Hardrick watches as the tide of runeknights charges down to meet him. It is all rather surreal—made more so by the bizarre colors that flare each time the weapons of the Runethanes clash. He feels like he is in a dream, that any moment he will open his eyes to his old apartment; his wife will be nagging him to get up, his sons will be spitting insults at each other, his pick will be hanging on his wall ready to be taken up for another twelve hours of mining.

His yellow teeth rotting slowly in his gums.

The first runeknight reaches him: a woman with a two handed sword like his own. He sweeps Silverslash forward to meet it. The steel of her sword falls into two pieces, and she does also. Crimson splashes over him.

The next is a great lump of a dwarf wielding twin maces of lead spiked with diamond. Hardrick steps back—the sensation is not of movement, but of instantaneous transposition, the enemy is one distance away then another. Silverslash’s tip cuts through the dwarf’s belly plate and his guts pour out.

Another runeknight swings at him and is bisected.

The next loses his head.

The next both head and arm in one stroke.

It can’t be this easy, surely? It can’t be. This has to be a dream, a glorious dream. He throws his head back and, in the midst of the raging, howling whirlpool of blood and metal that is the melee, screams with joyous laughter.

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

We watch in horror as the legion turns steadily into a pile of bloody bodies at the silver legend’s feet. The rest of his army barely has to fight, so sharp and swift is their general’s blade.

“Why doesn’t the Runethane do something?” someone screams out.

Runethane Thanerzak and his elites are having their own troubles. Two tungsten-clad warriors have fallen while only one of those in gold ones has. And it is hard to tell from so far away, but the dot that is our Runethane seems to be moving back a tiny amount with each flash of impossible light.

“Come on,” Hayhek hisses through clenched teeth. “Beat him! Kill him!”

He’s definitely moving back now. Step by tortured step he retreats up the main road. The legion around him is faltering too. Those at the back can see the bloody carnage at the front and want no part of it. They cease marching forward, and are wavering.

Every alarm in the city goes off at once, a cacophony of metallic wailing. It stops, starts, stops again. The signal for retreat. Defense Minister Ganzesh can see his forces aren’t going to win without the favorable terrain of the mountain and the reinforcements stationed there.

“Out of the position!” shouts our commander. “Form a line!”

We hurry out of the emplacement. The air smells of fearful anticipation: of cold sweat mixed with something more primal. Our commander leads us down to where the slope of the mountain shallows out just before the buildings of the city begin and sorts us into a line. Those from other emplacements extend it to the left and right. In front of us form also two more lines of runeknights, in better armor. My mouth becomes dry. If the silver legend and his army manage to cut through them, we here have no chance.

Hayhek collapses to one knee beside me and starts to hyperventilate.

“Are you alright?” I ask, going to one knee beside him. “Get it together. We haven’t lost yet.”

“Can’t see,” he groans. “What happening... Oh, hells...”

“Come on, stand up. Come on.”

“I can’t...”

“Come on!”

I pull him up. He’s shaking badly.

“We have to fight.”

“Can’t see...”

He’s right about that. Now we’re lower down the mountain our view of the battle is totally obscured by the buildings in front of us. All we can do is listen to the screams of pain and fear advancing through the streets.

A sudden shout, then orders to remain calm from the commanders brings our attention to the center of the line. A contingent of dwarves in iron armor and worse is marching through to form a fourth line up behind us. Half are decrepit runeknights who never progressed far enough to afford to forge an amulet to slow their mortality, and half young initiates. Most of these latter aren’t even in full armor, just have a helmet or a pair of boots. Some don’t even have proper weapons but carry plain iron or steel bars, or forging hammers.

One does stand out though. His armor is full steel runed with a thin script of gold. He breaks from the contingent, ignores the shouted protests of his commander, and runs down the line toward us.

“Son!” Hayhek cries, and breaks line to embrace him. Our commander opens his mouth to give discipline, then decides to leave them be. Yezakh looks over his father’s shoulder and smiles at me.

“Spotted your weapon soon as we got out the alleys,” he says, then lets go of his father. “Ready to fight? They say any of us who slays a runeknight won’t have to sit the exam—they’ll go straight to ninth degree.”

I slap him on the shoulder. “That means they’ll promote me to eighth, I hope.”

“Nice. I hope so too.”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

I shift to the right to allow him to step in between me and Hayhek. We wait as the sounds of battle grow closer and closer. The back end of the legion begins to emerge from the narrow streets before us, and their commanders shout at them to form a new first line at the very front. Weapons are drawn and shields raised.

“Dwarves!” someone shouts from behind. We turn and see a youngish dwarf in tungsten hurrying down the mountain road to the center of the lines. He steps out in front and turns to us, his exquisitely runed titanium halberd held dead straight at his side.

“Today we face a grim enemy. Yet we must have no—”

“They’re here!” someone shouts.

Speech cut off, Defense Minister Ganzesh curses and turns back around to face the foe. There’s a sea of them, charging out from the gaps in the buildings, a tide of armor and glinting sharp and blunt implements. A ferocious battle cry is ringing out from them, making my stomach churn. Through their lowered visors it sounds metallic, more like the roar of a machine rather than anything living. I ready Heartseeker—paired with my gauntlets it feels more deadly than ever, but will it be enough? Hayhek and Yezakh raise their axes and bring their shields in front of them.

