walking through a cave with only the barest embers of a torch providing illumination. I blink open my eyes, worried that maybe tendrils of darkness have started to appear, yet there is nothing but light that is blinding, yet paradoxically cannot illuminate the corridor properly. The walls remain shadowed.

“Weapons ready,” the Runethane orders. “I detect an entrance to this place, whatever it is.”

Our weapons are already ready. We’re all prepared for the darkness to slash down at us at the first possible instant. It would be foolish not to be.

The entrance he spoke of comes into view. It’s the vaguest darkening of the shadowed walls, a hole into which sound cannot penetrate. The air just inside seems to be shivering, an auditory impression of a mirage. We halt before it. The Runethane orders us to face it. We do so, then he walks right up and stands beside it, and turns to face us. He look-listens over us, and I get the uncomfortable feeling that he’s examining every dwarf individually for traces of cowardice.

He finds some:

“I see that many of you are scared. That you do not think we will ever make it back to the fort alive. Well, it is too soon to be worrying about things like returning. Now it is time to fight. And you needn't worry about death. Not because it isn’t coming for you, but because even if it does, and succeeds in sending your soul into the cold void, your comrades will avenge you. They will continue on, and we shall succeed, and your memory will be eternal.”

These words would be rousing from a different Runethane, from a commander who makes the right decisions, who has won victories before. As it stands, I find it far more likely that should I fall, my memory will be extinguished along with that of every other dwarf of the fort. That shifting soundlessness just within the entrance is the deep darkness—though it’s not yet concentrated into killing form, it’s the darkness nonetheless.

My armor feels heavy, my mace heavier, and my head and stomach are both spinning.

“So forget your fear, my dwarves, and follow me through.”

He walks around to face the entrance, slowly, not showing any sign of fear nor panic, raises his mace, and strikes at the blackness. A flash makes me wince through my closed eyes, and the shifting soundlessness is lessened.

“Onward!”

We march in, and down further steps. I look around and see that this place is like an amphitheater, rings upon rings of stairs all leading to a central point, just as the chamber of the Shaft is constructed. And just like the chamber of the Shaft, the center is darkness, yet it is not a hole, but a shifting sphere of void, a gap in reality, an utter nothingness whose presence fills the very air with palpable dread.

The Runethane points at it and shouts with mad vigor:

“There is our enemy! There is what we have come to fight!”

The sphere of void twists—at its core I glimpse something, yet cannot tell what exactly—and clouds of darkness rush up to meet us.