The moments after I passed vanished in a blur. I remember being hurried through the crowd by the head examiner and his guards, then gripped tightly and flanked by Whelt and Guildmaster Wharoth, who I didn't even realize had been watching me.

Then I was hauled up onto a long silk-draped platform in the plaza, clearly designed for at least fifteen dwarves to stand in a row on, and, in front of the crowd baying for blood and being held back by guards, the head examiner handed me my certificate.

“Your armor was awful,” he said. “But your spear was good.”

I was still in too much battle-shock to reply. I vaguely remember the head examiner turning away then being confronted by Guildmaster Wharoth, angrily shaking his fist.

It was at that point, I think, that the head examiner handed me a long strip of abyssal salamander skin.

“Hold it up!” shouts one of my drunken guildmates. “Hold it up again!”

I stand on my chair and hold the strip of red skin aloft. It’s still glowing like embers.

“Incredible!”

“That’s one of the finest materials a dwarf could hope for!”

“Swing it around!”

“Far too precious to swing around,” warns Guildmaster Wharoth. “Sit back down, Zathar.”

The guildhall is filled, packed. The story of the insane examiner and his brutal final test has spread all throughout Thanerzak’s domain, and every guildmate not in distant lands has come here to celebrate my victory. With their own private funds they’ve purchased massive quantities of pork, bread, cake, sizzling steaks, succulent mushrooms, and barrels of fine quality ale. The delicious smell of food and drink permeates the hall, and the sound of merriment must be echoing through the street, because it’s sure hard to hear anything right now in here.

I’m not sure how I’m feeling. On the one hand, the examination was the most brutal experience of my life so far. I watched fifty-three dwarves get torn to pieces and burned alive right before my eyes. But on the other hand, it’s my greatest triumph, and a truly legendary victory. It's unheard of for any runeknight below at least seventh degree, let alone an initiate, to get even a single stab into an abyssal salamander.

I decide to stop worrying about my emotions and drink more.

“So, what you going to do now?” Whelt asks. “Any kind of job you want me to set you up with?”

"I've been thinking about a military career. Fighting in the caves, guarding the castle, getting up to know the Runethane, all that kind of stuff."

"Oh, tricky, tricky. They only take the best of the best, you know."

"He is one of the best though!" roars a drunken dwarf from across the table. "Sole survivor, spreading our guild's name faaar and wiiide..."

He attempts to strike up a song, and fails miserably.

"I'd think carefully before joining up with the military lot," warns Guildmaster Wharoth. "Things aren't going so well."

"You mean the dragon?"

"A lot of forces have been diverted. Opening up weaknesses in our lines. Rumor has it some of the Runethane's best were killed in a raid a couple weeks back. Sliced to pieces."

"Oh." His words bring an image of the salamander's first victim to mind, torso trailing blood and intestines. "Dangerous, then."

"It's never been cushy. You best forge yourself something very good indeed if you want to apply."

"Just his luck that he's got something then!" Whelt says happily, slapping me on the back hard enough I spit a little beer.

"You mean this?" I take out my salamander skin again.

“Yeah. You have any idea how much it’s worth? Damn, any idea at all?”

Its only the length of my belt, and doesn’t look quite as impressive up close as one might expect. It's not pure red, but of black scales glowing red out the edges between them, for a kind of volcanic look, but the glow is not so bright—it doesn’t turn the hall crimson or anything—and it’s merely warm, not burning hot like its appearance suggests.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Not sure,” I say. “A thousand silvers?”

“Silvers? Golds, my young man, golds!”

Whelt is really in his element here, drunker than most and his red beard oiled to a sheen for the party.

“That much?”

“That much,” Guildmaster Wharoth confirms.

“Can I forge with it? I mean, it can’t form a blade. And it’s too soft for armor...”

“There’s some techniques. Very advanced ones. You’d do well to practice with ordinary salamander skin first, so you don’t end up ruining it.”

“That hard?” If it’s too hard, I’d probably be better off selling it.

“Hard. But there are some runes you can make strong beyond measure with it.”

I ponder this thought for the rest of evening, wondering what runes they are. Ones holding enough power for me to get accepted into the military, maybe. Or perhaps armor that can resist the flames of a dragon.