The enemy collides with the frontline. The crash of a thousand pieces of metal suddenly and violently impacting one another rings out, shortly followed by screams of pain from both sides. Sparks fly into the air as weapons tear armor asunder. The sparks become mixed with sprays of blood, then are overwhelmed by gouts of it.

“Forward!” shout the commanders of the second line. It marches forward to support the first before it breaks.

A shiver runs through our line from the center, caused by a hundred dwarves turning at once in horror.

“It’s him...” Hayhek says.

The silver legend is here. Ganzesh rushes forward out of the melee to meet him. I catch only the first moments of their duel, halberd sparking against longsword, before my attention is forced back to the fight in front of me.

Even the double line cannot hold against the onslaught. The tide of hacking, stabbing, bludgeoning metal that is Broderick’s army drives them back pace by pace. Dwarf after dwarf falls, bloody steel and gaping wordless mouths closing in on me.

“Third line!”

A bolt of fear shoots through me before I remember that we’re the fourth now. Even so, my stomach grows light and my head dizzy when the line before us marches down to join the melee. It’s almost as if the ground before me has dropped away, leaving the abyss of death yawning before my feet, hungering to swallow me down.

The hideous smell of blood isn’t helping either.

“Son. Young man.” Hayhek says gruffly. He pulls down his steel visor. “We’re going to win this. Don’t worry about a thing.”

“Yeah,” Yezakh replies. “We’re going to drive them right out.”

But the third line is weaker than the two before it, and it shows. Broderick’s army falls back a few paces when the new tide of steel hits, and several slip on the blood of the fallen and disappear, trampled and stabbed, but at a shout from their commanders they redouble their efforts, and begin to chant:

“Hazhulam! Hazhulam! Hazhulam Ghaltharok!”

“Victory! Victory! Our victory is now at hand!”

“Halat Hazhulam!”

“Come forth, victory!”

“Halat Bhorot Jlakathaz Nachroktey!”

“Come, enemies, and die on our blades!”

“Hazhulam!”

The triple line of our forces, if you can still call it a line, starts to disintegrate. Dwarves in bright platinum, in beaten gold inset with rubies, in titanium plates inches thick and engraved with runes so well carved they glow with cold power, fall wailing in pain. I glance nervously down the line to our commander. His visor is down, but even so I sense that his mouth his half open, the order to charge on his lips.

“We don’t have a chance,” I hiss under my breath. “We don’t have a chance!”

“We do!” Hayhek says desperately. “Ganzesh is still fighting. And he’s winning!”

I look to the center of the lines and see that Hayhek is correct. Ganzesh’s halberd is a match for the silver legend’s longsword, and his skill is more than a match. Each block he follows with a spiked stab, and I see that the silver legend is bleeding from several punctures already.

Then three blurs descend from the rooftops behind the battle. They are not in plate, but billowing robes of fine golden chainmail. Each wields two weapons—one swords, another axes, the third scythes of diamond. They close in on Ganzesh.

He’s not going to win.

“Forward!” shouts our commander. “Drive them back!”

This is our last chance, and we know it. Yet the metal grinder in front is our death and we know that too. A third of the line steps forward, a third stays put, and a third steps back, turns and starts to shove through the old men and initiates who turn and start to run also.

“Stand and fight!” shout the commanders.

“Cowards!”

“Protect your city!”

“Come on, you two,” Hayhek says. He’s one of those brave enough to step forward. “Let’s defend our city.”

Yezakh nods and bashes his axe against his shield.

“Wait,” I say.

Hayhek spins around and looks at me. Even with his visor down I can see that his eyes are wide in shock. “What?”

“I said wait! Shit... Can’t you understand?”

The thrashing and slashing wall of metal is drawing closer. At the center of the line Ganzesh is nowhere to be seen, and the line is broken there. Broderick’s army with the silver legend and the golden elites at their head are rushing up the central road and curving around to prepare a rear charge, blood and dust trailing from their boots.

“Zathar, what are you saying! This is our city!”

“Our family’s down there,” Yezakh says. He sounds aghast. “We have to protect them.”

“You can’t protect them if you’re dead.”

“If we believe we’re dead, we’ll die. We have to believe in victory.”

“I’ve fought against bad odds before. I know when I can’t win!”

“You won every time!”

“I have not! But listen to me, there’s a way to survive.”

“We retreat and they’ll just cut us down!” Hayhek shouts. “We have to fight!”

“No,” I say. “Hayhek, your guild bullies you. They’re holding you back. Yezakh, my guild are all out on the dragon hunt.”

“What’s your point?” he says.

“My point, my point is...”

The tide of battle is sweeping closer by the second. The death-crazed faces of Broderick’s dwarves are like those of ghouls from the deepest darkest caverns of my nightmares. Heartseeker will not stop all of them—many are many times stronger than me still.

“We switch sides,” I say quietly.

“Kill our own?” Hayhek gasps in shock. “I trusted you!”

“No! We don’t kill anyone. We blend in. We survive, and live to fight another day. Come on!” I step backwards. “I have a plan. Come on! Die and you’ll never see your family again. Come with me, trust me! You can see your family again. Protect them. Come on!”

The two dwarves, one too old and one too young, yet both so alike, waver. Then Yezakh steps forward. Deep down he trusts me over his father.

“Son?” Hayhek says nervously.

“Come on. Zathar’s right! Come on!”

Hayhek nods, takes one reluctant step up the slope, then another less reluctant one, then he begins to run up after us. Together we flee the blood and steel and follow the rest of the shattered army up the slopes of the mountain toward the castle while violence roars behind us.