What would my brother say, to look upon me now? And where is he? Will the rumors of my victory reach him?

Only two things I know for sure: Kazhek is still out for blood, and the black dragon is waiting for me.

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

Only five and a half months left of the six the dragon promised me. I decide to devote three of them to forging the armor and weapon I will need to join Runethane Thanerzak’s military and gain access to his castle.

First, research. Guildmaster Wharoth has donated a heavy bag of silver and gold to me for spreading the Association’s name far and wide, and I spend a good portion of it on books about salamanders. Several prove useless, all about their ecology and how to hunt them, but others contain in-depth information on how to use their skin to forge.

In brief, salamander scales are composed of long, very thin loops of carbon. This is what makes their scales black. The red glow is caused by a chemical form of incandesite residue which they get from swimming in molten rock.

A dwarf can utilize these two properties in a few ways. First, the carbon scales can be pulled apart and woven into nearly any metal to make it both stronger and more flexible. The scales must be pulled apart in exactly the right way, so the fibers are not tangled, nor too thick or thin. And the metal must be the right temperature when the fibers are mixed in, or they’ll clump up—plus exactly the right amount of skin-residue must be included, for too much risks explosion.

It’s even harder than this, of course—I’m simplifying. The textbooks recommend years of study and practice before attempting it.

There is an easier way to use my skin, though. The scales can be separated from the film of skin they’re attached to and, with a great deal of heat and hammering, shaped into runes. Some smiths consider this to be very wasteful, a discarding of the skin’s true potential, but they do admit it is not so difficult to accomplish, provided one has the stamina for it.

So this is what I will do.

First though, my basic materials. Iron is below me now, so naturally I go for steel. I could do bronze, I suppose, but Kazhek wears bronze and likely knows all the ins and outs of it. I’m better protected from him in something else.

I don my hooded cloak and depart for the forging district. It’s right opposite the same district on Runethane Broderick’s side, and if I spend some time looking into the chasm I’ll probably be able to spot the exact ledge I fell onto. But I don’t have the time to waste. I spend half my remaining funds on the steel plates and bars I need, and get back to the guildhall.

Armor first. I’m going to forgo chainmail for extra-thick padded leather—I don’t have time to sit around linking steel rings together, and Kazhek wields a warhammer, which chainmail will be little use against.

This doesn’t mean I’m going to ignore all of Wharoth’s advice, though. I’m going to spend a good long time on this armor.

Two long months, to be exact. Each day of those I spend at the forge, heating and hammering. Each strike on the hot steel I make precisely, timing and swinging down with exactitude. Not a millimeter do I allow myself for error. After the end of the first week I notice the arm-plate I’ve been working on for the past four days is of slightly the wrong dimensions—I throw it out and buy new steel.

No errors. No imperfections.

Five weeks in, and the breastplate I’ve been working on for two of them is not perfect. I could hammer out the imperfections, salvage my minor errors somehow, but no. I plan out a better way to forge it, using a water-hammer and a special vise purchased at great expense, to make sure the front is angled exactly how I want it to be.

For two months the only thing I hear is the clang of metal on metal. The only colors I see are orange and silver—even when I close my eyes I see sparks and steel. Charcoal is the only thing I can smell, until constant inhalation of its fumes eliminates my sense of smell entirely. My hands grow back their miner’s calluses.

And the runes!

They take an entire week in themselves. I do not try for anything ambitious or extravagant, but stick with simple silver runes of hardness for durability and slipperiness for deflection, bonded with incandesite.

The salamander scales I’m saving for where they can have a more concentrated effect—the weapon.

Finally, after two months are over, I have my suit of armor, and it is magnificent.

How to describe it?

Every plate is angled for deflection, giving it a polygonal, almost spiky appearance. The visor is wider than most, for visibility. It fits to me well and moving is no burden at all, the plates slide past each other with no friction, allowing me total freedom to strike and block and dodge where I need to.

It gleams brightly, and especially so the runes. No single ones this time, but full odes in circling bands spaced at regular—regular down to the millimeter—intervals.

It is a work of art, the best thing I’ve ever forged.

But my weapon will be even more impressive.